"Generating an image while reading requires that the reader be actively engaged with the text." (Reading rockets, 2015).
"Good readers construct mental images as they read a text. By using prior knowledge and background experiences, readers connect the author's writing with a personal picture. Through guided visualization, students learn how to create mental pictures as they read." (Reading Rockets, 2015). Visual imagery can take place before, during, or after reading. It can be taught to small groups, whole group, or individually. Visualization is an important part of comprehension, because students need to be able to create the picture in their head of what is going on in the story. For the picture to flow and make sense, the students need to be comprehending their text.
When readers are having a hard time understanding what they are reading, this is a good strategy to teach them. It helps them to create images, scenarios, or movies in their minds that reflect to the text. For example, a student is not understanding a story about an ocean, however when the student visualizes the place and really focuses on key details he/she understand because he/she can visually see it. Visualizing makes it easier for students to understand the text because they are looking beyond the words and creating images that help them understand the text.
One might imagine a sunset on the beach and hear the waves, smell the seaweed, feel a breeze, and clearly see the rich colors of the sunset as the Sun drops below the horizon." (WiseGeek, 2015).
"Start with small bits of text. Gradually add more as students get more familiar with the strategy.
Find books that will relate to the ELL students in your classroom so that they can connect with their prior knowledge.
Have ELL students explain their connections and visual images to the class if reading a story from their culture.
Show pictures that relate to the story you are reading after the students have visualized to help them connect in multiple ways.
Creating mental images while reading can improve comprehension." (Reading Rockets, 2015).
Often times for struggling readers, words on a page are just words on a page. When we use a strategy that helps make the words on the page come alive it allows them to use their imagination and see more than just text. When students are creating images they can recall information easier, because they have a visual aid/representation to relate to the text. According to Harvey and Goudvis, visualizing strengthens students inferential thinking by having mental images rather than words and thoughts (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007). Also according to Wilson, her article states visualizing helps students feel more connected to the material and students are able to see the characters, be apart of the setting, and participate in the actions. It is like being apart of a film and brings the words on a page to life and helps them understand and connection to the text (Wilson, 2014). The authors of the text, Reading Problems: Assessment and Teaching Strategies, state that not all students learn through the same cognitive process. Some learners are visual learners and learn best through visualizing and having visual aids, so having students who struggle with reading will provide these students with a learner strategy that helps them effectively understand the material (Jennings, Caldwell, and Lerner, 2014).
"Begin reading. Pause after a few sentences or paragraphs that contain good descriptive information.
Once this is a familiar skill, encourage your child to use mental imagery when she is reading by herself. You can feel confident that these mental pictures will help your child understand the story in an important way." (Reading Rockets, 2015).
This is an example video of a visual imagery lesson. The teacher uses many different strategies to help her students comprehend the text. Watch as she models her skill for her students and helps her students to become successful. She prompts her students and gets them on the right track.
Reading: Students can use visualizing to connect to the text. After modeling and practicing the visualizing strategy, the students will be able to utilize this throughout all of their readings in their life. There are many books that can be used to model visual imagery such as: All the World, Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, Bunnicula, and Aesop's Fables. These are a few examples of books that will help create vivid images for students and will help teachers be able to model this strategy clearly.
Mathematics: Students can use the visualizing strategy to think through math problems. They can begin with the end in mind, and visualize how they are going to solve the problems. While doing mathematics, first you will need to begin with the think-aloud strategy, and then visual imagery, because the students will need to know the process to arriving at an answer to the certain types of problems. "Look at this problem and picture in your mind how you are going to get an answer. Think about what steps you are going to have to use." This would be a sample statement for students when they are practicing visual imagery.
Science: When students are unable to take a trip to somewhere to explore, we can ask them to visualize going there. "Take yourself to a beach, somewhere with a salty ocean." This will help the students to visualize what it is like to go to the ocean. The students will use this strategy to connect to their science content. "Visualize how a rabbit's fur would feel," or "picture in your mind how it would smell if we were at a cow pasture." These types of statements will help students connect to their outside world.
Social Studies: When students are able to use visualizing for social studies, they will be connecting to the reading in a whole new way. Cultures, places, and history are all important to the social studies content. "Close your eyes and picture yourself walking with Martin Luther King Jr. during his march. What would it feel like? Who would be with you?" This is an example of how we could use visualizing to help students connect to an important time in history. This is more effective than the students just reading it in the book.
Visual imagery can be treated as a stress management tool. It can be used to calm the students down as they begin to feel panicked.
• Use before, during, and after the reading.
• Allow time for students to discuss and share.
• Use a book with a lot of details.
Pounds, L. (2012, October 22). Increasing Reading Comprehension through Visualization. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
Model an example the first timeHarvey, S., & Goudvis, A (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding. York, ME: Stenhouse.
Visual Imagery. (2015). Retrieved September 27, 2015.
Visualizing Strategy. (2015). Retrieved September 18, 2015.
Wilson, D. (2014). Brain Movies: When Readers Can Picture It, They Understand It. Edutopia. Retrieved on 9/21/15. From http://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-movies-visualize-reading-comprehension-donna-wilson.


If you need additional coverage, look into optional insurance packages. You are going to have to pay a higher deductible, but it might work out for you in the long run. Using uninsured motorist protection protects you from financial liability if you are the victim of a hit-and-run accident, or if any driver that causes you damage is not carrying insurance.
Take the bus or carpool. If you prove that you are a low risk, then your provider will respond by offering you a low premium. Letting your agent know that you carpool or ride the bus may help him or her find you a discount that will reduce your premium.
Don't do monthly payments for your auto insurance bill. It is common for insurance agencies to add around $4 to a monthly bill. Even though it's a small amount, it can add up. If you have tons of other monthly bills, it can quickly become a large burden. This is good incentive to lower the number of payments.
Raising the amount of your deductibles is a great way to save money on insurance. If you do not have the money on hand to pay your deductible, this can be risky. However, by diligently saving enough to meet this amount, you can save lots of money on your premium by electing to raise it. Larger deductibles generally equal cheaper insurance premiums.
Wait to cancel your current auto insurance policy until the point when you have another policy lined up. Do not go without insurance for any reason because you can always get into an accident.
TIP! It is not a good idea make your insurance premium payments on a monthly basis. You can save around 5 dollars a month if you do this.
If your family includes teenage drivers, don't buy them their own cars. For the first few years, it's wise to have your teenager share a family vehicle. You'll save money by adding a teenage driver to your current insurance policy. Good grades at school can actually give an insurance discount.
When purchasing auto insurance, it is important that you look into several different companies. Chances are you'll need to look around to find the best deal.
TIP! Raising the amount of your deductibles is a great way to save money on insurance. While this means more money spent up front if you are have an accident, it will save money on your premium.
If you drive no more than 7500 miles annually, you will likely qualify for a sizable discount from your insurance company. If you're able to cut back on driving by carpooling or using public transportation, your insurance rates just might benefit.
Consider paying for your annual insurance cost in one payment. Insurance companies commonly charge fees for splitting your premium into monthly installments. A great way to avoid this fee is to start saving now, and when your policy is ready to be renewed, pay it off for the entire year.
When you are dealing with infractions on your record that affect the rates you are being offered for car insurance, explore options for receiving a better quote. Some companies will be willing to reduce your premium for safe driver courses, for instance. Companies, such as Progressive, offer their customers an option to install a chip, which monitors how they drive. If it sees you drive carefully, your interest rate will be reduced.
Don't overlook the option of having a lower premium by choosing a higher deductible. The amount of your deductible is the single biggest factor that affects rates. Of course, a higher deductible means that you are responsible for what the insurance company doesn't pay. A good practice it to have an emergency account for this reason.
Sometimes, older individuals can get a discount if they take a driver's course. 10% is a perfectly great discount on your insurance premium.
Choosing car insurance can be difficult because there are often confusing words and phrases that aren't used in daily life. This article will define those terms in easy to understand language, so that you can more confidently find the right insurance policy for you. Insurance is a product which should give you peace of mind, and that peace of mind can be more easily gained if you are a well-informed consumer.


Phi Beta Kappa. Barrister, American Inn of Court, No. 130, 1991-1994. Listed, Outstanding Lawyers of America.
Idaho State Bar; Idaho Trial Lawyers Association (Governmental Relations Chairman, 1989-1990; Judicial Chairman, 1992-1993); National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
State v. Julian, 129 Idaho 133, 922 D.2D 1059 (1996); Sterling v. Bloom, 111 Idaho 211, 723 P.2d 755 (1986).


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Second Anniversary– Friends of Rwandan Greens Launched in Australia
On the occasion of the second anniversary of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, a global network of concerned citizens launches Friends of Rwandan Greens (FoRG) in Australia.
FoRG is aimed at supporting democracy in Rwanda and the right of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda to campaign as an opposition party without fear of violence or repression.
FoRG has been launched on 15th August 2011, also in time to participate in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth, Australia.
The Australian Spokesperson for Friends of the Rwandan Greens, Amy Tyler, explains that whilst many of the members of FoRG share no history or common language with Rwanda, they have united under the Commonwealth values of democracy, freedom, peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all.
"FoRG was established after I spoke with the President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, Frank Habineza and learnt of the difficulties his party was having in participating democratically in Rwanda," Ms Tyler said.
"We decided to establish a Facebook and Twitter site so as to provide a measure of global oversight on the Rwandan situation."
"As can be seen by the Arab Spring democratic uprisings, social mediums like Facebook are increasingly being used as global tools to strengthen democracy" Ms Tyler said.
"Facebook and Twitter are not just online forums to chat with friends. They also provide rapid unfiltered information, document abuses and connect members from all over the world in fights for social and political justice."
"FoRG will provide up to date information about the Rwandan Greens as well as remind the Rwandan government that there are people all over the world watching and documenting their actions."
"This year, FoRG is a focusing their attention on ensuring that the Commonwealth steps up the plate and ensures that political and democratic rights are upheld in their member states, such as Rwanda."
"Despite suspicions of human rights abuses, Rwanda was allowed to join the Commonwealth Nations in 2009. Since then, however, we have seen no progress in Rwanda for political freedom, and in fact things have probably got worse for those struggling for political freedoms in Rwanda," said Ms Tyler.
"The Commonwealth has roots as far back as the 1870s and one of its core principles is to strengthen civil society to build stronger democratic institutions and procedures."
Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown is supportive of Friends of the Rwandan Greens taking action through the forum offered by the Commonwealth Nations.
"I have been concerned about political freedom in Rwanda for several years, and in 2009 I raised this issue in the Australian Senate before the admission of Rwanda to the Commonwealth. This was when there was an opportunity to review Rwanda's record on human rights according to the standards agreed to by the Commonwealth's 1991 Harare Declaration. The Australian Government should have insisted upon this before supporting Rwanda's Commonwealth membership. I and the Greens will continue to work for this worthy cause," Senator Brown said.
"Grass-root social organisations like Friends of Rwandan Greens need to take action because our governments are failing to fulfil their duty to the Commonwealth principles."
"Friends of Rwandan Greens are calling on the Australian and other Commonwealth governments to use the forum of the Commonwealth Nations, to take constructive action and investigate these crimes so as to ensure the political freedom of opposition parties in Rwanda and the next parliamentary elections in 2013 to be free, fair and democratic." said Ms Tyler.
"Our second anniversary has been a time of reflection and encouragement. The past two years have been very hard, we remember our founding congress of 30th October 2009, which was sabotaged violently and thereafter denied permission to convene again, we remember our First Vice President, Andre Kagwa RWISEREKA (RIP), who was decapitated on 14th July 2010-a few days to the August 9th presidential elections, we remember all the difficulties that our members have had to endure : those who have been imprisoned and those who had to go out of the country. We are determined to move on and will participate in the 2013 parliamentary elections. Democracy will finally take base in Rwanda. Keep strong my people, never lose hope, we shall overcome. We warmly welcome the launch of Friends of Rwandan Greens." Frank Habineza said.
BRIEF BACKGROUND
The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda was launched on 14 August 2009.
However, the government made it impossible for them to register for the 2010 elections and they were unable to run for government.
Then, on the 14 July 2010, their first Vice President, Andre Kagwa RWISEREKA was found decapitated, in a manner reminiscent of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
For further details, please contact :
Amy Tyler, Spokesperson for Friends of the Rwandan Greens
Tel : +61 400 550 140, Email : 22tyler@gmail.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


With a little bit of glue code you can implement your AGI scripts in Groovy, an agile dynamic language for the Java Platform. Your scripts run still in the Java VM on top of Asterisk-Java.
Using Groovy for AGI scripts is great for rapid prototyping as you only have to edit your Groovy script to modify the applications behavior. Recompilation happens automatically. You get the benefits of scripting languages and still run on the JVM.


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s_fin_2016a_2016-05-05t10:03:47z16 Hearing Summary
BILL SUMMARY for SB16-210
SENATE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
Votes: View--> Action Taken:
Adopt amendment L.004 The motion passed without ob
Adopt amendment L.005 (Attachment H ). The motion
Refer Senate Bill 16-210, as amended, to the Commi Pass Without Objection
The committee took a brief recess.
Senator Hill gave notice of intent to reconsider House Bill 16-1267.
02:07 PM -- SB16-210
Senator Baumgardner, prime sponsor, presented Senate Bill 16-210, which bill requires the Transportation Commission to submit a ballot question to voters in 2016, 2017, or 2018 for approval of $3.5 billion in Transportation Revenue Anticipation Notes (TRANs) once existing transportation bonds have been repaid. The maximum repayment cost cannot exceed $5.5 billion or take longer than 20 years to repay. TRANs proceeds must be spent on a list of transportation projects described in the bill.
The bill also eliminates the final three years of Senate Bill 09-228 transfers and diverts 5 percent of state sales tax revenue to the Highway Users Tax Fund (HUTF) and 1 percent of state sales tax revenue to the Capital Construction Fund (CCF).
Senator Baumgardner explained amendment L.004 (Attachment G) and Senator Neville explained amendment L.005 (Attachment H).
16SenateFin0505AttachG.pdf 16SenateFin0505AttachH.pdf
02:10 PM -- Ms. Sandra Solin, representing the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance, testified in support of the bill.
02:15 PM -- Mr. David May, Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce, testified in support of the bill.
02:18 PM -- Mr. Gerry Horak, Mayor Pro Tem of Fort Collins, testified in support of the bill.
02:21 PM -- Mr. Eric Bergman, representing Colorado Counties, Inc., testified in support of the bill.
02:23 PM -- Mr. Jeff Wadsen, representing the Colorado Business Roundtable, testified in support of the bill.
02:26 PM -- Mr. Grier Baily, representing theWyoming Petroleum Marketers Association, testified in support of the bill.
02:30 PM -- Mr. Greg Fulton, representing the Colorado Motor Carriers Division, testified in support of the bill.
02:34 PM -- Mr. Steve Tool, representing the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance, testified in support of the bill. Mr. Tool addressed questions from the committee.
02:40 PM -- Ms. Barbara Kirkmeyer, representing the Board of County Commissioners, testified in support of the bill.
02:44 PM -- Mr. Mike Salisbury, representing the South West Energy Efficiency Project, testified in opposition to the bill. Mr. Salisbury responded to questions from the committee.
02:49 PM -- Mr. Joe Kiely, representing the Ports-to-Plains Alliance, testified in support of the bill with amendments.
02:54 PM -- Mr. Herman Stockinger, representing the Colorado Department of Transportation, testified from a neutral position on the bill. He responded to committee questions.
Senator Baumgardner made closing comments on the bill.
BILL: SB16-210
TIME: 03:03:53 PM
MOVED: Hill
MOTION: Adopt amendment L.004 (Attachment G). The motion passed without objection.
SECONDED:
Holbert
Neville T.
YES: 0 NO: 0 EXC: 0 ABS: 0 FINAL ACTION: Pass Without Objection
MOTION: Adopt amendment L.005 (Attachment H ). The motion passed on a vote of 3-2.
YES: 3 NO: 2 EXC: 0 ABS: 0 FINAL ACTION: PASS
MOTION: Refer Senate Bill 16-210, as amended, to the Committee on Appropriations. The motion passed on a vote of 3-2.
Final YES: 3 NO: 2 EXC: 0 ABS: 0 FINAL ACTION: PASS
The chair laid HB 16-1361 over to Friday's calendar. The committee adjourned.


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The Oldest House in London by Fiona Rule
This was an interesting concept for a book but as I was reading, I could never decide if I was enjoying it or not. The hook for the book is following the history of London by means of the oldest house in the capital, and what historical events it has seen. I guess I might have wanted it to be a bit more domestic in places, whilst fully appreciating there's only so much evidence out there. Even so it was interesting to think about what this house has lived through - plague, fire, various monarchs and religions, protests, rebellions, two wars, and plenty of rebuilding. Overall a decent read.
Walk 1000 more
We're halfway through January now so those who were going to set resolutions have no doubt done so by now. If anyone is still looking for something to get more active and get out there, the Walk 1000 Miles initiative by Country Walking magazine caught my eye. It's a challenge to do exactly what it says on the tin, although really the goal isn't necessarily the target but really to get outside and get more steps in than you have before.
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins
I was nervous going into this album because a) hard rock and b) two hours long! But in the end, neither of those things were too much of a problem. It only occasionally gets too much into the hard rock category, otherwise it's just regular rock with the ups and downs that are required in an epic double album like this. It is long and I would never particularly search out an album at this length but I was never bored during it or wishing it would end, so that's a great sign. I don't know how much of this is going to stay with me (1979 maybe), but I'm glad to have given it a listen.
Dirt Femme by Tove Lo
This is a great album. It took me a minute to adjust to it because I was stupidly expecting something more like Halsey. But this is more dance, and I really like it. Grapefruit is such an important song. However, it's not all perfect, I don't enjoy the one that samples Popcorn because how annoying is that? There's never a reason to put Popcorn in any music. But otherwise, a good listen, great beats, fab vocals.
How to be Perfect by Michael Schur
I don't think I can adequately describe how much I loved this. My knowledge of philosophy has only ever been 'I think therefore I am' and the trolley problem, and that's even having watched and adored every series of The Good Place. But I remember listening to the podcast that accompanied the show and whenever creator Mike Shur was on, it was always fascinating. This book is basically an extension of those epiosdes.
The men with the maps
I'll be honest that I don't watch a lot of stuff on YouTube, other than the memes and clips from talk shows that gain a lot of popularity. There are a couple of channels I keep an eye on (Pitch Meetings and Tom Scott have been mentioned here previously), but I never mind a new creator to add to the list - particularly when they have fascinating videos that teach you a thing or two.
The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick
This is a really nice, gentle book of family drama and rediscovering yourself. Martha finds herself always saying yes to people and drowning in a sea of helping others, but through a mixture of new friends and revealing old family secrets, she starts to come back to life and find her way. The book does fall into the trope of dipping back and forth in time to reveal a little bit more of the story each time, but it works very well, and I enjoyed a relatively peaceful read.
It's only a little miss
I don't remember being particularly fond of the Mr Men & Little Miss books as a child or at any point in my lifetime, but they were certainly around. I potentially had an affinity with Mr Bump and was suitably horrified by Mr Tickle. I didn't know they were still being created and books were still being released with new characters all the time, it must be quite the universe at this point.
Plus a bit more
Apple have released a comprehensive round up of their 2022 entertainment and services - inevitably happy about how successful they have been - with wisdom from VP of the sector, Eddy Cue. There are lots of facts and figures, as you might imagine, but I do like the summary from Mr Cue: It's remarkable how much great content is at our fingertips; that's a testament to the extraordinary work of creators worldwide.
The Last by Hanna Jameson
Overall this is a good read - the story of survivors after an all-too-believable escalation of nuclear war leaves them stranded in a hotel in Switzerland. It's page turning, and it's an intriguing cast of characters, but I do wonder if the book couldn't quite decide what it was going to be. It's part apocalypse thriller, part crime and mystery story, and part social commentary, and I don't know how well those elements blend together. But I do like how it ended, which is always hard to do in a survival story like this.
The reliable narrator
The Guardian published an interesting post last week about audiobook narration and the impact artificial intelligence could have on it. The post talks to an author who was working with Apple on a secret project that allows AI voices to provide the narration on an audiobook - and evaluates whether it's any good or not. From sentence to sentence, the cadence of the narrator's voice glides forward, then snags on an artificial syllable.
The best godmother in the world
I was so busy watching Sam Ryder do his thing on New Year's Eve for the BBC that I totally missed what was happening in other corners of the world - in particular Miley Cyrus pulling out all the stops and performing with a variety of guests for NBC. Dolly Parton was one of the featured friends, and the pair cruised through Wrecking Ball and Jolene and a few other hits.
Troublegum by Therapy?
The first track of this album almost immediately put me off as it was just a lot of screaming. But then once that was out the way, it was better… some pretty standard 90s hard rock. I don't know that it's an album that will live with me or I will particularly remember in future but it was fine to listen to and was an energetic start to the year!
Through the Madness by Maddie & Tae
The way artists release music is continually changing and evolving and so I keep adapting the 'rules' of this album adventure to try and keep up. I don't think in the past I would have even considered listening to EPs, but these two were branded as the first and second half of a singular album, so I'm saying it counts. In terms of the music, it's just good solid nice country pop music - nothing hugely groundbreaking and not the big focus on storytelling like some of the other country singers, but enjoyable songs that are nice to listen to.
TBR, TBC
While we're talking about books, one of the new year resolutions I haven't specifically talked about is the one about not buying any more books to take up space on my digital bookshelf. I don't want to talk numbers because I'm embarrassed, but I've built up quite a collection of books for an excessive TBR (to be read) list, and it's going to take some time to get through them.
The Happy Hoofer by Celia Imrie
I've seen Celia in plenty of film and TV over the years but didn't know a lot about her life so this was an interesting read. It starts with a turbulent childhood, including a real struggle with eating disorders because of the body pressures on being a dancer, and then through a lengthy and varied career on stage and screen. Every moment is told with humour but there are the occasional reality checks and moments where Celia realises something about herself. It's fun to hear about the moments behind the scenes of much-loved creations, the Exotic Hotel, working with Victoria Wood, and of course some of Britain's best-loved TV. Not all of it is great but all of it is a lesson. A good read, this one.
Five star book report 2022
I read a lot last year, in all sorts of formats. Along with the poetry and comics that I was trying out for the first time, there were the regularly scheduled books, audiobooks, reference books, shorts and a great mix of genres through them all. I've noticed a few more physical books creeping into my life, mostly as gifts but occasionally because that just is the best format for reading something in.
Cogs and the machines
I've written about previously stumbling on Richard Hammond's Workshop, the Discovery+ programme that follows Mr Hammond trying to get his new classic car restoration business off the ground. A second series just finished in December, and I enjoyed the second just as much as the first, although found it just as frustrating. Hammond still likes to throw money at a problem before actually sitting and thinking about the consequences but you can't fault his enthusiasm.
Q1 movies - Life's a scream
Thanks to a Halloween binge and the inevitable Christmas slush-fest of films, we just about managed to watch 100+ movies last year. That's always the aim, but it was a close run thing. There just haven't been many that really grab attention, aside from the regularly scheduled Marvel and Star Wars releases. But it's always worth keeping an eye on what else is coming up and these are the movies that are due to be released over the next three months that I'll give a second glance.
News for a new year
I have not been very good at following global news over the last couple of years, mostly because the news tends to focus on all those things that are, you know, the end of the world. I find it hard. But I'm maybe starting to lift my head out of the sand a little bit and do want to keep up with events where I can, so have been approaching news outlets that focus on more than just the obvious topics.


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[email protected] (+593) 99 522 1019
GALAPAGOS NEWS
Galapagos Packages
Galapagos Diving
GALAPAGOS AIRPORT TRANSFER
ONE DAY EXCURSIONS
ONE DAY DIVING TOURS
TRAVEL INFOGRAPHIC
DISCOVER WITH US THE WONDERS OF THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS
About Galapagos Island
Exploration and adventure activities
Outstanding Species
Charles Darwin Reserch Station
The Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean, 960 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. They have thirteen islands, all of volcanic origin and more than a hundred islets and rocky outcrops. They are known because of their amazing flora and fauna found throughout the islands. Also the Galapagos Islands are home of an infinity of species that only exist in this part of the planet. As an example of these endemic species are the giant tortoises, the Galapagos penguin, the finches of Darwin, the blue-footed booby and many others.
The exotic landscapes are unique in the islands of the Pacific, its huge lava fields, rock formations, cactus forests, volcanic cones and marine landscapes, which house underground volcanoes, rocky bottoms, vertical walls and coral reefs, giving life to an extraordinary biodiversity of species where you can have great adventures. The Galapagos Islands almost in its entirety is considered a national park, while the sea in its surroundings is considered a marine reserve. Only four of the islands are inhabited, the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno in San Cristóbal, Puerto Villamil in Isabela and Puerto Velasco in Floreana.
Casa Natura is a small family farmhouse surrounded by nature in the highlands of the island of Santa Cruz and in the center of the main sites for excursions and diving in the Galapagos. It has 14 rooms, a dining room, a self-guided path and several social areas for passengers to experience. All rooms have a private balcony that allows guests to enjoy the lush landscape of the Galápagos highlands and its ecosystem.
Check the following link for more information about the room types that the Lodge offers:
Diving in this small group of volcanic islands is a unique experience. The natural beauty exuded by the Galapagos Islands show us an incredible diversity of life both terrestrial and marine, from penguins to giant tortoises, sea horses, hammerheads, rays, whale sharks and sea lions. Diving tours is you best option to discover the amazing underwater Galapagos life.
Follow the link below to get more information on which tour you can perform this activity:
Do not miss the opportunity to experience the snorkeling activity where you will be part of an impressive show watching thousands of fish, in various shapes and exotic colors. A truly amazing place, the Enchanted Islands is the marine paradise, where the underwater fauna is unlike any other place in the world.
In the Galapagos Islands it is very usual to see the spectacle created by countless species through its crystal clear waters. The adventure in kayak can show you these marvels in the first row, turning it into an interesting activity that you should not miss while enjoying Garrapatero beach.
The Galapagos Islands archipelago, located in the Pacific Ocean, is made up of 19 islands belonging to Ecuador. Among them, we find islands of volcanic origin and other islands belonging to the submarine mountain range that extends to the south of the continent. Its paradisiacal beaches, fine sands, crystal clear waters, are its main attraction, where you can enjoy the exotic wildlife while relaxing by the sea. Enjoy the impressive Garrapatero beach, where you can interact with friendly species such as flamingos and ducks.
Experience incredible wildlife encounters, explore the lava trails alive with birds, even the second largest volcano in the world, relax on the white sand beaches full of sea lions and marine iguanas, snorkel with sea turtles and sharks. Hiking is a perfect adventure for groups and families of all ages where you can discover nature in the Galapagos Islands.
Riding a bike in the Galapagos Islands is a different adventure experience where you can discover the different landscapes it offers. Farms, highland dirt roads, isolated beaches and excellent scenic viewpoints are among the most prominent places to enjoy bike rides through the Galapagos.
The 5 species you must visit at the Galapagos Islands
Giant Tortoise
These are the largest and longest living turtles in the world. The largest giant tortoise in Galapagos that was recorded measured 1.5 meters and weighed 549 kg. These species can live more than 100 years in the wild, while captive individuals that have been known can live up to 170 years.
Follow the link below to get more information on what tours you might see this animal:
Blue Footed Booby
The blue-footed booby is a bird distinguished by the intense blue color of its legs. His name in English "booby" comes from the word "bobo" due to the clumsiness that becomes when moving by land. However, they are excellent flyers, spend the greater part of their lives flying over the sea. Their species is the only one that builds its nest made up of branches in trees and shrubs.
Marine Iguana
According to the research conducted by Charles Darwin, the marine iguana is one of the most incredible species of Galapagos due to its amazing adaptations and evolutionary changes.They arrived as terrestrial iguanas, and then they made an evolutionary leap to a marine state and then spread throughout the archipelago. They are found only in the Galapagos Islands.
Galapagos Pinguin
This is the only penguin specie that lives north of the equatorial zone. Its appearance is due to the fact that a small group of penguins were dragged to the islands by the Humboldt Current, which originates in Antarctica and flows northwards, along the South American coast, from Chile to the North from Peru.
Galapagos Hawk
In the archipelago, the animal at the top of the food chain belongs to the Galápagos hawk, a large endemic bird of prey. As a predator, it has no natural enemies, but it is classified as vulnerable. A genetic research shows that the arrivals of these birds are no more than 300,000 years, compared to other species such as finches, which arrived two or three million years ago.
Galapagos Sea Lion
These sea lions are one of the largest animals in the Galapagos. They are also among the favorites of tourists, who see them from their arrival lying on the rocks, docks and even banks near the beaches. The Galapagos sea lions are very friendly and it is even safe to dive and swim near them if they are not disturbed.
Hammerhead Shark
The hammerhead shark is named for the shape of its head, which resembles a hammer, this form provides better vision and provides a wider area of electroreceptores. These electroreceptors serve to detect electrical signals while hunting on the seabed. It is usually seen around the Gordon Rocks and Beagle Islands, in the north of the archipelago.
The facilities were inaugurated in 1964 so that scientists could use the station as a base for their research in the Galapagos Islands. For decades, work was carried out on conservation, restoration and sustainable development projects for the flora and fauna of the Galapagos Islands. More than a hundred scientists, research assistants, educators, support staff and volunteers from all over the world have contributed to various investigations. Currently, the staff of the organization is made up of more than 75% of Ecuadorians and its goal is the professional training of the permanent residents of the Galapagos. The facilities are made up of offices and research laboratories, both marine and terrestrial, a conference room and a diversity of collections on natural history. The areas open to the public have an exhibition hall, native gardens and a public library. In addition to being a tourist destination, the Research Station is of vital importance, as it is responsible for providing scientific knowledge and technical advice to the Government of Ecuador for the conservation of Galapagos.
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text:
If You Havin Music Constraints I Feel Bad For You Son
I had to double check, but this video IS on EA's actual Battlefield channel:
I like Jay-z a lot, and that song is one of his classics… but seriously what a terrible choice of music in the context.
That said, Battlefield 3 is looking pretty sick!
You can pre-order the game now for an October 25th delivery – HERE
Hat tip: Scotty
Posted by: ENDO-Mike October 1, 2011
Categories: Guns • Military • War • YouTube
Tags: Battlefield 3 , PC , playstation , ps3 , video game , xbox360
032125 October 1, 2011 at 12:35 am
Yeah sooo many better choices out there than this song, which is just totally uninspiring.
Punish3r October 1, 2011 at 12:51 am
The beta is fun and if you didn't pre-order it you can play it now since its an open beta. Here is the link to download it for your different gaming platforms: http://www.battlefield.com/battlefield3/1/beta?sourceid=title-bf3-exact_wk_bf3_exact_68_bf3_beta_google
Poppy October 1, 2011 at 01:12 am
"99 Problems but a Bitch Ain't One"? What the hell! That's false advertising!
Battlefield is awesome, period. The series has no problems in regards to story, game-play, or graphics in my humble opinion. But you know what problem it does have? Other people.
Play on Xbox Live for five minutes and you'll be singing "I've got 109,673 problems and they're all bitchy-ass fucking 12-year-olds."
So really, bitches are the only problem you'll run into whilst playing Battlefield 3.
McKay October 1, 2011 at 01:29 am
If you play Battlefield on anything other than PC you already got a major problem.
junyo October 1, 2011 at 08:47 am
What's worse is they're playing it on TV with the bad words chopped out, which makes an already awkward choice even worse.
El Bombardero October 1, 2011 at 10:07 am
It almost ruins the song……..
……..almost
Ross October 1, 2011 at 01:06 pm
"Above and Beyond the Call" – taking shots at the Call Of Duty series?
We needed some good competitive shooter titles. The best part is they're so drastically different you can enjoy both pretty well. I see BF3 being more of the clan/group game and MW3 being the solo 12-year old haven.
I've been playing the BF3 Beta and it's been a lot of fun. Took a couple hours to get the hang of things, and I still don't like clicking the thumbstick for crouch/prone, but the weapon system is good. Getting the jump on someone kills them, hit detection through walls works, the knife takes time to use making it a last resort or silent tool, A few pistol rounds will kill someone.
The only thing I feel it's missing is a slick setup and weapon comparison interface, similar to the CoD class setups. At least BF3 lets you change things up as you unlock weapons/attachments during the fight.
Frank October 2, 2011 at 12:58 am
I also thought it was taking shots at CoD.
Personally I don't like hit detection on any game, maybe that's because of all that Operation Flashpoint when it game out waaay back when.
Dillankid October 3, 2011 at 01:33 pm
I miss the original OFP :-(
bbmg October 1, 2011 at 01:09 pm
I prefer the version featuring Linkin Park, much better edge to it.
45er October 1, 2011 at 01:56 pm
You can tell that there wasn't thought that went into pairing the music with the content. Someone just liked that song too much and it didn't matter, they were going to use it.
Dom October 1, 2011 at 06:51 pm
Actually I like it.
Church October 1, 2011 at 09:51 pm
I don't think it's as bad as you all are making it out to be… Good video, good editing for the song, and I do agree it wasn't the best choice for the video, but I don't think it's as bad as you guys are saying.
gir October 2, 2011 at 04:36 pm
its incredible how different this game plays on xbox than PC. on PC the tactics are way more realistic and the game is way more unforgiving. definitely worth trying even if your a console fanboy or can only run it on minimum specs
NikonMikon October 2, 2011 at 07:14 pm
You know who the 'bitch' is in the song right?
It's taking jabs at mw3
Ski October 2, 2011 at 11:22 pm
This would have been a better choice. Original work, with sound from battlefield already in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxrsUA5wrM
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This article "Grove's Last Laugh: The Gender of Self-Representation in Frederick Philip Grove's In Search of Myself " originally appeared in Gay and Lesbian Writing in Canadian Literature . Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 159 (Winter 1998): 114-137.


text:
The Monument to Marco Minghetti is a memorial statue dedicated to the statesman Marco Minghetti (1818-1886); it is located along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, at Piazza San Pantaleo (Piazza di Palazzo Braschi), in Rome, Italy.

Minghetti had served the Kingdom of Italy, at least twice as prime minister, and many years in congress, mainly allied with more conservative factions. His early deliberations had mainly focused on the consolidation of the Italian peninsula into a nation, including the Papal States and Venice. He had begun his career under Count Cavour. After his death, Parliament approved and funded a monument. A commission led by the Marquis Antonio Starrabba of Rudinì, and including the sculptors Emilio Gallori and Ercole Rosa, and the architects Basile and Manfredi, sponsored a competition for the memorial. The initial designs considered by the commission, by Ettore Ximenes and Adolfo Laurenti, were ultimately turned down. A subsequent model was approved in 1988; this one was a design by the sculptor Lio Gangheri and the architect Giacomo Misuraca. At the time, the Palazzo Braschi was home to the Ministry of the Interior and the prime minister's office.

The monument was inaugurated on September 1895. The bronze statue of the standing Minghetti, with a book in hand, rises atop a high plinth. His left hand appears to be making a point. At the base is an allegorical statue putatively representing Politics with a laurel crown and reading books. Beside her is putatively a child, representing the nation, with a flag. On the rear of the monument, an inscription states the monument was decreed by Parliament on the 19 June 1887.

References

Monuments and memorials in Rome
1889 sculptures
Outdoor sculptures in Rome
Bronze sculptures in Rome

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
\section{Introduction}
 Decimal arithmetic is widely used in financial and
scientific applications. Thus, IEEE 754 (Standard for
floating-point arithmetic) has been revised to include decimal
floating-point formats and operations~\cite{IEEE754}. Many software
(SW) languages support decimal arithmetic that is realized with binary
hardware units. However, these may not be satisfactory for a very
large application in terms of performance.  Many financial
applications need to keep the quality of their customer
service concurrently with the back-end computing process where
computing time is a matter for the business owner.

The decimal arithmetic can be computed with software (arithmetic with
binary hardware units)~\cite{CLib,INTEL,Mar2009tc}, hardware (dedicated hardware unit for decimal
floating-point arithmetic)~\cite{IBMz2011,IBMSCH2001,IBM2009,FUJITSU}, or combination of
both~\cite{Riaz2018}.
Software solutions are flexible and no additional hardware cost is involved.
Hardware solutions require
high-performance dedicated decimal units with high hardware cost.
Software-hardware co-design solutions can co-optimize flexibility, performance and hardware cost
and give several Pareto points to development of embedded systems.
In software-hardware co-design solutions, a part of solution requires some dedicated hardware while other part can be executed in standard processors supporting binary arithmetics.
However, evaluation of co-design solutions requires special evaluation environments.

In~\cite{Riaz2018}, four software-hardware co-design methods for
decimal multiplication are proposed.
part.  A software part is evaluated by running it in several software
platforms by replacing hardware part with dummy functions, while a
hardware part is evaluated by designing hardware with
computer-aided-design tools.  The environment can roughly evaluate the
total performance as an execution time of software program with dummy
functions.

To obtain more accurate evaluation, integrated environment with
dedicated hardware design, software platform, and the interface
between them is required.  An open-source processor like UltraSparc T2
architecture~\cite{OPENSPARC} from Oracle/Sun (the first 64-bit
microprocessors open-sourced) with standard SPARC instruction set
architecture~\cite{SPARCISA} can be used for such evaluation.
However, it requires not only adding new decimal floating-point units
and new instructions for them but also software tools to generate and
simulate binary codes for the new architecture. SPARC V9 architecture
provides IMPDEP1, 2 (Implementation-Dependent Instruction 1,2) and
they can be used for new custom instructions.

In this work, we develop an evaluation framework for software-hardware
co-design of decimal computation using RISC-V ecosystem~\cite{RISCV}.
RISC-V ecosystem is an open-source environment including RISC-V ISA,
Rocket chip (one hardware implementation for RISC-V), RoCC (Rocket
custom co-processor, Rocket chip interface to support accelerators),
several languages for software and hardware, and several tools for
verification and evaluation. In the proposed framework, a co-design
solution is realized as a software that accepts new decimal-oriented
instructions, and the new instructions are supported by a dedicated
accelerator. Cycle-accurate analysis is given by emulating RISC-V
binary on Rocket chip with the dedicated accelerator.

The key contribution of this paper is listed below:

\begin{comment}
\begin{figure*}[t]
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.7\columnwidth}
\centering

\includegraphics[clip, width=.7\columnwidth]{a_fpga.pdf}
\subsection{FPGA through PCIe link.}
\label{fig:fpga}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.7\columnwidth}
\centering

\includegraphics[clip, width=0.7\columnwidth]{fig/b_opensource.pdf}
\subsection{DFP unit on OpenSPARC T2 core.}
 \label{fig:open}
\end{minipage}
 \begin{minipage}[t]{0.7\columnwidth}
\centering

\includegraphics[clip, width=0.7\columnwidth]{c_accelerator.pdf}
\subsection{DFP in Rocket core as accelerator.}
\label{fig:accelerator}
\end{minipage}
    \caption{Evaluation process of decimal floating-point (DFP) arithmetic.}
\label{fig:ev_process}
\end{figure*}
\end{comment}

\begin{enumerate}

 \item{Development of an evaluation framework for software-hardware co-design solutions of  decimal computation.}
 \item{Evaluation of software-hardware co-design solution of decimal multiplication.}
 \item{Open-source project of proposed framework available at \texttt{www.decimalarith.info}.}
\end{enumerate}

The organization of the paper is as follows: In
Section~II decimal multiplication using software
hardware co-design are discussed. In section~III the
overview of the proposed framework are presented. The evaluation of
decimal multiplication using the framework is proposed in
Section~IV and the evaluation results are discussed
in~V. Finally, the conclusion is provided in
Section~VI.

\section{Co-Design for Decimal Multiplication}

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.75\linewidth]{method_1.pdf}
  \caption{Flow of method-1 in~\cite{Riaz2018}. White and gray blocks
    for software and hardware respectively.}
  \label{fig:method-1}
\end{figure}

Decimal floating-point (DFP) number system represents floating-point
number using base 10. A number is finite or
special value. Every finite number has three integer
parameters sign, coefficient, and exponent.

IEEE 754-2008 compliant decimal multiplication process has the
following basic steps: first, both operands are checked whether they
are a finite number or special values such as NaN (not a number) or
infinity. If either operand is a special value, then the special
general rules are applicable for the operation; otherwise, the
operands are multiplied together with following basic steps:
\begin{itemize}
 \setlength{\itemsep}{-1pt}
 \item {The sign and initial exponent are calculated by doing XOR and
   addition operation between the signs and exponents of multiplier
   and multiplicand.}
\item {Coefficient multiplication is performed to produce the
  coefficient of the result.}
\item {If the result exceeds the precision then rounding operation is
  applied with various rounding algorithm~\cite{Mar2009tc}.}
\item {Finally, the exponents are adjusted accordingly.}
\end{itemize}

The process of such multiplication can be designed using a combination
of software and hardware. Some solutions have been proposed
in~\cite{Riaz2018}.
In this paper, we propose an evaluation framework
  and evaluate Method-1 of~\cite{Riaz2018} as an example.

Figure~\ref{fig:method-1} shows an overall flow of
Method-1 that is one of the solutions in \cite{Riaz2018}.
The method requires one BCD-CLA (BCD
    carry-lookahead adder) as an accelerator to generate multiplicand
  multiples and accumulate partial products.  In addition, no binary
  conversion is required.  To obtain the product of
    coefficients of multiplicand ($X_{c}$) and multiplier ($Y_{c}$),
    these values are first converted into BCD binary-coded
        decimal from DPD (densely packed
        decimal)~\cite{DPD} in software.  The DPD encoding,
   where the coefficient encoding is is very close to BCD
  and can be easily converted to BCD.
  Hardware component BCD adder is used to generate
  multiplicand multiples $1X_{c}$ to $9X_{c}$ by adding
  $X_{c}$ repeatedly. Then the final sum is calculated by adding and
  shifting the multiplicand multiples according to the digit
  of $Y_{c}$. The exponent of the result is finalized by
  adding the number of the rounded digits.

\section{Overview of Framework}
\begin{figure*}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.82\linewidth]{overall.pdf}
  \caption{Overview of proposed framework. Gray color indicates our contribution.}
  \label{fig:overall}
\end{figure*}

The proposed framework uses RISC-V ecosystem, decimal C library (decNumber),
arithmetic verification test case and our developed set of test programs. All
major components and software tools, used to integrate the framework,
are listed in Table~\ref{tab:env}. Note that they are fully
open-source programs.
\begin{table}[t]
  \caption{Development environment}
  \label{tab:env}
  \centering
  \scalebox{.95}{
    \begin{tabular}{l|l}
      \hline
       & Description \\ \hline  \hline
      Compiler & GNU GCC for RISC-V as a cross compiler~\cite{GCC}\\ \hline
      ISA simulator & SPIKE~\cite{SPIKE} \\ \hline
      Programming language & High-level: Scale, C++, and C\\
      & Hardware description language: Chisel~\cite{CHISEL} \\
      & Assembly: RISC-V assembly\\ \hline
      ISA & RISC-V~\cite{RISCV} \\ \hline
      Processor core & Rocket~\cite{ROCKET}\\ \hline
      Decimal Software Library & decNumber C library~\cite{CLib}\\\hline
      Testing & Arithmetic operations verification database~\cite{FAHMY2010}\\\hline
  \end{tabular}}
\end{table}

In a co-design methodology, it is very important to decide which functions or operation should have dedicated hardware, and which functions should remain in software to reduce hardware overhead and increase the speed of computing with several tradeoffs. Many parameters including encoding system (BID, DPD), internal format of a decimal number, base, etc. need to be considered for the design.

To design the framework considering software-hardware co-design, we develop a set of hardware components and software program. We include some area efficient hardware components along with associated software that supports decimal computing.
 Hardware components are realized as a dedicated accelerator.
RISC-V based Rocket core and Rocket custom coprocessor (RoCC) are used in the framework.

The software design may adopt some existing process form~\cite{INTEL,CLib}
with replacement of some expensive and suitable portion with hardware like~\cite{Riaz2018}, or
a completely new method with new instructions can also be designed.
In our design, we use base billion, DPD encoding, with BCD-8421 on hardware. However, the design parameter can be flexibly changed by the framework user.

In addition to hardware and corresponding software, we also develop
a test program generator written in C. The purpose
of the generator is to configure the parameters.
To use the generator, we first set up some mandatory and optional configurations
including the format of precision (double or quad), input data-type (rounding, overflow, normal, underflow, etc.), type of the arithmetic operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication or any other), the number of repetition par calculation, pattern of output (execution time or number of cycle) etc.
Then the test program to evaluate target co-design solution is automatically generated.

\section{Evaluation Framework}
\label{sec:propose}

The architecture (hardware) and programming model (software) are described in this section. The overall model of the proposed framework is depicted in Fig.~\ref{fig:overall}.
On the hardware part, necessary FSM and hardware description for the accelerator are designed. Rocket chip is then compiled and built with the newly generated
accelerator and an executable for the emulator is generated. On the other hand, in software part, RISC-V in-line assembly and C source code are compiled by RISC-V GCC cross compiler to generate RISC-V binary. After that, the binaries are simulated by SPIKE ISA
simulator for functional verification. Hereafter RISC-V machine code
is generated to be executed on the emulator. Finally,
the emulator is executed to get the evaluation output and wave forms. A detailed description of architecture (hardware) and programming model (software) is given below:

\begin{figure}[t]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{instruction.pdf}
	\caption{RoCC instruction encoding (number of bits).}
	\label{fig:instruction}
        \vspace{3mm}
\end{figure}

\begin{table}[t]
\centering
\caption{List of instructions}
\label{tlb:function}
\begin{tabular}{l|l|l}\hline
Function    & \textit{Function7}  & Description                                \\ \hline
\texttt{WR} & 0000000 & \begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Write a value\\ to a register in Rocket core\end{tabular} \\ \hline
\texttt{RD} & 0000001 & \begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Read a value\\ from a register in Rocket core\end{tabular} \\ \hline
\texttt{LD} & 0000010 &  Load a value from a memory\\ \hline
\texttt{ACCUM} & 0000011 &  \begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Accumulate a value into a register\\ in Rocket core\end{tabular}\\ \hline
\texttt{DEC\_CNV}   &0000110   & \begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Convert binary number to\\ corresponding BCD\end{tabular}\\ \hline
\texttt{DEC\_MUL}   &0000111   & Multiply two BCD numbers               \\ \hline
\texttt{DEC\_ADD}   & 0000100  & Add two BCD numbers                          \\ \hline
\texttt{DEC\_ACCUM} & 0001000  & \begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Accumulate BCD numbers stored \\in internal registers\end{tabular}\\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\begin{table*}[t]
\centering
\caption {RoCC instructions (number of bits)}
\label{tlb:instruction}
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
31                                                                                & 25                             & 19                            & \multicolumn{3}{l}{15}                                                                                & 11                               & 6                                                                                \\ \hline
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Instruction}                                                             & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{Source -1} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{Source-2} & \multicolumn{3}{l|}{Addressing mode}                                                                                & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{Destination} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{Fixed opcode}                                                   \\ \hline
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}\texttt{Function7}(7)\\ rocc instruction\end{tabular}} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{\texttt{rs2}(5)}    & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{\texttt{rs1}(5)}   & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}xd\\ (1)\end{tabular}} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}xs1\\ (1)\end{tabular}} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}xs2\\ (1)\end{tabular}} & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{\texttt{rd}(5)}       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}\texttt{Opcode}(7)\\ Custom-0\end{tabular}} \\ \hline
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{\texttt{CLR\_ALL} (0000101)}                                                       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{00000}     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{00000}    & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0}                     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0}                                                 & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0}                                                 & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{00000}       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0010111}                                                       \\ \hline
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{\texttt{RD} (0000010)}                                                             & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{00000}     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{01011}    & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0}                     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0}                                                 & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{1}                                                         & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{00000}       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0010111}                                                       \\ \hline
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{\texttt{WR} (0000000)}                                                             & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{00000}     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{01011}    & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{1}                      & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0}                                                 & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0}                                                        & \multicolumn{0}{l|}{00000}      & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0010111}                                                       \\ \hline
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{\texttt{DEC\_ADD} (0000100)}                                                       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{01010}     & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{01011}    & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{1}                      & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{1}                                                 & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{1}                                                       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{01100}       & \multicolumn{1}{l|}{0010111}                                                       \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\vspace{3mm}
\end{table*}

\subsection{Architectural Design (Hardware)}
\begin{comment}
\begin{enumerate}
\item Configuring co-processor interface.
\item Generating own required configuration using the interface.
\item Define function and operation FSM (state machines): This is the most important part where the state machine is programmed to execute the new instruction. Based on the instruction of each function within the function.
\item Modify core to interduce new interface.
\item Configuring simulator with the new interface.
\item Rum benchmark testing to check the functionality.

\end{enumerate}
\end{comment}
To embed the decimal arithmetics into a RoCC co-processor, two major parts, interfacing and executing units, are required.
RoCC has three default interface signals and they are:
\begin{enumerate}
\item {Core control (CC): for co-ordination between an accelerator and Rocket core.}
\item {Register mode (Core): for the exchange of data between an accelerator and Rocket core.}
\item {Memory mode (Mem): for communication between an accelerator and L1-D Cache.}
\end{enumerate}
Besides the default interface, there is some extended RoCC interface
like floating-point unit for send and receive data from an FPU and
few more.
The interface between the core and accelerator with default interface signal that communicates through core and memory by the command (\textit{cmd}), response (\textit{resp}).

Figure~\ref{fig:instruction} shows RoCC 32-bit custom instruction encoding with the bit length of several parts of the instruction.
The opcode is selected from {\textit {custom-0} to \textit{custom-3}} reserved for custom instructions,
and each opcode realizes several functions using \texttt{function7} bits.
Each instruction can have at most one destination register \texttt{rd} and two source registers \texttt{rs1} and \texttt{rs2}.

Three flags \texttt{xd}, \texttt{xs1}, and \texttt{xs2} specify whether registers
in Rocket core are used as destination or source registers. That is,
these flags show the necessity of synchronization between Rocket core
and the accelerator. If the flag value is 1, a register in Rocket core
is used, that is, the values are transferred with the instruction when
{\tt xs1}=``1'' or {\tt xs2}=``1'' and Rocket core waits for the
response when {\tt xd}=``1'', otherwise, it specifies the address of
the register file in the accelerator or the corresponding field is not
used.

Table~\ref{tlb:function} lists the developed  instructions for decimal arithmetic in the framework.
Though we have already developed some of instructions with dedicated hardware, any such hardware component can be integrated into the design.

The RoCC interface is used to realize communication between Rocket core and the accelerator or between memory (cache) and the accelerator through \textit{cmd} and \textit{resp}.
The accelerator receives and decodes the commands from Rocket core.
Depending upon the value of \texttt{function7},
the corresponding function is executed.
Table~\ref{tlb:instruction} shows the list of some new instructions used in the framework with corresponding values, where core internal integer register 10 and 11 are used as source registers and 12 is used as the destination register.
Figure~\ref{fig:backend} shows the high-level
architecture of the accelerator, while Fig.~\ref{fig:fsm} shows the
implementation of the finite state machine required to implement the accelerator.

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.95\linewidth]{backend.pdf}
  \caption{Basic block of Method-1 in~\cite{Riaz2018}.}
  \label{fig:backend}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.85\linewidth]{fsm_m1.pdf}
  \caption{Interface FSM of required function for Method-1 in~\cite{Riaz2018}.}
  \label{fig:fsm}
\end{figure}

\begin{comment}
\begin{lstlisting}[caption={Define new instruction},captionpos=b][h]
val doWrite    = funct === UInt(0)
val doRead     = funct === UInt(1)
val doLoad     = funct === UInt(2)
val doAccum    = funct === UInt(3)
val doBCDadd   = funct === UInt(4)
val doBCDaccum = funct === UInt(5)
val doBCDconv  = func  === UInt(6)
val doClear    = funct === UInt(7)
\end{lstlisting}
\end{comment}

For example,
when (\texttt{DEC\_ADD} instruction is required, it performs BCD
(Binary Coded Decimal) addition for two operands and writes the result
to the destination register.  The pseudo-code written in Chisel for an
instruction \texttt{DEC\_ADD} (\texttt{function7} = ``0000100'') is as
follows.
\begin{lstlisting}
//function bit definition
val DEC_ADD = funct === UInt(4)
//specific function call
when(cmd.fire() && (DEC_ADD))
//write the result after add X , Y
regfile(addr) := CLA(cmd.bits.rs1,cmd.bits.rs2)
\end{lstlisting}
When the accelerator receives \texttt{DEC\_ADD} command, it executes
the command by adding values of two source registers \texttt{rs1}
and \texttt{rs2} and then write the result to destination
register \texttt{xd}.  Here CLA (Carry-lookahead adder) performs BCD
add operation.  Once the accelerator design is completed, the new chip
is generated with the new accelerator.

\subsection {Programming Model (Software)}
A set of software programs are implemented for the main algorithm where dedicated functions are used to call new instructions supported by the accelerator.

The fragments of the pseudo-code using
accelerator are as follows:

\begin{lstlisting}
//Multiplicand multiple generation 1X-9X
MM[0]=0; MM[1]=X;
for ( i = 1; i<9 ; i=i+1){
  //Function call in-line assembly
  DEC_ADD_rocc(MM[i+1],MM[1], MM[i]);
}
\end{lstlisting}

\begin{lstlisting}
//Partial porduct accumulation
for ( j=0; j <64 ; j=j+4){
  DEC_ADD_rocc(product,product,MM[MID(Y_64,j,j+4)]);
  product << 4; // shift one decimal digit
}
\end{lstlisting}

The first fragment is used to generate multiplicand multiple and the
second fragment is for accumulating the partial product to generate
final result (See Fig.~\ref{fig:method-1} on Sec.~II).
\textit{DEC\_ADD\_rocc} is a function to call \textit{DEC\_ADD}
instruction.  The function \textit{DEC\_ADD\_rocc} takes two BCD
inputs and return the result after BCD addition.  A set of MACROs and
inline assembly programs are used to define the function
\textit{BCD\_ADD\_rocc}.  In this example code, MID(A, B, C) is MACRO
to extract the specific bit of A within the range C to B. As both
source are in BCD format, where every four bit represents one digit,
thus in every cycle of the for loop pick one digit of multiplier and
then add multiplicand multiple to generate the final product.  The
function that calls \texttt{DEC\_ADD} instruction is as follows.
\begin{lstlisting}
int DEC_ADD_rocc(int a, int b, int c) {
  asm __volatile__ (".word0x08A5F617\n");
  return a;
}
\end{lstlisting}
In the code, "0x08A5F617" is the hex value for
instruction \textit{custom-0} (\texttt{DEC\_ADD}),
where Rocket internal registers 10 and 11 are used as source registers
and 12 is used as the destination register.  In our framework, we also
provide a set of dynamic MACROs to automatically generate the hex
value of corresponding instruction.

\section{Experimental Results}

\begin{table}[t]
\centering
\caption{Average number of cycles of Method-1 using the framework}
\label{evaluation}
\begin{tabular}{l|r|r|r|r}
\hline
   & SW Part & HW part & Total &Speedup\\ \hline
Method-1~\cite{Riaz2018} & 1013          & 188           & 1201  &2.73x\\ \hline
Software~\cite{CLib} & 3285          & 0             & 3285  &-\\ \hline
\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Method-1 using \\dummy function~\cite{Riaz2018}\end{tabular} & 1446          & 0     &1446  &2.27x \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\begin{table}[t]
\centering
\caption{Evaluation of Method-1 by real implementation}
\label{separate}
\begin{tabular}{l|r|r}
\hline
 & Time (sec) & Speedup \\ \hline
\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Method-1 using \\dummy function~\cite{Riaz2018}\end{tabular} & 589        & 2.32x \\ \hline
Software~\cite{CLib} & 1367       & -  \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\begin{table}[t]
\centering
\caption{Evaluation of Method-1 using Gem-5 targeting RISC-V ISA}
\label{tlb:gem5}
\begin{tabular}{l|r|r}
\hline
   & Time (sec) & Speedup \\ \hline
\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}l@{}}Method-1 using \\dummy function~\cite{Riaz2018}\end{tabular}& 0.005443      & 2.30x\\ \hline
Software~\cite{CLib} & 0.012511      & -\\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

In~\cite{Riaz2018}, the performance has been evaluated by replacing
the hardware part with a static function called dummy function.  The
dummy functions have a fixed return type and designed according to
methods algorithm. This dummy functions are called from the software
function repeatedly according to method design. This approach is
considered to include interfacing time for software and hardware. Such
an evaluation process has the following limitation:
\begin{enumerate}
  \item Computing time highly dependent on
the nature of the input, like rounding operation takes higher time
than normal operation. However, the dummy function always return a
fixed value and the execution may not follow the expected flow.
  \item The
cycle time for the processor may not the same with and without new
hardware.
\end{enumerate}
Method-1 of~\cite{Riaz2018} with hardware accelerator is implemented
and evaluated total number of cycles with 8,000 sample inputs
including overflow, underflow, normal, rounding, and clamping cases.
For comparison, IBM decNumber C library for double precision decimal
floating-point arithmetic~\cite{CLib} is examined as a software-based
solution, and Method-1 with dummy functions is also examined.  We use
RISC-V RDCYCLE instruction to count the number of
cycles. Table~\ref{evaluation} summarizes the result. From the result,
it is shown that Method-1 with the accerlator is 2.73 times faster
than the software-based solution, while Method-1 with dummy functions
is 2.27 times faster.

The result of Table~\ref{evaluation} is now compared with two other evaluations
to compare a software-based solution (IBM decNumber C library) and Method-1 with dummy functions.
In Table~\ref{separate}, real implementations of these two methods are executed at Windows 10, 64-bit on Intel core
i7 2.29 GHz with 8 GB RAM. The second evaluation uses Gem-5~\cite{gem5} simulator with AtomicSimpleCPU at system call emulation (SE) mode. In SE mode we need to specify a binary file to be executed of Method-1 of~\cite{Riaz2018}. In this evaluation, we use RISC-V as the target ISA~\cite{RISCV}. Here we also use 8,000 sample and the result is summarizes in Table~\ref{tlb:gem5}.
From Table~\ref{evaluation} through Table~\ref{tlb:gem5}, it is found that dummy function based evaluations
in three different evaluation exhibit almost the same speedup (2.27x, 2.32x, 2.30x).
That shows our proposed framework accurately evaluated the cycle times for the target program.
The proposed
framework shows the exact result with 2.73 times improvement in cycle times. The
outcome of the result presents a successful evaluation of the
framework.
Our proposed framework design considering hardware accelerator. Such an
interface imposes a latency overhead during data exchange with CPU
because of the position of the interface into the pipeline. It also
depends on how the core and interface are handled. The impact of such
a problem depends upon the frequency of data exchange between the main
core and the accelerator. Also, due to cache random replacement policy,
Rocket chip is responsible for computing the number of cycles in
nondeterministically. However, as the framework is proposed for the
integrated evaluation where a large numbers of input samples
with many repetition, the framework can show statistically meaningful results.

\begin{comment}
\begin{table}[t]
\centering
\caption{Performance Evaluation Process Comparison}
\label{all}
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|}
\hline
Process & Improvement Ratio of Method-1~\cite{Riaz2018} \\ \hline
Direct implementation X86 & 2.34	\\ \hline
Using Gem5 simulator RISC-V & 2.32	\\ \hline
Proposed framework & 2.73\\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{comment}

\section{Conclusion}
 This paper presents an integrated evaluation framework
using the RISC-V ecosystem, IBM decNumber library, verification test
database with our developed set of test programs. he framework is designed to accurately evaluate software-hardware co-design based decimal computation. A decimal multiplication based on
software hardware co-design is implemented to the framework to validate the
concept of combined decimal multiplication by the actual result. The framework can perform both functional and
behavioral evaluation of any such software-hardware co-design of decimal computation. The framework is an open-source project, and links to all of the source files are available online at \texttt{www.decimalarith.info.}

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}

\subsection{Architectural Design (Hardware)}
\begin{comment}
\begin{enumerate}
\item Configuring co-processor interface.
\item Generating own required configuration using the interface.
\item Define function and operation FSM (state machines): This is the most important part where the state machine is programmed to execute the new instruction. Based on the instruction of each function within the function.
\item Modify core to interduce new interface.
\item Configuring simulator with the new interface.
\item Rum benchmark testing to check the functionality.

\end{enumerate}
\end{comment}
To embed the decimal arithmetics into a RoCC co-processor, two major parts, interfacing and executing units, are required.
RoCC has three default interface signals and they are:
\begin{enumerate}
\item {Core control (CC): for co-ordination between an accelerator and Rocket core.}
\item {Register mode (Core): for the exchange of data between an accelerator and Rocket core.}
\item {Memory mode (Mem): for communication between an accelerator and L1-D Cache.}
\end{enumerate}
Besides the default interface, there is some extended RoCC interface
like floating-point unit for send and receive data from an FPU and
few more.
The interface between the core and accelerator with default interface signal that communicates through core and memory by the command (\textit{cmd}), response (\textit{resp}).

Figure~\ref{fig:instruction} shows RoCC 32-bit custom instruction encoding with the bit length of several parts of the instruction.
The opcode is selected from {\textit {custom-0} to \textit{custom-3}} reserved for custom instructions,
and each opcode realizes several functions using \texttt{function7} bits.
Each instruction can have at most one destination register \texttt{rd} and two source registers \texttt{rs1} and \texttt{rs2}.

Three flags \texttt{xd}, \texttt{xs1}, and \texttt{xs2} specify whether registers
in Rocket core are used as destination or source registers. That is,
these flags show the necessity of synchronization between Rocket core
and the accelerator. If the flag value is 1, a register in Rocket core
is used, that is, the values are transferred with the instruction when
{\tt xs1}=``1'' or {\tt xs2}=``1'' and Rocket core waits for the
response when {\tt xd}=``1'', otherwise, it specifies the address of
the register file in the accelerator or the corresponding field is not
used.

Table~\ref{tlb:function} lists the developed  instructions for decimal arithmetic in the framework.
Though we have already developed some of instructions with dedicated hardware, any such hardware component can be integrated into the design.

The RoCC interface is used to realize communication between Rocket core and the accelerator or between memory (cache) and the accelerator through \textit{cmd} and \textit{resp}.
The accelerator} receives and decodes the commands from Rocket core.
Depending upon the value of \texttt{function7},
the corresponding function is executed.
Table~\ref{tlb:instruction} shows the list of some new instructions used in the framework with corresponding values, where core internal integer register 10 and 11 are used as source registers and 12 is used as the destination register.
Figure~\ref{fig:backend} shows the high-level
architecture of the accelerator, while Fig.~\ref{fig:fsm} shows the
implementation of the finite state machine required to implement the accelerator.

\begin{figure}[t]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{backend.pdf}
	\caption{Basic block of Method-1 in~\cite{Riaz2018}.}
	\label{fig:backend}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[t]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.85\linewidth]{fsm_m1.pdf}
	\caption{Interface FSM of required function for Method-1 in~\cite{Riaz2018}.}
	\label{fig:fsm}
\end{figure}

\begin{comment}
\begin{lstlisting}[caption={Define new instruction},captionpos=b][h]
val doWrite    = funct === UInt(0)
val doRead     = funct === UInt(1)
val doLoad     = funct === UInt(2)
val doAccum    = funct === UInt(3)
val doBCDadd   = funct === UInt(4)
val doBCDaccum = funct === UInt(5)
val doBCDconv  = func  === UInt(6)
val doClear    = funct === UInt(7)
\end{lstlisting}
\end{comment}

For example,
when (\texttt{DEC\_ADD} instruction is required, it performs BCD
(Binary Coded Decimal) addition for two operands and writes the result
to the destination register.  The pseudo-code written in Chisel for an
instruction \texttt{DEC\_ADD} (\texttt{function7} = ``0000100''}) is as
follows.
\begin{lstlisting}
//function bit definition
val DEC_ADD = funct === UInt(4)
//specific function call
when(cmd.fire() && (DEC_ADD))
//write the result after add X , Y
regfile(addr) := CLA(cmd.bits.rs1,cmd.bits.rs2)
\end{lstlisting}
When the accelerator receives \texttt{DEC\_ADD} command, it executes
the command by adding values of two source registers \texttt{rs1}
and \texttt{rs2} and then write the result to destination
register \texttt{xd}.  Here CLA (Carry-lookahead adder) performs BCD
add operation.  Once the accelerator design is completed, the new chip
is generated with the new accelerator.

\subsection {Programming Model (Software)}
A set of software programs are implemented for the main algorithm where dedicated functions are used to call new instructions supported by the accelerator.

The fragments of the pseudo-code using
accelerator are as follows:

\begin{lstlisting}
//Multiplicand multiple generation 1X-9X
MM[0]=0; MM[1]=X;
for ( i = 1; i<9 ; i=i+1){
  //Function call in-line assembly
  DEC_ADD_rocc(MM[i+1],MM[1], MM[i]);
}
\end{lstlisting}

\begin{lstlisting}

//Partial porduct accumulation
for ( j=0; j <64 ; j=j+4){
  DEC_ADD_rocc(product,product,MM[MID(Y_64,j,j+4)]);
  product << 4; // shift one decimal digit
}
\end{lstlisting}

The first fragment is used to generate multiplicand multiple and the
second fragment is for accumulating the partial product to
generate final result (See Fig.~\ref{fig:method-1} on
Sec.~\ref{sec:codesign}).
\textit{DEC\_ADD\_rocc} is a function to call \textit{DEC\_ADD} instruction.
The function \textit{DEC\_ADD\_rocc} takes two BCD inputs and return
the result after BCD addition.  A set of MACROs and inline assembly programs are used to define the
function \textit{BCD\_ADD\_rocc}.
In this example code, MID(A, B, C) is MACRO to extract the specific
bit of A within the range C to B. As both source are in BCD format,
where every  four bit represents one digit, thus in every
cycle of the for loop pick one digit of multiplier and then add
multiplicand multiple to generate the final product.}

The function that calls \texttt{DEC\_ADD} instruction is as follows.
\begin{lstlisting}
int DEC_ADD_rocc(int a, int b, int c) {
  asm __volatile__ (".word0x08A5F617\n");
  return a;
}
\end{lstlisting}
In the code, "0x08A5F617" is the hex value for
instruction \textit{custom-0} (\texttt{DEC\_ADD}),
where Rocket internal registers 10 and 11 are used as source registers
and 12 is used as the destination register.  In our framework, we also
provide a set of dynamic MACROs to automatically generate the hex
value of corresponding instruction.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


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Just five days after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's June press conference, Narayana Kocherlakota decided to hold his own.
The Minneapolis Fed president held a surprise June 24 call with reporters and published some suggestions for the Fed panel that sets policy because he said it "provided insufficient detail" about future strategy. Kocherlakota, 49, isn't even among the 12 voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee this year.
No matter. Bernanke, 59, has explicitly encouraged diverse views since becoming Fed chief in 2006, producing a cacophonous public debate on policy — in direct contrast to the autocratic chairmanship of his predecessor, Alan Greenspan. District bank heads from San Francisco to Boston have enjoyed heightened influence, which will be difficult to restrain after Bernanke steps down in January, said Roberto Perli, a former member of the Fed board staff who attended Bernanke's first meeting as chairman.
President Barack Obama in July mentioned three contenders to succeed Bernanke: Lawrence Summers, 58, his former National Economic Council director and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton; current Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, 67, and former Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, 70. Whoever gets the job will inherit the most transparent Fed in the central bank's 100- year history, with the 12 regional Fed bank presidents enjoying renewed influence.
The heads of the Fed district banks have played a significant role in the central bank's decisions to adopt untested stimulus tools in the aftermath of the worst recession since the Great Depression. James Bullard, 52, in St. Louis was a leading voice for open-ended quantitative easing before September 2012, when policy makers announced their third round of bond buying with no set end date or size.
The Fed also heeded on Dec. 12 the call of Chicago's Charles Evans, 55, for tying potential changes in the benchmark lending rate to specific numeric goals for inflation and unemployment. Kocherlakota on April 16 advocated an even more aggressive approach: lowering the unemployment threshold to 5.5 percent from 6.5 percent.
One of the biggest ways Bernanke changed the culture of policy making was by restructuring discussion at FOMC meetings, said Robert Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors in Sarasota, Florida, and a former research director at the Atlanta Fed.
Under Greenspan, Fed governors and the regional bank presidents took turns describing their economic outlook, then Greenspan would voice his opinion on policy before his colleagues would have a chance to articulate theirs, Eisenbeis said. Greenspan's approach stifled debate, and Bernanke now goes last, he said.
"Everybody else now puts their policy recommendations on the table before he does, and that radically changes the nature of the debate discussion, the sense of participation," Eisenbeis said.
Bernanke also introduced at his first meeting as chairman the so-called two-handed intervention: Policy makers now raise two hands to interrupt the format of the meeting and challenge a point made by a colleague or staff member. Previously, members usually recited their views in turn.
By embracing their contributions and debate, Bernanke has assured that the core of the committee owns the policy signal, not the chairman. That's also a shift from the Greenspan era.
Six days later, he told the FOMC, "I did try, incidentally, during my congressional testimony last Wednesday to open up the possibility that we might ease today," according to a transcript of the meeting. "I raised for the first time the notion that falling inflation would be unwelcome." The word "unwelcome" then appeared in the FOMC's May 6 statement.
Bernanke rarely front-runs his colleagues. His semi-annual testimony in July, for example, was similar to his remarks at the June press conference. When he presented the possibility of a pullback this year in the central bank's $85 billion pace of monthly bond purchases, Bernanke noted in both his testimony and news briefing that it was the committee's decision.
Having the FOMC own the policy signal is "extremely important," said Vincent Reinhart, former director of the board's Division of Monetary Affairs, because that makes it harder for any single person, such as a new chairman, to dislodge.
"To signal is to say something about future votes," so not only do the 12 members of the FOMC have to be on board but also a large majority of the 19 participants, said Reinhart, who is chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
When fully staffed, the FOMC's 12 voting members include the seven Washington-based governors and four regional Fed bank presidents who rotate as voters each year. The president of the New York Fed has a permanent vote.
The panel next meets Sept. 17-18 and is forecast to reduce the monthly pace of bond purchases intended to spur the economy by $10 billion, to $75 billion, according to the median of 34 responses in a Sept. 6 Bloomberg News survey of economists.
Part of the impetus behind Bernanke's push to open up the central bank's communications was to "help the markets understand what the Fed is going to do," said Gertler. Making the institution "less mysterious" and policy-making "joint" has been positive, he said.
If Yellen replaces Bernanke, there probably won't be a "significant change" in Fed tenor, given she's "participated in the formation of that culture," Eisenbeis said.
The vice chairman also would come to the job having established connections with reserve-bank presidents. Her calendars, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show more than 90 meetings by phone or in person with Fed district chiefs in 2011 and 2012, when she visited Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco, where she served as president from 2004 to 2010.
"We will never see a Fed chairman like Bernanke, but obviously Yellen has the opportunity" to work by consensus with her regional colleagues because "she has built relationships," said former Fed governor Laurence Meyer, a senior managing director in Washington at Macroeconomic Advisers LLC.
Summers is by no means a replica of Bernanke, especially in personal style. He can be confrontational, even in settings of genteel policy debate.
At the 2005 Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fed conference, Raghuram Rajan, then-director of research at the International Monetary Fund, presented a paper on how financial deregulation may create instability by concentrating risks on banks' balance sheets through securitizations.
Rajan's conclusions were provocative because the gathering was dedicated to celebrating Greenspan's legacy. The former chairman had argued in speeches that securitization helped disperse risk. The paper by Rajan, who is now governor of the Reserve Bank of India, looks, in hindsight, like prophetic analysis of how the financial system was setting up for a crisis.
Summers objected, saying he found "the basic, slightly Luddite premise of this paper to be largely misguided." Central bankers in the audience winced.
Kohn worked at the Fed for 40 years and has strong relationships throughout the reserve-bank system. He was Bernanke's most important adviser during the financial crisis, serving as vice chairman from 2006 to 2010, and supported active debate, especially since monetary policy was entering unprecedented territory. He is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and serves on the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee.
Bernanke's embrace of diverse views also means dissent is more common: There hasn't been a unanimous decision on monetary policy since June 2011. Bernanke sees disagreement as a healthy sign of a committee doing its job.
One risk to this diversity of views is new appointments. In addition to the chairman, Obama also will name two governors to replace Elizabeth Duke, who resigned Aug. 31, and Sarah Bloom Raskin, whom Obama has nominated to be deputy Treasury secretary. Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto will retire next year. Presidents are appointed for five-year terms by their banks' boards, subject to approval by the Board of Governors.
Obama could give Bernanke's successor a voice in his picks, leading to members who are more in line with the new chairman's views or at least less likely to oppose them.
District bank heads from San Francisco to Boston have enjoyed heightened influence, which will be difficult to restrain after Bernanke steps down in January, said Roberto Perli, a former member of the Fed board staff who attended Bernanke's first meeting as chairman.


text:
Aberdeen's Well-Safe to create 90 jobs with $100m boost
Well-Safe CEO Phil Milton (left) and executive director Mark Patterson. Picture�Simon Price
Published: 05:03 Tuesday 09 April 2019
A decommissioning company is to create up to 90 jobs and move into the global market with a $100 million (£77m) investment after announcing a deal to buy its first asset.
Well-Safe Solutions is anticipating a jobs boost following the acquisition of the Ocean Guardian unit, a semi-submersible drilling asset described as a "stalwart in the North Sea".
The Aberdeen firm confirmed that the deal would bring a further 90 jobs to the North Sea over the next year, adding to the company's current 40 employees.
It plans to invest in the region of $100m on upgrades to the Ocean Guardian, which will see the well drilling asset converted into a bespoke plug and abandonment (P&A) unit.
Well-Safe claims that this agreement represents the first time a privately-owned Scottish business will own and operate this type of unit.
Currently owned by Diamond Offshore, the unit is to be renamed Well-Safe Guardian after delivery.
It will be repurposed to include a dive system and the capability to deploy a subsea intervention lubricator, which is nearing completion of the design and engineering phase with support from the Oil and Gas Technology Centre.
Research has indicated there are more than 33,000 wells worldwide to be decommissioned over the next 20 years.
The firm's long-term goal is to export its operating model and advance from the UK into this global marketplace.
The decommissioning company is already progressing in talks to expand its offering through the acquisition of a second semi-submersible asset and plans to follow this with the addition of a jack-up, mono-hull vessel and land-based P&A units.
Executive director Mark Patterson, who heads up the asset purchase programme, said: "This is a major milestone in Well-Safe's journey and one that is in-line with our strategy. It's great to have The Ocean Guardian, which has a great reputation on which we will build, as our first asset."
Launched in August 2017 with the vision to become a "Tier One" wells decommissioning company, the firm's team now boasts more than 450 wells worth of combined experience.
Chief executive Phil Milton said the firm is eyeing further purchases, adding: "We have stayed totally focused and committed to our original strategy and are delighted to have reached this agreement with Diamond Offshore for the acquisition of our first asset, which will allow us to deliver the complete P&A solution.
Smarter Grid Solutions turbocharges electric car roll-out in £8m project
Cairn Energy appoints corporate hard-hitter as director
"We have had a number of in-depth conversations with potential clients and believe the purchase of this asset will allow us to advance these towards firm commitments to our P&A club."
Andy Samuel, chief executive of Oil and Gas Authority(OGA), added: "The OGA very much welcomes new investments and innovative business models such as this, as a key part of achieving industry's 35 per cent decommissioning cost reduction target.
"Joint well plug and abandon campaigns, using the club approach should not only prove to be more cost efficient, but also help build UK supply chain expertise in decommissioning which is then globally exportable."


text:
Q: Why was Atticus trapped? In the book Trapped, it's quickly revealed that all the links to Europe save one are severed, and Atticus has to bind his apprentice to the Earth in Europe, and so Atticus' only option is to shift to the one good spot, which is risky.
What I don't get is... Why? I mean, from what else was said, anywhere in Europe would suffice for binding her, and they had fresh, clean mortal identities, so why not just take a plane somewhere safe in Europe?
Even if they couldn't take a plane, surely shifting to the one spot and then leaving that region for another would've been safer?

A: Ok Atticus wants to bind his apprentice.  As shown below he must do this on the Eurasian plate.  According to the rangers all of the normal tethers that allow druids to shift around in the Eurasian Plate (Europe) have been disabled save the one near Mount Olympus.  This is obviously a trap since it's an Olympian god (Bacchus) that's trying to kill him.  Atticus's problem is if he goes to the one working tether (Mount Olympus) he's confining himself to a small area (Bacchus's followers can "smell" magic and therefore track him).  In addition and I don't know if this is a spoiler but "someone" is supplying the Olympians with information about his location. Sure he could shift away but that would disrupt the binding of Granuaile. Apparently it takes quite a long time to bind someone and while doing it your rather vulnerable.  Now back to your question as to "why".  If Atticus were to do as you suggested, shift to an area not affected and then use some other more mundane way of getting to the Eurasian Plate for the binding he'd still be vulnerable and more likely worse off.  While in a plane, car, train, etc, a druid is cut off from the earth (where they draw their strength and magic). If they were to say run in on foot they would be exposed for a much greater period of time out in the open.  Sure they'd still have their magic but due to the tethers being disabled they would not be able to instantly escape by shifting away.  The followers of Bacchus could still track him if he came from the outside and whoever was supplying the Olympians with information about Atticus would still be supplying it.  Atticus is "trapped" figuratively and literally.  Come from the outside and lose your ability to shift. Shift to the one working tethers and limit yourself to a smaller area that's much easier to search.  It's really just a question of which bad choice should Atticus pick and of course you've read the book so you know what he ultimately does. I hope this was a better edit of my previous answer.  I'm still new to this :)

"She is not yet bound to the
  earth," Brighid noted, seeing no
  tattoos on Granuaile's right arm.
  "No, but she is ready. I was on
  my way to begin the process when
  we were interrupted."
  "On your way where, if I may
  ask?"
  "I was searching for an
  appropriate place in Arizona."
  Brighid frowned. "You cannot
  bind a Druid to the earth in the
  New World."
  That set me back on my heels a
  bit. "You can't?"
  Brighid seemed as bemused as I was. "It may be done only in
  Europe. Only the Eurasian plate
  has agreed to participate in the
  ritual. I thought you knew this."
"Majesty, perhaps the shuddering
  of Gaia reported by the Iron Druid
  may explain some recent disturbing
  reports coming in from the rangers
  throughout Europe."
  "Do share with us all," Brighid
  said.
  "Most tethers to Europe from Tír
  na nÓg are now inoperable. The
  death of the Slavic plane may
  explain this."
  "Begging your pardon," I said. "Are you saying that it's impossible
  to shift to Europe right now?"
  The fop raised an eyebrow and
  sneered at me. "That is precisely
  what I am saying. Except for a
  small area in the south of Greece."
  "The tethers for the rest of the
  world still work?" Brighid asked.
  "Yes, Majesty."
  "And the secret paths walked by
  the Fae?"
  "Those still function admirably."
  "So your theory is that the death
  of Perun's plane is causing this."
  "It is a possibility."
  "Where, precisely, in Greece may
  one still travel freely?" I asked. "Anywhere in the vicinity of
  Mount Olympus."

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It's 14 days before Christmas, enjoy this season by bringing the 14 Books on Christmas from HS LRC.
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