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is a fictional character in the manga series Death Note, created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. A famous model, Misa seeks out Kira (Light Yagami) as she supports his cause to "cleanse the world of evil". Using her own Death Note, a notebook that allows its owner to kill anyone simply by knowing their name and face that she received from the Shinigami Rem, Misa does everything she can to aid Light.

This includes shortening her own lifespan by half, twice, in order to receive the eyes of a Shinigami, giving her the ability to learn a person's name just by looking at their face. Although Misa fills the traditional role of the love interest, her relationship with Light is one-sided as he uses her simply for his own gains. In the anime adaptation, Misa is voiced by Aya Hirano in Japanese and by Shannon Chan-Kent in the English version. In the live-action adaptations, she is portrayed by Erika Toda in the films, by Fuuka Yuzuki in the musical, and by Hinako Sano in the television drama.

Creation and conception
Tsugumi Ohba, the writer of Death Note, decided to create Misa to be the second Kira before serialization began. He felt that having the story solely consist of males would be "boring" and wanted "a cute female." Ohba, intending to introduce her with the Shinigami Eyes, described Misa as having to be "spontaneous and not too bright" and that he determined her personality from the start. Since Light Yagami would never want to trade for the Shinigami Eyes, Ohba needed another character to make the eye trade and decided to use Misa. Ohba said that the conception of the name Misa "was kind of random, but I think it was from "kuromisa" (Black Mass). It must have been based on something".

Ohba ultimately decided to introduce Misa after the death of Naomi Misora. He and Takeshi Obata, the artist of Death Note, wanted to use the Gothic Lolita design to convey the "gothic imagery of the Shinigami and that world". Ohba said that they're "into that fashion" and that having Misa first appear in unusual clothing would be "more interesting." Obata, imagining a mix of an "energetic Japanese artist" and a "foreign rock and roll singer", felt "set" with Misa's design after drawing her for the first time. Obata said that he felt "apprehension" regarding the length of Misa's hair, he wanted her bangs to be "straight across" but believed that creating Misa entirely within the bounds of Gothic Lolita style would be "too much." Therefore, Obata designed her so she looked "a little more natural" and to appear "cute" to people who "weren't into the Gothic Lolita style." Obata revealed that his editor warned him that the scene with Misa in restraints in chapter 33 was on "morally thin ground for a children's magazine," so they placed the title logo over the middle of it. This surprised the artist, who said he "held back" when drawing it.

When the Near and Mello story arc began, and Misa became a top idol, Obata decided to drop the Gothic Lolita style and make her look like "a popular actress." Obata said he remembered "having a lot of fun" while looking through Gothic Lolita magazines and drawing Misa. In response to a question inquiring which characters the creators faced the most difficulty in creating, Obata selected Misa. The artist said he had trouble comprehending the concept of "doing anything for the person you love" and felt like the character controlled him when he drew her. Death Note 13: How to Read also states that Misa "required a lot of artistic variation" because of her "many expressions" that ranged "from goofy to serious."

Obata assigned colors to characters when designing color images to "get the atmosphere right." He assigned pink and black to Misa. In the manga, Misa wears jewelry with a crucifix theme; in the anime adaptation, she wears fleur de lis jewelry, although the cross is retained on the collector's figure included with Volume 5 of the DVD series.

Appearances

In Death Note

Born in Kyoto on December 25, 1984, Misa Amane is a famous model known as "Misa Misa" from the Kansai region who possesses a Death Note given to her by the Shinigami Rem. Before her introduction in the series, Misa was attacked by an obsessed stalker. Unknown to her, a Shinigami named Gelus had fallen in love with her, and to save her life, Gelus wrote her stalker's name into his notebook, killing him. Consequently, Gelus himself died since Shinigami exist only to take human life, not extend it. Rem, who witnessed the whole event, then took Gelus' Death Note which was left behind and gave it to Misa.

Misa moves to Tokyo to meet Kira, a vigilante who uses his Death Note to serially murder criminals to rid the world of evil, as she agrees with his goal. A year before her introduction, Misa's parents were murdered in front of her eyes by a burglar. She could not forgive the killer and even desired to kill him herself. Still, following multiple delays in his trial, she began worrying about the possibility he would get off. However, he was killed by Kira, leading to her worshiping him. Using her Death Note, the media, and her Shinigami Eyes – in exchange for half her remaining lifetime, she could see a person's name and lifespan just by looking at their face. She can identify Light Yagami as Kira and earns herself the moniker "Fake Kira" or "Second Kira" by the task force trying to stop him.

Having fallen in love with him, Misa vows to do whatever Light says in exchange for him becoming her boyfriend. Light agrees to use her Shinigami Eyes and even though he tells her upfront their relationship will only be an act, she believes she can ultimately win his love. According to Ohba, Light sees Misa as a "bad person" who killed innocent people, so he acts emotionally cold towards her and manipulates her. Light and Misa both act together as Kira for over five years, until Light decides that it is too dangerous for Misa to be Kira with members of the task force suspecting him and tells her to give up the notebook. During the series, Misa performs two eye trades, cutting her lifespan in half twice: the first, with Rem; the second, with Ryuk. Misa loses her memories related to using the Death Note, by relinquishing ownership of it, at Light's orders and retains her love for him. The rest of her fate is not shown in the manga at all; she was last seen staying at the Teito Hotel. Ohba stated that this was simply because he did not have a situation to fit her in. The author speculated that after someone "like Matsuda probably let it slip" that Light died, Misa fell into despair and "committed suicide... something like that". Her death date is given as slightly over a year after Light's.

In the anime's finale, Misa appears standing outside the safety rail on the edge of a skyscraper and looking into the sunset. The official anime guidebook lists her date of death as unknown. Misa's English dub voice actress Shannon Chan-Kent said of the scene: "To see her commit suicide, inside I felt like, 'No Misa! Don't do it!' But it felt like the right thing for the series, the right decision. I'm sure everyone else knew it was coming but I didn't know!"

In film

Misa is portrayed in the films by Erika Toda. In the film continuity, Misa has a brother, who is murdered along with her parents. In addition, her appearance is slightly modified: while Misa has blonde hair in the manga and anime, she has brown hair in the films. She is first seen filming a dorama called "Misa-Misa's Happy Sweets", where she states that she is baking treats to make her enemies fat. After filming of that section ends, she expresses support for Kira to a journalist. Her supervisor asks that the statement be cut due to controversies. Misa's attacker, Ryotaro Sakajo, the assistant director for "Happy Sweets", dies from a heart attack when Gelus writes his name inside of his Death Note. Gelus' Death Note then falls in front of Misa, who immediately picks it up. After reading the notebook, she finds Rem.

In the second film, Mogi replaces Ukita as Misa's victim during the Sakura TV incident. Additionally, Misa first learns of Light's identity as Kira when Soichiro rescues Sayu who was at the TV station attending a fair. Misa is present at the final confrontation between Light and the police force, though she is handcuffed and restrained by another officer. When Light dies after Ryuk writes his name down in the Death Note, Misa breaks down emotionally. Her memory of the Death Note is erased, but she retains her obsession with Light, wishing him a happy birthday through a mini-shrine dedicated to him. Erika Toda said that, prior to filming, she felt "a lot of pressure" due to the character's popularity with audiences. She said the pressure vanished when filming began. In an article in The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, writer Kitty Sensei theorized that Toda did not have "the time to think much about how fans would react", citing film shoots that Kitty Sensei described as "physically and mentally exhausting" such as the straitjacket scene. Toda said that undoing the straitjacket took a lot of time, and at times she waited in the jacket between takes. Toda also said that on one occasion, she wore a blindfold for an hour during filming.

Toda reprises the role  once again in Death Note: Light Up the New World. Ten years have passed since Light died. Misa continues her work as an actress while her activities are secretly supervised by police officers. She regains her memories after cyber-terrorist Yuki Shien gives her a Death Note. Initially refusing to cooperate with him, due to Light's death, she makes another eye trade from Ryuk and helps Yuki escape with the six Death Notes he collected by killing two of the Task Force investigators. Although she fails to kill Ryuzaki (whose name was written on a Death Note prior similar to L), she commits suicide by writing her own name, scribbled "Misa Amane dies in Light Yagami's hands".

In other media
In the live-action television drama, Misa is portrayed by Hinako Sano. Unlike the manga and anime, she has a red death note. Her hair is also brown instead of blonde, similarly to the live-action films. When she goes to dig up her buried Death Note, Mikami's assistant steals it, and Mikami uses it to help Kira. Her Death Note is burned by a fire set by Mikami; consequently, her memory of the Death Note is erased.

In the musical adaptation, Misa is portrayed by Fuka Yuduki and Sakura Kiryuu.

Reception

Briana Lawrence of Anime News Network felt that even though Misa was an annoying girl clinging to the main character, "In a series full of geniuses it was amazing to see an average person get a hold of the Death Note. Her presence made things even more complicated for Light and she kept him on his toes as much as L did (maybe even more than L did)." Lawrence was disappointed that the epilogue of the series did not show Misa's ultimate fate. In a review of the anime adaptation, Michelle Yu, from the same website, praised Misa, saying she is physically beautiful and a "good-looking female addition to the screen", while also describing her as a "little diva with some serious issues and a very whiny voice". In a Salon.com article, Douglas Wolk describes Misa as being drawn in a "Japanese comics of cute, tiny, airhead girls with big eyes" and being a "lot cannier than she pretends to be". Wolk added that the reader could "watch her measuring how much quasi-innocent charm to pour on in every situation".

Tom S. Pepirium, a writer at IGN, describes Misa in a review of the Death Note anime episode "Performance" as being the "show's most mysterious character". Pepirium points out the tone in which the character is written, feeling that her motivation and obsession with Kira are "in league with Death Notes dark sensibilities". He says that when Misa spouts her deep and fully realized affection for Kira in "her wacky, excited, poodle-like way", the information "loses all impact". Pepirium uses "girly sophomoric pink fluff" and "Jar Jar" (a reference to Jar Jar Binks) as figurative descriptors for Misa. He has also compared Misa to Dot from Animaniacs. Pepirium said that he wished that Misa was a more serious character at times. Reviewing Death Note, THEM Anime Reviews called Misa "adorable, yet tragic", while also commenting how she becomes "pathetically infatuated with Light and obediently does his bidding", while at the same time threatening his immunity to the Task Force tracking him down.

Christy Lee S.W. of The Star said that Toda's portrayal of Misa in the second film "may seem rather annoying for being overly bubbly and cute at first" and that the character grows on the viewer "after a while". Lee stated that at the end of the film she saw the character of Misa as "quite endearing". Erika Toda stated in The Star that she views Misa as a "complicated and fascinating" character. Toda said that she does not comprehend why a person would willingly use a Death Note, but added that she admired the fact that Misa "does everything she sets out to do", though that the actions of Light and Misa are criminal.

Hannah Grimes of Comic Book Resources wrote, "Back when the show first released, Misa became one of if not the most popularly-designed goth characters in all of anime. With her super-cute black dress, slightly-wedged black boots and intricate fishnets dotting every possible part of the outfit, there's simply so much to take in and admire with this ensemble. This look is also still incredibly popular with cosplayers, and she'll most likely remain one of the more popular goth cosplay choices for a long time to come."

See also

 List of Death Note characters
 Light Yagami

References

Comics characters introduced in 2004
Death Note characters
Female characters in anime and manga
Fictional actors
Fictional characters granted magic or power through dealings
Fictional characters with death or rebirth abilities
Fictional female murderers
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional models
Fictional serial killers
Fictional singers
Fictional suicides
Fictional Japanese people in anime and manga
Fictional characters from Kansai
Fictional illeists
Vigilante characters in comics


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A struggling marriage can be one of the most painful and powerless experiences in life, and yet it's also one of the most solvable problems too.
As long as husband and wife are willing to work at it, marriage counseling can help. Read more about how.
The longer a marriage goes on, the more likely it is that couple incurs some damage and suffers from painful experiences. For some couples that could mean a few serious and significant events that never got fully resolved. For others it could mean death by a thousand paper cuts. Nothing huge, just a slow cumulation of hurts over time.
The reason why this is a common factor for couples that struggle is because it's hard to articulate the cumulation of the smaller things and why the small things represent bigger and more meaningful things.
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Another reason why this is a struggle is because the big events that wound deeply are hard to fully resolve. Imagine your spouse did something years ago that pained you bad. Let's imagine it was a $100,000 hurt. But if you could only quantify $75,000 at the time years ago, that means $25,000 is still hanging out there unresolved. Your spouse doesn't understand this because he/she thought the debt was paid and forgiven. But none the less, the remain debt is there causing strife in your marriage.
Couples that get stuck in unresolved hurts are stuck because they've not done the accounting work to really measure the hurts and because they've not done the forgiveness and reconciliation work needed to be able to move forward in life.
Narratives are like old tapes that play over and over again in the back of our minds without us even noticing.
The reason why this pattern is so prevalent among couples is because they rarely see beyond the surface of what their conflicts actually reveal to them. Couples can have twenty fights about twenty different things on twenty different days, but all those fights are likely driven by just one or two narratives.
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Typically if a marriage is struggling, that most likely means the power between husband and wife is off. Often times one person is the "under-functioner" or the spouse that acts as though they have less power. It might be that this spouse truly feels powerless, or perhaps even that the other spouse is taking power and control from that under-functioner. A lot of times though, it's because the under-functioner is unknowingly giving away power because it's all they know to do in relationships.
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Power imbalances happen all the time and set into a marriage very subtly over time. At first this roles might feel loving and each spouse might be okay with the dynamics. But over time they become a point of resentment, building narratives about what each person's character and intentions are about. It's important to catch this dynamic early on before real damage in a marriage sets in and the resetting the power imbalance becomes one problem among many.
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Thank You to Satjeet Kaur
March 17, 2022 (New York, NY) -- After an extraordinary 13 years of service--including more than 4 years as Executive Director--Satjeet Kaur has officially stepped down from her leadership position as the head of the Sikh Coalition. Satjeet's planned transition was announced in July of last year.
Throughout Satjeet's tenure at the Sikh Coalition, she has worked in nearly every programmatic area of the organization's work. Satjeet started as an intern in 2009, and joined as a full-time staff member in 2010.
"The past 13 years have been an amazing journey, and I am so grateful for every community member, sevadaar, partner, and colleague on the staff and board who have been a part of it with me," said Satjeet. "I am incredibly proud of the organization and the team that we've built together, and the things we have achieved as a result. And even though I am stepping away from my leadership role at the Sikh Coalition, I look forward to staying engaged as a volunteer--because I truly believe that the work we do is a collaboration across the community."
When Satjeet stepped up to lead the organization in 2018, she oversaw the largest staff expansion in the Sikh Coalition's history. Her leadership throughout this period of growth facilitated successes across the organization's programmatic areas, including the passage of new hate crime laws, victories in workplace discrimination cases, six new states adding Sikhi to their social studies standards, and the development of a large and varied library of resources for teachers. She effectively steered the organization through unprecedented crises, among them the farmers' protest in India, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of the 2021 mass shooting in Indianapolis. In all of this work, she consistently strengthened the Sikh Coalition's partnerships with allied organizations, deepened our grassroots efforts to engage sangats across the nation, and put great individual care towards the management and development of our staff.
"We are immensely grateful for Satjeet's tremendous commitment to the Sikh Coalition over more than a decade," said Narinder Singh, Sikh Coalition Executive Board Chairman. "Satjeet leaves the Sikh Coalition a more impactful and effective organization. Ultimately, her legacy will persist not just in the victories achieved under her guidance, but in the people that she helped, mentored, engaged, and empowered throughout her time with us."
For the immediate interim, the Sikh Coalition's day-to-day core programmatic work will be managed by Senior Managing Director of Programs Mark Reading-Smith and Legal Director Amrith Kaur Aakre. Additionally, board members Nitasha Kaur Sawhney and Harpreet Singh will be stepping in as co-Interim Executive Directors to manage and support senior staff leadership, as well as provide capacity and expertise to the team. The Sikh Coalition expects to share other updates pertaining to the Executive Director search in the near future.
As always, the Sikh Coalition urges you to practice your faith fearlessly.
The Sikh Coalition
T 212.655.3095 www.sikhcoalition.org
The Sikh Coalition is a community-based organization that works towards the realization of civil and human rights for all people. The Coalition serves as a resource on Sikhs and Sikh concerns for governments, organizations and individuals.
The Sikh Coalition relies on your financial support to sustain its initiatives and broaden its services. In addition to supporting the Sikh Coalition directly, we encourage you to use matching donation programs offered by many employers. The Sikh Coalition is a 501c (3) non-profit organization. Thank you for your support.
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Editing:2022.03.17 Satjeet farewell Editing:2022.03.17 Satjeet farewell

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Passing data from Unity3D to C++ dll and vice versa I'm currently working on my thesis (MSc Computer Science) which is an Augmented Reality project using OpenCV C++ integrated with Unity3D (for the rendering part). In order to integrate OpenCV with Unity3D I exported the OpenCV (c++) code as a dll and then I am importing that dll in Unity3D for accessing the dll's methods etc.. In addition the University gave me some money to buy OpenCV for Unity (it is implemented in C# using OpenCV for Java) and I am using it as well in Unity3D. The problem is that, it does not support SURF feature extractor and that's why I am not implementing my C++ code straightforward into C# using that asset.
So I want to pass a frame (Mat) from Unity3D (C#) to the C++ dll, then do some calculations and after that return some Mat objects, for example the rotation matrix,translation vector and the camera pose. The most important thing is that I don't know how to pass the Mat frame from Unity3D to the C++ dll.
Can anyone explain to me how to achieve this and also can you post a sample code ?
EDIT: The Unity3D asset that I am using can be found here : OpenCV for Unity3D

A: I just found the solution (ohh yeahhhhhhhh) :)
First of all, I needed to convert my C# Mat (frame) into an array of bytes. Then I created a pointer in order to point at the array of bytes address (which is the image data). After this I invoked the C++ dll method and passed the pointer as an argument (and also the width and height of image). Finally in the C++ dll I reconstructed the C++ Mat using the array of bytes from C#.
Code in Unity3D(C#):
        //frame is the C# Mat and byte_array our array of byes

        //to initialize the size of our byte array (image pixels * channels)
        byte_array= new byte[frame.cols () * frame.rows () * frame.channels ()];
        //copy the frame data to our array
        Utils.copyFromMat (frame,byte_array);
        //initialize a pointer with the apropriate size (array size)
        IntPtr pointer = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(byte_array.Length);
        Marshal.Copy (byte_array, 0, pointer , byte_array.Length);
        //here i call the C++ method (I imported a C++ dll)
        myCplusplusMethod(pointer ,frame.height(),frame.width());
        //free the pointer
        Marshal.FreeHGlobal(pointer );

Now in order to reconstruct the image in C++ using the passed data from C#:
void myCplusplusMethod(unsigned char* data,int height,int width){
     //btw you have to get the correct type. In my situation I use debug from C# and I found out that my image is CV_8UC3 type.
     Mat constructed= Mat(height, width, CV_8UC3, data);
     //..do whatever using the image.. (calculations , etc)..
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Stage Costumes for Sylvie Vartan at the Olympia
Related to Live Entertainment and Cinema
Yves Saint Laurent designed a number of outfits for the French singer Sylvie Vartan, including a gold jumpsuit for her 1972 concert at the Olympia. It was extremely sexy and so comfortable that she continued to wear it on television and on tour after Saint Laurent gave it to her.
Generally speaking, it's important to avoid loose clothing onstage and instead wear structured designs. A couturier has to adapt his work according to these requirements because the most beautiful dress in a haute couture collection will not necessarily make a good stage costume. Saint Laurent did that very well.
Sylvie Vartan, cited in Revue de Mode.
Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972.
Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1970 show, directed by Jojo Smith at the Olympia, Paris, 1970.
La Revue, Featuring Zizi Jeanmaire


Why go on a Road Dog Tour?
Many of our guests ask "What is a Road Dog" - There are a few simple definitions that we love and define our tour company name..
Road Dog Tours was created in 2011 in Seattle, Washington by Dustin Boast. Being a craft beer lover and person that loves to travel, Dustin created our first tour being the Seattle Brewery Tour. Our tours have then expanded with the explosion of the many new and interesting distilleries in Seattle as well as a new buzz for our Seattle Coffee Tour. We continue to bring exciting experiences and fun tours for our guests.


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American Gangster (TV series) - Wikipedia - gangster midget molley
gangster midget molley - Hakeem Abdul-Shaheed - Wikipedia
Hakeem Abdul-Shaheed, aka Midget Molley, born Robert Edward Molley on March 4, 1959, is an American convicted drug dealer and organized crime leader. Robert Molley acquired the nickname 'Midget' from his family, in reference to his short height. He stands at 5'2".Born: March 4, 1959 (age 60). Nov 06, 2008 · First Aired: November 6, 2008. Profiling Atlantic City drug lord Robert "Midget" Molley, known for his purported income of $1 million a month, his Actors: Ving Rhames.
Watch American Gangster - Season 3, Episode 3 - Midget Molley: The son of a minister, this former drug Lord of Atlantic City was once said to have raked in more than a $1 million a mo. Midget Molley: The Other Side of Being a Gangster available in DVD Ship This Item — This item is available online through Marketplace sellers. Buy Online, Pick up in Store is currently unavailable, but this item may be available for in-store purchase.
American Gangster is a documentary television series, which airs on BET.The show features some of black America's most infamous and powerful gangsters and is narrated by Ving Rhames.The series premiere, on November 28, 2006, amassed around one million viewers. The first season ended on January 9, 2007, and comprised 6 episodes; a season 1 DVD was released on October 23, 2007.Original network: BET. Jul 10, 2007 · THE MYTH OF MIDGET MOLLEY: Life & Love of a Kingpin, by Ali Rob, is the first in a series of books about Midget Molley, a notorious gangster and drug dealer from Atlantic City. Shortly after the book begins, Midget is sentenced to five years in prison for settling a score.2/5(1).
Nov 06, 2008 · Metacritic TV Episode Reviews, Midget Molley, The son of a minister, this former drug Lord of Atlantic City was once said to have raked in more than a $1 million a month, a position h. Midget Molley was a drug kingpins from Atlantic City during the 1980's who became the "King of Atlantic City". More information Find this Pin and more on The Gangsters, Drug kingpins, and Street Hustlers by The Criminal Underworld Compilation.
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Applicants will receive Drifit Shirts this year.
Living Donor & Transplant Recipient events are Free.
If you are a donor or transplant recipent contact the race director for password.
Package Pickup will be Friday May 18th from 5pm-9pm at 850 Hochelaga St E.
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For those unable to attend on the Friday we will have the packages available on the Sunday morning from 8-930am.
3KM : Sunday May 20, 2018 @ 10:00 A.M.
5KM : Sunday May 20, 2018 @ 10:00 A.M.
10KM : Sunday May 20, 2018 @ 10:00 A.M.
Living Donor : Sunday May 20, 2018 @ 10:00 A.M.


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What are the ten most cited sources on Wikipedia? Let's ask the data.
5 April 2018 by Miriam Redi, Jake Orlowitz, Dario Taraborelli and Ben Vershbow
Photo by Patrick Tomasso via Unsplash, published prior to 5 June 2017, CC0.
On the Spanish Wikipedia, at the top of the list of most-cited sources in articles you'll find: a "Catalog of Fishes", a dictionary of minor planets, an encyclopedia of Argentinian films, a field guide to the songbirds of South America, and an atlas of Spanish popular culture.
Citations are the foundation of Wikipedia's reliability: they trace the connection between content added by our community of volunteer contributors and its sources. For readers, citations provide a mechanism to validate and check for themselves that what Wikipedia says is sound and trustworthy: they act as a gateway towards a broader ecosystem of reliable knowledge. In an effort to spearhead more research on where Wikipedia gets its facts from, and to celebrate Open Citations Month, we asked ourselves: what are the most cited sources across all of Wikipedia's language editions?
To answer this question, we published a dataset of every citation referencing an identifier across all 297 Wikipedia language editions. The dataset breaks down sources cited in each language by identifier–a PMID or PMC (for articles in the biomedical literature), a DOI (for scholarly papers), an ISBN (for book editions), or an ArXiV ID (for preprints).
What's in the data?
The full dataset, extracted from the March 1, 2018 Wikipedia content dumps, includes a total of 15,693,732 records and shows important variations across languages in the kind of sources volunteer contributors cite. The dataset also only includes citations by identifier, which means not all citations on Wikipedia are reflected in the dataset; many more publications than the records included in this dataset are cited that don't reference any identifier (and our next analysis will be able to tell you what percentage of total citations this dataset represents).
What types of sources are cited the most by language?
On average, the majority of publications cited by identifier across Wikipedia language editions are books. German Wikipedia – one of the top 5 language editions by number of articles – relies primarily on information sourced to book editions, with 87% of citations in the ISBN category. Conversely, English Wikipedia sources its information equally on scholarly publications and books, while Arabic Wikipedia uses more scholarly publications than books.
Preprint repositories such as ArXiv, represent a minority of publications, with less than 2% of citations in each language, and they are most prominently cited in Arabic Wikipedia. At least 5% of publications in Arabic and English Wikipedia are open access biomedical publications from PubMedCentral.
How fast are citations growing by language?
If we look at the percentage of total citations added over time, we note that some languages such as Arabic and Spanish are on a steady growth trajectory as of early 2018, while the general trend (black line) is flattening. Since the number of articles across all languages continues to grow, this suggests that in some languages the rate of citation is slowing down.
How often are sources cited and reused across articles and languages?
There are 4.5 million unique sources in the datasets. While on average, every source is cited 3.5 times, the vast majority of sources in this dataset are used less than 500 times across wikis. Only nine "super publications"' are used more than 10,000 times.
What are the most cited sources?
Unsurprisingly, Wikipedians love reference works. The top 10 sources by citation across every Wikipedia language are all reference books or scientific articles describing large collections. Many of these publications have been cited by Wikipedians across large series of articles using powerful bots and automated tools.
Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification: 2,830,341 citations [doi.org/10.5194/hess-11-1633-2007]
Prediction of Hydrophobic (Lipophilic) Properties of Small Organic Molecules Using Fragment Methods: An Analysis of AlogP and CLogP Methods: 21,350 citations [doi.org/10.1021/jp980230o]
The status, quality, and expansion of the NIH full-length cDNA project: the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC): 20,247 citations [doi.org/10.1101/gr.2596504]
The de Vaucouleurs Atlas of Galaxies: 19,068 citations [ISBN: 9780521820486]
The Complete New General Catalogue and Index Catalogues of Nebulae and Star Clusters by J. L. E. Dryer: 19,060 citations [ISBN: 9780933346512]
Galaxies and How to Observe Them: 19,058 citations [ISBN: 9781852337520}
A Concise History of Romania: 15,597 citations [ISBN: 9780521872386]
Catalog of Fishes California Academy of Sciences: 11,980 citations, [ISBN: 0940228475]
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names: 10,651 citations [ISBN: 9783540002383]
National and religious composition of the population of Croatia, 1880-1991: By settlements: 8,230 citations [ISBN: 9789536667079]
Why does this data matter?
First off, it allows us to analyze, at scale, where Wikipedia gets its information from. Understanding the provenance of information used by Wikipedians, also allows us to lift a veil on its gaps—the types of sources, languages, and perspectives—that are not represented, which in turn can inform community efforts to improve coverage in underserved content areas. The data can also be reused by partners such as publishers, scholarly societies, and research projects to better understand how their works are used and found by the public.
As a freely licensed, CCO dataset, we hope researchers and partners will re-use and analyze this corpus for trends of interest to their fields and research projects. Critically, a list of the most cited sources also enables partners to try and make more or most of them accessible to readers. We can help drive digitization and open access efforts geared towards making the most commonly-cited sources free to access online.
Finally, with citations as an indicator of factual currency, knowing what works are supporting our shared knowledge gives us a glimpse into popular understanding–both how we know what we know, and what we know most about.
Reactions from friends and partners
Since this dataset should empower others to do their own analysis and incorporate insights from Wikipedia's citations, we asked some of our friends and partners what they thought.
"Wikipedia plays a crucial role in democratizing access to knowledge and enriching our understanding of the world," said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). "This new citation dataset provides a deeper level of transparency and trustworthiness to its content, and opens exciting new paths for people learn, innovate and follow their curiosity."
Geoffrey Bilder, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Crossref, said: "We are delighted to see the Wikimedia Foundation release this dataset that shows which research is most often cited in Wikipedia articles. Over the past ten years, we've been monitoring the rapid growth of links between Wikipedia and research outputs. It appears that Wikipedia is increasingly taking on the role of the "review article" and is set to become the de facto starting place for the researchers exploring subjects they are unfamiliar with. This means Wikipedia has become a vital gateway that drives users to published research articles and, as such, it has become one of the top referrers of DOIs in the world."
Brewster Kahle, digital librarian, looked ahead: "At the Internet Archive, we believe in the value of verifiable information. We plan to use the citation data that Wikimedia Foundation has released to inform our digitization priorities, making the most important books available to researchers worldwide. We envision a future where every citation and reference in Wikipedia is a live link into a trusted repository like the Internet Archive, empowering every Wikipedia user to fact-check and verify the information they encounter online."
"This dataset is a powerful new way to track how knowledge moves from the leading edge of scientific research into the broader collective minds of humankind as a whole," said Jason Priem, co-founder of ImpactStory. "We'll use it to help us fine-tune our efforts with Unpaywall in our goal to make scholarly papers open and accessible to everyone."
This work extends and complements data first released in 2015, created with a python library designed by Aaron Halfaker and extended by Bahodir Mansurov. If you are planning to use this dataset, we encourage you to cite it using its canonical reference as "Citations with identifiers in Wikipedia" (hosted on FigShare).
This data release is only a first step among many to come in understanding how citations are used on Wikipedia. In the next few months, we'll focus on additional analyses of citations in Wikimedia projects, to understand how they are accessed by readers, since we care about the public being able to verify information that Wikipedia cites. We'll also continue to work with partners to promote the use of this data and deepen our research of citation practices on Wikipedia.
As Wikipedia becomes every more ingrained in the fabric of the world's knowledge–as a resource that aims to provide fact-based, neutral information that people can trust–we need to understand and cultivate our citation culture and make sure we can constantly vet it for biases, gaps and omissions.
Miriam Redi, Research Scientist
Dario Taraborelli, Director, Head of Research
Jake Orlowitz, The Wikipedia Library
Ben Vershbow, Lead Programs Manager (libraries, education, cultural heritage)
Wikimedia Foundation
You can also read this post on our Medium publication. The graphs in this post are by Miriam Redi/Wikimedia Foundation, and freely licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Brenda Wahler
This analysis leaves out a major source of information, that is, newspapers and mainstream periodicals. I suspect that The New York Times or similar works would be very high on these lists if there was a way to parse the data
Prof. P.B.Mangla
Really informative. Congrats.
Peter Murray-Rust
This is exciting. Everywhere I go I tell the world that Wikidata is becoming the most important metadata resource for science – and you can see that reflected in chemistry, bioscience, geolocation, etc.
I'd also like to thank Wikimedia Foundation for supporting us to develop tools (WikiFactMine, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiFactMine) for indexing the scientific literature against Wikidata. There are over 200 dictionaries all pointing back to Wikidata. We have also created about 13 million Wikidata entries for scientifc articles so it makes it even easier to link these semantically into Wikimedia and non-Wikimedia resources.
llywrch
One source I'm surprised that did not make the top 10 list is the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Those of us who have contributed to Wikipedia since near the beginning know the some 20,000 articles collected in this work provided the start for many Wikipedia articles. I did a quick-n-dirty count of how many articles in the English Wikipedia link to Template:EB1911 (which is how credit is given when it is used in an article), & found at least 12,000 do — which would put it in 8th position, if it was included in this survey. Several more… Read more »
Posted in Foundation, From the archives, GLAM, Research, WikipediaTagged citations, data, Data visualization, references, sources, Wikimedia Blog (EN Archive), Wikipedia


New lightweight FM trailer hitch GB - Miata Turbo Forum - Boost cars, acquire cats.
More details on the hitch here. I think this thing is perfect for a lot of the MT.net members who do a lot of track work.
We're running an introductory group buy on the hitch so we can buy a larger volume. If we can get 10 people by the end of the month, we'll be able to drop the price to $199.
The photos of the actual part are the prototype. Mark made some small improvements for lighter weight and more strength, as seen in the rendering.
Cool Part Keith. I went to buy it, but saw NA fitment only.
Good luck with the GB. I'll watch for an NB version.
Good timing, we were just talking about it!
It's NA fitment only for a couple of reasons. It's a much easier one to design than the NB, and Mark at Paco has an NA We're talking about an NB and NC version, but I don't have any details.
will it clear the rear skirt if you have one?
Fits 1990-97 models only. If you have the R package rear skirt, you will need to cut a notch to clear the ball mount.
I never had the rear skirt, but I liked that the receiver dipped low enough to clear it if i were ever to add it.
Nice timing! Hope the buy gets put together. If I don't DIY something quick I'll definetly be in.
Even if the buy doesn't go through, we'll have these available for $225.
I think we'll have an optional ball mount that gives clearance for the rear skirt. I don't know if it will be made standard due to the loss in ground clearance. Strength won't be an issue, that part is way overbuilt.
Is there any idea what a standard Miata hitch weighs? Please don't make me get the wrenches out. I also need a weight on this item for NASA TT classing ASAP because I'm trying to email the NASA director yesterday.
Is there any idea what a standard Miata hitch weighs? Please don't make me get the wrenches out.
Curt's specs for their version of the hidden hitch list a weight of 21 lbs. Not sure if that includes the removable part or not.
Screw all that noise, I'll buy it. I ordered through the website as suggested.
Last edited by hustler; 01-09-2011 at 05:02 PM.
The removable part adds a LOT of weight. However, that's not important unless the trailer is coming on the track with you.
Actual weight of our receiver is 8 lbs. You have to remove 3 lbs worth of tie-down hooks to install it, thus the total weight gain of 5 lbs. Just in case NASA cares.
95% sure I'm in for this. Just need to see how my finances are at the end of the month.
Can I finally fit one of those rear "SM style" tow hooks back there with this mounted?
Or is there any chance that the hitch could be made with tow eyes integrated into the mounting plates for example? I think this would be of interest to anyone tracking their car, which is probably a large percentage of people who'd be buying these hitches. See attached crappy photoshop for general idea.
Another possibility would be to take a standard tow eye and cut a square notch so it slips over the horizontal hitch tube on the inside of the end plate. Probably would then want to weld the two together so the tow eye isn't rendered too flimsy by notching it. If you had a welder and more effort than I, it could be done.
Or replace the ball hitch assembly arm thing with a toe hook on a pin. Pull ball/drop hitch, replace with tow hook, not get yelled at by NASA people. Right now I'm pulling the hitch, then bolting in the tow loop.
There's also the option for romantic attachments.
Update - we've now tweaked the design of the ball mount so it can be adjusted for height. The lowest setting will clear the R package, and you can now match your hitch height to your trailer. This will be standard on all the hitches, including any already ordered.
A tow hook attachment for the receiver? Interesting idea.


text:
Dornier acquired
KATHMANDU:
The Gorkha Airlines' newly-acquired Dornier 228 aircraft landed at the Tribhuvan International airport at 4.45 on Friday. The airlines, with its German eighteen-seater Dornier, is expected to begin its scheduled flights to different parts of the country within three days. "We will soon begin our operations to Lukla, Jomsom, Pokhara, Bharatpur, Tumlingtar, Janakpur from Kathmandu as the base after three days," said Thakur Lamichhane, sales and marketing manager of the airlines. — HNS
Mha puja observed
Mha puja, an important ceremony of Newars of Nepals, was performed at the Royal Nepalese Embassy in Moscow on the occasion of Nepal Sambat 1126 on Wednesday. Speaking on the occasion, Nepal's ambassador to Russia, Hiranya Lal Shrestha, said that the Nepal Sambat is not just a Sambat of only the Newars of Nepal but also a public festival of all the Nepalis. Vice-chairman of the Russia-CIS Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Dr Krishna Prasad Rijal, spoke at length on the important role of the Newar community in Nepali culture. NRN, International Coordination Committee, Russia, Representative Jiwa Lamichhane and Central General Secretary of the International Nepali Literary Society, and Editor of Multilingual Internet Free Nepal Dr Madhu Madhurya also expressed their views. During the programme, ambassador Shrestha also released a Russian version of the Newari drama "Kumari Chandeswori". The play has been translated into the Russian language by Krishna Prasad Shrestha. — RSS
US Ambassador Berry meets NCP chair Dahal


If you have a database which has it's design hidden, (and no back up) it's possible to Unhide the design.
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Replace the design in this new DB using the template created from the DB with is design hidden.
ALL design elements should be available to you.


text:
Accounts of Jardine, Skinner & Co., Oct. 1859-May 1861
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS JM/A8/37/4
Jardine Matheson Archive
Accounting and related papers, 1798-1969 (with some photocopies made in 1983)
Miscellaneous loose accounts and papers, 1812-1934
Current accounts and shipping accounts of Jardine, Skinner & Co., dated Calcutta. The documents include reference to the 'Fiery Cross'; 'Lancefield'; opium; and shipping.
Oct. 1859-May 1861
Access to the collection is subject to special conditions and is at the discretion of Matheson & Co. Ltd, part of the Jardine Matheson Group. A statement of the conditions and an application form are available in the Manuscripts Reading Room. Printed copies of the form are available by post (please contact the University Library). An electronic version can also be found at https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/files/jm_permission_form.pdf.
Records described in the catalogue as being in a bad condition are in a fragile state that precludes them being made available to readers.
Access to some records may be restricted under the terms of the Data Protection Act, 1998.
15 item(s) (15 items)
Jardine, Skinner and Co
From the Fonds: Jardine, Matheson and Co. Ltd (Organization)
Accounts of Jardine, Skinner & Co., Oct. 1859-May 1861, GBR/0012/MS JM/A8/37/4. Cambridge University Library.
Accounts of Jardine, Skinner & Co., Oct. 1859-May 1861, GBR/0012/MS JM/A8/37/4. Cambridge University Library. https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/605612 Accessed January 21, 2022.


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LS Speaker for probe into Gowda's dying
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla today demanded a high-level impartial probe into the sudden demise of SL Dharme Gowda, deputy chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council.
Gowda was found dead on the rail tracks in Chikmagalur. He was in news recently after Congress members pushed him off his chair amid pandemonium during a no-confidence motion against the chairman of the legislative council. He was accusedof occupying the Chairman's seat.
"I am deeply pained at the news of SL Dharme Gowda's demise. The behaviour meted out to him, in his capacity as presiding officer of the Karnataka Legislative Council, is an assault on democracy. A high-level impartial probe into his demise is necessary," Birla said today. A suicide note was recovered from near the body.
Be the first to comment on "LS Speaker for probe into Gowda's dying"
India climbs to prime of World Take a look at Championship standings after sequence win over Australia January 19, 2021
'Historic second': Pawar on India's win in Take a look at towards Australia January 19, 2021


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Kate Winslet Reveals the Criticism She Received for "Titanic" and a Regret She Has
Jimmy 28/01/2023
Titanic was the first film to gross $1 billion when it was released in 1997. It held the record for the most money made in a...
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10 Actors Who Went Above And Beyond For A Role And Were Totally Unrecognizable
Sometimes, the demands of being an actor are far higher than what we expect. Like every other profession, acting has a few people who are so...
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15 Stars Who Went Through Miserable Childhoods
People tend to easily assume that celebrities were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, enjoying a life path full of roses since infancy. Yet,...
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Tom Cruise And This Co-Star Were Rivals: "It Was Fun To Play Up The Conflict"
On the screen, they were adversaries who grew close. They were pals who later turned into adversaries off-screen. In the first Top Gun, Val Kilmer played...
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18 Onscreen Couples You Certainly Forgot Dated in Real Life
While most of us are struggling to find someone to go out with on Tinder, single celebrities don't even need dating apps because they can meet...
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10 Amazing Facts About Santa Claus: The Movie You Probably Didn't Know
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How The Cast Of Addams Family Has Changed After 31 Years, And It's Hard To Tell Which One's Better
The Addams Family í a fictional family written by American cartoonist Charles Addams. In 1964, a live-action TV series premiered on ABC and ran for two...
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9 Actors Who Dare To Sacrifice Anything For The Sake Of Perfect Transformation Into Their Roles
Carolyn Mullet 12/01/2023 12/01/2023
When we watch a movie, we feel the actors feature the characters perfectly as if they aren't acting. In fact, acting is never an undemanding career,...
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6 Famous Characters That Were Supposed to Win People's Hearts but Ended Up Ruining Their Movies
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20 Movie Castings That People Believe Were The Best Decisions Taken
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17 Celebs Who Are Extremely Sexy Regardless Of Their Age or Outfit
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6 On-Screen Duos Who Couldn't Stand Each Other In Real Life
In the movies and on TV, everything seems picture-perfect but what happens when the camera stops spinning can be a completely different story. While some actors...
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10+ Runway Outfits That Looked Completely Different On Models And Celebrities
You may think that when celebrities walk on the red carpet with their glamorous outfits, they are all custom-made by designers and those celebs are supposed...
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12 Most Fascinating Harry Potter Movie Facts That Every Fan Needs To Know
"You're a wizard Harry," Hagrid says to Harry proudly, standing in the doorway he has just battered down. "I'm a what?" stutters a nervous-looking, eleven-year-old boy....
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9 Famous Movie Roles Meant For Different Actors
For movie lovers, it's always an interesting idea to think of what some of our favorite films would have been like if other actors had played...
20 Times Of Actors Manifesting Actual Historical People And Getting Praised
Carolyn Mullet 29/12/2022
Features based on or inspired by historical stories and events are a huge challenge to producers. They need to buy scripts that include creatively interesting, new,...
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23 Book-To-Movie Castings That Have Done Stellar Job
We're all familiar with box office hits like the Harry Potter series, Lord of The Rings, Twilight, and The Green Mile. As you may realize, they...
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Want a gorgeous, memorable wedding? Of course you do. But before you walk down the aisle dressed in the gown of your dreams, there's quite a lot of planning you'll have to do. What will your wedding theme be? How about your color palette? Do you know how to negotiate contracts with vendors? Oh, and have you mastered the art of the perfect seating chart? We didn't mean to overwhelm you, but these are just a few of the questions you'll have to have definitive answers to in the months prior to your big day.
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Insects sometimes cause massive damage to landscape plants, but these instances are usually rare occurrences. It's only when the insect populations reach a certain critical mass that the damage becomes troublesome.
Most insects pose no problems at all to lawn and landscape plantings. Often, many insects are predators of other insects that are harmful. Therefore, we need to be very careful about using insecticides that will kill all the insects in a given area.
For the most part, you can ignore most insects in the landscape. There are some exceptions: particular attention should be given to Japanese beetles (steps should be taken as soon as they appear in the landscape).
Plants damaged by the majority of insects include leaf problems. Identifying the type of leaf problems you have will help in identifying the particular insect that is causing the damage. The following are a grouping of types of insects associated with particular leaf problems. This list is by no means exhaustive, but tries to give the reader an insight into some of the more common insect problems.
Asparagus beetles asparagus leaves are eaten, the epidermis is removed from stems causing the upper growth to dry and turn brown.
Black vine weevils yews, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, euonymus, camellias, grapes, strawberries and fuchsias notches appear in leaf margins, often near the ground from late spring to mid fall.
Colorado potato beetles potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers leaves are eaten, leaving only the main vein.
Gypsy moths many deciduous trees and shrubs, but especially apples, hawthorns, oaks, lindens and sometimes conifers such as spruce leaves are eaten and plants may be defoliated. Repeated attacks will kill the plant.
Japanese beetles various plants including grape, roses, and daylilies flowers and leaves are eaten often in groups, leaving only the veins of the leaf visible.
Insects are not a common cause of residential lawn damage, but certain insect species occasionally damage or kill turfgrass.
Insect feeding can cause grass to turn yellow or brown, or die, especially if the grass is already stressed. Damage usually begins in scattered small patches, which may merge into large dead areas.
Lack of proper cultural care and use of inappropriate grass species in a particular location are more likely responsible for unhealthy or dying lawns than insects. Disease-causing pathogens, excessive or inappropriate use of chemicals such as fertilizers and herbicides, and dog urine also produce damage resembling that of insects. Before taking any insect control action, be sure that it is insects causing the problem and not something else.
Insects that do infest home lawns are often difficult to observe and their presence goes undetected until significant damage has been done. Plus, insect damage can be mistaken for other problems such as drought damage. If the lawn remains brown or shows signs of thinning despite appropriate watering, then closer examination for insects should be done. A lawn inspection should include looking at leaves, stems, roots, thatch and the soil to determine if the problem is insect-related and catch the problem before extensive damage occurs.
Insects that may cause damage lawns include various root-, crown-, and leaf-feeding caterpillars; white grubs, which are the larvae of beetles; billbugs, which are weevils with white, grub like larvae; and chinch bugs, which are true bugs in the order Hemiptera. Armyworms, cutworms, mole crickets also cause damage to lawns. In northwestern America, crane flies are sometimes a problem.
Each species produces somewhat different damage symptoms and must be managed differently. Many insects may be observed while examining grass. However, control is rarely or never needed for most types of insects because they are harmless, and more likely to be beneficial.
Common beneficial insects include predatory ants, ground beetles, rove beetles, and blister beetles. Other common arthropods that are primarily decomposers and do no significant injury to turfgrass include springtail's and millipedes.
Good cultural practices are the primary method for managing insect damage to lawns. Growing appropriate grass species for a particular location and providing lawns with proper care are especially important. Practices such as irrigating and fertilizing have a major impact on lawn health. Physical controls, such as thatch removal, choice of mowing height and frequency, and providing grass with more light by pruning tree branches, are also important in certain situations.
Most home lawns do not need to be treated with insecticides if proper cultural practices are followed. Insecticides should never be applied unless a pest is identified and detected at damaging levels. If insecticides are necessary, choose materials that have minimum impacts on beneficial organisms and the environment.
Keeping your grass healthy is by far the best way to prevent damage from lawn pests. Healthy lawns require few, if any, insecticide treatments. If a lawn is under stress and a pesticide is applied, it stands a better chance of suffering damage from the pesticide itself.


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Home / World View / What Are Some Good High Potassium Fertilizers?
What Are Some Good High Potassium Fertilizers?
By Staff WriterLast Updated Apr 15, 2020 7:42:43 PM ET
The most common high potassium fertilizer is murate of potassium, but potassium sulfate provides almost as much of the mineral without damaging soil. In soil, potassium exists as the ion, fixed in minerals that release it slowly, and an unavailable mineral form. Most of the naturally occurring phosphorous in the soil is in the unavailable mineral form.
Potassium helps to increase crop yield by improving drought resistance in plants. It encourages healthy root development and aids in photosynthesis. It aids in storing sugars and increases the protein the plant provides. In fine soils, such as clays, the fertilizer requires tilling to reach the root zone, although it leaches to them through sandy soils.
In areas where potassium levels are generally high in surrounding areas, have the level of potassium in the lawn or garden tested before applying more. In specialty applications, as with pot plants and hanging baskets, specialty fertilizes, such as water soluble ones may provide the best option. In lawns, slow release fertilizers provide small amounts of the mineral over time to ensure the grass has the best chance to absorb and use it.
Peanuts, cotton, grain sorghum and corn require large amounts of potassium. However, fescue and alfalfa remove the most potassium from the soil at the time of harvest.


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Statement on the Public Interest of the R Street Institute, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Engine Advocacy, and Lincoln Network
Pursuant to the Notice of Request dated October 26, 2018, the above-identified organizations respectfully submit the following statement on the public interest in this investigation. Briefly, the commenters agree with the Recommended Determination, which concluded that an exclusion order would be contrary to the statutory public interest factors under sections 337(d)(1) of the Tariff Act of 1930. No exclusion order should issue in this case because, as Judge Pender found based on substantial evidence, the monopolization of the premium baseband processor chip market would harm competition, consumers, and national security, contrary to the public interest.
These comments will address the following four points. First, the likely monopolization of the premium baseband processor market will seriously undermine economic competition and innovation. Second, the resulting lack of competition will harm national security interests, in particular because it will increase the national mobile communications infrastructure's vulnerability to cyber-attacks. Third, monopolization of a key component of mobile communications devices will frustrate the United States' stated policy of promoting Internet access and broadband deployment. Fourth, the sole competing public interest—Qualcomm's purported desire to vindicate its patent rights—is both questionable given Qualcomm's other litigation positions, and inconsequential given Qualcomm's easy access to a full remedy in district court.
Qualcomm's market power over baseband processors is highly relevant to the ITC's public interest consideration, and it weighs strongly against any exclusion order.
An exclusion order on Intel-based iPhones would adversely affect competitive conditions in the United States economy as carriers both domestic and international are all working to upgrade their networks to 5G, the next generation of mobile networking technology. If Intel is forced to exit the market for premium baseband processors at this crucial stage, Qualcomm will have a global monopoly that may be unassailable for years to come. Such monopolization in the market for premium baseband processors will inevitably harm competition and consumers downstream, for at least three reasons.
First, without an alternative supplier in the market, Qualcomm will be able to restrict output and charge supra-competitive prices to smartphone manufacturers that inevitably will be passed on, at least in part, to smartphone purchasers. Such monopoly rents would be good for Qualcomm, but bad for consumer welfare. Second, absence of competition from suppliers like Intel will reduce Qualcomm's incentives to innovate and improve the quality of baseband processors. The resulting decline in baseband chip innovation will leave consumers with lower quality smartphones, and leave network operators and application developers with artificial constraints in their own innovative work. Consumer welfare and competitive conditions in the U.S. economy will thus suffer.
Third, high entry barriers in the premium baseband processor market mean that a Qualcomm monopoly over baseband processors may be unassailable for years or even decades. As such, market forces will likely be unable to correct for the competitive imbalance that would result from an exclusion order in this case. Therefore, the public interest weighs strongly against such an exclusion order here.
Judge Pender correctly disregarded Qualcomm's argument that Intel-based iPhones could be readily substituted for other iPhone models or smartphones made by competing manufacturers, like Samsung and LG. Competition for smartphones in the downstream market says nothing about competition—or lack thereof—in the upstream market for premium baseband processors, which is the basis for this dispute.
Certainly enforcement of patent rights will always impair competition to a degree, and that general phenomenon alone should not overcome imposition of an exclusion order in mine-run ITC investigations. Here, though, the particular circumstances of the especially concentrated premium baseband processor market—largely caused by Qualcomm's own anti-competitive licensing behavior—require special application of the public interest factors to prevent the creation of a Qualcomm monopoly.
National security concerns relating to the United States' competitiveness in 5G development weigh strongly against exclusion.
The Recommended Determination relied correctly on national security concerns relating to mobile phone networks and particularly 5G technology to conclude that an exclusion order solidifying Qualcomm's monopoly in the premium baseband processor market would harm the public interest. Indeed, an exclusion order would especially harm national security in this investigation, because a single manufacturer's dominance of the market would threaten communications infrastructure cybersecurity, presenting vulnerabilities open to widespread cyber-attack by both foreign and domestic bad actors.
Baseband processors, being the necessary component that mediates communications between mobile devices and cell towers, are an attractive target for hackers seeking to commandeer mobile infrastructure for malicious ends. Security researchers have repeatedly documented insecurities and weaknesses in baseband processors. The so-called "IMSI catcher" device, frequently used by the government and now available on the open market, essentially tricks baseband processors into revealing their users' communications, enabling mass surveillance.
Failure to design baseband processors with tight security in mind has thus enabled hackers and foreign adversaries to spy on domestic communications.
Competition in the leading-edge premium baseband processor market is essential to the national security interest in cybersecure baseband processors. Competition forces companies to out-innovate each other, to conduct adversarial research into flaws in their competitor's products, and to argue over 5G standards development in ways likely to elicit the most secure technologies. A lack of competition, by contrast, would lead to a monoculture of Qualcomm baseband processors—a situation that security experts have repeatedly recognized as inherently vulnerable to cyberattack. Accordingly, given how critical baseband processors are to national infrastructure, cybersecurity and national security concerns strongly weigh against an exclusion order that would render a single firm the dominant provider of baseband processors.
An exclusion order would undermine the national interest in promoting widespread deployment of broadband Internet access.
As discussed above, an exclusion order on Intel-based iPhones would substantially harm competition in the market for premium baseband processors. That competitive harm would inevitably flow downstream, resulting in higher prices and/or lower quality in the smartphone market. Such harms to consumers and competition are bad enough, but an exclusion order would also harm public health and welfare writ large by frustrating other policy goals set by Congress.
In particular, Congress has repeatedly made clear that promoting widespread deployment of broadband Internet access is a key goal of public policy. Given that smartphones and other mobile devices are now the primary tool consumers use to access the Internet, price increases on these devices due to upstream monopolization by Qualcomm will harm the ability of consumers to access the Internet. This harm will be especially pronounced among low-income consumers, who are particularly sensitive to price.
While the ITC has no direct role in promoting broadband deployment or regulating the communications marketplace, an exclusion order would frustrate the mission of other state and federal agencies and run counter to policy goals expressed in law. The national interest in promoting widespread deployment of broadband Internet access weighs against the grant of an exclusion order on Intel-based iPhones.
Qualcomm's purported interest in protecting patent rights is questionable given its litigation conduct, and undermined by the presence of more appropriate district court remedies.
Against all of the above concerns of great national importance, Qualcomm posits nothing more than its private interest in enforcing its patent rights. Yet that private interest should be accorded little weight especially in the present context, for at least two reasons.
First, as the Recommended Determination recognized, Qualcomm has a complete remedy in the district courts. Apple is a domestic company amenable to service; indeed, Qualcomm is litigating in district court against Apple right now. An exclusion order remedy would be not merely duplicative, but grossly overcompensatory Qualcomm given that the value of the articles to be excluded—complex multi-feature smartphones—far exceeds the value of the power-management features of the sole infringed patent. An exclusion order, even a limited one as the Staff proposes, would be both unnecessary and excessive.
Second, there is strong reason to believe that Qualcomm is not even interested in compensation for any patent infringement. In a related district court case, Apple sought declaratory judgment that it did not infringe several Qualcomm patents. Rather than countersuing for infringement, Qualcomm voluntarily gave Apple a covenant not to sue for infringement. Certainly the patents at issue before the Commission are different, but Qualcomm's willingness to forego any remedy on a large portion of the company's patent portfolio strongly suggests that recompense for its patent rights is not Qualcomm's motivation.
Instead, it is apparent from the evidence adduced in this investigation that Qualcomm's primary motivation is to boot Intel from the baseband processor market and from future 5G innovation. For reasons provided above, that result and the consequent Qualcomm monopoly would undermine competition, national security, and national priorities in Internet access deployment. An exclusion order would thus be contrary to the public welfare, competitive conditions, production of competitive articles, and United States consumers.
For the foregoing reasons, the Commission should find that any exclusion order would be contrary to the statutory public interest factors, and accordingly decline to enter any such order.
Charles Duan
Director, Technology & Innovation; Senior Fellow
Manager, Technology & Innovation
aphelan@rstreet.org
Competition & Antitrust Intellectual Property Patent
How Slate Ranked the World's Most Evil Tech Companies Charles Duan
Analysts skeptical as state challenge to Sprint/T-Mobile nears conclusion Tom Struble
Here's How We Can Truly #SaveDotOrg Mike Godwin


A blood curse threatens the gate between parallel worlds Earth and H-trae. Armani is the BaSatai born with the blood curse, if she dies the gate will break and both worlds will fall.
What happens when a gifted witch's power fails her? Lost Haven is a story about magic, sorrow, and the things that hold us together. Appropriate for all ages.
Witches, Dragons, Magic, & Cats is a collection of three short stories: The Witches' Daughters, a fairytale about forgiveness; Familiar, a magical girl story about hope; and Mending, a story about rebuilding. All three stories also feature witches, dragons, magic, and/or cats.  28 pages, color cover and greyscale interior.
Adventuring Princesses Vol 1 No 1: the Adventure Begins!
Beyond The Moon is a 48 black and white/colour book by Frank Candiloro, dedicated to the wonders of early cinema and music, and how the two of them combine to create magic.


Coverage under the Patent Agent and Patent Lawyers errors and omissions ("E&O") insurance policies are triggered by the reporting of a claim or potential claim within the policy period. However, the act, error or omission which gave rise to the claim must have occurred on or after the retroactive date of coverage. Normally, the retroactive date is set as the date from which you have had continuous, uninterrupted claims made coverage.
However, the Lloyd's underwriters supporting these professional liability insurance programs have recognized that E&O insurance for patent practitioners has not been readily available in the market place. Thus, a patent practitioner's failure to secure such coverage is likely not to have resulted from any kind of moral hazard or lack of professional responsibility on the part of the patent practitioner, but simply from a dearth of suitable coverage options.
Based on this rationale, the specially negotiated terms of these insurance programs afford members the one-time opportunity to push back the retroactive date to an earlier period thus greatly expanding the scope of coverage. However, this option is only available to policyholders at the time of their first renewal.
Because the exposure under a claims made policy is constantly expanding, underwriters assess step rate charges at the time of the first several policy renewals until the policy is deemed to have reached maturity. Once a policy is mature the premium rates level off, assuming all else being equal. These step rate factors can increase the of cost of coverage by as little as 25% to as much as 400% over the period of policy maturation. The factors applicable under these programs are at the very lowest end of this range.
As noted above, under these programs insured's have the option of extending their retroactive date back to an earlier time frame. Underwriters apply a one-time retro extension debit for this coverage expansion. This charge applies in addition to the normally applicable step rate.
Alice was delighted to learn that under these programs at the time of her first policy renewal she would have the option of extending the retroactive date of her coverage back to when AAA was first formed. Working with her broker at Dominion Insurance, Alice developed the tables below to better inform her decision.


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Language Planning in the Asia Pacific: Hong Kong, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka
Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf
December 16, 2013 by Routledge
This volume covers the language situation in Hong Kong, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka explaining the linguistic diversity, the historical and political contexts and the current language situation, including language-in-education planning, the role of the media, the role of religion and the roles of non-indigenous languages. Two of the authors are indigenous to the situations described while the other has undertaken extensive field work and consulting there. The three monographs contained in this volume draw together the literature on each of the polities to present an overview of the research available about each of them, while providing new research-based information. The purpose of the volume is to provide an up-to-date overview of the language situation in each polity based on a series of key questions in the hope that this might facilitate the development of a richer theory to guide language policy and planning in other polities where similar issues may arise. This book was published as special issues of Current Issues in Language Planning.
1. Language policy and planning in Hong Kong, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka: Some common themes Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf Jr. 2. Language use, and language policy and planning in Hong Kong Anita Y. K. Poon 3. The language situation in Timor-Leste Kerry Taylor-Leech 4. The language planning situation in Sri Lanka Sandagomi Coperahewa
Robert B. Kaplan, Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Southern California, has published numerous books and refereed articles, is founding Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, member of the editorial board of the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2002) and editor of the Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics.
Richard B. Baldauf, Jr., Professor of TESOL, School of Education, University of Queensland, has published numerous articles in refereed journals and books, is co-author of Language Planning from Practice to Theory (1997), Language and Language-in-Education Planning in the Pacific Basin (2003), and Planning Chinese Characters: Evolution, Revolution or Reaction (2007).


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You are here: Home / Uncategorized / 2016 Session Commentary
August 11, 2016 by Chris Saxman Leave a Comment
Virginia FREE is the independent, non-partisan voice of Virginia business. In carrying out this critical mission, at the conclusion of each session of the Virginia General Assembly, for the past twenty-eight years, Virginia FREE has assembled a team of highly respected business leaders and legislative representatives to identify the legislation – both passed and failed – that has an impact on the promotion of free enterprise and responsible, pro-business government in the Commonwealth.
The Evaluations Committee reviews the content, deliberations, and votes on all legislation introduced to identify the key legislative measures that are likely to affect the business community. The Committee meets several times, deliberating on the legislation with the goal of producing findings and recommendations which include evaluations of our Virginia legislators on their support of business interests. In conjunction with the evaluations, Virginia FREE also highlights the business critical events of the Session.
Transparency and Timeliness
Transparency and attention to constitutionally established deadlines restores trust and confidence in the legislative process.
Rule changes in the House of Delegates proposed and implemented by Speaker William J. Howell, resulted in improved transparency in the legislative process. Speaker Howell ended committee meetings on the floor of the House. These "desk meetings", although helpful in process, detract from transparency which is integral to good governance.
In 2014, Virginia FREE expressed concern about a developing trend – extending legislative sessions in order to finish the work of the General Assembly. Extra days were added to sessions and in some years, a special session was necessary. Virginia FREE members believe that this practice reflects poorly on the Commonwealth which is most proud of its citizen legislature. Moreover, the extended sessions can be costly and present challenges for our state agencies, local governments, and by extension, Virginia businesses.
Virginia FREE commends the leadership of the General Assembly for completing the work of the session early, for a second year in a row. Efficiencies evident in the timely completion of Session deliberations send a strong message to the business community that the legislative process is working and effective.
Budget Considerations
Efforts were made to change the Rules of the House of Delegates to give members of the House, and by extension the Senate, 48 hours in which to review the final work product of the Budget Conference Committee before a final vote.
In 2014, Virginia FREE expressed great concern about legislating through the Budget. Those concerns continue. Consolidation of power results from this practice and unnecessarily avoids full discussion and consideration of proposals. While the pace of General Assembly deliberations is understandable – issues are complex, stakeholder views must be considered while the sheer volume of proposals continue to increase – recent political and cultural developments in the Commonwealth demand more self-restraint. The committee structure of the General Assembly, a great strength of the legislative process, is severely damaged and denigrated by this practice. Virginia FREE urges the General Assembly to return to the policy of not using the budget process to legislate and thereby restore the long treasured Virginia Way of governing.
Virginia FREE recommends that the House and Senate consider Rule changes to affirm that no action of a committee of jurisdiction can be overridden in the Budget.
Two cornerstones of Virginia fiscal behaviors are worthy of note.
Article X Section 9 of the Virginia Constitution establishes constitutional caps on how much the Commonwealth may borrow. This cap helps maintain our AAA Bond Rating which helps keep taxes reasonable. The cap in the Constitution can be read here http://law.lis.virginia.gov/constitution/article10/section9/ – please note that while the cap is based on a 15% of state sales and income tax dedicated to debt, the internal caps are 1/3 of that or 5%.
In the 2002 General Assembly Session, Delegate Vince Callahan sponsored HB1285 which further spells out the Commonwealth's policy on spending and borrowing. Then Governor Mark Warner signed the bill which can be read here: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?021+ful+CHAP0888.
This is done to educate the public on what is reality and not perception given the intense nature of our American political climate of misinformation and disinformation.
The General Assembly and the Governor are to be commended for agreeing to fund important investments through the Biennial Budget and HB1344, carried by Delegate Chris Jones, and SB731 carried by Senator Emmett Hanger. Overall, significant investments were made in the infrastructure of the Virginia economy notably the Port of Virginia, Dulles Airport, Carilion – Virginia Tech, as well as the funding of K-12 public schools and notable other investments in Virginia higher education institutions.
In a session full of examples of partisan divide, there were also a number of examples of efforts for opposing views to find compromise – that produced positive legislation in the best interest of Virginia citizens. Most notable, the work of Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran, Delegate Todd Gilbert, and Senator Bryce Reeves, who working across the aisle and the branches of government, addressed a serious public safety issue. Collaboration on issues related to firearms and domestic violence is heartening in an era of striking partisanship. The role of the Governor, House leadership under Speaker Howell, Senate leadership, and other legislators including but not limited to Delegate Scott Lingamfelter, Delegate Kathleen Murphy, Senator Janet Howell, Senator Louis Lucas, and Senator John Edwards, is also worthy of our gratitude. And, the legislative representatives of the various stakeholders likewise worked diligently to support and facilitate discussions that produced the final legislative package.
The General Assembly, Governor Terry McAuliffe, and Secretary of Finance Ric Brown are to be commended for their hard work to pass the Biennial Budget. The work of staff to both the House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees were, as always, integral to that process and Virginia FREE thanks them.
The second half of our review of the 2016 General Assembly Session will be out later this week.
Chris Saxman