text:
Q: Configure static IPv6 on Ubuntu I'm trying to configure IPv6 on a dedicated Ubuntu server. My provider gave me a "/64" (whatever that is - I'm still confused) of IPv6 addresses.
However, when I try to use them, I can't ping anything. What do I do? :(

# ping6 ipv6.google.com
    PING ipv6.google.com(vx-in-x63.1e100.net) 56 data bytes
    From fe80::219:d1ff:fefb:42d8 icmp_seq=1 Destination unreachable: Address unreachable
    From fe80::219:d1ff:fefb:42d8 icmp_seq=2 Destination unreachable: Address unreachable
    From fe80::219:d1ff:fefb:42d8 icmp_seq=3 Destination unreachable: Address unreachable

     --- ipv6.google.com ping statistics ---
    3 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet loss, time 2014ms

# tracepath6 ipv6.google.com
    1?: [LOCALHOST]                        0.025ms pmtu 1500
    1:  fe80::219:d1ff:fefb:42d8%eth0                       2000.022ms !H
    Resume: pmtu 1500

# cat /etc/network/interfaces
    # The loopback network interface
    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback

    # The primary network interface
    auto eth0
    iface eth0 inet static

    address 64.***.***.***
    netmask 255.255.255.248
    gateway 64.***.***.***

    iface eth0 inet6 static
    pre-up modprobe ipv6
    address 2607:F878:1:***::1
    netmask 64
    gateway 2607:F878:1:***(same as address)::1

# ifconfig
    eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:d1:fb:42:d8
         inet addr:64.***.***.***  Bcast:64.***.***.***  Mask:255.255.255.248
         inet6 addr: fe80::219:d1ff:fefb:42d8/64 Scope:Link
         inet6 addr: 2607:f878:1:***::1/64 Scope:Global
         UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
         RX packets:52451 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:39729 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
         RX bytes:6817761 (6.8 MB)  TX bytes:6153835 (6.1 MB)
         Interrupt:41 Base address:0xc000

    lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
         inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
         inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
         UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
         RX packets:166 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:166 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
         RX bytes:31714 (31.7 KB)  TX bytes:31714 (31.7 KB)

A: Default Gateways work a bit differently on IPv6.
What I suggest you do is fire up tcpdump and watch it for Router Advertisements (you might want to analyse the capture in WireShark - much easier). This is how your IPv6 host knows how to get out to the internet. Also watch for Neighbor Solicitation as this is the replacement for ARP.
If you see these requests coming in, but not going back out, then your internal firewall is blocking IPv6 traffic. If you see them going out (requests), but not back in, then you need to make sure that your prefix length is correct (that's the /64 part. Although I've seen a lot of /64s being passed out that are actually a /48).
Big Important Bold Bit
ICMP is absolutally critical for IPv6 functionality. In IPv4 it can be blocked without huge impact, but in IPv6, the whole network relies on ICMP for all its functionality. Don't block it.
In reference to

My provider gave me a "/64" (whatever
  that is - I'm still confused) of IPv6
  addresses

That's your Prefix Length, previously known as your Subnet Mask that's used for CIDR. The lower the number, the more IP addresses you have. For IPv6, /64 and /48 are very common and should give you more IP addresses than you will ever need in your entire life.

A: Don't set the gateway on the host acting as the router to itself.  If your ISP provided a gateway address, use that as the gateway on the host, or let the host use router announcements to configure itself.   The gateway address should never be the same as the server's own address.  The address being used to route for other hosts should not have a gateway assigned.
Your ISP may have provided you with an address for your external (Internet) interface. Configure your eth0 interface using that with the corresponding gateway address if it is provided.  Use the /64 address on your internal interface (eth1) if you have one.  You will also want to setup radvd to run on that interface.
If you don't have an internal interface you can add a static address in your /64 range by adding a line to your inet6 configuration like.
up ip -6 addr add 2607:F878:***::2 dev eth0

Get to know the ip commands such as ip -6 addr, ip -6 route, and ip -6 neigh.  It is common to have multiple addresses and routes.

A: It's impossible to provide a complete answer without knowing the full data your ISP provided you for your configuration.
There are two ways your provider could route your /64 to you.
Ideally: Provider provides two network addresses. One for your link to the provider (e.g. 2001:db8:1001:abcd::/64), in which case likely they'd give you a gateway address on that network (e.g. 2001:db8:1001:abcd::1) as well as telling you to use a particular address for your host (e.g. 2001:db8:1001:abcd::1001:feaf). The second network address would be your /64 for your internal network (e.g. 2001:db8:1001:feaf::/64). Your host would configured with the above interface address would act as gateway for this network. Assuming you had ethernet interfaces eth0 facing the provider and eth1 facing your internal network, you'd configure your interfaces file (IPv6 portions) as follows:
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet6 static
   pre-up mod probe ipv6 # This shouldn't be necessary, make IPv6 a default mod
   address 2001:db8:1001:abcd::1201:feaf
   netmask 64
   gateway 2001:db8:1001:abcd::1

auto eth1
face eth1 inet6 static
  address 2001:db8:1001:abcd:feaf::1
  netmask 64

This should get you to the point of being able to ping various places on the internet via your provider from the gateway host.
To get your internal hosts working, you might need to take some extra steps such as turning on forwarding for IPv6 packets, making sure that ip6tables is configured to allow forwarding of the packets you want to forward, etc.
As mentioned earlier, blocking ICMP6 will mess up your IPv6 connectivity.
If your provider expects you to use SLAAC on the link, then you'll need a different (dynamic) configuration which is a bit counterintuitive, but that's unlikely because your provider would need to know how to route your internal /64 to your dynamic address.
The second possible way this can be done is essentially bridged networking where your host acts as a bridge rather than a router. In this case you wouldn't have the eth1 connection and all your hosts would be on the same LAN segment as your provider and eth0 (either physically or via bridging interfaces).

A: TLDR; In IPv6 let the host use your network gateway advertised address; only configure the host IP address/mask (and optionally DNS).
In IPv6 you can configure the host IPv6 address statically, obtain one via a DHCPv6 server on your net or simply autoconfigure it (the recommended way). In fact, all IPv6 enabled hosts have several IPv6 addresses for distinct uses. The address using your IPv6 prefix is meant for public internet traffic.
In general, all entities are given an /64 range, meaning that the first 64 bits of all addresses in the range are fixed and pertain to the entity; the remaining 64 bits are for use of its own hosts. This private part could be subdivided for use in each facility of the entity (campuses, branch offices, etc.) but, of course, some addresses should be used by routers as gateway addresses for routing purposes and they could not be used for other hosts.
In fact, the specific routing information of the hosts come from the IPv6 gateway router in your net which advertises its own address periodically or on petition using packets called "Router advertisements" o RAs.
Your server, upon IPv6 module activation, generates some own "Link local" address automatically and asks the net for available routes to the IPv6 multicast address ff02::2: (meaning "all IPv6 routers"). Your IPv6 router responds to your host with info about gateway address and DNS information. Then, using this data, the host generates another additional address in the range provided by the router to be used as its public IPv6 address (There exist several ways to generate this address, some of them trying to make it random to avoid personal identification issues).
So the gateway IPv6 info should not provided statically; it's responsibility of the router operating as gateway to provide it, and it should be configured with the proper address range by your ISP or your network admin.
That said, if you still want an specific address asigned to your host, you make it up using the first defined 64 bits (like the "2607:F878" part you shown) and selecting the rest so it does not conflicts with other IPv6 hosts in your net. So, you can build IPv6 addresses in a /64 prefix changing only the xxxx data in the address:
2001:0db8:0000:0000:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx

Of course, selecting a random value, say, 2607:F878::be15, could have a low probability of being used, but that is the purpose of the protocol shown above: the host determines automatically if the generated address is available; if not, generates another one.
Ubuntu specific IPv6 configuration.
To configure this static IPv6 address in Ubuntu you have two main options (using 2001:db8::/64 as example prefix)

*

*Using Network Manager
The address is configured in the file /etc/network/interfaces (as your config shows), indicating the name of the network interface in place of IFACE:
auto IFACE
iface IFACE static
  address 2001:db8::be15
  netmask 64

To apply, emit the command service networking restart if your system does not have systemd, or systemctl restart network-manager if it does.

*Using netplan:

The configuration is in *.yaml files in the `/etc/netplan´ directory, and they have this structure (the spacing and indentations are important):
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    IFACE:
      accept-ra: yes
      addresses:
        - 20001:db8::be15

Test the config with the command netplan generate. If there are no errors, apply it with netplan apply.


Added by Andy on November 29, 2014.
Well its taken a while due to work and other interests as well as it being December but we managed to meet up to wet this new, incredibly cheap kayak and boy oh boy were we surprised! Unpacking the kayak we expected to find a cheaply made and flimsy piece of plastic that would fall to bits given the price tag of it and the bundled gear but we must be totally honest when we say that both Wayne & I (Andy) were blown away by the quality of the finish and the good design of it. I was personally expecting a bit of a bathtub of a yak but instead found a big game lookalike and was pleased too.
We were originally offered a "Ranger" for review but I saw the Marauder and was intrigued due to the look of it and the low price tag so here we are. For me its like getting on a Prowler Big Game with £250 in my back pocket to spare. It literally feels the same as my trusty old Big Game I had for 5 years and I loved paddling it. BUT, I kept clipping the sides with my paddle which eased off after a while as I adjusted my stroke to the yaks width and remember I rarely paddle these days with pedalling the Outback all summer in 2014. This yak is going to sell loads in 2015 for sure! In short I'd say it'll be ideal for the larger paddler where as the Galaxy Sturgeon we recently reviewed is quicker on the water but the Marauder has got a beautiful finish to it that when sitting side saddle is comfortable and doesn't snag or rip your dry suit/wetsuit or whatever your wearing unlike others yaks out there. The gunwales are nicely rounded and are comfortable to rest your legs over.
The rudder didn't perform very well BUT I have to say its not been set up properly and was hastily rigged and simple to do too. The cord lift/dropper is too thick for me but I only used it once.
The tankwell is large enough to cater for a good size box as well as fish landed and has 2 scupper holes in it. I plugged all holes prior to launching her and the tankwell filled up pretty quickly but when I removed them it drained out and stayed empty so there's something to keep an eye on.
I think the centre hatch is awesome! the 2 separators in there make keeping your bits n bobs apart easy. The lid is thin and the hinges look a tad flimsy but again its only an initial review (1st look) at this new cheap kayak. The supplied rod holder is very tough but doesn't come with anything to keep your rod in so you'll need a leash and possibly drill for a clip.
Paddling her is okay, I kept clipping the sides at first due to the shape of the hull and not having paddled all year. Its certainly no Hobie or Ultra 4.3 (my last yak) on the water but not too slow either. It tracks superbly well due to the hull shape and recessed tracks down it but I found it pretty hard to turn quickly. The rudder blade is quite thin though and I just noticed in the video that it was pushed out and wasn't vertical so we'll need to test its holding capabilities and fit it properly as the pedals were a tad out of my reach for pressing against on the day. Remember that its about getting out there fishing safely not paddling a race and for me I think this yak will do the job nicely around the UK.
The bow hatch seems rather small to me and I think it'll struggle with a C-Tug or RUK trolley but again we need warmer weather to do it as today was the coldest we've seen so far this year so we didn't hang about.
The rear circular hatch is great for accessing the hull and storing stuff but going by experience they get sand in them and stuck or water locked and for me I think a rectangular hatch would of been a better idea with a square tankwell wall so a box fits snugly up to it and the back of the seat for access and keeping your box tightly fitted. The rear hatch is also good for installing transducers and battery holders etc.
On landing the kayak we both opened a hatch and checked for water and the hull was bone dry.
This kayak simply reminds me of the 5 years I spent fishing from the OK Prowler Big Game! So stable and safe on the sea and everything just within reach with loads of rigging opportunities. It has a large tank well for storage and also to store you're catch. The bow is quite a reach so any rod over 7ft long will suffice with an 8ft boat rod being ideal.
So far we've been pleasantly surprised by this cheap and well made fishing kayak. It really did shock us at how well its made and how stable it is on the sea. Further tests and findings will be posted during 2015 as we go and as usual we'll be honest and forth coming on the findings. So far we see a sturdy, stable sea worthy kayak that looks a genuinely good deal. If your on the larger side and looking to getting into the sport on a budget then don't go past this yak without a good reason!


Located in the Etowah Valley Historic District in Bartow County, the Leake site is a prehistoric archaeological site dating as far back as 300 BC. The site contains the remnants of at least three earthen mounds and a vast moat; midden deposits with artifacts from everyday and ceremonial activities; former structures; and human burials.
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Why is the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation's Places in Peril list necessary? What can you do to help other Places in Peril and the Leake Site?


We were just in the Timbavati Picnic Site in the Kruger National Park in South Africa when Elize Olivier heard an unusual bird call. While looking for the bird she realized it was a baby squirrel hanging from a tree as he was caught in a thorn.
We managed to get it down to safety.
Thorn (The baby squirrel) is now doing well in the Hands of Elize and Anton Olivier in Letaba.
Parents abandon a dying Baby.


A dissertation is a document that you will be required to submit in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree program. It serves to support your candidature for the academic degree you are pursuing and the college will require that you orally present your findings to a panel as well. A good oral presentation stems from a properly written dissertation.
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text:
Q: can sessions variables be altered by the user in their browser I'm trying to learn more on sessions and I was wondering if checking if a specific session is set is enough to prevent a user from accessing a webpage without having logged in first
example:
if(!isset($_SESSION['jfn7^j3#$jnj;7gs!~']))
{
header('location:abc.php');
}

or is there a way this can be bypassed
And secondly if I initialize a session variable once  a user has successfully logged in
example:
$_SESSION['username']='MAX';

Is there a way the user can change the value of the set $_SESSION['username'] on their browser

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text:
Alex Rodgers
Computer Science, Programming, 3D Graphics, Gaming
Solar System Orrery
Cross-Platform Game Engine
Posted on February 22, 2015 by Alex Rodgers
In the first semester of my MSc Computer Science degree as part of the Games Development Architectures module we were tasked to design and implement a cross-platform game engine. A game would also be made using the engine.
The chosen platforms were a Windows PC and Windows Phone 8 device. I decided that considering Microsoft had developed a Universal Application framework for targeting both of these, I would utilise it. This was good from the point of view that it simplified the cross-platform compatibility, but introduced a few limitations (namely having to work with the Windows RT platform and resultant consequences for dealing with inputs via 'ref classes' etc.. Coming from experience with Win32 desktop programs, Windows RT feels very different to program for and much less flexible, but then again Win32 really does need some modernisation.
Engine coded in C++ (Visual Studio).
DirectX11 rendering engine component coded from scratch.
HLSL shaders.
The Universal App framework used to contain the code solution and deploy to both platforms.
We were given a design specification for a simple game called 'Tunnel Terror'. It involved the player having to control a vehicle/object through a tunnel, avoiding various obstacles. The speed would gradually increase the longer the player survived and any collisions with obstacles would result in death. Score was determined by length of survival. I decided to add various extras including power ups such as coins and a randomised speed-up/slow-down. The game would need to play on both a PC and Windows Phone 8 device, allowing for the differing input controls to play. I decided the PC would utilise keyboard whereas the phone would rely on the accelerometer (tilt) sensor to manoeuvre the player through the tunnel. The PC also required a 2 player mode. Main menu, high score table and game over screens would be needed as well as Multiple camera modes such as first-person, third-person and death fly-by cameras.
Although marks were given for the game implementation and extra features, much of the module was graded based on the engine design, implementation and accompanying report. My report justified the design based on four principles of games architecture, namely 'Simplicity', 'Reusability', 'Abstractness' and 'Modularity'. Below is an example of the UML design used for my engines platform independent rendering component, with examples given to how behaviour could be derived for both DirectX and OpenGL.
In the report we also had to research how we would have implemented the game on next-generation architecture such as the PlayStation 4 and how the engine would deal with the addition of different kinds of input devices.
There were some marks awarded for graphics quality and since the target platforms were both Microsoft, DirectX11 was used for the graphics. I implemented normal bump mapping to give it a nice look when flying down the tunnel. I also randomly changed the textures of each tunnel section and reset them to the end of the sequence once passing behind the frustum to give the impression of an endless tunnel with non-repeating sections.
Annoyingly because the game is a Windows Store application there is no runnable executable so without actually publishing it to the Store and getting past all the certification requirements I cannot put it up anywhere to play! What is worse though is that currently I know of no screen capture software that can even record footage of the game running (at a decent FPS), both Fraps and Bandicam do not capture it since it's not a desktop application. Bandicam does have desktop capture support but this also didn't seem able to see the game and is not suitable for high frame-rate applications. So, as it stands I can't make a video of the game running without hardware recording. Hopefully, this is something that won't always be the case.
I was very pleased with the final engine and received a 92% grade for the module. I have since improved upon it and reused design elements for subsequent modules such as Real-time Graphics. I think a lot of what I coded for this project will be extremely useful going forward.
Posted in 3D Graphics, Game Development, Programming	| Tagged 3D Graphics, Bump Mapping, Computer Science, coursework, dev, DirectX, Game, games, Graphics, Hull University, Metro, Programming, Project, Windows Phone, Windows Store, WP8	| Leave a reply
Bit's Blitz – Puzzle Game
In the third year of my Computer Science BSc (2013) as part of the Commercial Games Development module, we were placed into groups and tasked to produce a computer themed game designed for children. Each of the group members had to produce a game design document, one of which would be chosen for the group to develop. My group consisted of me, Aaron Ridge, Michael Killingbeck, Andrew Woodrow, Joshua Twigg and Alex Lynch.
The group decided to go with my game design which was inspired by the classic puzzle game Chip's Challenge, with the idea being to reimagine it and modernise the graphics.
Game synopsis:
"'Bit's Blitz' is a fun 2D puzzle game following the escapades of its protagonist 'Bit'. The game takes place across a series of levels increasing gradually in difficulty, gradually introducing new game-play elements. The player controls 'Bit' around a grid, constrained by a series of maze-like blocks and hazards. 'Bit' must successfully collect all the computer components that are scattered around the level and then repair his computer to proceed to the next level."
Developed using C# and the XNA framework for the PC platform (Windows XP+).
The nice thing about this game design was that we could focus on the puzzle aspect of the game, time and imagination permitting, due to the simple overhead on technical implementation. The tile-based game engine was written from scratch using XNA, utilising XML data structures to store level data and a custom made loader. A cool and free little program called Tiled was used to 'paint' the level layout and export it into our XML format. I'd strongly recommend this to any considering 2D tile-based games for constructing levels, having said that, it's a nice programming exercise to develop your own editor if you get the chance.
All gameplay aspects including animations and particle systems were programmed for the game, using no other libraries except XNA. I designed the game framework based on the State Design Pattern which worked out really well and continue to use it for game development.
With the use of XML and Tiled it allowed us to churn out level designs at an alarming rate and the final product has over 20 levels! Not bad considering the 2 week development time. When giving the presentation of the game, we literally only had time to demonstrate about 5 of the best levels, odd considering level variety tends to be in short supply for prototypes.
Sound effects were added (free assets) however I've removed these from the video and added music since honestly, they weren't brilliant! The above gameplay video demonstrates various levels (played by me). I could barely remember most of the levels so it's pretty much a blind play-through with some genuine mistakes.
For the project we all chipped in and the group worked well together. The game was never released or published anywhere, though if anyone is interested I could stick the executable on here for download.
Posted in 2D Graphics, Game Development, Programming	| Tagged Bit's, Blitz, BSc, C#, Challenge, Chip's, Commercial Game Development, Computer Science, coursework, dev, Game, games, Group, Hull University, indie, Project, Puzzle, State Design Pattern, Team, Tile Engine, Tiled, XML, XNA	| Leave a reply
3D Graphics Amiga Art BSc C# C++ Cleaner Competition Computer Science coursework Degree Demo dev Development DirectX Dissertation Engine Game games gaming Geometry Graphics Hull University Implicit indie lighting Mobile Monogame MSc MSc degree in Computer Science OpenGL phong physics Programming Project Ray Marching ray tracing Rendering Review RPG Shader simulation Video Windows Phone XNA

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text:
Q: Get the full element instead of just the text or a specific attribute with cheeriogs
I would like to print this complete element:
Argentina - Liga Profesional Argentina

But when I try to retrieve Regiao without adding Region.text() or Region.attr(), the script runs endlessly. Is there any way to receive the entire element and not just the text or a specific attribute?
function test() {
    var url = 'https://int.soccerway.com/';

    const contentText = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url).getContentText();
    const $ = Cheerio.load(contentText);

  var Regiao = $('#date_matches-87 > th:nth-child(1) > h3');
    Logger.log(Regiao);
}

CheerioGS documentation:
https://github.com/tani/cheeriogs
Google App Script Library ID for CheerioGS:
1ReeQ6WO8kKNxoaA_O0XEQ589cIrRvEBA9qcWpNqdOP17i47u6N9M5Xh0


text:
Archived Event/
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A C Grayling
The Age of Genius
May/
We The Curious
Thu 26 May 2016,
Book ticketTerms and Conditions
Description Biography
A C Grayling explores the story of seventeenth-century Europe and the birth of the modern mind. He argues that it was a time of creativity unparalleled in history before or since, and reveals how a fundamentally new way of perceiving the world emerged, as reason rose to prominence over tradition and the rights of the individual took centre stage in philosophy and politics, a shift that would define Western thought for centuries to come.
Image credit: Adele Hampton
A C Grayling is Master of the New College of Humanities and a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over 30 books on philosophy and other subjects, including The Good Book, Ideas that Matter, Liberty in the Age of Terror, The God Argument and The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind. He has been a columnist for the Guardian and the Times, is the Editor of Online Review London and is a contributing editor of Prospect magazine. Follow him on Twitter @acgrayling
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text:
\subsection{Dataset}
\hl{explain the problem of sessionization in online radio.}
The dataset that we used comes from user interaction data from Pandora \hl{define a macro}.
We define a user sessions in online radio
\hl{citation} as a period of continuous listening, demarcated
by breaks or pauses of 30 minutes or longer, i.e. a new session is started
if a user is inactive (doesn't interact with the application actively) for more than 30 minutes.

We collected data of a uniform random subset of the users during one month, resulting
in a dataset of ??? users, with ??? sessions in total. A description of the dataset can be seen
on Table \ref{table:dataset}.

\subsubsection{Data exploration}

In order to investigate the predictive power or different features in our dataset we
performed some exploratory analysis focusing on different dimensions of the data.

We start by showing the empirical cumulative distribution of the session duration
data in Figure \ref{fig:eCDF_duration}.

\begin{figure}
	\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{length-hist-combined.pdf}
	\caption{eCDF of the session duration in seconds.}
	\label{fig:eCDF_duration}
\end{figure}

Demographic features like age and sex are available for most users, so we can make use of those
in order to make better predictions. \hl{explain better what is in the table, some cool thing for the reviewer from the table, and why is necessary to have it.} For example can see how age affects the statistics of session duration
in Table \ref{table:age}.

\begin{table}
	\begin{center}
	\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|}
		\hline
		Age group & \textbf{Mean} & \textbf{SD} & \textbf{Median} \\
		\hline
		[0, 18] & 2658.76 & 3528.17 & 1536 \\
		\hline
		(18, 25] & 2924.44 & 4108.25 & 1576 \\
		\hline
		(25, 35] & 3729.84 & 5529.86 & 1873 \\
		\hline
		(35, 45] & 4450.44 & 6556.03 & 2139 \\
		\hline
		(45, 65] & 5279.48 & 7452.42 & 2501 \\
		\hline
		(65, $\infty$) & 4997.25 & 7212.07 & 2437.5 \\
		\hline
	\end{tabular}
	\caption{Statistics on the duration of sessions according to age group.}
	\label{table:age}
	\end{center}
\end{table}

\subsection{Goodness of fit analysis}
\hl{introduce better why we do goodness of fit, why distribution of time session length matter, how we do it, cite some paper to justify the choice of distributions}

By fitting a distribution to each user we are able to obtain a parametric model that allows
us to answer questions like: ``What is the probability that a session will last longer
than X seconds?'' or ``What is the estimated amount of time a session will last, given its current
duration X'' on a per-user basis.
Being able to answer such question allows for optimization of the recommendation strategies,
in terms of exploration vs. exploitation, and improvement of the user experience for example in
terms of scheduling advertisements.
Having access to a parametric distribution makes answering these types
of questions in real-time trivial.

For our investigation we chose to use 3 of the most popular distributions for parametric
survival modeling: The Weibull, log-logistic and gamma distributions \cite{kleinbaum2005}.
These distributions have been used in the past to model the behavior of users in online
platforms for tasks such as modeling the dwell time for website visits \cite{liu2010weibull}, or
the absence time of users returning to websites \cite{dupret2013absence}.

The fitting method we used is the method of moments estimation.
We then
investigate the goodness of fit of the distributions according to two goodness of fit measures:
The Anderson-Darling and Cram\`{e}r von Mises statistics \cite{citation, explain a little bit for the reviewer why they are important}. In Tables \ref{table:cvm} and
\ref{table:ad} we can see some descriptive statistics about the measures. For both
measures the p-value of the paired Wilcoxon signed rank test is close to 0, so we can reject the
null hypothesis that the shift in between the two distributions is 0.

\begin{table}
	\begin{center}
		\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|}
			\hline
			Distribution & Median & Mean & Max \\
			\hline
			Gamma & 0.0984 & 0.157 & 8.644 \\
			\hline
			Weibull & 0.0833 & 0.123 & 4.371 \\
			\hline
		\end{tabular}
	\end{center}
	\caption{Statistics for the Cram\`{e}r von Mises goodness of fit measure (lower indicates better fit)}
	\label{table:cvm}
\end{table}

\begin{table}
	\begin{center}
		\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|}
			\hline
			Distribution & Median & Mean & Max \\
			\hline
			Gamma & 0.7406 & 1.136 & 38.61 \\
			\hline
			Weibull & 0.5588 & 0.7754 & 21.87 \\
			\hline
		\end{tabular}
	\end{center}
	\caption{Statistics for the Anderson-Darling goodness of fit measure (lower indicates better fit)}
	\label{table:ad}
\end{table}

\subsection{Distribution of model parameters}

In the previous section we showed that the Weibull distribution presents the best fit for most
of the users in our sample. In this section we investigate the distribution of the parameters of the
fitted Weibull distributions. What we want to investigate is whether the parameters exhibit some
structure that would give us an idea of a ``typical'' user behavior. These parameters can then for
example be used as starting points for new users for which we have no data.

The Weibull distribution is characterized by two parameters: \textit{shape}, and \textit{scale} ($k$  and $\lambda$ respectively). The
scale parameter gives us an indication about how the ``time-to-failure'' which in our case is the
time until the end of a session evolves over time. A value $k < 1$ suggests an ``infant mortality'' phenomenon: Items
can be defective from the start and fail quickly, but as time goes on, the failure rate decreases as
faulty items get weeded out.This phenomenon is called ``negative aging''. A value of $k = 1$ is equivalent to the
exponential distribution, where the failure rate remains constant. When $k > 1$ the failure rate
increases with time, in our case sessions that last longer are more likely to end sooner, also
called ``positive aging''.

In Figure \ref{fig:shape_ecdf} we can see the empirical cumulative distribution function (eCDF) for the
shape parameter. The $x$ axis has been limited to the $99$th percentile ($k <= 3.5$) to facilitate plotting.

\begin{figure}
	\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{weibull_shapes_ecdf.pdf}
	\caption{eCDF for the shape parameter of the fitted Weibull distributions (x axis limited at the $99$th percentile, $k \le 3.55$).}
	\label{fig:shape_ecdf}
\end{figure}

What we can see from Figure \ref{fig:shape_ecdf} is that about $25\%$ of the users exhibit
``negative aging'' behavior, i.e. they tend to have sessions that end quickly at first, but after
a certain point, their sessions tend to last longer.
The majority of the users have have values $k > 1$, i.e. sessions that exhibit ``positive aging'': As their sessions get longer
they become more likely to end. In Figure \ref{fig:params_2d} we can see how the parameters are concentrated around
specific values, indicating that there is some ``typical'' behavior that users follow in terms of their session length, with a peak
around a $k$ value of $1.2$ and a $\lambda$ value of 2000.

\begin{figure}
	\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{weibull_params_2d.pdf}
	\caption{Density plot of the parameters for the fitted Weibull distributions.}
	\label{fit:params_2d}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Predictive modeling}

Apart from investigating the fit of the duration to various distributions, the end would be to
be able to make a prediction about the length of a session given features about the user,
the context in which the session was started, and the interactions of the user with the service.

With that in mind we try to model the problem as a regression problem where the dependent
variable is the duration of the session, and we can use variables like the station the user started,
the time of day, and the user's skipping behavior as predictive features. Table \ref{table:features}
provides summaries for the features we included in our investigation.

\begin{tabular}{|p{1cm}|p{1.5cm}|p{1.6cm}|p{3cm}|}
	\hline
	\textbf{Feature} & \textbf{Type} & \textbf{Category} & \textbf{Description }\\
	\hline
	Age & Numeric & Static & The age of the user. \\
	\hline
	Gender & Categorical & Static & The gender of the user. \\
	\hline
	Start time difference & Numeric & Contextual & The time elapsed sine the user last started a session \\
	\hline
	Previous session duration & Numeric & Contextual & The duration of the previous session. \\
	\hline
	Station & Categorical & Contextual & The station with which the user started the session. \\
	\hline
	Listener subscription state & Categorical & Static & i.e. registered, subscribed, guest... \\
	\hline
	Device category & Categorical & Contextual & The type of device the user is accessing the service with (smartphone, web) \\
	\hline
	Skips per minute & Numeric & Contextual  & The number of songs the user has skipped during the session  \\
	\hline
	App visibility & Numeric  & Contextual  & The ratio of time the app has been in the foreground vs. the background. \\
	\hline
\end{tabular}

\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:introduction}
\input{introduction.tex}

\section{Related Work}
\label{sec:related}
\input{related.tex}

\section{Weibull analysis of session length}
\label{sec:weibull}
\input{weibull.tex}

\section{Prediction}
\label{sec:prediction}
\input{prediction.tex}

\section{Conclusions}
\label{sec:conclusions}
\input{conclusions.tex}

\bibliographystyle{ACM-Reference-Format}

\subsection{Features}

For each of the users and sessions available in our sample we collected
a number of features.
Some features, which we call ``user-based''
are features that we assume do not change between sessions, for example
the gender of a user. Other features which we call ``contextual'' can change
every time a user starts a new session, for example the type of network or device
that a user was using when they started the session, or the length of their last session.
We provide a summary of some of these
features in Table \ref{tab:prediction-features}, separated into user-based and contextual
features.

\subsection{Model}

\label{subsec:model}

We selected gradient boosted trees (GBTs) \cite{friedman2001gbt} as our model
for a number of reasons: First, because our dataset contains missing data, the algorithm we chose had to be able to handle them explicitly, which decision trees do.

Second, the method should allow for proper modeling of non-negative data.
For such data it is possible to log-transform the dependent and use a squared error objective,
but using an objective function that is better fitted to the distribution of the dependent is
often desirable, which is a common use-case for Generalized Linear Models.
GBTs provide a flexible
optimization framework that allowed us to do just that.
To test both approaches,
we first log-transformed the dependent
and used a root mean squared error objective,
then ran the same experiments again, this time selecting the log-likelihood objective of a Gamma distribution with a log link function,
which allows for explicit modeling of right-skewed, non-negative data. In Section \ref{sec:experiments} we refer to these models
as \textit{linear} and \textit{Gamma} respectively.

Finally, we tested two versions of each model. One aggregated where a single model was created
using the data of all the users, and one per-user, where we separately trained one model
per user, using only the data originating from that user for the training and testing.
This meant that only contextual and not user-level features could be used
to train the per-user models.
This way we tested the trade-off between
the statistical power that a large dataset provides versus having personalized models.

\begin{table}
	\caption{Example user-based and contextual features used in the models.}
	\label{tab:prediction-features}
	\begin{tabular}{ll}
		\toprule
		Feature & Description\\
		\midrule
		Gender & The gender of the user \\
		Age & The age of the user \\
		Subscription Status & Whether the account is ad-supported \\
		\midrule
		Device & The device used for the session \\
		Network & The type of network used for the session \\
		Previous duration & The duration of the user's last session \\
		Absence time & Time elapsed since the last session \\
		\bottomrule
	\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\section{Experiments}

\label{sec:experiments}

The baseline model we tested against is the per-user mean session length;
that is, we calculated the mean session length in the training set for each user, and used that value
to make all predictions for each session that user had in the test set. This gave us a baseline
that is simple, but personalized to account for the differences in listening habits between
users.

Because we are focusing on direct length prediction rather than survival probability
\cite{Barbieri2016RSFclick}, thresholded duration classification \cite{lalmas2015gemini}, or
distribution parameter estimation \cite{Kim2014satisfaction, liu2010weibull}, most of the
related work models used in search and ad click scenarios are not directly applicable. Therefore
we don't include them in our comparison.

We used 10-fold cross validation, and stratified our sample per user to ensure that every user
had data points both in the train and test set of each split.

To ensure that we have enough data points per user, we only retained users
that had at least 20 sessions recorded.
The resulting dataset had 3,563,544 sessions.
Due to the size of the dataset we chose to use
the \textit{xgboost} \cite{Chen2016xgboost} variant of GBTs which is
implemented with scalability in mind, utilizing parallel, cache-aware,
and out-of-core computation to handle massive data sets. The parameters
for xgboost were selected through cross-validation on a separate validation set.

\subsection{Metrics}

We chose two evaluation metrics to measure the performance of our algorithms.
The first was the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), which is a common choice for regression problems.
In particular we used the normalized variant of the measure (nRMSE), which is simply the RMSE scaled
by the mean value of the dependent, $\bar{y}$.

Large errors can be observed more often when the distribution
of the dependent variable is highly skewed as it is in our case (see Figure \ref{fig:duration-hist}).
Therefore, we include the Median Absolute Error (MAE) in our analysis
due to its robustness to outliers. This way
a few very large errors will not affect the metric disproportionately, compared to taking the mean.
For confidentiality we normalize all the MAE measurements by the baseline so that it has has an
error of 1, and lower measurements are better.

\subsection{Results}

We report the performance of the various approaches in Table \ref{tab:prediction-metrics}.  As mentioned before, we refer to the models using the RMSE objective as \textit{linear} to avoid confusion
with the nRMSE metric. The linear aggregated model outperforms all models in terms of Median Absolute Error, but cannot beat the baseline on nRMSE.
The aggregated model using Gamma regression has the best performance in terms of nRMSE, but has worse
MAE than its linear counterpart. We note that it's the only model that beats the baseline in
nRMSE.

The per-user linear models outperform the baseline for MAE but not for nRMSE, similarly to the aggregated linear model.
The per-user models using Gamma regression perform similarly to the linear per-user models,
indicating that the change in objective function becomes less important in small data domains.

\begin{table}
	\caption{Performance metrics for length prediction task. We report the
		mean value across the 10 CV folds, and the standard deviation in parentheses.}
	\label{tab:prediction-metrics}
	\begin{tabular}{lll}
		\toprule
		Method (\textit{Objective}) & Normalized MAE & nRMSE \\
		\midrule
		Baseline & 1 \textit{(0.001)} & 1.16 \textit{(0.005)} \\
		Aggregated (\textit{Linear}) & \textbf{0.71} \textit{(0.008)} & 1.23 \textit{(0.008)} \\
		Aggregated (\textit{Gamma}) & 0.93 \textit{(0.007)} & \textbf{1.10} \textit{(0.005)} \\
		Per-user (\textit{Linear}) & 0.83 \textit{(0.002)} & 1.29 \textit{(0.004)} \\
		Per-user (\textit{Gamma}) & 0.86 \textit{(0.001)} & 1.31 \textit{(0.003)} \\
		\bottomrule
	\end{tabular}
\end{table}

What these results indicate is that
the aggregated model using the Gamma regression objective is able to place the mean of the distribution more accurately because it
places more probability mass in the right tail of the distribution. The linear models place more of their probability mass closer
to the origin, allowing them to better capture the shorter sessions that are over-represented in the data, but as
a result miss many of the longer (outlier) sessions. This causes their mean-based metrics to suffer, while median metrics
benefit.

We also see that the per-user models mostly perform worse than their aggregated counterparts. This can be explained by the
fact that per-user models are mostly trained on few data points, and for a flexible model like GBTs, they are likely to
overfit. In this case the trade-off between having a single model trained with all the data versus
having personalized models trained on each user's data favors the aggregated model.

\subsection{Weibull Distribution Review}

\label{subsec:weibull-review}

The Weibull distribution is attractive for
survival analysis because it allows us to model different kinds of failure rates,
when the probability of failure changes over time. The probability
density function (PDF) of the distribution is:

\begin{equation}
    \label{eq:weibull-pdf}
    f(t) = \frac{k}{\lambda}\left( \frac{t}{\lambda}\right)^{k-1}e^{-(t/\lambda)^k}, t \geq 0
\end{equation}

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.47\textwidth]{weibull_hazard.pdf}
    \caption{The failure rate of the Weibull distribution for different values of the shape parameter, $k$. We set $\lambda = 1$.}
    \label{fig:weibull-failure-rate}
\end{figure}

The distribution has two parameters, $k$ and $\lambda$, which correspond to the \textit{shape}
and \textit{scale} of the distribution. The shape, $k$, determines how the elapsed
time affects the rate of failure. The scale, $\lambda$, affects the spread of
the distribution: the larger it is, the more spread out the distribution becomes.

The effect of $k$ can be better illustrated by the \textit{hazard rate} (or hazard function) which gives us the
failure rate of an item that has survived up to time $t$.
For the Weibull distribution it is given by:

\begin{equation}
    \label{eq:weibull-failure-rate}
    h(t) = \frac{k}{\lambda}\left( \frac{t}{\lambda}\right)^{(k - 1)}
\end{equation}

The effect of $k$ is illustrated in Figure \ref{fig:weibull-failure-rate}.
For values $0 < k < 1$ the hazard rate decreases as time increases. This behavior is
often described as ``negative aging'' or ``infant mortality'' failures, where defective units might
fail early on, but as time goes on and defective units get weeded out, the probability
of a unit failing decreases.
For $k > 1$ the probability of failure increases with time. This type of failures are
called ``wear-out'' failures, when units become more likely
to fail with time. For $k = 1$ the failure rate is constant and the distribution
is equivalent to the exponential distribution.

\subsection{Data}

The dataset we use comes from user interaction data from a major ad supported
music streaming service.
We define a user session as a period of continuous listening, demarcated
by breaks or pauses of 30 minutes or longer, i.e. a new session is started
if a user stops or pauses the music for 30 minutes or more.
We gathered data from a random subset of users for a period of 3 months (February-April 2016),
resulting in 4,030,755 sessions.

In Figure \ref{fig:duration-hist} we can see a histogram for the session length data. For
confidentiality reasons the x-axis has been normalized to 1000 bins.
The distribution is highly skewed to the right, with a very small number of sessions
going all the way up to the cutoff.

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.47\textwidth]{duration_hist.pdf}
    \caption{Histogram plot of session length. The x-axis has been normalized to the 1-1000 range.}
    \label{fig:duration-hist}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Analysis of user session length distribution}

\label{subsec:weibull-analysis}

For our analysis, we fit a Weibull distribution on the data of each user using Maximum Likelihood
Estimation with the \texttt{fitdistrplus} R package \cite{delignette2015fitdistrplus}.

In Figure \ref{fig:shape-ecdf} we can see the empirical cumulative distribution for the
shape parameter. We observe that the users in our sample are split approximately
down the middle, with 44\% of the users exhibiting Weibull distributions with $k <= 1$ and the rest $k > 1$.
Although not directly comparable, we note that for the dwell time on web sites after a search, 98.5\%
of the web sites visited have dwell time distributions with $k < 1$, exhibiting
almost exclusively the ``negative aging'' effect \cite{liu2010weibull}.

One consideration we should note here is that the variability in $k$ could also be caused by sampling
variability between users. We aim to investigate this through hypothesis testing in
an extended version of this work.

\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.47\textwidth]{weibull_shape_ecdf.pdf}
	\caption{The empirical cumulative distribution for the shape parameter per user.
		The x axis has been truncated at $x=4$ for readability (~99.5 \% of data points shown).}
	\label{fig:shape-ecdf}
\end{figure}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Parafia Najświętszego Serca Pana Jezusa w Wilnie – rzymskokatolicka parafia znajdująca się w Wilnie, na Wilczej Łapie, w archidiecezji wileńskiej w dekanacie wileńskim II.

Kościoły i kaplice na terenie parafii:
 kościół Opatrzności Bożej i Serca Jezusowego w Wilnie – kościół parafialny
 kaplica Chrystusa Ukrzyżowanego w Ponarach - kaplica cmentarna
 kaplica szpitalna w Wilczej Łapie

Msze święte odprawiane są w językach polskim i litewskim.

Bibliografia

Serce
Wilno

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Computer vision sensing techniques enable easy-to-install and remote non-contact monitoring of structures and have great potentials in field applications. This study will develop/implement novel computer vision techniques for two sensing systems for monitoring different aspects of infrastructures in challenging field conditions. The dissertation is therefore composed of two parts: robust measurement of global multi-point structural displacements, and accurate and robust monitoring of local surface displacements/strains.
Computer vision based displacement measurement has become popular in the recent decade. The first part presents InnoVision, a vision sensing system developed to address a number of challenging problems associated with applying vision sensors to the measurement of multi-point structural displacement in field conditions that are rarely comprehensively studied in the literature. The challenging problems include tracking low-contrast natural targets on the structural surface, insufficient resolution for long distance measurement, inevitable camera vibration, and image distortion due to heat haze in hot weather. Several techniques are developed in InnoVision to tackle these challenges. Laboratory and field tests are conducted to evaluate the performance of these techniques.
In the second part, another vision sensing system SurfaceVision is developed for accurate and robust monitoring two-dimensional (2D) structural surface displacements/strains. Important structures, such as nuclear power plants, need the continuous inspection of surface conditions. As an alternative to the human inspection, conventional digital-image-correlation (DIC) based methods have been applied to surfaces painted with speckle patterns in a controlled environment. However, it is highly challenging for DIC methods to accurately measure displacement on natural concrete surfaces in outdoor conditions with changing illumination and weather conditions. Additionally, common surface displacement measurement is based on segmenting the surface image into small subsets and tracking each subset individually through template matching, the surface displacement thus obtained has obvious discontinuity and low spatial resolution. Therefore, for applicability in the outdoor environment, SurfaceVision is proposed for accurate and robust monitoring of surface displacements/strains. Advanced computer vision techniques are developed/implemented to enable surface displacement measurement with high continuity, spatial resolution, accuracy, and robustness. An intuitive strain calculation method is also developed for converting surface displacements into surface strains. A numerical simulation is formulated based on four-point bending tests to validate the accuracy and robustness of SurfaceVision in surface displacements. Four-point bending experiments using reinforced concrete specimens are conducted to demonstrate the performance of SurfaceVision under different cases of optical noises and its effectiveness in predicting crack formations.
This item is currently under embargo. It will be available starting 2020-09-21.


Weibelzahl, S., & Weber, G. (2003). Evaluating the Inference Mechanism of Adaptive Learning Systems. In Brusilovsky, P., Corbett, A. & de Rosis, F. (Eds.), User Modeling: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence LNAI 2702 (© Springer-Verlag) (pp. 154-168). Berlin: Springer.
The evaluation of user modeling systems is an important though often neglected area. Evaluating the inference of user properties can help to identify failures in the user model. In this paper we propose two methods to assess the accuracy of the user model. The assumptions about the user might either be compared to an external test, or might be used to predict the users' behavior. Two studies with five adaptive learning courses demonstrate the usefulness of the approach.


text:
Fidelity Bank Names Mustafa Chike-Obi New Chairman
Posted by InvestAdvocate on July 6, 2020
More in Money Market:
GM, Goldman Sachs and Mastercard to Collaborate on New Credit Card Programs January 15, 2021
CBN Releases Framework for Quick Response Code Payments in Nigeria January 14, 2021
CBN Unveils Framework for Regulatory Sandbox January 14, 2021
Mustafa Chike-Obi, Chairman, Fidelity Bank Plc. Image Credit: newscolony.com
July 6, 2020/NSE
hereby notifies The Nigerian Stock Exchange and the general public of the following changes to its Board of Directors:
Mr. Ernest Ebi (MFR) who has been serving as Chairman, Board of Directors and Mr. Seni Adetu whohas been serving as an Independent Non-Executive Director, having successfully completed their tenure in accordance with the Bank's internal governance policy, will be stepping down from the Board.
Mr. Seni Adetu completed his tenure on June 30, 2020, while Mr. Ernest Ebi will step down from the Board effective August 14, 2020.
Under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ernest Ebi, the Bank recorded significant growth across key financial metrics with both Messrs. Ebi and Adetu playing significant roles, complementing management effort in the delivery of these milestones; in service of the long term vision of the Bank. The Bank's market share position has also been materially strengthened over this period.
The Board and Management of the Bank seize this Opportunity to express sincere appreciation to Messrs. Ebi and Adetu for their significant contributions to the growth and development of the Bank during their tenure on the Board.
The Board is also pleased to announce that the retiring Chairman will be succeeded by Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi. The Central Bank of Nigeria has approved the appointment. Mr. Chike-Obi is Executive Vice Chairman at Alpha African Advisory. He has over 40 years of experience in investment banking and the financial services sector, working with reputable global investment banking and asset management firms. He provides overall leadership at Alpha African Advisory and has direct oversight over the Capital raising division. Prior to joining Alpha African Advisory, he was the inaugural CEO of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), a Federal Government backed institution, established to resolve the problem of non-performing loan assets of Nigerian Banks after the 2008 global financial crisis.
Mr Chike Obi was Founding President at Madison Advisors, a financial services advisory and consulting firm in New Jersey, specializing in hedge funds and private equity investment advice. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the University of Lagos (First Class Honors) and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Mr. Ebi will however continue in the role until August 14, 2020, when the in-coming Chairman assumes office, as part of the process of ensuring a smooth and successful transition. The changes being announced further attest to Fidelity Bank's high governance standards and best practices in compliance to internal succession policies.


Sweet flip dug! Think you'll try it on snow?
Escaping the foam pit looks rough. Would it be easier to pop the skis off?
kris, if we ever get another storm and can rebuild the kicker in the backyard, i think i just might. i just need to put some lip on the kicker.
you can pop off the skis, but then you have to crawl/tunnel your way out. there is no good way, apart from losing 50 lbs.


text:
Therapists : Login | Sign Up
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Deborah Barrett Ph.D., LCSW
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Chronic Physical and Emotional Pain Disorders
Fibromyalgia can be seen as the "borderline personality" of the medical world.
Dealing with Chronic Pain
Find counselling to help with chronic pain
On the face of it, the diagnoses of fibromyalgia and borderline personality disorder have little to do with each other. Fibromyalgia is a musculoskeletal syndrome which manifests with widespread muscle and joint pain, significant fatigue, and frequently in sleep and cognitive disturbances; while borderline personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern of instability in self-image, interpersonal relationships, and emotions.
As a psychotherapist who lives with chronic pain and works primarily with people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, it is not surprising that I would see overlaps. After all, finding similarities with clients is valuable for building empathy, deepening insights, and contributing to the therapeutic alliance. However, the commonality I have found is striking—not only in some of the symptoms themselves, but also in the wider context of their social meaning and treatment. Both conditions are poorly understood problems whose prognoses depend largely on validation and pain management skill-building. Consider:
1. Bias. People with chronic pain (especially with fibromyalgia or other poorly understood pain syndromes) are often maligned as "difficult," as are people with borderline personality disorder. Many healthcare professionals prefer not to treat people with either condition. Part of this reluctance comes from professionals' own struggles and inadequacies to work effectively with people either condition. This lack of understanding can lead to invalidating responses, which negatively impact clients' experience.
2. Blame. Fibromyalgia has been criticized as a poorly defined, wastebasket category, or—even worse—a specious diagnosis of people who cannot contend with "normal" aches and pains. Similarly, people with borderline personality disorder are often blamed for their difficulties. When people think of borderline personality, the focus is often on behavior, seen as a character defect, rather than on the experience for the individual, or circumstances that led to the heightened emotionality or dysregulation. In both cases, individuals are often criticized for their inability to "get better" or "get over it," rather than treated as suffering from a challenging painful condition. Much has been written about the "controversy" of fibromyalgia, and whether reported experiences are "real." In response, patients may even doubt the legitimacy of their own experience or blame themselves for their own suffering.
3. Hypersensitivity. The underlying experience of people with borderline personality disorder is extreme emotional sensitivity: Events are more likely to be experienced as emotional, and the resultant arousal is significantly more intense and slower to recede than for other people. People with fibromyalgia suffer from hypersensitivity to physical pain, in whom seemingly benign stimuli such as noise, light, cold, or stress of any kind can exacerbate pain.
4. Overwhelming distress. Because everyone experiences distress, the significance of the pain involved for individuals with these conditions is underestimated. Sufferers can be seen as weak. However, the persistent and pervasive distress experienced by people with these diagnoses is distinct from typical or expected ups and downs. Living with borderline personality disorder has been described as existing in an emotionally flooded state or as an "emotional burn victim." The pain of fibromyalgia and related conditions can overwhelm even the most grounded of people—accounting for the high prevalence of depression among chronic pain sufferers. Symptom overlap can also occur. Emotional pain can manifest somatically; and unrelenting physical pain can magnify emotionality, alter one's sense of self, affect relationships, and increase vulnerabilities to distress. High levels of distress can make each day or moment an exercise in crisis management. People are often desperate for comfort and relief.
5. Causation. It is not yet well understood why people develop either of these disorders. However, the prevailing theories emphasize a genetic predisposition that becomes activated by environmental factors, leading to dysregulation in the central nervous system.
Fibromyalgia may also emerge from a latent vulnerability that causes trauma-based pain to become systemic rather than dissipate as expected. Research shows that it may be the same process that underlies the development of chronic pain -- whether it presents as in the jaw (TMJ) or genitals (e.g., vulvadynia) or throughout the body as fibromyalgia.
Borderline personality disorder may develop from heightened emotional vulnerability plus invalidating early childhood experiences (often abuse and neglect) that reinforce the inhibition and exaggeration of expressions of emotion and pain. The interaction between sensitivity and a pervasively invalidating environment results in overwhelming emotional experience, along with reinforced self-invalidation, rejection of self, and ineffective behavioral patterns.
Functional MRIs reveal that people with borderline personality disorder cannot access the part of the brain associated with controlling emotional intensity, and "over-function" in areas associated with fear and other strong emotions. Research suggests that fibromyalgia and related pain disorders are "central sensitivity syndromes" with neurophysiological abnormalities that include over-activation of the pain processing system.
Chronic Pain Essential Reads
Chronic Pain and Pain Assessment
Why We Struggle with Hope When We Need It the Most
Simply put, people with both disorders suffer from kinks in their emotion and pain-processing systems, respectively. Both disorders likely develop through a complex interaction of biological and environmental factors, and remain in place because of altered processing systems.
6. Prognosis. DSM-IV (the "diagnostic bible" for the mental health system) classifies borderline personality as an Axis II disorder (along with mental retardation and other personality disorders), meaning that it is life-long and pervasive. Most other common mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, are classified on Axis I, which implies that they are treatable and can remit. (We shall see if the long-awaited DSM-V amends this categorization.) Diagnoses of fibromyalgia similarly emphasize its permanence, as indicated in the phrase "chronic pain." Effective treatments for either of these disorders emphasize adaptive strategies to improve function and reduce suffering, rather than eliminate pain.
Similarities do not stop here. What helps also overlaps. Many people with emotional and physical pain turn their lives around when they become able to accept their experience as it is, while simultaneously working to change what they can control. This seemingly simple notion is both complex and learnable. In the next article, I will share observations from my work with dialectical behavioral therapy (an approach that synthesizes acceptance and change strategies) that can help individuals who suffer from distress and sensitivities of any kind.
Deborah Barrett, Ph.D., MSW, LCSW is a clinical associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Should Your Response to Pain Be Considered "Abnormal"?
Cannabis Acceptance as Legitimate Pain Relief Medication
How to Cope with Holiday Blues When Your Health Is Poor
20 Tips for Living Well with Chronic Pain and Illness
The Surprising Connection Between Pain and Your Pocketbook
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text:
Q: a simple example of crossed homomorphism for the proof of Hilbert Theorem 90 For a field extension $K/F$ and a subgroup $G$ of $Aut(K)$, A crossed homomorphism is defined to be a function $f:G \rightarrow K^*$ satisfying $$f(\sigma\tau)= f(\sigma)\cdot \sigma(f(\tau)) $$
I want to illustrate this definition with a simple example.
We use this definiton to prove Hilbert Theorem 90.
So, to obtain a simple example, I thought of a cyclic extension;
Consider the extension $\mathbb{Q}(\eta)/\mathbb{Q}, $  where $\eta^5=1$, primitive $5^{th}$ root of unity.
Clearly, the extension will be cyclic; $G=Gal(\mathbb{Q}(\eta)/\mathbb{Q})=<\sigma>$, where $\sigma: \eta\rightarrow\eta^2$, and therefore $G\cong\mathbb{Z}_4$, and cyclic.
Now, an element $\alpha\in\mathbb{Q}(\eta)$ will be of the form $\alpha=a+b\eta+c\eta^2+d\eta^3+d\eta^4$, where $a,b,c,d,e\in \mathbb{Q}$.
The Norm of $\alpha$ relative to the extension will be $N(\alpha)=\sqrt{a^2+b^2+c^2+d^2+e^2}$, (I am not right here, I need to fix my definition of Norm, $N(\alpha)=\prod_{\sigma\in G}\sigma(\alpha)$)
Now I consider $u\in\mathbb{Q}(\eta)$  to be an element with $N(u)=1$. (So I need to have $N(u)=\prod_{\sigma\in G}\sigma(u)=u\sigma(u)\sigma^2(u)\sigma^3(u)=1$ ...what does it mean for $u$?)
I define $f:G\to K^*$ as $f(id)=1, f(\sigma)=u$, and $f(\sigma^i)=u\sigma(u)\cdots\sigma^{i-1}(u)$.
The problem is now that, I can not understand how this $f$ will be a crossed homomorphism.
I can not understand the step where the proof says; $$f(\sigma^i\sigma^j)=u\sigma(u)\cdots\sigma^{i+j-1}(u) \\ =(u\sigma(u)\cdots\sigma^{i-1}(u))\cdot \sigma^i(u\sigma(u)\cdots\sigma^{j-1}(u) $$
Can anyone help me to understand this step with the help of my example?
Thanks in advance,

A: You are right up to $G \simeq \mathbb Z/4\mathbb Z$.
For the next line, note that the fifth cyclotomic polynomial is $\Phi_5 = x^4+x^3+x^2+x+1$, so that $\eta$ has degree $4$ (not $5$) over the rationals. This means that any element $a$ of $\mathbb Q(\eta)$ is a polynomial in $\eta$ of degree $3$ (not $4$).
Then, the norm is defined as the product of all (4) conjugates of $a$ : it is therefore a homogeneous polynomial of degree $4$ in the coefficients of $a$. Writing it in full would be a bit too long, so I give the particular case
$$ N(a_0 + a_1 \eta) = a_0^4 - a_1 a_0^3 + a_1^2 a_0^2 - a_1^3 a_0 + a_1^4.$$
(Note: there can never be a $\sqrt{}$ in a Galois norm, since $\sqrt{}$ is an analytic construction over the reals, while a Galois norm is a purely algebraic object).
Then, a $1$-cocycle (= crossed homomorphism) from the cyclic group $G = \mathbb Z/4/\mathbb Z$ to $K^{\times}$ is, as you suspected, determined by its value $c = f(\sigma)$ where $\sigma$ is a generator. By the cocycle relation, the next values are given by
$$ f(\sigma^2) = f(\sigma) \cdot \sigma (f(\sigma)) = c \sigma(c), \quad
 f(\sigma^3) = f(\sigma) \cdot \sigma (f(\sigma^2)) = c \sigma(c) \sigma^2(c), \quad
f(\sigma^4) = c \sigma(c) \sigma^2(c) \sigma^3(c), \dots$$
However,
 - since $G$ is cyclic, there is actually nothing more in this "$\dots$";
 - since $\sigma^4 = 1$, we must have $f(\sigma^4) = 1$, which means $c\, \sigma(c) \sigma^2(c) \sigma^3(c) = 1$;
 - this last expression is exactly the (Galois) norm of $c$.


As an alternative to purchasing stickers, Republic Services offers two refuse cart service plans on a subscription basis. Refuse carts are wheeled containers with either a 65 gallon or 95 gallon capacity and an attached lid.
A 65 gallon recycling cart is included as part of both service plans.
The monthly fee for the 95 gallon toter with a 65 gallon recycling toter is $21.34 beginning May 1, 2017 until April 30, 2018 and $21.98 per month starting May 1, 2018 until April 30, 2019. The monthly fee for the 65 gallon toter with 65 gallon recycling toter is $19.13 per month beginning May 1, 2017 until April 30, 2018 and $19.70 per month starting May 1, 2018 until April 30, 2019.
Material outside of a refuse cart still requires refuse stickers.
Each residential unit shall be entitled to one exchange for a different capacity cart or one container removal at no charge. A residential unit shall be charged $20.00 for additional exchanges or removals. Should a residential unit not return a cart after cancelling service, a charge of $70 will apply.
Please contact Republic Services at (708) 345-7050 for service plan information or visit www.republicil.com/LG.
For more information regarding the toter program please click here.


Budapest tonight – Club25, with the always magnificent Midas Fall. show starts at 8:00 pm.
thank you to everyone who came out to the inaugural / jet-lagged shows in Prague and Bratislava this past weekend. it was wonderful to see you.


St Kentigern College has confirmed to its parental community and former pupil network that it needs to review its policy on sports scholarships and change the culture of its First XV.
In a letter to parents, head of St Kentigern David Hodge and chair of the board Dr. John Kernohan say, "some re-balancing is required in our approach to our First XV programme".
The letter also suggests the decision to review the school's sporting culture has been driven by negative feedback from fee-paying parents.
Hodge and Kernohan wrote: "We share the concern passed on by a number of you that the issues raised are important and our priority is to ensure our values are firmly embedded in our sports programme, just as they are in the rest of our activities.
"The trust board and senior management will make any changes that are needed to achieve this goal."
The prestigious school was informed two weeks ago that it has effectively been kicked out of next year's 1A First XV competition for excessive poaching.
St Kentigern admitted they had offered five elite players from outside the Auckland region full scholarships to bolster their First XV in 2019.
The move was within the rules set by College Sport but the other schools in the 1A competition felt it was unethical to recruit five boys, all of whom had played First XV for other schools in 2018.
St Kentigern refused to agree to sign a guiding principles document collaboratively created by the other schools in the competition setting out expectations around recruitment quotas.
As a result, they were informed that 10 of the schools in the 1A would next year boycott playing St Kents.
After the Herald broke the story that St Kents were effectively being kicked out, there has been a deluge of media commentary that has obviously not pleased the school's wider community.
St Kentigern would now appear to be ready to change both its long-term strategy towards scholarships and recruitment, while also looking to engage with the 1A schools to see if a compromise solution can be found so they can gain re-entry to the 2019 competition.
"We have been talking with many of you and know that you share our wish to see the current matters resolved quickly and amicably in the interests of good relationships across all schools and school sports generally," the letter states.
"We are disappointed at the way this matter has evolved, as most commentators seem to agree this is a broader issue in college sports.
"Early in 2019, we will form a working group from our Community to consult with parents, students, staff and Old Collegians to prepare recommendations for changes to the sports programme to both address the issues that have been raised and ensure they do not recur in the future.
"We will review our approach to sports scholarships at the First XV level and more generally.
"In November we appointed Mr Richard Stead as the new director of sport. Mr Stead will be closely involved with this review and has our full support in moving forward with its recommendations.
"In relation to the current matter we are committed to finding a solution with the other Auckland schools and look forward to working towards this with the Independent Judicial Panel that has been set up by College Sport Auckland.
"What we want to see is that our boys get to enjoy playing rugby with their peers and that all schools have clear rules and transparency for future seasons."


Time for a catch up….
Hi again, sorry for the lack of posts, i can't believe our last was back in October, and where did all those weeks go?
The last six weeks have flown by as has the last few years, is the earth turning faster? or maybe its just that I'm getting older and time seems to be going faster?
So what have we been up to, well its been a busy six weeks here at Maison Mûrier, i was going to say that we have just been working on the interior of the house again as its much too cold to be outside, but the weather has been bizzarley warm during the days, well after midday anyway, so its been a mix of inside and outside work.
We have had some stunning sunsets, this one was taken yesterday on our way home from visiting a few vineyards as you do on a Saturday afternoon….
So whilst the weather has been good we have been in the garden tidying up for winter and also moving things around a bit. To give some winter interest, i have moved the old cart from the side of the house to under the tree outside the kitchen window, when i moved it i noticed most of the wood on the top was rotten so had to do some renovation work on it.
Ive planted the pots up with some winter flowers and spring tulip bulbs.
The wall planters have had a mixture of heathers, heres and pansies put in them.
Back inside we have moved into our own living room so that Marion and Ian can start to decorate their living room and kitchen,which we have been using for the last two years.
We have done a temporary make over to make it all cosy for winter.
Barnaby Pickles seems to like it.
We have papered the alcove walls using old 1950s newspapers that were found in a storage trunk that Marion and Ian bought.
Up in the loft we are converting to bedrooms, we have been busy finishing off lots of little jobs before we get the electrician in to do the first fix. kev has been busy pottering about with plumbing for all the ensuite bathrooms, and i have been busy chiselling out all the old pointing from one of the stone walls in the guest bathroom. We want to keep some original features to add character, this wall will eventually be repointed, you can see the difference between the right and left side of the wall, the left side will be tiled over, it sounded simple but took most of a day to do and that was using an industrial hammer drill.
And what have barnaby Pickles and Miel Miaow been doing whilst all this has been going on?
Bye for now catch up soon.