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Bobby Bland - You're The One (That I Need) (Duke 344)
You're The One (That I Need)
Somehow, even though we all knew it was coming, it doesn't seem possible that Bobby Bland is no longer with us. He was there in Memphis at Sunbeam Mitchell's Club Handy when it all began, and he lived there in Memphis until the day he died, same as he ever was. An absolute giant of R&B, his was one of the last great voices at the heart of Black American Music. His name was a mainstay on the R&B charts for four decades, and he never stopped performing, working wherever and whenever he got the chance.
The music he created was deep, in every sense of the word. This awesome record we have here, the flip of 1961 monster hit Turn On Your Love Light, just knocks me out. Bobby's smoke-filled velvet vocals fill the room while Wayne Bennett's impeccable guitar work and Joe Scott's mournful arrangement bring it on home. A contemporary of Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, he contributed as much (if not more) to the evolution of Soul music as either one of them. So much more than a 'Blues' singer, I don't think mainstream America ever truly appreciated how great he really was.
Maybe now they will.
...reprinted below are a couple of other posts I did on Bobby over the years:
I've Just Got To Forget About You
This past January 22nd would have been Sam Cooke's 75th birthday. January 27th was Bobby Bland's 76th.
Bobby was born in the small town of Rosemark, Tennessee, where he grew up surrounded by the sounds of spiritual music as well as The Grand Ol' Opry broadcasts on WLAC. He actually picked cotton in the fields, and didn't bother going to school much.
When the family moved to Memphis in 1947, he joined a local Gospel group called The Miniatures that sang in area churches. It wasn't long, however, before the young Bland was drawn in by the whole blues scene that was happening down on Beale Street. In addition to working in a local garage, he began parking cars down behind the Palace Theatre, and soon became a regular fixture. He would compete in the amateur shows staged by Rufus Thomas most every Wednesday, and came to be known as one of the Beale Streeters, a loose collection of local guys that would include B.B. King, Johnny Ace, Junior Parker, Roscoe Gordon, and Earl Forest at one time or another.
They took work where they could get it, often performing at local brothels or upstairs at Sunbeam Mitchell's legendary Club Handy for little more than a bowl of chili. It was Mitchell that got Bobby a spot on Rufus Thomas' radio show on WDIA. This got him noticed by Sam Phillips, who had just started recording local acts at his Memphis Recording Service. He did a session on Bobby for Chess Records in 1951, and early the next year, Ike Turner produced four sides for Modern Records at the studio, none of which made much of a splash.
Later in 1952, Bobby signed with Duke Records, a new label that had been started up by WDIA DJ Dave Mattis. They would release one single, Lovin' Blues, before Bobby was drafted into the Army. The record became somewhat of a regional hit while he was away, and Duke recorded his Army Blues in 1953 while he was home on leave.
Don Robey, meanwhile, was busy building his own little empire. He had opened a club called The Bronze Peacock in Houston, Texas in 1945 that became the premier showcase for Jazz and R&B in the region. He began managing local artists like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and would open a record store in 1947. It wasn't long before he realized there was real money to be made in the record business, and in 1949 he formed Peacock Records, building his own recording studio and record pressing plant adjacent to the club. He began building an impressive roster of Gospel and Blues talent, and his records became huge sellers in the Southern market. Robey had the reputation of running his business "like a plantation", often making his point with a pistol he kept strapped to his leg. In addition to recording and pressing his own records, he would pay writers a few dollars up front, then claim songwriting credit and publishing rights for himself. He also made sure his artists were represented by his own Buffalo Booking Agency, run by partner Evelyn Johnson (pictured here with Robey). He had all the angles covered. Ever on the lookout for a new source of income, Don had his eye on Memphis.
He made a deal with Dave Mattis, giving Duke a much needed infusion of cash, and by late 1953 Robey had forced him out, becoming sole proprietor of Duke-Peacock Records. When Bobby was discharged from the service in 1955, the Memphis he knew was no more. Sam Phillip's own Sun Records had found its fair haired boy, and his contract with Duke was now owned by someone he'd never met somewhere in Texas.
He and Robey actually got along well together (he often said it was better than pushing a plow...), and he rejoined old friend Junior Parker as part of a package called Blues Consolidated that Buffalo Booking had put together. Playing more than 300 gigs a year, they criss-crossed the country, just smokin' it up! Duke would record them whenever they came through Houston, and so kept a steady stream of "product" out there for sale. Most of these early sides featured the great Clarence Hollimon on guitar, but it was his old Memphis homeboy Pat Hare (who would later go on to become a member of Muddy Waters' band before being sentenced to 99 years in prison for killing his girlfriend and the cop she called on him...!) that drove his first national hit Farther Up The Road all the way to number one on the R&B charts in 1957.
The success of this record (as well as his subsequent top ten hit, Little Boy Blue) enabled Bobby to set out on his own, forming the incredible band that would stay with him for the next ten years. It would include Wayne Bennett on the guitar, Teddy Reynolds on the piano, Hamp Simmons on bass, Jabo Starks (future funky drummer for The JBs) on the drums, along with a fat horn section led by trumpeter Joe Scott. It was Scott's arrangements that brought Bobby's music to the next level, essentially creating his unique sound.
He continued to top the R&B charts, while staying out on the road 50 weeks of every year. The band was playing all the popular package shows of the day alongside people like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson. Bobby understood, as they did, the power of the female audience, and each night was like a contest to just "take 'em out"!
The release of the absolutely amazing Two Steps From The Blues in 1961 collected much of his work from this period into a cohesive whole that still stands as one of the greatest albums ever. Songs like I Pity The Fool and I'll Take Care Of You reveal the two sides of Bland's genius... rough and gravelly Gospel shouting (reportedly inspired by C.L. Franklin, Aretha's dad), coupled with a smooth and intimate vulnerability that just drove the ladies wild. Today's B side, a track from this album, was actually released as the flip of the Don Davis produced Keep On Loving Me (You'll See The Change) in 1970, nine years later! The mood it creates, that late night lonesome highway feeling... wow. (You might notice that one D. Malone is listed as the songwriter... a pseudonym Robey had created for himself when his scam became too obvious... )
Bobby continued to top the R&B charts with records like Turn On Your Lovelight and Yield Not To Temptation, and in 1962 would score his only top 40 pop hit (#28) with T-Bone Walker's Stormy Monday Blues, powered by Wayne Bennett's phenomenal guitar work.
1964's Ain't Nothing You Can Do was an absolute monster hit that literally defined the southern "soul-blues" style of which he was the king. It is this very designation (thought up by us genre-driven white people) that, in my opinion, has tended to marginalize people like Bobby, Little Milton, and Z.Z. Hill. I mean, he's like "too soul" to be taken seriously by the blues "purists", while being often overlooked by the soul crowd as having too much "blues"... or something. Whatever. His own people know the deal. He has entered the R&B charts an incredible 63 times, placing no less than 25 records in the top ten.
By the end of the 1960s, Bobby's drinking (over two quarts a day) caught up with him, and his band split up. The loss of Joe Scott as his arranger took its toll, and his early seventies output was inconsistent. In 1973, Robey sold Duke to ABC Records, which was later taken over by MCA. He would re-unite with former Beale Streeter B.B. King for a few mid-70s outings but, for the most part, a combination of record company indifference and changing times led to some truly middle-of-the-road material.
Bobby signed with good ol' Malaco Records in 1984 and got back to his southern soul roots. The release of Members Only the following year put him right back in the R&B top 20 where he belonged. He would go on to release over 15 albums for them over the next twenty years, highlighted by great songs like Take Off Your Shoes and I Just Tripped On A Piece Of Your Broken Heart.
Throughout all of this, Bobby continued to tour constantly, playing the same "chitlin' circuit" clubs he always had. I was lucky enough to experience this first hand during Carnival in New Orleans in 1989. My brother and I, two dumb white guys festooned in Mardi-Gras beads, stumbled into the Benz Lounge on Louisiana Avenue and were just blown away! Bobby and his band (with Wayne Bennett back on the guitar), just brought the house down around us... The sheer energy of this performance, with Bobby working the crowd in a small club setting, was an experience I'll never forget...
I saw him again about two weeks ago, opening for Dr. John at a theatre in New Jersey. About half the crowd was made up of well-dressed African-Americans in their sixties and seventies... Bobby's audience that has grown old along with him. People that remember Sam Cooke... that were a part of the struggle for civil rights. A generation that is passing before our very eyes.
Bobby's amazing voice, still a powerful instrument, spoke to the soul of everyone in the room. He had us in the palm of his hand.
Talk about a living legend, man.
Loan A Helping Hand
In 1984 Dan Greer and Fred Ford got together and formed an organization named 'Friends United To Preserve Musical Heritage International'. The idea, Dan told me, was to relate the rich history of Memphis music in the words of the people who made it in the first place. They created an event called the Music Pioneer Awards and Ford, the go-to baritone man in Memphis for generations, became their first honoree (once Dan convinced him it was alright). Fred has since left us, but the organization (now called simply United Music Heritage, Inc.) continues on with a board that includes folks like Percy Wiggins and Earl Randle.
I met Dan Greer at the Willie Mitchell Memorial Celebration in January, which is where he started thinking about putting together the incredible Twenty Fifth Anniversary Music Pioneer Awards that will be held at The New Daisy Theater on Beale Street this Thursday, August 12th. "Too many of us are passing," he said, "it's time to do something." The event will honor Carla Thomas, Don Bryant, Ann Peebles, The Mad Lads, The Temprees, Ruby Wilson and The Lee Twins among many others all backed by the incomparable Hi Rhythm, along with a horn section led by Ben Cauley.
In a word, Wow!
As if that weren't enough, the centerpiece of this year's awards will be a tribute to one of the cornerstones of Memphis music, Bobby "Blue" Bland. Bobby, who turned eighty this past January, was one of the original Beale-Streeters, and his absolute giant of a voice has influenced all those who came after him. The show will feature killer vocalists like J. Blackfoot and Percy Wiggins performing his music... can you imagine?
As Greer told the Commercial Appeal; "You won't find another show like this, you couldn't pay these people enough to come in and do this. But they come in and do it out of love for the city and the music."
This is one of those many, many times I wish I lived in Memphis.
posted by Red Kelly at 2:36 PM 1 comments
HOME AT LAST - part two: Mo' Better
CHIPS MOMAN 1937-2016 - COMING HOME
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Allen Toussaint 1938-2015
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text:
Congressional Malaria & NTD Caucus Briefing: Controlling Deadly Neglected Tropical Diseases
South Sudan 2014 © Valérie Batselaere/MSF
Opportunities to Expand the U.S. Impact
Congressional Briefing Agenda and Speaker Bios
Read online | Download PDF
Linday Gilchrist, Office of Representative Payne
Welcome from the Subcommittee for Africa and Global Health. Chairman Payne is the chairman for the subcommittee and excited about the hearing and personally couldn't make it but is actively involved on this issue as the chair. Congressman Payne and Congressman Bozzman are co-chairs on the malaria and NTD Caucus and so we're really looking forward to this briefing and so happy that we're all here. After we hear from the speakers we'll open it up for questions.
Jana Armstrong, Executive Director, DNDi
Hi and thanks, and thanks again and thank you to the caucus for sponsoring and making this possible. I'm not going to talk very long. There are experts for that. I just wanted to give a big picture for neglected tropical diseases and there are neglected diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria that are neglected diseases, but then there is this group of WHO-designated 14 neglected tropical diseases that affect over a billion people, people living in rural, very poverty-stricken areas often, and in most cases really neglected within their own health care system and very difficult to access. And the US has had a program in this area for the last five years. Mary Linehan from RTI will talk about that.
There are still significant needs and Francois Chappuis from Doctors Without Borders will speak to the additional needs and the ability to expand this program, this successful program, beyond the seven of those that the US government is currently focused on. And Dr. Manica Balasegaram will speak to the new tools, the new drugs, diagnostics, new vaccines that could really be the game-changers for controlling and eventually eliminating these diseases, so I think we will just get started. I just wanted to give a bit of an overview and am thinking that these NTDs - even their names we've probably never heard of before - they significantly disable or kill a huge number of people in the developing world. So I'll go to Mary.
Mary Linehan, Operations Director, Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Control Program, RTI International
Thank you. So I'm Mary Linehan. I'm the Operations Director for the USAID-funded NTD Control Program which is implemented by RTI International and as Jana said there are a group of about 14 designated by the WHO NGDs and among those there are seven that we consider tool-ready and they are: lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis; onchocerciasis, which is river blindness; schistosomiasis, or snail fever; trachoma, which is a blinding eye infection; and three soil-transmitted helminthiasis, which are whip worm, hook worm, and round worm.
Now what we mean by tool-ready is that there are current diagnostic and treatment tools that are sufficient to target these diseases either for elimination or control. And by control we mean reduction to the point where they are below a public health threat. The US Government has worked with WHO and other global stakeholders for NTDs to develop some strategic approaches to control these diseases. We actually talk about them as five and group the soil-transmitted helminthiasis as one, and the treatments are called preventive chemotherapy and this involves single doses of effective treatments that are given usually once a year to very high portions of the population through what we call mass drug administration or MDA.
Now most of these drugs used in a single dose with yearly treatment regimens are available through public/private partnerships. They are almost always donated through a couple of important drug companies, including Glaxo Smith Kline, Johnson and Johnson, Merck and Co., Pfizer, and the US government intended primarily to leverage all these donated drugs to make these safe and effective treatments available to what is approximately 1.2 billion people who are at risk to these diseases. So in 2006, Congress authorized funds for integrated control of NTDs and this led to authorization of USAID and the NTD control program, which is what I work for. It was envisioned that it would work in about 15 countries over five years with a ceiling of about 100 million dollars. That was the original amount of money that was put forward as being appropriate to address this strategy.
So the targets for the program, which were what the government initiated in 2006, were to treat 40 million people, to administer approximately 160 million drug treatments in about 15 countries. And RTI was a prime contractor and we work with a range of partners, mostly international NGOs who then we support governments to implement the mass drug administration, depending on the co-endemic disease burden in the country.
So the country supports government national level programs to scale up their integrated control activities and to build national level programs so that they might, in fact, achieve coverage rates which would allow disease elimination. But there are a couple of important guiding principles. One of them is that we build on what was already in place.
In many of the countries that we work in there are already disease-specific programs for LF, shisto or de-worming programs and USAID and the global community agreed in general that if you could integrate these programs, get them to work together, they could share resources and perhaps become more cost-effective, use these limited resources to scale up to the national level and treat more of the targeted population. So we have to use integrated approaches and we do it to assure that there are cost-effective treatments, not just to integrate for the sake of it, but literally to use these funds better. We also work very, very hard to ensure that there's government ownership and leadership of the programs, that we're not, in fact, doing it for them.
So in the first year we started in Ghana, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Uganda, and they were selected because they had existing, established disease-specific programs. Some of them were not getting very good coverage, some of them were not too clear on what their prevalence rates were, but we started out with the idea that they had something to build on. In the second year we were asked to scale up very quickly and we included Sierra Leone, Southern Sudan, Haiti, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
So we went very quickly from five countries to ten and then in year three we added Cameroon and Togo. And, again, just as a point of reference, we are now about three-and–a-half years through our program and I'm going to be presenting the results of our first three years.
So our implementing partners, these are absolutely critical partners, RTI, as I said, is the prime on this project but we work closely with a range of important stakeholders and NTDs: Liverpool Association on Tropical Health, Health and Development International, Helen Keller International, IMA World Health, the Malaria Consortium, the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative at Imperial College in London, and World Vision. Now despite the fact that this is a five-year program with a 100 million dollar ceiling, funding levels from Congress were never that high. They were, in fact, level at about 15 million USAID for NTD control for the first three years and our program received a portion of those funds which were approximately 13 million a year.
So we also had a mandate that we needed to assure that of the 13 million every year, we spent 80 percent of it on direct program implementation either through the grantees or directly in some of the countries where we operated. And that was to ensure that no more than 20 percent of the total of any of the amount of the funds we got never went to our own management cost. So this was actually a very successful program. We're very happy to say the results of the program. First of all, we made a very significant contribution to the evidence base for the distribution and the intensity of the disease that's in the country in which we work primarily for shisto, trachoma, and LF because for the most part, we know where the soil-transmitted helminthiasis are, they're everywhere and elephantiasis is a disease that had been well mapped and well documented for many, many years partly because of USAID's very, very strong support.
So in addition to the mapping we were asked to track how much toward national scale and how many more people we could track every year, and in year one we used as the base line the number of people the countries we were already treating before we came in and we tracked the number that we treated in addition. The first year we treated an additional 16 million people with 36 million treatments. In year two we targeted 27 million people with 58 million treatments, and in year three we treated 55 million people with 127 million treatments. So you can see that at the end of year three we have fully exceeded the program targets for the entire five years.
The benefit of this is that we have given USAID good evidence that their strategy worked, that integration, in fact, can be a very cost effective, very effective way of scaling up to national scale, but also demonstrating that these countries can absolutely do this themselves with the proper technical assistance and resource allocation. So our cumulative treatments to this point are nearly 100 million people over three years, which have been reached with over 220 million treatments.
The value of the drugs that we have used from these donated sources is on the order of 575 million dollars a year. That's what we used in year three. So for all three years the total value is about 1.4 billion dollars. These, again, are very, very important critical donations from the private sector; these companies are absolutely committed to the control and elimination of these diseases and have made these drugs widely available and USAID's commitment and additional resources have allowed these drugs to get out to people and start to address the problem.
One of the key strategy elements is that you must get high rates of coverage in every country at the national scale consistently over the years in order to break the cycle of transmission for some of these diseases, and because the science is not entirely certain of what the level of coverage is, we've aimed very high. Many of the disease programs suggest that about 70 to 75 percent coverage rate be adequate, but we've gotten 80 percent coverage and the country programs and our grantees should be credited with the extraordinarily high achievement. In the course of the first three years we've trained over 220,000 government workers and community drug distributors which has significantly increased the capacity of countries to not only implement mass drug administration, but to plan and budget and document and monitor and report on their results.
It's been quite an extraordinary three years. We've gone into countries where there were no existing structures and have now seen some of them go from very, very small programs to national scale within a year or so. The programs' expenditures are also tracked because the level of funding was consistent and below what was anticipated. We actually received in those three years not 60 percent of the allocation, but only 40 million of the 100 million dollars.
So at the end of year three we'd spent about 38 million dollars of that funding and I'm happy to say that over 81 percent of that was expended in the countries, so we were able to assure that less than 20 percent went to management costs, which I think, again, really speaks to USAID's commitment to assuring that the funding gets to the field, gets to the countries, and really does its job. What I also want to highlight is that these numbers don't clearly, don't give enough credit to the extraordinary importance to these donated drugs. If the drugs weren't available, this program would not have been successful. And so we really need to acknowledge the important contribution of GSK, J and J, Merck and Pfizer, but they also cannot do their job unless these funds are available.
It has been an extraordinary public/private partnership, perhaps one of the biggest in the world and it has been very, very successful. We work closely. We work very productively and continue to expand and scale up our targets every year. The other thing I'd like to highlight is the importance of the partnerships. The Ministries of Health in every country we work in absolutely take the lead in these programs. They are responsible for insuring that the implementation takes place. We have global partners all over the world, public health implementers, public and private sector donors, and pharmaceutical companies that make this global effort work and the potential for really eliminating these diseases.
So while the drug manufacturers themselves have provided the majority of the drugs, there are also some generic drugs that USAID is an important procurer of. We don't have a donation program but...the one disease that the drug is not widely available through donation is for schistosomiasis. USAID's funding has been used to assure that those drugs are also available. There are also a number of other groups that have provided really critical donations and among them are: The Medical Research Unit, Medical Research Council, UNICEF, University of Notre Dame, WHO, World Food Program, IMA World Health, and World Vision. All of these contributed smaller amounts but absolutely critical elements of the donation program to make sure these drugs are available. So as we go forward....we've met our targets and our programs. We continue to be able to scale up.
Our country programs are really starting to show some important success and also to document some of the challenges we face, and some of the things that didn't work very well. I think this will be very important as we go forward. And I'd like to highlight one of the things that we continue to encounter, and that is at USAID, a mandate to us is to make sure that we work within the national government's strategy for NTDs. We can only focus on five of them and what we have been finding in many countries is that their own portfolios are a little more diverse, and a little bit more expansive beyond mass drug administration and sometimes diseases which USAID cannot fund. It's very important that we continue to find other donors. It's also important that we recognize that if this is going to be a true partnership, the national programs and their needs are going to have to continue to be an important voice at the table. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Mary. Now we'll move to Dr. Francois Chappuis and I didn't mention that their bios are on the back of the agenda and hopefully were picked up out front, so I'm not going to go into great detail, but Dr. Chappuis has worked with Doctors Without Borders for over ten years. He's an expert in implementation of tropical disease programs for Doctors Without Borders.
Dr. Francois Chappuis
Thank you very much. I hope you will be tolerant of my French accent. Yes, the group; I think Mary showed that it's possible to act efficiently on these. The group is larger than the seven diseases that are covered by the present program, some 13 to 14 diseases. Among them is a sub-group called most neglected tropical diseases. They have some characteristics and they have been almost completely deprived of any significant funding for national programs to tackle these diseases. They are rapidly focalized in some countries and within countries in certain areas, usually remote, rural areas.
They are classified by WHO as tool deficient diseases, something that as you can see, is quite a discussable way to call it. So let me introduce you to these four diseases. Some of you know them, but the first one is sleeping sickness. Imagine yourself: you are in the northeast of Democratic Republic of Congo, a very remote rural area. This man has been suffering from a fever for quite a few weeks now. He is also complaining of a headache. He is not feeling well and he is not able to walk anymore, so his wife, who has to take charge of the children, also has to take charge of their activities. Finally, his neighbor says that there is an organization that has a treatment center for this disease about 50 kilometers away.
So he managed to be carried, and this is not an invention, on the back of a bicycle, to this treatment center, and happily, someone was there to apply a diagnostic test to do a lumbar puncture to see that, indeed, the disease was advanced. Ten years ago, this patient would have received an arsenic-based treatment called melarsoprol that had a chance of killing the patient in about five or ten percent of cases. But now there is a new treatment that is an association of eflornithine that is given intravenously twice a day for seven days and an oral treatment called nifurtimox. This new treatment will not only save his life, but will prevent any further relapse.
This is a case study of sleeping sickness. Sleeping sickness, why? Because this patient falls asleep during daytime and can't sleep at nighttime. It gave the name to the disease. If you don't treat it immediately, it leads to a coma that leads to death. It's always fatal.
Kala azar is another one of these diseases. Now, you are in the northeast of India in a province called Bihar. It is the poorest province of India. This is a disease, by the way, that is also present in Nepal and Bangladesh. Also, it presents itself with a long-standing fever. First, the patient thinks that they may have malaria and they treat themselves for malaria with no response.
Then they discuss within the family that they will sell, perhaps, some of the items, some of the cattle to finance the trip to the nearest town where they may get diagnosed with kala azar. It is a parasite that is transmitted by a small sand fly. If you get the disease, there is also the same outcome. You will die if you don't get treatment. In the past, it was very difficult to get diagnosed. You had to go to a referral center and get your bone marrow punctured or even your spleen punctured. Now you have a point of care test: a drop of blood from the tip of your finger, you collect it, you put it on a dipstick, and in 15 minutes you have a very reliable result, positive or negative.
And now for treatment, you have a panel of possibilities of treatment, especially in this area of south Asia. Thanks to many studies that have been conducted during the last years, even a single dose of a drug called AmBisome will cure 95 percent of cases. But you also have an association, a short duration association, of drugs, relatively cheap that will cure you. This disease is also very much present in east Africa, in Kenya, in Uganda, Sudan, and Ethiopia. These are the two hotspots for this disease.
Then you have chagas disease. It's American Trypanosomiasis. So now we are traveling to South and Central America. You catch this disease by getting bitten while you are sleeping by a bug that is called triatome that actually falls on you during night time. It's a kissing bug; you don't feel it. It bites you, the bug defecates, and the parasite goes through the skin and infects your blood. If you don't treat it, it may, in one third of cases, infect your heart and your digestive system, which is fatal in 50 percent of cases. It's a very latent, very long-lasting disease, but it is still very frequent in many areas of Latin America, especially in some countries like Rhodesia, for example. It is also a disease that is very frequent in Latin American migrants. It is estimated, for example, that in the US, there may be 300,000 infected with chagas disease. You can also get the disease vertically, for example, from a pregnant woman to the newborn, or even orally from some fruit juice that you might have consumed unpasteurized.
The last one, less known than the others, is Buruli ulcer. Buruli is a district of Uganda where the disease was discovered. It mainly affects children, especially in West Africa. The child goes and plays in the swamps or in the river. We don't exactly know how the disease is transmitted, but a few weeks later the child will have a kind of a bump on his skin. It's painless. And following this bump, there will be a hole, and then there will be a big ulcer. Sometimes it covers the whole limb, and it's due to bacteria, micro-bacteria, like tuberculosis, which is in the same family of bacteria. In the past, there was no real option other than trying to find a means to go to the capital or to get operated, surgery. Now we know treatment with antibiotics given for two months is sufficient in most cases, especially early cases.
Sometimes surgery is needed in the remaining cases. Wound care is also crucial, as it is for other diseases that are prevalent in these areas, like leprosy.
So this group of diseases shows that the picture has changed over the last years. Tool deficient is a term that we don't like very much. I think what we should call them is a group of tool improvable diseases. Indeed, the tools can be improved, and that will much facilitate their integration into any program of control and elimination. But in the meantime, we cannot just stand still.
The past has proven that these diseases can be controlled, even when we thought that sleeping sickness in the early 60s was almost eliminated. Visceral leishmaniasis, during the malaria eradication in south Asia in the 1960s, was almost eliminated for at least ten or 15 years. Chagas disease in many South American countries has been basically eliminated as a public health problem. So it is feasible even with the tools we had 50 years ago, and now with the better tools we have, it's very much feasible that we experience with MSF programs during all these years.
There is clearly a need for an integrated approach when you have this example I told you about, the febrile malnourished woman in northwest Ethiopia. Of course, this patient might have malaria, a repeated attack of malaria, or may be tested for HIV, may be positive, then may be receiving HIV anti-retroviral therapy, but not responding.
Why? Because this woman has ongoing visceral leishmaniasis. So this group of neglected tropical diseases has to be taken as a whole because this woman may have been infected by worms that may have contributed to malnutrition. And another thing is that these diseases, it has been shown by health economists, are cost effective to tackle and to treat. The cost effectiveness to treat a case of kala azar or a case of sleeping sickness, for example, is very much comparable to the cost effectiveness of treating a case of worms. Why? Because it is a deadly disease. Even though the diagnosis and treatment is a bit more complicated, as it is a deadly disease, the impact is more visible.
So in conclusion, not including this group of most neglected tropical diseases, would mean that we are not giving a response to the needs of the most vulnerable people on this planet, and certainly among the most voiceless at both international and national levels. And I think that the Global Health Initiative is just a unique opportunity to tackle diseases effectively.
Dr. Manica Balasegaram, (DNDi)
Thank you for coming here today and giving us the opportunity to speak. I think I'd like to start by giving a story of my experience working in east Africa, and trying to put into context, I think, why these neglected diseases are important, and why R&D is also an important component in this.
About eight years ago, I was working in the Sudan-Ethiopia border and at that time there was a big outbreak of visceral leishmaniasis, a disease also known as kala azar. I was sent to work in a very rural hospital that was about four or five hours drive from the nearest town. When I arrived there, there were about 600 patients in this rural hospital. I was the only doctor, and the only foreigner in this area. Out of those 600 patients, probably about 500 had kala azar, or visceral leishmaniasis. One of the patients that I actually saw that day, I worked there for a period of six or nine months during this epidemic, and one of the patients that I saw was a woman who had brought her young child in. She had to come a very long distance.
This is exactly the kind of story that Francois had mentioned. She had taken many days to come to the health center. It was the only place where treatment was being offered in a very large geographical area. She had to stay in the hospital for over one month because at that time the only treatment that we were giving was a drug called sodium stibogluconate, which is a fairly toxic treatment. About five percent of patients would die during the treatment course. But the big problem was also that it took one month to treat the patient, to treat the child and to discharge. But that was fine. It went well, and I was quite happy with myself.
About a month later she came back, this time with another child. This time the child didn't have kala azar. The child was severely malnourished and had a whole host of other problems, including some of the problems that Mary mentioned, some of the neglected diseases that Mary mentioned. We had to treat this child. We had to look after the child. We had to basically provide the therapeutic feeding that the child needed. In fact, I also found out that in the time that she had come in during the previous admission and during the time that we were treating her child for kala azar, two of her other children got sick. One of them died at home. Her second child she brought in when she came back and realized that this child was also sick. So somehow I felt that we had really utterly failed this lady. We had offered the treatment to one child and inadvertently two other children became sick.
Of course, the reasons are fairly obvious. This is a neglected issue. Patients have to come a very long way to seek medical care, and there are huge consequences to making that decision to seek medical care for that one child that had very negative consequences for her other two children. But she is really in a no-win situation at this point.
I think this is exactly the reason why all these neglected diseases need to be tackled. The real hallmark of them is that they are really the diseases of the bottom billion, the people at the bottom of the barrel, living in the most rural places with a very poor healthcare structure or healthcare services available. That's for me the common feature of all these diseases, rather than getting technical and looking at what is the cause of this disease, and what is the parasite, and all of this. It's really for me a disease of extreme poverty and really the situation that all these people live in. And this is why to me, all these diseases have something in common, and this is why all these diseases should really be put together and tackled in an integrated approach.
But I think going back to the R&D. Clearly for me there were a lot of things that needed to be done to better improve this outcome. I actually started doing a lot more work in research and development for neglected diseases.
I think over the last few years, we have definitely developed a lot of better treatments for some of these most tool deficient diseases, as Francois said, which is one of the terms that have been used. But I think as Francois mentioned, this is not a really good term because I think a lot of change has happened. I think the organization I work with and many other organizations working in the field of research have helped to develop better tools. Francois mentioned some of them. Sometimes this has basically been to combine combinations of drugs – two drugs that don't work very well by themselves or because of a variety of problems, very long treatment courses, they are toxic, or whatever, they can be combined into very short course treatments. So that's some of the research that's been done.
On the other hand, there's also some research into completely new tools. One of the clinical research projects that we are currently working on is a drug called fexinidazole for sleeping sickness. This is now started phase one. Drugs for Neglected Diseases is working with Snaofi Aventis to develop this drug and we hope within the next few years this will eventually be a tool that can be ready to use at peripheral healthcare centers. This is not going to involve injections or long treatment courses, but will be a very short-course oral treatment, and that really is a game changer.
So for me, I think there really is some hope. I think there really is a lot of active research going on. There is a lot of research that has been done and I really think we are at a point where we can offer something better to patients. Even where, in cases like chagas disease where the treatment is very long, there are new projects coming along to actually look at better treatments that, OK, might take a little while to come, to be delivered to patients, but these things are definitely on the table.
What we really need to do now is put all these diseases on the agenda, keep them on the agenda. I'd like to say that for me the GHI is something that offers a lot of hope. When I was working in this center in 2002, I would never have imagined being here, talking about these diseases, and actually being in a situation where you can think that a lot of money is being put on the table, and there is actually hope for people who are really the bottom billion, the people who are really at the bottom of the barrel – that their needs, and their issues and their healthcare concerns can be addressed. This is really, really important. It's sad for me that some of these diseases are diseases that you may never have really heard of, but the good news is that there are very active steps being taken, there are proposals being put in place.
I think these actions really can have a huge amount of impact for the patients. For me, really there are two particular points that Francois mentioned. First all of these NTD's, we put them together. They are all neglected diseases and they are all diseases of neglected populations. So we should be looking at them and we should be looking at integrated ways of managing them and making them relevant to the populations, rather than just to the disease itself. The second thing I would say, of course, going back to R&D. R&D is important because, ultimately, in the long term we want to be able to insure that these tools are always there.
For a variety of reasons, sometimes we know that, whether it's antibiotics, or anti-parasitic drugs, anti-retrovirals, or whatever, resistance will eventually develop to some of these drugs, so it's important that we do keep alive an R&D agenda. That is the same for NTD's that are tool-ready, for instance, but also, as I say, to develop better tools and this is an ongoing process, and I think that for me, R&D is very much a part of the issue of control. Any control program for me has an element of doing surveillance, doing diagnosis, doing treatment, doing prevention, but I think that fifth pillar is definitely doing research and development.
Anyway, that's all I'd have to say and I think I'll pass you back to...
Jana Armstrong, DNDi
I think they did such a good job, there's really not much for me to say. Probably we'll open for questions. I think the US program is good, it's successful, and it's a great start. The RTI has done an amazing job. I think that Francois and then Manica showed that there is room for expansion, that we can use that success and leverage it, and really talk about control and eventual elimination in certain populations for all neglected tropical diseases, because it is possible.
Lindsay Gilchrist, Office of Congressman Payne
Thank you all. We have about 20 minutes for those of you who have questions. We would love to open it up and have a discussion. So does anyone have a question?
Q: The diseases that aren't being treated, is the reason they aren't being addressed because there isn't any in-country program? Why did USAID pick the diseases that they picked?
A: Mary Linehand (RTI) - The simple answer is that USAID's funding was built on the existence of these donation programs. The donation programs exist because these drugs are available and effective and safe and easy to give out, and there is an annual treatment schedule that allows them to be really cost-effectively given out. The other thing is that the diseases are co-endemic, so you could really give out a package of drugs and treat more than one disease. So, for example, ivermectin which is used to treat onchocerciasis, if combined with albendizol, also treats LF. If you're treating your entire population with albendizol, you're also treating for worms, so with those two drugs you can treat three diseases. And they're often co-endemic, so it makes an awful lot of sense to build on that donation program and use these additional resources and scale them up.
Now they selected these diseases because of the donation programs, and also because there was no established model for how you would do this. This was very much a new idea. USAID was really a global leader in establishing these integrated scale-up programs. Three years later we can point to how successful it was, but three years ago there was really some doubt about if this would be cost effective, and indeed, there was a lot more money made available because there was some doubt that it would be as effective as it is. I think we are finding ourselves in the remarkable position of having achieved more than we even anticipated, that anyone anticipated, and that gives us some flexibility to think about what else we can do. The US government continues to be committed to this, which I think again continues to leverage other donors. I think we are at a different stage than we were three years ago, and their rationale going forward may be a little bit different.
The first five were selected because of cheap, effective, donated, largely drugs.
A: Dr. Manica Balasegaram - One thing that I might add is that one of the new treatments that has just recently been developed for sleeping sickness, which is a combination of eflornithine and nifurtimox that Francois mentioned, actually, both drugs are available through donation, and they have been made available by Sanofi Aventis and Bayer for more than five years now, and that donation program has been renewed as well.
These drugs are donated for WHO and WHO will provide these drugs to any country that places an order. Where the weakness is, is actually at country level, at the Ministry of Health level, where there actually are inadequate resources to mobilize a good control program, to do surveillance, case detection, and treatment. So I think, just to build on what Mary's saying, I think that Mary's really demonstrated that in tackling these NTD's you can achieve huge amount of success, and for diseases like sleeping sickness and visceral leishmaniasis, these diseases are uniformly fatal. Every patient who is not treated will die. That is a big deal. We know that for leishmaniasis, it will range between $70 and $150 depending on what treatment you use, and that includes not just the drug price, but the hospital costs and the patient costs; that will basically save a life. And for me, that is a big impact.
Mary Linehan
NTD Control Program Operations Director, RTI
Mary Linehan is a senior international health specialist in the International Development Group and operations director of the Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program. Ms. Linehan has more than 18 years of international work experience in program management; technical assistance to ministries of health; and research for maternal, infant, and child health and nutrition. Special areas of expertise include program development and management, training, infectious disease surveillance and field research, malaria and neglected tropical diseases, and local capacity development. Ms. Linehan was instrumental in the design, implementation, and early success of the Nepal National Vitamin A Program. She has extensive Asia regional experience, including 12 years of residence in Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
She has a masters degree in public health specializing in International Health from Columbia University School of Public Health; she has also earned an MA in Asian Studies from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Ms. Linehan earned her bachelors in History from Georgetown University.
Dr. François Chappuis
International Medical Advisor on NTDs, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
Dr. François Chappuis is a physician specializing in internal and tropical medicine. He completed a masters degree in Clinical Tropical Medicine at Mahidol University, Bangkok and a PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is currently Associate Professor at the Division of International and Humanitarian Medicine at the Geneva University Hospitals.
Dr. Chappuis has worked for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) since 1996, initially as a field doctor in Kenya and Somalia, and then as a medical adviser for leishmaniasis and African trypanosomiasis in Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His clinical research activities focus on African and American trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis and snake bites.
Dr. Manica Balasegaram
Senior Clinical Research Manager, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi)
Dr. Balasegaram manages DNDi's clinical research projects for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis in East Africa. Prior to joining DNDi in January 2008, he was Head of the Manson Unit, a medical research and implementation unit of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – UK and worked in the field in Uganda, Sudan, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, and Bangladesh.
Dr. Balasegaram has clinical experience in tropical medicine, including malaria, sleeping sickness, and visceral leishmaniasis. He was the Principal Investigator at Um el Kher, one of the two Sudan sites involved in the DNDi paromomycin trial for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis.
Manica Balasegaram is currently completing a master's degree in Public Health in Developing Countries and received a diploma in Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has a background in internal/emergency medicine, having earned his bachelor of medicine/bachelor of surgery degree from Nottingham University Medical School in the UK.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We all use HTTP, develop for HTTP and think that we know HTTP. But, I believe as engineers we should never take things for granted; rather we should dissect everything that comes before us, recursively as many times as possible. So, let's keep applying this principle for HTTP.
cURL is a great tool for sending HTTP requests. Let's try to send one.
Hmm, okay it can do stuff. Let's make it a bit more verbose shall we? Just add a -v flag.
Ah now things are interesting. Do you see a few lines starting with '>'? Well those are the headers that are SENT to the server. And the lines starting with '<'? They are response headers that are received. The last part is the content itself. Of course, the < and > are there for representation only, they are not transmitted.
telnet is a great tool to make raw socket connections and really dissect almost any TCP based protocol like HTTP. Lets try this.
Afterwards, type in a raw HTTP request yourself!
Now, press enter or return twice!
Who needs Firefox, Chrome or cURL! Looks like Telnet is all we need 😉 Okay enough jokes for now. This is serious business. You see in the end HTTP is just a plain socket connection that has some specific "lingo" to send requests and receive responses. (Protocol, duh).
Let's see how exactly we made the request.
Pretty straightforward. The HTTP method in caps, the path and the HTTP version in the first line. After that, the request headers follow. In our case we just mentioned the 'Host' header to play safe with VirtualHost-enabled systems.
Back in the days, running a website was expensive because you needed an entire box (a server computer) to host a single website. Then we invented a way to serve multiple websites from the same IP address / machine with virtual hosts in the Apache Web Server.
The internet as we know it exists for this 'Host' header.
The two newlines indicate we are done with our request, and the server can parse it and send back a response.
Let's send a malformed HTTP request (muhahaha).
Afterwards, type in a malformed request yourself!
Yup 🙁 It was a Bad Request. We'll write our own HTTP server with plain old sockets soon. Till then, why not explore the exciting world of HTTP response headers on Google 😉 Yeah and take a look at RFC 2616.
i love ur way bro , obviously i am ur follower .. i have seen u on nsu but my Soul doesn't support to met such a guy with poor level of knowledge hats off boss!


Collagen is produced due to sulphur, a main component in onion and garlic, boosting your hair growth. Take the juice of onion and apply on your scalp. After waiting for 15 minutes, rinse with some mild shampoo. For garlic, boil the cloves in coconut oil and when it cools, massage your scalp with the same.


text:
REVIEW: Peterloo [2018]
Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 154 minutes
Release Date: November 2nd, 2018 (UK)
Studio: Entertainment One / Amazon Studios
Director(s): Mike Leigh
Writer(s): Mike Leigh
Let's see what he has to say.
Films devoid of main protagonists are generally created as such because the event orbited by their ensemble of characters proves the focal point instead. So when that central moment is a massacre, you must brace for the reality that many will end up victims left for dead. The filmmaker is therefore tasked with ensuring his/her audience recognizes the line between good and evil, just and immoral. Writer/director Mike Leigh accomplishes this separation straight away in Peterloo with his prologue contrasting a young, distraught soldier (David Moorst's Joseph) struggling to walk home to Manchester upon returning to England from the Napoleonic Wars opposite a decorated "hero" (Alastair Mackenzie's General Byng) greeted at Parliament with a new assignment that entails his quelling the rising sedition sparked within that same town.
We thus glimpse the common man and his impoverished family barely scraping by in Northern England alongside the London bureaucrats who appease their fat Regent and "Mad" King with wine in-hand. The former is imperiled by a growing economic depression circa 1819 that's exacerbated by famine caused by the Corn Laws (tariffs enforced upon imported grain) while the latter simply continue to live in comfort. It's a story of oppression, elitism, and greed that we've seen rear its head countless times during the history of mankind still to this day—one wherein those without embolden themselves to demand what's theirs from those uninterested in sharing their spoils. This is "Liberty or Death" territory with radicalized citizens seeking a voice through Parliamentary reform, their fiery rhetoric meeting government-sanctioned brutality.
The event of the title left more than fifteen people dead and close to seven hundred injured out of the approximately sixty thousand peaceful protestors who arrived at St. Peter's Field on August 16th. Britain sadly cracked down on reform even further afterwards with the Six Acts and thus its lasting effect wasn't necessarily initially felt beyond those who were there or knew someone who was. So having a film depict the journey towards this unconscionable bloodshed is a rather important step to ensuring no one forgets what happened or who was at fault. That's not to say Leigh doesn't take liberties (his framing of the magistrates as over-the-top black-hearted men definitely reveals an agenda regardless of veracity), but its parallels to rising suppression today can't help resonating.
Leigh takes us back and forth between protestors and government agents. On one side there's businessman Joseph Johnson (Tom Gill) spearheading the event so community leaders (like Neil Bell's Sam Bamford, Philip Jackson's John Knight, and Ian Mercer's Dr. Joseph Healey) can address the people and disseminate information before also enlisting a special guest orator in the renowned land-owning and well-to-do reformer Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear). On the other is Lord Sidmouth (Karl Johnson) cherry picking events to present to London with the desire to demand swift and punishing action as well as a quartet of haughty magistrates throwing poor Northerners in jail for minor offences if only to assert their control. Add spies inciting violence and it's just a matter of designing a pretense to crack skulls.
While the format itself is perfectly structured to comprehend cause and effect whether big or small, how the content is delivered will frustrate some due to the massacre only taking up the final twenty-five or so minutes. The other two-plus hours consist of impassioned speeches and proselytizing. Knight's firm but measured words open the eyes of younger revolutionaries (Nico Mirallegro's John Bagguley, Danny Kirrane's Samuel Drummond, and Johnny Byrom's John Johnston) with a sharper edge as far as what they're willing to do to see real progress. The magistrates (Vincent Franklin's Ethelston, Jeff Rawle's Hay, and Martin Savage's Norris among them) bicker about how to handle the gullible rabble "threatening their lives." And Mary Fildes (Dorothy Duffy) and Susannah Saxton (Victoria Moseley) recruit women to the cause too.
It's all a steady stream of differing opinions and stances. Bamford loves the idea of Hunt assisting their cause, but the differences in their socio-economic backgrounds cause the latter to angrily dismiss anything the former says since he's too set in what his notions for reform are removed from these people miles away. Johnson finds himself in way over his head once he becomes Hunt's de facto handler forced to filter through only those locals his guest wants to speak with. And Norris tries to be a voice of reason amongst his fellow judges even if he too belittles those under his rule of law as readily as he takes breath. Some sentiments appear redundant, but nothing is spoken without meaning when taking relationships into account.
Above the words themselves are the reactions from those listening. Leigh is less interested in our being roused to our feet by empowering lectures than our being educated by the catty games unfolding behind the scenes. Whether its those in power gleefully putting their proverbial feet onto the necks of those who dare question their representation or a woman yelling at Fildes that she doesn't understand a word coming out of her mouth, these characters are presented as larger than life entities put upon converging paths wherein emotion awakens as many as it condemns. Each is walking towards this nightmarish scenario that will eventually play out like something off the Discovery Channel with predators licking lips and prey running for their lives. Who dies and who signs their death warrant?
If following these people around to learn about the era's conditions isn't intriguing enough, the reality that they're being led to an unavoidable slaughter can come off as manipulative at worst and anti-climactic at best. Once you realize there's no reason to keep coming back to that young soldier's family from the start besides ensuring tragedy will hit them personally, their presence loses its narrative propulsion. But that's kind of the point. We're meant to see them as examples of their brethren. Leigh is operating with generalizations that he's personalized to expose the disparate motivations, unbridled cruelty, and unfortunate naiveté that must exist to let something so horrible occur. Peterloo is therefore less historical document than anthropological study and ultimately might say more about our present than its own.
[1] PETERLOO featuring John-Paul Hurley as John Thacker Saxton, Ian Mercer as Dr. Joseph Healey, Rory Kinnear as Henry Hunt, and Neil Bell as Samuel Bamford courtesy of Amazon Studios. Photo Credit Simon Mein; Courtesy of Amazon Studios
[2] PETERLOO featuring Simona Bitmate as Esther. Photo Credit: Simon Mein; Courtesy of Amazon Studios
[3] PETERLOO featuring David Bamber as Magistrate Rev. John Mallory, Al Weaver as Magistrate Hulton, David Fielder as Magistrate Rev. George Cotteridge, and Jeff Rawle as Magistrate Rev. Hay. Photo Credit: Simon Mein; Courtesy of Amazon Studios
Biography, Drama, Film ReviewsAlastair Mackenzie, Danny Kirrane, David Moorst, Dorothy Duffy, Ian Mercer, Jeff Rawle, Johnny Byrom, Karl Johnson, Martin Savage, Mike Leigh, Neil Bell, Nico Mirallegro, Peterloo, Philip Jackson, Rory Kinnear, Tom Gill, Victoria Moseley, Vincent Franklin
REVIEW: Missing Link [2019]
Top 100 Albums of 2018


"In today's business environment, providing mobile applications to your employees is essential for driving productivity, enhancing customer satisfaction, and remaining competitive."
SAP NetWeaver Mobile, a component of the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, provides mobile middleware that consists of development tools, a runtime infrastructure, and mobile device management functionality. In addition, it serves as the foundation of SAP® xApps™ composite applications for mobile business. SAP NetWeaver Mobile includes a comprehensive development environment, runtime infrastructure, and deployment management.
Although this is not required, it is recommended. Zebra Media has been extensively tested with Zebra printers.
New printer model support will be added by SAP Support Packs. For the latest list of supported products visit www.sap.com.


A method for forensic artifact collection, analysis and incident response in environments running Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Session Description protocol.
In this paper, we perform an analysis of SIP, a popular voice over IP (VoIP) protocol and propose a framework for capturing and analysing volatile VoIP data in order to determine forensic readiness requirements for effectively identifying an attacker. The analysis was performed on real attack data and the findings were encouraging. It seems that if appropriate forensic readiness processes and controls are in place, a wealth of evidence can be obtained. The type of the end user equipment of the internal users, the private IP, the software that is used can help build a reliable baseline information database. On the other hand the private IP addresses of the potential attacker even during the presence of NAT services, as well as and the attack tools employed by the malicious parties are logged for further analysis.
network forensics; session initiation protocol; SIP; VoIP forensics; intrusion detection systems; IDSs; network logging.


Homelessness is a major problem in MTL, and throughout the rest of Canada. That's why we chose to team up with Montreal's Blankets For The Homeless organization. On top of raising awareness, they collect food donations as well as clothing donations. During the winter months of 2016, on the last Sunday of each month we gave out food at Parc Lafontaine. Comfort food is meant to comfort people, so we made sure to give out our most popular dishes. On top of it being a huge success, it's always a fun time to sit down and actually talk to this marginalized group. To find out how you can get involved, reach out to us and will be happy to discuss our community initiatives further.
Check out an interview with their co-founder Jonathan Naccache.
Here is a great article covering the Sunday Food Bank initiative.


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Four Star Sales concentrates primarily on the Kentucky market, as well as the Saratoga Select Sale. From the outset the venture has been a marked success in both the tangible statistics and in the intangible quality of our service. Four Stars has been a Top Consignor of Yearlings and Breeding Stock each year since we were founded. More importantly the quality of the horses we offer remains high as is evident in the consistency of our consignments from year to year, especially during these recent challenging economic times. Our high quality consignments and personal service continue to set us apart. In a business with a thousand different variables it is our lifetime of experience and the personal nature of the relationships we have with our clients and our buyers that makes Four Star Sales successful and the process of selling your horse as simple as possible.
Exceptional quality in our horses and in our client service is the essence of our business. We have invested our heart and soul to this goal, and to that end, we will continue to strive to provide our clients and horses with the utmost of personal attention. While we take pride in our past success we believe that the next sale must be better than our last sale. We take pride in the fact that we have earned our pedigree through impeccable service and attention to every detail. Please explore our site to learn more about Four Star Sales, and then give us a call to find out how we might partner with your thoroughbred business to create racing success stories.


Which Californian represents the state's splendor and greatness most appropriately; the Catholic saint who founded nine settlements that grew into major cities or a recently deceased astronaut who completed two missions on the space shuttle?
Does the answer change because the astronaut in question – Sally Ride– happened to be female and gay?
Apparently it does, because the California legislature is working to remove an 85-year-old statue of Father Junipero Serra from its place of honor in the Capitol building and to replace it with a newly-commissioned image of Dr. Ride in her space suit.
In Statuary Hall, the original site of the House of Representatives Chamber, each state has been invited since 1864 to place two sculptures representing the most notable figures in that state's history. For instance, Virginia long ago selected George Washington and Robert E. Lee (Jefferson and Madison might quibble, but never mind). Oklahoma chose the Native American leader Sequoyah and pop-culture philosopher Will Rogers.
At the moment, Ronald Reagan and Junipero Serra represent the Golden State. Reagan replaced the Civil War era Unitarian Minister and pro-Union activist Thomas Starr King in 2009. Father Serra has occupied his place of honor since 1931 – and with good reason. Between 1769 and 1782, the Franciscan friar overcame his own physical infirmities and overwhelming obstacles of every sort to establish the mission system that shaped the early identity of the then-Spanish province. The nine missions he personally founded, by walking from today's Mexican border all the way to San Francisco despite a crippled leg, organized the agricultural economy of the area while converting thousands of local Indians to Christianity. Serra also used his immense influence to protect local tribes from rapacious Spanish governors and soldiers, learned Native languages to translate the Bible and other religious texts, and left a record of such unselfish, generous and devout behavior that Pope Francis has announced plans to officially canonize him as a Saint during the Holy Father's upcoming visit to the United States.
In fact, the California legislature seems perversely determined to authorize removal of Serra's image from Statuary Hall just in time to undermine the planned ceremony and celebration.
Two reasons immediately suggest themselves — both stemming from the virus of political correctness that has so catastrophically infected the Golden State.
First, Serra (despite his looming status as Saint Junipero) has become controversial to progressives because his prodigious work as a missionary served to introduce literacy, the wheel, agriculture, clothing, metals and other rudiments of civilization to the local natives in Alta California, thereby dooming their stone age indigenous cultures.
But is it even vaguely conceivable that the drive to swap statues would sail through the legislature with no opposition – from either Democrats or Republicans – if Dr. Ride had remained married to the male astronaut (Dr. Stephen Hawley) to whom she was wed for five years before finding happiness in a twenty-five year relationship with another woman? Isn't it obvious that the chief motivation for the clearly unstoppable drive to replace the indomitable, eighteenth century friar with the space shuttle veteran is to break ground by installing a gay icon in the Capitol's Statuary Hall?
As is often the case, you can trace the blame back to Congress, which voted in 2003 to allow states to pull the switcheroo, replacing yesterday's tarnished or obscure heroes with more trendy role models. To date, seven states have taken advantage of the opportunity. Over only mild objections, California previously replaced the nearly-anonymous Thomas Starr King with the ever-popular President Reagan. Alabama also drew nationwide support by honoring the inspiring memory of Helen Keller, in place of a former Confederate officer and advocate for public education, Jabez Curry. Ohio currently means to honor Buckeye-born inventor Thomas Edison by providing his statue in place of William Allen, an all-but-forgotten Democratic politician who served two years as governor in the 1870's.
Father Serra, on the other hand, is hardly forgotten: he will arguably enjoy his greatest fame this September when he is recognized and venerated worldwide as a Saint. The legislative stampede to remove his image in favor of a fashionable, politically correct but inarguably minor figure from our recent pop culture suggests that California's current problems run far deeper than the drought.


Tempest pool cues feature great designs, excellent playability, and quality construction at attractive prices. The SC series feature hand-cut inlays that are absolutely gorgeous. The CC series utilize precision CNC machine inlays for some avant-garde designs. The LC series are 'tribute' cues, where the designs of other manufacturers have been re-created by the artists at Tempest.


The GDS True Triaxial Apparatus (GDSTTA) has the defining characteristic that, unlike conventional triaxial apparatus, all three principal stresses can be controlled independently, rather than just two in a conventional triaxial system. This allows a wider range of complex stress paths to be performed. This dynamic cyclic system is powered by advanced electro-mechanical actuators or optional hydraulic actuators and is an extremely sophisticated research tool.
Vertical and one horizontal axis are loaded via the dynamic actuators (axis 1 and 2), stress control is provided for the 2nd horizontal axis, (axis 3) via cell pressure.
Stress or strain is applied to a 75mm x 75mm x 150mm sample independently on three axes: Two pairs of matched dynamic rams for axes 1 and 2, and a confining fluid provides pressure for the 3rd axis on load readings.
Ram specification: Each ram has its own internal submersible load cell and displacement transducer to ensure friction effects are minimised.
Electro-mechanical actuators as standard: Electro-mechanical actuators provide an easier to use and environmentally friendly solution for accurate testing to 5Hz. Electro-mechanical actuators do not require a hydraulic power pack to be present, hence no requirement to service a powerpack or to protect system users from noise generated by a powerpack.
Custom designed optional hydraulic actuators: The hydraulic actuators have been custom designed by GDS to be seal-less with hydrostatic bearings. This improves the actuator performance (up to 10Hz) and reduces whole-life servicing costs as there are no piston seals to replace. Each actuator pair can be controlled in "static-mode" with either constant, ramp or slow cyclic targets in terms of load, stress or displacement.
Sample preparation: Full sample preparation equipment for cohesive and non-cohesive samples is provided with the system including a specially designed soil lathe for producing cuboidal samples.
5kN/10kN/20kN Electro-mechanical or 28kN Hydraulic.


Message from the Most Rev Gregor Duncan, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Matthew 3:1-6: John the Baptist announces the coming King. The essential requirement was repentance: a change of heart and mind leading to a change in behaviour. How do we prepare for the King's approach?
Christmas message from the Most Rev Mario Conti, Archbishop of Glasgow.


Seventh grade (called Grade 7 in some regions, and Year 7 in some other regions such as Australia) is a year of education in many nations. The seventh grade is the seventh school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 12-13 years old. Traditionally, seventh grade was the next-to-last year of grade school. In the United States and Canada, it is usually the second, third, or last year of middle school, the first year of junior high school, or the 7th year of grade school. In Quebec, it is usually the last year of elementary school or the first year of high school.
In the United States, in mathematics, students focus commonly on an introduction to pre-algebra or the beginnings of algebra including ratio, proportion, and percent. New topics sometimes include scientific notation, concepts with negative numbers, and more advanced geometry. In some parts of the United States, such as Texas, Colorado, California and Utah, math may be mixed-grade according to the student's previous knowledge, so some students may already be in a 9th grade algebra course. In social studies, advanced pre-Civil War History is taught. Though American history is usually the norm, other cultures and time periods may be taught. In science, it is usually moderate-level biology. In some parts of the United States, seventh grade is the first school year in which students have different teachers for each of their subjects, and so they change classrooms at the end of each period. Foreign language is often introduced at this level. The students can typically choose from several languages depending on school ability.


Bergen New Bridge Medical Center is committed to providing the best care in a compassionate and humanistic environment. If you have concerns related to care, safety, or customer service, we want to know about them. We encourage you to share any issues with our Department of Patient Relations at the number listed below. Should a matter remain unresolved, additional organizations, also listed below, can offer assistance. All calls are held in the strictest of confidence.
Department of Patient Relations 201-967-6879 For patient information, please call 201-967-4300.


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace TelegramBot.Models
{
    public class File
    {
        public string file_id { get; set; }
        public int? file_size { get; set; }
        public string file_path { get; set; }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Horowhenua District Council's Community Connection is published on the first Wednesday of each month and distributed to households throughout the District as an insert in the Horowhenua Chronicle newspaper.
To have a PDF copy emailed to you each publication date (the first Wednesday of every month except January), please email comms@horowhenua.govt.nz and we'll add you to the list.
To have the monthly Community Connection digitally-delivered to your inbox, email us at comms@horowhenua.govt.nz and we'll add you to the list.


"Excited about IPAS2 System Product Launch with IPAS 2" by Mike Marko.
Bren and I were on the way out for dinner and we shot this quick video about the launch of the IPAS 2 System tomorrow. We have been waiting since January for the launch of this franchise-like system.
We are less than a day away from the official IPAS 2 System launch. We have been working hard with our team to get everyone positioned for this launch. Luckily it isn't too late for you. Sign up now and take advantage of the momentum of this launch. It can be a life changing event for you.
1. IPAS2 System Review – Why get the IPAS 2 System?
2. IPAS2 System – Is the IPAS 2 System Finally Here?


A determined and courageous breed when called for, the Glen of Imaal Terrier has a generally calm and gentle disposition, and is an intelligent dog that is quick to learn and eager to please. These dogs can be very willful and independent, and this makes them best suited to those with some experience when it comes to owning dogs. Spirited and energetic, this is a dog that loves to play and enjoys a range of activities, and is not for those that are looking for a dog that requires minimal exercise. Although he is loving and loyal to his owners the Glen of Imaal Terrier is not an overly demanding breed. He will bark to raise an alarm if something seems amiss, and this makes the Glen of Imaal Terrier an effective watchdog.
This breed gets along well with children, but is best suited to older children. Early socialization is needed when it comes to other pets such as cats, as they can be cat chasers. They can also be aggressive with other dogs and should not be trusted around smaller animals such as rodents and rabbits. When it comes to strangers, the Glen of Imaal Terrier tends to be polite and sometimes reserved. The Glen of Imaal Terrier has a very inquisitive streak too, and care should be taken not to let him off the leash in an area that is not secured with fencing.
The coat of the Glen of Imaal Terrier is harsh and weather resistant, and he also has a softer undercoat. The coloring of the breed can be blue, blue brindle, or wheaten. Although small to medium in size, the Glen of Imaal Terrier is a sturdy and robust looking dog with agility, power, and strength. He has a sweet face and an alert and curious expression. The weight of the Glen of Imaal Terrier is around 35 pounds, and the height around 13-14 inches.
The Glen of Imaal Terrier has moderate needs when it comes to grooming, and you will need to brush his coat around twice weekly, and his beard should be cleaned daily for hygiene reasons. You should also trim the hair around his bottom for hygiene reasons. Every few months show dogs will need to have the dead coat stripped, and pet dogs may need to have the coat clipped. The ears should be checked regularly to reduce the risk of infections. The Glen of Imaal Terrier is a low shedder, and may therefore be suitable for those with allergies.
The life expectancy of the Glen of Imaal Terrier is around 12-15 years, and there are a few health problems linked to the breed, although this is generally a hardy and healthy breed. Some of the health problems to keep an eye out for are HD and PRA. The parents of the Glen of Imaal Terrier puppy should have OFA and CERF certificates.
The Glen of Imaal Terrier originates from Ireland, and is related to a number of other terriers, including the Irish Terrier and the Kerry Blue Terrier. These hardy little working dogs were bred to hunt out vermin, badgers, and foxes.


text:
Treating Illness and Soothing Hearts Through Classical Music
Ancient musicians preferred the A432 Hz standards. They created classical based on these and we do know how Mozart's symphonies often help us relax. (Image: 170184 via Pixabay)
In this age of rap, pop music hits, and hard rock, very few people spend time enjoying classical music. But those who do enjoy listening to such music can benefit greatly in terms of health, improving their immune function, and lowering blood pressure.
A study by Massachusetts General Hospital found that critically ill patients relaxed better when they listened to Mozart's piano sonatas. What was surprising in the findings was that the music also brought down the blood levels of interleukin-6, a protein which is known to be the cause of heart problems, diabetes, and higher mortality rates. In another study, students exposed to soothing music were found to have higher IgA, an antibody that acts as the first line of defense against diseases.
Managing pain through classical music
A 2006 study on 60 people aged 21-65 years confirmed what many doctors suspected — music can help lessen the effect of pain in a person's mind. The participants were assigned to three groups, with two of them being exposed to music. The effects on pain, depression, and disability were measured using various standardized tests.
"The music groups had more power and less pain, depression, and disability than the control group, but there were no statistically significant differences between the two music interventions. The model predicting both a direct and indirect effect for music was supported… Nurses can teach patients how to use music to enhance the effects of analgesics, decrease pain, depression, and disability, and promote feelings of power," the study states.
When music was played in post-anesthesia wards, the patients were seen to be more at ease. Since their brains focused on the soothing sounds of the music, physical pain stopped hogging so much of their thoughts, which led to better comfort.
When music was played in post-anesthesia wards, the patients were seen to be more at ease. (Image: Screenshot via YouTube)
Improving memory
In an experiment, a bunch of students were divided into two groups for a lecture. The first group heard the lecture while listening to classical music in the background. In contrast, there was no classical music being played in the background for the second group. After the completion of the lecture, a quiz was conducted.
It was discovered that students who heard music in the background scored significantly higher than the other group. According to researchers, the music made students from the first group more receptive to the lecturer's information, thereby allowing them to store such information and recall it much more efficiently.
It was discovered that students who heard music in the background scored significantly higher than the other group. (Image: Screenshot via YouTube)
Classical music can also help in dealing with stress and anxiety. Pregnant women who listened to classical music every week of their pregnancy have reported lower instances of stress. Patients who heard classical music before critical surgeries have been observed to be in a better frame of mind for the procedure than the rest who usually are nervous before entering the operating room. In some studies, it has been found that music has a far more powerful effect in reducing stress than certain orally administered drugs.
Reducing blood pressure
A study that compared the blood pressure of people who listened to classical music against those who weren't exposed found that the group who listened to classical music had lower blood pressure levels. According to researchers, the music apparently helps the heart to recover from stress, thereby eventually causing the blood pressure to decrease.
Interesting fact: The Chinese character for medicine, Yao, is composed of two parts, with the lower part, pronounced yue or le, meaning music. The ancient Chinese had a high regard for music in treating illness.
Nspirement Staff
Nspirement (or Inspirement) is the act of becoming motivated, encouraged, and enthused to the point of making a significant difference or change. Our aim is to offer articles that will inspire, uplift, and educate our readers, as well as insights into all things China and China's impact on the world today.


text:
Q: How often will a horse egg contain a donkey? I recently heard that you can spawn a donkey from a horse egg with a random probability so I am curious: how often does this happen?

A: According to the Minecraft Wiki:

Horse will spawn 90% of the time; donkey 10% of the time. A foal will be spawned 20% of the time.

The foal will mature into a horse 90% of the time and a donkey 10% of the time.

A: A horse spawn egg rarely contains a Donkey. There is a 5% chance the egg will spawn a Donkey, a 75% chance it will spawn a horse, and a 20% chance it will spawn a foal.
Upon maturing, the foal will grow up as either a donkey or a horse. If a foal turns into a donkey, well congrats.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: How to create an SSIS Package that will run a list of T-SQL queries located in a specific folder? I am using SQL Server 2012 and I need to create an SSIS package that will run a list of T-SQL queries from a specific folder.
My list of T-SQL queries have been named starting with '01 (name of query).sql' and the folder contains a list of 25 queries. I need the task to run these queries
starting with query '01...' to '25...'
Can this be created in an SSIS package? If yes, which task should I use?
Update 1
I tried the first method suggested by @Hadi and the script task throws the following exception

Error: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation

screenshot of my task in SSDT

Script Task VB code
 <Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Tasks.ScriptTask.SSISScriptTaskEntryPointAttribute()> _
<System.CLSCompliantAttribute(False)> _
Partial Public Class ScriptMain
 Inherits Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Tasks.ScriptTask.VSTARTScriptObjectModelBase

 Public Sub Main()

    Using sr As New IO.StreamReader(Dts.Variables("strFilename").Value.ToString)

        Dts.Variables("strQuery").Value = sr.ReadToEnd()
        sr.Close()

    End Using

    Dts.TaskResult = ScriptResults.Success
End Sub

End Class

Variables

A: (1) Using Script Task + Execute SQL Task

*

*Add a Foreach Loop container

*Choose the type = File enumerator

*Select the Folder containing the .sql files as Source Directory

*Select the Fully qualified file name option

*Go To variable mapping Tab, Map the result to a Variable (Create new one ex: @[User::strFilename])

*Create a Variable of Type String @[User::strQuery]

*In the foreach Loop container add a Script Task and Select @[User::strFilename] as ReadOnly Variable and @[User::strQuery] as ReadWrite Variable

*Inside the Script Task Write the following Code (Choose Visual Basic as Language):
Try

    Using sr as new IO.StreamReader(Dts.Variables("strFilename").Value.ToString)

        Dts.Variables("strQuery").Value = sr.ReadToEnd()
        sr.Close()

    End Using

    Dts.TaskResult = ScriptResults.Success

Catch ex as exception

    Messagebox.Show(ex.Message)
    Dts.TaskResult = ScriptResults.Failure

End Try

*Add an Execute SQL Task linked to the Script Task, and Select the ConnectionString property, then choose SQLSource Type property = Variable

*Select @[User::strQuery] as SourceVariable

(2) Using Execute Process Task
Use a foreach loop container  to loop over these files, then use an Execute process task to run these queries using SQLCMD.
Additional Information:

*

*SSIS BASICS: Introducing the Foreach Loop Container

*Foreach Loop Container

*Run Transact-SQL Script Files Using sqlcmd

(3) Using a batch file
Also you can achieve this without SSIS, just using a batch file .BAT that you create with notepad:

*

*Run all SQL files in a directory

A: I upvoted Hadi, as I learned something new.
But this is how I do it with a script task. Dealers choice.
//Read SQL to string
System.IO.StreamReader sr = new System.IO.StreamReader(Dts.Variables["ForEachFilePathName"].Value);
string sql = sr.ReadToEnd();
sr.Close();

string cstr = Dts.Variables["connString"].Value;
using (System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection conn = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection(cstr))
{
   System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand cmd = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand(sql, conn);

     conn.Open();
     cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}


text:
Taking Stock Of Austin's M&A Year
2018 has been a busy year for acquisitions of Austin startups.
As the year starts drawing to a close, we decided to take a look at the largest known startup acquisitions the city has seen this year. In addition, there were a number of significant deals where the sales price was not disclosed. So while we'll mention them later in the piece, they're not included in the leading group.
Follow Crunchbase News on Twitter
Austin has been a regular topic here at Crunchbase News, especially its venture inputs. Turning our sights to M&A outputs is, therefore, all the more important.
"I think 2018, in general, has been a great year for fundraising, exits, and IPOs in the Austin area," said LiveOak Venture Partners' Mason Rathe. "When it comes to exits, it's notable that in many cases when an acquisition is made, the acquiring company keeps the teams here. That says a lot about the culture here. It's something that not only companies are noticing, but they don't want to disrupt."
Let's start with the big, priced deals, and then take a look at other transactions that you should know about if you want to understand Austin.
Silver Lake Takes Majority Stake in WP Engine
Company Sector Majority shareholder Majority Shareholder's HQ Deal Size
WP Engine Wordpress hosting Silver Lake Partners Menlo Park, CA $250M
In early January, private equity firm Silver Lake Partners took a $250 million majority stake in WordPress host WP Engine. Now this was an interesting deal because all the PR surrounding it framed the transaction as a private equity investment. But those in the know indicate that it was a buyout disguised as an 'investment.' "That's what they [Silver Lake] do," one source said.
Sources also told me that the Austin VC firm Silverton Partners cashed out entirely as part of the transaction. Prior to the deal, WP Engine had raised $40.7 million from investors such as Silverton and North Bridge Growth Equity. In March, the eight-year-old company told me that it had recently achieved more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue and that it had more than 75,000 customers globally.
Majority-stake private equity investment, or majority-stage private equity buyout, the deal was big and helped show that Austin-based companies can not only grow large and sell big, but that they can hit nine-figure revenue while doing both.
Move Acquires Opcity
Acquired Company Sector Acquiring Company Acquirer's HQ Deal Size
Opcity Real estate finance Move San Jose, CA $210M
In August 2018, online real estate platform Move announced it was purchasing Austin-based Opcity, in what LiveOak's Rathe described as "one of the quickest success stories Austin has seen."
"Going from our seed investment to a strong exit in less than 24 months is another example of how strategic acquirers are targeting Austin," he told Crunchbase News.
Opcity was founded in late 2015 and had raised $27 million in a Series A round in May 2017 before it sold. The company, which connects real estate agents and mortgage loan officers to pre-screened, live leads, had been partners with Move "since day one" prior to the acquisition taking place, explains Founder and CEO Ben Rubenstein.
"We'd been lightly talking about an acquisition for a while but those discussions got more serious over the summer," Rubenstein told Crunchbase News. "It really was a logical fit. Their business has been focused on helping consumers with search and discovery and our business is around the conversion process, and helping them get all the way to close. So, it really made sense for both companies, and will allow us to scale much faster."
The acquisition closed on Oct. 11, and Rubenstein will remain CEO of Opcity, reporting to the CEO of Move. Currently, the company has over 400 employees. By this time next year, Rubenstein projects his employee count to number "deep into the 600s."
He emphasizes the company had not operated with this sort of exit necessarily in mind. "I think if you build a company to get acquired," Rubenstein told Crunchbase News, "you're not going to build a healthy, sustainable organization."
GoDaddy Buys Main Street Hub
Main Street Hub Marketing platform GoDaddy Scottsdale, AZ $127M
Also in January, internet domain giant GoDaddy announced it was buying Main Street Hub, a social media marketing platform, for $125 million in cash plus up to $50 million in potential earnouts. Founded in 2010, Main Street Hub had raised a total of $46 million prior to being acquired from investors such as Vista Equity Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. The deal closed in July.
Other Deals Of Unknown Size
As mentioned above, a number of significant deals took place in Austin during 2018 in which the dollar amount was undisclosed. We felt we would be remiss not to include them here.
In February, grocery store giant H-E-B purchased Favor, an on-demand delivery service. The company first launched in 2013, building a product that focused on the Texas market. It stood out among its competitors due to profitability, and cash flow positivity last year. Favor reportedly turned down several potential suitors but believed the H-E-B union made sense. In September, Favor CEO Jag Bath was quoted by Silicon Hills News as saying that since the acquisition, Favor had added 20,000 more delivery people and expanded into 84 cities, up from 50 cities. He said it also planned to be in 114 cities by year's end. Favor had previously raised $34 million over time from investors such as Draper Associates, SIlverton Partners and S3 Ventures.
Spredfast, which makes software for managing social media, was picked up by San Francisco-based Lithium Technologies via its parent, Vista Equity Partners, for an undisclosed amount. Since its inception, Spredfast had raised $138.1 million from investors such as Riverwood Capital and Lead Edge Capital, according to its Crunchbase profile.
On Nov. 20, Capital One announced the acquisition of Austin-based Wikibuy, a free online shopping price and coupon tracker. Capital One SVP Joe Poellnitz said in a statement that with the purchase, Capital One had "acquired an innovative startup that helps customers save time, money, and enables them to shop with confidence." Over the last three years, Wikibuy grew to two million members who've saved more than $50 million this year, according to a company blog. As in the case of most of the acquisitions that take place here, Wikibuy will remain in Austin.
And on Nov. 14, our own EiC Alex Wilhelm reported on how software giant Microsoft picked up Austin-based dev shop XOXCO for an undisclosed amount. Although XOXCO raised just $1.5 million during its life as a private company, the deal was notable as it fit into general acceleration of Microsoft's M&A work.
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias
Artificial intelligence and robotics • Clean tech and energy • Cybersecurity • Health, Wellness & Biotech • Venture • Web3
The Week's 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: OpenAI Lands $10B; Paradigm Raises $203M
Artificial intelligence is certainly having a moment right now. This week it was all about OpenAI with its massive $10 billion round.