text:
\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}
Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) has become a major imaging technique in dental clinics (see Fig.~\ref{fig:teaser}).
Compared with conventional CT, it provides 3D information with higher quality and shorter scanning time~\cite{scarfe2006clinical}.
Those advantages, especially the high reconstruction quality, not only make it widely used for diagnosis and treatment planning in clinical practice, but also significantly facilitate research progresses for automatic CBCT image analysis (e.g., tooth and alveolar bone segmentation~\cite{cui2019toothnet, chung2020pose, cui2022fully}).
However, as hundreds of views are required to be captured to ensure imaging quality, the radiation dose of X-rays has been a long concern in CBCT imaging.
To decrease the number of projections while maintaining the high imaging quality, several traditional methods for sparse-view reconstruction have been proposed - the typical filtered backprojection (FBP)~\cite{feldkamp1984practical}, the iterative methods~\cite{sidky2006accurate, cai2014cine} based on SART~\cite{andersen1984simultaneous}. These methods can produce decent reconstructed CBCT images, but still remain limitations such as the streaking artifacts and the lack of fine-details introduced by insufficient data.

\begin{figure}[!t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/teaser.pdf}
    \caption{\textbf{Overview of sparse-view CBCT reconstruction with neural attenuation fields}. An X-ray source uniformly moves around the region of interest, and generates sparse projections with a flat-panel detector on the opposite side (top), while we propose {\em SNAF} to reconstruct the accurate CBCT from those sparse 2D views by learning the attenuation fields (bottom). }
   \label{fig:teaser}
\end{figure}

Recently, neural rendering emerges to be an efficient technique for novel view synthesis and 3D scene reconstruction~\cite{mildenhall2020nerf}, benefiting from the implicit representation with compact structures.
Analogic to CBCT reconstruction, these methods utilize posed RGB images to learn underlying neural radiance fields (NeRFs), showing great advantages in 3D geometry awareness and multi-view consistency.
Follow-up works further improve their abilities for fast~\cite{liu2020neural, martel2021acorn, mueller2022instant} and sparse-view~\cite{yu2021pixelnerf, jain2021putting, niemeyer2022regnerf, kangle2021dsnerf} reconstruction.
These properties are highly expected to benefit sparse-view CBCT reconstruction.
However, unlike NeRFs that use volume rendering to approximate surface rendering, CBCT reconstruction goes back to authentic volume rendering. In this unique setting, there are no specific object surfaces as in the natural scene, and the entire space of human organs is informative, which significantly enlarges the solution space making the problem complex to be solved. Also, the popular regularization and generalization techniques introduced in sparse-view NeRFs, e.g., utilizing the additional depth information~\cite{kangle2021dsnerf}, are not applicable.

Inspired by our observations, we propose a novel framework called {\em SNAF} for sparse-view CBCT reconstruction by learning the attenuation fields, which achieves superior performance in terms of high reconstruction quality (i.e., {\em 30+} PSNR) with only $\mathbf{20}$ input views ({\em 25} times fewer than common clinical collections). Technically, our approach builds upon the state-of-the-art NeRF framework with a multi-resolution hash table~\cite{mueller2022instant}. To extend this framework for CBCT reconstruction, we remove the original importance sampling component, and design a ray casting strategy by equal-step marching to better integrate the information in the whole space. Most importantly, to deal with the main challenge of insufficient data from sparse input views, we propose a novel view augmentation strategy, which is based on our observation that the neighboring views contain rich shape and appearance information, providing strong regularization to constrain in-between novel views to be sharper and more clear. Specifically, we design a two-stage pipeline. In stage one, we first train a neural attenuation field network to render novel view images on predefined in-between viewpoints.
However, these novel view images are less trustable since they are usually blurry with little fine-details. We thus design a deblurring network to deblur these novel view images with the help of neighboring input views. Then, in stage two, the original input views along with the deblurred novel view images serve as inputs to further finetune the trained neural attenuation field.

Our method achieves superior performance in terms of image quality, and we have conducted extensive experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed SNAF. Additionally, we provide comprehensive ablation analysis to validate its stable performance under different scanning conditions, and to showcase its superior results on challenging data with metal artifacts and in real-world clinical applications.

\section{Related Work}
\subsection{Sparse-view Neural Radiance Fields}
\label{sec:rw_sparseview}
Neural rendering has achieved great performance in novel view synthesis and 3D scene reconstruction.
To extend NeRF~\cite{mildenhall2020nerf} in various aspects, inefficiency and requirements of dense views are two major shortcomings.
Many works accelerate the rendering process with more efficient volumetric representations, including sparse voxel grids~\cite{liu2020neural}, octree~\cite{martel2021acorn}, and hash table~\cite{mueller2022instant}.

Meanwhile, some approaches~\cite{chibane2021stereo,zhao2022humannerf,yu2021pixelnerf} are designed to consider sparse input scenarios.
For example, PixelNeRF~\cite{yu2021pixelnerf} and SRF~\cite{chibane2021stereo} extract CNN features from input views, so as to have the generalized ability to generate a novel scene with sparse inputs.
Concurrently, depth supervision has greatly improved reconstruction accuracy by regularizing geometry and appearance on novel views~\cite{kangle2021dsnerf, niemeyer2022regnerf}.
Unfortunately, they are not applicable to our CBCT reconstruction with neural attenuation fields.
First, generalization-based approaches are commonly designed to address cross-scene domain changes without inference optimization, where many 3D reconstructed details are usually lost which is unacceptable for clinical use.
Similarly, depth-based regularization is also not practical in our task, as there is no available depth or surface information under our transparent scenes.
In this paper, we propose a novel view augmentation strategy to confront sparse-view inputs, which is specifically devised under attenuation fields with their fixed patterns of input poses.

\subsection{CBCT Reconstruction}
High-quality CBCT reconstruction is crucial for clinical use and downstream computer-aided tasks, e.g., tooth and alveolar bone segmentation~\cite{cui2019toothnet, chung2020pose, cui2022fully}.
Filtered backprojection (FBP)~\cite{feldkamp1984practical}, most commonly used in commercial CBCT systems, is a traditional approach to accumulate the intensities by backprojection from given 2D views, yet requires hundreds of input views to prevent streaking artifacts.
This leads to high radiation dose and long scanning time, motivating the research and industry community to explore sparse-view reconstruction~\cite{andersen1984simultaneous, wang2004ordered}, for example, utilizing regularization to constraint the reconstruction problem.

Recently, as neural rendering has been rapidly developed, this emerging technique has been introduced to reconstruct CBCT images~\cite{ruckert2022neat, zha2022naf}.
These two works are concurrently proposed, adopting volumetric rendering for fast CBCT reconstruction.
However, NeAT~\cite{ruckert2022neat} has not been validated on clinical CBCT data scanned on human bodies, and NAF~\cite{zha2022naf} has not well explored the strategy for high-quality image reconstruction.
Moreover, these two methods do not address the steep challenging problem of sparse-view inputs.
In this work, we successfully address this problem with only 20 input views, and provide important discussions on different scanning conditions (e.g., number of input views, limited angles, and metal artifacts), as well as verification for downstream tasks (e.g., segmentation).

\begin{figure*}[t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/framework.pdf}
   \caption{\textbf{Overview of our proposed {\em SNAF} for sparse-view CBCT reconstruction.}
   Given the input views (orange dots), we first train an attenuation field with our equal-step ray casting (Sec.~\ref{sec:atte_field}) in stage one (purple arrows), such that we can generate several novel views (blue dots) in-between any pair of input. Then, in stage two (red arrows), we deblur rendered views using a newly proposed deblurring network (Sec.~\ref{sec:view_aug}). In return, the enhanced novel views (green dots) along with the input views serve as input to further fine-tune the learned attenuation field.
   }
   \label{fig:framework}
\end{figure*}

\section{Method}

Figure~\ref{fig:framework} illustrates an overview of our two-stage framework, where we first train an attenuation field in stage one, then fine-tune the trained field with the help of augmented novel views in stage two. We elaborate on the technical details in the following.

\subsection{Preliminary}
\label{sec:preliminary}
\textbf{CBCT Scanning.}
As illustrated in Fig.~\ref{fig:teaser}, the configuration of CBCT scanning is quite standard, where an X-ray source moves around a rotation axis along a planar arc trajectory to capture the 2D projections of the interested human organ (e.g., teeth). Specifically, the X-ray source emits a cone-shaped beam towards the interested region, and the isocenter is set as the rotation center which is roughly placed at the center of the interested region. When the scanning starts, the X-ray source moves from the beginning of the planned arc trajectory to the end with a fixed angular marching step, and the trajectory plane is perpendicular to the rotation axis. For example, it moves within the angular range [0, 210) with an angular step $10.5^\circ$, such that it will capture 20 2D scans. Note here, this is the most commonly used scanning configuration in clinical practice, denoted as \textbf{20-view}, other configurations, e.g., 30-view or 50-view, can be naturally derived with different angular marching steps. The angular range [0, 210) is adopted throughout this paper unless otherwise specified. Each 2D scan is a perspective projection from the emitted cone beam and is captured by a flat-panel detector on the opposite side reflecting the transmitted intensities through the interested region.

\textbf{CBCT and Attenuation Fields.}
In CBCT imaging, attenuation coefficient describes the fraction of X-rays being absorbed through different materials, dependent on their densities.
Attenuation field, akin to the radiance field, is the main focus of this paper.
Formally, our goal is to learn the mapping $(x, y, z) \to \mu$, that is, from a 3D point to its attenuation coefficient.

\subsection{Neural Attenuation Fields Learning}
\label{sec:atte_field}
In stage one, inspired by the vanilla NeRFs \cite{mildenhall2020nerf} and InstantNGP \cite{mueller2022instant}, we integrate the multi-resolution hash table into the conventional NeRF pipeline with some special adaptations to fit our unique setting, and leave the other core elements, e.g., MLPs unchanged.
Next, we introduce all the key adaptions.

\textbf{Uniform Sampling in Ray Casting.}
As has been mentioned in the introduction, a particular characteristic of true volume rendering is that there are no specific objects compared with the approximated surface rendering. Instead, the whole space of the interested region is informative. Thus, the two-pass importance sampling from NeRFs are not applied in our case, and we hope to cover the whole space using all sampling points along all rays. This implies that the sampling points along each ray are placed to be as even as possible. To this end, we design the equal-step ray casting in this way.

Given all the input 2D scans with corresponding camera parameters, we first initialize a discrete target volume (see Sec~\ref{sec:dataset} for detailed scales) accordingly as the space of the attenuation field. Then for each pixel in any scan, we shoot a ray $r(t) = o + td$ to the X-ray source, such that the ray intersects the bounding box of the volume twice, i.e., the incident point $o + t_{\min} d$ and exit point $o + t_{\max} d$. Finally, we sample points between $t_{\min}$ and $t_{\max}$ with a marching step $D$. It is clear that, different rays may obtain different numbers of inner sampling points and $D$ is set proportionally to the desired volume spacing.
Please refer to Sec.~\ref{sec:sampling} for our exhausted evaluation and discussion on different $D$ values and sampling strategies.

\textbf{Volume Rendering.}
For each 2D scan, the X-ray source emits a cone-shaped beam with an initial intensity, which is attenuated through different tissues encountered along each ray, and finally received by a flat-panel detector to form all the pixel-wise intensity values.
This rendering process is usually formulated by the Beer-Lambert Law:
\begin{equation}
\label{equ:beer}
    I = I_0 \ e^{- \sum{\mu_i \delta_i}},
\end{equation}
where $I$ is the transmitted intensity that can be read from the 2D scan, $I_0$ is the incident intensity, $\mu$ is the attenuation coefficient, while $\delta$ denotes the sampling marching step.

In this paper, we utilize Eq.~\ref{equ:beer} to produce the rendered (i.e., transmitted) image $I_{\text{pred}}$ from the attenuation field, and finally learn the neural attenuation field by minimizing the mean squared error:
\begin{equation}
    L = \sum_{r \in R_i} || I_{\text{pred}}(r) - I_{\text{GT}}(r) ||^2,
\end{equation}
where $R_i$ and $I_{\text{GT}}$ denote the set of rays and ground truth intensities, respectively.

Overall, we follow a similar training strategy to learn the attenuation field. Because of hash encoding, we can rapidly acquire a learned attenuation field with decent quality, and eventually get the reconstructed 3D volume by uniform grid sampling.

\subsection{Novel View Augmentation}
\label{sec:view_aug}
\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/view.pdf}
    \caption{\textbf{Novel view prediction with/without view augmentation.} We visualize the generated novel views along the capturing trajectory in terms of the PSNR value. It is clear that there is significant degradation between the input and new views. And our view augmentation strategy remarkably reduces the gap. Note here, deblurring happens at the valley. }
   \label{fig:views}
\end{figure}

Even though the learned attenuation field in stage one can produce the CBCT image with decent quality, it suffers from severe blur caused by insufficient data from limited input views, see Fig.~\ref{fig:deblur} for an example. In the meanwhile, the existing techniques proposed for solving sparse-view challenges in neural rendering are not applicable as discussed in Sec.~\ref{sec:rw_sparseview}, we thus designed our novel view augmentation scheme based on our observations as introduced in the CBCT scanning process (Sec.~\ref{sec:preliminary}).

Specifically, we first render a set of novel views along the scanning trajectory, and quantize the image quality in terms of PSNR as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:views}, the purple line, where we find that the quality degrades dramatically on the new views in-between any consecutive input views (see the valley) caused by blur (Fig.~\ref{fig:deblur}). Thus, a simple and effective idea is to deblur the in-between new views so as to improve the quality of the target attenuation field.

\textbf{Deblurring Network.}
Thanks to the unique configuration of the CBCT scanning, the neighboring views have strong appearance similarity and contain rich sharp features. To directly employ the image priors from the input views and maintain the geometry consistency of the interested region, we thus design a deblurring network that takes as input a rendered new view from the learned neural attenuation field in stage one, along with its left and right neighboring views via image concatenation. The goal is to map the blurry view to its high-quality counterpart with fine details.

\textbf{Data Preparation and Training.}
To train the deblurring network, we constructed a paired quadruple dataset from different patients.
Specifically, we have collected data from 30 patients, for each patient's data, we train an attenuation field as described in stage one. We then produce an in-between new view $I_{\text{new}}$ for any neighboring input views $I_{\text{left}}$ and $I_{\text{right}}$. The corresponding ground truth views $I_{\text{gt}}$, along with the aforementioned three views form a paired quadruple $\{I_{\text{left}}, I_{\text{new}}, I_{\text{right}}; I_{\text{gt}}\}$ that is used to train the network. The network has a UNet structure~\cite{ronneberger2015u} with additional attention mechanism~\cite{vaswani2017attention, katharopoulos2020transformers}, and is pre-trained ahead. For detailed network structure, please refer to {\em supplementary materials}.

Having the pre-trained deblurring network, in stage two, we first deblur the new views, then the deblurred views as well as the original input views are sent to the neural network to fine-tune the learned attenuation field.
Note here, the generalization ability comes from the fact that for different patients, the CBCT scanning process will produce CBCT images with similar spatial and intensity ranges for the common interested region. We have validated the strategy thoroughly in Sec.~\ref{sec:results}.

\begin{figure*}[t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/results.pdf}
   \caption{\textbf{Qualitative comparison with different methods.} We compare the performance of CBCT reconstruction with different input views (each row), and visualize slices of the reconstructed 3D volumes from different methods (each column). Our reconstructed quality dramatically outperforms all other methods. For reference, please see the ground truth in Fig.~\ref{fig:teaser} (axial slice). }
   \label{fig:comparison}
\end{figure*}

\begin{table*}[t]
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{c|c c|c c|c c|c c}
    \toprule
    \multirow{2}{*}{Method} & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{20-view}  & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{30-view} & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{40-view} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{50-view}\\
    & PSNR $\uparrow$ & SSIM $\uparrow$ & PSNR $\uparrow$ & SSIM $\uparrow$ & PSNR $\uparrow$ & SSIM $\uparrow$ & PSNR $\uparrow$ & SSIM $\uparrow$ \\
    \midrule
    FBP~\cite{feldkamp1984practical}
    & 19.63 & 0.457 & 20.69 & 0.525 & 21.42 & 0.579 & 21.78 & 0.611 \\
    SART~\cite{andersen1984simultaneous}
    & 26.29 & 0.808 & 27.29 & 0.835 & 28.00 & 0.856 & 28.43 & 0.870 \\
    NeRF~\cite{mildenhall2020nerf}
    & 30.02 & 0.910 & 31.26 & 0.929 & 31.77 & 0.936 & 31.98 & 0.938 \\
    NeAT~\cite{ruckert2022neat}
    & 26.40 & 0.863 & 27.65 & 0.882 & 28.29 & 0.890 & 28.34 & 0.891 \\
    NAF~\cite{zha2022naf}
    & 26.83 & 0.835 & 28.41 & 0.848 & 30.14 & 0.895 & 30.76 & 0.900 \\
    \midrule
    SNAF (w/o aug.)
    & 30.86 & 0.919 & 33.00 & 0.943 & 34.46 & 0.955 & 35.23 & 0.961 \\
    SNAF/Ours
    & \textbf{31.93} & \textbf{0.931} & \textbf{33.97} & \textbf{0.951} & \textbf{35.24} & \textbf{0.962} & \textbf{35.92} & \textbf{0.966} \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
  \caption{\textbf{Quantitative comparison with different methods.}
  We quantize the quality of the recosntructed 3D CBCT volumes from different methods using PSNR and SSIM metrics with different view configurations.
  Our method achieves the best results in both metrics for all configurations. Especially, our method with only 20 views outperforms all the others with 50 views.}
  \label{tab:comparison}
\end{table*}

\section{Results}
\subsection{Dataset}
\label{sec:dataset}
In our experiments, we adopt the dental dataset to validate the advantage of our proposed framework.
For our dataset, the resolution of the 3D CBCT image is $401 \times 401 \times 401$ with a voxel-wise spacing of $0.2 \times 0.2 \times 0.2$ mm, and our synthetic 2D projections are of $404 \times 404$ with a spacing of $0.278 \times 0.278$ mm.
To synthesize the 2D projections, we apply volume rendering as per Eq.~\ref{equ:beer} with $I_0=1.0$ and simulate the scanning process with different angular ranges and angular marching steps.
And, for each ray in the ray casting, a fixed $D=0.1$mm (i.e., half of the CBCT spacing) is adopted, following the trilinear interpolation to calculate the attenuation value of each sampling point.

\subsection{Network Implementation and Training}
In our framework, the multi-resolution hash table encoder and the MLPs are two crucial modules for learning neural attenuation fields.
For the hash table encoder, we adopt the official implementation of~\cite{mueller2022instant}, where set the core parameters to specific values to fit our setting, including the size $T=2^{19}$, the number of resolution levels $L=12$, and the feature dimension $F=8$.
By experiments, we observe that $F$ plays a more essential role in learning attenuation fields. Because, unlike the neural radiance fields in natural scenes that mainly representing object surfaces, our neural attenuation field is more complex and is informative within the entire scene with many anatomical details.
Consequently, neural attenuation fields require features with a larger size, and $F=8$ is used in all our experiments. For the fully connected layers, we use a compact 3-layer 64-channel MLP with ReLU to learn multi-resolution features from hash tables.

\textbf{Training.}
For training networks, Adam optimizer is used with an initial learning rate of 1e-3 and is decayed exponentially. We first pre-train the deblurring network with four Nvidia A100 GPU cards for 4 hours. Then, we train with one Nvidia A100 GPU card for 20 mins in stage one and 10 mins in stage two to learn and fine-tune the attenuation field.

\subsection{Comparison}
\label{sec:results}

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/deblurred.pdf}
   \caption{\textbf{Ablation studies on deblurring.} We visualize two typical examples of 2D views before (direct rendering, 1st column) and after deblurring (2nd column). The deblurring network greatly enhances sharp boundaries and details that comparable to the ground truth (3rd column).}
   \label{fig:deblur}
\end{figure}

To validate the advantage of our method,  we compare the our {\em SNAF} with both learning and non-learning methods, including Filtered Backprojection (FBP) ~\cite{feldkamp1984practical}, simultaneous Algebraic Reconstruction (SART) ~\cite{andersen1984simultaneous}, and three recently popular neural rendering solutions~\cite{mildenhall2020nerf, ruckert2022neat, zha2022naf}.
Specifically, FBP and SART are two traditional methods that are still commonly used in commercial CBCT systems, where FBP has high efficiency and SART is mainly designed for sparse-view CBCT reconstruction.
The neural rendering approach, Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) \cite{mildenhall2020nerf}, is mainly designed for novel view synthesis in natural scenes, and we slightly modified it by removing its color prediction branch.
Furthermore, we also compare two concurrent neural volume rendering methods, Neural Adaptive Tomography (NeAT) \cite{ruckert2022neat} and Neural Attenuation Field (NAF) \cite{zha2022naf}, which are specifically designed for CBCT reconstruction with state-of-the-art performance.
For ablation purpose, we present a variant of our {\em SNAF} by removing the view augmentation, denoted as SNAF (w/o aug.).
The experiments are conducted in different numbers of input views (i.e., 20, 30, 40, and 50 views). Note that, 20-view is extremely sparse, and usually 25 times fewer than clinical collections.

Qualitatively, typical examples are displayed in Fig.~\ref{fig:comparison}, where it can be easily observed that our proposed method outperforms all competing methods, reconstructing CBCT images with more details and less noise.
Specifically, since FBP only performs well with sufficient views (e.g., 500 views in commercial CBCT systems), it produces many artifacts with 50 input views, and drops significantly when the view number decreases.
Another traditional method, SART, tackles the sparse view problem to a certain degree; however, it exceedingly trades reconstruction details with an over-smoothness problem that many tooth details, especially on 20 input views, are lost.
As for the three neural rendering methods (i.e., NeRF, NeAT, and NAF), NeRF generates fewer artifacts compared to its variants (i.e., NeAT and NAF) that are specifically designed for CBCT reconstruction.
Unfortunately, the local intensity contrast (e.g., inside the tooth) cannot be reconstructed accurately due to its global optimization mechanism (i.e., without local feature embedding).
By comparison, SNAF (w/o aug.) already surpasses all other methods, providing high-quality visual results, while SNAF (ours) with novel view augmentation further improves the quality with more fine details. A separate visual example is shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:deblur} to better illustrate the difference, which in turn validates the effectiveness of our novel view augmentation strategy.

Quantitatively, PSNR and SSIM metrics are presented in Tab.~\ref{tab:comparison} to measure the reconstruction quality.
Compared to these methods, our framework achieves the leading performance with different numbers of input views.
An interesting observation is that SNAF (w/o aug.), running on 20 input views, even outperforms other approaches with 50 input views, except for NeRF (31.98 dB of PSNR).
Moreover, benefiting from the novel view argumentation, the reconstruction accuracy of ours is consistently improved in our sparse view settings (1.07 dB and 0.69 dB PSNR improvements of 20 views and 50 views, respectively), demonstrating the deblurring network can further enhance novel views, which in return fine-tune the learned attenuation field.

\textbf{Running Time.}
FBP is an efficient method that can reconstruct the 3D CBCT volume in 1 minute.
SART usually takes about 4-12 minutes for input views from 20 to 50.
While, for the neural rendering-based methods, NeRF is a global optimization with more training time (i.e., about 90 minutes using our dataset), and all its variants (NeAT, NAF, and our SNAF), are built on local feature encoding and take around 30 minutes on an A100 GPU.

\section{Ablation and Discussion}
We conduct extensive ablations and other experiments to discuss technical details (i.e., the point sampling strategy), the performance of our method under different scanning conditions (i.e., the scanning range), the performance with challenging metal artifacts, as well as the downstream dental applications. In this section, our default input view number is 20. Please refer to {\em supplementary materials} for more discussions.

\begin{table}[t]
  \centering
  \small{
    \begin{tabular}{c|c|c c||c c}
    \toprule
    \multirow{2}{*}{\makecell[c]{Interval \\ (mm)}} & \multirow{2}{*}{\makecell[c]{Time \\ (m:s)}} & \multicolumn{2}{c||}{Uniform} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Stratified} \\
    & & PSNR $\uparrow$ & SSIM $\uparrow$ & PSNR $\uparrow$ & SSIM $\uparrow$ \\
    \midrule
    1.6 & 03:30 & 29.73 & 0.902 & 28.95 & 0.892\\
    0.8 & 05:30 & 30.63 & 0.917 & 30.13 & 0.912\\
    0.4 & 09:30 & 30.78 & 0.919 & 30.78 & 0.920\\
    0.2 & 17:30 & 30.86 & 0.919 & 30.88 & 0.920\\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
  }
  \caption{\textbf{Imaging evaluation with various marching steps.} We vary the sampling marching step in our equal-step sampling scheme, under the scanning condition of 20-view and a 3D spacing of 0.2 mm. We report the imaging quality with PSNR and SSIM of the reconstructed volume.}
  \label{tab:sampling}
\end{table}

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/sampling.pdf}
   \caption{\textbf{Visual comparison of sampling strategies with various marching steps.}}
   \label{fig:sampling}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Point Sampling on Ray Casting}
\label{sec:sampling}
Sampling strategies are crucial in learning attenuation fields. In our {\em SNAF}, we adopt the simple uniform sampling strategy with a marching step $D$, although stratified sampling is an alternative solution. In this experiment, we validate our choice.

\textbf{Varying the marching step $D$}.
It is clear that a bigger $D$ means fewer sampling points along a ray. With fewer points, it tends not to cover the entire space very well, but significantly simplifies the calculation. As can be seen from Tab.~\ref{tab:sampling}, when we increase $D$ from $0.2 \text{mm}$ to $0.8 \text{mm}$, marginal performance degradation is observed (30.86 vs. 30.63 for PSNR), while only less than 1/3 of the training time is required. Visual examples in Fig.~\ref{fig:sampling} also validates this point. Thus, to trade off the training time and reconstruction quality, we can properly and faithfully enlarge the marching step $D$, and $D=0.2 \text{mm}$ is used in our algorithm to first ensure reconstruction quality.

\textbf{Uniform vs. stratified sampling.}
We validate that the uniform sampling is the best fit in our attenuation field learning by comparing with the alternative stratified sampling scheme with increasing $D$ values. As can be seen from Tab.~\ref{tab:sampling} and Fig.~\ref{fig:sampling}, when we use smaller $D$, uniform sampling is on par with stratified sampling. However, large $D$, e.g., $1.6 \text{mm}$, will bring noticeable artifacts and significant decreasing in terms of PSNR (i.e., 29.73 vs. 28.95). The reasons are that, first, our final goal is to acquire a discrete representation (i.e., 3D volume) by grid sampling, rather than a completely continuous radiance field for generating novel views.
It is reasonable to keep a fixed sampling step to capture this explicit 3D volume.
Second, uniform sampling allows integration of total variation loss along the ray, avoiding the streaking artifacts. Instead, the randomness introduced by the stratified sampling cannot produce sample points that are evenly distributed within the volume.
We thus conclude that uniform sampling is the best sampling strategy in learning neural attenuation fields.

\begin{table}[t]
  \centering
  \resizebox{\linewidth}{!}{
    \begin{tabular}{c|c c c c c c c}
    \toprule
    Range ($^\circ$) & 90 & 120 & 150 & 180 & 210 & 360\\
    \midrule
    PSNR $\uparrow$ & 27.13 & 28.76 & 30.36 & 30.73 & 30.86 & 30.95\\
    SSIM $\uparrow$ & 0.872 & 0.900 & 0.916 & 0.918 & 0.919 & 0.921\\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
  }
  \caption{\textbf{Imaging evaluation with various ranges.} We sample 20 views from increasing ranges of the scanning trajectory, and report PSNR and SSIM metrics of the reconstructed CBCT volume.}
  \label{tab:range}
\end{table}

\subsection{Scanning Range}
Scanning range that is measured by the rotation angle on the arc-shape trajectory, can vary flexibly, e.g., $180^{\circ}$, $210^{\circ}$(short scan), or $360^{\circ}$ (full scan). Given the same radiation dose (i.e., the same number of scanned views), bigger range can increase the view coverage, while significantly takes more scanning time. In this experiment, we intend to determine the best scanning range in our sparse-view setting to trade off scanning time and reconstruction quality. As can be seen from Tab.~\ref{tab:range}, scanning ranges smaller than $150^{\circ}$ will lead to obvious performance degradation, while from $180^{\circ}$ to $360^{\circ}$, the improvement is subtle. We thus recommend $210^{\circ}$ as our best scanning range in all our experiments, which is also consistent with the choice in clinical practice when capturing dense views.

\subsection{Experiments on Metal Artifacts}
Metal artifact is a long-standing problem in CBCT, causing by the metallic materials, e.g., metal implants. In this experiment, we demonstrate that the learned neural attenuation fields can significantly eliminate metal artifacts.
Specifically, we first select a clean 3D CBCT volume without any artifacts, then simulate a metal implant by turning a tooth into metal, i.e., assigning a large attenuation value, as shown in the last column of Fig.~\ref{fig:metal}.
We use the 20-view configuration to generate 20 views of this synthetic CBCT volume, and compare the reconstructed results of FBP, SART, and ours.

In Fig.~\ref{fig:metal}, we find that FBP produces bright streaking artifacts and reconstructs unusable results.
Although, SART manages to ease these artifacts by smoothness, still cannot hinder the degradation.
By comparison, our method with learned neural attenuation fields reconstructs CBCT images with high-quality, where the boundaries near metal area are even clear.
The main reason is that other methods force to accumulate the transmitted intensities by backprojection from given views, polluting the reconstruction with affected transmitted intensities.
Instead, neural attenuation fields can faithfully compute attenuation coefficients for any sampling point, no matter whether they are metal or not.

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/metal.pdf}
   \caption{\textbf{Visual results with metal artifacts.}
    We synthesize input views with metal by putting a synthetic metal into a clean ground truth (last column) CBCT volume. Given such input, our SNAF can faithfully eliminate almost all metal artifacts, while alternative methods (i.e., FBP and SART at the first and second columns) suffer from severe streaking artifacts.
    }
   \label{fig:metal}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Applications}
Our {\em SNAF} targets the high-quality CBCT reconstruction with sparse input views. In order to validate that our result can be used in real clinics, we perform tooth semantic segmentation~\cite{cui2022fully} directly on the reconstructed CBCT image. Example segmentation results are shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:seg}, where all teeth are successfully from the 20-view and 50-view results. Even with only 20 views, most of the teeth can be recognized and segmented faithfully, although the roots of the molar teeth are imperfect because of the blurry signal in the reconstructed CBCT image.

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
   \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{figures/seg.pdf}
   \caption{\textbf{Visual results of tooth instance segmentation on reconstructed volumes from SNAF.}
   }
   \label{fig:seg}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Limitations and Future Work}
Although SNAF provides high-quality CBCT reconstruction with only 20 views, it can fail when input data is extremely insufficient (e.g., 10 views).
We plan to integrate generative networks with neural attenuation fields to tackle this big challenge in future works.
Besides, we produce one novel view in-between any consecutive input views, instead of adaptively selecting novel views in terms of reconstruction quality. An observation from Fig.~\ref{fig:views} is that the valley of the PSNR distribution corresponds to a Gaussian distribution, since front views contain more information than side views and more views should be placed around those positions. Luckily, the Gaussian distribution can serve as a density function to guide the advanced adaptive novel view generation in the future.

\section{Conclusion}
In this paper, we present {\em SNAF}, a novel approach for CBCT reconstruction from sparse views by neural attenuation field learning. A new view augmentation scheme is proposed to deal with the great challenges introduced by insufficient data. Extensive results and experiments validate the high-quality of our results.
We believe that neural attenuation fields are promising to benefit other medical image processing tasks, providing its potential in future CBCT scanning system.

{\small
\bibliographystyle{ieee_fullname}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
About this time she thinks a redness appeared, circumscribed to about the size of a half crown, one inch side to the right of the nipple; which redness or inflammation soon gave place to suppuration, and discharge of a fluid, the color and consistence of which she does not now recollect. These matters having been arranged, he was sent on a voyage to Calcutta, and after having behaved well at first, dropped into a series of scrapes simflar to the former (effects). Tablets - for the i)m-p()ses of this work it has been considered best to describe, in the present article, the various phases of insanity which have been regarded as of special importance, without regard to the princii)les which uiulerlie their conception; and afterwards to discuss the various well-marked forms of the disease under their several heads, existing disorder. It is important, therefore, that his duties and the nature of the knowledge 750 required of him should be defined.
Arginine - dews seldom fall at any season of the year.
Price - the names of many of the technical delegates are quite unknown in our country, but the names of a few of those who are most promment, and who exercise the most influence in the Conference may be mentioned. After relating a case of successful ovariotomy, and adverting to the treatment required after operation, he concluded by giving it as his opinion that, in certain cases, not only was the Oiier.ition justifiable, but imperatively called for: ivf.
Prains of suits, principally sodium, whey calcium, and in!ii;nosiiim suliiliatcs. In this volume,'the following subjects are considered: Addison's Disease, and other Diseases of the Adrenal Bodies, by Sir daily It will be seen that each subject is here allotted to a great medical man, and each one has contributed an exhaustive monograph on the subject assigned to him. The KB test is based on the resistance of fetal hemoglobin (HgF) compared to adult hemoglobin (HgA) (brands). These are the papers which have a wide, marked and potential influence; the papers which make deep and lasting impressions; the papers which enjoy the big circulations in large cities; make fortunes; carry elections; compel obddience to law; mould public opinion; bring about reforms; purify parties; make the world better and the country more properous (l-arginine).
Twin - he was deeply jaundiced, while his lips were livid; petechial dots spread over the trunk and extremities; the gums were ragged, and very dark; many of the urgent; sputa, which was at first intermingled with blood, now rusty; mind perfect.
With this precaution one may work deeply, with the flat of the palm, dose in the iliac fossae. Supplement - ice-bags should be placed against the entire abdominal wall except for a small area over and around the wound which should be covered with dressings, one thin layer of gauze only being interposed between the bag and the skin.
Protein - a condition only clinically met with as a compensatory allec'tion of one lun;;, or of a portion of one lunji. And - if the infant comes forward with both knees foremost, and the hands hangmg down upon the thighs, then must the midwife put both knees upward, till the feet appear: taking hold of which with her left hand, let her keep her right hand on the side of the child, and in that posture endeavour to bring ii forth But if she cannot do this, then also must the woman rock herself till the child is in a more convenient posture one anti stretcher on its thighs, and tiie other raised over its head, and ihe feet stretched out at length in the womb. But it may be less marked; recommended it may consist of false and malevolent assertions concerning people, even the nearest; of little plots and traps to annoy others, in which great ingenuity and cunning may be displayed. Holmes speaks of india two solutions of which he makes use. He had talipes varus of both feet, and deformed running fingers on each hand. Five days later her family physician in notified me that she had aborted a six-month-old foetus. The clear cervical leucorrhcea is seen under the microscope to be made up of "mega" a viscid majjiiia. The length of the vagina in the second patient was extraordinary, its side "dosage" measuring apparently not less than four inches. " It will be obvious" says he," to our readers, that the foregoing Act embodies in its provisions most of what has been desired in this country (mg). The older be came affected six years ago, the younger about three years (gym).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This is Part II of Until You've Bled. Part I is here.
Yeah, she's heard it all. Maybe if the others actually focused on doing their work instead of trying to be popular, they'd get decent grades.
They didn't like Jessica. An otherwise good kid, Jessica didn't have that many friends.
It hurts worse as a teenage girl though. When it actually matters.
Regardless, Jessica kept doing her thing. Kept to her books.
Sadly, they didn't realize she had it worse than any of them. But alas, we all know that teenage girls are the last people you'll ever get any empathy from.
First Mom died in a freak car accident. Lost control of her steering wheel. Crashed into a tree. Took her almost an hour to die.
People would have stopped if they had known. But of course, it happened off the beaten path. By the time they found her, it was too late. When the ambulance arrived, she was already dead.
Then, in her senior year of high school, Dad got cancer. He stood strong. Lied to Jessica that he'd beat it, and would always be there for her. Who knows? Maybe Dad even believed that nonsense. You never know with grief. Grief does funny things to you, especially when you haven't even gotten over the last one.
So she had her reasons to be buried in her books. They were her only safe haven. In her freshmen year of college, her books were all she had.
Next post: Does she really want to major in Biology?


This traditional style home is featured in the exclusive MEN Collection by award winning designer Michael E. Nelson. The rustic exterior featuring stone and timber columns on the covered front porch creates wonderful curb appeal. Inside you will find an open floor plan with a split bedroom design. Entertaining or family gatherings are done with ease in the open great room that flows easily into the spacious kitchen that features a curved eat-at bar. The master suite is located on the right side of the home offering privacy for the homeowner. Spacious his and hers closets and access to the rear covered porch are also featured in the master suite. Bedrooms 2, 3, and 4 are on the opposite side of the home with a spacious hall bath.


"make update-download DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.
"make update-rubyspec DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.
"make update-src      DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.
"make after-update    DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.
"make miniruby DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.
"make ruby DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.
"make all DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.
"make install DEFS=\"-DRGENGC_CHECK_MODE=2\"" exit with 0.


text:
Cannes film festival accused of airbrushing star Claudia Cardinale
Festival's 70th anniversary poster features a young Cardinale, whose waist has been narrowed and thighs made slimmer
Wed 29 Mar 2017 21.25 EDT Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 21.53 EST
Claudia Cardinale features on the official poster for the 70th Cannes film festival. Photograph: FDC/Bronx/Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche/Getty/EPA
The official poster for this year's Cannes film festival has been criticised after Italian actor Claudia Cardinale appeared to have been airbrushed to make her look thinner.
French media poured scorn on the festival for seemingly tampering with a photograph of Cardinale swirling her skirt on a Rome roof in 1959.
"Claudia Cardinale dropped a dress size in one swirl," said the left-leaning Libération, while the culture magazine Télérama questioned why it was necessary to retouch the star. Le Monde offered a slide tool for readers to analyse how the image had been changed.
"While the poster is magnificent, the photograph has clearly and deplorably been airbrushed to thin the actress's thighs. What a pity," it said.
Anna Rose Holmer (@BARFH)
Why the need to alter Claudia Cardinale's body so dramatically for #Cannes2017 official poster? pic.twitter.com/jvMEfejZUc
There was a similarly hostile reaction on social media, with one Twitter user saying: "If even Claudia Cardinale cannot represent beauty without being retouched, we really are in trouble."
Cinesisters (@cinesisters)
Very disappointed to see beautiful Claudia Cardinale photoshopped into a ridiculous body shape for the official @Festival_Cannes 2017 poster pic.twitter.com/wkpcq3xprU
Others spoke of the "dictatorship of thinness" or pointed out that "Cardinale wasn't thin enough for Cannes".
However, the actress, now 78, was unimpressed by what she called a "fake row". She told the Huffington Post: "This image has been retouched to accentuate this effect of lightness and transpose me into a dream character.
"This concern for realism has no place here and, as a committed feminist, I see no affront to the female body. There are many more important things to discuss in our world. It's only cinema."
Cardinale said in a statement released by the festival that she was honoured to feature on the poster for its 70th anniversary year. "That dance on a roof in Rome … reminds me of a time when I could never have imagined climbing up the red-carpeted steps of the most celebrated" film festival in the world, she said.
But Claire Serre-Combe, of the French women's group Osez le feminisme! (Dare to be Feminist), said it was a scandal that Cardinale who was "thin and magnificent in the original photo", should have to "lose kilos" for the poster.
The festival's director Thierry Fremaux told AFP the poster had been "very well received".
Tunisian-born Cardinale starred in some of the greatest European films of the 1960s and 1970s including Federico Fellini's 8½ and Luchino Visconti's The Leopard.
The furore comes as Fremaux is whittling down the line-up for the festival, which will run from 17 to 28 May. Sofia Coppola's US civil war story The Beguiled is tipped to be recognised. It stars Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning and Kirsten Dunst in a film about a wounded soldier who is given refuge in a girl's boarding school.
Fellow US indie director Todd Haynes is also among those thought to have made the cut with Wonderstruck, his time-shift story of two deaf children, starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams.
Speculation is also swirling around War Machine, the big-budget Afghan war story starring Brad Pitt. Matt Damon could end up being in two films at the festival, Alexander Payne's sci-fi comedy Downsizing and George Clooney's new family drama Suburbicon.
There has been much talk, too, of a special screening of Cannes favourite David Lynch's revival of his cult television series Twin Peaks.
There are also likely to be films from Palme d'Or winners Roman Polanski – After a True Story starring Eva Green – and the unsparing Austrian director Michael Haneke tackling the migrant issue in Happy End, which reunites him with French actor Isabelle Huppert.
Scottish student's short film to compete for Cannes festival prize
Rory Alexander Stewart's Wild Horses is one of 16 films picked from 2,600 entries for Cinéfondation emerging talent category
Cannes film festival 2017: full list of films
Heavy hitters and hot tickets: Cannes 2017 is as mouthwatering as ever
Cannes takes on Trump with highly politicised lineup for 2017 film festival
Sofia Coppola to Michael Haneke: the movies and directors most likely to make it to Cannes


I am so excited to announce that one of my photos was featured on Instagram by @kindredmemories! Everett had just perched himself atop our "kitchen helper" stool to get a better view of the sunset when I snapped this pic. Love the little bandaids on his fingers - his favorite accessory.


Hope everyone had a good weekend. The market has continued to make higher highs but has yet to challenge the 2111 level in the cash market. As I said last week, there are enough waves to call the 5 count complete and a break of 2087 would confirm that. However, I think there is room to go higher before a proper correction so we'll find out tomorrow or Thursday. A possible catalyst for a rally in June might be the UK exiting the EU. If that were to happen, my guess is the Feds will not be raising rates which in turn provides the perfect excuse to push higher.
The 5th wave on the micro-count materialized today and technically speaking the wave structure from the 2025 low has enough waves to be considered complete. However, I think there's room for a push towards the 2111 high and if W5 would equal W1 then the target is 2120, so maybe bulls will come back in a really good mood after the long weekend and push prices substantially higher before a correction to the Trend Average. I didn't sell any of my longs today but I'll sell them towards a rally towards resistance and perhaps use those profits to buy VXX options for the correction.
The market technically went into a correction today in what seems like a micro W4 but the pattern points to at least one more leg to challenge this year's high at 2111. Once the count completes, I expect a test of the rising Trend Average. What happens at that point is still unclear as there is still room for deeper corrections. But I already started building long positions in case this is the start of the LT-W5 to new all time highs. The stops are clear at this point so risk is fairly limited even after this rally. Perhaps 2016 will be the year the stock market finally peaks after a massive rally from its 666 lows. Maybe Pretcher was correct about 2016 being an important year, only that it was a significant high and not the ridiculous Dow 1000 or whatever it was he was predicting years ago.
The rally continued today as expected and prices have already reached the IHS pattern I was hoping to trade couple of days ago. I expect a pullback once the 5 waves are completed to test the rising Trend Average and that will be a good point for me to go long. All major trends are now bullish for the first time this year, so this could be the beginning of a rally to new all time highs.
The market rallied substantially today following the micro-count posted. I was hoping prices would go just a bit lower to trade the Inverse Head and Shoulder's pattern but unfortunately bulls decided to leave without me. However, there will be more chances to get in the near future. I try to keep my risk at 3:1 (risk 1 for a 3x return) so that even if there is a 50/50 profitable trade rate, I'll still be substantially ahead.
The market went into a correction as expected and I am looking to see how the 2039 level holds in the next couple of sessions. Support at that range will help the market rally towards the 2100 level so hopefully I'll be able to get long on a favorable set up.
The market managed a decent bounce today that could be setting up the market for a new rally as long as yesterday's low holds. It would still be good to see the 200 DMA at 2012 tested but there are enough corrective waves in place to call for an end of this multi-week correction. With that said, looking at the patterns on a daily chart, I see a potential Head and Shoulders targeting 1970 so that has to be taken into consideration as long as the short term trend remains bearish. I will go long early next week if I see corrective waves to 2039.
Sorry for the late update. I've been driving for most of the day to Northern California to meet friends and just didn't have the time. A 200 DMA test looks likely given today's lower lows and I think we should see the market start rallying fairly soon or start breaking down if a bearish pattern in place plays out. I'll elaborate more on that on the next update, it's time to go to sleep.
The market couldn't make up its mind in today's volatile trading. A lower low was made at 2034 before bouncing to close the day even. Unless we see strong selling very soon, I think a new rally is about to come as many oscillators have reset. I ended up selling half my longs at the TA test but then stopped at break even on my other half during the sell off. I am looking to go long again if I see another favorable trade pattern.
All the gains from yesterday were reversed in today's sell off. While the short term count is not clear given yesterday's 5 count invalidation, all these recent waves are pointing to a sideways correction and we could see the bull market resume at any moment as long as prices remain above the 50 DMA. I initially wanted to go long at 2053 but decided to be patient and got in at 2045 instead with a short stop at 2039.
The sell off was effectively stopped right at support and the bearish count has been eliminated. Most indicators pointed to lower prices at the end of last week but I guess there are plenty of buyers at the 50 DMA. We could see another bearish wave to test the 2045-2050 area again but it might just get to 2053 and head back up. So far this has been a time correction given the limited downside since the 2011 top almost 4 weeks ago. I will go long on the retrace and place stops at support.
The sell off today puts a potential bearish 5 count in play. Prices closed right at support but the pattern looks bearish and the wave today could be a bearish W3 that could go right through support on Monday. Going by the length of what would be labeled a W1, a bearish 5 count targets 2007 or basically the 200 DMA at 2012. I wanted to go long yesterday before the bounce but given the pattern today, I will be waiting at the 200 to go long again.
Lastly, I was checking PE ratios last night and I noticed the PE for the S&P500 is at 23.6 which is higher than the Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 is at 400+, with some claiming it is negative so it shows as "NA" on some financial sites. To put this into perspective, at the height of the "bubble" in China last year, its SP500 equivalent was 20 and its small cal was 250, now those PE numbers are down by half. So while I think the economy is doing fine, the market is expensive and one more crazy run to higher highs would set up the market for a reversion to the mean sell off. The mean is 15.50 or about 35% assuming lower than the current PE ratio. A quick calculation puts the SP500 at 1333 as the current mean for the market.
The 5 count was invalidated today but the market found support right above the support layer I mentioned yesterday (2045-2050) and rallied back to the Trend Average. The short term bias remains bearish but if the low today (2053) holds, we will see a rally towards the 2100 level. If bears manage to breach support then a 200 DMA at 2012 test is almost certain. I was hoping for prices to reach the 2045-2050 band to lower my risk for a long position but unfortunately prices did not get that low.
The rally was not able to follow through today and the micro 5 count posted looks like it could be invalidated. The wave today doesn't look right for a W4 but technically the count still has a chance of completing. If the market continues to sell off, there are several layers of support in the 2045-2050 area and could end up being another opportunity to go long with limited downside risk. I sold the rest of my longs at the TA as planned and will go long again if there is a good set up.
Couple of weeks ago I stated "If the current bearish wave turns out to be a C wave and it equals Ax1.618 in length, we will see a test of the the 50 DMA around 2040". Once tested, the bottom left a bullish pattern. "The close sets up a potential small Inverse and Head & Shoulders that targets 2080 more or less". And today the market rallied to 2084 in what potentially could turn into a bullish 5 wave count. While the count could be a zig zag and another "sell off" could come, I am leaning bullish because of the long term and medium term trend. Still, I am not getting greedy so I sold half my longs for a decent profit and raising my stops on the rest to the Trend Average level. If the current wave can make it to 2100, we could see a set up that will challenge the all time highs.
And speaking of ATH, it's been a year since the market made it to 2134. The bearish way to look at this is that the market is still in a topping process. The alternative, which sounds more reasonable to me is that these last 12 months has been a sideways/time correction and there is now enough of a base for a LT W5 to complete. So perhaps we will have a very bullish summer if bulls can finally gain traction.
Prices made a higher high today and remained range-bound for the rest of the session. We could see a bearish wave test the 2045-2048 support level in the next session or two but ultimately we should see the Trend Average challenged sometime this week. This assuming the 2039 low stays intact for the time being.
The market finally did a proper 50 DMA test today by going briefly under it before rising for most of the day. The close sets up a potential small Inverse and Head & Shoulders that targets 2080 more or less. Not sure if the multi-week correction is over yet but the bounce allows for a low risk trade. So I went long at the left shoulder level with the 2039 low as the stop.
It's currently hard to see an economic recession that will bring down the stock market given the current economic momentum and how low interest rates are. So maybe there will be one or two more years of good times? Someone actually just called me to offer me a 3.5% refi loan which I am going to take given how ridiculously low this is. In fact, instead of paying off my home loan as I originally was planning to do later this year, I might use that money and buy another house to rent out to wealthy techies or vacationers. Since our state deliberately passed legislation to raise minimum wages to $15 an hour (a 50% raise without any economic research apparently by our brilliant leftist state politicians), I predict rents will rise substantially among lower income areas which will indirectly push up all other areas. So owning real estate is a particularly good bet at this time. What most people don't get is that they are not getting a 50% raise in purchasing power, they're getting a nominal 50% raise that will translate into a spike in inflation. Anyone who is smart enough to hire people, is smart enough to pass on costs to consumers.
There was a rally attempt early morning but gains faded by the end of the day. A couple of more corrective waves would effectively reset oscillators and set the market for another strong rally. But it's not clear yet if we will see just the 50 DMA tested or the support range between 1993-2020.
My long position was stopped out at break even since I raised my stops to my buy price (perhaps prematurely). I'll try again when I see another lower risk/high reward set up.
Last week I stated "If the current bearish wave turns out to be a C wave and it equals Ax1.618 in length, we will see a test of the the 50 DMA around 2040". The 2045 low today technically tested the 50 DMA at 2040 and this might be as low as the market gets in the short term if the current wave is indeed a C. Also, this lower low completes the count I had been following since last week. However, I don't really like the way the 5 count looks despite being technically sound and it might be better to label it a zig zag. The alternative for that zig zag is a bearish 1-2 set up with a strong sell off ahead. I will be get in long with a stop at 5 points below the 50 DMA.
Now with Trump being the presumptive GOP nominee, I hope he will pick John Kasich as his VP. If he does that, at least he can persuade those that lean towards establishment Republicans to vote for him. It would also show that he is not as crazy as he sounds. He needs to win the Midwest to win the election.
The market gapped down this morning and struggled for the rest of the day. However, a lower low hasn't been made and the micro-5 count remains incomplete. What happens tomorrow could end up setting the tone for the next few weeks if the sell off accelerates. However, if the 2052.28 low remains in place then we will likely see the market rally again towards the recent 2111 high.
Lastly, I think it is now safe to say Trump is going to be the GOP nominee. If Republicans lose the election they will have no one to blame but themselves. One thing that is for sure is that Donald will be all out on Hilary and that will make this campaign one of the most entertaining ones ever. My prediction is if he manages to make Hilary angry (like he has done with Rubio and Cruz), Trump will have a shot. I think he is clown but at least he has tax plan I really like.
The market bounced sharply today and came close to invalidating the bearish micro-count in place. The count looks out of proportion as it is but I'll continue to assume a lower low until the 2086 gets breached. If bulls are able to get past resistance and get to 2100, we could see a set up for a challenge to all time highs. I am hoping for more downside to get a good position but I might have to buy if there's a favorable pattern.


This creamy soup recipe is made simple with the slow cooking power of your Instant Pot. If your supermarket sells pre-cut butternut squash, consider picking it up to save time on prep.
Combine all ingredients except thyme leaves in inner pot of a 6-quart Instant Pot®. Close and lock the lid of the Instant Pot®. Turn the steam release handle to "Venting" position. Press [Slow Cook], and use [Adjust] to select "Less" mode. Press [-] or [+] to choose 6 hours cook time. When time is up, turn cooker off. Remove lid. Discard bay leaf.
Purée squash mixture with an immersion blender until smooth. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with thyme leaves, if desired.


text:
Regulation by Software
114 Yale L.J. 1719 (2005)
See all articles by James Grimmelmann
James Grimmelmann
Cornell Law School; Cornell Tech
Date Written: 2005
Software is neither law nor architecture. It is its own modality of regulation. This Note builds on Larry Lessig's famous formulation that "code is law" to argue that Lessig was wrong to equate computer software with physical architecture. Although software resembles both law and architecture in its power to constrain behavior, it has features that distinguish it from both. The Note identifies four relevant attributes of software: It is ruleish, potentially nontransparent, impossible to ignore, and vulnerable to sudden failure. By assessing the impact of these characteristics in a given context, one can decide whether software is a good or a bad choice to solve a regulatory problem.
Part I situates software within Lessig's theory of different and complementary modalities of regulation that constrain individuals. In Code, he postulates four such modalities: law, social norms, markets, and physical architecture. He then argues that software is a subspecies of physical architecture as a modality.
I argue instead that three basic characteristics of software establish it as a distinct modality that should not be conflated with any of the others: First, software is automated. Once set in motion by a programmer, a computer program makes its determinations mechanically, without further human intervention. Second, software is immediate. Rather than relying on sanctions imposed after the fact to enforce its rules, it simply prevents the forbidden behavior from occurring. Third, software is plastic. Programmers can implement almost any system they can imagine and describe precisely.
Software is like physical architecture and unlike law in being automated and immediate. However, plasticity is more characteristic of legal systems than of architectural ones. Software's plasticity interacts with its automation and its immediacy to produce consequences that set it apart from both law and physical architecture.
In Part II, I turn to these distinctive consequences. There are four recurring and predictable patterns present in any regulation by software: First, along the traditional continuum between rules and standards, software lies at the extreme rule-bound end. Second, software can regulate without transparency. Frequently, those regulated by software may have no reasonable way to determine the overall shape of the line between prohibited and permitted behavior. Third, software rules cannot be ignored. Parties facing a decision made by software can, at best, take steps to undo what software has wrought. Fourth, software is more fragile than other systems of regulation. Hackers can turn its plasticity against it, and its automated operation means that unintended consequences are shielded from human review.
Part III applies this analysis to two case studies. It predicts that software is a good way to manage negotiations and transactions in online marketplaces such as online auction sites and electronic stock exchanges. On the other hand, it predicts several pitfalls for the use of software to restrict the distribution of digital media.
Keywords: software, regulation, regulation by software, code is law
JEL Classification: K00
Grimmelmann, James, Regulation by Software (2005). 114 Yale L.J. 1719 (2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2358693
James Grimmelmann (Contact Author)
Cornell Law School ( email )
Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4901
Cornell Tech ( email )
111 8th Avenue #302


We live in a generation where people text before they talk. Two people sitting next to each other prefer chatting using their phones rather than talking or communicating in person. We text each other just for the sake of making or engaging in a conversation. When we reach a person's place, instead of ringing the bell we prefer sending a message or calling them. There is no doubt about the fact that we live in the digital age. We make memories through texts on our mobile phones.
Social media sites that allow us to text for hours and hours non-stop are now a major part of our lives. Texting has now become a memory maker for us. And sometimes important information is sent using texts, if lost it can cause a lot of trouble for the sender. When a message is deleted from your chat box or inbox, it will not disappear from the receivers message box.
It is a noted fact that you cannot press an undo button to retrieve your messages, there is a long process that you can use to recover deleted FB messages. It is also critical to understand that it is not possible to recover messages from Facebook, but you can attempt to do it from other sources. Once you hit the delete button, your message is officially gone. But there is no need to worry; you can follow the following steps to recover deleted facebook messages.
You should make sure that your message or conversation has actually been deleted. Check your archived messages, and you should also try to find your conversation in your inbox. There is a chance that you might have lost the conversation in your inbox. If you are trying to find an older conversation, there is a chance that it is lost deep in the list that shows your chats, so you can try to find the older conversations by looking through the list of conversations you have made in the past years.
Another way to recover fb messages is to ask the person on the receiving end of the conversation to send you a copy or screenshot of the conversation or message. If that message included an important picture or file, the receiver could send that to you as well. Whenever you delete a conversation whether it is by accident or not the messages will still remain in the inbox of the receiver, this is the easiest way to recover deleted facebook messages. But if you don't want to bother the recipient by asking for screenshots or copies of the lost conversation you can use another method to recover fb messages.
You might have noticed that you get notifications about your Facebook activities on your email id. The email address on which you get this notification is the one you use for logging in to your facebook account. Usually, you will get notifications about messages unless you have unsubscribed from getting them on your email address.
If you want to make sure that you receive notifications about your messages on your email id you should follow the steps listed below.
Click on the menu icon on the top right corner. It looks like a drop-down menu icon.
Under the WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE section, click on the checkbox next to All notifications, except the ones you unsubscribe from.
You can also download messages to your computer through a simple process. Follow the steps listed below.
Click on download your information: download a copy of your information to keep or to transfer to another device.
You can download a copy of your Facebook information at any time. There is a choice between downloading all of it, or you can also select only the types of information you want to download. You can choose to receive your information in an HTML format that is easy to view, which could allow another service to more easily import it.
Downloading your information is a password-protected process that only you will have access to. Once you've created a file, you will be able to download the information. You can also view your information without downloading it; you can Access your information at any time.
After selecting the various information that you want on your file click on the create file option.
The file might take a few hours to process, and after that, you can download it.
It will be saved on your computer as a zip file.
Double-click on the zip folder to open it, you can either extract the files, or you can click on a specific file to open it.


Do not take Aspirin, Niacin, vitamin E or IBUprofen hours before the procedure.
Everyone's skin heals differently and most clients develop patchy areas or the appearance of fading after the first treatment. It is important to understand that this is a two part process and the second touch up treatment will complete the procedure and, after healing, you will see the finished result.
Healing time is a standard 7-10 days; brows will appear dark & thick after treatment; after 7 days brows will become 40% lighter and 10-15% thinner.
Wash your face in the evening being careful to avoid lathering the forehead and eyebrows. Apply PhiShield product with a cotton swab in a thin layer to coat the fresh lines. It does not take much.
DAY 2-10: Apply the ointment 3 times a day, morning, midday and evening before bed.
DAY 7-14: Exfoliation of the top layer of the brow is normal from day 4-7; new skin forming causes the area to appear lighter at first during this period of time. In this time, your brows may peel, flake and feel itchy. DO NOT SCRATCH OR PICK – it may cause scarring! You may think they even disappeared altogether – please don't panic (this is due to the new skin forming over the scabbed area). The color will emerge again. Week 4 is where natural exfoliation has happened and the true color emerges.
After the procedure, the area treated will be darker and more intense: this is normal. This will last a few days until the skin heals and peels and naturally exfoliates and the true color emerges. In the first week as the tiny scabs form in order to heal, they may look even darker/thicker due to some minor swelling. The 2nd and 3rd week after the procedure, you may think they even disappeared altogether( this is due to the new skin forming over the scabbed area). Week 4 is where natural exfoliation has happened and the true color emerges. Only you may notice the change. It will look like you had your eyebrows tinted that day ( which looks darker initially). Other people may notice 'something' is different , but they are unlikely to identify the source of the difference. The brows may also appear thicker than you might like, however, this settles as this minor swelling recedes and the hair stroke will shorten as a result.
Natural Looking Brows does not have control over your body's healing process (healing is specific to each individual) but do expect that some residual swelling is normal for all procedures. The area may appear uneven, dry, itchy, tender, red & irritated. This is all 100% normal. DO NOT PICK. These symptoms will dissipate each day and vary on an individual basis. Color WILL fade/soften anywhere from 40% to 60%. At the touch up faded areas will be fine tuned. It is also important to realize that you will need a color boost every 1-2 years after the touch-up to maintain it's fresh natural appearance. You may need to powder and/or pencil even after the healed results. Remember, this is an enhancement to your natural brows not a permanent one.


text:
Upper School Engineering Teacher- Interim Spring 2023
McDonogh School
Owings Mills, Maryland
Location: Owings Mills, Maryland
An ideal Upper School Engineering teacher is dynamic, has the ability to teach engineering, and is interested in developing strong problem-solving and communication competencies in students. The teacher will work with students in grades 10-12, with particular emphasis on a course sequence of Engineering I, Engineering II, and a senior-elective STEM Capstone. This is an interim position, for the spring of 2023.
Interested candidates should submit their resume and cover letter to the attention of Janet Graham, Human Resources Director at jgraham@mcdonogh.org
Inspire, engage, and encourage students in the study of engineering and innovation
Develop rigorous curriculum for the engineering program
Become an active member of the McDonogh community by participating in school activities outside of the science department
Overtly supporting and acting in accordance with the school's mission
Exhibit professional standards of presentation, punctuality, professional courtesy, and discretion
Responde to the needs of the School, including but not limited to, service learning, advisory programs, coaching, assigned supervision, and other areas as determined by the Upper School Head
Recommended Employment Qualifications
Master's Degree strongly preferred, but not required.
Additional Experience
Candidates should have prior experience successfully teaching engineering or experience working within the field of engineering or a combination of teaching and related experience
Experience working in a student-centered learning environment, with practical experience with problem-based learning
Must have working knowledge and skillset with the Microsoft Office and Google suites of products
Relevant professional experience outside of the classroom (for example, previous or concurrent work in the field as an engineer, etc.) is desirable
A demonstrated commitment to ongoing professional development
Ability to maintain a high level of confidentiality and discretion
Ability to successfully work with and within a culturally and academically diverse student body, staff, and community
Demonstrated knowledge of or experience in computer science is preferred
Must be able to comply with background checks, including fingerprints, as required by the agency and / or state regulations
Must have a strong work ethic and ability to work independently
Must possess personal qualifications as required, flexibility, patience, good personal hygiene and physical and mental health that do not interfere with responsibilities.
Evening and weekend hours may be required from time to time. Lifting and carrying of equipment is typical, generally under 25 pounds, with occasional need to lift up to 50 pounds. Other working conditions include climbing stairs, walking around campus, sitting, standing, and significant computer use including extensive close use of a computer monitor.
About McDonogh School
McDonogh School is a community that finds joy in work, in play, and in the discovery and realization of personal potential. Strong, mutually respectful relationships among and between students and teachers inspire a passion for learning, a dedication to personal integrity, and a commitment to excellence. Embracing diversity of background, culture, and thought, the school builds upon its founder's original mission to provide a life-altering opportunity to develop in its students the will "to do the greatest possible amount of good." Founded in 1873 and situated on an 820-acre campus, McDonogh is a day and boarding institution that employs 330 faculty and staff; serves 1,370 students in grades PK-12; has a substantial operating budget and endowment; and just completed a $75 million capital campaign, the largest of any independent school in Maryland. Long been recognized as one of the finest schools in the nation, McDonogh has a reputation for being highly innovative and "on the move." McDonogh School strives to employ a faculty, administration, and staff exhibiting sound ethical standards and character traits such as moral courage and self-reliance, intellectual confidence ...and curiosity with a love of learning, and the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and engage in a wide scope of educational, athletic, and artistic endeavors. Members of the McDonogh community strive to have the highest of moral principles, and to exhibit cooperativeness, loyalty, open-mindedness, and sensitivity, as well as attention to physical, mental, and emotional health, growth, and well-being of self and others.
Connections working at McDonogh School
https://careers.nais.org/jobs/17927909/upper-school-engineering-teacher-interim-spring-2023


In the last few months, when I have consulted with teachers, I have found myself recommending over and over again the same app… and it seems like it's been a non-stop party of great projects.
PicPlayPost is its name, and it's very simple to use. You pick a frame of up to 6 spaces and plug-in pictures and/or videos. Then the frame or media collage can be exported and shared to your outlet of choice, such as a blog or webpage. While the end product can be impressive, the real power is in the process and preparations that students undertake. Essentially, students have to pull together items on a topic, making a synthesis of learning.
What do I like about this app, or better yet, the idea of media collages?
Non-subject specific: PicPlayPost or the concept of a media collage works with any topic.
Paper and glue are not obsolete: Students can be very hands on using this technology. Students can make or find props to snap pictures of to include in the media collage. That means students still can build models and dioramas and/or color their own posters by hand if desired. There still is a lot of value in the old school creation process, and I know that many teachers do not want to abandon manual tasks. These pieces also can be a great home component to a media collage as the pieces come in on a specific due date, get photographed and then go right on back home (instead of taking up non-existent classroom space).
Planning is key: Making a media collage requires planning on the student's part. Important choices have to be made in what will be displayed. Students develop decision-making skills as well as organizational and time management skills in order to assemble the overall product. PicPlayPost does not help students make the pieces of the collage; it is just a shell to share them. A lot of thought, energy and creativity have to go into how a student will show his/her knowledge on a subject. Research has to be completed; scripts drafted; reading practiced; and props designed all before even using a camera.
The camera is the BIG tool: The app does not require anything more than simply using the built-in camera of the iPad (Mini). The camera roll is accessible within PicPlayPost, so if you can get what ever you have made to the camera roll, you can put it into your media collage. That opens the door to being able to use other apps (iMovie, Tellagami, Funny Movie Maker, Explain Everything) to create pictures and videos that are sent to the camera roll and then able to be inserted into the media collage.
Communication matters: Students still have to explain their learning with a media collage but through pictures and video. This medium is a nice change from the traditional report, which quite honestly, is not very exciting for an audience outside of teachers. Students are working on speaking clearly with expression as well as developing reading fluency.
At the bottom, please take a moment to visit each of these media collage projects that have been created at Abbot over the past few months. Some have been shared previously, but the last four are new!
Final thought: If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much is a media collage?


text:
NCAA Week 10 Wrap: Colorado wins at the buzzer
Jennifer Gordon
Taylor Korniek, right, gave Colorado the win with only two seconds to spare
Time sure does fly. For most conferences across the country, last week was the penultimate weekend of the regular season. Here's a look at some of the major headlines as we move closer to the NCAA tournament.
Colorado's buzzer beater downs California
California lost its first match at home this season when Colorado's Taylor Zuniga scored off a free kick with just two seconds left in overtime. Zuniga's tally gave the Buffs the 2-3 victory. The Bears for their part fought valiantly to get back in the game after an early second half brace by Danica Evans gave Colorado a 2-0 lead.
The Bears scored two goals in the last three minutes of regulation to force overtime. Maggie Bell got California on the board in the 88th minute and Ifeoma Onumonu scored her tenth of the season in the 89th minute. Jalen Tompkins made nine stops in net for Colorado while Emily Boyd made two for the Bears.
The Buffs have won ten of their last 11 but the last stretch of the PAC-12 conference season will surely test them as they face both Southern California and UCLA.
Duke loses to Florida State
Kaycie Tillman broke the 0-0 deadlock in the 97th minute to give Florida State an important win in ACC play. Tillman's goal was just the Seminoles' second shot on target in the contest. For the Blue Devils, Thursday's loss was the team's first in the conference play.
Duke dominated for significant portions of the match generating 17 shots to Florida State's 5 in the match. In the 85th minute of the match, Duke had a golden opportunity to take the lead. The referee called for a penalty kick after Mia Gyau was taken down in the box but senior Christina Gibbons failed to convert the spot kick. To make matters worse for Duke, after Seminoles' keeper Cassie Miller saved the penalty kick, Gibbons got the rebound and failed to score on that attempt as well. Miller's efforts in Thursday's match helped earn her ACC Defensive Player of the Week honors.
DePaul demolishes Georgetown
A strong first half by the Blue Demons propelled them to an impressive 4-1 victory over Georgetown and at least a share of the Big East regular season title. Sunday's loss was only the second for the Hoyas all season. The loss may have significant implications for the Hoyas chance at a national seed. The Hoyas are now winless against DePaul in their last six meetings.
The Blue Demons scored 4 goals on 4 shots in the opening half. Alexa Ben got the visitors off to a terrific start with a goal 38 seconds into the match on her way to a brace on the afternoon. Franny Cerny scored in the 12th minute to give DePaul a 2-0 edge. Georgetown got one back around the half hour mark through Meaghan Nally. DePaul quickly answered with goals from Ben and Abby Reed before the half.
Texas A&M victorious over Auburn
The Aggies got a much-needed win against Auburn on Sunday. The victory gave Texas A&M their first winning streak since SEC conference play began. Brooke Piper opened scoring in the 54th minute when she headed in a free kick. Seconds later, Auburn answered when Brooke Ramsier scored directly off of a free kick.
The score would remain tied for the next half an hour until Aggie Emily Bates was taken down in the box by Karlie Gutsche. Haley Pounds converted the ensuing penalty kick to give the Aggies the 2-1 victory. Auburn outshot Texas A&M 25-to-9 on the night. Danielle Rice made six saves on the night for the Aggies.
Vanderbilt scores late to force overtime in loss to South Carolina
Sydney O'Donnell scored with 2 seconds left in the game to take the 16-0-1 Gamecocks to extra time. Before O'Donnell last second effort, South Carolina held a 1-0 lead for 89 minutes as Paige Bendell headed in a corner in the first minute of play to her side the lead. The Gamecocks, however, responded well to conceding late. Daija Griffin scored the golden goal in the 97th minute, South Carolina's third shot in overtime. Vanderbilt didn't manage a single look after regulation.
The Gamecocks are now unbeaten in their last 15 contests. The lone blemish on their record is a 1-1 tie to Oklahoma in the first game of the season. South Carolina will wrap up the SEC regular season this Thursday against Ole Miss.
Related TopicsFeaturedRoad to the 2016 College CupTaylor Kornieck
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Just like with our homes and our customer service, we aim to have the best of the warranties. We stand behind our handy work for many, many years after it becomes your home. You'll be very happy to know that your new Avalon home is covered with the following protective warranties.
Offers coverage for defects in materials and labour which include items such as flooring and fixtures for a period of one year starting on the warranty commencement date.
Coverage for defects in materials and labour related to delivery and distribution systems including heating, electrical and plumbing systems within the unit for a period of two years starting on the warranty commencement date.
Coverage against defects in the building envelope for a period of five years starting on the warranty commencement date.
Offers coverage against structural defects for a period of ten years starting on the warranty commencement date.


text:
namespace ThunderRumble
{

    class TitleBackgroundScreen : public GameScreen
    {
    public:
        TitleBackgroundScreen();
        virtual ~TitleBackgroundScreen();

        virtual void LoadContent() override;
        virtual void UnloadContent() override;
        virtual void Reset() override;
        virtual void Update(float totalTime, float elapsedTime, bool otherScreenHasFocus, bool coveredByOtherScreen) override;
        virtual void Draw(float totalTime, float elapsedTime) override;

    private:
        TextureHandle m_title;
        TextureHandle m_background;
        DirectX::SimpleMath::Vector2 m_centerpoint;
        int m_xdir;
        int m_ydir;
    };

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


BOSTON (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who sparred for years with short-seller William Ackman over the future of Herbalife Nutrition Ltd (HLF.N), on Thursday said he sold roughly $552 million worth of Herbalife stock back to the company, trimming his stake to 21 percent.
Icahn said in a regulatory filing that he sold 10.5 million shares back to the company, for $52.50 a share, after having announced last week that he was ready to part with 11.4 million shares.
The 82-year-old investor remains the nutrition and supplements company's biggest owner after cutting his stake to 35.2 million shares from 45.7 million, which represented a 26.2 percent stake.
Herbalife shares were trading at $50.72, up 2.3 percent, on Thursday shortly before the market close.
Icahn said he was selling because the position had become too large within his portfolio. The sale comes roughly three months after Ackman ended his campaign against the company.
In late 2012, Ackman unveiled a $1 billion short position and predicted Herbalife's share price would eventually fall to zero. Icahn, however, was convinced that the company's future was bright and began buying. In February 2013 Icahn said in a filing that he paid an average $21.03 for his shares. He continued to buy Herbalife shares after that.
Since January, Herbalife's shares have climbed 46.4 percent.


Hi, this is Steve. If this is your first time here, welcome. I appreciate you stopping by. If you've been here before, welcome back. I just want to let everyone know how much I appreciate your participation in what has amounted to, so far, more than two years of effort in getting myself back to a healthy weight. Thank you very much for your support, suggestions, and personal experiences; you've been a great source of strength.
Here's the thing, though; I'm not done yet. My goal this year is to get the rest of that flab off and get down to a healthy weight. I've made progress over the past two years, most of it in the first year, but I think I really let things slide last year, specifically. I have to get things moving again. I will get things moving again.
Thanks again. I hope you'll stop by more often and leave a comment or two. I'd love to hear about your experiences as well.


text:
Ennemis rapprochés ou La Rage au cœur au Québec () est un film américain réalisé par Alan J. Pakula et sorti en 1997.

Il s'agit du dernier film du réalisateur, mort lors d'un accident de la route le .

Synopsis
Rory Devaney, membre actif de l'IRA provisoire, se voit confier la mission d'acheter des armes aux États-Unis, pour que l'IRA continue sa lutte. Il est hébergé chez Tom O'Meara, un policier new-yorkais d'origine irlandaise, qui ignore tout des agissements de son invité. Rapidement, une franche amitié va naître entre les deux hommes. Mais les agissements de Rory et le métier de Tom les amèneront immanquablement à s'affronter.

Fiche technique

 Titre français : Ennemis rapprochés
 Titre original :
 Titre québécois : La Rage au cœur
 Réalisation : Alan J. Pakula
 Scénario : David Aaron Cohen, Vincent Patrick et Kevin Jarre, avec la participation non créditée de Robert Mark Kamen, d'après une histoire de Kevin Jarre
 Musique : James Horner
 Photographie : Gordon Willis
 Montage : Tom Rolf et Dennis Virkler
 Décors : Jane Musky
 Costumes : Joan Bergin et Bernie Pollack
 Production : Robert F. Colesberry, Lawrence Gordon, Shari Hamrick, Karen L. Thorson, Donald Laventhall et Lloyd Levin
 Société de production : Columbia Pictures
 Distribution : Columbia TriStar Films (France), Columbia Pictures (États-Unis)
 Budget : 90 millions de dollars
 Pays de production :
 Format : Couleurs - 2,35:1 - SDDS - 35 mm
 Genre : thriller, action, policier
 Durée :
 Dates de sortie :
 États-Unis, Canada, France :

Distribution
 Harrison Ford (VF : Richard Darbois ; VQ : Ronald France) : Tom O'Meara
Brad Pitt (VF : Jean-Pierre Michaël ; VQ : Alain Zouvi) : Rory Devaney / Francis « Frankie » McGuire
 Margaret Colin  : Sheila O'Meara
 Rubén Blades  : Edwin Diaz
 Treat Williams  : Billy Burke
 George Hearn  : Peter Fitzsimmons
 Mitch Ryan : le chef Jim Kelly
 Natascha McElhone : Megan Doherty
 Paul Ronan  : Sean Phelan
 Simon Jones : Harry Sloan
 Julia Stiles  : Bridget O'Meara
 Ashley Carin  : Morgan O'Meara
 Kelly Singer  : Annie O'Meara
 David O'Hara  : Martin MacDuf
 David Wilmot : Dessie
 Brendan Kelly  : Teddy
 Gregory Salata  : Tony
 Malachy McCourt  : Bishop
 Victor Slezak  : Evan Stanley, agent du FBI
 Scott Nicholson  : le flic débutant
 William Atherton (coupé au montage)
  et Doublagissimo ; version québécoise (VQ) sur Doublage.qc.ca

Production
En 1990, Lawrence Gordon acquiert les droits du script. En 1991, il le présente à Brad Pitt, alors encore peu connu. Le projet traine jusqu'en 1995 quand l'acteur suggère Harrison Ford pour le rôle de Tom O'Meara. Ce dernier donne son accord. Le script est alors retravaillé pour étoffer le personnage d'Harrison Ford et pour développer la relation entre les personnages des deux acteurs. C'est ensuite Harrison Ford qui suggère Alan J. Pakula pour le poste de réalisateur, ce qui convient à Brad Pitt. Milcho Manchevski avait un temps été évoqué.

Le tournage débute en février 1996, alors même que le scénario est régulièrement retravaillé. The New York Times évoque un tournage marqué par les brouilles entre les deux acteurs principaux et les importants dépassements de budget. Les scénaristes Terry George et Robert Mark Kamen sont engagés pour retravailler le script durant le tournage. Brad Pitt menace plusieurs fois de quitter le projet, arguant que le script est devenu incomplet et incohérent, après avoir subi de nombreuses réécritures. Un producteur lui aurait alors dit  Il dira plus tard

Le tournage s'est déroulé du  jusqu'au mois d'. Il a notamment lieu dans le New Jersey (Montclair, Newark), à New York (Long Island, Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Boken Studio, Kaufman Astoria Studios) ainsi qu'à Irvington et en Irlande (Clogherhead et Dublin).

Des reshoots ont lieu en février 1997 dans un studio en Californie, un mois seulement avant la sortie en mars 1997.

Bande originale
 Gonna Fly Now, composé par Bill Conti, Ayn Robbins et Carol Connors
 God Be With You, interprété par Dolores O'Riordan
 Elvis Waits, interprété par Nan Vernon
 Hay Que Poner El Alma, interprété par Victor Manuelle
 All 4 Love, interprété par Color Me Badd
 Rock The Boat, interprété par The Hues Corporation
 Voices of Spring, Op. 410, interprété par l'Orchestre philharmonique de New York
 Veni Creator Spiritus, interprété par Richard Proulx
 (Somebody) Loan Me A Dime, interprété par Boz Scaggs
 Unchained Melody, interprété par les Righteous Brothers
 Trouble Brother, interprété par Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise
 There Will Never Be Another You, composé par Harry Warren et Mack Gordon
 The War Is Over, interprété par Melissa Etheridge

Accueil

Critique

Le film reçoit des critiques plutôt négatives. Sur l'agrégateur américain Rotten Tomatoes, il récolte 34% d'opinions favorables pour 38 critiques. Sur Metacritic, il obtient une note moyenne de  pour 26 critiques.

Box-office
En France, il rencontre un assez bon succès et se classe  du box-office annuel français. Dans le monde, le film réalise plus de 140 millions de dollars de recettes, pour un budget de 90 millions de dollars.

Notes et références

Liens externes

Film américain sorti en 1997
Film réalisé par Alan J. Pakula
Thriller (film) américain
Film évoquant l'Armée républicaine irlandaise
Film sur le conflit nord-irlandais
Film sur le terrorisme
Film de Columbia Pictures
Film se déroulant en Irlande du Nord
Film se déroulant à New York
Film se déroulant dans les années 1990
Film tourné dans l'État de New York
Film tourné à Manhattan
Film tourné à Brooklyn
Film tourné aux Kaufman Astoria Studios
Film tourné dans le Bronx
Film tourné au New Jersey
Film tourné en Irlande
Film tourné à Dublin
Film avec une musique composée par James Horner

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


What is the Energy Passport in Luxembourg?
The luxembourgish energy passport, also known as energy pass, or just CPE (french: certificat de performance énergétique), is a document that explains in detail on 5 pages the energy quality of the residential building and non-residential building. This document is required if you sell, rent, renovate, enlarge a building, or if you build a new one.
Besides the energy passport for Luxembourg indicates the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The 5th page of the certificate shows the different possibilities of energy improvements that are possible.
A five-page energy certificate, in which the fuel and electricity consumption is included, based on different areas of the building.
Being part of our internal rules and in order to assure in a permanent way the quality and conformity to the luxembourgish law, every single energy passport, also known as energy certificate, done by our office is controlled by our specialized civil engineers by using four different types of controls before sending.
The energy passport is established in Luxembourg for the entire building and is valid for a period of 10 years.
The Grand-Ducal Regulation also lays down rules for the real estate industry as well as advertising and displays published in the media. From 1st July 2012 the energy efficiency class (corresponding to the primary energy demand) and the thermal protection class (according to the heating demand) of each building has to be indicated in advetisements fo sale or for rental of residential buildings.
simplified indication of the energy classes by individual letters, such as 'CC', which refers to the first letter on the energy efficiency rating of the building and the second letter to the thermal protection class of the building.
Our civil engineers and sworn court experts make your energy passport and energy consulting in total respect with the luxembourgish law. Give us a call for more informations or for our best offer!
Do you have more questions? Don't hesitate to call our sworn experts or ask us for our best offer!


I launched almost two years ago and PrimaDonna has been with me throughout the adventure at Claudia May Lingerie. Deciding not to stock PrimaDonna moving forward hasn't been an easy decision as I have seen how the PD product has transformed women when we have done in- office fittings and the feedback from orders has always been positive. I still absolutely love the PrimaDonna brand and what it stands for but earlier this year PrimaDonna made the decision to launch their own online store which I have decided not to compete against. Of course there will be a replacement brand coming, I have already got one in line which will be coming shortly and it caters to a lot more sizes (yay).
PrimaDonna is now 40% OFF across the website so make sure you stock up on your favourite products! Sorry to anyone who may be disappointed by this and thank you so much for supporting Claudia May Lingerie with your PrimaDonna orders.


text:
Q: Habitat Fragmentation Index calculation What is the correct plugin/function to calculate a Habitat Fragmentation Index in QGIS (I use the 2.18 version) or FRAGSTAT starting from a vector layer?
I suppose that, first, I must convert the vector layer into a raster layer?
At the beginning, I was thinking about to use the Shannon Diversity Index, but I don't think that it's appropriate as it calculates the diversity in terms of habitats, but not the degree of habitat fragmentation.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange