text:
Nottingham Forest launch new educational campaign
Nottingham Forest are delighted to announce that they will launch a major schools-based initiative which uses the 40th anniversary of winning the European Cup to inspire a new generation in the city.
The project 'Dream Big' is an educational workshop designed to help the children of Nottingham to realise their potential and help encourage literacy learning across the curriculum which will be delivered to over 200 schools across Nottinghamshire.
Literacy levels across the city are rated as some of the worst in the UK and now Nottingham Forest, in this landmark year for the club, are stepping forward to help encourage and promote reading and writing to the younger generation.
The initiative, created by Owner Evangelos Marinakis, will see an exclusive animated feature film about the success of the squad from the Clough era and will be shown to primary level pupils from all areas of the city and county.
Mr Marinakis said: "Through the 40th anniversary celebrations we are delighted to be launching this campaign. This is just the beginning of a series of initiatives that we will deliver across the city to inspire the younger generation to believe in themselves. Through the power of sport we want to encourage the children of Nottingham to Dream Big."
Launched at Blue Bill Hill Primary School in St Ann's on Wednesday 5th June, the pupils were treated to an exclusive showing of the film and a guest appearance from Nottingham-born Forest legend Garry Birtles. In addition to this the children were tasked with a Forest related workshop designed to encourage and promote literacy engagement.
Birtles, from Chilwell, said: "It is fantastic to see what the club are doing. Since the new ownership came in the vision and the commitment to the local community has been flawless.
"It's not just token PR events, they are actually trying to improve and involve themselves in initiatives to help improve the city which will benefit the people of Nottingham. This latest project is so important and hopefully through the power of Nottingham Forest we will be able to make a real difference and make learning fun whilst celebrating everything which makes this city great.
"That's what the DNA of Nottingham Forest is all about and the gaffer Brian, set those beliefs."
"I think everybody should have a book, I think everybody should have a nice classroom to go to, I think everyone should have the same opportunities." - Brian Clough
Councillor David Mellen, Leader of Nottingham City Council who attended the launch and is a campaigner for improving literacy levels across the city, also praised the club for their involvement.
He said: "Children in our city deserve the best possible start in life and we know that reading with children is one of the best ways to set them up for a bright future. In Nottingham, too many of our children start school behind the expected literacy levels so it is great to see Nottingham Forest leading the way and inspiring future generations."
Nottingham Forest Community Trust


text:
Nabi Sayeth: Celebrate Our Lady on her Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Nabi sayeth: We celebrate on December 8 the wonderful Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And what a beautiful and powerful feast it is. Though widely misunderstand by Catholics in the pew, the feast commemorates the conception of the Virgin Mary, not the conception of our Lord Jesus as the Gospel reading for the Feast leads many to believe. The feast is meant to celebrate the uniqueness and incredible holiness of Our Mother Mary. That Mary is "Blessed among women" is a Catholic belief which will make little sense to many in our egalitarian-obsessed culture.
But the Catholic Church by celebrating this feast insists that Our Blessed Mother IS INDEED unique, special, most holy among all women, and men as well. She was chosen to be Our Lord's Mother because she was conceived without sin and was, therefore, the most perfect "Vessel" to bear the Savior of the world.
Throughout Catholic history, many women sought to imitate Our Mother's holiness and humility by dedicating their lives to religious vocations. They showed this desire by making vows and wearing the religious habit. Some were martyred while wearing it.
But then something happened beginning in the turbulent 60's, as Father George Rutler points out, that called into question the value of the religious vocation....
"The same might be said of those who are consecrated in the Religious life. The difference is that most of the Church consists in laypeople, while monks, nuns, and other consecrated Sisters and Brothers are a small fraction of the People of God, but are needed to remind all the baptized that our true home is in heaven. The distinctive habits that they wear are reminders of their role.
Since the Second Vatican Council, many ill-advised Religious have abandoned conventual life and even those Religious habits. It was an abuse of the Council's modest prescriptions for updating the consecrated life, and in fact, it often fostered dissent from the Faith itself. Since 1965 the number of women Religious in the United States has dropped from 181,421 to fewer than 47,000 today. Eighty percent are older than 70, so the death rattle is ominous in at least 300 of the 420 Religious institutes. Yet, many refuse to admit their mistakes, rather like the definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."
(Father George Rutler, Catholic Business Journal 12/6/18)
Sisters in religious habits are a sign of God's presence in our world!
So many women religious, women who in their 20's had chosen to wear the habit and dedicate their lives to Our Lord became infected by the "spirit of the 60's" which meant being "liberated" and immersed in secular-modernist thinking and living.
Years ago at a seminary "House of Studies" for perspective college aged seminary candidates in Wheeling, WV; mass was offered by the House priest on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In defiance of canon law, the priest called upon a quite progressive Sister of Saint Joseph to "preach the homily." To "illustrate" the importance of the Gospel reading for the Feast, from St. Luke's account of the Annunciation of Our Lord, Sister asked the seminarians to do a reflection.
They were told to lay on their backs on the floor, spread their legs and push their groin area while they IMAGINED themselves giving birth as Blessed Mary gave birth to Jesus. Sister guided their meditation on the process. They were told to focus on Mary's pain, her fear, her anxiety all the while keeping in mind that she was a woman living in a patriarchal society.
Nabi asketh: Now, what do you think those college aged men might have learned from that "meditation"? After it all was said and done and the good Sister had left, they chuckled among themselves about how the whole exercise was ludicrous! Why?
1. Her meditation missed both the point of the Gospel and of the Feast.
2. Delivering a baby is a profound experience that men, whether seminarian or construction worker, WILL NEVER HAVE.
3. Sister blatantly violated canon and liturgical law, and the priest allowed her to do so.
One of the contributing factors to the widespread confusion among Catholics with regard to Catholic Church teaching has been the result of bad, dishonest teaching by the habit-discarding religious sisters. Rather than "stick to the script" of true Church teaching, they propagated a feminist-laden, secular-humanistic agenda. As the result of years of pollution of the minds of people in the pews, the vast majority of Catholic no longer believe what the Church teaches on the Real Presence of Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist.
But God has an amazing way of making things right as Father Rutler notes:
"But there is also a dramatic upsurge in Orders that live the traditional counsels, teaching, caring for the poor and sick, and not wasting their time in "workshops" on climate change and nuclear weapons.
Some of these new communities are growing dramatically: the Dominican Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, and our own New York-based Sisters of Life (who share our parish's hospitality), among others. The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, whose mother house is in Michigan, have grown in just twenty years to more than 140 Sisters with an average age of 32. They teach in preschool through college throughout the United States and this coming year will open another large convent in Texas for 115 sisters.
A choir of these Sisters in their traditional habits was invited to sing at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree in Washington."
Nabi sayeth: I have been blessed to know many wonderful, holy women religious. To my delight, a former student currently doing her degree work at Franciscan University of Steubenville recently informed me that she was about to respond to the Lord's call to enter the religious life as a traditional Sister. When I asked her why she chose to do so, she responded that the Lord was calling her to intervene on behalf of those who had left the Catholic Church. She wants to spend her life bringing back His lost sheep! In a day and time when many sheep are exiting, her calling is needed and timely.
Please join me in praying daily for vocations to the religious life and priesthood, of women and men who will live humble, sacrificial and holy lives in imitation of Our Blessed Mother....
Posted by Mary Ann Kreitzer at 12:00 AM
Labels: Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Fr. George Rutler, Nabi sayeth, sign value of religious habit, sisters in habits
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It is found that A and B play a game 12 times.A wins 6 times,B wins 4 times and they draw twice.A and B take part in a series of 3 games.What is the probability that they will win alternatively.
The wording of the question is a bit ambiguous. Are A and B playing just a series of 3 games, or are they playing a series of 3 matches composed of 12 games each?
If the former, then the possible sequences are ABA and BAB. Now given that A wins a game with probability 1/2, B wins a game with probability 1/3 and they draw with probability 1/6, the two sequences occur with respective probabilities (1/2)(1/3)(1/2) = 1/12 and (1/3)(1/2)(1/3) = 1/18, which add to a probability of 5/36 that they will alternate.
If they play 3 matches of 12 games each, then it gets more complicated. I would assume that winning a match entails winning 7 or more games, so there would be more sequences to analyze. I can try doing this if you think this is how the question is to be read, but at first glance I think the first interpretation is the mostly likely one.
Sir, why can't we consider ADB , BDA , DAB , DBA , ABD , and BAD . The winning of matches is still alternate.
@Abhijeet Verma – You make a good point, but I think that the default for the term "alternating" is that we are looking for sequences that only involve outright wins without any draws. Your interpretation is valid, though, so it would also need to be clarified what is meant by "alternating" ,(or "alternatively"), before this question can be resolved.
Yeah, winning alternatively in the whole series doesn't seem to be possible.
For 36 games winning alternatively for the whole series may not be possible but suppose we have to consider them winning alternatively for short spells , like (ABAB) then starting from (BAB)...in this manner.


text:
Monte Carlo Inverse Folding
05/20/2020 ∙ by Tristan Cazenave, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share
The RNA Inverse Folding problem comes from computational biology. The goal is to find a molecule that has a given folding. It is important for scientific fields such as bioengineering, pharmaceutical research, biochemistry, synthetic biology and RNA nanostructures. Nested Monte Carlo Search has given excellent results for this problem. We propose to adapt and evaluate different Monte Carlo Search algorithms for the RNA Inverse Folding problem.
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Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) [17, 25] originated in the field of computer Go and has been applied to many other problems [5] .
Nested Monte Carlo Search (NMCS) [10] uses multiple levels of search, memorizing the best sequence of each level. It has been applied to many single-player games and optimization problems [32, 26, 24, 3, 11, 30, 31, 4] and also to two-player games [12] .
Nested Rollout Policy Adaptation (NRPA) [33] also uses multiple levels of search, memorizing the best sequences. It additionally learns a playout policy using the best sequences. It has also been applied to many problems [8, 19, 21, 22, 23, 20, 18] and games [14] .
The RNA design problem also named the RNA Inverse Folding problem is computationally hard [1] . This problem is important for scientific fields such as bioengineering, pharmaceutical research, biochemistry, synthetic biology and RNA nanostructures [29] . NMCS has been successfully applied to the RNA Inverse Folding problem with the NEMO program [29] . As a follow-up to NEMO, we propose to investigate different Monte Carlo Search algorithms for this problem.
The paper is organized as follows. The second section describes the Inverse Folding problem, the NEMO program by Fernando Portela [29] and the domain knowledge used in NEMO. The third section describes the Monte Carlo Search algorithms we have used for solving Inverse Folding problems of the Eterna100 benchmark. We present a new algorithm performing well for this problem, the GNRPA algorithm with restarts. The fourth sections details experimental results.
2 Inverse Folding
2.1 Presentation of the RNA inverse folding problem
An RNA strand is a molecule composed of a sequence of nucleotides. This strand folds back on itself to form what is called its secondary structure (See Figure 1). It is possible to find in a polynomial time the folded structure of a given sequence. However, the opposite, which is the RNA inverse folding problem, is much harder and is supposed to be NP-complete. This problem still resists algorithmic approaches that still fail to match the performance of human experts. This is partly due to the chaotic changes that can occur in the secondary structure because of a small change in the sequence (See difference between Figure 3 and 2.b).
These performances are evaluated on the Eterna100 benchmark which contains 100 RNA secondary structure puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty. A puzzle consists of a given structure under the dot-bracket notation. This notation defines a structure as a sequence of parentheses and points each representing a base. The matching parentheses symbolize the paired bases and the dots the unpaired ones. The puzzle is solved when a sequence of the four nucleotides A,U,G and C, folding according to the target structure, is found. In some puzzles, the value of certain bases is imposed.
Where human experts have managed to solve the 100 problems of the benchmark, no program has so far achieved such a score. The best score so far is 95/100 by NEMO, NEsted MOnte Carlo RNA Puzzle Solver [29] .
Figure 1: Secondary Structure of a RNA strand
(a) Target Structure of a Puzzle
(b) Solved puzzle
Figure 2: Exemple of an eterna100 puzzle
Figure 3: Sequence of figure 2.b with base 25 replaced by U
2.2 Nemo
NEMO works by performing several iterations of NMCS-B, a slightly modified version of NMCS. Between each iteration of the NMCS-B, NEMO retains part of the best current solution. It identifies a part of the sequence on which to perform mutations using stochastic heuristics and restarts the NMCS-B on it. We model a candidate by a sequence. The bases assigned are represented by the corresponding letter (A/U/G/C) and the others by the letter N. This is how the NMCS-B identifies the bases on which it must work.
NEMO uses a level 1 NMCS for its NMCS-B. At level 1, the NMCS, in each state of the problem, will perform a certain number of playouts for each possible move. It then plays the move that led to the best playout and moves to the next state until it reaches a final state. In the context of NEMO, each state corresponds to a sequence, initially the candidate sequence. Each move consists in taking the first N in the sequence and assigning a value to it, working on paired bases first. When the base is paired in the target structure, it will assign a value to both bases of the pair simultaneously. Indeed only the three combinations AU, GC, and GU can be paired, so it is more convenient to consider them at the same time. To perform playouts, NEMO is also using heuristics with biased weights depending on the location in the target structure. In addition, unlike the classic NMCS, the NMCS-B retains the best playout achieved so far throughout the execution. A final state is found when the sequence is fully completed. The playouts are evaluated according to the function :
score={K1+ΔG%ifK>0K(1+ΔG)elsewith K=1−BPD2∗NumTargetPairs
Where BPD is the number of different pairs between the secondary structure of the sequence and the target structure.
NumTargetPairs is the number of pairs in the target structure.
ΔG is the difference between the Minimum Free Energy of the secondary structure and the free energy that the sequence would have in the target structure.
2.3 Domain Knowledge and Heuristics
The heuristics used for the sampling of the NMCS-B are based on domain knowledge and personal experience and are chosen without computational optimization.
The paired bases are generally chosen according to the same rule. With the exception of adjacent stacks in multi-loops, the closing pairs of the left-most and rightmost stacks are chosen with the weights given in the following table. The notion of right and left in this case is defined from the point of view of the inside of the loop.
Paired Bases
GC/CG
AU/UA
GU/UG
General Case 60% 33% 7%
Left-Most in Junction 82% 11% 7%
Right-Most in Junction 37% 56% 7%
Various rules are applied for unpaired bases. The weights used to choose between A/U/G/C in the general case are 93%, 1%, 5% and 1%. Mismatches are treated differently depending on the case.
Since NEMO first assigns a value to the paired bases, the weights for the bases with a paired mismatch depend on the value of this mismatch.
Mismatch with a Paired Base
Mismatch is a paired A 63% 0% 25% 12%
Mismatch is a paired U 0% 55% 9% 36%
Mismatch is a paired G 25% 12% 63% 0%
Mismatch is a paired C 55% 36% 0% 9%
Furthermore, in internal loops, the weights also depend on the mismatch value if it has already been assigned, otherwise a more general rule applies.
Mismatch in Internal Loops
Mismatch is not assigned 18% 4% 74% 4%
Mismatch is A 44% 0% 44% 12%
Mismatch is U 0% 67% 11% 22%
Mismatch is G 67% 11% 22% 0%
Mismatch is C 66% 17% 0% 17%
Finally, the mismatch in junctions and external loops are drawn according to the distribution 97%, 1%, 1% and 1%.
Much stronger and more deterministic rules are applied with high probabilities (more than 80%) in specific cases, especially for triloops and internal loops. For both 1-1 and 2-2 internal loops for instance, only one mismatch pair is possible, and there are only three possibilities in the general case. This is part of a process of reproducing a "boosting" strategy. Depending on the type of loop, certain combinations of nucleotides at specific locations called "boosting points", especially terminal mismatches, can be used to reduce the energy of the structure. However, the most difficult puzzles may require less conventional solutions, hence the need not to apply these rules 100% of the time.
Therefore, in the use we will make of this heuristic we will not apply these last rules and when we mention the weights of the NEMO heuristic we refer to the previously mentioned values.
In addition, between iterations of NMCS-B, if it hasn't solved the problem NEMO keeps part of the best current solution to restart the algorithm on. The set of bases that are not kept contains those that do not fold correctly, their neighborhood and randomly selected bases. This principle has not been applied to the presented algorithms.
3 Monte Carlo Search
3.1 Presentation of the NRPA algorithm
The Nested Rollout Policy Adaptation (NRPA) algorithm is a Monte Carlo Tree Search based algorithm with adaptive rollout policy during execution. It is a recursive algorithm. At level 0 it generates a playout according to the current policy. At level n, it calls for a given number of iterations the n-1 level of the algorithm, adapting the policy each time with the best solution so far. NRPA is given in algorithms 1, 2 and 3.
1: playout (state, policy)
2: sequence ← []
3: while true do
4: if state is terminal then
5: return (score (state), sequence)
6: end if
7: z ← 0.0
8: for m in possible moves for state do
9: z ← z + exp (policy [code(m)])
10: end for
11: choose a move with probability exp(policy[code(move)])z
12: state ← play (state, move)
13: sequence ← sequence + move
14: end while
Algorithm 1 The playout algorithm
1: Adapt (policy, sequence)
2: polp← policy
3: state← root
4: for move in sequence do
5: polp [code(move)] ← polp [code(move)] + α
9: end for
10: for m in possible moves for state do
11: polp [code(m)] ← polp [code(m)] - α∗exp(policy[code(m)])z
15: policy ← polp
Algorithm 2 The Adapt algorithm
1: NRPA (level, policy)
2: if level == 0 then
3: return playout (root, policy)
4: else
5: bestScore ← −∞
6: for N iterations do
7: (result,new) ← NRPA(level−1, policy)
8: if result ≥ bestScore then
9: bestScore ← result
10: seq ← new
11: end if
12: policy ← Adapt (policy, seq)
14: return (bestScore, seq)
Algorithm 3 The NRPA algorithm.
3.2 Application of NRPA to Inverse Folding
As part of the Inverse Folding problem, one solution consists in a chain of bases. A playout is made by running through the targeted structure of the chain, each move consists in assigning a value to the missing links. We distinguish between two cases, the unpaired bases in the target structure have four possible moves, one for each nucleic base (A/U/G/C). The unpaired bases have 6 possible moves, one for each possible ordered combination with their pair (GC/CG/AU/…). Each move is therefore defined by its position in the chain and whether it is a pair or not. Thus, there is a fixed number of moves, which are always ordered in the same way. Solutions are evaluated with the same score function as in the NEMO algorithm which is a combination of the fitness of the chain with the target structure and the difference between the target structure and the folded chain structure.
3.3 Gnrpa
Let wib be the weight associated to move b at index i in the sequence. In NRPA the probability of choosing move b at index i is:
pib=ewibΣkewik
We propose to try GNRPA [15] for Inverse Folding and to replace it with:
pib=ewib+βibΣkewik+βik
where we use for βib the logarithm of the probabilities used in Nemo.
3.4 Stabilized GNRPA
Stabilized NRPA [7] is a simple improvement of NRPA. The principle is to play P playouts at level 1 before each call to the adapt function. The number of calls to the adapt function as level 1 is still N, the number of iteration of upper levels. So at level 1, P×N playouts are performed.
3.5 Beam GNRPA
Beam NRPA has already been applied successfully to the TSPTW and to Morpion Solitaire [9] . The best results were obtained using a beam at level 1. Similarly to Stabilized GNRPA, at level 1, B×N playouts are performed for a beam of size B. However the algorithm is different from Stabilized NRPA since it memorizes B best sequences and B policies and plays the B playouts with different policies.
As Stabilized GNRPA it is embarrassingly parallel at level 1 and can be very efficient on a parallel machine.
When using Beam NRPA it can be beneficial to ensure the diversity of the beam [18] . The diversity criterion we have used is to only keep in the beam sequences that have different scores. It is simple and efficient as it ensures diversity while keeping enough sequences.
3.6 Coding Moves
The natural way to code moves for Inverse Folding is to use the index of the base or of the pair of base in the string (m.index) and the index of the base in the list of bases or of the pair of bases in the list of pairs of bases (m.number). The formula is then:
code(m)=m.index+M×m.number
For example if the move m is to put the fourth base at index 10 the code is 10+2000∗4=8010, provided strings always have less than 2000 characters and therefore M=2000.
It may be interesting to include the previously chosen bases in the code of a move, for example if a base has meaning only if following another base. We call the history of a code the number of bases in the history included in the code. The previous formula holds for a code history of 0. The code for a code history of 1 is:
code(m)=m.index+M×m.number+M×6×previousMove.number
Six is the maximum value for a move number, the maximum number of legal moves is 6. The code for a code history of 2 includes the two previous moves in the code.
3.7 Start Learning
In order to wait for better sequences before learning it is possible to delay learning only after a given number of sequences have been found [13] .
3.8 Zobrist Hashing
Each state is associated to a different hash code. This is done with Zobrist Hashing. Each move at each index is associated to a random number. The hash code of a state is the XOR of all the random numbers corresponding to the moves that have been played to reach this state. Zobrist hashing is used in games to build a transposition table. We will use it in the UCT variants. Another use of Zobrist Hashing is to detect playouts that have already been evaluated. As most of the time in Inverse Folding is spent scoring the playouts, it is advisable to avoid reevaluating an already evaluated playouts. This is done with a score hash table that contains the hash of the terminal states already encountered associated to their computed scores. If a terminal state is met again the score need not be recomputed it can just be sent back from the table. There are variations on the number of playouts already evaluated according to the sequence, some sequences have very few while others have a lot.
3.9 Restarts
There can be large variations on the solving times of some problems. Sometimes the search algorithm takes a wrong direction and stay stuck on a suboptimal sequence without making any progress. A way to deal with this behavior is to periodically stop and restart the search. For some difficult problems however a long search is required to find the solution. There are multiple ways to use restarts. The algorithm can double the search time at each restart for example. We call this method iterative doubling. We have observed that a level 2 search is able to solve many problems, a restart strategy can also be to repeatedly call GNRPA at level 2 until thinking time is elapsed. Another way to deal with search being stuck is to stop a level when the best sequence has not changed for a given number of recursive calls.
It is difficult to set a static restart strategy for all problems. Long sequences are much more difficult than short ones and the progress on long sequences is slower. In order to cope with this property we use a restart threshold. It is set to the length of the sequence divided by 5. When using this restart strategy there is no limit on the length of a level.
Algorithm 4 gives the GNRPA algorithm with restarts.
1: GNRPA (level, policy)
6: last←0
7: for i in range(∞) do
8: (result,new) ← GNRPA(level−1, policy)
10: if result > bestScore then
11: last←i
13: bestScore ← result
16: if i−last≥limitRestart then
19: if i≥startLearning then
Algorithm 4 The GNRPA algorithm with restarts.
3.10 Parallelization
The multiple playouts of stabilized NRPA and the loop over the elements of the beam are embarrassingly parallel. We simply parallelized with OpenMP a common loop including the beam and the stabilized playouts at level 1. If we have 4 stabilized playouts and a beam of 8, the 32 resulting playouts are played in parallel. This kind of parallelization is a kind of leaf parallelization [6, 16] .
We also experiment with root parallelization [6, 16] . The principle is to perform multiple independent GNRPA in parallel and to stop as soon as one has found a solution or when the allocated time is elapsed.
Leaf parallelization is more difficult to scale than root parallelization. For the same wall clock time leaf parallelization runs more iterations for a single policy than root parallelization which optimizes many more different policies but with less iterations. On the other hand root parallelization scales very well and has a built-in restart strategy. Root parallelization works well for problems that converge relatively rapidly on a suboptimal solution as they benefit from restarts, while leaf parallelization works better for problems that converge slowly but steadily towards the best solutions.
βib
1 1.0 100 no 1 1.1.1 0 3
1 1.0 100 yes 1 1.1.1 0 30
1 1.0 100 yes 1 16.1.1 1 54
2 1.0 100 no 1 1.1.1 0 49
2 1.0 100 yes 10 1.1.1 0 80
Table 1: Number of problems solved, out of 100 problems, using different parameters.
GNRPA(level=1,N=100,P=4,Beam=8) 11.916 6.889 4.526 3.657 3.169 3.359
Table 2: Parallelization efficiency.
no 1.1 1.1 n n 100.100 0.0 0 30 33 41 50 61 67 69
yes 1.1 1.1 n n 100.100 0.0 0 58 64 68 72 74 75 79
yes 4.1 8.1 y n 100.100 4.4 1 78 84 83 86 87 87 88
yes 4.1 8.1 y 3 ∞.∞ 4.4 1 80 84 85 85 88 89 92
Table 3: Number of problems solved by GNRPA using different parameters and a fixed time limit.
UCT(0.4) 47 49 50 54 56 57 62
Nested(1) 59 62 64 65 67 71 73
Diversity GNRPA(5.1) 72 73 73 77 78 78 80
Table 4: Number of problems solved by different algorithms and a fixed time limit.
Table 5: Number of problems solved with different options.
Table 6: Number of problems solved with root parallel GNRPA.
4 Experimental Results
We now detail experiments with the different Monte Carlo Search algorithms on the Eterna100 benchmark.
Table 1 gives the number of problems solved with different parameters for the GNRPA algorithm. We can see that at level 1 using GNRPA instead of NRPA enables to solve 30 problems instead of 3. Similarly at level 2 it solves 73 problems instead of 49. Using Stabilized GNRPA with P=4 and Beam GNRPA with a beam of 8 at level 1 also improves quite much the number of problems solved at levels 1 and 2. Interestingly for level 2 it is 32 times slower that a regular level 2 search and solves 85 problems, when a search at level 3 is 100 times slower and still solves 85 problems.
Table 2 gives the median time over 3 runs of a level 1 search with different numbers of threads on problem 64 which is difficult. The algorithm is GNRPA with P = 4, a beam of 8 and N = 100. We can see that using 8 threads gives the best results. We optimized memory in order to avoid cache misses but we were not able to have better results with more threads.
Table 3 gives the number of problems solved within a fixed time limit for different algorithms. The time limits range from 1 minute to 64 minutes per problem. The parallel algorithm runs on a multicore machine. The results of the parallel program are given in the last line of table 3. The times used to stop the parallel program are the wall clock times. The last line is leaf parallel GNRPA with restarts and gives the best results within 1 hour of wall clock time, solving 92 of the 100 problems in one run. Start is 4 meaning that it starts learning after 4 playouts. H is 1 meaning the code include the previous move, R is 3 meaning that the restart threshold is set to the length of the string divided by 3.
The problems solved by different runs of 1 hour we made are not always the same. Some hard problems are solved only in some runs. So the limit of 92 solved problems is not the limit of the algorithm. The problems that were never solved in 1 hour are problems 100, 99, 97, 91, 90, 78. With a two hours limit, problem 90 is solved thus reaching 95 solved problems, the same number of solved problems as NEMO.
For the sake of completeness we also tested other popular Monte Carlo Search algorithms. The results are given in table 4 for UCT [25] , Nested Monte Carlo Search [10, 29] and Diversity NRPA [18] . The UCT constant is set to 0.4, NMCS is tested for repeated calls to level 1 and level 2. Diversity GNRPA [18] is called with a set of 5 sequences at level 1 and 1 sequence at level 2. The improved GNRPA algorithm gives better results than these algorithms.
Table 5 gives the results with time of the best parallel algorithm using different options. The Correction option is to fix a discrepancy between the NEMO paper and the NEMO code in the heuristic. The Order option is to order moves such as NEMO or to use the order of the string. Given the results in the table the two options do not seem to matter much.
Table 6 gives the number of problems solved with time using the root parallel GNRPA algorithm with 20 process. The results are slightly worse than when using leaf parallelization with 8 threads. It is due to problems that converge slowly and do not benefit from restarts and where leaf parallelization enables to improve during much longer than root parallelization the best policy. Given enough ressources the best algorithm might be the combination of root and leaf parallelization as in [28] . The parallelization of NRPA proposed by Nagorko [27] is also appealing.
We experimented with various Monte Carlo Search algorithms for the Inverse Folding problem. We have used very limited domain knowledge, essentially using a small part of the NEMO heuristics for the bias. By applying general Monte Carlo Search heuristics we were able to solve as many problems as NEMO in comparable times.
Thanks to Fernando Portela for his NEMO program. Tristan Cazenave is supported by the PRAIRIE institute.
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text:
John's Horror Corner: The Purge (2013), where social commentary meets intense violence.
tags: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Rhys Wakefield, social commentary, The Purge
MY CALL: An intense, surprisingly well-executed film depicting a dystopian future built on a foundation of an economy-fueling organized mayhem. Solid performances across the board! IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: Funny Games (2007), The Strangers (2008), Assault on Precinct 13 (2005).
The opening scenes introduce us to a dystopian futuristic America in which we have overcome staggering recessions, unemployment and crime rates. Everyone seems happy and at peace with the means that provide this thriving economy.
So what do they have to thank? The Purge. The Purge is a 12-hour period during which all crime is legal and all police, medical and emergency services are suspended. Radio and news casts bombard viewers with soma-popping Brave New World mantras about "unleashing the beast within" to "cleanse [or purge] our inherently violent nature."
What's most interesting about this society is that The Purge is embraced by most everyone. Sure, there are media debates on how The Purge "targets" the poor who can't afford to defend themselves, but even the wealthy–with their armored home security systems–socialize, talk about what they're doing during The Purge or "purge" together in hunting parties.
All of the pro-Purge political views are presented through an upper class filter–more specifically, the pro-Purge mindset of James Sandin (Ethan Hawke; Sinister, Daybreakers), a home security system salesman who lives in a ritzy neighborhood full of fake, well-to-do smiling neighbors. This year, instead of attending a party, James is spending a quiet purge with his wife Mary (Lena Headey; Game of Thrones, Dredd, The Cave, The Brothers Grimm), son Charlie (Max Burkholder; Martian Child) and daughter Zooey (Adelaide Kane; Donner Pass, Teen Wolf).
James' family is less embracing of The Purge than the rest of the neighborhood but, for fear of death, they abide by the social standard but do not themselves partake. Catching more of our attention is James. His security system sales are booming, he's boat shopping and he talks a big game about supporting The Purge but when he justifies its value or explains to his son why he has never felt the urge to purge there is more than a dash of a hesitation in his tone.
Things begin to go wrong for the Sandins when Max sympathizes with an injured man. He hears his cries for help on the surveillance system and disarms the security for long enough to let the man into the house for safety. Shortly thereafter, a group of over-educated young adults led by polite stranger with an intensely striking sense of rich kid entitlement demand that the Sandins release the injured victim into their lethal care as a Purge tribute.
The disturbingly masked strangers.
If the Sandins don't, the strangers threaten to penetrate the security system and kill everyone. That's what you get from the preview and I won't give you any more except to say that things get interesting, intense, gory, fun (for violent film fans) and equal parts predictable and unpredictable.
I thought all of the actors did a fine job. Some may consider the polite stranger (Rhys Wakefield) to be pretty hammed up, but I thought his supervillainous, sociopathic and zealous mentality helped separate this strong film from the likes of The Strangers, which carried no social commentary or message whatsoever. As extreme as the premise may seem in The Purge, I must admit that it got me thinking. Not necessarily "agreeing," but thinking.
I went into this movie excited because of the preview, but nervous as to how it would play out. In the end I feel that all of my positive expectations were met and none of the bad came to fruition. I was very pleased.
← Bad Movie Tuesday: The Cusack/Cage Conundrum
Conflicted Superheroes in Film: A case study of the Man of Steel (2013) and past Supermen →
Movienomics: Now You See the Importance of Word of Mouth | Movies, Films & Flix
The Purge: Horror That Doesn't Annoy | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner [INDEX] | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: You're Next (2013), featuring one of the best credibly tough horror heroines I've seen in a decade! | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), combining a refined literary British love story and a zombie apocalypse into a tasty brain stew. | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: The Purge: Anarchy (2014), basically proving that Frank Grillo can even be a successful badass in a terrible sequel. | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: Hush (2016), a credible home invasion movie with a believably tough victim. | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: Mayhem (2017), 28 Days Later (2002) meets The Purge (2013) in this corporate Belko-esque rampage. | Movies, Films & Flix
The MFF Podcast #114: Office Horror, Mayhem (2017) & The Belko Experiment (2016) | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: Truth or Dare (2018), another serviceably enjoyable Blumhouse film mixing It Follows (2014) and Final Destination (2000), but packing little punch. | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: Wolf Creek (2005), a brutal Australian slasher film that is totally mean-spirited, well-villained and shockingly credible. | Movies, Films & Flix
John's Horror Corner: Terrifier (2016), the brutally mean-spirited evil clown movie that will haunt your gory nightmares with this memorable villain. | Movies, Films & Flix


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Lester Holt Reveals Why He Thinks People Love True Crime Shows Like Dateline
March 20, 2020 – 5:00 AM – 0 Comments
By Walter Scott Parade
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(Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC)
NBC Nightly News and Dateline anchor Lester Holt, 61, will receive the Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, one of the profession's highest honors. (The ceremony, originally scheduled for March 22 on the campus of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, has been postponed.) Holt, who is the first African American to solo anchor a weekday network nightly newscast, was named the most trusted television news personality in America in a 2018 poll. Parade spoke to him in January 2020 about his achievements and his career.
Related: 30 Best True Crime Podcasts
What makes the Murrow award so special?
I take this award as an acknowledgment of the power of the media and of what we as an organization do. Nightly News is nearly 75 years old. Over that time, it's built a lot of trust. It's seen as a place of integrity.
You're nearing the fifth year as the Nightly News anchor. Why do you still go out and report stories?
I'm a reporter at heart. So while I consider anchoring prestigious, the most exciting moments I've had in this job have been out in the field, talking to people, doing stories and witnessing history unfold.
Why do you think people like true-crime shows, like Dateline, so much?
I've always said the secret sauce of Dateline is the superb storytelling, the ability to really weave a narrative out of these sometimes almost hard-to-believe stories. You watch and you think how mundane and normal your own life is; that's a good thing, because a lot of the people we cover in these stories are people that could be your neighbors. I think that's what draws people in.
What do you think of your son Stefan following you into the business?
To be able to sit in my office and flip on my son, who's working a few floors above me anchoring the news every day [on WNBC, the local New York NBC station], is just something that [makes me] pinch myself. It's a thrill to watch him.
You were cited as one of the most trusted newsmen, an honor Walter Cronkite held for years. The world is a different place than it was back when he was on TV. What do you think you need to do today to win people's confidence?
I think you have to be consistent with what you do and you have to be transparent. That's what we try to do. I think people right now are questioning a lot of things around them, not just the media, but a lot of the institutions. I think every day you have to remind people the sources of the stories that we cover, we have to take the lengths we always have to make sure we get it right. In those rare instances when we don't get it right, we've got to be transparent and come clean with folks. I think trust is something that's built over time.
Perhaps there was some earlier era in this business that we took trust for granted. Of course, people trusted us. Of course, they understand that we don't lie. But we have to recognize that the world is shifting and people right now are taking a wary look at a lot of institutions, including ours. So we have to recognize that and make sure that we deliver every day.
When people recognize you, is it more for Nightly News or Dateline?
People will stop me on the streets more to talk about Dateline than the Nightly News, frankly. People are, "I love that show." It's fun to talk to them about the broadcast. I always tell them, "Be careful, though, you might want to sleep with one eye open."
We're all very, very proud of it. It's an incredible team that spends sometimes months on these stories, sitting through long trials and trying to book the key players and the police officers. It's very labor intensive, so we're so thrilled that it's achieved the popularity it has. And it's also achieved a pop-culture status. You hear it mentioned sometimes in TV shows and sitcoms. We're all very proud of it.
News watching is on the rise. Would you attribute that to the condition of the world, that people feel they need more news because they don't understand what's going on?
Nobody wants to miss anything right now. I think we all have this fear of missing out because it feels like news is coming at us faster than ever before. Part of that's true because of our technology. Part of it is because we simply have more competitors. There's more folks who are falling into the media umbrella, and that includes citizens with their smartphones, who can report out whatever they want to report out. I really think it's this fear of missing out, though, because of the intensity of the stories we've watched unfold in the last several years.
There's a camera rolling everywhere now. I think we're seeing that more and more. I look at how much of our newscast now and how many stories we have that involve video taken from people with their cell phones that becomes integral in the stories. These porch cameras are sometimes witness to major stories. So it's what I spoke of, the media landscape is growing and our technology is improving and making news watching so much more relevant.
You've talked to presidents and other heads of states. Is there still one interview you would love to have? Somebody you haven't spoken to yet?
Generally, that's something we hold close to the vest because the idea of booking big guests is very competitive. With that said, I think I'd be on safe ground saying I'd love to talk to Kim Jong-un at some point. I'm sure a lot of my competitors would too. I think it would be fascinating to hear his world view.
You recently covered the impeachment and you're covering election results. How hard is it to stay neutral? Especially these days, when not just people but news organizations are labeled as conservative or liberal?
It's never really been an issue for me. I love storytelling. I love news. And more than anything, I love an intelligent exchange of views. In other words, the scream fests that you see sometimes don't interest me, but I do love to hear different ideas and different looks at things. I feel like we're in a society now where people sometimes are afraid to hear the other side, or another point of view because, God forbid, it might throw into doubt some long-held beliefs. I happen to love that kind of exchange.
I'm a professional and I do the news every day. It doesn't mean I don't have opinions. Trust me, I have opinions on everything, as my wife knows. But when I come to work, I'm a journalist. I'm representing the viewer and trying to impart information the best way I know how. I have no problem checking my personal beliefs at the door, just like so many other people in other walks of life; they're professionals and they have to leave that stuff behind.
When you began, you sort of fell into it. You had been a disc jockey at a radio station and moved into news. Did you ever imagine reaching such heights in a news career when you were a cub reporter?
I did a short tour in radio and then worked my way up. I was very fortunate. I never worked in any really small towns. I worked mainly at network stations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago. I came up in a different way than a lot of reporters. I think it's fair to say that at some point along the line, I probably aspired to a job like this, at the same time not really knowing whether I would reach it. I can tell you that at the time that this opportunity came, I had resigned myself that I had gone about as far as I would go in the business. And I say that without complaint.
I was doing quite well. I was hosting Dateline and I was anchoring the weekend editions of Nightly News and Today. I was covering big stories around the world. I was very pleased where I was. But I looked around and there were only a few of these jobs out there and the people that held them had been there a while and there was every expectation they would be there a lot longer. The landscape just didn't look like there was room for me. As I said, I was very happy, and no one was more surprised than me that I would ultimately end up here. I'm obviously thrilled at the opportunity.
Music has been a big part of your life. What form is it taking these days? Are you still rocking out on bass guitar?
I'm a musician going back to junior high. I love the sound of a bass. When I was in junior high, I put together some newspaper delivery money and I went to a pawn shop, bought a bass and a few books and taught myself how to play. I'm mainly a jazz guy. I played in jazz choirs and jazz bands all through junior high and high school. As an adult, I learned the upright bass. Then a few years ago, speaking to some colleagues, mostly from Dateline, we all talked about our musical talent and concluded that we should take it a step further and try to play together.
We did, and from that a band was formed. It's a rock 'n' roll band, and rock is not my main thing. We've played a lot of songs that, frankly, I'd never heard of before, but I'm loving it. As I tell everybody, my band has helped me find my inner rocker. So we play events from time to time. We have a semi-regular gig at a Texas barbecue place here in Manhattan. We do some other gigs. We sneak out sometimes for rehearsals on weekday mornings. We have these day jobs, so sometimes they get in the way of our fun.
You have a special lady in your life. Tell me about Lucy, your Australian labradoodle.
We got her a little over three years ago. She is truly the most affectionate, best dog that I've ever owned. We have a lot of fun. My wife, at my suggestion, set up an Instagram page for Lucy. Lucy has a pretty good little following. She entertains us endlessly.
She can do a fist bump and a low five. Did you train her, or did you have her trained?
We went to puppy training, but some of the things we've taught her. She's really a smart dog and pretty easy to train. If we could only stop her barking, but beyond that, she's super.
How does what happens in the world shape your job?
I have to be able to respond to whatever happens in the world that's newsworthy. Sometimes that means jumping on a plane, sometimes that means running to the set. When I make plans, it's always with an "I'll be there unless there's breaking news." People who are part of my life have become quite accustomed to that. It's one of the difficult parts of the job in that it does affect your personal life. We are a national and international broadcast organization, and we've got to be able to jump into the game as soon as the bell rings.
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text:
Stark v. Swift
WILFRED MICHAEL STARK III, Plaintiff,
HEATHER SWIFT, et al., Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
AMIT P. MEHTA UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE
Pro se Plaintiff Wilfred Michael Stark III brings claims for conspiracy, defamation, intentional infliction of emotion distress ("IIED"), and false arrest and malicious prosecution against 22 defendants. Fifteen of those Defendants-the Republican Standard; Adam Laxalt; Robert List; Stephen Puetz; Ryan Keller; Joseph Brown; Ed Gillepsie; the Republican Governors Association; the Republican National Committee; the National Republican Congressional Committee; the National Republican Senatorial Committee; the Daily Caller; and the United States acting on behalf of Heather Swift, Amanda Kaster-Averill, and Tyler Dever-move to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint in six different motions.
For the reasons that follow, the motions to dismiss are granted.
Plaintiff is a journalist who, at the time of the events at issue in the Complaint, was employed by ShareBlue Media and later the American Ledger, [1] two progressive media organizations. Complaint, ECF No. 1-1 [hereinafter Compl.], ¶¶ 6, 13. Plaintiff was tasked with covering Republican politicians and conservative leaders. Id. ¶¶ 7, 13. In his Complaint, Plaintiff describes a series of altercations with candidates, politicians, and staffers during which Defendants allegedly made, or conspired to make, false and damaging statements against Plaintiff and, in at least one case, falsely accused him of assaulting a female staffer. Id. ¶¶ 8-35. These confrontations and alleged defamatory statements led to Plaintiff's arrest in two instances, and his removal from the Conservative Political Action Conference in another. Id. ¶¶ 12, 16, 19-20. Following these incidents, Plaintiff alleges that the National Republican Congressional Committee assigned interns to follow him around the Capitol grounds carrying signs bearing his mugshot. Id. ¶ 28.
On March 15, 2019, Plaintiff filed a four-count complaint in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against 22 individual and entity defendants, alleging conspiracy (Count I), defamation (Count II), IIED (Count III), and false arrest and malicious prosecution (Count V).[2]See generally Compl. On April 10, 2019, Defendants Heather Swift, Amanda Kaster-Averill, and Tyler Dever-all federal employees at the relevant time-removed the suit to federal court. Notice of Removal, ECF No. 1. Shortly thereafter, fifteen of the named defendants filed six different motions to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint. See Mots. to Dismiss and Am. Mots. to Dismiss, ECF Nos. 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24. The court now turns to these motions.
Seven defendants move to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction in three separate motions. A plaintiff bears "the burden of establishing the court's personal jurisdiction" over a defendant. FC Inv. Grp. LC v. IFX Markets, Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087, 1091 (D.C. Cir. 2008); see also Crane v. N.Y. Zoological Soc'y, 894 F.2d 454, 456 (D.C. Cir. 1990). To establish personal jurisdiction, a plaintiff "'must allege specific acts connecting [the] defendant with the forum' and 'cannot rely on conclusory allegations.'" Clay v. Blue Hackle N. Am., LLC, 907 F.Supp.2d 85, 87 (D.D.C. 2012) (quoting Second Amendment Found. v. U.S. Conference of Mayors, 274 F.3d 521, 524 (D.C. Cir. 2001); Purdue Research Found. v. Sanofi-Synthelabo, S.A., 332 F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.D.C. 2004)). A District of Columbia court may exercise general jurisdiction only over individuals who are domiciled in the District. D.C. Code § 13-422; Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117, 137 (2014). For an individual, "[d]omicile is determined by two factors: physical presence in a state, and intent to remain there for an unspecified or indefinite period of time." Prakash v. Am. Univ., 727 F.2d 1174, 1180 (D.C. Cir. 1984). A corporation is domiciled where it is incorporated and where it has its principal place of business. Daimler AG, 571 U.S. at 137.
"To establish personal jurisdiction over a non-resident, a court must engage in a two-part inquiry: A court must first examine whether jurisdiction is applicable under the state's long-arm statute and then determine whether a finding of jurisdiction satisfies the constitutional requirements of due process." GTE New Media Servs. Inc. v. BellSouth Corp., 199 F.3d 1343, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (citing United States v. Ferrara, 54 F.3d 825, 828 (D.C. Cir. 1995)). As to each of the seven moving defendants, the only actions attributed to them occurred outside of the District. Accordingly, the only applicable section of the District's long-arm statute is subsection 4, which confers jurisdiction over a defendant that "caus[es] tortious injury in the District of Columbia by an act or omission outside the District of Columbia if he regularly does or solicits business, engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed, or services rendered, in the District." D.C. Code § 13-423(4). The court will assume for purposes of this motion that Plaintiff suffered a reputational injury in the District from the alleged defamation. See Mastro v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 447 F.3d 843, 857-58 (D.C. Cir. 2006). Plaintiff has not, however, met his burden of establishing the other requirements under subsection 4. The court will separately discuss each motion below. Because the court finds that it cannot exercise specific jurisdiction over any of the seven moving defendants under the District of Columbia's long-arm statute, it need not address whether exercising jurisdiction over the defendants would satisfy the Constitution's due process requirements.
Defendant Republican Standard is a Virginia-registered limited liability company that maintains its principal place of business in Richmond, Virginia. Am. Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 17-3, ¶¶ 1-3. It is an online news platform that publishes content about the Republican Party and its candidates by means of its website. Id. ¶ 4. It has only one, part-time employee, who works out of their Richmond office, as well as two co-owners, both of whom reside in Virginia. Id. ¶¶ 5-8. Accordingly, the Republican Standard is not domiciled in the District of Columbia, and this court cannot exercise general jurisdiction over it. See Daimler AG, 571 U.S. at 137.
The court also cannot exercise specific jurisdiction over the Republican Standard. Plaintiff has provided nothing in his Complaint from which the court can infer that the Republican Standard "regularly does or solicits business, engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed, or services rendered, in the District of Columbia." D.C. Code § 13-423(4). Plaintiff makes very few references to the Republican Standard in his Complaint. At the beginning and end of the Complaint, the Republican Standard is mentioned in the list of all defendants. See Compl. at pp. 5, 6, 17. Plaintiff also alleges that the Republican Standard and nineteen other defendants "communicated at various times and instances to marginalize, discredit and defame [Plaintiff] with the common purpose of forcing him to stop holding Republicans accountable in the press." Id. ¶ 37. In neither instance does Plaintiff assert that the Republican Standard did any business or took part in any course of conduct in the District, even in a tangential way. See generally Compl. The court thus cannot exercise specific jurisdiction over the Republican Standard. Accordingly, its motion to dismiss is granted.
Defendants Adam Laxalt, Robert List, Stephen Puetz, Ryan Keller, and Joseph Brown ("the Las Vegas defendants") are each non-District of Columbia residents. Brown, Laxalt, and List are residents of Nevada, Brown Affidavit, 14-2; Laxalt Affidavit, ECF No. 16-2; List Affidavit, ECF No. 16-3; Keller is a resident of Iowa, Keller Affidavit, ECF No. 15-2; and Puetz is a resident of California, Puetz Affidavit, ECF No. 16-4. The court therefore cannot exercise general jurisdiction over any of them.
         Further, the only allegations levelled against the Las Vegas defendants took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Plaintiff contends that in October 2018, he was at an event where Laxalt was scheduled to give remarks. Compl. ¶ 30. After the event, Plaintiff followed Laxalt into the hallway to question him, at which point Plaintiff alleges that Laxalt's staff "assaulted" him. Id. ¶ 31. Police arrived on the scene, and the Las Vegas defendants gave "false and defamatory statements to the police, " at which point Plaintiff was arrested and taken to jail. Id. ¶ 32. Even viewing this recitation of facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, all of the events he describes took place in Nevada. Nowhere does he contend that the Las Vegas defendants did business in the District of Columbia, derived revenue from activities in the District, engaged in a course ...


text:
Penology
and penology
Biosocial criminology
Differential association
Labeling theory
Rational choice
Social disorganization
Symbolic interactionism
Victimology
Types of crime
Against humanity
Blue-collar
Public-order
State-corporate
Victimless
White-collar
Incapacitation
Penal harm
Prison (reform)
Prisoner abuse
Prisoners' rights
Justice in penology
Retributive
Solitary confinement
Penology (from the Latin poena, "punishment" and the Greek suffix -logia, "study of") is a section of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice[1][2][3] of various societies in their attempts to repress criminal activities, and satisfy public opinion via an appropriate treatment regime for persons convicted of criminal offences.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines penology as "the study of the punishment of crime and prison management," and in this sense it is equivalent with corrections.[4]
Penology is concerned with the effectiveness of those social processes devised and adopted for the prevention of crime, via the repression or inhibition of criminal intent via the fear of punishment. The study of penology therefore deals with the treatment of prisoners and the subsequent rehabilitation of convicted criminals. It also encompasses aspects of probation (rehabilitation of offenders in the community) as well as penitentiary science relating to the secure detention and retraining of offenders committed to secure institutions.
Penology concerns many topics and theories, including those concerning prisons (prison reform, prisoner abuse, prisoners' rights, and recidivism), as well as theories of the purposes of punishment (such as deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution, and utilitarianism). Contemporary penology concerns itself mainly with criminal rehabilitation and prison management. The word seldom applies to theories and practices of punishment in less formal environments such as parenting, school and workplace correctional measures.
Further reading 4
Historical theories of punishment were based on the notion that fearful consequences would discourage potential offenders. An example of this principle can be found in the Draconian law of Ancient Greece and the Bloody Code which persisted in Renaissance England, when (at various times) capital punishment was prescribed for over 200 offenses. Similarly, certain hudud offenses under Sharia hadith tradition may incur fearful penalties.
Modern theories of the punishment and rehabilitation of offenders are broadly based on principles articulated in the seminal pamphlet "On Crimes and Punishments" published by Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria in 1764. They center on the concept of proportionality. In this respect, they differ from many previous systems of punishment, for example, England's Bloody Code, under which the penalty of theft had been the same regardless of the value stolen, giving rise to the English expression "It is as well to be hanged for a sheep or a lamb". Subsequent development of the ideas of Beccaria made non-lethal punishment more socially acceptable. Consequently convicted prisoners had to be re-integrated into society when their punishment was complete.
Penologists have consequently evolved occupational and psychological education programs for offenders detained in prison, and a range of community service and probation orders which entail guidance and aftercare of the offender within the community. The importance of inflicting some measure of punishment on those persons who breach the law is however maintained in order to maintain social order and to moderate public outrage which might provoke appeals for cruel vengeance.
Auburn System
Zebulon Brockway
Elmira System
Incapacitation (penology)
^ Rajendra Kumar Sharma (1 January 1998). Criminology And Penology. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 2 ff.
^ Shlomo Giora Shoham; Ori Beck; Martin Kett (8 October 2007). International Handbook of Penology and Criminal Justice. CRC Press.
^ 林山田 (1992). 刑罰學. 臺灣商務印書館.
^ Todd R. Clear (1994). Harm in American penology: offenders, victims, and their communities. SUNY Press. p. 15.
Diiulio, John J., Governing Prisons: A Comparative Study of Correctional Management, Simon and Schuster, 1990. ISBN 0-02-907883-0
The Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice
CrimLinks UK based site
Statutory law
Election law
International slavery laws
Law of war
Legal archaeology
Legal fiction
Will and testament
Space law
Trust law
Divine right
Law making
Ballot measure
Codification
Edict
Delegated legislation
Act of Congress
Chinese law
Legal pluralism
Religious law
Hindu law
Socialist law
Xeer
Yassa
Critical legal studies
Legal formalism
International legal theory
Principle of legality
Court-martial
Lawsuit/Litigation
Legal remedy
Question of fact
Question of law
Trial advocacy
Trier of fact
Legal institutions
Misleading articles
WorldHeritage articles needing clarification from October 2011
Microsoft, Internet Explorer, Data compression, Web browser, Firefox
Integrative criminology
Penology, Justice, Criminology, Social learning theory, Capitalism
Italian school of criminology
Penology, Anthropology, Psychopathy, Crime, Justice
Penology, Human rights, Criminology, Prisoner abuse, Psychopathy


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Funtasia Too A Day at the Beach multi-colored plaid jumper with a beach bag and flip flop applique. This is a cute dress and it has a matching boys outfit.


A Sheikh started off his lecture by holding up a $100 note . In the Masjid filled with about 500 people, he asked, "Who would like this $100 note?"
He said, "I am going to give this $100 note to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the money up.
"The believers in their mutual kindness, compassion and sympathy are just like one body. When one of the limbs suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever" He (PBUH) illustrated this by interlacing the fingers of both his hands. [Al-Bukhari and Muslim].


text:
Minorities and Online Higher Education
K Brock Enger
Educause Quarterly Volume 29, Number 4, 2006 ISSN 1528-5324
New issue alerts
Colleges and universities in the United States often have rather homogenous environments in which cultural gaps exist between minority students and the institution. Campuses may unwittingly create a conflict between students' ethnic and cultural values and the dominant values of academe. After all, the American university models precepts from German universities of the early 1800s. Much of what is known about student attrition in higher education is drawn from Tinto's theory, which claims that students who feel isolated are more likely to end their college careers than students who feel connected and comfortable in the college environment. Students from minority cultures are particularly vulnerable to feeling isolated from the majority culture on many campuses. Online education has the potential for mitigating this problem, however. This author's experience teaching in the online college environment over the past four years has shown that the online college or university can build a bridge between academe and students from diverse cultures. By its nature, the Internet can create what feels like a culture in itself, yet students in the online environment represent a wide variety of cultures from a broad geographic spectrum. Each unique culture contributes to the online learning environment. In this article, the author describes the advantages of online education, especially to minorities in higher education. The author contends that online education offers one way to begin to eliminate racial inequities in higher education, and suggests that it could create a positive ripple effect throughout the academy for many years to come. (Contains 5 endnotes.)
Enger, K.B. (2006). Minorities and Online Higher Education. Educause Quarterly, 29 (4), 7-8. Retrieved July 19, 2019 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/103809/.
This record was imported from ERIC on April 19, 2013. [Original Record]
ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.
Copyright for this record is held by the content creator. For more details see ERIC's copyright policy.
EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
Minority Groups
Performance Factors
Virtual Classrooms
Benefits of Classroom Technology
Bennie Baker, University of North Texas, United States
E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2018 (Oct 15, 2018) pp. 1337–1340
Understanding Technology Adoption: Theory and Critical Review of Seminal Research
Nandita Gurjar, University of Northern Iowa, United States
Experience, Adoption, and Technology: Exploring the Phenomenological Experiences of Faculty Involved in Online Teaching at One School of Public Health
Terry Kidd, University of Houston-Downtown, United States; Trina Davis & Patricia Larke, Texas A&M University, United States
International Journal on E-Learning Vol. 15, No. 1 (2016) pp. 71–99
The West African Digital University: A case for reconstructing education/e-education and seizing the peace premium towards promoting a culture of peace and tolerance in post-conflict situations in West Africa.
Adewunmi Ogunbase, University of Tampere, Finland, Finland
Using Discourse Analysis to Evaluate Educational Technology
Matthew Duvall, Drexel University, United States
Is blended e-learning as measured by an achievement test and self-assessment better than traditional classroom learning for vocational high school students?
Chi-Cheng Chang, Department of Technology Application and Human Resource Development National Taiwan Normal University; Kuen-Ming Shu, Department of Mechanical and Computer-aided Engineering National Formosa University; Chaoyun Liang, Department of Bio-Industry Communication and Development National Taiwan University; Ju-Shih Tseng & Yu-Sheng Hsu, Department of Technology Application & Human Resource Development National Taiwan Normal University
The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning Vol. 15, No. 2 (Apr 01, 2014)
Instructor Experience with Online Distance Learning in the Apprenticeship Trades
Robert W. Sochowski, University of Calgary, Canada; Mary F. Kennedy, Athabasca University, Canada
EdMedia + Innovate Learning 2013 (Jun 24, 2013) pp. 2292–2300
Designing an Incentive-Based Online Education System to Encourage Student Collaboration
Jennifer Seaton, Joanne Traves, Gordon McCalla & Richard Schwier, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
The Evolution of a Blended Learning Instructional Approach in an Undergraduate Education Course: Findings from an Action Research Study
Jane Kenney & Ellen Newcombe, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, United States
The uniqueness of Teacher Educators as Online tutors: What teacher professionalism means online.
Pamela Cowan, Queen's University Belfast, United Kingdom; Peter Neil, University of West Scotland, United Kingdom; Eileen Winter, Institute of Child Education and Psychology, Ireland
Perceptions and reflections: Using Skype chat to build a community of learners
Jenni Parker, Dani Boase-Jelinek & Jan Herrington, Murdoch University, Australia
A Critical Pedagogy Approach to Online Education: What we Learned from a U.S./South African Course
Christopher Devers, University of San Diego, United States
Global Learn 2011 (Mar 28, 2011) pp. 2199–2204
Collaborative Problem Solving in Mathematics Online Professional Development
Brooke Evans, Don Gilmore, James Loats & Patricia McKenna, Metropolitan State College of Denver, United States
Time: A Significant Opportunity Cost of Social Networking and Participating in Online Communities of Practice
Angela M. Karam & Hemangini Dutt Majumder, University of Texas at Austin, United States
A Catalyst for CMD Interaction: the Characteristics and the Dynamics of Feedback Messages as a Motivational Factor
Jieun Lee, University of Texas at Austin, United States
Incorporating best practices to transform a face to face course to an online course
Poonam Kumar, Saginaw Valley State University, United States; Anil Kumar, Central Michigan University, United States
Using TPACK as Framework for Understanding Effective Online Teaching
Leanna Archambault, University of Nevada Las Vegas, United States
These links are based on references which have been extracted automatically and may have some errors. If you see a mistake, please contact info@learntechlib.org.


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text:
Roger Johnson (Ashford, 1983. április 28. –) angol labdarúgó, aki jelenleg a Birmingham Cityben játszik, hátvédként.

Pályafutása

Wycombe Wanderers

Johnson 15 éves korában került a Wycombe Wanderers ifiakadémiájára, korábban a Portsmouth-nál és a Bournemouth-nál is megfordult. Az 1999/00-es szezonban mutatkozott be a felnőtt csapatban, a Cambridge United ellen. A 2003/04-es idényben nem volt állandó tagja a gárdának Tony Adams irányítása alatt, de a szurkolók végül őt választották meg a Wycombe legjobbjának. Adams egy év után távozott, Johnson visszakerült a kezdőbe és a csapatkapitányi karszalagot is megkapta.

Cardiff City

2006. július 4-én Johnson 275 ezer fontért a Cardiff Cityhez szerződött. A Swansea City is érdeklődött iránta, de 100 ezer fontos ajánlatukra a Wycombe nemet mondott. Az első hat hónapban állandó csere volt, majd sikerült bekerülnie a kezdőbe és Glenn Loovensszel olyan jó párost alkotott, hogy a csapatkapitány, Darren Purse nem fért be a csapatba. A 2007/08-as szezonban hátvéd létére viszonylag sok gólt szerzett. A Norwich City, a Brighton, a Preston North End, a Hull City, a Briston City és a Middlesbrough kapujába is betalált. A Cardiff végül bejutott az FA Kupa döntőjébe, ahol 1-0-s vereséget szenvedett a Portsmouth-tól. Az idény végén Johnsont választották a legjobbnak.

2008 nyarán a West Bromwich Albion és az Ipswich Town is megpróbálta megszerezni, de a Cardiff City nem engedte. védőtársa, Loovens időközben a Celtichez távozott. A szezon első meccsén, a Southampton ellen győztes gólt szerzett. 2009 áprilisában a Crystal Palace egyik játékosa, Claude Davis belekönyökölt a torkába, ami miatt nem kapott rendesen levegőt és kórházba kellett szállítani. Davist később három meccsre eltiltották. Johnson egy héttel később, a Preston North End ellen térhetett vissza. Az idény végén bekerült az angol másodosztály álomcsapatába.

Birmingham City

Johnson 2009 júniusában a Birmingham Cityhez igazolt. A kék mezesek 5 millió fontot fizettek érte és egy három évre szóló szerződést írattak alá vele.

Külső hivatkozások

 Roger Johnson adatlapja a Birmingham City honlapján

Angol labdarúgók
A Wycombe Wanderers labdarúgói
A Cardiff City labdarúgói
A Birmingham City labdarúgói
Labdarúgóhátvédek
1983-ban született személyek
Élő személyek

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia