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Books by Marne Ventura, M.A.
Engineering for Earthquakes
Engineering for Disaster Series
Disasters can strike at any time, and engineers have often led the effort to prepare for these events. This compelling series explores what engineers have learned from past disasters and what they are doing to keep people safe in the future.
This book describes the effects of earthquakes and engineering strategies to counter them. Includes a "Case Study" special feature".
$28.41 Library Binding
$7.99 Paperback
Engineering for Space Disasters
Describes engineering disasters in space and how engineers work to anticipate them or prevent them from happening again. Includes a "Case Study" special feature".
Engineering for Tornadoes
Describes the damage tornadoes can cause and efforts taken to minimize the damage. Includes a "case study" special feature.
Learning STEM from Baseball
Get Your Sports-Loving Kid Excited about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
By integrating the thrill of learning into the context of baseball, Learning STEM from Baseball presents a whole new ball game. Unleash the inner scientist, engineer, and mathematician in your child as they learn that sports and STEM aren't so separate after all. You'll both love finding out the answers to questions such as:
What's a sweet spot?
When was the pitching machine invented?
How are baseballs made?
How do numbers help baseball players?
What are some STEM careers in baseball?
This easy-to-follow introduction to STEM topics sets kids up to make connections across subjects, discover new facts about baseball, and grow curious about academic fields!
STEM in the World Series
This title introduces fans to the STEM concepts in the World Series, exploring how science, technology, engineering, and math are all at play in this exciting event. The title features informative sidebars and infographics, exciting photos, a glossary, and an index. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing Company.
STEM in the Daytona 500
This title introduces fans to the STEM concepts in the Daytona 500, exploring how science, technology, engineering, and math are all at play in this exciting event. The title features informative sidebars and infographics, exciting photos, a glossary, and an index. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing Company.
Building Boats that Float
"What does it take to make a boat float? Gather some supplies and try it out for yourself! Discover tips and ideas on how to build the best boat around!"
Simple, kid-friendly inquiry approach introduces basic engineering concepts to build confidence; Supports project-based learning and design thinking skills in early elementary; Perfect K-2 elementary support for Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for physical science and engineering and design practices.
Building Skyscrapers (Focus Readers: Engineering Challenges: Navigator Level)
Explores the engineering challenges behind building skyscrapers, as well as the creative solutions found to overcome those challenges. Accessible text, vibrant photos, and an engineering activity for readers provide a well-rounded introduction to the engineering process.
Building Skyscrapers
Building Fighter Jets (Focus Readers: Engineering Challenges: Navigator Level)
Explores the engineering challenges behind building fighter jets, as well as the creative solutions found to overcome those challenges. Accessible text, vibrant photos, and an engineering activity for readers provide a well-rounded introduction to the engineering process.
Recommended by the National Science Teachers Association.
Building Fighter Jets
Motion Projects to Build On: 4D An Augmented Reading Experience (Take Making to the Next Level 4D
Rev it up with projects that teach locomotion science basics--and then build on them. Learn about movement, speed up, and then think creatively to take the projects to the next level. Bonus video tutorials and other content available on the free Capstone 4D app gives students an augmented reality experience that goes beyond the printed page.
Motion Projects to Build On
Chemistry Projects to Build On: 4D An Augmented Reading Experience (Take Making to the Next Level 4D)
Bubble, pop, fizz! These chemical reaction projects will take your makerspace to the next level. Teach kids science basics and then build on them. Learn why chemical reactions happen, and how to make and take them to the next level. Bonus video tutorials and other content available on the free Capstone 4D app gives students an augmented reality experience that goes beyond the printed page.
Chemistry Projects to Build On
(Engineering the Human Body)
Introduces readers to the science behind hearing devices, including how and why the technology was created, current examples of the technology in action, and cutting-edge research advancing the technology. Eye-catching infographics, clear text, informative sidebars, and a How It Works special feature make this book an engaging introduction to this exciting technology.
Artificial Joints
Introduces readers to the science behind artificial joints, including how and why the technology was created, current examples of the technology in action, and cutting-edge research advancing the technology. Eye-catching infographics, clear text, informative sidebars, and a How It Works special feature make this book an engaging introduction to this exciting technology.
STEM in Baseball
This title examines the STEM concepts that make baseball so engaging. From the physics of pitching and batting to the technology of Doppler radar, chapters bring STEM concepts to life. The title also features sidebars on STEM in action, a glossary, and further resources. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing Company.
STEM in Figure Skating
This title examines the STEM concepts that make figure skating so engaging. From the physics of angular momentum to the engineering of blades, chapters bring STEM concepts to life. The title also features sidebars on STEM in action, a glossary, and further resources. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing Company.
Why Does Earth Have Seasons? (Everyday Earth Science)
Find out what causes spring, summer, fall, and winter and howdifferent parts of Earth experience the seasons.Additional features to aid comprehension include colorful images, informational diagrams, hands-on activities, detailed captions and callouts, a table of contents, a phonetic glossary, sources for further research, and an introduction to the author.
Why Does Earth Have Seasons?
$28.50 Hardcover
Detecting Floods
Examines how scientists study floods. With colorful spreads featuring fun facts, sidebars, a disaster preparedness checklist, and a ""How It Works"" feature, this book provides an exciting look at the science of disaster detection.
Detecting Tsunamis
Examines how scientists study tsunamis. With colorful spreads featuring fun facts, sidebars, a disaster preparedness checklist, and a ""How It Works"" feature, this book provides an exciting look at the science of disaster detection.
Detecting Tornadoes
Examines how scientists study tornadoes. With colorful spreads featuring fun facts, sidebars, a disaster preparedness checklist, and a ""How It Works"" feature, this book provides an exciting look at the science of disaster detection.
Detecting Earthquakes
Examines how scientists study earthquakes. With colorful spreads featuring fun facts, sidebars, a disaster preparedness checklist, and a ""How It Works"" feature, this book provides an exciting look at the science of disaster detection.
Take a Closer Look at Your Bladder
Learn about how the parts of your body work together to keep you healthy. This book explains the bladder's role in the urinary system, and explores how the bladder works with the kidneys and the brain to get rid of the body's waste. Topics include What Is a Bladder? What Does a Bladder Do? Why Do I Need a Bladder? Problems with the Bladder, and Keeping the Bladder Healthy. Young children who are curious about their bodies and how they work will find lots of good information at just the right level for them to read themselves.
Take a Closer Look at
Your Bladder
Gross Brain Teasers
So you think you're a pro at brain teasers? Try this one out: What two things do bacteria, poop, and mites have in common? They're all inside or on your body, and they're also all inside this book! Turn the pages to find more tricky puzzles and fun word problems involving all things gross.
12 Biggest Breakthroughs in Robot Technology
The 12 Biggest Breakthroughs in Robot Technology introduces 12 of the most influential moments in the development of robot technology. Amazing facts are included, along with information about key players and the science behind each breakthrough.
Technology Breakthroughs covers the important technological advances that have shaped history and society. Learn who the key players were in developing a technology, what the main turning points were, and how different advancements changed the way we live. Each book features 12 of the most influential technology breakthroughs in a particular arena: energy, robotics, computers, food, medicine, and transportation. This informative series will give you a fresh perspective on the most life-changing technological advancements through history up to today.
12 Biggest Breakthroughs in Food Technology
The 12 Biggest Breakthroughs in Food Technology introduces 12 of the most influential moments in the development of food technology. Amazing facts are included, along with information about key players and the science behind each breakthrough.
12 Biggest Breakthroughs in Computer Technology
The 12 Biggest Breakthroughs in Computer Technology introduces 12 of the most influential moments in the development of computer technology. Amazing facts are included, along with information about key players and the science behind each breakthrough.
Trap-Door Spiders
Unlike many familiar arachnids, these spiders live underground in burrows. These unique homes help these creatures find food, keep enemies at bay, and provide a safe spot for raising their families.


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ACI World recognises 19 airports who have committed to customer experience
Posted: 5 August 2019 | International Airport Review | No comments yet
Airports are accredited on customer understanding, strategy, measurement, operational improvement, governance, airport culture, service design/innovation, and airport community collaboration.
Airports Council International (ACI) World has revealed the latest airports recognised for their commitment to customer satisfaction through its Airport Customer Experience Accreditation programme.
The accreditation programme is part of ACI's globally-established Airport Service Quality (ASQ) programme and helps airports improve their practices to provide the travelling public a satisfying experience within the airport.
The newly accredited airports are Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Incheon International Airport, Pattimura Airport, Sams Sepinggan Airport, I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport, El Tari Airport, Lombok International Airport, Sam Ratulangi Airport, Adi Soemarmo Airport, Ahmad Yani Airport, Juanda Airport, Sultan Hasanuddin Airport, Kraków Airport, Venice Marco Polo Airport, Vienna Airport, Halifax Stanfield International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport and LaGuardia Airport.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is the first airport operator in the United States to have its three largest airports accredited, and PT Angkasa Pura I Persero in Bali, Indonesia is the first airport operator in the Asia-Pacific region to have a majority of its airports accredited.
Six airports contributed to the development of the programme and have already been accredited: Abu Dhabi International Airport, Milan Malpensa Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, San Antonio International Airport, Sydney Airport and Quito International Airport.
"By achieving accreditation from ACI, these airports have shown a commitment to continuously reviewing and improving their customer experience and to evolve, excel and learn how they can keep improving," ACI World Director General, Angela Gittens, said. "Airports are sophisticated businesses that partner with other organisations to deliver a singular experience for passengers, so it is important that all partners have a common view of this customer experience.
"ACI's accreditation programme helps airports to develop this common view so they can improve their approach to customer experience management and identify new practices that can be developed in the short and long-term in order to boost satisfaction."
There are five levels of accreditation and each level is a powerful marketing tool for airports to show their commitment to improving customer experience.
Passenger experience & seamless travel
Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH), Adi Sumarmo Airport (SOC), Ahmad Yani International Airport (SRG), Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), El Tari International Airport (KOE), Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ), Hong Kong International Airport (HKG), I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS), Incheon International Airport (ICN), John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Juanda International Airport (JIA), Kraków Airport, LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Malpensa Milan Airport (MXP), Mariscal Sucre International Airport (UIO), Newark Liberty International (EWR), Pattimura International Airport (AMQ), Sam Ratulangi International Airport (MDC), San Antonio International Airport (SAT), Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport (UPG), Sydney Airport (SYD), Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE), Vienna International Airport (VIE)
Airport Council International (ACI)
What airport self service means for the future
Airport Show 2020
UTM system to be implemented for the first time in Nordic region
Tour of regional airports launched by UK Aviation Minister
Prague Airport launches terminal interior map in Apple Maps
Modern baggage messaging standards
By International Air Transport Association (IATA)
Facial recognition pilot to take place at Madrid-Barajas Airport
By Rachael Harper (International Airport Review)
Construction at Schiphol's new Pier A reaches milestone
Prague Airport has introduced digital signage in six languages

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


For a lot of people, the appeal of steel is that it's the 'traditional' frame material for bikes. After all, what's changed about it in the last 50 years? Well, quite a lot, actually. Just like carbon and aluminium frames, steel bikes have undergone a renaissance in the last decade that has brought them back to relevance – and not just for tourers. New tubesets mean that steel frames can be made into road bikes that are lighter and faster, while still maintaining the ride quality that draws people to the material in the first place.
But how far can steel be pushed? It's one thing to take a good tubeset and make it into a relatively traditional bike, but pushing the boundaries of steel is another experiment entirely. That's what makes Rob English's frames stand out. Tube shapes and frame designs that break away from the norm are what we've come to expect from English cycles, and the frames rarely disappoint.
Of course, it's not as simple as picking a frame design from an online store and logging into PayPal. Waiting lists for popular frame builders can stretch into years. Eric placed his order in September 2013, and didn't have the frame in his hands until Christmas 2015. For the stars of modern frame building, these sort of wait times aren't extraordinary.
However, once Eric had made the front of the queue in July 2015, the process was much faster. It took just under 6 months to turn the idea into a design, and that design into reality.
Some things were simple enough: 'I had a 2012 Scott Foil and loved the way it rode, so I asked Rob to make the V3 very stiff with similar geo.' This also fit in with Eric's preference for a straighter top tube.
Paint and details took more time, but of course the frame had to be built first: 'I've had a lot of black bikes and wanted something a bit brighter but still classy.' As you can see, pearl white with frog green was settled on for the frameset and matching components, and I think it makes a refreshing change from the paint finishes seen on lots of factory models.
To me, Rob English frames were the first subversion of the idea of steel frames only being useful for making traditional bikes. They were a big step in the material's renaissance in cycling after some time at the sidelines, and still represent a much-needed modernist personality in the frame building line-up.


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Q: Is it possible to customize the color of TabCloseButton icon in VSCode? VSCode version 1.16
When i have unsaved changes in a file, the dot in the tab file's name is not really visible as seen below.

I'd like to highlight it somehow (e.g. to change its color). I inspected the dot element via Dev tools in VSCode and it has a ciass of action-label icon close-editor-action but i am not sure how could I implement the CSS into editors' customization..
I know about workbench.colorCustomizations settings but i have not found any documentation about this particular little thing.
The only customizable setting of tabCloseButton is changing its position but not its visual.
Does anybody know how could this be implemented?

A: Extension Custom CSS and JS Loader.
For instance: changing the entire unsaved tab:
.tab.dirty {
    background-origin: border-box;
    background-image: repeating-linear-gradient(
      45deg,
      transparent,
      transparent 8px,
      #465298 9px
    );
}

Or changing close icon:
.tab.dirty .close-editor-action {
    background: #465298 !important; /* here could be some inline image*/
    border-radius: 50%;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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A Comprehensive Guide about Ghostwriting and Its Scope
Composing highest quality content in large proportions for your brand is a daunting task, especially when you have a lot of pending tasks in your plate.
Professional's Guide to Successful Ghostwriting
Learn the Art of Writing From the Master Of the Craft! People commonly think that the art of writing is bestowed by birth. It may be
How to Write an Epic: Advice from Meiling Colorado
I think one of the most difficult novels to write is the epic. Usually an epic is long, following our characters (who tend to be a
How to Start Editing
So you did it! You wrote, drank coffee, and wrote some more. You have a complete first draft. But now, you're absolutely exhausted, and the last
12 Ways to Make the Most out of Camp NANOWRIMO
By Kelly Hartwick Camp NaNoWriMo for April just wrapped up, and if you're like me, you were too busy to participate. But, don't fret! We're nearly


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DuPage County Investigates Three Cases of Possible Mail-In Voter Fraud
The DuPage County State's Attorney's office is investigating three cases of possible voter fraud.
Each case alleges that a mail-in ballot was requested for a person who is dead, according to the DuPage County State's Attorney's office.
"Fair elections are the bedrock of our democracy and my office stands ready to investigate, charge and vigorously prosecute anyone who would attempt to interfere in any way with our elections," said DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin.
In a press release, the DuPage County Clerk's office said that procedural safeguards identified a "small number" of invalid mail-in ballot requests.
Nine applications were flagged and brought to the attention of the State's Attorney's Office, who determined that three of them might warrant criminal charges.
The three ballot requests being investigated were made between September 1 and September 26.
"My office and State's Attorney Berlin's staff have worked seamlessly together throughout this election," Kaczmarek said. "While voter fraud is not a widespread problem anywhere, voters need to be reassured that every individual application is held up to scrutiny to ensure that the election is fairly conducted. With over 200,000 applications for mail-in ballots received to-date and a tiny number of cases being professionally investigated by the State's Attorney's Office, voters can be reassured that the system is working."
The act of submitting a falsified mail-in ballot request is a Class 3 felony, usually punishable by 2-5 years in prison.
"Testing the process is not a game. It's not worth it. Don't even try," Kaczmarek said. "The Clerk's Office will continue to work closely with the State's Attorney's Office to fully investigate and vigorously prosecute any voter or group who violates the law, even if they claim to be testing the process."
If you have a story idea, we want to hear from you!
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The Office will be closed from Friday, April 19th to 12pm Tuesday, April 23. Have a great weekend!
House League Select Novice to Midget Tryout Registration for the 2019-2020 season is now open! Tryouts do not start until May 22nd.
Introducing the Burlington Bulldogs and Jr. Cougars Hockey Coaches for the 2019-20 Season. PLEASE NOTE: Early bird pricing ends March 3rd, 2019. Register early to save!


Boasting barbecue facilities, garden and views of mountain, Gastehaus Alpenruh is situated in Prägraten am Großvenediger, 6 km from Großvenediger. With a terrace, the property also has a shared lounge. All rooms have a balcony with a garden view. The units in the guest house are fitted with a flat-screen TV. All rooms include a private bathroom. The rooms will provide guests with a wardrobe and a coffee machine. A buffet breakfast is available daily at Gastehaus Alpenruh. The accommodation offers a children's playground. You can play table tennis at Gastehaus Alpenruh.


Apple has announced an iterative update to Mac OS X at its worldwide developers conference in San Francisco today. The emphasis is on refining and improving things, borrowing some features from Windows to add more productivity and a cleaner interface.
Gizmodo notes that the aim is to improve the feel of OS X, something that desperately needs doing as reviewers have noted how the software seems to be ageing against the newest Mac hardware. Indeed, some have said that the new MacBook seems to run the animations in the preview builds of Windows 10 more smoothly than the animations in OS X Yosemite.
El Capitan is intended to fix this. Neowin reports how Apple is boasting dramatic performance improvements in OS X 10.11 including 1.4x faster app launching and 2x faster app switching. There's no word on whether those animations will be running at a silky 60fps though, something that can dramatically influence the feel of a platform.
Apple has improved the productivity of OS X by introducing better window management features to Mission Control. Clearly borrowing from Windows, apps can now be "snapped" to the side of the screen to make resizing them a doddle.
Like on iOS, Spotlight searching has been improved and is now deeper than ever before. TechCrunch notes how Spotlight will be able to respond to complex natural-language queries such as "Show me all mail from Phil that I've ignored" and then show you exactly what you asked for.
Gesture support has been expanded too. You can delete messages in Mail by swiping across the touchpad with two fingers in a manner very much like Mail on iOS. Safari is getting improvements too including a feature borrowed from browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox: the ability to pin tabs. Pinned tabs will appear in a dedicated interface panel and will be automatically reloaded when Safari is opened.
Gamers will be pleased to learn that Apple is boasting 10x improved desktop rendering performance in El Capitan. This is achieved by the introduction of the firm's Metal API which is currently used on iOS devices. Game developers Blizzard, Unreal, Unity and 2K Games have all pledged support, raising the prospect of some great quality OS X gaming coming in the near future.
El Capitan will be launching later this year but is available to developers today. A public beta will be made available in July, potentially coinciding with Microsoft's finished release of Windows 10. While El Capitan is not such a large update as Yosemite was, this is a common trend at WWDC this year. Apple is refining existing features and adding a few productivity-focused ones - such as split-screen multitasking on iPads — which are certain to prove popular with users, even if Windows fans have known some of them for a very long time already.


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Institute of Automation and Electrometry
of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
WWW ИАиЭ
Staff (in russian)
IA&E Mission Statement
Applied Results
Patents & Law
Exhibition & Advertising
Инжиниринг современных информационных систем
Post-graduate Study
OI&DP Journal
Lab Pages
Labs Pages
Shared Equipment Center
Innovation Department
Institute in Pictures
Редактирование сайта
Документы и приказы
In previous years, the Institute of Automation and Electrometry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IA&E SB RAS) has successfully cooperated with many colleagues from Great Britain, France, Germany, USA, Sweden, Italy, Bulgaria, China, India, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, and other countries.
Basic types of cooperation: joint research, collaborative activities within various grants and contracts, participation in international symposia, conferences, workshops, and exhibitions, mutual visits, and exchange by delegations of scientists.
Basic fields of joint research: nonlinear physics, plasma physics, nonlinear optics, laser physics, fiber lasers, ultrashort optical pulses in fiber waveguides, light-induced kinetic effects in molecular systems, spectroscopy of atomic-molecular and cluster media, glass formation by the method of low-frequency and Raman scattering, diffraction optics, new information technologies, advanced methods of statistical processing of signals and data, methods and algorithms of information processing as applied to processing of aerospace images.
Detailed information about international cooperation can be found in sections entitled "International scientific relationships" of annual reports of IA&E SB RAS presented in the web-site section entitled "Annual reports" (in Russian).
Researchers of IA&E SB RAS continued their cooperation with scientists of the Institute of Electronics of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia, Bulgaria) and of the University of Pisa (Pisa, Italy) on basic problems of radiation/matter interaction.
Together with colleagues from the universities of Anjou and Dijon (France), Bonn and Freiburg (Germany), and the Institute of Physics (Ukraine), researchers of IA&E SB RAS continued investigations of the formation of light structures in nonlinear media and systems, including fiber generators of ultrashort light pulses and microcavities.
Together with Ukrainian colleagues (Dominantex and Industrial Technologies Group, Kiev, Ukraine), joint activities are continued for the purpose of application of low-frequency diffraction tomography for solving inverse problems of geoelectric engineering.
Results of basic research of IA&E SB RAS in the field of vibration spectroscopy of crystals, glasses, and glass-forming liquids are presented in joint publications with foreign colleagues from Germany, USA, France, Japan, Taiwan, Belarus, and Ukraine.
IA&E SB RAS maintains close cooperation with the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED). Researchers of IA&E SB RAS participate in the formation of research programs and selection of presentations for the following international conferences: Signal and Image Processing (SIP), Visualization, Imaging and Image Processing (VIIP), and Automation, Control, and Information Technology (ACIT).
Within the framework of the joint basic research program between the Siberian Branch of the Russian academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, IA&E SB RAS worked together with the United Institute of Informatics Problems (Minsk, Belarus) and the Institute of Technology of Metals (Mogilev, Russia) and performed the project entitled "Methods, algorithms, and hardware systems for reconstruction, improving the quality, and increasing the resolution of signals and images in visible and infrared ranges" (2012–2014); the currently performed project is entitled "Development of intellectual software tools for accelerated solution of time-consuming problems of digital processing of information" (2015–2017).
Within the framework of the basic research program between the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, IA&E SB RAS performed the project entitled "Development of models, methods, and algorithms for estimating the state of the vegetation community of forest-steppe and steppe areas with the use of space monitoring data."
In accordance with the integration project of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences entitled "Nanometrology of aspherical surfaces," IA&E SB RAS performed joint investigations with the Institute of Physical-Technological Problems and Material Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic (Bishkek, Kirgizia) in the field of interferometer monitoring of the shape of aspherical optical surfaces with the use of synthesized reference holograms.
IA&E SB RAS participates in two projects, Random Fibre Lasers for Telecommunications and Distributed Sensing (RANDFIELDS) and Coherent Optics Sensors for Medical Applications (COSMA), aimed at scientific exchange within the framework of the program entitled "International Research Staff Exchange Scheme" (IRSES) supported by the 7th European Framework Program.
Results obtained by researchers of IA&E SB RAS together with their colleagues from China in studying a new scheme of a fiber SRS laser with random distributed feedback owing to backward Rayleigh scattering in a short waveguide were recognized by OSA as significant achievements in optics in 2014.
Together with colleagues from the Roma Tre University (Rome, Italy), researchers of IA&E SB RAS obtained new results in modeling of long-time evolution of the shore profile, which were presented at the International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference 2015.
Within the framework of the State Contract entitled "Scientific research by teams headed by invited scientists in the field of physics and astronomy" of the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Russian Federation, researchers of IA&E SB RAS performed the project entitled "Development of a source of powerful ultrashort pulses in the near and middle infrared range on the basis of a femtosecond fiber laser for medical applications" (headed by A. A. Apolonskii, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, Germany).
Within the framework of the Grant No. 11-02-93988-INIS_a of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), scientists of IA&E SB RAS performed the project entitled "Modeling and characterization of fiber SRS lasers with random distributed feedback" (joint competition of projects supported by RFBR and the Spanish National Research Council in 2011).
Within the framework of the RFBR Grant No. 13-02-90475 Ukr-f-a (joint competition of Russian and Ukrainian projects in 2013), researchers of IA&E SB RAS performed the project entitled "Photonics of nanocomposite systems on the basis of organic luminophores" together with colleagues from the Institute for Scintillation Materials of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kharkov, Ukraine).
Within the framework of the RFBR Grant No. 15-52-45068/15 IND_a (joint competition of Russian and Indian projects in 2015), researchers of IA&E SB RAS perform the project entitled "Continuous and pulsed polarization-dependent fiber parametric generators for applications in biomedical diagnostics" together with scientists of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (Kharagpur, India).
Within the framework of the contract with the National Metrology Institute (PTB, Brownschweig, Germany), researchers of IA&E SB RAS participate in the development of a system for measuring nanoforces.
IA&E SB RAS performed a contract with the Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Seoul, Republic of Korea) on joint investigations of laser generation in photonic crystals with active nanostructures.
In 2015, IA&E SB RAS joined the International Consortium on THz Photonics and Optoelectronics, which unites more than 70 leading Russian and foreign institutions involved in educational, research and development, and design activities associated with possible applications of THz waves.
Researchers of IA&E SB RAS participate in investigations of the Laboratory of Nonlinear Photonics of the Novosibirsk State University within the program entitled "Physical platform of nonlinear photonic technologies and systems" headed by Professor S.K. Turitsyn (Aston University, Great Britain) within the framework of the Grant of the Government of the Russian Federation for state support of research headed by leading scientists in Russian higher education institutions, research institutes of state academies of sciences, and state scientific centers of the Russian Federation.
Within the framework of the Year of Russia in Great Britain and the Year of Great Britain in Russia, the British Council together with the Novosibirsk State University and the Institute of Automation and Electrometry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences held a workshop "New types of materials and systems for photonics and sensorics" in 2014.
IA&E SB RAS is an initiator and one of the organizers of Russian workshops on fiber lasers with international participation, which were held in Academgorodok (Novosibirsk, 2007, 2012, 2014, and 2016), Saratov (2008), Ufa (2009), and Ulyanovsk (2010).
In the period from 2012 to 2016, IA&E SB RAS together with the VMK-Optoelectronika joint-stock company and the Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences held the XI, XII, XIII, XIV, and XV International workshops "Application of multichannel analyzers of atomic emission spectra in industry."
Based on scientific investigations, researchers of IA&E SB RAS published more than 200 research papers in foreign academic journals and collections of scientific papers in 2011–2015. More than 500 presentations at international conferences, symposia, and workshops were made. Several dozens of foreign scientists and specialists from China, Taiwan, Israel, Japan, USA, France, South Korea, Bulgaria, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and other countries visited IA&E SB RAS in recent years.


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Spilled substances can easily infiltrate a facility's drainage systems, and from there enter the community's water system. Seton provides Spill Containment Mats and Drain Guards, which come in various designs for different facility requirements.
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Across Brooklyn and every borough, our attorneys care for thousands of families in all matters of Elder Law and Estate Planning.
We go beyond the run-of-the-mill approach. We maximize our client's access to us. As a result, we get to know our clients and can offer them legal guidance tailored to their specific needs.
There are myriad legal strategies you might consider implementing as you design your estate plan. Regardless, there are a handful of "must have" estate planning documents you must create before anything else.
Learn more about the "must have" Estate Planning documents.
There can be terrific grief and pain at the loss of a loved one. Beyond grief and pain, when you add external stresses to the equation, you can have a disaster on your hands in very short order.Part of the responsibilities or duties of an executor or administrator of an estate can be to reduce the level of stress during the probate process.
Learn more about Trust and Estate Administration.
In some - but by no means all - cases, persons with special needs may not be able to properly manage their own affairs. They may also not have the capacity to appoint a substitute decision maker.
The law firm of Grimaldi & Yeung LLP offers estate litigation clients the benefit of years of experience in estate matters, including estate administration.
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Taking full advantage of all available government benefit programs can be essential to ensuring suitable living situations and quality health care for anyone, and especially for those living with a disability. In fact, some services require participants in their programs to be specifically eligible for coverage from government benefits such as Medicaid. Grimaldi & Yeung LLP specializes in identifying eligibility, applying for and obtaining benefits.
Find out how we can help you with government benefits.


I figure that over the coming cRaZy pre-Christmas and New Year weeks I will get through at least 5 Malt Mission posts. They will be irregular, but will be representative of my juletide travels to see friends and family. And January 1 will be the first anniversary of this Malt Mission! Wild. This drop was shared with MC in Toronto.
This is one of Grant's Cask Reserves (we had the Ale cask back at Malt Mission #78). These are variations on the standard Grant's blended whisky that undergo a second maturation or 'finish' in ex-sherry or ex-ale casks. This expression was put in first-fill ex-Oloroso sherry barrels in order to add sweet, warming, sherried and fruity impressions. Let's taste it.
For all William Grant and Sons products had on the mission click HERE.
Thin, not in a bad way; tight and compact. Coconut, licorice, and sweet sherry.
Toasty oakiness, toffee, coffee, cinnamon and biscotti. Even an impression of smoke in the finish.
Great blend with good depth of character with enough of interest for frequent sipping. Affordable, in fact great value considering the cost of sherry butts these days. Wholly pleasant stuff. I am still tasting its toasty charms minutes later. I imagine this didn't spend too long in the Oloroso cask as it only has accents of sherry and is not dominated by characteristics that might be expected. This is a good thing.


By Wesley Brown The Augusta Chronicle, Ga.
Meredith Lambert gets up every day at 6 a.m. to nurse her 8-week-old daughter, Cara, back to sleep. Shortly after that, her 2-year-old son, Gabriel, is raring to go, waking the Augusta family's oldest son, Caleb, 4, while breakfast is prepared.
It's not until after the two boys have eaten and are watching Curious George that the 29-year-old stay-at-home mom gets a short coffee break. Then, it's off to run errands -- usually until about noon, when it's time to fix lunch, nap, and begin to make dinner and clean the house.
Stay-at-home mom is a full-time job and it would be a high-paying one, too, if it was treated like other jobs.
Taking into account overtime pay and using income data provided by employers, the average stay-at-home mom should earn $118,905 in 2014. That is up more than $5,000 from $113,586 in 2013, according to Salary.com's 14th annual Mom Salary Survey.
"Sounds good to me," Lambert said last week at her home off Stevens Creek Road. "If there could be a lump sum put on stay-at-home mom, six figures is probably a good starting place."
Using the Web site's Mom Salary Wizard, more than 15,000 mothers worldwide quantified their hours by job description to compute a yearly average. Based on the data, Salary.com determined that the average stay-at-home mom went from working 94 hours per week last year to 96.5 hours on 10 household and childcare jobs in 2014.
The breakdown for the past year included housekeeper (14.6 hours), cook (14.5 hours), day care teacher (14.3 hours), facilities manager (10.9 hours), computer operator (8.6 hours), psychologist (8.3 hours), van driver (7.8 hours), janitor (7.8 hours), laundry worker (6.5 hours) and CEO (3.2 hours).
In all, each profession's wages totaled for an hourly rate of $18.32, a base salary of $38,126 and $80,779 of time-and-a-half overtime pay.
The hypothetical stay-at-home pay for moms was the highest since 2009, when calculations showed they should've earned $122,732 for 96.4 hours of weekly work.
More women are staying home full-time because of rising child care costs, a struggling job market and an overall ambivalence toward the effects of working mothers on young children, according to a Pew Research Center report.
The study, released last month, found that the share of mothers who do not work outside the home increased to 29 percent in 2012.
That's up from 23 percent at the turn of the century, according to the report. At the height of the recession in 2008, Pew estimated 26 percent of mothers -- which includes women who are married, single, disabled, enrolled in school or unable to find work -- were home with children.
Meredith Lambert and her husband Casey, a plant manager with Progress Rail Services in Jackson, S.C., had their mothers at home through their formative school years, and they agreed when they wed in 2007 that they would parent their children the same way.
"For me and my husband, we knew going into this that it might hurt us more financially if we did not have two salaries, but we also knew the value of me staying home was high, if we could make it work," Meredith Lambert said.
When discussing what they wanted their family to look like, Jenny Wilson and her husband, Ryan, a computer scientist at Fort Gordon, agreed she'd stay at home at least until their children -- Hannah, 7, Caroline, 5, and Nathan, 2 -- had completed elementary school.
"You can't put a price on being able to be there to see your child's first steps, recitals and ballgames," Wilson said. "I feel like I am investing in the people they will become later. You are forgoing monetary gain for long-term benefits. It's priceless."
After nursing three children back to health while fighting the same stomach virus herself last week, Wilson conceded that she had discussed with her husband of 11 years what a stay-at-home mom would earn if the countless loads of laundry, house cleaning and health-care sessions were lumped into an annual salary.
"I would love to know that number," the Augusta stay-at-home mom said at her home off Wheeler Road. When told the salary was calculated to be $118,905, she said "that sounds about right."
"I think my words this week to my husband were that I don't get paid enough for what I do," she said. "I told him I needed a raise from nothing."
Lambert and Wilson said the qualities of a successful applicant for stay-at-home mom would include having a strong stomach, being able to work long hours without eating or sleeping, and having extraordinary patience and discipline to be persistent, calm and prepared for repeated and unexpected messes.
Wilson said a major part of her job is chauffeur, citing the many trips from Westminster Schools of Augusta, where her oldest are enrolled, to the extracurricular activities they enjoy.
"They've been asking to do other sports, but mommy just cannot handle that right now," she said.
Meredith Lambert said the list of jobs was "right on the money," but that maybe she would add Sunday school teacher, because of the nightly Bible stories and daily verses she and her husband read with their children.
Lambert said the job has its difficulties and admitted she enjoys the alone time she gets every now and then to work out, take in a Bible verse or have an uninterrupted phone call with a friend. She also said the job is "worth every penny you don't make."
"You're there for all the little moments: the new discoveries and lessons learned that adults take for granted," she said. "I find those moments the most exciting. That's what keeps me going."


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Patrick Swayze(1952-2009)
Two Choices (2009)
Patrick Wayne Swayze was born on August 18, 1952 in Houston, Texas, to Patsy Swayze (née Yvonne Helen Karnes), a choreographer, and Jesse Wayne Swayze, a chemical plant engineer draftsman. His mother owned a dance school in Houston, where Patrick was also a student. His father passed away in 1982. He graduated from Waltrip High School in Houston, and attended San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas. He married actress/dancer Lisa Niemi on June 12, 1975, whom he had known when she was 15 and a student at his mother's dance school. His New York City dance training included the Harkness Ballet School and Joffrey Ballet School. He first danced professionally as "Prince Charming" in "Disney on Parade". After a stint as "Danny Zuko" in the original Broadway production of "Grease", he made his film debut with a small role in Skatetown U.S.A. (1979). He made his television debut in 1981 on M*A*S*H (1972), as a soldier diagnosed with leukemia.
After many supporting roles in films and a lead role in the TV mini-series North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985), he landed his breakthrough role as dance instructor "Johnny Castle" in the hit film Dirty Dancing (1987), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. He received a second nomination for his portrayal of "Sam Wheat" in the blockbuster Ghost (1990). Ghost (1990) was the highest-grossing film of 1990, and at one point, the fourth highest-grossing film of all time. Unfortunately, he did not capitalize on its success. His subsequent films like City of Joy (1992), Tall Tale (1995), Black Dog (1998), and Waking Up in Reno (2002) did not fare well with critics or audiences. In December 2003, he returned to Broadway as a replacement for the lead role of "Billy Flynn" in the acclaimed revival of John Kander & Fred Ebb's musical, "Chicago". The production also went on tour in several cities of the United States, including Los Angeles. In January 2008, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He fought the illness for well over a year and was able to continue working, but died on September 14, 2009.
DiedSeptember 14, 2009(57)
Sam Wheat
Soundtrack22
Self105
Thanks10
Velvet Larry
Charles Barker
Richard Pressburger
Keeping Mum: Funnies
Keeping Mum: Deleted Scenes
Cash (voice)
Christmas in Wonderland
Wayne Saunders
Jason Monk
Allan Quatermain
TV Mini Series
George and the Dragon
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
Dance Class Instructor
Ja Rule: Murder Reigns
Detective Fitzgerald (uncredited)
One Last Dance
Grandview, U.S.A.
'Point Break' | Anniversary Mashup
Donnie Darko: 15th Anniversary
Dirty Dancing: 30th Anniversary Edition
The Fox and the Hound 2: Special Edition
Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill
Official Patrick Swayze International Fan Club
5′ 9¾″ (1.77 m)
Los Angeles, California, USA(pancreatic cancer)
Lisa NiemiJune 12, 1975 - September 14, 2009 (his death)
Don Swayze(Sibling)
(1970s) TV commercial: Burger King restaurant chain.
3 Print Biographies
2 Portrayals
15 Magazine Cover Photos
Began his career as a dancer appearing in Disneyland's parades as Prince Charming from Cinderella (1950). One of the many Cinderellas he danced with was Michelle Pfeiffer.
Good-looking people turn me off. Myself included.
His half salute


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Jury finds man not guilty in statutory rape case
by November 22nd, 2010 October 17th, 2020
A circuit judge sentenced a man last week in connection with a 2006 assault of a child.
A Texas County jury found a Cabool man not guilty Friday of statutory rape after a nearly two-day trial.
Danney L. Benefiel, 65, was charged with the offense in 2005 and had signed a statement admitting having sexual intercourse with his fiancée's 13-year-old mentally retarded daughter, said John Beger, his Rolla attorney.
The defendant's evidence included testimony that both the victim, and her little sister, who had testified she saw the victim in the Benefiel's bedroom at a time when his pants were unzipped, had recanted their stories. Beger said the defendant also testified he only signed the confession, which had been written by a Missouri Division of Family Support worker, because the agency threatened to take the children from their mother, his fiancée.
In a closing statement, Beger emphasized that neither DFS nor the Texas County Sheriff's Department had videotaped or audiotaped the signed statement or a previous interrogation that occurred five days before – where he had denied any wrongdoing.
"We argued that on a case of this magnitude, where the defendant faces life in prison, the authorities should videotape, or at least audiotape, any interrogation," Beger said. "We thought it was suspicious he would talk to the authorities one day and deny everything, then a few days later sign a statement of admission."
Beger said state witnesses could not explain what they had said to Benefiel to get him to admit.
"We are happy the defendant has been found not guilty but it will not erase the years of turmoil he and his fiancée, now wife, have been through nor put this family back together," Beger said.
Tagged: danney l. benefiel, john beger, missouri division of family support, texas county, texas county sheriff s department


I'm in Camden , ME thinking about you, and how much you have always immersed yourself in the beauty of nature! From your love of your Waban garden, to our daily walks before work up and down the hills of beautiful Waban, to your pleasure working in your Kennebunkport garden, to your walks on Goose Rocks Beach searching for beach shells, to your love of the landscape of mid- coast ME…That quality of appreciation, gratitude and immersion in nature has been within your soul as long as I have known you. It does not surprise me, therefore, that if you could be a flower you would choose to be a day lily. You would fill your entire flower being with full expression and delight in enjoying being a day lily!
Thank you, Bev! and you, in midcoast Maine, immersed in the wonder of Camden and environs, Enjoy!!
I felt that this essay offered a lovely, reflective way into its subject, starting with "thinking" material (the studies), and ending with a kind of natural immersion. The writers' closing describes an ordinary flower–the day lily–with extraordinary allure, and its temporary magnificence seems to glow.
Rosemary, Thank you, Rosemary. You caught the essence of my effort to offer the science and then "show" how immersion can work. It was a fun piece to work and especially how serendipitously Douillard's information arrived at exactly the right time.
How uplifting! Once again I thank you for making me so aware of how nature can soothe me.
May you have more gentle time in the sun to keep yourself aglow.
I so appreciate your comment-especially the notion of "gentle time." I may reference it for a future post.Wish you the same!


You can place these little units under any hi-fi component, including speakers and, where appropriate, their screw threaded upper holes can replace your component's own feet. Each offers 50mm diameter base while being 25mm high.
I tried the feet with a Rega RP3 sourced budget system. The turntable was placed upon a wall shelf while my two-box Trichord Dino +phono amp system sat on an a top quality Atacama shelving rack. So there was plenty of good support already in place. I tried the P-Cones underneath the Dino+ boxes and played a selection of music from prog outfit, Camel's LP, Moonmadness.
I found that there was still noise moving in and around my system because the inclusion of the P-Cones improved the final sound quality. Placing the cones underneath the power supply of the phono amp (this choice provided the greater sonic change), the introductory, high pitched synth runs from the LP were not as brightly illuminated providing, with the P-Cones in place, a calmer and more melodic sound stage. In fact, the latter exhibited a greater focus, allowing the lower midrange synths to sound strong and powerful and the later percussion to be more charismatic with the larger drums offering a greater, hollow sound after a typical strike.
Onto more jazzy fare and Nat "King" Cole's When My Sugar Walks Down the Street the positively bright upper mids from the brass was now calmed while the bloom from the mid-song organ solo was now manageable and more precise in presentation while Cole's delivery offered new textures and nuances.
The P-Cone L system provides a valuable method of removing invasive noise from your hi-fi chain.
Russ Andrews' X6 mains block: It's A Block Party!


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BULGARIA TO HOST 2022 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
European Judo Championships
During the 2021 European Judo Championships in Lisbon, the traditional flag hand-over ceremony took place. Already an emotional and strong competition for the hosts, it was a pleasure to pass on the baton to a fellow nation.
Accepting the hand-over on behalf of the Bulgarian was president, Mr Roumen Stoilov who is also the recently appointed EJU Education Director.
I feel emotionally uplifted and at the same time responsible for the great honour given to the Bulgarian Judo Federation to host such a large and prestigious forum as the European Championship in 2022. Our preparations are already underway, in full force. We look forward to seeing you in Sofia next year!
Mr Roumen Stoilov, President of the Bulgarian Judo Federation. © Gabi Juan
With Bulgarian athletes including the 2020 European silver medallist in the -81kg category, Ivaylo Ivanov undoubtedly in the line up for the 2022 it will be a great event for this judo nation to host and welcome the greatest talent from across the continent and anticipate a terrific event.


Clean, Modern, and Classic are all terms to describe these new four-story apartment buildings in Scottsdale. Designed by architect Kristjan Sigurdsson, they brought a fresh, modern design aesthetic to the desert community. Packed full of amenities, each building was designed around a courtyard at the podium level and included pools, spas, fire features, full kitchens, bocce ball, sun decks, and gaming areas.
Interiors by Martin Langmead are "on fire", and feature a hot palette of colors and materials which were carried throughout both interior and exterior furnishings and materials.
Connell Real Estate & Development Co. / K & I Homes, Inc.


Paris, France – In what can be described as an extremely strange "coincidence," Paris-area emergency personnel and ambulance crews were taking part in a simulated emergency exercise on the very same day the Paris terrorist attacks took place.
The exact nature of the drill was a simulated mass shooting attack, according to Dr. Mathieu Raux, emergency room chief at the Pitié-Salpetrière hospital in Paris.
During Friday's exercise, trauma specialists used a centralized dispatch system to set priorities and direct victims to the ER best equipped to treat their injuries. Ambulance services made sure they were ready to roll, and hospitals verified that surgeons and staff could be quickly summoned to treat arriving victims. "We tested every link in the chain," Raux said. Because Paris emergency physicians work 24-hour shifts, virtually every ER doctor on duty in the city Friday night had already taken part in the exercise earlier that day.
While Paris-area emergency crews have regularly practiced emergency exercises since the attacks at Charlie Hedbo in January, in which 16 people were killed, the fact that the simulated emergency exercise and the actual events in Paris virtually mirrored one another raise some intriguing questions.
It seems odd that three of the most prolific terror attacks in recent history all share this common thread. The prevalence of terror drills, which mirror the actual terrorist attacks, being run in such close proximity to the actual events taking place begs the question of whether these drills mirroring actual events are truly just a "coincidence," or are perhaps an indication of something much more sinister.


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About the Mineral Resource Information Packages
Working with the Department of Defense Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), members of the USGS Minerals Project assessed fuel- and non-fuel mineral resources of Afghanistan from October 2009 to September 2011 with the goal of identifying particular deposits that could be relatively easily developed.
The team identified key Areas of Interest (AOI)—and subareas within them—that fit these criteria. The AOIs contain mineral reserves or resources that have been well-documented through sampling in trenches, drill holes, and/or underground workings. Most are accessible by existing roads.
The team then combined data previously published by USGS about these resources with new data gathered during the joint USGS-TFBSO effort to create digital Data Packages for 29 AOIs and 36 subareas. Archival reports and other types of information were added to these digital Data Packages to form 57 Information Packages.
The Information Packages, in turn, form the basis for mineral Bidding Packages that provide formal, legal means for Afghan and foreign investors and mining firms to acquire the rights to develop Afghanistan's mineral resources.
The newly created Afghanistan Geological Survey Data Center (AGSDC) may eventually act as the access point for the Information Packages. Until AGSDC reaches full capacity and is distributing large datasets, the packages are freely accessible and downloadable via this website.
View and download the Mineral Resource Information Packages.


The goal of this Funding Opportunity is to provide funding over a three year period to states that have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CMS to implement a CMS-approved State Financial Alignment Initiative.
contracts to 15 states to implement State Demonstrations to Integrate Care for Medicare-Medicaid Individuals.
Subsequently, CMS released a letter to State Medicaid Directors which discussed two models for integrating care and aligning financial incentives for Medicare and Medicaid as part of CMS Financial Alignment Initiative, a joint initiative of the Innovation Center and the Medicare Medicaid Coordination Office, under which States and CMS will collaborate to integrate care and financing for Medicare-Medicaid individuals.
The Financial Alignment Initiative is a unique Federal-state partnership to test aligning the service delivery and financing of the Medicare and Medicaid programs to better serve Medicare-Medicaid individuals.
As part of this effort, there is a need for strong beneficiary support education and outreach in each State that is implementing a Financial Alignment model, including options counseling for beneficiaries.
Awardees will develop and implement a coordinated SHIP/ADRC strategy and action plan to provide beneficiaries who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid - during both the Phase 1 Activities and Ongoing Activities of the program, as described in the funding opportunity announcement - with objective information and one-on-one counseling on the nature of the state s Financial Alignment model.
Such activities will include, but are not limited to, providing information and counseling as to how and when the project will be implemented, the options these dual eligible beneficiaries will have for receiving their Medicare and Medicaid services in their state, the appeal rights they will have under the model, and what they need to do to participate in the program.
The SHIP/ADRC staff assigned to this project must be able to provide this information and counseling in a way that is easy for beneficiaries to understand and is culturally and linguistically appropriate.
These activities must be carried out in a SHIP/ADRC.
Also, the SHIP/ADRC should possess a basic understanding of all CMS approved State Financial Alignment Initiatives.
Christopher Clark, Office of Acquisition and Grants Management (OAGM), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 200 Independence Ave, SW, Room 733H-02, Washington DC 20201.
This Funding Opportunity will provide financial assistance to State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs) and/or Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) to provide options counseling to Medicare-Medicaid Individuals (dual eligibles) to ensure that these individuals have access to an unbiased and consumer friendly source of information and counseling - distinct from the Demonstration Plans and Enrollment Brokers - to help them make informed decisions about options they have for receiving their Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
Eligible applicants from the CMS-approved Financial Alignment States include any one of the State agencies that administers the ADRC and/or SHIP programs(s) within the State (e.g.
State Unit on Aging, State Department of Insurance, a State Disability Agency, State Medicaid Agency or other State entity).
State Medicaid Agencies and the Medicaid Agencies in the Federal Territories - This cooperative agreement only serves beneficiaries that are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid coverage.
Yes. In order to apply, applicants must include a copy of the signed MOU with CMS to implement an approved Financial Alignment model. OMB Circular No. A-87 applies to this program.
OMB Circular No. A-102 applies to this program. This program is excluded from coverage under OMB Circular No. A-110. The standard application form SF-424 and related forms must be used for this program. In addition to the standard forms, applicants must provide a copy of the signed MOU with CMS to implement an approved Financial Alignment model. Applicants should review the application and submission information in the funding opportunity announcement for specific instructions on applying for this cooperative agreement program.
Successful applicants will receive a Notice of Award (NoA) signed and dated by the Grants Management Officer.
This solicitation is being issued under section 1115A of the Social Security Act (added by section 3021 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148)), which authorizes the Innovation Center to test innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures under Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children s Health Insurance Program while preserving or enhancing the quality of care.
This Cooperative Agreement is being funded for a period of performance of three (3) years, with support beyond the first year contingent upon acceptable evidence of satisfactory progress, and continuing program relevance. See the following for information on how assistance is awarded/released: Successful applicants will receive a Notice of Award. Unsuccessful applicants will be notified by letter. Applicants should review the award administration information of the funding opportunity announcement issued under this CFDA program for more information.
Grantees must include expenditures on the annual FFR (submitted at the end of each annual year).
Proper accounting records, identifiable by project number including all receipts and expenditures must be maintained for 3 years. Subsequent to audit, they must be maintained until all questions are resolved.
The total estimated amount of Federal funds available is $5,000,000. Individual awards will range from $250,000 to $1,000,000. States with a signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that receive awards under this funding opportunity will, per that MOU, be required to support options counseling. Following the initial deadline, based on available funding, applications will be accepted for review and approval throughout fiscal year 2013 according to the due dates outlined in the funding opportunity announcement.
Applicants should refer to the funding opportunity announcement for applicable regulations, guidelines and literature.
See Regional Agency Offices. Christopher Clark, Office of Acquisition and Grants Management (OAGM), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 200 Independence Ave, SW, Room 733H-02, Washington DC 20201.
Applicant should refer to the funding opportunity announcement under this CFDA program for specific criteria requirements on proposal selection.


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Grosse Ile man arraigned in shooting
Sunday Times Newspapers
TAYLOR – Shooting suspect Juddson Roberts, 21, of Grosse Ile Township, was arraigned March 5 in 23rd District Court by Judge Joseph Slaven.
Roberts is charged with one count of attempted murder, one count of assault with intent to commit murder and two counts of felony firearm. He was remanded into custody, with no bond and is being held in the Wayne County Jail.
Roberts was taken into custody by Taylor police officers March 2 as a suspect in the non-fatal shooting which occurred about 4 a.m. Feb. 29 near Zeigler Street and Eureka Road.
The suspect and victim knew each other, and both attended the same party the night of the shooting. Later, they were alone together in a vehicle, in which the victim was the driver and Roberts was the front seat passenger. When they were stopped at a stop sign, police said, Roberts exited the vehicle, then shot the victim twice in the face at close range, before fleeing on foot.
The victim was able to call 911 for help and units arrived within minutes. He was taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital for treatment, where he underwent surgery and is expected to survive.
A Taylor police official said the 20-year-old victim has a long recovery period, and will be in the hospital for an extended period.
Police officials are not identifying the victim or any details pertaining to the motive at this time.


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Biographymask
Posted on August 2, 2020 / Last Modified December 28, 2020
Popularity Bio By
Most Popular#179
Born on Aug 02 #1
26 years OLD #1
YouTuber #179
Leo #12
FIRST NAME Charles #2
Born in USA #81
More Facts of Penguinz0
Charles Jr.
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Sagittarius, Gemini, Aries
YouTuber, Instagram Star, Gamer
5 feet 6 inches (1.68m)
in-relation
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Penguinz0 is an American YouTube commentator. Penguinz0 has received critical acclaim for his dry humor and repetition in the usage of the words 'nipple' and 'titties', which has become synonymous with his character.
Table of Biography
2 Rise to Fame
4 Body Measurements
5 Social Media and Net Worth
His real name is Charles Xavier "Charlie" White Jr., born on August 2, 1994. He is from the USA and has American citizenship. Presently, he is 26 years old and his birth sign is Leo. In several of his video streams he mentioned studying at one of the American schools and graduated the college, but no one knows exactly. On May 7th, 2016, Charles graduated.
Caption: Penguinz0 clicking a picture with his dad. Source: Instagram
Rise to Fame
Penguinz0 first joined YouTube on May 7, 2007. And following a brief period of time, he uploaded his first video on August 5 in the same year. It was titled "gears of war jetpack glitch (NO Standby or lag switch) AP" and its main topic was on the performance of a glitch in the video game "Gears Of War".
Charles gained brief popularity on his first video where he actually commentated over it, which was "Aliens vs Predator Let Rock Achievement Guide". Therefore, his low voice was noted by several YouTubers who had watched his video and praised his notable "deep voice" and "seriousness". Cr1TiKaL allegedly took note of his performance in the video and began commentating over several videos, though they mainly focused on tutorials and were more solemn.
His first brush with humor was touched on in his video "Battlefield BC 2 Hilarious Round Saving Destruction", which was about an accident in the video game, Battlefield Bad Company 2, which he considered humorous. He would later upload several videos concerning humorous moments and periods transpiring through Battlefield Bad Company 2.
His first video in which he entirely focused on delivering humor in the form of insults and sarcasm through commentary was a video titled "Modern Warfare 2 Ground War 1-20 Gameplay and Commentary". He deliberately gave a hilariously bad performance in playing a Ground War of Ream Deathmatch in the multiplayer category of "Modern Warfare 2".
In his content, he repeatedly insulted players who killed him while poking fun at himself and repetitive use of self-encouragement in which he praised himself while also using mild forms of criticism. The video, as a result, gained wide critical acclaim and performed better than his early videos in terms of views. He will later cover a variety of video games while commentating over Call of Duty games with the same "terrible" performances.
Caption: Penguinz0 while making a YouTube video. Source: YouTube
Rise in Popularity
His videos had gained high critical acclaim following his commentaries over video games. They were often praised as "hilarious" and "sarcastic," and several YouTubers claimed to have cried out of laughter. However, his audience expanded at a rapid rate after he uploaded a video titled "The Most Difficult Game Ever Created Gameplay and Commentary."
Cr1TiKaL repeatedly lashed out at the game itself and the production while attempting to move the character but fail. Cr1TiKaL's primary focus was on sarcasm, commentary, and insult as he tries to complete the game. The video ended with him failing and cursing the video game.
The video eventually gained popularity and Ray William Johnson took note of and reviewed it. By establishing the humor and praised Cr1TiKaL's sense of insults and association with the word 'nipple'. The video's view count subsequently raised at a drastic rate, and Cr1TiKaL earned a considerable number of views, along with his number of subscribers increasing at an exponential rate.
Several rumors and claims attribute Cr1TiKaL's relation to a partnership with an unknown source of a company. He is allegedly being paid regarding his videos and topics but uses the money to pay off charities. His first note on charities was highlighted upon his video concerning "Charity", in which he discusses his financial matters. And his motive to give money to charities.
He also confirmed that he was not being paid to make his videos. However, rumors will eventually rise about him establishing a partnership with another company after his videos on charities were made, which focuses on his "philanthropy."
He has since ceased donating to charities after looking into the history of the charities he donated to, found most of the money he donated wouldn't go to the charities. But instead into the pockets of the organizers. Charles confirmed this during multiple interviews with guests on the Official Podcast.
Since 2018 he began broadcasting on Twitch. He used to stream on YouTube but became afraid of the moderation of the site. And lack of communication between him and YouTube's support team. He streams games and watches chat suggested videos.
In his Five Nights at Freddy's video, he tells the story of when he was 19. He accidentally urinated in a girl's mouth when he was receiving fellatio. But he stated that their relationship still continued after that. Moreover, on September 20, 2015, Cr1TiKaL officially revealed his real name to be Charlie in the video "About Me". This confirmed previous theories that Charlie in the credits of Lucius II was referring to Cr1TiKaL.
Over the years, he opened up about his personal life. By revealing both his dogs, his girlfriend Tiana Tracy, and even his dad in videos and streams from 2018 onward. He and Tiana have been dating for over 2 years now. However, they are having a great time together.
Caption: Penguinz0 clicking a photo with his girlfriend, Tiana. Source: Instagram
This YouTube gamer stands the height of 5 feet 6 inches tall. He has an average weight that matches his body physique. Moreover, there is no other information regarding his body measurements. However, he has an athletic body built and healthy body status. Further, he has light brown hair and brown eyes.
Social Media and Net Worth
His Instagram account '@bigmoistcr1tikal' has earned over 507K followers. He has gathered more than 780.5K followers on his Twitter account. Charles is active on Twitch under the username '@moistcr1tikal' and has amassed over 1.1 followers. Likewise, his 'penguinz0' YouTube channel has earned more than 5.57 million subscribers.
This amazing YouTuber earns a handsome amount of money. His estimated net worth is around $4.2 million. Moreover, he ranks among one of the funniest YouTube commentators.
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When we look at technologies in isolation, their potential seems limited. Combine them, however, and the possibilities grow exponentially: A simple project in my living room that grows chilli plants is a perfect case study of how you can leverage the power of big data and the cloud to integrate technology in your physical world. We will go through each part making up the system and at the end combine them to create an augmented reality system.
If we take the long Wikipedia definition of augmented reality and reduce it to the most basic idea, it's an advanced version of reality. I personally approach it by using a combination of technologies and tweak the system so that I can communicate with it in a natural way. That's why the chili-growing project in my living room incorporates a computer vision system, IoT and a smart assistant.
I got this idea when I read about the collaboration between Jeff Bezos from Amazon and Satya Nadella of Microsoft. They opened up their respective smart-assistant platforms, Cortana and Alexa, to be used by both Microsoft and Amazon. The two companies are now not really trying to sell you their voice assistants anymore. Instead, they are using them as a portal to the rest of their business: By opening up their smart-assistant platforms, they make it easier than ever before to reach the rest of their products and services.
This made me realize that it is not about the technology anymore but rather about what that technology allows you to do.
Identify individual plants, i.e. distinguish one chilli plant from the other.
All of the measurements I was collecting from the IoT devices would now belong to an identifiable object. I called my chilli plants "Rufus" and "Charlie" and can now fetch data for each plant individually. That's how my system builds a contextual understanding of the environment which allows me to target each plant individually based on individual measurements.
The light exposure by switching a growing light on or off.
Get a contextual understanding of the environment by locating the plants in the real world from a video feed.
By identifying the plants in the real world, they could be linked to real-world-data collected by the IoT devices.
Enhance reality by adding an information overlay and thus creating an augmented reality world.
Switch a growth light on or off that targets individual plants.
I had never grown chillies before, so learning more about the plants was a really nice side effect of this decision. It's basically impossible to learn about chillies without learning about the Scoville Scale. That's why I decided to go big and buy Dorset Naga plants, whose chillies are reported to be one of the top 5 hottest chillies in the world!
To me, IoT on its own is kind of boring. What excites me is how it can be used to let our gadgets interact with our environment. It's predicted that, by 2022, there will be 29B devices connected to the internet - 18B of which will be IoT devices. In 1999, Bill Gates used the analogy "Digital Nervous System" to describe the then modern enterprise. Today IoT gives this "Digital Nervous System" senses, a finger on the pulse. It changes the way we do business, take measurements and generate data which gives companies the ability to closely monitor operations and make future predictions based on real time data.
The Raspberry Pi was a big game changer for me - I could combine my passion for programming with my childhood hobby of electronics. My house quickly became a lab for experimentation, for finding ideas that no-one else in the community seems to have thought about. That's also why I can now use Slack on my phone to switch my braai-light on - all thanks to a Raspberry-Pi.
For my chilli-growing-project, I decided to use IoT devices to measure light and soil moisture levels and send those values to the cloud. I realised that it would also be useful for the IoT device to control parts of the system from the cloud - for example allowing the system to control a plant growing light.
For this, I chose a Particle Photon. It has seven analog pins ideal for collection sensor values and six digital pins that are perfect for controlling aspects of the system from the cloud.
The light sensor (a seperate sensor) is connected to one of the analog pins of the Photon and to the ground pin of the circuit. Building the circuit is where my childhood-hobby of electronics comes in handy. The circuit is build by using a breadboard - using the connected rails of the breadboard connections are made between the sensors and the pins of the particle photon, effectively creating a circuit. The sensor measures the light resistance and converts it to a percentage value that is easier to relate to: 0% would be completely dark and 100% would equate full light exposure.
Chilli plants generally need lots of sunshine and moist soil. I measured the amount of light my plants were exposed to so that I could make an informed decision on whether to turn the growth lights on or off. For this, I checked the light readings after dawn and before dusk. I would switch individual lights on when the reading for the respective plant dropped below 0.6 and off when the reading rose above 0.6.
The purpose of the project wasn't to be intelligent and decide when to switch grow lights on or off, but rather to give me the information and* control* over parts of the environment.
Note: The ability to micro target individual objects might not be significant when dealing with only a handful of objects but could be extremely useful when dealing with objects at a large scale.
In order to make sure I was watering the chilli plants optimally, I used a soil moisture sensor kit that works similarly to the light sensor. It consists of the sensor, the probes that you stick into the soil and the connectors you use to connect to a circuit. It records the resistance on the probes and converts the values to a percentage. 0% would equate to complete dryness whereas I'd have drowned my plant at a 100% moisture level. In my experience, the chilli plants were most happy if I kept the moisture levels above 80%.
Note: There is absolutely no scientific backing for this, I simply base this number on my idea of what a healthy and happy chilli plant looks like.
In order to stream data to the particle cloud, I needed to connect the Photon to WIFI and allow it to stream its sensor readings to the particle cloud. Built-in libraries send data directly from the particle photon to the particle cloud. A cloud integration is used to stream data from the Particle Cloud to Pub/Sub, the Google cloud messaging service. For our project, the Pub/Sub also functions as the entry into the Google Cloud. The end goal is to stream the data into BigQuery. For this, I used Dataflow. We will look at each of these steps in more detail.
If you look at the animated gif above, a particle photon program consists of two parts: a setup and a loop. In the setup you declare your variables and do your initializations. The loop is a function that is continuously called. This is where you do measurement readings that are sent to the cloud. For this, I used the built-in library and published the values to a specific topic. Take note of the topic, your cloud integration will use this topic later to stream data to pub/sub.
After I had started streaming data from the IoT device to the particle cloud, I needed to make sure that the data is sent to Pub/Sub by setting up a cloud integration. The cloud integration is the link between the particle cloud and the Google Cloud Platform.
Create a topic: This is important because your webhook will relay messages to this topic, and dataflow will later on subscribe to the topic to stream data to BigQuery.
Create a particle user: To create a trust relationship between the particle cloud and the Google Cloud, a particle user is created. You'll make the user a member of the Google Cloud and give them rights.
Now that I had data streaming from the edge to the cloud, it was important to create a communication channel from the cloud back to the edge. This communication channel would be used to switch the growth lights on or off. The particle cloud exposes a REST API and it is possible to set up a callback on the device that's listening to specific incoming messages.
The growth lights use 220V AC power, the power you get from a normal power socket. The particle photon circuit however operates on 3.7V DC as sourced from a mini USB power supply.
To be able to use a 3.7V DC from the particle photon to switch on a 220V AC growth light, I used a relay.
I used a 5V relay and connected it to the digital pins of the particle photon as well as directly to the growth lights. This would allow me to switch on the lights from the internet. In the same loop as the measurement readings are done, the system also listens for incoming messages from the internet and decides how to handle them. To control the growth lights, I wanted to either set the selected digital pin to 1 or 0 (3.7V or 0V).
The Particle Photon collects data from sensors and streams them to the cloud. It is also possible to send messages to the Particle Photon from the internet. The Particle Photon listens for messages and will fire an event if a specific message is received, thus making it possible to control aspects of your environment from the internet (e.g. switch a specific growth light on or off from the internet). The IoT part of the project is now in place.
Computer Vision with deep learning at its core has surpassed human level accuracy in tasks that we once thought only humans are capable of: self-driving vehicles, medical diagnostics and, as my system is showing, getting a contextual understanding of our surroundings.
A good example of Visual Object Identification (VOI) is the facial recognition feature of Google Photos. From thousands of photographs Google can identify your family and friends, even your pets. Now, that's really great when dealing with individuals that each have different visual characteristics, but not very useful in a factory where all the machinery looks the same. That's why I had to come up with a different approach. A simple and practical way to identify objects.
To learn more about computer vision through deep learning, I initially built a Raspberry Pi system that could recognise objects by pointing a webcam at them. Then, I added object identification and integrated the object classification with IoT. That's where it becomes exciting for me: Using computer vision in combination with IoT devices and sensors to gain a contextual understanding of an environment.
The information I can gather with the sensors is then not just translated into table-values hidden in a database somewhere. It's now an object I can detect and identify from video. To me, this is what it means to "enhance reality".
In order to assess each plant's individual health, my system had to be able to distinguish one from the other. This would help me to get more contextual information about Charlie and Rufus, such as individual soil moisture values. Identifying individual objects is vital to link the visual aspect of the project with the collection of information in the environment.
A while back, I stumbled on the interesting idea of using stickers to fool neural networks. Turns out, it's quite easy to make a neural network think that a photo of a banana is that of a toaster. The trick? Showing the neural network a sticker and teaching it to associate a specific thing with that sticker. That's the trick I used for my chilli plants. The 2 stickers I used to for Charlie and Rufus are hand drawn and completely random.
I trained a convolutional neural network (CNN) to recognise the stickers in various scenarios. This works by showing the CNN thousands of images of the different classes and making small adjustments based on fancy algorithms that optimize the training process. Then you repeat until the CNN becomes really good at recognising objects on images it has not seen before.
To make sure the model generalized well across different light conditions, angles and a constantly changing environment, I generated +/- 3000 images with a webcam that I continuously moved around. I also had to ensure that the CNN differentiated on the actual stickers and not background features. That's why I kept mixing up the backgrounds.
Below, we can see the system recognising the individual plants based on the sticker.
And to prove that the model is actually identifying the plants based on the individual stickers, the image below shows the system working, even when swapping the stickers around.
The training of CNNs is computationally intensive. I did all my development and training on an Ubuntu desktop with an i7, 32GB of RAM and a NVidia GTX1070ti GPU. On ordinary laptops or desktops without a GPU, the training would have been incredibly slow.
That's why it's a good idea to look at cloud options to train your models. Google, for example, gives you free access to powerful GPU computing through their Colab platform which has been specifically created for students and hobbyists. The Azure and AWS platforms are also excellent platforms for Machine Learning.
I developed the system with Python 3.5, TensorFlow and the help of this guide. This really helped me to set up my machine for data science, and will be a life saver for those of you still stuck on a windows machine (Hint: machine learning is so much easier on Linux).
Collect measurements from the environment using sensors and stream those values to BigQuery in the cloud.
Use computer vision to identify individual objects in the environment.
Link the identified to real-world-data collected by the IoT devices and overlay the the video feed with the contextual information.
All I had to do was to link the data collected by the IoT devices with the real world objects identified by the computer vision and create an interface. The logical next step would probably have been to create an android app, but I wanted to go one step further: What if I could interact with my chilli growing system in a natural way?
Smart Assistants have become the voice controlled hub for smart homes and, by extension, could become a natural proxy to an "augmented reality" or other complex systems. The speech recognition capabilities of smart assistants allow to interact naturally with a system.
To set up the speech recognition of my system, I used the Google Home Assistant and the DialogFlow framework.
Step 1: Teach DialogFlow the intent to switch a light on. Essentially, you train the framework by giving it examples of how you would speak to the system, and guide it to extract intent and context. The more training samples you give it, the better DialogFlow will become at understanding your speech and variations.
Step 2: Connect the detected intent to an action with Flask One of the loose ends in communication is between the intent extracted by DialogFlow and the action taken. If the action, for example, is to switch a light on, we need to somehow let the IoT device know to switch the light on.
I used a Flask web service to handle DialogFlow intent and to decide what to do based on the intended action.
Flask is a lightweight Python web service framework hosted as a Google Cloud function in a managed environment. That makes it ideal for building a web service API. DialogFlow communicates back to the outside world by making a HTTP post to a REST API, in my case the Flask API.
Note: Even though it might come across as if I'm a Google salesman, I have built the system like lego blocks: each block could be swapped against a different technology. That means instead of using the Home Assistant, you could use a Slack or Alexa integration.
I challenge you to go out and find applications for the ideas I presented to you here. Contact me and lets see how we can work together to make your dream come true!