text:
HomeNewsRacing
Marc Marquez Rides A Motorcycle For The First Time Post-Injury
Repsol wants everyone to know Marquez is just fine.
Jan 14, 2022 at 12:02pm ET
By: Dustin Wheelen
The news feed around Marc Marquez's latest injury has been a rollercoaster. First, Honda and the Marquez camp reported that the six-time MotoGP champion only suffered a concussion during a training crash prior to the 2021 Algarve GP. Then, the diagnosis changed to include a return bout with diplopia (double vision).
In December, 2021, Marquez's ophthalmologist, Dr. Bernat Sánchez Dalmau, explained that the rider's condition improved enough to begin pre-season training. However, less than a month later, sources reported that number 93 wouldn't make the 2022 Honda MotoGP presentation on January 14, 2022. One day after those reports surfaced, Box Repsol released the date for the exclusive 2022 Repsol Honda team presentation, which Marquez will attend on February 8, 2022.
While details concerning the Spanish rider's original diagnosis and recovery have been vague, Repsol and the Marquez camp are leaving little doubt in the nine-time world champ's abilities with their latest video. For the first time since his crash in November, 2021, Marquez jumped back on a motorcycle for some pre-season seat time.
Of course, Honda personnel acknowledged that the Repsol rider experienced a concussion (and diplopia) as a result of motocross training, but that didn't stop Marquez from attacking the circuit out of the gate. Based on the footage, there's no question that Marquez is fit to ride, but off the motocross track, he still has one jump to clear.
With the first pre-season test at Malaysia's Sepang Circuit is scheduled for February 5-6, 2022, Marquez wants to complete a full day of riding at a Grand Prix track to prove that he's in shape.
"Since I got injured, my goal was to try to be at the first test or the first race and it looks like we are on the way," admitted Marquez. "Now I need to do a one-day test at a Grand Prix circuit and do a full day with a lot of laps to see when I get tired if I have any problems. We need to evaluate those things before I'll be allowed to ride at the Malaysia Test."
Regardless of how number 93's pre-season unfolds, the latest Repsol video shows that the rider will still send it in typical Marquez fashion. Even if he has to miss the first pre-season test, we know that the champ will do everything in his power to return to the MotoGP grid for the first round in March, 2022.
Elsewhere In The Paddock:
KTM CEO Believes MotoGP Will Keep Combustion Engines Until 2035
Study Finds That MotoGP Riders Blink Far Less Than Non-Racers
Sources: HRC (1), (2), Crash, MotoGP, GP One
motogp marc marquez


text:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/MERCS
Characters / MERCS
TabletopGame
The MegaCons
General tropes
Corporate Warfare
Fun with Acronyms
Highly Visible Ninja: While MERCS are meant to be covert operatives, their clearly distinguished armor makes it fairly obvious who any given MERCS is working for.
Mega-Corp
More Dakka: in most MERCS teams, this is the Heavy's main function.
One Nation Under Copyright
CCC (Commercial Corporate Continuity)
A corporation from the Northeast United States, specializing in metallic compounds. The CCC is a strong MegaCon. They are often targets of covert corporate espionage due to their stranglehold on formed flexible steel. The have strong ties with the GCC, and are constantly in litigation to protect and revise a large library of patents. They also have a non-binding trade pact with sefadu, who supply the CCC with the diamonds used to create ammunition, though how this relationship will be affected by sefadu's recent dissolution remains to be seen.
Self-Healing Phlebotinum: CCC body armor is of the gradual recovery type, with nanorobots incorporated into the armor that repair it whenever it suffers damage.
The Mario: The CCC are essentially the easiest MegaCon to play, requiering few advanced tatics and their self-repairing armor making them a rather fogiving force to play as.
EIC (East India Company)
The EIC has more manpower resources than any other MegaCon in existence, which in turn gives the EIC the ability to throw truly a staggering number of MERCS at any given task. They are calculated to employ nearly 3x the number of MERCS that the average MegaCon has on its payroll. While this makes a hostile takeover of the EIC a troubling prospect, its rival MegaCons circumvent the need to commit their own forces to such an action by bribing the FCC to carry out hostile actions for them. The FCC houses, especially House 9, who originated in what is now EIC controlled territory, need little "encouragement" to carry out regular terrorist activities against the company.
EUInc. (European Union, Incorporated)
Located in Central and Northern Europe, EUInc. is the slowly fading old star of the MegaCons. They have managed to remain alive, however, thanks to having access to old money and lots of it. They no longer innovate much, but they still possess some the best trained and most experienced MERCS in the world. They are under extreme pressure from the FCC on several fronts, owing to a close mutual border.
ISS (Ios Security Systems)
ISS is the global leader in ocean transport and security (indeed, they are responsible for 47% of the world's goods transportation, 98% of the world's personnel transportation, and 100% of the world's ocean security), with ports in nearly every major city and MegaCon in the world. The MegaCon itself controls the Mediterranean sea and the countries surrounding it. The company is currently under GCC investigation for extensive corruption, however.
Lightning Gun: their MERCS Heavy carries a shoulder-mounted one into battle.
Keizai Waza (trans. business technique/art)
The Japanese MegaCon, Keizai Waza also controls large parts of Eastern Asia and the Australian continent. This has made them the strongest MegaCon in the eastern hemisphere. They have also, unlike other MegaCons, continued to explore nuclear technologies, including nuclear powered armor and small armaments. Though it remains unsubstantiated, Keizai Waza has reportedly had outspoken critics and rival corporate leaders assassinated.
Japan Takes Over Asia: including haf of China, North- and South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philipines and all of Australia.
Ninja: The Keizai Spy.
KemVar
A South American corporation (Brazil and Venezuela being their most prominent territories), specializing in energy production and stealth technology. Easily one of the smallest MegaCons, KemVar none-the-less has controlling interest in 72% of the world's energy creation and distribution. Their remote location prevents takeovers, and their "friendliness" with the FCC keeps them relatively safe. They are currently engaged in the occupation of the Texico-held Panama Canal.
Corrupt Corporate Executive: the Board of Directors have repeatedly tried to get Jorge Machado to retire from the MERCS program because of his "unhealthy relationship with the worker-citizens". When that didn't work, they try to have him killed by sending him on suicide missions and outright warning their competitors of his presence.
Gas Mask Mooks
Invisibility Cloak: KemVar makes extensive use of stealth technology in their MERCS units, though the stealth tech itself has a tendency to be... less than reliable.
sefadu
The only true African MegaCon, sefadu was the rising star of the MegaCons until the 2184 Paradigm Shift. Prior to that fateful event, sefadu was a growing power on the corporate stage. Their revolutionary discoveries in laser technology enabled them to dictate terms to the world, and their MERCS enabled them to repel and defend their natural resources, bringing, for the first time in a long while, some peace and solidarity to the once fractured continent. Alas, their close ties to the CCC, supplying the latter with diamonds for ammunitions, didn't protect them, and in 2184 a joint CCC and FCC operation saw sefadu crippled to the point they could no longer be considered a MegaCon. However, their MERCS forces are still around, operating as soldiers of fortune, while presumably waiting for an opportunity to strike back at the people responsible for their situation.
The Berserker: sefadu used to employ Berserkers , criminals who have entered the sefadu penal system, as frontal assault units in their MERCS forces. This serves as a handy form of rehabilitation, with every successful year of service in the MERCS forces counting as three in terms of prison time. If the Berserker survives his full tour of duty, he goes free. If not... there are always more thugs eager for a shot at freedom.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: sefadu was hit so severly by the FCC's operatives during the Paradigm Shift of 2184 that sefadu seized to exist as a MegaCon.
Private Military Contractors: what the sefadu MERCS have been reduced to.
Texico
Texico is located, as its name implies, in Texas and Mexico, with a controlling interest in the Panama Canal. Texico is the smallest MegaCon in terms of size and numbers. In fact, the GCC has been pressured from unnamed MegaCons to downgrade Texico, thereby preventing them from taking advantage of the corporate ruleset that governs (and protects) the MegaCons. Their only remaining, truly relevant asset is their control of the Panama Canal, with nearly 80% of Texico's MERCS resources dedicated to defending the Canal, with only a single MERCS units (the Last Dragoons) dedicated to exterior issues. In spite of these protective measures, and Texico's rumored ties with the FCC, the Panama Canal is currently being occupied by KemVar.
Badass Bandolier: the Texico Leader and - Marshall wear these.
Badass Longcoat: the Texico Marshall wears one of these as well.
Fedora of Asskicking: the Texico Marshall wears one of these as well, in keeping with the cowboy motif.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: though it is rather vague how powerful they may once have been, the company is still dying, and rapidly. In-universe experts have given the company until 2185 before they have to file for bankruptcy unless they can retake the Panama Canal from its KemVar occupiers. It is currently 2184.
Jet Pack: the Texico Eagle MERCS makes use of these.
Mexico Called; They Want Texas Back: and got it, after a fashion.
USCR (United Soviet Corporate Republic)
An East European corporation, controlling Russia, Alaska and parts of the surrounding countryside, the USCR is the largest MegaCon in terms of lands possessed. The USCR noticably operates more like a traditional, pre-MegaCon government than a business. They are a formidable opponent on the field of combat, but often seem more intent to isolate themselves from the rest of the world than interact.
Drop the Hammer: the Behemoth wields an utterly huge hammer the size of a human torso.
Mini-Mecha: the USCR Behemoth is essentially a walking tank.
The Non-aligned Factions
FCC (Free Corporate Control)
The FCC was formed from the remnants of five global systems that went into dissolution in 2156: estranged ex-MegaCon employees, assets, technology, weapons, and territory. The FCC now functions as several different "Houses", that work towards the dissolution of the remaining MegaCons. Because they operate of outside GCC control and supervision, many MegaCons take advantage of the autonomous nature of individual FCC Houses to spy on or combat rival MegaCons. This is done through both monetary support and through physical assets such as techs and black ops MERCS. The fact that this inevitably strenghtens the FCC Houses while weakening the MegaCons overall is just a bonus.
Code Name: with the exception of the FCC Liasons (the FCCs contacts with the MegaCons for black ops), all FCC operatives make use of code names, differing in style by House. House 9 use the names of famous movie stars, while House 12 use the names of saints.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: unlike the MegaCons, who can equip their MERCS with state-of-the-art armor and weaponry, the FCC has to make due with scavenged weapons and body armor when they can't procur more advanced gear from a MegaCon in return for services rendered.
We ARE Struggling Together: For all their mutual goals, the various Houses often end up unintentionally (or intentionally) sabotaging each others efforts because of conflicting interests. For instance, while both houses seek to dissolve the MegaCons, House 6 actively sabotaged House 9's attack on KemVar.
Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters
GCC (Global Corporate Court)
The GCC is the governing body of the MegaCons, responsible for investigating accusations of corruption, fraud, and other transgressions commited by the MegaCons against each other. Originally meant as an arbitrator, the GCC now functions with absolute legal authority and enforces their decisions with their own, personal MERCS forces. Fairly small in numbers, the GCC never-the-less remains unhampered in its policing of the MegaCons through its shrewd use of power balancing: any MegaCon that doesn't abide or support the GCC's rulings would be immediately descended upon by the GCC and the other MegaCons.
Legend System
Characters/Tabletop RPG

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Laws & Guidance GENERAL
Helpful ED and ED-funded Publications and Resources
Education Department: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Overview of the Recovery Act
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009. It is an unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century. The Act is an extraordinary response to a crisis unlike any since the Great Depression, and includes measures to modernize our nation's infrastructure, enhance energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need. Show less
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009. It is an unprecedented effort... Show more
The Department and many of its grantees have a variety of items that may be useful as states and districts identify how to best spend Recovery Act funds .
Effective Use of Data
Information to help identify ways to improve student learning, teacher performance, and college and career-readiness through enhanced data systems that track progress.
Improving Teacher Quality
Information to help make improvements in teacher effectiveness and ensure that all schools have highly qualified teachers
Turning Around Low-Performing Schools
Information to support improvements in achievement in low-performing schools through intensive support and effective interventions in those schools
Doing What Works: Using Data for Improvement
A media-rich website to help educators implement research-based practices around effectively using data; includes best practice examples of school sites and self-assessment tools to help improve practice.
State-by-State Database
Center on Innovation and Improvement
A state-by-state breakdown of policies, practices and programs, including tracking data, contact names, and links to SEA websites.
Approaches to Dropout Prevention: Heeding Early Warning Signs With Appropriate Interventions PDF
National High School Center
Steps that schools can take to identify at-risk students and provide the necessary support systems and relevant interventions to assist students in obtaining a high school diploma, especially through the use of early warning data systems to target interventions
State Approaches to More Reliable and Uniform Dropout and Graduation Data PDF
A snapshot of work currently underway around calculating more accurate dropout and graduation data, examining two prominent methods for calculating graduation rates: the National Governors Association's endorsed longitudinal approach; and the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR).
Dropout Prevention for Students With Disabilities: A Critical Issue for State Education Agencies PDF
Guidance to states as they respond to requirements presented in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004) in the area of dropout prevention for students with disabilities.
Developing Early Warning Systems to Identify Potential High School Dropouts PDF
A discussion of the factors that help predict the probability that individual students will eventually drop out of high school prior to graduating, and step-by-step instructions for building an early warning system.
Early Warning System Tool MSExcel
A tool allowing educators to input student-level data and automatically calculate whether individual students are on track to graduate or at risk of dropping out. (Please maximize the document's screen in Excel in order to access all the spreadsheet tabs in the tool.)
A Comprehensive K-3 Reading Assessment Plan: Guidance for School Leaders PDF
Center on Instruction
Provides guidance to school leaders about a comprehensive assessment plan as a critical element of a school-level plan for preventing reading difficulties.
Curriculum-Based Measurement in mathematics: An Evidence-Based Formative Assessment Procedure PDF
Report which describes Mathematics Curriculum-Based-Measurement (M-CBM) including a brief history of curriculum based measurement, basic procedures, implications for practice, and additional resources.
Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners: Research-based Recommendations for the Use of Accommodations in Large-scale Assessments PDF
Provides research-based recommendations on the use of accommodations to increase the valid participation of ELLs in large-scale assessments.
Doing What Works: Increasing Teacher Effectiveness
A media-rich website to help educators implement research-based practices around improving the effectiveness of teachers, such as collaboration and high-quality professional development; includes best practice examples of school sites and self-assessment tools to help improve practice.
Recruiting Teachers for Schools Serving English Language Learners
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality
Strategies and resources to help develop creative and comprehensive recruitment strategies to ensure that all ELLs can be served by highly qualified teachers.
Recruiting Quality Teachers in Mathematics, Science, and Special Education for Urban and Rural Schools
Six strategies for recruiting highly qualified teachers in mathematics, science, and special education.
Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: Making the Most of Recent Research
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality PDF
A brief identifying several teacher quality variables that are strong and consistent predictors of student achievement.
Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Range Plans. Issue No. 3 PDF
Research-based descriptions of the strengths and possible deficits of new teacher training, focusing especially on the lack of preparedness for the diversity of the contemporary American classroom and for teaching students with special needs.
Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Range Plans. Issue No. 2—Working Without a Net: How Teachers From Three Prominent Alternative Route Programs Describe Their First Year PDF
A comparison of perspectives of new teachers in high-needs schools, examining those from traditional teacher education versus those from three alternate-route programs: Teach for America, Troops to Teachers, and The New Teacher Project.
The Teacher Preparation—Teacher Practices—Student Outcomes Relationship in Special Education: Missing Links and New Connections PDF
An examination of the relationship between pre-service teacher preparation, teacher in-service practice, and outcomes for students with special needs.
Key Issue: Identifying Professional Contexts to Support Highly Effective Teachers PDF
Strategies, resources, and case studies around identifying professional contexts to support highly effective teachers.
Enhancing Teacher Leadership PDF
Strategies, resources, and case studies around enhancing teacher leadership.
Improving the Preparation of School and District Leaders PDF
Strategies, resources, and case studies around better preparing school and district leaders.
Teacher Quality in At-Risk Schools
An examination of 10 key issues often associated with getting and keeping quality teachers in the schools that most need them.
The Value of Reliable Data PDF
A brief outlining how to use the Interactive Data Tools from the Teacher Quality Center, which enable users to extract valuable customized information on teacher preparation.
Communication Framework for Measuring Teacher Quality and Effectiveness: Bringing Coherence to the Conversation
A communication framework developed to promote effective dialogue about the measurement of teacher quality and effectiveness.
Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents: A Guidance Document from the Center on Instruction. PDF
Guidance which provides recommendations for improving literacy-related instruction in the content areas or across the entire school day, interventions for students reading below grade level, and recommendations for supporting literacy development in adolescent English Language Learners.
Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers: Professional Development Module
PowerPoint Presentation for Facilitators MS Powerpoint
Facilitator's Guide PDF
Module that enhances the understanding of selected research-based instructional practices associated with positive effects for adolescent struggling readers.
Principal's Reading Walk-through K-3
Participant's Guide PDF
PowerPoint Presentation Module for Facilitators(1) PDF
PowerPoint Presentation for Principal's Orientation with Speaker Notes MS Powerpoint
A user-friendly tool for classroom walk-through implementation that can identify research-based reading instruction in the classroom quickly and accurately.
Leading for Reading: An Introductory Guide for K-3 Reading Coaches
Facilitator's Guide (each chapter downloads separately from this link)
Participant's Guide (each chapter downloads separately from this link)
PowerPoint Presentation Module for Facilitators (each chapter downloads separately from this link)
A suite of resource materials designed to prepare school-based reading coaches who work with teachers to improve reading instruction in kindergarten through grade three.
Doing What Works: Turning Around the Lowest-Performing Schools
A media-rich website to help educators implement research-based practices around improving the work of chronically low-performing schools; includes multimedia descriptions of the research, best practice examples of school sites, and self-assessment tools to help improve practice.
Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools PDF
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences
Practices that can improve the performance of chronically low-performing schools to help them make adequate yearly progress.
Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention (RtI) and Multi-Tier Intervention in the Primary Grades PDF
Recommendations to help educators identify struggling readers and implement RtI and multi-tier intervention methods to promote their reading achievement.
Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools PDF
Recommendations designed to help teachers, principals, and administrators use RtI for the early detection, prevention, and support of students struggling with mathematics.
Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices PDF
Evidence-based recommendations that educators can use to improve literacy levels among adolescents in upper elementary, middle, and high schools.
School Turnarounds: A Review of the Cross-Sector Evidence on Dramatic Organizational Improvement
A synthesis of literature from the education and public, nonprofit and private sectors related to successful school turnarounds.
School Turnarounds: Actions and Results
Descriptions of 14 leader actions associated with successful turnarounds and vignettes to illustrate each.
Support for School Improvement
A web-based tool for planning and navigating improvement of low-performing schools, currently being used in nine states.
Meeting the Needs of Significantly Struggling Learners in High School: A Look at Approaches to Tiered Intervention PDF
An in-depth look at the issues and support required to successfully institute Response to Intervention (RTI) at the secondary school level.
Report on Key Practices and Policies of Consistently Higher Performing High Schools PDF
Suggestions developed specifically for state leaders as well as LEAs, principals and teachers, on how they may support successful high school initiatives that are linked with accelerated learning.
Emerging Evidence on Improving High School Student Achievement and Graduation Rates: The Effects of Four Popular Improvement Programs PDF
Lessons learned and key practices used to strengthen low-performing high schools; based evaluations of four widely used high school improvement programs: Career Academies; First Things First; Project GRAD; and Talent Development.
Findings from the Early College High School Initiative: A Look at Best Practices and Lessons Learned Regarding a Dual Enrollment Program PDF
Lessons learned and best practices from an evaluation of the Early College High School Initiative, a dual enrollment program developed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sustaining Focus on Secondary School Reading: Lessons and Recommendations from the Alabama Reading Initiative PDF
Student and teacher outcomes, lessons learned, and other findings from a recent evaluation of the Alabama Reading Initiative, which focuses on high school students and supports literacy coaches.
Easing the Transition to High School: Research and Best Practices Designed to Support High School Learning PDF
Resources around effective transitions into high school.
Preparing High School Students for Successful Transitions to Postsecondary Education and Employment PDF
Lessons from selected policies and programs designed to improve students' preparation for postsecondary pathways, including considerations for students with disabilities.
Eight Elements of High School Improvement: A Mapping Framework PDF
A research-informed framework of eight core elements and key high school practices to use for mapping and guiding school, district, and state improvement efforts, ensuring an aligned, systemic approach to high school improvement.
State-Level High School Improvement Systems Checklist PDF
A checklist to help states at various stages develop their systems of support to reach struggling high schools, including to assess where a state stands in using existing support and guidance mechanisms, and reconfiguring and/or creating new structures to leverage system change for high school improvement.
Extensive Reading Interventions in Grades K-3: From Research to Practice PDF
A report which summarizes high quality research studies and synthesizes their findings on the effects of extensive reading interventions and related implications for practice for students with reading problems or learning disabilities in an RTI setting.
Mathematics Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities or Difficulty Learning Mathematics: A Guide for Teachers PDF
This guide for teachers is a companion piece to the meta-analysis from the Center on Instruction, Mathematics Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities or Difficulty Learning Mathematics: A Synthesis of the Intervention Research. Based on the findings of this report, seven effective instructional practices were identified for teaching mathematics to K-12 students with learning disabilities. It describes these practices and, incorporating recommendations from The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel as well, specifies research-based recommendations for students with learning disabilities and for students who are experiencing difficulties in learning mathematics but are not identified as having a math learning disability.
Teaching All Students to Read in Elementary School: A Guide for Principals PDF
Guidance to principals based on scientific research in reading and reading instruction on the elements of an effective reading program in elementary school, critical tasks for principals as literacy leaders and special considerations for reading after third grade.


text:
A SPIRITUAL QUEST
by Col RC Patial SM, FRGS, PhD February 2, 2018
written by Col RC Patial SM, FRGS, PhD February 2, 2018
In his book 'Walking With Nanak,' Haroon Khalid, a Pakistani author, retraces Nanak's and his disciple, Bhai Mardana's footsteps, into present day Pakistan. The travelogue narrative is part history and part fiction, the author relying in part on folk tales, passed down from generation to generation.
The Janamsakhis, the texts on Nanak's life, have glorious accounts of his miracles. Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji along with Bhai Mardana reached Hasan Abdal in the summer of 1521 CE. Guru Nanak and Bhai Mardana started reciting Kirtan under a shady tree along with their devotees. This annoyed a local saint, Hazrat Shah Wali Qandhari, who meditated atop a nearby hill.
According to legend, Bhai Mardana was sent up three times to Qandhari by Guru Nanak so that Mardana could have some water to quench his thirst. Qandhari, the egoist, refused his request; "Why don't you ask your Master". The Guru pushed aside a big boulder and a fountain of water sprang up and began to flow endlessly and Bhai Mardana quenched his thirst. On the other hand, the spring on top of the hill where Qandhari meditated dried up. On witnessing this, Qandhari, in rage, rolled a boulder towards the Guru from the top of the hill. The Guru stopped the boulder with his hand leaving its imprint on the boulder. Observing the miracle Wali became Nanak's devotee. This holy revered place was named Panja Sahib by Hari Singh Nalwa, one of the most famous Generals' of Maharaja Ranjit Singh who is credited to have extended the frontiers of the Sikh Empire Westwards and is credited for building the Gurudwara at the spot.
Another story about Panja Sahib is of Nanju, the fakir, Kamma the stone sculptor and General Hari Singh Nalwa. When Hari Singh Nalwa's forces attacked, the city it was found to have been abandoned. Only Nanju was found in a shrine. Nanju to save his life, well knowing about the merciless General Nalwa cleverly concocted the story of the impression of Guru Nanak's hand (Panja) as he had seen Kamma sculpturing his own hand on the stone. He said that his family has preserved that stone as they have been Nanak's followers. Nalwa, seeing the hand impression on the boulder was convinced with the story(Pakistan Census 1961 Pg I-20 refers). Muslims were jealous of guru Nanak's spreading influence. However, the Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang in the 7thCentury is believed to have travelled to the area and reported to have observed the lake.
Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism was against the institutionalisation of religion. However, institution of Guru hood was formalised by Nanak conferring 'Guru Hood' on his most deserving disciple bypassing his two sons. The author has also embarked to explore and trace the stories within the house hold of the Gurus regarding all the happenings of the inner power struggle for the 'Guru Gaddi' from time to time.
Guru Nanak and Bhai Mardana covered the length and breadth of South Asia on foot over 24 years. Religious places of minorities in Pakistan remain neglected as the majority Sunni Muslim state does not respect religious places of other religions. Having woken up to the potential of Sikh religious tourism and to earn revenue Pakistan has lately started renovating Gurdwaras. The anguish expressed by the author has to a large extent awakened the state to take care of such religious monuments.
The author has tried to reconstruct the world of Guru Nanak by the era of tolerance of the past and the utter intolerance of the present. Khalid, in nutshell, has managed to have successfully walked with Guru Nanak into the past and manages to take the reader along. The travelogue narration appears authentic and while reading the book, I felt that I was traveling with the author in Pakistan. A must read for scholars of Sikh history and religious studies for their further research and analysis.
Col RC Patial, SM, FRGS, PhD has served with the NSCS as a Senior Defence Specialist,with the NTRO as a Chief Editor of Open Source Intelligence and the first DD of the newly set up Training Academy. He is presently, Principal, Meritorious Residential School, Amritsar.
Dec 2017-Jan 2018
Col RC Patial SM, FRGS, PhD
Col RC Patial, SM, FRGS, PhD has served with the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) as a Senior Defence Specialist and has been the Chief Editor of Open Source Intelligence with the NTRO. He has served in active CI Ops across the country and in Sri Lanka. While serving in a Corps HQ in CI Ops, he was responsible for interacting with the Media of five NE states. He is an enthusiastic mountaineer and a trekker. He is presently the Headmaster of Amity Indian Military College, Manesar, Gurgaon.
INSURGENCIES AND INDIA'S NORTHEAST
INFORMATION FOR THE VETERANS


I first became aware of the benefits of complementary therapies in 1994 when I was ill with IBS. The condition wasn't responding to conventional medicine and so I tried aromatherapy, which was wonderful. It felt very empowering to be able to help myself so effectively and easily. I continued to use aromatherapy personally but it was only in 1998, when I took a Reiki course, that I realised who much I loved this work and that I wanted to pursue it professionally.
I enrolled at college in 1999 and studied massage, aromatherapy and reflexology. I opened my complementary therapy practice here in the fens in July 2000.
I my practice I help people to find balance and harmony in their lives. I like my clients to be involved in their own health and wellbeing and I believe strongly in working with maintaining health as well as providing support during times of illness and disease.
As my practice developed I became increasingly interested in providing more emotional and spiritual support for my clients and so in 2003 I qualified as a Flower Essence Therapist. I intend to integrate the BBSH work into my current practice when I graduate in 2005 and develop a truly integrated approach to health management and healing.
My aim is to keep helping my clients live life to the full and find true health and happiness.
Book now to avoid disappointment, Ferris began work as a professional therapist in 2000, and is normally kept very busy!
Monday - Friday: 9.00am - 8.00pm.
Ferris is based in Castlewellan, Co. Down.
Ferris may travel up to 16km for a 1 hour treatment.
Ferris may be willing to travel up to 80km for a full day of treatments.


text:
GSBA Letter to the Seattle LGBTQ Commission
by Louise Chernin, President & CEO and Stephanie Dallas, Board Chair
| Oct 30, 2020
This letter was sent to the Seattle LGBTQ Commission, the office of Mayor Jenny Durkan, and the Seattle City Council on October 30, 2020.
To the members of the Seattle LGBTQ Commission -
For a commission charged with advising the Mayor, City Council, and city agencies on issues that affect the LGBTQ community, including acting as a bridge between the LGBTQ community and the City, the Seattle LGBTQ Commission failed its due diligence in voting to ask for Mayor Durkan's resignation. The Commission appears not to have not done much, if any, outreach to the wider LGBTQ community, including GSBA, for input on such a serious decision. Certainly, before a community Commission takes such a controversial and potentially divisive vote, one would have expected that this was a decision reached with wide community input - including community organizations - plus a consensus of the entire Commission and not simply by a plurality of six votes out of the current fifteen sitting Commissioners. So, although GSBA is a nonpartisan organization that does not endorse candidates, we feel compelled to speak out against the lack of a fully inclusive and transparent process that occurred when you voted to ask the Mayor to resign.
Seattle, as the rest of the country, is in the midst of the greatest health care crisis of our time, a perilous economic downturn, a divisive election season, and a national reckoning about systemic racism. Any one of these issues requires that all agenciestake their responsibility to listen to their constituencies and look for ways to bring communities together to address such critical issues. Instead, our LGBTQ Commission made the decision to move forward with a decision that may not be representative of the majority of our community at best, and could be damaging and incredibly divisive at a time when we all are in need of thoughtful leadership.
Public opinion is divided on the Mayor's performance, including within the LGBTQ community. Whether you believe Mayor Durkan did right or wrong, you will find members of the community who praise her and others who criticize her handling of critical city issues, including those outlined by the Commission, i.e. the budget, police and City response to demonstrations, and homelessness.
Everyone has the civic right to challenge our Mayor's handling of any issue. However, Mayor Durkan is our duly elected Mayor in the last year of her term. The Washington Supreme Court already decided that the recall effort against Mayor Durkan had no merit. Here, the election is the process to decide whether to replace an elected official.
In Seattle, we are fortunate to have an LGBTQ commission alongside the other commissions that provide a voice for our most marginalized communities. GSBA believes commissions are important, which is why we took a leadership role in creating Washington State's first LGBTQ Commission. However, with a commission comes serious responsibility to do due diligence in thoughtfully representing the concerns of one's community. GSBA does not believe that the Seattle LGBTQ Commission did so, when it took this vote to ask for Mayor Durkan's resignation. It may be too late to change that vote, but it is never too late to start a more thoughtful process.
For equality,
Louise Chernin, GSBA President & CEO
Stephanie Dallas, GSBA Board Chair


text:
Promoted articles are produced by CultureMap sponsors and not by the editorial staff.
Home » Real Estate
Hot Austin real estate market starts 2017 with surge in sales
Work Hard for the Money
Here's how many hours you must work to afford rent in Austin
Hot Hot High-Rise
Gaze out over downtown Austin from this sky-high condo
By CultureMap Create
Unit 33CC in The Austonian is listed for $2,299,000. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The prestigious building looks out over Lady Bird Lake. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
Austin's downtown skyline is right outside your windows. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
A private balcony opens up the view even more. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The 2,185-square-foot condo is packed with transitional style. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
Greer Interior Design outfitted the condo with high-end finishes. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The gourmet kitchen boasts Viking, Sub-Zero, and Thermador appliances. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
A butler's pantry provides extra storage and a spot for the home command center. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
Both of the bedrooms are generously sized. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
Marble floors and countertops accent the beautiful tilework in the bathrooms. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The second bathroom is just as gorgeous as the master. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
There's also a home office in the unit. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The 75-foot saltwater lap pool is part of the 10th floor outdoor paradise. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The Austonian is within walking distance to popular restaurants, bars, and shops. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The fitness center is stocked with resort-quality equipment. Photo courtesy of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors
The real estate adage about "location, location, location" is doubly reinforced with this condo at 200 Congress Ave., which has the twofold reward of being located in a prestigious building right in the heart of downtown Austin.
In the coveted southwest corner of The Austonian's 33rd floor is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit that packs a lot of transitional style into its 2,185 square feet. Greer Interior Design has accented #33CC's custom floorplan with such luxurious perks as Scavolini cabinetry, Waterworks fixtures and sinks, and a gourmet kitchen outfitted with Viking, Sub-Zero, and Thermador appliances.
You can also count on the traditional "must-haves": gleaming wood floors and natural stone countertops (granite in the kitchen, marble in the bathrooms), along with an oversize kitchen island for extra seating. There's also a separate office and a butler's pantry, which provides excellent storage as well as a convenient spot for a home command center. Two reserved parking spaces and a climate-controlled storage unit are additional pluses.
But the most jaw-dropping feature is the home's stunning views, which can be enjoyed through the many walls of floor-to-ceiling windows. Sunsets over Lady Bird Lake and the glittering Austin skyline greet you at every turn, reiterating just how incredible The Austonian's location truly is.
Living in this illustrious building also comes with a hefty list of its own perks — 40,000 square feet of them, to be precise. From the serene 10th floor lawn with its saltwater lap pool and outdoor kitchen and fireplaces to the top-floor fitness center, which includes a yoga/pilates studio and more than 20 pieces of resort-quality equipment, every amenity is designed to greatly enhance the residents' quality of life.
Add in a billiards bar, private spa treatment rooms, interior dog grooming room (for when Fido is finished romping around the 600-square-foot dog park), stocked library, temperature-controlled wine room, and 12-seat movie theater, and there's not a need that hasn't been anticipated and then surpassed. There's even a 6,000-square-foot space on the 55th floor called the Austonian Club where residents can host events.
Sheila Paynter of Wilson & Goldrick Realtors has the luxe listing, which is priced at $2,299,000.
This website is your new secret to booking the best hotel rates


text:
Q: Javascript not working when I change to Google JQuery Libraries? Previously I am using JQuery library from here
http://jquery.com/download/
http://code.jquery.com/jquery-migrate-1.2.1.min.js

I try to include the following code, it work perfectly.
Javascript
   $(document).ready(function(){
                function loading_show(){
                    $('#loading').html("").fadeIn('fast');
                }
                function loading_hide(){
                    $('#loading').fadeOut('fast');
                }
                function loadData(page){
                    loading_show();
                    $.ajax
                    ({
                        type: "POST",
                        url: "listcontact.php",
                        data: "page="+page,
                        success: function(msg)
                        {
                            $("#con").ajaxComplete(function(event, request, settings)
                            {
                                loading_hide();
                                $("#con").html(msg);
                            });
                        }
                    });
                }
                loadData(1);  // For first time page load default results
                $('#con .pagination li.active').live('click',function(){
                    var page = $(this).attr('p');
                    loadData(page);

                });
                $('#go_btn').live('click',function(){
                    var page = parseInt($('.goto').val());
                    var no_of_pages = parseInt($('.total').attr('a'));
                    if(page != 0 && page <= no_of_pages){
                        loadData(page);
                    }else{
                        alert('Enter a PAGE between 1 and '+no_of_pages);
                        $('.goto').val("").focus();
                        return false;
                    }

                });
            });

HTML

And Then I try to use JQuery js from Google instead from JQuery.com
https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/devguide#jquery
ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.1/jquery.min.js

The Tab menu still can work, however I cannot get any data from listcontact.php
How can I make it work in Google JQuery?
this is all my script tag

This is my tab menu

More Details

Contact

Files

Sales pipeLine

Call report

            <?php //include('viewdetail.php') ;?>

 <?php
 if( $view == 0)
 {
include('contact.php');
 }
 else
 {
  include('newcontact.php') ;
 }

  ?>

 <?php //include('filemanagement.php') ;?>

         Under Development

           <?php //include('callReport.php') ;?>

The code is inside my contact page, when I try to include it inside my tab

A: Are you developing locally? Or remotely?
If you are local....you usually have to attach http:// to the google apis

If not then just....

Should work...
This should also be replaced...from .live() to .on() as .live() is now deprecated
 $('body').on('click','#go_btn', function(){
                var page = parseInt($('.goto').val());
                var no_of_pages = parseInt($('.total').attr('a'));
                if(page != 0 && page <= no_of_pages){
                    loadData(page);
                }else{

EDIT / UPDATE
You posted this...

Change to this...

The jquery needs to be above the jquery-ui, as the ui has a dependancy on Jquery, and you can remove v1.9 no sense in loading jquery twice
EDIT 3
I would change this...you don't need that ajaxComplete call, since the success function is doing that anyway...
                $.ajax
                ({
                    type: "POST",
                    url: "listcontact.php",
                    data: {page: page},
                    success: function(msg)
                    {
                            loading_hide();
                            $("#con").html(msg);

                    }
                });

And you made sure to change both your live()'s???
You had two, the other one should look like this...
$('body').on('click','#con .pagination li.active' function(){
                var page = $(this).attr('p');
                loadData(page);
            });

A: Looks like live might not work with the latest version
Replace
.live('click'

with
.on('click'

If there are any dynamically added elements on the page replace your events with this syntax
$(staticContainer).on('click', 'selector'  function(){

Where staticContainer is the closest static ancestor of the element.
selector is the element to which you want to attach the event.

A: try to include the same version JQuery from google :
Number of version JQuery from google should be equal number of version JQuery from Jquery website
but if you want to use recent version, there are some changes , and you should modify something in your code, see log console for more info about problem and check documentation of JQuery here

A: I had experience with similar issue, it may deal with deprecated functions! check EACH piece of function, so that deprecated methods are corrected :) Hope this help you go to somewhere right :)
deprecated-ajax-or-jquery-command-cause-no-result-returned
Enjoy!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Het WTA-toernooi van Acapulco is een jaarlijks terugkerend tennistoernooi voor vrouwen dat onderdeel is van het tennistoernooi van Acapulco en wordt georganiseerd in de Mexicaanse stad Acapulco. De officiële naam van het toernooi is Abierto Mexicano Telcel.

De WTA organiseert het toernooi dat in de categorie "International" valt en dat tot en met 2013 werd gespeeld op gravel. Sinds 2014 is hardcourt de ondergrond. Tegelijkertijd spelen de mannen op dezelfde locatie het ATP-toernooi van Acapulco. Het hotel waar dit toernooi traditioneel wordt gehouden, stond tot en met 2015 bekend als het Fairmont Acapulco Princess – door verandering van eigenaar heet het sinds 2016 Princess Mundo Imperial.

De eerste editie werd in 2001 gehouden. In het enkelspel waren tot nog toe de Zuid-Afrikaanse Amanda Coetzer, de Italiaanse Flavia Pennetta, de Amerikaanse Venus Williams, de Italiaanse Sara Errani en de Oekraïense Lesja Tsoerenko het meest succesvol in Acapulco met elk twee toernooizeges. Tussen 2004 en 2009 bereikte Pennetta zelfs zes maal op rij de finale.

Officiële toernooinamen

Meervoudig winnaressen enkelspel

Enkel- en dubbelspeltitel in één jaar

Finales

Enkelspel

Dubbelspel

Externe link
 Officiële website

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Did you mean flights from Chillagoe?
Find cheap flights to Chillagoe with Skyscanner. Booking flights with Skyscanner is simple, fast and best of all free to use!
Compare cheap flights to Chillagoe by simply using the search box above. The search results will show you the widest range of airlines and travel agents offering cheap flights to Chillagoe anywhere on the web, the you can simply book your flights to Chillagoe directly by clicking through to agency or airline sites.
If your travel dates are flexible Skyscanner can show you the cheapest days in the month to fly to Chillagoe, just choose whole month in the date selection, our graphs show you the best time to fly to Chillagoe so you can really grab yourself a cheap flight everywhere.
Need to book a hotel for your stay in Chillagoe?. For the best hotel deals in Chillagoe have a look at Skyscanner Hotels. Skyscanner searches all the best hotel suppliers to bring you best deals in Chillagoe.
If you've found a great price on your flights to Chillagoe then bookmark Skyscanner and come back to search and book for free on hundreds of airlines and thousands of destinations worldwide.
Looking for the best time to book cheap flights to Chillagoe?
Use our 'Best Time to Book' tool, to make sure you're getting the best price for your flight tickets to Chillagoe.
Track the price of flights to Chillagoe by registering for Skyscanner Price Alerts.
If you our after last minute flights, our guide to finding last minute deals will help you get to Chillagoe for less.
The Skyscanner Travel App: Monitor your flight status to Chillagoe with our free app!
We'll track your flight information and let you know the latest schedule information and any changes to information for your journey to Chillagoe.


text:
Q: Excel crash when copy worksheet to new workbook Select option to move or copy workbook to new workbook. Fatal error.
Select option to move or copy workbook within same workbook, OK.
Only crashes when copy to new. No specific error message, says "Microsoft Excel has stopped working".
Tried clearing conditional formats, cleared a bunch of calculations errors, checked directory permissions - no change. No VBA in file, xlsx format.
Excel 2013, 32bit.
Has anyone else encountered this?
EDIT:
Recovered an error message code:
Additional information about the problem:
   LCID: 1033
   skulcid: 1033


text:
\section{Downloading the Dataset and the Software Package}
\input{where_to_download}

\clearpage

\section{Datasheet}

\definecolor{darkblue}{RGB}{46,25, 110}

\newcommand{\dssectionheader}[1]{%
\phantomsection
   \noindent\framebox[\columnwidth]{%
      {\fontfamily{phv}\selectfont \textbf{\textcolor{darkblue}{#1}}}
   }
  \addcontentsline{toc}{subsection}{#1}
}

\newcommand{\dsquestion}[1]{%
\medskip
\phantomsection
    {\noindent \fontfamily{phv}\selectfont \textcolor{darkblue}{\textbf{#1}}}
  \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{#1}
\smallskip
    }

\newcommand{\dsquestionex}[2]{%
\medskip
\phantomsection
    {\noindent \fontfamily{phv}\selectfont \textcolor{darkblue}{\textbf{#1} #2}}
  \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{#1}
    \smallskip
}
\input{datasheet_content}

\clearpage
\listoffigures
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{List of Figures}
\listoftables
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{List of Tables}

\end{document}
\section*{Checklist}

\begin{enumerate}

\item For all authors...
\begin{enumerate}
  \item Do the main claims made in the abstract and introduction accurately reflect the paper's contributions and scope?
    \answerYes{To the best of our assessment}
  \item Did you describe the limitations of your work?
    \answerYes{Those we could think about, see Discussion}
  \item Did you discuss any potential negative societal impacts of your work?
    \answerYes{See Discussion}
  \item Have you read the ethics review guidelines and ensured that your paper conforms to them?
    \answerYes{Yes, and we discussed abundantly with our advisors sepcialized in human rights and geographical information systems.}
\end{enumerate}

\item If you are including theoretical results...
\begin{enumerate}
  \item Did you state the full set of assumptions of all theoretical results?
    \answerNA{No theoretical results}
	\item Did you include complete proofs of all theoretical results?
    \answerNA{No theoretical results}
\end{enumerate}

\item If you ran experiments (e.g. for benchmarks)...
\begin{enumerate}
  \item Did you include the code, data, and instructions needed to reproduce the main experimental results (either in the supplemental material or as a URL)?
    \answerYes{Coming in the supplementary material on June 16th.}
  \item Did you specify all the training details (e.g., data splits, hyperparameters, how they were chosen)?
    \answerYes{Coming in in the supplementary material on June 16th.}
	\item Did you report error bars (e.g., with respect to the random seed after running experiments multiple times)?
    \answerYes{We went further and compared the distribution of the means and the distributions over the whole validation set.}
	\item Did you include the total amount of compute and the type of resources used (e.g., type of GPUs, internal cluster, or cloud provider)?
    \answerYes{We indicated the main speed of training, and will include details in the supplementary material. We are a small operation, running on one single Amazon instance, so will not be a bottleneck to reproducibility}
\end{enumerate}

\item If you are using existing assets (e.g., code, data, models) or curating/releasing new assets...
\begin{enumerate}
  \item If your work uses existing assets, did you cite the creators?
    \answerYes{See references for all datasets used.}
  \item Did you mention the license of the assets?
    \answerYes{In the abstract and under section 1.2.}
  \item Did you include any new assets either in the supplemental material or as a URL?
    \answerYes{A whole new dataset, to be hosted on Zenodo with a DOI, and temporarily in a private Google Drive whose URL will be supplied to the reviewers.}
  \item Did you discuss whether and how consent was obtained from people whose data you're using/curating?
    \answerYes{Mentioned our providers in the text.}
  \item Did you discuss whether the data you are using/curating contains personally identifiable information or offensive content?
    \answerYes{See final section.}
\end{enumerate}

\item If you used crowdsourcing or conducted research with human subjects...
\begin{enumerate}
  \item Did you include the full text of instructions given to participants and screenshots, if applicable?
    \answerNA{}
  \item Did you describe any potential participant risks, with links to Institutional Review Board (IRB) approvals, if applicable?
    \answerNA{}
  \item Did you include the estimated hourly wage paid to participants and the total amount spent on participant compensation?
    \answerNA{}
\end{enumerate}

\end{enumerate}

\section{Introduction}

\subsection{The Problem}

Computer vision and satellite imagery seem to be a match made in heaven. The idea to automatically process the growing amount of imagery collected has been lingering for decades in the remote sensing and the earth observation communities. The appeal of seeing the whole planet, and analyzing it at scale, is akin to few others. Many attempts have been made throughout the last thirty years. The ever-higher resolution of imagery available to civilians, and the last decade of improvement in Machine Learning and Computer Vision, have brought tools that could be brilliantly assistive in that regard. Some very visible scientific successes have been  published, such as\citep{jean_combining_2016}. Even prominent Deep Learning innovators cut their teeth early on as Master students on applications to satellite imagery, e.g.  \citet{mnih_learning_2010}. And prominent tools like Google Earth, which gives everyone access to high-resolution aerial imagery (although not all of it obtained by satellite), is a trigger for imagination. The dream runs deep.

However, the full potential of these two fields has been hindered by a combination of factors, in particular data access and the associated costs.

Broadening access to cutting edge technology is a hacker's delight: some satellite imagery can actually be received by any accessible for any amateur with an antenna up their roof -- back as an undergrad the first author built a cheap reception, storage, and processing station for low-resolution Meteosat Second Generation imagery \citep{beaudoin_meteosat_2005}, undercutting ten-fold the cost of commercial stations at the time. Fun and games. And while such hijinks on reception stations are not feasible for high-accuracy digital imagery, since 2015, the European Sentinel 2 satellites have been providing medium-resolution imagery (10 m/pixel) for free every five days accross the world for anyone who knows how to access them.

Yet, high-resolution imagery (1 m/pixel) or very-high-resolution (sub 1 m/pixel) are still out of easy reach. In a more recent work with Amnesty International to detect destroyed villages in conflict zones, \citep{cornebise_witnessing_2018}, we discovered that the cost to purchase a single very-high-resolution mosaic of the whole of Darfur, akin to Google Earth at maximum zoom, would cost 4 Million USD, even including a generous discount for charities. This makes it a tremendous challenge to even experiment with computer vision for high resolution.

Even setting cost aside, and assuming, as some hope, that the thunderous technological advances in launch technologies unlock a deluge a high-resolution imagery at a smaller price point, the key material for Machine Learning is still simply not there: carefully curated datasets to train on!  Accessing satellite imagery, even Sentinel 2, requires a certain amount of domain knowledge, more so than for natural images that can be sourced pretty much anywhere. The barrier to entry is real.

Indeed open high-resolution satellite imagery datasets are still quite rare, and the few who do exist tend to be either small, cover few unique locations, ad-hoc locations, or are designed for very specific uses. The SpaceNet challenge datasets \citep{van_etten_spacenet_2018} are possibly the most widely used satellite imagery datasets. Their combined unique location area is close to WorldStrat with a bit more than 10 000 km², but it is mainly focused on urban structures and made for specific tasks like building or road detection, with varying data providers and resolutions, and with no paired multi-temporal low-resolution imagery.

We mention paired lower-resolution, because another hope to work around the lack of access lies in the field of Super-Resolution: being able to derive from (possibly multiple) free low-resolution satellite revisits the same insights that would be available from a single high-resolution satellite visit of the corresponding area.  While we want to build datasets that can be used for a whole breadth of applications, making them suitable for super-resolution brings a swath of extra benefits.

On that topic, the  ESA Kelvins PROBA-V dataset \citep{martens_super-resolution_2019} and the associated competition have been a boon for such multi-frame super-resolution, but is single-channel and most importantly is very low resolution at 300 m/pixel and 100 m/pixel. It is also not georeferenced or time-referenced. However, it allowed us to develop the high-performing HighRes-Net multi-frame super-resolution algorithm \citep{deudon_highres-net_2020}. There is a an abundant literature on multiframe super-resolution for natural images and videos, but quite not as much in satellite imagery -- which we will cover in Section~\ref{sec:superres}.

The very recent dataset by \citet{michel_sen2vens_2022} promises to enable single-image super-resolution. covers only 29 unique locations, on 806 unique \sqkm, at 5 meter/pixel. It offers nine revisits for each location, remarkably pairing one single low-resolution and one high-resolution for each visit. This is somewhat promising, but still lacks the breadth we hope for.

To the best of our knowledge, no dataset tries to be generic and cover systematically the whole type of land-use across the world. Even fewer are explicitly designed with the aim of transferring learning to high-availability lower-resolution data: low-resolutions from Sentinel 2 can be manually added, but at the price of  extra work and expertise.

\subsection{Our Contributions}

\begin{figure}[htbp]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[height=1\textwidth]{summary_main_fig.pdf}
  \caption{Summarizing the construction and classes of the WorldStrat dataset.\label{fig:summary_construction}}
\end{figure}

We aim to empower the development of machine learning for satellite imagery that can be used for a wide range of applications: from ecology and climate change monitoring, to urbanization, to sociology, to disaster preparation, to agriculture, etc.  Our focus while building this dataset and its accompanying benchmarks and software package has therefore been to:
\begin{itemize}
  \tightlist
  \item Maximise the representation of all possible features of interest, for the widest possible use-cases.
  \item Have a decent worldwide representativity -- especially relevant in light of the need for Fairness Accountability and Transparency in ML, which includes the problem datasets often biased towards the Global North.
  \item And provide a pipeline that allows easy reproducibility by others, and extension if extra budget becomes available.
\end{itemize}

Our resulting dataset, the \textbf{World Stratified Dataset} (or WorldStrat for short) \citep{cornebise_worldstrat_2022} covers \textbf{~10,000 \ssqkm~, and 4,000 distinct locations, specially curated for the highest diversity of possible uses}.   In particular, as visualised in Figure~\ref{fig:summary_construction}, we separated our image acquisition budget into three parts:
\begin{itemize}
\tightlist
  \item One part focusing on human settlements further stratified by population density: filtering the world for settlements according to the ESA CCI LandCover product \citep{esa_land_v20} (which is licensed without restrictions under the CCI Data Policy v1.1 ), then sub-stratifying according to the Urban density class of the  Global Human Settlement Layer SMOD product \citep{florczyk_ghsl_2019} (which is licensed under CC-BY).
  \item A second part focused on non-settlement areas, using stratified sampling and class-rebalancing across the Land Cover Classification System labels of the ESA CCI LandCover product, and more precisely its aggregation into classes provided by the International Panel on Climate Change.
  \item Finally, a third part is focused on use cases typically under-served by usual datasets and not covered by the above. We sourced points of interests from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for populations of concerns (which is licensed under CC-BY-IGO), from Amnesty International for human rights sites of interest (with permission), and ESA ASMSpotter for illegal mining (with permission).
\end{itemize}

At each resulting location, along with the label, we provide the following imagery:
\begin{itemize}
  \tightlist
  \item One High-Resolution multispectral image from Airbus SPOT 6/7 (licensed a paid-for extension to ESA TPM license granting redistribution under CC-BY-NC), in RGB (6 m/pixel), Near Infrared (6 m/pixel), and Pan-chromatic channels (1.5m / pixel), at 1054x1054 pixels at the highest resolution.
  \item 16 Low-Resolution revisits from Copernicus Sentinel 2 (licensed without restrictions under Copernicus Sentinel Data Legal Notice and Service Information), temporally matched to the High-Resolution image -- within 5 days for the temporally closest. All 12 spectral bands are covered, at up to 10 m/pixel.
\end{itemize}

The rest of the article is structured as follows. In Section~\ref{sec:stratif}, we present how we have curated the parts of the world we cover, aka Areas Of Interest (AOIs), to offer maximum representativity of the world and of use cases.   In Section~\ref{sec:imagery}, we describe the characteristics of the paired imagery available at every AOI, both in low- and high-resolution, and how it can be easily extended.   In Section~\ref{sec:benchmarks}, to illustrate one possible use of this dataset, we establish baselines on multi-frame super-resolution tasks using several architectures, with an emphasis on compute efficiency. We also present the toolbox integrated with popular package EO-learn to use, reproduce, and extend, all our work.
We conclude in Section~\ref{sec:discussion} by discussing ideas tried and discarded along the way, as well as possible extensions.

\section{Curating Highly Representative Locations}
\label{sec:stratif}
The JIF dataset covers almost 10,000 \sqkm. Each base AOI is 2.5 \sqkm, i.e. 1,581 meters per side, the minimum contiguous order size allowed by Airbus, provider of the high-resolutiom imagery. This maximizes the number of AOIs within the allotted budget.

\subsection{Stratifying The World}
We use the first half of the dataset to attempt a systematic, stratified coverage of the world.
 The question becomes: how do we chose these locations to ensure a ''best'' application-agnostic dataset for super-resolution?

Sixty precent will be taken from the ``Settlement'' class from the ESA CCI LandCover Product,
  which we then stratify according to the Global Human Settlement Layer
  SMOD for different types of urban density, and with marginal distribution
  proportional to the cubic root of the actual distribution -\/- to
  keep the order of classes but diminish the overall imbalance.

 Fourty  percent o will be taken from all the other IPCC classes, i.e.
  non-settlement,
stratified according to (non-settlement) IPCC class, marginal
  distribution proportional to the cubic root of the actual
  distribution,  .and within each (non-settlement) ~IPCC class, again stratifying,
  according to the LCCS class (thinner vegetation typology), again with
  cubic root proportions.

\subsection{Why stratifying by land-use}
In an optimal sampling entirely focused on super-resolution, we would first find a latent-space feature-based clustering of satellite imagery, not unlike \citep{jean2019tile2vec}. Then, inspired by the classical statistical tools variance-minimizing design of experiments \citep{atkinson2007optimum}, we would sample each semantic cluster proportionally to how difficult it is to super-resolve.

Quantifying this would, at best, be done via some form of active learning, with the problem of being dependent on the actual super-resolution algorithm used in the process, or at worst, require having first solved the super-resolution problem, neither of which is quite satisfying.
 Besides, this would, again, be optimized solely for super-resolution: we aim for broader.

A proxy frequently used in statistical design of experiment is instead be to sample each semantic class proportionally to its variance. While this works well for numerical features, variance is not a clearly defined quantity for visual features. There would be an interesting methodological question to be investigated as to what a form of "semantic variance" would look like, but is quite a deep methodological topic and would take us into a rabbit hole out of scope of this project.

This ideal schema being quite ill-defined, we move on to a more pragmatic choice.

A pragmatic way to decide on an optimal dataset suitable for a broad range of applications is instead to ensure a representation of every type of land. This prepares equally for studies of urban space, of ice coverage, of limnology, etc.

We could sample POIs uniformly on POIs uniformly on the WSG84 ellipsoid, conditionally on being on land (by, say, rejection sampling), then filter the resulting POIs by SPOT availability. However this would not provide any guarantee as to how much each type of land use would be represented, nor in which proportion. The law of large numbers would guarantee a representation asymptotically proportional to the real world, but this does not provide any
fine-grained control, nor any representation of rare classes: random fluctuations would not be controlled for, which is problematic when the number of samples is ``far from asymptotic'' -- as in our case.

Instead, we can stratify by ``land use'', for some definition thereof, exploiting ample prior art on land use and land cover classifications.

The ESA Climate Change Initiative Land Cover Products (ESA CCI LCP) \citep{esa_land_v20}. This worldwide land cover map is based on Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) hierarchical system \citep{di2005land}. Moreover, it nests it hierarchy within a coarser classification suggested by the International Panel for Climate Change \cite{esa_land_v20}[page 30.], reflecting the preoccupations of climate change studies.

\subsubsection{Sampling the Non-Urban World}

We sampled 2,000 \sqkm at 800 POIs and stratified them using the IPCC classification found in the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Land Cover 2019 dataset. We then rebalanced the classes using cubic-root importance sampling, e.g. to under-represent on-purpose the surprisingly large planet-wide proportion of moss/lichen-covered land. The points were enriched to include ice-caps, noticeably absent from the original classification but of core importance both for climate analysis, geopolitical implications, and new logistics routes.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth]{images/lccs_ipcc_classes.png}\hfill
  \includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth]{images/lccs_ipcc_cbrt_classes.png}
  \caption{Distribution of the IPCC classes over the whole world (left), and the class-rebalanced sample using cubic root (right). \label{fig:lccs_ipcc_classes}}
\end{figure}

The rationale for using importance sampling with the cubic root of
the population distribution as the proposal is the following:

\vspace{-1em}
\begin{itemize}
\tightlist
\item We want to make sure we have a higher representation of rare classes,
  i.e. not being dominated by the classes that are already highly
  present naturally, because we wouldn't want our super-resolution to
  miss a rare object that would be out of place.
\item But we do still want to acknowledge that classes that are highly
  present naturally are possibly be super-resolved quite often, so we do
  not want to completely flatten the histogram by sampling uniformly.
\end{itemize}
Hence the cubic root as a compromise, which boosts rare classes but does keep the monotonous order relationship between the classes. The result is visible in Figure~\ref{fig:lccs_ipcc_classes}.

\subsubsection{Sampling the Urban World: Nested Stratification of Urban Density with GHSL SMOD}

We sampled 3,000 \sqkm at 1,200 POIs and filtered them by the "Urban" class found in the ESA CCI dataset. The points were then stratified by the density in Global Human Settlement Layer S-MOD, which combines census and build-up data. The S-MOD classes were also rebalanced by cubic-root importance sampling. We wanted to oversample the Settlement class, as it is quite crucial for a very wide range of applications, from geography to economics to demographics to aid planning to disaster recovery.

The Global Human Settlement Layer, an in particular its SMOD product \citep{florczyk_ghsl_2019}, focuses on density of building and population. A titanic work, it is not without  shortcomings, documented by~\citet{van_den_hoek_satellite-based_2021}, especially regarding informal settlements. Those would make it ill-suited for our needs, were it not complemented by the UNHCR-provided POIs.

Within the 1200 POIs classified as Settlement under the IPCC classification in ESA CCI LC, we stratify with respect to GHSL SMOD.  ESA CCI LC is of higher spatial resolution than SMOD.  But IPCC is of coarser semantic resolution than SMOD. SMOD has indeed multiple settlement classes, visible in Figure~\ref{fig:summary_construction}.

The relation in spatial resolution is inverse of the relation in land
use resolution. Therefore it makes extra sense to stratify IPCC settlement tiles (which
are of a smaller size than SMOD tiles) according to the type of (larger)
SMOD tile they fall into. This guarantees that we will have sampled
``IPCC settlements tiles'' from a varying type of surrounding urban
environment (as provided by SMOD).

\subsection{AOIs from Under-Represented Key Users}

The second half of the dataset is obtained by sourcing 3,895 sq km around 1,062 Points Of Interest (POIs) from specialists of use-cases ignored by most existing datasets. For the rarer type of POIs, we sample 9 actual images in a non-overlapping grid centered on the POI.

NGOs and charities in Earth Observation interested about using recent Machine Learning articles are often met with the sobering answer ``Sorry, our models have never been trained on this type of landscape''. This is for example the case for informal settlements, refugee camps.  Most existing satellite imagery datasets, such as SpaceNet \citep{van_etten_spacenet_2018}, are often centred on urban features in large cities -- when they even cover beyond North America.

We also know that some of the highest benefits of this technique will go to social change actors who otherwise absolutely cannot afford high-resolution imagery.

For that reason,  we contacted high-potential users to inquire about the type of landscape they operate in. By obtaining examples of their past and ongoing points of interest (POIs) we ensure that our dataset will contain examples of the type of terrains in regions typically relevant to those users.

\textbf{Amnesty International}, focusing on human rights violations and conflict areas: 495 \sqkm at 22 POIs, with 9 AOIs around each POIs.  Amnesty International's geospatial specialist Micah Farfour, specialised in satellite monitoring of human rights abuse and environmental abuse, provided us with 22 POIs across the globe, ranging from barracks to prisons to mass grave sites. To make up for their small number, we ordered each of them on a 3x3 grid of minimum-size tiles, i.e. a total of 22.5 \sqkm per POI, with a total of 495 \sqkm.

\textbf{ASMSpotter}, focusing on illegal mining in remote areas. 900 \sqkm at 40 POIs, with 9 AOIs around each POIs, mostly in South America.  ASMSpotter's data specialist  Moritz Besser provided 40 POIs which we ordered similarly to Amnesty's, covering 900 \sqkm.

\textbf{United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)}, focusing on informal human settlements in disaster and conflict areas. 2,500 \sqkm at 1,000 POIs, one AOI per POI. Oregon State University professor Jamon Van de Hoek, specialised in human settlements and in particular informal settlements -- see e.g. his latest publication \cite{van_den_hoek_satellite-based_2021} studying the Global Human Settlement Layer --
kindly provided us with 3,000 POIs from the Persons of Concerns UNHCR Dataset~\citep{unhcr_2021}), which we downsampled to 1,000.

Since certain parts of the world have a particularly high density of UNHCR-register location (e.g. in the Middle East), we avoided overlapping AOIs by ensuring all our AOIs are at least 10 km apart, using rejection sampling.

\section{Imagery}
\label{sec:imagery}

\vspace{-1em}
\subsection{High-Resolution: Single Visit SPOT 6/7}

\vspace{-1em}
Each AOI has a single visit of SPOT 6/7 high-resolution imagery, over five spectral bands.  The panchromatic band has a resolution of 1.5 m/pixel, hence a 1,054x1,054 pixel image per 2.5 \sqkm AOI. The Red, Green, Blue, and Near Infrared bands are each at 6 m/pixel.
The date of the visit has been picked at random between 2017 and 2019 amongst the visits whose whole-scene cloud-cover is lower than 5\%. Because our AOIs are much smaller than a full SPOT scene, it is not absolutely guaranteed that the actual image has precisely 5\% cloud -- it is likely to be entirely empty of clouds. This provides a good target image to reconstruct in the case of super-resolution.
A glimpse of the imagery is show in Figure~\ref{fig:tile}.

\subsection{Low-Resolution: Multiple Revisits Sentinel 2}

\vspace{-1em}
For each high-resolution visit, we have 16 revisits. We picked revisits' dates centered on SPOT visit. If more than 16 revisits per SPOT visit are needed, they are available via SentinelHub. The average time between revisits is 5 days. All 12 bands are available for each revisit. The resolution ranges from from 10 m/pixel (for RGB) to 60 m/pixel.

 We chose to not filter the low resolution Sentinel 2 revisits by their cloud coverage. This is to try and ensure the training distribution on the low resolution is similar to the real world use cases, where the user will want to rebuild at a given place at a given time. Algorithms should learn to ignore clouds and be able to assemble a view from the cloudless parts of the cloudy revisits.

\subsection{Temporal Selection: Matching AOI, Low-Res, and High-Res Imagery}

Unlike Sentinel2, SPOT is only available where and when it has been tasked. This raises two questions: How available and at which dates is SPOT high-resolution imagery of the POIs we have sampled? For each SPOT visit, how available is the Sentinel2 imagery, within which time window around the date of the SPOT visit?

Figure~\ref{fig:revisits} illustrates the number of Sentinel2 revisits (Y-axis) over each start and end date (up to +/- 6 months, coloured lines) around each SPOT visit (X axis at 0) of  each of the 22 Amnesty POIs (cell), sorted by latitude.
\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=1\textwidth]{images/n_s2_revisists.png}
    \caption{Number of Sentinel 2 visits for each SPOT visits on Amnesty International's AOIs}
    \label{fig:revisits}
\end{figure}

The takeaway from this admittedly elaborate figure is that in theory we could try to pick POIs and SPOT visit times that maximise the number of Sentinel2 imagery available within a fixed length time window, so as to have the richest training set.  We do indeed observe some variation in that regard: some of these lines go much higher than others.

However, this would induce an implicit bias of a nature hard to interpret. We also observe that within a POI, the discrepancy between the number of S2 revisits, while clearly present, is reasonable, with multiple SPOT revisits offering similar S2 availability.

Finally, biasing per Sentinel2 imagery would be akin to biasing per Sentinel2 cloud coverage: this would not be a fair representation of real-world use cases, and we would therefore be training our models for the wrong problem.

We therefore took the decision yet again to solve a harder problem than an optimally-curated dataset would make for, so as to be the closest to reality. To that effect, within a POI, we pick uniformly at random the SPOT visit to use as a reference.

Of course, one bias remains: we will not have imagery of POIs that have never been tasked by SPOT customers. While unfortunate, there is no way around it, short of using another high resolution product. We do have hope in two mitigating factors:
\begin{itemize}
\tightlist
  \item SPOT swath covers more than just the single POI, so we cover areas that are possibly more diverse than just the one precise point of interest to the SPOT customer.
  \item SPOT tasking means the POI exhibits features of activity interesting to at least the SPOT customer. SPOT customers might not have entirely the same interests as the users of our open-source package, but it is not unreasonable to assume that the features will be transferable. Therefore, this implicit sampling is actually a positive way to ensure interesting features.
\end{itemize}

\section{Putting it to Use: Baselines, Benchmarks, and Source Code}

\subsection{Super-Resolution Benchmark}
\label{sec:superres}\label{sec:benchmarks}
We  illustrate the use of this dataset on the task of superresolution. While there has been considerable recent progress in multi-frame super-resolution (see \citet{freddie0, freddie1, freddie2, freddie3}), since this is not meant as an exhaustive benchmark article, we only focus on three architectures: the single-image super-resolution architecture SRCNN \citep{dong2015image}, our multi-frame extension of SRCNN by collating revisits as channels, and a multi-spectral modification of the original HighResNet \citep{deudon_highres-net_2020} to handle multiple bands similarly to \citep{razzak_multi-spectral_2021}. We accelerated the latter by replacing the learned ShiftNet by a simple cached alignment search. The two core architectures for (multi-frame) SRCNN and HighResNet are visualised in Figure~\ref{fig:architectures}.
\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth,valign=t]{MultiFrame_SRCNN.pdf}\hfill%
  \includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth,valign=t]{MultiSpectralHRNet.pdf}
  \caption{Multi-frame super-resolution architectures. Left: Multi-Frame SRCNN. Right: HighResNet. Single-frame SRCCN is achieved by using Multi-Frame SRCNN with a single revisit.\label{fig:architectures}}
\end{figure}

All implementations are our own, and the code as well as the trained models are released as part of our EOLearn plugin, described in the following section. Figure~\ref{fig:ci_metrics} shows the results. We refer to~\cite{martens_super-resolution_2019} for the metrics.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth]{mean_with_ci.pdf}\hfill%
  \includegraphics[width=.5\textwidth]{over_images.pdf}\hfill
  \caption{Comparing three architectures and two metrics over the validation set for three independent training runs. PSNR: higher is better. SSIM: lower is better. Left: comparing the 95\% confidence interval of the mean of the metric. Right: comparing the 95\% quantiles of the metric over the whole distribution of the validation set. Note how, while the means seem significantly different, the variability across the distribution absolutely dwarfs any impact of the algorithms, pointing to the need for moving away from means-based benchmark, and to the need for better algorithms.\label{fig:ci_metrics}}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Toolbox and EO-Learn Plugin}
In addition to the dataset, we open-source a Python package designed for ease of use. It integrates with the widely EO-Learn Python package as one in EO-Learn pipeline, and provides
abundant tutorial notebooks.  We made this dataset to be reproducible and extensible, and thus include
notebooks covering data collection, training, and inference of all baselines, with standardized interfaces in Pytorch Lightning. We provide the ability to  sample new training data as needed.
 Particular care was paid to High-Efficiency Training, to make this world accessible with modest computing budget: our variant of HighResNet \textbf{trains in  30 minutes on a single V100 GPU}, thanks to our fast caching mechanism for 95\% average GPU usage.

\section{Discussion}
\label{sec:discussion}

\vspace{-1em}
\textbf{Potential social impact:}
A whole coverage of the potential social impact of computer vision and remote sensing could cover a whole book. However, in our specific case, the only sensitive data are the UNHCR locations, but these have already been released by UNHCR themselves.

\textbf{Known limitations and future work:}
Although we want a broad range of applications to be possible with our trained models, we know that the frequency of revisits constrains us to structures that change at a slower pace than Sentinel2 revisits -- one revisit every five days. This puts more emphasis on permanent structures, such as buildings or a form of land occupation, and rules out higher temporal variability use cases, such as immediate state of crops.

We did not enrich the dataset with rivers/harbours and liminal coastal space. This could be done by finding maps of water courses, and selecting locations at these intersections.

Stratification could be endlessly refined. For example we considered but discarded stratifying by use of the  Local Climate Zones (LCZ) database of the World Urban Database
\citep{stewart_local_2012}. LCZ tries to identify the type of buildings on a
local scale, and is available for Europe, The Americas, and contributed zones
\citep{demuzere_lcz_2021}. However, the coverage of the contributed zones is not as wide as the GHSL.

The UNHCR Persons of Concerns dataset is not guaranteed to be extremely precise: its POIs are more likely ``in the neighbourhood'' of the actual settlements. We mitigate this by covering a 2.5 \sqkm area, and by accounting for the fact that temporary settlements are often similar to the surrounding settlements, which are therefore representative.

\acksection{Project empowered by the ESA Phi Lab (\url{https://philab.phi.esa.int}) as part of the ESA-funded QueryPlanet project 4000124792/18/I-BG CCN3.
\ifdefined\decrementstc
\decrementstc
\fi

We are very grateful to Pierre-Philippe Matthieu (ESA Phi-Lab) and Nicolas Longepe (ESA Phi-Lab) for their support and belief in this project. To Grega Milcinski (Sinergise) and SentinelHub for taking us on board QueryPlanet. To Jamon Van Den Hoek (Oregon State University) for his expertise on GHSL and providing the UNHCR POIs dataset. To  Micah Farfour (Amnesty International) for POIs of humanitarian interest. To Moritz Besser (dida Datenschmiede GmbH) for their ASMSpotter data. And Peggy Fischer, Bryan Keary, and Montserrat Del Riego (ESA TPM) for their support in making the imagery available publicly.}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


North & West Melbourne Precinct Association Inc.
Created in Australia, North & West Melbourne Precinct Association Inc. is a registered business and is a Other Incorporated Entity in accordance with local law. Its registration number is 65884705294 and it is currently Active from 7/31/2007.