For months, Russia's role in the 2016 election has rankled Democrats searching for a scapegoat. Rep. Adam Schiff Adam Bennett SchiffHouse Dems demand Barr cancel 'inappropriate' press conference on Mueller report Dems attack Barr's credibility after report of White House briefings on Mueller findings Congress won't get Mueller report until after Barr press conference MORE (D-Calif.), who has effectively exploited the Russia ruse to elevate his public profile, consistently laments the proliferation of Russian-bought Facebook ads as an opinion-swaying mechanism.
Yet, more than a year since Election Day, there is still no evidence of collusion between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin directly. Nor is there evidence foreign-bought digital ads had any significant impact on the 2016 election, when the Trump campaign amassed 63 million votes en route to victory. It's hard to believe $100,000 in ads with various messages — not all of them pro-Trump — undid the $1.2 billion Clinton machine.
Alas, the Russia hysteria has spread from liberal partisans to equally partisan government regulators now that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) once again reopened its request for comments on how it should expand Internet regulations. Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic FEC Commissioner, has expressed disdain at advertising "paid for by Russia or other foreign countries." She has also urged Congress to "regulate political spending on the Internet." Of course, Weintraub doesn't exactly define what that means beyond existing regulations.
Don't be fooled: Expanding Internet speech regulations would be a colossal mistake. Whenever government bureaucrats advocate for broader regulations under the guise of "campaign finance reform," "transparency," or any other liberal buzz word, it comes into direct conflict with the First Amendment.
Broadening Internet regulations is a bureaucrat's solution in search of a problem. As outlined in the Federal Register, the FEC already requires a disclaimer for any "public communication" that is "placed for a fee on another person's website." This includes paid express advocacy — any paid communications "advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate." Whenever an individual, corporation, labor union, or political committee "pays a fee to place a banner, video, or pop-up advertisement" on another's website, they are engaging in "public communication" that requires a disclaimer.
As individuals, we either support an ad's message or not, and we can choose to ignore it altogether. The power of an ad is not in its mere existence, but how we choose to react to it. For all the millions of "impressions" on the Russian ads in question, they had very little engagement.
The Internet has evolved into a ubiquitous channel of political communication and radically democratized public discourse. Nearly 90 percent of American adults use the Internet. Last year, roughly two-thirds of adults learned about the ongoing presidential election through the Internet, many of them from the website, app, or emails of a candidate or issue-based organization.
This consideration alone has compelled the FEC to allow the "vast majority of Internet communications" to "remain free from campaign finance regulation." And our public debates have been better off for it.
For good reason: Everyone can watch television or listen to the radio, but only those with money can use these mediums to communicate. The shift from receiving information to conveying information was a quantum leap, and the Internet enabled that. Today, we're all essentially media entities, since we can all disseminate our ideas to the general public. This is a powerfully democratizing force. The FEC's rulemaking would turn the clock back to the 20th century.
Let's keep it that way. Looser limits on political expression make for a freer America.
Dan Backer is founding attorney of political.law, a campaign finance and political law firm in Alexandria, Va. Backer is general counsel for the Great America PAC and other political committees; he has served as counsel to more than 100 campaigns, candidates, PACs, and political organizations.


Budding young actors in Bath could be in with a chance of starring in the sequel to Harry Potter spin-off – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Producers have announced they will be holding open casting calls for the new film, with Warner Bros. looking for five young actors to join the film's cast.
Young versions of Newt Scamander, Gellert Grindelwald, Leta Lestrange and Albus Dumbledore are among the roles which will be up for grabs.
An open casting call has gone out for three actors between the ages of 13 and 16 to play young versions of girl Leta, and two boys Newt and another character called Sebastian.
The casting call is sure to ignite fans speculations of what will come next in the second installment of the Harry Potter franchise.
Potter fans will have learned from the sixth book - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - that Albus and Gellert Grindelwand were once friends, before becoming arch-rivals.
Newt Scamander's relationships and past also remains mysterious, so any glimpse into his formative years will be huge for the character.
Leta Lestrange was also mentioned in the first Fantastic Beasts film as having a 'close friendship' with Newt at Hogwarts, and her photograph was seen in Newt's workshop.
The casting of a young Leta would suggest that her character might have a bigger role in the sequel.
Other big names including Johnny Depp will also feature in the film and fans got a glimpse of his character, after he was unveiled as Gellert Grindelwand at the end of the last film.
Open casting calls are something of a tradition in the Wizarding World, after Faith Wood-Blagrove beat thousands of other young actresses to the role of Modesty in Fantastic Beasts.
Evanna Lynch was also chosen for the part of Luna Lovegood out of 15,000 other young women following open casting in 2006.
Rupert Grint also auditioned for the part of Ron Weasley after hearing about the open audition for Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone on Newsround.
The closing date for applications is Tuesday, 20 June 2017 at midnight GMT.
If there is interest in pursuing an application further, the applicant will hear back within 14 days of their original submission.
While every applicant will be considered, only those passing the initial consideration round will be contacted.
The film is set decades before Harry Potter's adventures at Hogwarts, and marks an increasingly dark time for the wizarding world. The sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is slated for release 16 November 2018, and filming begins this summer.


text:
Who Do You Think You Are Magazine
Bringing family history to life
FamilySearch Nonconformist Records
Brian McKechnie and Emily Oldroyd of FamilySearch explain how you can help transcribe nonconformist records
Royal Navy First World War Lives at Sea
Bruno Pappalardo of the Royal Navy First World War Lives at Sea project explains how you can help transcribe First World War Royal Navy service records
50 Websites to Watch 2020: Part 4 (R - W)
We introduce the final part of our comprehensive guide to the top websites to help you unlock your family history in 2020
The best TV and radio programmes for family historians this January
On TV this month, a group of children experience school from the past and modern-day artisans try to live and work according to Arts and Crafts principles.
GRO to increase certificate costs from February
Copies of birth, marriage and death records will be more expensive to order from the General Register Office from 16 February
50 Family History Websites to Watch 2019
Discover all you need for your family history research in 2019 with our guide to the websites to watch
50 Family History Websites to Watch 2019: Part 1 (A – D)
We introduce the first part of our comprehensive guide to the top websites to help you unlock your family history in 2019
Councillor warns of 'staggering' impact of £405,000 Worcestershire archive and archaeological cuts
Councillor Richard Udall warned spending cuts would harm archive services at Worcester's flagship Hive facility
Don't miss the January 2019 issue of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, in shops from 18 December
The top 10 surnames from North Wales
Do your family come from North Wales? The clue could be in these ten common surnames
How to find shoemakers in your family history
As Made in Great Britain concludes with a trip to Northampton, Nell Darby picks the best resources to trace shoemakers in your family history
How to find Scottish criminals in your family history
The Scottish court and criminal system is distinct from that of England and Wales. Nell Darby explains the records that you need to find your ancestor
What are the latest online family history records?
We take a look at this month's online family history records. This month, The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh releases its archives online and more
Don't know where to start with your family tree?
You're in the right place! Our beginner's guide is the best way to sow the seeds of your research and watch your family tree grow
Discover your roots
Whether you're looking for ancestors near or far, these companies offer the tools needed to support your family discovery
This website is owned and published by Immediate Media Company Limited. www.immediate.co.uk

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This course covers an introduction to the concepts of the traditional Chinese exercise system called Qigong that millions of people practice in China and all around the world everyday. Similar to Tai Chi which is a martial art, Qigong is the medical exercises to maintain superior health in the body.
Qigong has been practiced for thousands of years in China and is renowned for maintaining health and longevity. It has been a hidden secret and now the Western World is acknowledging its profound effects upon the human body and health.
In this course you will be introduced to a modified version of the famous classical Shi Ba Shi Taiji Qigong system and the medical applications for each exercise. It is easy and simple to perform and requires no prior knowledge of Qigong and, it is suitable for everyone to practice.
Included in the course are instructional videos of each of the 18 exercises in the Shi Ba Shi Taiji Qigong system which includes the medical applications and benefits of each exercise, pdf handouts of the exercises that you can download and a full practice sequence at the end of the course for you to follow for your daily practice.
To learn this system it will take you half an hour each day focusing on one exercise at a time and then slowly building up to a complete daily practice of all 18 exercises which takes about 45 minutes.
The course is structured with an instructional video for each exercise. There are safety and training guidelines included to help you get the most out of the course, that explains the best and most efficient ways to practice.
Thank you for joining me on my course, please send me feedback, ask me any questions and please write a review.
Acupuncturist & Master Qigong Practitioner.
I love helping people break free from their stories that I believe make them unhappy, discontent and unwell. I've helped people from all around the World to break free from these stories and I've discovered that most of us have similar patterns and beliefs that are limiting us from living our full potential as a human being. During my combined 25 years of teaching Taiji (Tai chi) and Qigong and treating people in my Acupuncture Clinic, I have learnt about how to create a higher quality of health for people and how to break their limiting belief stories.
I have dedicated my life to helping people to have a higher level of health and I encourage them to see the World in a different way. A way that inspires them to enquirer into the possibilities of how they can have a more fulfilling and happier life with a flow on effect that benefits and helps others.
I didn't start out this way as my background prior to healing was 16 years with the New Zealand Amy and 7 of those in the (SAS), New Zealand Special Forces. I loved the mental and physical discipline in the SAS. I became a weapons and explosives instructor, and an advanced medic. I also learned Hand to Hand combat and ended up teaching many different ways to incapacitate an opponent. Now I do exactly the opposite. I was a two packets of camel cigarettes a day man and could down a bottle of scotch in a sitting. I'm not saying this to impress you, I just want to share where I started, as I didn't come from a background with an awareness around health or any spiritual wisdom about life.
I became interested in Chinese Medicine at the age of 28 when I went to get my first acupuncture treatment for a long term neck injury from playing rugby. After the first treatment I felt incredible and I was amazed at how a few small needles could make me feel so good.
Peter has a Bachelors of Health Science Degree in Acupuncture and Diplomas in Acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine, Qigong and Taiji Quan and Tuina from the New Zealand School of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which he received in 2001. He was a Tutor at the New Zealand School of Acupuncture and TCM from 1999 – 2013, where he designed and taught the Qigong Diploma Course as well as teaching Traditional Chinese Medical Qigong principles, theory and techniques. He currently serves as a member on the World Academic Society of Medical Qigong based in China.
Peter has been running Taiji Retreats for over 17 years, based on Traditional Chinese Monastery philosophies and teaching weekly Qigong and Taiji classes for the same number of years. Making his teachings available to as many people as possible, he has online courses teaching Qigong exercise systems, Reflexology and Qigong and TCM courses for specific conditions such as Insomnia, Stress, and how to quiet a busy mind. He runs Qigong Teacher Trainings Courses, Acupressure and Reflexology courses as well as Medical Qigong Workshops and TCM Health Retreats around the World.
Trained in Traditional and Classical Taiji styles such as Chen styles, Yang style, Wu style and Sun style. Peter also instructs 13 different Qigong styles, which include Shi Ba Shi Taiji Qigong, Ba Duan Jin, Dao Yin, Zhan Zhuang Gong and Lao Tzu Shao Dan.
Before Peter found what he believes is his true purpose in life of healing and helping others, he spent sixteen years in the New Zealand Defence Forces and during his service he served seven of these years in the New Zealand Special Forces (NZSAS) reaching the position of Patrol Commander and Group Commander.
He is also a Husband, a Father, a Writer and a Philosopher. He loves travelling the Globe with his wife and baby boy, meeting new people and experiencing their culture and their country. He now resides in Bali, Indonesia.


text:
[ARCHIVED] Road Closures for October 12
Road closures for Tuesday, October 12:
Southern Slope Drive is closed from Undercliff Road to Undercliff Road until approximately 4:00 p.m.
Undercliff Road is closed southbound at Mountainview Road until approximately 4:00 p.m.
Long Hill Drive is closed from Slayton Drive to Briarwood Drive until approximately 4:00 p.m., emergency vehicles only.
Short Hills Avenue is closed to all traffic from Crescent Place to the Crescent until approximately 4:00 p.m.
Cypress Street is closed to all traffic from Wyoming Avenue to Sagamore Road until approximately 4:00 p.m.


The outsourcing services company taps the former CIO of ChevronTexaco Information as its executive vice president in charge of service delivery.
Outsourcing services company Electronic Data Systems has appointed Dave Clementz, former chief information officer of ChevronTexaco Information Company, as its executive vice president in charge of service delivery.
"Dave is a proven information technology innovator who knows how to drive productivity," Mike Jordan, chief executive of EDS, said in a statement Monday. "His client perspective and decades of experience ensure we have the right focus as we move to become the industry's most cost-competitive provider of outsourcing services."
The appointment comes at a difficult time for the company. Last week, securities analysts reduced their estimates for EDS' 2004 earnings and revenue following news that it lost a bid to renew its 10-year contract with the British government. The Plano, Texas-based company earlier this year, replaced its CEO with Jordan. Clementz' appointment marks the fifth executive change at EDS in the last five weeks.
At ChevronTexaco Information Company, Clementz led worldwide computing and technology services used by more than 50,000 employees. He cut the company's information technology expenses by 20 percent through outsourcing and improving the internal computing system.
"As a former client, I know EDS has an unsurpassed global infrastructure and the most experienced team in the IT services industry," Clementz said. "My goal is to take these capabilities to the next level, leveraging our worldwide scale to benefit our clients."


text:
Q: How do I verify text on one page then validate it is that same text on another page using Selenium C#? For Example: Log into a webpage that has text (unknown to user), then verify it has the same text on another page.

A: You could go for something like:

*

*Locate HTML Body object for the first page using XPath like:
driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//body"))

*Get innerText property value of the HTML body

*Split it into separate strings using line separator character

*Perform steps 1 - 3 for the second page

*Iterate the strings extracted from the first page and look for matches in the strings from the second page

*Do what you need with the results

Example code:
driver.Url = "https://stackoverflow.com";

string firstPageText = driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//body")).GetAttribute("innerText");
HashSet<string> firstPageLines = new HashSet<string>(firstPageText.Split('\n'));

driver.Url = "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56366177/how-do-i-verify-text-on-one-page-then-validate-it-is-that-same-text-on-another-p";

string secondPageText = driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//body")).GetAttribute("innerText");
HashSet<string> secondPageLines = new HashSet<string>(secondPageText.Split('\n'));

foreach (string line in firstPageLines) {
    if (secondPageLines.Contains(line)) {
        Console.WriteLine("This line is present in both pages: " + line);
    }
}

Example output:

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The paper presents experimental and mathematical analysis of the dispersion effect of pulses, which propagate along an elastic bar whose cross section has a finite radius. In some cases, dispersion can influence significantly the interpretation of the experimental data, obtained in experimental schemes, which are based on using measuring bars for investigation material behavior at high strain rates (the split-Hopkinson pressure bar method and its modifications). Solutions for the Pochhammer–Chree equation are obtained for various measuring bars used in experimental setups in the Research Institute for Mechanics of Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod. The procedure of pulse shift accounting for dispersion has been implemented and tested on the basis of our experimental data and the data available in the existing scientific literature. This procedure was employed to analyze the influence of pulse shape on the degree of its change in shape during its propagation along a measuring bar. It is shown how the procedure of dispersion shift improves the quality of interpretation of primary experimental data for some materials.
Communicated by Victor Eremeyev and Holm Altenbach.
The theoretical part of work was carried out by a Grant from the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 17-79-20161). The experimental part of work was done in the frame of the state task of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation No. 9.6109.2017/6.7.


As with classes, you can nest interfaces inside an outer class or another interface. The dynamics are similar to nested classes. However, keep in mind that the classes that ultimately implement these nested interfaces don't have the special access to the class members that a nested class does; instead,they behave just like normally declared classes.
An interface which is declared within another interface or class is known as nested interface.It is used to group related interfaces so that its easy to main. Nested interface must be referred by the outer interface or class, it can not be accessed directly.
Point to remember about nested interface.
It can have any access modifier if declared inside the class.
a nested interface is automatically "static"
The static keyword in the this example is redundant and can be removed with no effect on semantics. Same like for "public" on interface methods and "public final" on interface fields - the modifiers are redundant.
To better understand nested interface look at the Map.Entry static interface declared inside Map interface.
In this example, the special collection named Inventory will contain only objects that implement the InventoryIteminterface (and therefore define the method getSKU( )). Furthermore, since you don't want to tie down the inventory items to a particular superclass, you make an interface for the inventory items, which allows the user to implement that interface as he sees fit.
There are only a few good reasons why you should use inner interfaces. One is to model a composition relationship without restricting the implementation of the composed object. In this case, you would need an inner interface to model the compositional relationship and to let the user of the interface decide on the implementation.
Nested interfaces are useful on rare occasions, but most of the time you can achieve the same results simply by declaring the interface in its own file.
It is also possible to nest interfaces within other interfaces, although this is rarely done. The syntax is the same as with nested classes. Although using interfaces nested in other interfaces is less crazy than nesting classes within an interface, it is still pretty weird.
Can we create a class inside the interface?
Yes, OfCourse. If we define a class inside the interface, java compilter create a static nested class.
Where we can use nested interface?
As you seen above, that with the help of nested interface you can get the key and value in a single loop.
According to me, there may a case where you need to get many values in a loop instead of getting one by one.


text:
Chemung County Historical Society
When Lightning Strikes
by Erin Doane, Curator
Trinity Episcopal Church on North Main Street in Elmira was struck by lightning on June 2, 1916. It is not at all unusual for churches to be struck by lightning. Churches are often the tallest buildings in an area so are more likely to be struck. Quite a few articles about lightning strikes show up in old issues of the Star Gazette newspaper. The Christ Episcopal Church in Wellsburg had to have its 80-foot tall spire repaired after lightning tore part of it away and a June 29, 1945 strike on the tower of the German Evangelical Church on Madison Avenue tore off shingles and wooden roofing though the copper cross at the top of the tower was not damaged.
First German Evangelical Church, c. 1910s
Lightning strikes are, obviously, not limited to houses of worship. Any relatively tall structure can be a target. On June 20, 1913, the flag pole on the main building of the County Home in Breesport was struck by lightning. The strike tore the large metal ball at the top of the pole from its fastenings and melted some of the mountings. Inside the ball, Superintendent George Clark found a copy of the Chemung Valley Reporter and other documents that had been placed there when the pole was first installed. During a storm on July 22, 1938, a home on Harrick Street was struck. The bolt followed the chimney into the house, blew lids off cooking pots on the stove, and knocked over a small child. The strike destroyed the chimney, broke rafters in the attic, and damaged an upstairs bedroom and hallway. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
Trinity Episcopal Church, 1907
Countless other lightning strikes on buildings, poles, and trees have been reported in the local newspaper. The 1916 Trinity lightning strike is special, though, because of all the wonderful details that were reported. Nearly sixty members of the church choir were meeting for their weekly rehearsal. The storm came without warning and when lightning struck the steeple many inside through some fanatic had planted a bomb in the church. Outside the building, the bolt tore bricks out of the southeast corner of the steeple and left a crack several feet long. It then followed the steel snow breaker, leaving holes in the slate roof. Inside it chased down the wires to the electric switchboard where it blew up fuses and sent out blue flames. James G. Breed was sitting near the switchboard at the time and the flames burned the back of his coat.
Star Gazette headline from June 3, 1916
The moment the lightning struck, there was a deafening crash and all the lights went out. Plaster rained down on the choir members, the force of the lightning strike whisked sheet music from their hands, and their frightened screams filled the air. One woman lost consciousness but was soon revived. The organist suffered a severe shock to his legs and others reported numbness and aches and pains. Several were so affected by the events that they were taken home in automobiles. Most had fully recovered by the next day. All those present were commended for their calm during the incident. They managed to make an orderly exit in complete darkness thanks to the men of the choir who "acted courageously like true Americans."
Posted by Chemung County Historical Society at 5:57 AM
Labels: 20th Century, Churches, lightning, Social History, Trinity Church
Byron Derrick February 25, 2015 at 1:28 PM
According to the conventional rhetoric of the times, anything done well was done "like a true American." Seems quaint today, doesn"t it?
The Chemung County Historical Society seeks to deepen its audiences' understanding of the past and the role of history in our futures by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history and material culture of Chemung County and the surrounding region.
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Complies with US DOT regulationsDo not exceed working load limit. Do not use for overhead lifting. Do not use if any components are damaged or worn.
Caution Do not exceed working load limit. Read owner's manual for additional warnings and precautions.


text:
As Wall Street rallies on US-China trade hopes, bond investors may be worried about a recession
Best home loan: How to maximise benefits in new interest rate regime
L&T Finance Launches Hypothecation-Free New Two-Wheeler Loan Scheme
Dollar gains in light trade as impact of soft US data eases
Government sells Rs 1,150 crore worth enemy shares in Wipro
YES Bank board approves increasing authorised share capital to ₹1,100 cr
Roku Shares Are Alerting Big Buy Demand
What ails ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's pet stock Titan Company Ltd
Economists boost fourth quarter growth closer to 3% as trade war hits imports
Craig Warga | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Shipping containers and a cargo ship are seen at the Port Jersey Marine Terminal.
Economists boosted their forecasts for U.S. fourth quarter growth Wednesday, after a surprise narrowing of the trade gap in November due to a drop in imports.
Several economists said the decline was likely a direct result of the trade war with China, and nudges U.S. growth higher, at least temporarily, while China is slowing.
Economists participating in the CNBC/Moody's Analytics Rapid Update raised growth forecasts by 0.2 percentage points to a median 2.7 percent, on a tracking basis. Some economists expect growth to be affected even more and edged their forecasts up closer to 3 percent, though there are still some outstanding economic releases not yet available after the government shutdown.
I expect solid US growth in 2019, says former Fed Chair Yellen 2:56 PM ET Wed, 6 Feb 2019 | 04:39
November's U.S. trade gap in goods and services fell 11.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted $49.3 billion, about $5 billion narrower than expected. Both imports and exports declined but the drop in imports was more dramatic and caused the deficit to narrow.
Imports slid 2.9 percent, to $259.2 billion, while exports fell to $209.9 billion, a 0.6 percent decline.
As the U.S. trade war appears to have temporarily driven up U.S. growth, it is not helping the global economy.
"America's trade fight with the world has finally started to slow global trade and only time will tell whether this is a good thing for the economy in the long run," noted Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG.
"Net, net, the Trump tariffs and trade war with the world appears to have halted some of those imports at the border as the trade deficit fell from the widest levels seen since before the recession over a decade ago. Oil and cellphones and consumer goods imports fell the hardest. It is possible that some of the consumer goods imports were brought into the country in greater numbers to build a stockpile before the import tariffs took effect or grew even worse," he said
Rupkey said he expects the fourth quarter to grow at a 3 percent pace. Barclays also expects 3 percent growth for the fourth quarter, and Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, said she sees growth now at about 3 percent for the fourth quarter.
"At the end of the day, we're moving into a period where we're growing faster than the rest of the world, and the rest of the world isn't doing that great. That in itself suggests we should have larger trade deficits. This is more transitory than trend," said Swonk.
GDP growth expands as imports contract, but ultimately lower imports becomes a negative trend.
"Trade is weakening all around the globe and in November, we cut back on imports more significantly," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "It could very well be the effect of the tariffs, some front loading and now the tariffs are fully in place, businesses cant't eat it. They're passing it through. People are seeing higher prices. These numbers month to month are highly volatile. The finger prints of the trade war are clearly on this report."
Zandi said he raised his forecast for fourth quarter GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points, to 2.7 percent.
"Less trade in the long run is not a good thing…It's a near term plus, but the lessons should be if there's less trade, that's definitely a hit to our long run living standard," said Zandi.
UBS economist said they would hold their growth forecast steady at 2.4 percent for now for the fourth quarter.
"The fall in imports is an arithmetic positive for US GDP growth, but indicates a sharp weakening in domestic spending. We are trimming our estimates for inventories such that they offset the weakness in imports," the UBS economists wrote. "That assumption is a risk to our forecast: if the decline in imports reflects a reduction in demand for inventories, the impact on growth is close to neutral. But if the weakness in imports reflects a reduction in production, the net effect is a negative for GDP: the positive from lower imports is more than offset by the loss of sales and of the value added in production."
["source-cnbc"]
Tags: 3% As boost closer economists fourth growth hits imports quarter To Trade war
Categories: Import & Export
https://www.edensynergy.com/economists-boost-fourth-quarter-growth-closer-to-3-as-trade-war-hits-imports">


What roles gave you the best skills to become CEO?
Crudely speaking I have spent four years in the trading and implementation teams, 10 years in strategy – where I grew from a strategist through to national chief strategy officer – and then two years in the hot seat. I've been fortunate enough to travel the world with work, be exposed to some of the best training on leadership that exists and work across a plethora of outstanding clients.
Who inspired you to go into this industry?
Russell Tate is a family friend and gave me work experience at Singleton's. I loved the industry from there on in. It wasn't until I was at uni however that I understood that 'media' was a role and ended up pursuing that part of the industry.
Curator at the Met (sigh).
What are your passions, both in work and outside of it?
I'm such an avid people watcher (which sounds like I am a stalker) but I am fascinated by what makes people tick, why they behave the way they do and what is happening in culture around us. This is obviously a big part of work but equally not something that I can switch off on the weekend. Other than that I love to paint as a creative outlet and anything to do with interior design.
Someone who has a vision and a purpose but most importantly someone that can communicate that to others in a way that gets them inspired.
What makes you tick and go that extra mile?
I love a challenge and the fact that in this job, no two days are the same. I'm most energised and find pushing myself the extra mile when I am in the thick of things with our teams or our clients where we are working through solutions to business problems.
I'm a strong believer that you need a point of view and a vision that you have crafted enough to give direction to your team, but then to be completely comfortable to hand it over for them to build upon, challenge and help bring to life.
What are the qualities you seek in people you want to work with?
Provocation, energy, passion, intelligence, willingness to get it done, respect and people who enjoy a good laugh.
Becoming CEO but not for the reasons people might think in that it was somehow the pinnacle of my career or something I have always strived for – it's my proudest moment because it is the most fearful I have ever been in my career and most unsure I have been, of whether I could do the role. But I'm proud I took a leap of faith and said 'yes' because I know I would only be regretting it if I hadn't taken a chance.
Getting married to my darling husband.
The people – across the agency, clients, media partners and broad industry alike. What an amazing group of eclectic and different minds in one place.
The burnout rate you can see among younger people. It is a tough industry and we need to do more to address balance in the work place.
Absolutely, but only for like 10 minutes before I get feisty again and reframe the challenge in my head and throw myself back at it.
My advice to anyone, male or female, coming into this industry is always the same: 'learn your craft'. Rather than focus on the next job title or the next pay rise, focus instead on being truly amazing at what you do and have faith that the rest will take care of itself. This becomes particularly relevant for females, where my advice would be make sure you are never a 'quota' and that you are in the role are in by your own right. By being amazing at the job you do.
What's the one thing you wish you'd studied harder at uni/college?
I was a bit of a geek so studied hard but two subjects I would have loved to (and still would love to) pick up again just for interests sake would be linguistics and philosophy. I loved both these subjects but never pursued them further.
I would love to be known as someone that helped shape an industry that was going through significant change.


CHICAGO - When 24-year-old Rigoberto Padilla first enrolled in one of Chicago's community colleges in 2007, there were few financial aid options available for illegal immigrants like him.
He was brought to the country from Mexico at age 6 when his family crossed the California border illegally for a new life in Chicago.
Starting Thursday, Illinois officials expect thousands of young immigrants to apply for help for college through a privately-funded state scholarship program.
Immigrant students in Illinois - whether they have papers or not - can apply for tuition help to Illinois colleges and universities because of the Illinois DREAM Fund, which was created by state legislation passed in 2011.
Officials with the fund said special focus will be given to students who don't have legal status to stay in the country.
"Undocumented students are ineligible for federal aid," said Tanya Cabrera, head of the fund and associate director of minority student outreach at Illinois Institute of Technology. "We're not covering everything, but we are giving students a large sum to help them minimize their financial burden."
The fund has raised $500,000 in private donations so far. Immigrant students attending two-year colleges are eligible to apply for $2,000 scholarships and those attending four-year institutions can apply for $6,000.
While some states have tightened regulations around illegal immigration in recent years, Illinois has continued to institute policies that give it some of the most immigrant-friendly policies in the country. There was little opposition to the college scholarship fund, which had backing from top leaders in the state.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel praised the fund, saying last week in a statement it encouraged students to "pursue their education regardless of their legal status. This fund will help remove the biggest barrier to immigrants pursuing higher education: cost."
Applicants must have at least a 2.5 GPA, and a minimum ACT score of 17 is required of those just graduating high school.
Some critics of the scholarship fund have suggested that it could lead to more illegal immigration, which Illinois officials dismissed.
"We are trying to take care of the immigrants who are here," Cabrera said. "We are trying to provide them access. It's unfortunate that others don't recognize that."
She expects 5,000 students to apply for scholarship money this year. The fund is working to raise $5 million.
"We want to make the scholarship renewable," Cabrera said. "We don't want students to saying, �It's a one-time thing so what happens next?' "
The Illinois scholarships also come during a shift in federal policy toward young illegal immigrants.
Federal officials announced new guidelines earlier this year that provide a two-year protection from deportation to certain young people brought to this country illegally and the chance to apply for a work permit. The federal government began accepting applications in August. Some groups estimate that as many as 1.7 million people could be eligible; an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S.
Padilla is pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He will not be applying for a Dream Fund scholarship, having secured funding through other scholarships.
But he hopes the fund will encourage undocumented students to go to college.
"More and more undocumented youth are being discouraged to continue their educations because of the immigration climate," said Padilla, also a member of the scholarship fund's administrative board. "Through the Illinois Dream Fund, we're trying to give undocumented youth a bit of hope and motivation."


Nick Colionne is embracing the success of his ninth and most recent album, "The Journey," and has already begun to share the music through his engaging performances. When I spoke to Nick, he was in Florida getting ready for the Seabreeze Jazz Festival. Nick collaborated with Najee, James Lloyd, Chris "Big Dog" Davis, John "Blaster" Blasucci, and Nicholas Cole on "The Journey" which engulfs and delivers the varying styles of each musician. Colionne's career has been a journey of highs and lows, he admits, and this album represents and reflects that journey. Nick maintains that he is thankful and blessed for the gift of music and hopes to continually make his family and fans proud.


^ Anthony, D.W. (2007). "Pontic-Caspian Mesolithic and Early Neolithic societies at the time of the Black Sea Flood: a small audience and small effects". In Yanko-Hombach, V.; Gilbert, A.A.; Panin, N.; Dolukhanov, P.M. (eds.). The Black Sea Flood Question: changes in coastline, climate and human settlement. pp. 245–370. ISBN 978-9402404654.
^ "Africa-Paleolithic". Britannica. Retrieved 28 November 2018.


On January 30th of 2007 the Mentawai project lost one of its developers, the great Alex Fortuna. Although I have never met him in person, his humbleness always admires me. It was always easy to chat with him through the messenger. A peaceful person, always ready to help and discuss about anything. Always in a good mood. He was going through a good moment of his professional career, starting a new job in Manaus (north of Brazil). Unfortunatelly he ended up being another victim of the crazy violence that assaults Brazil, taken by a straigh bullet while talking to some work peers after a peaceful soccer match. All we can ask is that he rests in peace. That he finds in another dimensions the peace that he deserves. For us, the memories will remain as well as the hope to meet him again someday. Alex, it was a pleasure to have met you and to have you as a project peer. Thank you!


text:
Cuba: Resorting to Hunger Strike
Posted 25 April 2012 19:36 GMT
Cuban netizens, primarily from the diaspora, are once again blogging about instances of police abuse in the country and how the island's justice system routinely makes hunger-strikers out of prisoners of conscience.
Uncommon Sense republishes a report from the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy about "a recent clash between the Castro police and a large crowd of Cuban citizens who in one instance, said no to repression", while babalu notes that:
The repression against Cuba's Ladies in White, a peaceful group of human rights activists continues without abatement.
In a later post, babalu adds:
It is news that unfortunately has become routine every Monday morning: The women members of the peaceful Cuban human rights group the Ladies in White arrested by Castro State Security agents for attempting to attend Sunday church services.
Imprisoned dissident and former member of the Black Spring "Group of 75″, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, continues to get lot of attention from the Cuban blogosphere – even more so after his "Me están asesinando" ("They are killing me") testimony, which Blog for Cuba carries here [ES]. The statement from Unión Patriótica de Cuba (UNPACU) (the Patriotic Union of Cuba) refers to Ferrer's commencement of a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. Uncommon Sense explains that:
No formal charges have been filed against Ferrer, but the authorities have accused him of 'public disorder' and 'convening marches,' his role as the national leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba.
Ferrer was one of the Group of 75 dissidents sentenced to lengthy prison terms during the 'black spring' of 2003, and whose release was part of a deal struck by the Catholic Church, the government of Spain and the Castro regime. However, Ferrer and 11 others were the last to be released because they had rejected overseas exile as a condition of their release.
That's right, Ferrer had a chance to leave Cuba with his family, but he chose to stay and to fight for freedom.
Which is why tonight, he is jail.
And which is why again, he is laying his life on for that fight.
Pedazos de la Isla posts an update explaining how other activists on the island are mobilizing to support Ferrer and other prisoners of conscience:
During this past week (and weekend), a number of dissidents throughout the island have carried out different kinds of protests- from pots and pan demonstrations to strikes- demanding the release from prison of various political prisoners/detainees, among them Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia (arrested on April 2nd after the political police raided his home), Jorge Vazquez Chaviano (detained on March 27th as he was trying to travel to Havana from Santa Clara to assist the Papal Mass), Niurka Luque Alvarez (a Lady in White who was arrested on March 16th while she protested against a forced eviction in Havana) and Sonia Garro Alfonso (arrested after being shot at by police agents with rubber bullets).
The demonstrators declared that they would fast (only eating during the night) and they hung signs outside the house with the names of those unjustly arrested.
Human rights activist Guillermo Farinas reported on his Twitter account (@Chirusa32) that, at around 9:30 PM on Sunday, the former political prisoner Librado Linares, a resident of Villa Clara, suffered a 'violent act of repudiation (…) for putting up signs outside his house demanding freedom for Jose Daniel Ferrer and others'. Later, it was confirmed that Linares was physically assaulted by regime-organized mobs. However, he was not detained.
Generation Y says that she "knew they would go after him":
José Daniel, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), is today State Security's main headache in the East of the country. He occupies that place — admirable but dangerous — in part because his every word projects honesty and determination. Good-natured, young, conciliatory, he has managed to revive a dissident movement languishing between repression and the exile of some of its members. His drawing power, and the respect many have for him, comes also from his perseverance and, in particular, from the fact that he is quicker to embrace than to distrust. He has become a human-bridge between several citizen projects and, right now, that makes him a sharp stone in the Cuban government's shoe.
For 23 days this tireless Santiaguan has been detained. His wife, Belkis Cantillo, still has no information about how much longer he will be under arrest, or even if they plan to file legal charges. Some of us, his friends, have a bad feeling. José Daniel Ferrer has come to have an ability to call people together that frightens the Cuban authorities and they will punish him harshly for that.
But Ferrer is not the only prisoner on hunger strike – Uncommon Sense reports that:
Cuban political prisoner Luis Enrique Labrador has [also] started a hunger strike to demand that prison guards who beat him recently are punished by their superiors.
For many jailed dissidents, the hunger strike appears to be the last-resort method of protest in Cuba.
The thumbnail image used in this post, "Hunger Strike", is by Ivan Rumata, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit Ivan Rumata's flickr photostream.
Written byJanine Mendes-Franco
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Frankly, if your source if Babalú blog, you are completely de-legitimized. Couldn't you better than to cite a fringe extreme right-wing blog?
25 April 2012, 20:10 pm
Pingback: Cuba: Remembering the Dissidents · Global Voices
[…] This week, members of the Cuban diaspora have been blogging about two main things: the one-year anniversary of the death of dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto, and the re-arrest of human rights activist Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia. […]


text:
// Original code copyright 2014 Foxit Software Inc. http://www.foxitsoftware.com

#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/barcode.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_Reader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_UtilCodingConvert.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_BinaryBitmap.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_LuminanceSource.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_BufferedImageLuminanceSource.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_Binarizer.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_Writer.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_Dimension.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_UtilCodingConvert.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_ResultPoint.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_BinaryBitmap.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_DecoderResult.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/BC_TwoDimWriter.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/BC_GlobalHistogramBinarizer.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/BC_CommonBitMatrix.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/reedsolomon/BC_ReedSolomonGF256.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/BC_CommonByteMatrix.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/BC_CommonBitMatrix.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/BC_CommonBitArray.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/BC_CommonBitMatrix.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/common/BC_CommonDecoderResult.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_DataMatrixVersion.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_DataMatrixReader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_Encoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_DefaultPlacement.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_SymbolShapeHint.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_SymbolInfo.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_DataMatrixSymbolInfo144.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_ErrorCorrection.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_EncoderContext.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_C40Encoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_TextEncoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_X12Encoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_EdifactEncoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_Base256Encoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_ASCIIEncoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_HighLevelEncoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/datamatrix/BC_DataMatrixWriter.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OneDReader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedCode128Reader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedCode39Reader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OneDimReader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedEAN13Reader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedEAN8Reader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedUPCAReader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedCodaBarReader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OneDimWriter.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedCode128Writer.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedCode39Writer.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedEAN13Writer.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedEAN8Writer.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/oned/BC_OnedUPCAWriter.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DetectorResult.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417Compaction.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417HighLevelEncoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417Detector.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DetectorResult.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417Codeword.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417Common.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417BarcodeValue.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417BarcodeMetadata.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417BoundingBox.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DetectionResultColumn.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DetectionResultRowIndicatorColumn.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DetectionResult.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DecodedBitStreamParser.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417CodewordDecoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DecodedBitStreamParser.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417ECModulusPoly.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417ECModulusGF.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417ECErrorCorrection.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417DecodedBitStreamParser.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417ScanningDecoder.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/pdf417/BC_PDF417Reader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/qrcode/BC_QRCodeReader.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/qrcode/BC_QRCodeWriter.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/qrcode/BC_QRCoderErrorCorrectionLevel.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/qrcode/BC_QRCoderMode.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/qrcode/BC_QRCoderVersion.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/qrcode/BC_QRDataMask.h"
#include "xfa/src/fxbarcode/qrcode/BC_QRDecodedBitStreamParser.h"
void BC_Library_Init() {
  CBC_QRCoderErrorCorrectionLevel::Initialize();
  CBC_QRCoderMode::Initialize();
  CBC_QRCoderVersion::Initialize();
  CBC_QRDataMask::Initialize();
  CBC_ReedSolomonGF256::Initialize();
  CBC_DataMatrixVersion::Initialize();
  CBC_SymbolInfo::Initialize();
  CBC_ErrorCorrection::Initialize();
  CBC_PDF417HighLevelEncoder::Initialize();
  int32_t e = 0;
  CBC_PDF417ECModulusGF::Initialize(e);
  CBC_DecodedBitStreamPaser::Initialize();
  CBC_PDF417CodewordDecoder::Initialize();
  CBC_PDF417ECErrorCorrection::Initialize(e);
  CBC_PDF417ScanningDecoder::Initialize();
}
void BC_Library_Destory() {
  CBC_QRCoderErrorCorrectionLevel::Finalize();
  CBC_QRCoderMode::Finalize();
  CBC_QRCoderVersion::Finalize();
  CBC_QRDataMask::Finalize();
  CBC_ReedSolomonGF256::Finalize();
  CBC_DataMatrixVersion::Finalize();
  CBC_SymbolInfo::Finalize();
  CBC_ErrorCorrection::Finalize();
  CBC_PDF417HighLevelEncoder::Finalize();
  CBC_DecodedBitStreamPaser::Finalize();
  CBC_PDF417CodewordDecoder::Finalize();
  CBC_PDF417ECErrorCorrection::Finalize();
  CBC_PDF417ECModulusGF::Finalize();
  CBC_PDF417ScanningDecoder::Finalize();
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Several UCRFS queries have been created that UCRFS users may access using the UCRFS Query Viewer Option. Query results may be run to HTML or MS Excel formats. Please review the list below for additional query details.
This query provides current purchase order FAU encumbrance balance for all POs within a selected department code.
Access to UCRFS Query Viewer is available to all UCRFS users. Please contact your SAA for UCRFS access.
Click here to Copy and Paste the Query Name into the Query Viewer Search Screen.
This query provides PO encumbrance reconcile/close history for a selected user.
This query provides current outstanding employee travel advances.
This query provides vendor payment history for a selcted Vendor ID. Note, the Vendor ID is available via the eBuy Vendor Search option.


text:
Congo's legislative elections marred by low voter enthusiasm
A voter marks his ballot paper in a voting booth at a polling station in Brazzaville, Congo, on March 21, 2021 -
ALEXIS HUGUET/AFP or licensors
By Africanews
with AFP
The Congolese voted Sunday for the legislative and local elections, which should allow the party in power to keep its hold on both houses of parliament.
Scheduled to start at 07:00 (06:00 GMT), the vote started at least an hour late in the offices visited by AFP journalists.
At the Nkeoua Joseph school, in the first constituency of Bacongo (second district of the capital), where seven candidates are in the running, the first voter slipped her ballot into the box at 8:11 am local time. A center in Kinkala, in the Pool region (south of the country), neighboring Brazzaville, registered its first voter at 9:14 am.
There were no crowds in front of the polling stations at the start of voting.
"I came to do my duty because I love my country. But I especially need change. I am 61 years old, and I have never had a job," said Franine Nkounkou, a resident of Bacongo.
President Denis Sassou Nguesso, 79 years old, 38 of which have been at the head of the country, was due to vote before noon in a center in the fifth district of Brazzaville.
His political party, the Congolese Labor Party (PCT), which has 101 elected officials (out of a total of 151) in the outgoing assembly, has fielded 127 candidates and expects to maintain its hold.
The local councillors who will emerge from these elections are the electors who, in turn, will elect the 72 senators in the first chamber of parliament.
Facing the PCT, the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS, the leading opposition party) is fielding 45 candidates for the legislative elections, compared to 32 for the Union of Humanist Democrats (UDH-Yuki) of the late opponent Guy-Brice Parfait Kolélas.
The Federation and the Collective of the Congolese Opposition, led respectively by Clément Miérassa and former Finance Minister Mathias Dzon, have chosen to boycott the vote.
"All these elections are organized in total disrespect of the law. Instead, we want an inclusive dialogue to discuss the real problems of Congo and the release of political opponents," Miérassa recently told AFP.
Voting, scheduled to end at 6:00 p.m. (17:00 GMT), is taking place in more than 6,500 polling stations.
At least 3,000 observers sent by national NGOs, the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) are overseeing the operation.
A second round of legislative elections is expected to take place, but the date has not yet been announced.
Second round of Parliamentary elections in Congo-Brazzaville
The Congo and World Bank launch Digital Acceleration Project
Congo: Don Bosco center threatened by landslides
Inflation persists in Congo despite measures
Denis Sassou Nguesso
DRC: at least 145 people missing in a shipwreck
Suez Canal chief seeks to dispel fears over draft Egypt law
Senegal MPs detained for hitting female colleague
S. Africa's parliament votes against impeaching Cyril Ramaphosa
Ghana's Finance Minister escapes vote of no confidence


Mark A. Cochran, PhD, is the Managing Director of Johns Hopkins Healthcare Solutions. Dr. Cochran's professional experience spans all levels of the drug discovery, development and healthcare value chain including operational and executive roles in academic, venture capital, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
His previous experience includes Bayer Pharmaceuticals, last serving as Vice President of Business Development, Biotechnology, in Berkeley, California. Other positions held during his tenure at Bayer included Project Director of Recombinant Factor VIII (Kogenate), and Head of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in Wuppertal Germany. From 2006 to 2008 Dr. Cochran was the CEO and executive director of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI, www.brni.org) which targets advanced research of memory and memory disorders, particularly Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Cochran's experience in venture capital includes MDS Capital Corp. and NeuroVentures (Charlottesville, VA; www.neuroventures.com), as senior managing director. NeuroVentures was a fund specializing in the neurosciences and invested in companies developing drugs, devices and other medical technologies for clinical neuroscience. At MDS Capital Corp., a Toronto-based Healthcare venture capital group, he was responsible for their San Francisco venture business and several MDS invested companies.
Dr. Cochran holds a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario; a master's in microbiology from the University of Guelph, Ontario, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto. After he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Cochran co-founded MicroGeneSys, Inc., a Connecticut-based vaccine company (now called Protein Sciences) where he was a co-inventor and co-developer of candidate vaccines for HIV, HBV, malaria, influenza and others. He is listed as the author on 22 scientific papers, 70 abstracts and six patents.
Disclosure: Mark Cochran, PhD has disclosed that he has no relevant financial relationships to report.


For Fatima Sana Shaikh, life has taken a major, positive turn. The actress appeared in Bollywood as a child actor in films like Chachi 420. Then she did small bits in films like Bittoo Boss, Table No 21, Akaash Vani, Tahaan etc. But luck favoured her when she bagged Dangal. The actress got a chance to play the adult Geeta Phogat and overnight, she became a nationwide sensation. It was a film featuring Aamir Khan in a leading role and yet she managed to shine. It was no surprise that she then bagged one of the biggest upcoming films of Bollywood, Thugs Of Hindostan. It brings her back with Aamir Khan but there's also Amitabh Bachchan and Katrina Kaif in this multi-starrer period drama.
Thugs Of Hindostan is directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya, who earlier directed Aamir Khan in 2013's biggest grosser Dhoom 3. It is all set to release next year on Diwali.


text:
87th (anciennement 87th/State) est une station de la ligne rouge du métro de Chicago située dans la médiane de la Dan Ryan Expressway.

Histoire
Comme les autres stations de la Dan Ryan Branch, elle a été construite par le cabinet d'architectes Skidmore, Owings and Merrill et a ouvert ses portes en 1969.

Lors de la grande rénovation de la Dan Ryan Branch en 2006, 87th fut mise à nu comme les autres stations : elle reçut une nouvelle signalétique intérieure et extérieure ainsi qu'un nouveau toit translucide sur l'entierté de son quai. Une entrée complémentaire a été ouverte au nord du quai.

Comme les autres stations de la Dan Ryan Branch, 87th est ouverte vingt-quatre heures sur vingt-quatre et sept jours sur sept ;  passagers y ont transité en 2008.

Correspondances avec le bus
Avec les bus de la Chicago Transit Authority :
 #29 State
 #87 87th (''Owl Service'' – Service de nuit)

Dessertes

Notes et références

Ligne rouge du métro de Chicago
Station du métro de Chicago

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Kelly with Creative Aries embroidery will be on site for all your embroidery needs.
Online entries for members and non-members close at midnight on Monday, Oct. 29.
Practice Session: 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.
Pro-am: 3 - 5 - 7:00 p.m.
*Saturday Evening Dinner Honoring Guppy Troup - Please advise Shawn Lavender if you plan on attending so we can make arrangements for seating.


text:
South Park's World of Warcraft Episode Wins Emmy
By Logan Frederick Legacy Author September 11, 2007
South Park earns an Emmy for its World of Warcraft-inspired animated episode.
The winners of the 59th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy awards have been released, and the South Park World of Warcraft-based episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft" that aired on Comedy Central nearly a year ago has won the Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)."
The workers at Central Production who are listed as accepting the award are:
Trey Parker, Executive Producer/Directed by/Written by
Matt Stone, Executive Producer
Anne Garefino, Executive Producer
Frank C. Agnone II, Supervising Producer
Kyle McCulloch, Producer
Eric Stough, Director of Animation


You probably have heard that Google made major changes to its search engine algorithms in 2013. If you're wondering what these changes mean to you, you're not alone.
Search engines have two basic jobs. The first is evaluating and ranking websites based on the quality of their content and the authority they've earned from acquiring inbound links. The second is interpreting the intent of the words and phrases in the search bar and returning the most relevant results, placing the highest quality and most authoritative websites at the top. Last year's overhaul has improved Google's performance on both.
So what changed last year? The SEO landscape is definitely different. SEO practices recommended by SEO experts in the past won't work. We've read and listened to many posts, tweets and whiteboard presentations by Google insiders and outside experts with real tools to evaluate the results of the changes, often to an overwhelming degree. Much as you would view an impressionist painting from a distance to see the artist's rendering of its subject, a little bit of time gives perspective to the new SEO landscape created by the changes. Here's a summary of that landscape.
Google can more effectively identify sites with high quality original content above the fold and reward them with higher page ranks. It can also apply penalties to sites that paste together content from other sources or fill the top of the page with ads and little content. Code named Panda, this part of the algorithm goes beyond scanning meta data descriptions and on-page keywords. Think of it as "seeing" visible content on the page to determine the User Experience and assigning the subject of the page based on that visible content. No more manipulating results with keyword stuffing or writing eloquent meta descriptions with little or no real content for the User to view. Google is looking for good User Experiences…the same as you or I, as users, would expect.
Google also appears on a mission to lower the authority of sites gaining prominence from mostly purchased or self-published links and keyword-stuffed content. Think of this as the blow to those that "bought their way to the top." An update to this algorithm originating in early 2012, code named Penguin, was implemented in early 2013. Penguin dealt a real blow to pay-to-list directory sites and aggregator spam blog sites. Is Google acting in its own best interest at eliminating these competitive middlemen? Perhaps, but you can't complain about their efforts to stop this parasitical practice.
It's early 2014 and rest assured Google is working on algorithm updates. So do we sit and wait for the next round? We can't… that is, if search results matter to the success of your business. It's imperative to act now. The current landscape is based on solid principles: focus on the user experience and create high-quality, content-rich sites. Taking any action in either or both of these directions will only improve search engine results and more importantly improve results with Customers.
More next time on the second part of a search engine's job: interpreting the search and returning relevant results.


Walls around New Bern�s National Cemetery will get a facelift soon and the nearby baseball field called Joy Corner may get a little extra funding.
The New Bern Board of Aldermen approved a resolution Tuesday to provide access to a 5-foot strip of land beside the New Bern National Cemetery to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which plans to repair the walls around the cemetery.
Mike Epperson, city manager, said the VA will compensate the city $1,050 for using the land.
Alderman Sabrina Bengel suggested that rather than putting the money into the city�s general fund it could be used to improve the small ball field adjacent to the cemetery on National Avenue.
�Maybe it would be an impact at Joy Corner,� she said.
Bengel made a motion to adopt the VA�s proposal and asked city staff to bring back an ordinance so the funds could be used for needed improvements at the park.
The request was passed unanimously.
In another proposal, the board tabled the city employees� holiday calendar as it considers giving them an extra day instead of two days and four hours of annual leave at Christmas.
Epperson said, in 2011, the Board of Aldermen changed the city employees� holiday calendar from three days to four hours of extra annual leave.
Alderman Johnnie Ray Kinsey said New Bern should follow the state�s and Craven County�s example and give the employees three days off for the holiday if Christmas falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Bengel said she had some concerns about a three-day holiday if it included a Friday and wanted to know about the cost to the city to have a skeleton crew working the third day.
Alderman Bernard White agreed with Kinsey, saying some people wanted to travel over the holiday, but can�t with only two days off.
Mayor Lee Bettis said he liked Kinsey�s idea and thought it was something the board needed to do. The issue was tabled until the next meeting.


Darth Vader To Appear In The Season 1 Finale "Fire Across the Galaxy"!
In case you weren't excited enough for next week's season finale of "Star Wars Rebels," today's announcement is going to make the wait unbearable! Yes Darth Vader is returning for the season finale episode "Fire Across the Galaxy," and he wont just been seen via a hologram this time, but will be physically appearing in all his glory! You can check out a quick promo video for the episode below, where we see lots of cool action, and a quick glimpse at Darth Vader!
With the cliff hanger ending of "Rebels Resolve," I couldn't wait to see what would happen to Kanan and the rest of the Ghost crew in "Fire Across the Galaxy." But now knowing Darth Vader will be back for the season finale, my excitement level has went through the roof, as it's sure to be one epic conclusion to season one!
"Fire Across the Galaxy" premieres on Disney XD next Monday, March 2nd.


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McAndrews Secures Victory for Fibar
McAndrews secured a complete victory for its client Fibar USA LLC when on June 27, 2019 Pinek IP LLC dismissed its lawsuit against Fibar in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division. Chicago-based Fibar is a unit of wireless smart home and home automation company Fibar Group S.A. based in Poland, and Pinek is a patent holding firm based in Plano, Texas.
Pinek had alleged that Fibar infringed its U.S. Patent No. 7,233,256, which is titled "A System and Method for Receiving a Signal to Trigger a Pyroelectric Activation System."
"When challenged by McAndrews, the plaintiff decided to dismiss its lawsuit even before an answer was submitted or a motion to dismiss was filed," said Bartlomiej Arcichowski, Chief Technology Officer at Fibar Group S.A. "Fibar Group takes the protection of intellectual property very seriously and decided to cooperate with McAndrews, who supports us primarily in protecting our solutions and inventions, but also in cases such as the lawsuit by Pinek. We are very satisfied with the way the case was handled and supported by the McAndrews team."
Lead attorney Anna M. Targowska explained that "The plaintiff clearly saw the writing on the wall and decided to concede what was clear to us from day one. Fibar prides itself in obeying intellectual property rights as a holder of numerous patents worldwide. But when the intellectual property boundaries are clearly being stretched, neither McAndrews nor Fibar will hesitate to protect what is just."
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UBS on active management: myth busters?
Browse: Home / 2017 / November / UBS on active management: myth busters?
It has again been a very long time since my last post. Sorry again. But I have now decided that it might be fun to get involved in the ongoing discussion over the merits of active management, particularly since so much of it is self-serving nonsense — incidentally on both sides.
UBS has now weighed in with its defense of active investment. In a recent paper, the bank calls the superiority of passive investment a myth and claims that, on average, active funds have outperformed both their benchmarks and passive funds. This result contradicts decades of academic research but, if true, would obviously be very good news for the beleaguered active management industry. But is it true?
Given that investment in any market is largely a zero sum game before fees for all investors taken together, somebody else would have to underperform if active funds are to outperform,. UBS claims to have found the main victims: direct investors, i.e., those not investing via UCITS or mutual funds. But direct investors are a very heterogeneous group. UBS has chosen to focus on retail investors to whom they assign most of the blame for the underperformance. But institutional investors such as hedge funds and insurance companies are also part of this group and it is not obvious why their performance should be worse than that of active funds, particularly since their portfolios are often managed by the same investment teams that also manage funds. Finally, direct investors also include stakeholders, those long-term strategic investors whose holdings are often excluded from the free float-based indices. In many markets, stakeholders are the single largest group of investors in equities (the US are an outlier in this respect). Since they usually hardly trade at all, they behave more like passive investors, except with a much more concentrated portfolio. Again, it is not obvious why they should do systematically worse than other investors, as a group. Paradoxically, UBS recently published a study on family-dominated firms that suggested that family firms tend to outperform. Family firms are, of course, the most obvious stakeholder dominated firms (I am being somewhat opportunistic here since I do not fully believe the results of that other UBS study either). Thus, there is really no evidence that institutions and stakeholders underperform relative to funds and there are not enough retail investors left to drag down performance in a meaningful way. Consequently, there is no obvious counter-party that can provide the required underperformance to allow active funds to outperform. This still leaves us with the task of finding an explanation for the results of the study.
UBS insists that they have taken great care to use the funds' actual benchmarks in their analysis in contrast to other studies that force a standard benchmark on all funds. But a fund's benchmark is not necessarily fair or even reasonable. There are obvious incentives for funds to choose inappropriate benchmarks. Bill Gross, while at Pimco, routinely used a (low risk) US government benchmark for his funds, even though his investment universe was much broader and included higher risk assets such as high yield and emerging market debt. Not surprisingly, his performance relative to his benchmark was often rather good. But even though he insisted on calling it alpha, he simply harvested a series of additional risk premia. In order to be fair, a benchmark should include the entire investment universe of a fund whenever possible (and even then we should beware of systematic style biases).
Most standard equity benchmarks do not cover the entire market; they are biased towards large cap stocks; smaller companies are mostly excluded. Also, within a cap weighted index, the largest constituent may be ten or a hundred or more times bigger than the smallest constituent. But managers of active funds tend to be much closer to an equal-weighted portfolio, with relative position sizes ranging from, say, one to five times. That means that whenever a smaller index constituent is included, it tends to be overweighted. Many managers also include smaller stocks outside the benchmark. This combines to give many actively managed portfolios a small cap bias. Certain managers actively seek out small cap stocks, believing that they represent a less efficient part of the market, giving them a better chance to add value. This is a well known, well documented, fact. We find that whenever small caps in a market outperform, the proportion of active managers of large cap funds that outperform their benchmark tends to soar.
We can get an indication of how that fact applies to the UBS study by using the data in their Figure 27. It shows the year-by-year outperformance of active funds (ex US/Global) relative to passive funds for the 2001 to 2016 period. Lacking more precise information and based on the description of the sample given in the study, I assume that ex US/Global means mostly funds invested around a European theme. Therefore, I compare this outperformance (reading off the graph) to the outperformance of the MSCI European Small Cap Index over the standard MSCI Europe Index (the small cap premium) in the same year (see graph below). I only have data since 2003, which gives me fourteen data points. The results are quite striking. There is a clear positive relationship between the observed "outperformance" and the small cap premium. The R squared suggests that a substantial part of the "alpha" is linked to the small cap premium. Taking the regression line as a point estimate, we find that by adding about six per cent of the small cap index to the passive funds, we could have achieved the same return as the active funds. In my experience, the small/mid-cap content of active large cap funds is typically rather larger. In other words, the outperformance is likely to be not alpha but at least partially the result of a misspecified benchmark.
The study raises a number of interesting points but it arrives at its convenient conclusion too quickly. More, and more serious, work will be required to analyse their results. There are simply not enough poorly informed investors foolish enough to provide an aggregate alpha to the active fund management industry that is positive. It is understandable that active managers would like the study to be correct; they would much rather argue that the industry as a whole adds value than having to argue that they are among the exceptions that outperform.
Incidentally, even if the results of the study were correct, betting on an active manager without further information is still not a worthwhile bet. Their figure 12 shows that their claimed 0.42% alpha is associated with a 8.34% volatility, i.e., if I simply pick an active manager more or less at random, I have a significant chance to experience a big loss or gain. To make active management attractive, we must know much more about an individual manager's prospects. Wishful thinking about the performance of the industry will not do.
Glad to see you are still publishing.
It is argued – not by active managers alone – that if everyone were to switch to passive investing there would be no investor driven pressures on managers to maximize outcomes at their individual enterprises and for that reason active managers as active and often activist shareholders are important to the overall health of markets.
Wadih, true but we are not quite there yet. Also, you are not saying that investors should invest in active products regardless of return in order to save capitalism?
No I am not at all saying investors should invest regardless of return to save capitalism. I have my own opinions about the variety of effective ways in which shareholders can and do motivate management. I have seen far too many cases where so called active managers do nothing that I regard as useful to elicit superior performance at the firms whose shares they own. I was just interested to know your own thoughts on the debate.
indeed nice to hear from you again via this blog and to see other old friends comment.
Back in 1997 at McKinsey & Co, I had the good fortune to be a lowly associate involved in looking at exactly this issue when it was not yet at vogue with the result that roughly 99% of all active fund managers underperformed the markets over a 7-10 year period…leaving only 1% who are in your words if I remember them correctly either "lucky fools, or indeed geniuses." For anyone to really be able to weed those out and think one can do so would surely be foolish…or at least be a more costly undertaking relative to using benchmark ETFs. In the past 20 years, investors and the tools at their disposal have grown increasingly sophisticated (think high frequency trading, access to information), that I would think that 1% has by now shrunk to basis points, not percentages.
In the past 15 years, I really have only seen two funds that consistently outperform the overall US market – and both of those are very unique and highly complex strategies that have nothing to do with pure equity!
It is always interesting though to see how particularly those banks that have failed most spectacularly at active management continue to keep pushing the same mantra – therefore, I very much enjoyed reading your comments.


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Home » Fachliche Informationen» Krisen- und Ernährungsvorsorge» Marktanalyse» Statistical information
Statistical information on cereal production
The cereal production is one of the most important part of the above mentioned calculations "supply balance sheets" and "sector analysis". The cereal production statistics have to be carried out with highest quality, e.g. the European Union requires 3 % for the relative coefficient of variations at the production statistics of cereals.
For this purpose, the following definitions shall apply:
"harvest year" means the calendar year in which the harvest begins;
"utilised agricultural area" means the total area taken up by arable land, permanent grassland, permanent crops and kitchen gardens used by the holdings, regardless of the type of tenure or whether it is used as common land;
"area under cultivation" means the area that corresponds to the total sown area, but after the harvest it excludes ruined areas (e.g. due to natural disasters);
"cropped area" means the area that corresponds to the total sown area for producing a specific crop during a given year;
"harvested area" means the part of the cropped area that is harvested. It can, therefore, be equal to or less than the cropped area;
"production area", in connection with permanent crops, means the area that can potentially be harvested in the reference harvest year. It excludes all non-producing areas, such as new plantations that have not yet started to produce;
"harvested production" means production including on-holding losses and wastage, quantities consumed directly on the farm and marketed quantities, indicated in units of basic product weight;
"yield" means the harvested production per area under cultivation
total area under cultivation of crops from arable land;
total harvested area of vegetables, melons and strawberries;
(c) total production area of permanent crops;
(d) utilised agricultural area.
All these components have to be taken into consideration at the reliable calculation of the cereal production statistics.
Mathematical - statistical parameters for the observation of the harvested quantity .....