This is the fundamental basement of the right, and duty, to conscientiously object to gravely unjust orders.
This was emphasised in a decision in the case of Polednová v. the Czech Republic (application no. 2615/10). The case concerns a woman's murder conviction, with final effect, for having acted as a State Prosecutor in 1950 at the trial in which Milada Horáková and three other opponents of the communist regime were sentenced to death. Before the Court she alleged, in particular, that her conviction related to acts which had not constituted a criminal offence at the material time, and that her trial had been unfair.
This principle had been affirmed for the first time at the ECHR in a Grand Chamber judgment concerning a soldier from East Germany who received the order to shoot the trespasser at the border. (K.-H.W. c. Allemagne, n° 37201/97, 22 mars 2001, § 75).
This Principle proclaims the moral and legal duty to conscientiously object to demands and orders, even if they are legal, so long as they are unjust: it is the basement of the right to "conscientious objection". This principle clearly affirms the supremacy of the straight conscience over positive laws, and the legal duty to comply with his conscience in front of unjust laws.


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Become a Fisher of Men
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Watch and learn what Cross Trail Outfitters is all about
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We offer a safe and engaging outlet for your child's time and energy. CTO is a place kids can plug in where there's never a dull moment! And everything with CTO is meant to build up outdoor skills, leadership, and relationship with Jesus Christ in these kids.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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1 877 GO INKAS
Cannabis Transport
ATM Management
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HomeNews and Events News Room INKAS® Launches a New Eco-Friendly Cash-In-Transit Iveco Daily 6
INKAS® Launches a New Eco-Friendly Cash-In-Transit Iveco Daily 6
INKAS® has designed and deployed an innovative armored Iveco Daily 6 for cash management operations and transportation of valuable assets and equivalents. This new addition to the wide fleet of INKAS® vehicles is specifically designed for the European market and meets all European standards and regulations.
The truck was fully engineered and manufactured in-house at the Toronto-based facility with specific attention to its security features and payload capacity. INKAS® skilled craftsmen focused on improving the vehicle's loading and unloading capabilities through innovative engineering techniques and use of lightweight ballistic composite materials.
"We are delighted to announce the new Iveco Daily 6 cash-in-transit vehicle. We believe that this van is an attractive option for those who are looking for higher payloads. This model ensures the secure transportation of high payloads with no effect on its performance characteristics," says Philip Daskal, VP of International Sales, INKAS® Vehicles. "Currently, we are manufacturing the first batch of these cash-in-transit vehicles for a financial institution in Western Europe, and we are planning to further expand this product line".
The van accommodates up to four crew members allowing the vehicle to perform cash management operations in unstable neighborhoods during the day and night time. The vehicle's side door enables easy access to the rear compartment without opening the rear doors, which makes such operations as reloading of ATMs much safer and more efficient. The interior design can be easily customized in order to meet specific clients' needs and requirements.
This model is well-known for its eco-friendly features, in particular reduced fuel consumption as well as emissions. This Iveco Daily is powered by a 3.0L I80 Diesel engine producing 180 horsepower.
Ballistic armor is installed around the vehicle's perimeter along with its ceiling and floor ensuring 360-degree protection for personnel and transported valuables. All critical elements such as suspension, brakes, door hinges are reinforced in order to carry the added weight of ballistic materials without sacrificing the vehicle's high level of maneuverability. According to the CEN 1063 Standard this vehicle is armored to meet a BR6+ ballistic protection level, however INKAS® can further armor this truck based on individual client requirements.
INKAS® offers a wide range of armored cash-in-transit vehicles and deploys them on a global scale to financial institutions and government agencies. Armored vehicles range in size and capabilities to suit different operational scenarios as well as protection and payload requirements.
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Please be wise in giving the pin number of your ATM.. and from that online work that you have stated, please see to it, if it is legit and legal. because you cannot give your pin number to anybody, only you who knows it, and it must. if they have to transfer the money they should only deposit it to you account number. they don`t need the pin number of your ATM card anymore.... Exchange your own money from home in Thailand. It's cheaper, if you go to the right place. The solution to avoid the 200 Baht ATM fee, that works for everybody, is to exchange your own currency in Thailand.
Airports and cruise ships are some of the hot spots where holiday-makers are getting stung with fees ranging anywhere from $6 up to $33. The data on ATM fees, collated by ING Direct, found in one... Exchange your own money from home in Thailand. It's cheaper, if you go to the right place. The solution to avoid the 200 Baht ATM fee, that works for everybody, is to exchange your own currency in Thailand.
5/12/2017 · Thanks for watching Lol Subscribe if you laughed I enjoyed making this video.
ING Direct has a flat $2.50 fee for ATM withdrawals and no currency conversion fee for ATM use. Macquarie Bank's Transaction Account and Platinum Transaction Account both charge a $5 fixed ATM fee for withdrawal, but no currency conversion fee. If the user only plans to take cash out a couple of times while overseas, these accounts compare very well with Citi Plus.
To find your nearest ATM or Branch, use our NAB ATM and Branch Locator. Overseas currency withdrawals While travelling overseas, you can make local currency withdrawals from your NAB Visa or MasterCard account at more than 100,000 Visa and MasterCard ATMs worldwide.


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Steve Cotterill named Sky Bet League 1 Manager of the Month
The Football League
Bristol City boss Steve Cotterill has been named the Sky Bet League 1 Manager of the Month for September.
Four wins and a draw saw Cotterill's fluent City team move five points clear at the top of the table.
He side scored three goals on four occasions and two once as they maintained their attacking surge.
Sky Sports' Football League pundit Don Goodman said: "Steve is a character whose methods have inspired his team to great things in the opening quarter of the season.
"Twelve goals in three matches is no fluke. It is the result of a manager making his game plan crystal clear, and his players delivering it."
Sky Bet Football Trading Manager Paul Lowery said: "Free scoring Bristol City scored 14 goals in five September Sky Bet League 1 fixtures to earn manager Steve Cotterill a well-deserved gong.
"Cotterill's men hold one of three unbeaten records in the Sky Bet Football League after winning seven and drawing four of their 11 games this term.
"City's stand-out result of the month was a 3-2 win over fellow promotion contenders MK Dons at Ashton Gate, the correct score landing a chunky 25/1 winner for punters."
The judging panel for the Sky Bet Manager of the Month comprises Sky Sports' Football League expert Don Goodman; Football League Chief Operating Officer Andy Williamson; League Managers' Director Olaf Dixon and Sky Bet Football Trading Manager Paul Lowery.


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Report: Andrew McCabe Lied Under Oath to Congress
The momentum against the FBI continues to build this week as the probability of rolling heads has become an inevitability.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe sat through on Tuesday what turned out to be a nearly eight-hour grilling by the House Intelligence Committee — under oath.
And though there were no leaks from the actual testimony, plenty of reports have surfaced that, if true, actually put McCabe in an even more precarious predicament than previously thought, if that's possible.
According to those reports, McCabe denied knowing anything about the dubious Trump dossier and its origination at the hands of the DNC.
The problem with that is that McCabe's literal signature is all over documents acknowledging its existence.
So, including his likely collusion in the attempt prevent Trump's election, he's now looking at a possible prosecution for perjury.
Get ready, folks.
Here's more from Redstate…
Yesterday, deputy FBI director Andrew (you can call him Andy if you're hanging out in his office handicapping presidential races) McCabe testified for about seven-and-a-half hours before the House Intelligence Committee. The meeting was notable for a couple of things. First, there were no leaks while he was testifying. This is in stark contrast to Adam Schiff's antics while Donald Trump, Jr., testified that produced nearly a running commentary to CNN. Second, McCabe was protected by the Democrats but he didn't tell them anything they wanted to hear.
Sources close to the investigation say that McCabe was a "friendly witness" to the Democrats in the room, who are said to have pressed the deputy director, without success, to help them build a case against President Trump for obstruction of justice in the Russia-collusion probe. "If he could have, he would have," said one participant in the questioning.
Investigators say McCabe recounted to the panel how hard the FBI had worked to verify the contents of the anti-Trump "dossier" and stood by its credibility. But when pressed to identify what in the salacious document the bureau had actually corroborated, the sources said, McCabe cited only the fact that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had traveled to Moscow. Beyond that, investigators said, McCabe could not even say that the bureau had verified the dossier's allegations about the specific meetings Page supposedly held in Moscow.
If this is correct, then contrary to the popular anti-Trump meme that "the dossier has been validated," apparently nothing in the dossier has been verified by anyone other than Carter Page's documented trips to Russia.
And, of course, McCabe lied. This goes without saying.
The sources said that when asked when he learned that the dossier had been funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, McCabe claimed he could not recall – despite the reported existence of documents with McCabe's own signature on them establishing his knowledge of the dossier's financing and provenance.
Nikki Haley to the UN on Israel Vote: 'We're Taking Names'
Republicans Conducting Secret Investigation of FBI, DOJ
Powell Asks Supreme Court to Immediately Order States Decertify Election Results
Alito Responds To Appeal Asking To Block Biden Win In PA
More Dems Plan to Sit Out Trump's Inauguration
AOC Tried to Mock the GOP on Twitter… It Did Not Go Well


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Gritfest
Dragon Duathlon
Cross Mountain
A Cycling Ltd is a cycling events company directed by Matthew & Nia Page, who are committed to delivering quality events that offer rewarding and memorable experiences. From the extreme, tough events of The Monster and Dragon Duathlon to the hugely popular Battle on the Beach.
A Cycling work closely with British Cycling and British Triathlon to deliver championship events in the best areas within Wales including the British Cycling Mountain Bike Series at Pembrey Country Park and the Pembrey Off-Road Duathlon which is the 2017 Welsh Cross-Duathlon Championship.
As a former professional rider and a current cycling media technical writer, Matt has the knowledge and experience of some of the biggest events around the World and uses it to improve all the events organised by A Cycling.
Matt Page
As a former professional cyclist with extensive experience within the whole cycling spectrum and unparalleled local knowledge Matt has gained a reputation for being one of the best all round riders in the country.
Matt has won events all around the World, including two European championships and two UK championships as well as a string of marathon wins on the Mountain Bike. On the road Matt competes in the occasional road race and has completed several "L'Etape du Tour" events and the famous "La Marmotte" Sportive in France setting one of the fastest ever times for a British rider.
Matt brings his professional attitude and experience and to the guiding and tours to ensure that no stone is left unturned to create a memorable riding experience.
Nia Page
Whilst Matt takes care of everything on the bike, Nia is what keeps things ticking behind the scene.
With experience of management, event support as well as running Matt's successful pit team for all previous endurance events she ensures that everything runs smoothly to create a relaxing and enjoyable tours and events. During all our events, Nia is often the main point of contact within the event HQ.
Anthony Pease
While not a full-time member of staff, Anthony is the official photographer for the majority of A Cycling events.
His images have captured the uniqueness of A Cycling Events. From the amazing ship wreak photos from Battle on the Beach to capturing the difficulty and beauty of the surroundings on The Monster.
Contact us: +44 (0) 1550 777462
Email us: info@acycling.com
A Cycling Newsletter
© 2018 - All Rights Resevered - A Cycling Ltd - Events Terms & Conditions - Privacy Policy


Today, I'm going to talk about a mistake that is really common when people go out to start on a journey to improve their circumstances with property.
Off The Plan + Home & Land Package Mistake!
I guess this has come up a bit lately because we've been talking about accessing equity in your family home to create a money tree – which we will be covering on one of our live webinars. A really common thing that happens is someone might decide that they want to improve their financial position and decide they want to do it through property.
They know that property is an effective way of building wealth. So they go out and start attending a whole lot of seminars. Then they find someone who has a really great, polished story and process. The one stop shop who looks after everything … you know the one I'm talking about. They source a property, help you a get your finance, arrange all the legal documents and promise you a treasure chest! It sounds easy and simple right?
Then you buy your property. Get it revalued and guess what?
It's not worth what you paid for it and it's costing you money every week.
So instead of getting a healthier bank balance, it's becoming depleted.
It's very common and there are lots of people out there ready to take advantage of someone who's feeling vulnerable. When you realise that you're not financially set up for the future, you do feel vulnerable and a little bit anxious.
And so they prey on this "running out of time" mentality.
The problem with this type of "business" is they usually sell you either a house and land package, or something off the plan. For what reason? They have massive commissions for every property they sell.
If you just search or Google it you'll notice that a lot of them have 10% commission for every sale, some even have more. So on a really modest home, you could be spending $30k – $50k in commissions and not know it. You can be pretty well rest assured. It doesn't matter what they say in terms of their 50 point research checklist. At the end of the day, the name of the game for them is to line their own pockets and it's got nothing to do with your future.
It is negatively geared – that's the second problem.
You would have been sold the story that the depreciation is so much better on negatively geared properties. The thing about depreciation is, it saves you some of the money you are losing. So it doesn't actually make you money as such.
Negative gearing has its place. But you need to be very specific about the property and the reason you're doing it. It's not a strategy for someone who is in their 50s or 60s. That's a strategy that may work for someone who's in their 20s, 30s or maybe even 40s. But if you're in your 50s or 60s, you want to stay clear of negative gearing and get into positive gearing.
I'm not saying that everyone who sells property off the plan or house and land packages is crooked. What I'm saying is, it's very hard for them to be objective when there is such an enormous commission for them. I myself had a very close encounter in getting into a dire situation. I consider myself very savvy when it comes to property and even I was sucked into their promise! So that's how polished these guys are.
What I want you to do if you find yourself in this position, is to go away from the situation. Get some independent advice on it. Go to someone and get them to review what you're doing because often it can be slightly pressured – so you're in a room needing to sign there and then and it's not the best thing to do. Get some space between you and the deal so that you can get independent advice and make sure that it's going to push you forward rather than pull you back.
You just need to remember everyone makes mistakes and you've got to forgive yourself for that and move on.
I look forward to chatting with you next week where I'll be sharing another little nugget of gold with you.


24/06/2016�� Subscribe for more! WHEN OLD PEOPLE PLAY ROBLOX HIGH SCHOOL! Inappropriate Dress Codes + Stealing!-... Games On Youtube School Life High School Thing 1 Minecraft Games High School Life Middle School Senior Secondary School Forwards As I entered my new classroom at Roblox High School, I found dorm school life.
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Phnom Penh Post - Breaking: US House passes 'Cambodia Democracy Act'
Breaking: US House passes 'Cambodia Democracy Act'
Niem Chheng | Publication date 16 July 2019 | 15:39 ICT
Chum Sounry, Cambodian ambassador the US (right), meets Representative Ted Yoho on May 17. Supplied
Niem Chheng
The US House of Representatives in Washington, DC, on Monday, passed the "HR 526 Cambodia Democracy Act", also known as the Cambodia Democracy Act of 2019.
If signed off by the president, the bill will allow two major sets of action to be taken against high-ranking Cambodian officials the US sees as responsible for undermining democracy and violating human rights in the Kingdom.
Introduced by Ted Yoho, Republican Representative for Florida, on January 11, this year, it purportedly aims to "promote free and fair elections, political freedoms and human rights in Cambodia, and other purposes".
The bill cited seven findings including "the undemocratic rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen, the enactment of the NGO law, restrictions on the media, the arrest of Kem Sokha and the dissolution of [the Cambodia National Rescue Party] CNRP, six unfair and unfree elections since 1991 and ungenuine 2018 elections".
It also calls for the release of Kem Sokha, the reinstatement of the Supreme Court-dissolved CNRP and the return of its elected seats in the National Assembly.
It is unclear who in the Cambodian government or military would be targeted should the bill become law.
Contact author: Niem Chheng
Kingdom's democracy rank slips


I wasn't going to vote for him anyway, but going out to my mailbox every other day and finding gigantic obama brochures, is getting on my nerves. it makes me dislike him more. I didn't think that was possible. how come environmental extremists are supporting a candidate that is single handedly bringing down this rain forests with his brochures? will this type of unwanted solicitation help him, or hurt him with undecided voters. I for one hate junk mail.
I've been getting them from both the Dems and the Reps in about equal volume, so I don't think it's really going to have an effect one way or the other- they're both spamming the world with their junk.
huh i havent gotten any from either. do you live in a swing state?
One of the joys of not living in a swing state is that I don't have to deal with anything (or anyone) except for the occasional television commercial.
I am signed up with the Obama campaign email, and get about 1 a day, or 1 every two days. Moveon.org doesn't have my email address though, thank god.
There was a funny Onion article about Obama getting mad at the spam emails from Moveon.org.
yeah, I live in NC. I haven't gotten anything VIA snail mail from the republicans. however, I got a free pocket sized constitution from some foundation and something called newsmax spams the living crap out of my email.
The end always justifies the means to the unscrupulous and self-aggrandized.
Yup. I did not even see one commercial until I went to FL last month, and every other commercial was a McCain or Obama ad. Must get annoying.
Both candidates' huge mailers are annoying and every one Ive received, from both sides, is a terrible ad.
1) They dont get to the point right away; some give the impression of being ads for the other side, for long, long seconds.
2) The points they do finally get around to making are just...piddling and lame.
3) They're so expensive! That's the first thing I think when I unwedge them out of my mailbox. "Glad you've got the money to throw away on this useless thing."


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2023: Tinubu Gave Atiku Abubakar Ticket To Run For Presidency – Festus Keyamo
Akelicious — December 16, 2022 add comment
Popular Nigerian lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Festus Keyamo while being interviewed on TVC news this morning recalled how the all progressive congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu gave ticket to peoples democratic party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar To Run For Presidency.
According to his statement during the interview, Festus Keyamo Said; "On an empirical basis, there is really nothing to say about the records of other candidates that comes close to the record of Bola Tinubu".
In addition, Festus Keyamo Said; "When Tinubu had the opportunity to pick a presidential ticket, he refused, he kept giving it to people who he felt were entitled to run as a president at that time. He gave presidential ticket to other northerns to run and he even gave ticket to Atiku Abubakar to run".
You can also click on the link below to watch the full video of the interview;
READ ALSO 2023: Sources Claim APC Northern Governors Shunned Tinubu, Osinbajo, Others Sold Jonathan To Buhari


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package view.display;

import java.awt.Dimension;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

public class Display extends JPanel {

    public Display (int width, int height) {
        super();
        this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height));
        this.add(new JLabel("I have a number between 1 and 1000."));
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Home » Editorial » Story
Lorenz's Butterfly
For climatologists, 1972 will always be remembered as the year when MIT meteorologist, Edward Lorenz presented his paper
CCME Content Team | Follow @ccmenews | Feb 7, 2012 | 2:45 pm
B Surendar
For climatologists, 1972 will always be remembered as the year when MIT meteorologist, Edward Lorenz presented his paper, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" It was from this paper, the result of his elaborate scientific experiments in the 1960s that the oft-quoted Butterfly Effect emerged to describe Lorenz's Chaos Theory.
According to the theory, small differences in a dynamic system, such as the atmosphere, could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.
When viewed through the filter of the Chaos Theory, the imagery of the butterfly flapping its wings appears a perfect fit for refrigerants and their purported impact on the atmosphere. At another level, the imagery is pertinent in the context of the Middle East – regional action or inaction has global implications. At a technical conference in late 2010, Yacoub Al Matouq, Refrigeration Expert at the Kuwait National Ozone Committee, called for a regional introspection on the use of refrigerants. Pointing to the fact that the Middle East consumes several times more refrigerants a year than the whole of Africa put together, he said the situation called for a review.
The other issue is the types of refrigerants in use in the region. At the same conference, Al Matouq had questioned the possibility of using natural refrigerants, despite the questions being raised about the potential toxicity and flammability characteristics of some of them. Could natural refrigerants be used in a district cooling plant, where the centralised regimen, backed by constant monitoring by trained personnel, could negate concerns relating to the potential risks they pose to human health and safety? Al Matouq asked. And what of certain blends, which come with the promise of low GWP (global warming potential), say? Could they be deployed in large central cooling plants, provided they are drop-in refrigerants and, hence, are compatible with existing equipment in the plants?
Lorenz's Butterfly evokes the need for answers, and urgently at that.


This system utilizes a robust set of physiological parameters to capture a sample of the participant's voice or keystroke.
Only those initially authorized via successful capture of an Initial Sample and subsequent sample will gain access.
4Gid specializes as an End-to-End Identity Management Solutions provider & System Integrator in Civil ID, Homeland Security & Law Enforcement for Government, Corporate, Banking and Defence sectors.Whether you need a simple intercom system or integrated audio-video system with remote access and biometrics, we have the equipment and knowhow to get the job done to your satisfaction.


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by Pablo Martin Palermo
Think Piece
2019 Aussie Road Race Preview
1 year ago admin@ciclismointernacional.com
By David Hunter
Ballarat – Ballarat 185.6km
Have you missed me? It seems like a very long time has passed since my Il Lombardia preview, I trust you're ready for another brilliant year of cycling?
The organisers have decided to stick with last year's route, which was slightly altered compared to previous editions. The change was on the descent after the Mount Buninyong climb, taking the riders through the University area. The downhill was very fast, and Luke Durbridge crashed heavily when trying to chase down the leaders.
The lap circuit features the well-known climb of Mount Buninyong, which is around 3km at 5%. The climbing starts straight after the riders go through the feed zone. This section of the climb is rather easy and difficult to make a difference, the steepest section is when the riders turn left and head towards the KOM point. With gradients hitting 8%, this is where the big hitters can put the hurt on.
Once over the top, dropped riders have lots of time to regain contact with the front group, one of the reasons why this route isn't as selective as you might think. It is a lap which encourages the climbers, but in reality, it just isn't hard enough for them. This is a day for the rouleurs.
It will be a sunny day for the riders, but temperatures will not get too high, the maximum should be 24 degrees. The wind will interest some, as it's coming from the South. This means it'll be a tailwind for the hardest section of the climb, which is brilliant news for the climbers and bad news for the sprinters.
Mitchelton-Scott have had a large say in the outcome of this race ever since their creation. As the only World Tour team in Australia, they are expected to dominate the other teams, due to their talent and extra numbers, but they don't always win. This year they don't have a Caleb Ewan or Simon Gerrans, which will change their approach to the race. Arriving with 10 riders, they are the biggest squad in the race but lack an out and out leader, which could be a blessing in disguise.
Looking at the riders at their disposal, I think this could be the year for the break to win. The defending champion is Alex Edmondson and he does pack a fast sprint, but he's not quick enough to beat Haas, Ewan and McCarthy, which means this shouldn't be the team tactic. It would be much wiser for Mitchelton to try and pack a number of riders into the morning move and see if anyone can chase it down.
The merger of the Bennelong and BridgeLane squads means that despite being the second biggest team in the race, they lack some of the power that they previously had, particularly back in their Avanti days. As they no longer have a huge amount of depth, it's another reason why the break seems a good option. I just can't see this squad chasing the break down and their mission will be to make the morning move.
EF Education First have three riders, but if they manage to persuade the Drapac Cannondale squad to help them, they actually have nine riders, making them a force to be reckoned with. The problem is that their three big riders aren't a huge threat to the other teams.
Sunweb only have three riders, but a lot of talent. They'll obviously have to play a perfect tactical game, if they want to win the race.
Two of the big pre-race favourites are Nathan Haas and Jay McCarthy, both of whom are solo riders. It doesn't make it impossible to win, just very difficult! Both riders pack a fast sprint, so they won't expect any help in chasing moves down.
In conclusion, this is a day for the breakaway to succeed. Mitchelton are bound to try and get multiple riders up the road, then they'll assess the situation. If a big hitter like Haas or McCarthy is also there, they'll look to attack again and use their numbers to guarantee success.
The elephant in the room is Caleb Ewan. He only has one teammate to help, which isn't enough. He's the fastest sprinter by a mile, but that just means no one will want to bring it back for a sprint. This could see the little guy ride an aggressive race.
Luke Durbridge – he'll still be hurting from missing out last year, thanks to his crash which happened as he looked to be bridging across to the lead pair. He won this race back in 2013, he'll be keen to try and take it again. Turbo Durbo is one of those riders that always seems to start the season in fine form, mainly due to him wanting to peak for the Spring Classics. He should be one of the protected riders for the team, but he does need to try and drop guys like Haas and McCarthy. With a huge engine, he won't be scared of going for a solo attack in the closing kilometres.
Cameron Meyer – a rider who can always been relied upon around this circuit. One of the great mysteries in cycling is how he's never actually won here! Like Durbride, I think he'll be a protected rider and will be able to ride for personal glory. He was very impressive here last year but had to ride for Caleb Ewan. Meyer does have a fast sprint, but not as quick as Haas and co.
Chris Hamilton – the former under 23 champions was 6thhere in 2018, a solid result. He's now beginning his 3rdyear as a professional cyclist and this is when we'll start to see some big results from him. He'll have a couple of teammates to help him, but he'll need good legs as well as a large slice of luck to challenge for the win. Like many, he has to decide whether to go for the morning break.
Caleb Ewan – was never in trouble last year, something that must be a huge concern for his rivals. Ewan will easily win any type of sprint, it's up to the other riders to stop this from happening. This will be a huge problem for the sprinter, as he only has Adam Hansen to help him throughout the day. Of all the riders, I think Caleb is in the most difficult position. Sometimes it just sucks being the fastest finisher!
Chris Harper – can't help but thinking that 2018 was his chance to win. He got away with Edmondson but couldn't beat him and was just pipped on the line by Jay McCarthy. Harper is a decent climber, but not in the league of the world tour riders.
Jay McCarthy – what a rider! I'm not shy to say that I'm a huge fan of the Bora man. 2018 was a big year for him, taking his first wins in the World Tour in the Cadel Evans race and Itzulia. Now 26 years old, I expect to see him continue to progress in 2019. He's been working hard throughout the winter, in the hope to peak early in the season for the big Aussie races. Riding without teammates will make life very difficult for him and this could be a frustrating day for him.
Nathan Haas – 2018 was a tough year for Haas, with just 60 race days. Heatstroke stopped him from challenging in the TDU and injury/illness ruined his classics campaign, it certainly was a year to forget. His skill set is very similar to McCarthy, which makes life very interesting. Will we see them combine to chase down moves? It would make sense as both lack teammates.
Heinrich Haussler – word from the Aussie grapevine is that Haussler is flying! He looked good in the Bay Crits and he seems back to his best. Since winning the Aussie title in 2015, it's been a very frustrating period for him, it's great to see him fit and motivated. I think we'll see him very active in the race, looking to attack from distance.
Miles Scotson – winner in 2017, thanks to a perfectly timed attack. Now riding for FDJ, he's another that doesn't have teammates. Scotson has a big engine, but his climbing ability isn't as good as many of his rivals. To win, he needs to be in the break.
Ben O'Connor – the brilliant climber was one of the breakthrough riders in 2018. A proper climber, this course isn't perfect for him. He certainly won't be dropped, but the climb isn't long enough for him to put others into difficultly.
Prediction Time
Mitchelton-Scott have to hit the early break and then assess the situation. Given that many of their big rivals don't have teammates, this should be a relatively easy race for them to control. When the dust settles, I think Luke Durbridge will win his second title.
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The Llandovery Castle served as a hospital ship during WW1, ferrying wounded soldiers from England back to Canada. On 27 June 1918, nearing the end of its voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool, England, the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine off the Irish coast. The passengers rushed to lifeboats, but the submarine surfaced and destroyed most of the lifeboats. Only 24 survivors lived to tell the tale.
Categories: Monuments and Memorials | Tags: Halifax, Llandovery Castle, Nursing Sisters, Women in WW1, WW1 memorials | Permalink.
Categories: Monuments and Memorials | Tags: Arthur Lismer, Canadian War Memorials Fund, Halifax, Halifax Explosion, Harold Gilman, WW1 memorials | Permalink.
This Saturday, September 3, is Merchant Navy Veterans Day in Canada.
Categories: Monuments and Memorials | Tags: First World War, Halifax, Merchant Navy, WW1 memorials | Permalink.
The souls of the faithful who have died in the service of their country rest forever in the lap of God.
Categories: Monuments and Memorials | Tags: First World War, Halifax, Llandovery Castle, Nursing Sisters, Women in WW1, WW1 memorials | Permalink.
October is Public Library Month in my neck of the woods. Great War 100 Reads bookends the occasion with the old Halifax Memorial Library and its Books of Remembrance, now moved to the new Halifax Central Library.
The new library does not retain the memorial element in its name, leading some Haligonians to fear that wartime sacrifices will be forgotten. That said, the Books of Remembrance and some other artifacts are now displayed next to the local history room in the new building. The books are digitized and searchable online. The library also offers workshops and research tools in its Roots to the Past: Lest We Forget.
The WW1 Book of Remembrance commemorates 1,360 men and women from Halifax County who gave their lives in the Great War. It was dedicated with the cenotaph in the Grand Parade on July 1, 1929. The lettering is a modified form of Gothic Textura with Lombardic capitals at the top of each page. Lettering was designed and executed by Nova Scotia book illuminator, Henry Perley Bernasconi.
Thanks to the librarians who gave me access to photograph the book.
Categories: Monuments and Memorials | Tags: Canadian history, Halifax, WW1 memorials | Permalink.
October is Public Library Month in my neck of the woods. How better for Great War 100 Reads to mark the occasion than by featuring a library.
Some communities decided to honour those who served in the war with a building of practical use to serve the community. As memorials, these buildings have not always stood the test of time.
The Halifax Memorial Library in Grafton Park on Spring Garden Road opened on 12 Nov 1951 "in memory of those who gave their lives in defence of their country" in 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. By the 21st century, the building could no longer support the library's needs for programming, technology, storage of the collections or accessibility. The library closed in Aug 2014 and the dramatic new Halifax Central Library opened across the street in Dec 2014. Several memorial elements moved to the new building. (Some of which will be featured in a later post.) The fate of the old building has not been determined.
Oscar Nemon's statue of Winston Churchill was unveiled in front of the Halifax Memorial Library in January 1980. The image is said to be taken from a photograph of Churchill walking in Halifax. The 10 ft statue weighs 1.5 tons.
Categories: Monuments and Memorials | Tags: Halifax, WW1 memorials | Permalink.
The cenotaphs in larger Canadian cities tend toward similarity with Edwin Lutyens' design of the Whitehall cenotaph in London. Halifax is part of that trend. The cenotaph on the Grand Parade was dedicated on July 1, 1929 by Robert Borden, the Nova Scotian who was Prime Minister of Canada during WW1.
The cenotaph is cut from local granite. The bronze statue by Scottish-American sculptor J. Massey Rhind depicts a victorious but grieving Britannia representing Nova Scotian motherhood. A ceremonial wreath tops the cenotaph, with two more on the sides marking WW1 battles. The dedication is in honour of those who served and in memory of those who fell. Another dedication on the back notes that the names of the 1360 men and women killed in the war are treasured in the City Archives. The Books of Remembrance are now on display in the Halifax Central Library.
A Nova Scotia Archives photo shows the unveiling in 1929. Interesting photos and details of the major restoration in 2010 are on the Halifax Regional Municipality website.
Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia was a busy port in WW1, a staging area for convoys of ships moving across the Atlantic. Trains arrived daily with troops and supplies for the war effort.
On the morning of 6 December 1917, the Mont Blanc (a French cargo ship) collided with the Imo (a Norwegian supply vessel) in the Narrows of the harbour. Haligonians watched the fire from the shore, not realizing that the Mont Blanc was loaded with munitions. The explosion and resulting shockwave killed almost 2000 people, injured over 9000, destroyed 1500 buildings and left over 12000 buildings uninhabitable.
The Halifax Explosion was the largest human-made explosion before the atomic bombs were detonated in 1945.
My day job recently took me to Halifax. Hugh MacLennan's Barometer Rising came along. The novel is set in Halifax in the days before and after the Halifax Explosion. You can read the novel on several different levels.
Halifax, December 1917. Penelope Wain is longing for her love, who is also her cousin, Neil Macrae. Neil is assumed to be dead. Killed in the war two years ago under a cloud of suspicion for failure to follow orders. The orders of his commanding officer … his uncle … Penelope's father, Geoffrey Wain. Turns out Neil is not dead. He has just snuck back to Halifax to find the one man who can clear his name.
And what is Geoffrey up to? Profiting from the war, intimating that Neil's perceived misdemeanors are the barrier to a more lucrative military staff position, scowling about the inferiority of his country. All in a pro-Empire way.
Halifax itself is a character in the novel. The geography and atmosphere of the city play a critical role.
The book is a good companion for a visit to the city.
This is the start of two and a half pages describing the immediate devastation of the city from 9:05 to 9:10 am. Read it. Hard to imagine another account as lyrical as MacLennan's.
The heroine is Penelope. The hero has left home, everyone think he's dead. He loses his memory. He must regain it and fight seemingly unsurmountable obstacles before he can return. He hides his identity until the conditions are right to take his place again. Echoes of The Odyssey. MacLennan shows off his background as a classics scholar.
Barometer Rising was first published in 1941, as the world was enmeshed in another war. MacLennan's ideas reflect a view of the time, that Canada would bridge the divide between the UK (old Empire) and the US (new power). Lots of CanLit ink has been spilt to analyse this more than I will here.
Many readers see Neil as the embodiment of the new Canada. I like to think that he and Penny together bring equally important qualities to the new vision.
You can read more about the Halifax Explosion here and here.
Categories: WW1 Fiction to 1945 | Tags: Barometer Rising, Halifax, Halifax Explosion, Home front, Hugh MacLennan, Women in WW1, WW1 fiction | Permalink.
St Paul's Church stands on the south side of the Grand Parade in Halifax. Founded in 1750, it is the oldest surviving Protestant church in Canada. Entering from the narthex to the nave, you pass through the Memorial Arch, in memory of 91 men of the parish who died in WW1. The names are listed by rank. Above the arch is a piece of wreckage driven into the wall of the church in the Halifax Explosion on 6 Dec 1917.
Categories: Monuments and Memorials | Tags: Halifax, St. Paul's Church, WW1 memorials | Permalink.


text:
Hanul Ancuței este un sat în comuna Tupilați din județul Neamț, Moldova, România.

Hanul Ancuței, Tupilați

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Once you've purchased your ticket, if you wish to modify your seat or the departure date you can make changes to your ticket clicking here.
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Before travelling with Socibus,check your rights and obligations as a passenger and take into consideration the following luggage limitations, accompanied minors, pets, etc.
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Socibus counts with one of the most modern fleets in the market, when it comfort for its clients and also safety, environmental conscience and accesibility in every vehicle. Every vehicle is renewed every four years maximum, and they are gifted with the most advanced elements in comfort and safety.
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The blunt force trauma that is often associated with catastrophic accidents can result in a range of serious injuries, including broken bones and internal scarring. Though broken bones may be reset and scarred tissue may be corrected, these injuries may cause long-term issues with mobility and chronic pain that will necessitate continued medical treatment. After experiencing an injurious accident like this in Baton Rouge through no fault of your own, there is no reason you should have to bear the financial burden of the accident on your own.
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Please leave your contact details before downloading Interman.pdf.
Their expertise and professionalism were evident throughout the development cycle, and we were very pleased with the final product.
It boosts our fuel efficiency, thereby reducing costs subsequent to the optimised aircraft trim.


text:
Q: Android SDK Mac - android-19 - can I safely delete the x86 or armeabi-v7a directories? I've got 2 directories in my Android-19 SDK directory.
One is x86 and the other is armeabi-v7a. They each take 755MB.
Can I safely delete one of them and still do Android development?
Similarly, in the add-ons directory, I have:
addon-google_apis_x86-google-19
addon-google_apis-google-18
addon-google_apis-google-19-1

Can any of these be deleted?

A: You can uninstall those through the SDK Manager.

Specifically:

*

*If you do not want to use the x86 emulator system images, uninstall them

*If you do not want to use the ARM emulator system images, uninstall them

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
A Fine-Grained Evaluation of SPARQL Endpoint Federation Systems
Submitted by Axel-Cyrille Ng... on 02/11/2014 - 10:55
Tracking #: 625-1835
A new version of this paper is available
Muhammad Saleem
Yasar Khan
Ali Hasnain
ivan.ermilov
Axel-Cyrille Ngonga Ngomo
Responsible editor:
Submission type:
The Web of Data has grown enormously over the last years. Currently, it comprises a large compendium of interlinked and distributed datasets from multiple domains. The abundance of datasets has motivated considerable work for developing SPARQL query federation systems, the dedicated means to access data distributed over the Web of Data. However, the granularity of previous evaluations of such systems has not allowed deriving of insights concerning their behavior in different steps involved during federated query processing. In this work, we perform extensive experiments to compare state-of-the-art SPARQL endpoint federation systems using the comprehensive performance evaluation framework FedBench. We extend the scope of the performance evaluation by considering additional criteria to the commonly used key criterion (i.e. the query runtime). In particular, we consider the number of sources selected, total number of SPARQL ASK requests used, and source selection time, the criteria which have not received much attention in the previous studies. Yet, we show that they have a significant impact on the overall query runtime of existing systems. Also, we extend FedBench to mirror a highly distributed data environment and assess the behavior of existing systems by using the same four criteria. As the result we provide a detailed analysis of the experimental outcomes that reveal novel insights for improving current and future SPARQL federation systems.
Full PDF Version:
swj625.pdf
Revised Version:
Decision/Status:
Major Revision
Solicited Reviews:
Anonymous submitted on 14/May/2014
Review Comment:
Summary of the paper's main contributions and impact
The paper reports on an evaluation study of existing federated engines. The study is two-fold: a first part comprises a public survey where the developers of state-of-the-art federated engines described their engines in terms of their main features and implementation details. The second part of the study corresponds to an experimental evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of existing open source federated engines. FedBench was extended into SlicedBench to fragment original FedBench collections. FedBech queries were evaluated in both sets of collections the original and the one fragmented. Several metrics are reported to describe the performance and quality of these engines; particularly, the study is focused on the analysis of the impact that source selection and query decomposition techniques implemented by the studied engines have on the overall execution time of the engine. Observed results and lesson learned are used to outline best-practice recommendations to be considered during the development of SPARQL federated engines.
Overall the paper is well written and clearly describes the main features of existing SPARQL federated query engines. The survey allows the engines' authors to describe their engines, and these descriptions provide the basis to understand the results observed during the empirical evaluation. Nevertheless, because of the lack of specification and statistical analysis of the results, both reproducibility and generality of the reported results cannot be ensured. First, parameters that may impact on the behavior of the engines are not outlined. Second, the experimental set up is not described in detail. For example, with respect to the endpoints is necessary to state: how endpoints were implemented, how much are the timeouts, buffer size, number of available threads; for each engine, the version evaluated and the amount of memory assigned to the virtual machine of the ones implemented in Java; the procedure used to measure the reported metrics, is time always measure in the same way? Is the same tool always used? Execution time measurements in Java may be not equivalent to the measurements reported by Python. RAM memory consumed by each engine can be different, and in case of only having 4 GB of RAM, can negatively affect the performance of the engines. Further, the reported metrics are not very informative independently; a figure plotting execution time versus completeness of the answer could give a better idea of the trade off between these two metrics. Finally, reported results are not statistical analyzed; for example, a t-test or ANOVA could be reported and used to support the discussion and lesson learned; additionally, observed results have to be linked to the results obtained from the survey.
Strong points of the paper
S1: A detailed description the existing federated engines.
S2: An extension of existing benchmarks to generate data fragments.
S3: An empirical evaluation of existing open source federated engines under the same conditions.
Weak points of the paper
W1: The experimental setup is poorly described.
W2: No statistical analysis is conducted.
W3: There is no analysis of the parameters that impact on the performance of the evaluated engines.
W4: There is no clear description of the procedure followed to measure the reported metrics.
W5: Relationship between the description of the engines provided during the survey and the results observed in the experimental evaluation is not clearly discussed.
W6: Nothing is said about the type of fragmentation produced by the Sliced tool or how the generated slides are assigned to the different endpoints. The behavior of existing federated engines is completely different if data is fragmented horizontally, vertically or a combination of both.
W7: Behavior of the source selection and query decomposition tasks in presence of general vocabulary predicates such as rdf:type, owl:sameAs, is not described.
Detailed Comments
D1: Parameters that may impact the performance and behavior of the engines should be explained. The effect of the amount of RAM on the performance of the engines should be discussed.
D2: The experimental setup needs to be clearly described, i.e., endpoint configuration, engines' versions, RAM of the virtual machines.
D3: Procedure conducted to measure execution time and completeness must be the same for all the engines.
D4: Impact of the number of general vocabulary predicates in a query has to be discussed.
D5: The study needs to be extended to analyze the impact of vertical, horizontal, and hybrid fragmentation of the data.
D6: A statistical analysis that includes common tests, such as t-test, simple χ2 tests, Wilcoxon or Mann-Whitney tests, should be used to support the evaluation conclusions reached and lessons learned. Errors of the measurements have to be also reported.
D7: Plots comparing execution time versus answer completeness are more informative and should be also reported.
Additional questions to the authors:
Q1: What would be the expected impact on the studied engines of the different endpoints' capability restrictions, e.g., limited execution time or maximal number of triples in a query response.
Q2: What would be the expected behavior of the evaluated engines if FedBench queries are executed against public SPARQL endpoints instead of private endpoints.
Q3: What is the impact of data replication on the performance of the studied engines?
By Juergen Umbrich submitted on 16/May/2014
The paper presents a good overview of federated SPARQL engines and conducted a detailed evaluation of 6 open source engines using the FedBench and a own benchmark.
The authors "extended" the benchmarks by three additional measures ( source selection time, number of ASK queries and selected sources) and evaluated the systems over a highly decentralised environments with their own SlicedBench benchmark.
The paper has the potential to provide a good overview over existing systems and the comparison of their performance; which is one of the first of such evaluations.
However, the structure, presentation and the length of the paper needs to be improved to clearly show the contribution of the work to the community.
The authors have a good coverage of the literature and the section could be further improved by explaining the general approaches of federated SPARQL query processing.
Section 2,3,4 are providing background information and a survey of existing systems which could be condensed and better grouped.
It might be good to think about merging the information of those sections.
e.g. Section 2,3,4 provide increasing details of SPARQL federation strategies and approaches.
Those information could be merged into one section which would be consistent in itself and help readers unfamiliar with all the approaches to get faster a better overview which is important to understand the rest of the paper.
References: The references have no consistent format. Some references use the firstname as lastname. This has to be fixed.
The discussion of the results is very detail and it is clear that the authors spent a lot of effort in running the evaluation and compiling and looking into the results
However, because of the length and details, this section is quite confusing and the message is not clear.
The explanation of the setup is partially inconsistent (text vs tables/figures) and the result discussion is too long.
The authors should shorten and change the structure of the evaluation and discussion section ( see details below).
Further, the influence of the partitioning is very important and should deserve more attention form the author and space in the paper.
In addition, the evaluation focuses only on query execution time but do not provide any information or discussion about the correctness of the results ( e.g. as highlighted by Montoya[8]).
Eventually, the paper should provide some clear commendations about which system is best suitable for which queries, data and partitioning based on the comprehensive results obtained in the evaluation.
Detailed comments:
for readers which are not familiar with the SPARQL federation it is not clear why the number of SPARQL ASK queries is of any importance for the benchmark.
The authors should better explain why such measure is of interest. The same holds for the other two measures.
end of section 1, the slicebench benchmark is not mentioned before, the authors talk about FedBench and SP2Bench and should also mention slicebench.
It is also not clear that the slicedbench benchmark was developed by the authors itself.
section 2.1
Olaf et. al -> typically, authors are addressed with their last name, please fix the bibtex file.
It seems important for the authors to cover the SPARQL features used for the benchmarks and a discussion of the used SPARQL features in the different benchmarks would be interesting.
The author should provide more information for the necessity of the survey.
As pointed out in the paper, Rakhmawati performed a similar survey, however not in such detail and it would be interesting to learn why the authors decided to do a second one.
It is not clear why the author do not list other systems such as [30] or link traversal approaches of Olaf Hartig?
last paragraph: text format of SPARQLand query federation
Section 3.2.
What are exactly the three main categories of the federation systems? The authors discuss 6 different categories! Maybe using subsection headings or a item list would bring more structure in this section.
It is confusing to provide percentage values for the number of systems.
It would be better to just write " 2 systems are index free approaches ( vs. 14% of the systems ...)
The order of the systems in table 1 and 2 can be aligned.
The authors should also discuss the join implementation listed in Table 1 (e.g., what is a pull based rank, or adaptive query processing?)
and why this is an important information since it is not used anymore in the paper
One idea is to dedicate a sub section to the 14 systems and their characteristics ( this includes beginning of section 3.2)
The results can be discussed in an own subsection
Maybe even text from Section 4 could be moved to the beginning of section3.
Section 4. The table 1 lists 8 system with available code, why did the author limit their evaluation to six systems?
The author explain the setup of their hardware which does not match with the information in table 4 (e.g., hard disk and RAM, processors).
What system is used for the SPARQL endpoints ( Fuseki, Sesame, 4store, Virtuoso, ...)?
Table 5: check the format, ( e.g. version column, consistency of numbers and units, e.g. 1063 vs 1.7k). What is the definition of a link in the table and why is that important?
Table6, i think it is important to list what SPARQL features the queries use
paragraph starting with "table 7 shows...":
the author should make clear in table 6 which queries are used for the first and second test.
Fig.1. Why are sources which contribute to two triple patterns counted twice?
Table 6 is using TP as triple patterns, while the rest of the paper refers to the triple pattern wise sources with TP.
Section 5.3.1
Why is the first experimental result the triple wise selected sources while the introduction of section 5 refers to the first experiment as measuring the runtime for the FedBech setup?
Table 8 is hard to understand, what exactly means "bold results are key".
In addition, the author talk about the optimal number of sources. this information is not provided in the tables ( cf. table 6,8 ).
paragraph 2. the formatting of "rdf : type" can be improved for a better readability.
There is no need to include approaches which do not send ASK queries in table 9 .
The result discussion is very long and detailed and it is hard to understand the relation between source selection, ASK query with the total runtime.
I would suggest to change the structure and presentation of results.
Firstly, start with presenting the overall runtime ( as a stacked bar plot of source selection and query evaluation time).
I would recommend to merge the plots and provide a stacked bar chart, consisting of source selection and query evaluation time, for the queries ( merge figure 2 and 3).
This aligns with the motivation of the author that runtime is the most important factor for the federated query scenario ( at least they do not discuss denial of service attacks because of two many ASK queries or interim lookups in nested loop joins).
Next, discuss the portion of the source selection in more detail. This can be backed up with the results of table 8 and 9.
I would merge the two tables into one since table 9 has only data for 3 of the 6 engines -> the #TP and #ASK can be presented next to each other.
This makes it also easier to understand how the number of ASK queries influences the number of triple wise related sources.
The discussion about query execution time should be in section 5 as part of the result discussion and the question is why only FEDx and SPLENDID are compared and not all systems. The query execution time can be calculated for all other systems as well.
By Carlos Buil Aranda submitted on 20/May/2014
In this paper the authors present an exhaustive evaluation of some SPARQL endpoint federation systems. The contribution of the paper consists in extending the Fedbench benchmark with more fine grained features to evaluate and more systems to run this evaluation. They provide a new dataset, Sliced Bench which contains the original datasets but sliced and distributed across several Virtuoso servers. In the evaluation section the authors run the queries in FedX, SPLENDID, DARQ, LHD and ANAPSID.
1 Introduction Section:
In the Introduction Section the authors introduce the increasing popularity of SPARQL federated systems and thus the need of evaluating them to find out which of these systems is the most appropriate for querying distributed SPARQL endpoints. They also describe that current evaluations to the existing system just focus on the execution time and leave out other important features like number of sources selected, number of ASK queries sent, or source selection time. The authors also describe the problem of data partitioning and at the end of this section they describe the contributions of the paper.
First, the authors almost always assume that the only way for federating SPARQL queries is by means of systems that only implement an extension to SPARQL 1.0, leaving out/ignoring the SPARQL 1.1 Federation Extension. The only sentence I think is in the paper for stating the difference between the author's approach and the SPARQL 1.1 federation approach is: "Federated queries [7,20,27,23], in a virtual integrated fashion is becoming increasingly popular". I think the paper should explicitly say that there are two ways for federating queries: using SPARQL 1.0 and a virtual integration of datasets and the one in the recommendation and that in the current paper the authors focus in the latter.
2 Related Work section:
In this section (2.1) the authors list the some of the works about SPARQL query federation engines (using SPARQL 1.0) and focus on their evaluation. This short list of engines + performance studies include link traversal systems. This section seems quite disconnected since it is just a list of works without analysing/describing in detail each work listed. Again, a reference to the SPARQL 1.1 Federation Extension should be included.
Section 2.2 present the existing the benchmarks is much more elaborated than Section 2.1. In this section the authors present these evaluation works and a small analysis of them. However I think that [1] is missing.
3. Federated Engines Public Survey Section
In this section the authors present a survey in which they ask for implementation details like the source selection technique, join implementation used, etc. The authors also ask in this survey for the desired features that a federation engine may have like partial results retrieval, privacy, adaptive operators, etc.
Comments: Regarding privacy, I'm not sure why this should be a task for the federation engine. There are approaches like [2] that require an ID in the query URL for accessing the data. I think the data access should be managed by the RDF database, not by the federation engine since that engine is just a client.
Regarding the systems analysed in the survey, I still think that the authors should say clearly that SPARQL 1.1 federation engines are not considered in this survey.
Regarding result completeness I would like the authors to clarify what is 100% recall in this evaluation. In Table 2 the authors show that some systems have complete result sets while others do not. However I do not know why some are complete, maybe they return more results than others? I would like to see an explanation of the diverging query result sets since the technique using for doing joins (or other operations) may affect the final result sets. Besides, this 100% recall is done for each query in the evaluation?
I find the other categories interesting and well described.
3.2 Discussion of the survey results Section
In this section the authors divide the "existing SPARQL query federation approaches" in three categories (SPARQL endpoint Federation, query federation over linked data, query federation on top of Distributed Hash Tables), and these categories are also divided into three more subcategories: catalogue/index assisted solutions, catalogue/index-free and hybrid solutions. This classification seems fine to me, the only problem I see is that Atlas has its own category because I do not think it is a query federation engine: in the end it is an RDF storage system which is distributed across a P2P network. So I think it is normal that has its own category since it is not a SPARQL federation engine like the others as it is shown in [3] and in [4]. I think it should be removed from this work, but I may understand its presence here.
4 Details of Selected Systems Section
After analysing and describing 14 systems the authors selected 6 engines to be benchmarked. In this section the authors provide a bit more detailed description of the selected systems and also provide a description of what the authors consider SPARQL query federation. The authors also describe in a bit more of detail the implementation details of the selected engines.
I think this section is good and easy to read.Present clearly the systems that will be evaluated. Maybe the authors should highlight that ANAPSID is developed in Python which has some drawback from using Java (compiled code in the end).
5. Evaluation Section
First the authors describe the experimental setup, which uses the Fedbench query sets for cross domain, live sciences, linked data and the SP2B datasets. All the datasets involving these queries are sliced in 10 pieces and distributed across 10 different servers so in each server there are bits of data from each of the datasets. The authors detail how the slicing was done and I find it a quite interesting technique.
The authors also select some queries from the LD and SP2B domains discarding others "to cover majority of the SPARQL query clauses and types along with variable results size": I do not think removing queries from a benchmark is a good way to cover the majority of the SPARQL query clauses. Personally, if I want to cover more cases I just add more queries, not the contrary. Besides the authors of the benchmark included these queries in their evaluation for some reason. For instance, SP2B query 6 to 8 are very hard query to answer since they are selecting twice the same elements from the dataset (using ?article1 and ?author1). I would like to see all queries from the SP2B and LD query sets executed in this evaluation. The goal is to produce a fine grained and complete evaluation, and thus no queries should be removed.
5.2 Evaluation Criteria Section
In this section the authors describe the criteria used in the evaluation of the systems. I think they are a good criteria but I'm missing the result completeness criteria, like result completeness that the authors introduced in Section 3. It would be interesting to add a column for each query showing the amount of results returned by each engine.
5.3 Experimental Results Section
The next sections describe the results obtained from executing the queries in each of the datasets. The authors first describe the results from the pattern wise source selection, pointing out that ANAPSID is the best one. This section also presents the effects of the overestimation of the selected sources by the engines.
Next, the authors present the results for the amount of ASK queries used by the SPARQL federation engines. Table 9 summarises the results showing that ANAPSID is the system with less amount of ASK queries, which is inline with the results from the previous section. The source selection time is analysed in the next section and the authors point out that the results for ANAPSID include not only the source selection time but also the time needed for decomposing a query due to ANAPSID implementation details. That show ANAPSID as the slowest system which kind of contradicts with the two other results before. I would try to present more fair results here, like calculating for all engines query selection + query decomposition times or removing ANAPSID from the chart, since it shows this system as the slowest one when it is not.
Finally the authors present the query execution time results. These results show FedX as the fastest engine overall specially with warm cache. The authors also analyse the effect of the sources overestimation specially regarding FedX and SPLENDID.
6. Discussion section
The authors present a discussion mainly about why FedX and SPLENDID are the fastest engines. However I do not see any explanation of why ANAPSID is slower than the two other engines specially when ANAPSID is the fastest engine at the time of selecting the sources to query and the engine that submit less ASK queries.
Finally the authors also show the effects in partitioning the data which are very interesting.
Final comments
I think this is a very interesting work but it has to clarify some point. The first one is the fact that the authors totally ignore the fact that there is an W3C Recommendation for SPARQL Federated Query and that most of the RDF storage systems implement it, including Virtuoso. The authors should clearly state that there are two ways for federating queries and that they focus in one of them. Next, there are some sections that should be rewritten (like section 2.1). Regarding the discussion I think that it should be explained why ANAPSID is one of the slowest when it is t he best one when selecting sources. At the beginning of this paper the authors say:
"In our experiments, we made use of both FedBench [25] and SP2Bench [26] queries to ensure that we cover the majority of the SPARQL query types and clauses."
This is not true since you only use some of the queries from SP2Bench which are included in Fedbench. I would suggest to the authors to use all queries from these datasets or remove that sentence.
Some typos:
In the survey discussion section:
repeated sentence: "However, two out of the eight with public implementation do not make use of the SPARQL endpoints and were thus not considered further in this study."
Typo: cashing results? maybe caching results?
[1] Gabriela Montoya, Maria-Esther Vidal, Oscar Corcho, Edna Ruckhaus, and Carlos Buil-Aranda. 2012. Benchmarking federated SPARQL query engines: are existing testbeds enough?. In Proceedings of the 11th international conference on The Semantic Web - Volume Part II (ISWC'12), Philippe Cudré-Mauroux, Jeff Heflin, Evren Sirin, Tania Tudorache, and Jérôme Euzenat (Eds.), Vol. Part II. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 313-324.
[2] Manuel Salvadores, Matthew Horridge, Paul R. Alexander, Ray W. Fergerson, Mark A. Musen, and Natalya F. Noy. 2012. Using SPARQL to query bioportal ontologies and metadata. In Proceedings of the 11th international conference on The Semantic Web - Volume Part II (ISWC'12), Philippe Cudré-Mauroux, Jeff Heflin, Evren Sirin, Tania Tudorache, and Jérôme Euzenat (Eds.), Vol. Part II. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 180-195.
[3] Zoi Kaoudi, Iris Miliaraki, Matoula Magiridou, Antonios Papadakis-Pesaresi and Manolis Koubarakis. Storing and Querying RDF Data in Atlas. In 3rd European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC2006), 11 - 14 June 2006, Budva, Montenegro, Demo paper.
[4] Filali, I., Bongiovanni, F., Huet, F., & Baude, F. (2011). A survey of structured p2p systems for rdf data storage and retrieval. In Transactions on large-scale data-and knowledge-centered systems III (pp. 20-55). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.


text:
American man found dead in Bath with 'stab injury'
Detectives investigating what happened say the death is being treated as unexplained
Liam TrimDigital Content Editor
An American man has been found dead in Bath with a "stab injury", according to detectives.
Police say the death of Scott Lafferty, 61, is being treated as "unexplained".
His body was found at his home in Calton Walk on Monday, May 14.
Mr Lafferty, from the Seattle area of the United States of America, died as a result of a stab injury, a post-mortem examination has discovered.
Scott Lafferty was found dead in Bath after neighbours raised the alarm (Image: Avon and Somerset Constabulary)
Avon and Somerset Constabulary are asking members of the public to come forward if they saw anything.
Detective Inspector Adam Bunting said police were carrying out further enquiries on behalf of the coroner's office.
He added: "Officers attended his flat after an associate of Mr Lafferty raised concerns, as they hadn't heard from him for some time. We've established the last phone call he made was to a friend on Friday, April 20.
"We need the public's help to build a fuller picture of Mr Lafferty's movements, conversations and interactions in the days and weeks leading up to his death."
Latest Bath news
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The police appeal asking for help from the public asked three questions.
Did you see, speak to or make contact with Mr Lafferty in the days or weeks prior to Monday 14 May?
Did you see or hear anything unusual in the Calton Walk area of Bath in the days or weeks prior to Monday 14 May?
Do you have any information about Mr Lafferty which could help with this investigation?
DI Bunting added: "We've made contact with Mr Lafferty's family in the USA and will keep them updated on the progress of this investigation."
If you can help the police, you can call investigations on 101 and give the call handler the reference number 5218104701.
Email liam.trim@reachplc.com if you have a Bath story to tell, or wish to pay tribute to Mr Lafferty.
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