text:
Jianping Zhou, Fremont US
Jianping Zhou, Fremont, CA US
Patent application number
20100110107 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING IMAGE ORIENTATION - A method and apparatus for automatically deciding on the orientation of image. The method includes computing average and standard deviation of luminance of the top region of a portion of the image, of the bottom region of a portion of the image, of the left region of a portion of the image, and of the right region of a portion of the image, computing average luminance of the image, computing, in the digital signal processor, consolidated luminance difference and uniformity of top and bottom regions, and left and right regions, utilizing the computed average and standard deviation of at least one of the bottom region, the left region or the right region andutilizing portrait orientation if difLR−difTB>t 05-06-2010
20100110226 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING TYPE OF BACK LIGHT OF AN IMAGE - A method and apparatus for determining the type of back light of an image. The method includes computing an average luminance of the center region of at least a portion of the image, wherein the average luminance is aveCenter, computing the average luminance of the image, wherein the average luminance is aveImage, computing the ratio of the average image luminance to the average center luminance, wherein the ratio=aveImage/aveCenter, determining that the scene related to the image is a backlit scene if the ratio is greater than a predetermined value and performing exposure compensation for the backlit scene and determining that the scene related to the image is a backlit scene if the ratio is greater than a predetermined value and performing exposure compensation for the backlit scene by utilizing the equation Exp2=Exp1 * lum_ref/(t 05-06-2010
20110242129 SYSTEM, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AN EDGE-PRESERVING SMOOTH FILTER FOR LOW POWER ARCHITECTURE - Embodiments of an apparatus, system and method are described for an edge-preserving smooth filter for low power architecture. A weighted pixel sum may be determined based on a weight of a central pixel and a weight of one or more neighboring pixels. The weight sum for the central pixel may be set to a power of two. An output of the central pixel may be displayed based on the weight sum and the weighted pixel sum. Other embodiments are described and claimed. 10-06-2011
20110243440 ADAPTIVE LIGHT METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR LOW POWER ARCHITECTURES - Embodiments of an apparatus, system and method are described for an adaptive light method for low power architecture. A histogram with a plurality of bins may be determined based on luminance for an image. A tone differential may be decreased based on a sum of pixel counts from adjacent bins. The image may be displayed based at least in part on a tone differential of a bin. Other embodiments are described and claimed. 10-06-2011
20110316971 SINGLE PIPELINE STEREO IMAGE CAPTURE - In some embodiments, an electronic device comprises a first camera module and a second camera module, a first receiver to receive a first set of lines of raw image data from the first camera module, a second receiver to receive a second set of lines of raw image data from the second camera module, and logic to combine the first set of lines and the second set of lines to generate combined lines of raw image data, process the combined lines of raw image data, and generate a combined image frame from the combined lines of raw image data. Other embodiments may be described. 12-29-2011
20110317034 IMAGE SIGNAL PROCESSOR MULTIPLEXING - In some embodiments, an electronic device comprises a first camera and a second camera, a first buffer to receive a first set of input frames from the first camera and a second buffer to receive a second set of input frames from the second camera, a single image signal processor coupled to the first buffer and the second buffer to process the first set of input frames from the first frame buffer using one or more processing parameters stored in a first memory to generate a first video stream and to process the second set of input frames from the second frame buffer using one or more processing parameters stored in a second memory register to generate a second video stream, and a memory module to store the first video stream and the second video stream. 12-29-2011
20120076403 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ALL-IN-FOCUS IMAGING FROM MULTIPLE IMAGES ACQUIRED WITH HAND-HELD CAMERA - Methods and systems to create an image in which objects at different focal depths all appear to be in focus. In an embodiment, all objects in the scene may appear in focus. Non-stationary cameras may be accommodated, so that variations in the scene resulting from camera jitter or other camera motion may be tolerated. An image alignment process may be used, and the aligned images may be blended using a process that may be implemented using logic that has relatively limited performance capability. The blending process may take a set of aligned input images and convert each image into a simplified Laplacian pyramid (LP). The LP is a data structure that includes several processed versions of the image, each version being of a different size. The set of aligned images is therefore converted into a corresponding set of LPs. The LPs may be combined into a composite LP, which may then undergo Laplacian pyramid reconstruction (LPR). The output of the LPR process is the final blended image. 03-29-2012
20120076407 BRIGHTNESS ENHANCEMENT METHOD, SYSTEM AND APPARATUS FOR LOW POWER ARCHITECTURES - Embodiments are described for a brightness enhancement method, system and apparatus for low power architecture. A histogram of a contrast image may be generated. One or more parameters may be set based on the histogram. A tone mapping for the contrast image may be determined based on the one or more parameters. An output pixel may be determined based on the tone mapping. 03-29-2012
20120082387 OPTIMIZED FAST HESSIAN MATRIX COMPUTATION ARCHITECTURE - Methods and systems of recognizing images may include an apparatus having a hardware module with logic to, for a plurality of vectors in an image, determine a first intermediate computation based on even pixels of an image vector, and determine a second intermediate computation based on odd pixels of an image vector. The logic can also combine the first and second intermediate computations into a Hessian matrix computation. 04-05-2012
20120293608 Positional Sensor-Assisted Perspective Correction for Panoramic Photography - This disclosure pertains to devices, methods, and computer readable media for performing positional sensor-assisted panoramic photography techniques in handheld personal electronic devices. Generalized steps that may be used to carry out the panoramic photography techniques described herein include, but are not necessarily limited to: 1.) acquiring image data from the electronic device's image sensor; 2.) performing "motion filtering" on the acquired image data, e.g., using information returned from positional sensors of the electronic device to inform the processing of the image data; 3.) performing image registration between adjacent captured images; 4.) performing geometric corrections on captured image data, e.g., due to perspective changes and/or camera rotation about a non-center of perspective (COP) camera point; and 5.) "stitching" the captured images together to create the panoramic scene, e.g., blending the image data in the overlap area between adjacent captured images. The resultant stitched panoramic image may be cropped before final storage. 11-22-2012
20120293609 Positional Sensor-Assisted Motion Filtering for Panoramic Photography - This disclosure pertains to devices, methods, and computer readable media for perforating positional sensor-assisted panoramic photography techniques in handheld personal electronic devices. Generalized steps that may be used to carry out the panoramic photography techniques described herein include, but are not necessarily limited to: 1.) acquiring image data from the electronic device's image sensor; 2.) performing "motion filtering" on the acquired image data, e.g., using information returned from positional sensors of the electronic device to inform the processing of the image data; 3.) performing image registration between adjacent captured images; 4.) performing geometric corrections on captured image data, e.g., due to perspective changes and/or camera rotation about a non-center of perspective (COP) camera point; and 5.) "stitching" the captured images together to create the panoramic scene, e.g., blending the image data in the overlap area between adjacent captured images. The resultant stitched panoramic image may be cropped before final storage. 11-22-2012
20120306999 Motion-Based Image Stitching - Systems, methods, and computer readable media for stitching or aligning multiple images (or portions of images) to generate a panoramic image are described. In general, techniques are disclosed for using motion data (captured at substantially the same time as image data) to align images rather than performing image analysis and/or registration operations. More particularly, motion data may be used to identify the rotational change between successive images. The identified rotational change, in turn, may be used to generate a transform that, when applied to an image allows it to be aligned with a previously captured image. In this way, images may be aligned in real-time using only motion data. 12-06-2012
20130044228 Motion-Based Video Stabilization - Systems, methods, and computer readable media for stabilizing video frames based on information from a motion sensor are described. In general, digital video stabilization techniques are disclosed for generating and applying image-specific transformations to individual frames (images) in a video sequence after, rather than before, the image has been captured. The transformations may be used to counter-balance or compensate for unwanted jitter occurring during video capture due to, for example, a person's hand shaking. 02-21-2013
20130044230 ROLLING SHUTTER REDUCTION BASED ON MOTION SENSORS - This disclosure pertains to devices, methods, and computer readable media for reducing rolling shutter distortion effects in captured video frames based on timestamped positional information obtained from positional sensors in communication with an image capture device. In general, rolling shutter reduction techniques are described for generating and applying image segment-specific perspective transforms to already-captured segments of a single image or images in a video sequence, to compensate for unwanted distortions that occurred during the read out of the image sensor. Such distortions may be due to, for example, the use of CMOS sensors combined with the movement of the image capture device. In contrast to the prior art, rolling shutter reduction techniques described herein may be applied to captured images or videos in real-time or near real-time using positional sensor information and without intensive image processing that would require an analysis of the content of the underlying image data. 02-21-2013
20130044241 Rolling Shutter Reduction Based on Motion Sensors - This disclosure pertains to devices, methods, and computer readable media for reducing rolling shutter distortion effects in captured video frames based on timestamped positional information obtained from positional sensors in communication with an image capture device. In general, rolling shutter reduction techniques are described for generating and applying image segment-specific perspective transforms to already-captured segments (i.e., portions) of images in a video sequence, so as to counter or compensate for unwanted distortions that occurred during the read out of the image sensor. Such distortions may be due to, for example, the use of CMOS sensors combined with the rapid movement of the image capture device. In contrast to the prior art, rolling shutter reduction techniques described herein may be applied to captured images in real-time or near real-time using positional sensor information and without intensive image processing that would require an analysis of the content of the underlying image data. 02-21-2013
20130155264 MOTION SENSOR BASED VIRTUAL TRIPOD METHOD FOR VIDEO STABILIZATION - An apparatus, method, and computer-readable medium for motion sensor-based video stabilization. A motion sensor may capture motion data of a video sequence. A controller may compute average motion data of the camera used to capture the video sequence based on motion data from the motion sensor. The controller may then determine the difference between the actual camera motion and the average camera motion to set a video stabilization strength parameter for the frames in the video sequence. A video stabilization unit may utilize the strength parameter to stabilize the frames in the video sequence. 06-20-2013
20130155266 FOCUS POSITION ESTIMATION - A method, apparatus and computer-readable storage medium computer-implemented method for lens position estimation. A drive current value may be received from a lens driver. An orientation of an electronic device may be detected using a motion sensor. A gravity vector may be determined by a processor based upon the orientation. A drive current offset may be determined based upon the gravity vector. The drive current value may be combined with the calculated drive current offset to create a normalized drive current. A lens position value associated with a camera lens of the electronic device may be computed based upon the normalized drive current. 06-20-2013
20130235221 CHOOSING OPTIMAL CORRECTION IN VIDEO STABILIZATION - To correct for the motion a perspective transform of a pair of matrices can be applied to an input image to provide an output frame. The first matrix can represent a transform to be applied to the input frame and the second matrix can represent an identity matrix. Each matrix can contribute to the output frame according to a respective weighting factor. The weighting factors for the two matrices can be determined based on an estimate of the overscan. 09-12-2013
20130329062 STATIONARY CAMERA DETECTION AND VIRTUAL TRIPOD TRANSITION FOR VIDEO STABILIZATION - An apparatus, method, and computer-readable medium for motion sensor-based video stabilization. A motion sensor may capture motion data of a video sequence. A controller may compute instantaneous motion of the camera for a current frame of the video sequence and accumulated motion of the camera corresponding to motion of a plurality of frames of the video sequence. The controller may compare the instantaneous motion to a first threshold value, compare the accumulated motion to a second threshold value, and set a video stabilization strength parameter for the current frame based on the results of the comparison. A video stabilization unit may perform video stabilization on the current frame according to the frame's strength parameter. 12-12-2013
20130329063 NOISE REDUCTION BASED ON MOTION SENSORS - A method for reducing noise in a sequence of frames may include generating a transformed frame from an input frame according to a perspective transform of a transform matrix, wherein the transform matrix corrects for motion associated with input frame. A determination may be made to identify pixels in the transformed frame that have a difference with corresponding pixels in a neighboring frame below a threshold. An output frame may be generated by adjusting pixels in the transformed frame that are identified to have the difference with the corresponding pixels in the neighboring frame below the threshold. 12-12-2013
20130329066 HARDWARE-CONSTRAINED TRANSFORMS FOR VIDEO STABILIZATION PROCESSES - The video stabilization method can generate output data for an output frame from input data of an input frame according to a perspective transform of a transform matrix. The input data used for the perspective transform can be obtained from a buffer of a predetermined depth. The transform matrix can be altered when the input data required for the transform exceeds the depth of the buffer. 12-12-2013
20130329070 Projection-Based Image Registration - Systems, methods, and computer readable media to register images in real-time and that are capable of producing reliable registrations even when the number of high frequency image features is small. The disclosed techniques may also provide a quantitative measure of a registration's quality. The latter may be used to inform the user and/or to automatically determine when visual registration techniques may be less accurate than motion sensor-based approaches. When such a case is detected, an image capture device may be automatically switched from visual-based to sensor-based registration. Disclosed techniques quickly determine indicators of an image's overall composition (row and column projections) which may be used to determine the translation of a first image, relative to a second image. The translation so determined may be used to align/register the two images. 12-12-2013
20130329072 Motion-Based Image Stitching - Systems, methods, and computer readable media for stitching or aligning multiple images (or portions of images) to generate a panoramic image are described. In general, techniques are disclosed for using motion data (captured at substantially the same time as image data) to align images rather than performing image analysis and/or registration operations. More particularly, motion data may be used to identify the rotational change between successive images. The identified rotational change, in turn, may be used to calculate a motion vector that describes the change in position between a point in a first image and a corresponding point in a subsequent image. The motion vector may be utilized to align successive images in an image sequence based on the motion data associated with the images. 12-12-2013
20130329087 High Dynamic Range Image Registration Using Motion Sensor Data - Motion sensor data may be used to register a sequence of standard dynamic range images for producing a high dynamic range (HDR) image, reducing use of computational resources over software visual feature mapping techniques. A rotational motion sensor may produce information about orientation changes in the imaging device between images in the sequence of images sufficient to allow registration of the images, instead of using registration based on analysis of visual features of the images. If the imaging device has been moved laterally, then the motion sensor data may not be useful and visual feature mapping techniques may be employed to produce the HDR image. 12-12-2013
20130342714 AUTOMATED TRIPOD DETECTION AND HANDLING IN VIDEO STABILIZATION - An apparatus, method, and computer-readable medium for motion sensor-based video stabilization. A motion sensor may capture motion data of a video sequence. A controller may compute instantaneous motion of the camera for a current frame of the video sequence. The controller may compare the instantaneous motion to a threshold value representing a still condition and reduce a video stabilization strength parameter for the current frame if the instantaneous motion is less than the threshold value. A video stabilization unit may perform video stabilization on the current frame according to the frame's strength parameter. 12-26-2013
20140320731 FOCUS POSITION ESTIMATION - A method for lens position estimation can include receiving from a lens driver a drive current value representing a current to be provided to a motor to position a camera lens of an electronic device, detecting an orientation of the electronic device using a motion sensor, determining a gravity vector based upon the orientation, and computing an estimated value of a lens position of the camera lens of the electronic device based upon the drive current value and gravity vector. 10-30-2014
20140362256 Reference Frame Selection for Still Image Stabilization - Systems, methods, and computer readable media to improve image stabilization operations are described. A novel combination of image quality and commonality metrics are used to identify a reference frame from a set of commonly captured images which, when the set's other images are combined with it, results in a quality stabilized image. The disclosed image quality and commonality metrics may also be used to optimize the use of a limited amount of image buffer memory during image capture sequences that return more images that the memory may accommodate at one time. Image quality and commonality metrics may also be used to effect the combination of multiple relatively long-exposure images which, when combined with a one or more final (relatively) short-exposure images, yields images exhibiting motion-induced blurring in interesting and visually pleasing ways. 12-11-2014
20140363044 Efficient Machine-Readable Object Detection and Tracking - A method to improve the efficiency of the detection and tracking of machine-readable objects is disclosed. The properties of image frames may be pre-evaluated to determine whether a machine-readable object, even if present in the image frames, would be likely to be detected. After it is determined that one or more image frames have properties that may enable the detection of a machine-readable object, image data may be evaluated to detect the machine-readable object. When a machine-readable object is detected, the location of the machine-readable object in a subsequent frame may be determined based on a translation metric between the image frame in which the object was identified and the subsequent frame rather than a detection of the object in the subsequent frame. The translation metric may be identified based on an evaluation of image data and/or motion sensor data associated with the image frames. 12-11-2014
20140363087 Methods of Image Fusion for Image Stabilization - Systems, methods, and computer readable media to improve image stabilization operations are described. Novel approaches for fusing non-reference images with a pre-selected reference frame in a set of commonly captured images are disclosed. The fusing approach may use a soft transition by using a weighted average for ghost/non-ghost pixels to avoid sudden transition between neighborhood and almost similar pixels. Additionally, the ghost/non-ghost decision can be made based on a set of neighboring pixels rather than independently for each pixel. An alternative approach may involve performing a multi-resolution decomposition of all the captured images, using temporal fusion, spatio-temporal fusion, or combinations thereof, at each level and combining the different levels to generate an output image. 12-11-2014
20140363096 Image Registration Methods for Still Image Stabilization - Systems, methods, and computer readable media to improve image stabilization operations are described. A novel approach to pixel-based registration of non-reference images to a reference frame in a set of commonly captured images is disclosed which makes use of pyramid decomposition to more efficiently detect corners. The disclosed pixel-based registration operation may also be combined with motion sensor data-based registration approaches to register non-reference images with respect to the reference frame. When the registered non-reference images are combined with the pre-selected reference image, the resulting image is a quality stabilized image. 12-11-2014
Patent applications by Jianping Zhou, Fremont, CA US


Interested in organizing an exhibit at United Nations Headquarters in New York? Please read all the information below prior to submitting a proposal.
What kinds of exhibits are displayed at UN Headquarters in New York?
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What else do I need to know before submitting an exhibit proposal?
How do I submit an exhibit proposal?
Exhibitions open to the public showcase important topics that the UN works on, such as human rights, sustainable development, the environment, women and girls, and more. They feature photographic and multimedia displays that illustrate these topics through images, facts and data.
Exhibits are on display for about one month.
There are three galleries available in the UN Visitors' Lobby for exhibits open to the public, ranging in size from 110 linear feet (34 m) to 1400 square feet (130 m2). Space is reserved after a full proposal in line with the Exhibits Committee Guidelines has been submitted and approved.
A 360-degree view of the gallery space can be seen in this video.
Anyone can submit an exhibit proposal. However, proposals submitted by non-UN entities must be accompanied by a letter from a UN department/office, fund or programme, organization of the United Nations system or a Permanent or Observer Mission formally endorsing the exhibit and its content. All exhibits, regardless of the supporting entity, must be reviewed by the relevant UN office specialized in the topic.
There is no rental fee to use the gallery space. Exhibitors are responsible for all other related costs, including production, installation, promotion, and an opening/event reception (optional). Costs vary depending on the scope of the exhibit and therefore can only be estimated after a complete proposal has been submitted and approved.
1- Submit an Initial Inquiry Form for an assessment as to whether your proposed exhibit is in line with the guidelines.
2- Following a positive response to the initial inquiry, submit an Application Form along with the complete proposal as per the instructions in the Submission Requirements.
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text:
Stíhací závod družstev žen na Zimních olympijských hrách 2022 se konal v hale National Speed Skating Oval v Pekingu ve dnech 12. a 15. února 2022. První den byly na programu čtvrtfinálové rozjížďky, druhý den semifinálové a finálové jízdy.

Závod vyhrály v olympijském rekordu a rekordu dráhy Kanaďanky, druhé skončily reprezentantky Japonska a třetí nizozemské družstvo. Češky v závodě nestartovaly.

Rekordy
Před závodem měly rekordy následující hodnoty:

Výsledky

Čtvrtfinále
První čtyři týmy postoupily do dvou semifinálových jízd, ostatní týmy do finálových jízd o páté až osmé místo.

Semifinále
Vítězné týmy obou jízd postoupily do finále o zlatou medaili, poražená družstva postoupila do finále o bronz.

Finále

Odkazy

Reference

Externí odkazy
  Oficiální výsledky stíhacího závodu družstev žen , olympic.com
  Oficiální výsledky čtvrtfinále stíhacího závodu družstev žen, isuresults.eu
  Oficiální výsledky semifinále stíhacího závodu družstev žen, isuresults.eu
  Oficiální výsledky finále stíhacího závodu družstev žen, isuresults.eu

Ženy stíh

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Thérèse Rodon i Asencio (Barcelone,  - Madrid, ) est une religieuse espagnole fondatrice des franciscaines de Notre Dame du Bon Conseil. Son éventuelle béatification est à l'étude par l'Église catholique, qui la reconnaît « servante de Dieu ».

Biographie

Henriette naît le  de parents inconnus; sa mère Emmanuelle Asencio Vilarrosal, séparée et institutrice à son compte et son père, Pierre Rodón y Gallisá, veuf avec cinq filles, juge et député sont tous deux de famille bourgeoise, ils ne reconnaissent pas officiellement leur fille pour garder leur prestige social.

Le , sa mère l'oblige à épouser son propre amant, Henriette se résigne mais fuit en 1877 et trouve refuge dans une école de religieuses adoratrices qui font annuler le mariage en mars 1878. Elle vit dans ce couvent jusqu'en 1883 où elle commence à penser à fonder une congrégation qui assistent les enfants marginalisés en particulier les filles de prisonniers et les mineures qui vivent dans les prisons. En 1892, elle tente une fondation avec Gabrielle Quintana à Lekaroz mais échoue. En 1894, elle se rend à Astorga où elle reçoit le soutien de  Vicente Alonso Salgado. Le , avec six compagnes, elle fonde les franciscaines de Notre Dame du Bon Conseil et prend le nom de Thérèse de Jésus. En plus de la maison d'Astorga, elle ouvre un pensionnat de filles à Madrid et un hôpital à Llanes. En 1890, elle fixe sa résidence à la maison de Madrid où elle meurt à 41 ans le .

Procès de béatification
Son procès de béatification commence en 1992 à Pozuelo de Alarcón où reposent ses restes. Elle est reconnue servante de Dieu le  par l'Église catholique.

Notes et références

Serviteur de Dieu
Fondateur d'ordre
Naissance en février 1863
Naissance à Barcelone
Décès en décembre 1903
Décès à Madrid
Religieuse catholique espagnole
Décès à 40 ans


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Beautiful village home! This 5 bedroom 1.5 bath home features spacious kitchen with breakfast area, formal living room, formal dining room and first floor laundry! Outside will not disappoint with a generous yard, above ground pool, fire pit and small pond with a waterfall! Multi level deck will make a great space for summer BBQ'S! Take a look today!


Prince of Fools is the first of a new series set in Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire world, and it brings us another young man rather fundamentally different from the last one. Filling in the gaps which surround the previous trilogy, Prince of Fools introduces Jalan Kendeth, a young man about as different from Jorg Ancrath as it is possible to be and still get anything done. Some exceptionally witty dialogue and one or two call backs to the other trilogy really tied them together, but Prince of Fools also stands alone as the introduction to this world even if you never read the other series.
The Red Queen's grandson, Prince Jalan Kendeth—drinker, gambler, seducer of women—is one who can see The Silent Sister. Tenth in line for the throne and content with his role as a minor royal, he pretends that the hideous crone is not there. But war is coming. Witnesses claim an undead army is on the march, and the Red Queen has called on her family to defend the realm. Jal thinks it's all a rumour—nothing that will affect him—but he is wrong.
I feel like Prince of Fools is a novel that is very keenly aware of what series it ties into. While I appreciated the callbacks to Prince of Thorns, their effectiveness as scenes on their own fell a little flat if you happened to not know what they were referencing. As criticisms go, 'your inside jokes were inside jokes' isn't exactly a damning one, and let's make sure I'm clear: they in no way made the book any less great. Jalen is a fantastic character, and falls into that category of protagonist that I really enjoy sometimes. He feels like he is intensely realistic and pragmatic, and not at all above looking out for himself first, but when it comes down to it, he's actually very effective, and eventually, very loyal. You may only grow on him like a fungus, but when you do, he's a good guy to know. In spite of that, I still felt like there were just one or two too many nods and nudges to the people who'd already read the other books.
With that criticism out of the way, I can get on to the good stuff. Mark Lawrence has somehow managed to write what is basically a buddy cop Fantasy Epic. Snorri the viking is a big bluff warrior, he's on a quest, he's not stopping for anything, and he likes to do things by the book. Mind you, the book he's referring to generally says 'just break everything between you and where you're headed' but even so. Then Jalen is the snarky, sarcastic junior detective who thinks the rules are just a good way to get yourself killed. He gets pulled along on the mission in spite of himself, and manages to grow a little as a person. They all have beers at the end. It's fantastic stuff. The pacing of Prince of Fools bears this out. Just over 350 pages in hardcover, yet covering a huge amount of ground. There are some phenomenal establishing shots that really succinctly capture the essence of these characters, and then they're off to the races.
Lawrence has done that great balancing act that seems rare in fantasy these days: keeping the scale small enough around the characters that the novel is more about them than about the larger events in the world, while still keeping those larger events large and looming. There's a sense of foreboding when we can see how there are bigger things coming than they realise. Watching them celebrate a victory when you can see how little that victory is going to mean any day now really adds a touch of darkness to what might have otherwise been a fairly typical 'All home in time for supper' story. Of course, knowing what's coming from the Broken Empire series might have something to do with it, but I do think that the effect isn't lost reading this one first.
Altogether, I was quite happy with Prince of Fools. It had an interesting and far more relatable protagonist (This one's just a coward, not a sociopath), an engaging and very well-paced plot, and some of the best pull quotes I've ever read in any novel ever. All folded in around a really interesting world with awesome things happening. The second book in the series The Liar's Key is slated for a June 2015 release, and I'm quite interested to see where Lawrence brings our foolish Prince next. A great read and one I highly endorse!
Dan received a copy of Prince of Fools from the author.


text:
The Brazilian cacao (or cocoa) boom was a period in Brazil's economic history in which the country remained between first and second in world cacao production.

The first cacao boom occurred simultaneously with the rubber boom, which brought wealth to the Amazon region. But while Brazil was the largest and almost exclusive producer of rubber, cacao was grown in many other places around the globe and in similar quantities. While this balance lasted, Bahia was able to enjoy a period of prosperity. This balance, however, was broken by the British, who established plantations of big proportions on the Gold Coast in Africa. Over time, this production took over the world market, weakening the cacao cycle in Bahia and leading it to a strong decline. Later, government programs made production grow again, generating a second export cycle but other crises led to a new decline. In 2021, the country was the seventh-largest world producer of cacao, with around 260,000 tons annually.

Themed by Jorge Amado, Adonias Filho, and many other writers, the cocoa boom created a rich and persistent tradition in regionalist cultural imagery and consolidated a place in Brazilian literature.

History

Precedents

Cacao originated in the Amazon River basin. In 1641, the Jesuit Cristóbal Acuña noted, referring to wood, cacao, tobacco, and sugar cane: "There are in this great river of the Amazons four things that, if well cultivated, will without a doubt be sufficient to enrich not only one but many kingdoms," and speaking specifically of cacao, he said that "processed, it becomes of so much benefit, that each cacao tree can yield, annually, eight reals of silver, free of any expenses. And one can see how little work is required to cultivate such plants on this river, because, without any artifice, nature alone fills them with abundant fruit."

In 1681, the Portuguese government exempted cacao exports from taxes, however, they only became dominant in the regional economy in the early 18th century. Cacao was the first activity of great economic importance in the Amazon, and its production remained high until it was supplanted by Bahia. But, at this time, it was essentially an extractive activity, harvesting cacao in the wild, rather than having an organized system of plantations. In 1655, there is the first reference of the presence of cacao in southern Bahia.

In 1746, a French colonizer living in Pará, Luiz Frederico Warneau, sent seeds of the "Forastero" variety (from the Amelonado group) to a farmer from Bahia, Antônio Dias Ribeiro, who sowed them in the municipality of Canavieiras. In 1752, the first seeds were planted in Ilhéus and there they adapted to the hot and humid climate, similar to that of its natural habitat, relying on the shade offered by the taller trees of the Atlantic Forest to survive.

Cacao was then envisioned as an alternative for creating export income at a time when sugarcane farming was in crisis, but there was still no technical know-how to foster production efficiently. The beginning of commercial cacao planting took place in the 1830s and developed throughout the 19th century, becoming a factor of economic development in a region that still lacked dynamism.

First cycle

Bahia remained in a secondary position concerning the other producing regions until the 1890s, when it started to take the lead, producing more than 3.5 thousand tons. From this date on, Brazil gained prominence in the world market and effectively began the first great export cycle. In 1895, southern Bahia was already exporting 112,000 sacks. Being exported to the United States and Europe, it became the main product of the economic and export basis of southern Bahia.

Brazil was ranked as the world's largest producer from 1901 until the mid-1920s, during which time southern Bahia became known for its own culture, marked by land struggles, jagunços, and the luxury of the cacao "colonels". The prospect of wealth increased the arrival of many immigrants from other regions of Bahia and Sergipe, accentuating the settlement of the area.

At this time, the construction of luxurious public buildings began, such as the Paranaguá Palace, which houses the City Hall to this day, and the headquarters of the Ilhéus Commercial Association. Grand houses, such as that of Colonel Misael Tavares and the Berbert family, a copy of the Catete Palace in Rio de Janeiro, stand out.

In the 1920s, Ilhéus was teeming with people, luxury, and wealth. In this period, the Ilhéos Hotel was built, the first building in the countryside of the Northeast with an elevator, and the Municipal Theater, considered at the time one of the best equipped outside the capital. The wealthiest individuals were attentive to the refined customs and fashions of the Federal Capital, at the time the city of Rio de Janeiro, and also to those practiced in Europe.

In this period, the export of cacao was carried out through the port of Salvador, causing problems such as difficulty in shipping, and loss in quality and weight of the production. In 1924, the cacao growers started the construction of the port of Ilhéus with their resources, and cacao exportation started to take place in the city, bringing with it the presence of foreigners and a cultural interchange with European countries. At this time, dancers, magicians, and also adventurers came to entertain the upper class.

The wealth derived from the cacao boom propelled the elevation of the Village of Ilhéus to the category of city and ensured that it became one of the most important cities in Bahia. Ilhéus not only was the regional production distribution center but was at this time the largest cacao producer in the state, in addition to triggering the formation of several other cacao towns in the surrounding area, which contributed to the establishment of the bean in the economic scenario of Bahia and Brazil.

However, cacao production in Brazil began to weaken when the British started planting cacao on the Gold Coast in West Africa:

Second cycle
Until the end of the 1920s, the cacao economy had no regulation or state protection. It began with the foundation in 1931 of the Cacau of Bahia Institute ("Instituto de Cacau da Bahia", ICB), starting the so-called "second cycle", which would last until 1957 when a new crisis occurred and the Executive Committee of the Cocoa Farming Plan ("Comissão Executiva do Plano da Lavoura Cacaueira, CEPLAC") was created.

In the context of the economic crisis of 1929, the ICB emerged with the objective of financing and promoting the commercialization of cacao. Its first decade of activity was very successful, registering an increase of more than 100% in production through the expansion of the cultivated area and attending to the main problems of cultivation: transportation, commercialization, and financing. In the early 1940s, cultivation was again consolidated.

Despite the difficulties encountered in the following decades, among them falling international prices, pests and droughts, cacao remained an important source of foreign exchange for the country. Between 1953 and 1960 alone, Bahia's exports generated around 104 million dollars, constituting the second-largest revenue on the Brazilian export agenda. However, as a byproduct of a monoculture economy, according to Franco et al., the region experienced "all the consequences of this condition: dependence on the foreign market, importation of necessities, a dominant bourgeoisie, exploitation of rural workers' labor, and marked social inequalities."

In the meantime, the ICB was entering decadence as a regulatory and development agency. Since 1941, transformed into a state autarchy, it was immersed in political disputes, suffered from a lack of resources, and lost credibility. As an aggravator, in 1957, a new crisis hit productivity and international prices. According to Franco et al, "the producers were impoverished, indebted, and disillusioned, thinking it was the end of the cacao cycle." The creation of CEPLAC that same year, a public research institution linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, was an emergency intervention by the federal government. At the same time, the government determined the direct involvement of Banco do Brasil's Foreign Trade Portfolio in cacao trade operations.

Federal Intervention
The Bahia producers resisted the federal intervention and continued to see the ICB as the only legitimate representative body of the sector. In 1961, the federal government reinforced CEPLAC's commanding role by creating an exchange retention fee. From then on CEPLAC would be consolidated with an organized plan of action, a body of effective employees, and a stable financial base. In 1962, linked to CEPLAC, the Center for Cocoa Research (CEPEC) was created. In 1964, the Department of Rural Extension was created, and in 1965 the Technical School. Thus, CEPLAC assumed a leading role in scientific research, the creation of new techniques and technologies, the dissemination of knowledge, and the modernization of the production system. Producers also benefited from the creation in 1965 of the National Rural Credit System, offering a large volume of financing, negative interest rates, and flexible payment terms.

In the 1970s, the government gave new incentives for exports, and in 1976 created the Program and Guidelines for the Expansion of Cacao Cultivation (PROCACAU), aiming to revitalize 150,000 hectares of decaying plantations and create 300,000 hectares of new producing areas in other states. Between 1977 and 1979, cacao generated about US$2.4 billion. More than 400,000 tons of beans were harvested in the country in the record harvest of 1984/1985 and a foreign exchange revenue of US$1 billion was generated.

In 1989, another crisis began with the arrival of the "witch's broom" plague, endemic in the continent, a fungus that attacks the leaves of the trees and leads to a drop in production, which decreased from 400 thousand tons to 98 thousand tons in 2000, lagging behind the Amazon production. The result of the plague was the unemployment of about 200 thousand people, rural flight, degradation of natural resources, devaluation of land, indebtedness of producers, and impoverishment of the population. CEPLAC promoted strategies based on 4 types of control of the plague.Experts indicated that the low genetic variability of the trees made them vulnerable to the plague, and that cloned plants are more resistant to the witch's broom.

Other pests also appeared: the "machete disease", caused by the fungus Ceratocystis cacaofunesta, the bud mite, and "brown rot", caused by the fungus Phytophthora palmivora, which attacks the fruit. The situation of the crop became critical, worsened by the great expansion of cacao farming in Asia, facing a drop in international prices.

The recovery from the last crisis has been difficult, and the Amazon took the lead producing 53.2% of Brazilian cacao. Because of pests and other problems, in 2020, productivity per hectare in the Northeast was the lowest of all producing regions, which currently includes the Midwest and small areas in northern Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo. Adding up the total production, in 2020 Brazil was the seventh largest producer in the world, with 265,000 tons, supplying mainly the domestic market, with 72,500 tons destined for export. In 2021 the Ministry of Agriculture announced a program to expand Brazilian production by 60,000 tons within four years.

Presence in culture

The writer Jorge Amado was the main narrator of literature from the cacao area, the backdrop of the author's childhood. With his works Cacau (1932), Terras do Sem-Fim (1942), São Jorge dos Ilhéus (1944), and Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (1958), which focused mainly on the power struggles of the "cacao colonels" and on cacao as the source of dramas, of an entire cultural imaginary, and an unjust and violent social context, Amado was responsible for introducing the theme of the cacao cycle (boom) into Brazilian regionalist literature in prose and poetry. Jorge Medauar, Telmo Padilha, Florisvaldo Matos, Plínio Aguiar, Cyro de Mattos, Adonias Filho, and others also worked with this theme in varied approaches.

Works such as Terras do Sem-Fim (1943) and Gabriela Cravo e Canela (1958) were adapted as soap operas for television. The soap opera Renascer (1993) also dealt with cacao farming.

See also

 Brazilian Gold Rush
 Amazon rubber boom
 Coffee cycle

References

Cocoa production
Economy of Brazil
Bahia
First Brazilian Republic


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text:
Inspector general launches second review of Steven Mnuchin's travels
by Donna Borak @donnaborak October 11, 2017: 3:26 PM ET
Trump's cabinet faces travel scrutiny
The Treasury Department's inspector general's office is launching a second investigation into Steven Mnuchin's government travels after discovering it had not received a complete and accurate account of the secretary's flight information, a government official told CNN on Tuesday.
Treasury's inspector general counsel, Rich Delmar, told CNNMoney the oversight agency will be requesting additional travel records from Treasury. Delmar said the agency learned Treasury had not provided an accurate portrayal of a trip Mnuchin took to Trump Tower in New York on August 15.
"The OIG has asked for follow-up information to assure that we have in fact received all relevant records," Delmar said. The day trip by Mnuchin cost taxpayers $15,000.
In a statement Wednesday, the Treasury Department disputed that the inspector general's request constituted "a second review."
"The Inspector General has asked us for additional documentation relating to the Secretary's commercial flight to New York City, and we intend to cooperate with that request promptly," a Treasury spokesperson said.
The travel records provided by Treasury to the inspector general had not specified that Mnuchin had taken a commercial flight to New York's LaGuardia Airport from Washington D.C. for a meeting with the president at Trump Tower.
Related: Why Steven Mnuchin took a $15,000 day trip to New York
Instead, the IG's report said Mnuchin had taken off from the Andrews Air Force base in Maryland on a C-37A military jet and flew 179 miles to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and budget director Mick Mulvaney joined him on the way up, according to the report.
But earlier on Tuesday, a Treasury spokeswoman told CNNMoney that the secretary had flown in a commercial airplane to New York -- a detail that was not included in the IG's report. The IG's office said it didn't learn about the discrepancy until CNNMoney called seeking further details of Mnuchin's trip to New York.
"I realize that wasn't clear in the report, so I wanted to clarify," a Treasury spokesperson wrote in an email to CNNMoney Tuesday. "The Secretary flew commercial up to NY and milair back as he needed access to secure communications."
The IG's Delmar said news of the commercial flight came as a "surprise" after he asked Treasury about the matter.
"I sent an email to the general counsel saying, 'This wasn't in the material you gave to us,'" said Delmar.
Citing Treasury spokespeople, ABC News first reported that Mnuchin flew to New York on a commercial fight on Sept. 22.
Mnuchin's return flight from New York was one of seven he completed on military jets. It was detailed in a report released Thursday by the Treasury Department's inspector general.
According to the report, Trump requested that Mnuchin join him that day at Trump Tower in Manhattan to discuss tax reform and tariffs. The meeting was initially scheduled for Bedminster, New Jersey, where the president has a golf property, but was later relocated.
--CNNMoney's Julia Horowitz contributed to this report.
Updated: This article has been updated to add a statement from the Treasury Department.
CNNMoney (Washington) First published October 10, 2017: 7:39 PM ET

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^ Caprivi Strip | Namibia Archived 2010-09-30 at the Wayback Machine. Namibian.org. Retrieved on 2012-12-18.
^ Mwakikagile, Godfrey (2001). Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria. Huntington, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. p. 223. ISBN 1560729678. Archived from the original on 2018-07-18. Retrieved 2018-04-24.
^ Turok, Ben (1990). Witness from the frontline: aggression and resistance in Southern Africa. Institute for African Alternatives. p. 86. ISBN 187042512X. Archived from the original on 2018-07-18. Retrieved 2018-07-18.
^ "Index-United Nations Organisations and Resolutions". www.klausdierks.com. Archived from the original on 2006-05-03. Retrieved 2006-07-15.
^ "Cour internationale de Justice | International Court of Justice". www.icj-cij.org. Archived from the original on 2017-09-08. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
^ "Treaty between the Government of the Republic of South Africa and the Government of the Republic of Namibia with respect to Walvis Bay and the off-shore Islands, 28 February 1994" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
^ Cahoon, Ben. "Namibian Homelands". www.worldstatesmen.org. Archived from the original on 2010-12-17. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
^ "South-West Africa, Proposed Homelands. in: The Bantustan Proposals for South-West Africa, p 179" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-06-26. Retrieved 2018-10-24.
Damaraland was a name given to the north-central part of what later became Namibia, inhabited by the Damaras. It was bounded roughly by Ovamboland in the north, the Namib Desert in the west, the Kalahari Desert in the east, and Windhoek in the south.
In the 1970s the name Damaraland was revived for a bantustan in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing homeland for the Damara people. A centrally administered local government was created in 1980. The bantustan Damaraland was situated on the western edge of the territory that had been known as Damaraland in the 19th century.
Damaraland, like other homelands in South West Africa, was abolished in May 1989 at the start of the transition to independence.
The name Damaraland predates South African control of Namibia, and was described as "the central portion of German South West Africa" in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.
Etosha Commando was a light infantry regiment of the South West Africa Territorial Force. It formed part of the Area Force Units as well as the Territorial Reserve.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (ELCIN) is a Lutheran denomination based in Namibia. It has a total membership of over 772,398, mainly in Northern Namibia. Formerly known as the Evangelical Lutheran Ovambo-Kavango Church, it played a significant role in opposition to Apartheid in Namibia and was part of the Namibian independence struggle.Other Lutheran churches in Namibia are the southern based Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia and the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK).
The current presiding bishop is Dr. Shekutaamba Nambala.
Ovamboland (also: Owamboland) is a region of Namibia. It is generally defined as the northernmost segment of the country which straddles the border between Namibia and Angola. Ovamboland is the most densely populated region in Namibia.The term originally referred to the parts of northern Namibia inhabited by the Ovambo ethnic group, namely the area controlled by the traditional Ovambo kingdoms in pre-colonial and early colonial times, such as Ondonga, Ongandjera, and Oukwanyama. Its endonym is Ovambo ~ Owambo.
German South West Africa was a German colony in Africa, established in 1884 with the protection of the area around Lüderitz and abandoned during World War I, when the area was taken over by the British.
The postal history of the colony started on 7 July 1888 at Otjimbingwe, when the regular postal service began using German postage stamps and postmarks reading OTYIMBINGUE. The service continued in this fashion for a number of years, eventually expanding to additional post offices in Windhoek (1891) and Swakopmund (1895).
Following several decades of unsuccessful petitioning through the United Nations and the International Court of Justice for Namibian independence, SWAPO formed the PLAN in 1962 with material assistance from the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and sympathetic African states such as Tanzania, Ghana, and Algeria. Fighting broke out between PLAN and the South African authorities in August 1966. Between 1975 and 1988 the SADF staged massive conventional raids into Angola and Zambia to eliminate PLAN's forward operating bases. It also deployed specialist counter-insurgency units such as Koevoet and 32 Battalion trained to carry out external reconnaissance and track guerrilla movements.South African tactics became increasingly aggressive as the conflict progressed. The SADF's incursions produced Angolan casualties and occasionally resulted in severe collateral damage to economic installations regarded as vital to the Angolan economy. Ostensibly to stop these raids, but also to disrupt the growing alliance between the SADF and the National Union for the Total Independence for Angola (UNITA), which the former was arming with captured PLAN equipment, the Soviet Union backed the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) through a large contingent of military advisers and up to four billion dollars' worth of modern defence technology in the 1980s. Beginning in 1984, regular Angolan units under Soviet command were confident enough to confront the SADF. Their positions were also bolstered by thousands of Cuban troops. The state of war between South Africa and Angola briefly ended with the short-lived Lusaka Accords, but resumed in August 1985 as both PLAN and UNITA took advantage of the ceasefire to intensify their own guerrilla activity, leading to a renewed phase of FAPLA combat operations culminating in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. The South African Border War was virtually ended by the Tripartite Accord, mediated by the United States, which committed to a withdrawal of Cuban and South African military personnel from Angola and South West Africa, respectively. PLAN launched its final guerrilla campaign in late March 1989. South West Africa received formal independence as the Republic of Namibia a year later, on 21 March 1990.Despite being largely fought in neighbouring states, the South African Border War had a phenomenal cultural and political impact on South African society. The country's apartheid government devoted considerable effort towards presenting the war as part of a containment programme against regional Soviet expansionism and used it to stoke public anti-communist sentiment. It remains an integral theme in contemporary South African literature at large and Afrikaans-language works in particular, having given rise to a unique genre known as grensliteratuur (directly translated "border literature").
South West Africa Command was a command of the South African Army.
The South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF) was an auxiliary arm of the South African Defence Force (SADF) and comprised the armed forces of South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1977 to 1989. It emerged as a product of South Africa's political control of the territory which was granted to the former as a League of Nations mandate following World War I.
The South West African Class Hc 0-6-0T of 1907 was a narrow gauge steam locomotive from the German South West Africa era.
In 1907, the German Administration in German South West Africa acquired three Class Hc tank locomotives with a 0-6-0 wheel arrangement for lease to the Otavi Mining and Railway Company. Two more entered service in 1910 and 1911, and a sixth was acquired new by the South African Railways in 1923.


text:
Panchkula to host Khelo India after Tokyo Olympics
The event will be taken as a 'self-contained opportunity' for Panchkula to develop a comprehensive sports infrastructure.
H. Agnihotri
Panchkula will host the fourth edition of the Khelo India Youth Games in 2021. The matches will take place after the 2021 Tokyo Olympics; however, dates have not been finalised yet.
It was decided in a meeting held through video conference in the presence of Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal, State's Sports Minister Sandeep Singh and senior officials of the Sports Ministry in New Delhi.
Haryana Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta said, "This is an exciting opportunity for Panchkula and surrounding areas to develop and grow. This year, more than 10,000 players participated in the Khelo India Youth Games held in Guwahati. We are expecting more players to participate in the fourth edition."
Gupta said, the event will be taken as a self-contained opportunity for Panchkula and will develop a comprehensive sports infrastructure here. Haryana had performed well in the previous editions and since we are the hosts this time, the players will be more enthusiastic.
He thanked Union Minister of Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal and State Sports Minister Sandeep Singh for giving Panchkula a chance to host.
Khelo India Games is the biggest sports campaign started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018. Since then, it has been organised every year at the national level.
Women empowerment is key to self-reliant nation: Smriti
Haryana gets 10,000 complaints on CM window every month, reveals RTI


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What's your blogging exit strategy?
So you've started your blog for whatever reason. You may have been going for awhile, or only started recently. Either way, have you considered your exit strategy?
It may sound like a strange thing to think about if you've only just begun blogging; chances are you're far more concerned about where your next hit is going to come from (for your site, I mean ). But the fact is, most of us are not going to be blogging until the day we die, so what are the choices for a graceful exit?


text:
Q: sampling randomly with conditions My problem sits inside a loop, I have a large dataset (DF), a subset of which looks like this:
ID     Site Species
101     4   x
101     4   y
101     4   z
102     6   x
102     6   z
102     6   a
102     6   b
103     6   a
103     6   z
103     6   c
103     6   x
103     6   y
105     6   x
105     6   y
105     6   a
105     6   z
108     1   x
108     1   a
108     1   c
108     1   z

I would like to randomly select, using each iteration of my loop (so, i) all rows of an individual ID from each Site. But crucially, only one ID from each Site. I have a separate function that subsets my large dataset for the number of Sites, so if i=1 then only one of the above Sites (for example) would be present in the subset.
If i=3, as for this posted example, then I would want all rows of 101, and either all rows of 102, 103 or 105, and all of 108.
I think something like ddply() with sample() should do it but I cannot get it to happen randomly.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
James

A: I think you may use unique to find all possible IDs / sites and then sample from unique and subset.
For instance, let's create a dataset
# Set the RNG seed for reproducibility
set.seed(12345)
ID <- rep(100:110, c(2, 6, 3, 1, 3, 8, 9, 2, 4, 5, 6))
site <- rep(1:6, c(8, 7, 8, 11, 4, 11))
species <- sample(letters[1:5], length(ID), replace=T)

df <- data.frame(ID=ID, Site=site, Species=species)

So, df looks like:
> head(df, 15)
    ID Site Species
1  100    1       d
2  100    1       e
3  101    1       d
4  101    1       e
5  101    1       c
6  101    1       a
7  101    1       b
8  101    1       c
9  102    2       d
10 102    2       e
11 102    2       a
12 103    2       a
13 104    2       d
14 104    2       a
15 104    2       b

Summarizing the data, we have:
Site 1 -> 100, 101
Site 2 -> 102, 103, 104
Site 3 -> 105
Site 4 -> 106, 107
Site 5 -> 108
Site 6 -> 109, 110

Now, let's say I want to select out of 3 sites
# The number of sites we want to sample
num.sites <- 3
# Find all the sites
all.sites <- unique(df$Site)
# Pick the sites.
# You may also want to check that num.sites <= length(all.sites)
sites <- sample(all.sites, num.sites)

In this case we picked
> sites
[1] 4 5 6

Ok, so now we find the IDs available for each site
# Now find the IDs in each of those sites
# simplify=F is VERY important to ensure we get a list even if every
# site has the same number of IDs
IDs <- sapply(chosen.sites, function(s)
    {
    unique(df$ID[df$Site==s])
    }, simplify=FALSE)

Which gives us
> IDs
[[1]]
[1] 106 107

[[2]]
[1] 108

[[3]]
[1] 109 110

Now pick one ID per site
# NOTE: this assumes the same ID is not found in multiple sites
# but it's easy to deal with the opposite case
# Again, we return a list, because sapply does not seem
# to play well with data frames... (try it!)
res <- sapply(IDs, function(i)
  {
  chosen.ID <- sample(as.list(i), 1)
  df[df$ID==chosen.ID,]
  }, simplify=FALSE)

# Finally convert the list to a data frame
res <- do.call(rbind, res)

> res
    ID Site Species
24 106    4       d
25 106    4       d
26 106    4       b
27 106    4       d
28 106    4       c
29 106    4       b
30 106    4       c
31 106    4       d
32 106    4       a
35 108    5       b
36 108    5       b
37 108    5       e
38 108    5       e
44 110    6       d
45 110    6       b
46 110    6       b
47 110    6       a
48 110    6       a
49 110    6       a

So, everything in a single function
pickSites <- function(df, num.sites)
    {
    all.sites <- unique(df$Site)
    chosen.sites <- sample(all.sites, num.sites)

    IDs <- sapply(chosen.sites, function(s)
        {
        unique(df$ID[df$Site==s])
        }, simplify=FALSE)

    res <- sapply(IDs, function(i)
        {
        chosen.ID <- sample(as.list(i), 1)
        df[df$ID==chosen.ID,]
        }, simplify=FALSE)

    res <- do.call(rbind, res)
    }

A: How about this? I've added a function to simulate what I think your data looks like.
#dependencies
require(plyr)

#function to make data (just to work with)
make_data<-function(id){
  set.seed(id)
  num_sites<-round(runif(1)*3,0)+1
  num_sp<-round(runif(1)*7,0)+1
  sites<-sample(1:10,num_sites,FALSE)
  ldply(sites,function(x)data.frame(sites=x,sp=sample(letters[1:26],num_sp,FALSE)))
}

#make a data frame for example use (as per question)
ids<-100:200
df<-ldply(ids,function(x)data.frame(id=x,make_data(x)))

################################################
# HERE'S THE CODE FOR THE ANSWER               #
# use ddply to summarise by site & sampled ids #
filter<-ddply(df,.(sites),summarise,set=sample(id,1))
# then apply this filter to the original list
ddply(filter,.(sites),.fun=function(x){return(df[df$site==x$sites & df$id==x$set,])})

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text:
Gay Sims easter egg and controversy in SimCopter
Image credit http://libcom.org/history/interview-jacques-servin
Jaques Servin, aka Andy Bichlbaum, of the culture jamming activist group The Yes Men and co-founder of RTMark (as Ray Thomas), was a programmer on Maxis's SimCopter. Partly as a response to company working conditions and partly as a RTMark-sponsored prank, he inserted code that caused SimCopter cities to be populated by a bunch of men wearing swim trunks, holding hands, and kissing on specific dates of the year (including his birthday, his boyfriend's birthday, and Friday the 13th). Reportedly, the male characters showed up more often than intended, and in greater numbers. A video of this Easter Egg is available here.
The Easter Egg was found after the game shipped and Servin was fired for adding the content to the game. Subsequent versions of the game were distributed without the content. A game patch also removed the content for players who had already purchased the game (Masaki, 2007). ACT UP, a direct-action AIDS activist organization, called for a boycott of the company until he was rehired, but Servin indicated he had no desire to return to Maxis.
Easter Egg (media). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)
Frauenfelder, M. (1997, April 8). Secret Prankster Fund Goes Public. Wired. http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1997/04/2997
G., C. and Cantrell, M. A. (2012, March 26). The 5 ballsiest Easter Eggs hidden in video games. Cracked. http://www.cracked.com/article_19745_the-5-ballsiest-easter-eggs-hidden-in-video-games.html
Lazy Game Reviews. (2015, May 15). LGR- SimCopter-PC Game Review. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4mh7Pc5MSI&feature=youtu.be&t=8m19s
Masaki, L. (2007, June 6). Whatever Happened to…the man behind the SimCopter's gay "easter egg"? The Backlot. http://www.thebacklot.com/whatever-happened-to-the-man-behind-simcopters-gay-easter-egg/06/2007/
An interview with Jacques Servin. (n.d.). http://libcom.org/history/interview-jacques-servin
RTMark. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTMark
Silberman, S. (1996, December 11). Boycott Maxis? 'Absurd,' Fired Programmer Says. Wired. http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1996/12/915
SimCopter. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCopter
The Yes Men. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men
This entry was posted in 1990s, Easter Egg on August 31, 2015 by LGBTQ Game Archive.
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Safety pin jewelry made a huge comeback recently, but when I was in my 20s (in the 1980s) safety pin jewelry was all the rage. We all made and wore so many designs--safety pins made into brooches that looked like spider and scorpions, red-white-and-blue patriotic safety pin jewelry, and the ubiquitous safety pin squash blossom necklace! Yes, you would get turquoise colored safety pins and silver beads and follow a pattern, which is exactly what we have here. This was a time when there were limited patterns and information on how to make closures, so this particular necklace is over-the-head, as it has no clasp on the end, just a wire holding the starting and ending points. But it was made in the era of big hair, so more than likely it will fit over most heads. It's not roomy, but it did fit over my head of super curly hair just fine. Fashioned after Native American squash blossoms, this safety pin necklace has what would be the "naja" or center pieces, and safety pins emanating out where the squash blossoms might be on a real version of this. Super fun and in good shape, and perfect for the person who loves this trendy, kitschy form of jewelry.
The necklace measures about 16-1/2" long when hanging, slightly less for the curve of the neck. The silver tone beads are likely faux silver. Again, no clasp so need to place on and off over the head.
Safety pin jewelry meets the Southwest!


First peel potatoes and carrots and cook till tender. I used 2 pounds of sirloin ground beef, one onion, fresh parsley, salt, pepper, and a dash of paprika.
Fry meat till till nice and brown add water and simmer for 30 - 45 minutes, make gravy with flour and water or use gravy mix, both are just fine.
When potatoes and carrots are done, drain and add butter, milk, salt, pepper and mash.
how many potatoes and carrots?
instead. I still make it sometimes.
My family loves Hashee but I serve it with flat noodles. Will have to try it with the mashed potatoes.


CANBERRA, Australia – Australian officials said Thursday that after examining detailed photographs of unidentified material that washed ashore in the southwestern part of the country they are satisfied it is not a clue in the search for the missing Malaysian plane.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has advised search coordinators that the material, which washed ashore 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Augusta in Western Australia, is not from missing Flight 370, according to a statement from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre.
Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the safety bureau, told The Associated Press Wednesday that an initial analysis of the material -- which appeared to be sheet metal with rivets -- suggested it was not from the plane.
"We do not consider this likely to be of use to our search for MH370," he said.
Augusta is near Australia's southwestern tip, about 190 miles from Perth, where the search has been headquartered.
The search coordination center also said Thursday a robotic submarine, the U.S. Navy's Bluefin 21, had scanned more than 90 percent of the 120-square mile seabed search zone off the Australian west coast, creating a three-dimensional sonar map of the ocean floor, but had found nothing of interest.
The 2.8-mile deep search area is a circle 12 miles wide around an area where sonar equipment picked up a signal on April 8 consistent with a plane's black boxes. But the batteries powering those signals are now believed dead.
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Wednesday that failure to find any clue in the most likely crash site of the lost jet would not spell the end of the search, as officials plan soon to bring in more powerful sonar equipment that can delve deeper beneath the Indian Ocean.
Defense Minister David Johnston said Australia was consulting with Malaysia, China and the United States on the next phase of the search for the plane, which disappeared March 8. Details on the next phase are likely to be announced next week.
Johnston said more powerful towed side-scan commercial sonar equipment would probably be deployed, similar to the remote-controlled subs that found RMS Titanic 12,500 feet under the Atlantic Ocean in 1985 and the Australian WWII wreck HMAS Sydney in the Indian Ocean off the Australian coast, north of the current search area, in 2008.
While the Bluefin had less than one-fifth of the seabed search area to complete, Johnston estimated that task would take another two weeks.
Abbott said the airliner's probable impact zone was 430 miles long and 50 miles wide. A new search strategy would be adopted if nothing is found in the current seabed search zone.
"If at the end of that period we find nothing, we are not going to abandon the search, we may well rethink the search, but we will not rest until we have done everything we can to solve this mystery," Abbott told reporters.
The focus of the next search phase will be decided by continuing analysis of information including flight data and sound detections of the suspected beacons, Johnston said, adding that the seabed in the vicinity of the search was up to 4 miles deep.
The search center said Thursday an air search involving up to 11 planes was planned to examine an area of nearly 50,000 square kilometers centered about 1,000 miles northwest of Perth. The center said it would first assess weather conditions, which have hampered aerial searches over the past two days. The center said 11 ships would also join the search.
Radar and satellite data show the jet veered far off course on March 8 for unknown reasons during its flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. An analysis indicates it would have run out of fuel in the remote section of ocean where the search has been focused. Not one piece of confirmed debris has been found since the massive multinational hunt began.


numbers so that it looks like a clock.
3. Ask the patient to add arms so that the clock indicates the time "ten minutes after eleven."
be able to continue independently. or a range of neurological and psychiatric illnesses. visual spatial organization (Lam et al 1998) memory and executive function (Estaban-Santillan et al 1998). The clock drawing test may complement other quick screening tests including the MMSE and is a component of the "7 Minute Neurocognitive Screening Battery" (Solomon et al 1998). The strength and weakness of the clock-drawing test lies in the number of cognitive. motor and perceptual functions required simultaneously for successful completion. conceptualization of time. Dementia Rating Scale and the Global Deterioration Scale. or categorizing errors conceptually. delirium. Royall (1996) suggests the executive function required for clock-drawing involves "control functions which guide complex goal-directed behaviour in the face of novel and irrelevant or ambiguous environmental cues". Common methods of scoring are as follows: Sulman et al 1986 Sunderland et al 1989 Wolf-Klein et al 1989 Mendez et al 1992 Shua-Haim et al 1996 Lam et al 1998 Why do the Test? The clock has been proposed as a quick screening test for cognitive dysfunction secondary to dementia. more than variations in administering the test itself. a grossly abnormal clock. auditory comprehension. More complex assessments include evaluating 20 traits. numerical knowledge. motor programming. visual memory. Most scoring systems are highly correlated with well-established measures including the MMSE. orientation. Perhaps the quickest scoring technique involves dividing the clock into four quadrants and counting the numbers in the correct quadrant. A quick screening for cognitive function may contribute an overall assessment of required investigations and resources for the patient. is an important indicator of potential problems warranting further investigation or resource allocation. . Many health care workers are faced with questions regarding the function and safety of patients in differing environments. semantic instruction. inhibition of distracting stimuli. Alternatively. and that similar demands are shared by independent living skills. for example. concentration and frustration tolerance (Shulman 2000) have all been highlighted as contributing to the successful clock. The completely normal clock is therefore a suggestion that a number of functions are intact and contributes to the weight of evidence that the patient may.There are a number of variations on scoring the clock.
however clock errors may predict many conditions in addition to dementia and it is important to maintain a wide differential diagnosis with clock errors. and therefore useful in early dementing processes. questions regarding the importance of minor errors remain. hemianopsia and sensory loss.e. Specificity (ie. et al. PJ. Sensitivity and specificity. Shulman (2000) suggests that serial clock drawing can be used to follow a progressive dementing process. They also highlight the placement of the arms as the most abstract feature of clock drawing. . 1991. Cognitive decline and psychotic state both contributed to poor scores in a clock-drawing test of elderly patients with a long-standing diagnosis of schizophrenia (Heinik et al 1997). absence of numbers and irrelevant spatial arrangement. References Borson. Clock drawing test in very mild Alzheimer's Disease. 12:526-532. The clock drawing test: utility for dementia detection in multiethnic elders. Sensitivity (i. grossly disorganized. 1996. S. (Gruber et al 1997). 20:140-145. 1999. Age and Ageing. Lam et al (1998) were unable to differentiate Alzheimer's Disease and Multi-infarct dementia according to clock errors. Gruber et al. EstebanSantillan et al (1998) suggest that minor clock errors are suggestive of a dementing process. Friedman. Clock drawing in acute stroke. A variety of psychiatric conditions contribute potentially to abnormal clock-drawing.While the grossly abnormal clock demands immediate attention. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 46:1266-1269. 1998. Lee & Lawlor report on a subset of patients whose clock drawings improved significantly when treated for depression. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Errors following stroke may reflect spatial neglect. C. few false negatives) to dementia across many studies range from 75 to 92 percent depending on the population being assessed. or recovery from a toxic delirium. perseveration. These vary with the score on the clock drawing test. Common errors in Alzheimer's disease include perseveration. and averaged 85%. Esteban-Santillan. Journal of Gerontology Medical Sciences 54A:M534-M540. counter-clockwise numbering. A comparison of the clock drawing test and the Pfeiffer Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire in a geopsychiatry clinic. likelihood ratio and positive predictive value have all been used to measure the potential value of the clock-drawing test as a screening tool (Shulman 2000). in addition to errors suggestive of cognitive dysfunction (Freidman 1991). few false positives) 65 to 96 percent with an average of 85%. Clock errors may be divided into categories including visuo-spatial. et al.
J. DR. Clock Drawing Interpretation Scale (CDIS) with the time "ten minutes past eleven. Shua-Haim et al. et al. State dependent nature of the clock-drawing task in geriatric depression. A seven minute neurocognitive screening battery highly sensitive to Alzheimer's disease. Clock drawing in Alzheimer's Disease: A novel measure of dementia severity. 1992. 15:548-561. reading and setting test in the screening of dementia in Chinese elderly adults. 55:349-355. 44:335. L. Mendez et al. Journal of the American Geriatric Society. 1997. Appendix: Scoring Methods Mendez et al. Solomon et al. et al. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Comparison of a clock drawing test in elderly schizophrenic and Alzheimer disease patients: A preliminary study. Journal of the American Geriatric Society.I. 1996. Sunderland. 1998. Journal of the American Geriatric Society.Heinik. Journal of Gerontology. Shulman. et al. Heinik. Royall. There is an attempt to indicate a time in any way. Lee. 1992. Archives of Neurology. Clock-drawing: Is it the ideal cognitive screening test? International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Lam. All marks or items can be classified as either part of a closure figure. Score only if symbols for clock numbers are present. Clock-face drawing. Comments of the executive control of clock-drawing. 15:638643. Journal of the American Geriatric Society. 1996. 3. 1998. a hand or a symbol for clock numbers. 1995. et al. 2. A simple scoring system for clock-drawing in patients with Alzheimer's disease.P. T. 37:730-734. and Lawlor. Development of scoring criteria for the clock drawing task in Alzheimer's Disease. LCW. International journal of geriatric Psychiatry. 53B:353-357. G. 2000. 44:218-219. There is a totally closed figure without gaps ("the closure figure"). 1989. 1989. et al. Screening for Alzheimer's Disease by clock drawing. 2000. 40:1095-1099." 1. Wolf-Klein. 12:653-655. 37:725-729. J. K. 43:796-798. BA. Clock drawing test in elderly schizophrenia patients. Journal of the American Geriatric Society.. . Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
All numbers 1 to 12 are present. . The numbers do not go beyond the number 12. 14. 15. There are no substitutions for Arabic or Roman numerals. Incorrect spacing between numbers with subsequent inappropriate denotation of time. 13. rever sal of numbers. 1998. Noticeable impairment in line spacing. 9 Minimal evidence that a clock face is drawn. An "11" is present and is pointed out in some way for time. 7. 12. perseveration beyond twelve. drawing only to one side. perseveration beyond twelve. All hands radiate from the direction of a closure figure's center.4. Obvious errors in time denotation (arms misplaced. Slight impairment in spacing of lines or numbers. 10. 7 A recognizable attempt to draw a clock face but no clear denotation of time. Most symbols are ordered in a clockwise fashion. There are two distinct and separable hands. 5. 19. Three or more clock quadrants have one or more appropriate numbers per respective quadrant. hemiplegia and severe psychotics state). 8 Some evidence that a clock face is drawn. omitting most numbers) 6 Abnormal clock face drawing with inaccurate time denotation (eg reversal of numbers. Score 0 1 2 3 4 5 Description of clock Correct time with normal spacing. One hand is visibly longer than another hand. 6. 16. A "2" is present and pointed out in some way for the time. There is an attempt to indicate a time with one or more hands. 20. 10 No reasonable attempt to drawing a clock face (exclude gross visual disturbance. Most symbols are distributed as a circle without major gaps. numbers in wrong place) Abnormal clock-face drawing with inaccurate time denotation (eg. There are no repeated or duplicated number symbols. Scoring criteria for clock drawing test. All symbols are totally within a closure figure. All symbols lie about equally adjacent to a closure figure edge. 18. 9. misplaced numbers and drawing to one side and omitting most numbers). Lam et al. Seven or more of the same symbol type are ordered sequentially. 11. 17. All hands are totally within a closure figure. 8. Score only if one or more hands are present. misplaced numbers.
Wolf-Klein et al. Draws lines outside of circle c. 1996. Unable to indicate 3 o'clock 3. Writes words 3 o'clock d. Mildly impaired spacing of times b. Omits minute hand b. Draws in lines to orient spacing. Circles or underlines 3 f. Visual spatial a. Moderately impaired spacing of lines . Writes number three again e. Error in denoting time as 3 o'clock a. 1986. 2. Clock Type Description X Normal IX almost normal except for number VIII almost normal except for spacing VII very inappropriate spacing VI perseveration V absence of numbers IV counter clockwise rotation III other II irrelevant spatial arrangement I irrelevant figures Shua-Haim et al. Classification of clock errors with the time 1. Draws single line from 3 to 12 c. 1989. Simple scoring system Award one point for each of the following: Approximate drawing of the clock face Presence of numbers in sequence Correct spacial arrangement of numbers Presence of clock hands Hands showing approximately the correct time Hands depicting the exact time Shulman et al. Turns page while writing numbers so that some numbers appear upside down d. Visual spatial a.
months or seasons b. 1 Either no attempt or an uninterpretable effort is made. Writes words "clock" 5. Integrity of clock face is now gone (ie. times of day. Omits number c. 15 etc iii. 4. Dysgraphia 4. Hands may still be present in some fashion. Sensitivity and Specificity Sensitivity = (true positive)/(true positive + false negative) Specificity = (true negative)/(true negative + false positive) . 8 More noticeable errors in placement of hour and minute hands 7 Placement of hands is significantly off course 6 Inappropriate use of clock hands (ie. A PRIORI criteria for evaluating clock drawings. 2 Drawing reveals some evidence of instructions being received but only vague representation of a clock. Continues on past 12 to 13. Confused time. Severely disorganized spacing a. 10-6 Drawing of clock face with number and circle generally intact 10 Hands in correct position (ie. Hands are not present. Counter-clockwise iv. Draws picture of human face c. Repeats circle ii. Unable to make reasonable attempt at clock a. 14. use of digital display or circling numbers despite repeated instructions) 5-1 Drawing of clock face with circle and numbers is NOT intact 5 Crowding of numbers at one end of the clock or reversal of numbers. Exclude severe depression or psychotic state) Sunderland et al. 1983. numbers missing or placed outside of boundaries of the clock face) 3 Numbers and clock face no longer obviously connected in the clock drawing.b. Perseveration i. 4 Further distortion of number sequence. Hours hand approaching 3 o'clock) 9 Slight errors in placement of hands. writes in minutes.