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Project acronym 3D-QUEST
Project 3D-Quantum Integrated Optical Simulation
Researcher (PI) Fabio Sciarrino
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA
Summary "Quantum information was born from the merging of classical information and quantum physics. Its main objective consists of understanding the quantum nature of information and learning how to process it by using physical systems which operate by following quantum mechanics laws. Quantum simulation is a fundamental instrument to investigate phenomena of quantum systems dynamics, such as quantum transport, particle localizations and energy transfer, quantum-to-classical transition, and even quantum improved computation, all tasks that are hard to simulate with classical approaches. Within this framework integrated photonic circuits have a strong potential to realize quantum information processing by optical systems. The aim of 3D-QUEST is to develop and implement quantum simulation by exploiting 3-dimensional integrated photonic circuits. 3D-QUEST is structured to demonstrate the potential of linear optics to implement a computational power beyond the one of a classical computer. Such ""hard-to-simulate"" scenario is disclosed when multiphoton-multimode platforms are realized. The 3D-QUEST research program will focus on three tasks of growing difficulty. A-1. To simulate bosonic-fermionic dynamics with integrated optical systems acting on 2 photon entangled states. A-2. To pave the way towards hard-to-simulate, scalable quantum linear optical circuits by investigating m-port interferometers acting on n-photon states with n>2. A-3. To exploit 3-dimensional integrated structures for the observation of new quantum optical phenomena and for the quantum simulation of more complex scenarios. 3D-QUEST will exploit the potential of the femtosecond laser writing integrated waveguides. This technique will be adopted to realize 3-dimensional capabilities and high flexibility, bringing in this way the optical quantum simulation in to new regime."
"Quantum information was born from the merging of classical information and quantum physics. Its main objective consists of understanding the quantum nature of information and learning how to process it by using physical systems which operate by following quantum mechanics laws. Quantum simulation is a fundamental instrument to investigate phenomena of quantum systems dynamics, such as quantum transport, particle localizations and energy transfer, quantum-to-classical transition, and even quantum improved computation, all tasks that are hard to simulate with classical approaches. Within this framework integrated photonic circuits have a strong potential to realize quantum information processing by optical systems. The aim of 3D-QUEST is to develop and implement quantum simulation by exploiting 3-dimensional integrated photonic circuits. 3D-QUEST is structured to demonstrate the potential of linear optics to implement a computational power beyond the one of a classical computer. Such ""hard-to-simulate"" scenario is disclosed when multiphoton-multimode platforms are realized. The 3D-QUEST research program will focus on three tasks of growing difficulty. A-1. To simulate bosonic-fermionic dynamics with integrated optical systems acting on 2 photon entangled states. A-2. To pave the way towards hard-to-simulate, scalable quantum linear optical circuits by investigating m-port interferometers acting on n-photon states with n>2. A-3. To exploit 3-dimensional integrated structures for the observation of new quantum optical phenomena and for the quantum simulation of more complex scenarios. 3D-QUEST will exploit the potential of the femtosecond laser writing integrated waveguides. This technique will be adopted to realize 3-dimensional capabilities and high flexibility, bringing in this way the optical quantum simulation in to new regime."
Project acronym 3Ps
Project 3Ps Plastic-Antibodies, Plasmonics and Photovoltaic-Cells: on-site screening of cancer biomarkers made possible
Researcher (PI) Maria Goreti Ferreira Sales
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE ENGENHARIA DO PORTO
Summary This project presents a new concept for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of cancer biomarker patterns in point-of-care. The device under development will make use of the selectivity of the plastic antibodies as sensing materials and the interference they will play on the normal operation of a photovoltaic cell. Plastic antibodies will be designed by surface imprinting procedures. Self-assembled monolayer and molecular imprinting techniques will be merged in this process because they allow the self-assembly of nanostructured materials on a "bottom-up" nanofabrication approach. A dye-sensitized solar cell will be used as photovoltaic cell. It includes a liquid interface in the cell circuit, which allows the introduction of the sample (also in liquid phase) without disturbing the normal cell operation. Furthermore, it works well with rather low cost materials and requires mild and easy processing conditions. The cell will be equipped with plasmonic structures to enhance light absorption and cell efficiency. The device under development will be easily operated by any clinician or patient. It will require ambient light and a regular multimeter. Eye detection will be also tried out.
This project presents a new concept for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of cancer biomarker patterns in point-of-care. The device under development will make use of the selectivity of the plastic antibodies as sensing materials and the interference they will play on the normal operation of a photovoltaic cell. Plastic antibodies will be designed by surface imprinting procedures. Self-assembled monolayer and molecular imprinting techniques will be merged in this process because they allow the self-assembly of nanostructured materials on a "bottom-up" nanofabrication approach. A dye-sensitized solar cell will be used as photovoltaic cell. It includes a liquid interface in the cell circuit, which allows the introduction of the sample (also in liquid phase) without disturbing the normal cell operation. Furthermore, it works well with rather low cost materials and requires mild and easy processing conditions. The cell will be equipped with plasmonic structures to enhance light absorption and cell efficiency. The device under development will be easily operated by any clinician or patient. It will require ambient light and a regular multimeter. Eye detection will be also tried out.
Project acronym 4TH-NU-AVENUE
Project Search for a fourth neutrino with a PBq anti-neutrino source
Researcher (PI) Thierry Michel René Lasserre
Host Institution (HI) COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES
Summary Several observed anomalies in neutrino oscillation data can be explained by a hypothetical fourth neutrino separated from the three standard neutrinos by a squared mass difference of a few eV2. This hypothesis can be tested with a PBq (ten kilocurie scale) 144Ce antineutrino beta-source deployed at the center of a large low background liquid scintillator detector, such like Borexino, KamLAND, and SNO+. In particular, the compact size of such a source could yield an energy-dependent oscillating pattern in event spatial distribution that would unambiguously determine neutrino mass differences and mixing angles. The proposed program aims to perform the necessary research and developments to produce and deploy an intense antineutrino source in a large liquid scintillator detector. Our program will address the definition of the production process of the neutrino source as well as its experimental characterization, the detailed physics simulation of both signal and backgrounds, the complete design and the realization of the thick shielding, the preparation of the interfaces with the antineutrino detector, including the safety and security aspects.
Several observed anomalies in neutrino oscillation data can be explained by a hypothetical fourth neutrino separated from the three standard neutrinos by a squared mass difference of a few eV2. This hypothesis can be tested with a PBq (ten kilocurie scale) 144Ce antineutrino beta-source deployed at the center of a large low background liquid scintillator detector, such like Borexino, KamLAND, and SNO+. In particular, the compact size of such a source could yield an energy-dependent oscillating pattern in event spatial distribution that would unambiguously determine neutrino mass differences and mixing angles. The proposed program aims to perform the necessary research and developments to produce and deploy an intense antineutrino source in a large liquid scintillator detector. Our program will address the definition of the production process of the neutrino source as well as its experimental characterization, the detailed physics simulation of both signal and backgrounds, the complete design and the realization of the thick shielding, the preparation of the interfaces with the antineutrino detector, including the safety and security aspects.
Project acronym ACAP
Project Acency Costs and Asset Pricing
Researcher (PI) Thomas Mariotti
Summary The main objective of this research project is to contribute at bridging the gap between the two main branches of financial theory, namely corporate finance and asset pricing. It is motivated by the conviction that these two aspects of financial activity should and can be analyzed within a unified framework. This research will borrow from these two approaches in order to construct theoretical models that allow one to analyze the design and issuance of financial securities, as well as the dynamics of their valuations. Unlike asset pricing, which takes as given the price of the fundamentals, the goal is to derive security price processes from a precise description of firm's operations and internal frictions. Regarding the latter, and in line with traditional corporate finance theory, the analysis will emphasize the role of agency costs within the firm for the design of its securities. But the analysis will be pushed one step further by studying the impact of these agency costs on key financial variables such as stock and bond prices, leverage, book-to-market ratios, default risk, or the holding of liquidities by firms. One of the contributions of this research project is to show how these variables are interrelated when firms and investors agree upon optimal financial arrangements. The final objective is to derive a rich set of testable asset pricing implications that would eventually be brought to the data.
The main objective of this research project is to contribute at bridging the gap between the two main branches of financial theory, namely corporate finance and asset pricing. It is motivated by the conviction that these two aspects of financial activity should and can be analyzed within a unified framework. This research will borrow from these two approaches in order to construct theoretical models that allow one to analyze the design and issuance of financial securities, as well as the dynamics of their valuations. Unlike asset pricing, which takes as given the price of the fundamentals, the goal is to derive security price processes from a precise description of firm's operations and internal frictions. Regarding the latter, and in line with traditional corporate finance theory, the analysis will emphasize the role of agency costs within the firm for the design of its securities. But the analysis will be pushed one step further by studying the impact of these agency costs on key financial variables such as stock and bond prices, leverage, book-to-market ratios, default risk, or the holding of liquidities by firms. One of the contributions of this research project is to show how these variables are interrelated when firms and investors agree upon optimal financial arrangements. The final objective is to derive a rich set of testable asset pricing implications that would eventually be brought to the data.
Project acronym ADIPODIF
Project Adipocyte Differentiation and Metabolic Functions in Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes
Researcher (PI) Christian Wolfrum
Summary Obesity associated disorders such as T2D, hypertension and CVD, commonly referred to as the "metabolic syndrome", are prevalent diseases of industrialized societies. Deranged adipose tissue proliferation and differentiation contribute significantly to the development of these metabolic disorders. Comparatively little however is known, about how these processes influence the development of metabolic disorders. Using a multidisciplinary approach, I plan to elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying the altered adipocyte differentiation and maturation in different models of obesity associated metabolic disorders. Special emphasis will be given to the analysis of gene expression, postranslational modifications and lipid molecular species composition. To achieve this goal, I am establishing several novel methods to isolate pure primary preadipocytes including a new animal model that will allow me to monitor preadipocytes, in vivo and track their cellular fate in the context of a complete organism. These systems will allow, for the first time to study preadipocyte biology, in an in vivo setting. By monitoring preadipocyte differentiation in vivo, I will also be able to answer the key questions regarding the development of preadipocytes and examine signals that induce or inhibit their differentiation. Using transplantation techniques, I will elucidate the genetic and environmental contributions to the progression of obesity and its associated metabolic disorders. Furthermore, these studies will integrate a lipidomics approach to systematically analyze lipid molecular species composition in different models of metabolic disorders. My studies will provide new insights into the mechanisms and dynamics underlying adipocyte differentiation and maturation, and relate them to metabolic disorders. Detailed knowledge of these mechanisms will facilitate development of novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment of obesity and associated metabolic disorders.
Obesity associated disorders such as T2D, hypertension and CVD, commonly referred to as the "metabolic syndrome", are prevalent diseases of industrialized societies. Deranged adipose tissue proliferation and differentiation contribute significantly to the development of these metabolic disorders. Comparatively little however is known, about how these processes influence the development of metabolic disorders. Using a multidisciplinary approach, I plan to elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying the altered adipocyte differentiation and maturation in different models of obesity associated metabolic disorders. Special emphasis will be given to the analysis of gene expression, postranslational modifications and lipid molecular species composition. To achieve this goal, I am establishing several novel methods to isolate pure primary preadipocytes including a new animal model that will allow me to monitor preadipocytes, in vivo and track their cellular fate in the context of a complete organism. These systems will allow, for the first time to study preadipocyte biology, in an in vivo setting. By monitoring preadipocyte differentiation in vivo, I will also be able to answer the key questions regarding the development of preadipocytes and examine signals that induce or inhibit their differentiation. Using transplantation techniques, I will elucidate the genetic and environmental contributions to the progression of obesity and its associated metabolic disorders. Furthermore, these studies will integrate a lipidomics approach to systematically analyze lipid molecular species composition in different models of metabolic disorders. My studies will provide new insights into the mechanisms and dynamics underlying adipocyte differentiation and maturation, and relate them to metabolic disorders. Detailed knowledge of these mechanisms will facilitate development of novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment of obesity and associated metabolic disorders.
Project acronym ADONIS
Project Attosecond Dynamics On Interfaces and Solids
Researcher (PI) Reinhard Kienberger
Summary New insight into ever smaller microscopic units of matter as well as in ever faster evolving chemical, physical or atomic processes pushes the frontiers in many fields in science. Pump/probe experiments turned out to be the most direct approach to time-domain investigations of fast-evolving microscopic processes. Accessing atomic and molecular inner-shell processes directly in the time-domain requires a combination of short wavelengths in the few hundred eV range and sub-femtosecond pulse duration. The concept of light-field-controlled XUV photoemission employs an XUV pulse achieved by High-order Harmonic Generation (HHG) as a pump and the light pulse as a probe or vice versa. The basic prerequisite, namely the generation and measurement of isolated sub-femtosecond XUV pulses synchronized to a strong few-cycle light pulse with attosecond precision, opens up a route to time-resolved inner-shell atomic and molecular spectroscopy with present day sources. Studies of attosecond electronic motion (1 as = 10-18 s) in solids and on surfaces and interfaces have until now remained out of reach. The unprecedented time resolution of the aforementioned technique will enable for the first time monitoring of sub-fs dynamics of such systems in the time domain. These dynamics – of electronic excitation, relaxation, and wave packet motion – are of broad scientific interest and pertinent to the development of many modern technologies including semiconductor and molecular electronics, optoelectronics, information processing, photovoltaics, and optical nano-structuring. The purpose of this project is to investigate phenomena like the temporal evolution of direct photoemission, interference effects in resonant photoemission, fast adsorbate-substrate charge transfer, and electronic dynamics in supramolecular assemblies, in a series of experiments in order to overcome the temporal limits of measurements in solid state physics and to better understand processes in microcosm.
New insight into ever smaller microscopic units of matter as well as in ever faster evolving chemical, physical or atomic processes pushes the frontiers in many fields in science. Pump/probe experiments turned out to be the most direct approach to time-domain investigations of fast-evolving microscopic processes. Accessing atomic and molecular inner-shell processes directly in the time-domain requires a combination of short wavelengths in the few hundred eV range and sub-femtosecond pulse duration. The concept of light-field-controlled XUV photoemission employs an XUV pulse achieved by High-order Harmonic Generation (HHG) as a pump and the light pulse as a probe or vice versa. The basic prerequisite, namely the generation and measurement of isolated sub-femtosecond XUV pulses synchronized to a strong few-cycle light pulse with attosecond precision, opens up a route to time-resolved inner-shell atomic and molecular spectroscopy with present day sources. Studies of attosecond electronic motion (1 as = 10-18 s) in solids and on surfaces and interfaces have until now remained out of reach. The unprecedented time resolution of the aforementioned technique will enable for the first time monitoring of sub-fs dynamics of such systems in the time domain. These dynamics – of electronic excitation, relaxation, and wave packet motion – are of broad scientific interest and pertinent to the development of many modern technologies including semiconductor and molecular electronics, optoelectronics, information processing, photovoltaics, and optical nano-structuring. The purpose of this project is to investigate phenomena like the temporal evolution of direct photoemission, interference effects in resonant photoemission, fast adsorbate-substrate charge transfer, and electronic dynamics in supramolecular assemblies, in a series of experiments in order to overcome the temporal limits of measurements in solid state physics and to better understand processes in microcosm.
Project acronym AdS-CFT-solvable
Project Origins of integrability in AdS/CFT correspondence
Researcher (PI) Vladimir Kazakov
Summary Fundamental interactions in nature are well described by quantum gauge fields in 4 space-time dimensions (4d). When the strength of gauge interaction is weak the Feynman perturbation techniques are very efficient for the description of most of the experimentally observable consequences of the Standard model and for the study of high energy processes in QCD. But in the intermediate and strong coupling regime, such as the relatively small energies in QCD, the perturbation theory fails leaving us with no reliable analytic methods (except the Monte-Carlo simulation). The project aims at working out new analytic and computational methods for strongly coupled gauge theories in 4d. We will employ for that two important discoveries: 1) the gauge-string duality (AdS/CFT correspondence) relating certain strongly coupled gauge Conformal Field Theories to the weakly coupled string theories on Anty-deSitter space; 2) the solvability, or integrability of maximally supersymmetric (N=4) 4d super Yang-Mills (SYM) theory in multicolor limit. Integrability made possible pioneering exact numerical and analytic results in the N=4 multicolor SYM at any coupling, effectively summing up all 4d Feynman diagrams. Recently, we conjectured a system of functional equations - the AdS/CFT Y-system – for the exact spectrum of anomalous dimensions of all local operators in N=4 SYM. The conjecture has passed all available checks. My project is aimed at the understanding of origins of this, still mysterious integrability. Deriving the AdS/CFT Y-system from the first principles on both sides of gauge-string duality should provide a long-awaited proof of the AdS/CFT correspondence itself. I plan to use the Y-system to study the systematic weak and strong coupling expansions and the so called BFKL limit, as well as for calculation of multi-point correlation functions of N=4 SYM. We hope on new insights into the strong coupling dynamics of less supersymmetric gauge theories and of QCD.
Fundamental interactions in nature are well described by quantum gauge fields in 4 space-time dimensions (4d). When the strength of gauge interaction is weak the Feynman perturbation techniques are very efficient for the description of most of the experimentally observable consequences of the Standard model and for the study of high energy processes in QCD. But in the intermediate and strong coupling regime, such as the relatively small energies in QCD, the perturbation theory fails leaving us with no reliable analytic methods (except the Monte-Carlo simulation). The project aims at working out new analytic and computational methods for strongly coupled gauge theories in 4d. We will employ for that two important discoveries: 1) the gauge-string duality (AdS/CFT correspondence) relating certain strongly coupled gauge Conformal Field Theories to the weakly coupled string theories on Anty-deSitter space; 2) the solvability, or integrability of maximally supersymmetric (N=4) 4d super Yang-Mills (SYM) theory in multicolor limit. Integrability made possible pioneering exact numerical and analytic results in the N=4 multicolor SYM at any coupling, effectively summing up all 4d Feynman diagrams. Recently, we conjectured a system of functional equations - the AdS/CFT Y-system – for the exact spectrum of anomalous dimensions of all local operators in N=4 SYM. The conjecture has passed all available checks. My project is aimed at the understanding of origins of this, still mysterious integrability. Deriving the AdS/CFT Y-system from the first principles on both sides of gauge-string duality should provide a long-awaited proof of the AdS/CFT correspondence itself. I plan to use the Y-system to study the systematic weak and strong coupling expansions and the so called BFKL limit, as well as for calculation of multi-point correlation functions of N=4 SYM. We hope on new insights into the strong coupling dynamics of less supersymmetric gauge theories and of QCD.
Project acronym AFDMATS
Project Anton Francesco Doni – Multimedia Archive Texts and Sources
Researcher (PI) Giovanna Rizzarelli
Host Institution (HI) SCUOLA NORMALE SUPERIORE
Summary This project aims at creating a multimedia archive of the printed works of Anton Francesco Doni, who was not only an author but also a typographer, a publisher and a member of the Giolito and Marcolini's editorial staff. The analysis of Doni's work may be a good way to investigate appropriation, text rewriting and image reusing practices which are typical of several authors of the 16th Century, as clearly shown by the critics in the last decades. This project intends to bring to light the wide range of impulses from which Doni's texts are generated, with a great emphasis on the figurative aspect. The encoding of these texts will be carried out using the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) guidelines, which will enable any single text to interact with a range of intertextual references both at a local level (inside the same text) and at a macrostructural level (references to other texts by Doni or to other authors). The elements that will emerge from the textual encoding concern: A) The use of images Real images: the complex relation between Doni's writing and the xylographies available in Marcolini's printing-house or belonging to other collections. Mental images: the remarkable presence of verbal images, as descriptions, ekphràseis, figurative visions, dreams and iconographic allusions not accompanied by illustrations, but related to a recognizable visual repertoire or to real images that will be reproduced. B) The use of sources A parallel archive of the texts most used by Doni will be created. Digital anastatic reproductions of the 16th-Century editions known by Doni will be provided whenever available. The various forms of intertextuality will be divided into the following typologies: allusions; citations; rewritings; plagiarisms; self-quotations. Finally, the different forms of narrative (tales, short stories, anecdotes, lyrics) and the different idiomatic expressions (proverbial forms and wellerisms) will also be encoded.
This project aims at creating a multimedia archive of the printed works of Anton Francesco Doni, who was not only an author but also a typographer, a publisher and a member of the Giolito and Marcolini's editorial staff. The analysis of Doni's work may be a good way to investigate appropriation, text rewriting and image reusing practices which are typical of several authors of the 16th Century, as clearly shown by the critics in the last decades. This project intends to bring to light the wide range of impulses from which Doni's texts are generated, with a great emphasis on the figurative aspect. The encoding of these texts will be carried out using the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) guidelines, which will enable any single text to interact with a range of intertextual references both at a local level (inside the same text) and at a macrostructural level (references to other texts by Doni or to other authors). The elements that will emerge from the textual encoding concern: A) The use of images Real images: the complex relation between Doni's writing and the xylographies available in Marcolini's printing-house or belonging to other collections. Mental images: the remarkable presence of verbal images, as descriptions, ekphràseis, figurative visions, dreams and iconographic allusions not accompanied by illustrations, but related to a recognizable visual repertoire or to real images that will be reproduced. B) The use of sources A parallel archive of the texts most used by Doni will be created. Digital anastatic reproductions of the 16th-Century editions known by Doni will be provided whenever available. The various forms of intertextuality will be divided into the following typologies: allusions; citations; rewritings; plagiarisms; self-quotations. Finally, the different forms of narrative (tales, short stories, anecdotes, lyrics) and the different idiomatic expressions (proverbial forms and wellerisms) will also be encoded.
Project acronym ALCOHOLLIFECOURSE
Project Alcohol Consumption across the Life-course: Determinants and Consequences
Researcher (PI) Anne Rebecca Britton
Summary The epidemiology of alcohol use and related health consequences plays a vital role by monitoring populations' alcohol consumption patterns and problems associated with drinking. Such studies seek to explain mechanisms linking consumption to harm and ultimately to reduce the health burden. Research needs to consider changes in drinking behaviour over the life-course. The current evidence base lacks the consideration of the complexity of lifetime consumption patterns, the predictors of change and subsequent health risks. Aims of the study 1. To describe age-related trajectories of drinking in different settings and to determine the extent to which individual and social contextual factors, including socioeconomic position, social networks and life events influence drinking pattern trajectories. 2. To estimate the impact of drinking trajectories on physical functioning and disease and to disentangle the exposure-outcome associations in terms of a) timing, i.e. health effect of drinking patterns in early, mid and late life; and b) duration, i.e. whether the impact of drinking accumulates over time. 3. To test the bidirectional associations between health and changes in consumption over the life-course in order to estimate the relative importance of these effects and to determine the dominant temporal direction. 4. To explore mechanisms and pathways through which drinking trajectories affect health and functioning in later life and to examine the role played by potential effect modifiers of the association between drinking and poor health. Several large, longitudinal cohort studies from European countries with repeated measures of alcohol consumption will be combined and analysed to address the aims. A new team will be formed consisting of the PI, a Research Associate and two PhD students. Dissemination will be through journals, conferences, and culminating in a one-day workshop for academics, practitioners and policy makers in the alcohol field.
The epidemiology of alcohol use and related health consequences plays a vital role by monitoring populations' alcohol consumption patterns and problems associated with drinking. Such studies seek to explain mechanisms linking consumption to harm and ultimately to reduce the health burden. Research needs to consider changes in drinking behaviour over the life-course. The current evidence base lacks the consideration of the complexity of lifetime consumption patterns, the predictors of change and subsequent health risks. Aims of the study 1. To describe age-related trajectories of drinking in different settings and to determine the extent to which individual and social contextual factors, including socioeconomic position, social networks and life events influence drinking pattern trajectories. 2. To estimate the impact of drinking trajectories on physical functioning and disease and to disentangle the exposure-outcome associations in terms of a) timing, i.e. health effect of drinking patterns in early, mid and late life; and b) duration, i.e. whether the impact of drinking accumulates over time. 3. To test the bidirectional associations between health and changes in consumption over the life-course in order to estimate the relative importance of these effects and to determine the dominant temporal direction. 4. To explore mechanisms and pathways through which drinking trajectories affect health and functioning in later life and to examine the role played by potential effect modifiers of the association between drinking and poor health. Several large, longitudinal cohort studies from European countries with repeated measures of alcohol consumption will be combined and analysed to address the aims. A new team will be formed consisting of the PI, a Research Associate and two PhD students. Dissemination will be through journals, conferences, and culminating in a one-day workshop for academics, practitioners and policy makers in the alcohol field.
Project acronym ALLELECHOKER
Project DNA binding proteins for treatment of gain of function mutations
Researcher (PI) Enrico Maria Surace
Host Institution (HI) FONDAZIONE TELETHON
Summary Zinc finger (ZF) and transcription activator-like effector (TALE) based technologies are been allowing the tailored design of "artificial" DNA-binding proteins targeted to specific and unique DNA genomic sequences. Coupling DNA binding proteins to effectors domains enables the constitution of DNA binding factors for genomic directed transcriptional modulation or targeted genomic editing. We have demonstrated that pairing a ZF DNA binding protein to the transcriptional repressor Kruppel-associated box enables in vivo, the transcriptional repression of one of the most abundantly expressed gene in mammals, the human rhodopsin gene (RHO). We propose to generate RHO DNA binding silencers ("AlleleChoker"), which inactivate RHO either by transcriptional repression or targeted genome modification, irrespectively to wild-type or mutated alleles (mutational-independent approach), and combine RHO endogenous silencing to RHO replacement (silencing-replacement strategy). With this strategy in principle a single bimodal bio-therapeutic will enable the correction of any photoreceptor disease associated with RHO mutation. Adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector-based delivery will be used for photoreceptors gene transfer. Specifically our objectives are: 1) Construction of transcriptional repressors and nucleases for RHO silencing. Characterization and comparison of RHO silencing mediated by transcriptional repressors (ZFR/ TALER) or nucleases (ZFN/ TALEN) to generate genomic directed inactivation by non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ), and refer these results to RNA interference (RNAi) targeted to RHO; 2) RHO silencing in photoreceptors. to determine genome-wide DNA binding specificity of silencers, chromatin modifications and expression profile on human retinal explants; 3) Tuning silencing and replacement. To determine the impact of gene silencing-replacement strategy on disease progression in animal models of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP) associated to RHO mutations
Zinc finger (ZF) and transcription activator-like effector (TALE) based technologies are been allowing the tailored design of "artificial" DNA-binding proteins targeted to specific and unique DNA genomic sequences. Coupling DNA binding proteins to effectors domains enables the constitution of DNA binding factors for genomic directed transcriptional modulation or targeted genomic editing. We have demonstrated that pairing a ZF DNA binding protein to the transcriptional repressor Kruppel-associated box enables in vivo, the transcriptional repression of one of the most abundantly expressed gene in mammals, the human rhodopsin gene (RHO). We propose to generate RHO DNA binding silencers ("AlleleChoker"), which inactivate RHO either by transcriptional repression or targeted genome modification, irrespectively to wild-type or mutated alleles (mutational-independent approach), and combine RHO endogenous silencing to RHO replacement (silencing-replacement strategy). With this strategy in principle a single bimodal bio-therapeutic will enable the correction of any photoreceptor disease associated with RHO mutation. Adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector-based delivery will be used for photoreceptors gene transfer. Specifically our objectives are: 1) Construction of transcriptional repressors and nucleases for RHO silencing. Characterization and comparison of RHO silencing mediated by transcriptional repressors (ZFR/ TALER) or nucleases (ZFN/ TALEN) to generate genomic directed inactivation by non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ), and refer these results to RNA interference (RNAi) targeted to RHO; 2) RHO silencing in photoreceptors. to determine genome-wide DNA binding specificity of silencers, chromatin modifications and expression profile on human retinal explants; 3) Tuning silencing and replacement. To determine the impact of gene silencing-replacement strategy on disease progression in animal models of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP) associated to RHO mutations


What is in a moment? Is one moment not just a blip in all the moments of our lives? Sure it is. One moment is just that right? It is nothing more, nothing less. A moment is a piece of time that happens and then moves on as our lives propel forward. Or is it? I have had an awful lot of time to think about moments lately. I have to tell you, if you ask me, moments are so much more than the minutes and memories they contain. They are a part of us. They are a part of who we once were, but even more than that they are a part of who we are.
We spend our lives saying goodbye. We do it on a daily basis. We kiss our spouses goodbye in the morning before we head off to work. We say goodbye to our children as they begin their school day. We say goodbye to friends after preschool drop off. We say goodbye to our loved ones after a big meal on a Sunday. We say goodbye to the waitress at our favorite pizza place on a Friday night. We say goodbye. It's not something new. Saying goodbye is part of our every day. It's when that goodbye feels final though, it is then that we start to think about the moments. It is then that we start to think about all the goodbyes that came before that one. It is then that we wish we had made time for more Hellos. It is then that we realize the moments are time capsules. They are little pockets of beautiful memory dust that our brains have collected as if our brain knew that one day we would need all those moments to compile our book of memories.
The beauty of life is that it is unpredictable. We have no way to know what lies ahead. As much as we plan our daily activities, most of life is simply unpredictable. No one knows this better than my grandmother. She was born in 1927 to Irish immigrants, just two years prior to the start of The Great Depression. As kids I remember her telling my sister and me often not to waste our dinner. What did we know? What did waste mean? We wanted for nothing. My grandmother though, she was a woman who knew what it meant to come from nothing. She knew what it was like to care for her younger siblings. She knew what it was like to not eat dinner so her baby brother would not go hungry. She knew. She knew much more than she ever told us back then. Instead she told us the funny stories about her brother throwing baby powder out a window. She told us about being locked out of her walk up apartment and her brother telling her he wasn't allowed to let strangers in. She told us how loving her parents were. She told us how proud they would have been of all of us. She gave us more than moments. She gave us the whole story.
My grandmother was a widow young. My grandfather died when she was only 53. I'm going to be forty this July. I can't imagine how devastating this was for her. I was only three years old at the time and my sister was 18 months. My grandmother decided to take her grief and get rid of it by spending as much time with us as she possibly could. My memories of her go back as far as they will allow me. I am full of memories of her showing up at our house every Friday and staying the whole weekend. She would sleep in a bed right outside my bedroom. We would laugh and laugh until she finally told me to go to sleep so we could make the most of the day when we woke up. There was something so comforting about knowing she was right outside my door. At three years old, the mere thought of my grandmother guarding my door was better than any amount of sheep counting.
She continued to fill my life with moment after moment. Every year we took our annual trip to Lake George, NY. She would tell my sister and I how her and my grandfather used to vacation there as newlyweds. She would tell us the stories about my mother and my uncle learning to water ski for the first time. As she would tell us these stories I would always play them out in my head. I would see my grandparents sitting by the lake in their old timey bathing suits watching my young mother, with her long, dark brown hair learning to water ski. I would imagine my grandparents as the young couple they were. I would imagine the joy. I would hear the laughter. I would feel her sadness. I would feel her loss.
As time moved on my grandmother was there. She was there for my small moments and she was there for my big moments. She took me to Ireland for my 8th grade graduation. She told me all about my great grandparents and as we sat on top of a windy mountain we laughed about the fact that her hair did not move (way to go Aqua Net). It was one of the best trips of my life and that was one of the first times I knew that I was living moments that were going to become forever memories.
She continued to be there for all my moments from proms, to graduations, my wedding, the birth of my oldest son and so much more. She was there.
What a lovely tribute to your Grandmother, you are a credit to her. You are right about constantly saying goodbye and we should never hesitate to tell our family and friends we love them.


text:
L'Eclosió és una escultura de Miquel Blay, la qual està feta de marbre, tot i que també hi ha exemplars en Pedra o Guix. Va ser exposada per primera vegada 1905 tallada en guix en el ''Salon de la Societé des Artistes Français'' a Paris. L'exemplar de marbre es troba en el Museu d'Art Modern del Casón del Buen Retiro, Madrid. També es pot trobar el cap sol de la noia com a fragment, la qual està feta també de marbre.

Context històric de l'obra
Blay juntament amb la seva família traslladen el seu domicili particular cap a Neuilly sur Seine, al Boulevard Bineau, número 67. Aquesta nova adreça figura a les referències personals de l'artista del catàleg del Salon de 1905. Va ser durant aquesta etapa en que Miquel Blay esculpeix aquesta obra. L'Eclosió primerament va ser presentada en guix en el Salon de la Societé des Artistes Français al 1905, d'on va obtenir la Segona Medalla. Més tard, en el 1906, la va presentar, aquest cop en marbre, en el Saló parisenc. Finalment en 1907 va presentar-la a l'Exposició Internacional d'Art de Barcelona, en la qual va rebre el Diploma Excepcional.

També va ser exposada a l'Exposició Nacional de Belles Arts de 1908, d'on va obtenir la màxima condecoració, la Medalla d'Honor.

Davant l'èxit de l'obra va ser adquirida pel Museo de Arte Moderno de Madrid per la Real Orden al 22 de juliol de 1908.

Va ser una de les escultures que més atenció va rebre pels crítics durant L'Exposició Internacional a Buenos Aires al 1910, de la qual Miquel Blay va ser premiat amb el Gran Premi.

Degut a la importància de l'obra, participà en l'exposició més significativa de l'escultura espanyola del primer terç del , celebrada a Madrid al 1985.

El procés de modelatge de l'obra està totalment documentat a través de les fotos del seu estudi al 1904, i al 1905 va realitzar també a Paris una versió reduïda de marbre, de 88x76x59 cm. Molts suggereixen que l'obra va ser creada per la seva col·lecció personal, ja que va pertànyer a l'artista i els seus descendents fins al 1973, any en què va ser donada al Museu de la Garrotxa per Jaume Blay, fill major de l'artista.

Una versió a guix pintat en color de terracota i de mida real va ser donat al Museu de l'Empordà al 1948 juntament amb altres obres de Blay per la viuda de l'escriptor, Berthe Pichard.

Blay va reelaborar fragments de l'obra. Va fer versions del cap de la noia en guix, la qual es troba en el Museu de la Garrotxa amb el nom de Somni de dia i en marbre, la qual es diu Ensueño i es conserva en el Casino de Madrid, les dos són del 1905.

Desgraciadament l'estat de l'escultura es va veure danyat, ja que va ser exposada a l'exterior durant dècades en els Jardins de la Biblioteca Nacional, quan el Museo de Arte Moderno s' ubicava en aquest edifici. Això li va provocar greus seqüeles. Per tal d'evitar més danys l' any 1979 va ser traslladada a l' interior del Casón del Buen Retiro. L'obra va poder ser restaurada posteriorment pel grup Tekne al 2007. Finalment al 2015, amb motiu de l' exposició "Solidez y Belleza. Miguel Blay en el Museo del Prado", Sonia Tortajada va acabar de fer-li una neteja i una reintegració cromàtica i no se li va aplicar cap protecció donat que actualment es conserva a l'interior del Museo del Prado.

Tema
Un noi i una noia nus estan abraçats amb una expressió de serenitat. El noi és a la banda dreta i es recolza a la noia com acostant-s'hi per besar-la, i ella té una tela sobre les cames i sosté un ram de flors. Té una certa vinculació amb la faula de Dafnis i Cloe en el descobriment de l'amor i la sexualitat en un ambient bucòlic. Però sobretot està relacionat amb la iconografia de Paolo i Francesca, que va tenir molt d'èxit a la pintura decimonònica, on la figura masculina es mostra interessada per la bellesa de la noia, i no per protegir-la. En aquesta obra, l'escultor s'allunya de la sexualitat i la passió, per apropar-se a una escena amb una expressió menys explícita.

Descripció
L'escultura està feta de marbre polit i té unes grans dimensions ( 168 x 156 x 128 ), i es pot veure des de molts punts de vista.

Ens mostra dues persones, un noi i una noia adolescents, parella, asseguts nus en una pedra. El noi sembla buscar la noia per besar-la, i la noia es mostra molt afectuosa amb el noi. A les diferents versions es veu la mateixa serenitat, i aquesta composició tan digna esdevé quasi immaterial. Els nus de Blay es caracteritzen per un grau de puresa i castedat, que expressen espiritualitat i poesia.

La noia té el cabell llarg, les cames cobertes per una tela i una mirada molt calmada. Està inclinada cap al noi, que la vol besar, com si volgués acariciar. El noi està inclinat i té les cames ajuntades, i mostra molta amabilitat amb la noia i vol besar-la. Es veu un modelat exquisit, molt líric i elegant, i una plasmació de tensió entre el cos i el peu del noi.

Composició
L'estructura de l' escultura està formada per una base en forma de rectangle amb una pedra irregular on estan asseguts el personatges. Els caps dels personatges representen la punta del triangle. El cos inclinat del noi representa la diagonal del triangle que s' uneix amb el cap de la noia. El braç inclinat de la noia representa l' altre diagonal del triangle.

Les línies no són rectes, només el que representa la base de l' escultura, i les altres són línies diagonals del cap de la noia. Les més inclinades són les del cos del noi, per representar el seu apropament cap a la noia.

Estil
La versió en marbre pertany a l' època entre el realisme i l'idealisme, en representar a dues persones de la manera més realista possible mostrant molts detalls, però al mateix temps darrere de l'obra es busca una expressió d'una idea, en aquest cas l'eclosió de sentiments entre dos amants joves que acaben de descobrir una nova dimensió amorosa.

Exposicions
 Salon de la Societé des Artistes Français, París, 1905 ( Segona Medalla).
 Salon de la Societé des Aristes Français, París, 1906 ( Marbre).
 V Exposición Internacional de Bellas Artes, Barcelona, 1907, Sala Centre Artístic de Sant Lluc.
 Exposición General de Bellas Artes e Industrias Artísticas, Madrid, 1908 ( Medalla d' Honor).
 Exposición Internacional de Arte del Centenario, Buenos Aires, 1910 ( Gran Premi).
 Exposición Homenaje en Memória de Miguel Blay, Madrid, Académia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, maig de 1942.
 Exposición Escultura Española 1900- 1936, Madrid, maig 1985.

Bibliografia

Escultures de Miquel Blay
Museu del Prado

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Alex Scarrow Time Riders 9 Book Collection
Titles in set
TimeRiders
Day of the Predator
Doomsday Code
Eternal War
Gates of Rome
City of Shadows
Pirate Kings
Mayan Prophecy
Infinity Cage
This is book one in Alex Scarrow's exciting science fiction TimeRiders series.
Liam O'Connor should have died at sea in 1912.
Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010.
Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2029
Yet moments before death, someone mysteriously appeared and said, 'Take my hand . . .'
But Liam, Maddy and Sal aren't rescued. They are recruited by an agency that no one knows exists, with only one purpose - to fix broken history. Because time travel is here, and there are those who would go back in time and change the past.
Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2029.
But all three have been given a second chance - to work for an agency that no-one knows exists. Its purpose - to prevent time travel destroying history . . .
When Maddy mistakenly opens a time window where and when she shouldn't have, Liam is marooned sixty-five million years ago in the hunting ground of a deadly - and until now - undiscovered species of predator.
But all three have been given a second chance - to work for an agency that no one knows exists.
Its purpose: to prevent time travel destroying history . . .
In 1993 British computer hacker Adam Lewis finds his name in a coded manuscript that is almost one thousand years old. How did Adam's name get in there . . . and why?
A time wave has struck that alters the entire history of the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln has followed Liam into the present from 1831 - and now the world is in a dangerous state of limbo . . .
If the TimeRiders can't return Lincoln to the past, the Civil War will never end. Can Maddy persuade two colonels on either side of no man's land to cease fire long enough to save the future?
Project Exodus - a mission to transport 300 Americans from 2070 to 54AD to overthrow the Roman Empire - has gone catastrophically wrong. Half have arrived seventeen years earlier, during the reign of Caligula.
Liam goes to investigate, but when Maddy and Sal attempt to flee a kill-squad sent to hunt down their field office, all of the TimeRiders become trapped in the Roman past.
Armed with knowledge of the future, Caligula is now more powerful than ever. But with the office unmanned - and under thrthreat - how will the TimeRiders make it back to 2001 and put history right?
But all three have been given a second chance - to work for an agency that no one knows exists. Its purpose: to prevent time travel destroying history . . .
Hunted by cyborg assassins from the future, the TimeRiders must abandon New York and go on the run. They escape to Victorian London and the streets where Jack the Ripper roams. But, before they can establish their new base, they make their most shattering discovery yet - and it will change everything .
Relocated to Victorian London, the TimeRiders joy-ride back to 1666 to witness the Great Fire of London. In the ensuing chaos, Liam and their newest recruit, Rashim, find themselves trapped between the fire and the Thames. They escape onboard a river boat, only to be confronted by an unscrupulous captain with his heart set on treasures of the high seas . . .
When Maddy finally unlocks fragments of the secret that Becks has been holding on to, the TimeRiders start to piece together their true purpose. Racing through time to connect the clues, the team discover a Mayan tribe and an ancient relic provides a vital link to the past . . . and future.
But not all the TimeRiders can cope with the discovery, and one threatens to bring them all down if they can act out their revenge . . .
The end is approaching for the TimeRiders. In a final effort to prevent time travel destroying history, Liam and Maddy jump forward to 2070 to confront the enigmatic Waldstein and prove once and for all if he is friend or foe. What they discover is more shocking than anyone couhave imagined and soon the TimeRiders are on one final mission - back to Biblical times to save the whole of humanity . . .
Back to Ages 9-14

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The ambassador of Greece to Bangladesh Panos Kalogeropoulos has expressed his country's keen interest to work specially in the food processing, ship-building and renewable energy sectors of Bangladesh.
The Greek ambassador, based in New Delhi, expressed the interest when he met President of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) Md Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin at the country's apex trade body's office in the city on Friday.
FBCCI Senior Vice President Sheikh Fazle Fahim, Economic and Commercial Counselor of Greece Embassy Vassilis Skronias and Acting Secretary General of FBCCI Hussain Jamil, were present, among others. The Greek ambassador also invited the FBCCI leaders to participate in the trade fair to be held in Greece next September, said a press release.
According to the release, Greece is highly keen to boost the bilateral trade relations with Bangladesh. The meeting also emphasized on utilizing probable ways and means to expand the trade ties between the two countries.The existing bilateral trade might be diversified by active steps of both the countries.
The FBCCI President mentioned about the role of private sector in the fast-growing development activities of Bangladesh."FBCCI along with its member bodies is working with the government to ensure a conducive business atmosphere in the country," he added.The FBCCI president also invited the Greek businessmen to visit Bangladesh to develop the bilateral trade. He also expressed interest to send an FBCCI business delegation to Greece.


Not that this list is new, since HTC reported it via Facebook a while back, but we like reminders on important things like Ice Cream Sandwich updates. Included with this list of phones is another type of reminder though, one that should make DROID X2 and DROID 3 owners a tad frustrated. That's right, HTC is basically upgrading their entire 2011 lineup to Android 4.0, including their 3G offerings. You will see the Incredible 2 and Rhyme on this list, as well as on Verizon's list, but no where will you find a Moto 3G phone. Shrug some shoulders, roll some eyes and shake your heads.
Oh and here is the list again.
Still no word on rollout to these devices other than the Sensation line. HTC wants to assure you that they are working closely with carriers to make it happen as soon as possible though.


text:
Newmont Subsidiary Repays Outstanding Balance on Revolving Credit Facility
DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Newmont Mining Corporation (NYSE: NEM) (Newmont or the Company) today announced its Indonesian subsidiary PTNNT repaid the remaining $190 million balance under its Revolving Credit Facility due in 2017. Year-to-date, Newmont has reduced its consolidated debt by more than $1.1 billion.
"Repayment of the PTNNT Credit Facility is an important step in completion of the sale of PTNNT," said Laurie Brlas, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. "The remaining balance of $190 million was paid from cash held at the subsidiary. We expect that the sale of PTNNT will close later this quarter or early in the fourth quarter. Newmont continues to evaluate options for optimizing the best uses of cash, including investing in profitable new production, repaying debt and returning capital to shareholders."
Since 2013, Newmont has generated $1.9 billion in fairly valued asset sales, which will increase to $2.8 billion upon closing of the sale of PTNNT.
About Newmont
Newmont is a leading gold and copper producer. The Company's operations are primarily in the United States, Australia, Ghana, Peru, Indonesia and Suriname. Newmont is the only gold producer listed in the S&P 500 Index and was named the mining industry leader by the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index in 2015 and 2016. The Company is an industry leader in value creation, supported by its leading technical, environmental, social and safety performance. Newmont was founded in 1921 and has been publicly traded since 1925.
This news release may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that are intended to be covered by the safe harbor created by such sections. Such forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, expectations with respect to the closing of the sale of PTNNT, receipt of expected proceeds, future use of cash, future investment, future debt repayment and future return of capital to shareholders. Where Newmont expresses or implies an expectation or belief as to future events or results, such expectation or belief is expressed in good faith and believed to have a reasonable basis. However, forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors. Investors are cautioned the sale of PTNNT remains contingent on the receipt of regulatory approvals, buyer shareholder approval, and satisfaction of other conditions precedent, including, without limitation, government approval of the PTNNT share transfer, maintenance of valid export license at closing, the concurrent closing of the PTMDB sale of its 24 percent stake to the buyer, resolution of certain tax matters, and no occurrence of material adverse events that would substantially impact the future value of Batu Hijau. Potential additional risks include other political, regulatory or legal challenges and community and labor issues. As such, actual outcomes may differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of additional risks which may impact the Company, see the Risk Factors section in Newmont's 2015 Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") at www.sec.gov, as well as Newmont's other recent SEC filings. Newmont does not undertake any obligation to publicly issue revisions to any "forward-looking statement," to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
Source: Newmont Mining Corporation
Meredith Bandy, 303-837-5143
meredith.bandy@newmont.com
Omar Jabara, 303-837-5114
omar.jabara@newmont.com


Well, Alan may well correct me :) , but i would refer to this hilt as a buta form. Some people call them raksasa. I have a couple of recently carved examples of this guy without the selut.
Thanks for posting Alan. I find myself quite smitten with this one.
Interesting blade. I'd be interested in seeing how it feels in hand.
You make a good point Alan. The sliver looks in pretty good shape and this mendak would probably not be too difficult to repair.
Hi YS and welcome to the forum.
Interesting patrem. I am especially intrigued by the pesi. Not only is it squared off, but the heavier bit right at base of the blade is something i have not seen before.
Thanks for keeping the content flowing Alan.
Well, i feel exactly the same way. I am always grateful to those who choose to show their blades in these public forums because i do not have the opportunity to see good keris otherwise.
Well, i am not going to answer for Alan here as he no doubt has his own take on this and will probably come along and express that sometime soon. I can speak from my own viewpoint however.
I am still curious, however, if you know if such a wrongko would have been suitable for formal dress or was is more for every day wear?
Thanks Detlef. Tegal and Cirebon are often a bit of a confusion for me as they seem to share some similar dress styles.


text:
Dracut man sentenced for wrongful voting in 2016 election
By Jon Winkler
Updated: 03/01/2019 02:02:40 PM EST
No Published Caption
CONCORD, N.H. -- A 21-year-old Dracut man pleaded guilty and was sentenced in Strafford County Superior Court on Thursday on charges relating to false voter information he provided for the 2016 presidential election.
According to Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald, Spencer McKinnon was charged with providing a false statement on a voter-registration form in the state of New Hampshire, a class A misdemeanor.
McKinnon completed and submitted an absentee ballot to the town of Dracut, his hometown, on Oct. 24, 2016. Two days later, he signed and submitted a voter-registration form in Durham, N.H., that contained an affidavit he signed stating that he was "not domiciled or voting in any other state or any other city/town."
His Dracut form also contained a signed affidavit stating that he was eligible to vote in Massachusetts and that his hometown was Dracut.
McKinnon was originally indicted on Sept. 20 and is now sentenced to six months in the House of Corrections. He also lost the right to vote in New Hampshire. His prison sentence would be suspended for a year if he completes 200 hours of community service and pays a $2,000 fine.
This is the first conviction to come from the Interstate Voter Crosscheck Program investigations after the 2016 election.
McKinnon was not the first to deal with voter-fraud charges from the most recent presidential race. Michael L. Lewis, a resident of Miami, was indicted last December for voting in Hooksett, N.
H., despite not residing in the state. Grace and John S. Fleming were also charged for voting in Hampton, N.H., and Belchertown, Mass., according to officials.


Collecting video games is easy. All you have to do is create an eBay account and click "Buy It Now" on every video game you ever wanted. Congratulations, you have a video game collection! Your bank account balance is now negative a million dollars.
Almost nobody wakes up one morning and decides out of the blue that they want to be a video game collector. In my experience, it's more of a gradual thing. You start out by buying some old games you want to have around, then you get a few more, and the next thing you know, you've got a whole Kay-Bee Toys in your rec room.


At the time of scrapping, the five youngest examples had spent less than two and a half years in active service, while the oldest two were just over ten years old. Frontier Airlines is in the early stages of its own growth plan. Each aircraft features the name of the animal featured on its tail near the nose of the aircraft for easier identification. Frontier will offer three or four weekly flights for each of its recently announced new routes, following Allegiant's strategy of flying routes less than daily. Archived from on 1 February 2014.
Is Frontier Airlines' Expansion Plan A Strategy Shift?
As part of its transition to an ultra-low-cost airline, Frontier Airlines joined Spirit and Allegiant in June 2015 in removing its for customer service. Despite questions about whether this signals a strategy shift, the airline underscores that the new routes build on its ongoing approach of filling in its network. Frontier will also cut several flights and jobs at their Denver hub and transition them to different markets. On September 9, 2014, Frontier introduced an updated livery, as part of a rebranding that saw the spokesanimals' roles increase. Frontier is undercutting Spirit across the board in its new fees while also offering what it believes is a nicer aircraft with more comfortable seats and better customer service. Though the airline's Boeing 737s remained in the fleet until 2005, none were repainted into this livery. Passengers who prefer the all-inclusive airfare can still book seats on Frontier that bypass any concern over add-on fees with its classic-plus fare bracket.
Retrieved 17 May 2012 — via Business Wire. In total, the carrier expects to grow capacity by about 20% year over year in 2016. Frontier's Siegel acknowledged there are some similarities regarding the carriers' business models, but he thinks there's room for differentiation on their products and customer service. It is deliberately focusing much of its growth on midsized cities. We salute and actively recruit veterans.
In February 2012, Frontier Airlines cut five nonstop routes from Milwaukee. In May 2017, the airline announced opening a new crew base in in the fall 2017 to improve operational reliability and potentially create new jobs in Las Vegas. Service to Louisville was suspended in August 2008 but restarted in April 2010. Elite benefits include free carry-on and checked bags, advance seat assignment and family seating, priority boarding, redemption fee waiver, stretch seating, Discount Den membership, and mileage multipliers. Indianapolis, Indiana: Republic Airways Holding. With this order, Frontier Airlines fleet has industry-leading fuel efficiency.
All of Frontier's A318 were not resold, but parted out for scrap. In 1999, Frontier signed agreements to begin purchasing and leasing and jet aircraft and had also added jetliners to its fleet as well. In 2014, Frontier announced it would be transitioning into an. More importantly, as an airline for families, we built benefits focused not just on the individual but the entire family. Frontier Airlines works with Advertising technology companies such as Atlas, DoubleClick. Retrieved 2013-03-21 — via Aviationpros. The Motley Fool has a.
Serving the markets in between requires adopting some of Spirit's tactics and. He had already previously turned over the role of president to Barry Biffle, formerly of. Here customers can view all of their mileage, make changes to their profile and see their savings and current benefits. With the integration of Republic aircraft, the 'JetExpress' denotation was removed. Experts say airlines like Spirit remain profitable by operating point-to-point travel on high-traffic routes. The order also includes the conversion of the remaining A319neo to A320neo. The initial JetExpress partnership with Mesa ended in January 2004, when was selected to operate the routes.
Republic completed the transaction on October 1, 2009, and Frontier officially exited bankruptcy as a new airline. In 2012, the Lynx Aviation operation was folded into Republic Airways Holdings subsidiary. Frontier announced further layoffs in conjunction with this route change: up to 446 Milwaukee-area employees were affected by the job cuts that occurred between April 15 and April 30, 2012. In late June 2015, Frontier announced it had ceased service in Wilmington, stating it was not profitable. Archived from on 30 October 2015. Lynx began passenger operations on the morning of December 6, 2007. Edit the Brand or Add a New One : Share this Page on:.
However, if it can overcome the technical hurdles, this strategy may allow it to earn the same exceptional profits produced by Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Travel in recent years. Most Boeing 737 aircraft featured different imagery on both sides. Specifically designed to offer something for everyone — whether a customer travels a little or a lot-- they will find our new program rewarding. Operates with the plane which has higher passenger carrying capacity. Biffle was appointed as the company's president, reporting to Siegel; after Siegel's departure, Biffle was charged with managing the company's day-to-day operations.


text:
The beautiful and historic Morelli House serves as the Junior League of Las Vegas headquarters, and with the help of JLLV, lives to give locals and tourists alike a taste of old Vegas.
About the Morelli House
Antonio Morelli, original owner and builder of the Morelli House, was the Sands Hotel's orchestra conductor and musical director from 1954 to 1971. In this position, he came in contact with the top entertainers of the time, including the famous Rat Pack. It has been reported that singers like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Nat King Cole rehearsed in Morelli's music room at the house.
The Morelli House was built in 1959 on the Desert Inn Country Club Estates which overlooked the world-class Desert Inn Golf Course. The Desert Inn properties were purchased by Steve Wynn in 2000 to make way for his new Wynn Resort on the Las Vegas Strip. In September 2001, the Junior League of Las Vegas moved the house to Ninth and Bridger Avenues to save it from demolition. The House is now a community historical cultural resource and the headquarters of the Junior League of Las Vegas. The move and restoration of the house has been funded with the assistance of the State of Nevada Commission for Cultural Affairs and by generous community and Junior League member support.
The Morelli House is a prime example of mid-century modern residential architecture. Basically rectangular in plan, the overall appearance of the Morelli House is long and low, melding into the landscape. The flat roof is covered with crushed white rock, and exposed redwood beams support the widely overhanging eaves. In several places along the front of the building, walls are covered with stucco and screened with decorative openwork cement blocks that are topped by a row of windows.
Morelli House Tours
One day a month, Junior League members offer docent-guided tours of the Morelli House for anyone in the public interested in taking a look at the space. See our upcoming tour schedule below:
Fall 2019 docent-guided tour schedule*:
Saturday, September 14: 10:30 a.m. & 11:45 a.m.
Saturday, October 12: 10:30 a.m. & 11:45 a.m.
Saturday, November 9: 10:30 a.m. & 11:45 a.m.
*Private Tours available upon request. For more information email info@jllv.org or call 702-882-6536
More Info on the Morelli House Project (Official Site)
To find out more about the Morelli House Project, click HERE for the official site.


text:
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Ira Levin and This Perfect Day
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12/03/2010Jeff Riggenbach
[Transcribed from the Libertarian Tradition podcast episode "Ira Levin"]
Ira Levin was an American novelist, playwright, and songwriter who is best known today, three years after his death, for the immensely successful film versions of his least interesting novels. Levin was born in the Bronx on August 27, 1929. He grew up there and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He attended the exclusive Horace Mann School, then spent a couple of years at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, before transferring back to New York University, where he graduated, with a degree in English and philosophy, in 1950. During his senior year in college, he took second place in a screenwriting competition sponsored by CBS TV. He won $200 in the process, and his $200 quickly became $600 when NBC offered to buy his screenplay and produce it as an episode of Lights Out, a weekly, 30-minute program now thought of as a precursor to such later shows as The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Not that money presented any particular problem for Levin. His father, a wealthy toy importer, had sent him to Horace Mann, Drake, and NYU; now he offered to subsidize young Ira for a couple of years while he made a stab at becoming a professional writer. If, after two years, he had not succeeded in that attempt, he agreed to come to work for his father in the toy business. But his father's subsidy was scarcely necessary at all. Virtually from the moment he walked out of his NYU graduation ceremony, still wearing his cap and gown, Ira Levin was gainfully employed as a freelance writer for network television — not only for NBC, but also for ABC. He began contributing short stories to magazines. His first novel appeared in 1953, when he was 24 years old.
That same year he was drafted. Stationed in Queens with orders to write training films for his fellow GIs, he continued writing for television on the side. So when the need arose for someone to adapt the bestselling 1954 novel No Time for Sergeants for a one-hour TV presentation — an episode of the United States Steel Hour on ABC — Levin seemed like a natural. After all, he was an up-and-coming writer with a number of successful teleplays already to his credit, wasn't he? And he was in the Army, wasn't he?
Levin wrote the teleplay for broadcast in the late winter of 1955. It was seen by the people who owned the stage rights to the novel, and they invited him to write another adaptation, this time for Broadway. The play was a hit, and he was invited to write the screenplay for the 1958 film version, which was also a hit. A newcomer named Andy Griffith starred in all three adaptations as a country bumpkin drafted into the US Army Air Corps during World War II.
Levin wrote for TV and the theater for the next ten years, with mixed success. He made good money, but none of his teleplays attracted as much attention as No Time for Sergeants had attracted. None of his plays did as well on Broadway as No Time for Sergeants either, though a comedy of his in the early 1960s called Critic's Choice did enjoy a more modest success on the Great White Way and was adapted to become a film starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. In 1965, Barbra Streisand scored a middling hit with her recording of "He Touched Me" from Levin's otherwise ill-fated mid-'60s musical, Drat! The Cat!
Then, in 1967, Levin published his second novel. His first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, had sold respectably well and had won the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America as Best First Novel by an American Author in 1954. It's probably stretching a point to describe it as a "mystery," but it is a genuine tour de force and deserves to be regarded as a classic of American crime fiction comparable in stature to The Maltese Falcon, The Long Goodbye, Mildred Pierce, and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? That's plenty of success for a first novel by an author still in his early 20s at the time of its publication. Still, nothing could have prepared Levin for the degree of success that greeted his second novel, Rosemary's Baby, in which Satan fathers a child by a modern-day young woman on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The tale was preposterous if taken literally, but it made a startling kind of sense if taken symbolically — much the same kind of sense that Levin made again five years later in The Stepford Wives, another wildly metaphorical story with broadly feminist implications.
But The Stepford Wives was Levin's fourth novel, not his third. His third novel was published in 1970, about midway between Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives. This third novel was not nearly as popular as Levin's second novel had been; neither was it as popular as his fourth would be. Unlike his second novel and his fourth novel, it did not sell to Hollywood; no film has ever been based upon it. It is today perhaps the least well-known of Ira Levin's seven novels. But it is also the reason Ira Levin holds a place of honor in the libertarian tradition.
First a bit of background. Levin seems to have read Ayn Rand's classic individualist novel, The Fountainhead, sometime in the 1940s. Perhaps when he was in high school and it was first on the bestseller lists? Perhaps when he was in college, at the time the release of the film version, starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey, spurred another big surge in its popularity? Either way, whenever he read it, he liked The Fountainhead quite a lot, and when Rand's next book, the classic libertarian novel Atlas Shrugged, came out in 1957, he bought it and read it and liked it, too. He seems to have liked it enough that he followed up by doing some further reading and by attending some lectures at the Nathaniel Branden Institute. Barbara Branden recalled him in her 1986 biography of Rand as one of the already "accomplished adults rather than youngsters beginning their careers" who "began to enter the circle of Ayn's friends" during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Nathaniel Branden told me emphatically in an email six or seven years ago that "Ira Levin was never a member of the Objectivist circle." He added, however, that Levin did come "to my place once or twice for the evening and Rand was there." The novelist Erika Holzer, who was a member of Rand's inner circle during the mid-1960s, suggested to me six or seven years ago, when I asked her what she remembered about Ira Levin, that he might also have encountered Rand one or more times "after a lecture, when she'd be there to answer questions" and might even have been "a one-time visitor to her apartment."
There's no need whatever to speculate about one thing, at least. It's evident from even the most cursory glance at Levin's third novel that he was exposed in one way or another to Rand's ideas about politics. It's evident also that he had a rare insight into the kinds of obstacles any libertarian movement based on such ideas would have to overcome if it were to enjoy any substantial success.
Levin's third novel, by the way, is called This Perfect Day. It is set late in the 22nd century, for, as Ralph Raico explained in a 1998 article on this remarkable work, "This Perfect Day belongs to the genre of 'dystopian' or anti-utopian novels, like Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four." Here's how Raico describes the situation we encounter in the opening pages of This Perfect Day:
The action begins in the year 141 of the Unification, the establishment of global government, which finally led to consolidating all the world's super-computers into one colossal apparatus lodged deep below the Swiss Alps. Uni-Comp classifies and tracks all the "Members" (of the human Family), decides on their work, residence, and consumption goods, whether they will marry and if so whether they will reproduce, and everything else.
There is no warfare in the world of the Family; there is also no poverty. Nor is there any originality or creativity. Nor is there any passion. As Raico notes,
Uni subjects every Member to monthly "treatments." The injections include vaccines, contraceptives, tranquilizers as prescribed, and a medication that reduces aggressiveness and limits the sex drive to a lackadaisical once-a-week encounter. All of this is mediated by super-caring Psychotherapists ("advisers"), who constantly monitor the Members' mental health.
As for their physical health, that is seen to through their mandatory monthly "treatments" and their food, which consists of nothing but tasteless rice cakes prepared in such a way as to make them maximally nutritious. Members die at 62, however; everyone accepts this as simply the way human life naturally is on this planet. The truth is that a poison is introduced into the monthly "treatments" Members receive, to make sure that they never reach their 63rd birthday. They are, to put it plainly, murdered for "the greater good" — because Uni has decided that, on average, Members begin to cost the Family more than they benefit it shortly after they reach their 62nd birthday.
Into this nightmare, sometime in the year 2135, a young boy is born. His full name — his "nameber" — is Li RM35M4419 (all boys born into the Family are named Jesus, Karl, Bob, or Li after Christ, Marx, Wood, and Wei, the four philosophers whose thought underpins this society) but his eccentric grandfather, who is something of a throwback to the "Pre-Uni" days, calls him "Chip" from the very beginning, and ultimately, the nickname sticks. Chip grows up in the Family but not fully of it.
As a young adult, he becomes what Members of the Family are accustomed to calling "sick" — that is, deviant. He becomes very "sick" indeed. He gets together with other "sick" Members to engage in clandestine, forbidden activities like smoking tobacco. Like these other "sick" Members, he works out ways to deceive Uni, so that he receives less medication in his monthly "treatments" and is able to enjoy sex more often than once a week and much more intensely than ever before.
He tries to convince his new friends that they should do more — that they should plot to destroy Uni, foment revolution, or, short of those ideals, figure out a way to escape from the Family and find freedom in an unfree world. His new friends tell him that he's "asking for the impossible." "There's nothing we can do about anything," the leader of the group tells him. "This is Uni's world, will you get that through your head? … This is it right here, brother; all the freedom we can hope for — a pipe and a few jokes and some extra [sex]. Let's not lose what we've got, all right?"
Chip ignores this advice. He learns about an island in the Mediterranean (renamed the Sea of Eternal Peace) where he suspects other escaped "incurables" may be living. With one of the younger, more radical women in the group of "sick" Members he has been consorting with, he manages to reach the island. What he finds there is a mostly impoverished society of the sort we in 21st-century America would probably associate with the so-called Third World. Tobacco is legal and no one is forced to undergo monthly "treatments." People are free to choose their own occupations and to marry whomever they want and produce whatever children they choose to produce. They are free to live as long as they can. But those without political connections are kept in permanent and hopeless poverty by various government interventions in the local economy, so that, at least for Chip, the island the locals call "Liberty" offers very thin gruel indeed.
He begins to suspect that Uni allows "sick" Members to escape to places like this and even assists them in various ways in their attempts to do so. He begins to suspect that he is, in effect, in a prison, punished for being deviant during his years among the Family. "We can't just give up and accept things, adjust ourselves to this prison!" he tells a gathering of natives and fellow refugees from the Family. "We've got to fight, not adjust." His remarks do not meet with approval or agreement. "Accepting and adjusting is all that's possible," he is told by a person who, by the standards that obtain on the island, would have to be described as a radical libertarian. "Be grateful for what you have: a lovely wife, a child on the way, and a small amount of freedom that we hope in time will grow larger." It is patiently explained to Chip that, in the past, there have been others who have left the island determined to damage or cripple Uni and liberate the Members of the Family. None of them has ever returned.
Again, Chip ignores the advice he is offered. He works painstakingly to raise the money to train a small expeditionary crew and equip them for a trip to the European mainland, where they will destroy Uni — blow it to smithereens. Two members of the crew — Chip and one other — actually reach Uni. There they learn the reason none of their predecessors had ever returned to the island of Liberty: because they had been recruited to work, at the highest level, for the Family. They now live in luxury in a secret apartment complex several stories below ground level in a Family stronghold on Lake Geneva, which has been renamed the Lake of Universal Brotherhood.
They wear silks and fine woolens instead of the cheap synthetic fibers that clothe their lower-ranking brethren. They eat gourmet foods. They live as long as they can. It turns out that Uni does let malcontents escape — even helps them to do so if they successfully overcome certain obstacles on their own — and those who come back to harm it they recruit as "programmers," the people who make the rules all the rest of the Family lives by. After all, people who could escape the family and make it all the way to Uni headquarters in an effort at sabotage or destruction must be very determined, very resourceful, very talented, right? They must be natural leaders. The Family needs their talent to help Uni make the best decisions for everyone. Allowing these programmers to live well is a small price to pay for the value they give the Family in return, right?
So, does Chip sell out to the state? Read This Perfect Day for yourself and find out. But be warned: this novel, clever and insightful and moving as it is, is not ideologically perfect. On occasion, in fact, its imperfections are showcased side by side with its greatest strengths. At one point, for example, when Chip is still living among the Family and is meeting clandestinely with his fellow "sick" Members, he comes into possession of some no-longer-circulated history books that had been left in one of the storage rooms of a local museum. He finds these books confusing until one of his "sick" friends suggests to him that "we've been taught things that aren't true … [a]bout the way life was before the Unification." Having grasped for the first time the need for revisionist history, Chip returns to his reading.
A few weeks later, he reports back to his friend that "what amazes me … is how many non-productive members there were. These share-traders and lawmakers; the soldiers and policemen, bankers, tax-gatherers." Well, of course, lawmakers, soldiers, policemen, and tax gatherers were nonproductive in the time before the Unification — which is to say, the time we are living through right now, today, in the early years of the 21st century. In any society in which government is monopolized by the state, such people are nonproductive. Levin is to be congratulated for seeing that, to a passionate proponent of individual liberty like Chip, this is precisely how things would look.
Share-traders and bankers, on the other hand, are productive. For details see the works of Ludwig von Mises, among others — works Ira Levin apparently didn't get around to during his years of sitting at Ayn Rand's feet, though Rand did recommend Human Action to all her students and based her own understanding of economics on its teachings.
This is not, alas, the only example of Levin's naïveté about economics that might be cited from This Perfect Day. How does he imagine that the command economy of the Family could produce even the modest prosperity it does, much less endure for more than a hundred years, with no freer economies anywhere in the outside world large enough to prop it up by providing it with prices to imitate? He seems to grasp that the economy of a place like the island of Liberty would be depressed. But everything we know about economics tells us that the economy of even such a place as that would be more prosperous than the economy of the Family.
Ira Levin wrote four more novels after This Perfect Day — The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil, Sliver, and Son of Rosemary, along with another Broadway hit called Deathtrap. The best of Levin's last three novels, Sliver, marked a return to the straightforward crime fiction of his first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, 40 years earlier. But none of these later works reflected any particular interest in libertarian ideas or any other specifically political ideas, though a case could be made that, like all of Levin's works, they reflect a more generalized commitment to individualism of various sorts.
Ira Levin died just over three years ago, on November 12, 2007, at the age of 78, the largely unsung author of one of the top half-dozen libertarian novels ever published in our language. This Perfect Day has been out of print in recent years, so largely unsung is it. But a new paperback edition was just published last month, on November 15, 2010, to be exact. Perhaps, with any luck, we'll soon be hearing some long-overdue singing.
This article is transcribed from the Libertarian Tradition podcast episode "Ira Levin (1929–2007).
Jeff Riggenbach
Jeff Riggenbach was a journalist, author, editor, broadcaster, and educator. A member of the Organization of American Historians and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, he wrote for such newspapers as the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle; such magazines as Reason, Inquiry, and Liberty; and such websites as LewRockwell.com, AntiWar.com, and RationalReview.com. His books include In Praise of Decadence (1998), Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism (2009), and Persuaded by Reason: Joan Kennedy Taylor & the Rebirth of American Individualism (2014). Drawing on vocal skills he honed in classical and all-news radio in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston, Riggenbach also narrated the audiobook versions of numerous libertarian works, many of them available on Mises.org.
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Hearthstone Grandmasters Returns for Season 2
Hearthstone Grandmasters returns for the second season of 2021! The top 48 players from around the world will compete to earn a spot at the 2021 World Championship. Here's everything you need to know to keep up with this season's Grandmaster action. We'll see you in the Tavern!
Venue: YouTube Gaming
Dates: Friday, Saturday, Sunday: August 13 – August 22 and September 3 – October 10, 2021
Broadcast Start Time:
ASIA-PACIFIC: 2 a.m. PDT / 11 a.m. CEST / 6 p.m. KST
EUROPE: 7 a.m. PDT / 4 p.m. CEST / 11 p.m. KST
AMERICAS: 12 p.m. PDT / 9 p.m. CEST / 4 a.m. KST
Casters: TJ "Azumoqt" Sanders, Darroch "Darroch" Brown, Jia "Jia" Dee, Neil "Lorinda" Bond, Alex "RavenCasts" Baguley, and Simon "Sottle" Welch
Prize Pool: Global prizing of $486,000 (USD), split between $64,500 (USD) each tournament for Weeks 1 through 7, and $34,500 (USD) for the playoffs
Language Streams on YouTube:
English (Hearthstone)
English (HearthstoneEsports)
Portuguese (LATAM)
During weeks 1-7, players will compete in a Weekly Dual Tournament format, starting each Thursday, to earn placement in the weekend Top 8 Stage. Players will receive points based on total number of wins each week, which will determine final standings before Playoffs.
All 16 players in each region will compete against each other off-broadcast in Dual Tournament Group play on Thursday.
On Friday, the 4 Decider Matches will be played to determine who joins the Top 8 per region, live on YouTube.
The Top 8 players compete in a single-elimination tournament on Saturday, with the Top 4 advancing to Sunday.
Gameplay format changes every other week:
Week 1 – Conquest
Week 2 – Last Hero Standing
Week 8: Finals – Conquest
Drops Return!
You can earn up to 6 total packs as you watch Grandmasters throughout Season 2! On any of the above YouTube channels, watch two total hours to receive one pack and two more hours for your second. Time watched is cumulative within each of the three reward blocks, so even if you can't watch for the full four hours in one sitting your time will still count toward earning the Drops.
Grandmasters Week 1: United in Stormwind (max 2 packs)
Grandmasters Weeks 2 - 7: Year of the Phoenix (max 2 packs)
Grandmasters Playoffs: United in Stormwind (max 2 packs)
Connecting Your Accounts
Before you can receive rewards, you'll need to link your YouTube and Blizzard Battle.net accounts. Here's how:
Log in or create an account on YouTube.
Navigate to Account Sharing under "Connected Apps" in Settings.
Select "Connect" next to Battle.net.
Follow the simple prompts to finish connecting accounts.
When connecting accounts, be sure that you're currently logged into the Blizzard account on which you'd like to receive your Drops.
Click here for a full set of official rules for Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 Season 2 YouTube Drops.
Keep up with all of the latest Hearthstone Esports news and content on the Hearthstone Esports website, Twitter, and YouTube. Good luck, have fun, and we'll see you in the Tavern!
English (ANZ)
English (SEA)


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Bengals +3 win!
Wild Card Weekend '16 – Steelers @ Bengals +3. Andy Dalton was OUT and 62% of the betting public was on the Steelers. Spread Investor clients had Cincinnati +3 and they covered in an 18-16 loss in what should've been an outright win.
Cincinnati +3
"Bengals are 0-6 in playoff games under Marvin Lewis"
"Ben Roethlisberger's experience over AJ Mccarron will get the Steelers the win."
Yeah I've heard that all week. The media has a way of brainwashing people.
62% of the betting public is on the Steelers bandwagon but here's what you need to know: The Steelers are 1-4 SU their last 5 road games and Ben Roethlisberger has just a 5:9 TD: INT ratio on the road this season. Everyone's in love with the Steelers fantasy football offense but forgets that they just lost to the Ravens as 10 point favorites with Ryan Mallett two weeks ago. Just know that Antonio Brown has just 5.5 receptions/gm in 2 games vs Cincinnati this year when he averages right around 10/gm this season.
The 0-6 playoff record? That's with Andy Dalton having an awful 1TD: 6INT ratio in playoff games because he couldn't play in the spotlight before this year. AJ McCarron thrives in the big games. This is the same guy who won a national championship as the quarterback for the 14-0 Alabama team in '09. This guy can rise to the occasion.
The public also needs to realize that McCarron has 4 TDs & 0 INTs in the three games he's started… and one of those games was versus Denver's defense who is significantly better than Pittsburgh's defense. True the Bengals lost that game but it was on the road and in OT by 3 and McCarron looked very comfortable with AJ Green. Scouts said he could've been a 1st or 2nd rounder because of his arm strength, mobility, an vision but he came across as cocky. The Bengals seem to know how to handle him and I actually want a guy that has some of that cockiness in what's for sure going to be a chippy game. His preparation for this game came in the Monday Night primetime game @ Denver where he was an impressive 22/35 for 200 yards 1 TD & 0 INTs.
Pittsburgh DID beat Cincy last time in Cincy but Andy Dalton got hurt and AJ was forced to play without much prep. Different ballgame here with Cincinnati in revenge in primetime.
The Steelers gave up 27 points to Brock in a half (and should've been more had Brock not injured his shoulder), 39 to the Seahawks, and 35 to Oakland – AJ can exploit this secondary especially with Tyler Eifert back now after injury. The Bengals offense with AJ Green, Marvin Jones, and Tyler Eifert is better in this game than the Steelers because the Steelers should struggle in the run game:
DeAngelo Williams has been ruled OUT for this game and is being replaced by RB Fitzgerald Toussaint who had just 24 yards on 12 carries last week. Even in college he had just two 100+ yards games his JR & SR years at Michigan.
Before placing their bets the public has to know (but most don't) that Cincy has held Big Ben to just 1 TD and 4 INTs in their 2 games this year because they play their secondary deep on him and force him to throw underneath and run the ball….2 things the Steelers don't want to do.
Everybody seems to have forgotten that the Steelers just lost to the Ravens on the road as 10 point favorites. You'll be talked out of this play by the public heavily but I'm riding CINCY +3 in revenge, in primetime, strong for 7 units.
Follow me on Twitter @spreadinvestor.