text:
LSHTC: A Benchmark for Large-Scale Text Classification
by Ioannis Partalas, et al.
LSHTC is a series of challenges which aims to assess the performance of classification systems in large-scale classification in a a large number of classes (up to hundreds of thousands). This paper describes the dataset that have been released along the LSHTC series. The paper details the construction of the datsets and the design of the tracks as well as the evaluation measures that we implemented and a quick overview of the results. All of these datasets are available online and runs may still be submitted on the online server of the challenges.
Ioannis Partalas
Aris Kosmopoulos
Nicolas Baskiotis
Thierry Artières
George Paliouras
Eric Gaussier
Ion Androutsopoulos
Massih-Reza Amini
Patrick Galinari
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Statistical learning has emerged in recent years as a key technology for processing and analyzing large amounts of data. Meanwhile, the growth of such data, their complexity, and the multiplication of needs generate new data processing problems that cannot be handled within the conventional frameworks of learning. For example, many applications require the classification with tens of thousands of classes.
Hierarchical classification is one particular problem of interest of this kind. Indeed hierarchies have become ever more popular for the organization of text documents, particularly on the Web. Web directories and Wikipedia are two examples of such hierarchies. Along with their widespread use, comes the need for automated classification of new documents to the categories in the hierarchy. As the size of the hierarchy grows and the number of documents to be classified increases, a number of interesting machine learning problems arise. In particular, it is one of the rare situations where data sparsity remains an issue, despite the vastness of available data: as more documents become available, more classes are also added to the hierarchy, and there is a very high imbalance between the classes at different levels of the hierarchy. Additionally, the statistical dependence of the classes poses challenges and opportunities for new learning methods. In this specific context the major challenges are:
The development of algorithms capable of scaling to very large number of classes. For example DMOZ is a large web repository, containing over one million categories.
Taking into account the complex relationships between these categories. For example, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has more than 20,000 categories related to each other by different types of relationships.
A number of scientific events have been dedicated to this field, including for instance the BioASQ111http://www.bioasq.org
challenge on large-scale biomedical semantic indexing and question answering, or the international challenges for images (the series of ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge
222http://www.image-net.org/challenges/LSVRC/2014/). Additionally, several workshops treated this problem like the Extreme Classification NIPS 2013 workshop 333http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/manik/events/xc13/ and the WSDM 2014 workshop on Web-Scale Classification: Classifying Big Data from the Web 444http://lshtc.iit.demokritos.gr/WSDM_WS
The LSHTC initiative is a series of challenges on hierarchical text classification which aims to assess the performance of classification systems in large-scale classification in a a large number of classes (up to hundreds of thousands). . It includes tracks of various scales in terms of classes, from thousands to hundreds of thousands as well as many flavors of the large number of classes classification problem, the standard classification problem as well as a multi-task or an unsupervised settings. The many tracks have been designed based on two main corpora from Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) and from the ODP Web directory data (www.dmoz.org). The LSHTC training datasets may be downloaded on the permanent website 555http://lshtc.iit.demokritos.gr/ where one may still submit a run on the (unavailable) test datasets and gets its performances ranked among the existing participating systems.
2 LSHTC Dataset
2.1 Basic Datasets
The data used in the LSHTC challenges originates from two popular sources: the DBpedia666http://dbpedia.org/About and the ODP (Open Directory Project) directory, also known as DMOZ777http://www.dmoz.org/. DBpedia instances were selected from the english, non-regional Extended Abstracts provided by the DBpedia site. The DMOZ instances consist of either Contentvectors, Description vectors or both. A Content vectors is obtained by directly indexing the web page using standard indexing chain (pre-processing, stemming/lemmatization, stop-word removal). A Description vectors is created by indexing the ODP descriptions of the web pages, which are manually created by the ODP editors.
2.1.1 Data Creation
Each dataset is provided in a sparse vector format file, where each line corresponds to an instance. Here is an example of an instance in sparse vector format:
5 0:10 8:1 18:2 54:1 442:2 3784:1 5640:1 43501:1
The first numbers (5 in the example) corresponds to the category of the instance. In case of multi-label classification comma-separated numbers are used instead in order to define the categories of and instance.
Each set of numbers separated by ':' correspond to a (feature,value) pair of the vector, where the first number is the feature's id and the second number its frequency (for example feature with the id 18 appears 2 times in the instance). Any feature with the id 0 is not actually a real feature, but is used instead for internal indexing and should by ignored during classification.
Each token and category of a dataset are mapped to unique numbers. Since each year of the challenge consists of several tracks. In each track a different mapping was used for tokens and categories so that no information could be carried over between tracks. Instances of a track are either split into training, validation and test data or just training and test data. If a validation file is not provided in a track, participants are free to create one, using a subset of the training file. All test instances belong to category 0, meaning that their true label is kept a secret from the participants.
For each track dataset a hierarchy file is also provided. This files contains the parent-child relations between each category of the dataset. During the first hallenge this file was in the form of paths from root to leaf. During the following challenges each line of the file describes a relation between a parent and a child node.
The hierarchy of the DMOZ datasets is a tree (each node has only one parent) with a maximum depth of 5. All instances deeper than 5 nodes from root are assigned to their ancestor in depth 5.
The hierarchy of the DBpedia datasets is a graph (a node can have more than one parents), which contains cycles. In some datasets these cycles were removed by ignoring nodes that have been already visited in paths from root to leaf (any parent child relation that would lead to cycle was omitted). In most datasets classification is only allowed to leaf nodes. In case some inner node of the hierarchy contained any instance, an artificial new node was added as a child of this node and all instances belonging to the initial node were reassigned to the new one.
2.1.2 Lshtc1
The tracks of the first year of the challenge were based on the DMOZ dataset (tree hierarchy) using only single-label instances. The challenge was split into 4 tracks which were composed by different combinations between Content and Description vectors. Since both types of vectors were used in this challenge only the intersection of the two sets of instances were used for this challenge (we used only instances which had both a Content and Description vector). In Table 1 we present which type of vectors were given in each track for training and test.
For the tracks of the first challenge a smaller (dry-run) dataset is also provided to facilitate the development of new systems. This dataset is a subpart of its respective main one, but with different mappings between categories and tokens. Another main difference between dry-run and main datasets is that the categories of the dry-run dataset in each sparse vectors are not replaced by 0, since participants are not evaluated in them.
In Table 2 we present some statistics regarding the main and dry-run datasets of the fisrt LSHTC.
In all these datasets classification was only allowed to leaf nodes.
Train Test Train Test
Trak 1: Basic
✓ ✓ - -
Trak 2: Cheap
- ✓ ✓ -
Trak 3: Expensive
✓ ✓ ✓ -
Trak 4: Full
Table 1: Content and Description vectors per track of the first LSHTC.
Dataset type
Dry-run
Number of categories 12,294 1,139
Number of training instances 93,805 4,463
Number of validation instances 34.905 1.860
Number of test instances 34.880 1,858
Table 2: Statistics regarding each dataset of the first LSHTC.
During LSHTC2, we used multi-label instances and added non-tree hierarchies. Instead of using, for DMOZ, the intersection between the instances of Content and Description vector, we decided to keep one of them. We kept the Content vectors, since they did not require a human annotator in order be created. Since we decided to move to multi-label classification, we used all the Content vectors that we had.
LSHTC2 consists of three tracks with the first one being the multi-label DMOZ dataset, which as we explained previously has a tree type hierarchy.The other tracks were based on the DBpedia datasets. Track 3 consists of all the extended abstracts, while Track 2 is a subset of the Track 3 dataset with less instances and less categories. While the hierarchy of Track 3 contains cycles, the one of Track 2 was cleaned in order be a DAG.
Table 3 presents the main statistics regarding the datasets of LSHTC2.
DMOZ Medium DBpedia Large DBpedia
Number of categories
27,875 36,504 325,056
Number of training instances
394,754 456,886 2,365,436
Number of test instances
Number of stems
Average categories per inst
Deepest leaf in graph
Table 3: Statistics regarding each dataset of LSHTC2.
2.1.4 LSHTC3 and LSHTC4
The two DBpedia datasets were also used, as Track 1, during the third iteration of the LSHTC challenges (LSHTC3) The only addition was regarding the Medium DBpedia dataset, were we also provided the original text of the instances, without beeing pre-processed. During LSHTC 4, only the Large DBpedia dataset was used for the first track called "Very Large Supervised Learning", which was evaluated at Kaggle.
888http://www.kaggle.com/
(a) Class distribution for the DMOZ and Wikipedia small datasets.
(b) Class distribution for the DMOZ and Wikipedia small datasets.
Figure 1: Statistics on the data sets.
3.1 Performance Measures
During the classification tracks of all LSHTC challenges, we used two types of measures in order to evaluate the participating systems, flat and hierarchical. For a flat evaluation measures a prediction can only be correct (if the predicted label is included in the gold set) or wrong (if it is not included in the gold set). On the other hand, hierarchical measures take into account the hierarchical relations of the predicted labels with the gold ones. In that way a prediction can be, right, wrong or partially wrong in various degrees.
Flat evaluation measures are split in to two main families, single-label and multi-label. In single-label classification there is only one gold label for each instance. A system must predict only one label and according to a flat evaluation measure that prediction can be either right or wrong. In order to compute these measures someone must first count the true positives (TP), true negatives (TN), false positives (FP) and false negatives (FN). TP counts how many of the predicted labels were truly gold labels, while TN counts how many of non-predicted labels, were not actually gold. In the same way FP and FN measures the opposite (how many times the respective predictions were wrong).
In single-label classification the most commonly used evaluation measures are accuracy, precision, recall and their F1 measure. Accuracy is computed by dividing the correct predictions by the number of instances (TP+TNTP+TN+FP+FN). Precision (TPTP+FP) and recall (TPTP+FN) are computed separately for each category and then averaged over all M categories (Macro versions).
In multi-label classification, there are several versions of the above flat measures. In the LSHTC challenges we implemented the versions presented in [10] . For example, the micro-F1 measure is calculated as follows:
MiF1=2∗MiP∗MiRMiP+MiR,
where MiP and MiR are the micro-precision and micro-recall measures calculated as follows:
MiP=∑|C|i=1tpci∑|C|i=1(tpci+fpci)
MiR=∑|C|i=1tpci∑|C|i=1(tpci+fnci)
where tpci,fpci and fnci are respectively the true positives, false positives and false negatives for class ci.
Statistical significance tests can be used for all the above flat evaluation measures (S-tests and p-tests) in order to see if there is a statistically significant difference between the performance of two different evaluated systems, according to a respective flat measure. These tests are presented in [12] .
During the challenges we used and also introduced hierarchical evaluation measures which take into account the relations among the classes. A thorough treatment of hierarchical evaluation measures can be found in [3] .
3.2 The LSHTC Challenge Series
The LSHTC challenges run from December 2009 until 2014 in four editions, and attracted more than 150 teams from around the world (USA, Europe and Asia). The results of the challenges were presented in subsequent workshops at the conferences ECIR 2010, ECML 2011, ECML 2012 the challenge being the discovery challenge of the conference, WSDM 2014 and ICML 2015. In the following we briefly describe the main technologies that were used in the competitions. In Table 4 we present the best systems, with some basic information regarding them.
In the first iteration of the LSHTC challenge, there were 4 tracks with 19 participants. All of them participated at the first track, while less than half participated in the other 3 tracks. The most interesting result was that the two best state of the art systems were hierarchical and flat. The first (alpaca, they did not provide a description paper) used hierarchical polynomial SVMs. The second [6] used online training techniques. Another approach that performed very well was [7] , which was using centroids and mildly exploited the hierarchy.
LSHTC
Polynomial SVMs ✓
Online training -
Centroid based ✓
associative network -
Knn with BM25 similarity -
Top-down and meta-features ✓
Pruning strategy for multi-class ✓
Ensemble of multinomial naive bayes
k-NN based approach and ranking -
Centroid similarity Rocchio classification -
Table 4: Best systems of LSHTC challenges.
In LSHTC2, there were 3 tracks with 16 participants. As for LSHTC1, all of them participated at the first track and half participated to the two other tracks. Interestingly, the winning systems in the different tasks are flat : the first one ( [1] ), uses an associative network coupled to a post processing of the scores; the second one ( [11] ) uses a KNN approach based on a BM25 similarity and a thresholding strategy. Nevertheless, the top tier of systems have very close results, using hierarchical strategies as well as flat ones.
In LSHTC3, there were 16 participants for the first track and very few for the two other tracks. Flat and hierarchical approaches showed to be competitive. The winning system in the first track is based on the article [5] , a hierarchical approach which has the particularity to consider the multi-class classification as a meta-learning problem based : first a usual top-down hierarchical tree of classifiers is constructed; in the second step, meta-features for a sample are extracted from the scores of each classifier in the tree with the information of the accuracy of the classification as meta-label. Once this meta-learning problem is learned, thresholding strategies are used to classify a sample in the multi-class setting. Another hierachical approach in the top tier is from [9] : they consider a usual hierarchical framework, learning a classifier for each edge of the hierarchy, combined to a threshold pruning strategy to improve multi-class classification results.
The flat classification approaches in the top tier of the results were competitive with the hierarchical ones. [8] uses a ensemble of multinomial naive bayes with optimization strategies; [2] uses a k-NN based approach, by retrieving the most similar training examples and deriving from various scores integrating also the hierarchical information to provide a ranking for each possible class. [4] uses a modification of the Rocchio classification, based on the centroid similarity between an example and the classes, in order to extend the approach to multi-label through label-power set transformation.
This paper presented the LSHTC challenge which run from 2009 to 2014. The goal of the challenge was to asses classification algorithms in a large-scale setting containing hundreds of thousands of target classes. The benchmarks created for the challenges are available for download from the site of LSHTC (http://lshtc.iit.demokritos.gr) where one can also use the oracles in order to evaluate methods and compare it with the systems that participated in the various editions of the challenge. Our long-term goal is to boost research in large-scale classification by providing a benchmark dataset of reference.
[1] Christophe Brouard. Echo at the lshtc pascal challenge 2. PASCAL Workshop on Large-Scale Hierarchical Classification, ECML/PKDD 2011, pages 49–57, 2011.
[2] Xiaogang Han, Shaohua Li, and Zhiqi Shen. A k-nn method for large scale hierarchical text classification at lshtc3. Discovery Challenge Workshop on Large Scale Hierarchical Classification, ECML/PKDD 2012, 2012.
[3] Aris Kosmopoulos, Ioannis Partalas, Eric Gaussier, Georgios Paliouras, and Ion Androutsopoulos. Evaluation measures for hierarchical classification: a unified view and novel approaches. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, pages 1–46, 2014.
[4] Dong-Hyun Lee. Multi-stage rocchio classification for large-scale multi-labeled text data. Discovery Challenge Workshop on Large Scale Hierarchical Classification, ECML/PKDD 2012, 2012.
[5] Xiao lin Wang, Hai Zhao, and Bao-Liang Lu. A meta-top-down method for large-scale hierarchical classification. Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 26(3):500–513, March 2014.
[6] Omid Madani and Jian Huang. Large-scale many-class prediction via flat techniques. In Large-Scale Hierarchical Classification Workshop of ECIR, 2010.
[7] Youdong Miao and Xipeng Qiu. Hierarchical centroid-based classifier for large scale text classification. Large Scale Hierarchical Text classification (LSHTC) Pascal Challenge, 18, 2009.
[8] Antti Puurula and Albert Bifet. Ensembles of sparse multinomial classifiers for scalable text classification. Discovery Challenge Workshop on Large Scale Hierarchical Classification, ECML/PKDD 2012, 2012.
[9] Yutaka Sasaki and Davy Weissenbacher. Tti's system for the lshtc3 challenge. Discovery Challenge Workshop on Large Scale Hierarchical Classification, ECML/PKDD 2012, 2012.
[10] Grigorios Tsoumakas and Ioannis Vlahavas. Random k-labelsets: An ensemble method for multilabel classification. In Machine Learning: ECML 2007, volume 4701 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 406–417. 2007.
[11] Xiao-Lin Wang, Hai Zhao, and Bao-Liang Lu. Enhance k-nearest neighbour algorithm for large-scale multi-labeled hierarchical classification. PASCAL Workshop on Large-Scale Hierarchical Classification, ECML/PKDD 2011, pages 58–67, 2011.
[12] Yiming Yang and Xin Liu. A re-examination of text categorization methods. In Proceedings of the 22Nd Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, SIGIR '99, pages 42–49. ACM Press, 1999.


Pm me your nominations I will set up a poll in a week or so.
so this isnt awards for people on the forum?
I think this is an alternative to the shambolic DNBA awards.
It's proving difficult for me to pick anything. Such a strong year!
Bit biased towards the techy side of things *COUGH* RAM *COUGH* on this forum though.
But you lot would be suprised so far all the nominations have been very different.
Sorry if you have tried to pm your nominations and it didnt get through my inbox was full.
Also thinking of adding a few members awards i.e. best members mix, track, producer etc... Opinions?
to late to contribute to the nominations??
how is a poll gonna work? you would have to start a new thread for every category seeing as you can only make one poll per thread ??
Unfortunately I think this is the only way I am going work it, I will contact a mod to confirm they're happy for me to do this before hand.
hope BTK is up there in the best newcomer producer, definitely deserves it!


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Q: Eclipse Oxygen.3: Issues when cloning a repository How can I resolve the following issue?

A: Make sure to use the correct URL and not an URL that just redirects to the repository URL. In your case, it is probably
https://bitbucket.org/techtroops/thinkcerti.git

(https://bitbucket.org/<user>/<repository>.git).
URLs for other protocols (e.g. SSH) see the overview page of the project: https://bitbucket.org/<user>/<repository>.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


+ I . + + + I · + 5 · I S. After a day in Charleston, He may even tell you about you'll no longer think of us the people who once lived in as just another place way our old houses. t .. down South. .. i, "" The West Indian planters " Walk along Rainbow Row who came here to build the and see our blue houses great rice plantations. next to pink, next to yellow; Á But the West Indies next to green. doesn't end here. You'll see Then go down to the it all along our coast Trees South Battery and see the . _ : -ti À;:;' draped in Spanish moss. harbor houses with their .or r- : i' Palmettos. Lagoons. Birds, orange and green and plum -.. like the snowy egret. colored roofs.Their tropical -... Let us send you our new piazzas And their private book about our beaches, little gardens behind high. islands, mountains, gardens, brick walls lakes, plantations, and all (In the Springtime if the the other things to see and lacy iron gate is left ajar, you do in our state. are invited to come inside. South Carolina. Sit for awhile. And enjoy _ It's a lot like taking a trip ... the flowers.) 19. to the West Indies. It just But all the flowers aren't..- Li doesn't cost as much. in our gardens. They're in __ 1--------------1 := I Send your new book I'd like to do a little sight I baskets. (Wild and tame and seeing before I go on vacation, For free_ South Carolina Division of Tourism I beautiful.) Buy a bunch :;b\;: t lCarolina29202 I From the flower ladies. Then take a carriage ride. Slow The driver will tell you ghost stories. Pirate stories. Anà love stories. Name Address -..... I City I I I I State Zip I L______________ - '" ,,' \.


I was searching for a Property and found this listing (MLS® #10269960). Please send me more information regarding 232 East Walton Place #10e, Chicago, IL, 60611. Thank you!
I'd like to request a showing of 232 East Walton Place #10e, Chicago, IL, 60611 (MLS® #10269960). Thank you!


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TILLY'S NAMES JON KOSOFF CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER
by Stephen Garner Feb 24, 2020
Tilly's has named Jon Kosoff as the company's chief digital officer, effective today. Kosoff will oversee all aspects of the company's e-commerce, digital marketing, and customer relationship management functions.
Prior to joining the company, Kosoff served as vice president of e-commerce and performance marketing at Taco Bell since January 2018. Prior to that, he served in a variety of digital leadership roles growing the e-commerce business at Hot Topic from November 2012 to December 2017, most recently as its senior vice president of e-commerce and customer relationship management. From September 2010 to October 2012, he served as vice president of e-commerce at Bebe stores. In years prior to that, Kosoff served in various e-commerce and marketing roles at each of The Wet Seal Provide Commerce, and Jenny Craig International.
"Jon brings nearly 20 years of direct experience in managing e-commerce and customer relationship management operations to Tillys," said Ed Thomas, president and chief executive officer at Tilly's. "I am excited to be working with someone of his caliber to continue to grow and improve our e-commerce business."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The CBD craze is officially coming to Mexico.
The country's Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risks (their version of the US Food and Drug Administration) last week approved 38 products containing the popular, nonintoxicating cannabinoid. Products including gummies, capsules, topicals, and even an infused energy drink will soon be available to consumers and medical patients, with no prescription necessary.
Seven companies have so far been approved to sell CBD oils, topicals, capsules, and infused foods and beverages: Finat México, Farmacias Magistrales (Master Farmacies), Acietes Orgánicos de América (Organic Oils of America), Med Mex, CBD Science, Endo Natura, and CBD Life. Four of those companies are based in Mexico, two are from the United States, and one is from Spain.
The approved products aren't aimed at producing a classic cannabis high. THC levels are required to be less than 1%. For now, only a single company in Mexico, Farmacias Magistrales, is allowed to import raw materials to produce medical cannabis products that contain THC. Those products will be available only to patients with a prescription.
An array of CBD capsules, tinctures, and softgels will be available, allowing easy access for patients who treat conditions such as epilepsy or chronic pain.
CBD Life, for now, is the only company approved to sell infused foods and beverages. Their greenlighted products include two types of gummies and a line of infused tea, lemonade, and energy drinks.
For pain, skincare, and other uses, CBD-infused topicals will be available in both balm and roll-on forms.
Two companies will produce CBD oil to be used for the production of other medical and consumer products.


text:
The Gane Pavilion, also known as Gane's Pavilion, the Gane Show House and the Bristol Pavilion, was a temporary building designed by the modernist architect and furniture designer Marcel Breuer with F. R. S. Yorke and built in 1936 at Ashton Court near Bristol in England.

History
After leaving Germany, Breuer spent 1935–37 working in London for the Isokon company, and in partnership with Yorke. At this time Crofton Gane was the proprietor of P. E. Gane, a Bristol furniture manufacturing company. He became interested in modernist design and gained an introduction to Breuer via Isokon's proprietor, Jack Pritchard. Breuer redesigned Crofton Gane's own house in Bristol. Gane commissioned the pavilion as a showroom to display his range of products at the 1936 Royal Show, which that year was held at Ashton Court. The five-day event opened on 30 June 1936.

The pavilion, designed by Breuer and Yorke, was a flat-roofed building with planes of local stone and glass walls. The interior was finished with plywood. The pavilion's importance for modernism lay in innovations such as use of exposed stone for the walls, and the walls' arrangement in a free pattern allowing interior and exterior spaces to flow into each other. The pavilion's design was a precursor of some of Breuer's subsequent achievements in America. Breuer later stated that it was one of his two favourite works, after the UNESCO Headquarters building in Paris.

See also
Barcelona Pavilion (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1929)

References

External links
Crofton Gane and Modernism

Marcel Breuer buildings
Buildings and structures in North Somerset
Buildings and structures completed in 1936
Modernist architecture in England
Former buildings and structures in Bristol
1936 establishments in England

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
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AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL SCIENCE AGENCY
Robots to the rescue in hazardous environments
There's been a leak of radioactive gas inside a nuclear power plant, a rockfall that has trapped cavers exploring a new complex, a flood which has cut off workers in a subway system – who are you going to send? TIM THWAITES writes
Delivering impact for the minerals industry
How science is boosting Australia's water security
Minerals that matter
Monitoring methods for offshore CCS
Moon-in-a-room
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Robots to the rescue
Using microbes to mine metals from e-waste
World Mining Congress 2023
Download Issue 25 [pdf · 2.6mb]
Two tracked all terrain robots explore North Queensland's Chillagoe Caves during a training exercise in 2020
Within the next few years, the answer could be a team of robots. And if the success of CSIRO's Data61 team in final of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge (also dubbed the Robot Olympics) is anything to go by, a lot of the software and hardware will have been developed by CSIRO and its partners.
CSIRO Data61 was one of 11 teams worldwide selected to participate in the three-year challenge, one of eight to reach the final held in September, and came second, pipped by 46 seconds.
In the process, they eclipsed teams involving organisations well known for their robotic expertise, such as Carnegie-Mellon University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL).
"This is an amazing result! It's a victory for all of Australia and cements CSIRO's place as a world leader in robotics," says Dr Navinda Kottege, who heads CSIRO's Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group and led the Challenge team.
The DARPA challenge
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has long been known for its innovative approach to the development of new technology.
The $US82-million Subterranean Challenge, for instance, was a competition with prizes of $US2 million for the winner and $US1 million for the runner-up.
The initial stages comprised three circuit events held in a tunnel system (a coal mine near Pittsburgh), an urban underground environment (an uncommissioned nuclear power station in Washington State), and a natural cave system (cancelled due to COVID-19).
The final, which combined elements of all three environments, was held in the Louisville Mega Cavern, Kentucky.
Contestants scored points for determining the position of and classifying objects of 10 different objects that might be found in the aftermath of a natural disaster or industrial accident.
This included backpacks, mobile phones, fire extinguishers, pockets of gas (CO2) and survivors (human dummies).
The underground environment where the events took place was unseen by the teams, unmapped, and impenetrable to GPS and radio signals from the surface.
Only one person from each team was allowed to communicate with and control the robots.
Because the terrain was likely to be difficult and varied – muddy, slippery, uneven, containing stairs, steep drops, and large caverns – CSIRO Data61 decided to use a mixed group of two tracked and two legged ground robots together with two drones.
A quadruped and tracked robot that participated in the DARPA Challenge as part of the CSIRO Data61 team
The drones, which proved useful for exploring areas with high ceilings and precipitous drops have a limited flight time, and had to be carried by a tracked robot until deployed.
CSIRO's Data61 team's ace-in-the-hole was its world-leading 3D simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) technology known as Wildcat, which the CSIRO has been developing for 15 years.
The platform's algorithm combines data from a spinning light detecting and ranging (LiDAR) sensor and a sophisticated inertial measurement unit (IMU) to allow robots to map the surrounding environment.
On the ground robots, Wildcat SLAM with its LiDAR and IMU was combined with cameras for the detection of objects into a package known as Catpack.
An equivalent package without the cameras, Hovermap, was onboard the Emesentdrones.
Winners in accurate reporting
The similarity of the technology on each robot allowed data to be integrated seamlessly, and helped the team to win the "Single Most Accurate Report" award at the Challenge.
But the team of robots also had to be equipped with a communication system that could swap information between members underground and relay it back to the human controller on the surface.
What CSIRO Data61 developed was like a breadcrumb trail of communication hubs that could be dropped off from a tracked robot along its path.
The robots also needed enough autonomy to perform tasks on their own, out of reach of communication, and then return to report on what they had done or detected.
And the tasks themselves had to be allocated automatically in an efficient way, divided up so that no two robots rushed to work on the same thing at the same time.
CSIRO software engineer and team member Fletcher Talbot surveys a map of a subterranean environment created by the team's robots © All Rights Reserved. Contact author for usage licensing
The task allocation system was developed by researchers at one of CSIRO Data61's partners, the Georgia Institute of Technology.
"The whole point of this work," says Navinda, "is to develop utterly reliable technology to take humans out of dull, dangerous and dirty industrial situations, such as inspections in constrained spaces, checking out valves or pipes or sewer systems for cracks, for instance."
"The market and industry are perhaps not yet ready to adopt some of the robot autonomy, coordination and control technology we developed for the Challenge," says Dr Farid Kendoul, the chief technical officer and co-founder of Emesent, one of CSIRO's partners in the team, "but it's a natural progression." Emesent, a CSIRO spinout, specialises in collecting and analysing information from challenging environments and provided the drones used in the Challenge.
"We have clients in mining, power plants, the oil and gas industry, and construction," says Farid.
"They are blown away by the technology, because it can give them access to where they couldn't get access before, it automates their workflows and saves them money, and allows their staff to work safely in challenging environments."
The proof of Emesent's success is in its employment growth, from the two founders in 2018 to 125 people today.
There is still plenty of work to do, Navinda says.
On to the next navigation challenge
"One of the hardest problems for robots is to navigate through natural environments, like forests and grasslands."
But that has particular application in assisting future agriculture as it switches from the existing monoculture approach to polyculture, farming that generates many different products simultaneously from the same plot of land.
The $US1 million ($AUD1.3million) prize money will be reinvested into CSIRO Data61's research and development of Australian technology.
Microbes to mine metals from e-waste?
Resourceful magazine
Resourceful brings you the latest in innovation, technology and research from across the minerals value chain — from mineral exploration to mining and metal production. Get it by email or in print.
For the first time, the World Mining Congress will be held in Brisbane, Australia, from 26–29 June 2023. Submit an abstract before 1 March 2022 deadline for consideration.
DARPA Challenge
CSIRO's Data61's Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group is one of 11 teams selected worldwide to participate in the three-year DARPA Subterranean challenge, and is the only Australian entity. The challenge, funded by the US's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aims to explore new approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments.
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In this age of staged realities, we yearn for moments of truth. Right? So when I meet our finest artists—tellers of truths—I try my very best to capture this precious commodity with my camera. Sometimes the gods are merciful…let the pictures surprise you!


Presenting Ronald Radford, Flamenco Guitarist in a public performance at Gussman Concert Hall, in Tulsa at 7:30 PM on Feb. 14, 2017. In this Valentines Day program billed as "The Romantic Guitar of Spain" Mr. Radford presents a varied solo guitar program of haunting Spanish Gypsy melodies such as the Tarantas & Soleares as well as the joyful dance rhythms and dazzling Flamenco techniques of the Alegrias and Bulerias. The program is complimented by his illuminating and entertaining commentary and a sample of Flamenco singing.
We will also present Mr. Radford in three 45-Minute educational Complementary Activities, as follows: 8:30 AM Feb 10 Zarrow International School (Spanish Immersion Elementary) 2:00 PM Feb 10 Traice Academy (Alternative MS & HS) 9:35 AM Feb 13 McAuliffe Elementary (50% Hispanic Students) In each of these events, in addition to his exciting Flamenco guitar music, Mr. Radford will share his message on "The Power of Practice: How to be the best you can be!" Through his music and message Ron demonstrates how the power of practice enables you to achieve your goals and dreams. Besides being a master musician, Mr. Radford is an eloquent and inspiring speaker and the program includes his educational and humorous comments, motivational message and answers to questions.


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Home Interviews Shaan Hundal- My role will be to score and help the team...
Shaan Hundal- My role will be to score and help the team win games
Shaan Hundal, born on 14th July 1999 began playing football (soccer) at the tender age of six for Caledon Soccer Club, of Ontario, Canada.
Having come from the ranks of Toronto FC and Valour FC, Shaan thinks his biggest achievement so far is "Signing my first professional contract at the age of 16 and continuously building and learning to better my game. I'm happy that after my first contract I achieved two more but now the next step is to get to the first team and I will work hard to get to that goal."
When asked about his decision to join Fort Lauderdale CF, a franchise owned by ex-Manchester United and Real Madrid icon David Beckham, the Canadian youngster said "From the moment I heard of the new team I wanted to go there because it is a beautiful city, ownership and top quality players that have joined the organization. It's an honor to have been able to sign here and possibly learn from players such as Higuain, Matuidi, and Pizarro."
Shaan Hundal, who started his senior career in 2016, has already made more than 90 appearances and had a few clubs starting to keep tabs on the young Canadians development. When asked what other options he was considering if not for Fort Lauderdale CF, he said "Potentially somewhere else in the USL, CPL. There was also a brief talk with some people in India trying to get around the international foreign player rule for me."
While discussing his ambitions with the Florida club, and what he could potentially bring into the team, he said "My role will be to score and help the team win games and create a positive winning mentality. With the experience I have on such a young team I will also look to lead a lot of the young players of the second team in the right direction on and off the field."
Also Read: Eelco Schattorie – More important to increase the number of games than reducing foreigners
Shaan is always looking to improve himself, but more importantly, he feels strongly about contributing to the betterment of the team. He is well aware that there is plenty of room for improvement for the Fort Lauderdale CF after finishing in 10th place last season, and he thinks the "Most important goal is for us to is play like men. I know we have a very young team, but with the quality and potential we have, we can win the league. So the most important thing is playing like men and carrying ourselves like real professionals on and off the field and getting our individual jobs done so we can get the job done as a team."
Fort Lauderdale CF is the second team (reserve team) to the Major League Soccer (MLS) side, Inter Miami CF, and was established on the 1st of February 2020. Being a newly formed team, there are quite a lot of opportunities for young players from different parts of the world, when asked what he thinks of this, the forward concurred "This gives me a lot of opportunities that I would never have imagined for myself when I was a kid. I have a real opportunity to jump to the first team and learn from Gonzalo Higuain, a player who has played at the highest level and plays the same position as me. I have coaches that trust me and believe in me and now it's all about putting everything I've learned on to the field and making the most of it. I'm honored to have the opportunity with such an amazing club."
Shaan was born in Brampton, Canada but has roots in India, shows an interest in coming to India "At some point in my career I would love to play in India as it was my parents and grandparents' birth country. I'm not sure when it will happen. But I would consider it depending on the direction my career is going." – concluded Shaan
Fort Lauderdale CF
Shaan Hundal
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With the rise in awareness among the general public about environmental issues, and the efforts of all major automobile manufacturers to create environment friendly cars, we now have several electric and hybrid cars to choose from. The 2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid Sedan is one such car.
The Fusion Hybrid comes in 4 trim specs. The base Hybrid S trim is priced at $25,675 which tops up to $37,020 for the top-level trim. All the trims have a 2.0-Liter 4-Cylinder Hybrid engine with 88kW battery that makes a combined 188 horsepower and 129 lb.-ft of torque. This engine is mated to a CVT transmission.
The 2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid Sedan is a great car at a great price point, and does everything a car should do, let alone what a hybrid should do. Of course, there are the benefits in efficiency and reduction of emissions, but the numbers only make sense when can be compared to other numbers.
The Hybrid version of the 2017 Ford Fusion Sedan comes with an option of 4 trims. There is the 25-thousand-dollar base Model called 'S'. Then there is the 'SE' trim which adds regenerative braking and a few more gadgets for nearly a thousand bucks more. The next in line is the 'Titanium' which has larger wheels and a few other upgrades. The last and the most premium model is the 'Platinum', which offers the most luxuries along with the strongest visual appeal.
The 'SE' trim is the best trim, as it has all the necessary equipment and doesn't cost a fortune. The biggest advantage comes in the form of regenerative braking, which helps charge the batteries when you brake.
The 2017 Hybrid Ford Fusion Sedan is powered by a 2 liter naturally aspirated inline four, which along with the electric motors, churns out a gentle 188 horsepower and 129 pound-feet of torque. The torque from the electric motors is very urgent, delivered at the exact moment when your foot presses the pedal. The transmission uses a Continuously Variable Transmission to direct power from the engine, helped by two electric motors that feed directly to the wheels. The small battery capacity, however, leaves much to be desired, as electric-only driving is very limited in range.
129 lb.-ft. 129 lb.-ft. 129 lb.-ft. 156 lb.-ft.
None of the competitors are track monsters, as all these cars are tuned for efficiency rather than performance. The Honda Accord hybrid offers the most power, while the Chevrolet Malibu offers disappointingly low power. Toyota Camry hybrid has the most torque and is also the current leader in this segment.
The Ford DNA in the Hybrid Fusion is a bit weak, so to speak. The performance is comparable to the previous Hybrid Fusion model, which was also very slow. It takes a lethargic 7.4 seconds to go from a standstill to 60 mph, although the quarter mile run is a much better 12.9 seconds.
The competition is similarly slow, although the Chevrolet Malibu deserves a special mention for being utterly weak in acceleration runs. The Camry hybrid is also a bad performer, and even though it has the biggest engine, it has been tuned for efficiency. But due to their hybrid nature, these cars have managed to cut down a great deal on their emissions, helping keep the polar bear alive.
Just like all the modern cars, the Hybrid Ford Fusion uses a disc brake setup all around for each wheel. You can also opt for a regenerative braking system, which recovers kinetic energy from the brakes and stores it back in the battery. The handling has also been dialed down, and where the gasoline-powered Fusion corner like a beast, the Hybrid wallows a lot when driven enthusiastically. The suspension has been softened, the even steering has been loosened, which robs it of feedback.
All the cars in the competition prefer soft and supple ride quality over handling prowess, which is why all of these cars are comfort oriented. The braking is just as uninspired, with all the cars posting nearly the same braking figures.
Now we come to heart of the matter, the reason why people purchase Hybrid cars. The fuel economy is the sole reason why battery powered cars are gaining popularity in the recent times. The Fusion Hybrid runs for 43 miles in the city, which is crucial for an urban commuter. The electric mode is best for start-stop traffic conditions, as it doesn't use fuel when standing by. It returns 41 miles per gallon on the highway, which is understandable because the faster you go, the more power the battery consumes.
The Honda Accord is the most fuel-efficient model here, as it only uses electric motors to power the wheels. The engine is only used as a generator to power the battery and has no link to the wheels. The segment leader Camry is surprisingly the least fuel efficient in this category.
The emphasis on comfort is quite apparent in the Fusion hybrid, and the softer suspension setting makes sure the ride never gets irritating or bumpy. The interiors are also not too shabby, although it doesn't really feel built up to the price. Its cabin design is very plain and feels quite dated. The average build quality is offset by the excellent sound deadening system that reduces the road and wind noise in the cabin. There is also a large amount of space for knick-knacks, which actually feels very nice. The front seat also has generous amounts of space, and even the rear seats feel roomy.
The accord hybrid is quite a disappointment in terms of cabin space, due to the lack of legroom in the rear seats. The build quality is quite excellent though. Chevrolet Malibu offers great space all around, but the cheap interiors do take away the feel. Camry does fine with great rear seat comfort and good build quality.
The gas-powered Fusion does a great job of carrying cargo, but the hybrid version hauls battery packs around in the trunk, which drastically reduces capacity. The 12 cubic feet cargo capacity isn't too bad though and might actually be sufficient for urban outings.
The competition offers the same level of compromise in the trunk as the Fusion and can never hold 5 people and their luggage. Three people and their luggage can fit though, but you might need to use the rear seats to the fullest.
Dimensions and Weight The Fusion Hybrid has the same dimensions as the regular Fusion sedan, which means it is on the bulkier side. The length is a rather generous 192 inches, which is even longer than the 3-series BMW. Things do not improve when you consider the weight too. The base model, the one without the fancy equipment and regenerative braking, is already upwards of 3600 pounds.
The Honda Accord is the most efficient hybrid car here, as it uses a slightly different (better, some would argue) system than the traditional hybrid systems. It also has quite well-rounded performance, slightly faster than the Ford. The result is a very economical yet quick car, although driving it around feels much more of a chore than the Ford Fusion Hybrid Sedan. It also much more expensive, which could be a problem when you start comparing equipment.
The Chevrolet and the Ford are both American automobile companies, which makes them the closest competitors to each other, and quite well-rounded options for you. They both are very affordable, and not to mention homegrown. The choice between these two boils down to simple differences. If you want the most efficient option, it is the Malibu, and if you want the more powerful option, it is the Fusion.
The segment leader offers the best package, and also at quite a low price. The rear seat comfort is a level above the competition, although the performance and efficiency both take a hit. Toyota must realize that the Camry hybrid is no longer the best in the segment and give it an update to bring it up to date.
The 2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid is a good car in general, and really great when you consider that it's a hybrid car. The performance isn't too bad, the comfort is quite nice, handling is alright, and the efficiency is really good. The best part, it does it at a price lower than the competition! Now that is some serious business, one that should see the Ford Hybrid emerge victorious.
And automatic stop-start Features are all new to the entire 2017 Ford Fusion lineup.


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Singapore to reduce military training after actor's death
SINGAPORE — Singapore's military said Thursday it will reduce the length, intensity and frequency of its training programs after an actor in the reserves died from injuries he sustained overseas.
Aloysius Pang was on a military training exercise in New Zealand when a gun barrel was lowered on a large artillery device he was helping to repair Saturday. It crushed his abdomen and chest.
The defense ministry said Pang had been put on life support following surgeries to repair his damaged organs. Pang died at Waikato Hospital on Thursday. He was 28.
In a briefing, Chief of Defence Force Melvyn Ong said the Singapore Armed Forces will modify its training programs in the weeks ahead.
"This reduction of training tempo ... will be enforced for as long as it takes for us to get it right. And we want to do it right, we want to do it safe for every activity, we want to do it right every time," Ong said, according to The Straits Times newspaper.
Singapore mandates that young men serve in its armed forces, police force or civil defense force. Most serve full time for two years and then have annual training obligations. Pang had completed his full-time service, and was an armament technician whose rank was corporal first class.
Pang's family flew to New Zealand after hearing he was injured. His elder brother Kenny said he didn't manage to speak to Pang.
"He's the precious of our family. He's the youngest. He's the most loved," he said upon returning to Singapore. "To reciprocate that ... he has also given us all the support and all the love he can."
Funeral arrangements were being made and the family hoped that Pang's body will be repatriated as soon as possible.
Before leaving for New Zealand, Pang wrote on Twitter that "Unfortunately, my 2019 will start off with me flying to New Zealand for 3 weeks due to reservist. I'll be back in action soon."
The military said it would convene an independent committee to investigate the circumstances leading to Pang's injury.
He had been working on a Singapore Self-Propelled Howitzer, a motorized piece of artillery that looks similar to a small tank. The live-firing training exercise took place at the Waiouru training area on New Zealand's North Island and is hosted by New Zealand's military each year.
Pang's Singapore agency NoonTalk Media posted a photo of the actor on Facebook and wrote "Dear Aloysius, you'll be missed."
Other actors also paid tribute. Shane Pow Xunping wrote on Instagram: "It is not enough for you to be a brother in this life. We will continue to be brothers in the next life. I love you."
Also known as Pang Wei Chong, the actor appeared in the movie "Young & Fabulous" (2016) as well as television series including "The Truth Seekers" (2016) and "C.L.I.F." (2011).
Perry reported from New Zealand.
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Although manufacturers recommend storing your insulin in the refrigerator, injecting cold insulin can sometimes make the injection more painful. To avoid this, many providers suggest storing the bottle of insulin you are using at room temperature. Insulin kept at room temperature will last approximately 1 month.
Remember though, if you buy more than one bottle at a time to save money, store the extra bottles in the refrigerator. Then, take out the bottle ahead of time so it is ready for your next injection.
Check the expiration date before using, and don't use any insulin beyond its expiration date.
If you use regular, check for particles or discoloration of the insulin. If you use NPH or lente, check for "frosting" or crystals in the insulin on the inside of the bottle or for small particles or clumps in the insulin. If you find any of these in your insulin, do not use it, and return the unopened bottle to the pharmacy for an exchange and/or refund.
Reusing syringes may help you cut costs, avoid buying large supplies of syringes, and reduce waste. However, talk with your doctor or nurse before you begin reusing. They can help you decide whether it would be a safe choice for you. If you are ill, have open wounds on your hands, or have poor resistance to infection, you should not risk insulin syringe reuse. Syringe makers will not guarantee the sterility of syringes that are reused.
Keep the needle clean by keeping it capped when you're not using it.
Never let anyone use a syringe you've already used, and don't use anyone else's syringe.
It's time to dispose of an insulin syringe when the needle is dull or bent or has come in contact with anything other than clean skin.
If you can do it safely, clip the needles off the syringes so no one can use them. It's best to buy a device that clips, catches, and contains the needle. Do not use scissors to clip off needles — the flying needle could hurt someone or become lost.
If you don't destroy your needles, recap them. Place the needle or entire syringe in an opaque (not clear) heavy-duty plastic bottle with a screw cap or a plastic or metal box that closes firmly. Do not use a container that will allow the needle to break through, and do not recycle your syringe container.
Your area may have rules for getting rid of medical waste such as used syringes. Ask your refuse company or city or county waste authority what method meets their rules. The CDC has more information about safe needle disposal in your area.
When traveling, bring your used syringes home. Pack them in a heavy-duty holder, such as a hard plastic pencil box, for transport.


TMW Productions, LLC is also open to plan other types of events.
If you have an idea and would like to speak with us regarding the logistics and planning, we would love to hear it!
Consult on finding an event location (if applicable).
Make phone calls and send emails to solicit donations or sponsorship for the event.
Manage pre-registration of event attendees.
Manage event staff and/or committees throughout the planning period.
Create a timeline on event tasks.
Identify food and beverage needs.
Work with food vendors to set up appropriate menu options and format for the event.
Determine décor and theme of event with event staff and/or committee.
Consult and aid in the design and distribution of marketing materials for the event.
Determine optimal event execution logistics based on client's needs.
Book block rooms (if applicable).
Provide monthly updates to organization on the event progress.
Forecast and plan social media posts for event.
Aid in updating the organization's website.
Aid venue staff in creating event set-up diagram.
Plan and schedule programming, speakers, and activities during event.
Create and manage sponsorship programs (logistics only).
Work with designer to create event signage design, and manage event signage creation.
Work with designer to create printed event materials, and manage the production of print materials.
Set-up and manage registration webpage using constant contact or organization's page.
Identify volunteer roles and work with the organization to assign volunteers roles.
Manage parking permits (if applicable).
Manage and/or build event vendor and attendee contact data.
Promote event on TMW Productions, LLC website and social media.
Manage set-up for event through venue staff.
Manage check-in for event attendees.
Manage the event staff and/or committees throughout the execution of the event.
Ensure event programming is running on time.
Debrief with benefactor and discuss opportunities for the next event.
Distribute attendee surveys electronically and submit all information to organization.


By helping the athlete to recover from injuries they can once again release their full potential. What does body balancing mean? We mean certain parts of the athlete's anatomy may be tight or overtrained and another part may be loose and weak. For example, in rowing, tennis, golf and many other sports, one side is the predominant power driver and the other side of the body is used for balance/counterbalance or control. SFC helps the athlete to overcome this imbalance and return function and mobility to the weaker side. When the athlete completely trusts their body again, their performance will automatically improve as they feel confident and comfortable to train 100% with no holds barred.


Mr. Cammarata is a prominent, dual Board Certified civil trial attorney whose practice is concentrated in the areas of serious personal injury, brain injury, wrongful death, and medical malpractice. He has successfully litigated against insurance companies, governmental entities and even the President of the United States, winning millions of dollars in verdicts for his clients. He has appeared many times on every major network and cable television station and in national and international newspapers, magazines, and radio shows. Washingtonian magazine has named him one of the area's top attorneys in every survey year since 1997. He is President of the Brain Injury Association of Washington, D.C. Licensed in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and New York.


I was introduced to StumbleUpon by Matt with this wonderfully pointless piece of web art. Essentially, StumbleUpon is an extensions/add-on for your browser that adds functionality. In this particular instance it is a toolbar that enables you to surf web content that has been identified as of interest to you through software that "combines collaborative human opinions with machine learning of personal preference".
The developers claim that it is a way of automating word-of-mouth referral by the development of online social networks of like interested people. This may or may not turn out to be the case but it is at least a relatively simple to install and good fun if nothing else.
This is an example from the bizarre/oddities category.
This entry was posted in Learning thoughts on August 30, 2006 by Stephen Powell.


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CMT Promotes Lisa Chader, Anthony Barton
March 1, 2010 /0 Comments/in Featured, Sales/Marketing /by Sarah Skates
Lisa Chader and Anthony Barton
CMT today announced the promotions of Lisa Chader and Anthony Barton, both to Senior Vice President.
Chader has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications from Vice President, Corporate Communications, CMT; it was announced today by CMT President Brian Philips. Chader is based in Nashville and reports to Philips. In her new role, she will continue to oversee the creation and execution of network publicity strategies for original programming, digital media, special events and corporate public relations policies across all CMT properties.
Chader joined CMT in 2005 when she relocated from Los Angeles, where she had been Director of Corporate Communications for MTV Networks, representing Comedy Central, VH1 and Spike TV. She served as unit publicist on such shows as the Emmy-winning series "South Park," as well as "Chappelle's Show" and such reality programming as "Surreal Life."
With 20 years of experience in television publicity, Chader sits on the Executive Board of the T.J. Martell Foundation, and is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, PRSA, Television Publicity Executives Committee, Women in Cable and Leadership Music.
Barton has been promoted to Senior Vice President Integrated Marketing, from Vice President, Integrated Marketing, CMT, it was announced by Philips. Barton is based in Nashville and reports to Brian Philips and Jeff Lucas, EVP Entertainment Group Ad Sales, MTVN.
Barton joined the CMT Integrated Marketing team as Vice President in 2004. In his new role as Senior Vice President, he will continue to create innovative custom content for all CMT platforms that engages the audience, delivers measurable ROI and generates revenue for the network. Barton has worked with such high profile clients as Verizon, Bing and Nationwide Insurance on campaigns for the network's biggest event of the year, the CMT Music Awards, as well as Paramount Studios, Warner Bros. and Fox Filmed Entertainment.
In his 14 years with MTV Networks, Barton has worked in several divisions. After splitting his time between New York City and Nashville, Barton relocated to Nashville in 2007. The Vanderbilt University graduate is a member of the Country Music Association and currently serves on the Board of the Brooks Fund.
Tags: Musical Chairs
https://musicrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MusicRow-header-logo-Mar19B.png 0 0 Sarah Skates https://musicrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MusicRow-header-logo-Mar19B.png Sarah Skates2010-03-01 11:31:562010-03-01 11:31:56CMT Promotes Lisa Chader, Anthony Barton
GAC Nights Radio Show Shuts Down
EMI Nashville Builds Promotion Staff
Updated: BMI Moving Jobs From NY To Nashville
Hirings At Black Ink Publishing
Marks To Lead SIRIUS XM Country
1720 Hires New VP Promotion


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Anyone anywhere in the world is entitled to access the recorded information the University holds. The information is made available either proactively through the University's publication scheme or in response to a request. Information may be withheld from disclosure in certain circumstances and fees may be charged for the provision of information.
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Prime Minister pays tribute after Sir David Barclay dies at 86 breaking news SonDakika-Haberleri.Net
Son dakika 13 Ocak 1951 - Demokrat Parti'den komünistlere saldırı: TKP tevkifatı | SonDakika-Haberleri.Net
Ana Sayfa lastminute-News-breakingNews COVID-hit Mayo town loses nurse full of kindness breaking news SonDakika-Haberleri.Net
COVID-hit Mayo town loses nurse full of kindness breaking news SonDakika-Haberleri.Net
A dark cloud has been cast over a town in the west ravaged by COVID-19 after a 'kind and gentle' nurse died after being infected with the virus last week. Locals in Belmullet, Co. Mayo – which has one of the highest rates of the virus in the country – wa...
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A dark cloud has been cast over a town in the west ravaged by COVID-19 after a 'kind and gentle' nurse died after being infected with the virus last week.
Locals in Belmullet, Co. Mayo – which has one of the highest rates of the virus in the country – watched in despair at the weekend as Bernie McAndrew's body was taken away by hearse, as an ambulance arrived to take her husband to hospital.
Mrs McAndrew and her husband Ian, from Belmullet, both contracted the coronavirus last week.
Bernie McAndrew. Pic: Family Handout/PA Wire
She succumbed to the effects of the virus on Sunday, with a hearse and ambulance pulling up at their house in a desperately sad turn of events.
Locals in the areas were said to be 'stunned' by the death, as the small town struggles with a rampant COVID-19 infection rate.
Tributes have poured in for the 'kind' and 'compassionate' nurse.
Local Fine Gael councillor Gerry Coyle described her as 'an absolute lady' and 'a friend to everyone'.
He added: 'She was a nurse all her life. But she wasn't just a speaker, but a listener as well.
'She'd never push past people and ignore anybody along her way of life.
Local Fine Gael councillor Gerry Coyle described her as 'an absolute lady' and 'a friend to everyone'. Pic: Fine Gael
'The way it was with Bernie, she'd pull up for a chat.
'If you were the richest man in the area or the smallest farmer, she'd have the same craic with both. She always shared her time. There's one thing being a nurse and speaking, but she had the ability to listen.
'She had the ability to listen to people and understood their problems as a nurse and as a friend.'
Belmullet, Co. Mayo, is struggling with a rampant COVID-19 infection rate. Pic: Getty Images
Friends of Mrs McAndrew could only look in the window while she was ill due to infection risk.
'It was so sad with her friends the last day, looking in the window. It was frightening,' Cllr Coyle said.
He added that he has been in regular contact with husband Ian, who is isolating in hospital and unable to have visitors.
Belmullet has one of the highest rates of the virus in the country. Pic: Shutterstock
'I text him every day. He's just trying to stay strong. Sure what can he do, only sit it out,' he said.
Ian is very active in the local community and is a passionate Irish speaker and member of Údarás na Gaeltachta.
Bernie's death has come as a major blow to the area, as it grapples with one of the highest COVID-19 incidences in the country. Last week, HSE data showed that one in every 50 people in Belmullet had contracted COVID, giving it the State's highest 14-day incidence rate.
HSE data showed that one in every 50 people in Belmullet had contracted COVID, giving it the State's highest 14-day incidence rate. Pic: Getty Images
Some 266 people had the virus out of a population of 12,600, equivalent to an incidence rate of 2,111.1 per 100,000 people – three times the national average.
Cllr Coyle said the town has been struggling to cope with the pressure of the pandemic. 'It's getting out of hand. The pressure that's on people. The pressure that's on the people looking after them,' he said.
'You couldn't even go into Ian the last day, no-one could go in. I would never wish it on anyone.'
He said many people in Belmullet were contracting COVID-19 with no idea how they got it. Cllr Coyle said: 'The saddest thing that I've seen – some people that were so careful have it. They don't know how in the name of God they got it.'
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Seán Carey described Mrs McAndrew as 'a real lady, a very gentle, kind person'. Pic: Fianna Fail
The councillor, who has been delivering items to people in self-isolation, said there is a real sense of despair in the town.
He said: 'I was going around the houses, dropping stuff off, and there's people looking out the window at you, crying. It's savage.'
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Seán Carey described Mrs McAndrew as 'a real lady, a very gentle, kind person'.
He added: 'Everyone thought the world of her really.
'I know her husband Ian well, and my heart goes out to him. He's sick in hospital at the moment which is very, very difficult.'
Mrs McAndrew was a keen golfer and was the most recent lady captain at Belmullet Golf Club.
Cllr Carey said: 'She was really good to the young golfers, the beginners, very helpful to them. And very helpful to everyone.
'Always kind and made time to speak to everyone. Especially after leaving her nursing career, she was very compassionate and very good.
'Everyone knew her. She was friendly and outgoing to everyone. She had time to chat with everyone whenever she met people. It's devastating news for the whole area.'
He added: 'Once it broke that she had died, that put a cloud over the whole area. That was the sad news that broke. Everyone was just so sorry to hear about it.'
Mrs McAndrew's requiem funeral Mass took place at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Belmullet yesterday.
COVID-hit Mayo town loses nurse full of kindness breaking news SonDakika-HaberleriNet COVID-hit Mayo town loses nurse full of kindness breaking news SonDakika-Haberleri.Net A dark cloud has been cast over a town in the west ravaged by COVID-19 after a 'kind and gentle' nurse died after being infected with the virus last week. Locals in Belmullet Co. Mayo – which has one of the highest rates of the virus in the country – wa...


The forum convenes around sector-based "Lifting-the-Barriers Roundtables" with vertical emphasis on issues specific to the selected sectors.
The LTBI convenes the shapers of business and policy makers of ASEAN, Asia Pacific and world economies, for a discussion on the economic future of the region conducted in the context of a global economy in profound transformation.
The ABC Forum provides a unique platform for stakeholder engagement and an effective avenue to align public and private integration efforts.
The forum convenes all relevant stakeholders from around the region. It seeks to establish a dialogue between public and private sectors, the media and academia for an inclusive and reflective discussion.
In addition to a regional ASEAN focus, the ABC Forum also serves to offer extra ASEAN engagement with ASEAN's dialogue partners and other global role players.


Virtues Reflection Cards by Linda Kavelin Popov are available as an app!
I dedicate this issue of A Virtues Moment to my daughter Kate and her husband Scott, who have been using Perseverance and Courage since their twin boys were born very prematurely. They have spent the last 78 days in the hospital as the boys continue to grow and develop into healthy boys.
Sometimes I wonder about the Abundance theories, positive thinking and claims that happiness is ours just for the asking. What about suffering? Is suffering also a part of the human condition? How can we appreciate joy if we haven't experienced sorrow? How can we appreciate abundance if we haven't had periods of financial worry. How do we get through periods of unexpected difficulties, when we are exhausted or under extreme stress? Philosophers, psychologists, religious leaders and deep thinkers have written about this with more wisdom than I, but since it is in my life experience, I wonder how my virtues are developing and growing and needed during these periods of time.
Whenever I pick the virtue of Perseverance, Fortitude, or Endurance, I think "Oh, boy. What's coming?" Or if I'm in the middle of a stressful time, I think, "Yes, this is a confirmation that I am practicing that virtue and that I need to continue keeping on.
When I get the virtue of gentleness, compassion or kindness, I am reminded to take care of myself, as well as others. Then it gets down to the practical and the nitty gritty. How can I be gentle with myself when there are so many demands on my time and energy. Gentleness is a virtue too.
Linda Kavelin Popov has often said that Moderation is the pearl in the chain of virtues. If we don't use Moderation we can overdo in a virtue. We can have so much perseverance that we burn out, lose our health or become resentful. If we have too much gentleness with ourselves maybe we aren't of service to those who need us. Moderation isn't easy, but it seems necessary.
Being aware of our virtues on a daily basis allows us to grow and to find the balance in our lives to live a purposeful and meaningful life. We are constantly questioning, "What virtue will be helpful for me now? How can I use Moderation to meet my own needs and the needs of others?" " What does Detachment look like in this situation?" " How will I persevere and what support do I need." "What are my balancing virtues?"
I'm grateful for all of the virtues. They help me to live a meaningful life.
For a Free List of 100 Virtues, E-mail me at betsy@virtuestraining.com today.
Betsy Lydle Smith publishes a bi-monthly newsletter titled "A Virtues Moment" Sign up NOW!


Almost half of Jesus' parables have to do with money or commerce. But money is only the presenting metaphor. These parables are speaking of abundant life. In today's story a rich man is about to go on a long journey. Before departing he entrusts his money to three slaves. He gives five talents to one, two to another, and one to the third slave (see Greek below). Lest we mistakenly think that the third fellow was seriously short changed, we should note that his one talent was a huge amount of money (see Greek below). Upon the master's return we learn that the first two slaves doubled the amount they received. However, the third slave was fearful so he buried his one talent so as not to lose it. There was no increase. On a deeper lever this is not about money. It's about taking what God has given to us and working with it (see Greek below) without fear, being willing to take a risk. A true story is told of a Croatian immigrant living in California who was a superb furniture maker, real upscale stuff. But not willing to risk failure he took a job as a longshoreman. His furniture making never became more than a hobby. For the most part he buried his talent in the ground because the risk of stepping out and doing it full time was too scary. How do we know what God wants us to do? We learn from the Bible that God does not lure us into abundant life by urging us to play it safe. Hints of God's guidance may be found in dark places, fearful dreams. Stepping out into the unknown requires improvisation, as in jazz, because the score has not yet been written. Life is a tune we all play. God wants spiritual musical entrepreneurs. Sure, it is risky and scary. No one has played this tune before. It is ours alone. Our individual abundant lives are not found in any convention, or previously published work. We hear the melody in our heads (hearts). Fear not.
In those days a "talent" was a common laborer's earnings for fifteen years. These people were poor, but what they earned in fifteen years cumulatively was a huge amount of money. Imagine today what getting paid minimum wage would add up to over that many years. Do the math. The original Greek in Matthew 25:18 and 27 tells us that the money given to the slaves was in silver coins. We are looking at barrows of money. Matthew 25:16, in many translations, says they "traded" with the money, as we might do in the stock market. However, the original Greek simply says they "worked" with it. And so we work with what we have been given.