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Bill's Top 10 Automation & Control Trends for 2019 – Accelerating Change & Reaching the Tipping Point
The pace of technological change in the automation industry seems to be accelerating as we head into 2019, driven by innovations developed for Internet of Things and general computing. In last year's Bill's Top 10 Automation & Control Trends for 2018 - A Year of Technology Driven Change, I shared the view that 2018 would look to bring structural and architectural changes that would be disruptive to organizations and suppliers that resist change. As we enter the new year, there are indeed signs of disruption in various industrial automation niches, leading to a prominent question for 2019.
Question: Is the industrial automation industry approaching a tipping point with innovative new system architectures, software, and edge devices leading to broad disruption?
As usual a caveat as we begin: I've been involved in this industry for years, as both a designer and applier of automation and controls in the field, and I still don't know with certainly what the future will hold. Still, after another busy year talking to a wide range of users, suppliers and industry consultants, and attending over 20 industry conferences and related events, I have another year's worth of informed insights to share on the latest trends that will shape automation in 2019. As always, I invite everyone to share their own thoughts, criticisms, and perspectives on this exciting time for automation with me at [email protected] or on our LinkedIn group
The Next Frontier for Manufacturing Automation
The digital revolution of manufacturing and process business continues to evolve with many functions being digitized and refined over the years. These functions include:
In contrast, established industrial and process automation systems have not transformed at the same rate.
Yet today, there is change. We are seeing a clear trend with the integration of industrial automation into the entire business information and computer architecture, enabling manufacturers to compete successfully.
"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." Peter Drucker
Manufacturing Competitiveness at Stake
In countless industries, we have seen companies, who leverage disruptive innovations, position themselves to become industry leaders, bastions of productivity, and economically prosperous. One example that Industry 4.0 discussions universally employ is the the early automotive industry. These arguments cite Henry Ford's domination, in the early years of the automobile industry, with the world's first moving assembly line producing Model T's and 93 minutes. Yet, decades later, the 1990's saw United States automakers innovating less in manufacturing. The US automakers eventually started losing significant market share to Japanese automotive manufacturers, who were leveraging newer management methods, advanced manufacturing methods and aggressive use of automation, and robotics. United States automakers, during that time, had access to the same technologies and methods, but they were not moved to take advantage of them until compelled by economic factors. By that point, for some of them, it was too late. The lesson here is that if new transformative technology and methods are not adopted by manufacturers, they may soon struggle to remain competitive and profitable.
1. Enterprise Systems Absorb Plant Floor Computing
Tighter integration of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) continues to accelerate. In multiple industries, business systems can now process real-time transaction to be more responsive in all functions, including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) functions. This is being driven by lean manufacturing efforts, which work to optimize entire process including supply chain, production, delivery, genealogy, and customer service. Enterprise systems (ERP, etc.) have helped to deliver this real-time transaction processing and are driving down to the edge, which is resulting in the displacement of traditional HMI and other middleware.
Further, this effort is satisfying requirements to achieve real-time synchronized manufacturing operations. Innovative industrial automation vendors are already producing automation controllers designed to leverage the business network, and directly communicate with enterprise business systems. This communication uses Web services, and other IoT transport mechanisms, to facilitate the integration and synchronization of the entire manufacturing enterprise. including machine and process sensor inputs and outputs. There are notable industry standards being leveraged to accomplish this including: OPC UA, MQTT, AMQP, and B2MML.
Automation Fair 2018 - Rockwell Automation & PTC Partner for Industrial Digitization Journey
The New Era of Automation Architectures: What does it mean for users?
Digital Factory Comes into Focus at Hannover Messe 2018
SAP Leonardo Enterprise Wide IT/OT Integration
How Industry 4.0 and Digitization Improves Manufacturing Responsiveness, Quality and Efficiency
2. Open Architecture Initiatives
A driving force behind the development of Industry 4.0 is the realization that pursuing low labor rates is no longer a winning strategy. Organizational competitiveness and flexibility can only be accomplished by leveraging the advanced technologies, centering on automation, in order to enable a successful transition. Germany's Industry 4.0 initiative has ignited worldwide cooperative efforts in China, Japan and India.
Developing economies logically have a key advantage in this area, since they are typically not burdened with legacy automation system and machine investments. This allows them to leapfrog organizations, who are attached to older expensive legacy equipment, by taking advantage of these new initiatives. This is a familiar pattern characterized by Japan's post-World War II record boom of economic growth. Today we see Japan with significant market share gains in a number of areas including automotive, television, and electronics.
Some of the leading open architecture initiatives that are working to enable the digital transformation include:
This past year, China announced increased financial support for major projects of its "Made in China 2025" initiative with the total funding to exceed 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion). In addition, local authorities will also increase financial support for "Made in China 2025" projects with over 10 billion yuan expected to be invested by local governments nationwide. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) will also cooperate with China Development Bank to provide financial services including loans, bonds, leasing to support major projects, with an estimated 300 billion yuan of financing in place in the 2016-2020 period.
The government is set to launch round two of its flagship Make in India program with the focus this time on futuristic segments such as robotics, genomics. chemical feedstock and electrical storage. The government's industry department is in the process of formulating a five-year roadmap for each of the priority sectors to be covered under Make in India 2.0, a senior government official reported the Economic Times.
Industry 4.0 for Process
This effort, the application of Industry 4.0 concepts to improve process automation, is being driven by NAMUR and VDI/VDE in collaboration with several prominent leaders in the industry, including: ABB, BASF, Bayer Technology Services, Bilfinger Maintenance, Endress+Hauser, Evonik, Festo, Krohne, Lanxess, Siemens, and Fraunhofer ICT. The concepts are expressed in NAMUR's Process Sensor 4.0 Roadmap, which describes smart-networked sensors as a foundational part of the Industry 4.0 process architecture. These sensors will communicate with controls, and automation systems and simultaneously and directly with business systems.
The Digital Transformation Monitor
The DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION MONITOR lists fifteen national initiatives for "digitizing" industry, which have been launched across Europe in recent years. With value chains increasingly distributed across Europe, the further digitization of industry brings challenges that can only be addressed through a coordinated EU-wide effort. Seven more initiatives are under preparation. The development of these national initiatives is an important element of the European Platform of National Initiatives on Digitizing Industry. A first preliminary analysis maps the national measures along the action lines of DEI strategy, building on the results of the Digital Transformation Monitor (DTM) and the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). A country overview with relevant information for digitizing industry for all 28 Member States is available.
The Open Group, the Open Process Automation Forum
The Open Group's Open Process Automation Forum, formally launched November, 2016, is focused on developing a multivendor standards-based, open, secure, and interoperable process control architecture. The Open Group has a track record of success in this area with the FACE standard. This standard has led to the deployment of higher function software designed to lower lifecycle cost. The defense avionics industry is one prime example of an industry that has transitioned from a proprietary solutions to fully open systems architecture.
Open Architecture Standards and Vendors: Finding Clarity Amidst the Chaos
Breaking closed architecture bonds
Compliance of the Victim: ARC Industry Forum Highlights an Industry in Transition
Industrial Automation Industry Absorbed by IT (Information Technology)
Insights on the Impact of Industry 4.0 for Process Automation
Industry 4.0: Intelligent and flexible production
The Future of Process System Architectures – Insights from 2017 Foxboro User Group
3. Ethernet & Networking Advances
Ethernet, both wired and wireless, has become the workhorse network of choice throughout manufacturing and production. Ethernet is used for all communications including data, audio, video, and industrial control networks leveraging shared infrastructure. Speed and performance continue to increase, with Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) and accelerated use of fiber optic networks. In this area too, there are some interesting developments as we enter 2019:
Advanced Physical Layer (APL)
Named the Advanced Physical Layer this is based on IEEE 802.3 the IEEE P802.3cg 10 Mb/s Single Pair Ethernet Task Force Working Group is focused on using a single pair cable operating at 10 Mb/s with power delivery. This may include conforming to requirements for use in hazardous locations, up to Zone 0, Division 1.2.1 5G Wireless. The focus is on a replacement for legacy point–to–point & point-to-multipoint including 4-20 mA, HART modem, RS-232, RS-485, CAN (Controller Area Network), and FlexRay. There is an expectation of a standard in 2019.
There is work being done to define the requirements and develop the necessary technology meet requirements for use in hazardous locations up to Zone 0, Division 1.2.1 5G.
The FieldComm Group, ODVA and PI (Profibus & Profinet International) are working together to promote developments for Industrial Ethernet, in order to expand use of EtherNet/IP™, HART-IP™ and PROFINET™ into hazardous locations in the process industry. This is intended to leverage the work currently underway in the IEEE 802.3cg Task Force.
5G Wireless
There are a number of industrial plants that have implemented a 5G wireless network, within their facility that provides high speed deterministic communications. Beckhoff and Huawei had an extremely impressive concept demonstration, at Hannover Fair 2018, using established Huawei 5G and X-Ethernet to demonstrate deterministic high-speed coordinated motion over both wired and 5G wireless communications.
5G is the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications targeted to succeed the 4G (LTE/WiMax), 3G (UMTS) and 2G (GSM) systems. 5G performance targets high data rate, reduced latency, energy savings, higher system capacity, and massive device connectivity. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) IMT-2020 specification demands speeds up to 20 gigabits per second. The first phase of 5G specifications in Release-15 will be completed by March 2019, to accommodate the early commercial deployment. The second phase in Release-16 is due to be completed by March 2020, for submission to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as a candidate of IMT-2020 technology.
Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN)
There is a great deal of discussion and (in some quarters) excitement about the prospect of Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), wchich many believe will become the single unifying deterministic network shared by all applications throughout the computer industry. Since TSN is a totally-managed, shared network architecture, all network traffic -including all industrial protocols in the plant - would need to conform and be compliant with the TSN set of standards in order to achieve deterministic and reliable communications. Based on interviews and discussions I've had with people involved in the IEEE committees, they report that the entire standard will be completed in a few years.
Creating a practical multi-vendor TSN architecture has challenges and adds new layers of complexity for industrial ethernet networking, with network timing tightly coupled to network configuration and management. The most similar network, in my experience, was the Allen-Bradley The ControlNetTM network. This was a tightly time scheduled and managed network dedicated to industrial control and monitoring, with those tight-scheduled communications yielding high determinism. While complex, the scope of the issue was limited to industrial automation applications with one set of software and controllers from a single vendor, Allen-Bradley. In contrast, TSN is seen as a common multivendor sharednetwork for multimode communication of general computing, VOIP, professional audio, video, file transfer, industrial automation, building automation, and any other data communication.
In order to take advantage of TSN time-scheduling, it would seem that control programming software and controller firmware will have to be redesigned, in order to accommodate the definition of I/O point and variable timing specifications.
Since the goal is to support multiple industrial network protocols along with data and multimedia applications, this will require an industry-wide shared network manager and an API standard to which all vendors need to conform. Yet, when asking multiple people about standardization in this area, it is obvious that no open defined standard exists and there are certainly no identified certification groups on the horizon.
Before the entire standard is completed there are likely to be offerings by other industrial automation suppliers, but I suggest that buyers be extra cautious as those solutions could become "white elephants".
TSN (Time Sensitive Networking): Lack of timing mechanism remains an elephant in the room
Digging into the Details: Time Sensitive Networking (TSN)
Time-Sensitive Networking: Real-Time Communication in an IIoT World
A Single Network for Industrial Ethernet: Will Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) Accomplish Convergence?
802.3CG OVERVIEW 10 MB/S SINGLE PAIR ETHERNET
4. The Invasion of the Robots
The adoption rate of robots continues to accelerate, as further innovations, collaborative robots, lower prices, simplified programming and user acceptance continue to increase popularity. The growth of collaborative robots, in particular, is evident, with these robots working cooperatively with people, integrated vision systems, and innovative grippers. The prices for these robots position them for a wide range of applications. This particular breed of robot is following a similar pattern that ignited the personal computer revolution - providing a product with less power than larger offerings, but with added value for a broader number of users. The rate of robot adoption is accelerating throughout the world, particularly in China, as the country is now the largest purchaser of robots in the world.
The International Federation of Robotics Executive Summary World Robotics 2018 Industrial Robots noted in 2017 that robot sales increased by 30% to 381,335 units, a new peak for the fifth year in a row. Asia is still the world's strongest growth market, with a total of about 261,800 units sold in 2017; a rise of 37% more than the global sales volume of 2015 (253,300) in this region. Industrial robot sales in the second largest market, Europe, increased by 18% to almost 66,300 units and an annual average increase rate of 10% between 2012 and 2017. About 46,100 industrial robots were shipped to the Americas, 12% more than in 2016, establishing a new peak for the sixth year in a row. Five major markets represent over 73% of the total global sales volume in 2017: China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States and Germany.
Collaborative Robots Transform Industry
5. The Emergence of Open Systems from New Sources
New open system options are continually emerging in industrial automation, from both nontraditional suppliers and standards groups, and I expect this will accelerate in the coming year. These options could enable multivendor interoperability at all levels of the system architecture, while simplifying integration, expanding the number of options available for applications, and making applications easily portable across vendor platforms. In contrast, there are still far too many incumbent industrial automation suppliers today with highly-gated automation partner programs. Selected based on protective commercial criteria, only these third-party partners are technically and legally enabled to work with the vendor's unique tightly bound closed architectures. Suffice it to say, there are significantly fewer obstacles to innovation in open ecosystems.
There are some interesting Industry 4.0/Smart Manufacturing open-sourced edge platforms emerging which leverage the knowledge and technologies from the general computing and IoT industry:
The Eclipse Foundation
The Eclipse Foundation's Open standards for Industry 4.0 allow for solutions that are interoperable, modular and vendor independent. The following relevant standards are supported through different open source projects:
OPC UA - Eclipse Milo is a full implementation of OPC UA.
MQTT - Eclipse Paho and Eclipse Mosquitto provide a client and broker implementation of the MQTT messaging protocol.
Production Performance Management Protocol (PPMP) is a payload specification to capture data that is required to do performance analysis of production facilities.
oneM2M – oneM2M is a service layer standard that defines common service functions that can be shared by applications, gateways, and devices. oneM2M includes defined interworking with standards such as OSGi, DDS, OPC UA, and Modbus so that industrial data can be aggregated and exposed to applications uniformly.
Eclipse 4diac provides the development tools and the runtime to create control systems for PLCs that is based on IEC 61499. 4diac also integrates OPC UA and MQTT into PLC to ease PLC connectivity.
» IoT Gateway Eclipse Kura provides a portable Java/OSGi edge computing framework for building IoT Gateways that can be deployed into Industry 4.0 solutions. Kura supports a wide variety of fieldbus protocols including OPC UA, Siemens S7, and Modbus. Eclipse Kura also features a modular and visual data flow programming tool called Wires. Wires allows to define data collection and processing pipelines at the edge by simply selecting components from a palette and wiring them together.
Digital Twin Eclipse Ditto is a framework to create and manage digital twins. Ditto exposes a unified resource-based API that can be used to interact with devices, abstracting from the complexity of different device types and how they are connected. It helps to structure the devices into their distinct aspects of functionality and can optionally enforce data types and data validation based on a formal device meta model, based on Eclipse Vorto.
EdgeX Foundry
The Linux Foundation's EdgeX Foundry is a vendor-neutral, open source project providing a common open framework for IoT edge computing and an ecosystem of interoperable components. It is designed to unify the marketplace and accelerate enterprise and Industrial IoT. The project is aligned around a common goal: The simplification and standardization of Industrial IoT edge computing, while still enabling the ecosystem to add value.
EdgeX Foundry leverages cloud-native principles, including microservices and platform-independence, but is architected to meet specific needs of the IoT edge. This includes accommodating both IP- and non-IP based connectivity protocols, security and system management for widely distributed compute nodes, and scaling down to highly-constrained devices.
EdgeX Foundry has gone through rapid refinement, as illustrated by the reduction of computer resource requirements -from the initial 2.5 GB to 128 MB memory requirement – to make it suitable for embedding in sensors and control devices.
EdgeX Foundry and the Quest for Multivendor Interoperability
What is open source & why you should care?
EdgeX Foundry IoT, IIoT, and Industry 4.0 unifying architecture
Inside Dell's Ongoing Quest for Digitalization Acceleration
6. Embedded Cyber Security
Cyber security provides protection at the fundamental root entry points for intruders. This effort, developed in the software industry, utilizes powerful Systems on a Chip (SoC) embedded in edge devices, including industrial controllers, process controllers, smart instrumentation, and other devices. This is particularly important, as the cybersecurity attack surface continues to expand. These vulnerabilities grow with the proliferation of edge computing devices with a growing number off Internet of Things (IoT) applications including consumer, municipal, industrial, connected vehicles, connected health, smart farming, and smart supply chain.
In problem solving, it is always important to identify root causes. Any entry point into a system is a root level cause of cyber security concern. Systems on a Chip (SoC) and other highly integrated solutions are driving control, monitoring and analytics to the edge, providing functions that in the past were done in a PLC or DCS controller. The key building blocks of these efforts include cybersecurity functions and features embedded in Systems on a Chip (SoC), which incorporate microprocessors, communications, cyber encryption, cloud security services, secure update services, and other functions.
These efforts are in the early stages of development, with many vendors and standards groups operating without common standards at this point. These efforts are leaving users with a simple question: Should we hold off on new purchases of industrial controllers, process controllers, and instrumentation until these secure SoC and methods are integrated into the devices?
The ultimate goal is to incorporate this new breed of cyber security processors into IoT devices and implement more cybersecure systems throughout industrial and process automation components.
There are prominent cyber security initiatives:
Microsoft Azure Sphere
Microsoft is making an unexpected push into the chip business. Announcing "Azure Sphere," Microsoft is combining a chip design, a cloud security service, and a Linux kernel with the goal of better securing billions of IoT devices around the world. In 2016, Microsoft announced that it had co-designed a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), in order to enhance the intelligence of its cloud servers. This was the first instance of a Microsoft designed chip. Expanding on this genesis, Microsoft's representatives at the 2018 Hannover Messe described how the Azure Sphere includes a microcontroller (MCU) design which the company is licensing, royalty-free. Other features include:
The Microsoft hardware security module Pluton Security Subsystem, which creates a hardware root of trust, stores private keys, and executes complex cryptographic operations to create secure devices.
A new crossover MCU which combines the a Cortex-A processor with the Cortex-M class processor.
Built-in network connectivity, which provides secured, online experiences and ensures devices are up to date.
The first Azure Sphere chip is the MediaTek MT3620, which incorporates Arm Cortex-A7, first shared by Microsoft as the result of years of close collaboration and testing between MediaTek and Microsoft. Other early partners include ARM, who worked closely for the integration of Cortex-A application processors into the Azure Sphere MCUs.
Google CLOUD IoT CORE
The Google CLOUD IoT CORE is a system designed for the management of connected IoT devices, such as sensors, with Google's cloud. This platform also serves as a secure pipeline for getting data to and from those devices. This effort has been enhanced through Google's Partner ecosystem, which offer devices and kits that work with the Cloud IoT Core. These partners include: Allwinner Technology, Arm, Intel, Marvell, Microchip, Mongoose OS, NXP, Realtek, Sierra Wireless, and SOTEC. Microchip, specifically, provided a prime example of a Google chip partner delivering a Trusted and Secure Authentication solution with the ATECC608A chip.
Google Webinar on Security with the ATECC608a and Cloud IoT Core
Google Cloud IoT Core Authentication Use Case
Amazon FreeRTOS
Amazon is promoting the Amazon FreeRTOS, an IoT operating system for microcontrollers, which are qualified through The Amazon FreeRTOS Qualification Program (Amazon FQP). Amazon FreeRTOS is open-sourced and it extends the FreeRTOS kernel, a real-time operating system for microcontrollers. The Amazon FQP outlines a set of security, functionality and performance requirements that all microcontrollers (along with the associated hardware abstraction layers and drivers) must meet. Amazon FreeRTOS has a large ecosystem of existing tools developed for the system. Amazon FreeRTOS includes software libraries designed to help users program IoT capabilities into devices. One example includes the configuration of devices to a local network using common connectivity options like Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Amazon FreeRTOS also includes an over-the-air (OTA) update feature to remotely update devices with feature enhancements or security patches. In order to secure this operating system, the Amazon FreeRTOS comes with libraries to help secure device data and connections, including support for data encryption, key management, and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1.2). Partners today that support Amazon FreeRTOS features and capabilities include Espressif, Microchip, NXP Semiconductors, and STMicroelectronics.
Arm Mbed IoT Platform
Mbed's Arm TrustZone technology is a System on Chip (SoC) and CPU system-wide approach to security. TrustZone is hardware-based security, built into SoCs by semiconductor chip designers who want to provide secure end points and a device root of trust. The family of TrustZone technologies can be integrated into any Arm Cortex-A and the latest Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 based systems. The Arm Mbed IoT Device Platform is made up of two sets of products: device software and cloud-based device management services. These products are designed to securely move data from sensor to server. The Arm Mbed IoT Device Platform is a fully integrated device management solution. It provides the operating system, gateway, device management services, and partner ecosystem to speed adoption and deployment of IoT solutions. Further, the Arm Mbed IoT Platform provides connectivity and communication for constrained devices. Partner companies have enabled 6LoWPAN, Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, LoRa, WiFi, NFC, RFID, Mobile IoT (LPWA), cellular and Ethernet on Mbed. The Mbed IoT platform secures the device itself from untrusted or malicious code, the communications between device and cloud, and the lifecycle of the system itself using uVisor, Mbed TLS, and Mbed Client respectively.
https://www.mbed.com/en/platform/
https://www.arm.com/products/security-on-arm/trustzone
7. Is Stricter Cyber Security Regulation on the Horizon?
There are already mandatory standards for industrial cybersecurity in some critical industries and the discussion continues to debate broader regulations which require all industries to legally comply with cybersecurity measures.
Suppliers and users are certainly discussing the need for cybersecurity and generally draw the parallel to plant and machine safety. There are clear similarities: both provide a protection function and require technology, training, best practices, systems, and procedures. If cybersecurity follows the same course as industrial safety, it will be the force of law and related fines that will eventually prompt a culture of security investments and industry best practices. Consider the United States experience after the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) became law on December 29, 1970. It took many years of OSHA inspections and non-compliance fines before safety became deep-rooted in industry.
Much like safety, it is hard to justify cybersecurity investments until companies look in the "rear-view mirror" and see the disasters that have already happened. Management is now understanding the value of safety systems. Industrial safety measures are increasingly being considered as investments that ultimately save money long term by reducing disability pay, improving productivity, and increasing uptime. Still today, there is a marked tendency for many businesses to do as little as possible until prodded by laws and major disasters. Hopefully, today's manufacturers have matured enough to learn from our safety history and to embrace cybersecurity measures, reaping the related benefits. A prime example of cyber security regulation initiatives is as follows:
Underwriters Labs has taken on the development of the UL Cybersecurity Assurance Program (CAP). This effort - including input from major stakeholders representing the U.S. Federal government, academia and industry – has a goal to elevate the security measures deployed in the critical infrastructure supply chain. The standards were developed to provide cybersecurity criteria for product testing, in order to validate the security claims of vendors. The UL CAP security efforts are recognized within the U.S. White House Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) as a way to test and certify network-connectable devices within the IoT supply chain. This would parallel fire safety laws, product certifications, and facility site certification. Given that UL in North America is a prime certification group for electrical, industrial control panel builders, fire safety, and physical security, it is really not surprising that they would be involved in cybersecurity as well.
Data privacy and ownership has also become a prominent discussion. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), for example, is a regulation by which the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission intend to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union (EU). It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU. The GDPR aims primarily to give control of personal data back to citizens and residents and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU. When the GDPR takes effect, it will replace the data protection directive (officially Directive 95/46/EC) of 1995. adopted on 27 April 2016, the regulation becomes enforceable from 25 May 2018 after a two-year transition period and, unlike a directive, does not require national governments to pass any enabling legislation. Thus, it will be directly binding and applicable.
The Push for Industrial Cyber Security Standards- A Look at Underwriters Laboratory's Efforts
"Industrial Cybersecurity & International Defense - Inside Siemens' Cybersecurity Charter of Trust
Addressing Global Cyberthreats: Insights on the cyberspace from General Michael Hayden
8. New Automation Hardware Platforms
Powerful open platforms are starting to be deployed as automation and process controllers, and the introduction of these devices continues to rise. These devices may well disrupt existing PLC and DCS controllers, and their vendors, with high performance processing and low cost. These platforms are being delivered from a range of suppliers including Dell, Advantech, Beckhoff, B&R, NEXCOM, OPTO 22, Hilscher, Harting, and Logic Supply. Yet, even still, many traditional industrial automation field controllers have remained closed proprietary computers, highlighting the analogous relationship to the obsolete computer mainframe and minicomputer era.
Stimulus for New Automation Architecture
Bill's Deep Dive – Opto 22 EPIC System Programmable Edge Controller
Embedded IEC 61131 is Enabling Industry 4.0 & Industrial Internet of Things
Hannover Fair 2017 – Integrated Industry Empowers World Competition
IoT Impact on Industrial Automation
Is it time for a new automation architecture?
9. User Unrest with Status Quo
There is growing unrest in the user community over the lack of implementation in process and industrial automation. Having come to the understanding that industrial automation systems technology is lagging in these industries, many in the community feel this limits delivering functionality and value compared to other computer industry, IoT, and consumer products.
In fact, a growing number of industrial automation users I meet are experimenting and piloting new solutions on their own, using the new breed of edge devices and tools available as standard off-the-shelf solutions and particularly Raspberry Pi devices. Amazon sells a wide range of edge devices to build such solutions.
One example I witnessed was a pharmaceutical company, which used OPC servers at each of their production sites to gather information which created plant historians on Amazon Web services; at a fraction of the cost of existing solutions and with greater flexibility. This strategy is also being used to implement analytics using off-the-shelf tools.
The influx of hardware and software, based on open standards, is shifting implementation of industrial automation system functions to from vendors to the users. We've already seen this trend in the application of virtualization in the factory, which was driven by the goal lower total cost of ownership and improved performance. Users were well ahead of industrial automation vendors in deploying this innovation in their operation, yet in some cases, vendors threatened to void their system warranties. Now we see automation vendors embracing virtualization.
What is an open standard?
Azure Machine Learning democratizes analytics
10. Incumbent Automation Suppliers Dilemma
I believe the automation industry structure is fundamentally changing. Driven by the need for manufacturing to meet worldwide competitive threats that leverage technology to improve operations, we see industries like computers, consumer electronics, open sourced, and IoT software and hardware, fueling changes which are now being driven by Industry 4.0. The scope of these changes encompass the entire manufacturing organization, creating a holistic system which integrates
Continuous Realtime quality
Manufacturing & processes
Outbound Logistics
Customer Responsiveness.
This holistic system is only possible with multivendor open systems that enable efficient and frictionless integration. The computer industry has been on this path for many years, and it continues to accelerate with the Internet of Things and the wide range of open source standards we discussed earlier.
History has proven the disruptive impact that technology and new architectures can have on the directions of industry. The computer industry, in particular, shows a clear record of established suppliers that fail, because they lose sight of the fact that they need to earn the respect of customers by providing better quality products, important features, and superior service at a fair price, rather than "locking in" the customer. Some of the names of such companies are very familiar from the speed of their collapse, names such as:
Interdata
Modcomp Computer Systems
That transition led to an ever-widening selection of lower cost and easy-to-use software, which didn't require programming and increased the number of potential applications (think spreadsheets). This dramatic industry expansion ended up badly hurting incumbent suppliers that did not adjust to the change.
In automation, incumbent suppliers - whether aware of it or not - are facing the innovator's dilemma. This phenomenon, described by Clayton Christensen, is one of successful, outstanding companies doing everything they believe is "right" and yet still losing their market leadership – or collapse entirely – as new, unexpected competitors rise and take over. As incumbents become trapped in their existing products and organizations - making refinements rather than drastic and innovative changes to meet customer needs - they become trapped by their own success, and the expectation of increasingly greater annual sales. These companies can struggle to make the decision to invest in new innovations and technologies, which may change industry but may also lower their sales volume. This kind of short-term thinking has claimed a long list of victims in various industries, and for those that remember buying pre-Microsoft Windows HMIs, this situation may be obvious.
In today's automation ecosystem, incumbent industrial automation suppliers desperately need to move beyond closed and highly gated automation partner programs. Their time is quickly drawing to a close. Yet, for these same suppliers, it can be difficult to move to an open multivendor interoperable architecture, because they have architectures that tightly bind software applications with the distributed code and firmware in their field controllers and end devices. Yet, that is exactly why it must happen. It is becoming a continuous and loudly-heard complaint from users; when they add a system-level software feature and are informed they must do an expensive upgrade of field hardware.
Incumbent automation vendors would do well to rethink how they can contribute value to customers in this new environment. If incumbent automation vendors don't participate in and implement fully open systems, they may see their place rapidly usurped by intruders from the computer and IoT industry.
A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network that will eventually disrupt an already existing market and replace an existing product.
In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy. J. Paul Getty
I believe that the incumbent automation suppliers' major value is in their relationships and the development of the key elements of automation systems for overall industrial production, including application software/firmware, reliable field hardware, and solid customer service. If they cannot compete on those dimensions, they need to look for different business.
Automation Controllers & Word Processors – Embrace the Technological Shift or Die
2017 Ignition Conference – Expanding Ecosystem & Edge IoT Drive Enthusiasm
The Automation Professional Will Be Increasingly Critical for Success in 2019
The growing number of new technologies, from outside the traditional automation vendors, are rapidly expanding the tools that can be applied to improve manufacturing productivity, profitability, and competitiveness. These significant changes, driven by the new technologies, make automation professionals more critical to the successful selection and application of these technologies and related strategies. The automation professional's role is critical to help business leaders make informed and productive technological investments as well as implementation decisions in order to yield profitable results. The alternative for these business leaders is to take the onus on themselves, potentially making uninformed decisions that could be costly. Regardless, I believe 2019 will prove to be a critical year for manufacturers as we inch closer towards disruption in the industry.
Automation Professionals' Business Role
Digitalization – What is an automation professional's role?
Manufacturing automation—a vital competitive weapon
Integrated industry—Are you in the conversation?
Advancing Automation using IIoT and Industry 4.0 Concepts, Cybersecurity, DCS & Batch Controllers, Design & Simulation Software, Electrical & Control Panels, Factory Automation, HMI & Operator Interfaces, Industrial Computers, Instruments & Sensors, Machine Safety, Manufacturing Operations Management, Motion Control, Motors & Drives, OPC & OPC UA Interoperability, Plant & Asset Management, Process Automation, Process Instruments, Field Devices & IO, Programmable Controllers, SCADA & RTU, Systems Integration


Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, (born 5 February 1985), commonly known as Cristiano Ronaldo, is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a winger or a forward for Spanish club Real Madrid and serves as captain of the Portuguese national team. Ronaldo currently holds the distinction of being the most expensive player in football history after being transferred from Manchester United to Real Madrid in a transfer deal worth £80 million (€94m, US$132m). In addition, his contract with Real Madrid, in which he is to be paid £11 million per year over the following six years, makes him the highest paid football player in the world.
Ronaldo began his career as a youth player for Andorinha, where he played for two years, then moved to Nacional. In 1997, he made a move to Portuguese giants Sporting CP. Ronaldo's precocious talent caught the attention of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson and he signed the 18-year-old for £12.24 million in 2003. The following season, Ronaldo won his first club honour, the FA Cup, and reached the Euro 2004 final with Portugal, in which tournament he scored his first international goal.
On 15 June 2010, in Portugal's opening 2010 FIFA World Cup match against Côte d'Ivoire, Ronaldo was tackled by right-back Guy Demel, which led to an argument and both being booked. The next day, Portugal contacted FIFA to suggest that Ronaldo's yellow card be rescinded since he was "pulled into" the confrontation after having already moved away from the spot where he was tackled, but the appeal was rejected.
Ronaldo failed to make an impact in the World Cup; after going scoreless in the qualifiers, his only goal came in Portugal's 7-0 group stage thrashing of North Korea on 21 June, which marked his first international goal in sixteen months. Portugal were ultimately eliminated by Spain in the round of sixteen.


text:
Q: Declaring a variable inline with an assignment c++ While reading about bitmap processing in C++ I came across this block of code
used for loading a color palette with data taken from a bitmap file:
//set Number of Colors
numColors = 1 << bmih.biBitCount;

//load the palette for 8 bits per pixel
if(bmih.biBitCount == 8) {
        colours=new RGBQUAD[numColours];
        fread(colours,sizeof(RGBQUAD),numColours,in);
}

where "bmih.biBitCount" is a predefined variable that already has a value.
Why does the author declare numColors to equal 1 then assign the value bmih.biBitCount to that variable in the same line? what exactly does this do and what are the benefits of assigning a variable a value twice inline like this?

A:
Why does the author declare numColors to equal 1 then assign the value bmih.biBitCount to that variable in the same line?

He doesn't; he assigns the result of the expression 1 << bmih.biBitCount to numColors.  The assignment occurs last.  << is the bitwise left shift operator.  Think of it this way:
//set Number of Colors
numColors = (1 << bmih.biBitCount);

A: He doesn't, and this is a case where using << as a "streaming" operator confuses people.
The << and >> operators were traditionally bit shift operators, which is their meaning in this case. These operators shift a variable left or right by a number of places. Say we have x = 0b00001 (and your compiler understands binary notation like that). x << 2 will give the result 0b00100.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


For years, aggressive lasers such as the CO2 laser were the standard for treating fine lines and wrinkles. The problem however, was that these treatments were drastic; removing the entire top layer of skin and taking weeks of downtime to heal. As a plastic surgeon with patients in Westlake Village and the surrounding area, I know many of them were hesitant to undergo this type of procedure.
Like the traditional CO2 lasers, the Fractional Pearl uses laser light to generate heat and ablate or remove the top layer of skin. But the fractional laser leaves columns of healthy, untouched tissue between the areas that are ablated.
What we lose in being aggressive, we gain back in terms of reduced downtime, faster healing and less pain. Some patients might need more than one treatment but they won't suffer open, draining wounds like traditional CO2 laser treatments.
What can the Fractional Pearl Lasers do?
"I'm surprised at how quickly I healed" says"Tammy," a 50 year old financial executive, had Fractional Pearl and is very pleased with the results.
What improvements did she see?
Is the Fractional Pearl Treatment right for me? I'm introducing this exciting treatment this fall and will be performing the first two weeks worth of procedures at a significant discount off the normal cost. Don't miss this opportunity to erase years of sun damage, especially all the spots accumulating during the past summer months.


MayoBrenda Diane28 livejasmin. LovingStephanie. fredster. KENNYandTOM.
KENNYandTOMSusanGinnerlilysexhotpregnamilk .SumaliSmittSumaliSmittKadianeCUTEFACEHOT .HornyLukieXKinkylelaTsXKaylaNoirxCharmingStud .JasonSexyManA11HotErikaTheJazzManCharlotterosse .EmilyoneloveLovingStephanieIrenKirkSisiliya .BlonDevianceTest4theworldEmilyoneloveCUTEFACEHOT .SandyChamberspregnamilkxxbelladonasexHessaMuslim .BarbieSaharaxxcarrote3LadybugbootyKatrinFord .AmelieLustBlonDevianceASSFREAKKINKDemonicBabesX .MichelSunyTsLUSCIOUSkatMELANDAMYXXXBaileyDaniels .AntonellaMontielmariaSHYNESSSXCandyForYouXBarbieBitch696 .
BiancaFolkAlisaVoxTheBigFatCockSandyChambers .miketyxxCassidySwanEmanuelJonesFrozenshade .YoungCplSexyEmanuelJonesSoBeautyHelgamissSEXyDOLLtsx .SisiliyaXNaughtyAgathaXA11HotErikacarrote3 .HornyLukieErroticAnnapregnamilkSexyJeannie .DirtyCrazyGirlBiancaFolkShusanKoveHornyLukie .JuanGordiSierra1InkedFunKiraBloomA11HotErika .fredsterAlisaVoxTheJazzManTest4theworld .MoonamiaXCandyForYouXMoonamiaTheJazzMan .ebonysquirtxuHornyLukieErroticAnnaCharlotterosse .SisiliyaSugarRedLipsLennyBigEmmaWinter .


text:
using System;

namespace DereTore.Exchange.Audio.HCA {
    public sealed class HcaException : Exception {

        public HcaException(string message, ActionResult actionResult)
            : base(message) {
            _actionResult = actionResult;
        }

        public HcaException(string message, ActionResult actionResult, Exception innerException)
            : base(message, innerException) {
            _actionResult = actionResult;
        }

        public ActionResult ActionResult => _actionResult;

        private readonly ActionResult _actionResult;

    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Get ready world, "magic" mushrooms, which contain the psychoactive compound psilocybin, may soon become the standard go-to for reversing what the World Health Organization says is the number one cause of disability on the planet: depression.
A brand new first of its kind study published in The Lancet reports that psilocybin mushrooms were able to lift the severe depression of all twelve human volunteer participants, even though they had been struggling with the disease for an average of over seventeen years and despite that fact that none of the subjects had found relief with multiple rounds of standard anti-depressant medication.
symptoms lifted considerably following just a single treatment dose of psilocybin for every participant in the study, and for a majority of them the antidepressant effects of the mushrooms were still in effect three months after the dosing.
Amazingly, five of the original twelve severely depressed patients were in complete remission from depression three months after the study took place, even though they were following no other treatment plan.
"The key observation that might eventually justify the use of a drug like psilocybin in treatment-resistant depression is demonstration of sustained benefit in patients who previously have experienced years of symptoms despite conventional treatments, which makes longer-term outcomes particularly important," says Professor Philip Cowen, a clinical scientist at the University of Oxford, in a linked comment on the study.
The truth is that a fast-acting and completely natural single dose anti-depressant that actually has higher remission rates than any other current treatment available could totally revolutionize the way depression is currently handled in mainstream medicine. Mother Nature has proven herself superior to chemical cocktails once again.
The only thing standing in the way is the law of course, as psilocybin mushrooms are still classified under Schedule I, despite this study, other similar findings, and their long history of medicinal and sacred use in indigenous cultures.


text:
Q: Defining a ResourceDictionary only once i have the following ResourceDictonary
<ResourceDictionary xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
                    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
                    xmlns:SharedHelpers="clr-namespace:Shared.Helpers;assembly=Shared"
                    xmlns:SharedViewModels ="clr-namespace:Shared.ViewModels;assembly=Shared"
                    xmlns:SharedViews="clr-namespace:Shared.Views;assembly=Shared"
                    >

<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type SharedViewModels:DatabaseViewModel}">
   <SharedViews:DatabaseView/>
</DataTemplate>

<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type SharedViewModels:ProxyViewModel}">
  <SharedViews:ProxiesView/>
</DataTemplate>

<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type SharedViewModels:AppUserViewModel}">
   <SharedViews:AppUserView/>
</DataTemplate>
<!--ViewModels-->
<SharedViewModels:DatabaseViewModel x:Key="DatabaseViewModel"/>
<SharedViewModels:AppUserViewModel x:Key="AppUserViewModel"/>
<SharedViewModels:ProxyViewModel x:Key="ProxyViewModel"/>
</ResourceDictionary>

as you can see those resource are static and i want to access them from my other libraries and classes
so what i did is in my App.xaml i did define the dictionary as the following
 <Application.Resources>
        <ResourceDictionary>
            <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
                <ResourceDictionary x:Name="dict"  Source="ResourceDict.xaml"/>
            </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
        </ResourceDictionary>
    </Application.Resources>

from my code behind i need to access the instances in this dictionary without having to redefine it, so i found
var databaseViewModelInstance = Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries["dict"]["DatabaseViewModel"] as Shared.ViewModels.DatabaseViewModel;
but the problem is it allows me to access the dictionary only by index and not by its name, how can i access the dictionary by its name without having to define a new resource dictionary instance in every class that i want to access it from?
the following works just fine
var databaseViewModelInstance = Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries[0]["DatabaseViewModel"] as Shared.ViewModels.DatabaseViewModel;

A: Accessing a resource dictionary by name is a bit problematic since it doesn't derive from FrameworkElement and thus doesn't have a Name property. If it had, you could do the following:
Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries
                             .First(x => x.Name == "dict")["DatabaseViewModel"] as Shared.ViewModels.DatabaseViewModel;

However, instead of filtering by name, you can filter by source:
Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries
                             .First(x => x.Source.OriginalString == "ResourceDict.xaml")["DatabaseViewModel"] as Shared.ViewModels.DatabaseViewModel;

A: I'm not sure if you can get a ResourceDictionary from a MergedDictionaries collection by name. However, it looks as though you only want to access it to get a particular resource within it (makes sense).
In this case, you may want to think about using FrameworkElement.TryFindResource.
This should search up the logical tree and arrive at your App.xaml level eventually. For clarity, you should be able to get your DatabaseViewModel by
FrameworkElement fe = new FrameworkElement();
var myResource = fe.TryFindResource("DatabaseViewModel");


In practical terms, the aim of the partnership is to make entrepreneurs aware of the importance of protecting their businesses by filing brands and domain names alike – as soon as they are created. The partnership reinforces the joint initiatives of AFNIC and INPI around the brand / domain name culture by providing content and organizing joint training courses. The agreement includes in particular the provision of AFNIC's Réussir avec le web questionnaire, which the INPI can enhance and disseminate to its various audiences. The platform of practical advice for small and medium-sized businesses provides entrepreneurs with a free assessment of their online presence in order to boost their business, and help them make the most of the web.
A wide range of initiatives will also be provided for entrepreneurs to inform them about the rights, recourse and defense of their intellectual property. An example is the training course of the INPI organized on April 10 in Lille on the subject "Defending domain names", facilitated by an AFNIC employee.
"We are delighted to be associated with AFNIC, as our work revolves around a common drive to help entrepreneurs," said Pascal Faure, INPI CEO.
For Pierre Bonis, AFNIC CEO, "AFNIC is attentive to ensuring that the .fr TLD protects and encourages intellectual property. Our association with the INPI illustrates that conviction".
AFNIC and INPI are co-hosting a workshop on February 6 and 7 at 4 pm on the theme: "Your business on the internet: corporate name, trade name, banner brand, domain name or brand choice... the questions you need to ask".
The Afnic booth (booth no .417, village 4 - Small Business Tech), flying the flag of "Réussir-en.fr", supports entrepreneurs and raises awareness of the importance of an online presence.
The INPI stand (stand no. 245 - village 2 - Institutions, Support Networks & Regions), welcomes and supports innovators in their protection efforts and raises awareness among innovative SMEs about the importance of industrial property as a lever for competitiveness.
Beyond its work of registering and issuing title documents (patents, trademarks, designs and models), the French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) acts in favor of economic development through its work on raising awareness and promoting innovation and its challenges. The Institute supports all innovators so that they convert their projects into concrete achievements, and their innovations into value. As a self-financed public institution under the supervision of the Ministry of Industrial Property, the INPI is also actively involved in the development and implementation of public policies in the field of intellectual property, support for innovation and the competitiveness of companies as well as combating counterfeiting. As the custodian of all the industrial property rights filed in France and the data in the National Register of Commerce and Companies, the INPI distributes more than 14 million open, free and reusable data.


Epson WorkForce WF-2760 Driver Download is an application to control Epson WorkForce WF 2760 remote shading inkjet all in one printer. The driver chip away at Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP. Additionally on Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard and Linux deb or rpm. You have to introduce a driver to use on PC or mobiles. For more data about this driver, you can read more from Epson official site.


Mary Kay was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She received her B.S. in Biology with an minor in Anthropology at UCLA. She stayed on at UCLA for her P.h.D in Neuroscience in X. William Yang's Lab. She then moved to Dallas, Texas to start her Postdoc with Eric Nestler at UT Southwestern and one year later moved with the Nestler lab to Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, NY.  Mary Kay joined the department of Anatomy and Neurobiology in 2011. When she is not busy with science she is hanging out with her rescue pups, Baloo and Maisie.
Ramesh obtained his Ph.D. degree in Zoology in 2010 from Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India. He joined Dr. Lobo's lab as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in July 2012 to utilize his extensive Molecular Biology skills in the field of Neuroscience. His current research project broadly focuses on cell type specific transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms in the two nucleus accumbens (NAc) projection neurons in cocaine abuse. He is using molecular approaches to manipulate gene expression in the two NAc projection neurons to determine their role in cocaine mediated behaviors. In his free time he likes to explore Baltimore and eat Chinese food.
After receiving a bachelor in Psychology and a master in Neuroscience from the Strasbourg University in France, Michel obtained a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Bordeaux University (France) in October 2013. His Ph.D. work led him to study the effects of dopaminergic medications on both motor dysfunctions and addiction-like behaviors reported in Parkinson's disease. Recently, he crossed the ocean and joined Mary Kay Lobo's lab as a postdoctoral fellow under a MILDT fellowship. His project focuses on cocaine-induced cell-type specific epigenetic modifications in the ventral pallidum, one of the main nucleus accumbens projection regions. Aside from science, Michel enjoys listening and playing post-rock music.
After receiving my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, I came to United States in 2010 to pursue a doctoral degree. In 2015, I graduated with a Ph.D. in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental biology from University of Alabama at Birmingham, where I studied how stress-induced depression-like behavior of rats can be mediated by brainstem norepinephrine circuits. Now in Baltimore in the Lobo Lab, I will be looking at stress-induced behavior of rodents in a new perspective, studying the role of D2-medium spiny neurons in the nucleus using genetically-engineered mouse models. In my free time, I love to watch basketball games, play tennis, and ride my bicycle.
After receiving a B.S. in Psychology from Texas A&M University, Shannon obtained a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 2017. His doctoral work focused on understanding how the nucleus accumbens produces both incentive and fearful motivations. Shannon recently joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow where he is excited to be working on how molecular changes in neuron subpopulations and inputs to the nucleus accumbens mediate addiction and depression. Outside of the lab, Shannon enjoys spending time cooking and hanging out with his family, talking with people, and exploring cities.
After receiving a B.A. in Neuroscience and Behavior from Vassar College, with a minor in Art History, Cali obtained a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University in 2018. Her Ph.D. work focused on understanding nicotinic acetylcholine receptor expression and function in the hypothalamus with respect to the regulation of food intake after nicotine exposure. Cali joined the Lobo Lab as a postdoctoral fellow to study the cell-type selective changes in mitochondrial dynamics and gene expression in the nucleus accumbens after exposure to drugs of abuse. Cali is interested in science education, mental health advocacy, community science outreach, and promoting diversity in STEM. Outside the lab, Cali enjoys cooking, reading, listening to podcasts, tap dancing, and exploring Baltimore.
After completing bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences in 2014 from University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Eric spent two years as a research technologist at the Schizophrenia Center of the Johns Hopkins University. During this time, his study focused mainly on neuroimmunology and the role of GSTM1 in astrocyte-microglia communication under inflammation. In the summer of 2018, Eric joined the Lobo Lab as a rotation student, and quickly made the wise decision to join the lab as a thesis student. His current interest is to develop cell type specific CRISPR targeted histone modification tools to study how drug induced post translational modifications in the nucleus accumbens lead to changes in behavior. Outside of the lab, Eric enjoys trying out new and exciting restaurants around Baltimore, and hanging out with his friends and family.
Gessynger received his B.S in Biomedicine in 2014 from Federal University of Uberlandia, Brazil and his master's degree in Physiological Sciences from the Joint Graduate Program in Physiological Sciences, an association between Sao Paulo State University and Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil. Actually, he is a PhD student at the Sao Paulo State University, Brazil where he studies the different behavioral, molecular and cardiovascular outcomes related to social defeat stress in resilient and susceptible rats. Gessynger joined the lab as a Visiting Research Fellow in August 2018 to increase his knowledge of the neural basis of stress resilience, where he is looking at the role of VP projections to Nac in the susceptibility to social defeat stress, using chemogenetics to manipulate those neurons. Outside the lab he spent his time cooking, learning other languages and exploring Baltimore Harbor.
Marco received his bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences in 2012 from University of Campinas, Brazil and his master's degree in Functional and Molecular Biology from the same institution. Actually, he is a PhD student at the University of Campinas where he studies the influence of physical exercise on pain and social avoidance behavior induced by social defeat stress. Marco joined the lab as a Visiting Research Fellow in September 2018 to increase his knowledge in molecular techniques and to study the neural basis of stress resilience. Outside the lab he spent his time at the the gym, hanging out with friends and exploring the city.
Makeda received her bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences in 2018 from University of Maryland Baltimore County. She first joined the lab in 2017 as an undergraduate assistant, and then transitioned to full-time lab assistant in 2019. In the lab, Makeda enjoys naming the mice within the lab colony. Outside the lab, she enjoys eating food (mainly desserts) and reading.


text:
ACCEPTED

#### According to
The Catalogue of Life, 3rd January 2011

#### Published in
Can. J. Bot. 52(3): 602 (1974)

#### Original name
Sordaria violacea Ellis & Everh., 1892

### Remarks
null


text:
Știrea de radio este un gen jurnalistic care prezintă realitatea actuală, pe care o pune într-o formă comunicabilă, transmisă apoi, prin intermediul unor tehnici moderne de difuzare în masă. Pentru a atrage interesul publicului țintă, știrea de radio trebuie să fie concisă, să aibă o informație concretă, să fie de actualitate, compatibilă cu proximitatea spațială și temporală, să conțină fapte interesante și să implice personalități.

Definiții
Din numărul mare de definiții formulate de diverși jurnaliști sau profesori au fost selectate următoarele trei:
 "Știrea este o imagine a realității obținută repede în circumstanțe dificile" (Melvin DeFleur și Everett Dennis, Understanding Mass Communication, 1981).
 "Știrea este relatarea promptă, succintă a informației factuale despre evenimente, situații și idei (inclusiv opinii și interpretări) calculată să intereseze o audiență și să-i ajute pe oameni să facă față mediului înconjurător" (profesori de jurnalism de la Universitatea din Oregon, Ken Metzler 1986).
 "Știrea este orice expunere de întâmplări actuale, nepărtinitoare, corecte, afectând interesele, viața și bunăstarea persoanelor care ascultă acea prezentare" (Thomas Franklin, in "Broadcasting the News", 1976).

Principalele caracteristici ale știrii de radio
 Știrile sunt factuale, adică fiecare știre conține fapte.
 Știrile sunt/conțin noutăți.
 Știrile sunt interesante pentru un număr semnificant de persoane.
 Știrile trebuie să conțină evenimente cu amploare mare.
 Știrea trebuie să conțină aspecte neobișnuite, "Un câine mușcă un om" nu este o știre, in timp ce "Un om a mușcat un câine" este o știre.
 Știrile sunt pline de excepții, de recorduri.
 Știrile conțin conflicte - între indivizi, grupuri sau națiuni.

Clasificarea știrilor de radio
După importanța socială:
 Hard news - evenimente cu mare impact social
 Soft news - fapte de interes uman
Dupa evoluția temporală:
 Spot news - evenimente neplanificate, neașteptate și care trebuie procesate foarte repede.
 Developing news - evenimente care trebuie urmărite în evoluția lor, pentru a avea confirmarea unor fapte.
 Continuing news - o serie de evenimente planificate, care vor fi trasate pentru un interval de timp mai îndelungat.

Acuratețea informațiilor transmise
 Fiecare informație trebuie verificată înainte de a fi utilizata în vederea redactării unei știri.
 Informația trebuie să fie atribuită unei surse. Reporterul va încerca atât prin observație directă, cât și prin consultarea unor surse, să prezinte informații corecte și exacte.
 Informația trebuie să fie echilibrată. (în prezentarea unei situații conflictuale se vor prezenta versiunile tuturor celor inculpați).
 Știrea nu va conține nici un fel de comentariu personal. Redactorul va asigura o prezentare obiectivă.

Categorii de evenimente mediatizate în presă
Evenimente de rutină:
 Planificate, iar planificatorii sunt și promotorii săi ca material pentru presă.
 O gamă largă de evenimente, create pentru uzul presei (de lideri politici, de vedete sau organizații), cu scopul atragerii atenției.
 Prezentarea unor inițiative, vizite, deschideri de noi instituții, festivaluri, campanii electorale, congrese etc.
Scandaluri:
 Evenimentul este promovat de cineva diferit de actorii săi.
 Adesea acest "altcineva" poate fi presa sau un actor public sau social care face apel la presă.
 Scandaluri politice (cele mai frecvente)
Accidente:
 Întâmplarea este neplanificată și este promovată de alte persoane decât actorii săi.
 Accidente ecologice, catastrofe aviatice, inundații.

Reguli standard
 Știrea de radio trebuie să înceapă cu cel mai important aspect.
 Știrea trebuie sa poată fi citită cu ușurință.
 Știrile de radio trebuie să fie ascultate și înțelese.
 Știrile urmează conveții standart in structurarea frazei.
 Știrile trebuie să raspundă la cele 5 întrebări esențiale : Cine? Ce? Unde? Când? Cum?
 Să conțină detalii despre unde și ce se întâmplă.
 Să conțină informații de context.

Durata știrilor
 Durata optimă a unei știri de radio este de 40 de secunde (abilitatea de concentrare a publicului ascultător scade după interval).
 (în general) textul unei știri (redactate pentru radio) ar trebui să nu aibă mai mult de titlu, 3 fraze, în media de 5 propoziții.

Bibliografie
 Irene Joanescu, Radioul modern. Tratarea informației și principalele genuri informationale. Editura All Educational, București, 1989.
 Bakenhus, Marbert. - Radioul local, Ghid practic pentru jurnalisti, Editura Polirom, Iasi, 1998
 Traciuc Vasile -  Jurnalism radio, Editura Titanic, Bucuresti 2003

Vezi și
 Media de socializare
 Genuri jurnalistice
 Jurnalism de televiziune

Știri
Radio

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague
When Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939 (the Munich Agreement, Chamberlain and all that), he of course wanted to send all the Jews to the concentration camps. He stole and/or destroyed Jewish synagogues, properties etc, but he never touched the Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague. He said he wanted to preserve it - and turn it into a museum of European Jewry.
Ironically - even sinisterly - it HAS been turned into a museum already. Entry into the burial ground of, among 100,000 others, Rabbi Loew (of Golem fame), sets you back with 20 euros. The cemetery has been cleaned up, black-clad security guards and all, but I fear some of its erstwhile atmosphere of poignant abandonment in the middle of a bustling city has been lost.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
By Maria Sledmere
She very quickly exceeded her daily dose of sunlight. It was plenty to just hang for a moment on the edge of the wall, which could be scaled quite easily after years of practise. Catch the rays as they brush the tracks. It wasn't often that she made the climb upwards, foregoing the long walk round to the workmen's stairwell, but when she did she was always struck by the magnificent views. The word magnificent being a funny one she remembered from school, along with say, bedraggled or botanical. Words so easily appropriated. Sometimes she woke up in her little cave, stretched as far as she could in the closed space and if it was a good day she'd say to herself, "Man, I'm feeling botanical." She knew it meant something to do with plants, soil, and the way water made energy or something. It was a pleasant thing to say after waking in a damp alcove in the wall between two railway lines.
The word alcove. She first read it in a textbook about architecture she picked up in the library. It made her think of laundry detergent, chocolate, Egyptian tombs. Secrets.
She had an errand to run. Errands made her vulnerable to the kind of talk that invites questions. Like, "Did you choose this life, or did it choose you?" They asked her that often when she sat in the street, even if there wasn't a cup in front of her; even if all she wanted was rest.
When the trains passed, early in the morning, the shuddering woke her irrevocably. With every half hour interval, the landscape cleaved a wounded time, the rhythm of breaking, passing, waking. She'd get up and follow the ribboning streets of the city, trailing loose threads for some knot of an errand, a moment in which to coil her body.
One errand always led to another.
The boys on the corner were different from usual. They looked impossibly young, as if barely a single streak of sun had scorched their moon-white faces. They looked at her with ancient cliché, but played a certain game that made her tasks difficult. They weren't easy with their cash. Still, she finished the rounds by noon and took a minute to chill in the park.
In these scenarios, often she recalled previous interruptions. The man who sat beside her and asked about her necklace.
"Why only £2, baby? Surely you're worth more—why not a fiver round your neck?" His snicker was palpable; the kind of skin-crawling thing you'd expect off a stranger in a postman's uniform. Not that she had anything against postmen, just her father…
The problem was, she loved money. Not money in the modern, abstract sense—the accounts they taught you at school, the stuff discussed on the news—but actual solid cash. The stuff that weighed down your pockets, if you were lucky.
In the alcove, she kept hordes of it. Pyramids of coppers and nested black bags full of pounds. The faux gold of minted nickel-brass, how it still caught the light if you polished it good. She didn't want to spend it, but there was something comforting about collecting. The longer she had the money, the less it represented financial possibility. Every coin evolved into something totalled, monumental. It was a shame she couldn't invite anyone round to see it, knowing they'd steal as much as they could as soon as her back was turned.
You could trust money, maybe, but you couldn't trust people.
It was still early, and she didn't quite know what to do. The rain came on and she watched it bleed through the needling leaves of the lindens. Mothers were pushing prams and talking on their phones, but you couldn't see the phones so it looked like they were talking to ghosts.
If she had any notes, she'd spend them. There was no use keeping paper money and watching it rot in your hands. She'd spend the notes on stupid things, like cigarettes or food. What else was there? She had a thing for blood-red pastilles, cola, and the crisps that stained your tongue. Like everyone hungry, she craved strong flavours. She would pace the streets night after night, absorbing the millions of scents in the city, burning off empty calories. It never occurred to her to take a heap of pound coins and order food from a restaurant, to actually set foot through the door of these places she lingered outside of—hungry for the idea of food more than the thing itself.
The alcove was on the outskirts of town; people only passed it when they were leaving, their faces pressed to the windows of carriages. Nobody got more than a fleeting glance of her alcove, since trains are always picking up speed, chugging and changing. It never occurred to her to take some money and get on one herself.
A meal was something you saw on advertisements. She was often snacking instead, grazing through the day. The boys carried unnourishing things, gum or sweets or cigarettes. They'd give her a bite if she asked, but only then. The men were more generous. In their cars there'd be opulent M&S sandwiches, chocolate bars, whisky. That way, she'd learned the taste of bourgeois flavours. Some suit once cracked a joke with that phrase and she thought it'd make a good band name. Her brother used to play guitar. At school, she would sing. Now, they won't believe her, unless she breaks the rules and belts full pelt in someone's fancy bedroom. They get the shock of their lives. It's not what they want, or paid for.
At night sometimes she sings in the alcove, her voice with its pure and soaring coloratura. It resounds right back to the edge of the cave, the passage of space connecting the adjacent railway—the abandoned one, which nobody uses. Just the dealers, crawling around in the prehistoric foliage while kids scrawled haunted graffiti on tall brick walls.
It's a risky business, the singing. People around here aren't supposed to know she exists. There's too much money involved, not to mention territory. She sings and the way she sings you'd think she wanted someone to find her, come back to her. She sings like a siren.
A man once heard her sing in the shower. She wasn't supposed to use the shower; it was too risky, her boss said, relaying something about a film called Psycho, which in any rate she hadn't seen or intended to see. It was nice when they let you use their shower. A gesture of goodwill, even when they joined you.
"You could make some sweet cash if you sang in the street," the man said, putting on his shirt. She liked to watch people do up buttons, the way they fit themselves together, piece by piece, penny by penny.
"More than this?" she enquired, politely.
"Well…I guess I don't know about that, honey."
It was still early. She decided to visit her father. The park reminded her of Saturdays when he'd take them for the day, playing the role of injured party, estranged parent. What was estranged? Did it mean more than a week at a time? As far as she was concerned, the distance made everything. He lived right across the city. All those pylons and rippling streets between them. She thought of him doing the postal rounds, back and forth each morning. How folk would take one look at his drink-addled face and sometimes stick a tip in his hands, fat coins scattered in the bag among letters for strangers.
Her father's flat was three subway stops away, though it was a while since she'd taken the subway. An hour's walk did the trick. She remembered every street in the vicinity, all the crawlers that lived there; the narcotic treasures that did the rounds--in circulation, as her brother put it.
Already she'd anticipated the hallway, still adorned with the school photos: that awful picture from Primary 3 when she had a cold sore and her brother looked so handsome and her so rotten with her father's complexion.
It had been a long time since last she'd come out here. Her hand shook as she held it over the buzzer, unsure whether or not to press it. Plenty of sunlight for one day; she needed to get inside. She pushed down hard and waited.
Things were different. Had it always been this smoky? The paint was peeling from the walls. She tried to drag up some memory of scraping it away as a kid.
"I don't know why you came," he said, by way of a greeting. "I've nothing for you."
She sat in what passed for a living room. You could imagine it, pizza boxes with grease and empty bottles of beer. The bottles weren't the only empty thing. The space had nothing, no legacy of investment. Even the waste negated itself by way of being in the room.
Once, he had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand and it had burned up the whole sofa. Woken by the smell of smoke, her brother found him, charred with mild burns, shivering half-naked at four in the morning, the sofa a pile of ashes on the carpet. She'd never found out who put the fire out, her brother or father. The memory made her nauseous. She was grateful for the blinds being drawn, releasing only sparse cracks of light. Many years ago, there had been a party in her father's absence. Someone doled out lines on the mirror and along the way, in the passing round, the glass got shattered. She told everyone to take a piece home and he never noticed its absence. Without it, the room held less light.
They used to walk all day, she and her brother; along the lines, killing time. The unfortunate phrase.
This time, her father didn't ask: "Still working?" He left her to the camp chairs, pottered about in the kitchen.
The little glass of whisky tasted like being fourteen again. As if he bought anything other than Bells, his grandfather's cheap original, grainy on the tongue with fragrant bleach. A whiteout, a starlight whitey from the window while the rest of the building was asleep. How she'd crawled to her brother's room and cried for hours. While on the phone to his girlfriend he'd mussed her hair like you would a child's. She was a child then, a child for a moment.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he muttered, twirling the wire, "I just can't come over. Tomorrow?"
There was no point, precious time. She counted the few notes she'd made in the morning, bought herself a bottle of sweet white wine. There was a tote bag she carried, a thing pulled from the trash near the student houses. Creased imprint of a band name, a pub--she didn't know. It was a long while since she'd paid attention to such things.
She sat still by the bus stop bordering the westward turn. A blowtorch had left scolded holes on the Plexiglas, some primordial voice from the deep. She knew that blaze, the hot blotches of boredom. There were places all over the city where she could go back and check out her own graffiti. Useless engravings, tasteless pieces of personal history. She had nothing to say; the world prompted nothing. She hadn't a tag. You had to be careful, precise, but in those days it was easy to go wild on the musing—teenagers being the cruellest poets, and so on.
The boy across the road knew. Even from here she felt his freckles, his Grecian nose, his perfect way of saying I'm yours like caramel in the mouth. This was the proper way. Nobody's money stuffed swift into pockets. She watched as he crossed, heart in her throat as the traffic meandered around him. It was as if he walked through it, cars vanishing in his transient presence. The velocity made her nauseous against the sense of his slowness. He would come over and do the usual, ask for a light or comment on bus times like that was easy, sexy.
She knew the high, uncertain lilt of his voice. Already they were tussling on the sheets in some student flat which was really a forest of bottles and sour smelling laundry. The cool hard metal beneath her fell away. She was twisted in the dirty scent of his skin, the rustiness of yesterday's cigarettes, cloying high street aftershave. By now she could tell the difference. What was it she wanted, searching and familiar? They liked when you flipped it. They wanted to make a mockery of the mattress, score temporary marks on the permanent furniture. She would whisper pull my hair again and again, alone in her head.
As if she got the bus. It came and went. He got on, struggling for change while the driver waited. The boy with the Grecian nose, the boy who looked so much older up close, then suddenly younger. It made her dizzy, the way his face wasn't freckled but starred with acne.
She started walking, the wine clinking glass against the studs of her belt. Every month it seemed she had to carve a new notch.
They were on the tracks at sunset. A melancholy quality of light in August, the smoke in the air that smelled of returns to school. Deep between the mesh of wood and metal he spotted a coin, bright glint of coppery gold. He wedged it between her fingers for luck. They didn't speak of it. Home was a long way away, but they were children then and time was infinite. In the holidays, you could polish it to a still-life gleam, a certain lull.
"No-one's really upset," someone said at the funeral. "They're all laughing in his honour. He was a sound guy."
She had no idea he had this many friends. There was the woman who came every Monday night for the loan interest, the woman her brother would greet at the door, distracting her with charm while their father scrambled for notes down the back of the sofa—raiding his coat for coppers, silvers, something. She did not wear black, but a dark matte navy like the colour of midnight.
She sat on the swings by the canal. They locked the gates of the park after dark now, so you couldn't sleep in the little playhouse that smelled of beer and piss and weed. The muscles in the backs of her thighs ached; ached so bad it was hard to keep momentum on the swing. She saw the distant lamplights glow sodium orange over the warehouses, then even further the factory smog and somewhere before that the screech of trains, coming and going.
He came up to her, hooded with two strangers.
"Got a light?" She scuffed the asphalt with her trainers. A hotness rose in her throat.
"No?" She couldn't see his face properly, now that the park was starting to shadow. Soon the people in green would come to close the gates. He turned to his mates and shrugged, but she couldn't make out the snide comments from their laughter. She wanted to lie fully bathed in the orange lamplights. She wanted dusk the way it was now; wanted it forever, the liminal moment before things alter completely, before the plunging. The boys would go back into shadow and she missed them already, almost surprised they had left her alone.
She unscrewed the lid off the wine. Tart in her mouth, she looked at the water rippling over the canal, silk-smooth and breezy. The sharpness as she drank reminded her of something. She didn't do this often, not really.
It was a long way back to the alcove. He would have said: we better start walking. Truth was, she missed her money, the comfort and weight of it close beside her. She scratched out the we. He wouldn't have minded.
They were on the tracks at night-time. Somebody in the distance was shrieking, playing the game they all once played; the endless chase and subsequent kisses or beatings. Nobody else was about at this time, unless you pulled away the overgrown foliage and found yourself close to the secret palace of shelters, built in the weeds and the gaps in the wall. The wood on the tracks was rotting and idly they'd tear great chunks of it away, mock-screaming at the sight of the festering insects beneath. Lift the surface away and you see the colonies swarming; whole communities of life that existed forever out of sight. Mostly, the bodies remained alive, strung out on whatever kept them docile till the last of moonlight.
They found an alcove, better than any of the other spaces and gaps, an alcove connecting the defunct line to the real one, with a tunnel at the back. It was their den; they would hide out there often in the days after their mother had gone, when their father's presence was truly unbearable. It was the one place they never took any of their friends to, kept hidden from the homeless folks who paced up and down by the station at night.
A woman called Lucille sold them packets of cigarettes, which they paid for with money they'd found on the tracks. One day, she and her brother visited Lucille at the station as usual, but then Lucille began talking quite rapidly to her brother, gushing out words as if nervous. Even though the ticket guards were still out, Lucille slipped a hip flask of vodka from her jeans and passed it round. She watched him stand back, eyeing this woman whose age no one could guess, this woman in a leopard print coat which brushed her ankles. Lucille stood on her tiptoes to whisper something in his ear. She stood back, giggling stupidly. The hipflask was rimmed with a smudge of her lipstick.
"Hey Janie," her brother said, "me and Lucille are gonna hang out awhile. You be okay getting home alone?"
She knew what they did in the overgrown land beside the tracks. As if she would take him back to her flat, a shrine to dead animals, everything fur-coated, glitzy and spotted. She saw Lucille for what she was: a predator. The little glass pipe in her inner pockets, the packets of blueish dusted crystal. That night she walked all the way home, listening to people spilling out of bars and shouting about football, terrorism, whores. She lay on her crumpled sheets, wide awake, clutching the £2 amulet and staring at the ceiling. She thought of her brother pressed close to the cold of the tracks. She thought of him falling away through a new reality, this sparkling place of the flesh; so far from the darkness of the alcove, the echo of their father's drunken groans. Everything dripped with alcohol; she could still taste Lucille's vodka on her tongue. She went to the bathroom to vomit. In those days, there was no feeling botanical; everything congealed into red.
The streets were uncertain, the people stared. She never felt safe until she saw the tips of buddleia, dying clippings of summer shrubbery, the rank hawthorn overgrown at the edge of the tracks. The city was alive with passing cars, windows leaking fragments of music. She didn't understand the mix of sounds; couldn't put a name to anything, where once she'd remember to check out what song it was with a certain lyric, I'll split a bitch in two, or something. What was it, the urge for seething words? They had a power. Her brother listening to hip hop so loud their father would bang harder the walls.
He never beat him in front of her. She realised now the loud music was meant to conceal what was happening. It wasn't the walls he was thumping. The beat of violence spread through the flat, followed her between school and the corner shop and the tracks. When she turned fifteen and Nathan from sixth-form eyed her up by the vending machines, it seemed inevitable that within a few hours she'd be on her back in the spinney, her spine pressed into leaves, fag packets, needles. The way he pushed his hand over her mouth to stop her crying out, as if she would; the sound of a beat, his breathing, out of sync with the odd trills of swallows circling overhead. She waited for elation, but it never came. She walked back to school, knowing this had to happen again and again. She wanted to get close to whatever it was her brother had found in the murk of night, the cover of shadows and shame. Whatever it was that made him dazed and serene, the bites on his neck, marks on his arm. She wanted her world to blur as his, to smudge out her name.
She could not make herself small enough. He said, "come into the phone box," and that was a proposition she had to accept. It was dark enough to do it. Sometimes she wondered how they knew; as if they could smell it on her, as if she were wearing a lanyard around her neck. She had on an old black dress, still in trainers because last week she'd left the heels at some guy's flat when he turned on her. Going down, she felt dizzy from the wine.
This would be the last lover, now she was closer to the edge of town. Coming up, she banged her head on the metal box where you put money for the phone. The shock made the box shudder and a few pennies spilled out of its mouth. The man zipped up his jeans.
"There," he said, "that's your tip." She waited till he had gone before lifting the change and slotting it, coin by coin, into the machine. The rain was coming on outside again, fat droplets splashing against the phone box. She lifted the receiver and dialled his number.
Lucille had become a regular thing. She was even invited to the den, back then adorned with a small assortment of street furniture, road signs and food wrappers. The detritus of everywhere returned to nowhere. But it was a place to be. She would sit jealously watching as Lucille rolled her thin black cigarettes and reapplied lipstick in a little pocket mirror. Her brother would nip out for a slash and come back to find the two of them staring each other down, saying nothing, kicking dust around on the ground.
Once, she asked him, "what is it about Lucille?"
"The thing about desire," he said cryptically, "is the lack of fulfilment. Lucille keeps me chasing. She's there and then she's not, coming and going."
"But—" She thought she had something to say, something profound about the cynical reality of love; lessons long learned from their parents' relationship. How trains were never on schedule, passing each other by, shadows in the night. He cut her off.
"Plus, the drugs are good. My god Janie, when you're old enough…"
They grew a little estranged. Things got worse at home. He would disappear for days and their father would vent his rage on her. In the worst drunk moments, he would call her names reserved for—as he put it—the worst of whores. She spent hours cleaning the flat, scrubbing vomit from the toilet, mould from the kitchen sink. School was an absent possibility.
One day she went looking for him, after her father barged into her room to find Ryan McGilvray on top of her in a tangle of sheets. Her father slammed the door so hard all the old toys fell off the shelf. She could date that pretty confidently as the end of her childhood. Sliding down the drainpipe, she escaped via the window with nothing left to say to the man that had stared at her stark naked, beside this boy who was but a placeholder for the nothingness pressed on her life.
She went walking along the tracks but he was not in the alcove. A few cigarette papers littered the floor, signs of Lucille's presence, but nothing more. She crawled through the tunnel and hid behind the dying buddleia to see whether any trains were coming. There were no lights flashing at the signals and the tracks did not whistle. She figured she had at least ten minutes, given that they came by every half hour. Enough time to cut across the tracks.
She reached the other side, close to the suburban sprawl of houses painted red and white, and then she saw him. Knocked into a quarter circle, several feet from the tracks, crusted with so much blood he was barely recognisable. At first, she thought the body belonged to a deer, it looked so small. A familiar, metallic taste entered her mouth and she vomited, promptly in the long grass and gravel. When she bent down, uselessly, to feel his pulse, she felt the painful twinge where Ryan had entered her, again and again in frustrated thrusts. This was her brother, her beautiful dead brother. He lived and died by the tracks, like an animal. Nothing ever looked so vulnerable.
It was Lucille that phoned the police. It must've been. Nobody else came down this close to the tracks at night, when all the engineers were resting easy. Not even the junkies. There was a transient panoply of sirens, lights, people in uniform scuttling out of an ambulance. She hid behind a signal box to watch them. She'd checked his pockets but there was nothing, not even a wallet. In the end, there were very little enquiries. A common sort of accident, the ideal moralising topic for a school assembly; except she had stopped going to school a long time ago.
From then on, movement was a luxury; she went only where she wanted to.
The line connected with a terrible click. She listened to the rasping breath awhile, biding her time. There was none of the familiar litany: tell me about yourself, baby. What are you wearing?
For once, he spoke first. It was quite a miracle that he happened to be there at the right time, on this late August night with the coolness set in around the orange smog. She pictured him in the phone box, somewhere deep downtown, one hand slipping gradually southwards.
"I've missed you," she whispered sweetly. Her voice was hoarse by this point, burned out from all the moans.
"Tell me about your day," he said. She almost misheard him; the answer she'd prepared for his usual question trembled.
"Well, it was awful hot outside. My gosh, I practically melted. I walked around town in my red panties... " She began in earnest.
"No," he said abruptly, "what did you do man?"
"Um…I guess I saw a bunch of people. There was a boy at the bus stop. He had this nose, you wouldn't believe."
"Go on." His breath rasped close to the line.
"I just wanted him to hold me. It was different. Well, maybe not really. I walked a few streets past the new restaurants in midtown, the fancy Mexican ones with all the colours. Looked like some sort of concert was going on in the square by the mall, people crowded round. Everything felt louder than usual. I skirted the high street and nearly got hit by a fucking skateboard, which sounded like guns going off when he landed an ollie off the pavement. It made me feel old, getting freaked by a skateboard."
"You're still young, baby."
"I guess I don't feel it…" The sly comment about maturity never arrived. "What did you do today?"
"I need to see you." She froze. This had never come up before. She pictured some homeless guy, his semen-stained sleeping bag. He sounded so hopeful that it physically hurt when she hung up. The ache in her chest, a heaviness. She longed to be home.
It could've been any time when she trudged along the tracks. Probably it was slappy hour, the kids getting high on top of the wall. The little orange tips of their spliffs like so many stars in the murky sky. They came in from town just to smoke, to smoke like that was the only thing left in the world. Her limbs were so withered by this point she could barely lift aside the overgrown vegetation, drag her feet over the tracks and towards the alcove.
The first thing she noticed was the smell. It felt inevitable, this stench of gasoline and dirty smoke. All her life she'd waited for it, passing scrapyards or industrial estates where the thick plumes rose in poisonous coils, like some filthy spirit leaving its earthly corpus. Somebody had burned her out at last.
She checked the alcove but she couldn't get close enough, the smoke stinging her eyes. There were no flames left, just this terrible, pungent grey and black. All her money, melted into one big gloop of ersatz gold. Oxidised stone, liquefied zinc. All the sun, her days and hours. She thought of Lucille, cackling as she bit her brother's neck, the savage fire of her gaze in the gloam. Too many times, too long alone. She curled up among the buddleias, the moon-glowing bindweed, her body doubling the ghost of her brother's. As the black smoke slowly dissolved above her, rending apart two halves of reality—light and dark, the before and after—she knew she was truly homeless. Wild in the world, tangled, botanical. The ash would settle on her golden hair, and in the morning she would rise again, wouldn't she?
MARIA SLEDMERE has just completed her Masters thesis on dark ecology and the curatorial novel. She is assistant editor of Glasgow-based poetry zine SPAM and founder of Gilded Dirt. She regularly contributes music reviews, interviews and features to Ravechild and GoldFlakePaint, and is currently working on a mysterious mythology-based exhibition project with producer Lanark Artefax. Her writing has appeared in Bombus Press, Datableed, Fluland, From Glasgow to Saturn, Robida, the murmur house, Thistle Magazine, Quotidian, and Zarf. She tweets @mariaxrose and blogs about everything from Derrida to Lana Del Rey at musingsbymaria.wordpress.com.


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Welcome to the Bonza Bash New Year's Eve 2011 Gala Ball – the most swanky yet sophisticated way to ring in the New Year in the Pacific Northwest. Featuring live 18-piece band "Mach One" plus our feature DJ from Portland, OR – DJ Gigahurtz -prepare for a night of glitz, glamor, celebration and fun as only Bonza Bash knows how!
DJ Gigahurtz has put together a little mix to ease you into the NYE party! Check it out here and start getting into the vibe. Thanks DJ Gigahurtz!
JUST IN!! We'll be giving away a CELEBRITY accommodation package at the Palms Casino Resort! Details here.
18 Piece Big Band "Mach One Jazz Orchestra" – the most uptempo, swingin', brassy and bold 18-piece big band in the Pacific Northwest to get you on your feet!
Portland's DJ Gigahurtz – he's played all over the world – at Diddy's "All White Party", at gigs in Vegas, LA and Miami and for major artists like "The Far East Movement", "Colby O'Donis", "Jay Sean" and more… DJ Gigahurtz will be joined by Bonza Bash favorite DJ SpeedyG to keep you moving, dancing and shaking all night!