McCall leads Partner Stories for Cisco's Global Partner Marketing team. As a storyteller and a connector by nature, McCall strives to propel our partners marketing practices by celebrating their individual successes and profitable growth with Cisco.
Born and raised in Raleigh, NC, McCall is passionate about her community where she serves on a local non-profit board. In between the busy work weeks, she enjoys getting outdoors with her golden retriever, treasure hunting at a local antique market or getting a sweat in at an exercise class.
When a large hospitality group was looking to improve the quality of their Wi-Fi across several of their restaurants, they called on Cisco Partner iValu8 to improve their customers' experience.
As a Cisco partner, Local Measure is a star player at creating meaningful experiences for any-sized crowds. Watch the Sydney Cricket Ground success story for more.
As Brisbane Airport continued to grow, they decided to expand passenger amenities and services. Learn how Cisco Partner Yell IT helped land the plane on this big project.
When a large hotel in the Caribbean wanted to improve their connectivity, and their guests experience, among its five hotels, Cisco Solution Partner Imagicle stepped in.


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H Home Holiday Resorts Spain Travel Guide Costa Dorada Salou Email this guide | Print the full guide
Salou Travel Guide
Ibiza Town © Spanish National Tourist Board
Situated on the Costa Dorada's sun-drenched coast, 50 miles (80km) west of Barcelona and six miles (10km) west of Tarragona, the popular holiday resort town of Salou is hard to beat for a fun family vacation. It is fairly spread out and merges with the neighbouring resorts of La Pineda to the east and Cambrils to the west, all of which benefit from the string of wonderful clean, sandy beaches and secluded rocky coves. As well as the natural attractions, Salou is also packed with entertainment for all ages, including numerous water sports, an aqua park, go-karting and the PortAventura Theme Park, one of Europe's most thrilling theme parks, formerly owned by Universal. Sightseers interested in museums or ancient history will find plenty to occupy them in nearby Tarragona, or on excursions into the countryside. Salou's seafront promenade is set with beautifully landscaped gardens and parks; fountains are lit up at night when holidaymakers stroll to the restaurants, nightclubs, bars and British-style pubs.
There is a good selection of souvenir and fashion stores in Salou, and holidaymakers who want to enjoy more extensive shopping can hop on a train and travel to the renowned shopping paradise of Barcelona, just 40 minutes away. Self-caterers will easily find all they need within the resort and there is a flea market in the old town centre of Salou on Mondays.
Eating out is relatively cheap and although many places cater to holidaymakers and British palates with international stables and pub grub, there are also plenty of good Spanish seafood restaurants and traditional tapas bars. There are Chinese and Italian restaurants as well for those wanting some variety.
Holidaymakers looking for a good night out in Salou will find plenty of fun bars, including popular options like Christy's Irish Bar, 007 Bond, Double Scotch or Charlie Chaplin's. The nightlife is varied, with flamenco venues, nightclubs and discos, but it may still be a a bit quiet for those meaning to do some serious partying. Luckily, Barcelona is under an hour away by train and well worth a visit for an energetic and atmospheric night out.
Even the most hyperactive child can be kept amused for weeks in Salou. Water sports such as banana boating and windsurfing can be arranged at the main beach and the PortAventura Theme Park can provide entertainment for two days or more, while the go-kart track and the aqua park in Pineda are also great fun for holidaymakers of all ages.
The beaches in Salou can get very crowded in July and August; however, quieter beaches and empty coves can be found nearby.
Things to see in Salou
The Costa Dorada's main city, Tarragona, has almost doubled in size during the last few decades, with its residential…
PortAventura Theme Park
This massive theme park, based on Busch Gardens in Florida, attracts holidaymakers from far afield to its 'Five Worlds'…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Senior Research Fellow (SRF): For SRF: M.E./ M.Tech in Mechanical/ Electronics and Instrumentation/ Mechatronics/ Embedded systems/ Electronics & Communication Engineering with 2 years' experience. OR B.E./B.Tech in Mechanical Engg. with valid GATE score and 2 years' experience.
(JRF): B.E./B.Tech in Mechanical Engg. with valid GATE score OR M.E./M.Tech in Mechanical/ Electronics and Instrumentation/ Mechatronics/ Embedded systems/Electronics & Communication Engineering.
Project Assistant-I: Diploma in Mechanical/ Agricultural Engineering with minimum 55% Marks.
Age Limits: Maximum 32 years for Senior Research Fellow (SRF) and 28 years for Junior Research Fellow (JRF)/ Project Assistant.
The interested candidates may appear before the selection committee with all their original certificates/ mark sheets/ project or thesis report or any other exhibits highlighting work of individual with self-attested copy of each of it and two recent passport size photographs with the filled in application form downloadable from institute website (www.cmeri.res.in/vacancy) as per the date and time given below.
A Walk-in-Interview will be conducted in the Video Conference Room, CPCFM Building of CSIRCMERI Centre of Excellence for Farm Machinery, Ludhiana on 15th & 16th November 2018.
The Walk-in-Interview Schedule: 15/11/2018 and 16/11/2018 on 9:30 AM.


The Disney Parks Blog created a fantastic series of images that list the attraction height requirements, and I think you will find this information very helpful as you make arrangements for your family's FastPass+ attractions. At the bottom of the Magic Kingdom article, you will find links to the other 3 theme parks and information about the Rider Switch service that Disney offers at select attractions.
Your son is still very young, and is not permitted to wait in line by himself at any of the attractions at the Walt Disney World Resort. If you plan to accompany him in the FastPass+ line for a special meet 'n' greet opportunity with his favorite Disney friends, you will also need to make a FastPass+ selection for yourself.
Thanks for bringing your great question to the Disney Parks Moms Panel, Charles. Wave 'hi' to Mickey for me!


Another week another win for Chris Halford as the Evening 10 Series winner showed just why he has won the competition in Round 13. Halford stopped the watch on 22 minutes 15 seconds in tough conditions, coping best with a strong headwind which blighted the hardest leg of the course, the climb to Cotwall Bank.
Halford was 29 seconds ahead of the nearest competition, which came from RAF CA rider Dan Watts, who posted an excellent 22:45 on a road bike. Halford's nearest competition for club honours came from newly-signed Rob Jackson, fourth in 23:48 33 seconds behind Cotswold Veldrijden rider Ian Pollard.
In the Non-aero division a rider trying out for the first time surprised many by taking the maximum six points on offer in this Series, with Richard Howes making an impressive debut of 26:18. But Peter Mulloy did enough to seal the Silver medal thanks to the five points gained for his 27:44 effort. And there was a welcome return for Wrekinsport's oldest member, making his first racing appearance of the season. 85 year-old Terry Collins ended his evening after crossing the line in 45:11.


my first generation wink is acting up and decided to disconnect it self and not reconnect today when doing an firmware update. I decided I may try using the hue hub to replace it. anyone here use their hue for third party bulbs, are there any issues to watch out for? I have both ge and cree bulbs.
turned out the problem was because of an update last night and it was fixed on their end. however I am still looking into having only one hub and since I already have the hue, it is something to look at.


text:
Situated design and universal maintenance
a software evolution pattern inspired by the free/libre open source software development
Ubiquity, Volume 2007 Issue July | BY Yuwei Lin , Enrico Zini
Full citation in the ACM Digital Library
Attempts of sharing and reusing software tools are growing in today's ICT design world, and open sourcing software seem to become a good practice for this end. Although some people have reservation over the quality and usability of free/libre open source software (FLOSS), there are plenty lessons we can learn from the evolution of FLOSS. Here, we suggest a software evolution pattern named 'Situated Design, Universal Maintenance' (SDUM) based on our observation on the FLOSS development. It says that software has to be (re)situated for local user needs and maintained universally. Instead of treating often-criticised issues about the FLOSS development such as release criteria and programming for the self as nuances, we argue that these issues are normal in an open development environment, which can be adequately illustrated by the SDUM pattern. By nature of such an open development environment, these issues will be resolved over the development process if collaboration between developers and users distributed around the world is successful.
2. Situated Design, Universal Maintenance
Informed by a variety of literature on 'user-centred design' (UCD) and 'universal design' (UD), the SDUM pattern, combining both streams of thoughts, suggests to design situated software for a specific group of users in the beginning of a development process, and encourages extensive usage and reusage of its code to aim for universal use. This pattern makes the coexistence of UCD and UD possible by bringing them into play in different phases of software development. UD-maintained code then becomes the shared code that holds together different UCD development efforts.
Open sourcing software can help maintain software development in a sustainable way, but continuous redesign is needed when the software is adopted and used in other contexts.
2.1. Why UCD+UD?
Both the user experience and the technical aspects of software. In a UCD-led design, users and their tasks and goals are emphasised for technological development and design. In UD-led design, a wide range of individual preferences and abilities are accommodated. UCD is specific for users in that leads to software that is designed to effectively solve one of their problems; UD is flexible because it leads to software that can be applied to different problems of different users, albeit less efficiently. If we see software development as a long-term and reiterating process during which the concepts of usability and usefulness, users' identity, goals, experiences, expectations, and environments where they reside are constantly defined and redefined, a piece of software should be better designed following a hybrid UCD+UD model, using both UCD and UD strategically depending on the stage of its development.
The pattern takes the idea of expansion/refactoring of Extreme Programming [1], and reuses it to accommodate both UCD and UD under one framework (i.e., a SDUM-based one). In the process of building this pattern, we also integrate our observations on and experiences of working with FLOSS and/or developing FLOSS. This pattern thus is informed by both empirical and theoretical materials.
2.3. The Description of the Pattern
We have observed that software development usually starts from designing for specifically identified audience at the very beginning of the design phase (e.g., a prototype), and later on makes the designed artefacts as accessible as possible. Situated Design keeps the design of new features grounded on a specific need. This would help adding new features or solving local problems easier.
Universal Maintenance makes functionalities more coherent through maintaining and consolidating resources universally. The universalisation will gradually make the software perfect and entice new adopters, opening up a new round of Situated Design.
An UCD-UD approach is not only beneficial for users but also for developers. Having reusable code to support various situated designs means software can be maintained by people with different needs. Diverse actors have freedom to focus on specific, user-centred design while at the same time cooperation happens in the maintenance of the universal building blocks used as a basis.
Overall, software that qualifies the description of the SDUM pattern must contain three aspects:
1)Unlimited lifetime: the lifetime of the software should be potentially unlimited, or at least long enough to fit multiple iterations of development and maintenance.
2)Reuse: it must allow reuse the software or part of it
3)Extensibility: The software must allow expansion motivated by the effort of maintenance towards universality.
SDUM tries to balance the complexity and simplicity in one design. Instead of implementing right from the beginning every possible feature in one software (which might lead to overdesign), or releasing an incomplete piece of abstract infrastructure for others to build on, SDUM suggests to properly implement what is needed, and allow the software to be reused and become a building block for new features.
While adding new features, development should remain grounded on local needs in order not to lose focus. In other words, universality is enabled through the accumulation of various local developments; maintenance towards universality is a process of engaging local activities of improving the quality and lifetime of the software.
2.4 Phenomenon
We have observed some phenomenon related to SDUM:
* Community-based development
SDUM allows a diverse range of people to work on the same project. As many have seen, the FLOSS innovation model fortifies the formation of a community and encourages a kind of community-based development that is more likely to lead to a sustainable design. Users and developers who share the same interest in specific lines of work would eventually get together. Through engaging a range of very different know-how on the software development, innovation derived from the same software can be taken place in many different fields.
* Reduced development cost
SDUM encourages collaboration which in turn distributes development costs. In the FLOSS field, the common practices of peer review, bug reports, feature requests and patch submissions all contribute to the development of the software. * Trust and collaboration
While SDUM enables and exploits beneficial coexistence of many and diverse forces in the development of a software, it brings into play all the range of issues connected to group dynamics: working together on a single piece of software requires some level of cooperation, where the contributors need some level of trust among each others, where development of new features can be free, but maintenance has to be carefully negotiated and coordinated, paid/funded/sponsored, with mediation across different views.
Considering the FLOSS development over the past two decades, we have observed that most of the FLOSS as a kind of 'situated software' [2] that was designed for users and often by users in a very specific context. This is claimed to be a problem with FLOSS according to Levesque [3]. She argues that open source programmers often tend to program with themselves as an intended audience, rather than the general public. But, what Levesque fails to see is the continuous evolution of software. Because when more developers found a piece of FLOSS useful, it gets further developed to be deployed and implemented in other environments. Another problem about release criteria raised by Glance [4] who questions the released Linux Kernel code involves a largely unknown level of quality can also be resolved over the universalisation process which accompanies with many customised and situated cases. Software quality is controlled collectively by all participants (users and developers) and negotiated over the evolution, which is a long, iterative and probably endless process.
This phenomenon seems to characterise a common software engineering practice: the original design and production of a program are for solving a specific problem, whilst later maintenance on and refactoring of it usually lead to modularisation and generalisation of the internal structure as well as the interface of the software. And this is what the SDUM pattern illustrates.
The development of many FLOSS projects has corresponded with the SDUM pattern, for instance, the development of GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). And a cross-dimension feature of software (across universality and specificity) an issue about forking and customisation emerge in looking at the SDUM pattern.
3.1. Universality and Specificity
A cross-dimention feature of software has been observed in this SDUM pattern. Such feature is illustrated with the case of GIMP. Started as a student assignment for a computer science course at the University of California Berkeley in 1995, GIMP has since then evolved towards universality, becoming a popular FLOSS image manipulation tool. Over years of development, its user interface components have been modularised and evolved to become the GTK libraries at the core of GNOME1 Desktop Environment. While the application becomes popular and is deployed in various environments, a customised version, Film Gimp (later 'Cinepaint'), emerges with contributions from the Hollywood entertainment industry to allow editing the frames in a movie2. The evolution of GIMP is illustrated in Figure 1, at the end of this paper.
Software such as GIMP that can be deployed in a wide range of diverse environments becomes an universal patrimony available for reuse. Such universal software enjoys the advantages of high maturity, availability of know-hows and shared cost of maintenance, but tends to get abstract and disconnected from its context of use. Therefore, it in turn becomes a building block for a new application for a targeted group. Some consecutive development of the new version may also improve the universal patrimony when continuing to serve a defined group of users. Such a software design process that spans universality and specificity can be conceptualised in the diagram shown as Figure 2, at the end of the paper.
And the connection between a universal system and originated and derived situated software is illustrated in Figure 3.
3.2. Debian Forking and Customisation
FLOSS that follows a SDUM pattern also faces challenges of forking and customisation. Debian GNU/Linux operating system (and project) is one of the successful cases that cope with this challenge well. The Debian GNU/Linux project currently engages around 1000 developers around the world on maintaining more than 16000 different software packages and creating new software. These members and other individuals and organisations interested in Debian enjoy a privilege of sharing and reusing a universal body of code to support their everyday software activities. Debian has a wide variety of derivative distributions (around 129 according Distrowatch.com). Making derivatives from Debian, however, is inefficient because the derived usually gets disconnected, completely or in part, from the activities within Debian itself for the sake of pursuing customisation. Custom Debian Distributions (CDD) project, thus, is initiated to make customisations of Debian fully maintained within Debian itself. The development of CDD echoes the SDUM pattern in allowing situated development to take place around a commonly maintained code.
While the meta level of Debian GNU/Linux distributes free software for users in the wide, 'CDD aims to provide a simple-to-learn environment that not only greatly enhances the value of the software, but also address the special skills, needs and interests of targeted users' [5]. And because these CDD projects (e.g. Debian-Edu) usually have a dual goal of improving Debian as a whole and solving the need of the target group, knowledge is exchanged fluidly between developers and users across projects and levels by means of tools such as bug tracking systems (BTS) and mailing lists. As such, the strategy of becoming a UCD-ed and UD-ed system increases interoperability of different packages and allows the modification of the system to suit the user's needs. On the one hand, Debian maintains standardised or open file formats with the specifications of which can be utilised by any system, including proprietary ones, but on the other hand, Debian is specialised to meet the needs of particular groups of users.
3.2.1 Debian-Edu
Debian-Edu, is one of the earliest and prominent custom Debian distributions. It is developed to fulfill the special requirements of educational organisations. Since 2003 it merged with SkoleLinux3, a successful Norwegian-led project to build, install and support a FLOSS-based operating system for schools.
Debian-Edu is customised to be simple, easy-to-use and user-friendly. It comes with a set of default features and contains major and essential FLOSS projects such as the Linux kernel, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, the Apache server, the Samba server, as well as smaller tools that are often used by teachers and students for teaching and learning, like DrGenius4, Celestia5, FET6 and Cerebrum7. All these software are packaged and ready for people to use and build an IT infrastructure on it. It is observed that the more these software programs are used, the faster the paces of their evolutions are, because they get feedbacks, documentation and even code contributions from their users communities.
SkoleLinux has been funding various development efforts. One of them is a function of automating the creation of lab user accounts when a new teacher or student gets registered at the school computer lab in the secretary archive. This function is very unique to schools because normally school computer labs are separated from the rest of the school administration and bridging the two things is a complicated task. In providing such a function, it not only solves a specific need of schools, which requires careful knowledge of the school workflow and internal systems, but also innovates Debian with a new component.
Through the collaboration with Debian, SkoleLinux has enjoyed several advantages including:
- development is done publicly together with a community of developers, increasing the likelihood of external contributions and peer review.
- maintenance costs are shared
- the groupwork inside Debian is an open channel for new know-how to be circulated
- the three Norwegian translations can be maintained by other Norwegian Debian users not involved in schools
- Debian users working in schools outside of Norway can get to know SkoleLinux, trying out its software and eventually get involved. Now Debian-Edu (merged with SkoleLinux) has branches in Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, France, Latvia, Norway, Spain and Turkey.
Given the example of Debian and Debian-Edu, the idea of customising software is crucial exactly because once a custom software is made, not only users can benefit from a specially designed product (e.g., Norweigian schools and SkoleLinux) and work more efficiently with it, but also the overall matrix software is advanced (e.g. Debian benefited from having special features tailored for schools) because of the localisation of the software.
What we have learned from the SDUM pattern is that (successful) FLOSS that follows a SDUM pattern has to survive a long lifetime, to allow reuse, to allow expansion beyond original developers' intentions. And then the software will mature as both cross-dimensional (universality and specificity) and receiving many forked and customised versions. Eventually, this will result in a community-based and economic development. Knowledge and experiences can be shared amongst all participants.
The SDUM pattern implicates in a rethink of software development and deployment methods. Instead of creating completely new software and releasing it under FLOSS licences, a wiser way of developing software tools is to find available resources, reuse and customise them. In so doing, the customised software is situated in local users needs and still connects to the universal system where open source code is stored in a large repository. The pattern and cases we have seen suggest that future software developments should harness on joint efforts and share development and maintenance costs in establishing a community of developers, users and sponsors.
Whilst the SDUM pattern proves the long-term benefits of designing long lived software that are aimed to be reused and extended beyond original intentions, it also shows the limited knowledge we have about socio-technical dynamics in distributed, community-based and user-centred software development processes. Future studies should look into socio-technical questions in software development, such as how to customise software for users' situated needs, relationship and communication in the collaboration between users and developers, mechanisms of sharing knowledge between all participants, and decision making in recylcing and reusing a piece of code.
[1] J. Highsmith, Extreme programming: Agile project management advisory service white paper. Cutter Consortium, 2002.
[2] C. Shirky, "Situated software", http://www.shirky.com/writings/situated_software.html,2004 ,2004 (Accessed 6 July 2006).
[3] M. Levesque, "Fundamental Issues with Open Source Software Development", First Monday 9(4), 2004. URL (retrieved on 6 July 2006): http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_4/levesque/index.html
[4] D. G. Glance, "Release Criteria for The Linux Kernel", First Monday 9(4), 2004. URL (retrieved on 6 July 2006): http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_4/glance/index.html
[5] A. Tille, "Custom Debian distribution", http://people.debian.org/~tille/debian-med/talks/paper-cdd/debian-cdd.html/, 2004. (Accessed 30 November 2005).
Fig. 1 The evolution of GIMP
Fig. 2 The Evolution of Software Suggested in SDUM
Fig. 3 Feedback Loops of Collaboration suggested in SDUM
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Ubiquity welcomes the submissions of articles from everyone interested in the future of information technology. Everything published in Ubiquity is copyrighted �2007 by the ACM and the individual authors.
Hey! I think if these things all the time for example if you but land do you own it all hte way to the core of the Earth? If a turtle doesnt have a shell is it naked or homeless?Why is bread square but most sandwich meat round? I liked your site it gave me some more things to think about!
��� REALNAME, Sun, 19 Dec 2010 02:09:40 UTC
What are costs for scoring state tests? Do schools bear them?
��� REALNAME, Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:29:27 UTC
Rarely leave comments, but really cool blog, good luck to you!
��� Watchesk, Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:27:39 UTC
I like the blog
��� Dorin Chirtoaca, Mon, 29 Nov 2010 19:32:05 UTC
hey,looks like we re on the same path. good stuff! come by and say hi! cheers Reginald Melchor
��� REALNAME, Sun, 28 Nov 2010 22:04:10 UTC
Interesting post
��� Mihai Ghimpu, Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:14:35 UTC


+ Kimberly Wylde to Secretary & Corporate Counsel @ Plazacorp Retail Properties Ltd.
+ Lynda Savoie to Treasurer @ Plazacorp Retail Properties Ltd.
+ Calgary city council has chickens coming home to roost; they set aside (or so they said they were going to) $40 million for a new main library facility, but never planned one. Now, the current one is falling apart and not code compliant � the price tag to fix the decrepit old facility is $53 million . . .
A hack golfer spends a day at a plush country club, playing golf, enjoying the luxury of a complimentary caddy. Being a hack golfer, he plays poorly all day. Round about the 18th hole, he spots a lake off to the left of the fairway. He looks at the caddy and says, "I've played so poorly all day; I think I'm going to go drown myself in that lake." The caddy looks back at him and says, "I don't think you could keep your head down that long."


Now what, according to the mind of the church, is the correct or proper expression of sexuality? In order to provide an adequate answer, it would be wise to consult a curious passage in the 12th chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans. The Apostle to the Gentiles writes: "Think of God's mercy…and worship him…in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God" (Rom. 12: 1). Sacrifice, of course, was central to ancient Israelite religion. A Jew would bring an unblemished animal to the Temple in Jerusalem and would then, through the mediation of a priest, offer it to God as a token of gratitude, worship, or penance. In doing so, he would align himself to God, bringing his mind, his will, his very body into right relationship with the Lord. Any pious Israelite would know that Yahweh, the Creator of the universe, had no need of these burnt offerings, unlike the gods of other nations who seemed to require them. But that faithful Jew also knew that he needed sacrifice, since it brought him into deeper communion with the God who loved him, making him like the God whom he worshiped.


Signature Roselia Gurgaon launched with 2BHK option connecting to Dwarka Expressway. Signature Global Affordable Housing Sector 95A Gurugram developing by builder side to provide efficient units. The project is located near to Sector 95 A Gurgaon where amenities and specifications are categorised only for 2 BHK residences. It is connected to IGI airport via Pataudi road by Signature Global. The upcoming residences are builder under the scheme of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna Gurgaon. Signature Global Gurgaon Sector 95 plans for pleasant living where they can accommodate their lifestyle according to Gurgaon.
Signature Global Roselia Sector 95A has to develop comfortable residences at new Gurgaon city. These apartments are combined with latest specifications. It is designed by Deepak Mehta for quite beautiful residences. Signature Global Sector 95A Gurgaon has the latest arrival of apartments that attract the homebuyers to book the units under PMAY. The builder has established images in NCR where they delivered residential as well as commercial projects in Gurgaon city. The project is building at Gurgaon city, which is known by the commercial hub of NCR connected to Delhi, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.


A 1996 law included 17,508 islands in the world's biggest archipelago.
Indonesia has decided to count its islands to protect its territory and resources.
The world's biggest archipelago has so many islands that it did not bother to keep track of them. But Jakarta is now worried and wants to get an exact count of them for a United Nations meeting in August.
Indonesia thinks, getting them all registered on the UN will help it protect its vast territory and its rich fishing resources, the BBC reported.
"An island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide," according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). Besides, an island can only be officially recognised if it is known by at least two people of the country.
A 1996 law includes around 17,508 islands but that is only an estimate. At the 2012 UN Conference on the Standardisation of Geographical Names, Indonesia listed around 13,466 islands, which it had located and named. But at the next meeting in August 2017, the Indonesian government is hoping to list at least 1,700 new islands.
"That's our list at the moment but the number will probably go up because we are in the process of validating and verifying islands right now and we will keep doing this till the end of July.
"We have to visit every one of these islands, and then we note the coordinates, the name, the meaning of the name, the history of the land and describe the landscape and its geographical history. We document all that in great detail and bring it back to the central team," Balok Budiyanto, an official leading the team from the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, said.
Getting a definite number could be an endless task, as the counting group continues to find new islands "created due to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions", Budiyanto added.
Why is the government so keen on the exact number?
The Indonesia government is keen on the exact count reportedly to protect its territory and resources. If the islands are officially registered with the UN, the country can claim its dominion over the surrounding waters, which are disputed by neighbouring countries.
Susan Herawati from the Coalition of People for Justice for Fisheries (Kiara) told the BBC that "60% of islands in Indonesia don't have a name or officially have legal status, so they can easily be taken or claimed by another country".
In 2002, Malaysia took over two islands of Indonesia after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled against it in a territorial dispute. Jakarta also lost two to Timor-Leste when it got freedom.
Officially listing the islands would also help the Indonesian government secure them from private companies, Herawati said. She cited the example of an island near the Gili islands off Lombok – a popular tourist spot – which has been captured by a private resort for business.
"There were 109 families who were kicked out of the area because it was being developed for tourists. This is about our identity as a nation. By clearly listing our islands then our fisherman have legal protection and rights over the islands and our ancestral seas," Herawati added.


The Glowinkowski™ Integrated Framework sits at the heart of everything we do in our work at Glowinkowski International. All components of the framework point towards performance; they do so through Organisational Climate. For any organisation to improve its performance, it must first improve its Organisational Climate, which concerns 'how it feels' to work there. Climate, therefore, is entirely people focused.
Structure and Job Design: this concerns the design of the organisation, i.e. how it is assembled, coupled with the manner in which jobs are created and defined within that structure.
Leadership Behaviour: this concerns the way leaders behave.
Team processes: this concerns the mission critical processes that must be undertaken in all organisations, e.g. planning, communication, decision making, development.
The framework is the central model upon which all of our consulting practices are founded. All of the component elements of our toolkit complement each other to produce a soundly integrated 'leadership development curriculum'. For any effective change to occur, a fundamental precondition is to know the starting point of that change journey. All too often, effort is expended in defining the 'end goal', or destination, but too little is spent determining precisely the point of origin. All components of the Integrated Framework can be measured to provide that critical and necessary 'map reference'. Once obtained and understood, any change programme can be initiated with greater certainty that activity is aimed in the correct direction and the aspired uplift in performance can be achieved.


Seventh one is the Cuban Label.
Starting off this Cigar.com Cuban Blend and most of the flavor is an earthy taste with a hint of spice and even some of the same musty tobacco taste I got on the cold draw. I have that musty taste in every one of my notes so I am very curious if any of you have gotten that also.
Most of the flavor in this first half has been changing between earthy and woody. I am gettting a slight hint of spice, sometimes a little blast, but nothing overwhelming.
Seems right around the halfway point the spice has picked up a little more consistantly. Let's see if it holds through the end or picks up more.
I would say it is a high-mild to low-medium body through most of the first half.
Starting the second half of this Cigar.com Cuban Label and I am hoping the spice does not take too much of a turn upwards. Still a medium body on this stick but it is a solid medium now.
Body is definitely in the full range in this second half.
Spice did not ramp up like i thought it might nor did it in any of the previous ones I have smoked, it actually seemed to decrease a bit towards the end which is a plus in my book.
Woodsy notes really came out in this second half but not much else was going on.
Final words on this Cigar.com Cuban Label are that it is a full bodied stick with a little bit of spice and a lot of woodsy notes in the end. Really is not much else to say about it as with all of the lower priced sticks, you do not get the various flavor nuances like in some of the high priced fare.
Would I buy it again? Maybe. I might keep some on hand for those occasions I feel like having a plain full bodied cigar but those are few and far between.
Nice review, but what was that you said about this being a mixed filler? And by the way, I feel it is a good thing to mention that the wrapper is sun grown. No, they don't grow tobacco indoors, but shade grown wrappers are different enough to mention what's what… Any way, I'm looking forward to the next and last review in this serie!
Nice review! I just bought a box of these last month. I found them to be a bit mild but for the price enjoyable. The ash on the 12 sticks I have smoked so far have lasted over an inch. Looking forward to the next review!
Thanks for the review, Mike. Looks like I'll have to try a couple of these blends. I went to the ccom forums where it was confirmed that these are mixed filler made at the Davidoff factory. Still 20% off, with free shipping on boxes.
Just curious – did you choose these to review in perceived ascending order of strength?
I was hoping someone would do a brand review like this. I am interested in knowing a few things when you are done. One) which blend was your favorite. Two) would any blend work better in perhaps a different size?
Good review. I have been looking to buy some of them cigars, but was not sure about it. Now i think i will give it a try. thanks.


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Australian government returns refugees to Sri Lanka
By Oscar Grenfell
According to Colombo Page, an online news site, the Australian government repatriated 29 asylum-seekers to Sri Lanka last Thursday. The group had reportedly arrived on a boat the previous day near Learmonth Beach on the northern coast of Western Australia.
The incident is the latest example of the criminal policy, introduced by the previous Labor government, of forcibly expelling Sri Lankan refugees from Australia, without even the pretense of considering their claim to asylum.
Successive governments, Labor and Liberal-National, have continued the policy in defiance of warnings by the UN and humanitarian organisations that Sri Lankan refugees, who are often from the Tamil minority, face imprisonment, persecution and torture at the hands of the Colombo government.
The 29 refugees were reportedly from the southern Sri Lankan towns of Matara, Hambantota, Hakmana and Tangalle. They included two children, aged 12 and 15 years old, who were travelling with their father and uncle. The group was apparently arrested by Australian Border Force officers on arrival, then placed on a chartered flight to Colombo the following day.
A spokesperson for Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, told the Australian newspaper that they could not comment on the plight of the group, or even confirm that they had arrived in Australia.
The spokesperson cited the government's policy of not commenting on "operational matters" relating to the actions of border force and naval personnel, on the grounds that the "interception" of asylum-seekers is a matter of "national security." This means that the number of refugees attempting to arrive in Australia, their treatment by the authorities and subsequent plight, is treated as a state secret, and hidden from the population.
Significantly, the deportation of the refugees occurred the same day that the UN committee against torture requested that the Australian government halt the scheduled deportation of a Tamil refugee facing imminent removal to Sri Lanka.
The refugee's lawyer, Alison Battisson, had warned that the asylum-seeker faced the prospect of "a range of torture practices, including rape," if deported. The Sri Lankan government alleges that he had assisted the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Sri Lanka's decades-long civil war formally ended in 2009, with the government and the military defeating the LTTE. At the conclusion of the conflict, and in subsequent years, the military carried out mass roundups of Tamils and political opponents, along with extrajudicial killings and widespread torture.
In the 2015 elections, the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse, which prosecuted the war, was ousted in a US-backed regime-change operation aimed at curtailing growing Chinese influence in the country.
Despite its attempts to don a "democratic" mask, the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena has maintained a virtual police-military occupation of war-ravaged sections of eastern and northern Sri Lanka, and has continued the persecution of Tamils.
Faced with a deepening political crisis this year, the government has deployed the military against striking workers and has promoted communal hostilities towards the islands' Tamil and Muslim minorities.
Last month, Associated Press (AP) published an investigative report, based on the medical and psychological evaluation of 50 Tamil refugees in Europe, and interviews with them. The men said that prior to fleeing the country, they had been subjected to horrific abuse by the Sri Lankan authorities, who accused them of being Tamil militants.
One man told AP he had been kidnapped by five security personnel, and taken to a "'torture room' equipped with ropes, iron rods, a bench and buckets of water" and with blood on the wall. Another said he was "held for 21 days in a small dank room where he was raped 12 times, burned with cigarettes, beaten with iron rods and hung upside-down."
The abuses documented by AP occurred between early 2016, and mid-2017. The reports tallied with the interim findings of a UN Working Group on arbitrary detention, released Friday, which noted numerous allegations of "harassment, intimidation and threats" against Tamils and their advocates, along with "ill-treatment and torture to extract confessions."
In September, the Australian High Court heard the appeals of two Sri Lankan asylum-seekers against their imminent deportation to Sri Lanka. The former Greens-backed Labor government of Julia Gillard in 2012 began the process of removing over 650 Sri Lankan refugees to Colombo, and denying them the right to seek asylum.
The High Court upheld the policy, which is a violation of international law, despite the sitting judges conceding that the two refugees could face imprisonment on return, and appalling conditions, including "torture, maltreatment and violence." The court noted that all Sri Lankan refugees deported from Australia since November 2012 had been arrested, held on remand and charged under the country's immigration legislation.
The persecution of Sri Lankan refugees is one aspect of a brutal "border protection" program defended by the entire official political establishment. This has included consigning hundreds of refugees who arrived in Australia by boat to concentration camps in the Pacific Islands, another policy reintroduced by Labor.
Last month, the Australian government "closed" its refugee detention centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG), because that country's supreme court ruled that their confinement was unconstitutional. Despite their protests, the refugees were deprived of food and water and forced to leave the camp to unsafe "alternative accommodation."
The Australian government's close collaboration with Colombo, against Sri Lankan refugees, is also bound up with geopolitics. The US and Australia view Sri Lanka as strategically critical to their aggressive policies in the Indo-Pacific region, including preparations for war against North Korea and China.
Successive Australian governments have directly enabled the crimes of the Sri Lankan authorities. In a program initiated by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, the Australian Federal Police trained and equipped Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department, a unit notorious for torture and political kidnappings.
During a Sri Lankan visit in November to "celebrate 70 years of bilateral relations" between the two countries, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull signalled even closer collaboration in the persecution of Tamil refugees, and opponents of the Colombo regime. Turnbull declared his commitment to "our work together to combat trans-national crime, particularly people-smuggling"—the derogatory term used to refer to refugees attempting to flee by boat.
Australian Immigrant and Refugee Issues
Australian government seeks arbitrary powers to revoke citizenship
Australian establishment demands removal of alleged "pro-China" member of parliament
Stop the deportation of the Biloela refugee family from Australia!
Australian government moves to deport Tamil refugees despite mass opposition
Australian government seeks to deport Tamil refugee family to Sri Lanka
Tasmanian premier's resignation highlights political discontent across Australia
Australia: Thousands protest government inaction on bushfires and climate change
Sports grants pork-barrelling adds to political disaffection in Australia
Spate of retail closures underscores deepening Australian economic slump
Australian Labor Party closes ranks with Morrison government in bushfire crisis
Democratic rights under attack in Australia
The prosecution of Julian Assange, the destruction of legality and the rise of the national security state
Australia: Mount Druitt residents respond to police attacks on OneFour drill rap group
Australia: Legal report documents "unlawful" police response to Melbourne climate protest
Desperate to stem protests, dozens of governments shut down internet access in 2019
Police shut down "drill rap" group's Australian tour
Sri Lankan SEP holds public meeting: How to fight the new Rajapakse regime
Sri Lankan Central Bank chief demands "structural reform"
Sri Lankan president outlines big business, communalist policy to parliament
Sri Lanka: SEP meeting in Colombo demands release of Assange and Manning


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Bubba Wallace Was Spot-On in Handling of Detractors Following First NASCAR Cup Win
NASCAR conspiracy theorists, and a few haters, were out in force after Wallace's Talladega victory.
By Al Pearce
Sean GardnerGetty Images
On Monday, Bubba Wallace became the second Black driver, and first since Wendell Scott in 1963, win in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Several fans on social media were critical of NASCAR's calling of the rain-shortened race which ultimately gave Wallace the win.
Wallace said one of his strategies to combat haters is to just lay off social media.
It's unlikely anyone threw a hissy-fit when Fred Lorenzen won the 1965 Daytona 500. Scheduled for 200 laps, the Valentine's Day race was interrupted by rain at lap 81, then interrupted again—this time for good—at lap 127. Since the race was past halfway and there was zero chance of finishing before darkness, NASCAR's preeminent event was called official as Lorenzen hoisted the trophy.
It's a good bet that Fred Lorenzen didn't face much backlash after his rain-shortened win in the 1965 Daytona 500.
RacingOneGetty Images
Three-plus years later, Buddy Baker was leading at lap 255 when rain forced officials to stop the 1968 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. When better weather was nowhere on the horizon, the 400-lap race was called official, giving Baker the second of his 19 career victories. Fans probably muttered "oh, well … that's racing" as they left the track around dusk.
Now jump 19 years, to the 1987 Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt was leading the Labor Day weekend race when rain forced a stoppage after 183 of a scheduled 367 laps. The race resumed briefly after an hour or so, but another series of showers finally ended it after 202 laps. Nobody ever said Earnhardt didn't fairly earn that victory.
Surely, you see a pattern here. It is this: Monday's rain-shortened YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway was the latest of 52 Cup Series race stopped short by rain and/or darkness in the modern era, dating to 1972. Whether you agree with that ages-old NASCAR policy depends entirely on whether your favorite driver was leading or chasing at the time.
Fans didn't put up a fuss when Dale Earnhardt with a rain-shortened Southern 500 at Darlington in 1987.
Lorenzen, Baker, and Earnhardt are among the big-name drivers whose career record includes weather-shortened races. Bubba Wallace is the latest, leading only the final five laps after a caution and persistent rain stopped the 188-lap race after just 117 laps on Monday afternoon. By rule, that made the race complete and Wallace the winner for the first time in his career.
And by the way: that also happened to Aric Almirola at Loudon just this past July and to Chase Elliott at COTA back in May. If memory serves, those victories were accepted as official without much public fuss and absolutely no outrage.
It also happened to Denny Hamlin at Darlington in May 2020, to Justin Haley at Daytona Beach in July 2019, to Clint Bowyer at Michigan in June 2018, to Carl Edwards at Texas in November 2016, and to Chris Buescher at Pocono in August 2016.
Likewise, fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. won a rain-shortened race at Phoenix in November 2015 without anyone complaining. The same went for Kurt Busch at Michigan in June 2015, Almirola at Daytona Beach in July 2014, Matt Kenseth at Daytona Beach February of 2009, and Michael Waltrip at Daytona Beach in February 2003.
Jeff Gordon won five races that were shortened by rain, including the Coca-Cola 600 in 1997.
Craig JonesGetty Images
In fact, almost three dozen drivers since 1972 have won weather-shortened races. Five of Jeff Gordon's 93 career victories came that way. Four of Darrell Waltrip's 84 came when rain or darkness was a factor. Rusty Wallace, Jeff Burton, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, and Cale Yarborough each won three shortened races. Sterling Marlin and Richard Petty each won twice because of rain or darkness. Twenty-four other drivers have one weather-influenced victory, including eight in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
It's unlikely any of those winners—not even including those in the 1950s and 1960s, before the "modern era"—faced the unseemly backlash Wallace faced on Monday night.
From the small group of haters chanting a vile three-word obscenity in his direction to the unrelenting barrage of racist vitriol on social media platforms, the 28-year-old Alabama native caught it from all sides. Not surprisingly, the conspiracy theorists weighed in with preposterous claims that future teammate Kurt Busch let Wallace win (yeah, right) and that NASCAR quickly called it official before conditions improved (they never did). The only idiocy missing was that NASCAR summoned rain after Wallace took the lead.
Thankfully—and predictably—the larger NASCAR family and the more enlightened ticket-buyers appreciated what Wallace had just done. For several months this spring and summer the sport's only full-time Black driver distanced himself from most social media platforms. Before, he often scanned sites after a race and almost always worried about what fans thought of him. Mostly, those Neanderthals used race to denigrate him no matter the situation. (Many of them probably hated Tiger Woods for the same reason; ironically, hardly anyone hates team co-owner Michael Jordan).
Rain is sometimes just part of the game in racing, anyone with a rain-shortened race win on their record will attest.
Chris GraythenGetty Images
"After a bad race, I would become one of those haters that doesn't know anything," Wallace admitted in Monday's post-race media session. "I would become one of them … telling myself a bunch of dark thoughts. It never helped anything. I said for good (I should) get off the main pages, go out and enjoy life, don't (tolerate) people like that.
"I'm not going to be able to please everybody. Doesn't matter if I won by a thousand laps or won a rain-shortened race, not everybody is going to be happy with it. That's okay because I know one person who's happy and that's me because I'm a winner and they're not."
"Stay strong, stay humble, stay hungry."
Wallace's acceptance speech into the brotherhood NASCAR Cup Series winners couldn't have been more spot-on. He seems genuinely liked by his garage peers, a modest, good-humored, sincere, humble, and committed man who neither seeks nor avoids undue attention. He appreciates the eight years and 318 combined starts it took him to get to Victory Lane after a Cup race.
"This is for all those kids out there who want to have an opportunity, whatever they want to achieve and be the best at what they want to do," he said. "You're going to go through a lot of bulls---, but you've always got to stay true to your path and not let the nonsense get to you.
"Stay strong, stay humble, stay hungry. There were plenty of times I wanted to give up. But you surround yourself with the right people and it's moments like this that you appreciate."
A Least Wallace Didn't Have to Wait for Trophy
NASCAR Great Wendell Scott Finally Gets His Trophy
Team co-owner Denny Hamlin feels Wallace's decision to abandon social media was important. "We talked about and I think it was the best decision ever," he said. "Ultimately, I get hate tweets as well because I hired him. Those people just need to grow up and appreciate the accomplishment the kid just had. He drove it to the front and the caution came out. There's not much else you can do. He played the racing lines right, got around us there, and got the win."
As for Wallace's detractors: "They have a microscope on him because they want to be critical," he said. "They're just haters; that's all you can really say about it. I try to say to him, 'Don't get your motivation trying to prove haters wrong. Instead, get your motivation from trying to do the people that support you proud.'
"That's where the motivation is going to come from … the people who are going to support you through the good times and the bad times. I'm sure today is a big day for them because when they wear their Bubba Wallace shirt, they know I'm putting myself out there. Those people deserve a great day today."
And they got it, fair and square. Get over it.
More From NASCAR
How Courts Confirmed NASCAR's First Winner in 1949
Jacques Villeneuve Sets Sights on Daytona 500
How Hamlin Went from Hickory to NASCAR's Big Time
How Speeds of NASCAR Next Gen Cars Compare to '21
Why Dale Jr. Isn't Coming Back to Race NASCAR Cup
What We Learned on Day 1 of NASCAR Next Gen Test
Almirola Says 2022 Season Will Be His Last in Cup
LGBcoin Has 3 Words for NASCAR: Let's Go, Brandon
Why Dale Jarrett Picked NASCAR Over Golf
NASCAR Distances Itself from 'Let's Go, Brandon'


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How integrated marketing is helping Qantas personalise engagement with Frequent Flyers
Australian airline's adoption of an integrated marketing management platform provides significantly operational efficiencies and opens the door to real-time customer campaigns
Nadia Cameron (CMO)
Implementing an all-in-one marketing platform is not only helping Qantas drastically improve campaign turnaround times, it's also opening the door to personalised and real-time customer engagement and communication.
Historically, marketing programs for the Qantas Frequent Flyer team required staff to first create a targeted customer list from one database, then deliver it to a third-party contractor to load into a campaign management system and build communications on its behalf.
The team sends more than 250 campaigns annually and 50,000 customised newsletters per month.
This manual process was prolonging the time taken between compiling and running campaigns. In addition, the team lacked a systematic and structured way to organise content and approvals, identify which campaign iterations needed to be referenced and approved, and ensure activities were done in a timely way. As a result, campaigns took as long as five days to execute.
"Secondary issues included getting response data back from email activities and into the system where staff selected and chose campaigns from," explained Teradata Applications managing director for Pacific and Asia, Simon Bowker. "As a marketer, you want to leverage insight to drive the next campaign selections and base things on what customers did and didn't do, but that was a challenge."
To tackle the problem, Qantas invested in Teradata's Integrated Marketing Management (IMM) platform. The single sign-on system incorporates marketing operations, campaign management, digital messaging, customer data management and marketing analytics.
Qantas is one of the first global Teradata customers to implement all three components of its marketing technology stack, which is the result of the vendor's acquisitions of marketing automation vendor, Aprimo, and email marketing provider, eCircle. The IMM platform is referred to internally by Qantas staff as 'Lighthouse' and went live last August.
Thanks to the new way of working and automated workflow capabilities, Qantas has reduced the time it takes to get campaigns out to market to four hours, and there are plans to get that down to five minutes through further process and technology improvements.
According to Qantas head of collation analytics, Stacey Nguyen, the team has doubled the volume of communications it sends out without any additional investment, while the massive reduction in time spent compiling campaigns and on data manipulation means staff can focus more on optimising messages. As well as its own staff, Qantas has engaged a Teradata full service team to assist in delivering marketing activities.
"In the past, we had struggled with getting things out but now we can focus instead on enhancing the customer experience through relevant conversations, and on creating a consistent and synchronised experience for our customers," she said.
"Before we implemented this new solution, 85 per cent of our communications was done by email. Today we are able to focus on synchronising with other channels and focusing on the customer and strategy, rather than operations as we had in the past.
"We are also able to be much quicker to market and can focus on forward planning."
Because data and campaign activity takes place in one integrated system, human error and incident rates have been slashed, and remediation is quicker and more effective, Nguyen continued. Any customer response data generated is also put straight back into the same database, closing the loop and allowing Qantas to iterate and adjust communications faster.
"The integrated marketing management solution allows us to build automated end-to-end campaigns. Our team produces better analysis, adds more value and know-how and better controls the end-to-end process," Nguyen said.
"Longer term, we are seeing operational efficiencies such as reduced operational cost by having an integrated platform; as marketing and analytics teams work together a single platform, removing the costs of multiple technologies."
Having cleared the former operational hurdles, Qantas is reviewing its content strategy and rules of engagement, as well as looking at ways to provide more real-time and personalised communication.
Nguyen pointed out Qantas' new-found ability to source all types of data, including customer behavioural information and responses, from the data warehouse several times per day, has led to near real-time interactions with customers and triggered more innovating thinking.
"Recently, we implemented a more mobile responsive communication to our members. We were able to quickly turn the project around and embed the technology earlier then we would have been able to with our previous system and it would have been much harder to do," she said.
Also on the cards is Teradata's Real-Time Interaction Manager module, which enables emails to be personalised as they are opened, rather than when they are sent out.
While the operational benefits may be the "less sexy" aspects of automating marketing programs, Bowker added the technology improvements make more exciting and dynamic marketing activities possible.
"There are so many things you can do, but you have to get the sequence right so you can continue running the program while introducing change in an appropriate way, and accelerating forward in the right way so all stakeholders can follow," he added.
How other brands are embracing marketing technology platforms
Demonstrating marketing's ROI: Ezidebit's automation journey
How imagination and marketing automation helped Navitas' digital marketing agenda
Gauging customer sentiment: LexisNexis' content marketing and automation journey
Fine-tuning the art of customer entertainment
Gaining efficiency around search-based marketing: REA Group's keyword quest
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia
Signup to CMO's new email newsletter to receive your weekly dose of targeted content for the modern marketing chief.


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Porcelain crowns can be used to repair teeth that have been too damaged by decay or trauma to support a filling. A porcelain crown can restore up to 98% of the use of the tooth and 100% of its appearance.
A porcelain crown functions as a cap by fitting over and covering the entire surface of the damaged tooth. While in the past, metal crowns were widely used, porcelain crowns are now the preferred choice. In addition to being more aesthetically pleasing, porcelain crowns add strength to damaged teeth and can even be used to replace traditional metal crowns.
If you need a porcelain crown, Dr. Krasowski will carefully reshape your existing tooth so that the crown can be placed to create a natural appearance and fit. Through the use of sophisticated technology, Dr. Krasowski can fit you with a porcelain crown that looks, feels and functions exactly like your natural tooth.
If you think porcelain crowns are right for you, contact Krasowski Dental today. While located in the Wausau area, Krasowski Dental conveniently serves the surrounding areas of Rhinelander, Stevens Point and Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.


OCBS Resident Psychic Barbara Mackey joins Shawn & Sue on the final Friday of each Month …..Barbara is a sixth-generation Psychic/Medium of Hungarian and Scottish background who has had premonitions since the age of four. Her Hungarian grandmother, Lidia was a Dream Interpreter and a Psychic. Dr. Samuel Kennedy, her Scottish ancestor, was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions who had the "Scottish Sixth Sense." (See the Kennedy Chronicle for more information on the Scottish Kennedy family.) Through her many years as a Psychic, Barbara has been able to realize her dream of helping people by using her gift to read clients. Now numbering in the thousands, they report startling accuracy in her detailed readings. Barbara's work is holistic in nature, unlike other clairvoyants. She reads the whole person; encompassing body, mind and spirit.
Listen Friday Morning ( 12/27 ) between 8 – 9 am …..


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Q: Tracking Website's Page Visitors and Statistic at IIS level Is there any out of the box features available to Tracking Website's Page Visitors and Statistic at IIS level?
I am running an Asp.net website for an insurance company and the client needs to know the statistics of page visitors, how many of them are actually seeing policy amounts and how many of them are actually going to the final page and buying policies.

A: By default, IIS logs site activity by using own log files. You can find log file configuration in IIS Manager where you can choose what fields, how often, and other settings.
Default path for log files is %SystemDrive%\inetpub\logs\LogFiles
If you need to create custom reports from time to time you could use Log Parser, a command-line tool that provides a generic SQL-like language; and it allows you to export the result of the queries to many output formats such as CSV (Comma-Separated Values, etc), XML, SQL Server, Charts and others.
If you need reports on a regular basis you can try IIS Log Analyzer or search for other third party tool like AWStats.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Korean Workers Will Discharge Their Duty in Movement for National Reunification
Pyongyang, January 8 (KCNA) -- All the workers of the DPRK will discharge their responsibility and duty to take the lead in the nationwide movement to open up a broad avenue to independent reunification in hearty response to the patriotic call of Marshal Kim Jong Un, cherishing the national pride and self-esteem of holding up him in the van of the cause of national reunification.
The chairman of the C.C., the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea (GFTUK) said this in a statement on Thursday.
Kim Jong Un in his New Year address called upon all Koreans to turn out as one in the nationwide movement for national reunification, holding high the slogan 'Let the whole nation join efforts to open up a broad avenue to independent reunification in this year of the 70th anniversary of national liberation!', the statement said, and went on:
The C.C., the GFTUK warmly supports the proposal for national reunification set forth in the New Year address of Kim Jong Un as immortal programmes for reunification as it opened a bright prospect for the nationwide struggle to mend inter-Korean relations and bring earlier national reunification.
It is the unanimous will of all workers of the DPRK to become the standard-bearers opening up a broad avenue to independent reunification and locomotives of reunification this year of the 70th anniversary of national liberation with the same spirit and vigor as was displayed by the workers in the north and the south for dynamic struggle for reunification in the past.
As indicated by the Marshal in his New Year address, only when the entire nation join efforts, can they open up a broad avenue to independent reunification.
The workers of the DPRK who promoted the development of history and pioneered it by dint of unity will strengthen solidarity and alliance with the workers in the south and share one purpose and joins efforts with them in the struggle for national reunification this year.


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Home / Craftsmanship
GEMSTONES WE LOVE
Beautiful turquoise green color, the Amazonite is named after the Amazon River. Amazonite was utilized in jewelry making during pre-Columbian South and Central America. It may have embellished the shields of the semi-mythical Amazonians, a fascinating tribe of female warriors thought to live in the 10th century B.C. The conquerors praised it as an adornment and its ability to be carved into cult objects.
Symbol: Peace and serenity
Location: India, Brasil, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Namibia, Kenya, USA
Gemstone in shades of Dark, Crimson and Lilac Violet.The ancient Greeks and Romans believed Amethyst would avoid the intoxicating powers of Bacchus, and keep the wearer clear headed. The French poet Remy Belleau (1528–1577) created a myth in which Bacchus, the God of Wine was pursuing a maiden named Amethyste, who refused his affections. While Amethyste was praying to the gods to remain chaste, Bacchus poured wine over the stone as an offering hence dyeing the crystals in purple color. Amethyst is also the stone of the bishop in the Roman Catholic Culture.
Symbol: Sincerity, wisdom, humility
Location: Sri Lanka, Brasil, Madagascar, Uruguay, Australia
Birthstone: February
The name "aquamarine" is derived from two Latin words: "Aqua", meaning water, and "Marina", meaning "of the sea". It has been said that this gemstone provides the wearer with protection against adversity.
Symbol: Tolerance, Patience , Strenght
Location: Brasil, Russia, Australia, United States
Birthstone: October
Agate is a variety of Chalcedony. It can vary from opaque, translucent to transparent. Blue crystals allow the chanelling of energy to achieve a life worthy of the trust of our friends, acquaintances, and the community.
Symbol: Truth, power, spirit
Location: Brasil, Uruguay, Australia
Its shades vary from blue to milky gray, Chalcedony represents elegance and sobriety.
Symbol: Fraternity and goodwill
Location: Brasil, United States, India, Madagascar
Blue crystals allow the chanelling of energy to achieve a life worthy of the trust from friends, acquaintances and the community.
Symbol: Trust
Location: South Africa, United States, Brasil
Blue topaz is a gemstone in shades of dark to light blue. It was believed by the ancient Greeks to provide strength. In Europe, during the Renaissance Era people believed that the topaz could break magic spells and dispel anger. For centuries in India, it was believed to assure long life beauty and intelligence when worn above the heart.
Symbol: Long Life
Location: Brasil, Australia, United States, Tasmania, Japan
Citrine, in shades of yellow to golden brown, is a rare gemstone. Today, most citrine quartzs are a result of heat treatment of amethyst quartz. Nonetheless, these beautiful gemstones were worn iconically during the Victorian era. The yellow warm color of the citrine represents the sun'e energy.
Symbol: Abundance
Location: Brasil, United States, Madagascar
CORNALINE/CARNELIAN
Carnelian, in shades of vivid orange and brownish red, was considered by the Arabs to be one of the most precious King's stones. Its warm color was associated with lions and fire. Since ancient times, this stone represents luck.
Symbol: Fire, Power, Luck
Location: Brasil, Inde, Uruguay
Birthstone: July
CRYSTAL ROCK
Colorless from the Greek "Krystallos", meaning "ice''. In the antiquity it was regarded as The Eternal Ice. Crystal Rock amulets were carved in various shapes and motifs.
Symbol: Power, vitality
Location: Brasil, United States, Europe, Madagascar
Latin "Adamas" meaning Indomitable. Diamond is the hardest and most reflective of all gemstones.It is usually colorless (mainly white), but can also come in tones of yellow, brown (Champagne), green, blue, pink and black. It's an embodiment of luxury, beauty and rareness. Among the most famous diamonds are: The Hope (45.52 Kt), the Tiffany (128.51 Kt) and the Cullinan (530.20 Kt.) which remains the biggest diamond ever found.
Symbol: Endless love and Strenght
Location: Ghana, Venezuela , Namibia, South Africa
The Emerald comes in shades of vivid green and dark green. The name comes from the greek word "smaragdos" meaning "shining". The most admirable emerald pieces belong to the Treasure of Iran and the Schatzkammer (treasures) of Vienna .
Symbol: Happiness and Trust
Location: Colombia, South Africa
Birthstone: May
GRAY AGATE
Agate are part of the Chalcedony family. South American agate are mainly gray. Like no other color, Gray is related to modernity, reviving the minimal urban essence of the art deco jewelry.
Symbol:Strength and truth
Location:Brasil, Uruguay
Agate is a variety of chalcedony existing in a remarkable variety of colors and textures. The crystals vary in clarity from opaque , translucent and transparent. Green Agate was highly esteemed as a talisman or amulet during ancient Greek and Roman times.
Symbol: Vitality
The Iolite, known as Cordierite is a gemstone in tones of blue violet, named after French mineralogist, Pierre Cordier. According to a Nordic legend, iolite was considered the Viking Compass Stone. It is said that thin slices of iolite were used as glare- reducers and polarizing filters, which aided the Viking in locating the sun on a cloudy day.
Symbol: Balance, source of energy
Location: Brasil, USA, India
Deep celestial blue.The golden sarcophagus of King Tutankhamon was richly inlaid with Lapis Lazuli, as were other burial ornaments of Egyptian highborns. It was used broadly in scarabs, jewelry, and ground into powder for dyes, eye shadow and medicinal elixirs. In ancient Persia and pre-Columbian America, Lapis Lazuli was a symbol of the starry night, and a favorite stone of the Islamic Orient for protection from the evil eye.
Symbol: Spirit and power
Location: Afghanistan, Chile, United States
MILKY AMETHYST
Is a milky white translucent variety of crystalline quartz. The cloudy color is generally caused by numerous bubbles of gas and liquid in the crystal.
Symbol: Joy and compassion
Location: Brasil
MINT QUARTZ
Is an opaque Variety of green quartz also known as Prase, fuchsite inclusions cause its green color. This gem was highly appreciated by the Chinese. They were calling this gem͞imperial stone Yù͟, wearing it as a talisman of vitality.
Symbol: Prosperity and success
Is the nacreous inner shell coating of pearl-producing mollusks. Aside from jewelry, this precious material is widely use in high tradition handcrafts such as marquetry, and cutlery. Mother of pearl comes from all over the world and can be found in saltwater and freshwater.
Symbol: Security and well-being
Location: Australia, Japan, Central America, the Philippines, the South Pacific Islands, South America, China, French Polynesia, Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.
Malachite is a unique, green and black banded gem material. Archeological remains reveal that Egyptians carved these hard stones as early as 4000 BC. If kept as money, malachite was known to increase wealth. Merchants also wore the stones during business transactions to attract profitable deals.
Symbol: Wealth, Protection
Location: Congo, Australia, Chile
Onyx stones have been correlated with capturing demons and spirits. Cultures all over the world utilize this material to create beautiful jewelry. For example, the celebrated Amber Room of St. Petersburg, Russia, contained mosaics made from marble and onyx. While the ancient Greeks and Romans used it to carve stunning cameos.
Symbol: Determination and perseverance
Location: Brasil, Madagascar, China
Birthstone: August
For centuries, natural pearls have been a symbol of richness and nobility and the fascination still prevails. Royal and wealthy families cherish natural pearls and are often seen as a token of affection that is passed on from one generation to the next.
Symbol: Health, beauty and authenticity
Birthstone: June
Named by the Egyptians, "gem of the sun" Peridot has constantly been correlated with light. The word peridot comes from the Arabic "faridat", which means "gem". This gem comes in shades of yellowish, olive and brownish green. The most beautiful comes from Myanmar. Some historians believe that Cleopatra's famous emerald collection might have actually been peridot. During the medieval times, peridot and emerald were confused often. For instance, for centuries, people believed the fabulous 200 kt gems adorning the shrine of the Three Holy Kings in Germany's Cologne Cathedral were emeralds but in fact they were peridot.
Symbol: Prosperity
Location: South Africa, Australia, Brasil, Myanmar
Birthstone: September
In shade of vivid to delicate pale rose pink, rose quartz jewelry was known to be crafted by the Assyrians around 800-600 BC. The Assyrians, along with the Romans, were believed to have been the first to use this stone. People in the earliest recorded times believed in the magical powers of quartz. Ancient Roman, Egyptian, and Greek civilizations used quartz crystals as powerful talismans. The Romans used rose quartz as a seal to signify ownership, and Egyptians believed the stone could prevent aging.
Symbol: Tenderness, maternal love
Gemstones in shades of pale yellowish green.Prasiolite from the Greek words ''Prason" meaning leek, and lithos, ''stone'' for its green leek color. Also known as green amethyst, prasiolite is a stone that represents originality and courage and can promote self-determination. Prasiolite is associated with growth and abundance.
Symbol: Self-determination, Abundance
Location: Brasil, Etats-Unis
PURPLE JADE
Chinese poets tell that the melodious sound produced by jade, simulates the voice of a loved one, an embodiment of the essence of love. Jade, in all forms, is valued most for its metaphysical properties. It is the ultimate "Dream Stone," revered to access the spiritual world and encourage creativity. An amulet of good luck and friendship, Jade signifies wisdom.
Symbol: Wisdom, luck, spirituality
Location: China, Birmania
Rhodochrosite hues vary from rose pink to red cherry and are found in both as transparent crystal and banded stalagtite rock. It emanates one of the most tender and loving energies of any stone, soothing the heart, comforting the soul, and vibrating to the frequencies of inner peace. It is a marvelous talisman of joy and healing.
Symbol: Love and Joy
Location: Argentina, South Africa, Chile
Latin "Rubeus" , meaning reddish. When the color is pigeon 's blood, red with a touch of blue, it is considered the most fine Ruby color. Ruby adorned the most prestigious tiaras in the world such as The "Bains de mer" designed for Grace of Monaco and The King Edward VII ruby Tiara for Princess Margareta of Sweden.
Symbol: Joy and Satisfaction
Location: Myanmar, Thailandia, Sri lanka, Russia
Colorless with inclusions of rutiles so called as "Venus Hair". Rutilated quartz may enhance mental and physical stability. It is famous for diminishing fears, depression and decision-making.
Symbol: Mental clarity
Meaning "Blue Stone" in Hebrew, Sapphires come in a wide range of colors: blue, pink, orange, yellow, green, violet, black and colorless. Historically, the most prestigious sapphires came from Kashmir (India). The American Museum of Natural History in New York houses the most prestigious and largest star sapphire ever cut called the "Star of India" ( 536 Kt. )
Symbol: Faithfulness and Wisdom
Location: Myanmar, Thailandia, Sri lanka
Gemstone in shades of brown, black and smokey gray. Smokey Quartz is the national gem of Scotland. The Celts were mining the brownish-gray Quartz in the Cairngorm Mountains of the Scottish highlands, calling the dark brown crystals they found "Morion", and the yellow-brown crystals "Cairngorm". Smoky Quartz was known as a Stone of Power to the ancient Druids.
Symbol: Endurance, positive spirit
Location: Brasil, United States, Madagascar, Russia
Lush blue velvet. Rich royal purple. Exotic tanzanite is found in only one place on earth, near majestic Kilimanjaro.
Symbol: Luck
Location: Tanzania
Known for its remarkable "chatoyancy" and rich layers of gold and brown color. This stone was used by the Egyptians as eyes for their deity statues, to express divine vision and provide protection from Ra, the God of the Sun and Geb the Gold of the Growing Land. This gem is also linked to the mystical tiger.
Symbol: Strenght and determination
Location: South Africa, Australia, China, United States
Birthstone: November
Gemstone with an intense green color. Tsavorite is a stone that is said to help find the inner beauty both in oneself and others.
Symbol: Tolerance and Strenght
Location: Kenya, Tanzania
From blue sky , greenish blue, to apple green Turquoise means : "Stone of Turkey". This opaque stone has been valued for thousands of years. Today the finest turquoise is found in Iran.
Symbol: Success and Trust
Location: Iran, Afghanistan, Argentina
Birthstone: December
People in the earliest recorded times believed in the magical powers of the Agate. Ancient Roman, Egyptian, and Greek civilizations used quartz crystals as potent talismans. The Romans used rose quartz as a seal to signify ownership, while Egyptians believed the stone could prevent aging.


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Jury deliberations begin in 'branded women' trial
NEW YORK — A jury has begun deliberating at the trial of the former leader of an upstate New York self-help group that prosecutors say branded women.
The deliberations in the case against Keith Raniere started Wednesday morning in federal court in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors have told jurors that said the 58-year-old Raniere's organization, called NXIVM, operated like a cult.
They said he formed a secret subgroup comprised of brainwashed female "slaves" who were branded with his initials and forced to have sex with him.
There also were accusations that he began having sex with one follower when she was 15 and took pornographic photos of her.
Lawyers for Raniere say that he never had any criminal intent and that his encounters with the women were consensual.


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Articles for ITS market Do the automated driving systems need the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) ?
The international conference regarding SIP (Strategy, innovation and creation program) of the cabinet office. The image is emphasizing the importance of GPS.
On November 27th 2015, the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced "Eliminate the traffic accidents of Wrong-way driving on the expressway until 2020. The program is for safer expressways by connecting the cars and the road". This announcement, at the press conference, Keichi Ishii, the minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, said to consider the practical use of ETC2.0 and the automatic brake systems of the automated driving system.
In this way, the automated driving system has received a lot of attention as one of the ways to solve the social issues related the automobile.
As for the automated driving system, each automobile manufacturer in Japan, United States, Europe, Korea and China are researching and developing it by collaboration between industry, academia and government.
In Japan, TOYOTA, NISSAN and HONDA have started driving tests on a public roads. As for the government programs, there are two kinds of base programs, one is "SIP" (Strategy, innovation and creation program) where the cabinet office cooperates with relevant ministries and the other program is "The special zone of the technology demonstration in the near future" which the cabinet office takes the lead. These two programs have the proposition that hope to produce results by 2020, the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The competitive area and the cooperative area
The Road Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the Manufacturing Industries Bureau of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry are trying to cooperate with the automobile manufacturers from the standpoint of "Consider the driverless cars as an Industry" as well as joining the SIP.
Among them, the core topic is the idea of "The competitive area and the cooperative area".
The competitive area means the technological innovation of the sensors which are equipped in vehicles like cameras, lasers, laser radar systems etc and also means a business model of using data with connecting the smartphone and the in-vehicle devices.
On the other hand, the cooperative area refers to the field related the infrastructure. In the Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) fields, the improvement of the communication equipment which supports Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) like ETC2.0 and 760MHz spectrum.
Besides the "the infrastructure what we can see", the infrastructure that we need on the driverless cars is the digital infrastructure i.e. the map information. SIP calls it "The dynamic map". It is the system which analyzes "the travel data per second" of the moving vehicles as the probe information by cloud based on the map which was composed by measuring high accuracy 3D map. "The dynamic map" is the very cooperative area and the automobile manufacturers should provide their own company information under "the certain conditions". The problem is the phrase "the certain conditions", but as for the details I will cover more about it and introduce it in another time.
One more very important factor in the cooperative area is GNSS.
GNSS is Global Navigation Satellite System. In 1990, the data of U.S. Satellite System "GPS" was opened to the public and mostly using in the car navigation, it became very popular in the world. In recent years, for the reason of the security and increasing the importance of the Internet of Things (IoT), research and development is improving at many places like Russia/GLONASS, EU/Galileo, China/BeiDou, India/IRNSS and Japan/QZSS.
The automated driving without GNSS
TV or newspapers report about the automated driving system as "The automated driving is using GPS…" quite often.
It is true, but I think many people including the press has a kind of image that the automobile should have the GPS.
However, I think it is not really.
At the beginning of November 2015, when I joined the Nissan's driving test of driverless car, a person in charge of development said "we think the GPS is not important". Their driverless cars calculate the "General current location" by using very normal GPS and collate with "the traffic lane information on the map" which was inserted into in-vehicle data in advance and also they confirm the surrounding views by the Image Recognition through their car cameras, that is why they can catch the current location in real time. He said "As you know, it costs more if we need to increase the accuracy. Besides, GPS cannot be used in a tunnel in the first place".
Actually, such a voice is not heard only from Nissan. Most engineers of the automated driving system of the automobile manufacturers in Japan, United States, Europe, Korea and China which I have covered point this it out.
Currently, the accuracy of the GNSS which is embedded in the car navigation system is "meter class". Each automobile manufacturer is trying to use it into the automated driving system through the Image Recognition or DSRC.
Nissan's driverless test car based on "LEAF".
The appearance of Nissan's automated driving system
The inside of Nissan's driverless test car. It is running on the local roads in Tokyo.
The automated driving system relies on GNSS
Audi's driverless car for racing at the Sonoma Raceway, California, US on July, 2015.
Audi's automated driving system used RTK GPS.
Just to change the subject, this is the Sonoma Raceway, California, US where is the 2.52-mile (4.06 km) road course circuit located at the famous wine producing area, Napa Valley, the suburbs of California.
On July 2015, there was an Audi's test-riding event of a driverless car and I joined it.
To my surprise, the velocity reached 230 km/h on the straight track and also reached 160 km/h on the S-curve track. Audi had held the open driving test at Hockenheimring where hosts the German Grand Prix on September 2014 but as for the test-riding event which they rode with journalists, the Sonoma Raceway's one was the first time for them. Incidentally, one of Audi's young engineers sat on the driver's seat as "the driving supervisor" but he did not touch the steering, accelerator, brake and shift lever etc., at all while in the automated driving system mode.
This driverless car runs with a system which needs GPS.
The first operation is making a survey of the course by RTK GPS(Real Time Kinematic GPS)After setting the base station in the course, drive 2 laps in total along the right end and the left end by a slow pace around 50 km/h and hereby "the centimeter-class" accuracy map is created. The Sonoma Raceway's course was laid out on the hill country, that is why it has a large height difference. Generally speaking, the GPS accuracy of vertical direction is about three times better than the horizontal direction, a general "the meter-class" accuracy GPS is imperfect as drive data for the Sonoma Raceway.
That is how the 3D map was created and the Audi's driverless car drove on it. To my surprise, the car did not equip any sensors as the camera or the millimeter-wave radar which directly watches the outside environment. That is to say, "the sensor which perceives the motion of a car" catches the road surface condition and the running state in real time on the 3D map. Besides, the car analyzes "the motion of 1 or 1.5 seconds ahead" by the artificial intelligence developed by collaborative research with Stanford University without any sensors which watch the outside environment directly like cameras etc and provides the data to the main computer as feedback from the artificial intelligence.
That is why the GNSS including GPS are very useful in case seeking "the best performance under the limited conditions" like driving the circuit by a driverless car.
In Japan, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan set the "GPS-based Control Station" at 1300 locations in the whole country. The purpose is for earthquake prevention and the analysis of topographical changes after the earthquakes and simultaneously it has a role to build a network to share "the real-time GPS data" by RTK GPS.
Currently in Japan, the most popular driverless car is "not to lean on GNSS". I hope each automobile manufacturer will develop the driverless car that uses the GNSS including efficient utilization of GPS-based Control Station as well as the four QZSS after 2018.