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Castlevania: Dracula X (Super NES, 1995)
Here's a game that I've never covered before. It got somewhat of a bad rep over the years, and a lot of that is probably because Super Castlevania IV was a much better game. This despite Super Castlevania IV being years earlier in the Super NES's lifespan. In short, this was a fairly unnecessary addition to the Castlevania-verse, but it's a decent game regardless.
Dracula X started out as Rondo of Blood (a much, much better name) for the PC Engine in Japan circa 1993. It was very well-received and introduced a lot of mechanics that hadn't been seen in the series up to that point, including some non-linear level design choices that later went into Symphony of the Night on the Playstation.
Wait a minute... PC Engine? That's our Turbografx-16, which if I'm not mistaken was in dire need of a major game hit in 1993. Why didn't Rondo of Blood get a U.S. release for that system? It could have been THE killer app on a system without one. The mind boggles.
In any case, Rondo of Blood didn't get a U.S. release. It did, however, get a remake of sorts in 1995, and that's what ended up as Dracula X on the Super NES. This version is notably inferior to the PC Engine version, with a lot of the cool design choices taken out and a fairly linear level design. There isn't much to this game, but it's what we got at the time.
Every time I see a screen like this now, I hear the map jingle from Super Ghouls and Ghosts.
The game begins with a flaming town. We're playing as Richter Belmont now, the grandson of Simon Belmont. So we've moved a few generations past the original game, at least.
The stages in this game are left-to-right, linear affairs... so is the whipping. That's right, gone is the ability to whip in any direction that we had in Super Castlevania IV. This basic limitation almost immediately establishes this game as a step down. It's really just "back to normal", but it's hard to do that when you're used to having full whip control in the previous game. This is sorta like WWE going PG again after the Attitude Era. It's just back to the way it was before, but there's something to be said for growing with the audience.
Special weapons make a return, at least, with the boomerang-crosses looking better than ever.
Each weapon also has a special mega-attack that covers the entire screen at a higher heart-ammo cost.
Towards the end of the first stage, Richter has to outrun a charging behemoth. This first stage is easily the most memorable thing about this game.
One constant in these old Castlevania games that I'm not a fan of: The jumping. Once you start a jump, you're committed to it and there isn't much adjusting. Here we see me trying to keep from flying into a pit by turning back, but all that does is make Richter face the other way while he careens ass-first to his doom.
The first real boss is Cerberus. The graphics and animation in this game are good, probably because it uses the same visual style as Rondo of Blood.
I wonder if this game would have existed at all if Rondo of Blood had gotten a U.S. release. Probably, considering the SNES was much more common than the Turbografx-16. Konami would have likely wanted to port it over regardless. I do wonder why the SNES version isn't as robust, though, since the system was more powerful than the TG-16.
...wasn't it? OR WAS EVERYTHING I EVER HEARD A LIE?
I like how in some of the earlier games you could upgrade your whip to give it fire-power and whatnot, but alas that isn't the case here. The whip starts out as a chain whip and never gets longer or more powerful. It's chain whip all the way!
You CAN, however, do a single big flame whip attack by doing a special weapon attack (Up and Y) when you don't have any special weapons equipped. It looks awesome but it doesn't seem very damaging.
Stage 2 is a dilapidated bridge with vicious fish that jump out at you. This is where the game starts getting a little difficult, because small platforms + leaping enemies + the jump control = lots of getting knocked into pits.
The bridge collapses as you get further along. Where is the infrastructure, Dracula? Are ALL of our tax dollars going to finding brides?
Speaking of which, we reach what I think is the foot of Drac's castle. This marks the debut of these annoying eyeball enemies that home in on Richter, as well as more standard series fare like the axe-boomerang knights.
Speaking of series fare, I grabbed the Holy Water at this point and it still functions as a grenade. This time around it has a potent green fire animation. You know... I think somebody replaced the "holy water" with absinthe.
Next boss is another redux of the first boss of the original Castlevania. It's a simple fight with a giant bat that breaks apart into smaller bats. Their pattern is deliberate, at least. Found this easier than the Cerberus fight, weirdly enough.
This wall looks suspicious, so I whipped it. Didn't expect anything to happen, but the game surprised me by having the wall break. What lurks within?
An extra life? Whoa! Those are basically nonexistent in this game, so awesome. I didn't really talk about this much in the earlier posts, but throughout the Castlevania series you can often whip walls to find heals or other loot within.
What follows is an area that looks like a bad Super Mario Maker level, as lots of enemies are stacked on top of each other for no real reason. Go easy on the massive enemy hordes, people! There's a reason that Nintendo-designed levels don't all start with 40 goombas walking towards the player in four stacked rows of ten!
The next boss is the easiest yet. Why are they descending in difficulty level? Props for having the Headless Horseman here at all though, risking the wrath of angry 90's Parents. (If Nintendo Power Volume 2, which I touched on in the Simon's Quest post, is any indication...)
I've got a key as a special weapon right now, and no idea what to do with it. Been avoiding any further special weapons because I don't want to lose the key. I better check Nintendo Power, because I vaguely remember this key being important. The fact that stage four is a jail tells me that the key is used here.
In other news, the music in this area is excellent. When 'Vania music is on, it's ON.
...And we're back from Nintendo Power checking. Looks like I'm in the right place to use the key. This is where Dracula is keeping Maria, Richter's girlfriend's sister. He also has the girlfriend, Annet, in a different stage. With all these captured women, I'm half expecting to learn that Dracula is also holding the girlfriend's sister's cousin's former roommate.
The prison soon gives way to a cave full of spikes. I feel like I've already missed the locked door. It'd help if I knew what it looked like...
Another thing that'd help: If I could whip in multiple directions, since these enemies are flying at me from above and below on the elevator. This is maddening!
::rubs eyes::
........EGAD! The locked door! It's right there! I didn't even see it while playing, probably too busy trying to dodge these flying skulls. Now I know what to look for.
There's another door at the end of the stage, but the key isn't working. I think this is the exit if you've got Maria in tow. I don't, so I'm left face-to-snout with...
...the stage boss, the minotaur. This thing is formidable. I'm a minotaur-thusiast, and seeing shots of this fight in Nintendo Power is what made me want to play this game in the first place back in the day.
The minotaur easily defeats me a couple of times, but I soon discovered that hit-and-run tactics work extremely well against it. Do 2-3 hits to stun it and then back off quickly because it'll always retaliate the same way.
That was stage 4, but I didn't find Maria so I'll have to do it again. According to Nintendo Power, there are alternate versions of stage 4 and 5, both reached by falling off of those pillars in stage 3. They lead to the bad ending, while the stage I'm on here leads to the good ending if you rescue Maria and Annet. In the interest of completeness, I'm going back to play the alternate bad path levels before I replay this version of stage 4 and continue with the good ending path. Yeah, we're going IN-DEPTH for this one.
The minotaur boss is sorta in a weird spot because you don't actually need to fight him on either path. The bad path avoids this stage entirely, and the good path lets you skip the minotaur fight by rescuing Maria in his stage. The only real purpose the minotaur serves is to move you from the good path to the bad path, since you jump the tracks if you get to the end of this stage without Maria.
Well, this is all a little more complicated than it needs to be. Let's continue.
Alternate stage 4 is all underground, and reached by falling off the pillars in stage 3. Oddly enough, I found this stage to be much more difficult than the normal stage 4. You'd think it'd be the other way around since you reach this stage by playing poorly and falling into a pit... maybe they could cut you a break at that point? NOPE.
For starters, you're confronted with lots of mud-men right out of Xenogears. I thought the mud was lava or acid at first and avoided it like the plague. It slows you down to walk through it, but it isn't damaging.
This red skeleton is creepy as hell, and for a moment I thought it was the boss. It isn't, but it might as well be classified as a miniboss because it takes TONS OF DAMAGE. I eventually gave up and just sprinted past it.
Don't sprint too fast though, because AAHHHH WTF IS THAT
Get past red skeletons and bone-serpents, and you arrive at the boss: Phantoon from Super Metroid. Seriously, the fight intro is very similar, with blue flames materializing and converging in a circle.
This isn't a flying eye-monster, though. It's some sort of lich, and it's one of the toughest fights in the game. The first form isn't too bad because you can knock it backwards with whip strikes. Wait, did I say first form? That's right, unlike every other non-final boss in the game, this boss has a second life meter. Why is this alternate stage so hard? It isn't even for the good ending!
Defeat the lich and he's all "this isn't even my final form!" and...
HE RETURNS, now telekenetically swinging a bunch of tombstones in the air. They can be destroyed mid-flight, at least, but only if you have some distance on him before he starts throwing them. This fight is difficult, yo.
YEAH! DISINTEGRATE! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
Our Halloween adventure continues with an alternate stage 5. Featuring bats. Lots of bats. This game loves to combine bats and pits, ala Ninja Gaiden.
Here I am getting killed by a refugee from Dark Souls. At first I didn't know how I was supposed to get past these guys without getting mauled, but then I realized that the whip has a slightly longer range than their swords. Turns out that most of the more difficult enemies in this game have a trick to them if you're careful.
When things get hectic, UNLEASH RAIN FLUSH!
"Oh Yeahhhh. Nice."
This alternate stage 5 continues along the path of the alternate stage 4, leading to the final stages. Despite being much more challenging than the "real" stage 4 and 5, following this path results in the bad ending. Go figure. After I finish this stage I'll be going back to the original path.
Boss here is the werewolf, with what I think is Dracula's Castle in the background. Awesome visuals here, but the fight is probably the easiest in the game. Given the size of the boss and the shape of the room, this looks more like a Ninja Gaiden series or Mega Man series boss.
Returning to the original path, I re-do the first version of stage 4. This time I take the door that I missed earlier, which leads me to...
...Maria? I think this is Maria. Isn't she an adult and super-hot in the later games? This must take place a lot earlier.
Stage 5 is very cool, sorta an underwater temple/ruin. I'm a big fan of this theme and would like to see it in more games. Everquest does this particular theme a lot and has an entire expansion dedicated to sea ruins.
There's something a little suspicious about this room. If you whip the water spout...
...it causes the room to de-flood and scroll downward a bit. Feels like something out of Super Metroid. Actually, this is probably an updated version of the blue crystal deal in Simon's Quest.
Down here is Annet (or Annette), Richter's girlfriend and the second of the two people he had to rescue. Now that I've done everything, onward to the end!
The boss here seemed impossible at first because it flies around so rapidly. It's a matter of hitting the serpent in the head, but good luck with that.
The key is to wait until it goes vertical and hovers in place for a moment, then unleash a crush attack. I used the cross boomerang, not sure if others would be as effective, and got a ONE HIT KILL out of it. I was ready to call this the hardest fight in the game a minute ago...
Looks like the designers included a lot of convenient outs for the more difficult sections of the game.
We're on the edge of the landscape now. Is this island floating in a void? It's like an eviler version of Zeal Kingdom. In any case, Stage 6 is the infamous Clock Tower that seems to appear in every game in this series. Stage 7 is the end and takes us back to the left for the castle tower.
The clock tower is full of BATS. So many BATS.
BATS.
Soon I reach the actual Clock Tower. This vertical bat-hell is filled with gears that you need to ride upwards. Well, you know. This is nothing new at this point...
Climbing these spinning gears is already a chore, and when you factor in these flying medusa heads... yeah, this is a series trope that I really wish they wouldn't have kept going back to.
Speaking of serious tropes, here's Death. You know Dracula is a badass when DEATH plays second-billing to him. Death actually isn't too bad...if you bring the axe. The arc that the axe travels in happens to do a really good job knocking Death out of the air as he swoops in.
When his health gets low, Death sheds his cape and goes full-on melee-mode.
A vicious Crono Cyclone ends the hope of Earth. DAMN IT! DAMN IT ALL!
I win on the next go by using hit-and-run tactics on the grounded version of Death. YEAH! VICTORY
If you reach this point without rescuing the women, you fight an alternate boss. Instead of Death, here's Carmilla... who looks like Death's sibling. It's a slightly easier fight overall though.
Stage 7 is the finale, Dracula's Castle. This is the final stage regardless of what paths you took through stage 4 and 5, or which boss you fought in 6.
This time around, the castle is gothic in architecture and very cool. Unfortunately it's full of BATS and these annoying spear-wielding knights.
Dracula himself is just chilling on his throne when Richter arrives. The first sign that this fight will be rough: There's, uh, very little floor.
Dracula's first form isn't too bad. It's his usual fireball-throwing first form, but the varied platform elevations actually make the fireballs easier to avoid. If you bring the axe (and tons of hearts) you can easily hit him from the lower platforms without being in any danger.
His second form is... a digitized Arnold Schwartznegger from the early 80's Mr. Universe contest? I'm pretty sure it is. This is the hardest final fight of any game in this series, at least from what I've played.
This form is deadly because it can hit you from anywhere, and the pit is an ever-present threat. He also likes to fly over and hover right above where you're standing, essentially trapping you. You can leap out from under him if you get right on the edge of your platform quickly, at least.
Lose, and you have to fight his first form again. WHY! WHYYYYYYY!!!
"You seem to be having trouble. Do you need assistance?"
NO! Get out of here!
Actually I do, so I reach for the power. Nintendo Power! They also wonder aloud if this is the toughest of the Draculas. Their protips here are pretty much all common sense, but they do offer one crucial bit of advice: Use the axe.
On my second go, Richter takes a moment to wail on Dracula's penis before he takes flight. Just really wail on it.
Axes do indeed make all the difference, and it's much easier to hit him with those than with the whip. If you're standing on a platform chucking axes, you can give yourself room to not fall off if you get knocked back. If you're jumping to hit him with the whip, then when you're hit you almost inevitably sail back into a pit. Using the axe is key. The axe super-attack renders you temporarily invulnerable, too, which is helpful for avoiding a hit back. It's a good idea to save the ammo for regular shots, though.
Even with the fight over I throw a few more axes just in case.
During the ending cinematic, Dracula turns into... Steve Buscemi? I did NOT see that coming!
The sun comes up and that does him in. Everyone then lived happily ever after, at least until the next game in the timeline.
Richter, suddenly looking a lot like a Street Fighter II character, embraces his girlfriend while her little sister peers on.
God bless those magnificent bastards.
That concludes my look at the retro Castlevania titles. It was a good run, and I enjoyed all of 'em. Super Castlevania IV was the best, easily, but the gameplay is timeless and fun across the board.
NOW IT IS TIME TO WHIP IT.
Labels: 1995, Action, Castlevania, Dracula X, Rondo of Blood, Super NES
Brayn November 3, 2015 at 2:04 PM
Some of the disdain for this game is from comparing it to Super Castlevania IV, but I think most of it is from comparing it to Rondo of Blood.
Well, it should be noted the original version was for the CD-ROM add-on to the Turbografx. So that explains a lot of the technological gap.
Rain Flush is hypnotic.
Yeah, this is OG Maria, who is younger. In the original Rondo she was a playable character too, which led to her older version also being a playable character in Symphony of the Night... but that was the Saturn version we didn't get over here. If I'm not mistaken you can play as Maria in both games on the PSP release we got later at least.
Whoa, melee Death? Cool.
Man, not even having a proper floor for the final battle is just a low blow. This fight is a lot more fun in the Symphony of the Night intro stage.
Thanks for the in-depth post. Now I'm curious how the better Turbographx version of this game played. Is it available online?
Jericho November 5, 2015 at 12:18 AM
It should be, but I've never really fooled with TG-16 emulation. I should play Bonk.
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Castlevania Bloodlines (Sega Genesis, 1994)
Super Castlevania IV (Super NES, 1991)
Castlevania III: Akumajou Densetsu (Famicom, 1989)
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES, 1988)
Castlevania (NES, 1987)
Gargoyle's Quest II (NES, 1992)
Gargoyle's Quest (Game Boy, 1990)


I have NPM 11.5 installed on a Windows 2012 R2 Server. While trying to poll the server using WMI, it does not list any network adapters. On the other hand, if I poll the server using SNMP, it lists all the network adapters.
The problem here is, I want to monitor Hyper-V virtualization as well. (This is a Hyper-V host). Is anyone else experiencing similar problem. Please let me know.
Have you setup NPM in settings Virtualization polling settings already under node and group management? When you added the node to be polled did you use snmp and also check poll for virtualization? I use vmware but I think it's very similar for hyper-v.


I was born and raised on Chicago's West Side Lawndale neighborhood.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: if statement for Highcharts xAxis labels I have managed to get this if statement to run the first part, but it will not run the else if bit correctly. I must be placing something incorrectly because it only shows (Not Designated) on the xAxis. Wondering why the else if part is not working.
labels: {
    formatter: function() {
        // custom formatter
        if (this.x == null) { return "(Not Designated)";

        } else if (this.x != null ) {

            return this.x;
        }
},

It must have something to do with how I am getting the data then, because my original if statement was like this...
if (this.x == null) return '(Not Designated)';

else return this.x;

If I use the "===" setup it does not show the (not designated) or any xAxis values, if I use the "==" it will show the (not designated) for all xAxis items. I understand that it is a really simple function to do this, but its not working and it either has something to do with Highcharts formatter or the data I am trying to gather. I have not dealt with null values much either so sorry for the bad markup examples...thanks for the comments!

A: When I check this.x using debugger it looks like undefined:

I replace "this.x" by "this.value", the chart is working.
Here is the jsfiddle.
  if (this.value == 0) {
    return '(Not Designated)';

  } else if (this.value != 0) {

    return this.value;
  }

It will be great if you can share the categories that you are using!

A: First of all, in the fiddle you gave, the formatter function wasn't encapsulated into labels property.
labels: {
            formatter: function() {

         if (this.value == 0) {return '(Not Designated)';}
         else {return this.value;}
        },
        },
        },

There were also 2 other problems:

*

*this.x is undefined, so checking with === won't show the x-axis because this operator will check if values are strictly equals (more info here). since undefined is undefined, you can't check for its value.

*When you have null into a category name, highcharts will replace it with its index, so that's why even with == it wasn't working.

I suggest to replace the null by a 0 and the this.x by this.value.
Here's your working Fiddle.

A: Here is what I ended up with in the end, took me a while but glad that this handles all null values and all blank values, in case any of you have a similar issue with your database.
// format the xAxis labels to handle null and blank values from database
 formatter: function() {
   if (this.x === null) {
   return "(Not Designated)" + '
' + '$' + Highcharts.numberFormat(this.y, 0);
    } else if (this.x === '') {
      return "(Not Designated)" + '
' + '$' + Highcharts.numberFormat(this.y, 0);
 }
   return this.x + ' ' + '$' + Highcharts.numberFormat(this.y, 0);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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HILLARY ELIZABETH MADDOX born 8 August 1992, Florida voter ID number 117997845 See TREXLER, HILLARY MADDOX.
Hillary Lynn Mondrach was born 8 August 1992, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 14415 Metro Pkwy, #103, Fort Myers, Florida 33912. Florida voter ID number 123802177. Her telephone number is 1-860-882-3563. . Her email address is mondrachh@gmail.com. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 28 February 2019.
31 July 2018 voter list: HILLARY LYNN MONDRACH, 301 NORWOOD TER, #N126, BOCA RATON, FL 33431 Florida Democratic Party.
31 August 2017 voter list: HILLARY LYNN MONDRACH, 285 NW 15TH ST, BOCA RATON, FL 33432 Florida Democratic Party.
HILLARY MADDOX TREXLER was born 8 August 1992, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 3502 Jenks Ave, #2203, Panama City, Florida 32405. Florida voter ID number 117997845. Her telephone number is 1-850-265-1634. . This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 28 February 2019.
31 October 2016 voter list: HILLARY ELIZABETH MADDOX, 412 COLORADO AVE, LYNN HAVEN, FL 32444 Republican Party of Florida.
30 June 2015 voter list: HILLARY ELIZABETH MADDOX, 412 COLORADO AVE, LYNN HAVEN, FL 324441927 Republican Party of Florida.
31 January 2015 voter list: HILLARY ELIZABETH MADDOX, 3223 COUNTRY CLUB DR, LYNN HAVEN, FL 32444 Republican Party of Florida.
HOLLY JEAN CUMMINGS was born 8 August 1992 and registered to vote in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
Hunter A Tuck was born 8 August 1992, is male, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 5020 Sunridge Palms Dr, Apt 101, Tampa, Florida 33617. Florida voter ID number 120563191. His telephone number is 1-417-598-8491. . This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 28 February 2019.
31 August 2016 voter list: Hunter A. Tuck, 4216 S MANHATTAN AVE, APT 201, Tampa, FL 33611 No Party Affiliation.


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Cyphomeris är ett släkte av underblomsväxter. Cyphomeris ingår i familjen underblomsväxter.

Kladogram enligt Catalogue of Life:

Källor

Underblomsväxter
Cyphomeris

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Whitepaper: Digital video's offline adventure
Brought to you by Penthera2018-06-06T08:42:00+01:00
More video providers are embracing download-to-go applications. Here's why.
Downloading video content to mobile devices is becoming an increasingly common behaviour as travellers, commuters and even in-home video viewers contend with the vagaries of uneven Wi-Fi availability and sometimes-frustrating streaming video experiences.
During a layover at Miami's Airport recently, Charlotte Bockstahler did what lots of savvy travellers do: hunted for a decent Wi-Fi connection. The data analytics specialist wanted to have a choice of movies and TV shows to watch on the plane ride home to Denver, but she had doubts about how well streaming video would work on the airplane.
"When you try to stream through Wi-Fi on the airplane; you might pay the money to get connected, but they block the streaming stuff. So instead, you download the content to your device," said Bockstahler. She was able to find a fast Internet connection at an American Airlines passengers club. Within a few minutes, Bockstahler had downloaded a handful of full-length movies and TV episodes from her Amazon Prime Video and Netflix apps. "I had two movies and two TV shows in about five minutes," she said. "After that I could go into airplane mode and it was on my phone."
Her experience isn't unusual. Downloading video content to mobile devices is becoming an increasingly common behavior as travelers, commuters and even in-home video viewers contend with the vagaries of uneven Wi-Fi availability and sometimes-frustrating streaming video experiences.
Penthera"Penthera is a global software company that develops and deploys software products facilitating the delivery of TV shows, movies and other video content over wireless networks to mobile devices."
UK government freezes BBC licence fee, plans review of funding model
The UK government has frozen the BBC licence fee for two years and is to embark on a major review of how the public service broadcaster is funded.
Making the DVB Project an internet centric organisation
Native IP takes the DVB to the front line of video delivery, in the process giving the satellite companies a new commercial imperative. And using DVB-I as a service layer on top of 5G technologies is a second milestone, writes George Jarrett
Netflix's Tauzia on the importance of partnerships
Netflix's VP of partner solutions tells IBC Digital how partnerships are key to growing the subscriber base of the streaming giant

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Premature Obituaries for the Age of Big Media
Remember all that outrage a year ago about the deepening concentration of control over the media? How more and more news and entertainment channels were falling into fewer and fewer hands, and how regulatory changes would enfeeble the already limp safeguards against media monopoly?
Well, never mind all that. Everything's fine now. The media are actually trimming back.
"Big media seem to be shrinking," is one Wall Street Journal headline. "Small is beautiful, again," goes another. "Big biz in spinoff zone," says the Hollywood Reporter. "Breaking up is easy to do," says BusinessWeek. And from London's Guardian newspaper: "For years, consumer groups have been watching with alarm the creeping consolidation of the American media. They might no longer need to worry."
True, a mini-wave of divestiture is rumbling through the media. Some of the more bloated conglomerates are selling off holdings. Number 3 Viacom is looking to split in half, with balding CBS atop one division and green-haired MTV and associated spawn heading up another. Disney may downsize, ditto Time Warner (possibly shedding AOL), Liberty Media wants to unload its Discovery franchise.
So media consolidation is over? Are we heading toward nimbler, dispersed ownership under diversified control, responsive to a broader range of popular concerns, free from backroom conspiracies and Wall Street machinations?
Not quite. To be sure, the efficiencies sought from unified ownership — those synergies — have remained elusive. Time Warner can't turn $200 million squandered on some bad movie into a gold strike by force-feeding the stinkeroo onto HBO and getting People to tout it on its cover. Disney can't have Tinker Bell host beach volleyball on ESPN2 or put Ted Koppel on Space Mountain.
But it's not operational disappointments that are derailing the media bigness train. This isn't about rational management, or even about monopoly. It's about making money. It's about Wall Street.
U.S. industry buys and sells itself cyclically, puffing up and blowing out. The economic rationale is as predictable as a moonrise: When everybody's bulking up it's to profit from synergies and scale; when everybody's selling it's to rededicate to their core business and unlock shareholder value (meaning goose the stock price.)
The economics is often bogus. Most mergers don't work, and most divestitures are mere preludes to other mergers. But the economics doesn't matter, because the finances are unfathomably lucrative. One estimate is that splitting Viacom will cost $200 million — that's $200 million in fees, commissions and premiums for covens of advisers, lawyers, middlemen, plus mention the executives themselves, who will anoint their heads with moola beyond imagining.
And standing behind those transaction artists is the private world of investment capital. There, rich people — we call them high net-worth individuals — weary of the soporific S&P, hunger for the next piping-hot media plays, once the high-growth glamour units are unshackled from their stolid conglomerate cousins. Who wants shares in CBS when you can invest in MTV, which made $527 million last year on revenue of $1.09 billion — margins unheard of outside the crack trade.
Big money wants in, and will pay top dollar. Advance indications are that AdMedia Partner's forthcoming annual outlook survey will find deep-pocket investors more eager than ever to pay higher prices than ever for media properties.
So is the danger of concentrated media control gone? Of course not. First, the problem was never one of mere bigness. In the early days of movie-making a relatively small cartel, The Edison Trust, controlled the industry by squatting on the critical film processing patents. Much later the broadcast networks had tyrannical sway over every stage of TV programming, from production to distribution to post-broadcast syndication. The issue is control, not size.
Besides, media companies won't get smaller. Don't mistake a reconfiguration for a radical change in scale. Just because joining unlike units into clunky conglomerates didn't make sense doesn't mean we won't now see them realigned into vast companies that do.
The era of big media is far from over. The advantages of being able to control both the companies you buy from and the ones you sell to haven't been repealed. We're about to learn once more the most important truth about the transformation of our media into pure financial assets: Providing news and cultural programming that actually corresponds to, amuses, ennobles and betters our community isn't something media owners oppose; it just isn't what they do for a living.
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We have previously written about the High Court's decision in ACCC v Google. Following that decision, Google has made a number of changes to their AdWords policy – changes that may affect you and your trade marks and branding.
The ACCC and Google case was about a series of ads, where some businesses were using their competitor's trade marks or branding in their Google AdWords advertising. A number of the ads were placed by a classifieds advertising business, who purchased AdWords for "honda.com.au". The classifieds advertising business was not affiliated with Honda. Understandably, the court held that the classifieds advertising business had conducted misleading and deceptive conduct. The court also said that Google was not responsible for that conduct (even if they did facilitate the placing of that advertisement).
In short, Google will allow advertisers to purchase and use trade marks as keywords in Google Ads in places like Australia, China, and Hong Kong. Full particulars of the change in policy can be found on their website.
You may complain directly to Google, who may take action after the matter has been brought to their attention.
You may take action directly against the advertiser.
In summary – following these changes to Google's policies, it is more important than ever to keep an eye out for what your competitors are doing.
You should always conduct a review of your intellectual property assets from time to time. This should be part of your business management strategy. You may have avoided it in the past because you think it is a complicated area of law or you were unsure of what you needed to protect or comply with.
Intellectual Property Explorer is a new, free online tool for small businesses to keep track of their intellectual property assets and conduct an audit of all their intellectual property assets. It helps with identifying, analysing, and reviewing the various intellectual property assets that your business may own.
This tool is a public initiative developed by the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) and the intellectual property offices of Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong.


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Compliance and Corporate Ethics
SUEK's Charter and by-laws
Washing and Processing
Coal loading methods
Coal in Our Life
Coal Classification
The Future of Coal
Investment Story
Investor's Briefcase
Interaction with Stakeholders
SUEK helps fight COVID-19
Our Position on Climate Change
The company's stance on human rights
Why Join SUEK?
ГОРЯЧАЯ ЛИНИЯ ДЛЯ СООБЩЕНИЙ О НАРУШЕНИЯХ
SGC testing a new system for firing up TPP boilers without the use of fuel oil
SGC has put in place plans to begin testing a new method of firing up boilers without the use of fuel oil at thermal power plants in the Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk regions. SGC's plans to extend its electrochemical ignition technology (ECIT) to CHPPs in other cities of the company's operation in the near future, the company announced on September 1.
One of the experimental sites for the introduction of electrochemical technology will be the Krasnoyarsk CHPP-2. The contractor plans to start installing oil-free ignition equipment on Boiler No. 2 this September. In October, experts will begin testing the new system at the station, and in 2021 — to use it in normal mode. This project is expected to reduce the annual volume of CHPP emissions by more than 6.5 tonnes.
Sibtekhenergo, one of the pioneers of this technology in Russia, was chosen as the contractor for the Krasnoyarsk CHPP-2.
Today, most thermal power plants use the thermal method of fuel ignition, which uses fuel oil. Some of the disadvantages of this method are that it is uneconomical, poses a fire hazard, and is ecologically unsubstantial: local residents have complained about black smoke being emitted from the CHPP's chimneys when the boilers are fired up.
Electrochemical technology uses a 20 kHz high-frequency current under a voltage of 10 kV to create an electric arc ignition of coal dust entering the burner device of a boiler unit. Fuel-free ignition of boilers using electric arc plasma torches and systems for electrochemical ignition of coal fuel is today the most advanced technology in the energy sector in terms of efficiency and reliability, as SGC experts have notes.
In Novosibirsk, SGC is negotiating with developers of oil-free ignition systems to adapt this technology to the equipment of the city's thermal power plants. One of the major engineering companies in the regional energy market has offered SGC its own patented equipment for pilot implementation of the new development. The parties are currently discussing the specifics of application of the technology and legal issues, as well as deciding on which CHPP to set up a production site for the pilot project.
At the Novosibirsk Branch, experts estimate a 2.1-tonnes per year reduction in the gross emissions of fuel oil ash from all five CHPPs in the region. The stations also expect to save on the maintenance of fuel oil farms and the purchase of fuel oil once the new technology is introduced. The experience of the two CHPPs will be studied and applied at other SGC stations in different cities. The company plans to switch to fuel-free ignition over time in all regions of its operation.
"We plan to completely abandon fuel-oil ignition at our stations. Different technologies are being considered. By shifting away from fuel oil, we are ensuring that no more black smoke, which scares many people when firing up boilers, will be released. We will also be improving our stations' economic efficiency and production fire safety, " SGC's Technical Director Oleg Petrov said earlier.
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И́горь Вади́мович Арта́мкин — русский математик, алгебраический геометр, организатор математического образования. Доктор физико-математических наук (2007). Заместитель декана  Высшей школы экономики.

Биография
Окончил механико-математический факультет МГУ (1977). Ученик А. Н. Тюрина. В 1989 году защитил кандидатскую диссертацию, а в 2007 году — докторскую.

С 1983 года работает в МИРЭА, является там профессором. В разное время имел временные позиции в Институте высших научных исследований в Бюр-сюр-Иветте и в Институте Макса Планка в Бонне. В 1992 году стал первым директором православной Традиционной гимназии в Москве (ныне Православная Свято-Петровская школа). Работал её директором до 2001 года. В 2000-х годах читал курсы в НМУ в рамках программы .

С 2008 года Артамкин принимал активное участие в создании и работе факультета математики ВШЭ как заместитель декана по учебной работе, а также лектор. Ординарный профессор ВШЭ с 2011 года.

Основные труды в области алгебраической геометрии, комбинаторики, теории графов, математической физики. И. В. Артамкин одним из первых исследовал деформации пучков на алгебраических многообразиях. Локальное описание пространства модулей пучков даётся теоремой Артамкина — Мукаи. Также Артамкину принадлежит комбинаторная версия .

Семья
Жена — Ирина Георгиевна, химик по образованию. В семье И. В. Артамкина девять детей. Сын — Дмитрий, кандидат физико-математических наук, преподаватель Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета, 12 июля 2018 года рукоположен в сан диакона, женат на дочери протоиерея Владимира Воробьёва Варваре, которая родила ему пятерых дочерей-близнецов. По этому поводу об И. В. Артамкине положительно отзывался известный математик и публицист Миша Вербицкий:

Примечания

Ссылки
 Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики»

Математики России
Математики СССР
Научные сотрудники ВШЭ
Алгебраические геометры
Доктора физико-математических наук
Математики по алфавиту
Математики XX века
Математики XXI века
Преподаватели Независимого московского университета


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Tag Archives: andy payne
Home Grown?
So the Premier League's new squad cap rules come into play this season and the headlines make for good reading if you are an England fan, or indeed Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. A lovely little phrase is present with the Premier League's wording, one to lure us all and make us feel like the game is no longer being commercialised and raped beyond all levels of decency. That phrase is 'home grown players'. It feels like the equivalent of John Major's 'warm beer and evensong' doesn't it? I bet some big hitting lawyers have earned some big hitting fees definining that innocuous and friendly sounding phrase. Far from it being a reference to illicitly made, but generally harmless narcotics, it seems like it has been selected to appease and encourage all football supporters who fear for the future of a game geared soley around a club's ability to pay for talent.
The wording of the rule is interesting:-
Every Premier League club has a squad of 25 and that number is capped. Of these 25, 8 must be 'home grown'. Sounds great doesn't it? But what is the definition of 'home grown'. Well that is simple enough. A 'home grown' player is 'one irrespective of age or nationality, who has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or Foootball Association of Wales for a period continuous or not of 3 entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday or the end of the season in which he turns 21′. Does it remind you of the rules attached to meat classification – reared n the EU but slaughtered in the UK'. Clubs will be able to supplemement their squads with additional players under 21 (defined as under 21 on 1st of Jan in which the season commences). Changes to the squad list of 25 may be made during the period of the Transfer Window. Clubs have to declare their 25 players by the end of the Transfer Window (ie 31st August) and then again by the end of the January Transfer Window.
So don't be fooled. 'Home' refers to the club not the country, I am pretty certain Luis Boa Morte is 'home grown'. Granted the system should and probably will encourage clubs to invest in more young players in order to beef up their squads, especially once the injuries set in and European football takes its toll. But think about why this rule has come in. Just think about who will really benefit from these new rules. Clubs can't put a system of wage or salary caps in, it is after all against the free market, free wheeling Sky fed model and besides players and agents would be up in arms heading for Terminal 5 quicker than you could say 'Robinho'.
Premier League chairmen preside for the most over businesses that have a fundamental broken model. Far from the 'Broken Britain' that we keep on hearing about, we all know that we definitely have 'Broken Football'. Everything changed in 2003 when the 'rags to riches' ' entrerpreneur' Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea. Most people know that Roman's wealth is massive, although many wonder if it has been truly earned through hard work and innovation. Suddenly the old guard of Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal were playing catch up. There was a new force on the scene and one which was going to become successful, after years of mediocrity. Chelsea had entered the big league and so long as Roman's money was there, they would be taking up one of those precious 'Champions League' slots, the ones which make the clubs all the money and vitally, get them all the 'brand exposure' that they both need and crave. The stakes had been upped, and it seemed the only way clubs could compete was through spending more and more money. And it was. But to spend big, you had to have the cash or at least the access to the cash. Both Liverpool and Manchester United changed ownership in a bid to match Roman's Blues, although the choice of owners was questionable to say the least. A few Americans who knew little about football and even less about English football leveraged the clubs with massive debts, something which both clubs and their fans are suffocating from right now. Wily old, privately owned Arsenal stood and watched, and primarily because they have always been prudent and because they have a single minded, myopic, but ultimately a brilliant talent spotting manager, spent less. But they won little in the process. The relationship between success as defined by winning the League or the Champions League and available cash has never been so close. However, the storm clouds of debt were gathering, and even Roman could see that this 'football drug' had it's downside, declaring that he wanted Chelsea to be self sufficient in future and the money he had put into the club was only ever a fully recoverable loan.
These owners and charimen knew that things had to change, they simply could not afford the spiralling debts incurred by the ever increasing wage demands players and agents. Has anyone analysed the inflation multiple in players' wages since 2003? In an age of transparency, we should be able to know the actual wages all players earn. Indeed, what professional class has salaries quoted in weekly amounts rather than monthly amounts nowadays. How very flat cap and working class!
And then BANG, 5 years after the Roman, along comes Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, owner of the Abu Dhabi United Group, and now owner of Manchester City. The bar was raised again, and raised smack in the middle of the global financial crisis. 19 other Premier League chairmen were looking down the barrel of an Arab gun. The Abu Dhabi United Group did not rely on leveraged debt, they had cash and plenty of it. Cash for gold, black gold.
So you see, these new rules are nothing to do with helping the English (or Welsh) national teams do better (and Scotland and Northern Ireland not at all). They are all to do with money just as they always are. Limiting the squads to two full teams not only limits clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea from 'warehousing' all the talent and thus choking the supply to their rivals, it also limits the cash the second tier have to spend. Allowing clubs to boost their squads with younger and therefore cheaper players, or more accurately players who cost less in wages, utimately means that the 'Broken Football' model gets some new life and potentially a new direction. Is this a good thing for football ? Yes, I think it is. After all Richard Scudamore, Premier League chief, said ' it is to protect the viability and sustainability of the clubs' . But these new rules and their cosy language are there to do just that. Nothing more, nothing less. If England' s team benefit great, but don't be taken in by the language, the spin and the branding of these changes. Home grown? I think not.
Tagged as andy payne, Chelsea, Home grown, Manchester city, Premier League, Richard Scudamore, Roman Abramovich, transfer window
The Legacy of the World Cup
Not my words but the words of Peter Delonno from Business Report. Incidentally the British couple mentioned at the foot of the page under Cyberspace is in fact Kirsty and I. Funny old world. Enjoy!
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=552&fArticleId=4102101
Tagged as andy payne, south africa, world cup, world cup 2010
Leaviing on a Jet Plane
Goodbye and goodnight to South Africa. Regardless of who actually wins the World Cup, you are the winners. Amazing country and amazing people. Rainbow Nation? Yes. Leaving Johannesburg now, after an emotional time on all fronts. From Robben Island, to Madikwe, to Wilderness, to Isandlwana this has been better than Japan 2002 and that is saying something.
Plenty of writing to do as we have been signal less for three days, whilst visiting Fugitives Drift, KwaZulu Natal. Tune in over the next few days for more fun. Meanwhile we are surrounded on both sides, not by brave Zulus, but by about two dozen mini children, where is my air pistol when I need it?
Tagged as andy payne, south africa, world cup
D.A. Go!
Klose but no cigar Diego. Poor bloke, after 24 years we still have not avenged that act of cheating, but it was lovely to see you slaughtered. Mullered son, mullered out of sight. No one likes you and now no one cares. Hats and helmuts off to ze Germans, you played wonderful football and thoroughly deserved to win this game. Now go out and win the whole thing!
Deutschland. Alles. Go. D A go!


text:
Lobey Dosser
Caledonian Railway ad
Museum of Transport
Advertisments for the Caledonian Railway Co's Grampian Corridor Express service to Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
Buchanan Street Station was built in 1849 by the Caledonian Railway Co. Most of the trains using the station were bound for the north, serving towns and cities including Stirling, Perth, Oban, Aberdeen and Inverness. The Caledonian Railway Co's engines were painted a distinctive blue, while the coaches were chocolate and cream.
advertisements, Caledonian Railway Co, Grampian Corridor Express, railways, trains


text:
Analysis and Projection of Flood Hazards over China
Correction: Białowiec, A., et al. The Oxygen Transfer Capacity of Submerged Plant Elodea densa in Wastewater Constructed Wetlands. Water, 2019, 11, 575
Zhao, Y.
Chen, X.
Xiong, X.
Wu, C.
periphyton
phosphorus cycle
phosphorus fractionation
closed water systems
Yanhui Zhao
Xiaofei Chen
Xiong Xiong
Chenxi Wu
Capture and Release of Phosphorus by Periphyton in Closed Water Systems Influenced by Illumination and Temperature
Yanhui Zhao 1,3, Xiaofei Chen 2, Xiong Xiong 1 and Chenxi Wu 1,*
State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Hubei Academy of Environmental Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Water 2019, 11(5), 1021; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11051021
Received: 8 April 2019 / Revised: 27 April 2019 / Accepted: 14 May 2019 / Published: 16 May 2019
Periphyton is known to play an important role in the self-purification of aquatic ecosystems. However, little attention has been paid to the understanding of P distribution and its partitioning influenced by the physical parameters when periphyton is separated from the sediment. In this work, the effect of periphyton on the capture and release of phosphorus in closed water systems was studied and the influence of illumination and temperature conditions were investigated. Results showed that phosphorus was transferred from water to periphyton during the experiment at 15 °C, but periphyton turned from a sink to a source of phosphorus in a few days at 25 and 35 °C. Phosphorus capture in periphyton was more enhanced when illuminated at 70 than 20 μmol photons m−2 s−1 at 25 and 35 °C, but not at 15 °C. At the end of the experiment, cyanobacteria became more abundant at 25 and 35 °C and phosphorus fractionation showed that labile-P was predominant in periphyton. The release of the captured phosphorus could be related to the disaggregation of periphyton following the depletion of nutrients. Therefore, periphyton act as a temporary storage of phosphorus following nutrient input in closed water systems and the capture and release of phosphorus is strongly influenced by the environmental conditions. View Full-Text
Keywords: periphyton; phosphorus cycle; phosphorus fractionation; closed water systems; environmental conditions periphyton; phosphorus cycle; phosphorus fractionation; closed water systems; environmental conditions
Zhao, Y.; Chen, X.; Xiong, X.; Wu, C. Capture and Release of Phosphorus by Periphyton in Closed Water Systems Influenced by Illumination and Temperature. Water 2019, 11, 1021.
Zhao Y, Chen X, Xiong X, Wu C. Capture and Release of Phosphorus by Periphyton in Closed Water Systems Influenced by Illumination and Temperature. Water. 2019; 11(5):1021.
Zhao, Yanhui; Chen, Xiaofei; Xiong, Xiong; Wu, Chenxi. 2019. "Capture and Release of Phosphorus by Periphyton in Closed Water Systems Influenced by Illumination and Temperature." Water 11, no. 5: 1021.


I am writing in response to your recent email correspondence concerning the announcement from the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board (the "Board') regarding school libraries.
I appreciate you sharing your concern with me. All regional school boards are grappling with the challenges of enrolment decline and budget restraint; however, this government's priority is to focus resources in the classroom, and we expect the Board to look at every other possible option outside of the classroom to find savings. The funding to this board is in line with enrolment which is dropping by 1.7 percent this year.
Parents and my government expect school boards to make decisions that put students first, to protect class sizes, and important services like libraries. We will continue to work with boards as they deal with these challenges. My government recently conducted a review of the Chignecto board's budget process and has provided suggested options for the board's consideration.
Posted in Advocacy, School Libraries. Bookmark the permalink.


text:
Intimations of mortality: A Young Man's Exhortation to Boyhood's End
Labels: concert review, Oxford, Oxford Lieder Festival
Ben Johnson (Photo Chris Gloag)
Michael Tippett Boyhood's End, Gerald Finzi A young Man's Exhortation; Ben Johnson, Roger Vignoles; Oxford Lieder Festival at the Holywell Music Room
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 15 October 2019 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Ecstatic early Tippett and the lyric melancholy of Finzi's Hardy settings contrasted in this lunchtime recital
The theme of this year's Oxford Lieder Festival is Tales of the Beyond and Tuesday was a Day of the Dead. Amidst the other concerts, talk and cemetery visit around that theme, the lunchtime recital featured two 20th century British songs recitals which view boyhood from old age and the mortality to come.
At the Oxford Lieder Festival lunchtime recital on 15 October 2019 at Holywell Music Room, tenor Ben Johnson and pianist Roger Vignoles performed Michael Tippett's 1943 cantata, Boyhood's End and Gerald Finzi's A Young Man's Exhortation.
The two cycles make a fascinating pairing, both set Victorian writers born in the 1840s (Tippett sets William Henry Hudson and Finzi sets Thomas Hardy). Finzi's cycle was composed in 1933 (though started in the late 1920), just ten years before Tippett's cantata, and Tippett was born in 1905 just four years after Finzi. Yet Boyhood's End seems to belong to an entirely different generation to A Young Man's Exhortation. Whilst the two works have a lot in common, Finzi's cycle looks back fondly to the music of Vaughan Williams and Holst whilst Tippett's writing is full of the energetic cross rhythms which suggest Tippett's interest in jazz as well as early English music. And it is to Purcell whom Tippett's turned for the structure of the piece, deliberately turning his back on the English pastoralism of Vaughan Williams and Holst. Finzi would die in 1958, whilst Tippett, a late developer in terms of his compositional career, would only crown his early ecstatic phase of composition with his opera A Midsummer Marriage in 1955, and would remain compositionally active until the 1990s.
Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten commissioned Boyhood's End from Michael Tippett when they returned from the USA in 1943. The four movements set texts by the 19th century author, naturalist and ornithologist W.H. Hudson. Tippett uses the structure of a Purcellian cantata for the piece, creating a sequence of recitatives, arias, and ariosos, but woven into its textures is Tippett's fascination with multiple cross rhythms and the piano does not so much accompany as compliment and contrast to the voice, providing additional lines which weave in around the voice. Tippett's writing here is frequently rhapsodic and ecstatic, and the work must have presented a fearsome challenge to Britten and Pears, who performed the work in 1943. But Britten returned the compliment, and his first canticle My Beloved is Mine, written two years later, is the closest he ever came to Tippett's style of writing.
In the opening movement of Boyhood's End we could appreciate the crisp rhythms in Roger Vignoles' handling of the dazzling piano writing, which complemented Ben Johnson's lovely free and open tone in Tippett's ecstatic vocal line. Much of the vocal writing in the cantata seems to lead to the ecstatic music in works like A Midsummer Marriage. Tippett's response to the magic of W.H. Hudson's evocations of his childhood was to create a sort of rhapsodic, ecstasy which perfectly captures a series of moments. Whilst Johnson was vibrant in the vocal rhapsodies, his words were good too so that he captured well the combination of music and text. To Climb Trees seemed to turn darker, with some more intimate, unaccompanied moments for the voice, whilst To Ride at Noon had a remarkable number of words to fit into its perky music, something Johnson did well, yet the end is sudden and striking with a postlude which leads directly to To Lie on My Back with its clear sense of old age looking back. And it was in this movement where we go the most sense of the mystical element in Tippett's music, with the magical evocation of 'floating in that immense shining void' and Johnson's long floated high concluding note.
In A Young Man's Exhortation, Finzi sets a sequence of ten poems by Thomas Hardy, a poet of whom Finzi seems to have been very fond. There is no narrative, but an emotional arc from a man's youth on to maturity and death, and throughout there is the same sense of looking back that we get in the Tippett, but Finzi's approach is much more securely in the music of the recent past. Yet Finzi's writing, the way the piano accompaniment is a definite presence complementing the voice rather than simply accompanying and supporting it, echoes that of Tippett. We opened with the free lyricism of A Young Man's Exhortation, appreciating the way Johnson shaped the phrases to the words. Ditty, and many of the other movements, seemed folk-inspired, and the use of a refrain at the end of each verse, yet approached differently each time, was something that crops up a few times in the cycle. Budmouth Dears is almost a patter song at times, brilliantly done, yet with a seriousness underneath. The final two songs of the first half moved from seriousness to touches of mysticism, the final song The Comet at Yell'ham with its amazingly eerie piano prelude and postlude. The first song of part two, Shortening Days had some surprising neo-Baroque hints, whilst The Sigh came very close to RVW's Linden Lea, yet there is a curious obsessiveness about the text with the old man looking back on his first kiss and wondering why she sighed. Both Former Beauties and Transformations deal, in different ways, with an older man looking back, evoking both the liveliness of the past and the melancholy of the present. And this continued with the deceptive simplicity of the final song, The Dance, with its melancholy mood yet a sense of contented enjoyment of the past.
For an encore Johnson and Vignoles continued the Finzi mood, going against the grain of the day's theme and giving us the 'Salutation' from Finzi's Dies Natalis.
A work of scholarship and a fine performance: Academy of Ancient Music's new recording of Handel's Brockes Passion (★★★★★) - CD review
A barren emotional landscape barely disguised by the production's kitsch fairy-tale opulence: Turandot, Met Live in HD (★★½) - opera review
Bringing a rarity alive: Verdi's Un giorno di regno from Chelsea Opera Group (★★★★) - opera review
Voices in the Wilderness: cellist Raphael Wallfisch on his series of cello concertos by exiled Jewish composers - interview
The Song of Love: songs & duets by Vaughan Williams from Kitty Whately, Roderick Williams, William Vann (★★★★) - CD review
Will put a smile on your face: Vivaldi's L'estro armonico in new versions from Armoniosa (★★★) - CD review
17th century Playlist: from toe-tapping to plangently melancholy, Ed Lyon & Theatre of the Ayre (★★★★★) - CD review
Magic realism, politics and terrific songs: Weill and Kaiser's Winter's Fairy Tale in an imaginative production from English Touring Opera - opera review
Orpheus goes to Hell: Emma Rice's lively new production somewhat misses the point of Offenbach (★★★) - opera review
Thought provoking and engaging: Mozart's The Seraglio at English Touring Opera (★★★★) - opera review
Not letting the audience off the hook: I talk to Simon Wallfisch & Edward Rushton about performing Lieder, & about their new album - interview
Listening with new ears: Masaaki Suzuki conducts Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (★★★★½) - concert review
Guy Cassier's Ring Cycle production revived at Berlin Staatsoper (★★★★★) - Opera Review
Posted by Planet Hugill at Wednesday, October 16, 2019


The Liberty Central School District has joined nearly 30,000 schools nationwide in the effort to implement "Smarter Lunchroom" strategies – and has reached the "gold level" in the Smarter Lunchroom Scorecard assessment.
The premise behind "Smarter Lunchrooms" is that by changing how food is presented, one could potentially change the eating choices that a student makes in the cafeteria.
What is the Smarter Lunchroom Scorecard?
The Smarter Lunchrooms Scorecard contains 60 no-cost or low-cost strategies that lunchrooms can use to increase participation, improve consumption of healthy food, and reduce food waste. The strategies are based on research from the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs and partners and other behavioral science research.
Thousands of schools across the country use the Smarter Lunchrooms Scorecard to assess and implement evidence-based strategies that make the healthy choice the easy choice. Public health professionals, including those at SNAP-ED agencies, health departments, education departments, universities, extension, and obesity prevention programs use the Smarter Lunchrooms Scorecard to measure improvements to the school nutrition environment.
Click here to view a two page infographic to learn more about the Smarter Lunchrooms Assessment.
Each school building at Liberty Central School District earned gold. Liberty Elementary School scored a 47 out of 60 points; Liberty Middle School scored a 49 out of 60 points; and Liberty High School scored a 46 out of 60 points.
For more information, please visit https://www.smarterlunchrooms.org.


Chris M. P. Muller, Eli Brenner, Jeroen B. J. Smeets; Maybe they are all circles: Clues and cues. Journal of Vision 2009;9(9):10. doi: 10.1167/9.9.10.
When several cues provide information about the same property of a visual scene, a weighted average of the singe-cue estimates can provide a more reliable estimate than that of any individual cue. Some cues rely on assumptions about the scene, such as that shapes are isotropic. Assuming that an elliptical image arises from viewing a circle at an angle allows one to extract the circle's angle from the aspect ratio in the image. This study investigates whether the weight given to image shape as a slant cue depends on the prevailing circumstances. Neither rotating an object to provide direct evidence that it is circular, nor surrounding an object with circles rather than ellipses increased the weight assigned to image shape relative to that assigned to binocular information. Thus the weight given to slant cues does not seem to rely on an elaborate analysis of the scene.
Knowing a surface's shape enables us to judge its three-dimensional slant from the two-dimensional image on the retina. For instance, if we know that the surface is circular we can use the aspect ratio of the elliptical image to estimate the slant. Although judging the slant from the aspect ratio is only justified if one knows that the surface is circular, observers use the aspect ratio even if evidence that the surface is circular is lacking. They presumably do so because they implicitly consider that real surfaces are more likely to be circles than ellipses (Knill, 2007). Considering how likely it is to encounter various objects is essential for choosing between all the possible interpretations of a given retinal image (Chan, Stevenson, Li, & Pizlo, 2006). Similarly, considering that motion is slow and smooth guides people's choice between the possible interpretations of ambiguous two-dimensional projections of rotating three-dimensional rotating objects (Rokers, Yuille, & Liu, 2006).
When we look at the wheel of a bicycle in daily life, we usually see it at some angle. The image of the wheel on our retina is therefore usually deformed into an ellipse. Because we know that the wheel is really circular, we can use this deformation to judge its orientation. Without that knowledge we cannot, because the same elliptical image on the retina could arise from viewing a circle at a certain angle, or from viewing any of a wide range of ellipses from other specific angles. Actually, the retinal image of a slanted circle is not a perfect ellipse, but in this paper we will consider retinal projections of circles to be perfect ellipses, because the additional deformations are usually small enough to be ignored (0.02 minutes of arc at most in this study).
If one looks at a large collection of bicycles, such as those that can be found outside a Dutch university, one typically sees bicycle wheels from every possible angle. If one of the bicycles happened to have an elliptical wheel, we would probably interpret its shape as belonging to a bicycle with normal circular wheels that was hastily put away in an awkward manner so that we view the wheel from an unusual angle, rather than interpreting it to be elliptical. On the other hand, if we looked at a large collection of deformed bicycles in a painting by Salvador Dali, we would probably be less confident that the wheels were depictions of circular wheels. Many studies have shown that the context, both past and present, can affect the way we interpret a scene (Jacobs & Fine, 1999; McKee, 1983; Mitchison & Westheimer, 1984; van Ee, Banks, & Backus, 1999).
The extent to which the visual system makes certain assumptions should obviously depend on how likely it is that the assumptions are correct (Knill, 2007; Mamassian & Landy, 2001). Given that the learned assumptions that our visual system relies on to disambiguate a scene can be context-specific (Knill, 2007), we can expect the contents of a scene to affect the visual system's confidence in various assumptions. If it does, we should be able to instantaneously influence the confidence in the assumption that surfaces are likely to be circular by simply changing the viewing circumstances. A change in such confidence should in turn give rise to a change in the weight that is assigned to image shape in a weighted average of all available cues for estimating slant, because the perceived slant is considered to be a weighted average of several cues (Hillis, Watt, Landy, & Banks, 2004; Knill & Saunders, 2003; Muller, Brenner, & Smeets, 2008). We tried to manipulate the confidence in the assumption of circularity in two ways: by rotating the surface so that the assumption that it is a rigid object would be violated if it were not a circle, and by surrounding the surface by either circles or by clearly non-circular ellipses.
Ten participants took part in this study. Two of them were authors. The other eight were experienced psychophysics observers who were naive as to the purpose of the study. All had normal or corrected to normal vision, and had normal stereo acuity. Each observer took part in both a main session and an additional session that were performed on separate days. Each session was preceded by 5 practice trials that were not recorded. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences.
Our setup consisted of an Apple G5 computer that generated the images and processed the responses, a 57 cm (diagonal) Sony Trinitron monitor (resolution 1096 × 686 pixels) on which the images were displayed, and Crystal Eyes stereo shutter spectacles that allowed us to present alternate images to the two eyes. The images were generated at a refresh rate of 160 Hz (80 Hz per eye). Observers sat 1 meter from the screen, so that the screen filled approximately 27° × 17° of visual angle.
The stimulus display was a simulation of an array of 7 × 7 elliptical or circular discs whose centers formed a plane that was slanted in depth ( Figure 1). The central disc in the array served as a reference. It was always slanted around a horizontal axis in the frontal plane (at the center of the screen). Each of the other discs was constantly rotating around a random axis at 180°/s. This rotation axis passed through the center of the circle or ellipse in question, but was completely independent of the circle's or ellipse's initial slant. The centers of all the discs specified a plane that served as a probe. The observer could rotate this plane around its horizontal axis at the center of the screen. Changing the probe surface's slant did not influence the reference disc, or change the orientation of the probe discs or of their axes of rotation, it only changed the positions of the probe discs' centers.
The task. (a) Diagram showing a side view of the task (not to scale). The orientation of the red line indicates the perceived slant of the reference disc. The observer's task was to rotate the probe surface so that its slant matched that of the reference disc. The orientation of the probe surface had to be inferred from the positions of the circles or ellipses. (b) Stereogram of one stimulus frame for either uncrossed (two leftmost images) or crossed (two rightmost images) fusion.
The surface of the reference disc was rendered with a red-green gradient. The probe discs had a blue-purple gradient (see Figure 1). The different colors made it easy for observers to distinguish the reference disc from the other discs. The gradient made it possible to see the rotation even if a circle rotated around an axis orthogonal to the surface itself (i.e. around the surface normal). We used smooth gradients in order not to introduce additional information about slant from the rotation itself (motion parallax). Such information would be consistent with the slant from the aspect ratio, which could lead to a higher monocular cue weight. It is important to realize that rotating the reference disc does not increase the precision with which the slant can be derived from the aspect ratio, it only provides additional support for the assumption of circularity, thereby confirming that using the aspect ratio is justified.
The probe discs could either be circular, or elliptical. The constant rotation around random axes ensured that these shapes were clearly perceived as such. When the probe discs were circular, their (simulated) diameters were all 4 cm (giving a maximal width of 2.3° of visual angle at the 1 meter viewing distance). When the probe discs were elliptical, their major axes were always 4 cm but their minor axes varied randomly in length between 1.3 and 4 cm. The reference disc was a simulation of an elliptical object, and therefore contained a slant cue conflict if observers interpreted it as arising from a circular object; i.e. there was always a discrepancy between the slant indicated by its elliptical outline on the screen (assuming circularity) and the slant indicated by binocular disparity.
Observers set the slant of the probe surface to match the slant of the central (reference) disc by moving the computer mouse from left to right. They indicated that they were satisfied with their setting by clicking the computer mouse, which also started the next trial. On each trial we recorded the slant that observers set. Sixteen conditions were randomly interleaved in one session. There were 25 trials for each condition.
There were four main conditions, arising from the four combinations of two different manipulations. The first manipulation was that the reference disc could rotate around its surface normal, rather than being static. This does not affect the instantaneous information about the disc's slant, but the fact that the outline does not change when the disc rotates provides evidence that the reference disc is circular. The other manipulation involved the shapes of the probe discs. These were either all circular or all non-circular ellipses. Presumably one would be biased toward assuming that the reference disc had the same shape as the surrounding discs.
Each of these four main conditions was performed using four different conflicts of the reference disc, leading to the total of 16 conditions. The discrepancy between the slants from image shape and binocular disparity was always 10 degrees, which is small enough for us to expect weighted averaging of the cues rather than the percept flipping between the values of the two cues (Muller et al., 2008; van Ee, van Dam, & Erkelens, 2002). The actual slants were the two possible combinations of a 63 degree slant and a 73 degree slant, and the two possible combinations of a 58 degrees slant and a 68 degrees slant. Slant was defined as how far backward the top was oriented from the fronto-parallel plane (see Figure 1a). The slants were chosen on the basis of the known influence of slant on the relative weights of monocular and binocular cues (Knill & Saunders, 2003).
Beside the main session described above, we also subjected participants to an additional session that was identical to the original one except that there was no conflict between the cues for the reference disc (assuming that it is circular). Again there were 16 conditions, but rather than the four pairs of cue conflicts of the original session there were simply four reference angles: 58, 63, 68 and 73 degrees. The additional session was conducted in order to correct for possible influences of other, uncontrolled cues (image blur, lens accommodation, motion parallax if the observer does not hold his or her head completely still) and of possible response biases. How this correction was achieved is explained in the next section.
In order to evaluate the effect of our manipulations we need to determine the weight given to the reference disc's image shape as a slant cue. Since this cue always indicated a different slant than was indicated by the binocular disparity, the extent to which observers relied on each type of information can be determined from the set slant. If the perceived slant is a weighted average of that indicated by the two cues, the set slant provides direct information about their relative weights. For instance, setting a slant exactly half way between that specified by the two cues indicates that both cues are given equal weight.
However, as we already pointed out, the perceived slant may also be influenced by other factors. This may be differently so for the reference disc than for the probe plane, which could result in response biases. To account for this we did not relate the set slants in the main session to the simulated slants, but to the slants set in the additional session without cue conflicts. We first determined each subject's average set slant for each of the 16 conditions in each session. We then used the averaged slants to determine the weight attributed to the monocular cue (image shape) in the main, cue-conflict session by comparing the set slant for the reference disc in each condition of that session with the two set slants for the reference discs when both cues had one of the two values within that conflict in the additional, (cue-consistent) session. Note that this is only really a correct procedure if the individual cue estimates are unbiased or have the same bias. Having exactly the right correction is not essential, because we are mainly interested in comparing the values across conditions, but it makes the weights we find more meaningful and hopefully removes response bias differences between observers. We performed a repeated measures ANOVA on the calculated monocular slant cue weights with the factors conflict type (63–73, 73–63, 58–68, 68–58), reference motion (rotating or static) and surrounding shapes (circular or non-circular ellipses).
Figure 2 shows the weights that observers gave to the monocular slant cue (image shape). The four groups of columns represent the four main conditions. The four bar colors indicate the slant values for each cue. The clearest finding is that more weight is given to the monocular cue when the angle indicated by the monocular cue is larger than that of the binocular cue than when the angle indicated by the binocular cue is larger. This is consistent with earlier findings, and originates in the fact that the relative resolution of monocular slant information increases with increasing slant (Knill & Saunders, 2003). Apart from this effect of slant (F3 = 4.0, P = 0.02), the ANOVA only revealed a significant interaction between target motion and surrounding shapes (F1 = 19.9, P = 0.002). When surrounded by circles, rotating the reference disc increased the weight given to monocular cues, but when surrounded by ellipses it decreased this weight. The main effects were not significant. Overall the average monocular weight was slightly larger for the rotating reference disc than for the static one, as predicted. It was slightly smaller when surrounded by circles than when surrounded by ellipses, which is the opposite of what one would predict.
The average weight given to the monocular cue in each of the 16 conditions. The four groups of columns represent the 4 manipulations. The bar color indicates the cue conflict. Error bars are between-subject standard errors.
It has been shown that observers gradually change the strength of their assumption of circularity after extensive exposure to non-circular ellipses (Knill, 2007). It is not known whether such changes can also occur instantaneously as a consequence of details of the context within which judgments are made. The fact that the influence of exposure in Knill's study carried over across sessions (on separate days) suggests that it is context specific. In that case the weights were changed within the context of the experiment despite experiencing normal circumstances between sessions. Here, we examined the context within individual trials.
We reasoned that placing a reference disc within an array of objects that are obviously not circular may make observers less inclined to assume that the reference disc is circular, in which case they should reduce the weight given to the monocular (image shape) cue for slant. Our results do not support this prediction. Thus people do not appear to consider the shapes of surrounding objects when determining the likelihood of the reference being circular in order to assign a weight to the monocular slant cue. This may be because observers were instructed to consider the array of shapes as a whole, although the probe itself was made up of the circles or ellipses, making it hard to ignore them. It may also be because the observers consider the shapes they saw on previous trials to be just as important as those on the specific trial in question, in accordance with the slow learning shown by Knill (2007). They may also not relate the target to the other items because they consider it to be a different kind of object (it had a different color, it did not always rotate, and it held the only position at which there was never a clearly non-circular object). Whatever the reason, apparently our observers did not consider the simultaneously visible context (the shapes that are visible during the trial) to be particularly important when evaluating the validity of the assumption of circularity (and using it to determine the weights assigned to the monocular and binocular cues).
On individual trials we also either did or did not provide direct evidence that the reference disc was circular, by having it either rotate around its axis or remain static. Observers did not assign a higher weight to the monocular cue for slant in the presence of evidence that the reference disc was circular than when such evidence was absent. Perhaps they judge shape and slant independently, just as they do shape and size (Brenner & van Damme, 1999).
Neither the main effect of target motion nor that of surrounding shape was significant, but we did find a significant interaction between the two. On average, the monocular cue was given most weight in the condition in which there was most support for using that cue (rotating target surrounded by circles). However, the weight was not lowest in the condition with the least support for using the monocular cue (static target surrounded by ellipses). The differences between the conditions were very small (see Figure 2), so although we cannot be certain that the two manipulations had no effect, if they did it is quite modest. If there is a small effect, one may be able to reveal it by presenting each condition separately, with the same environment on many trials, so that it accumulates. Regardless of whether this does or does not happen, our study demonstrates that the instantaneous context does not have much influence on the use of the monocular cue to judge slant.
It is well established that cues that provide different estimates for the same property of a visual scene are combined by weighted averaging, and that the more precisely the visual system can estimate a property from a certain cue, the more weight that estimate is assigned in the weighted average (Hillis et al., 2004; Knill & Saunders, 2003; Landy, Maloney, Johnston, & Young, 1995; van Beers, Sittig, & Denier van der Gon, 1999). It is also known that humans use assumptions to disambiguate retinal images and that these assumptions can be altered by prolonged viewing (Knill, 2007). In this study we attempted to alter the strength of the assumption of (radial) symmetry by direct visual information, and by doing so to manipulate the weight that observers attribute to a monocular cue for slant. The information that we provided did not affect the weights.
This research was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO; MaGW grant 452-02-007).
Corresponding author: Chris M. P. Muller.
Address: Research Institute MOVE, Faculty of Human Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.