text:
The ECN+ Directive
The enforcement of competition law in Ireland is set for wide-ranging reform as a result of Directive (EU) 2019/1 (known as "ECN+"), which is due to be transposed into Irish law by 4 February 2021. The purpose of ECN+ is to make national competition authorities ("NCAs") across the EU more effective enforcers by ensuring they have the appropriate tools and resources to enforce EU competition law in a consistent manner within each Member State. In this briefing we outline the main reforms that ECN+ will introduce in Ireland and what they will mean for the future of competition enforcement here.
In 2003, a de-centralised competition law enforcement system based on the direct application of the EU competition rules by NCAs was introduced. Building on the success of that reform, ECN+ has been introduced with a view to enabling NCAs to become more effective enforcers of the EU competition rules, in particular by harmonising to an extent the resources, powers and tools available to NCAs.
Why is ECN+ important?
By introducing minimum standards in relation to the enforcement of competition law at a national level, several aspects of ECN+ are likely to have a significant impact on the enforcement of competition law in Ireland (and in other EU Member States). The key changes to be introduced by ECN+ in an Irish context are discussed in further detail below.
When does ECN+ take effect?
Member States are required to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with ECN+ by 4 February 2021.
What is the scope of ECN+?
ECN+ will apply whenever NCAs are applying Article 101 (the prohibition on restrictive agreements) and Article 102 (the prohibition on abuse of a dominant position) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ("TFEU"), including when equivalent national competition law are applied in parallel in the same case. Therefore, ECN+ has a wide scope and even cases concerning agreements or practices implemented only in Ireland could trigger the application of ECN+.
As an EU directive, ECN+ outlines baseline requirements for Member States to achieve but leaves it at the discretion of Member States as to how to do so. This is particularly pertinent in an Irish context due to the institutional design of Ireland's competition enforcement regime where powers are split primarily between the Competition Consumer Protection Commission (the "CCPC") and the Irish courts, both of which are NCAs for the purposes of ECN+. Irrespective of how it is ultimately implemented, it is clear that ECN+ will bring forward a number of very significant changes to the competition enforcement landscape in Ireland as outlined below.
5 Key Reforms for Ireland under ECN+
IMPACT / COMMENT
CIVIL FINANCIAL SANCTIONS
Introduction of civil financial sanctions for breaches of competition law ECN+ will require the introduction, for the first time, of a system for the imposition of civil financial sanctions (i.e. fines imposed either in civil proceedings by a court or in administrative proceedings by a regulator) for breaches of competition law in Ireland. The introduction of civil financial sanctions for breaches of competition law will mark a significant departure from the current regime, under which financial sanctions may only be imposed following criminal prosecution, and will have a profound effect on the enforcement of competition law in Ireland, particularly in relation to non-hardcore infringements of competition law (e.g. abuse of a dominant position or resale price maintenance).
If the CCPC is to be given administrative fining powers, a number of changes to the CCPC's current practice and procedure, and structure would be required (e.g. the adoption of detailed procedural guidelines and the structural separation between investigative and decision-making bodies within the CCPC).
INTRODUCTION OF A LENIENCY REFORM
Introduction of a leniency programme for cartels ECN+ will require the introduction, for the first time, of a leniency programme for cartel whistle-blowers in Ireland. This will provide for the possibility of a reduction in fines for undertakings who disclose their participation in cartels. While it is currently possible for individuals and undertakings to apply for immunity from fines under the Cartel Immunity Programme, this is only available to the first undertaking or individual to admit its participation in a cartel. Following ECN+, other undertakings or individuals who subsequently come forward may in future benefit from leniency. As a result, ECN+ is likely to alter significantly the dynamics of cooperation between the CCPC and suspected cartel participants.
FINING STANDARDS
Significant maximum
fines for breaches of competition law ECN+ introduces a common set of underlying standards for NCAs when fining undertakings for infringements of competition law. By harmonising the approach to fining to a significant extent, ECN+ is likely to lead to the imposition of increasingly significant financial sanctions against companies found to be in breach of competition law. While fines have to date not been a noteworthy feature of the enforcement of competition law in Ireland, ECN+ is likely to bring the position more in line with other Member States where significant fines are more frequently imposed.
MINIMUM INVESTIGATIVE POWERS
Minimum powers to inspect business premises ECN+ seeks to ensure there are in place in each Member State a minimum set of investigative powers to ensure the effective enforcement of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. This includes a "seize and sift" power pursuant to which authorities are permitted to take copies of or extracts from, documents and
to continue making searches
for information and the selection of copies or extracts at another location. ECN+ provides that Member States must provide for the exercise of "seize and sift" powers, while ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place. In practice, this means that an NCA can seize material on-site and continue its search at a different location, provided that appropriate safeguards are in place that comply with general principles of EU law, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights, including the right to privacy.
INTERIM MEASURES
Power to impose interim measures while investigations are ongoing ECN+ requires that NCAs provide
for the possible imposition of interim measures while investigations of potential breaches of competition law are ongoing. The possibility to impose interim measures during investigations will be a new power in the context of competition law in Ireland and is intended to ensure that a suspected infringement does not cause serious and irreparable harm to competition while an investigation is ongoing.
1. Civil Financial Sanctions
Pursuant to ECN+, Ireland will be required to implement a system for civil or administrative fines for competition law breaches for the first time.
a Introduction of civil financial sanctions: Currently, only criminal fines can be imposed by the Irish courts for breaches of competition law meaning that, to secure the imposition of financial penalties, the CCPC/ Director of Public Prosecutions must prove its case before the courts to the criminal standard of proof (i.e. beyond a reasonable doubt). In this context, the CCPC generally only pursues criminal fines before the courts for the most serious competition law breaches, such as hardcore cartel offences (e.g. market sharing, price-fixing or bid-rigging), and has not done so for other competition law infringements (e.g. abuse of dominance or resale price maintenance). Following transposition of ECN+, however, Ireland will be required to implement a system for civil or administrative fines for competition law breaches, which would be proven on the basis of a civil standard of proof (i.e. on the balance of probabilities).
In August 2020, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar, announced that the Government intends to give the CCPC the power to impose administrative fines. It remains to be seen how the legislation will approach this and the level of fines that could be imposed.
b Increased Enforcement Role for the CCPC: EU Member States have the discretion to choose whether civil financial sanctions will be imposed by competition authorities directly in their own administrative proceedings or by courts in non-criminal judicial proceedings. However, at a minimum, the CCPC will be empowered to bring its own applications to court for the imposition of civil fines for breaches of competition law. Regardless of how ECN+ is implemented therefore, the CCPC will have increased enforcement powers, particularly in relation to non-hardcore offences, when compared to the position today.
What is the likely impact?
Given the limited remedies currently available to the CCPC for civil enforcement under the current competition law regime in Ireland and the difficulties in prosecuting non-hardcore infringements under a criminal standard of proof, the introduction of civil fines is likely to result in increased enforcement activity by the CCPC.
Overall, these changes are intended to result in a more effective competition law regime in Ireland and address the European Commission's concerns that the current regime leads to under-enforcement of non-criminal infringements.
This development is also likely to result in an increase in the frequency and scale of private follow-on damages actions relating to infringements of competition in Ireland. Such actions are facilitated by Directive 2014/104/EU on Antitrust Damages Actions, which was transposed into Irish law in 2017. For more information view our client briefing here.
If the CCPC is to be given the power to impose sanctions directly in its own administrative proceedings, a number of changes to the CCPC's current practice and procedure and structure would be required. For example, the CCPC would need to develop procedures and accompanying guidance for the conduct of investigations into suspected breaches of competition law (including, for example, processes for the adoption of a statement of objections, the parties' rights to respond and the adoption of a final decision). In addition, the CCPC would need to ensure that decisions on whether to issue an infringement decision and on the appropriate amount of any penalty are taken by individuals who have not been involved in the investigation of the relevant conduct.
2. Introduction of a Leniency Regime
ECN+ requires the introduction (or amendment, where relevant) of national immunity and leniency programmes for cartel whistle-blowers.
a Availability of Reductions in Fines: Currently, it is possible for individuals and undertakings to apply for immunity from fines under the Irish Cartel Immunity Programme ("CIP"). However, this is only available to the first undertaking or individual to admit its participation in a cartel and there is currently no possibility for a reduction in fines for other undertakings or individuals who subsequently come forward. The introduction of a leniency programme for cartel whistle-blowers in Ireland will provide for the possibility of a reduction in fines for undertakings who do not qualify for immunity from fines (e.g. because they were not the first to disclose their participation in the cartel) but who subsequently disclose their participation in a cartel.
b Increased Cooperation between Member States: At the moment, there is no "one-stop shop" for leniency in the EU. Therefore, leniency applicants whose cartel activities extend to more than one jurisdiction may have to make multiple parallel applications to the European Commission and/or to the NCAs in relevant Member States. This presents a significant challenge in the context of leniency applications where time is typically of the essence. ECN+ does not establish a single EU-wide portal for leniency applications but does facilitate the submission of parallel leniency applications to multiple competition authorities through the introduction of a summary application system. This should facilitate easier parallel submissions to multiple regulators.
c Access to Leniency Statements: A key issue in the context leniency is the extent to which access to and use of leniency statements by parties other than the receiving competition authorities is permitted. This is particularly important in view of the potential for follow-on damages claims against undertakings that have admitted their participation in a cartel. ECN+ goes a long way to allaying any potential fears in this respect by circumscribing access to leniency statements. In particular, access to leniency statements will only be granted to parties subject to the relevant proceedings and only for the purposes of exercising their rights of defence.
What is the likely effect?
These reforms will bring the practice in Ireland closer in line with the position under the European Commission's leniency regime and under the national competition regimes of a number of Member States. In doing so, ECN+ should increase legal certainty for undertakings who are seeking leniency in multiple jurisdictions, including in Ireland.
Given the overall emphasis on harmonisation in ECN+, it will be interesting to see to what extent the precise content of other leniency regimes will be replicated in the new Irish regime. In particular, as ECN+ does not mandate the level of reductions undertakings will benefit from relative to the fine that would otherwise be imposed, it will be a matter for the legislature to design the parameters of available reductions under the leniency programme to be introduced in Ireland.
3. Fining Standards
ECN+ aims to harmonise the approach to fining by introducing a common set of underlying standards for NCAs when fining undertakings for infringements of competition law.
a Effective, dissuasive and proportionate fines: ECN+ introduces as a foundational concept the power for competition authorities to impose "effective, proportionate and dissuasive fines". While the Directive does not provide any further detail as to what level of fines might meet these criteria, it is clear that fines will need to be sufficiently high to ensure the effective and consistent enforcement of competition law.
b Gravity and duration of infringements: In order to ensure that fines reflect the economic significance of infringements of competition law (e.g. increased prices for end-consumers of products or services), NCAs must have regard to the gravity and duration of the infringement.
c Maximum fines: Member States must ensure that, at a minimum, NCAs have the power to impose a maximum fine of not less than 10% of total worldwide turnover of a business. The Irish Competition Act currently provides for a maximum fine of 10% of turnover but, in practice, this sanction is only sought in respect of hardcore cartel offences in criminal proceedings. Following implementation of the Directive, however, other infringements such as an abuse of dominance could attract significant fines of up to the maximum level.
d Periodic penalties: The CCPC will (without the need for recourse to the courts) be empowered to impose periodic penalty payments for a number of different infringements of competition law. In particular, the CCPC will be able to impose periodic penalty payments on undertakings for the provision of false or misleading information in response to requests for information and for the failure of representatives of an undertaking to appear for interview when requested.
e Enforcement of foreign fines: ECN+ provides for increased cooperation between NCAs in different Member States through a mutual assistance programme for the enforcement of decisions imposing fines or periodic penalty payments. Therefore, undertakings will not be able to avoid paying fines in one Member State on the basis that they do not have sufficient assets located in that jurisdiction if they leave assets in another EU member state.
To date, fines have not been a significant feature of the enforcement of competition law in Ireland with the largest fine ever having been previously imposed by the Irish courts amounting to €80,000. By contrast, fines in other European countries may be significant and well in excess of those seen thus far in Ireland (for example, in December 2019, the French competition authority imposed a fine of €157 million on Edenred France.)
Interestingly, these changes are also likely to align fining for breaches of competition law in Ireland with the enforcement regime under the General Data Protection Regulation, pursuant to which supervisory authorities (the Data Protection Commission in Ireland's case) are empowered to impose fines that are "effective, proportionate and dissuasive".
4. Minimum Investigative Powers
ECN+ requires that authorised officials carrying out dawn raids must have certain minimum powers to inspect business premises, including a power to "seize and sift" relevant material.
Minimum investigative powers: ECN+ seeks to ensure that NCAs are empowered with a minimum set of investigative powers in order to be able to effectively perform their role in enforcing Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. This reflects a desire to remove disparities in the tools available to competition authorities around Europe and to align NCAs' investigative powers with those available to the European Commission.
Precisely how ECN+ will impact the CCPC's dawn raid procedures and the exercise of its "seize and sift" powers is not yet clear. However, ECN+ requires that the exercise of investigative powers should be subject to appropriate safeguards that at least comply with the general principles of European Union law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Such safeguards include right to good administration, the respect of undertakings' rights of defence and the right to privacy.
In the context of "seize and sift" powers in particular, a safety mechanism such as the 'sealed envelope procedure' is required to guarantee protection for those fundamental rights. Traditionally, under this procedure, documents were placed in a sealed envelope before being removed from a company's premises and could only then be removed from the envelope and searched further in the presence of the company's representative. In the digital age, this procedure is effectively carried out on the basis of an undertaking from the regulator not to review material unless in the presence of a company's representative.
The issue of appropriate safeguards in the context of dawn raids came before the Supreme Court in 2017 in a case involving a challenge to the scope of documents seized by the CCPC during a dawn raid in May 2015. In a landmark decision on the scope of the CCPC's dawn raid powers, the Supreme Court ordered that the CCPC could not access, review or make use of documents that were unrelated to the scope of its investigation and which had been seized during the dawn raid other than by agreement with the plaintiffs in accordance with their right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The Supreme Court decision is in line with the approach under ECN+, which ensures that appropriate safeguards are respected where an NCA exercises seize and sift powers.
5. Interim Measures
ECN+ requires that national competition regimes provide for the imposition of interim measures while investigations of potential breaches of competition law are ongoing.
a Interim measures: ECN+ provides that NCAs will have the power to implement temporary measures to mitigate or prevent any potentially anti-competitive conduct by undertakings that are suspected of having breached competition law. Such powers are referred to as interim measures and their purpose is to prevent potential harm to competition before a competition authority has had the opportunity to fully investigate (and, if relevant, sanction) suspected anti-competitive behaviour. Interim measures do not have a prescribed form and may entail the cessation of particular conduct, the provision of access to an input or the provision of certain information.
b Serious or irreparable harm: ECN+ aims, at a minimum, to align the position at national level with the European Commission's powers to impose interim measures by providing that NCAs must be able to impose interim measures "at least" in cases where there is urgency due to the risk of serious and irreparable harm to competition, on the basis of a prima facie breach of competition law. The reference in ECN+ to "at least" provides for the possibility of national legislatures introducing a lower standard for the imposition of interim measures, i.e. in circumstances where there might be a risk lower than serious and irreparable harm.
c Appeal: reflecting the focus in ECN+ on the protection of fundamental rights, national competition regimes must ensure that legality, including the proportionality, of interim measures are capable of being reviewed in expedited appeal procedures.
Traditionally, interim measures have been used sparingly by the European Commission. However, there has been a renewed focus on the use of interim measures of late, as reflected most recently in the European Commission's decision to impose interim measures on Broadcom in October 2019 during its investigation with regard to TV and modem chipsets markets. In particular, interim measures have come into focus in the context of digital markets where competition law investigations into alleged anti-competitive behaviour risk being outpaced by the rapidly evolving nature of such markets with the result that any remedy or sanction may be effectively obsolete by the time it is ultimately imposed.
While interim relief in the form of court-imposed injunctions is already potentially available in competition law investigations in Ireland, the introduction of a competition law-specific regime for interim measures through ECN+ may well be significant in the context of the CCPC's future competition law investigations.
Although the precise evidentiary standard required for the imposition of interim measures will be a matter for the legislature, the use of interim measures by other NCAs may well inform the approach here. In particular, the French Competition Authority has been particularly active in imposing interim measures in the context of digital markets and the CCPC may well advocate that it should have similar abilities in this respect.
Richard Ryan
richard.ryan@arthurcox.com
Patrick Horan
patrick.horan@arthurcox.com
Simon Breen
Simon.Breen@arthurcox.com
Edel O'Connell
edel.oconnell@arthurcox.com
Bridget McGrath
Bridget.McGrath@arthurcox.com
Competition and Regulated Markets


text:
Q: Efficient bitstream convolution I have two floating point time series A, B of length N each. I have to calculate the circular convolution and find maximum value. The classic and fastest way of doing this is
C = iFFT(FFT(A) * FFT(B))
Now, let's suppose that both A and B is a series which contains only 1s and 0s, so in principle we can represent them as bitstreams.
Question: Is there any faster way of doing the convolution (and find its maximum value) if I am somehow able to make use of the fact above ?
(I was already thinking a lot on Walsh - Hadamard transforms and SSE instructions, popcounts, but found no faster way for M > 2 **20 which is my case.)
Thanks,
gd

A: The 1D convolution c of two arrays a and b of size n is an array such that :

This formula can be rewritten in an iterative way :

The non-null terms of the sum are limited to the number of changes nb of b : if b is a simple pattern, this sum can be limited to a few terms. An algorithm may now be designed to compute c :
1 : compute c[0]   (about n operations)
2 : for 0<i<n compute c[i] using the formula (about nb*n operations)
If nb is small, this method may be faster than fft. Note that it will provide exact results for bitstream signals, while the fft needs oversampling and floating point precision to deliver accurate results.
Here is a piece of code implementing this trick with input type unsigned char.
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>

#include <fftw3.h>

typedef struct{
    unsigned int nbchange;
    unsigned int index[1000];
    int change[1000];
}pattern;

void topattern(unsigned int n, unsigned char* b,pattern* bp){
    //initialisation
    bp->nbchange=0;
    unsigned int i;
    unsigned char former=b[n-1];
    for(i=0;i<n;i++){
        if(b[i]!=former){
            bp->index[bp->nbchange]=i;
            bp->change[bp->nbchange]=((int)b[i])-former;
            bp->nbchange++;
        }
        former=b[i];
    }
}

void printpattern(pattern* bp){
    int i;
    printf("pattern :\n");
    for(i=0;i<bp->nbchange;i++){
        printf("index %d change %d\n",bp->index[i],bp->change[i]);
    }
}

//https://stackoverflow.com/questions/109023/how-to-count-the-number-of-set-bits-in-a-32-bit-integer

unsigned int NumberOfSetBits(unsigned int i)
{
    i = i - ((i >> 1) & 0x55555555);
    i = (i & 0x33333333) + ((i >> 2) & 0x33333333);
    return (((i + (i >> 4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) * 0x01010101) >> 24;
}

//https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2525310/how-to-define-and-work-with-an-array-of-bits-in-c

unsigned int convol_longint(unsigned int a, unsigned int b){
    return NumberOfSetBits(a&b);
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {

    unsigned int n=10000000;

    //the array a
    unsigned char* a=malloc(n*sizeof(unsigned char));
    if(a==NULL){printf("malloc failed\n");exit(1);}
    unsigned int i,j;
    for(i=0;i<n;i++){
        a[i]=rand();
    }
    memset(&a[2],5,2);
    memset(&a[10002],255,20);

    for(i=0;i<n;i++){
        //printf("a %d %d \n",i,a[i]);
    }

    //pattern b
    unsigned char* b=malloc(n*sizeof(unsigned char));
    if(b==NULL){printf("malloc failed\n");exit(1);}
    memset(b,0,n*sizeof(unsigned char));
    memset(&b[2],1,20);

    //memset(&b[120],1,10);
    //memset(&b[200],1,10);

    int* c=malloc(n*sizeof(int)); //nb bit in the array
    memset(c,0,n*sizeof(int));

    clock_t begin, end;
    double time_spent;

    begin = clock();
    /* here, do your time-consuming job */

    //computing c[0]
    for(i=0;i<n;i++){
        //c[0]+= convol_longint(a[i],b[i]);
        c[0]+= ((int)a[i])*((int)b[i]);
        //printf("c[0] %d %d\n",c[0],i);
    }
    printf("c[0] %d\n",c[0]);

    //need to store b as a pattern.
    pattern bpat;
    topattern( n,b,&bpat);
    printpattern(&bpat);

    //computing c[i] according to formula
    for(i=1;i<n;i++){
        c[i]=c[i-1];
        for(j=0;j<bpat.nbchange;j++){
            c[i]+=bpat.change[j]*((int)a[(bpat.index[j]-i+n)%n]);
        }
    }

    //finding max
    int currmax=c[0];
    unsigned int currindex=0;
    for(i=1;i<n;i++){
        if(c[i]>currmax){
            currmax=c[i];
            currindex=i;
        }
        //printf("c[i] %d %d\n",i,c[i]);
    }

    printf("c[max] is %d at index %d\n",currmax,currindex);

    end = clock();
    time_spent = (double)(end - begin) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

    printf("computation took %lf seconds\n",time_spent);

    double* dp = malloc(sizeof (double) * n);
    fftw_complex * cp = fftw_malloc(sizeof (fftw_complex) * (n/2+1));

    begin = clock();
    fftw_plan plan = fftw_plan_dft_r2c_1d(n, dp, cp, FFTW_ESTIMATE);

    end = clock();
    time_spent = (double)(end - begin) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

    fftw_execute ( plan );
    printf("fftw took %lf seconds\n",time_spent);

    free(dp);
    free(cp);

    free(a);
    free(b);
    free(c);
    return 0;
}

To compile : gcc main.c -o main -lfftw3 -lm
For n=10 000 000 and nb=2 (b is just a "rectangular 1D window") this algorithm run in 0.65 seconds on my computer. A double-precision fft using fftw took approximately the same time. This comparison, like most of comparisons, may be unfair since :

*

*nb=2 is the best case for the algorithm presented in this answer.

*The fft-based algorithm would have needed oversampling.

*double precison may not be required for the fft-based algorithm

*The implementation exposed here is not optimized. It is just basic code.

This implementation can handle n=100 000 000. At this point, using long int for c could be advised to avoid any risk of overflow.
If signals are bitstreams, this program may be optimzed in various ways. For bitwise operations, look this question and this one

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Or, my opinions on (long) copy.
Over the last three years, I have had the opportunity to write two long copy campaigns. They turned out reasonably well and, of course, I enjoyed writing them as well.
Nevertheless, I don't have any special desire to write long copy. Blasphemy?
Let's pull back a little bit.
Little kid. Mom wakes her up to get her ready for school. Kid, in no mood to rise from her cosy bed, announces she has a fever. Mom, with a knowing grin and arms outstretched, says, "Really? Shall I check with the thermometer or the tickle monster?" The kid giggles; glee trumps glum.
Same kid. Another day. Returns from the playground wailing; she's hurt her knee. Mother sits her down, washes the wound and applies salve, all the while soothing her with the best balm of all - her voice. Twenty-five minutes later, the crying has subsided. The kid is sniffling, but is also telling her mom how she wants two huge scoops of her favourite jam in the comfort sandwich that she is now craving.
The above capture some of the principles I myself apply to the work I've been doing for the last two decades or so. I am having conversations with real human beings - not target audiences - on behalf of brands that also have very human personalities. Each situation is different. Each brand is different. Each person is different. Each task is different. Each tactic is different.
Going back to the parenting examples, it's doubtful the Mom felt that she enjoyed 25 minute conversations and so, no matter what the circumstance, that is how long she would take to sort out every situation she faced with respect to her kid.
Which is why, I have never understood the deification of long copy by copywriters. After all, I have never heard an art director complain that he or she would stick to, say, water colours, if only the powers that be let it be possible.
There used to be times when people would look at an ad and comment on how it looks like so-and-so art directed it and read like so-and-so wrote it. I used to take exception to that. In my mind, every ad should reflect the brand personality, regardless of who wrote or art directed it. I am not in this industry to write in my own voice - I have other avenues for that. Similarly, I am not in this industry, either, to push for my favourite style of writing. To be honest, I don't even have a favourite style; I thoroughly enjoy wearing different hats.
If anything, I pride myself on whatever little ability I have to write in any style that may be required at that given moment. That, really, is how I see my job. To present a case in the language of the brand to the people who may find it of interest in an interesting, engaging and compelling way so that it draws their attention - and keeps it.
To me, that's what great copy is about. It's not just about one's command over a language or about felicity with words. And it's definitely not about length. It's as much about choosing that perfect and precise word to craft that powerful, evocative and, ultimately, effective one word headline (think Volkswagen's 'Lemon'), which is just as difficult to do.
Long copy, in my mind, is nothing but one of my tools. I will employ it only when I am certain that it is exactly what is required in order to be most effective. And if I am any good at it, I will keep the reader reading. With every sentence (each, technically, short copy). No superfluous words, no lull in interest, each sentence carrying the previous sentence's thought forward, while triggering anticipation for what is to follow in the next. Each sentence complete, but, like ball bearings, keeping the reader's mind in motion. Each building on the previous one, leading the reader by the heart and mind so effortlessly that even his or her pace quickens without any conscious realisation of it. Setting up, building and penny-dropping the case the brand wishes to put forward in that instance. In other words, long copy (indeed, any copy) should not be about me wanting to write it, but about making the reader want to read it.
Scroll through Instagram (there's a reason I mention IG; will get to it in a moment). It's filled with people showing off the books they're reading. Also, it's filled with both short and long form poets and writers. In other words, people are still interested in reading reams of text. Obviously, though, their choice of reading material is decided by what they wish to read, not by what advertisers want them to. This, of course, is a universal truth that has been true since time immemorial. The moment any piece of advertising finds a way to be of interest to the consumer, it gets absorbed - or, at least, opens that door.
One might argue that Instagram is not something to bring into evidence when discussing the merits of long copy. Yet, in how Instagram presents itself lie the unsung and unexpected heroes of long copy. The art director.
Instagram breaks long copy posts into bite-sized morsels. How it functions is designed to tempt the viewer to slide for more before he or she reaches a point of fatigue. It also helps trigger curiosity about what is to come on the next slide. Further, the viewer knows it's not going to be 'too' long an engagement - after all, it is, maximum, a ten-morsel meal. It's user-friendly, it's not a challenge and it's not daunting. Finally, so many of these writers employ their particular presentation styles. Always a certain kind of background, a definite kind of font, certain set of props and so on. It's exactly what brands do - or should be doing.
"Instagram breaks long copy posts into bite-sized morsels."
The input art directors bring to long copy is invaluable. In some ways, not taking anything away from the writers who write and rewrite endlessly to achieve the perfect final draft, it's tougher for them. The art directors have so little to play with and, yet, how it is laid out can make all the difference between whether the ad is read or not. How does it contain the personality of the brand? How does it not feel like a challenge? How does he or she provide visual relief? How does he or she make it not appear daunting? How does it catch the eye? And, finally, make it irresistible to read?
Which brings me, oddly, back to Lemon. It's primarily a copy ad, but the artistic decisions told the story. And that brings me to my final point.
"The input art directors bring to long copy is invaluable."
I really don't care much about long copy or short copy. There have been ads I have been involved in that have had no words at all and they fill me with as much joy as have my long copy ones. Why? Because our jobs aren't even about copy or art, in the first place.
Our craft is our toolbox. Precious and intrinsic to what we do, perhaps, but, in my opinion, always in service of the idea.
How long is your copy?


I have attended this meeting many times and have always found the meeting to be informative and professional. The speakers are particularly interesting because they always focus on topics that are practical in the day to day diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders in the clinical setting. It is this focus on tips and techniques that can be implemented immediately after the meeting that makes NEPS 2017 different from other programs.
In the past, I have always been struck by the evidence based nature of the presentations and the commitment of the educational board to stay noncommercial while at the same time providing a forum for discourse on new technologies.
This year there are a couple great looking presentations on home sleep testing, Dr. David Weed will be presenting "The Pros and Cons of Home Sleep Testing" and Dr. Elizabeth Lynch will be presenting "HSAT: different types, setup and reimbursement (home sleep tests). Home sleep testing has clearly taken hold in the clinical sleep community. I am looking forward to the discussion of how to integrate HSAT in a working sleep diagnostic facility. The balance of using the right tool on the right patient and appropriately managing escalation of acuity is something we all deal with every day.
Pediatric sleep is receiving a great deal of attention these days as studies on the behavioral and academic impact of sleep disorders for children receive more attention in the media. It is great to see that Dr. Carolyn D'Ambrosio will be focusing discussion around the topic "Pediatric Sleep Disordered Breathing-It's More than OSA".
Dr. Craig Canapari will be presenting "The Sleepy Teen". I expect tremendous interest in this presentation in part due to the recent legislative changes in some jurisdictions that are adapting school start times to accommodate the natural sleep patterns of teenagers.
I expect the combination of pediatric sleep and home sleep testing will generate significant buzz at the meeting.
In the exhibit area, where I will be spending most of my time (as usual), you will see a few very interesting products presented by local Vyaire sleep team members including Wendy Krout, Senior Clinical Sales Specialist and Kevin LeKites, Pulmonary & Sleep Diagnostics Sales Rep and myself.


text:
Q: Repeating Record Sequence using SQL This could easily be done using code, but I wondered if it could be done at the database level using SQL Server (2008).
I have a table similar to below:
CROP_ID   YEAR_   PRODUCTION
1         1       0
1         2       300
1         3       500
2         1       100
2         2       700

I want to be able to run a query to repeat this for n number of years, per crop type e.g.
CROP_ID  YEAR_  PRODUCTION
1        1      0
1        2      300
1        3      500
1        4      0
1        5      300
1        6      500
etc.

I'm not sure of the best approach, I presume I would need a SP and pass in a year variable, and use a loop construct? However the exact syntax escapes me. Any help appreciated.
Update
Sorry for not providing all the information in my original post. The table will allow for multiple crop types, and for Produciton values to be updated so Case statements with fixed variables are not really suitable. Apologies for not being clearer.
Update
With the TVF answer I used the following modified SQL to select by CropType for 20 years.
select top 20 b.CROP_ID,
YEAR_ = n.num * (select count() from MyBaseTable where CROP_ID = 3) + b.YEAR,
b.PRODUCTION from MyBaseTable b, dbo.fnMakeNRows(20) n
where CROP_ID = 3

A: You can do this in standard SQL without creating a stored procedure or using temp tables. The example below will do this for 12 years. You can extend it out to any number of years:
insert into CropYield
(CropID, Year_, Production)
Select 1, a.a + (10 * b.a),
    case (a.a + (10 * b.a)) % 3
        when 0 then 500
        when 1 then 0
        when 2 then 300
    end
from (Select 0 as a union select 1 union select 2 union select 3 union select 4 union select 5 union select 6 union select 7 union select 8 union select 9) as a
cross join (Select 0 as a union select 1 union select 2 union select 3 union select 4 union select 5 union select 6 union select 7 union select 8 union select 9) as b
where a.a + (10 * b.a) between 1 and 12

A: A common trick to produce this kind of data without the need of a stored procedure is with the use of a table of constants.  Because such a table can be of generic use, it can be created with say all the integers between 1 and 100 or even 1 and 1,000 depending on usage.
For exmaple
CREATE TABLE tblConstNums
( I INT )
INSERT INTO tblConstNums VALUES (1)
INSERT INTO tblConstNums VALUES (2)
INSERT INTO tblConstNums VALUES (3)
INSERT INTO tblConstNums VALUES (4)
INSERT INTO tblConstNums VALUES (5)
-- ...
INSERT INTO tblConstNums VALUES (1000)

The the solution can be written declaratively (without requiring Stored Procedure or more generally procedural statements:
SELECT CROP_ID,  YEAR_ * I,   PRODUCTION
FROM myCropTable T
JOIN tblConstNums C on 1=1
WHERE I in (1, 2, 3)
order by CROP_ID,  YEAR_ * I,   PRODUCTION

Note that the table of constants may include several columns for commonly used cases.  For example, and even though many of these can be expressed as mathematical expressions of numbers in a basic 0 to n sequence, one can have a column with only even number, another one with odd numbers, another one with multiples of 5 etc.   Also if it small enough, no indexes are needed on a table of constants but these may become useful on a bigger on.

A: use this one:
WITH tn (n) as
(
    SELECT 0
  UNION ALL
    SELECT n+1
    FROM tn
  WHERE tn.n < 10
)
SELECT DISTINCT t.CROP_ID, t.YEAR_ + (3*tn.n), t.PRODUCTION
FROM table t, tn

/*
    WHERE tn.n < 10 ==> you will get 1 -> (10*3) + 3 = 33

*/

A: You could use a table-valued-function instead of a stored proc, which gives a little more flexibility for what you do with the result (as it can be selected from directly, inserted into another table, joined to other tables, etc).
You could also make this more generic by having a TVF generate N rows (with a number from 0 to N-1 on each row) and then use some simple expressions to generate the columns you need from this. I have found such a TVF to be useful in a variety of situations.
If you need to generate more complicated data than you can with 0..N-1 and simple expressions, then you should create a TVF dedicated to your specific needs.
The following example shows how a generic TVF could be used to generate the data you ask for:
create function fnMakeNRows (@num as integer)
returns @result table (num integer not null) as
begin
 if @num is null or @num = 0
 begin
  return
 end
 declare @n as integer
 set @n = 0
 while @n < @num
 begin
  insert into @result values (@n)
  set @n = @n + 1
 end
 return
end
go

select
 CROP_ID = 1,
 YEAR_ = num,
 PRODUCTION = case num % 3 when 0 then 0 when 1 then 300 else 500 end
from dbo.fnMakeNRows(100000)

You can also use this to duplicate rows in an existing table (which I think is more like what you want). For example, assuming base_table contains the three rows at the beginning of your question, you can turn the 3 rows into 60 rows using the following:
select
 b.CROP_ID,
 YEAR_ = n.num * (select count(*) from base_table) + b.YEAR_,
 b.PRODUCTION
from base_table b, dbo.fnMakeNRows(20) n

This (hopefully) shows the utility of a generic fnMakeNRows function.


Harmonica Book & Kit | Mud Puddle inc.
Express yourself musically with David Harps revolutionary technique for learning to play the blues, folk and rock harmonica. Its time to pick up that harmonica and start playing! Kit includes an instructional book, CD with instructions and music, and a specially made harmonica.


Mediterranean Revival style residence on 40' wide lot. This very narrow lot and restrictive floor area ratio gave few options yet this charming little house has more features than many of the larger neighboring properties.
Craftsmans style 2nd story addition plus a full basement excavated below existing house. This Pacific Grove home owner chose to add a wine cellar basement which was, happily, in addition to the normal floor area ratio.
On the left a complete remodel / renovation in Pacific Grove.
On the right a 2nd story addition with dormer to historic buildings in Pacific Grove.
This project captured a great ocean view with the Family Room addition over a new 2 car garage & workshop.
If you love your location, then build your dream house around your existing assets. This 2nd story addition included a complete remodel of the existing main floor.
Vaulted ceilings with just the right amont of daylighting to the core of the living space via flared skylights.


Testing Archives - Jen Info Solutions Pvt. LTD.
We will take care of Proper verification and validation of your JDE is always advised following an upgrade or new implementation. We offer holistic testing solutions for the JDE suite of products, which include application testing and performance testing.


17-Ene-2019 | 9:06AM Commented on "My Norton" shows "Not protected" ?
17-Ene-2019 | 6:58AM Created a new Forum Thread: "My Norton" shows "Not protected" ?
My scan history shows a full scan on 12 Jul, 11 Aug, 9 Oct. A bit strange as I have it set to scan every 30 days. I think I will try the remove and reinstall. Will let you know what happens.


PORTUGUESE, a language spoken by fewer than 20 per cent of East Timorese, is to be the official language of the new country.
Tetum, indigenous to the Dili region, will be the parallel national language.
The National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) yesterday confirmed Portuguese would be used in government, commerce, bureaucracy and education ahead of Bhasa Indonesian or English.
Portuguese is a controversial choice because it is spoken only by older Timorese and the educated elite. Most people under 25 have grown up reading, writing and speaking Bhasa and don't understand the old colonial language.
Student activists had suggested English as a politically neutral choice with economic benefits.
But CNRT deputy president Jose Ramos Horta defended the decision. "Portuguese is a language that has been here for 500 years," he said. "Indonesia tried to wipe it out, but it is still here, spoken by a small number of people who are the opinion-makers; teachers, business people, political leaders, the church."
"What we are saying, however, to any Timorese who is a proud Timorese, if he doesn't speak Portuguese he must at least speak Tetum, the national language."
Mr Ramos Horta said people would also be encouraged to study English at an elementary level.
"English is a commodity rather than a cultural language for the East Timorese."
Tetum was never challenged as the national language because it was the most common, best developed of the 30 languages spoken in East Timor, a spokesman for leader Xanana Gusmao said.
"But it is also under developed and a lot of work needs to be done to define its written form," he said.


text:
Amyotrofisk lateralskleros (ALS) är en neurodegenerativ sklerotisk  nervsjukdom som leder till att de nervceller som styr kroppens muskler gradvis förtvinar. Den är den vanligaste sjukdomen i gruppen motorneuronsjukdomar. Sjukdomen orsakar tilltagande kraftnedsättning följt av borttynande muskler och slutligen generell förlamning. Den direkta dödsorsaken är ofta förlorad andningsförmåga.

Historia och namn

Sjukdomen har beskrivits så tidigt som 1830 av den engelske läkaren och anatomen Charles Bell. Den franske neurologen Francois Aran beskrev ytterligare fall år 1850 och gav sjukdomen beteckningen "progressiv muskelatrofi". Den franske neurologen Jean-Martin Charcot beskrev sjukdomen mer detaljerat under 1800-talets andra hälft. Charcot definierade sjukdomen år 1869 som en förlamningssjukdom. Charcot var den som gav sjukdomen namnet sclérose latérale amyotrophique (amyotrofisk lateralskleros). Det första kända fallet av ALS i Norden var Johannes Mörtsell i slutet av 1800-talet. I Nordamerika är sjukdomen även känd som Lou Gehrig's disease efter basebollspelaren Lou Gehrig, som 1939 drabbades av ALS.

Sjukdomens namn, a-myo-trofisk lateral-skleros, är bildat från nylatinets med vad som ursprungligen är grekiska ord. Prefixet a- betyder "negativ" och anger att något saknas; termen myo betyder "muskel" och trofi betyder "näring" det vill säga impulser från nervsystemet. Lateral- betyder "sido-" och skleros betyder "förhårdnad"; de båda används för att det är de yttre delarna av ryggmärgen eller hjärnstammen som förhårdnar.

Symtom
Oftast börjar sjukdomen med svaghet i en arm eller ett ben för att sedan under loppet av några månader sprida sig till hela kroppen. I cirka 25 procent av fallen kommer istället de första symtomen från mun och svalg med påverkan på tal- och sväljförmåga. Ofta ser man dessutom muskelförlamningar, pareser, muskelkramper och muskelryckningar, spasmer. Några patienter utvecklar onormalt starka humörsvängningar och det finns också en något ökad risk för demens. Däremot påverkas känsel och andra sinnesfunktioner normalt inte.

Hälften av patienterna avlider inom 3 år och ytterligare 25 procent avlider inom 5 år efter de första symtomen. Med hjälp av en respirator kan man uppskjuta döden men detta fungerar bara så länge hjärtat är starkt nog att orka pumpa.  Många patienter väljer dock att avstå från respiratorstöd.

Diagnostik
Diagnosen ställs med hjälp av klinisk undersökning och EMG. I utredningen brukar också ingå blodprover, lumbalpunktion och magnetkameraundersökning av hjärna och/eller ryggmärg för att helt utesluta andra orsaker till symtomen.

Genomsnittsåldern vid ALS-diagnos är 55 år även om sjukdomen kan börja i alla åldrar. Internationellt har sjukdomen uppskattats drabba två till fyra personer på 100 000 invånare. I Sverige får drygt 220 personer diagnosen per år. Två av tre patienter är män.

Orsak

Symtomen beror på celldöd i motorneuron i kortex (hjärnbarken) och ryggmärg. Förändringarna i de yttre (laterala) delarna av ryggmärg eller hjärnstam innebär en vid obduktion synlig vävnadsförhårdning (skleros), vilken har givit upphov till sjukdomens namn.

Orsaken till ALS är okänd. Både arv och miljö verkar påverka insjuknandet i ungefär lika stor utsträckning.

Genetik
I omkring 10 procent av fallen finns det en ärftlig komponent, så kallad "familjär amyotrofisk lateralskleros". Dessa fall brukar ofta insjukna tidigare och ha ett långsammare förlopp. Resterande 90 procent är "sporadiska", det vill säga de uppstår spontant.

Miljö
Det finns ingen entydig förklaring till sjukdomens uppkomst. En förklaring är ett felaktigt upptag av signalsubstansen glutaminsyra (glutamat) av celler i centrala nervsystemet. Effekten blir förhöjda nivåer av glutamat, vilket innebär en utdragen retning av och skador på motorneuronen. En annan förklaring är att det finns en ökad produktion av och/eller minskat skydd mot reaktiva ämnen, populärt kallade fria radikaler. Dessa ämnen kan skada motorneuron. Ytterligare en förklaring är att proteiner i det centrala nervsystemet har högre benägenhet att felaktigt klumpa ihop sig till aggregat. Dessa aggregat kan bland annat reta immunförsvaret att reagera mot nervvävnaden, vilket kan innebära att motorneuron kan skadas.

Andra förklaringar har också diskuterats såsom tungmetaller, virus (HERV-K mfl.) och exponering för mögel . 2002 till 2004 lade den kända neurologen och författaren Oliver Sacks fram en uppmärksammad teori som går ut på att en variant av ALS på Guam är kopplad till en biomagnifikation (d.v.s. halterna stiger högre upp i näringskedjan) av växttoxinet BMAA. Det är dock oklart om detta toxin kan ha någon relevans för ALS utanför Guam, även om det påvisar att sjukdomen kan vara starkt miljöbetingad.

Flera vetenskapliga studier  har funnit statistiska samband mellan ALS och bekämpningsmedel i vissa jordbruksprodukter. Av de olika teorierna att tyda är det mycket sannolikt att sjukdomen inte har en enskild orsak utan att många olika miljöfaktorer kan trigga igång sjukdomen.

Behandling

Det finns inget botemedel. Läkemedelet riluzol kan hos vissa patienter förlänga den genomsnittliga livslängden något tror man. Behandling riktas in på att lindra symtomen. Sväljningssvårigheter kan behandlas genom att man lägger in PEG så att mat kan ges direkt in i magsäcken. Andningssvårigheter kan lindras med hemventilator med andningsmask. Fysioterapi, arbetsterapi, hjälpmedelsanpassning, smärtlindring och psykologiskt stöd för patient och anhöriga är andra viktiga uppgifter för ALS-team.

Några kända personer som fått ALS

 Jason Becker, gitarrist
 Maria Eggers, svensk skådespelare
 Maj Fant, författare
 Lou Gehrig, amerikansk basebollspelare
 Stephen Hawking, fysiker (en av dem som levde längst med sjukdomen)
 Stephen Hillenburg, amerikansk animatör, skapare av Svampbob Fyrkant
 Björn Natthiko Lindeblad, svensk civilekonom, föreläsare och före detta buddhistmunk
 Ulla-Carin Lindquist, nyhetsankare
 Johannes Mörtsell, svensk präst och riksdagsman
 Mike Porcaro, amerikansk musiker (basist)
 Börje Salming, svensk ishockeyspelare
 Håkan Sundin, bandyspelare, förbundskapten
 Mao Zedong, kinesisk statsman
 Bertil Gardell, svensk professor i psykologi

Referenser

Vidare läsning

Om ALS av ALS-drabbade
 Fant, Maj. 1994. Klockan saknar visare. Natur & Kultur. .
 Jansson, Tina. 2010. Sveriges Radio, P1 Sommar, 2010-07-21. Lyssnarnas sommarvärd 2010.
 Jansson, Tina. 2011. Om det bara var jag. Verbum Förlag. .
 Lindquist, Ulla-Carin. 2013. Ro utan åror. En bok om livet och döden. Nordstedts. .
 Magnusson, Anders.  2021. Resa mot det oundvikliga. En personlig berättelse om ALS. Whip Media. .
 Möllberg, Mia (Marie). 2020. Född till en fighter. Vulkan. .
 Möllberg, Mia (Marie). 2018. Jag är inte sjuk i ALS utan lever med ALS. Vulkan. .
 Lindeblad, Björn, 2012. Sveriges Radio, P1 Sommar, 2012-06-18. Lyssnarnas sommarvärd 2012.
 Natthiko Lindeblad, Björn, 2020. Sveriges Radio, P1 Sommar, 2020-06-26.
 Natthiko Lindeblad, Björn, Bankler, Caroline & Modiri, Navid. 2020. Jag kan ha fel och andra visdomar från mitt liv som buddhistmunk. Bonnier Fakta. .
 Schultz, Markus. 2019. Det bästa med ALS är viljan att leva. Vulkan. .

Om ALS av andra
 Dahlbäck, Carl. 2014. Ett långsamt farväl : om C och kärleken i skuggan av ALS. Libris Förlag. .
 Dahlbäck, Carl. 2012. 40 betraktelser om C. PaperTalk. .
 Döhl, Inger. 2021. Arne och jag - på vinglig färd genom vårdkarusellen.
 Gustafsson, Annica & Vrevic, Zerija. 2021. ALS ur ett närståendeperspektiv. Litteraturstudie baserad på självbiografier. C-uppsats, Institutionen för hälsooch vårdvetenskap, Linnéuniversitetet.
 Hernqvist, Annika & Hoppe, Sofia. 2013. Att leva med ALS. Konsten att fånga dagen. Kanditatuppsats, Institutionen för vårdvetenskap, 2013:68, Högskolan i Borås.]
 Holm, Anna. 2007. Att leva solvänd : en bok om Vibeke och ALS. Books on demand. .
 Kjellqvist, Ann. 2020. Där vitsipporna blommar. Visto Förlag. .
 Klint, Elisbeth O. 2020. Innan man vet. Ekström Garay. .
 Malmsten, Petra. 2019. Dialog med en ängel. .
 Wallesjö, Christel. 2017. Blommiga tapeter. Books on demand. ,

Externa länkar
 Amyotrofisk lateralskleros på Socialstyrelsens webbplats

Neurodegenerativa sjukdomar
Muskelsjukdomar
Skleros

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Egypt automotive
Egypt's GB Auto posts smaller loss for fiscal year 2017
March 5th 2018 | Egypt | Passenger vehicles | GB Auto
On March 4th GB Auto SAE said that its net loss for fiscal year 2017 had narrowed to E£666.9m (US$39.7m) from E£865.7m a year earlier. The company cited a restructuring initiative coupled with the discontinuation of some loss-making passenger car models for the improved performance.
GB Auto's full-year revenue rose by 16% to E£17.6bn, helped by a strong performance at the after-sales divisions and tires unit. These divisions reported a rise in revenue of 25% and 51%, respectively. However, challenging market conditions, such as currency fluctuations in Egypt, in the first half of the year drove down revenue at the passenger-car unit by 15%. Passenger car sales fell by 40% to over 31,000 units in the year.
Meanwhile, GB Auto's regional operations performed well, reporting a three-fold increase in revenue to E£2.9bn, helped by strong demand in Iraq. GB Auto, which distributes Hyundai Motor Co's vehicles in Iraq, reported a 33% rise in unit sales in the country.
The automaker assembles cars made by Hyundai Motor in Egypt and distributes a number of international brands, including Japan's Mazda Motor Corp and China's Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. It is the largest passenger-car importer, assembler and distributor in Egypt.
GB Auto said that it expected to increase its market share in the passenger-car segment in Egypt to 30% this year. The automaker plans to further reduce costs this year to boost margins. However, it warned that growth in the first quarter of 2018 could be affected by supply constraints, without disclosing further details.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Maurizio Cattelan Responds to Copyright Infringement Lawsuit, Saying He Created Viral Banana Sculpture 'Without Knowledge' of Other Artist's Work
Le Puzz Taps Into Playful Nostalgia with Its Retro-Style Jigsaws
Heirs of Willem De Kooning to Auction Three Works Expected to Fetch $50 M.
Three paintings from the collection of Willem de Kooning's heirs will debut at auction this fall. The works are expected to fetch a collective $50 million at Sotheby's.
The three large-scale works, each of which the abstract expressionist painter produced between the 1960s and the 1980s, will be offered during a contemporary art evening sale this November at the auction house's New York headquarters.
Montauk II (1969), a blue, green and white-hued painting, one of five known paintings from the eponymous series created the same yea,r will be offered during the sale. It carries an estimate of $10 million to $15 million.
In a statement, the artist's grandchildren described being familiar with the work throughout their lives. "It was a window," members of the the de Kooning family said. "We had the sea in the studio."
Another untitled canvas produced in 1979 that features deKooning's gestural style of painting is estimated at $30 million to $40 million. For the third work, The Hat Upstairs (1987), which features red and orange brush strokes against a white-ground, the New York sale will mark the first time it will be seen in a public venue. It is expected to fetch a price of $8 million to $12 million.
Lisa Dennison, Sotheby's Americas chairman, described the three works as showcasing an "evolution" in de Kooning's practice over the course of three decades. The artist completed each of the three paintings in his East Hampton studio at a home he designed and resided in from the 1960s up until his death in 1997.
This entry was posted in Art and tagged 1960s, abstract, art, art news, art review, artist, artnews, Auction, bqxpd, bqxpd art, bqxpd art news, bqxpd art roundup, contemporary art, death, family, Features, home, new york, News, painter, Painting, paintings, sea, Sotheby's, style, time, untitled, Willem de Kooning by blurg. Bookmark the permalink.
The 9th Annual Supersonic Invitational
A Model Morphs into a Rotund Tomato, Peeled Banana, and a Hoagie in a Bizarre Photographic Series
Ritualistic 'Moon Drawings' by Yuge Zhou Etch Patterns in Snow and Sand


During these years, Les Moore was blossoming as a character as well and had usurped Funky on the stage as the school's leader of the out crowd. His great desire to be just like his peers at Westview High was constantly being thwarted by his even greater inability to pull it off. His struggles reached something of an early apex with the June 27, 1975, cartoon on page 90, where Les is seen with a bicycle alone at a drive-in movie. Just for the record, this cartoon was and still is a personal favorite, probably because rather than relying simply on clever wordplay, I was beginning to figure out how to write a different form of humor that came from within my characters and that could walk hand in hand with humor's opposite. That's always been the kind of humor I have tended toward. Once, on a questionnaire for a physical where I had to select my usual state of mind from choices like always happy, mostly happy, never happy, etc., and not finding anything that quite nailed down my true state of mind, I added a box of my own and wrote "bemused melancholy." It's always seemed to me that the best humor walks that line down the carnival midway between cotton candy and Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy. No doubt that's why those two theater masks are always joined.


text:
Wind Gap Ambulance disbands
WIND GAP (AP) — Wind Gap Ambulance fired its eight daytime paid employees and put its building up for sale because of financial difficulties, the president of the ambulance service told the borough council.
Wind Gap Ambulance covers Wind Gap and Pen Argyl in Northampton County, and Ross and Hamilton townships in Monroe County.
Thomas Knitter, president of Wind Gap Ambulance, said the situation "has not happened overnight," but over several years. Five or six years ago, about 30 active volunteers could be counted on during an emergency, he said.
"But over the years, volunteerism has fallen by the wayside," he said.
Speaking to the council Tuesday night, Knitter asked them to provide space to house the ambulances, change the building's zoning to make it easier to sell, and allow the ambulance service to get regular funding by becoming affiliated with the borough fire department.
"We came to the point where you have to face reality. This is the situation, and we have to go from here," he said.
Knitter also said other paid companies that have come into the area have cut into the number of calls Wind Gap receives.
Knitter said the paid crew was let go more than two weeks ago. At this point, about 15 active volunteers remain.


This 2012 edition includes Micro-organisms and covers the eight most popular Level 1 Science Standards S1.1, S1.5, S1.9, S1.11, B1.1, B1.3, C1.1 and P1.1 implemented in 2011. It features theory, illustrations, examples and activities for student practice. Answers are given in the back of the book. Use throughout the year to support classroom work, to help with internal assessments to revise for end-of-year exams.


WMS servers are quite old-fashioned in many respects. The WMS specification was created in 2000, and the basics haven't changed much – WMS essentially specifies what was then mostly a HTTP CGI request. The client says "give me this map, in this projection, for this extent, in this resolution", and the server hands over a raster image. This is how web mapping was done before the age of tiles, or even vector data. Nonetheless, WMS is a key component in many professional GIS workflows to this day.
In fact, a long time ago when OpenStreetMap started, it did offer a WMS itself, but that was soon replaced by a tile-based map which is better suited for high-exposure situations.
At Geofabrik, we're doing both – we have tile servers for public-facing, high-volume services, and we offer WMS for those who have different needs. We have been running our OpenStreetMap WMS for a while now (we're selling the service starting at €35/month, see product web page). We have developed the Mapnik-based WMS server ourselves and it's open source.
Every single image served by our WMS is rendered from fresh OSM data when you make the request. This means that the data you see is no older than a few minutes (apart from the simplified major roads and landuse areas used on large map scales). It also means that we will never do bitmap reprojection of pre-rendered data because the images is produced using the requested projection.
If you are using other projections than the standard "Google Mercator" projection – say, UTM or Gauss-Krüger projections – then you will probably be familiar with maps where the labels are anything but straight. This happens when the WMS serves your image as a raster reprojection rather than a fresh vector rendering. It is faster but compromises image quality. We don't do that.
We had offered a high-resolution "print" WMS for a while, but now we're supporting user-set DPI so you can request a map in any resolution. Some desktop GIS systems, like Quantum GIS, will automatically re-request an image in a higher resolution if you make a printout, leading to excellent results.
Different resolutions served from the Geofabrik WMS.
Because we render each image on demand, we can also switch individual layers from the OSM style on and off. This is something that we had to configure specifically for clients until now, but the new WMS uses the standard WMS layer selection methods to expose a couple of layers (like world boundaries, place names, the road network, landcover, buildings, POIs and so on). Your GIS client will let you decide which layers to request.
This feature is particularly useful for displaying a non-cluttered base map (e.g. without buildings and POIs). You can even use it to generate a transparent map of roads and place names for overlaying on aerial imagery.
WMS-Server sind eine ziemlich altmodische Sache. Die WMS-Spezifikation wurde im Jahr 2000 erstellt, und viel hat sich seitdem nicht verändert: Der Client sagt "gib mir diese Karte, in dieser Projektion, für diesen Bereich, in dieser Auflösung", und der Server schickt ein Rasterbild zurück. So lief das mit Karten im Web, bevor es Tiles oder sogar Vektorkarten gab. Nichtsdestotrotz sind WMS-Dienste auch heute noch ein wichtiger Bestandteil professioneller Arbeit im GIS-Umfeld.
In den Anfangstagen von OpenStreetMap gab es sogar für einige Zeit einen "offiziellen" Projekt-WMS, der allerdings bald durch die heutige Tile-basierte Karte ersetzt wurde, die für vielbesuchte Webseiten besser geeignet ist.
Bei der Geofabrik haben wir beides – Tileserver für öffentliche, vielbesuchte Seiten, und WMS für Nutzer mit speziellen Anforderungen. Unseren OpenStreetMap-WMS gibt es schon einige Jahre (wir bieten ihn ab €35/Monat ab, Details siehe Produktseite). Der Mapnik-basierte WMS ist eine Eigenentwicklung; der Quelltext ist Open Source.
Jedes einzelne Bild, das unser WMS herausgibt, wird aus aktuellen OSM-Daten in dem Augenblick berechnet, in dem die Anfrage hereinkommt. Das heisst, dass die Daten nie älter als ein paar Minuten sind (ausgenommen die vereinfachten Straßen und Landnutzungsflächen, die wir auf den großen Maßstäben einsetzen). Es heisst aber auch, dass wir keine Bitmap-Umprojektion vornehmen müssen, weil wir die Bilder gleich in der angeforderten Projektion ausrechnen.
Wenn Sie eine andere Projektion als die Standard-"Google Mercator" einsetzen, zum Beispiel UTM oder Gauß-Krüger, dann kennen Sie sicherlich die typischen Kartenbilder, auf denen die Beschriftungen alles mögliche sind, nur nicht waagerecht. Das passiert, wenn der WMS das Bild als Reprojektion aus vorberechneten Rasterdaten herstellt, anstatt es neu aus Vektordaten zu berechnen – es geht schneller, ist aber zum Schaden der Bildqualität. Wir tun das nicht.
Einen hochauflösenden Druck-WMS hatten wir schon eine Weile im Angebot, aber der neue WMS unterstützt jetzt direkt benutzerdefinierte DPI, so dass die Karte in beliebiger Auflösung abgerufen werden kann. Einige Desktop-GIS-Programme, wie zum Beispiel Quantum GIS, fragen das Kartenbild für den Druck automatisch erneut in hoher Auflösung ab und bieten so ausgezeichnete Druckqualität.
Unterschiedliche Auflösungen vom Geofabrik WMS.
Weil wir jedes Bild auf Anfrage ausrechnen, können wir auch einzelne Layer ein- und ausschalten. Bisher mussten wir das für Kunden mit Sonderanforderungen einzeln konfigurieren, aber der neue WMS benutzt dafür einfach die Standard-Layerauswahl, die im WMS-Protokoll vorgesehen ist. So lassen sich Layer wie zum Beispiel Grenzen, Ortsnamen, Straßennetz, Landnutzung, Gebäude, POIs und so weiter getrennt an- oder abwählen. Die GIS-Software zeigt i.d.R. bei der Einbindung des WMS eine Layerauswahl an.
Diese Funktion ist besonders nützlich, wenn man eine etwas aufgeräumtere Basiskarte (zum Beispiel ohne POIs) anzeigen möchte. Man kann sie sogar nutzen, um ein transparentes Straßen- und Ortsnamen-Overlay über ein eigenes Luftbild zu legen.
For years, Geofabrik has been supplying the world with OpenStreetMap Shapefiles – two kinds of them, in fact; there's our popular download page which has free shapefile downloads for many places, updated daily, and there's our extended shapefile service where we sell shapefiles that require more work, and processing time, than the free nightly builds.
Whereas the free nightly builds are very close to the source, simply taking OSM objects and converting them into shapefiles, the extended service, which is based on a different toolchain here at Geofabrik, has a well-documented feature catalogue which we are today releasing in version 0.6 with a ton of enhancements over the previous version. The extended service also encompasses a few useful preprocessing steps, like automatically converting area POIs to points and proper handling of large multipolygons. The extended shapefiles are made to order; the standard feature catalogue contains almost anything in OSM that is widely used, but clients can also request extra features to be added. Extended shapefiles are available for any area – the whole planet, a single continent, a single country, a city, or anything in between.
In addition to releasing our new feature catalogue for our extended shapefiles, we've also made a change to the free nightly builds; these now have a much-asked-for "landuse" layer that contains information from OSM's tag of the same name.
Left, OpenStreetMap map of Port-au-Prince, 1st January, 2010. Right, same map, 17th January.
Read more about the work and results of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team for Haiti.
Tell us if there is something else we can do.
European OSM power users are already well aware of the various error checking and data analysis tools we have bundled into our OSM Inspector web application – among others, a geometry view that shows self-intersecting ways, very long ways, or very long distances between nodes in a way, and a tagging view that highlights all sorts of strange, or potentially misspelled, tags as well as anything tagged FIXME.
There's now an additional places view showing a hierarchy of settlements and their population values.
All OSM Inspector layers have true vector data (for example, if there is a problem on a way, they will draw the whole way and pinpoint the problem). They can generate lists in addition to the map display. Direct links to JOSM and Potlatch are provided, and anyone can extract data from the WMS or WFS service to display or process in their own applications.
We have also improved the speed and usability of some of the layers, provided enhanced documentation on the OSM Inspector wiki page, (including sections detailing how you can use the OSMI layers to fix problems), and fixed some bugs.
On request of the Netherlands community, we have added a special layer for the Netherlands only that shows where work has been done since the AND import, and where things have not been touched since then.


"Creating a fluid flow from contract to close."
Dede Dooley has 17 years experience working with buyers, sellers, and investors in the St. Louis area.
All of this experience started with a private grade school and high school education at Ursuline Academy, finishing with a bachelor's degree in psychology & a minor in art at the University of Missouri St. Louis.
Dede is from a long standing St. Louis based family starting in the established Central West End, then expanding to the central corridor but keeping its city roots with an established downtown landmark business. Dede now resides in the lovely and walkable Webster Groves.
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Movie: Valley Girl...like totally dude!
Holiday: St. Patrick's Day. Starting in the St. Patrick's Day race and ending in Dogtown!