Eugène Dubois came into the world at an appropriate time, given the mission he chose in life. He was born in 1858, in between the discovery of the first recognized Neanderthal fossil and Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species . In medical school, the young Dubois thrilled to a talk by visiting lecturer Ernst Haeckel, inventor of the term "missing link." Dubois vowed to prove Haeckel — and Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace — right by finding "the missing link" between apes and humans. In the early 1890s, he succeeded, yet the years before and the decades after were anything but easy.
Dubois's fascination with fossils started even before medical school. When he was still a boy, evolutionist Karl Vogt gave a lecture at a nearby town, sparking a local controversy. Dubois didn't get to attend the lecture, but he read all he could about the history life, and enrolled at the University of Amsterdam to study medicine.
His first paper discussed the structure of the larynx and suggested that the mammalian larynx evolved from gill cartilage of fishes. His advisor, however, surprised him by claiming the idea as his own and expecting an acknowledgment. Dubois agreed, but reluctantly, and bad feelings about academia lingered, despite his speedy rise through university ranks to full professor. Shortly afterwards, Dubois turned his attention away from voice boxes and toward early humans, convinced that fossils would provide the best evidence of evolution. But where to look?
Haeckel had suggested Southeast Asia as the birthplace of humans. And Dubois was intrigued by Wallace's description of Sumatra in The Malay Archipelago. Among other exotic features of the landscape, Wallace described abundant caves and, in fact, all human fossils known at the time Dubois pondered his grand project had been found in caves. Beyond the caves of Sumatra, Dubois was drawn by the fact that the Dutch East Indies were under Dutch control. He hunted in vain for private or public funding, but neither was forthcoming. And while he searched for funding, only his naive young wife thought Dubois was onto something. Everyone else thought he was crazy. When he traded his university position for an eight-year commitment as a military doctor in a disease-ridden climate, and dragged his family halfway around the world, he seemed to prove his critics correct.
Shortly after arriving in Indonesia, Dubois gave a lecture outlining his plans to find a missing link in human evolution. Based on his lecture, he wrote an article for publication in the Journal of the Natural History of the Netherlands Indies . The article was largely intended to stake his claim the missing-link search.
As he had hoped, Dubois's military duties were light, allowing him to focus on fossil hunting. He started fossil hunting in Sumatra, but after two and a half years of disappointing excavations and a bout with malaria, he and his family moved to Java where he had better luck.
He found he could start a dig and let others finish it. The local government supplied him with forced laborers to dig for fossils. Natives of the Dutch East Indies had to pay heavy taxes to the Dutch, and they could do that with goods such as tea or coffee, or with labor. Many natives wound up working a month or two every year building houses or tending fields. Or digging fossils for an apparent crazy man. The working relationship was bumpy; the diggers often sold fossils to Chinese merchants who ground up the "dragon bones" and sold them in medicinal mixtures. But the working relationship was also fruitful. Over the years, the diggers working for Dubois found more than 12,000 animal fossils, including pieces of elephants, hyenas and felines. He stored the finds on his veranda, which was seen carpeted in ancient bones. But human fossils were much harder to find. Five years passed before he had evidence he considered sufficient to declare a new species: Pithecanthropus erectus, or Java Man. The evidence consisted of a skullcap, from which he estimated a cranial capacity larger than an ape's but smaller than a human's; a tooth; and the left femur of an erect biped that had sustained, but recovered from, a serious leg injury.
Despite the complimentary conscripted fossil diggers, Dubois paid a steep price for his find. He and his wife lost a child to tropical fever, and Dubois himself narrowly escaped death more than once, from malaria, tigers, and collapsing cave walls. Upon returning to Europe, he took an un-prestigious university appointment, and concluded that his greatest achievement would always be finding Java Man. So he was cruelly disappointed when, though some scientists greeted his finds enthusiastically, others dismissed them as ape remains, primitive human remains, or a jumble of fossils from separate individuals. The last claim gained credence decades later when Dubois found an additional left femur in his collections, something he had overlooked. It contradicted his long-held belief that the fossils had certainly come from a single individual. In fact, some paleoanthropologists now suspect that the femur Dubois used to describe Java Man actually belonged to an anatomically modern human.
Even the scientists who supported his arguments left him suspicious; the anatomist Gustav Schwalbe used a cast of the skullcap to write an expanded monograph that dwarfed the paper by Dubois. While Dubois languished in obscurity, Schwalbe did a lecture tour on Java Man. Considering the effort he had expended to collect the fossils, Dubois felt, perhaps with justification, that describing them was his exclusive right. Disillusioned, he periodically refused other scientists access to the fossils after Schwalbe's perceived betrayal. A resulting (and inaccurate) rumor claimed Dubois was keeping the fossils hidden under pressure from the Catholic church.
His personal life offered him little solace. As a young man, he had been smitten by a very bright young woman, but when he learned she did not return his affections, he married a more vivacious if less clever girl, Anna. Anna took little interest in his work, and he eventually judged her shallow and unworthy. Not that Dubois was an ideal husband. On their return trip from Java to Europe, the ship was caught in such a violent storm that the captain ordered all the passengers into lifeboats. Dubois apparently informed Anna that, should something happen to their lifeboat, she would be responsible for saving their three children; he would be preoccupied with saving the Java Man fossils in the suitcase he'd strapped to his chest. Their marriage didn't end that night, but it did end eventually, with hard feelings on both sides. After his wife's departure, Dubois advertised in the local paper for an attractive, young, live-in housekeeper, and found his ads didn't attract the altogether appropriate kind of help.
Despite flashes of productivity, Dubois descended into a bitter malaise in his later years. He rejected the implications of new finds in paleoanthropology (most notably Peking Man, discovered in 1929), and he developed a reputation for using then discarding devoted assistants. Yet even though he was seldom personable, Dubois was brilliant. In addition to identifying Java Man, he deduced a predictable relationship between brain size and body size in different types of animals. This finding enjoyed little attention until decades after his death, becoming the forerunner of new research fields in biology.
Dubois's find, Pithecanthropus erectus, was later reclassified as Homo erectus and it is widely understood to be one of the most significant species in human evolution. Whether the femur Dubois brought home from Java was truly from Homo erectus or from a modern human, other Homo erectus fossils have exhibited what his finds did, namely that the lower limbs took on modern human proportions before the head and brain.
Homo erectus was probably the first human ancestor to hunt, make fire, make complex tools, and care for the sick. One Homo erectus specimen has been found with no teeth (unable to chew), and another with advanced vitamin A poisoning (unable to move without exquisite pain). Both individuals survived with these conditions for some time — evidence that others of their kind looked after them when they could no longer fend for themselves.
Significance of Homo erectus aside, Java Man is probably more appropriately described as an ancient cousin, a branch that moved out of Africa and into Asia before the "successful" migration out of Africa that ultimately led to modern humans.
Homo erectus might also have been the first human ancestor — maybe — to make art (depending on how you define art). Dubois's collection contributed to this finding. Among the specimens he collected from Trinil were freshwater mussel shells, interpreted as evidence that hominids feasted on the mussels. These shells wound up at the natural history museum of Leiden. In the early 21st century, scientists reexamined the shells and found that one of them had been worked into an "unambiguous shell tool." Perhaps even more remarkable, another shell had been engraved with a geometric zigzag pattern. The scientists stated that the engraving preceded the shell's weathering and burial, and might have been made with a fresh or fossil shark tooth. Radiometric dating aged the shell at somewhere between 430,000 and 540,000 years old, placing it within the time of Homo erectus. The authors cautiously avoided calling the engraving art, and teasing out the hominid engraver's intentions is awfully speculative. But this predates the next-oldest known geometric human engravings, found in South African caves, by some 300,000 years.
Modern scientists point out that Dubois didn't find a missing link between apes and humans, he found an early human.


It is almost 20 years since the first stirring of what was to become the Raven Trust were felt and 16 years since the Trust became a Scottish Registered Charity. Now a friend of the Raven Trust has begun to write a book about the Trust.
Over the years, all kinds of people have become involved in the work of the Raven Trust in all sorts of ways. How did YOU become involved? From those who knit garments to keep small babies warm, to specialists in beekeeping, building, supply of clean water, education and electronics, many of you have interesting, unusual or even funny stories to tell of how you became involved. In my case, a retired minister friend wanted me to set up a photo display of the work of the Trust in a local church and that led on to……. well that's another story!
If you have a story to tell, we would love to hear about it – so please email your story to us at strachur@aol.com. Thank you.


text:
Understanding Conversations
Video Segmentation
Imagery Quantification
Human Pose Analysis
Solution Assessment
Dataset Analysis
Annotation Gathering
Model Development
Virtual Chief Data Scientist
Project Code & Structure
High Level System
Data Annotation
Model Experimentation
Model Access & Integration
Health - Reducing Hospital Readmissions
Health - Physician Assistance & Training
Health - Sports and Rehabilitation Therapy
Agriculture - Crop Monitoring
Agriculture - Crop Price Prediction
Insurance - Risk Measurement
Insurance - Fraud Detection
Insurance - Claims Forecasting
Hannah Koch
Drones to Robot Farm Hands, AI Transforms Agriculture
Swarms of drones buzz overhead, while robotic vehicles plod across the landscape. Orbiting satellites capture high-resolution multi-spectral images of the vast scene below. Not a single human can be seen in the sprawling acres. Today's agriculture is rapidly revamping into a high-tech enterprise that most 20th-century farmers could hardly recognize. It was only 100 years ago that farming transitioned from animal power to combustion engines. In the last 20 years, the global positioning system (GPS), electronic sensors among other new tools have moved farming even further into a technological wonderland. And now, robots empowered with artificial intelligence can zap weeds with extraordinary precision, while other autonomous machines move with industrious efficiency across farms.
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It is no secret that the global population is expected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050. To meet expected food demand, global agricultural output needs to increase 70%. AI is helping make that goal possible (1). It is clear a change is coming as farms are seeing an 86% decrease in labor force just in the U.S., while the number of farms continue to rise (2). While today's agricultural technologies and AI capabilities are evolving at a rapid rate, this evolution is just beginning. Factors such as climate change, an increasing population and food security concerns have propelled the industry into seeking more innovative approaches to assure an improving crop yield.
From detecting pests to predicting which crops will deliver the best returns, artificial intelligence can help humanity oppose one of its biggest challenges: feeding an additional 2 billion people by 2050 without harming the planet.
AI is steadily emerging as an essential part of the agricultural industry's technological evolution including self-driving machinery and flying robots that are able to automatically survey and treat crops. AI is assisting these machines in interacting together so they can begin to frame the future of fully automated agriculture. The purpose of all this high-tech gadgetry is optimization, from both economic and environmental standpoints. The goal is to only apply the optimal amount of any input (water, fertilizer, pesticide, fuel, labor) when and where it's needed to efficiently produce high crop yields (3).
With AI bringing all components of agriculture together we can discuss how autonomous machines and drones are driving driving the future of agriculture. A future where precision robots and drones will work simultaneously to manage entire farms.
Autonomous machines can replace people performing laborious and endless tasks, such as hand-harvesting vegetables. These robots use sensor technologies, including machine vision that can detect things like the location and size of stalks/leaves to inform their mechanical processes.
In addition, the development of flying robots (drones) gives way to the possibility that most field-crop scouting currently done by humans could be replaced. Many scouting tasks, such as scouting for crop pests, require someone to walk long distances in a field, and turn over plant leaves to see the presence or absence of insects. Researchers are developing technologies to enable such flying robots to scout without human involvement. An example of this is PEAT, a Berlin-based agricultural tech startup; PEAT has developed a deep learning application called Plantix that identifies potential defects and nutrient deficiencies in plants and soil. Analysis is then conducted using machine learning and software algorithms which correlate particular foliage patterns with certain soil defects, plant pests and diseases (4). The image recognition app identifies possible defects through images captured by the user's smartphone. Users are then provided with soil restoration techniques, tips and other potential solutions with a 95% accuracy.
Another company focused on bringing autonomous AI machinery to agriculture is Trace Genomics which focuses on machine learning for diagnosing soil defects. The California-based company provides soil analysis services to farmers. The system uses machine learning to provide clients with a sense of their soil's strengths and weaknesses. The system attempts to prevent defective crops and maximize healthy crop production. According to the company's website,
after submitting a sample of their soil to Trace Genomics, users receive a summary of their soils contents. Services provided in their packages range from a pathogen screening focused on bacteria and fungi to a comprehensive microbial evaluation (5).
These autonomous robots combined with drones will define the future of AI in agriculture while AI and machine learning model are helping ensure the future of crops starting from the root up.
It will take more than an army of robotic tractors to grow and harvest a successful crop. In the next 10 years, the agricultural drone industry will generate 100,000 jobs in the U.S. and $82 billion in economic activity, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research (6).
From spotting leaks to patrolling for pathogens, drones are taking up chores on the farm. While the presence of drones in agriculture dates back to the 1980s for crop dusting in Japan, the farms of the future will rely on machine learning models that guide the drones, satellites, and other airborne devices providing data about their crops on the ground.
As farmers try to adapt to climate change and other factors, drones promise to help make the entire farming enterprise more efficient. For instance, Descartes Labs, is employing machine learning to analyze satellite imagery to forecast soy and corn yields. The New Mexico startup collects 5 terabytes of data every day from multiple satellite constellations, including NASA and the European Space Agency (7). Combined with weather readings and other real-time inputs, Descartes Labs reports it can predict cornfield yields with high accuracy. Its AI platform can even assess crop health from infrared readings.
With the market for drones in agriculture projected to reach $480 million by 2027 (8), companies are also looking to bring drone technology to specific vertical areas of agriculture. VineView, for example, is looking to bring drones to vineyards. The company aims to help farmers improve crop yield and reduce costs (9). A farmer pre-programs a drone's route and once deployed the drone leverages computer vision to record images which are used for later analysis.
VineView analyzes captured imagery to provide a detailed report on the health of the vineyard, specifically the condition of grapevine leaves. Since grapevine leaves are often telltales for grapevine diseases (such as molds and bacteria), reading the "health" of the leaves is often a good indicator for understanding the health of the plants and their fruit as a whole.
The company declares that its technology can scan 50 acres in 24 minutes and provides data analysis with high accuracy (10). This aerial imaging combined with AI techniques and machine learning platforms are the start of something that is being referred to as "precision agriculture".
Precision agriculture (PA) is an approach to farm management that uses information technology to certify that crops and soil receive exactly what they need for optimum health and productivity. The goal of PA is to ensure profitability, sustainability and environmental protection. Since insecticide, for example, is only going to exactly where it is needed, environmental runoff is markedly reduced.
Precision agriculture requires three things to be successful: physical tools such as tractors and drones, site-specific information acquired by these machines, and it requires the ability to understand and make decisions based on that site-specific information.
Decision-making is often aided by AI based computer models that mathematically and statistically analyze relationships between variables like soil fertility and crop yield. Self-driving machinery and flying robots able to automatically survey and treat crops will become commonplace on farms that practice precision agriculture. Other examples of PA involve varying the rate of planting seeds in the field according to soil type and using AI analysis and sensors to identify the presence of weeds, diseases, or insects so that pesticides can be applied only where needed. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that 20 to 40 percent of global crop yields are lost each year to pests and diseases, despite the application of millions of tons of pesticides, so finding more productive and sustainable farming methods will benefit billions of people (11).
Deere & Company recently announced it would acquire a startup called Blue River Technology for a reported $305 million. Blue River has developed a "see-and-spray" system that leverages computer vision, a technology we here at Xyonix deploy regularly, to discriminate between crops and weeds. It hits the former with fertilizer and blasts the latter with herbicides with such precision that it is able to eliminate 90 percent of the chemicals used in conventional agriculture. It's not just farmland that's getting a helping hand from robots and artificial intelligence. A California company called Abundant Robotics, spun out of the nonprofit research institute SRI International, is developing robots capable of picking apples with vacuum-like arms that suck the fruit straight off the trees in the orchards (12). Iron Ox, out of San Francisco, is developing one-acre urban greenhouses that will be operated by robots and reportedly capable of producing the equivalent of 30 acres of farmland. Powered by artificial intelligence, a team of three robots will run the entire operation of planting, nurturing, and harvesting the crops (13). Vertical farming startup Plenty, also based in San Francisco, uses AI to automate its operations, and got a $200 million vote of confidence from the SoftBank Vision Fund earlier this year. The company claims its system uses only 1 percent of the water consumed in conventional agriculture while producing 350 times as much produce (14). Plenty is part of a new crop of urban-oriented farms, including Bowery Farming and AeroFarms.
Agricultural production has come so far in even the past couple decades that it's hard to imagine what it will look like in a few more. But the pace of high-tech innovations in agriculture is only expanding.
Don't be surprised if, 10 years from now, you drive down a rural highway and see small helicopters flying over a field, stopping to descend into the crop, use robotic grippers to manipulate leaves, cameras and machine vision looking for insects, and then rise back above the crop canopy and head toward its next location. All without human being in sight.
So what is in store for the future? Farmers can forecast that in the near future their drones and robots will have the AI capabilities to communicate about everything from crop assessment, counting cattle, monitoring crop diseases, water watching and mechanical pollination.
Have agriculture data? Multi-spectral aerial imagery? Operational farm data? Need help mining your data with AI to glean insights? CONTACT us -- we might be able to help.
johndeerejournal.com/2016/03/agricultures-past-present-and-future/
croplife.org/news/agriculture-then-and-now/
theconversation.com/farmers-of-the-future-will-utilize-drones-robots-and-gps-37739
peat.technology
tracegenomics.com
www.idtechex.com/research/reports/agricultural-robots-and-drones-2018-2038-technologies-markets-and-players
www.crunchbase.com/organization/descartes-labs
prnewswire.com/news-releases/agricultural-robots-and-drones-2017-2027-technologies-markets--players---agricultural-drone-market-to-be-worth-480-million---research-and-markets
www.vineview.ca
www.techemergence.com/ai-agriculture-present-applications-impact/
www.technologyreview.com/s/610549/exclusive-alphabet-x-is-exploring-new-ways-to-use-ai-in-food-production
singularityhub.com/2017/10/30/the-farms-of-the-future-will-run-on-ai-and-robots/#sm.00001idn7rzx17d24xg1212od7vm5
ironox.com
plenty.ag
Tagged: agriculture, drones, ai_in_agriculture
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — First responders and law enforcement personnel stood with heads bowed Saturday in Sutherland Springs for a Veterans Day ceremony that also was meant to honor the more than two dozen people killed a block away at a church.
About 100 people attended the ceremony outside the town's community center, where a wreath was placed near flags to remember those killed in last weekend's mass shooting, nearly half of whom had ties to the Air Force.
"Maybe this will start the healing process that will get Sutherland Springs and Wilson County to put this horrific tragedy behind us and look to the future," county Judge Richard Jackson told the gathering, his voice breaking.
Jackson, the county's top administrator, thanked the first responders and others who rushed to First Baptist Church in the aftermath of Sunday's shooting. What they saw there will affect them the rest of their lives, he said.
The attacker, Devin Patrick Kelley, killed 25 people — authorities put the number at 26 because one was pregnant — and wounded 20 others. Kelley, 26, died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being shot and chased by two men who heard gunfire from the church.
Sutherland Springs is about 30 miles southeast of San Antonio and not far from several military posts, including Lackland Air Force Base. The Air Force's chief of staff, Gen. David Goldfein, said 12 of those killed were either members of the Air Force or had family ties to it.
Among them were Scott and Karen Marshall, both 56, who had decided to retire in nearby La Vernia after meeting when they were in the service together more than 30 years ago. On Thursday, a military funeral was held for them at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph.
Retired Chief Warrant Officer Mike Gonzales, who led Saturday's ceremony, moved to Sutherland Springs with his wife in 2009 to raise their children. He said many veterans choose to live in the San Antonio area because of its deep military ties, and families tend to migrate to the city's surrounding rural areas.
The gunman also had Air Force ties. He was given a bad conduct discharge after pleading guilty to assaulting his then-wife and stepson.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, of Texas, told the gathering to lean on one another for support as the town attempts to heal. He said $10 million in federal assistance has been secured to help cover overtime costs for law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation.
Some in the crowd Saturday wore shirts that said "Sutherland Springs Strong" and included an outline of Texas with a heart of the town's location. The shirts were donated by Brenda Bierd, who lives on the Gulf Coast and whose home was damaged by Hurricane Harvey in late August.
Bierd said she has work that needs to be done gutting her home, but she felt compelled to drive to Sutherland Springs a few days ago to offer her support.


SYDNEY, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Tesla boss, Elon Musk has quoted 1 billion dollars to build a commuter tunnel under Australia's Blue Mountains, which divide Sydney from the countrys vast western interior.
The renowned tech innovator was responding via Twitter to a query by New South Wales (NSW) member of parliament Jeremy Buckingham, who described Sydney as choking with traffic and asked how much it would cost to build a 50-km underground tunnel.
"About 15 million dollars per kilometre for a two way high speed transit," Musk responded.
"So probably around 750 million dollars plus maybe 50 million dollars per station."
Musk did not specify if he was referring to US dollars.
Musk's Boring Company is currently testing similar tunnel systems to ease congestion in Los Angeles, with a prototype stretch being completed late last year.
Rather than being open to conventional traffic flow, the Boring Company tunnels utilise specialised carriages which can transport people or vehicles at high speeds.
Buckingham said that the transport loop would be the envy of the world, and greatly benefit regional cities.
"You could live out in the beautiful western region of NSW, enjoy the lifestyle, clean air and national parks while commuting into jobs centres of Penrith and western Sydney," he said.
"The infrastructure plan takes the pressure off traffic congestion and resources in Sydney, while providing a lifeline for our regions."


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Some 90 Day Fiancé Fans Think Yara & Jovi Split After HEA
Posted By: Remy Carreiroon: January 24, 2023 In: News, TVNo Comments
Some 90 Day Fiancé fans think Yara and Jovi split after HEA. The reality is these two always seem to have way more problems than they do positives. To the point where the world is really hoping Yara gets the strength to walk away. To say Jovi is controlling is putting it very mildly. On top of it, he keeps begging her to have more kids. Something she really isn't into at this point. So after Happily Ever After, some folks counted these two out.
Well if you are from that camp, we've got some bad news. These two are very much together, and Jovi just took her to Cancun to trick her into staying with him. We call stuff for what it is. Also, keep in mind, a week in Cancun is about the most inexpensive "tropical" vacation anyone can have. Not like he took her to the Maldives.
A post shared by Jovi Dufren (@jovid11)
Via Screenrant:
On Happily Ever After season 7, 90 Day Fiancé's Jovi Dufren and Yara faced many challenges, including Yara's intense desire to move to Europe and have a back-up plan apart from her husband. Yara's trust issues were called out at the Tell-All, as was her intense unhappiness in the United States. Yara has made it clear that she doesn't like the life she has with Jovi and their daughter Mylah in Louisiana. This has caused her to consider buying property in Prague near her mother, while she also doesn't trust her husband fully. The Tell-All ended with Jovi agreeing to move elsewhere for Yara, though they ended up fighting again as the show ended. This argument cast uncertainty onto their future. Though the Happily Ever After season 7 Tell-All just aired on TLC, it was filmed at around the start of September. Jovi and Yara have remained together for the past four and a half months, as indicated by their social media.
Some 90 Day Fiancé fans think Yara and Jovi split after HEA. Sadly, this one is nothing but wishful thinking. Though many viewers find Jovi to be very dismissive of Yara, they're still together. And if Jovi has his way, he will stuff her full of more kids to really ensure she will be too broken to leave him. Yeah, sometimes we say controversial things that need to be said. A lot of us are out here routing for Yara. She's kind and always tells him how she feels trapped. Then he just takes her on vacation to shut her up for a few more months.
It's a sad cycle to watch repeat over and over.
Marvel Snap Finally Gets a PvP Battle Mode


The exams were held on 29/07/2012 and 02/09/2012.
Answer keys of TET OMR are available HERE to download.
Written result will be published later.
Adou ki result publish hobe???
kobe school service ar result berobe? plz ai tuku janan j kon month a berote pare result.
I've lost my Admit Card of 12th RSLT so cant know my result…. will someone help me??


Skatepark of Memphis to close its doors; city considers building public skate parks.
About 200 skateboarders, BMX bikers, and in-line skaters zoom roller-rink-style around the Mid-South Fairgrounds' Youth Building Thursday afternoon. A crowd of onlookers, some clutching skateboards or perched on half-pipe ramps, snap photos or video with their camera phones.
They're here to show support for a free city skate park. The rally, organized by the City of Memphis Parks Department, drew about 450 skaters and bikers ranging from tweens with their mothers to men and women in their mid-40s.
Currently, the city has no public skate park, and its only private skate park, the Skatepark of Memphis, is closing its doors on May 5th after years of financial trouble.
"We've been talking about building a skate park for a number of years, but we've had a hard time gauging the need for one. It's hard to find skaters all in one place to see how many people would be willing to use it," says city parks director Cindy Buchanan.
Each skater or supporter is counted as they walk through the door Thursday. The city will use the total number to determine whether or not a skate park would be well-utilized.
"Right now, skaters are out there causing damage to sidewalks and benches, but we know they're not trying to damage city infrastructure," Buchanan says. "They just want to have a good time, but they don't have anywhere to go."
Currently, the city is considering building a skate park downtown, on Mud Island, or possibly building several small skate parks inside neighborhood parks.
"Anywhere in the city limits would be fine with me," says Adam Key, who currently skateboards at the Skatepark of Memphis.
Located inside a large warehouse in Cordova, the Skatepark of Memphis has provided a place to skate since 2002.
"We can't handle the cost of running the park anymore — the insurance, the rent," says Skatepark owner Josh Lowery, clutching his board at the city rally. "This year, we've seen a decline in people willing to pay to skate. People want to get in free, and I agree that it should be free to skate."
The Skatepark of Memphis charges $10 for three hours of skating time.
"Closing is a bummer for me and all the kids who skate there, but we're trying to use the situation to gain support for a public park," Lowery says.
The Cordova Board Shop, a skating supply shop next door to the Skatepark of Memphis, will remain open but will move to a new location near the corner of Macon and Germantown Parkway. It is scheduled to re-open in June.


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In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography: Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change
C. Dreszer, Adam D. Wexler, S. Drusová, T. Overdijk, A. Zwijnenburg, H. C. Flemming, J.C. Kruithof, J.S. Vrouwenvelder
Biofouling causes performance loss in spiral wound nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane operation for process and drinking water production. The development of biofilm formation, structure and detachment was studied in-situ, non-destructively with Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) in direct relation with the hydraulic biofilm resistance and membrane performance parameters: transmembrane pressure drop (TMP) and feed-channel pressure drop (FCP). The objective was to evaluate the suitability of OCT for biofouling studies, applying a membrane biofouling test cell operated at constant crossflow velocity (0.1 m s-1) and permeate flux (20 L m-2h-1).In time, the biofilm thickness on the membrane increased continuously causing a decline in membrane performance. Local biofilm detachment was observed at the biofilm-membrane interface. A mature biofilm was subjected to permeate flux variation (20 to 60 to 20 L m-2h-1). An increase in permeate flux caused a decrease in biofilm thickness and an increase in biofilm resistance, indicating biofilm compaction. Restoring the original permeate flux did not completely restore the original biofilm parameters: After elevated flux operation the biofilm thickness was reduced to 75% and the hydraulic resistance increased to 116% of the original values. Therefore, after a temporarily permeate flux increase the impact of the biofilm on membrane performance was stronger. OCT imaging of the biofilm with increased permeate flux revealed that the biofilm became compacted, lost internal voids, and became more dense. Therefore, membrane performance losses were not only related to biofilm thickness but also to the internal biofilm structure, e.g. caused by changes in pressure.Optical Coherence Tomography proved to be a suitable tool for quantitative in-situ biofilm thickness and morphology studies which can be carried out non-destructively and in real-time in transparent membrane biofouling monitors.
Published - 5 Dec 2014
Optical tomography
Biofilms
Biofouling
Osmosis membranes
Biofilm morphology
Feed-channel pressure drop
Membrane biofouling monitor
Sensitive biofilm thickness measurement
Transmembrane pressure drop
Dreszer, C., Wexler, A. D., Drusová, S., Overdijk, T., Zwijnenburg, A., Flemming, H. C., ... Vrouwenvelder, J. S. (2014). In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography: Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change. Water research, 67, 243-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2014.09.006
Dreszer, C. ; Wexler, Adam D. ; Drusová, S. ; Overdijk, T. ; Zwijnenburg, A. ; Flemming, H. C. ; Kruithof, J.C. ; Vrouwenvelder, J.S. / In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography : Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change. In: Water research. 2014 ; Vol. 67. pp. 243-254.
@article{d795e85721b94167984685c6407194ac,
title = "In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography: Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change",
abstract = "Biofouling causes performance loss in spiral wound nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane operation for process and drinking water production. The development of biofilm formation, structure and detachment was studied in-situ, non-destructively with Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) in direct relation with the hydraulic biofilm resistance and membrane performance parameters: transmembrane pressure drop (TMP) and feed-channel pressure drop (FCP). The objective was to evaluate the suitability of OCT for biofouling studies, applying a membrane biofouling test cell operated at constant crossflow velocity (0.1 m s-1) and permeate flux (20 L m-2h-1).In time, the biofilm thickness on the membrane increased continuously causing a decline in membrane performance. Local biofilm detachment was observed at the biofilm-membrane interface. A mature biofilm was subjected to permeate flux variation (20 to 60 to 20 L m-2h-1). An increase in permeate flux caused a decrease in biofilm thickness and an increase in biofilm resistance, indicating biofilm compaction. Restoring the original permeate flux did not completely restore the original biofilm parameters: After elevated flux operation the biofilm thickness was reduced to 75{\%} and the hydraulic resistance increased to 116{\%} of the original values. Therefore, after a temporarily permeate flux increase the impact of the biofilm on membrane performance was stronger. OCT imaging of the biofilm with increased permeate flux revealed that the biofilm became compacted, lost internal voids, and became more dense. Therefore, membrane performance losses were not only related to biofilm thickness but also to the internal biofilm structure, e.g. caused by changes in pressure.Optical Coherence Tomography proved to be a suitable tool for quantitative in-situ biofilm thickness and morphology studies which can be carried out non-destructively and in real-time in transparent membrane biofouling monitors.",
keywords = "Biofilm morphology, Feed-channel pressure drop, Membrane biofouling monitor, OCT, Sensitive biofilm thickness measurement, Transmembrane pressure drop",
author = "C. Dreszer and Wexler, {Adam D.} and S. Drusov{\'a} and T. Overdijk and A. Zwijnenburg and Flemming, {H. C.} and J.C. Kruithof and J.S. Vrouwenvelder",
Dreszer, C, Wexler, AD, Drusová, S, Overdijk, T, Zwijnenburg, A, Flemming, HC, Kruithof, JC & Vrouwenvelder, JS 2014, 'In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography: Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change', Water research, vol. 67, pp. 243-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2014.09.006
In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography : Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change. / Dreszer, C.; Wexler, Adam D.; Drusová, S.; Overdijk, T.; Zwijnenburg, A.; Flemming, H. C.; Kruithof, J.C.; Vrouwenvelder, J.S.
In: Water research, Vol. 67, 05.12.2014, p. 243-254.
T1 - In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography
T2 - Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change
AU - Dreszer, C.
AU - Wexler, Adam D.
AU - Drusová, S.
AU - Overdijk, T.
AU - Zwijnenburg, A.
AU - Flemming, H. C.
AU - Kruithof, J.C.
AU - Vrouwenvelder, J.S.
N2 - Biofouling causes performance loss in spiral wound nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane operation for process and drinking water production. The development of biofilm formation, structure and detachment was studied in-situ, non-destructively with Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) in direct relation with the hydraulic biofilm resistance and membrane performance parameters: transmembrane pressure drop (TMP) and feed-channel pressure drop (FCP). The objective was to evaluate the suitability of OCT for biofouling studies, applying a membrane biofouling test cell operated at constant crossflow velocity (0.1 m s-1) and permeate flux (20 L m-2h-1).In time, the biofilm thickness on the membrane increased continuously causing a decline in membrane performance. Local biofilm detachment was observed at the biofilm-membrane interface. A mature biofilm was subjected to permeate flux variation (20 to 60 to 20 L m-2h-1). An increase in permeate flux caused a decrease in biofilm thickness and an increase in biofilm resistance, indicating biofilm compaction. Restoring the original permeate flux did not completely restore the original biofilm parameters: After elevated flux operation the biofilm thickness was reduced to 75% and the hydraulic resistance increased to 116% of the original values. Therefore, after a temporarily permeate flux increase the impact of the biofilm on membrane performance was stronger. OCT imaging of the biofilm with increased permeate flux revealed that the biofilm became compacted, lost internal voids, and became more dense. Therefore, membrane performance losses were not only related to biofilm thickness but also to the internal biofilm structure, e.g. caused by changes in pressure.Optical Coherence Tomography proved to be a suitable tool for quantitative in-situ biofilm thickness and morphology studies which can be carried out non-destructively and in real-time in transparent membrane biofouling monitors.
AB - Biofouling causes performance loss in spiral wound nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane operation for process and drinking water production. The development of biofilm formation, structure and detachment was studied in-situ, non-destructively with Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) in direct relation with the hydraulic biofilm resistance and membrane performance parameters: transmembrane pressure drop (TMP) and feed-channel pressure drop (FCP). The objective was to evaluate the suitability of OCT for biofouling studies, applying a membrane biofouling test cell operated at constant crossflow velocity (0.1 m s-1) and permeate flux (20 L m-2h-1).In time, the biofilm thickness on the membrane increased continuously causing a decline in membrane performance. Local biofilm detachment was observed at the biofilm-membrane interface. A mature biofilm was subjected to permeate flux variation (20 to 60 to 20 L m-2h-1). An increase in permeate flux caused a decrease in biofilm thickness and an increase in biofilm resistance, indicating biofilm compaction. Restoring the original permeate flux did not completely restore the original biofilm parameters: After elevated flux operation the biofilm thickness was reduced to 75% and the hydraulic resistance increased to 116% of the original values. Therefore, after a temporarily permeate flux increase the impact of the biofilm on membrane performance was stronger. OCT imaging of the biofilm with increased permeate flux revealed that the biofilm became compacted, lost internal voids, and became more dense. Therefore, membrane performance losses were not only related to biofilm thickness but also to the internal biofilm structure, e.g. caused by changes in pressure.Optical Coherence Tomography proved to be a suitable tool for quantitative in-situ biofilm thickness and morphology studies which can be carried out non-destructively and in real-time in transparent membrane biofouling monitors.
KW - Biofilm morphology
KW - Feed-channel pressure drop
KW - Membrane biofouling monitor
KW - OCT
KW - Sensitive biofilm thickness measurement
KW - Transmembrane pressure drop
Dreszer C, Wexler AD, Drusová S, Overdijk T, Zwijnenburg A, Flemming HC et al. In-situ biofilm characterization in membrane systems using Optical Coherence Tomography: Formation, structure, detachment and impact of flux change. Water research. 2014 Dec 5;67:243-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2014.09.006


text:
Simon Gillespie grew up in Canada and started his career in education as an Elementary School teacher having worked in teaching and leadership positions in Canada, Germany, Philippines, and most recently Democratic Republic of Congo as the Director of The American School of Kinshasa. Simon is a trainer with the Principal's Training Center, a member of the Design Team for Next Frontier Inclusion, and the recipient of the 2014 United States National Distinguished Principal award.
Daniel Groves is a qualified accountant with more than 10 years financial management experience. Daniel has been working in East Africa for the last 5 years working for a variety of non-profit organisations. After many years in Australia working in public practice in both audit and taxation services, specializing in working with the charitable sector, Daniel moved to Tanzania to work for a large 1800 student K-12 school in Tanzania. Most recently, he spent 2 years working as a Finance Manager for an International NGO in South Sudan. Outside of work, Daniel enjoys playing golf, reading books and is an avid Essendon (AFL) fan.
Senior School Principal
Seren Davis grew up in rural North Wales. She has worked in international schools in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan. Seren leads IB MYP workshops and is an IB school evaluation visitor. She has a Certificate in International School Leadership from the Principals' Training Centre and a MA in Global Learning and Development Education. Her free time is spent with friends and family enjoying new experiences.
Junior School Principal
Daniel Todd has been teaching at the school for 10 years in a variety of roles including, Grade 2 Homeroom, ICT Teacher, PYP Coordinator, Junior School Assistant Principal, MYP Coordinator and College Counselor. Daniel has worked for many years within education both in Uganda and the UK. Daniel also works with the IB PYP as a workshop leader, school visitor and online facilitator. Beyond the realm of education Daniel enjoys a variety of sports, he is a keen visual artist and enjoys relaxing by the lake with his young family.


text:
North Head Lighthouse Calendar
North Head Lighthouse Store
Open 7 days a week during the summer months, 10am – 5pm
Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center Store
Open 7 days a week, during the summer, 10am – 5pm.
Hours are reduced during the fall and winter: call 360.642.4144
Waikiki Beach Concerts
SOURCE: funbeach.com
Celebrating 12 Summers of Music in 2018, these concerts take place at Waikiki Beach in Cape Disappointment State Park on Saturday evenings at 7 p.m.
August 22nd: The Winterlings
"Music from the New Folk Frontier"
The North Head Lighthouse raffle directly benefits restoration of the historic North Head Lighthouse. You could win:
2 night stay at the Keeper's Residence, for six people
A $300.00 gift certificate at The Depot, located in Seaview, Washington.
The date of the stay is to be determined by the successful raffle winner, but must be between October 2018 and March 2019. Sorry; we can't sell tickets online but you can purchase them in either of the Lighthouse stores.
Watch for the migration of Gray Whales as they head south to their breeding grounds in January and again as they pass heading north in May.
Anniversary Celebration!
SOURCE: https://emjayvanblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/welcome-to-washingtoncape-disappointment/
June 2019: 121st Anniversary
Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission and Keepers of the North Head Lighthouse host the anniversary of the North Head Lighthouse at Cape Disappointment State Park in Ilwaco each June.
The celebration is held Saturday from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m., and allows a close look at the lighthouse which is now undergoing long awaited restoration. It already sports a brand new roof and restored lighthouse tower. The event features
a self-guided tour of a Lighthouse Keeper's Home
birder tours at 10 and 11 led by the Shoalwater Birders
open gift stores
sale of a North Head Lighthouse special edition poster by Don Nisbett
Note: Due to restoration activity, there will be no guided tours of the Lighthouse in 2016.
Discover Pass is not required to attend the event as this is a state park "free day". There is parking at the lighthouse parking lot plus additional parking and a free shuttle will be available at the parking lot across from Cape Disappointment State Park, 244 Robert Gray Drive, Ilwaco.
Please mark your calendar and join us for this merry event.
Friends of the Columbia River Gateway Board meetings are open to the public and are currently the third Monday of the month, 4:00 PM, at the Port of Ilwaco.


Do you know that even multi-billion companies still promote their business brand? The idea of promoting a business forms the roots of a successful business. In most cases, small companies do not see the need to promote their brands as they are satisfied by the number of clients they have or afraid to get out of their comfort zone. However, you are not guaranteed to keep the same clients for a long period as other business will be looking into poaching them. Thus, hosting a brand promotional campaign will help your business keep your existing clients as well as targeted clients happy. Take advantage of this amazingly crafted coffee cup made of glass.
The cup comes with a silicone band that matches the colour of the lid. The cup is ideal for those who love their coffee clean as the glass material promotes hygiene. Made from quality Borosilicate Glass which protects the mug from damage due to sudden temperature change. These eco-friendly re-usable mugs are a great alternative to the paper cup. Featuring a food grade silicone lid as well as a heat-resistant ridged silicone band specially designed for safe handling.
Included in the price is one colour, one position print of your custom logo. There is a lot to benefit from this amazing cup as it is can be branded and distributed as a gift to promote your company brand. The prices listed exclude GST and there is a branding setup fee of $60 charged per colour print.
Delivery of goods is carried out within 2 weeks, and it is done in Australia.


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Dapo Olorunyomi, Nigeria
International Press Freedom Awards
CPJ is honored to present its 2020 International Press Freedom Award to Nigerian journalist Dapo Olorunyomi.
Olorunyomi is the co-founder, CEO, and publisher of the Nigerian newspaper Premium Times, which today is one of the most trusted newspapers in Nigeria and a standard for African investigative journalism. Olorunyomi, who has dedicated his life to holding the powerful to account, is a fierce advocate for press freedom and is referred to by some as the "godfather" of online journalism in Nigeria.
The journalist and the Premium Times have been subjected to official harassment over the years. In 2017, police raided the newspaper's offices on orders of the military and arrested him and a reporter on allegations of defaming the chief of army staff. Premium Times stood its ground, and both journalists were released. The army eventually distanced itself from the chief of staff's actions.
Earlier in his career, Olorunyomi reported fearlessly on the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. He helped lay the foundation for the high-quality, adversarial journalism for which Nigeria is known today. In 1993 he was co-founder and deputy editor-in-chief of The NEWS magazine as well as co-founder of Tempo magazine. The latter was published from a secret building near the police headquarters and caused such agitation in the regime that authorities arrested even those caught reading it.
Olorunyomi was twice arrested for his reporting and went into hiding in 1995 after the Abacha regime threatened his life. In 1996, CPJ and Amnesty International helped organize his escape into exile in the United States. "Somehow [CPJ] found me. They initiated contact, secured funds for my escape and arranged for legal documents so I could come to the U.S.," he later told the American Journalism Review. The next year, he spoke at a CPJ roundtable about the detention of his wife, journalist, Ladi Olorunyomi, and the grave situation for press freedom in Nigeria. "Without [CPJ]," he has said, "I believe I would be dead or in prison."
Olorunyomi worked as an editor at other Nigerian media outlets, including PM News, which he helped co-found; Radio Nigeria; The African Guardian magazine; and NEXT newspapers. In 2005, he founded the Lagos-based Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, named after Africa's first Nobel laureate in literature and dedicated to exposing corruption and human rights abuses. He also co-founded the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, a partner organization to the newspaper, which has its own press freedom tracker. The journalism innovation and development institution aims to "promote a truly independent media landscape that advances fundamental human rights, good governance and accountability in West Africa through investigative journalism, open data and civic technology."
Olorunyomi serves on the advisory boards of nonprofit organizations Africa Check and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism.
Shahidul Alam, Bangladesh >
Mohammad Mosaed, Iran >
Svetlana Prokopyeva, Russia >
Amal Clooney, Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award >
Main Awards >
The text of Dapo Olorunyomi's acceptance speech is below:
A Journalism of Freedom and Community
Two months from now, it will be exactly two years since the Ghanaian investigative journalist Ahmed Suale was brutally murdered in the presence of his young child. It will be one year since Dadiyata, the Nigerian blogger, also went missing. And as I speak to you today, 27 of our colleagues are in jail in Egypt, not to talk of the conditions that journalism faces in countries like Mali, even in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, and definitely in Tanzania. The state of press freedom in Africa today is abysmal and extremely frightening.
The modest progress that Africa has made in the past decade is in great threat. Yet we cannot lose sight of the fact that Africa needs a very strong and reliable press. The fact that two-thirds of the global maternal mortality is recorded in Sub-Saharan Africa and also that 27 of the 28th poorest countries where poverty is about 30 percent on a global scale is in Sub-Saharan Africa should remind us of the very difficult work that we need to do both in development and democracy building.[1] For Africa to be able to pull through this difficult environment of the 21st century we need bold imagination, we need a space for debate, we need a context for dissent, we need more marchers on the street, but above all we need an asset of democracy that helps us interpret and mediate these processes in a way that no other institution can.
If you look at the four crippling conditions, the vestiges of authoritarianism, the terrible economic situation, the new growth of a climate of fear swelled by disinformation sometimes promoted by governments, now add the new leveler, COVID-19. All this reminds us, and should serve as a huge warning that the last thing that we need to do is to now shut down dissent. We need an unfettered press to be able to narrate these processes in a way that can lead us to resolutions.
Accordingly, an International Press Freedom Award at this moment awakens the mind. It reminds me in particular, and I believe many of my colleagues, of the very important work that remains undone in the development of our media and the struggle to expand and give true consequence to our democracy. But above all, to give true definition to the reign of human rights and liberties in all countries of the region.
It is in that regard that I therefore dedicate this award to all our colleagues who are still languishing in jail in the region. It is to remind them that freedom's day is just the next day away.
Thank you very much and God bless.
Press Freedom Awards By Year	 202220212020201920182017201620152014201320122011201020092008200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996
Shahidul Alam (Bangladesh),
Mohammad Mosaed (Iran),
Dapo Olorunyomi (Nigeria),
Svetlana Prokopyeva (Russia)
Patrícia Campos Mello (Brazil),
Neha Dixit (India),
Lucía Pineda Ubau and
Miguel Mora (Nicaragua),
Maxence Melo Mubyazi (Tanzania)
Amal Khalifa Idris Habbani (Sudan),
Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh (Vietnam),
Luz Mely Reyes (Venezuela),
Anastasiya Stanko (Ukraine)
Ahmed Abba (Cameroon),
Patricia Mayorga (Mexico),
Afrah Nasser (Yemen),
Pravit Rojanaphruk (Thailand)
Mahmoud Abou Zeid, Shawkan (Egypt),
Malini Subramaniam (India),
Can Dündar (Turkey),
Óscar Martínez (El Salvador)
Cándido Figueredo Ruíz (Paraguay),
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (Syria),
Zone 9 Bloggers (Ethiopia),
Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, "Zunar" (Malaysia)
Aung Zaw (Burma),
Siamak Ghaderi (Iran),
Mikhail Zygar (Russia),
Ferial Haffajee (South Africa)
Janet Hinostroza (Ecuador),
Bassem Youssef (Egypt),
Nedim Şener (Turkey),
Nguyen Van Hai (Vietnam)
Mauri König (Brazil),
Dhondup Wangchen (China),
Azimjon Askarov (Kyrgyzstan),
Mae Azango (Liberia)
Mansoor al-Jamri (Bahrain),
Natalya Radina (Belarus),
Javier Valdez Cárdenas (Mexico),
Umar Cheema (Pakistan)
Mohammad Davari (Iran),
Nadira Isayeva (Russia),
Dawit Kebede (Ethiopia),
Laureano Márquez (Venezuela)
Mustafa Haji Abdinur (Somalia),
Naziha Réjiba (Tunisia),
Eynulla Fatullayev (Azerbijan),
J.S. Tissainayagam (Sri Lanka)
Bilal Hussein (Iraq),
Danish Karokhel and Farida Nekzad (Afghanistan),
Andrew Mwenda (Uganda),
Hector Maseda Gutiérrez (Cuba)
Dmitry Muratov (Russia),
Mazhar Abbas (Pakistan),
Adela Navarro Bello (Mexico),
Gao Qinrong (China)
Jesús Abad Colorado (Colombia),
Jamal Amer (Yemen),
Madi Ceesay (The Gambia),
Atwar Bahjat (Iraq)
Galima Bukharbaeva (Uzbekistan),
Beatrice Mtetwa (Zimbabwe),
Lúcio Flávio Pinto (Brazil),
Shi Tao (China)
Svetlana Kalinkina (Belarus),
Aung Pwint and Thaung Tun (Burma),
Alexis Sinduhije (Burundi),
Paul Klebnikov (United States)
Abdul Samay Hamed (Afghanistan),
Aboubakr Jamai (Morocco),
Musa Muradov (Russia),
Manuel Vázquez Portal (Cuba)
Ignacio Gómez (Colombia),
Tipu Sultan (Bangladesh),
Irina Petrushova (Kazakhstan),
Fesshaye Yohannes (Eritrea)
Jiang Weiping (China),
Geoff Nyarota (Zimbabwe),
Horacio Verbitsky (Argentina),
Mazen Dana (West Bank)
Zeljko Kopanja (Bosnia-Herzegovina),
Modeste Mutinga (DRC),
Steven Gan (Malaysia),
Mashallah Shamsolvaezin (Iran)
Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández (Cuba),
Baton Haxhiu (Kosovo),
Jugnu Mohsin and Najam Sethi (Pakistan),
María Cristina Caballero (Colombia)
Grémah Boucar (Niger),
Gustavo Gorriti (Panama),
Pavel Sheremet (Belarus),
Ruth Simon (Eritrea)
Viktor Ivancic (Croatia),
Freedom Neruda (Ivory Coast),
Christine Anyanwu (Nigeria).
Ying Chan (United States) and Shieh Chung-Liang (Taiwan)
Ocak Isik Yurtçu (Turkey),
Daoud Kuttab (Palestinian Authority),
J. Jesus Blancornelas (Mexico),
Yusuf Jameel (India)


text:
Home Labour Party Young Labour chair rejects HQ censorship instruction
Labour PartyNewsPeople
Tags > Jessica BarnardNorfolk County councillorYoung Labour chair
written by Alan Reading 25 November 2020
Party warned they have no God-given right to simply expect youth support
CHAIR of Young Labour, only elected last month, awaits her fate after she failed to obey an official order to "immediately" take down a statement in support of Jeremy Corbyn.
But she may still follow their instruction as she has presented officials with 10 questions she says she wants answered. So her defiance may change according to any answers she receives, if any.
Norfolk councillor Jess Barnard rejected Labour HQ order
Bristol Constituency Labour Party branch officials who defied Head Office over the Corbyn debacle were immediately suspended. The whole CLP, the largest in the country, has now been suspended from all activity for four months.
Jess Barnard, who is also a Norfolk County councillor, said the YL national committee (YLNC) on Saturday voted to issue a public statement opposing Starmer's decision to remove the Parliamentary Labour Party whip from the former leader, making him an Independent MP.
Starmer withdrew the whip from Mr Corbyn's just hours after his suspension from the party was unanimously lifted by an internal disciplinary team.
He was suspended by Starmer and his puppet, General Secretary Dave Evans, on unspecified charges allegedly arising from comments he made about the Equality & Human Rights Commission report on the handling of anti-semitism complaints under his leadership.
Mr Corbyn had said that the scale of the of anti-semitism in the party had been overstated for political reasons. Something deputy leader Angela Raynor told a TV interviewer she agreed with was true.
On Monday, Ms Barnard received an email from Labour's HQ ordering her to take down the statement "immediately" as the YLNC had "misused" the party name to provide "commentary on factional disputes."
Ms Barnard said: "As chair of YLNC, it is my role to facilitate the democratic voting process when members of the committee propose statements.
"During the recent elections, I was elected as chair with 71 per cent of the vote on an unambiguously socialist platform in a result that was repeated across the Young Labour elections.
"This mandate means that I am obliged to uphold democracy, including the right of the committee to release a statement in solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn to address the demands of young members.
"Rather than trying to silence young people, unelected officials in the leader's office should consider the massive sense of betrayal that many young voters and Labour members feel about this decision.
"The actions we have seen in recent weeks undermine members' democratic rights and free expression and are a threat to the fabric of our party."
Ms Barnard warned Labour HQ that it would be a mistake to take the "unprecedented" support of young people for granted.
Young members put their faith in me as Chair of Young Labour to represent them. As a democratic socialist I stand with young members and their right to engage with the Labour party's long standing democratic traditions. Now, more than ever, young people's voices need to be heard. pic.twitter.com/LL1aHSHT2g
— Jess Barnard (@JessicaLBarnard) November 23, 2020
Alan Reading
Restore the Whip
'Moderate' Guardian spikes Steve Bell pro-Corbyn cartoon
World running out of time to avert catastrophic...


text:
June Devlog news - Snacko
Snacko
bluecurse | TBD
Farm, fish, decorate, explore, and recruit animal friends to rebuild an abandoned island!
Post news Report RSS	June Devlog
June's updates for Snacko include a new building system, a new map, and items to collect!
Posted by enralis on Jul 6th, 2019
If you've seen our roadmap, you know we were supposed to work on some existing systems like mining and fishing. Somehow along the way, we decided to completely rework the building system! The good news is, it was absolutely worth pushing everything back for it. Before I get ahead of myself and forget about everything else we did this month, let's start from the very beginning.
🍑 New resource collection nodes
Last month, you've seen the mining nodes - now are the trees! Different trees will spawn in different parts of the map every day - each tree has three growth phases, and the number of wood you can obtain from it will vary depending on which growth stage it's at. Different kinds of wood will allow you to craft different varieties of furniture, buildings, and other goodies!
🍑 New map but not really
We've started reworking the world to be more organic, as opposed to squares as before. While the farm is going to retain the shape as it is now (see below), with our new building system, we're going to have to rework the town...again! If only I had a dollar every time we remade the town...
We're planning to allow players to choose where to place their plot of farm. This could be anywhere within certain boundaries, but the size of the first plot will always be the same. Your farm is now also surrounded by water instead of cliffs, and a bridge to the east will lead you to the town and the rest of the main island.
There's a lot of fakery going on! If it's not in the camera...I won't build it ;) After making camera rotation a thing, however, there's a lot more I have to fill in compared to before. It makes world creation take longer, but the options that camera rotation open up are too good to pass up.
Unfortunately, this iteration of the town will never be playable since we're scrapping it and remaking it before the October patch. I'd like to keep the waterfalls and rivers, though. As much as they are a pain to make, they add a nice feeling to the map.
🍑 Building system rework
Ah yes, the real meat of June. The big event. A new building system! Many of you will probably have already seen the videos on Twitter or Discord - if you haven't yet, here it is:
When I started working on the new town map, I realized the tile system really limited how the map could look, especially with our new camera rotation. Everything had to be straight and on a grid, and quite frankly, it was also kind of annoying setting up the tiles (it even made the frame rate a little slower!) In the end, both recursive and I decided we had to just take away the tile system for building, and make a whole new one that could be also used for interiors as well. The new features include:
world-aligned grid snapping - this means no matter where you are on the map, you can always make a perfectly straight line, even if the building area is offset from the others.
rotate freely - rotate on 45 degree angle increments by holding CTRL and sliding your mouse...just like in the Sims! Part of October's update will also be adding additional support for controllers, although it won't be fully polished
free build mode - my personal favourite: you can go off the grid and rotate at any degree you want! Although the default is set to snapping since we feel like most players would prefer that, you can toggle on free build mode to place things wherever you'd like
placing multiple things on surfaces - as long as there's enough room, you can stuff as many things on top of a surface, such as a table or counter, as you'd like. No more messy snapping algorithms that limit how you can decorate your kitchen counters when you can just use free build mode!
dyes - certain objects, indoors or outdoors, can be dyed with items and their patterns changed. Dyes can be crafted or purchased, and items with different patterns can be purchased from certain NPCs. For example, you can keep the style of your bed frame but swap out the blanket pattern by purchasing a new blanket...you can dye it afterwards, too!
🍑 Miscellaneous things
In between all the big changes, I've made some small tweaks too. The player home has changed completely to accommodate the new camera by fading out walls, and also to accommodate a new feature we'll be working on in the future...
The different times of day also received a facelift with new lighting - I realized the nighttime lighting was hard to see on older, darker, or less saturated monitors, so I adjusted the brightness and colours to make it easier to see for everyone.
Treasure spots are also a thing - they spawn randomly just like resource nodes on the island. If you happen to find one, you can dig it up and test your luck!
That's all for the month of June. Snacko development wouldn't be possible with the generosity of our patrons - the Snackie Guild members!
💖 Links
Windows, Switch
bluecurse
Snacko.land
Dev Diary, farming, pixel art, simulation
Snacko Role Playing
Unreal Engine 4 Commercial Released 2014
bluecurse Developer
© 2010 - 2019 DBolical Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. We indies.


Ahead of tomorrow's Spring Statement, new research from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) reveals that Britain's late payment crisis is worsening.
The vast majority (84%) of small firms report being paid late, with a third (33%) saying at least one in four payments they're owed arrives later than agreed.
"Small firms will applaud healthy public finances off the back of responsible management. However, what they need to see day to day is large corporations taking a similarly responsible approach to paying suppliers. Small firms currently have billions withheld from them by large companies that pay late.
"Our late payment crisis causes the closure of an estimated 50,000 businesses a year, costing the economy £2.5 billion annually. The collapse of Carillion saw the dangers of poor payment practice writ large. The sorry episode has cost jobs and ruined lives.
"Improving the nation's productivity forecasts starts by speaking out on late payments today. In doing so, the Chancellor will send a clear message to British boardrooms. The late payment crisis will only end when we see a fundamental cultural shift in the boardroom, with those at the top collectively addressing the issue, and directors held accountable for supply chain support.
"Value Added Tax (VAT) is the most time-consuming tax for small firms to manage. A small VAT-registered business spends more than a working week every year complying with VAT admin on average. Any new consultation on VAT should not take lowering the £85,000 registration threshold as its starting point. That would be expanding a bad tax rather than reforming it.
"There are issues with firms not wanting to cross the turnover threshold, but can you blame them when registering for VAT means taking on a massive admin burden? The solution lies in a root and branch review of the VAT regime, not in suddenly dragging more small firms into it.
"The Chancellor talked about tax breaks for small firms over the weekend, but we should remember that the take from business rates alone is set to rise by an inflation-beating 3.5 per cent to £25 billion over the coming financial year. Less than 5 per cent of that will be spent on small business rates relief, to help those least able to absorb the increase.
"Many small firms are still waiting for support from the £300 million 'emergency' business rates hardship fund launched last spring. The Treasury and DCLG need to ensure that funding isn't lost once we reach April. The regressive rates regime is in urgent need of reform. We look forward to the Government delivering on the promise of more frequent revaluations.
"Plans to extend public sector IR35 rule changes to the private sector need to be developed with caution. Extending the changes too quickly, without taking the time to assess their impact on the public sector, could be disastrous for the 4.8 million-strong self-employed community. The public finances won't stay strong for long if these strivers are frozen out by employers who are scared to take them on because of IR35 changes.
"Equally, any consultation on single use plastics needs to be business-led. Small firms share the Government's aim of reducing the impact of plastics on the environment, but will need support to phase out their use.


Not only are human numbers growing exponentially, but a burgeoning middle class is consuming a diet containing a larger proportion of meat and fish. The traditional protein source for rearing pigs, poultry and fish is fishmeal, but nine billion people will need three times our planets' fish stocks to provide that fishmeal. On the other hand, apart from dumping it, the garbage from nine billion people can be destroyed or recycled. For instance, oil spills and some plastics can be destroyed by getting bacteria to eat them, the familiar technology of biodegradability. Earthworms and insects can also degrade certain organic waste such as leaf litter, manure and agricultural waste. What if biotechnology could recycle these biodegraders into replacements for fishmeal? Scientists in France, Germany, Nigeria and South Africa are keenly interested in developing such alternatives based specifically on flies.
The immature larval or maggot stages of various types of flies feed avidly on waste from livestock farms, abattoirs, vegetable farms and fruit growers, and can be processed into an excellent substitute for agricultural and aquacultural fishmeal. Maggot powder, called 'magmeal' in South Africa and Nigeria, is superior to vegetable proteins such as soya and sunflower, both in nutrient value and in efficiency of production, and has the added advantage that it is produced from waste products that must otherwise be dumped at extra cost to the environment and the consumer.
Studies conducted through Idaho State University, the University of Georgia, Humboldt University, Ebonyi State University and Stellenbosch University have shown that magmeal performed better than fishmeal as a protein source for poultry, pork and aquaculture because it is more nutritious. It contains 39–66% crude protein, 12–21% lipid, 6–8% crude fiber, all nine essential amino acids and seven other amino acids, and is also rich in B-complex vitamins, phosphorus and trace elements. The balance of the amino acid profile is good, including sufficient methionine, which can be limiting in other animal and plant protein sources. Its palatability, acceptability and digestibility are good for most types of livestock. Anti-nutritional or toxic factors, which tend to occur in plant-based protein sources, are apparently absent. The nutrient content of maggots' food has only minimal effects on the nutrient content of the resulting magmeal, providing a more consistent product.
Dietary studies of fish and poultry in which fishmeal was partially or completely replaced with magmeal showed no significant differences in protein utilisation, haematological parameters, stress indicators, feed conversion levels or growth parameters. In poultry, it also resulted in increased egg yield and egg hatchability, and is also associated with decreased gizzard erosion, a dietary deficiency disease affecting younger poultry.
The total production of fishmeal by the world's 300 fishmeal plants was about 5 million tonnes in 2006-2010, derived from about 15 million tonnes of whole fish and 5 million tonnes of trimmings from fish processed for human consumption. South Africa has an estimated demand of over 2 000 tons per month. Secondary income steams can be generated by charging waste producers for waste removal, and by harvesting the ammonia that maggots excrete.
Excitingly from an environmental and commercial perspective, the cost of harvesting and processing 1 kg of magmeal has been measured as less than 20% of that of 1 kg of fishmeal. The production of magmeal should enjoy greater price stability than fishmeal production because there were fewer price variants associated with the process. Magmeal production facilities sited near to abattoirs or farms would also help to minimise transportation costs.
The production of magmeal commonly involves three species: house flies, black soldier flies and blow flies. House flies and soldier flies breed well in poultry manure, while blow flies excel in abattoir waste. All three flies are naturally associated with humans, and have spread over much of the planet, so that obtaining stocks is not difficult.
All flies' life cycles go through three stages (egg, larva and pupa) before adulthood. To make magmeal, the maggots are harvested just before the pupal stage, and then dried by heating, milled to a very fine, rich, brown powder and packed. In a lifetime, females of these flies lay 300 and 1,200 eggs, and one kilogram of eggs can turn into over 300kg of protein about 72 hours after they hatch if enough food is available. Five tonnes of maggots, or approximately 200 million maggots, yield about a tonne of magmeal. A facility receiving 6500 litres of blood a day can feed 10 tonnes of maggots and produce two tonnes of magmeal. Because the fly population can increase by two or three orders of magnitude per generation, production is limited mainly by the availability of food.
The crucial issue in commercializing this biotechnology is scaling up the process. In South Africa the concept has been proven on a prototype fly farm that has 22 subunits, each one housing up to 0.75 million flies, and the company has developed designs for industrial plants that will produce the quantities required by the local farming industry - up to 100 tons of live larvae per day, or 840 tons of magmeal per month. The size of a factory depends on the volume of available waste, so that sites where waste production is intensive are ideal.
The design of the factory needs careful attention. It must be sufficiently well sealed to contain the adult flies, and to exclude invasion by unwanted flies of other species. Odours need to be contained too. By rearing the flies at suitable temperatures, their growth rate can be accelerated so that their food has little time to decay, and careful regulation of the ratios of food to maggots can ensure that little food remains to rot and smell. Subdivision of the rearing facility can help to contain infections that maggots are occasionally prone to – yes, even maggots get diseases – and to stagger the production of cohorts of larvae and smooth the production schedule.
A facility for rearing adult broodstock should be kept separate from the area where maggots are reared for harvesting and processing. Apart from protein (to develop eggs) and carbohydrates (for energy), adult flies require a supply of water in which they will not drown.
In the processing plant, adequate heating is needed in the drying process to destroy any pathogenic organisms that were present in the food, and chemical testing should routinely ensure that there is no transfer of veterinary antibiotics or other drugs present in the maggots' food to the final magmeal product.
Flies are not the only source of protein that could ameliorate the effects of human population growth. Bacteria and algae are being investigated in Asia, and silkworm pupae have been an important dietary component for carp production in Japan and China. These innovations may be only the precursor to another ancient form of food biotechnology that is well known in Asia and Africa. Termed 'entomophagy', it is the inclusion of insects directly into our own diets.


Every First Friday, the whole of Shalom family gather together to pray for the world. On the still silence of the night, they offer before the Blessed Sacrament all the prayer intentions coming through a post, phone, e-mail, and fax. Simultaneously, special prayer service for the public is conducted within the office of Shalom.
This entry was posted in Shalom Night Vigil, Shalom Television and tagged night vigil, shalom, Shalom Television, shalom tv, testimonies, testimony. Bookmark the permalink.


Lockwood Park will play host to the Yorkshire v Durham County games on Saturday 9th May 2015.
The action packed day starts with the Ladies match which kicks off at 12.30pm followed by the men's game at 3pm. Tickets are priced at £10 (under 18's free) pay on the gate.
The Rugby Club will also be hosting a sponsors lunch for potential sponsors for the 2015/16 season prior to kick-off.
For more information please contact the Club on 01484 469801.


A: Pilates is a form of exercise that was created by Joseph Pilates. It is a "core" strengthening system of exercises that balances and heals the chronic weaknesses in the body. It focuses on Strength, Stamina, Stability and Stretch. It is a very focused form of exercise which is why Joseph Pilates called this "Contrology". You will see both Eastern and Western influences in Pilates.
Q: WHAT IS The Pilates Room?
A: We are a "classical" Pilates studio. Here we focus on the classical system of the method that Joseph Pilates invented. We offer both mat and equipment work which is what Joseph Pilates practiced. The staff is fully certified to keep you safe.
Q: HOW DOES PILATES DIFFER FROM YOGA?
A: Pilates focuses more on Core Strength and the abdominals—known as the "Power House" in Pilates. Pilates will help the mind learn to better work the muscles in balance. It is a more fitness based method.
Q: WHT SHOULD I EAT BEFORE CLASS?
A: If you can avoid it, please try not to eat at least one to two hours prior to Pilates. If you need to, eat something small and lean or non-bloating. Since Pilates work begins at the center of the body (the abdominals), you will feel a large meal during the work!
A: NO PROBLEM! You do not have to be flexible to do Pilates. In fact, many dancers that come to Pilates are coming to learn to better control the body's flexibility. Pilates certainly will help your flexibility! At The Pilates Room you will not be doing choreography, you will be doing Pilates!
Q: SHOULD I DO PILATES WITH EQUIPMENT OR ON THE MAT?
A: We like to say, "Do Pilates in all your workouts!" Whether you're running or on the reformer. But, to answer this question—the equipment will give you resistance that may enhance your workout and it may offer you some opportunities to try additional exercises. The equipment gives you deeper work and can be more advanced. However, you can also advance on the mat and it will offer you a fantastic workout—you provide your own resistance! The group setting is motivating and it is a cost effective way to add Pilates into your weekly routine!
Q: WHAT IF I HAVE A BAD KNEE OR BACK?
A: Our instructors are trained in all body issues. Please tell your instructor about your condition so he/she may design that workout to help you. If your condition is serious and painful at all times, please see your doctor first. If you are in recovery and are okayed by a doctor, you're okay to do Pilates! In fact, the doctor may recommend it. We will modify the exercises so you get a fantastic workout without strain on the injury.
A: Please wear something you feel comfortable in and that covers the body well. Bike shorts or long shorts are recommended for men (or women) and snug fitting exercise pants for women. Please try to avoid over-sized t-shirts as it is difficult to see the body lines. Wear clean socks or clean bare feet. We sanitize our equipment and mats after each use.
Q: IS PILATES FOR MEN TOO?
A: Absolutely! Joseph Pilates (a man!) worked with many men in the beginning! In fact, he did Pilates quite vigorously. Because so many dancers came to him in the early days, Pilates became very popular with the dance community and developed into a very female clientele. However, men do it all the time—many professional athletes!


text:
"""Abstract Workflow Engine."""
import os
import pkgutil
from importlib import import_module

from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured
from django.utils._os import upath

class InvalidEngineError(Exception):
    """Raised when an invalid engine is requested."""

    pass

class BaseEngine:
    """Base class for all engines in Resolwe workflow."""

    name = None

    def __init__(self, manager, settings=None):
        """Construct a Resolwe engine."""
        self.manager = manager
        self.settings = settings or {}

    def get_name(self):
        """Return the engine name."""
        return self.name

def load_engines(manager, class_name, base_module, engines, class_key='ENGINE', engine_type='engine'):
    """Load engines."""
    loaded_engines = {}

    for module_name_or_dict in engines:
        if not isinstance(module_name_or_dict, dict):
            module_name_or_dict = {
                class_key: module_name_or_dict
            }

        try:
            module_name = module_name_or_dict[class_key]
            engine_settings = module_name_or_dict
        except KeyError:
            raise ImproperlyConfigured("If {} specification is a dictionary, it must define {}".format(
                engine_type, class_key))

        try:
            engine_module = import_module(module_name)
            try:
                engine = getattr(engine_module, class_name)(manager=manager, settings=engine_settings)
                if not isinstance(engine, BaseEngine):
                    raise ImproperlyConfigured("{} module {} class {} must extend BaseEngine".format(
                        engine_type.capitalize(), module_name, class_name))
            except AttributeError:
                raise ImproperlyConfigured("{} module {} is missing a {} class".format(
                    engine_type.capitalize(), module_name, class_name))

            if engine.get_name() in loaded_engines:
                raise ImproperlyConfigured("Duplicated {} {}".format(engine_type, engine.get_name()))

            loaded_engines[engine.get_name()] = engine

        except ImportError as ex:
            # The engine wasn't found. Display a helpful error message listing all possible
            # (built-in) engines.
            engine_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(upath(__file__)), base_module)

            try:
                builtin_engines = [name for _, name, _ in pkgutil.iter_modules([engine_dir])]
            except EnvironmentError:
                builtin_engines = []

            if module_name not in ['resolwe.flow.{}.{}'.format(base_module, builtin_engine)
                                   for builtin_engine in builtin_engines]:
                engine_reprs = map(repr, sorted(builtin_engines))
                error_msg = ("{} isn't an available dataflow {}.\n"
                             "Try using 'resolwe.flow.{}.XXX', where XXX is one of:\n"
                             "    {}\n"
                             "Error was: {}".format(
                                 module_name, engine_type, base_module, ", ".join(engine_reprs), ex
                             ))
                raise ImproperlyConfigured(error_msg)
            else:
                # If there's some other error, this must be an error in Django
                raise

    return loaded_engines

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Once in a while, something comes out that I just want to tell the world about. DropBox for SharePoint Server by Stephane Eyskens (MVP) is one of those things.
I've used DropBox for a long time now, mainly for sharing files with friends and family. I like it because it's easy to use, it's free and I use it for what its intended for – basically a file share in "the cloud".
It's funny because the things I like about it are also the same things I don't like about utilizing it for proper collaboration. For example, I like that it sync's the files/folders to my local hard drive. However, I would not love that idea for a team collaborative solution for many reasons, some of which include security, co-authoring, versioning, not to mention when someone deletes a file/folder, that same file/folder is deleted from MY hard drive the next time it syncs. This will happen if they deleted it intentionally, or not (which HAS happened to me).
I also like DropBox because I can use an iPhone App (which honestly only comes in handy once in a great while). Viewing documents on a 3" screen is less than ideal. I suppose it would make sense if I used an iPad (which I don't). I do, however, use a MacBook Air which is about as small as an iPad… and it works out very well.
But no matter how you slice it, DropBox is not a collaboration platform. SharePoint, on the other hand, very much is a collaboration platform. So if you could take the things I like about DropBox, and add it to SharePoint, it would be two great tastes that go great together!
It's free and can be downloaded from CodePlex.
This entry was posted in Collaboration, SharePoint. Bookmark the permalink.


Exhibitus Design Company, a custom exhibit company with offices in Atlanta and Chicago, put together 150 boxes of toiletries to help formerly homeless Veterans at Freedom's Path Augusta settle into their new homes.
When Vets move into a Freedom's Path property, they are often in need of basic supplies, like toiletries, linens, and cookware. As a small non-profit organization, Solutions for Veterans relies on the generous contributions of local supporters to make the transition out of homelessness easier for our residents.
The work we do at Solutions for Veterans simply wouldn't be possible without the incredible support we receive from our communities. The Exhibitus Chicago office will also be making toiletries boxes for residents at Freedom's Path Hines. A huge thanks to Exhibitus for taking the time to help our Veterans.
© Solutions for Veterans, Inc.