text:
The U.S. Military is Winning in the War on Terror. No, Really, It Is!
4,000,000,029,057. Remember that number. It's going to come up again later.
But let's begin with another number entirely: 145,000 — as in, 145,000 uniformed soldiers striding down Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue. That's the number of troops who marched down that very street in May 1865 after the United States defeated the Confederate States of America. Similar legions of rifle-toting troops did the same after World War I ended with the defeat of Germany and its allies in 1918. And Sherman tanks rolling through the urban canyons of midtown Manhattan? That followed the triumph over the Axis in 1945. That's what winning used to look like in America — star-spangled, soldier-clogged streets and victory parades.
Enthralled by a martial Bastille Day celebration while visiting French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in July 2017, President Trump called for just such a parade in Washington. After its estimated cost reportedly ballooned from $10 million to as much as $92 million, the American Legion weighed in. That veterans association, which boasts 2.4 million members, issued an August statement suggesting that the planned parade should be put on hold "until such time as we can celebrate victory in the War on Terrorism and bring our military home." Soon after, the president announced that he had canceled the parade and blamed local Washington officials for driving up the costs (even though he was evidently never briefed by the Pentagon on what its price tag might be).
The American Legion focused on the fiscal irresponsibility of Trump's proposed march, but its postponement should have raised an even more significant question: What would "victory" in the war on terror even look like? What, in fact, constitutes an American military victory in the world today? Would it in any way resemble the end of the Civil War, or of the war to end all wars, or of the war that made that moniker obsolete? And here's another question: Is victory a necessary prerequisite for a military parade?
The easiest of those questions to resolve is the last one and the American Legion should already know the answer. Members of that veterans group played key roles in a mammoth "We Support Our Boys in Vietnam" parade in New York City in 1967 and in a 1973 parade in that same city honoring veterans of that war. Then, 10 years after the last U.S. troops snuck out of South Vietnam — abandoning their allies and scrambling aboard helicopters as Saigon fell — the Big Apple would host yet another parade honoring Vietnam veterans, reportedly the largest such celebration in the city's history. So, quite obviously, winning a war isn't a prerequisite for a winning parade.
And that's only one of many lessons the disastrous American War in Vietnam still offers us. More salient perhaps are those that highlight the limits of military might and destructive force on this planet or that focus on the ability of North Vietnam, a "little fourth-rate" country — to quote Henry Kissinger, the national security advisor of that moment — to best a superpower that had previously (with much assistance) defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan at the same time. The Vietnam War — and Kissinger — provide a useful lens through which to examine the remaining questions about victory and what it means today, but more on that later.
For the moment, just remember: 4,000,000,029,057, Vietnam War, Kissinger.
Peace in Our Time… or Some Time… or No Time
Now, let's take a moment to consider the ur-conflict of the war on terror, Afghanistan, where the U.S. began battling the Taliban in October 2001. America's victory there came with lightning speed. The next year, President George W. Bush announced that the group had been "defeated." In 2004, the commander-in-chief reported that the Taliban was "no longer in existence." Yet, somehow, they were. By 2011, General David Petraeus, then commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, claimed that his troops had "reversed the momentum of the Taliban." Two years later, then-commander General Joseph Dunford spoke of "the inevitability of our success" there.
Last August, President Trump unveiled his "Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia." Its "core pillar" was "a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions"; in other words, the "arbitrary timetables" for withdrawal of the Obama years were out. "We will push onward to victory with power in our hearts," President Trump decreed. "America's enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out."
The president also announced that he was putting that war squarely in the hands of the military. "Micromanagement from Washington, D.C., does not win battles," he announced. "They are won in the field drawing upon the judgment and expertise of wartime commanders and frontline soldiers acting in real time, with real authority, and with a clear mission to defeat the enemy." The man given that authority was General John Nicholson who had, in fact, been running the American war there since 2016. The general was jubilant and within months agreed that the conflict had "turned the corner" (something, by the way, that Obama-era Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also claimed — in 2012).
Today, almost 17 years after the war began, two years after Nicholson took the reins, one year after Trump articulated his new plan, victory in any traditional sense is nowhere in sight. Despite spending around $900 billion in Afghanistan, as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction determined earlier this year, "between 2001 and 2017, U.S. government efforts to stabilize insecure and contested areas in Afghanistan mostly failed." According to a July 30, 2018, report by that same inspector general, the Taliban was by then contesting control of or controlled about 44% of that country, while Afghan government control and influence over districts had declined by about 16% since Nicholson's predecessor, General John Campbell, was in command.
And that was before, last month, the Taliban launched a large-scale attack on a provincial capital, Ghazni, a strategically important city, and held it for five days, while taking control of much of the province itself. Finally driven from the city, the Taliban promptly overran a military base in Baghlan Province during its withdrawal. And that was just one day after taking another Afghan military base. In fact, for the previous two months, the Taliban had overrun government checkpoints and outposts on a near-daily basis. And keep in mind that the Taliban is now only a fraction of the story. The U.S. set out to defeat it and al-Qaeda in 2001. Today, Washington faces exponentially more terror groups in Afghanistan — 21 in all, including an imported franchise from the Iraq War front, ISIS, that grew larger during Nicholson's tenure.
Given this seemingly dismal state of affairs, you might wonder what happened to Nicholson. Was he cashiered? Fired, Apprentice-style? Quietly ushered out of Afghanistan in disgrace? Hardly. Like the 15 U.S. commanders who preceded him, the four-star general simply rotated out and, at his final press conference from the war zone late last month, was nothing if not upbeat.
"I believe the South Asia Strategy is the right approach. And now we see that approach delivering progress on reconciliation that we had not seen previously," he announced. "We've also seen a clear progression in the Taliban's public statements, from their 14 February letter to the American people to the recent Eid al-Adha message, where [Taliban leader] Emir Hibatullah acknowledged for the first time that negotiations will, quote, 'ensure an end to the war,' end quote."
In the event that you missed those statements from a chastened Taliban on the threshold of begging for peace, let me quote from the opening of the latter missive, issued late last month:
"This year Eid al-Adha approaches us as our Jihadi struggle against the American occupation is on the threshold of victory due to the help of Allah Almighty. The infidel invading forces have lost all will of combat, their strategy has failed, advanced technology and military equipment rendered useless, [the] sedition and corruption-sowing group defeated, and the arrogant American generals have been compelled to bow to the Jihadic greatness of the Afghan nation."
And those conciliatory statements of peace and reconciliation touted by Nicholson? The Taliban says that in order to end "this long war" the "lone option is to end the occupation of Afghanistan and nothing more."
In June, the 17th American nominated to take command of the war, Lieutenant General Scott Miller, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee where Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) grilled him on what he would do differently in order to bring the conflict to a conclusion. "I cannot guarantee you a timeline or an end date," was Miller's confident reply.
Did the senators then send him packing? Hardly. He was, in fact, easily confirmed and starts work this month. Nor is there any chance Congress will use its power of the purse to end the war. The 2019 budget request for U.S. operations in Afghanistan — topping out at $46.3 billion — will certainly be approved.
All of this seeming futility brings us back to the Vietnam War, Kissinger, and that magic number, 4,000,000,029,057 — as well as the question of what an American military victory would look like today. It might surprise you, but it turns out that winning wars is still possible and, perhaps even more surprising, the U.S. military seems to be doing just that.
In Vietnam, that military aimed to "out-guerrilla the guerrilla." It never did and the United States suffered a crushing defeat. Henry Kissinger — who presided over the last years of that conflict as national security advisor and then secretary of state — provided his own concise take on one of the core tenets of asymmetric warfare: "The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose." Perhaps because that eternally well-regarded but hapless statesman articulated it, that formula was bound — like so much else he touched — to crash and burn.
In this century, the United States has found a way to turn Kissinger's martial maxim on its head and so rewrite the axioms of armed conflict. This redefinition can be proved by a simple equation:
0 + 1,000,000,000,000 + 17 +17 + 23,744 + 3,000,000,000,000 + 5 + 5,200 + 74 = 4,000,000,029,057
Expressed differently, the United States has not won a major conflict since 1945; has a trillion-dollar national security budget; has had 17 military commanders in the last 17 years in Afghanistan, a country plagued by 23,744 "security incidents" (the most ever recorded) in 2017 alone; has spent around $3 trillion, primarily on that war and the rest of the war on terror, including the ongoing conflict in Iraq, which then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld swore, in 2002, would be over in only "five days or five weeks or five months," but where approximately 5,000 U.S. troops remain today; and yet 74% of the American people still express high confidence in the U.S. military.
Let the math and the implications wash over you for a moment. Such a calculus definitively disproves the notion that "the conventional army loses if it does not win." It also helps answer the question of victory in the war on terror. It turns out that the U.S. military, whose budget and influence in Washington have only grown in these years, now wins simply by not losing — a multi-trillion-dollar conventional army held to the standards of success once applied only to under-armed, under-funded guerilla groups.
Unlike in the Vietnam War years, three presidents and the Pentagon, unbothered by fiscal constraints, substantive congressional opposition, or a significant antiwar movement, have been effectively pursuing this strategy, which requires nothing more than a steady supply of troops, contractors, and other assorted camp followers; an endless parade of Senate-sanctioned commanders; and an annual outlay of hundreds of billions of dollars. By these standards, Donald Trump's open-ended, timetable-free "Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia" may prove to be the winningest war plan ever. As he described it:
"From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al-Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge."
Think about that for a moment. Victory's definition begins with "attacking our enemies" and ends with the prevention of possible terror attacks. Let me reiterate: "victory" is defined as "attacking our enemies." Under President Trump's strategy, it seems, every time the U.S. bombs or shells or shoots at a member of one of those 20-plus terror groups in Afghanistan, the U.S. is winning or, perhaps, has won. And this strategy is not specifically Afghan-centric. It can easily be applied to American warzones in the Middle East and Africa — anywhere, really.
Decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military has finally solved the conundrum of how to "out-guerrilla the guerrilla." And it couldn't have been simpler. You just adopt the same definition of victory. As a result, a conventional army — at least the U.S. military — now loses only if it stops fighting. So long as unaccountable commanders wage benchmark-free wars without congressional constraint, the United States simply cannot lose. You can't argue with the math. Call it the rule of 4,000,000,029,057.
That calculus and that sum also prove, quite clearly, that America's beleaguered commander-in-chief has gotten a raw deal on his victory parade. With apologies to the American Legion, the U.S. military is now — under the new rules of warfare — triumphant and deserves the type of celebration proposed by President Trump. After almost two decades of warfare, the armed forces have lowered the bar for victory to the level of their enemy, the Taliban. What was once the mark of failure for a conventional army is now the benchmark for success. It's a remarkable feat and deserving, at the very least, of furious flag-waving, ticker tape, and all the age-old trappings of victory.
By Nick Turse
Post Tags: #Afghanistan#Pentagon#Taliban#US#War on Terror
Turkic Muslims: China and the Muslim World's Achilles Heel
Pompeo's Fingerprints Are All Over Trump's New Syria Regime Change Policy
Sheikh Jarrah: How the US Media Is Erasing Israel's Crimes
Over the past week, Jewish settlers with thick Brooklyn accents were caught on camera bullying their way into Palestinian homes in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. "If I don't steal your home, someone else will steal it," one settler said to Mona al-Kurd, a Palestinian woman whose house was being invaded, in a…
Read More Sheikh Jarrah: How the US Media Is Erasing Israel's CrimesContinue
Trump's Military Nostalgia (or Victory at Sea All Over Again)
Rebuilding a Last-Century Military to Fight Last-Century Wars If you are an American male of a certain age — Donald Trump's age, to be exact — you are likely to have vivid memories of Victory at Sea, the Emmy award-winning NBC documentary series about the U.S. Navy in World War II that aired from October…
Read More Trump's Military Nostalgia (or Victory at Sea All Over Again)Continue
Why Boris Johnson is Even More Dangerous Than Trump
Is the rise of Boris Johnson to be the next prime minister the product of a soft coup? Does Donald Trump's racist demonisation of four non-white congress members prove him to be a "fascist" leader like Mussolini and Hitler? The two questions should be answered together because political developments in Britain tend to emulate those in the US,…
Read More Why Boris Johnson is Even More Dangerous Than TrumpContinue
Hotel Intercontinental Siege – Is Kabul Falling?
Afghanistan is now facing mortal danger. It has to survive, but it is not clear how it can manage. Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, which was attacked by gunmen last Saturday, used to fit like a glove, like a grandmother's couch. Outside, the war has been raging. Millions of Afghan lives were aimlessly broken, hundreds of…
Read More Hotel Intercontinental Siege – Is Kabul Falling?Continue
Africa: Continent Where US Military Wages Shadow Wars
The details about US military presence in Africa happened to be a surprise even for members of the Congress. On October 4, four American soldiers were killed by militants linked to the Islamic State in Niger. The incident thrust the issue of US military presence in Africa into the spotlight and drew the attention of senators tasked with military…
Read More Africa: Continent Where US Military Wages Shadow WarsContinue
Russia Took Pakistan's Side in South Asia's Tit-for-Tat Missile Tests
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov staunchly defended Pakistan's "sovereign right to take care of its security" amidst South Asia's tit-for-tat missile tests, with this unprecedented statement not only signifying the strength of the Russian-Pakistani Strategic Partnership, but also potentially being a response to the Indian Ambassador to the US' recent hint that his country…
Read More Russia Took Pakistan's Side in South Asia's Tit-for-Tat Missile TestsContinue
The Collective West Might as Well Nominate Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize


Technical development of products, planning and optimizing of purchasing, production and distribution according to the needs of the Houses: the Operations "métiers" are essential in providing solutions to the strategic challenges faced by our Group and meeting our customers' expectations.
Because our customers are the focus of our attention, guaranteeing optimum availability of our Houses' products is one of our most important challenges.
Sales forecasting, the supply of raw materials, global stock management of products and operational logistics all represent a daily challenge for employees involved in the supply chain. Its diversity offers unique opportunities for everyone to develop skills on an international scale and gain an overview of the company as a whole.
Lead all activities enabling accurate supply plans, matching clients demand needs and expectations with availability, cost and cash efficiency.
Manage warehouse physical operations, optimize warehousing processes and animate teams to ensure efficient in/out physical flows management.
Production managers oversee the manufacture of product ranges. They set production objectives for the site and ensure that resources are used optimally. They supervise one or several production engineers.
Study the manufacturing file and contribute to defining manufacturing methods.
Translate elements from the specifications into production objectives.
Decide on workload management schedules: raw material needs, subcontracted items, etc.
Plan production objectives (products or ranges), investments and resources (human and machine, etc.) in the short and medium term.
Set production objectives for workshops or manufacturing lines.
Oversee the manufacturing process and results with regard to the specifications.
Follow up investments made according to the specified budget.
Guarantee costs and intervention lead times, and oversee production quality.
Guarantee the supply and availability of material and stock (raw materials, semi-finished products, etc.).
Respect safety and quality standards for the manufacturing process.
Provide day-to-day analysis of production follow-up indicators (reporting data, dashboards, waste levels, breakdown frequency, etc.).
The role of a buyer is to manage everything that is bought on behalf of the company. The type of products concerned varies depending on the sector.
In industry, it means providing the supply chain with materials and equipment (machines, tools, etc.). In order to do this, buyers must be in contact with production managers, who explain their needs.


Got something creative to tell me?
Ask something that you think I may have an opinion about?
You have such a cool blog! That's very ambitious too, I admire this kind of dedication to writing.
Thank you 😉 that would inspire me to write happily for a long time! Re: ambitious – this is actually one of my training grounds I set for myself to write great things. In all honesty, it also helps stumbling to wonderful blogs like yours.
The related post is over at http://cadencies.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/versatility-my-forte-not/ .
I just wanted to let you know that I nominated you for Versatile Blog Award. The details are on my blog http://elizabethcori.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/dude-i-got-nominated/!


text:
Re-purposing Universities: The Path to Purpose
Bibliographic metadata (XML, 171Kb)
Hurth, Victoria
Stewart, Iain S
Frontiers in Sustainability
Hurth, V., & Stewart, I. S. (2022). Re-purposing Universities: The Path to Purpose. Frontiers in Sustainability, 2 https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2021.762271
<jats:p>As the extent of damage to environmental systems from our business-as-usual activity becomes ever more alarming, Universities as core social institutions are under pressure to help society lead the transition to a sustainable future. Their response to the issues, that they themselves have helped reveal, has, however, been widely criticised for being wholly inadequate. Universities can be observed to engage with sustainability issues in<jats:italic>ad-hoc</jats:italic>ways, with the scale of attention and commitment dependant mainly on the level of pressure exerted by stakeholders that works to overcome aspects of inherent inertia. Sustainability initiatives can therefore be regarded mainly as bolt-ons. This mirrors how other sectors, including businesses, have tended to respond. As the environmental and social crisis mounts and the window for adaptive change to ensure long-term wellbeing for all narrows, the pressure for deeper systemic change builds. It is in this context that transformation to a "purpose-driven organisation" has emerged as a systemic approach to change, enabling an organisation to align deeply and rapidly with society's long-term best interest and hence a sustainable future. Nowhere has this concept been taken forward more obviously than in the business sector. As business leadership towards purpose becomes more apparent, so the lack of action in this area by universities appears starker. In this paper we clarify what it means to be a purpose-driven organisation, why and how it represents a deep holistic response to unsustainability, and what core questions emerging from the business world university leaders can ask themselves to begin the practical journey to transform their institutions into purpose-driven universities.</jats:p>
Sustainability, wellbeing, economy, purpose, change, sustainability, universities, mission, transformation
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2021.762271

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Eliminate the hassles of running cables with these Wireless 2.4Ghz Headphones!
Connect this unit to your TV or music system via the 3.5mm connection for wireless listening.
Categories: Electronics, Headphones, Kogan. Tags: headphones, Kogan, rechargeable.
This wireless headphone system comprises of a pair of wireless headphones and a transmitter dock which also functions as an 'easy-charge' cradle and docking station.
Due to health and safety regulations we are unable to accept the following products for return under the terms of our 14 day Money Back Guarantee for 'change of mind' purposes: personal massagers, nerve stimulation products, headphones, earpieces, headsets, toothbrushes, thermometers, vacuum food bags, cookware, haircare and personal grooming products.


text:
package org.bigiot.examples;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;

import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.ProviderSpark;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.exceptions.IncompleteOfferingDescriptionException;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.exceptions.NotRegisteredException;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.handlers.AccessRequestHandler;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.misc.BridgeIotProperties;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.model.BigIotTypes.LicenseType;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.model.BigIotTypes.PricingModel;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.model.BigIotTypes.ValueType;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.model.BoundingBox;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.model.Location;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.model.Price.Euros;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.offering.Endpoints;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.offering.OfferingDescription;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.offering.RegistrableOfferingDescription;
import org.eclipse.bigiot.lib.serverwrapper.BigIotHttpResponse;
import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.json.JSONObject;

/**
 * Example for using BIG IoT API as a Provider. This example corresponds with Example Consumer project *
 */
public class ExampleProvider {

	private static Random rand = new Random();

	private static AccessRequestHandler accessCallback = new AccessRequestHandler() {
		@Override
		public BigIotHttpResponse processRequestHandler (
	           OfferingDescription offeringDescription, Map<String,Object> inputData, String subscriberId, String consumerInfo) {

			/*
			double longitude = 41.0;
            if (inputData.containsKey("longitude"))
                longitude = Double.parseDouble((String) inputData.get("longitude"));

            double latitude = 9.0;
            if (inputData.containsKey("latitude"))
                latitude = Double.parseDouble((String) inputData.get("latitude"));

			*/

		    // Prepare the offering response as a JSONObject/Array - according to the Output Data defined in the Offering Description
		    JSONObject number = new JSONObject();
		    number.put("value", rand.nextFloat());
		    number.put("timestamp", new Date().getTime());

	        // Send the response as JSON in the form: { [ { "value" : 0.XXX, "timestamp" : YYYYYYY } ] }
			return BigIotHttpResponse.okay().withBody(number).asJsonType();
		}
	};

	public static void main(String args[]) throws InterruptedException, IncompleteOfferingDescriptionException, IOException, NotRegisteredException {

	    // Load example properties file
        BridgeIotProperties prop = BridgeIotProperties.load("example.properties");

		// Initialize a provider with Provider ID and Marketplace URI, the local IP/DNS, etc., and authenticate it on the Marketplace
		ProviderSpark provider = ProviderSpark.create(prop.PROVIDER_ID, prop.MARKETPLACE_URI, prop.PROVIDER_DNS_NAME, prop.PROVIDER_PORT)
		                                .authenticate(prop.PROVIDER_SECRET);

		// provider.setProxy(prop.PROXY, prop.PROXY_PORT); //Enable this line if you are behind a proxy
		// provider.addProxyBypass(prop.PROXY_BYPASS); //Enable this line and the addresses for internal hosts

	    // Construct Offering Description of your Offering incrementally
	    RegistrableOfferingDescription offeringDescription =
	            OfferingDescription.createOfferingDescription("RandomNumberOffering")
    	    		.withName("Random Number Offering")
    	    		.withCategory("urn:proposed:RandomValues")
    	    		// .addInputData("latitude", "http://schema.org/latitude", ValueType.NUMBER)
    	    		.addOutputData("value", "proposed:randomValue", ValueType.NUMBER)
    	            .addOutputData("timestamp", "schema:datePublished", ValueType.NUMBER)
    	            //.inRegion(BoundingBox.create(Location.create(42.1, 9.0), Location.create(43.2, 10.0)))
                    //.withTimePeriod(new DateTime(2017, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0), new DateTime())
    	    		.withPrice(Euros.amount(0.001))
    	    		.withPricingModel(PricingModel.PER_ACCESS)
    	    		.withLicenseType(LicenseType.OPEN_DATA_LICENSE);

	    Endpoints endpoints = Endpoints.create(offeringDescription)
                    .withAccessRequestHandler(accessCallback);

	    // Register OfferingDescription on Marketplace - this will create a local endpoint based on the embedded Spark Web server
	    provider.register(offeringDescription, endpoints);

		// Run until user presses the ENTER key
		System.out.println(">>>>>>  Terminate ExampleProvider by pressing ENTER  <<<<<<");
		Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
		keyboard.nextLine();

		System.out.println("Deregister Offering");

		// Deregister the Offering from the Marketplace
	    provider.deregister(offeringDescription);

	    // Terminate the Provider instance
	    provider.terminate();

	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


i'm taking it easy today. i've got 2 kiddos with colds and now despite my best "i'm not gonna get this efforts" i've got the cold too. we're going to rest up and keep getting ready for the holidays. my family is due to arrive in town tomorrow and we're very excited to have them here for christmas. it's been a long time since i've been able to celebrate christmas with them and we're very excited!
i've got 2 big family dinners to plan as well as a christmas day brunch, baking and holiday snack making and we're still decorating...lol. i've got xmas pressies to finish making/blocking and shopping for! and in the meantime we've been making sure to stop and take time to be thankful to live in such a beautiful place to see views like the one above. we stopped and watched this cloud/sun formation for at least 15 minutes on the weekend and i swear it soothed my soul. it was like a warm, soft energy that was more calming to me than anything i could think of. i made the hubs jump out of the car and take 100 pics of this gorgeous cloud over our giant ocean with the soft creamy glow softly whisping down from the sky to light up and bronze the dark, cool waters below. it was magical and soooo what we both needed to see.
i hope you are all able to find a sense of calm amidst the craziness of the holiday season right now. take a minute to envision a "happy place" of your own and try to remember to take a breath and enjoy some of it. i know it's tough cause i'm just as much of a stresscase at this time of year too but honestly, i just keeping putting this pic up on my screen and trying to remember to just soak it all in and breathe. just breathe.
what are you all busy crafting? are you getting the week before xmas crazies? remember you can come and chat in our facebook group, here in the comments below and also in our ravelry group for "christmas knitting 911 - your holiday crafting support group". we're all in this together :) coffee's on....wanna chat?


In The New York Times, Arindrajit Dube, a celebrated expert on the economics of the minimum wage, has commentated on the recent study from the University of Washington on the effects of Seattle's increased minimum wage. In short, Mr. Dube argues that the study's conclusion that there were big job loses is much more opaque than public commentary would have one believe. I agree with his general sentiments: Empirical claims about something as complex as the minimum wage can only be evaluated at the level of the overall literature, not a single study. By itself, the UW study proves nothing. One study can never prove a broad empirical point. Only a broad population of studies can do so.
"Putting all of those together, along with our evidence from past increases, will give a much more complete picture of how high the minimum wage should go to improve the lives of people at the bottom of the wage scale without throwing lots of people out of work."
We can be reasonable confident that among those people who can no longer find jobs will be among the least advantaged in society. For instance, the people who are going to be priced out of the markets are not the children of the rich who can afford to be sent to unpaid internships to build their resumés. Instead, they are going to be the children of the poor who have no way to build their resumés, as there are very, very few unpaid internships for, say, being a clerk or plumber. There may even be a few poor people of working age whose skills simply do not add enough at the margins to be employable at the minimum wage. Whatever the scenario, I think that it is very unlikely that the marginal effects of increasing the minimum wage do adversely affect some of the most vulnerable in society, for among the most vulnerable will be people whose skills cannot add a lot of value to a business at the margins. They will be at the chopping block first, in the name of economic efficiency.
Moreover, the economic profession have not been able to agree about how much benefit is accrued to society as a result of minimum-wage policies. It is telling that the economics profession has not been able to agree about the effects of an increase in the minimum wage in its literature.I don't think we should blame this problem of measurement on politics. Instead, I think that we should see the labor market as being so complex and so adaptive that any attempt at measuring the effects of this variable are fraught with difficulty and are also going to reflect local circumstances that will frequently vary from local to local. So, the average effects of the minimum wage are uncertain and we should expect them to always be uncertain, given the limits of measuring complex systems.
To me, combining these two considerations lead to the crux of the minimum-wage debate: The minimum wage harms some of the least advantaged people in society for uncertain benefits to others who are more advantaged. How can we pretend that's just? Economic policy is not only a matter of average effects, but also of justice and of who pays the costs at the margins. Contra Mr. Dube, I don't believe throwing a few people out of work is good enough. Those people also deserve the right to sell their labor and thereby improve their lives by virtue of a natural right to self-preservation. A just minimum-wage policy throws nobody, let alone some of the least advantaged, out of work; hence justice calls for a $0.0 minimum wage.
To the radical egalitarian, the civilization that we live in is horribly unjust. The power laws that manifest themselves in the distribution of wealth lead to the very few owning the vast majority. Worse than that inequality of ownership is the inequality of opportunity that accompanies it, with the vast majority chained to menial labor lest they fall into grinding poverty. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau lamented in The Social Contract: "Man is born free and he is everywhere in chains." A powerful, stirring accusation no doubt, and one that cuts to the heart of the radical egalitarian uneasiness with, really, all political order.
In the book that followed, Rousseau argued that the only way for human beings to live freely, or even as proper human beings since man was free by definition for Rousseau, was for each person to freely give themselves to the general will: "each, by giving himself to all, gives himself to no one, and since there is no associate over whom one does not acquire the same right as one grants over oneself, one gains the equivalent of all one loses, and more force to preserve what one has" (Rousseau 1997: 50). Rousseau's condemnation of the hierarchies of 18th century Europe helped to motivate a trend of political thinking that fought against such institutions in the centuries to follow, beyond the feudal ancien régime to the liberal commercial society.
One of the essential features of the radical egalitarian outlook that Rousseau helped to promote is that each person in a society should relate and sympathize with the fellow members of her society as an equal. In such a society, everybody is united with each other in cooperation encompassing the entire community. Rousseau wrote of such a society in The Social Contract, "As soon as this multitude is united in one body, one cannot injure on of the members without attacking the body, and still less can one injure the body without the members being affected" (Ibid: 52). The egalitarian society is, therefore, one in which everybody within it pulls together for the common good.
Only through that act of encompassing cooperation could people interact with each other as equals. Much like hoplites in formation, their total dedication to the community ensured that no one person could stake out a position above his fellow citizens. However, once people began to look after their own interests, the solidarity of primordial society decayed, which Rousseau recognizes in his Second Discourse: "This is how natural inequality imperceptibly unfolds together with unequal associations, and the differences between men, developed by their different circumstances, become more perceptible, more permanent in their effects, and begin to exercise a corresponding influence on the fate of individuals" (Rousseau 1997: 170).
It's a tempting vision that appeals to the innate human yearning for encompassing cooperation and meaning through such cooperation. But it's one that's irreconcilable with the hierarchical nature of a complex society. The reason is that egalitarianism stems from our innate yearning for an egalitarian society that was selected for over the hundreds of thousands of years that our distant ancestors once lived in.
Radical egalitarianism has become apart of social democracy's civil religion. To speak against it is an act of heresy, yet radical egalitarianism is a very dangerous doctrine that stands juxtaposed to the demands of the civilization whose fruits we enjoy. When a radical egalitarian sees a world in chains, a more sober perspective recognizes the necessary hierarchy to sustain that has sustained civilization across the millennia. Put into practice, in its indiscriminate leveling of hierarchy, radical egalitarianism seeks to destroy the social complexity that has made social existence possible in complex societies.
It isn't an accident that radical egalitarianism is an advocate for a type of society resembling the ancestral bands that Homo sapiens evolved within. At its heart, radical egalitarianism is an expression of humanity's yearning for such a society. Human beings aren't simply souls in machines; rather, they are animals whose social aptitudes have evolved over a vast natural history that should be the subject of greater appreciation in the study of human society. To understand man as a political animal, one has to understand man as a band animal; in the words of Daniel Klein, one has to understand band-man and his legacy around us. Apart of the legacy of the band is a desire for an egalitarian community and cooperation that encompasses across that entire community.
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, one of Jared Diamond's general argument is that civilization put to an end the egalitarian status that people had once enjoyed in their ancestors' bands. The sympathy that motivates people's desire for a fair society and the moral sentiments that lead us to approve of the leveling of hierarchy evolved in the unique context of the ancestral bands our Paleolithic ancestors resided in. In those bands, people generally relate and sympathize with each others as equals. However, as complex society emerged, people could no longer relate to each others as equals as hierarchies dissolved the primordial solidarity of the ancestral band.
With civilization, wealth and political power was now inequality distributed across the population, often with a very high correlation between the two. Moreover, that unequal distribution was a feature, not a bug.
After all, any complex system is going to be hierarchical to some degree. As Herbert Simon argued in "The Architecture of Complexity," hierarchy is to some degree a measurement of complexity. Although Diamond is woefully ignorant about the role that commerce has played in the rise of civilization—a quick perusal through the index of Guns, Germs, and Steel reveals that neither 'commerce,' 'property' nor 'trade' make an appearance there—his broad strokes demonstrate how civilization has become progressively ever less egalitarian. Whatever one may think about Diamond's larger argument about civilization, his diagnosis of all complex societies as kleptocracies to one degree or another should be heeded. Whether its Babylon, the Egypt of the Middle Kingdom, Antonine Rome, Plantagenet England, or Imperial Germany, few will hold mastery over others. In complex systems, power laws are everywhere and they manifest themselves in civilization.
The hierarchies and institutions we have are very much a product of frozen randomness, yet they have become integral to the greater whole of the civilization they are embedded within. To level those hierarchies and institutions in a desire to create a more equal society would be strike at the functional whole that is civilization.
The response to the kleptocracy around us isn't to return to a simpler society, it's to reduce the impact of coercion in society and to allow people to carve out their own private spheres of their own making. Abstract rules of conduct, rather than solidarity and encompassing cooperation, are what enable human beings to flourish in a complex society, despite its strongly kleptocratic elements. Commutative justice is foremost among those abstract rules of conduct. Commutative justice enables us to protect ourselves from that kleptocratic world and to follow the path that we desire for ourselves. We have to recognize that virtue begins at home and that our desire to find fulfillment through our wider society is ultimately an impulse that has little role in social existence in a civilization.
Diamond, Jared. 2005. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: WW. Norton & Company.
Kauffman, Stuart. 1993. The Origins of Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1997. The Discourses and other early political writings. Trans. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1997. The Social Contract and other later political writings. Trans. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
LÜNEBURG, Germany — Seven decades after the liberation of Auschwitz, a 93-year-old former SS member at the Nazi death camp shuffled into a German court on Tuesday to answer charges of complicity in the murder of 300,000 mostly Hungarian Jews in two months during the summer of 1944.
With Holocaust survivors looking on, the former SS soldier, Oskar Gröning, certainly one of the last Nazis called to account for his deeds, read a chilling but startlingly clear account of his life. It focused on the autumn of 1942 to the autumn of 1944, when he served in the SS at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The tardiness of the case against Mr. Gröning, a widower who lives in this small town in northern Germany, did nothing to lessen the tension in the makeshift courtroom, normally an assembly hall. He and his accusers can expect to spend much of the next three months here, measuring the march of 20th-century history through the lives of Nazis and their victims.
Unlike those tried decades ago, Mr. Gröning does not deny that he was at Auschwitz and that he saw terrible things. The case turns on whether he is not only morally, but also criminally, responsible for what happened there.
In Lüneberg, Mr. Walther is the leading lawyer of 11 who are representing the 65 co-plaintiffs, some of whom arrived in recent days, ready to testify.
Among them is Eva Fahidi, 90, of Budapest, who lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust, including her mother and sister, who were dispatched to the gas chambers upon arrival at Auschwitz.
She was not satisfied with Mr. Gröning's testimony and request for forgiveness. "After 70 years, he still behaves this way and is not capable of saying, 'I am a sinner,'" Ms. Fahidi said.
Seeing Mr. Gröning in a cell for the rest of his life will do nothing to undo the terrible harm done by the Final Solution. To quote Ms. Kor, it won't accomplish anything, but to throw an old man in jail for what will probably be the rest of his life. Is that justice? It sounds much more like revenge to me. A trial shouldn't be started simply out of a spirit of retribution, out of the pathetic hope that seeing another person hurt will aleviate the pain one has experienced.
Justice is not a matter of end-states, but of general rules of conduct that can demand obedience.
Social justice is neither justice nor social.
It is not justice because justice is a virtue. It has to do with how individuals deal with one another and especially in the commutative sense of whether they follow general rules of conduct with one another. Human beings are either just or unjust by how they act in life and what thoughts they harbor in their mind. Society is simply amoral. A "just" or "virtuous" society is at best a use of poetic license to describe the just or virtuous actions of the human individuals that constitute it. After all, something that has no existence outside of the human imagination like society cannot act or strive towards ends or obey laws and as such it cannot take on any moral properties. That John Rawls in his horridly overrated writings on justice tried to define justice by the properties of society is plain proof that he did not understand the basic properties of justice: the human being's obedience to certain rules of conduct. No theory of justice can be grounded in something that does not exist and so no definition of justice can be about society. Since social justice tries to define the concept of justice by institutional arrangements and outcomes, it is simply not a description of justice since justice is a virtue that is always constituted by individual human action.
Nor is social justice even social. To the contrary, it encourages arbitrary thinking that judges situations according to specific instances like wealth and capabilities and by doing so erodes away the general rules of conduct upon which society is made possible. This is unavoidable. When people talk about social justice, they have particular outcomes in mind and they try to design rules in order to attain those particular outcomes. However, these rules are then not designed to be general rules of conduct, to be valid in any situation, but to be rules of conduct designed according to certain ends and this cannot remain for long. Conditions in human society as in the world are always changing; as Heraclitus said: "Πάντα ῥεῖ" - "Everything changes." Rules cannot be designed for a specific situation in mind because then they stop working when the situation changes, as it always will. So the attempt to design rules in order to attain the socially-just state of the world (and all conceptions of social justice when even not patently false are just conceptions of what the world should be) will result in rules that help create social disorder when the specific conditions those rules were designed for change. Hence by its reliance on designing rules that are meant to achieve specific outcomes achieving particular socially-just conditions, social justice is not social because it is bound to destroy the general rules of conduct that enables social cooperation in whatever condition emergent order leads society.
Ergo, social justice is neither justice nor social. Justice is not about society, but about the actions of individual human beings. The rules that make social cooperation (and hence society) possible are the general rules of conduct that are applicable across specific outcomes like the social rules of conduct found in the Ten Commandments, the Code of Hammurabi and English common law. The rules that social justice designs in order to achieve preconceived outcomes cannot be general rules and are bound to destroy social cooperation when conditions make them obsolete. Social justice is thus not social.


Last night, I attended Babaylan Night, celebrating the 24th anniversary of UP Babaylan. As an alumnus of this trailblazing LGBT organization and a member of its alumni NGO (Babaylanes, Inc.), I am proud of all that the group has achieved in the past quarter of a century.
It was also great to have seen old friends once again and to have met a few new ones, both founders as well as newbies.
Babaylan continues to be influential and, more importantly, important to the LGBT community. Despite detractors from both within as well as from outside the community, Babaylan stands tall and firm in its advocacy. The great thing about the organization is that it has the full support of the premiere educational institution of the country, the University of the Philippines, an institution that has proven to be the best not just in the academe but also in terms of social awareness and activism (is this not the school that was among the first targets of Martial Law in the 70s?).
The truth is that – whether you've heard about it or not – Babaylan has left a powerful mark in Philippine society as a whole, paving the way for a new generation of more tolerance and acceptance in the university as well as beyond territory of the glorious Oblation.
Is Babaylan's job done? No, of course not. Despite a considerably more open society compared to 1992, we still face a lot of discrimination and hatred in 2016. As we move towards the 25th year of the organization and beyond, we will never stop in ensuring that we elevate the LGBT community as best we can towards true equality and acceptance.
Just a few from my era.


text:
Q: An array of Texture3D's in DirectX? There is Texture2DArray in HLSL, but is there any workaround for an array of Texture3D's in HLSL/DirectX?

A: There are a few options, in both DirectX11 and DirectX12.
DirectX11 has more limitations.
You can declare an array of textures in HLSL as per :
Texture3D textures[3] : register(t0);

Please note that it is not really an array per se, it's actually equivalent to :
Texture3D texture0 : register(t0);
Texture3D texture1 : register(t1);
Texture3D texture2 : register(t2);

So you still need to bind 3 textures.
Also note that your array size must be set in the shader, you cannot have a varying number.
Also dynamic indexing is not allowed, so this is not valid for example:
int3 myvoxel = //something

int index = 0;
if (voxel.x > 5)
{
    index = 1;
}
return textures[index].Load(int4(voxel, 0));

The following will not work either :
cbuffer cbIndex : register(b0)
{
    uint index;
}

return textures[index].Load(int4(voxel, 0));

In DirectX12, this is less limited.
You still need to set your 3 texture views in a contiguous location in your descriptor table, but :
You can do dynamic indexing so both of the samples above will work.
You can also declare unbounded arrays, so you as above need to make sure all your volumes are contiguous in the descriptor table.
Texture3D textures[] : register(t0);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Télésat Canada (Télésat) est un opérateur de satellite de télécommunications  canadien  créé le . La société a son siège social à Ottawa, Ontario, et des bureaux aux États-Unis et au Brésil.

Historique
La société d'État Télésat Canada est créée en 1969 par un décret du Parlement canadien . Elle lance en orbite géostationnaire en 1972 son premier satellite de télécommunications Anik A1.  Il s'agit du premier satellite prenant en charge des télécommunications domestiques. Celui-ci retiré du service en 1981. Jusqu'en février 1979 Télésat détient un monopole sur les stations terrestres de réception des signaux émis par ses satellites installés sur le territoire canadien. Après la fin de ce monopole, l'application de ces baux s'est prolongée jusqu'à leur échéance.

En 1998, le gouvernement fédéral vend la société à Bell Canada. Fin 2006, Loral Space and Communications en partenariat avec l', l'un des grands gestionnaires de fonds pour des caisses de retraite au Canada, faisait l'acquisition de Télésat pour US $ 2.8 milliards. Fin 2007, Les deux partenaires après avoir obtenu l'accord réglementaire achèvent l'acquisition de Télésat de BCE Inc. pour 3,25 milliards $ CAD. L'acquisition a été conclue le , Loral possédant 64 pour cent de l'ensemble. Télésat Canada fusionne avec Loral Skynet, filiale de Loral Space & Communications  exploitant un réseau de satellites et dont son siège social était situé à Bedminster, New Jersey. La fusion entraîne le transfert de la totalité des actifs de Loral Skynet à Télésat.

Satellites lancés pour Télésat

Anik A1 - 1972
Anik A2 - 1973
Anik A3 - 1975
Anik B - 1978
Anik D1 - 1982
Anik C3 - 1982
Anik C2 - 1983 - vendu à Paracom SA en 1993
Anik D2 - 1984 - vendu à GE Americom 1991 et ARABSAT en 1993
Anik C1 - 1985 - vendu à Paracom SA en 1993
Anik E2 - 1991
Anik E1 - 1991
MSAT-1 - 1996
Nimiq 1 - 1999
Anik F1 - 2000
Nimiq 2 - 2002
Estrela do Sul 1 (Telstar 14) - 2004
Anik F2 - 2004
Anik F1R - 2005
Wildblue-1
Nimiq 3
Anik F3 - 2007
Telstar 11N - entré en service
Nimiq 4 - 2008
Nimiq 5 - 2009
Telstar 14R
Nimiq 6 - 2012
ViaSat-1
Telstar 18
Telstar 18 Vantage
Telstar 12
Telstar 12 Vantage - 24 novembre 2015
Anik G1
Nimiq 7 - Non encore en opération en date du
Nimiq 8 - Non encore en opération en date du

Autres satellites mis en orbite

Télésat a annoncé le , que Nimiq 6 a été construit par Space Systems/Loral (SSL). Bell Télé (autrefois  Bell ExpressVu), un fournisseur canadien de télévision par satellite, a accepté de louer entièrement le satellite pour sa durée de vie pour desservir leurs abonnés partout au Canada. Nimiq 6 a une charge utile composée de 32 répéteurs de forte puissance en bande Ku. Il utilise la plate-forme 1300 de SSL et a une durée de vie de 15 ans. Il a été lancé en 2012 par International Launch Services. Télésat a lancé Telstar 12 VANTAGE en  par une fusée H-IIA 204, une variante de la fusée H-IIA ; il est entré en service en .

Notes et références

Voir aussi

Articles connexes
 Satellite de télécommunications
 Anik
 Nimiq
 Joseph-Alphonse Ouimet

Lien externe
Site officiel

Programme spatial canadien
Opérateur de satellites
Entreprise fondée en 1969

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


SurgeX offers a complete UPS product line to meet your battery backup needs. Available in multiple configurations, our standalone UPS solutions provide backup power to keep equipment running and properly shut down critical systems in the event of a power outage.
For critical systems that require online battery backup, our UPS-1000-OL, UPS-2000-OL, and UPS-3000-OL solutions each deliver network grade power through double-conversion technology. They offer the perfect standalone backup solution for sensitive audio video systems, critical business servers, point of sale equipment, telephone, and data networks equipment that demand prolonged runtimes of 1.5 hours or greater. All three solutions provide extended scalable runtimes of up to 18 hours via self-charging extended battery packs and easily replaceable battery trays.
AVShop.ca is a Canadian authorized SurgeX retailer.


text:
Dexamethasone Versus Magnesium Sulfate as an Adjuvant to Local Anesthetics in the Ultra-Sound Guided Injection of Piriformis Muscle for the Treatment of Piriformis Syndrome
Mohammed Awad Alsaeid Ahmed1, *
1 Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Egypt
First Page: 35
Last Page: 41
Publisher Id: TOATJ-14-35
Full-Text HTML Views: 339
Abstract HTML Views: 87
PDF Downloads: 0
Total Views/Downloads: 426
© 2020 Mohammed Awad Alsaeid Ahmed.
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
* Address correspondence to this author at the Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Egypt; Tel: 002-01223881100; E-mail:drm.awd2008@yahoo.com
Piriformis Syndrome (PS) is an underdiagnosed cause of buttock, thigh and leg pain, most probably because it is thought to be a rare cause of sciatica. PS is widely believed to be myofascial in origin.
This prospective, randomized, controlled, double-blind study was conducted at the pain management department. 50 patients aged from 20 to 60 years old were included in this study. The selected patients were randomly allocated into 2 groups containing 25 patients each; Group D received a total of 5 mL which included 2mL lidocaine 2%, 2mL (8 mg) dexamethasone and 1mL normal saline 0.9%, and Group M received a total of 5mL which included 2mL lidocaine 2%, 3mL magnesium sulphate (MgSO4) (2.5%) . Patients demographic characteristics, baseline physical examination findings of the patients as well as the duration of pain were all recorded. Patients were re-assessed immediately after injection, 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after the injection. Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) values were used at each evaluation time to assess the pain, while patients were in sitting, standing, and lying positions. All patients were assessed immediately and for 4 hours post-injection for any side effects related to the drugs used.
In the pre-injection time, immediately after and 1 week after injection, there were no statistically significant differences between groups D and M in pain values. While, on comparison between both groups, group M, was significantly better than group D, in NRS values 1 month and 3 months after injection. In group D, pain score values were significantly better immediately, 1 week, and 1 month after injection compared to the pre-injection values, while these values were not significantly different 3 months after injection compared with the pre-injection values. In group M, pain score values were significantly better immediately, 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after injection compared to the pre-injection values.
Magnesium sulfate was more effective, especially for long term pain relief (3 months) when compared to dexamethasone as they were used as adjuvants to lidocaine, if injected into the piriformis muscle (PM) guided by ultrasound in the management of PS refractory as initial conservative treatment.
Keywords : Magnesium sulfate , Dexamethasone , Lidocaine , Ultrasound guided injection , Piriformis syndrome , Numeric Rating Scale .
View Fulltext HTML Download PDF
K. Ren
Department of Neural and Pain Sciences
Biography of K. Ren
Dr. Ke Ren completed his Ph.D studies in the University of Lowa and postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health. He has nearly 40 years of experience in biochemical research focusing on Neurosciences and Pain. He is a Professor in the Department of Neural and Pain Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. He has published more than 180 manuscripts and book chapters. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Open Pain Journal and The Open Anesthesiology Journal since 2015. He has been serving as an editorial board member of Pain, Journal of Pain, Evidence-Based complementary and alternative Medicine, Pain Research and treatment, and Odontology.
Department of Neural and Pain Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA
The Open Anesthesia Journal
Total Views/Downloads: 346,258
EPUB Downloads: 19,579
Unique Views/Downloads: 66,934
Full-Text HTML Views: 32,949
The Open Anesthesia Journal is an Open Access online journal, which publishes research articles, reviews, letters, case reports and guest-edited single topic issues in all areas of experimental and clinical research in anesthesia, pharmacokinetics, anesthetic mechanisms, critical care, preoperative care, clinical skills, cost issues, coexisting disease and other factors affecting treatment with an academic degree. Bentham Open ensures speedy peer review process and accepted papers are published within 2 weeks of final acceptance.
The Open Anesthesia Journal is committed to ensuring high quality of research published. We believe that a dedicated and committed team of editors and reviewers make it possible to ensure the quality of the research papers. The overall standing of a journal is in a way, reflective of the quality of its Editor(s) and Editorial Board and its members.
The Open Anesthesia Journal is seeking energetic and qualified researchers to join its editorial board team as Editorial Board Members or reviewers.
The essential criteria to become Editorial Board Members of The Open Anesthesia Journal are as follows:
Experience in experimental and clinical research in anesthesia, pharmacokinetics, anesthetic mechanisms, critical care, preoperative care, clinical skills, cost issues, coexisting disease and other factors affecting treatment with an academic degree.
At least 20 publication records of articles and /or books related to the field of experimental and clinical research in anesthesia, pharmacokinetics, anesthetic mechanisms, critical care, preoperative care, clinical skills, cost issues, coexisting disease and other factors affecting treatment with an academic degree or in a specific research field.


The 3-Heights™ TIFF Toolbox API enables to process and convert TIFF files. Examples of such processing functions are the merging and splitting of multi-page files, the conversion of other raster image formats such as JPEG into TIFF and the conversion of TIFF files into PDF/A.
The optional OCR add-in makes output files searchable in full textmode.PDF/A has been acknowledged world-wide as the ISO standard for long-term archiving since 2005. The TIFF to PDF/A converter is used to convert images into a standardized format, for instance for electronic archiving or elec-tronic data exchange.
The 3-Heights™ TIFF Toolbox API is characterized by a robust design, high throughput, ability to process large files and accurate image reproduction.
Notice: The 3-Heights™ TIFF Toolbox is not an own product but part of our 3-Heights™ Image to PDF Converter.
TIFF was specifically developed for storing image data, and is mostly used when dealing with scanned documents. This also includes numerous proprietary TIFF extensions that were developed for specific application areas such as geodata or text recognition.
With the TIFF Toolbox, existing TIFF archives can be efficiently migrated into long-term PDF/A-compliant archives without losing any information. The conversion to the PDF/A format allows you to achieve standardized archiving in a unified format that offers a high compression rate, text recognition, embedded metadata and digital signing.
The PDF formats store structured objects and are therefore more compact than the TIFF raster format. This saves storage space and enables more efficient data exchange (FTP, email attachments, downloads).
The electronic archiving of paper documents and faxes, as well as electronically produced files from specialist applications, often generates TIFF and JPEG files.
The loss-free conversion of TIFF files into the long-term archiving format PDF/A creates a unified format. Alongside this standardization, you also gain a wide range of options and additional features for further processing in the documentation process.


text:
Tag Archives: New Orleans Hornets
The Chris Kaman conspiracy: Are the Bucks in the game?
No Andrew Bogut until April at the earliest, highly speculative and tenuous playoff hopes, a Bogut-less Bucks fan base that needs those playoff hopes, no space under the salary cap next season and most of the necessary roster ingredients for a trade.
Stir it all together and you've got motive and opportunity for the Bucks to be party to a trade for veteran center Chris Kaman, who's been publicly placed on the trading block by the New Orleans Hornets. The Hornets reportedly want "draft picks, cap space and a young player" for the 29-year-old former All-Star (2010) and his expiring $14 million contract. The Celtics have already declined.
The Bucks have young players, draft picks and the expiring contracts of Ersan Ilyasova and Carlos Delfino, not enough to make the trade. (See Bucks salaries at Shamsports.com). But Stephen Jackson's contract could get them there, if the Hornets are willing to take on Jack's $10 million salary next season. Add Ilyasova, draft picks and/or the developing Darington Hobson, Larry Sanders et. al., and a trade could work.
The Hornets could do a lot worse. Ilyasova's become one of the better rebounding forwards in the league and would be a good addition to the Hornets undersized front court, led by Emeka Okafor. It's no secret that, while Ersan is a key member of the Bucks core, Bucks management hasn't been willing to trust him with starting PF minutes. For all the good Ersan does on the court, at the end of the day he's still standing in the way of Jon Leuer's development. Acquiring Kaman helps solve the Bucks defensive rebounding problems (yes, it's still a problem) in the short term, and clears minutes for Leuer.
So while the Bucks are giving up the better rebounder (currently) and defender in Ilyasova, they would shore up the center position while clearing $14 million in cap space next season. And Jackson? The Hornets would be well under the cap next summer standing pat, and adding Jackson would still leave them Room. They'd only have to pay Jack a year (or less if they trade him). And, as the Bucks have discovered this season, Jack's a good guy to have around in spite of all the angry yapping.
So why don't the Bucks keep him? Delfino and Mike Dunleavy, jr. play more or less the same position as Jack, and Luc Mbah a Moute needs small forward/guard minutes, too (locking down on Joe Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Lebron James, Danny Granger, Carmelo Anthony, to name a few). Jack's fairly expendable, and the Bucks play just fine without him.
Kaman fits in well in the Bucks scheme, and he's a more reliable offensive player than Bogut. Kaman helps get the Bucks to the post-season, where the Bucks would have Bogues, too (in theory) and a formidable white behemoth front court.
So would the NBA-owned Hornets sting on this trade? With the league office involved, it's not clear that the Bucks have the right expiring contracts for a trade, but there are a lot worse contracts out there than Jackson's (Drew Gooden's comes to mind). A trade would likely depend on the young players, whether the Hornets want to keep Ilyasova, and the value of the draft picks involved.
It also depends on Bucks GM John Hammond, never one to stand pat or worry about stability or player development.
Of course, it's also likely that I'm just talking myself into it so I can post crazy Chris Kaman photos.
This entry was posted in From the Land of Ray and Reggie, The Jinx and tagged Andrew Bogut, Boston Celtics, Chris Kaman, Chris Kaman trade rumors, Darington Hobson, Ersan Ilyasova, John Hammond, Jon Leuer, Larry Sanders, New Orleans Hornets, Stephen Jackson on January 30, 2012 by J.D. Mo.
Chris Douglas-Roberts out for a month
Not five minutes after raising the question yesterday of how Skiles would manage his logjam on the wings with John Salmons, Carlos Delfino, Corey Maggette and Chris Douglas-Roberts, a rare visit to BobBoozerJinx @ twitter was greeted with an update from CDR, the Bucks resident Twitter-addict: CDR will miss about a month of the season.
"I went thru hell 2day.Got eye surgery.Lucky though b/c if I were a day or two late I could've lost my vision.Cant play hoop for a MONTH. :-("
And an update:
"Three needles shot under my eye.I was awake the whole time.Shii scared me."
And an updated update:
"So now I have to lay flat on my back for a week so my eye can heal properly. H/e,I cant do anything hoop wise for 3 weeks. Which kills me…"
"So I refuse to watch any hoop unless the Bucks or the Bulls are playing. B/c watching hoop & not being able to play hoop is torture for me."
http://twitter.com/cdouglasroberts
Bad break for CDR, who had lobbied to come to Milwaukee from New Jersey so he could play for a tough, defensive-minded coach like Scott Skiles. It's also bad news for Bucks and Brandon Jennings faithful who see CDR — not Salmons or Maggette — as Jennings' running mate of the future. Adding the cat-quick, explosive CDR to the Bucks core simply made more sense than Maggette, who's never played much D and was a vocal malcontent after Nellie made it clear that rookie Stephen Curry — not Maggette — had to be the focus of the Golden State offense.
But the unfortunate poke in the eye to CDR does allow Skiles to showcase Maggette off the bench without conscience — and Maggette will shoot it without conscience. It's pretty well understood in Bucks land that Salmons is the Bucks starting shooting guard, for this season anyway, and that Maggette's best role is to play behind both Salmons and Carlos Delfino, helping the Bucks second unit get to the free throw line, Maggette's undeniable strength.
Don't expect Maggette to light it up from 3-point land — he won't (32 percent career from downtown don't lie, and is even a little scary considering coach Skiles' maddening belief in letting guys crank it up from out there as if he doesn't realize that he's no longer coaching Ben Gordon). But Maggette has been a 50 percent shooter or better from inside the arc, where Skiles needs to make sure that he stays.
THE LINEUP: Skiles hasn't announced his starters yet, but Salmons has been practicing at full tilt, so expect the Fish to start in the backcourt with Jennings, with Delfino at small forward. Bogut is ready to go at center, and tonight begins his long road to the 2011 All-Star game.
Power forward? Still an unanswered question at this point, given the match-up problem presented tonight by one David West, New Orleans Hornet All-Star. The natural inclination would be to dog West with a combination of Luc Mbah a Moute and Ersan Ilyasova … but Mbah a Moute is still hobbled with an ankle sprain and might not play.
Skiles may go with Drew Gooden to start the game, a development that bears watching. Skiles has been starting Gooden with Bogut but the Bucks haven't exactly been winning games in the preseason with Gooden logging big minutes and Mbah a Moute sidelined. I'm suddenly reminded of last season when Skiles started the season with Kurt Thomas as the starting power forward before giving way to Ersan and Luc, who not only earned their PT but won games with Bogut and Jennings until injuries to Bogut and Luc (and the advent of Michael Redd) derailed the Bucks fast start.
I hope Skiles remembers that he has a rising star in Ilyasova, who led Turkeys campaign to the silver medal in this year's world championships, and just might be the solution to the Bucks jinx at the power forward position
HARDWOOD PAROXYSM's Bucks preview is a good read but there's nary a mention of Ilyasova despite HP's otherwise great understanding of BJ and Bogut and the Bucks D.
BREWHOOP has some links to other preseason NBA picks and predictions, some of which are interesting. Note that anybody picking the Bucks lower than 4 in the East hasn't seen them play much with Bogut anchoring the D, and is either a Bulls fan or works for ESPN (who can forget ESPN's horrific Bucks-Hawks Game 7 broadcast last spring?). The writers pick the Bucks to win the Central.
This entry was posted in The Jinx and tagged Andrew Bogut, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Corey Maggette, David West, Drew Gooden, Ersan Ilyasova, Luc Mbah a Moute, New Orleans Hornets, Scott Skiles on October 27, 2010 by J.D. Mo.
Waiting for those pre-season browwnz to clear
Years ago, in what seems now like another lifetime, I was sitting on the steps of my neighbors porch on Thalia Street in New Orleans, eating a plateful of beans and rice, when my neighbor let out a sigh and looked wistfully at some point of nowhere and away, down toward St. Charles. "What's the matter," I asked.
"Oh, I don't know … nothin' really," she said, and maybe sighed again (she probably did but, remember, this was so long ago that it may never have happened at all). "I just got a case of the browns."
I got the feeling she wasn't talking about the beans and rice. "The browns? What are those?"
"They're kinda like the blues but, no, not so bad as the blues. They're, you know, just … the browwnz."
I haven't found since better words to describe what the browns are than those: "just … the browwnz." The browwnz can be difficult to pin down, I do know that. And I've also come to know when I've got 'em.
I've got em now, thanks to an NBA pre-season that has seemed without end, the Bucks not healthy enough to field their starting roster even once. The Bucks aren't healthy yet, 27 hours before their season opener in the very place where the browwnz were identified — New Orleans. And, no, at last check of the clock, the NBA pre-season hasn't ended.
The Celtics and Heat tip the 2010-11 season off tonight at 6:35 pm, give or take a minute or two (yes, I'm counting the minutes). I'm expecting Lebron to find KG, Rondo, Ray and #34 just as smart and clutch-and-grab aggressive as they were in dominating last season's eastern conference playoffs. For now, KG is healthy. NBA fans should know by now, after three seasons in Boston, that (sorry D-Wade and Bosh, and Dwight) a healthy KG is the most valuable asset in the conference.
It's also worth noting that the Celtics have Lebron's second most valuable Cavs asset, Delonte West, coming off the bench behind Ray Allen (Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mr. Cav, being Lebron's most valuable teammate in Cleveland). The addition of West (loaded guns aside) to play with Ray, Rajon Rondo and Nate "the gnat" Robinson gives the Celtics, hands down, the best guard rotation on the planet. Inside, KG, Jermaine O'Neal and Shaq are more than Bosh and Big Z (and Anthony) can handle, whether the Heat jell or not. If this game is an early season sneak preview of the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals, no complaints here, unless the Bucks fail to give one of these top two in the East some playoff hell.
The Bucks and Hornets get going at 7:05 pm Wednesday. Brandon Jennings vs. Chris Paul, CP3 finally healthy after missing half of last season … that's plenty of fun to watch in a season opener, and Andrew Bogut seems to be doing fine, though he's not yet in 35-minute playing shape. John Salmons will play — but beyond that, most everything else to do with the Bucks is open to question, given that the rotation hasn't played together in a game. Hence, the browwnz, and a preseason that has seemed without end.
And I know enough about the browwnz to realize that trying to answer those many Bucks questions now is hubris.
We don't know how or whether Skiles will be able to manage his wing rotation with Fish, Carlos Delfino, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Corey Maggette all vying for PT. (This just in: Chris Douglas-Roberts is reporting on his twitter that he had eye surgery today and can't play ball for a month.)
We don't know whether Maggette can play tough enough D to warrant solid PT. We don't know whether Drew Gooden, Luc Mbah a Moute (hobbled by an ankle sprain) or Ersan Ilyasova will start at power forward. We don't whether or not Keyon Dooling will be as effective as Luke Ridnour was backing up Jennings. We'll have to wait and see.
We do know that this is the first season in ten years that the Bucks will go into the season without Michael Redd in a Bucks uniform. Redd's nowhere to be found in Bucks camp, and likely will not join his team on the bench in street clothes while GM John Hammond searches for a deal to unload Redd and his ridiculously absurd $18.3 million contract.
And knowing this with the tip-off of the Bucks season 27 hours away, I can feel those NBA pre-season browwnz beginning to clear away.
This entry was posted in The Jinx and tagged Andrew Bogut, Boston Celtics, Brandon Jennings, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Corey Maggette, Delonte West, Dwyane Wade, John Salmons, Kevin Garnett, Keyon Dooling, Lebron James, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, NBA preseason, New Orleans Hornets, Scott Skiles on October 26, 2010 by J.D. Mo.


Take complete control with the Logitech Extreme TM 3D Pro joystick. Its 12 fully programmable buttons give you an incredible amount of flexibility and performance. The precise twist handle includes an 8-way rubber hat switch. Throttle controls rotate smoothly for extraordinary control. This item cannot be shipped to APO/FPO addresses. Please accept our apologies.
Nintendo Switch Adjustable Charging Stand This item cannot be shipped to APO/FPO addresses. Please accept our apologies.


text:
NBANBA
2020 All-Star Game2020 All-Star Game
Trade MachineTrade Machine
World of WojWorld of Woj
DraftDraft
SalariesSalaries
Team USA 2020Team USA 2020
NBA HistoryNBA History
AwardsAwards
CoachesCoaches
NBA.COM ticketsNBA.COM tickets
Stein: Ball in Stern's court
14yMarc Stein
Stern must officiate Hawks, Joe Johnson situation
Marc SteinESPN Senior Writer
• Senior NBA writer for ESPN.com
• Began covering the NBA in 1993-94
• Also covered soccer, tennis and the Olympics
Three prominent parties will be plunged into varying degrees of disarray if the Joe Johnson sign-and-trade implodes.
The surest move to ensure that the Atlanta Hawks, Phoenix Suns and Johnson dodge that disarray is the removal of Steve Belkin as the Hawks' representative on the NBA Board of Governors.
That is why, as of Wednesday, several sources close to the endangered deal still believe that Belkin will eventually lose his governor status -- with a nudge from NBA commissioner David Stern -- to push the trade through in coming days.
An official intervention from Stern isn't expected until Thursday at the earliest, but the Hawks immediately sought his involvement after Boston judge Allan van Gestel blocked the attempt of Belkin's Atlanta ownership partners to oust the Boston-based Belkin as team governor. The Hawks responded to that ruling by voting to strip Belkin of his governor's seat anyway and then turning to Stern with a written request to support that step.
The league has resisted the urge to intervene until now, maintaining that it's up to the Hawks to resolve their own internal mess. Yet it's clear that they can't, and it likewise appears van Gestel prefers the NBA to govern itself in this matter before rendering a legal ruling. Belkin's request for a preliminary injunction to block his ouster was granted in part because the Hawks did not come to court with "prior approval" from Stern to make that move.
"I assume the NBA is concerned about teams in chaos," van Gestel said during Tuesday's proceedings. "But that's why they get paid bigger bucks than I do."
The onus, then, has been placed on Stern to step in to referee. How will he react? The strong suspicion in circulation is that he'll move to prevent Belkin, a part-owner, from blocking a trade sought by everyone else in the organization, largely to get this chaos out of the news as quickly as possible. Yet it's uncertain how far Stern would go, assuming he and his league lawyers feel they have a case to step in.
Stern could decide he has sufficient cause to take governor privileges away from Belkin, a part-owner who's defying the two-thirds majority of the Hawks' three-headed ownership structure by refusing to sign off on the trade for the restricted free agent.
Other options include calling for a Board of Governors vote to rule on Belkin's status or simply a direct, private order from the commissioner for Belkin to act upon the majority's wishes on this trade until the Hawks' three ownership groups can negotiate a divorce. Yet another course is Stern and his aides taking a lead role in hammering out that divorce.
Which is where this is obviously headed. It's impossible to envision how these three ownership wings could work together after all this, whether or not the Johnson trade is consummated.
There were concerns from the start about the feasibility of these three disparate entities coexisting -- one based in Washington owning 40 percent of the club, another in Atlanta holding 30 percent and Belkin with his 30 percent stake. Those fears were soon realized through months of feuding that prompted Stern to scold them all in April.
Only now the discord has escalated into a farce of historic proportions.
The partnership calls for each of the three ownership factions to have an equal vote on club matters. NBA rules, however, specify that one representative per team -- usually the team governor -- conveys the wishes of the club to the league office on trades, signings, etc. Because Belkin is that representative for the Hawks, he has been able to block the trade on a technicality, even though he was outvoted 2-1 by his partners on the deal proposed by general manager Billy Knight.
Belkin's public position against the trade is that the Hawks are giving up too much by agreeing to send Boris Diaw and two conditional future first-round picks to Phoenix in exchange for Johnson, who would first sign a five-year, $70 million contract with the Suns that features an up-front balloon payment of $20 million. The arrangement would also create a one-year trade exception worth nearly $5 million for the Suns to apply to a future deal.
As stated in this cyberspace Friday, it doesn't really matter whether Belkin is someday proved correct that the Hawks are overextending for Johnson, who's not yet a proven franchise player. If he wanted the right to veto deals presented by his GM, Belkin should have purchased more than a 30 percent stake in the team. Seventy percent of ownership wants the deal, knowing that a sign-and-trade is the only sure way to acquire Johnson given his status as a restricted free agent.
The very nature of restricted free agency holds that a team might have to exceed market value to land the player it seeks because the incumbent team has the right to match any offer sheet. While a handful of league executives have privately questioned whether Suns managing partner Robert Sarver would indeed match a five-year, $70 million offer sheet to what some consider his fourth-best player, a more widespread sentiment suggests that Sarver's top two executives -- chairman Jerry Colangelo and team president Bryan Colangelo -- would convince the new owner that matching a top-dollar offer is far more palatable than losing an asset like Johnson without compensation.
The situation, of course, grows infinitely more complicated if Stern decides he doesn't have the license to impeach Belkin. Or if Belkin's temporary injunction against his removal becomes legally permanent no matter how the league office rules.
Either of those scenarios undoubtedly kills the trade and sets up numerous nightmares for everyone involved.
The Hawks would lose their guarantee of landing a talented 6-foot-8 swingman who has the ability to play three positions. Worse yet, they probably miss out on the first marquee free agent in memory who actually wants to be a Hawk, making Johnson more valuable to Atlanta than Belkin cares to consider.
Belkin's survival, besides alienating what's left of the Hawks' tiny fan base and setting up more nasty battles to determine who's leaving the ownership triangle, would also lead to Knight's dismissal or resignation and the bigger problem of replacing him. Why would any decent GM or coach want to work for an owner who so readily undermines his basketball people?
There would be looming complications for the Suns and Johnson, too. If the trade is dissolved and the Hawks revert to their original plan of extending Johnson an offer sheet, numerous questions arise. Would Johnson, who has already stunned many league observers by choosing Atlanta over Phoenix, really be willing to sign with a Belkin-led franchise? Then again, who else on the open market has the money to make him a substantial offer? Could the Suns and Johnson, furthermore, find a way to mend fences if both sides realize -- after more than a week of emotional public discourse detailing how they agreed to part ways -- that the player has nowhere else to go?
These are all issues that the league, as you can imagine, wants no part of. Which explains why sources close to the Hawks, Suns and Johnson all continue to express fingers-crossed confidence that the trade will go through in its original form. Hawks officials, sources said, have remained in frequent contact with Johnson in recent days, trying to assure him that the entire organization (apart from Belkin) remains eager for his arrival.
Yet it should be fairly evident now that there are no certainties here … apart from confirmation of the sentiment shared by one Hawks insider who promised last week that "this thing gets worse before it gets better."
Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here. Also, click here to send a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.


Many dropshippers like to partner with shopping-cart, datafeed, or storefront platform suppliers to provide a more comprehensive service. And some of these suppliers like to offer free sign ups, but you still need to provide a credit card number in the registration process. I know one of such and they would order monthly credit report on your behalf without your consent, so if you really plan to join one of those, you better pay attention to your next month's credit card statement.
Clothing, Apparel & Footwear Dropshipper: Bella Vi – Bella Vi is a wholesale dropshipper of women's clothes, shoes, jewelry, and accessories. There is a dropshipping fee of $19/month. Inventory is updated on a daily basis. The updated data feed is located in their wholesale portal and is available for download.
If you need help with your fashion website setup, Bella Vi can provide a fully-loaded custom website development package for 95% off. In return, you need to supply a 30 seconds video testimonial or an interview for marketing purposes. Your cost will be less than 5%, which is a one-time fee of $595. Since they will be using a shopping cart platform to build your store, you are required to pay $24.95/month for the shopping cart service.
General Merchandise Dropshipper: Speedy Dropship – Speedy Dropship carries over 45,000 items from 50 countries with a variety of product categories including natural grocery, specialty grocery, general merchandise, health body care, herbs, pet supplies, vitamins, gardening, hair care, cosmetics, canned food, snacks and many more.
Here are some of the great features of this dropship program: Dropship account is free, there is no setup fee. Setup is fast, just complete the online registration form and submit your resale tax ID, they will authorize your dropship account within one business day. Most orders ship within 2-3 days. There is no minimum order, or additional fee for drop shipping.
Could you please advise some Drop-shippers in India?


text:
package de.saxsys.mvvmfx.internal.viewloader.lifecycle.example_notification_without_lifecycle;

import de.saxsys.mvvmfx.ViewModel;

public class NotificationWithoutLifecycleViewModel implements ViewModel {

	int notificationCounter = 0;

	public void initialize() {
		subscribe("test", (key, payload) -> {
			notificationCounter++;
		});
	}

}


text:
Pivot Metrics May Pop Up in CEO Pay Adjustments
Pay experts have urged compensation committees to keep a gimlet eye on how the company is performing on incentive metrics throughout the year to avoid any surprises when assessing payouts at the end of 2020. It appears management is doing the same.
According to Agenda's Directors' and Officers' Outlook Survey for the third quarter of 2020, 68.1% of respondents said CEOs have inquired how the company is doing with respect to in-flight performance-based compensation plans. Some 57.1% said their CEO asked about both annual and long-term plans, while 8.8% said their CEO asked about their annual plan only, and 2.2% said long-term only.
According to Aalap Shah, a managing director in the New York office of Pearl Meyer, comp committee members should ask for even more data.
"Directors should be asking management teams to provide performance on other metrics that aren't actually part of their performance share plan," Shah says. For instance, he says a long-term plan scheduled to pay out at the end of 2020 may have appeared on track to pay out at or above target before the pandemic hit. But now, looking at financial performance or total shareholder return, it might pay out at zero or below target.
"Directors are still waiting until later in the year to figure out what to do, but in anticipation of that, what they should have management teams start doing is collecting information on what I've been calling 'pivot metrics,'" Shah says.
"What have you had to pivot to [in order to] manage your business, and how effective have you been at doing that? Whether it's part of the formal program or not, demonstrating how you've been performing through that pivot is really going to be important for them in order to make a determination on how those programs should pay out, if at all," Shah explains. These metrics could include measures of operating cost efficiencies or more qualitative factors such as how management has developed strategic plans in the face of the pandemic.
"How have you thought about the business differently in terms of the post-acute pandemic response?" Shah asks.


text:
Q: Reading data from a text file and storing it in an object I have a text file with a number on each line.
0
55
3
15
63
8
0
-8
9
89
504
32

I have a Car which accepts three parameters:

*

*the starting odometer reading

*the final odometer reading

*the litres

The first line in the text file corresponds to the starting odometer reading.
The second is the final reading.
The third is the litres.
The fourth is the starting odometer reading for the second Car, etc.
I need to read the text file, create an object, and this the parameters to the car.
For car3 (0, -8, 9) there is a negative number, so the entire set is ignored and (89, 504, 32) becomes car3.
I have referred to Anubian Noob's answer; and this is my code so far:
final String INPUT_FILE = "data.txt";
final String OUTPUT_FILE = "report.txt";

BufferedReader inputFile = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (INPUT_FILE));
BufferedWriter outputFile = new BufferedWriter (new FileWriter (OUTPUT_FILE));
LineNumberReader  lineNumber = new LineNumberReader (new FileReader (INPUT_FILE));
lineNumber.skip(Long.MAX_VALUE);
int length = lineNumber.getLineNumber();
lineNumber.close();

String line = inputFile.readLine();

Car[] car = new Car[length/3];

while (line != null)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < length/3; i += 3)
    {
        int startReading = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
        int endReading = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
        int liter = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
        car[i] = new Car (startKm, endKm, litre);
    }
}
inputFile.close();
outputFile.close();

On line int liter = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine()); I get the following error:
java.lang.NumberFormatException: null
null (in java.lang.Integer)

How do I store the three pieces of information into its respective object?
*Note: There isn't a set amount of lines in the text file, and we have to use an array.

A: It's because you are reading the first line of the file, and not using it; you're starting with the second line of the file and assign it to startReading of the first car. So, you won't have enough lines in the file (you counted the number of lines, and hence the number of cars, in the file first, but you are reading one line too many)
Also, your loop shouldn't increase i with 3, because you've already divided the number of lines by 3. And you're using i as the index into the car array.
Change the code to:
lineNumber.close();

// REMOVE String line = inputFile.readLine();

Car[] car = new Car[length/3];

// REMOVE while (line != null)
// REMOVE {
for (int i = 0; i < length/3; i ++) // DON'T DO i += 3 because that will make you go beyond the bounds of the car array
{
    int startReading = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
    int endReading = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
    int liter = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
    car[i] = new Car (startKm, endKm, litre);
}
// REMOVE }

A: The problem with the code is with the nested loop below:
String line = inputFile.readLine();
Car[] car = new Car[length/3];

while (line != null)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < length/3; i += 3)
    {
        int startReading = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
        int endReading = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
        int liter = Integer.parseInt(inputFile.readLine());
        car[i] = new Car (startKm, endKm, litre);
    }
}

Since you're reading the first line for inputFile to initialize line variable, all your further car value reads are off by 1. In addition, since you're never reassign line variable it will be always not null (unless you read an empty file) and will create infinite loop.
Removing the line variable alltogether with the external loop should resolve the problem, since you're already have the condition based on the number of lines in the file.

A: Why don't you create a class named car:
public Class Car{
  private int starting_odometer;
  private int final_odometer;
  private int liters;
  //Constructor
  //Getters and setters
}

And the read the file and set the lines to the right attributes:
    Car myCar = new Car();
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String line;
int count=1;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
if(count<=3)
{
    if(count==1){
    myCar.setStarting_odometer(parseInt(line);
    }
    if(count==2){
    myCar.setFinal_odometer(parseInt(line);
    }
    if(count==3){
    myCar.setLiters(parseInt(line);
    }
    count++;
}
else {count=1;}

}
br.close();


You are currently browsing the Pet Auto Safety weblog archives for April, 2015.
The Pet Dek is a great pet travel product for giving your dogs a more room in the back seat of your car. It has a number of other wonderful benefits and features. As with every product, though, there are some things you need to consider. Our purpose in sharing both the pros and the cons is to make sure you have enough information to make an informed decision before you purchase one. We wrote a review on the Pet Dek last year, but the product has had improvements made on it since then.
Covering – The Pet Dek is covered with a longer mat, allowing it to wrap around the edges.
Notice how the back seat of cars tends to slope downward. And notice how the Pet Dek resolves any issues this slope might cause.
No Slope – The back seat of cars slopes downward. The Pet Dek has a rounded projection under it so that it can be completely horizontal with no sloping. This also prevents any rocking should your dog step on the edges.
Legs – In my post from last year, I mentioned that I had problems with one of the legs. The manufacturer was made aware of this and the design has been improved. There are no more issues with the legs. By following the installation instructions of this product, the legs will lock in place easily.
Vents Uncovered – The Pet Dek will not cover back seat air vents.
Storage – The Pet Dek easily folds up and fits in the trunk or cargo area. Folded size is 23″ x 24″ x 4″.
Easy to Carry – The Pet Dek weighs 12 pounds. When it is folded, there is a handle that makes it easy to carry.
Easy In/Easy Out – It can take less than a minute to set up the Pet Dek. And less than a minute to take it back out again.
Access to Front Console – If your dog is free to move about in the back seat, the Pet Dek may make it easier for him to step on the center console. This might be a dangerous distraction to the driver. If you are concerned about this issue, there are simple console pet car barriers made out of a canvas material that can block this space.
Notice how the center of this back seat is raised? If this is a permanent feature in your car, the Pet Dek may not work.
If Your Back Seat has a Raised Center Console – If you have a raised center console in the back seat like pictured above, the Pet Dek may not work.
This back seat may not be ideal for the Portable Pet Travel Flat Seat. Notice the side-wells of this car. If they stick out too much, it may keep the Pet Dek from going all the way back against the seat.
If Your Seats Have Side-wells – If your seat has curved edges on the ends (I call them side-wells), there will be a gap between the Pet Dek and the back of the seat. I use pillows to fill the 1 1/2 inch gap (see below). One good thing about this gap, though, is that I have easy access to the seat belt housings, which is I used to buckle my dogs in.
There is a gap between the Pet Dek and the back of my seat, so I put the grey padding there to cover the space. You can't tell very well from this image, but there is also a small gap between the Pet Dek and the front seats.
Front Gap – Because the Pet Dek is just one size, there is probably going to be a gap between the edge of the Pet Dek and the front seats. If your dogs are buckled in like mine are, this won't be an issue. But if your dog is free to move around, you may want to place something like pillows in those gaps so that your dog doesn't step through.
Size Not Adjustable – As indicated above, the Pet Dek is just one size – 23″ x 40″ x 2″. There should be no problem with this pet travel product fitting into most vehicles, but just be aware that there might be a gap as indicated above.
Not Crash Tested – It is not known how the Pet Dek will hold up in a rollover, side impact, or front or back impact car accident. As of the date of this post, I am not aware of whether any products similar to the Pet Dek have been crash tested.
If you're like me, you are looking at the Pet Dek because you want to make your big dog (or dogs) more comfortable in the back seat. Considering how narrow the back seat of most cars are, I find that the pros of the Pet Dek far outweigh the cons. My dogs Maya and Pierson can still wear their dog car harnesses. And depending on which car harness brand I have them wear, they can still stretch out their legs and be more comfortable on those long road trips. There is no more sliding off the seat when I have to stop suddenly and they don't have to hug the back seat because of the seat slope.
If you have any questions about the Pet Dek pet travel product, please comment below or email us at naturebydawn@aol.com. If you already have the Pet Dek and want to share your experience, please feel free.


What a game and a valiant effort from the Boys in Green. We gave it our all and came so close...you can't really ask for more! We dared to dream for 55 minutes and restored faith in Irish football. Never been more proud! Congrats France.