My thoughts regarding the IBM acquisition of Encentuate have been drawing quite a bit of traffic, so I guess it's a topic of interest this week.
Nishant Kaushik, Oracle's Architect for Identity Management Products gives his views on the whole thing including cheekily quoting me. I know it's all in good fun, so I'll respond in the same spirit...although I should ask if they've given him a new role as a member of the sales team? :-) Yes yes I know, the people in the product management/architecture team are evangelists by default, so they have a responsibility to help sell/evangelise their products.
"could save many an enterprise many a headache."
While that's true in theory, customers could also go the direct route to Passlogix and just upgrade to the next version of v-GO. It's the same product with a different skin. I'm not saying I have a preference for Passlogix over Oracle. I'm just saying you have a choice.
Before you go rushing off and telling IBM where to shove their Encentuate product, the first question you need to ask yourself is, "do I have any other IBM Tivoli security products deployed?" In most cases, the answer will be "yes". If you do, the smart thing to do is to stay calm. Because if you have already invested in other IBM Tivoli security products, it's going to cost you a heck of a lot more to "upgrade" them to Oracle's versions. A "rip and replace" of your core Identity and/or Access Management infrastructure is going to be 1,000,000 times more painful than a "rip and replace" of your ESSO solution. If you only have ITAM ESSO, then maybe you can consider the "upgrade" to Oracle or Passlogix because you aren't as heavily invested in the IBM Tivoli technology. But I know IBM, and I know they will do their utmost to ensure they don't lose their valued customer base...especially over something like a strategic acquisition. I just hope IBM understands the position they have put their existing ITAM ESSO customers in by acquiring Encentuate and do everything possible to minimise the pain (IBM, please don't say "eliminate the pain" because that would just be lying, aka marketing).
Here's more food for thought, especially if ITAM ESSO is the only thing you have implemented from IBM Tivoli. If you "upgrade" from ITAM ESSO to Passlogix v-GO or Oracle's OEM version of v-GO, you will have to buy the product again. Your IBM licenses will not carry over, unless Passlogix and/or Oracle get very aggressive and agree to "upgrade" your deployment and waive the software costs (there's a thought for the sales management team in Oracle and Passlogix, assuming the latter feels like testing their already tenuous relationship with IBM)(UPDATE: Passlogix have responded to me via email in relation to their position. I have written a new blog entry addressing this). IBM will not charge you to upgrade to ITAM ESSO 7.0 if you already have 6.0 and your yearly support and maintenance haven't lapsed. That's just business as usual (assuming IBM haven't changed the policy since I left). The only cost you will likely have to incur as I said before, are the services costs (and any internal, intangible costs to business productivity because of the need to upgrade). If IBM want to keep customers happy, they'll need to somehow subsidise these additional costs. Charging customers the usual fees will not go down well. Remember, Oracle and Passlogix are just waiting in the wings and would like nothing better than to "upgrade" your customer.
So there's the choices as I see them. As a customer, you are actually sitting in a position of power at the moment. You just have to wear the pain of the potential "rip and replace" from ITAM ESSO 6.0 to whatever you choose as the "upgrade". IBM will be nice to you because they want you to upgrade to version 7.0. Oracle and Passlogix (I shouldn't count Sun, BMC, RSA or any other company Passlogix has "gotten under the sheets with" out of the equation here) will want to displace IBM from your environment. Just work out what's best for your organisation in the longer term after careful consideration.
As for my ex-IBM colleagues, the last I checked they were still talking to me, taking my calls and answering my emails. In fact, I know some of them subscribe to this blog (hi guys!). But if any of their existing customers read my previous post (or even this one), they may be getting some irate phone calls asking what IBM is going to do to help them upgrade painlessly and possibly getting yelled at for selling them a product that is essentially about to be "decommissioned" by IBM.


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text:
with Rabbi Buchdahl | ARZA World
Central Synagogue's Upcoming 180th Anniversary
with Rabbi Buchdahl
8 nights' accommodation at select hotels + Late check-out by 5:00 pm on last day ( if you would like to stay the full night this will require an additional cost of a full night).
9 days of touring in a luxury, air-conditioned bus with a licensed, English speaking tour educator
Group transfer and assistance to and from the airport per bus
All site entrance fees and program fees as per the itinerary.
Meals: daily breakfast, as shown below.
Water on the bus.
Youth counselor throughout the trip
Gratuities to guides, drivers and youth counselor
Portage at the airport and hotels
Celebrate Central Synagogue's Upcoming 180th Anniversary with
Rabbi Buchdahl and 180 Congregants on
CENTRAL'S GREAT, BIG, MULTI-GENERATIONAL
10x CHAI TRIP TO ISRAEL
Mark your calendars: August 20-28, 2019
Multiple track options for first-timers and returners, families and adults, skeptics and seekers.
This trip is open to Central Synagogue Members and their families
Our trip will be organized into three tracks, each of which will have its own bus or buses, depending on enrollment. Each bus will be led by a member of Central's clergy or staff, and Rabbi Buchdahl will spend time on each of the buses. In addition, there will be days when members of each track will get a chance to choose excursions with people from other buses, as well as moments when the entire trip will come together. A sample itinerary is below and will be adjusted based on the participants on the trip, but it will give you a sense of the structure and kinds of activities each bus will do. We will make our best effort to place you in your first-choice bus. For more information and questions please contact Francesca Littman.
(program is subject to change and adjustments)
DAY 1: MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2019
Depart the USA.
DAY 2: TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019
Arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport.
Meet your tour educator at the airport and depart driving north towards Akko.
Battling for the Holy Land: Encounter the Christian Crusaders and their Muslim rivals at Akko (Acre). This UNESCO Heritage Site was a stronghold of Crusader power in the Holy Land but was also an important center of Muslim Ottoman rule. Today, it exemplifies the multi-culturalism of northern Israel. Highlights of our visit will include:
The restored Crusaders' Fortress where we'll look into the lives of the Templar knights, the Christian warrior-monks based here from the 12th century who fought to control the Holy Land.
The el-Jazzar Mosque, one of Israel's largest and most important mosques and an illustration of the Muslim influence in the country, then and now. The mosque is named after its designer, the talented but brutal Ottoman governor Ahmad Pasha el-Jazzar.
Walking on the fortified walls that protected Akko and made it a vital town for controlling the Holy Land. Through the centuries, invaders damaged but could never destroy these walls. We'll see the massive security measures carried out by Ahmad Pasha el-Jazzar in order to defeat Napoleon and his French army at Akko in 1799.
The Templar Tunnel, the underground passageway that stretches from the fortress to Akko's port.
Depart Akko and drive east through the Galilee for check-in at the hotel.
DAY 2: TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019 (CON'T)
Meet your tour educator at the airport and depart driving north along the Mediterranean coast.
Lunch on own, en route.
Stop at the ancient Roman Aqueducts, located on the pristine beaches of Caesarea. With the ruins of a past empire to your backs, enjoy the power of the sand, sea and the rush of the water as you celebrate the beginning of your journey throughout Israel.
Continue driving north through the Galilee and check-in to the hotel.
Afternoon Arrivals:
Meet your tour educator at the airport and depart driving north through the Galilee and check-in to the hotel.
Drive to the northern Galilee and check into the kibbutz hotel.
Festive opening dinner at the hotel.
Bruchim Ha'baim! Opening activity with synagogue staff and your tour educators.
Overnight: Pastoral Hotel, Kibbutz Kfar Blum, Upper Galilee
DAY 3: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019
IN THE NORTH
Adults: The Balance of Power on Israel's Northern Border: During this presentation and dialogue, (Res) Avraham Levine will analyze the multi-leveled geopolitical and security situation confronting Israel on its borders with Syria and Lebanon. Major Levine is an intelligence officer with the Israel Defense Forces and a researcher for the Alma Research and Educational Center, will examine a variety of issues including the impact of Syria's tragic civil war and the influence of Iran in this area.
Kids: Activity at the hotel with youth counselors.
Depart the hotel by home bus:
Young Families Bus:
Begin the day with a nature hike to the Suspended Trail above the spectacular canyon of the Banias Stream, at the foot of Mount Hermon.
LaDa'at Families in Tsfat: Find your way through the alleyways of Tsfat, uncovering the hidden words, secret codes and mystical messages on a family scavenger hunt through the Old City of the ancient Kabbalists.
Enjoy rafting or kayaking in the Upper Galilee along the Jordan River (minimum age for rafting is 5 years old).
How high can you go? Test yourself with rope course activities, including climbing wall and omega zipline.
Return to the hotel and prepare for evening activity.
B'nai Mitzvah Bus:
Take a jeep tour off-road up the Golan Heights, following the footsteps of Israeli soldiers and their battles in the Six-Day War.
Enjoy the culinary delights of a chocolate workshop at the De Karina Chocolate Factory on Kibbutz Ein Zivan.
Watch the panoramic views from Bental (overlooking the abandoned Syrian town of Kuneitra) and gain sharp insights into Israel's security situation on the Golan Heights: the enormous challenges it faced in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the new threat coming from the north - ISIS.
Adults Bus:
Living on the Edge: Look into Southern Lebanon from Kibbutz Misgav Am and discuss some of the issues relating to the security of communities in Northern Israel, including a discussion with a kibbutz member.
Lada'at Northern Israel Wine Route: Take part in a Vintner's Journey along the Golan and Galilean wine route, exploring some of the new and very successful wineries that have sprouted in recent years, including Pelter and Golan Heights Conversations with wine-makers and connoisseurs, as well as wine tasting, are included.
Ready, Steady, Cook: Participate in a special outdoor cooking competition led by a local chef, followed by a delicious dinner of your own making.
DAY 4: THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA
Check out of the hotel and depart.
Visit the Hula Lake (Agamon HaHula) for bike-riding, golf-carting, nature walks, and bird-watching.
Proceed to the innovative Zippori National Park, site of Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi's codification of the Mishna and extraordinary ancient mosaics, with a special mosaic-making program for children and youth.
Walk through the 2,000-year-old water tunnel at Park Alona, the water source for ancient Caesarea.
Continue south towards Tel Aviv and check in to the hotel.
Walk through the Tel Dan Nature Reserve, located on the largest tributary of the Jordan River, and explore the ruins of the great Biblical city of Dan.
Cowboys, Mystics, and More: Learn how to say "giddy-up" in Hebrew as we ride horses through the Biriya Forest, one of the largest and most beautiful forests planted by Zionist organizations. The horses and trails are accustomed to all levels of riders while for younger children, there's pony riding on the ranch. The Bat Ya'ar Ranch combines outdoor activities, fresh mountain air, and a location rich with natural, historical, and religious importance.
Drive to Tsfat, a center of Jewish mysticism for hundreds of years and a contemporary artists' colony, including the Ari, Caro or Abuhav Synagogues, each with its great stories and mystical messages, and the quaint Artists' Colony, its craft shops and galleries; meet with local artists inspired by the messages of Kabbalah.
Perhaps it's the combination of mysticism and art, and maybe it's the mountain air in Israel's highest city; entering Tsfat, there is a sense of something uniquely Jewish but not quite of this world. Here, you'll:
Visit the Ari Synagogue and share in the inspiration and innovation that moved Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Holy Ari) and his fellow mystics. In Tsfat they developed the Kabbalah, the esoteric insights of Judaism and created Kabbalat Shabbat, the prayers sung on Friday evenings to welcome the arrival of the Sabbath.
See the Caro synagogue, built originally, like the Ari synagogue, in the 16th century. It is where Rabbi Joseph Caro, one of the greatest of all Jewish legal authorities, taught and lived. Hear the story of how he was visited here by a maggid, an angelic messenger, who revealed secrets of the Torah.
Walk through the cobbled streets and alleyways to the Artists' Colony with its galleries, shops, and studios.
Meet with artist Sheva Chaya in her studio, for an interactive window into the world of Kabbalah, glass blowing, and questions of identity and Judaism.
Continue to the Arab town Shfaram, including meetings with residents, walking through the ancient synagogue, the local church, and the mosque.
Free Evening in Tel Aviv with dinner on own.
Overnight: Hilton, Tel Aviv
DAY 5: FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019
TEL AVIV: THE FIRST HEBREW CITY
Adults: Doing Jewish - Reflections on Jewish Identity: Dialogue with Avraham Infeld, former Director of the Israeli Chais Foundation.
Children: Ivrit Safa Yafa: Gain the necessary tools to communicate with locals through a crash course activity led by staff.
Depart the hotel by tracks (according to prior registration):
Track 1: Young in Age and Spirit
Don't Worry, I Trust You: We will be joining Etgarim, an organization that empowers people with physical disabilities through outdoor and extreme sports, for a tandem bike ride where one of the riders is blindfolded and relies on support from their friend. Aside from being an amazing insight into the world of the blind, it's also a great example of the power of partnership.
Lunch on own.
Urban Culture Tours of Tel Aviv, Combining Street Art, Language & Graffiti: Join a local resident, to explore the urban culture of the city.
Track 2: Innovation & Start-Up Nation
Meet with Eliav Rodman to discuss the "Start-Up" nature of the Israeli economy.
Dialogue with Alumni of the elite intelligence unit 8200, and members of their Entrepreneurship and Innovative Support Program (EISP), for an in-depth look into how EISP is taking innovations from the military and developing these skills for the commercial sector.
Track 3: Taste of Tel Aviv
Art in Tel Aviv: Special gallery tour led by a leading art critic, including a meeting with artists or gallery owners.
LaDa'at Ethnic Tasting Tour: walk through Tel Aviv's famous Levinsky Market, where you'll find a combination of foods and sweets from all over the Mediterranean and hear the unique stories of the individuals who sell them.
Track 4: Outdoors
Israeli Martial Arts: Train in Krav-Maga, a self-defense system developed for the IDF.
Along the Water: Challenge yourself on two wheels as you bike along the shoreside Tel Aviv promenade, ending at the old port of Jaffa.
Stroll down the Nachalat Binyamin pedestrian mall, with its bi-weekly craft fair and eateries. Alongside is the colorful Carmel open-air market, with lunch on own.
Kabbalat Shabbat services with Beit Tefilah Yisraeli at Tel Aviv Port, including music, prayer, dance, and
Shabbat dinner at the hotel.
DAY 6: SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019
SHABBAT IN TEL AVIV
Shabbat Morning Service in Tel Aviv.
Young Family Bus:
Bird's Eye View: Take in a view from above as you hover over Tel Aviv in a hot air balloon!
Depart Tel Aviv for the Ayalon Institute near Rehovot for an eye-opening tour of a clandestine munitions factory used during the British Mandate.
Return to Tel Aviv.
Hallelujah! A People and their Prayers: Experience the diversity and dynamism of Jewish life at the rejuvenated Beit Hatfutsot: The Museum of the Jewish People, including Heroes: Trailblazers of the Jewish People, an interactive exhibition about Jews who have changed the world.
Continue to the Israel Children's Museum in Holon and take part in one of the following:
Dialogue in the Dark an innovative, experiential project designed to open up the hidden world of the blind.
Invitation to Silence an interactive exhibit that gives a stage to non-verbal communication skills hidden in each of us.
Visit the Old City of Jaffa and ascend from the old port through the renovated alleyways to the Jaffa Overlook for an introduction to Tel Aviv at the place where it all began.
Stroll through Old Jaffa's renovated artists' colony and the old port, and continue through Jaffa's famous Flea Market - "Shuk Hapishpeshim", with lunch on own.
Have You Heard the One About…? Get ready to laugh and learn with "Inside Out and Outside In," a celebration of Jewish humor from Sholem Aleichem to Seinfeld, while exploring two thousand years of rich Jewish culture and community at Beit Hatefutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People and Culture.
Free late afternoon in Tel Aviv with lunch on own and an opportunity to:
Crash the waves of the Mediterranean Sea.
Walk or bike the Blue Route in Tel Aviv, with its beautiful coastline and Mediterranean atmosphere, from the Jaffa Ridge in the south to Tel Aviv Port in the north.
Walk along the trendy Tel Aviv Port.
Ben Kodesh Lechol: Havdallah: Say farewell to Shabbat and welcome in the new week (location to be determined).
Dinner on own.
DAY 7: SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2019
ARCHAEOLOGY, ARTS & PRESENT-DAY ISSUES
Check out of the hotel.
The Landscape and Lifestyles of the Bible: Neot Kedumim is a 625-acre Biblical landscape reserve hidden in the Judean foothills. Here, you'll find the plants, vineyards, threshing floors, cooking techniques, and water cisterns of biblical times and will recreate the daily life of our ancestors. Our visit will include:
Shepherds and Their Sheep: From Abel to Abraham and from Moses to King David, many biblical heroes were shepherds. We'll learn how they kept their flocks under control and try out our own techniques during a fun session of sheep and goat herding.
Making Our Mark: Celebrate your journey and get in touch with the Land of Israel with a tree-planting ceremony. We'll plant indigenous saplings mentioned in the Bible and help make Israel bloom.
Take part in an archaeological dig at the Beit Guvrin Caves: prepare to get your hands dirty uncovering pottery from the Hellenistic period, 2,300 years ago, and optionally crawl through the Maresha Cave Labyrinth. Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park was recently recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Track 2: Beyond Borders
Drive to Ramallah in the West Bank with Palestinian journalist Rami Nazzal. Meet with local Palestinian entrepreneurs over lunch.
Settlements & settlers: Visit the Binyamin Region Visitor's Center, located on top of a mountain where the illegal settlement Migron once was located. Meet with Miri Maoz Ovadia, representative of the Binyamin region and spokesperson for the Yesha Council.
Track 3: Eco-Environmental
Desert Innovation: Meet with Alon Tal from the Arava Center for Sustainable Development and learn about the work they are doing to enhance sustainability and empower communities by supporting locally driven, environmentally focused development programs and methods.
Beer tasting and group lunch at Mosco Brewery, a microbrewery located in Moshav Zanuah.
Set your mark on the land and enjoy free time at the New Jerusalem Deer Valley Park for leisure and nature.
Continue to Jerusalem and upon entering the city stop to recite the traditional "shehechiyanu" blessing.
Dinner on own and evening at leisure in Jerusalem.
HISTORY AND SPIRITUALITY IN JERUSALEM
B'nai Mitzvah ceremony overlooking the Old City.
Proceed to the Old City and begin with a walk along the ancient Ramparts.
Walk through the archaeological treasures and other highlights of the Jewish Quarter: The Cardo - the main street of Jerusalem in the 6th century, King Hezekiah's First Temple-period "Broad Wall" and Hurva Square - the central square of the Jewish Quarter.
Lunch on own in the Jewish Quarter.
Explore the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, including the Davidson Center, Robinson's Arch and the Southern Wall steps where Jewish pilgrims entered the Temple Mount 2,000 years ago.
Stop at the Kotel (Western Wall) and experience the special atmosphere of this holy site.
At the Heart of It All: Explore the City of David, the core of ancient Jerusalem, and learn how the city was administered during the First Temple period. Our visit will include:
Archaeological discoveries illustrating how the wealthy and powerful lived in ancient Jerusalem.
Having fun wading through the 2,700-year-old water tunnels (there's an optional dry exit), an architectural wonder of King Hezekiah's.
Traveling through time as we walk in ancient drainage channels from the City of David to the Western Wall's massive foundation stones at the foot of the Temple Mount.
Lunch on own in the Old City.
Stop at the Kotel (Western Wall) and then take a tour of the Western Wall Tunnel, the underground continuation of the Western Wall along the Temple Mount.
Take a walking tour through Jerusalem's Old City and the Jewish Quarter and experience the center of Jewish life, history, and holiness. Among the highlights will be:
A walk along the rooftops that will provide an extraordinary scene of multi-faith Jerusalem. From this one spot, we will see the domes of three great religious landmarks: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (marking where Jesus is believed to have been crucified); the Jewish Quarter's Hurva synagogue; and the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam's most sacred and beautiful sites.
The Cardo, the main street of Roman-controlled Jerusalem and its spectacular Byzantine-era columns.
King Hezekiah's "Broad Wall," a massive wall built to protect Jerusalem from invasion 2,700 year ago.
Hurva Square, the center of modern-day life in the Jewish Quarter.
The Hummus - Both Basic and Rich: Tour and taste from hummus places in and around the Old City, joined by a local hummus expert.
Dinner on own and evening at leisure in Jerusalem
INTO THE DESERT/ A NATION'S CAPITAL
Track 1: Masada Dead Sea
Descend to the Dead Sea Basin and ascend by cable car to Masada, Herod's mountain palace and the site of the Jewish Zealots' last stand against the Roman legionnaires. Discuss Masada's role as a symbol of Jewish defense and its current significance in modern Israel.
Float in the Dead Sea, use the spa facilities of one of the Dead Sea hotels and enjoy a buffet lunch.
Return to Jerusalem.
Track 2:
The Art of a Good Cocktail: Cocktail workshop at the hotel and take the afternoon to enjoy your drink where it tastes best - by the pool!
Tour on the grounds of Israel's "Capitol Hill": The Rose Garden, presenting more than 400 species of roses imported from all around the world; The Knesset - Israel's Parliament building and its famous Menorah - Israel's symbol monument built from bronze; the Supreme Court - designed to reflect Jewish and democratic values of Justice.
Guided tour of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, joined by Rabbi Gilad Kariv, Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (pending final confirmation).
Evening Options:
Free time in the Mamilla pedestrian arcade, a contemporary shopping area with a whiff of the past, located outside the Jaffa Gate of the Old City; dinner on own.
Watch the Night Spectacular at the Tower of David Museum: The walls of the Citadel serve as a stage for a night-time show depicting the story of Jerusalem.
Night time visit to the wonderfully creative Israel Museum, with its eclectic collection, ranging from archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls to Jewish life and art, European art, contemporary Israeli art and the open-air model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period.
DAY 10: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019
MEMORIES FOR THE FUTURE
Private breakfast at the hotel.
Adults: The Memory of the Holocaust in Contemporary Israeli Society: Dialogue with Holocaust scholar,
Dr. Rachel Korazim.
Track 1: Yad Vashem for First Timers
Visiting Yad Vashem, the national memorial to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust is an essential emotional and educational experience. Your guided tour will include:
The Avenue of the Righteous, where trees symbolic of the renewal of life have been planted along with plaques honoring brave non-Jews who saved Jews during the Shoah.
The Historical Museum, a state-of-the-art interactive display reflecting decades of research and educational expertise. The story of the Holocaust, with an emphasis on individual victims, is told through survivor testimonies, original artifacts and personal possessions saved from the ghettos and camps.
The Children's Memorial, commemorating the 1.5 million children lost during the Holocaust.
Track 2: Yad Vashem for Returnees
The Museum of Holocaust Art. The world's largest collection of Holocaust art reveals the lives and heroism of artists engulfed by the Shoah. These artists risked their lives to create, often under the most harrowing conditions, an artistic record of the catastrophe.
The Sculpture Garden with its powerful and poignant artworks.
The Valley of the Communities, a 2.5-acre monument dug out of bedrock. Engraved on its stone walls are the names of 5,000 Jewish communities that were swallowed up by the Shoah.
Track 3: Yad Vashem for B'nai Mitzvah Kids
Personal Reflections: At the end of our visit, we'll come together to share feelings and thoughts and discuss what we have experienced and learned at Yad Vashem.
Track 4: Kids under 12
Explore the Bloomfield Science Museum, with interactive exhibits for all ages!
Day 10: Wednesday, August 28, 2019 (con't)
Take a multi-cultural tasting journey through the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem's Mahane Yehudah open-air market: Enjoy the sights, smells, tastes, and sounds of this vibrant area where Jerusalemites shop.
Return to the hotel and time to finish packing.
5:00 p.m. Late check-out from the hotel.
Festive farewell dinner and closing remarks.
Transfer to Ben Gurion International Airport to check in for the departure flight to the USA. (Please make sure your departing flight leaves after 11:00 p.m.)
DAY 11: THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019
Arrival in the USA.
Group rates are per person based on double occupancy and a minimum of 120 full paying participants per bus. Should the number of participants drop below the minimum listed above, we will adjust the cost of the trip to reflect the additional expense of operating the program.
A $300 deposit (unless otherwise indicated) per person is due at the time of reservation. The deposit is non-refundable and non-transferable. Online payment of the deposit can be made by credit card only (AMEX, VISA or Mastercard). To pay by check or wire transfer, please call our customer service center. Completion of the payment can be made by credit card, check or wire transfer. After the deposit is paid, you will receive an invoice which includes full details on how to complete payment.
Flights : Participants are required to book and manage their own flights. Arrival flights should land at Ben Gurion Airport In Tel Aviv no later then 9:15 am on August 20th . Departure flights from Ben Gurion Airport should be scheduled to depart after 11:00 pm on August 28th .
Guests at meals.
Luggage: All tour packages allow one pieces per person and one carry-on bag. Excess luggage will be subject to a charge of up to $100 per piece. Da'at shall not be held responsible for any damage to or loss of luggage/personal items. All damage/loss must be reported at time of incident and documented in writing by local authorities for submission to the insurance company.
Transportation in evening when dinner is on own.
Amendments to the program: In the event that any sites, programs or meals etc are added to the program, an additional fee may be required.
Personal extras: Items of personal nature such as laundry, wines, mineral water, beverages, coffee, tea, food other than the table d'hotel menu, passport and visa fees, insurance, and foreign port taxes, unless otherwise specified.
Snacks on the bus.
US and foreign airport taxes, Q fuel surcharge and border taxes when applicable.
Photography for Promotional Purposes: We may use for promotional purposes photographs, images or videos taken by tour participants or by anyone associated with the tour operator. No payment or compensation will be made for use of this material. If you do not want images of yourself or your tour party to be included in our marketing activities, you are required to notify us by the start of your tour.
Guidelines for Registering Children (under age 18):
The first two people in any double or triple room are charged full package rates as adults, even if the second person is a child under the age of 18.
For this reason, the first two people you select for a double or triple room MUST be selected as adults in order for the registration process to succeed.
To register the following room configurations:
For double room occupancy for:
1 adult & 1 child - Please select 2 adults.
2 children - Please select 2 adults.
For triple room occupancy for:
2 adults & 1 child - Please select 2 adults & 1 child**
1 adult & 2 children - Please select 2 adults & 1 child**
3 children - Please select 2 adults & 1 child**
(**Reduced rate for a child as a 3rd in a triple room will only be applied if the child is under the age of 18.)
To Register Now, click here
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B'nei Mitzvah
Aug 19 $4399 On request - Please Call 888-811-2812
Three simple ways to book ARZA World tours!
1. ARZA World customer service center is open Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:30 pm EST. Call 888.811.2812.
2. Booking with us is easy! Register online by simply finding the right program for you and clicking 'Register now.'
3. We are proud to work with the Travel Agent community. Simply contact your favored travel agent and ask them to handle your booking; restrictions apply.
Important to Know
Land-only price does not include arrival/departure transfers unless otherwise indicated.
By paying a deposit upon registration, you are agreeing to ARZA World terms.
We highly recommend carefully reviewing those terms for full details about conditions and penalties.
Book Central Synagogue's Upcoming 180th Anniversary
Package Date:

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
\section{Introduction}
\label{intro}

Nuclear reactions offer an incredibly versatile probe into nuclear structure, nuclear astrophysics, and nuclear applications beneficial to society and are particularly important in the context of rare isotopes \cite{mpla}. One of the most important ingredients in predicting observables for nuclear reactions is the optical potential. The optical potential is an effective interaction between two composite nuclei that incorporates the complexity of the many-body problem into a multi-component multi-parameter complex form. The imaginary part of the optical potential accounts for all the processes that can take flux away from the incident elastic channel into other channels not included in the simplified model. In this work, we will focus on nucleon optical potentials, between either a proton or a neutron and a target nucleus ($U_{NA}$). Because of its effective nature, the nucleon optical potential depends on the mass and charge of the target ($A,Z$), and the energy of the beam ($E_b$).

While there are many efforts to derive the optical potential starting from the NN interaction (e.g. \cite{rotureau2017,rotureau2018,burrows2018,whitehead2019}), for practical purposes, when computing reactions observables for $A>20$, phenomenological optical potentials are typically used \cite{bg69,ch89,kd2003}. These are obtained from fitting primarily elastic-scattering data, although other observables such as analyzing powers and total cross sections are  sometimes also included in the fitting protocol.

Over the last few years, there has been substantial progress on quantifying uncertainties in nuclear reactions \cite{lovell2018,king2019,catacora2019}.
We have implemented and applied the Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo method (MCMC) to a variety of reactions \cite{lovell2018}. In \cite{king2019}, we compared the results obtained using the Bayesian approach to the standard $\chi^2$-minimization techniques widely used in the field. Note that $\chi^2$ minimization does not in itself provide any uncertainty but it is common to assume a normal distribution and extract confidence bands from the $\chi^2$ function around the minimum. What we showed in \cite{king2019} is that the uncertainties extracted in this manner were much smaller than those obtained using the Bayesian approach. When we confronted these uncertainties with the data, the empirical coverage demonstrated that for high confidence, the  $\chi^2$-minimization technique largely underestimates the uncertainties, while the Bayesian approach provides an accurate account. These differences could be tracked back to the wrong assumption in the
$\chi^2$-minimization technique of a Gaussian distribution for the parameters. In addition, when inspecting the correlation between parameters, the $\chi^2$ minimization introduces many types of correlations, while  in the Bayesian approach, only a couple of parameters were found to correlate strongly. As we argue in \cite{king2019}, due to the grid searches in the standard $\chi^2$ minimization, correlations were enhanced as compared to those obtained in the Bayesian MCMC framework.  With these conclusions in mind, we have continued the work on uncertainty quantification using exclusively Bayesian statistics.

In a recent work \cite{catacora2019}, we looked into ways to reduce the uncertainty  from the optical potential by diversifying the data sets or by choosing data with optimum information content. Namely we investigated which parts of the angular distribution matter for constraining the cross sections, and whether data at nearby energies adds further restrictions on the parameters. We have also investigated  the possibility of including polarization data through $iT_{11}$. To diagnose whether including different sets of data mattered, we compared directly the widths of the 95\% confidence intervals.  However comparing directly two confidence intervals  obtained from constraints using two different sets of data has serious ambiguities: what is the appropriate confidence level to make this comparison? and at what angle should the conclusion be drawn? Ultimately we would like to be able to establish without ambiguity which data set (or sets) contain maximum information, resulting in minimum uncertainty. For that, we turn to a wider set of diagnostic tools.

Borrowing from statistical methods applied in many other fields, in this work we inspect three different approaches: i) the principal component analysis that can help to identify whether there is a combination of observables that can simplify the problem; ii) a sensitivity analysis based on derivatives of the the optical potential parameters with respect to observables,  and iii) the Bayesian evidence that integrates the likelihood over the model space to quantify the information content of a given observable.

These statistical methods are not new; they have been widely applied to other fields and in the last few years have been ported into the nuclear domain. Sensitivity studies  continue to provide insight into which parameters have the largest impact on the observables considered (see \cite{fox2020,ekstrom2019,kejzlar2020} for recent applications to nuclear structure).
The principal component analyses, coming from the diagonalization of the sensitivity matrix, identify the best combinations of parameters or observables that should be considered to reduce the dimensionality of the model space. It is often used to construct emulators (e.g. \cite{novak2014,sangaline2016,gomez2012}).
Finally, the Bayesian factor, the ratio of the evidence associated with two models, provides an implementation of Occam's razor: the simplest theory compatible with data should be used \cite{trotta2008}. It is also used to discriminate between the information content of different data.  Although calculating the Bayesian evidence is numerically challenging, there are already examples of applications to effective field theory \cite{wesolowski2016} and to nuclear structure \cite{kejzlar2020}.

This paper is organized in the following manner. In section II we introduce the three statistical tools. Section III focuses on a simple toy model to illustrate these same tools. This is followed by the application of these tools to compare the information contained in elastic angular distributions and polarization data (Section IV).
Finally conclusions are drawn in Section V.

\section{Statistical methods}
\label{theory}

In this section, we briefly describe three diagnostic tools to quantify the information content of a given set of scattering data.

\subsection{Principal Component Analysis}

The optical potential  imprints itself on many reaction observables. As such we can consider
a principal component analysis (PCA) on observable space. Parameter space is randomly sampled $N$ times,
generating a parameter set $x_i$ for each run used to calculate a set of observables $y_i$.
The parameters and observable data are standardized ({\it i.e}, mean-centered with a standard deviation of 1).
We denote the standardized parameters and observables as $\bar{x}$ and $\bar{y}$, respectively.
The observable covariance matrix, $\mathds{C}$, is then calculated as:
\begin{equation}
\mathds{C}_{ab} = \frac{1}{N-1} \bar{y}_a^T\bar{y}_b \;.
\end{equation}
The principal components of observable space ($e_b$) are the eigenvectors of $\mathds{C}$. The eigenvalues
$\lambda_b$ corresponding to the eigenvectors $e_b$ can be used to organize the principal components. A larger value
of $\lambda_b$ means that a larger percentage of the variance in the data is captured by the corresponding $e_b$.
To visualize the composition of the eigenvectors, $e_b$, we construct the weight matrix,
\begin{equation}
\mathds{W}_{ab} = |\hat{y}_a \cdot e_b| \, ,
\end{equation}
where $\hat{y}_a$ is the $a^{{\rm th}}$ unit vector in the observable space basis. Each column in $\mathds{W}$ is normalized to unity:
\begin{equation}
\sqrt{\sum_i \mathds{W}^2_{ij}} = 1
\end{equation}

We can then assign a weight, $w_a$, to an observable, $y_a$:
\begin{equation}
w_a = \sum_{b} \lambda_b |\mathds{W}_{ab}| \,.
\label{eq:weight}
\end{equation}
This weight serves as a measure of the importance of the observable across the various principal components and it is often used to identify the most impactful observables.

\subsection{Sensitivity study with derivatives}

Looking at the impact of variations of the observables on the parameters can help determine which optical model parameters are most sensitive to changes in specific observables, and  therefore which observables are most important for constraining the optical model.  A simple approach is to consider directly the covariance $\widetilde{\mathds{C}}_{ia} $ of an observable $\bar{y}_a$ and a parameter $\bar{x}_i$:
\begin{equation}
\mathds{C}_{ia} = \frac{1}{N-1} \bar{x}_i^T\bar{y}_a \;.
\end{equation}

We note that $\mathds{C}_{ia}$ relates to the observable covariance matrix through \cite{sangaline2016}:
\begin{equation}
\widetilde{\mathds{C}}_{ia} = \sum_b \left\langle \frac{\partial \bar{x}_i}{\partial \bar{y}_b} \right\rangle \mathds{C}_{ba}
\end{equation}
This relation can be inverted to provide the sensitivity:
\begin{equation}
\left\langle \frac{\partial \bar{x}_i}{\partial \bar{y}_a} \right\rangle = \widetilde{\mathds{C}}_{ib} \mathds{C}^{-1}_{ba} \;
\end{equation}
which quantifies the variation in parameter $x_i$ caused by a variation in the observable $y_a$.

\subsection{Bayesian evidence}

As opposed to the frequentist tools based on covariance matrices, Bayesian statistics is based on probability distributions.
For some hypothesis, $H$, data, $d$ and model, $\mathcal{M}$, Bayes' theorem is expressed as:
\begin{equation}
p(H|d,\mathcal{M})= \frac{p(d|H,\mathcal{M})p(H|\mathcal{M})}{p(d|\mathcal{M})}\;,
\label{bayes}
\end{equation}
which states that the posterior probability for the hypothesis, $p(H|d,\mathcal{M})$, taking the data and some assumptions about the model into account, is equal to the likelihood function, $p(d|H,\mathcal{M})$ (the sampling distribution of the data assuming the hypothesis is correct), times the prior probability, $p(H|\mathcal{M})$ (the physical knowledge of the model without any external information) divided by the Bayesian evidence $p(d|\mathcal{M})$.

While in previous works we have focused on evaluating the posterior distributions of parameters and subsequent confidence intervals of observables, in this work, we focus on the Bayesian evidence. This normalization factor provides a quantification of the information content of a given set of data. For a given model $\mathcal{M}$ with a certain number of parameters $\alpha$, the Bayesian evidence is the integral of the likelihood function times the prior distribution over the entire parameter space:
\begin{equation}
p(d|\mathcal{M})= \int_{\Omega_{\mathcal{M}}} p(d|\alpha,\mathcal{M})p(\alpha|\mathcal{M}) d\alpha_{\mathcal{M}}\;.
\label{integral}
\end{equation}
The explicit calculation of this integral is difficult and computationally demanding as it involves multidimensional integration over all parameters. While the likelihood function might be sharply peaked within the prior range, long tails in the distributions can provide significant contributions to the evidence integral.

In some applications, the Bayesian evidence integral is approximated analytically (e.g. \cite{wesolowski2016}).  This approximation is valid when the likelihood function is unimodal and the corresponding parameters are Gaussian. However, in our case, these conditions are not met (see for example Fig. \ref{fig-toy-pos9} and \ref{fig-toy-pos65} in Section III). Therefore, to obtain the Bayesian evidence for the optical model, we use the Monte-Carlo approximation to sample full space \cite{kejzlar2019}. Then the integral in Eq. (\ref{integral}) becomes:
\begin{equation}
\hat{p(d|M)}
=\frac{1}{N}\sum_{\alpha_{i}=1}^{N} p(d|\alpha_{i},\mathcal{M})
\label{bayes evidence approx}
\end{equation}
where $N$ parameter sets, $\alpha_{i}$, are drawn randomly from the prior distribution. In practice, when sampling from a prior distribution, it is also important to ensure that the sampled parameters are within the physical region of parameter space. In our application, this means that the optical model parameters should be positive.

\section{Toy-model}
\label{toy-model}

We have conceived a simple case study to illustrate the capabilities of the statistical tools discussed in Section \ref{theory}.
From decades of phenomenology, it is standard to parameterize the imaginary component of the optical potential with a volume term (Woods-Saxon shape parameterized with $W_v, r_w, a_w$ for the depth, radius and diffuseness) and a surface term (derivative of a Woods-Saxon shape parameterized with $W_s, r_s, a_s$). When using these two components in fits, studies have found that the relative importance of these two components depends strongly on the incident energy of the projectile: at higher energies it is typically  the volume term that dominates. We use this known feature to set up our toy models.

\begin{figure}[t]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.23\textwidth]{48Cap9Wspos}
\includegraphics[width=0.23\textwidth]{48Cap9Wvpos}
\end{center}
\caption{$^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 9 MeV parameter posterior distributions: surface model (orange) and volume model (blue).}
\label{fig-toy-pos9}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.23\textwidth]{48Cap65Wspos}
\includegraphics[width=0.23\textwidth]{48Cap65Wvpos}
\end{center}
\caption{$^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 65 MeV parameter posterior distributions: surface model (orange) and volume model (blue).}
\label{fig-toy-pos65}
\end{figure}
We  consider proton elastic scattering on $^{48}$Ca at $E_{lab}=9$ MeV and $65$ MeV within two extreme optical-models: the {\it surface} model that includes only the surface term $W_s$ (while setting $W_v=0$) and the {\it volume} model that includes only the volume term $W_v$ (while setting $W_s=0$).
We use mock data generated from the global optical potential \cite{kd2003} at the appropriate energy, and include a 10\% error, similarly to what was done in \cite{catacora2019}.
For calibration, we perform the MCMC simulation with $1600$ pulls, allowing in each case six parameters to vary. The parameters for the surface model are $V,r,a$ for the real part and $W_s,r_s,a_s$ for the imaginary, and the parameters for the volume model are $V,r,a$ for the real part and $W_v,r_w,a_w$ for the imaginary term.
The parameters for the spin-orbit term and the Coulomb force were kept fixed and set to the values in \cite{kd2003}.
In addition, wide Gaussian priors, centered at the values of \cite{bg69}, are used as in previous work \cite{catacora2019}, which ensures that the process is data driven.
Calculations are performed with the suite of codes QUILT-R \cite{quilt-r} (more details on the MCMC calculations can be found in \cite{lovell2018}).

Figs. \ref{fig-toy-pos9} and \ref{fig-toy-pos65}  display the parameter posterior distributions for the surface model (orange) and the volume model (blue) for $^{48}$Ca at $E_{lab}=9$ MeV and $65$ MeV, respectively.
It is immediately obvious that changing the shape of the imaginary term affects the real part of the interaction: while the mean of the priors for $V,r,a$ are the same in both calculations, there are large shifts in the peaks of the posterior distributions for these parameters. This is nothing new to the field: the system finds a different minimum depending on the shape of the imaginary term. The  posteriors of the imaginary parameters can also have significantly different widths. For example for 65 MeV, both $W_s$ and $r_s$ have very broad distributions compared to their counterparts $W_v$ and $r_w$, while the distribution for $a_s$ is narrower than that for $a_w$.
From these distributions alone it is not possible to decide which model would be more appropriate to describe each reaction.

\begin{figure*}[t]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.35\textwidth]{48Cap9WsWv_dxs}
\includegraphics[width=0.35\textwidth]{48Cap65WsWv_dxs}
\end{center}
\caption{Angular distribution 95\% confidence intervals for $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at (a) 9 MeV and (b) 65 MeV: surface model (orange) and volume model (blue). Mock data generated with \cite{kd2003} (black circles).}
\label{fig-toy-ci}
\end{figure*}

One might next consider the observable itself. Fig.\ref{fig-toy-ci} a) and b) contain the 95\% confidence intervals for the angular distributions  of $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at $9$ MeV and $65$ MeV, respectively, using either the surface model (orange) or the volume model (blue). For the 9 MeV reaction, the confidence intervals for the surface and the volume model are roughly the same throughout the angular range. A close inspection of the widths of the confidence intervals at 65 MeV show that at forward angles (within the first couple of diffraction peaks) the volume model provides a narrower uncertainty compared to the surface one, while at backward angles the confidence intervals for the volume model are slightly wider than those generated with the surface model. Still, we are left not knowing which model is best to describe the data.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.23\textwidth]{48cap65ws-weight}
\includegraphics[width=0.23\textwidth]{48cap65wv-weight}
\end{center}
\caption{Principal component analysis for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 65 MeV using $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ data. Shown are the weights $w_a$ obtained for three different scattering angles: a) for the surface model and b) for the volume model.}
\label{fig-toy-pca}
\end{figure}

We next consider the weights $w_a$ generated from the principal component analysis as described in Sec. \ref{theory}.
Pulling from the posterior distributions, we construct the observable  $\frac{d \sigma}{d \Omega}$ covariance matrix for specific angles, which is subsequently diagonalized to obtain the principal components of observable space and the respective weights as described in Section \ref{theory}. Plotted in Fig. \ref{fig-toy-pca} are the  weights corresponding to the surface model (orange) and the volume model (blue), for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 65 MeV, at three different angles corresponding to the forward direction,  the first peak of the angular distribution, and the backward direction.
In both models, all components are of roughly equal weight and no  principal component pops out in the analysis.  The same result is obtained if  a fine discretization is included over the whole angular range. For all our applications for the elastic angular distributions and other reaction observables, the weights resulting from the observable PCA are approximate equal. This makes PCA less useful in reducing the dimensionality of the observable space. For this reason we do not include PCA in the applications discussion in Section IV.

\begin{figure}[t]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.49\textwidth]{mock-sen}
\end{center}
\caption{Parameter sensitivities for $^{48}$Ca(p,p): a) surface model at 9 MeV, b) surface model at 65 MeV, c) volume model at 9 MeV and d) volume model at 65 MeV.}
\label{fig-toy-sen}
\end{figure}

\begin{table}[b]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c | r | r | r |  }
\hline
\text{Energy } & $9$ MeV  & $65$ MeV \\
\hline
\text{ Evidence(surface) } & 1.06 &  0.02 \\
\text{ Evidence(volume) } &  0.65 &  0.13 \\
\text{ Bayes Factor }		&     0.6     &     6.9 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Bayesian evidence (multiplied by $10^{-3}$) for the surface model (2nd row) and the volume model (3rd row) for both beam energies considered (1st row). The ratio between the Bayesian evidence of the volume model over that with the surface model is in the 4th row (the Bayes' factor).}
\label{tab:toy}
\end{table}

More interesting are the sensitivities $\left\langle \frac{\partial \bar{x}_i}{\partial \bar{y}_a} \right\rangle $ introduced in Section \ref{theory}.
As for the PCAs, the sets of parameters are drawn from the posterior distributions (Figs. \ref{fig-toy-pos9} and \ref{fig-toy-pos65}) and the respective covariance matrices are then computed as described in Section \ref{theory} .
The average, $\langle \frac{d \bar x_i}{d \bar y_a} \rangle$, is obtained for  the elastic angular distributions for angles in the range $\theta=20 -165 ^\circ$ in intervals of $5^\circ$.

Fig. \ref{fig-toy-sen} contains the results for these sensitivities using the surface model in panels a) and b), and using the volume model in panels c) and d). Along the x-axis are the various angular bins and along the y-axis are the optical potential parameters considered in the Bayesian MCMC. The darker reds and darker blues correspond to large positive and large negative sensitivities, respectively. Results for the reaction at $9$ MeV  show that in the surface model, it is mostly $W_s$ that is constrained by the data, although there is still significant sensitivity to $a_s$. At higher energies the imaginary term is no longer constrained in the surface model, only the real depth becomes sensitive. On the contrary, for the volume model at 9 MeV, the angular distribution using the volume model is not able to constrain the imaginary depth and is mostly sensitive to the imaginary diffuseness.  Depending on the model, one might also make different choices for which angles to measure in the angular distribution.

\begin{table*}[t!]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{c | c | c | c | c | c | c | c }
\hline \hline
\textbf{Observable} & \textbf{E} (MeV) & \textbf{V} (MeV) & \textbf{r} (fm) & \textbf{a} (fm) & \textbf{W$_\mathrm{s}$} (MeV) & \textbf{r$_\mathrm{s}$} (fm) & \textbf{a$_\mathrm{s}$ (fm) }  \\ \hline
\textbf{$\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$} & 12.0 & 59.48 (4.12) & 1.173 (0.052) & 0.699 (0.051) & 9.476 (0.960) & 1.294 (0.084) & 0.571 (0.049) \\
\textbf{$iT_{11}$} & 				12.0 & 60.65 (5.22) & 1.159 (0.057) & 0.699 (0.067) & 9.704 (0.954) &  1.273 (0.079) & 0.595 (0.080)  \\ \hline
\textbf{$\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$} & 21.0 &  55.57 (4.11) &1.178 (0.052) & 0.661 (0.057) & 7.857 (0.767) & 1.297 (0.083) & 0.572 (0.051)  \\
\textbf{$iT_{11}$} & 				21.0 & 57.16 (4.44) & 1.165 (0.047) & 0.691 (0.046) & 8.011 (1.007) & 1.260 (0.073) & 0.579 (0.076)  \\ \hline \hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Characteristics of the posteriors for the two $^{48}$Ca(p,p) elastic observables considered; the second column is the beam energy; the next three columns provide the means (standard deviations) for the depth, radius and diffuseness of the real part of the optical potential; the last three columns provide the means (standard deviations) for the depth, radius and diffuseness of the imaginary surface terms of the optical potential. }
\label{tab:parameters}
\end{table*}

Our final tool in the tool-set is the Bayesian evidence and Bayes factor for model selection \cite{wiki}. As defined in Section \ref{theory}, the Bayesian evidence provides a direct measure of the information content of a given model in light of a set of data. It serves as a tool to compare different models.
As mentioned earlier, our problem is not amenable to an analytic treatment of the evidence integral thus it is very important to collect enough statistics to ensure convergence of the integral. We have studied the convergence of the evidence with the number of pulls and find that very large statistics need to be collected. The numbers presented in Table \ref{tab:toy} correspond to $1,500,000$  pulls from a  Gaussian distribution 20\% wide, that still ensures that the parameters do not become negative, so they can be restricted to the physical region.
The Bayesian evidence for the surface model is larger than that for the volume model for the reaction at $9$ MeV, as one might expect.
In contrast, the Bayesian evidence for the volume model is larger than that for the surface model at $65$ MeV and clearly indicates that the volume model will contain more information than the surface model at this energy.

Overall, we find varying success between the statistical methods investigated in this toy problem.  The differences in the Bayesian parameter posterior distributions and observable confidence intervals along with the principal component analysis do little to discriminate between the surface and volume models considered.  On the other hand, we see that the parameter sensitivities and the Bayesian evidence have significant power in discriminating between the two models. These tools will now be applied to realistic cases.

\section{Comparing elastic angular distributions with polarization data}
\label{results}

We now use the tools introduced above to explore the information content of two types of reaction observables. In this field it is generally easier to measure the elastic angular distributions than polarization data. However one might ask whether polarization data are best to constrain the optical model. In this context,  we have studied $^{48}$Ca(n,n) at 12 MeV and $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV and 21 MeV, and illustrate  in this section the usefulness of using sensitivities and evidence in the analysis of these reactions.

As before, in this section we use mock data, generated from the global optical potential \cite{kd2003} including a 10\% error, following \cite{catacora2019} (see Section \ref{realdata} for a comparison with real data). For the polarization data, we introduced a lower limit for the error, determined by 5\% of the maximum $iT_{11}$ value.
We initialized the optical potential parameters using the global optical model \cite{bg69}, and use wide Gaussian priors as before.

Next, we inspect the parameter posterior distributions. Instead of showing the full posterior distributions we summarize in Table I the means and standard deviations for the six parameters when considering $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV and 21 MeV. We show the results when using either $\frac{d \sigma}{d \Omega}$ data or $iT_{11}$ data in the optimization procedure.
We find that the distributions are mostly overlapping, indicating that the angular distributions and the polarization data lead to very similar minima in parameter space. Some posteriors  present a semi-bimodal structure or extended tails.  This is reflected in slight differences in the means and standard deviations shown in Table \ref{tab:parameters}. Ultimately both sets of data lead to an identical likelihood function and therefore similar goodness of fit.

\subsection{Confidence intervals resulting from the fit}
\label{confband}

In Fig. \ref{fig-ci}, we show  the 95\% confidence intervals for elastic angular distributions (top) and the polarization distributions (bottom) obtained when either the elastic angular distribution data are used  (orange interval) or the polarization data are used (blue interval).
Figs. \ref{fig-ci}(a) and (c) correspond to $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV while Figs. \ref{fig-ci}(b) and (d) correspond to $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 21 MeV. Expectedly, confidence intervals are narrower for the elastic angular distribution when elastic angular distribution data are used. The same principal is true when polarization data are used: confidence intervals are narrower for $iT_{11}$.
However, these results alone do not provide sufficient basis to establish which data set contains more information and provide a better constraint on the optical model. These conclusions are also true for $^{48}Ca$(n,n) at 12 MeV (not shown).

\begin{figure*}[t]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.75\textwidth]{48Cap_dxspol_v2}
\end{center}
\caption{95\% confidence intervals calculated using $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ data (red bands)  or  $iT_{11}$  data (blue bands) in the optimization procedure: a) $d\sigma/d\Omega$for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV;  b) $d\sigma/d\Omega$ for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 21 MeV; c) $iT_{11}$ for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV;  d) $iT_{11}$ for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 21 MeV.}
\label{fig-ci}
\end{figure*}

\subsection{Sensitivity study with derivatives}
\label{sensitivity}

\begin{figure}[t]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.49\textwidth]{all-sen}
\end{center}
\caption{Sensitivity matrix for $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ data  and  $iT_{11}$  data: a) $^{48}$Ca(n,n) at 12 MeV; b) $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV and c) $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 21 MeV. More details can be found in the text.}
\label{fig-sen}
\end{figure}

We next consider the sensitivities to understand which observables lead to the largest variation in the parameters. These sensitivities are drawn from the posteriors obtained using both the angular distribution and polarization data as constraints in the MCMC.
Fig. \ref{fig-sen} displays the sensitivities for $^{48}$Ca(n,n) at 12 MeV (panel a); $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV (panel b) and $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 21 MeV (panel c). Comparing the sensitivity of the angular distributions (Fig. \ref{fig-sen} left) with the sensitivity of the polarization data (Fig. \ref{fig-sen} right), it is only for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV that there is an indication that the polarization data offers a better constraint.

For the other cases the most notable feature is that the sensitivity occurs at different angles.
We can also compare the sensitivities for $^{48}$Ca(n,n) and $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV: our results suggest that neutrons offer a better constraint on the optical potential parameters at these energies, specifically for the imaginary term. At 12 MeV, the sensitivity of either observable to the real part is weak. At $21$ MeV, the sensitivity  of the parameters to $^{48}$Ca(p,p) increases significantly, particularly at forward angles for   $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ and $\theta \approx 100$ degrees  for $iT_{11}$. At this higher energy, we find that both observables are  capable of constraining the parameters of the real part of the optical potential, in addition to the imaginary term. These quantitative results are consistent with the common understanding in the field.

Although we do not include details, we did perform a similar analysis for $^{208}$Pb(n,n) at 30 MeV, $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 30 MeV and $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 61 MeV. The results obtained for the sensitivities for these reactions also show variability with beam  energy: there are larger sensitivities to the elastic angular distributions for $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 30 MeV (mostly on $W_s$ and $a_s$) compared to the polarization data. At $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 61 MeV, the opposite is true.

\subsection{Bayesian evidence and Bayes factor}
\label{evidence}

Finally, we consider directly the Bayesian evidence to contrast the information content of cross section angular distribution data and polarization data within our model.
\begin{table}[t]
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|c|r|r|r|}
\hline Reaction & $\bar p(d\sigma/ d \Omega|\mathcal{M})$ & $\bar p(iT_{11}|\mathcal{M})$ & $ R$  \\ \hline
$^{48}$Ca(n,n) at 12 MeV & $0.833$ & $0.905$ & 1.09
  \\ \hline
$^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV & $1.039$ & $1.208 $ & 1.16
  \\ \hline
$^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 21 MeV & $1.207$ & $0.602$ &0.50
  \\ \hline
$^{208}$Pb(n,n) at 30 MeV & $0.132$ & $0.052$ &0.39
  \\ \hline
$^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 30 MeV &$1.437$ & $0.403$ &0.28
  \\ \hline
$^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 61 MeV  &$0.051$ & $0.073 $ &1.44
  \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{Bayesian evidence averaged over angle (multiplied by $10^{-3}$) for the different reactions considered: using only cross section data (2nd column), using only polarization data (3rd column), and the ratio between the averaged Bayesian evidence using polarization data over that with cross section data (the Bayes' factor).
}
\label{tab-evidence}
\end{center}
\end{table}
$N=1,500,000$ is used to compute the evidence $p(d|\mathcal{M})$  for all cases. These are then averaged over angle to obtain $\bar p(d|\mathcal{M})$. The results are provided in Table \ref{tab-evidence}: the evidence obtained for cross section data (column 2) can be easily compared to that obtained for the polarization data (column 3). The Bayes' factor, defined as the ratio $R= \bar p(iT_{11}|\mathcal{M})/\bar p(d\sigma/ d \Omega|\mathcal{M})$ of the two average evidences, is shown in the last column.  Although we did not show the details of the calibrations for the reactions on Pb,  we include in the table the results for the evidence obtained for $^{208}$Pb(n,n) at 30 MeV, $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 30 MeV and $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at 61 MeV using the same setup at was used for the $^{48}$Ca reactions.

For each reaction considered, the evidence for $d \sigma/ d \Omega$  data and for  $iT_{11}$ data are  of the same order of magnitude.
We can also compare evidences for the same reaction at different energies. Clearly, in the context of this optical model, the cross section distribution for $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at $12$ MeV has less information than $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at $21$ MeV and the cross section distribution for $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at $30$ MeV has more information than $^{208}$Pb(p,p) at $61$ MeV. Although beyond the scope of this work, a study including a wider range of target nuclei and beam energies is necessary to understand systematic trends.

We should highlight that the evidence is essentially a very different measure than the $\frac{\partial \bar{x}_i}{\partial \bar{y}_a}$. The sensitivities in this work were obtained from averages over the posterior distributions and therefore show the rate of change in the region of parameter space defined by the posterior distributions. The evidence is an integral over the full parameter space, weighted by the likelihood. Longer tails in the likelihood result in larger evidence. Larger information content as measured in the model evidence, does not  necessarily translate to tighter constraints on the parameters themselves. Both tools should be used in concert.

\subsection{Comparing real data and mock data}
\label{realdata}

\begin{figure}[t]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.45\textwidth]{ca48p14realdata-obs}
\end{center}
\caption{$^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 14 MeV 95\% confidence intervals calculated using $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ data (orange bands)  or  $iT_{11}$  data (blue bands) in the optimization procedure: a) $d\sigma/d\Omega$ and b) $iT_{11}$. Data from \cite{realdata}.}
\label{fig-realdata}
\end{figure}

All results presented so far involve mock data. The choice for mock data in this work is based on the control it provides: we can produce data at any energy, simultaneously have elastic angular distributions and polarization data across the whole angular range. However one might be concerned that results with mock data do not represent the real world. It is understood that the KD parameterization cannot exactly reproduce elastic scattering data for a given case. Our point here is that KD is close enough to reality to provide a good illustration for these new statistical tools.

We therefore pick an example to demonstrate that real data and mock data can lead to qualitatively similar results. For more detail in the comparison of mock and real data see \cite{lovell2020}.
We found data close to $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV, corresponding to a reaction with protons at $14$ MeV \cite{realdata}.  In Fig. \ref{fig-realdata} we show the angular distribution of the cross section and the polarization for protons on $^{48}$Ca at 14 MeV and verify these are very similar to those shown in Fig.\ref{fig-ci} for the corresponding reaction at $12$ MeV. As before, the orange bands (blue bands) correspond to the 95\% confidence intervals when the elastic cross section data (polarization data) are used in the fit. As in the case for mock data, here we also find that the uncertainty in the elastic angular distribution is smaller when $d\sigma/d\Omega$ data is used. Conversely, the uncertainty in the $iT_{11}$ distribution is smaller when polarization data is used.

It should not be understood from this comparison that mock data can replace real data.  Although qualitatively similar,  there are significant quantitative differences in the posterior distributions obtained with mock data compared to real data. Thus, in a practical application of these tools, one should always use real data in the statistical analysis.

\section{Conclusions}
\label{conclusions}

In this work we have explored three statistical tools in the context of nuclear scattering that allow us to go beyond uncertainty quantification toward  understanding sensitivities of the parameters and information content of reaction observables.
We consider the principal component analysis in observable space, the parameter to observable sensitivities and  the Bayesian evidence.
To introduce these tools, we construct two limiting toy models, an optical model just with surface absorption and an optical model just with volume absorption. We perform standard MCMC calculations varying six optical model parameters, and constrain each model with the angular distributions for elastic scattering. We obtain the Bayesian parameter posteriors  distributions and the associated confidence intervals for the angular distributions. We then apply the statistical tools and find that both sensitivities and Bayesian evidence provide important insights in  discriminating between models.

Next we repeat this process for realistic cases and using either  $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ or  $iT_{11}$ to constrain the optical parameters.
We study $^{48}$Ca(n,n) at 12 MeV, $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV and $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 21 MeV.   Neither the confidence intervals nor the parameter posterior distributions help in determining which observable is best to constrain the  optical model parameters. We also did not find the principal component analysis defined in terms of angles to be useful, since it produced roughly equal weights  for all components.

In contrast,  sensitivities provided important insights.
For most examples studied, $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$ and $iT_{11}$ are sensitive to the same parameters, and to the same degree. However they provide constraints in different angular regions. The exception being the reaction $^{48}$Ca(p,p) at 12 MeV, for which the differential cross sections offer less sensitivity than the polarization data.

Finally, we also computed the Bayesian evidence for each reaction. The integral over the parameter space had to be performed fully numerically, as the assumptions of Gaussian distributions for the analytic approximations were not valid. We found that in order to get converged values for the evidence, a much larger number of draws was necessary as compared to the statistics collected for the parameter posteriors and confidence intervals. We compared the values of the evidence, averaged over angle, obtained when the cross section angular distribution was used as a constraint with those when using the polarization data.
While Bayes' factor (the ratio of the evidence using $iT_{11}$ over that using $\frac{d\sigma}{d\Omega}$) shows some variability, for most reactions studied it is of order one, and therefore not significant. From our results, we conclude that, within our optical model, the information content of the differential cross sections and the polarization data is roughly the same.

The data we included ($d \sigma/ d \Omega$ and $iT_{11}$) are both associated with the same elastic scattering channel. Future plans include the application of these tools to situations where we scrutinize between data that are more dissimilar, such as  elastic scattering and charge-exchange, knockout or breakup.
One essential ingredient for these advances is the speed-up in computations. In this regard, recent work on emulators (e.g. \cite{furnstahl2020,drischler2021}) holds much promise.

\vspace{1cm}

\begin{acknowledgments}
The authors would like to thank S.~Pratt and M. Hirn for  useful discussions on the sensitivity analysis and PCA, and L.~Neufcourt for discussions on the Bayesian evidence.
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (Office of Science, Nuclear Physics) under grant DE-SC0021422, the National Science Foundation under Grant  PHY-1811815, and was performed under the auspice of the U.S. Department of Energy by Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract 89233218CNA000001.  This work relied on iCER and the High Performance Computing Center at Michigan State University for computational resources.
\end{acknowledgments}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Ephesus and Aphrodisias Tour by Flight
You can send "Ephesus and Aphrodisias Tour by Flight" tour to yourself or to your friend by e-mail or sms.
1 Night/2 Days • 2 Cities • 6 Places
The centre of sculptors: Aphrodisias Ancient City
Aphrodisias Archealogical Museum
Aphrodisias, the city of Aphrodite, the off-beaten path of Turkey, and Ephesus ruins will leave you enthralled. Visit the best Archaeological sites of Turkey in the 2 days.
Day 1 Izmir: Ephesus Ancient City, House of Virgin Mary, Ephesus Archaeological Museum, Temple of Artemis (Diana)
Ephesus Ancient City, House of Virgin Mary, Ephesus Archaeological Museum, Temple of Artemis (Diana)
The ancient city of Ephesus awaits its visitors with its magnificent architectural structures in the ancient city, which dates back to the 9th millennium BC and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Ephesus Ancient City, which contains the symbols that shed light on the superior urbanization, architecture and religious history of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, has the most important architectural and urban planning examples from different periods. The ancient city, which is completely made of marble, is also very impressive with its architectural structures. Where you will see one of the most magnificent excavations in the world, the ancient city of Ephesus is a remarkable ancient site and you will be able to see every step of the dozens of historical artefacts that include The Odeon, The Fountain of Trajan, The Terraces of Apartment Houses, The stream baths of Scholastika, The temple of Hadrian and impressive Celsus Library which is adorned with columns and statues, and let's not forget about The Magnificent Grand Theater, where Saint Paul preached and is the largest theatre is antiquity with capacity of 24.000 seats.
The Temple of Artemis, a religious building where the people of Ephesus presented their faith to the goddess, was also the meeting point of the people used as a market place. The Temple of Artemis, which only has its basic ruins and a marble column, is one of the most important places to see in Selcuk. The temple of Artemis, the temple of Temenos, the religious section, had the appearance of a small city with public buildings and residences. Far from the sea, surrounded by fertile land, the temple was used as a commercial enterprise. Because it was a safe place, it also functioned as a bank. What a magnificent structure the Temple of Artemis was once; It is clear from the words of the Macedonian General Antipatros, "When I saw the house of Artemis built on clouds, all other wonders lost their shine and I said," Here! Except for Olympus, the sun has never looked at such a big thing ".
Ephesus Archaeological Museum, besides the antiques, excavated from the ancient city of Ephesus and its vicinity, which are belong to Mycenean, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods as important works of the cycle, as well as its cultural activities and visitors capacity stands out among one of Turkey's most important museums. The halls of the museum were initially arranged as the Terrace Houses and House Antiques Hall, Fountain Antiques Hall, Tomb Antiques Hall, Ephesus Artemis Hall and Emperor Cult Hall. The "New Findings Hall" was later added to these areas, with the idea of putting the recently unearthed artefacts into the service of the scientific world and humanity in a short time. Ephesus Artemis Statue, one of the most remarkable works of the museum, symbolizes the mother goddess, which is the symbol of prolificacy and fertility in Anatolia (Ephesus), although it is a symbol of virginity in Greek and Latin mythology. In fact, Artemis Temple, which is among the 7 wonders of the world, was built in the name of this goddess. Overnight and dinner in Kusadasi.
Day 2 Aydin: The City of Aphrodite, Aphrodisias, Aphrodisias Archaelogical Museum
The City of Aphrodite, Aphrodisias, Aphrodisias Archaelogical Museum
The ancient city of Aphrodisias, named after Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, has trained hundreds of famous sculptors for thousands of years. It is said that there is a saying by the Roman Emperor Augustus "I chose this city for myself from all of Asia," who took the city under his protection in the first century. In 2017, along with the ancient marble quarries located in the region, was protected by UNESCO and added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Temple of Aphrodite, the most important structure of the city of Aphrodisias, was built for the first time by the Assyrians in the Archaic period for Ishtar, the goddess of love and beauty.
Another important temple in the city, the Temple of Sebasteion, is dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite and the family of Julia Cladius, the first emperors of the Roman Empire. Aphrodisias Stadium is located at the northern end of the city as the best-preserved Stadium in the ancient world. The city's monumental gate Tetrapylon was built in the second century in the Corinthian order. It is believed that the door, which takes its name from four columns on its four sides, was made by architects and sculptors from Aphrodisias only for the purpose of showing off. For these and more, Aphrodisias waits for you to journey ancient times.
The Aphrodisias Archaeological Museum has one of the best collections of Roman sculpture exhibits in Turkey. Museum dedicated to the archaeological site of Aphrodisias. Most are Roman pieces between 2'nd century BC and the 3rd century AD.There are excellent examples of statues and friezes found from the excavations. A must-visit if you want to have a feel of ancient life and art.
Aphrodisias
Aphrodisias Archaelogical Museum
End Points: Turkey/Istanbul; Denizli:Pamukkale
• 4 Airport Transfers mentioned in the itinerary.
• Complementery Turkey Map, Ephesus Map,and Turkey Broucher
• Masks required
• This tour is available all year round
TRP118 • 1 Night/2 Days • 1 City • 4 Places
Ephesus and Ferry to Samos Greeek Island
Izmir, Samos Greek Island
TRP04 • 1 Night/2 Days • 1 City • 4 Places
Ephesus Tour With Izmir City
Ephesus and Izmir tour from Bodrum. Ephesus tour will leave you enthralled. Visit Ephesus, Temple of Artemis, The House of Virgin Mary, and Izmir city center.
Ephesus, Izmir
Ephesus, Priene, Miletus and Didyma Tour by Flight
Izmir, Aydin
Ephesus and Sardis Biblical Cities Tour
Izmir, Manisa


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Tests / Features
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The Car GuideTests and FeaturesFirst Drives2020 Audi RS 7 Sportback: Powerful, Dynamic and Stylish
2020 Audi RS 7 Sportback: Powerful, Dynamic and Stylish
by Gabriel Gélinas September 24, 2019
Athletic stance
Exceptional dynamics
Stability and comfort at high speeds
Weak points
Costly options
Ride quality in Canada may take a hit
Infotainment touchscreen can be distracting
FRANKFURT, Germany—The stereo is rocking Tom Cochrane's Life is a highway and the speedometer needle in the 2020 Audi RS 7 Sportback I'm driving is pointing to 210 km/h.
If I were in any other part of the globe, cops would pull me over and I would probably be listening to AC/DC's Highway to hell instead. However, since I'm driving on the autobahn between Frankfurt and Heidelberg, I can legally fly by at more than 200 km/h, helped by the RS 7 Sportback's incredible poise and stability.
Also: 25 Years of Audi RS Models
Also: 2020 Audi RS 6 Avant is Coming to Canada
At such high velocities, you must keep your eyes far down the road, analyze the flow of traffic and, most importantly, be ready to hit the brakes at any time to avoid rear-ending a vehicle doing "just" 160 km/h. It's not a problem at all for the RS 7 Sportback, which boasts enormous 420-mm discs with 10-piston callipers up front.
On a good day, traffic-wise, this car can reach a top speed of 250 km/h—or 280 km/h with the Dynamic Package and 305 km/h with the Dynamic Package Plus. While most customers in North America will never drive that fast, it's always pleasant to know that you could if the law allowed it.
590-horsepower V8
The 2020 Audi RS 7 is a technical marvel. The twin-turbocharged V8 engine crammed under the hood produces 590 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque, enough to send you from 0-100 km/h in a mere 3.6 seconds.
But wait, there's more: a mild hybrid system allows the car to coast for up to 40 seconds with the engine turned off at speeds between 55-160 km/h, improving fuel economy on the highway. In addition, there's a cylinder deactivation technology that shuts off four of the eight cylinders when cruising under light load.
Following our stint on the autobahn, we headed to an area where hillclimbs were quite popular during the '50s and '60s. Despite the many tight turns and elevation changes, the RS 7 Sportback proved very nimble thanks to a standard four-wheel steering system that pivots the rear wheels five degrees in the opposite direction to improve manoeuverability. For a car that stands more than five metres long, it was impressive.
Handling is further enhanced by steel springs with three-position adjustable hydraulic shocks or, optionally, an air suspension with electronically controlled dampers. In both cases, the RS 7 Sportback can go from docile and forgiving to furiously aggressive on demand.
Engineers added an RS button on the steering wheel allowing you to create distinct driving profiles. For example, you can dedicate RS 1 to softer settings that maximize passenger comfort and reserve RS 2 for more dynamic settings that increase performance in solo driving.
Wicked Looks
The split personality displayed by the 2020 Audi RS 7 Sportback is expressed visually by a new widebody configuration. This model is indeed 40-mm wider than a conventional A7 and its muscular fenders house 22-inch alloy wheels. Up front, the Singleframe grille is lower and broader, too.
In fact, the only body panels that are shared with the rest of the A7 lineup are the front doors, the roof and the rear hatch.
The 2020 Audi RS 7 Sportback will go on sale in Canada next spring. Prices have yet to be announced, but we expect them to be similar to those for the first generation, which ranged from $120,000 to $143,400.
GalleryNews, reviews, videosAudi dealersUsed vehiclesAudi
Test drive report Audi A7
55 TFSI Quattro Progressiv
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6/10	Mild hybrid technology reduces average fuel consumption by 0.8 L/100 km.
8/10	The cabin is tremendously comfortable and quiet, even at ultra-high speeds.
9/10	The RS 7 Sportback delivers sports car-like performance.
9/10	The system is quite user-friendly, but can be distracting at times.
9/10	The adjustable suspension, four-wheel steering and all-wheel drive (with a rear bias) combine to create a very nimble five-door sedan.
9/10	This car boasts wicked looks, outstanding dynamics and spectacular performance.
Galleries 25 Years of Audi RS Models
New Models 2020 Audi RS 6 Avant is Coming to Canada
The fourth-generation Audi RS 6 Avant will finally be available in Canada sometime in 2020, much to the delight of performance enthusiasts looking for a car that's equal parts sporty, elegant and versatile. While many automakers are obsessed with SUVs and crossovers, Audi Canada has decided to expand its RS …
Test Drives 2019 Audi A7 Sportback: Style and Poise
The first-generation Audi A7 made its mark by boasting a timeless design and will likely be regarded as one of the most beautiful cars ever produced by the German brand. And yet, function wasn't sacrificed for form, as the A7 remained practical for the daily grind, even more so than …
Frankfurt 2020 Audi RS 7 Unleashed with a 590-hp Twin-turbo V8
The second-generation Audi RS 7 will go on sale in Canada sometime in 2020 as the mightiest expression of the A7 Sportback. Under the hood is a twin-turbocharged V8 engine rated at 590 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. An eight-speed ZF automatic transmission and Audi's quattro all-wheel drive complete …
First Drives 2020 Audi RS 6 Avant: The Most Badass Wagon
Performance enthusiasts have been waiting for it for a long time, and now it's about to go on sale in Canada. The 2020 Audi RS 6 Avant arrives next year as a sinister-looking, 590-horsepower wagon and a total badass. Out first drive took place in California's Malibu area, a hotbed …
Reviews, specifications and offers
Make Model Content type News, reviews, videos Specifications, comparison Used vehicles Recalls
News All-new 2021 GMC Yukon Follows Tahoe, Suburban Path
On Tuesday General Motors took the wraps off the completely redesigned 2021 GMC Yukon and Yukon XL in Vail, Colorado. This comes a month after the introduction of the 2021 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban , which use the same platform as their GMC cousins, not to mention the next-gen Cadillac …
Previews Five Things to Know About the 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime
At the 2019 Los Angeles Auto Show, Toyota introduced a new plug-in hybrid vehicle that should post record sales if the company manages to build enough units. Here are five things you need to know about the 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime … Generous EV Range Equipped with a bigger battery …
News 2020 Nissan Sentra Debuts in Canada
Compact cars are still popular across the country and one of them, the completely redesigned 2020 Nissan Sentra , is making its Canadian debut today at the 2020 Montreal Auto Show. Rightfully ignored by many potential customers, the old Sentra looked pretty boring. In order to stand out from better-selling …
News AJAC Honours Canada's Best Vehicles of 2020
During a ceremony at the 77th Montreal International Auto Show on Thursday, the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) announced the 12 category winners that will compete for the titles of 2020 Canadian Car of the Year and 2020 Canadian Utility Vehicle of the Year. To get to this point, …
Los Angeles 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime is a Quick, Efficient Plug-in Hybrid SUV
As promised, Toyota unveiled the anticipated plug-in hybrid variant of the RAV4 today at the Los Angeles Auto Show . Capable of zero-emission driving for 60 kilometres, the new RAV4 Prime is Toyota's first plug-in hybrid SUV and a direct rival of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV , not to mention …
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Are you searching for home insurance coverage in Sidnaw, MI? Enter your Zip Code to compare the best options available nearby. Comparing multiple quotes is the best way to save money on your homeowners coverage in Houghton county.
Have you been asked by your mortgage lender to get homeowners insurance? Did you just purchase your first home and understand the value of insuring it but don't know what type of coverage to buy? If so, here is some information to help you get the Sidnaw, Michigan homeowners insurance you need.
Obtain quotes from insurance agents in person to get personalized help. Or, for more convenience, you can get Sidnaw homeowners insurance quotes free online. Protect your home with affordable insurance today.
If you are emotion a little bit nervous about getting a property owner's insurance policies plan, you aren't alone. There are hundreds of thousands of other house owners out there that really feel just like you as this is really important protection that is required to shield your house and house from loss. Make confident you are commencing with suggestions like these prior to you start off shopping.
Make certain that you have a record of everything that is lined beneath your house insurance policy. Make a in depth list, and just take pictures of all valuables. It also helps to keep receipts for large ticket objects. There is cost-free software program on the internet that will empower you to develop a home stock, area by place. If you require to make a declare, getting all this information on hand will support to speed up the process.
To conserve funds on your property owners insurance policy discuss to your agent and see if the business provides discount rates for putting in added smoke detectors. Several more mature homes deficiency them in locations that are regarded as normal places to put in today and a lot of insurance policy organizations will offer a low cost as an incentive for you to add far more.
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Home Manchester City Guardiola raves over 'one of the best players I've ever seen'
Guardiola raves over 'one of the best players I've ever seen'
Date published: Sunday 25th August 2019 4:39
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola singled captain David Silva out for extra praise for his display in his side's 3-1 win over Bournemouth on Sunday.
Two goals from Sergio Aguero and one from Raheem Sterling – either side of a spectacular Harry Wilson free kick – were enough to see the Citizens move two points behind Liverpool in the table.
Speaking to reporters at his post-match press conference, however, Guardiola said Silva – who was making his 400th City appearance – was the key man for his side.
"[Silva] played incredibly well," the Spaniard said. "David in this kind of game – with a defence so deep and with such few spaces – is so good. He's one of the best players I've ever seen."
Speaking about his side's performance in general, Guardiola added: "It was a tough game, we knew it would be. We have seven points. We should have nine, but it's OK."
City's next game sees them host Brighton at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
David Silva Manchester City pep guardiola
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"It isn't about one season, it is about an era, a period of time," said Vincent Kompany.
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Sergio Aguero was thrilled to have secured a twin entry into the Premier League history books on Sunday.
January 12 2020, 8:12 pm
Aguero is a legend like Arsenal's Henry – Guardiola
"It's the consistence of Aguero and he's been doing it over a long long time and that's when it adds value."
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I went out and picked up a DataRobotics Drobo and its NAS attachment called DroboShare.
I have a home built Linux based MythTV DVR (built many years ago >4) and with that comes tonnes of files and data... all my TV recordings, videos, digital pictures and all my Ogg Vorbis audio files. I needed a safer storage model for its data. My DVR has become a central shared network repository for all our household media.
All the data used to live inside my DVR and I would throw in a new drive when needed. This made me nervous. I would backup my music and digital pictures, however, the video files were way to much to do.
I needed a NAS with built in RAID.
This thing provides RAID type redundancy without the administrative issues. read about it at DataRobotics.
NOTE: the day I bought mine, they came out with this NAS all in one package called Drobo FS.
I did it in 2 stages because the Linux version of the Drobo Dashboard does NOT work through the DroboShare.
Use the Linux dashboard and commandline tools (http://drobo-utils.sourceforge.net) to format the Volume and get it setup.
I called the share that got created "media" and formatted it as a 2GB ext3 volume.
I went out and bought a Cisco/Linksys gigabit Ethernet switch and Cat6 cables to maximize the throughput to the Drobo; mainly between the DVR, Drobo and my Workstation.
Before I connected it using the DroboShare I set up a static IP for the DroboShare MAC address so It will always have a specific IP address (10.0.0.201). That way I can add this IP address to all my computers fstabs.
Connect Cat6 Cabling between DVR, Workstation, Drobo and gigabit switch.
Connect it to the DroboShare via its USB.
Connect the DroboShare to the network via the gigabit switch.
Connect the power cables to the Drobo and DroboShare.
Make one small change to your Ethernet packet size to make the maximum packet size bigger.
Its a Jumbo Frame, and really helps with transfering large amount of data.
This little droboShare is actually a Linux based appliance that you can ssh into and get a commandline!
Take a look at the DARFS docs at http://drobo-utils.sourceforge.net if you want to extend the usefulness of the Embedded BusyBox OS.
You can also install web server, ftpd, iTunes server or other DroboApps.
I did some speed tests to see if It will provide a good platform to stream video around my network computers.
The bottelneck seems to be the USB connection, but it is still good enough to stream HD video! Its a trade-off for simplicity.
They have now eliminated this bottleneck with their Drobo FS without the usb.
I get around 12MBps writing a 8GB file to the drive.
Transfering the same file between my DVR and my workstation (to check my network speed) I get over 50MBps.