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Mastering Internet Video: Video Transport Protocols
How Video Travels Across the Internet
Scalable Media Transmission
Network Layers: A Brief Primer on Internet Protocols (and Relevant Acronyms)
Streaming Protocols
Streaming Through Firewalls
Serving video content over the internet can be a headache, especially when that content is streamed to the browser, but Damien Stolarz provides this guide to the process and some of the problems you might run into in offering this content.
Mastering Internet Video: A Guide to Streaming and On-Demand Video: A Guide to Streaming and On-Demand Video
How to Stream Video Over a Network or the Internet
In previous chapters, we explained video codecs, the structure of the files that contain them, and the software that serves them. Despite the best efforts of codecs and media servers, though, the quality of Internet video is still variable. To understand why, let's start by understanding some basics of how the Internet works.
As noted in earlier chapters and as any end user would be quick to point out, viewing streaming video over the Internet is hardly a seamless experience. Streaming video suffers from hiccups, delays, drop-outs, skips, and connection loss. In this section, we explain how the Internet moves data and how this affects video playback.
It's sometimes hard to understand why the Internet has trouble moving audio and video when radio, television, and telephones do it fairly well and have existed for almost 100 years. So first let's look at the mechanisms of these traditional media.
Radio works simply because a single tower broadcasts the same signal to many receivers. Everyone listens to the same thing at the same time. All the stations are available at any time; you simply have to tune into a different frequency signal. The main barriers to radio transmission are distance; physical barriers such as hills, buildings, and tunnels that block the signal; and interference between two strong signals near each other on the dial. In terms of communication, radio is a one-way broadcast transmission.
Television works much like radio, except that television broadcasting is organized into national networks. The same program is delivered to television receivers around the country by broadcasting the originating signal to branch offices, which broadcasts it out from towers (see Figure 5-1), out through cable companies, or to people with satellite dishes (see Figure 5-2). In any case, the same signal is sent to everyone at the same time—a one-way broadcast. All the channels are available at any time; there is no noticeable delay caused by changing channels. The main barriers to television reception are bent or frayed cables, badly aimed antennas or dishes, physical barriers as in radio, and interference of stations with each other.
Figure 5-1 Broadcast television delivery.
Figure 5-2 Television broadcast via cable.
Telephone calls use many of the same wires used by Internet. The telephone central office maintains devices called switches (automated versions of the classic telephone switchboard) that are used to connect the call to the next location, as shown in Figure 5-3. Telephone calls create a two-way circuit all the way from caller to receiver. The message "All circuits are busy"—usually heard only during disasters or radio call-in concert ticket giveaways—means the switch does not have any more slots in which to carry this call. The main barriers to telephone transmission are found at the beginning of the call— if there are not enough circuits to place the call. While a call is in progress, the entire route between the caller and recipient is reserved for their use only, even if there is silence and no one is talking. Telephones use what is called a circuit-switched connection.
Figure 5-3 Switched telephone circuits deliver many calls between locations.
Internet Basics
The path from a website to a web browser is different than these other systems. Conceptually, it is similar to the telephone conversation: It's a two-way con- versation in which the browser asks for a document and the server sends it. Unlike the telephone call, however, there is no reserved circuit. Data, in the form of requests and responses, are organized into chunks called packets and sent between the requesting web browser and the web server.
In between the requester and the server are a series of routers. These machines route traffic between different smaller networks. Each time a packet crosses the boundary from one ISP to another, or from one kind of network to another, it goes through a router. The packets "hop" from router to router like a bucket brigade, as shown in Figure 5-4. This type of data transmission is called packet switching, instead of circuit switching. Internet packet switching has some attributes that make it reliable and unreliable at the same time.
Figure 5-4 The connection between client and server is an indirect one.
As Figure 5-5 illustrates, the Internet is an extremely heterogeneous network, consisting of several different kinds of networks and ways of connecting networks to the Internet, as described in the next few sections.
Figure 5-5 Data transmission over the Internet is indeed a "tangled web."
The Internet Backbone
The Internet backbone (as much as a large, shapeless and ever-shifting cloud of networks can have a backbone!) consists of long-haul connections that carry large volumes of Internet traffic (packets) across and between continents.
Public Exchange Points
Public exchange points exist at various points on continents and are the major nerve centers where many regional private networks, Internet providers, corp-orations, schools, and government divisions—large and small—converge to exchange traffic destined for other points on the Internet. You can compare these centers to major public airports, where international and domestic flights arrive 24 hours a day and trade passengers from all different airlines.
The process of connecting a network to the Internet at one of these exchange points is called peering, and connecting to the backbone this way makes one a Tier-1 Internet provider. ISPs that rent their connection from a Tier-1 provider are called Tier-2 providers, and so on. The policies, prices, and agreements that cover how data is treated on these connections are as numerous as there are companies involved. This is the first source of variability for our packet switching.
Private Peering
Peering is simply two networks connecting to each other with routers. Public peering occurs at large exchange points, but any two networks that find a lot of traffic flowing between them can choose to create a direct private link between the networks (called private peering). This reduces the cost of access through a public exchange point or other provider for all the bandwidth that travels between these two networks. It also decreases the number of intermediate connections between the networks. For instance, when several schools in the same organization link together, their inter-campus network traffic does not have to go out to the Internet at large, and is often more reliable as a result.
In this scenario, though, each school has its own connection to the Internet. What if one of the school's Internet connections went down? Would it be fair to send its traffic through the private peering connection and use another school's Internet connection? The way these kinds of questions are answered and the internal policies in this regard are another contributing factor to the variability of Internet packet switching.
Internet Complexity
As everything "goes digital," the distinction between cable TV wires, telephone wires, radio waves, and satellite transmission blurs. However, there are many ways to send data over these media. Internet data transmission can be complicated, leading to a variety of undesirable transmission characteristics.
Packet Loss
Circuit switching on the Internet is described as "best-effort," meaning that one of the routers along the way can lose a packet before it reaches its destination. In this case, the sender or receiver must somehow note that the packet was lost (perhaps by receiving the next packet and noting that it is out of context) and re-requesting the lost packet. This mechanism is fairly reliable in that two machines will usually (and eventually) figure out what went wrong and resend the missing packets. Packet loss causes audio and video to pause if the packets are eventually resent, and it causes video to pause, drop out, and skip if the packets are not resent at all. In our analogy of a public exchange point being a major airport, if it's a "foggy day" at that exchange, the part of the Internet that goes through that ex-change can be slowed down (called a brownout) by the data that can't "take off."
Different Routes
Not all packets in a file follow the same route to the destination computer. This is not unlike the airline's hub and spoke system: One packet might go "direct" from San Francisco to Washington; others might "transfer" in Atlanta or Chicago to get to Washington, as shown in Figure 5-6. Contributing to this issue is private peering and the variable rules and costs associated with all the choices to be made. Alternate routes can be excellent when one path between two machines goes down and a packet can use another path. It can also cause strange effects, such as when a packet is sent down a slow route, is assumed lost, is resent—and then later reappears as a duplicate packet! Audio can stutter and skip if duplicate packets are not detected and discarded. Also, some paths travel far out of the way, hopping through many more routers than necessary and causing large delays. The more "hops" or routers between two machines, the higher the chance of unexpected delays.
Figure 5-6 Data can sometimes take a circuitous route to its destination.
Delay (Latency)
Because of the many different routers a packet has to go through to get from sender to receiver and because there are no reserved circuits on the Internet like there are for telephones, the delay of any given packet can be high or low, or change unexpectedly. This can be caused by a variety of factors such as:
A router is too busy and can't keep up with traffic.
A particular link between sender and receiver becomes saturated.
A link goes down, causing traffic to be rerouted to a different link.
One or more routers in between can't think fast enough.
A firewall looks at all the packets for viruses.
Delay is added due to the use of older technology, such as modems.
Other downloads on a pipe cause it to delay.
Packets are lost, resulting in resends, and other packets get bunched up behind them.
These factors make predicting how long it will take to get packets back from a server difficult. Because of varying latency, video can take a long time to start playing; fast-forward and rewind features can be slow and clunky; and video can pause, stutter, skip, and stop altogether.
Bandwidth Variation
Another factor on the Internet is the variability of bandwidth. With broadcast media, such as radio or television, as well as telephones, the bandwidth is always the same—just enough to carry the channel or the conversation. There is no wasted bandwidth; the size of the channel is just enough to carry the data. It was designed to be that way.
Because the Internet is designed to allow different computers of different speeds and different channel sizes communicate, it is possible to have bottlenecks, not just due to traffic that the size of the channel varies from sender to receiver.
The Internet link for a major website's hosting provider might be excellent. The links between the host's ISP and its branch in a particular city might be high-capacity. However, the Internet link provided by a small ISP to the end user might be very small due to oversubscription. If that Internet provider has incurred a good deal of customer growth without upgrading its own connection to the Internet backbone, the potentially high-bandwidth connection from the website host is lowered to the slowest intermediate link in the chain. In other words, the bandwidth between a website and a client is no faster than its slowest link.
Fundamentally, the Internet is far better suited for sending web pages than real-time media because web pages are far smaller and far less sensitive to delays. There is not much difference between a one- and two-second delay in getting a web page, but a one-second pause in real-time video is unacceptable. The brute-force approach of keeping the bit rate of the video far below the maximum bandwidth of the Internet connection can be effective in getting Internet video to perform predictably.


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Obi Mikel hints at retirement from international football
Soccer24 on 8 Jul, 2019
Nigeria captain John Obi Mikel has hinted at retirement from international football by saying this AFCON will be his last for the Super Eagles.
The 32-year-old former Chelsea midfielder has made 89 appearances since his debut 13 years ago, was part of the late Stephen Keshi's AFCON winning squad of 2013 and thinks its time for younger players to take over.
"Thirteen years I think is enough. I've won trophies, I've had a lot of amazing time. I think it's time for these young guys to carry on," he told BBC Sport.
"I'm mostly here in Egypt to support the young guys and make sure they're on the right track. I think my presence is always important for them, hopefully I can finish with the trophy.
"If we are able to win it here, I'll be proud and they'll be proud, then they can carry on from here," he added.
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This entry was posted in How To and tagged AdWords, Google Ads, Keyword Planner on January 5, 2019 by Jason McDonald.
This entry was posted in Blog, How To and tagged Keyword Planner, SEO, Videos on October 23, 2016 by Jason McDonald.
Google has "improved" (SIC) its keyword functionality with the new Google Keyword Planner. This new tool will replace the older Google Keyword Tool so now is the time to learn how to use it, and how it compares vs. the older Google Keyword Tool. This tutorial explains how to use the Google Keyword Planner for SEO (Search Engine Optimization purposes). Here are some tips and tricks! Let's get started with the new and exciting Keyword Planner!
This entry was posted in Blog, Tutorials and tagged Keyword Planner, Keywords on April 18, 2015 by Jason McDonald.
This entry was posted in Blog and tagged AdWords, Keyword Planner, Keywords, SEO on April 12, 2015 by Jason McDonald.


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\section{Introduction}
\label{intro}

The small mode volume of evanescent field atom traps engenders strong atom-light interactions without the need for a cavity~\cite{LeKien05}. The recent demonstrations of trapping $^{133}$Cs with an optical nanofiber (ONF)~\cite{Vetsch10, Beguin14} - and a state-insensitive variant~\cite{Goban12} mark an important experimental realization of these systems. Their high optical depth ($OD$) allows for efficient dispersive readout~\cite{Dawkins11} and strong nonlinear interactions, and they could potentially realize collective effects such as superradiance~\cite{LeKien08}. The success of ONF traps has inspired a growing effort to trap atoms in the evanescent field of nanophotonic waveguides~\cite{Lee13b, Hung13}. This regime of strong coupling opens the door to the study of long-range interactions and the formation of so-called atomic mirrors~\cite{Chang12}, the observation of self-crystallization~\cite{Chang13, Ritsch13}, or the generation of a sub-Poissonian atom number distribution~\cite{Beguin14}. Furthermore, low loss ONFs~\cite{Ward14, Hoffman14, Aoki14} have been proposed as one of steps toward the realization of a hybrid quantum system coupling photons to atoms to superconducting circuit elements~\cite{Verdu09, Hoffman11, Kim11, Hafezi12, Rolston13, Lee13a, Voigt15}.

Optical dipole trapping of atoms is a well-developed technology applied to numerous atomic species.  The extension of optical trapping to evanescent fields of an ONF shares similarities with dipole trapping with free space beams, but has one distinction - the evanescent field may have a substantial longitudinally polarized component of the electric field.  This can lead to surprisingly large differences in the absorption of probe light for two different species, even when they are both alkali atoms (e.g. Rb and Cs), due to the effects of the vector light shift.

Our system traps atoms with two lasers, achieving trap depths of a few hundreds of microKelvin. We cannot simply determine atom number by the absorption of a probe beam by an optically thick medium with a Lorentzian line shape.  Distinct asymmetries are observed that we  trace to the effects of the vector light shifts associated with the optical trapping fields, and their inherent elliptical polarization with an appreciable component along the direction of propagation.  Although Rb and Cs are nominally atoms with very similar atomic structure, the light shifts can in fact be quite different, with differential light shifts much larger in Rb than Cs, leading to a modified  absorption profile.

The paper is organized as follows. Sec.~\ref{setup} outlines the experimental setup. We present experimental confirmation of our trap in Sec.~\ref{exp}. We introduce a theoretical model based on light shifts, finite atom temperature, and population redistribution in Sec.~\ref{theory}, and use it to study the inhomogeneous absorption profile. Sec.~\ref{conc} summarizes our findings and provides an experimental outlook.

\section{Setup}
\label{setup}

Our system consists of the main science chamber (MSC) with the antechamber (AC) equipped with a precision vacuum manipulator (VM) as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig_setup}. We transfer ONFs from the antechamber to the science chamber without breaking the science chamber vacuum. The science chamber maintains a pressure of $10^{-9}$\,mbar with two ion pumps ($50\,\mathrm{L \cdot s^{-1}}$). We produce the ONF by thinning a single-mode fiber (Fibercore) in an in-lab setup~\cite{Hoffman14}. The ONFs typically have greater than 99\,\% transmission for waists with diameters of 500\,nm and lengths from 1\,mm to 10\,cm. The data presented in this paper are taken using an ONF with a waist of ~530\,nm diameter and 7\,mm length, with a tapering region of 39\,mm in length. The produced ONF epoxied onto the titanium alloy fiber holder (FH) is held on the vacuum manipulator rod (VMR) at the antechamber and is transfered to the science chamber. The mounted ONF is extended to the out-of-vacuum patch-cord single-mode fiber via the Teflon ferrule fiber feedthrough (FF) with a Swagelok.

A magneto-optical trap (MOT) loaded from a background vapor of $\mathrm{^{87}Rb}$ produces a cloud of $\sim 10^8$ atoms. We overlap the cloud with the ONF waist using magnetic field shim coils and the vacuum manipulator (VG Scienta Transax) with 2-D manual translation stages (TS). Two orthogonal imaging systems ensure alignment. Atoms are loaded into the ONF trap (left on throughout the experiment)  after 90\,ms of increased MOT detuning and a 1\,ms duration optical molasses stage. The sub-Doppler cooling during this loading stage yields MOT temperatures of $\mathrm{\sim15}\,\mu K$, as determined by time-of-flight measurements.

An ONF trap requires light tuned red of resonance (with respect to  to the $^{87}$Rb D2 line) to provide an attractive potential and light tuned blue of resonance to prevent atoms from  striking the ONF surface.  A 750-nm wavelength laser (Coherent Ti:Sa 899) provides the repulsive force, and a 1064-nm wavelength beam (JDSU NPRO) in a standing wave configuration (to provide longitudinal confinement) provides the attractive potential. A potential minimum of 370\,$\mu K$ in depth is formed $\sim$215\,nm from the fiber surface, and the trapping frequencies are calculated to be ($\nu_{r}$, $\nu_{z}$, $\nu_{\phi}$) = (253, 371, 104)\,kHz. All of the ONF trapping beams and the near-resonant probe beam are intensity-stabilized. The amplitude lock of the probe beam includes a sample-and-hold to stabilize the power in between pulses so that the servo can rapidly recapture when the pulse is turned on, minimizing transients.

We measure atomic absorption  with a weak, near-resonance beam (780\,nm) coupled through the ONF, counting transmitted photons with avalanche photodiodes (APD, Laser Components COUNT-250C-FC) operating in Geiger mode. Because light levels near 10\,pW saturate the APDs, great care must be taken to filter stray light and maintain low probe power. Three narrow-line volume Bragg gratings (VBG, OptiGrate BP-785, 0.18\,nm spectral bandwidth at 785\,nm) filter amplified spontaneous emission from the Ti:Sapphire laser near 780\,nm. A VBG at the output of the nanofiber serves as a mirror to direct signal to the APDs and as another filter to block in-fiber background induced by the blue trapping beam. This light due to either fluorescence or Raman scattering is the main source of background in the experiment. Two more bandpass filters further reduce background counts, and finally long-pass color filters (Thorlabs, FGL645) directly in front of the APD fiber couplers reduce short-wavelength background from stray light. A series of differing optical depth neutral density filters before and after the nanofiber allow us to vary the probe intensity while keeping light levels within the dynamic range  of the APDs. TTL pulses from the APDs are counted with a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and processed to extract absorption signals and full photon counting statistics.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\columnwidth]{fig1_setup.eps}
\caption{Experimental schematic. For $^{87}$Rb atoms, the standing waves with Nd:YAG laser (1064\,nm) and the travelling wave with Ti:Sapphire laser (750\,nm) create a nanofiber atom trap. An absorption signal is measured by a sub-pW 780\,nm probe. See text for details. AC: antechamber; AOM: acousto-optic modulator; APD: avalanche photodiode; BPF: band-pass filter; DM: dichroic mirror; FH: fiber holder; FF: fiber feedthrough; GT: Glan-Thompson polarizer; GV:  gate valve; IP: ion pump; $\lambda/2$: half-wave plate; MC: MOT coil; MOT: magneto-optical trap; MSC: main science chamber; OI: optical isolator; PBS: polarizing beam spliter; PD: photo diode; PID: proportional-integral-derivative lock box; TS: 2-D translation stage; VBG: volume Bragg grating; VM: vacuum manipulator; VMR: vacuum manipulator rod.}
\label{fig_setup}
\end{figure}

\section{Experiment}
\label{exp}

The absorption profiles are measured via an in-fiber analog of standard absorption spectroscopy. We use two probe pulses; the first pulse measures the atomic absorption signal ($P_{at}$), and the second pulse is a reference signal with no atoms ($P_{0}$). In between the two probe pulses, the 1064\,nm trapping beam is turned off and a slightly blue-detuned laser from the MOT beam paths kicks away the trapped atoms. Based on the ratio of these probe signals, we calculate the measured transmission $T = (P_{at} - P_{bg})/(P_{0} - P_{bg})$, where $P_{bg}$ is the background APD signal with no probe light, with contributions from   detector dark counts and fiber-induced fluorescence. For a single Lorentzian lineshape with width $\Gamma$, one can easily estimate the optical depth $OD$ by fitting $T(\omega) = \exp[ -  OD / ( 1 + 4(\omega-\omega_0)^2/\Gamma^2 ) ]$ to the data. The total number $N$ of trapped atoms is then given by $OD/OD_{1}$, where $OD_{1}$ is the single-atom optical depth. We calculate $OD_1$ to be $2.78\%$ by comparing the atomic absorption cross section to the optical nanofiber mode area. Our measured absorption profile displays a markedly asymmetric lineshape (see Fig.~\ref{fig_absorption}). Therefore, it is not trivial to estimate the number of trapped atoms. For a given number of trapped atoms, any broadening mechanisms serve to reduce the maximum absorption. In addition, the maximum absorption point sets a lower limit on the $OD$ and the number of trapped atoms, i.e. $OD_{low} = -{\rm Ln}[T]$. We will discuss this more in Sec. \ref{theory}, where we develop a method to estimate the number of trapped atoms based on these asymmetric absorption profiles.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\columnwidth]{fig2_absorption.eps}
\caption{Atomic absorption signals as a function of probe detuning relative to the bare atomic transition (black-dot: counted photon numbers with error bars of 1$\sigma$ statistical error; red-circle: averaged absorption signal with 50\,shots). Inset illustrates a typical trap lifetime measurement with a fit to a decaying exponential ($\tau$ = 23\,ms). The absorption measurement is done with red-detuned (3.35\,mW\,$\times$2, standing waves) and blue-detuned (7.4\,mW, travelling wave) trapping beams. The trap configuration is close to the PP case with an angle (23.5$^{\circ}$).}
\label{fig_absorption}
\end{figure}

We observe trapping lifetimes (without any additional cooling) of approximately 23\,ms (see Fig. \ref{fig_absorption} (Inset)).
We observe that our ONF exhibits large-amplitude transverse vibrations near 550\,Hz. These are too low in frequency to produce heating as it would be adiabatic motion in terms of the optical trapping potential. Though this is far away from any relevant trap frequency, the acceleration of the fiber may be high enough at times to affect loading, as the macroscopic motion of the trap is no longer adiabatic relative to the mean atomic motion. This lifetime is typical of ONF traps, which are generally shorter-lived than standard optical dipole traps, for reasons that are not yet fully understood.

Different polarization configurations of the red- and blue-detuned trapping beams can provide trapping, including parallel polarization (PP) and cross polarization (CP). The PP configuration requires less blue-detuned light than the CP configuration, but has larger vector light shifts. The CP configuration results in more azimuthally localized potentials and smaller vector light shifts. In this paper, we chose a trapping geometry close to the PP configuration with an angle (23.5$^{\circ}$) between the polarizations of red- and blue-detuned trapping beams where we measured the deepest optical depth ($\sim$98\% absorption), better  than with the PP or CP configurations (50$\sim$70\% absorption). We analyzed the polarizations of nanofiber modes with Rayleigh scattering, confirming the local polarization angles, but do not have a reason why this particular polarization angle produced the best optical depth.

\section{Model and simulation}
\label{theory}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\columnwidth]{fig3_trap_depth.eps}
\caption{Light shifts (radial-axis) with red-detuned (3.35\,mW\,$\times$2) and blue-detuned (7.4\,mW) trapping beams. The trap configuration is close to the PP case with an angle (23.5$^{\circ}$). (a) Light shifts with linearly polarized trapping beams of $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$'s $|\mathrm{F'}=3,\,\mathrm{m_{F'}}\rangle$ state and $\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$'s $|\mathrm{F}=2,\,\mathrm{m_{F}}\rangle$ state. Zeeman sub-levels of $\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$ are degenerate because of no vector and tensor light shifts, and Zeeman sub-levels of $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$ are split due to tensor light shifts. (b) Light shifts with circularly polarized trapping beams of $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$'s $|\mathrm{F'}=3,\,\mathrm{m_{F'}}\rangle$ state and $\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$'s $|\mathrm{F}=2,\,\mathrm{m_{F}}\rangle$ state. Inset shows the cross-sectional view of light shifts. In Fig.~\ref{fig_light_shift}, the color lines of red, red-dash, purple, black, cyan, blue-dash, and blue correspond to $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$'s $|\mathrm{F'}=3,\,\mathrm{m_{F'}} = +3, +2, +1, 0, -1, -2, -3 \rangle$ state, respectively, and the lines of red, purple, black, cyan, and blue correspond to $\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$'s $|\mathrm{F}=2,\,\mathrm{m_{F}} = +2, +1, 0, -1, -2 \rangle$ state, respectively. In addition, the up-down arrow means the light-shifted optical transition frequency at the trapping position. Here, the quantization axis is defined along the propagation direction ($\mathbf{z}$) of the probe beam (see Fig.~\ref{fig_setup}), and the light polarization is defined in the $\mathbf{xy}$ plane with Stokes vectors; the linearly (circularly) polarized light means $S_{3}/S_{0}$ = 0 ($\pm 1$).}
\label{fig_light_shift}
\end{figure}

To calculate the inhomogeneous broadening of the absorption line, we need to include the light-shifted optical transition frequency for atoms trapped in the optical fiber potential. This requires appropriate weighing over the polarization of the modes, the $m$-state distribution of the atoms, and the location of the atoms within the trap due to thermal motion. Qualitatively, lower temperature atoms moves the absorption profile to the blue as the atoms spend more time in a deeper trap, which leads to more light shifts, and higher temperature atoms determine the left-wing of the profile by the Boltzmann truncation. The light-shifted optical transition frequencies of $\mathrm{^{87}Rb}$ atoms at trapping positions move the absorption profile to the blue, and the vector light shifts broaden the blue-side of the profile.

The vector light shift is related to the ellipticity of the light and the populated atomic states. When the light propagation direction and the populated atomic state $|\mathrm{F},\,\mathrm{m_{F}}\rangle$ are collinear along the quantization axis ($\mathbf{z}$), the ellipticity is defined in the $\mathbf{xy}$ plane with Stokes vector components $S_k$~\cite{Jackson98}, and the vector light shift ($\hat{H}_{1} \propto C^{(1)}S_{3}F_{z}$) is proportional to the ellipticity of the light, where $C^{(1)}$ is calculated from Wigner-Eckart theorem. The linearly polarized light ($S_{3}=0$) can be symmetrically decomposed into right-hand and left-hand circularly polarized lights ($S_{3} = +1, -1$, respectively) that cancel the ellipticity. The $\mathrm{HE_{11}}$ fundamental mode has an axial-direction ($\mathbf{z}$) electric field component that leads to ellipticity ($S_{3} \neq 0$) in the $\mathbf{xy}$ plane, which creates the vector light shifts (see Fig.~\ref{fig_light_shift} (b)). Instead of considering all the ellipticities for each trapping location, we add linearly and circularly polarized light shifts with a variable ratio (see Fig.~\ref{fig_fitting}).

A complete description of the atomic absorption has contributions from homogeneous (natural linewidth) broadening $\mathcal{L}_{0}(\omega-\omega')$ and inhomogeneous broadening $n(\omega')$, generally resulting in the symmetric Voight profile~\cite{Demtroder03} as follows:
\small
\begin{eqnarray}
I(\omega) &=& I_0 \int n(\omega') \mathcal{L}_{0}(\omega-\omega') d\omega',
\label{eqn1}
\end{eqnarray}
where $I(\omega)$ is the convolution of Lorentzian and Gaussian profiles.
 For the optical transition of $^{87}$Rb atoms, we study the inhomogeneous broadening to consider the effects of  the atomic temperature distribution, Zeeman-sublevel-dependent population distribution, and the light shifts of the hyperfine ground state ($\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$ to $\mathrm{5P_{1/2}}$ and $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$) and the optical excited state ($\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$ to $\mathrm{(4\textendash6)D_{3/2}}$, $\mathrm{(4\textendash6)D_{5/2}}$, $\mathrm{(5\textendash8)S_{1/2}}
)~\cite{Safronova07}. This requires considering scalar, vector, and tensor light shifts~\cite{Mabuchi06, Deutsch10, Kien13}. The vector light shift can be large due to a non-negligible axial-direction electric field component ($E_{z}$) in the fundamental mode $\mathrm{HE_{11}}$~\cite{Kien13}. Figure~\ref{fig_light_shift} shows the light shifts of the hyperfine ground state and the optical excited state, considering the polarization of the blue- and red-detuned trapping beams. The up-down arrow represents the light-shifted optical transition frequency at the trapping position, which affects the absorption profile. The linearly polarized trapping beams have no vector light shifts of $\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$ and $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$ (Fig.~\ref{fig_light_shift} (a)). However, the nanofiber's $\mathrm{HE_{11}}$ mode always has the propagation direction components related to the vector light shift (Fig.~\ref{fig_light_shift} (b)), and moving atoms in the trap with a finite temperature experiences the variation of light shifts. In the experiment, the quantization axis is not well-defined with a residual magnetic field after optical molasses cooling, and the initial states of trapped atoms are assumed to be unpolarized. The PP trap configuration with an angle induces more vector light shifts from the blue-detuned traveling wave than the red-detuned standing waves. In the case of the absorption profile of the unpolarized atoms requiring the sum of all the Zeeman sub-levels' absorptions, $\mathrm{^{87}Rb}$ atoms are expected to experience more asymmetric profile than $\mathrm{^{133}Cs}$ atoms due to the vector light shifts from the upper state manifolds. Because of differences in the atomic structure of higher lying states in Rb compared to Cs, there is no available magic wavelength and excited state vector light shifts are considerably larger.

For a ground state $|\mathrm{n,\,F,\,m_{F}}\rangle$ and an excited state $|\mathrm{n',\,F',\, m_{F'}}\rangle$ represented by $i$ and $j$, the inhomogeneous term $n_{ij}(\omega)$ can be defined for trapped atoms having a  temperature $T$ as follows:
\small
\begin{eqnarray}
n_{ij}(\omega) = \int_{V_{eff}} \frac{1}{Z} \exp\left(-\frac{U_{ij}(\vec{r})}{k_B T}\right) \delta(\omega - \omega_{ij}(\vec{r})) dV
\label{eqn2}
\end{eqnarray}
where $Z = \int_{V_{eff}} \exp\left(-U_{ij}(\vec{r})/(k_B T)\right) dV$; $U_{ij}(\vec{r})$ is the trapping potential of hyperfine ground states ($\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$); and $\omega_{ij}(\vec{r})$ is the light-shifted optical transition frequency ($\mathrm{5S_{1/2}}$ to $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$ transition). $U_{ij}(\vec{r})$ and $\omega_{ij}(\vec{r})$, dependent on powers and polarizations of the two  trapping beams, have spatial dependence and need to be integrated over the effective volume of a trap site. The atoms with a  temperature $T$ higher than a local trap potential $|U_{ij}(\vec{r})|/k_{B}$ are truncated in the calculation.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\columnwidth]{fig4_fitting.eps}
\caption{The atom number estimation profiles (red-, magenta-, black-, cyan-, blue-line) for asymmetric absorption measurement data (black-dot, red-circle) are represented for trapped atoms with the ratio, (cir, lin), of the circularly polarized light ($\mathrm{S_{3}/S_{0}} = \pm1$) and the linearly polarized light ($\mathrm{S_{3}/S_{0}} = 0$); the quantization axis is defined along the propagation direction of the probe beam. For the fittings, we assume red-detuned (3.35\,mW\,$\times$2) and blue-detuned (7.4\,mW) trapping beams and the trap configuration close to the PP case with an angle (23.5$^{\circ}$).}
\label{fig_fitting}
\end{figure}

Here, we define a homogeneous profile including light shift broadening as follows:
\begin{eqnarray}
\mathcal{L}(\omega-\omega') = \frac{1}{1 + (\omega - \omega')^2 / (\Gamma/2 + \Delta\Gamma(\omega')/2)^2},
\label{eqn3}
\end{eqnarray}
where $\Delta\Gamma(\omega')/2  = \Delta \omega'$ is the broadened width of an optical transition $\omega'$; the standard deviations of state-dependent light-shifted optical transitions at each location $\vec{r}$ are calculated for a frequency $\omega'$ and averaged over all $V_{eff}$.

We define transmission $T(\omega)$ (Sec. \ref{exp}) based on our definition of the inhomogeneous broadening of the optical transition as follows:
\small
\begin{eqnarray}
T(\omega) &=& \exp[-OD \sum_{i,j} |\tilde d_{ij,\,q}|^2 f_{i} \int n_{ij}(\omega') \mathcal{L}(\omega-\omega') d\omega'],\\
                 &\approx& \exp[- N \cdot OD_{1} \int n_{ij}(\omega') \mathcal{L}(\omega-\omega') d\omega'],
\end{eqnarray}
where $n_{ij}(\omega')$ and $\mathcal{L}(\omega-\omega')$ are defined in Eqn. (\ref{eqn2}, \ref{eqn3}), and $f_{i}$ is the population of Zeeman sub-levels determined by optical Bloch equations during optical pumping from the probe beam. $|\tilde d_{ij,\,q}|^2$ is the relative strength of the atomic dipole moment related to the polarization state $q$ of the probe, and the OD per atom is $OD_{1} = \sigma_0 / A_{\mathrm{eff}}$ ($A_{\mathrm{eff}} = P_{\mathrm{prob}}/I_{\mathrm{prob}}(\vec{r}) = 4.88\,\mathrm{\mu m}^2$: the effective mode area of the nanofiber probe, $\sigma_{0} = 0.1356\,\mathrm{\mu m}^2$: atomic scattering cross-section). This can be regarded as a constant for a given $i, j, q$, and assumes no light shifts from the low intensity probe.

Given the uncertainties in the exact polarization profile of the optical modes where the atoms are trapped, the $m$-state distribution of the atoms, and the degree to which a truncated Boltzmann distribution is a correct assumption, we qualitatively use the asymmetric profiles to  estimate trapped atom number (see Fig. \ref{fig_fitting}). Lower $T$ moves the profile to the blue as the atoms stay more in higher intensity regions. A larger fraction of circular polarization broadens the blue-side of the profile by the vector light shifts. Our calculated profiles do not reproduce the feature of less absorption around 15\,MHz. This may be related to probe-induced heating near resonance or probe-induced optical pumping that modifies the sublevel populations and thus absorption cross section. We focus on the left and right tails of the absorption profile to estimate atom number $N = 302$ for $T$ = 55\,$\mu$K; this corresponds to $OD$ = 8.4 with our calculated $OD_{1}$ = 0.0278. Based on our highest absorption of 96.8\,\% ($OD$ = 3.44) at a probe-detuning of 10\,MHz, the absolute lower bound of trapped atom number is $N$ = 123 (as all broadening mechanisms will decrease the maximum observed absorption and increase the extracted number of atoms).

\section{Conclusion}
\label{conc}

We realized an optical nanofiber atom trap for $^{87}$Rb using the evanescent fields of 750\,nm and 1064\,nm beams, and find absorption profiles with much less symmetry than have been observed with Cs atoms. We qualitatively explain the asymmetric broadening behavior as arising from  larger differential light shifts arising from the $\mathrm{5P_{3/2}}$ to upper transitions, which are larger in Rb than Cs. Using a model of the broadening, we estimate the number of trapped atoms.\\

\begin{acknowledgements}
This work was funded by NSF PFC@JQI and ARO Atomtronics MURI.
\end{acknowledgements}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Petr Cech may leave Chelsea
Cech agent Viktor Kolar told that his client has been linked with French big spenders Monaco and Paris Saints Germain but the stopper wants to stay atChelsea .
Posted by:Junaid Effendi Posted date: Thursday, July 03, 2014 /comment : 1
Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech has been linked with several clubs this summer according to his agent Viktor Kolar.
#484792387 / gettyimages.com
Cech agent Viktor Kolar told that his client has been linked with French big spenders Monaco and Paris Saints Germain but the stopper wants to stay at Stamford Bridge.
Cech is still eyeing a first team opportunity next season despite of Thibaut Courtois who will return as a first choice keeper after the World Cup according to Jose Mourinho.
Courtois spent last three seasons on loan at Atletico Madrid and won a La Liga and a silver medal in the Champions League. The 22-year-old is currently with Belgium squad for the World Cup, he will face Argentina in the Quarter Final.
While Viktor Kolar has insisted that Chelsea have not told him that they don't need Cech for the next season.
Kolar said Aktualne: "Nothing changes. He has two years left on his Chelsea contract and has an interest to continue there. Mourinho did not tell him that he would not count on him anymore." So right now Cech is going nowhere.
Cech who is currently recovering from a shoulder injury has played 470 games in 10 seasons for the London side.
Should he stay, what do you think?
Tagged with: barclays premier league Chelsea Junaid news and articles Transfer news
stark 3 July 2014 at 14:52
i think he should leave, arsenal should go for him/


text:
Ilse von Alpenheim (born February 11, 1927) is an Austrian  pianist.

Biography
Born at Innsbruck, she was trained  by her mother, a piano teacher, and made her first public appearance as soloist at the age of nine in Joseph Haydn's Piano Concerto Hob. XVIII,11. Starting from 1944 she studied with  in Kitzbühel and, from 1946 to 1949, with  at the Mozarteum at Salzburg. In 1951 she moved to Switzerland.

In the mid-1950s she met Sándor Veress, a Hungarian composer, with whom she lived for over a decade. She was instrumental in promoting the piano works of Veress. Between 1960 and 1968 she was in charge of a concert class at the Conservatory of Berne. In 1971 she became the wife of Antal Doráti, another Hungarian conductor and composer, who wrote several works for her and with whom she developed an intensive international concert activity.

Her career has taken her to four continents where she has appeared in recitals and as a soloist with many prominent orchestras. Her chamber music partners include Max Rostal, Henryk Szeryng, Igor Ozim, Walter Grimmer, the Amadeus Quartet and the Camerata Bern.

von Alpenheim's repertory focuses mainly on the classical and early romantic composers. She has recorded all the Haydn piano sonatas, concertini and concerti. The sonatas were issued on CD by the Antal Doráti Centenary Society in 2015. She also made an integral recording of the Songs Without Words by Mendelssohn. Together with the Arion Trio, she has recorded all Mozart's piano trios and the complete works of Schubert for piano and strings.

References

1927 births
Living people
Musicians from Innsbruck
Austrian classical pianists
Austrian women pianists
21st-century classical pianists
Women classical pianists
21st-century women pianists

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Rip Curl G Bomb Boy Leg Wetsuit Shorts 2014, Great summer short made of 100% superstretch E4 neoprene, Rip Curls most stretchy and light weight neoprene. Insanely comfortable!!
Great summer short made of 100% superstretch E4 neoprene, Rip Curls most stretchy and light weight neoprene. Insanely comfortable!!


text:
Latest update : 14 August 2020.
A Closing Window of Opportunity in Ukraine?
10 August 2020 , by HOLUBNYCHY Borys, MULIAVKA Viktoriia, YAKUBIN Alexey
President Zelensky's team is missing its chance to end the war in Donbass
After the election of the sixth President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, a "window of opportunity" opened for speeding up the peace process in the East of the country. Zelensky often called himself "the president of peace", (...)
Legislating Land Reform in Ukraine
1 March 2020 , by BILOUS Taras, HUBA Roman, KRAVCHUK Oleksandr
Under pressure from local and Western oligarchs, supported by the European Union, Ukraine is preparing to lift the moratorium on land market. This will complete the privatisation started in the 1990s but frozen in 2001 because of its terrible social and economic impact on the rural poor. (...)
Contradictions of Post-Soviet Ukraine and Failure of Ukraine's New Left
9 January 2020 , by ISHCHENKO Volodymyr
Ukraine ended the 1980s as one of the most advanced parts of the Soviet super-power with a developed machine-building industry. Thirty years later, Ukraine's major economic indicators are on a par with many Third World countries. The country is fundamentally dependent on the financial, (...)
EU: War and occupation: life and death across the front line
14 November 2019 , by BOJCUN Marko, SKOMOROSHCHENKO Olena, Ukraine Solidarity Campaign
Interview with Olena Skomoroshchenko of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine In search of a better understanding of the war in Eastern Ukraine and the prospects for its peaceful settlement, we are soliciting the observations and analyses of people in Ukraine close to the centre of the (...)
Ukraine: A Clown With a Balancing Act
2 August 2019 , by ISHCHENKO Volodymyr
Elections to Ukraine's parliament produced the first one-party majority since the end of the USSR. But as nationalist violence persists, comedian-president Volodymyr Zelenskiy's base is anything but stable.
This April, popular comedian and successful show businessman Volodymyr Zelenskiy became (...)
Ukrainian Elections: A Voice of Labour
11 July 2019 , by Ukraine Solidarity Campaign
The left was not very visible during the elections to the Ukrainian parliament on 21 July this year., once again various oligarchic candidates dominated the show. This time however in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih there was one candidate standing in an effort to give a voice to Ukrainian (...)
Ukraine: People are very tired of the neoliberal mainstream
29 April 2019 , by DUDIN Vitaliy, FORD Christopher
What will happen now in Ukraine after the Presidential election? Christopher Ford organiser of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign interviewed Vitaliy Dudin an activist of the NGO 'Social Movement' and leading trade union solicitor in Ukraine.
What does the election of Zelensky as President of (...)
Ukraine: A Comedian in a Drama
25 April 2019 , by ISHCHENKO Volodymyr
In Sunday's election Ukrainian voters dealt a decisive rebuttal to the post-Maidan establishment. Yet well-organized nationalist forces represent a time bomb under the new president-elect.
American readers won't be too surprised by a tale of an inexperienced candidate winning against the establishment's pick. But in the case of Ukraine's new leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, this widely made comparison is even something of an understatement. Imagine that (...)
Ukrainian Elections: The Crisis of Representation and Reconfiguration of Oligarchic Power
22 April 2019 , by FORD Christopher, Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, YURCHENKO Yuliya
The elections in Ukraine have come a shock and will have an impact not only in Ukraine and East Europe but globally. What does this mean and how did it happen? In order to help understand these dramatic events Christopher Ford organiser of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign interviewed leading (...)
A comedian as Ukraine's next president. How did that happen?
3 April 2019 , by ISHCHENKO Volodymyr
A politically inexperienced comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is in the lead after the first round of presidential elections in Ukraine – and by a huge margin. He is almost 15 percentage points ahead of the incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko. Zelenskiy's unconventional campaign, relying primarily (...)
Activists in Odesa are fighting Ukraine's luxury property developers
28 March 2019 , by BEZRUK Tetiana
Activists in Odesa have been trying to stop over-development for several years now. But in the past year, the southern Ukrainian city has had the highest numbers of attacks on activists.
On a day in early March, volunteers are clearing the Odesa City Garden of rotten wooden beams, stones and (...)
Why work-to-rule is a mobilising act on Ukraine's railways
21 February 2019 , by ARUNYAN Aleksei
In May 2018, Ukraine's railway workers took an unprecedented stand against deathtrap conditions. Six months on, I went to found out what's changed.
In early summer 2018, Ukraine's railway workers held a mass work-to-ruleaction – strictly observing official quotas and safety instructions.
Across the country, drivers refused to complete routes on the grounds that their engines were not fit for operation. Employees at Ukrainian Railways, Ukraine's state-owned railway company, demanded a wage rise, (...)
Ukraine on the Brink
27 January 2019 , by ISHCHENKO Volodymyr , PLOMMER Joe
Ukraine's politics are dominated by oligarchs. Its streets are more and more run by the far right.
When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, its former republics' economies went into free fall. Ukraine — the most populous of the new states, after Russia — was no exception: average incomes and life (...)
In the Donbass, Ukrainian miners are in the pits
2 November 2018 , by DORCADIE Mathilde
Coal miners exit the mine shaft after their shift on 25 September, 2018 at the Kapitalnaya mine in the city of Dimitrov, renamed Myrnograd in 2016 following a policy of "decommunisation" initiated by Ukraine after the events of 2014 and 2015.
For the fourth consecutive month, 37-year old miner (...)
What are Ukraine's train drivers fighting for?
4 July 2018 , by MOVCHAN Sergey
Ukraine's rail workers are now entering the second month of their work-to-rule action. I went to a train depot in Kyiv to find out why they're protesting.
On 14 May 2018, employees of the Ukrainian state railway network started a work-to-rule action. Drivers at Kremenchug, Kryvyi Rih, Darnytsa (...)
Ukrainian socialists in the diaspora: lessons on Cold War solidarity from another era
31 May 2018 , by BOJCUN Marko
Throughout the 1970s, a young generation of Ukrainian Canadians worked on solidarity campaigns for political prisoners in the Soviet Union. Challenging states' monopoly on east-west dialogue is still important today.
A 1972 hunger strike by Ukrainian Canadian students in support of Ukrainian (...)
Measuring the obvious: mapping far right hegemony in Ukraine's street protests
11 May 2018 , by ISCHENKO Volodymyr
Recently the massive rallies of the far right parties, the powerful public presentation of the National Militia affiliated to Azov's "National Corps" party, escalating attacks by extreme right groups against leftist, feminist, LGBT, human rights events brought Ukrainian radical nationalists back (...)
What internationalism in the context of the Ukrainian crisis? Wide open eyes against one-eyed "campisms"
January 2016 , by SAMARY Catherine
Was it correct and efficient on internationalist point of view to chose one "main enemy" (and "camp") during the Kosovo's crisis and war (1999) – and in Ukraine, after Maidan's upsurge, Yanukovich's fall, Russian's annexation of Crimea and "hybrid war" in Donbas? This article argues against "campist" approaches in both contexts, because they lead to downsizing criticisms of real relations of dominations within the chosen supported "camp", preventing the establishment of real conditions for (...)
Ukraine between peace and war
May 2015 , by KUTZIN Christina, VARAKINZA Olena
Three months after the signing of the Minsk-2 agreements, it is clear that the road to peace still seems very long. Ukraine today is characterized by very strong contrasts between the majority of the country, which has not experienced war, and the Donbass, where since April 2014 the forces of (...)
Political Information on Ukraine on 27 October 2014: elections, Maidan...
27 October 2014 , by PRESUMEY Vincent
Below is a short note on the first results of the parliamentary elections of 26 October.
There then follows an article by Alexandr Volodarsky, a Ukrainian anarchist who is a native of Luhansk, a city which is at present occupied city by militias armed by Russia, and who took part in the (...)
Ukraine (eng)


Time to Really Go the Distance!!!
Friendship Circle of Brooklyn in an incredible organization that aims to provide friendship, support and inclusion for special needs and developmentally delayed children and young adults. It is led by two of the most selfless people that I know and I hope you will join me in supporting their crucial work.
I will be running the NY Full Marathon in November to raise funds for FC Brooklyn. This will be my fourth run in 24 months, and now I am doubling the distance from half marathons to the full marathon.
Please visit fcbrooklyn.com for more information and to see some of their great work!


text:
class TaborOverall < Overall
  def TaborOverall.parent_name
    "Mt. Tabor Series"
  end

  def default_bar_points
    1
  end

  def create_races
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Fixed Gear"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Category 4 Women"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Masters Women"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Senior Women"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Masters Men"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Category 4 Men"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Category 5 Men"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Category 3 Men"))
    races.create!(:category => Category.find_or_create_by_name("Senior Men"))
  end

  # By default, does nothing. Useful to apply rule like:
  # * Any results after the first four only get 50-point bonus
  # * Drop lowest-scoring result
  def after_create_competition_results_for(race)
    race.results.each do |result|
      if result.scores.size > 5
        result.scores.sort! { |x, y| y.points <=> x.points }
        lowest_score = result.scores.last
        result.scores.destroy(lowest_score)
        # Rails destroys Score in database, but doesn't update the current association
        result.scores(true)
      end
    end
  end

  def point_schedule
    [0, 100, 70, 50, 40, 36, 32, 28, 24, 20, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11]
  end

  # Apply points from point_schedule, and split across team
  def points_for(source_result, team_size = nil)
    points = point_schedule[source_result.place.to_i].to_f
    if source_result.last_event?
      points = points * 2
    end
    points
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Create some new user profile properties from excel I have a CSV file with new properties that exist in the AD.
I want to add this properties to all user profiles, and set value from AD (the same property name is in the excel) and set description from another column of the excel.
How can I do it?

A: If pnp powershell is an option you could use set-pnp user profile property (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/set-pnpuserprofileproperty?view=sharepoint-PS) and combine it with import-csv (https://www.morgantechspace.com/2015/06/read-csv-file-in-powershell.html?m=1)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Use a measurement tape to measure the inner diameter of any ring you have.
What happens when it breaks or got damaged?
The quality of our jewellery is extremely important to us. If your piece breaks within 6 months of receiving it, we will repair it for free! Discoloration due to lack of care will not fall under our guarantee (even though the materials we use are extremely durable). If your jewellery breaks and gets lost, unfortunately we can't replace it for free.
Everything is shipped by our third party PostNL.
Orders placed over €50,- will receive free ground shipping within the Netherlands.
Yes! We ship where ever you need it!
Why are my shipping costs so expensive?
Unfortunately, shipping glass boxes cost us more because of its volume.
You will receive an automatic email confirmation after your order is placed. Please also check your spam folder. Items are usually shipped the same day with a maximum of 7 days after receipt of payment, except in special circumstances. You can track your order down below the page with Order Tracking, which allows you to always see where the package is. MAY-LI cannot be held responsible for any delivery delays by PostNL.
Note! If your shipping address is wrong, please immediately send an email to info@maylijewels.com with the correct address. Most packages will be shipped the same day the order is placed. Once the package is sent, we cannot modify the shipping address anymore.
We accept payments via iDeal.
iDEAL is a secure and immediate online payment method, suitable for all businesses that offer products or services online. For accepting iDEAL payments an iDEAL contract is needed with one of the Dutch banks or a Collecting Payment Service Provider which offer various iDEAL contracts to web merchants. Please contact a bank or a Collecting Payment Service Provider for more information.
All information provided by you will not be sold or shared to any other third party.
Placing an order is simple done by placing the item into the shopping cart. A bar on the right will pop-up with an overview of your cart. You then can choose to edit the cart or continue your payment. From there on you are asked to fill out your shipping address and continue the payment via direct banktransfer or iDeal.
Please send us an email to info@maylijewels.com if you change your mind.
No, you do not have to register for an account if you wish not to.
You can track your order by filling out your ordernumber and email address.
It is possible to exchange or refund items if these are not desirable. It is not possible to exchange or refund personalized items.
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Without the order number, we cannot process the package. The costs of return will be at your expense. The products should be returned unused and in the same condition as they were sent. If this is not the case, we will charge you for this because the products then can no longer be sold as new. So please make sure you properly pack the items so it will not damage during shipment.
Note: Due to hygiene it is not possible to return or exchange earrings. Furthermore, you cannot exchange sale items.
We do not give guarantee on plated items. Please treat all plated items carefully, especially with perfume and water.


text:
Enzymatic synthesis of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids using a parallel cascade strategy and tyrosinase variants
Wang, Yu; Subrizi, Fabiana; Carter, Eve M; Sheppard, Tom D; Ward, John M; Hailes, Helen C; (2022) Enzymatic synthesis of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids using a parallel cascade strategy and tyrosinase variants. Nature Communications , 13 , Article 5436. 10.1038/s41467-022-33122-1.
Carter_Enzymatic synthesis of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids using a parallel cascade strategy and tyrosinase variants_VoR.pdf - Published Version
Benzylisoquinoline alkaloid derived pharmaceuticals are widely applied in modern medicines. Recent studies on the microbial production of benzylisoquinolines have highlighted key biological syntheses towards these natural products. Routes to non-natural benzylisoquinolines have been less explored, particularly halogenated compounds which are more challenging. Here, we show the use of a tyrosinase, tyrosine decarboxylase, transaminase, and norcoclaurine synthase which are combined in a parallel cascade design, in order to generate halogenated benzylisoquinoline alkaloids in high enantiomeric excess. Notably, mutagenesis studies are applied to generate tyrosinase mutants, which enhance the acceptance of halogenated tyrosines for use in the biocatalytic cascades developed.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Chemistry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Biochemical Engineering
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy > Pharma and Bio Chemistry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy


text:
Anuradha Roy, Manjari Dwivedi
Department of Prasuti Tantra, Faculty of Ayurveda, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Anuradha Roy
Asst. Prof., Department of Prasuti Tantra, Faculty of Ayurveda, IMS, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi - 221 005, Uttar Pradesh
Background: Anemia in pregnancy is multi-factorial. Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is the most common one. Major cause is increased demand of iron during pregnancy. In Ayurveda, under Pandu-Roga the features of anemia are described. It is characterized by Vaivarnyata or Varnanasha (change/destruction in normal color of the body), a disorder of Pitta vitiation. Ayurvedic management is an effective way of curing anemia in general by a large number of Lauha preparations of which Dhatrilauha has been used widely for centuries. Aim : To evaluate the effect of Dhatrilauha in the management of IDA based on the scientific parameters among pregnant patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 58 cases were selected by simple randomized sampling method as per inclusion criteria of pregnant women between 4 th and 7 th months of pregnancy with a clinical diagnosis and laboratory confirmation of IDA. Dhatrilauha 500 mg in two divided doses after food with normal potable water were given for 45 days with three follow-ups, each of 15 days intervals. Final assessment was done after completion of 45 days and results were statistically analyzed by using Cochran's Q-test and Student's t-test. Results: . Dhatrilauha showed statistically significant (P < 0.01) improvement in the majority of sign-symptoms and objective parameters such as weakness, fatigue, palpitation, effort intolerance, breathlessness, heartburn, pallor, constipation, hemoglobin, red blood cells (RBC), hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, RBC distribution width, mean platelet volume, serum iron, and total iron binding capacity. Conclusion: Dhatrilauha possesses many fold effectiveness in anemia (IDA), which was evidenced with the significant results obtained in the majority of parameters in this study.
Roy A
Dwivedi M
Dhatrilauha
Pandu Roga


text:
We got students to model NATO's reaction to an earthquake in the Mediterranean – here's what happened
December 5, 2019 8.47am EST
Mark Webber, University of Birmingham
Professor of International Politics, University of Birmingham
The Model NATO described in this article was part-funded by NATO's Public Diplomacy Division. Mark Webber is Chair of the British International Studies Association (BISA), the Model's sponsoring organisation.
University of Birmingham provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.
Students at the model NATO meeting in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. David Tett Photography ©, Author provided (No reuse)
When NATO leaders get together, their meetings tend to follow a familiar script and their gathering in a hotel north of London in early December was no different.
The presidents of France, Turkey and the US engaged in ill-tempered exchanges – casting Donald Trump, unusually, as NATO's champion. Meanwhile, NATO's unflappable secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, did his best to talk up the alliance's accomplishments: recognition of space as an operational domain, greater attention to China's military modernisation, and "unprecedented" increases in defence spending.
The closing London Declaration, true to form, glossed over allied differences in favour of "solidarity, unity and cohesion", noting concrete progress on counter-terrorism, burden-sharing and military readiness.
But if we left the serious business of diplomacy to students rather than politicians would they fare any better?
NATO: the real thing
Once the politicians leave town, it is flexibility and focus that matter. NATO has not survived for 70 years for nothing. Its "pragmatic functionalism" means the organisation can bend to the changing demands of its members and the fluid and sometimes sudden shifts in the international environment – be that the end of the Cold War, war in the Balkans, 9/11, the resurgence of Russian power and, conceivably, even the rise of China.
It is often forgotten that NATO has also played a role in disaster management. Its first such mission – flood relief in Belgium and the Netherlands – was as long ago as 1953. Since 1998, NATO has operated the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC). Albania, which suffered an earthquake at the end of November, has just requested assistance from that body.
Albania's earthquake has not preoccupied NATO leaders much this week – but NATO's agility in emergencies was tested to the limit in a "Model NATO" summit organised by the British International Studies Association and supported by NATO's Public Diplomacy Division. In a day-long exercise on December 2, 2019, more than 90 students from 15 UK universities met at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to role-play NATO's response to a disaster of unprecedented scale and consequence.
A new model NATO
The participating students had been forewarned. In a briefing circulated some weeks earlier, they'd been alerted to the probability of significant seismic activity and the need to mobilise civil and military resources to cope with the consequences.
The crisis updates circulated on the day took the breath away: a massive earthquake in Turkey resulting in tens of thousands of fatalities, a landslip in the Canary Islands sending a tsunami racing across the Atlantic towards north America, and a massive volcanic eruption on the Italian island of Stromboli.
The students rose to the occasion. Representing all NATO's 29 nations (plus incoming ally, North Macedonia), and working through two specialised NATO bodies – the Military Committee and the Civil Emergency Planning Committee – they agreed a detailed set of actions. Endorsed in a final declaration by NATO's highest authority, the North Atlantic Council, that involved activating the EADRCC, partnering with the EU, the UN and the Red Cross, and mobilising national and joint NATO military assets for the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Hard at work. David Tett Photography ©, Author provided (No reuse)
Inspiring future diplomats
Of course, all of this was fiction. But the exercise served an important educational purpose. Having been involved in Model NATO events for over a decade, I can think of no better educational tool than simulations and role play for motivating and enthusing students.
These are highly effective in replicating "real world" phenomena and so convey to students and instructors alike insights unobtainable in traditional classroom settings. Model UN is perhaps the best known example – but the European Union, the Arab League and the African Union are also frequently role-played.
Model NATO, meanwhile, has obtained a permanent presence in the educational calendar with simulations being run in Washington DC, Bologna, The Hague and elsewhere. The benefit of such events is not only educational. Preparation for, and involvement in, a model summit can inspire students to embark upon careers and projects in diplomacy, government, the charitable sector and the armed forces.
Politicians make the headlines, but it is the hard work and commitment of staffers, civil servants – and, in NATO's case, the military – which keep international organisations on the road. Students become politicians but many more will join the ranks of these important professions.


text:
Q: iterating over two values of a list at a time in python I have a set like (669256.02, 6117662.09, 669258.61, 6117664.39, 669258.05, 6117665.08) which I need to iterate over, like
    for x,y in (669256.02, 6117662.09, 669258.61, 6117664.39, 669258.05, 6117665.08)
        print (x,y)

which would print
    669256.02 6117662.09
    669258.61 6117664.39
    669258.05 6117665.08

im on Python 3.3 btw

A: >>> nums = (669256.02, 6117662.09, 669258.61, 6117664.39, 669258.05, 6117665.08)
>>> for x, y in zip(*[iter(nums)]*2):
        print(x, y)

669256.02 6117662.09
669258.61 6117664.39
669258.05 6117665.08

A: The grouper example in the itertools recipes section should help you here:
http://docs.python.org/library/itertools.html#itertools-recipes
from itertools import zip_longest
def grouper(iterable, n, fillvalue=None):
    "Collect data into fixed-length chunks or blocks"
    # grouper('ABCDEFG', 3, 'x') --> ABC DEF Gxx"
    args = [iter(iterable)] * n
    return zip_longest(*args, fillvalue=fillvalue)

You would then it use like this:
for x, y in grouper(my_set, 2, 0.0):  # Use 0.0 to pad with a float
    print(x, y)

A: You can use an iterator:
>>> lis = (669256.02, 6117662.09, 669258.61, 6117664.39, 669258.05, 6117665.08)
>>> it = iter(lis)
>>> for x in it:
...     print (x, next(it))
...
669256.02 6117662.09
669258.61 6117664.39
669258.05 6117665.08


text:
Q: Clicking on a
* object and excluding tags under it
Possible Duplicate:
How to ignore click event when clicked on children.

I wanted to know how can i build
 that is clickable with jQuery while inside it, I have  that i don't want it to do the same as the click on the rest of the li do...
Example :

 bla bla

and the jQuery code :
$(document).ready(function () {
    $('li').hide();

    $("li").toggle(
        function () {
            $(this).next().show("slow");
        },
        function () {
            $(this).next().hide();
        }
    );
});

Now i want the toggle function not to work on the  only on the rest of the
, I explain, when I click on the link I want to reach "/home"...
Thanks,
Golan

A: The problem comes from the fact the click event happens on the a tag then bubbles up to happen on the list item, and any other elements that happen to be in that branch of the DOM.
The solution is to stop this bubbling in the click event on the link. Something like the following should work.
$('li a').click(
    function(event){
        event.cancelBubble = true;
        if (event.stopPropagation) event.stopPropagation();
    }
);

You could just return false in the event above, but that would also stop the browser following the link.


At the end of 2013, second round pick Gosuke Katoh was the talk of the Yankees farm system. After being drafted that same year, he had an impressive performance in Rookie-Ball, hitting .310/.402/.522 in 50 games. With an advanced bat, average power, plus speed, and good second base defense, Katoh was even being called Robinson Cano's replacement by some. The next year, Katoh's hype was all but gone. He hit just .222 with three home runs in 121 games while striking out 30.5 percent of the time. On the bright side, the Yankees were encouraged by his second half improvements, and felt he could rebound in 2015.
Katoh started this season at Low-A, hoping for a bounce back season. Unfortunately, he performed even worse than last season, hitting .161/.264/.202, also striking out more and walking less. After 39 games of this, he was demoted to his old stomping grounds of Rookie-Ball. He's currently hitting .297 with a great 145 wRC+ and an improved strikeout rate.
It's hard to figure out why Katoh, a seemingly advanced bat, was struggling so much in his second go-around at Low-A. His raw tools are still there, yet he can't touch Low-A pitching. As with many prospects, it is too soon to write him off as another early-round bust, but other than keep Katoh to Rookie-Ball for the third time in four years, there isn't much for the Yankees to do here. Maybe something clicks, or maybe this stint in Rookie-Ball helps his confidence, but it's hard to imagine Katoh ever becoming the player the Yankees once hoped he could be.
The Yankees took Kaprielian with the highest first round pick they've had since 1993. (here's to hoping he doesn't turn out like Matt Drews!) Kaprielian took a while to sign, and made his professional debut on Saturday, August 22nd, 75 days after being drafted by the Yankees 16th overall. The 21-year old threw three perfect innings, striking out 4 and throwing 35 pitches. Kaprielian is likely to make two or three more starts this season at Short-Season Staten Island before the season is over.
Kaprielian stayed true to his scouting report, sitting at around 92 mph and topping out at 95. Kaprielian also throws a plus curveball, his best pitch, and an average changeup that could turn into an above average pitch. Kaprielian's pitches don't look like the typical first round arsenal, but his advanced presence and knowledge on the mound has impressed scouts; he "knows how to pitch".
He isn't the flashiest of first rounders, and certainly has less upside than others, but Kaprielian still belongs as a top pick. The pitcher's floor is one of the highest in the draft, and he may have a better chance of sticking as a starter than anyone else. Kaprielian's advanced repertoire and pitchability also gives him an ETA of either late-2016 or 2017, making him quite close to the big leagues for a draft pick. Kaprielian is likely to start next season either in Low-A Charleston or High-A-Tampa, where he will work towards reaching his mid-rotation upside.


text:
The Great West Life Assurance Company of Canada invests $16.01 million in Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)
According to the most recent statement that Great West Life Assurance Co., Canada, submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company increased its holdings in Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ: DDOG) during the third quarter of the year. The fund's acquisition of 180,609 shares of the corporation's stock required an investment of approximately $16,007,000 in total. Great West Life Assurance Company of Canada had a 0.06% stake in Datadog as of the most recent report that the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Additionally, the interests that several other institutional investors currently hold in the company have been adjusted due to recent transactions involving those investors. During the third quarter of this year, there was a 29.5% increase in the value of the shares of Datadog that Jennison Associates LLC owned. After purchasing an additional 72,914 shares throughout the relevant period, Jennison Associates LLC now holds a total of 320,328 shares of the company's stock, each worth $28,439,000. This brings the total value of Jennison Associates LLC's stock holdings to $28,439,000. The amount of Datadog stock owned by Financial Counselors Inc. increased by 13.9% during the third quarter due to the company's continued investment. Following the acquisition of a further 3,555 shares during the period in question, Financial Counselors, Inc. now possesses a total of 29,163 shares of the company's stock, which can be approximated to be worth approximately $2,589,000 at present. In the third quarter, Assetmark Inc. increased the amount of Datadog stock owned by 6.2%, bringing the total to 100%. As a result of the successful completion of the transaction, Assetmark Inc. now possesses 251 additional shares, bringing its total number to 4,273. This represents a value of the company's stock of $379,000.
During the third quarter, Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased the amount of Datadog stock owned by 7.7 percent to bring its total ownership percentage to 100 percent. After making an additional purchase of 12,635 shares of the company's stock during the most recent period, Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. now has a total of 177,138 shares of the company's stock, which is currently valued at $15,726,000. This was accomplished as a result of the company's most recent period. In addition, during the third quarter, the State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D made a 6.3% increase in the amount of Datadog shares it owned as a percentage of its total holdings. The State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D now holds 142,893 shares of the company's stock after purchasing an additional 8,464 shares during the most recent period. The stock is currently valued at $12,686,000, and the fund has a total investment of $12,686,000. On Wednesday, the company's stock started trading for $73.06 per share, and institutional investors currently hold 70.93% of those shares in their portfolios. The stock has been trading at $73.69 on average over the previous 50 days, while over the previous 200 days, it has been trading at $87.60. Datadog, Inc. hit a low point over the past 52 weeks of $61.34, while the company reached a high point over the past 52 weeks of $184.70. There is a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57, as well as quick ratios of 3.23, current ratios of 3.23, and quick ratios of 3.23. Both the company's beta, which stands at 1.02, and its earnings-to-price ratio, which stands at -1,461.20, are negative. The current value of its market capitalization is estimated to be $23.2 billion.
On November 3rd, the most recent earnings report for Datadog, which is publicly traded and can be found under the NASDAQ: DDOG, was made available to the public. The company reported earnings per share for the period of $0.06, which was $0.02 better than the average estimate for the period of $0.08 for earnings per share. Even though market analysts predicted that the company would bring in revenue of $412.15 million during the quarter, it brought in revenue
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text:
Story 4: Amrabad
(A story based on the time Paul was doing his research in Amrabad)
by Anna Hiebert
On a plateau overlooking the plains of Hyderabad nestles the small village of Amrabad, named for the range of hills that stretches to right and left as far as the eye can see. The village is a world in itself, remote and self-sufficient. Once a day a rickety bus, radiator steaming from the climb up the winding mountain road, stops at the outskirts in front of the post office to discharge a few bedraggled passengers and take on others for the return trip to the big city some ninety miles distant. For the most part the villagers are content to stay where they are, little concerned about the life that goes on beyond their hills. Only rarely does a visitor from the outside disturb the even tenor of their existence...a husband comes to escort his wife back home, a city merchant with packs and bundles of gay saris and gaudy toys comes for the weekly bazaar days, the hated tax collector shows up, a government official investigates a case. Although on the surface all remains calm and unruffled, there is not a man, woman, or child unaware of these intrusions.
Indian Village, by Anna Hiebert
A casual glance, a mental note dismiss most intrusions. Others stir up a slight ripple before they are absorbed into the day's events: "Look, that is Chendraleela! She must have come to spend a few weeks with her mother. What airs she puts on now that she is married to a city man. That silk sari she is wearing must have cost her husband all of fifty rupees..." Or an excited "The bangle man just got off the bus! The bangle man is here! Mother, may I please have a pavula for bangles?"
Though visitors arriving by bus may arouse interest, those who come by private car receive more careful scrutiny. Since the village maintains no hotel--only a sort of open shed where travelers may sleep wrapped in their white sheets or rough gongardees and may even cook their handful of rice on the stones in the corner, important visitors stop at the Government Guest House outside the village. Word of the appearance of the Tax Collector at this bungalow may send the women scurrying to hide their chickens. If it is the Inspector of Police investigating the drowning of fifteen-year-old Praymavati or the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a money lender, there may be other things to hide.
Over the years there has been an occasional foreigner, too, stopping for a few days at the guest house: a British official with his retinue of officers and servants, or a missionary driving his own car. Some of the old people remember the kindly old man and his friendly wife who took one's pulse and gave out pills...they no longer come. They had been followed by others--young men, old men, and once even a group of women camping on the outskirts of the village near the outcast pallum. These days the only foreigner who comes and goes is a young American named Gordon. At first he too had stopped at the travelers' bungalow, then he moved in closer and rented a small house inside the village to which he occasionally brought his wife and three children. Now he is living in the empty "haunted house" and is spending much of his time with the local pundit and the witchdoctor. It is reported he was born in the country, and he speaks a good Telugu. By now they have become accustomed to seeing him striding down the village street, his lean figure a head taller than his Indian companions, dressed in a pancha, a long-tailed Nehru-neck coat, and a turban that threatens to fall apart at any moment. It seems that he feels very much at home in their village.
Is he as guileless and free of intrigue as he appears on the surface to be? Or is he casting a subtle spell upon those about him? Isn't Muggayya getting altogether too friendly, following him about, neglecting his work? And reliable reports have it that when Gordon returns from the city this afternoon his sister and mother will be with him. Women...only women. But then, one can never tell. It had been a woman who bewitched Parvathi, the old merchant's daughter-in-law, so that she had refused even to bow to the family god and had firmly announced her intention to be a follower of the Christian god--Yaysu Kristu. It had been a terrible disgrace to the family. The white woman had never seen the girl again. The family had seen to that. Decidedly it was best to keep constant watch over all foreigners, men and women.
If Gordon was aware of this silent scrutiny of his every action, he gave no indication of it, but came and went freely. At this very moment he was nearing the village in his old jeep, his mother and sister beside him. They were silent, thinking their own thoughts while apparently intent on the landscape. "Will this be something to tell the kids at school--living for a month in a real Indian house and a haunted house at that!" "All these years in India I've wanted to live in an Indian house--right in the village--close to the people, just for a little while, of course." "I wish I had insisted on more bread--four loaves, small loaves, and none to be bought in the village bazaar...oh well, we can always make chappatis IF we can get flour, or rice."
Gordon had some slight misgivings, but on the whole he was happy to have companionship for the last month of his stay in India. Ever since his wife and children had left for the States three months ago, life had been lonely...very lonely. He smiled an amused smile. How would his mother adjust to life in Amrabad? Would she be able to take the dirt, the rats, the people wandering into the house and staring?
Just then a sharp turn in the road gave them a glimpse in the distance of the village, dark grey against the darkening sky. In the road ahead, almost hidden in a cloud of fine dust, a herd of equally drab-grey buffaloes plodded homeward, their bells tinkling. A young lad beat at them ineffectually with his cudgel, shouting at them to get off the road, then turned to stare open-mouthed at the white faces. Suddenly a slender figure darted into the road and waved excitedly for them to stop.
"That must be Muggayya, the witchdoctor, wanting a ride to the village," explained Gordon.
"A witchdoctor? A real live witchdoctor?" exclaimed Kathy, craning her neck to see better. Then she added with evident disappointment, "You mean he is a witchdoctor? He looks just like any other villager to me."
"Well, of course Muggayya doesn't only go about casting spells and cooking up witch brews. He is a farmer and spends most of his time in the fields. Evenings he comes to help me translate Hindu mantrams and explain caste and marriage customs--such as whether a man can marry his mother's sister's daughter or his mother's brother's daughter or whether it is the father's relative he must marry. It is really extremely complicated, and I am very fortunate to have found a man like him." Then as an afterthought he added, "Besides, I like him--I like him very much."
As the jeep slowed to a stop, Muggayya, his face beaming a welcome, squeezed into the front seat beside them, expressing his delight at Gordon's return and his pleasure at meeting the sister and the mother of his good friend.
At the entrance to the village, Gordon pointed out the post office and the club bungalow next door where frequently he would join the government doctor and the principal of the local high school and their friends for a game of tennis. At the bus stop they turned right into a narrow side road bordered on both sides by high mud walls. The homely smell of smoke and burning cow-dung hung in the dust-laden air. Here and there an open doorway gave brief glimpses of life in the privacy of the compounds behind the walls--awoman squatting before a fire stirring the contents of the cooking pot, oxen contentedly feeding under their straw-roof shed, the flames of an oil lamp flickering in the light evening breeze.
Village Woman
Near the center of the village the jeep came to a stop in front of a heavy wooden door set in a stone wall and secured by a chain and a stout lock at the base. Except for this door and a barred and shuttered window to the left, the wall rose unbroken to the parapet above. Silence enveloped the large house as night blotted out the last trace of light from the sky. Gordon's mother had the uncomfortable feeling that both silence and darkness were alive, that the house itself looked down on them with watchful eyes.
From the shadows of the road ahead a man with a lantern hurried forward. After he had been introduced to Kathy and her mother as the pastor of the local Christian church, he drew a large village-made key, long and intricate, from his shirt pocket and proceeded to open the lock.
"That isn't the lock I put on when I left," Gordon said slowly, a puzzled frown on his face.
"No, it isn't," Muggayya explained. "The morning after you left we found that someone had been in the house and rummaged through your things. So we changed locks."
"As far as we could see, nothing was missing," added the pastor.
Still puzzled, Gordon pumped up a petromax lantern and together they unloaded bedding and supplies and carried them into the inner room of the house, passing through two bare and gloomy anterooms. Hanging the petromax on a hook suspended from a crossbeam, Gordon took a quick look around. His papers lay as he had left them. The cot in the corner...the bedding...nothing seemed to be missing from this room. Maybe they had been mistaken. He lit a small lantern and went into the adjoining bedroom. His suitcase, a few clothes, all in order. And then his eyes fell on the tape recorder set on a built-in wall shelf. Relieved to see it still there, he was about to leave the room when upon a closer look he discovered it was running. It must have been running for some time...silently, in the dark and silent house. Someone must have been in the house that afternoon, the new lock notwithstanding.
By the time they sat down to a light supper the cook had laid out on the one small table that stood in the middle of the room directly under a large skylight, the incident had been all but forgotten, and Gordon was explaining about the haunted house.
"The owner died and left the place to his three sons. But they believe it to be haunted and refuse to live in it. Since I don't believe in ghosts, I was able to rent it for very little."
"What makes them think it is haunted?" his mother inquired, peering dubiously about into the shadowy corners.
"It seems some sacks of grain slid down off the pile stacked up in the front room, and they feel sure some evil spirit did it. Then there are noises at night from the locked room--rats in the grain, I would imagine."
"Rats? Do you mean to say there are rats in the house?" Kathy shuddered.
"Of course there are rats," laughed Gordon. "There is one, in fact, that is almost tame. It runs past me almost every day when I study. I am rather used to it now and it keeps me company when I am alone."
"You said 'locked room.' Which room is that?"
"It's right off the passageway. You passed the locked door when you came in, but you may not have noticed it in the dark."
The arrival of Muggayya put an end to the conversation. Gordon unrolled a straw mat and spread it on the floor of the passage, and soon the two were completely absorbed in Hindu lore. Kathy and her mother, tired after the jolting and shaking of the long ride, relaxed with their books and knitting in the light of the hanging lantern.
"What a spooky place this is," Kathy said. "Did you see that huge opening in the wall beside the kitchen window? And the..."
Just then her mother gasped and there was urgency in her voice when she warned, "Be careful! I saw something disappear under that rag on the floor near your chair!" Cautiously they edged away from the rag, ready for flight at the slightest movement. From a safe distance they called for Gordon and his friend.
Hastily arming themselves with whatever they could find that would serve as a weapon, Gordon and Muggayya approached the spot and gingerly moved the rag aside. A Russels Viper, surprised in its hiding place, started to glide away to safety. In a flash a stick pinned it to the floor.
Holding up the limp body a few moments later, Muggayya called their attention to the rings that circled it, gradually diminishing in size toward the tip of the tail. "If this snake had bitten any of you," he said, "I would have had to count these rings and say as many charms as there are rings in order to save his life. This one has...thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three...I would have had to say thirty-three charms!"
He shook his head, and looking at the mother he said with a kind of wonder in his voice, "You found it so soon!"
So soon? Later that night when she lay on her cot in the bedroom, the mother pondered this remark, debating whether it was just an innocent remark or whether it held a sinister, hidden meaning. But no--the witchdoctor was a friend of her son's. He could not have known beforehand of the snake. She dismissed the thought. For tonight they were safe. The doors were bolted, there were heavy bars on the windows, their mosquito nets were tucked well under the mattresses, and a kerosene lantern, from where it stood in the doorway between the two rooms, its wick turned low, cast about it a faint but reassuring circle of light.
The clanking and clashing of a heavy chain dragging and scraping over stone, the sharp clash of metal, a whirring and a rattling, followed by a dull thud and a distant splash, brought Gordon's mother reluctantly up from the depths of peaceful sleep to a state of semi-wakefulness. In the brief silence that ensued she tried to remember where she was. All was dark except for the faint light from a lantern in the doorway. Then there it was again--the noise. Heavy sounds of jerking and pulling, creaking and groaning of wood--a pause--and then it began all over again, the clanking and clashing, the scraping and rattling, the whirring and the dull thud. Oh no! she groaned inwardly, a well right outside our house! As she lay there, the wail of a baby came to her ears, and the angry cackle of chickens rudely awakened and the stomping of oxen. And from somewhere came the sound of a man gargling.
Woman Carrying Water, by Anna Hiebert
And still it was dark. The lantern still cast its feeble light from the doorway. Within the house all was silent. Kathy in her cot next to hers hadn't moved. Drawing the blanket up over her head and burying her head deep in the feathery softness of her pillow, she slept again.
Subdued laughter and amused whisperings coming from the window near her bed roused her some time later to abrupt consciousness. Two young urchins, brown faces pressed against the bars, were gazing with great curiousity and hilarious enjoyment at the foreign late-sleeper and pointing out objects of interest in the room to each other. "Go away!" Two startled faces disappeared suddenly from view--she could hear them scrambling down the pile of rubble that lay heaped against the wall, and running away. Their laughter floated back to her through the unshuttered windows.
From the next room she could hear the tinkle of silver and the scraping of chairs being pushed to the table. The lantern was gone. The door was shut. From the front of the house came the sound of voices. The first night in the haunted house was over. Scrambling out of bed she dressed hurriedly, pressed against the wall between the windows.
In the back yard Gordon was shaving before a small mirror hanging from a nail beside the kitchen window. On a wooden stool she found a small basin which she filled with water from an earthen pot nearby, using the baked beans can as a dipper.
"Well, mother, what do you think of life in an Indian village?" laughed Gordon.
"It should be most interesting," she replied as they went in to a breakfast of oatmeal and burned toast.
Kathy, still half asleep, joined them at the table. "There must be mosquitoes in my net," she complained. "I could hear them humming all night and I have bites all over." She spooned sugar on her oatmeal. "What are we going to do today, Gordon?"
"I thought we'd go to that dry streambed and look for ancient stone axes. I found a few good specimens last time I was here."
"Ancient stone axes--here?" Gone was every vestige of listlessness. The day lay bright and warm and exciting before them.
Ancient Stone Axe
A discreet cough from the front door reminded Gordon that there were things to be done before they could set off for the stone hunt. "I promised Muggayya I would take pictures of the men harvesting the field," he said, reaching for his camera. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
The search proved very rewarding. To Kathy's great satisfaction and delight, it was she who spotted the best piece of all, a yellowish red stone fashioned into something resembling an axhead, one end shaped to fit into the palm of a man's hand, the other thinning out and sharpened on both sides, tapering off to a point. When late that afternoon they reluctantly turned their steps homeward, they were loaded down with stones, as many as they could carry, to be sorted and studied at leisure.
Happening to go into her bedroom, the mother noticed with dismay that her billfold was lying openly on the bed. "How careless to have left it where anyone could see it," she thought. Quickly she examined the contents. Everything was there--everything except the four or five rupees she had had in it. But who? How? The house had been locked as usual during their absence.
"It isn't a great deal of money, but it is all I had with me," she said ruefully to her son later. "And I don't like the thought of someone going through my belongings in my absence."
(This is as far as Mother wrote about the time she and Loey were with Paul in the village. For the rest of the story, we'll have to ask Paul and Loey. I would really like to know who's been getting into the house, and why.)
Fixing the Ox Cart Wheel (from Konduru, by Paul Hiebert)
Fishermen in Reservoir Nearby (from Konduru)
Water Carriers (from Konduru)


Buffalo's roster of breweries has increased by two, now that Belt Line Brewery & Kitchen (545 Swan Street) and Froth Brewing Company (700 Military Road), have opened their doors. Belt Line has five beers available – Farm to Tap: Honey Kolsch, This Is…Farmhouse Ale, High Green Pale Ale, Not-lanta New England IPA and Cross Cut Oatmeal Stout, as does Froth – The Autograph NE-Style Blonde Ale, Loyal to the Grain Pilsner, Bread NEIPA, DiMaggio Double NEIPA and Mounds Bar Chocolate Stout. Belt Line's hours are Wednesday/Thursday/Friday (4-8p) and Saturday (12-6p). Froth's hours are Wednesday (4-10p), Thursday (4-11p), Friday/Saturday (12p-12a) and Sunday (12-6p).
Buffalo Brewing has released 1893 Oat Cream New England IPA, their third attempt at a hazy IPA. Named in honor of the year that the Erie County Savings Bank Building opened on Sheldon Square, this beer is brewed exclusively with Mosaic hops for notes of dank pine and a smooth mouthfeel. 1893 Oat Cream features the same base recipe as BBC's 1817 and 1825 IPA's, but loaded with oats. It's triple hopped in the fermenter and hopped again in the whirlpool. Find it on tap now at Buffalo Brewing's Larkin taproom. You can grab two 32oz. crowlers to-go for $19.
Woodcock Brothers have re-released their former house IPA Hoppycock, which was discontinued due to the declining popularity of British-style IPAs, this time freshly reworked as a hazy IPA much more akin to their XPA series. Hoppycock IPA v.2 is brewed with Mosaic, Citra and Azacca hops, which is then double dry hopped with Citra and Mosaic for an intense citrusy and tropical aroma and flavor. As the brewery says, 'this is quite literally the opposite of the last beer you've had labeled "Hoppycock."' Hoppycock is on tap now at Woodcock's taproom in Wilson and is available in crowlers to go.
Both Thundersnow IPA and Blizzard Bock Dark Lager have made their return to Flying Bison. Both are on tap and ready to-go in six-packs. Forget everything you know about Thundersnow if you've had it before – this beer is completely different from its previous iteration. Brewed with Glacier, Denali, Centennial and Cascade hops and flaked barley for notes of creamy pineapple, mango, lychee and dankness, Thundersnow is a hazy IPA that clocks in at 7.7%. On the opposite end of the beer spectrum, Blizzard Bock is a malty, toasty, smooth and satisfying German-style dark winter lager. Both beers are available now.
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