text:
Buckle Reports Excellent Earnings this Quarter
By Billy Houghton August 23, 2020 651
The Buckle, Inc. announced today that net earnings of $34.7 million for the fiscal quarter ended August 1, 2020, or $0.71 per share ($0.71 per share on a diluted basis).
Net sales for the 13-week quarter that is financial August 1, 2020 increased 6.0 % to $216.0 million from net product sales of $203.8 million for the prior 12 months 13-week fiscal quarter finished August 3, 2019. Online sales increased 99.0 percent to $46.0 million for the duration that is 13-week August 1, 2020, compared to internet product sales of $23.1 million for the 13-week period ended August 3, 2019.
Web product sales for the 26-week period that is fiscal August 1, 2020 decreased 18.2 percent to $331.4 million from net sales of $405.1 million for the last year 26-week fiscal period ended August 3, 2019. In the web product sales increased 64.3 percent to $78.1 million for the time scale that is 26-week August 1, 2020, compared to net sales of $47.5 million for the duration that is 26-week August 3, 2019. Net gain for the second quarter of fiscal 2020 was $34.7 million, or $0.71 per share ($0.71 per share on a basis that is diluted, in contrast to $16.4 million, or $0.34 per share ($0.34 per share on a basis that is diluted for the second quarter of financial 2019.
As formerly announced, Buckle temporarily shut all brick and mortar stores due to the pandemic that is COVID-19 March 18, 2020. The organization began the method of reopening particular stores the week of April 26, 2020, following state and local reopening guidelines. As of 1, 2020, 431 of Buckle's 446 stores were august that is open. Of the 15 shops which were closed, 2 have perhaps not yet reopened due to damage suffered through the closing period. The remaining 13 stores are positioned in California and had formerly reopened but were subsequently closed again during in accordance with state guidelines july. The Company's on line shop has remained open without disruption.
Management will hold a conference call at 10:00 a.m. EDT to discuss outcomes for the quarter today. The conference guideline 9361957 to participate in the phone call, please call (877) 226-8216 for domestic phone calls or (409) 207-6983 for international calls and guide. A replay of this call will be available for a duration that is two-week today at 1:00 p.m. EDT by calling (866) 207-1041 for domestic calls or (402) 970-0847 for international calls and starting the conference code 2314297.
Providing a unique mix of high-quality, on-trend clothing, accessories, and footwear, Buckle suits fashion-conscious young men and females. Known as a denim location, each shop carries a wide selection of fits, designs, and completes from leading denim brands, including the Company's brand that is exclusive BKE. Headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska, Buckle presently operates 446 shops that are retail 42 states. At the time of the end of the quarter that is fiscal it operated 446 stores in 42 states in contrast to 449 shops in 42 states during the end of the quarter that is second of 2019. The Buckle Inc. announced today that net earnings of $34.7 million.
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This blog is going to instruct you about the steps on how to use Alexa as an intercom and other Alexa drop in feature. How to Use Alexa as an Intercom. Follow the below-mentioned two-step processes to use your Alexa Echo device as an intercom. By enabling Alexa drop in with your selective contacts, you can use your device as intercom. How to Use Alexa as an Intercom Rename the Echo Device... Alexa FAQs. 1. How do I use Alexa? Alexa allows you to ask questions and make requests using just your voice. For instance, you can ask Alexa a question, such as "What is the weather today in London?", or tell Alexa to do something, like "add cat food to my shopping list," or "play jazz."
To use Alexa for PC, start by saying the wake word (�Alexa,� "Computer," etc.) followed by a command. Alternatively, select the Alexa on Windows icon to start the app. Some features available on Echo devices are not supported by Alexa for PC.


My fitness journey started through sport . As an avid rugby player, I started training to progress on the field. Through this i started to train for size and strength and fell in love with bodybuilding and strength training.
After putting on some size and seeing benefits at rugby I realised fitness wasn't just size and strength, it broadened to much more than that. After doing some research I found CrossFit was exactly what I needed and believed in. I started work as a personal trainer in a commercial gym and now want to help others to be the fittest they can possibly be across all domains by coaching here at Central Staffs Crossfit.
I have competed in Powerlifting & CrossFit whilst playing at a good level of Rugby.


text:
     NAME
	  fglStencilFunc - set function	and reference value for
	  stencil testing

     FORTRAN SPECIFICATION
	  SUBROUTINE fglStencilFunc( INTEGER*4 func,
				     INTEGER*4 ref,
				     INTEGER*4 mask )

     PARAMETERS
	  func	Specifies the test function.  Eight tokens are valid:
		GL_NEVER, GL_LESS, GL_LEQUAL, GL_GREATER, GL_GEQUAL,
		GL_EQUAL, GL_NOTEQUAL, and GL_ALWAYS. The initial
		value is GL_ALWAYS.

	  ref	Specifies the reference	value for the stencil test.
		ref is clamped to the range [0,2n-1], where n is the
		number of bitplanes in the stencil buffer. The initial
		value is 0.

	  mask	Specifies a mask that is ANDed with both the reference
		value and the stored stencil value when	the test is
		done. The initial value	is all 1's.

     DESCRIPTION
	  Stenciling, like depth-buffering, enables and	disables
	  drawing on a per-pixel basis.	 You draw into the stencil
	  planes using GL drawing primitives, then render geometry and
	  images, using	the stencil planes to mask out portions	of the
	  screen.  Stenciling is typically used	in multipass rendering
	  algorithms to	achieve	special	effects, such as decals,
	  outlining, and constructive solid geometry rendering.

	  The stencil test conditionally eliminates a pixel based on
	  the outcome of a comparison between the reference value and
	  the value in the stencil buffer.  To enable and disable the
	  test,	call fglEnable and fglDisable with argument
	  GL_STENCIL_TEST.  To specify actions based on	the outcome of
	  the stencil test, call fglStencilOp.

	  func is a symbolic constant that determines the stencil
	  comparison function.	It accepts one of eight	values,	shown
	  in the following list.  ref is an integer reference value
	  that is used in the stencil comparison.  It is clamped to
	  the range [0,2n-1], where n is the number of bitplanes in
	  the stencil buffer.  mask is bitwise ANDed with both the
	  reference value and the stored stencil value,	with the ANDed
	  values participating in the comparison.

	  If stencil represents	the value stored in the	corresponding
	  stencil buffer location, the following list shows the	effect
	  of each comparison function that can be specified by func.
	  Only if the comparison succeeds is the pixel passed through
	  to the next stage in the rasterization process (see
	  fglStencilOp).  All tests treat stencil values as unsigned
	  integers in the range	[0,2n-1], where	n is the number	of
	  bitplanes in the stencil buffer.

	  The following	values are accepted by func:

	  GL_NEVER	    Always fails.

	  GL_LESS	    Passes if (	ref & mask ) < ( stencil &
			    mask ).

	  GL_LEQUAL	    Passes if (	ref & mask ) < ( stencil &
			    mask ).

	  GL_GREATER	    Passes if (	ref & mask ) > ( stencil &
			    mask ).

	  GL_GEQUAL	    Passes if (	ref & mask ) > ( stencil &
			    mask ).

	  GL_EQUAL	    Passes if (	ref & mask ) = ( stencil &
			    mask ).

	  GL_NOTEQUAL	    Passes if (	ref & mask ) /	( stencil &
			    mask ).

	  GL_ALWAYS	    Always passes.

     NOTES
	  Initially, the stencil test is disabled.  If there is	no
	  stencil buffer, no stencil modification can occur and	it is
	  as if	the stencil test always	passes.

     ERRORS
	  GL_INVALID_ENUM is generated if func is not one of the eight
	  accepted values.

	  GL_INVALID_OPERATION is generated if fglStencilFunc is
	  executed between the execution of fglBegin and the
	  corresponding	execution of fglEnd.

     ASSOCIATED	GETS
	  fglGet with argument GL_STENCIL_FUNC
	  fglGet with argument GL_STENCIL_VALUE_MASK
	  fglGet with argument GL_STENCIL_REF
	  fglGet with argument GL_STENCIL_BITS
	  fglIsEnabled with argument GL_STENCIL_TEST

     SEE ALSO
	  fglAlphaFunc,	fglBlendFunc, fglDepthFunc, fglEnable,
	  fglIsEnabled,	fglLogicOp, fglStencilOp

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Nick Ciarelli, who formerly ran the Think Secret Website as Nick DePlume, thinks that Apple has thrown in the towel when it comes to fighting leaks. Appleis lawyers have suddenly become silent on the issue, Mr. Ciarelli wrote for the new publication, The Daily Beast on Sunday.
Mr. Ciarelli noticed the trend in his communications with several publishers. Jeremy Horwitz, editor in chief of iLounge, told the author in an email that Apple has changed: "Probably due to the awful PR its prior lawsuits generated, and because cease-and-desist letters only confirm leaks, Apple has wisely stopped going after the people who generate its ibuzz.i"
The author gave examples of Appleis tough approach in the past, including his own unhappy experience of being sued by Apple when he was a freshman in college for leaking details of the Mac mini two weeks before it was released.
Nowadays, the tenor of Apple seems to have changed. "It may have something to do with the fact that Apple leaks have shifted from scrappy fan sites into the mainstream. These days, Mac rumors are regularly published by technology news powerhouses like Engadget, which is owned by AOL, while the spy photos of the new iPod nano this summer were first published on the personal blog of Kevin Rose, the founder of the popular social news web site Digg," Mr. Ciarelli wrote.
The author noted that when Apple threatens its biggest fans, the negative PR tarnishes Appleis brand. Arnold Kim, the owner of MacRumors.com agreed, noting that rumors keep a lot of attention focused on Apple.
"Appleis apparent shift marks the end of a self-defeating war," Mr. Ciarelli concluded. Probably with a sigh and some mixed emotions.


Join us for the first night of Passover on April 19th.
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Click here to learn more about our Birthright Israel trip, Onward, Masa, Alternative Breaks and more!


The Paris peace conference, which is expected to host officials from 72 different countries, is slated to take place on January 15.
The Middle East parley scheduled in Paris on Sunday is a "rigged conference" that will do nothing to promote the cause of peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Netanyahu's comments came before a meeting with visiting Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Bende, who is among the 40 foreign ministers expected to attend. All told, some 75 counties are expected to send delegations, with Secretary of State John Kerry leading the US delegation.
A Palestinian delegation will be in Paris, but is not necessarily expected to be at the summit. Israel has opposed the meeting, insisting that the only way to achieve a twostate solution is through direct talks.
"We're all faced here with a great challenge against the forces of terrorism that not only seek to destroy Israel but seek of course to render any possibility of peace totally hopeless," Netanyahu said alongside Brende.
"There are other such efforts that render peace hopeless and one of them is the Paris conference," he said, repeating hislong-standing, harsh opposition to the conference.
The future that Netanyahu was alluding to is apparently the inauguration of US President- elect Donald Trump in the upcoming week.
Brende said that Norway will be at the conference and will "make sure there is a nuanced outcome." The Norwegian diplomat met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday in Amman to discuss the conference.
Abbas, who is expected to meet with the Pope in the Vatican on Saturday, is also expected to meet with French President François Hollande in Paris sometime this weekend.
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who also met Brende, told him the conference was detached from the reality of what is happening in the region, and as such is irrelevant.
Kerry's participation in the conference gave Hollande the much-awaited US seal of approval for the conference.
Israeli diplomats said that with US President Barack Obama set to leave office next Friday, this will be the administration's last chance to reaffirm its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a position recently expressed through its abstention on the UN Security Council's anti-settlement resolution, as well as Kerry's 70-minute speech during which he criticized the policies of the Israeli government.
One government official in Jerusalem said that given Kerry's speech two weeks ago, it was not surprising that he will attend the summit, despite Israel's objections.
He said Israel was not overly concerned about Kerry's presence in Paris, because both he and Obama will be leaving office just five days after the summit.
"There is nothing we can do about the summit," the official said. "We can't postpone it or stop it. It is going to happen, and as it is going to happen, it will be forgotten with time.
A top French diplomat, meanwhile, confirmed that UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and the six parameters Kerry laid down in his speech for moving the diplomatic process forward will be included in the final communiqué of the conference, though the statement will not enter into the details of Kerry's parameters.
The diplomat rejected Israeli assertions that France is trying to impose a peace process or to encourage the Palestinians to seek the international diplomacy route instead of negotiating, adding that at this precise moment, before Trump takes office, it is important to stress international consensus about the two-state solution. The source said that France does not intend to seek another UN Security Council resolution following the conference.
Another top French diplomat confirmed that the conference team has been in contact with people within the new Trump administration, but noted that these contacts yielded little constructive results.
The statement at the end of Sunday's upcoming conference is expected to include two parts: a political declaration, combined with an incentive package to both sides.
The participants will affirm their commitment to the two state solution, emphasizing that it is the only solution which could guarantee peace and security to Israel, the Palestinians and the region. It will refer to UN Security Council Resolution 2334, Security Council Resolution 242 (adopted after the Six Day War), Security Council Resolution 339 (adopted to bring an end to the Yom Kippur War), the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and the latest Quartet report from July 2016 regarding the basis for a two-state process.
For the moment, it seems that France would rather not include the issue of two capitals within the statement, and would stick with the 1967 armistice lines for the two-state formula. Still, this issue will be discussed at a last-minute meeting of senior officials before the conference on Saturday, where the statement draft will be finalized.
The benefit package proposed to both sides is less controversial, and is expected to include three major elements including a call for both sides to open civil society dialogue channels, with an international civil society stakeholders forum in the near future; a concrete commitment by several countries to work with the Palestinians on governing and institution capacity building projects (several such projects were discussed in recent months), based on the Palestinian Statehood Strategy paper; and economic incentives, including the encouragement of private investments in the Palestinian Authority, and the possibility of upgrading Israeli and Palestinian economic relations with the European Union market.
This last element is actually the conference's strongest card vis-à-vis Israel, offering Jerusalem and Ramallah the status of "privileged partners," thus taking the trade association agreement between Israel and the EU to the highest level possible for non-EU member states.
Ambassador to France Aliza Bin-Noun told The Jerusalem Post that Israel will not cede to pressure from the international community.
"France is positioning itself as a principle player on the global arena, garnering both international and domestic dividends over this conference. But we have seen how the international community operates vis-à-vis Israel; with two anti-Israeli decisions at UNESCO, UN Security Council Resolution 2234 and different decisions by the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva. This conference will not advance the two-state solution," she said.


text:
\section{Introduction}
One of the most exciting recent advances in brain mapping is the introduction of CLARITY.
All cells are surrounded by a phospholipid bilayer which scatters light, rendering most biological tissues opaque to the naked eye.
Thus to use light microscopy, it is often necessary to physically slice brains.
Sectioning tissue has two major drawbacks for researchers interested in building whole brain connectomes.
First, slicing can dislocate synapses and axons necessary for tracing neuronal circuitry.
Second, the inter-sectional resolution will always be much lower than the intra-sectional resolution, making neurite tracing difficult~\cite{Kim}.
CLARITY avoids these problems by converting biological tissues into translucent and porous hydrogel-tissue hybrids.
This permits the penetration of photons and molecular probes while enabling interrogation using light sheet microscopy~\cite{Kim}.

CLARITY-optimized light sheet microscopy (COLM) was introduced to speed up image acquisition while maintaining high resolutions \cite{Tomer}.
Manipulation of these images is impossible on a desktop computer since each is over a terabyte in size.
Hence these images were ingested into the NeuroData computational cluster, which was designed for multi-resolution storage, access and visualization of large images \cite{Burns13,Kutten16b}.

Deformable registration of acquired images to a standard atlas is an essential step in building connectomes.
It is necessary for determining which brain regions axons pass through or the locations of synapses.
In this work we use a large deformation diffeomorphic technique for deformably registering CLARITY images to the Allen Reference Atlas (ARA).
Since its introduction in 2004, the ARA has been widely used by researchers to study brain anatomy, function and disease~\cite{Jones}.
As ARA images greatly differ from COLM volumes in appearance, we adopt Mutual Information (MI) matching during deformable registration.
We then apply this to the deformable registration of eleven COLM-acquired mouse brain images to the ARA.

\section{Image registration in the LDDMM framework}
The problem of deformable image registration is as follows.
Let $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N$ be the background space where $N$ is the number of dimensions. Given template image $I_0: \Omega \to \mathbb{R}$ and target image $J_1: \Omega \to \mathbb{R}$ we seek a nonlinear map $\varphi$ such that $I_0 \circ \varphi^{-1}$ is aligned to $J_1$.
In biological imaging, deformations need to account for a large variety of local morphological variations.
Hence $\varphi$ should ideally be modeled as a diffeomorphism, i.e. a differentiable coordinate transform with differentiable inverse.

\emph{Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping (LDDMM)} was introduced by Beg \textit{et al.} to compute these types of maps between images~\cite{Beg05}.
In LDDMM, time-varying velocity field $v: [0,1] \times \Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^N$ flows $I_0$ to the space of $J_1$ over time domain $[0,1]$.
Diffeomorphic map $\phi_{st}: \Omega \to \Omega$ represents the coordinate transform from time $s \in [0,1]$ to time $t \in [0,1]$ where $s < t$.
The flow is defined by $\frac{d}{dt} \phi_{st} = v(t, \phi_{st})$ or in integrated form as $\phi_{st} = id + \int_s^t v(\tau,\phi_{s \tau}) d\tau$ with $id(x) \doteq x$.
Let the deformed template at time $t$ be defined by $I(t) = I_0 \circ \phi_{t0}$.
LDDMM finds optimal $v$ which minimizes the functional
\begin{equation}
 E(v) = R(v) + \frac{1}{2 \sigma^2} M(I(1), J_1)
 \label{eq:functional}
\end{equation}
where $M(I(1),J_1)$ is a matching term that is minimized when deformed template $I(1)$ is aligned with target $J_1$.
In Beg \textit{et al.}, the Sum of Squared Differences (SSD), $M(I(1),J_1) = \norm{I(1) - J_1}_{L^2}^2$, was adopted.

Regularization term $R(v) = \frac{1}{2}\int_0^1 \norm{Lv(t)}_{L^2}^2 dt$ has differential operator $L = \mathop{\mathrm{diag}}(L_1, \ldots, L_N)$ with identical entries $L_i = -\alpha \nabla^2 + \gamma$.
This Laplacian-based operator ensures that $v$ is smooth by penalizing second order derivatives of $v$.
Constant $\alpha >0$ determines the smoothness of the transform with higher $\alpha$-values yielding smoother transforms.
The constant  $\sigma >0$ determines the weight of the matching term relative to the regularization term and its chosen value typically depends on the level of noise in the image.

\section{Mutual Information approach for LDDMM}
As SSD is based on image subtraction it assumes that bright regions should be aligned to bright regions.
This assumption is routinely violated in microscopy where a wide variety of stains and fluorescent labels can be used to generate images that vary greatly in appearance.
Hence ARA atlas image to CLARITY registration using SSD matching has been shown to give poor results.
A previously proposed workaround to this problem was to register the binary mask of the subject's brain to that of the atlas brain under SSD matching \cite{Kutten16b}.
In this ``Mask-LDDMM'' method, only edge information was incorporated and gray level values within the images were ignored.
While this method could accurately align superficial cortical structures its practical application was limited due to misalignment of deeper brain structures.

A more robust way to address this problem is to adopt Mutual Information (MI) as the matching term in LDDMM.
Since MI does not explicitly depend on grayscale values, it can be used to align corresponding image regions regardless of whether they share intensity values~\cite{Pluim}.
In this approach, we define the matching term as the negative MI
\begin{equation}
 M(I(1),J_1) = - \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}  p_{IJ}(\eta,\xi) \log \left(\frac{p_{IJ}(\eta,\xi)}{p_I(\eta)p_J(\xi)}\right) d\eta d\xi \label{eq:mi}
\end{equation}
where $\eta \in \mathbb{R}$ and $\xi \in \mathbb{R}$ are intensity values from $I(1)$ and $J_1$ respectively.
Distributions $p_I(\eta)$, $p_J(\xi)$ and $p_{IJ}(\eta,\xi)$ come from the deformed template, target and joint histograms of the images.

Many past works have looked into combining various registration models with MI.
In \cite{Avants07} for example, the authors consider similar large deformations with MI but impose symmetric registration constraints between template and target.
For the applications of this paper, we are interested in template-to-target registration for which such a constraint is not necessary.
This can be done very conveniently within the standard LDDMM framework through the optimal control viewpoint presented recently in \cite{Miller15}, as we succinctly derive below in the context of our applications.

With the previous notations, the optimal control problem in our case is
\begin{equation}
 v^* = \arg\min\limits_v \{E(v):\; \partial_t I =  - \nabla I \cdot v,\; I(0) = I_0 \}
 \label{eq:problem}
\end{equation}
where the state is the deformed template image $I$ and $v$ is the control that evolves the image through the advection equation $\partial_t I =  - \nabla I \cdot v$.
The corresponding Hamiltonian $H(\rho,I,v) =  - \inner{\rho}{\nabla I \cdot v}_{L^2} - \frac{1}{2}\norm{Lv}_{L^2}^2$ is classically obtained by introducing a costate function $\rho$ in $L^2$ associated to the constraints.
The dynamics of optimal solutions to \eqref{eq:problem} can be then obtained from Pontryagin's Maximum Principle and are fully described by the associated Hamiltonian system.
Following \cite{Miller15} while keeping $M$ undefined we obtain the following system of equations:
\begin{subequations}
 \label{eq:solution}
 \begin{align}
  I(t) &= I_0 \circ \phi_{t0}  \label{eq:solution1}\\
  \rho(t) &= - \frac{1}{2 \sigma^2} \Big(\partial_I M\big(I(1),J_1\big) \circ \phi_{t1}\Big) |D\phi_{t1}| \label{eq:solution2}\\
  v(t) &= -(L^\dag L)^{-1}(\rho(t)\nabla I(t))  \label{eq:solution3}

 \end{align}
\end{subequations}

A notable advantage of this formulation is that the change in matching term $M$ only appears as the endpoint condition for the costate $\rho$ through the G\^{a}teaux derivative $\partial_I M\big(I(1),J_1\big)$.
In the case of MI matching term \eqref{eq:mi}, one has the derivative expression
\begin{equation}
 \partial_I M(I, J_1) = -\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \partial_I p_{IJ}(\eta,\xi) \log p_{J|I}(\xi|\eta) d\eta d\xi.
 \label{eq:miGradient}
\end{equation}
which can then be plugged in \eqref{eq:solution2}.

\section{Algorithm Implementation}
The set of equations in \eqref{eq:solution} do not entirely provide the solution to \eqref{eq:problem}.
The evolution of $\rho$ depends on the final state $I(1)$ which in turn depends on the velocity $v$ and thus $\rho$ as well.
However, the solution itself can be obtained by an iterative fixed-point or equivalently gradient descent procedure using $\nabla_v E(t) = v(t) + (L^\dag L)^{-1}(\rho(t)\nabla I(t))$.

In our numerical implementation, we follow a similar discretization approach as Beg \textit{et al} \cite{Beg05}.
Time domain $[0,1]$ is discretized into $T$ uniformly spaced time-steps such that $0 = t_0 < t_1 < \ldots < t_{T-1} = 1$.
We initialize with $v(t_j) = 0$ and $I(t_j) = I_0$ for each time-step $j \in \{0, \ldots, T-1\}$.
In each iteration we find the new time-varying velocity for all time steps $j$, $v_\mathrm{new}(t_j) = v(t_j) - \varepsilon \nabla_v E(t_j)$ where $I(t_j)$, $\rho(t_j)$ are obtained from equations \eqref{eq:solution1} and \eqref{eq:solution2}.
Following \cite{Beg05}, maps of the form $\phi_{t_j 0}$ and $\phi_{t_j 1}$ are computed using semi-Lagrangian integrators while operators $L$ and $K$ are applied in the Fourier domain.
Starting from an initial step-size $\varepsilon_0$, a adaptive step rule is adopted to update $\varepsilon$ in each iteration.

We follow Mattes \emph{et al.} \cite{Mattes} to evaluate MI equation \eqref{eq:mi} and its gradient \eqref{eq:miGradient}.
A Parzen window approach is used to estimate the joint distribution $p_{IJ}$ with 3rd degree B-splines for the template intensities and 0th order B-splines on the target intensities.
Numerically, Mattes Mutual Information and its derivatives were computed from its implementations in the open source Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) \cite{Avants12}.
Our code also takes advantage of ITK's virtual domain framework, enabling evaluations of MI values and derivatives at a lower resolution than the template and target images \cite{ITK2}.
Using SimpleITK \cite{Lowekamp}, we packaged this implementation into the \emph{NeuroData Registration (ndreg)} Python module \cite{Kutten16b} which was designed for alignment of images stored in NeuroData infrastructure.
The \emph{NeuroData Input/Output} (ndio) module, a python implementation of the \emph{Connectome Annotation for Joint Analysis of Large data} (CAJAL) library \cite{GrayRoncal}, was also written for downloading and uploading image data stored in our computational framework.

\section{Results}
\subsection{MI Registration Pipeline}
Eleven mouse brains were CLARIfied and imaged with COLM as described by Tomer \textit{et al.}~\cite{Tomer}
Acquired image data was then stitched and ingested into the NeuroData cluster.
At their full resolution of 0.6 $\mu m$ x 0.6 $\mu m$ x 6 $\mu m$, each volume was over a terabyte in size.
Image data was then propagated to more manageable lower resolutions (Fig~\ref{fig:workflow}).

\begin{figure}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width=0.8\columnwidth]{workflow.png}
 \caption{Pipeline from image acquisition with microscope to visualization on the web.
 Acquired image data is stitched and ingested into NeuroData Storage (ndstore).
 After propagation to lower resolutions each CLARITY volume was registered to the ARA with MI-LDDMM as implemented in ndreg.
 CLARITY-aligned ARA annotations are uploaded to ndstore where they can be visualized over the terabyte-scale acquired volume.}
 \label{fig:workflow}
\end{figure}

For registration, each CLARITY volume $I_0$ was downloaded from the NeuroData cluster.
They were resampled to a 50 $\mu m$ resolution and registered to ARA atlas image $J_1$ with 12-parameter affine alignment under MI matching.
Deformable registration was then done with MI-LDDMM as implemented in ndreg.
A cascaded-$\alpha$ approach was adopted in which a smoother registration with $\alpha=0.05$ was followed by registrations at $\alpha=0.02$ and $\alpha=0.01$ to refine the results (Fig.~\ref{fig:clairitySlices}).
Both ARA-aligned CLARITY volumes and CLARITY-aligned ARA annotations were uploaded to the NeuroData cluster.
This allowed us to visualize ARA annotations overlaid on the terabyte-scale CLARITY images (Fig~\ref{fig:workflow}).
Deformable registration was done with SSD-LDDMM and Mask-LDDMM to demonstrate the advantages of MI-LDDMM.
For validation MI-LDDMM was also compared to SyN ANTs \cite{Avants07} with MI cost and $\sigma=1.0$ mm Gaussian regularization (Fig.~\ref{fig:comparison}).

\begin{figure}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width=1.0\columnwidth]{claritySlices.png}
 \caption{Detailed MI-LDDMM registration results for a CLARITY mouse brain.
 First, second and third columns are coronal, axial and sagittal slices respectively.
 First row and forth row are CLARITY template and ARA target respectively.
 Second and third rows are the deformed template and its checkerboard pattern with the ARA respectively.
 Final row is the deformation grid.}
 \label{fig:clairitySlices}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
 \centering
 \begin{subfigure}{0.18\columnwidth}
  \captionsetup{justification=centering}
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{ssdCoronal.png}
  \caption{SSD- LDDMM}
  \label{fig:clarityCoronalSSD}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}{0.18\columnwidth}
  \captionsetup{justification=centering}
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{maskCoronal.png}
  \caption{Mask- LDDMM}
  \label{fig:clarityCoronalMask}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}{0.18\columnwidth}
  \captionsetup{justification=centering}
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{miCoronal.png}
  \caption{MI- LDDMM}
  \label{fig:clarityCoronalMI}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}{0.18\columnwidth}
  \captionsetup{justification=centering}
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{synCoronal.png}
  \caption{SyN \\ \mbox{ }}
  \label{fig:clarityCoronalSyN}
 \end{subfigure}
 \begin{subfigure}{0.2\columnwidth}
  \captionsetup{justification=centering}
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{lmkError.png}
  \caption{Landmark Error}
  \label{fig:lmkError}
 \end{subfigure}
 \caption{Comparison of SSD-LDDMM (\subref{fig:clarityCoronalSSD}), Mask-LDDMM (\subref{fig:clarityCoronalMask}), MI-LDDMM (\subref{fig:clarityCoronalMI}) and SyN ANTs (\subref{fig:clarityCoronalSyN}) registration of CLARITY volume.
  Panes (\subref{fig:clarityCoronalSSD}-\subref{fig:clarityCoronalSyN}) have an ARA coronal slice on the left juxtaposed to the corresponding aligned CLARITY slice on the right.
  Green arrows point out that the corpus callosum is misaligned by SSD-LDDMM but aligned correctly by MI matching.
  Red arrows show that SSD-LDDMM distorts bright regions.
  Fiducial landmarks were manually placed in the corpus callosum, and midbrain of the acquired volumes.
  Pane (\subref{fig:lmkError}) compares mean errors between the deformed CLARITY and ARA landmarks after registration.
 }
 \label{fig:comparison}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Multi-resolution registration}
The typical run-time of MI-LDDMM can be particularly long.
Thus we coupled our implementation with a cascaded multi-resolution approach where the optimization problem is first solved on a coarsened grid with ITK's virtual domain infrastructure.
Output vector fields $v$ are then interpolated to initialize optimization at the next higher resolution.
In this experiment, ARA registration was ran on all 11 CLARITY brains at 800 $\mu m$, 400 $\mu m$, 200 $\mu m$, 100 $\mu m$ and then 50 $\mu m$ resolutions with $\alpha=0.02$.
These results were compared to a single-resolution alignment at 50 $\mu m$.
In Figure~\ref{fig:clarityMultiscalePlot} it is clear that the multi-resolution optimization was more efficient than the single-resolution trial.
In this example, a decline below 0.9 for normalized $M(I(1), J_1)$ took over 100 minutes with single-resolution alignment and only 10 minutes with multi-resolution registration.
The multi-resolution registration was also more optimal as it terminated at a lower $M(I(1),J_1)$ value (Fig.~\ref{fig:clarityMultiscalePlot}).
This suggests that the multi-resolution method also prevents the algorithm from stopping at local minima of the functional.

\begin{figure}
 \centering
 \includegraphics[width=0.8\columnwidth]{clarityMultiscalePlot.png}
 \caption{Comparison of the single and multi-resolution MI-LDDMM for one of the CLARITY volumes. Matching term $M(I(1), J_1)$ was normalized to range of [0,1] by ratio $\frac{M(I(1), J_1) - M(J_1, J_1)}{M(I_0, J_1) - M(J_1, J_1)}$, at each iteration}
 \label{fig:clarityMultiscalePlot}
\end{figure}

\section{Conclusion}
In this work we implemented a large deformation diffeomorphic algorithm for registering images using mutual information matching.
We then applied it in a pipeline to register the ARA to CLARITY image volumes for overlay at the terabyte scale.
We also demonstrated how a multi-resolution approach can improve registration quality while reducing algorithm run time.

\section{Acknowledgments}
The authors are grateful for support from the DARPA SIMPLEX program through SPAWAR contract N66001-15-C-4041, DARPA GRAPHS N66001-14-1-4028.

\bibliographystyle{splncs03}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


I was able to get pictures along with e-mails via my hotmail account on my Windows PC. Since two weeks, the e-mails do not shows any type of pictures. I can view an asterisk inside a box in the place of picture attachments. When I click on it, nothing happens on my system. How can I resolve this issue?
The first step required is to login into your hotmail account with correct username and password. Then, go to the inbox of your account. You can then view 'Options' label on that page. Click on it and then select 'More Options'. After that, locate the 'Preventing junk e-mail' label from the current page. Select 'Safe and blocked senders list' under that label. Finally, click on 'Safe senders' and check whether it is possible to receive pictures after that.


text:
by: denikPosted on: May 1, 2022
The Last of Us actress, Bella Ramsey, jokes about Pedro Pascals bad game skills
Although Pedro Pascal could be one of the stars of the next television adaptation of HBO of _ the last of us_, it seems that he is not so good playing video games. This is something that Pascal himself has had no qualms about the past, so it is not as if he were pretending to be something he is not. That said, Pascal's co -star in the last of us_ Bella Ramsey, has now publicly joked about him and his lack of "game skills".
In a recent interaction on social networks today, a fan implored Ramsey to make her Pascal's co -star played all the time. The last of us. In the last month, Pascal confirmed that he actually never played the game by himself, what he did not see as something negative. Ramsey ended up responding to the fan and said that it is something she would like to convince him to do, but that it is simply not possible due to his experience in regard to video games. "He would, but he has no skills to play," Ramsey said jokingly.
Although Ramsey is clearly only having fun with Pascal, as mentioned above, Pascal does not see as something bad that he has never played. The last of us. In fact, in an interview with GQ recently, Pascal said that because he has never played the iconic title of PlayStation, he allows him to have a different mentality to work on the television program. "I found Joel so impressive, I found that everything was a visually impressive experience," Pascal said about a moment when he saw his nephew play the game. «And then I worried about wanting to imitate too much, which I think could be correct in some circumstances, and then an error in others. So I just wanted to create a healthy distance, and that was more in the hands of Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann ».
It remains if Pascal will ever end up playing The last of us by himself one day, but maybe with some help from Ramsey, he could find a way to finish the game. As for the HBO version of The last of us the program does not yet have a release date, but will arrive in 2023.
UncategorizedTags : Bella Ramsey, game, Games, good playing, Pascal, Pedro, Pedro Pascal, played, Ramsey, television adaptation, video gamesLeave a Comment on The Last of Us actress, Bella Ramsey, jokes about Pedro Pascals bad game skills
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Supporting difficult conversations
A couple of years ago a colleague sat me down to have a "difficult conversation". He was unhappy with something I was doing, and wanted to tell me about it. Ordinarily these things are particularly awkward, but this was slightly different to most. The company had, as one of its corporate values, something like "We do not flinch from telling the truth", and when he first approached me about it he used words that echoed that line that was used so often in the organisation, "I need to have a do-not-flinch conversation with you." I knew immediately what he was referring to.
What stayed with me most of all from that encounter was the way the company gave him the means to have the conversation. (The contents of the conversation was relatively undramatic in the end, at least compared to what I was expecting, and his concern was quickly resolved.) It was obviously something that he was a little apprehensive about, but the company's culture made it easier for him. In this particular company people were often openly praised for demonstrating particular company values, so they were not just words on a poster.
I don't think every organisation should have a mantra about having difficult conversations, but it certainly helped in this case. There are other ways to do it. Perhaps some semi-formal training. Perhaps a "difficult conversations week" where people are expected to raise a (very slightly) difficult subject with one other colleague, just to practise, and then share experiences. There will be many more ways, too.
Certainly, I recognised that if an organisation really wants its people to tackle difficult issues, then it can do much more than just say so—there are practical ways it can help.
Photo by Mark Barrot
12 January 2021 · Posted in General management ·
Determining success criteria
Creating guidelines using reverse engineering


As President/CEO of AMVETS Department of California Service Foundation, I assure you that each Board member and staff member of AMVETS Department of California Service Foundation is Committed to Serve… Those Who Served. Because of our financial transparency, we have earned the Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar, for the second year in a row after earning our 501 (c)(3) designation. You can find out how your donation dollars and household items help California veterans by clicking here to view our report.
I look forward to a productive year as AMVETS' Foundation President. Keep an eye on our events calendar. We are hosting an AMVETS SoCal Golf Tournament in the Spring 2019!
Are you a veteran? Join AMVETS, click here to join.


text:
Israeli student art project containing relics from Auschwitz will be exhibited
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The final project of an art student who said she used artifacts she removed from Auschwitz will go on display after she clarified that they came from outside the former Nazi camp.
Beit Berl College near Kfar Saba in central Israel announced late last week that the exhibition by Rotem Bides would go on as planned. The decision came following a disciplinary hearing with Bides, 27, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.
Ynet reported last week that Bides had visited the Auschwitz site six times while an exchange student in Krakow, and removed relics including shards of glass, small bowls, a metal screw, soil and a sign warning visitors not to take anything from the former Nazi camp.
Bides later clarified that she did not steal the objects, but gathered them from outside the camp.
"The student said her words were taken out of context by the journalists who interviewed her and that they put words in her mouth," the management of the college said in a statement, Haaretz reported.
"The student sent a letter of clarification to the college management, stating she had committed nothing criminal like stealing and apologizing to anyone offended by the report, and the college decided to allow her to present her final project at the exhibition. Also, the college will send a letter to the Auschwitz museum to clear up any misunderstanding caused by the erroneous report," the statement also said.
The exhibit will go on display to the public on Wednesday. It will include a letter explaining her creative process.
After the publication of the original Ynet article, the museum called on Israel's state attorney to intercede and return the relics.
Trending on JTA
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Sylvain Sylvain, Jewish guitarist for the influential band New York Dolls, has died at 69
Identity/Crisis	Opinion
Secular Israelis are obsessed with traditional Judaism. Micah Goodman helps explain why.
By	Identity / Crisis	 January 19, 2021 3:46 pm
Israel is an apartheid state, leading Israeli human rights group says
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Sponsored	Israel
To understand Israel's future, we must look at where it is today
By	Michele Chabin	 January 14, 2021 9:45 am
Nancy Pelosi quoted a famous Israeli poem in her speech calling on Republicans to support the 25th Amendment
By	Ben Sales	 January 13, 2021 10:01 am
Despite the Capitol violence, this Israeli town is still named after Donald Trump
By	Sam Sokol	 January 12, 2021 5:53 pm
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Israeli researchers use novel methods to seek treatments for deadly pancreatic cancer
By	Larry Luxner	 January 11, 2021 2:03 pm


The Provost is the Head of the College. The Provost is responsible for providing leadership to the College and for maintaining and promoting the efficiency and good governance of the College in accordance with policies and procedures prescribed by the Act and Statutes of the University.
Must be of professorial rank or equivalent grade.
Must be a distinguished scholar with capacity to motivate and direct staff.
Must exhibit a high sense of leadership qualities and organisational skills and must be above reproach.
Must possess excellent communication and inter-personal skills.
Must be visionary, business-oriented and able to establish rapport between industry and the University for common purpose.
Must be sober with maturity and drive for sound and impartial judgement.
Must be able to attract grants for research and development activities in the College.
Must be able to serve a full THREE-YEAR Term of Office before attaining the compulsory retiring age of SIXTY (60).
The appointment, which is full-time, shall be for THREE (3) YEARS in the first instance and may be subject to renewal for another term of Three (3) Years after evaluation of performance, altogether making a maximum of Six (6) Years. The Candidate may opt to be a faculty member after serving the six-year term before attaining the statutory retiring age of 60.
The Successful Applicant shall be expected to assume duty by AUGUST 01, 2019.
Salary and fringe benefits attached to the post are attractive.
A Two-Page Statement of Candidate's Vision for the College (font size 12 with 1.5-line spacing).
Applications should be forwarded under REGISTERED COVER marked "APPLICATION FOR PROVOST, COLLEGE OF SCIENCE" OR APPLICATION FOR PROVOST, COLLEGE OF ART AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT, to reach the following addresses, not later than, 26th April, 2019. Only shortlisted applicants shall be contacted.


We're now at the end of a 1.5-year study to help Silicon Valley's local transit agency, VTA, rethink its bus network. I explained the thinking, and public conversation, that led to the draft final plan in this comprehensive post, and also showed how it compares to the existing one. The final plan looks pretty much like the draft one with a few additions and adjustments.
Here's the new network. Download a sharper copy here.
The plan is expected to be implemented when the BART extension into the area opens next year.
You can explore the plan in more detail here, including maps, route-level info, and the background documents in the Board report.
Most importantly, more people can get to more places sooner, so that they can do more things and have better lives. And that's what we're all about.
It seems to me that if you're near downtown San Jose, Barryessa Bart would be better? There're really good connections between there and downtown.
The stop on line 181 in Milpitas only exists on the weekends. On weekdays 181 heads straight to DTSJ and 180 provides express service from Fremont BART to Milpitas. I don't think I've ever heard the rationale that the weekend stop in Milpitas is for people to get off the bus and take light rail all the way to DTSJ. I always thought it was a compromise to provide express service to two destinations with one bus.
Anyway, under the new service plan the current 181 express bus ride from Fremont BART to Civic Center would be replaced by BART to Berryessa and transfer to Line 61, which takes 10 minutes to travel to Civic Center under the current schedule. The new network shows this line as red with all-day 15-minute service. Assuming 10 minute transfer time and 20 minute BART time, that's 40 minutes. You would be hard pressed, on a weekday, to make it from Fremont BART to Civic Center in 40 minutes even in a private vehicle. I've personally taken several 181 rides that took over an hour between those two points.
As far as fares are concerned, VTA has not, to my knowledge, released their proposed fare policy for the BART extension or BART-to-VTA transfers. Nonetheless, we could look at current fares and make some assumptions. Fremont to Bay Fair (about the same distance as Fremont to Berryessa) is $1.95, VTA bus is $2, and VTA currently provides a 50 cent discount for BART-to-VTA transfer. That comes out to $3.45, which is lower than current express bus fare.
The unfortunately bad design of VTA light rail (circuitous, slow) is what's really hurting you here. Light rail advocates around the world have complained about how poorly implemented VTA light rail was. The 1st Avenue line and the southern branches are OK (though they could have been done a lot better), but what were they thinking with the Alum Rock route? And the route to Mountain View is even worse.
Sadly, a lot of my excitement for the new network has been dimmed by finding out my rapid 522 stop was eliminated ahead of this change. I actually bought my house partly because of the access to the rapid bus. It's now just over a mile each way to the closest rapid stops, instead of a 1/4 mile. That's a distance that is too far to bother walking, since the 15 extra minutes of walking will eat up the time savings for almost all my trips. Transferring isn't much of an option since they also decreased the frequency of the local 22 for reasons I can't comprehend. Thus gutting what was nine buses an hour to that stop down to only four an hour. The stop was quite popular too, I don't understand why it was eliminated. I have to assume that it's because not -enough- businesses and housing were there, though I also wonder if the overall hostility of the Alameda Business District to buses (the head of that organization actually called them 'limos for the poor') was a factor in eliminating good transit service to the area.
The upcoming new rapid 523 on the other main line is an equal distance from me, but a direction I tend not to travel nearly as often, so the minor improvement over the 323 doesn't excite. And another line I travel reasonably often was eliminated, making doctor's visits more challenging in the future, but it should be manageable. With just one seemingly minor change, the loss of a bus stop, the overall effect for me from this will probably be far less bus utilization, more catching rides or staying in my neighborhood.
But it's not just about me, of course. Hopefully some people will ride the bus more. I'm also trying to have faith that with enough new housing along the 22 route, maybe we'll get better frequency back. I really think it makes more sense to have the local have the greater frequency. I'm also hoping for some kind of shift on the transfers front, since right now I often don't get a monthly pass, but if I'm going to have to transfer a lot more, it will start getting really expensive quickly, and I'm going to have to budget more for transit either way. But overall, I wasn't super excited about the changes, but understood the vision, and now I'm just bummed that a neighborhood with formerly great transit access was sacrificed in the name of that vision.
The solution to that aspect of forced transfers (we can't all have single seat rides) iss the daily cap/day pass such that once you have boarded paid more than twice (for example) your clipper card shows a day pass good for the rest of the 24 hours since your first trip. There is some effort to make this change part of the clipper 2.0 process. Please take the time to lobby VTA to get on board with that change.
Are there smartcard systems that have the specific functionality you describe? I suspect that the Genfare system in use here in Tucson would not be capable of it, but I don't know whether it would require a full system upgrade or could be done with an add-on. So, I'm curious as to where In the US it is possible to roll that third ride into a day pass that starts the clock at the beginning of the first ride, and if so who is the vendor for their smart card system. Another question: in the system as you envision it, would there be an open transfer window such that a rider could get on two or three buses within a couple of hours, or would that second charge happen on the second boarding regardless?
Not in the US, but here in Auckland we have a smart card system designed by Thales which has that functionality.
I would like to point out though that the question at hand isn't actually a technology problem; there are dozens of card systems that can do this but the operators don't use it. This is almost always a policy question, and most policymakers probably work downtown and don't make transfers trips, so they don't see the advantage.
Unfortunately here most policymakers aren't using transit at all. Whatever policy changes with regard to the fare structure that we push through (citizens advisory committee on transit) require a great deal of time and trial-and-error, as in "We're working with the vendor…" I do not think in the US there are "dozens" of card systems available; I'm not an expert on that matter but my understanding is 5 to 7 compaines at most have this market wrapped up. And in our case I believe we took the low bid and picked a relatively cheap package, because other cities have spent far more than we did on getting the system in place to begin with. All the smartcard systems I'm aware of in the US (for buses anyhow) have limited functionality and choices are made between one thing and another so that each locality has some good choices available but not many. The potential of the smartcard system is FAR from being achieved. Very frustrating, since it has caused many problems for folks, and not (yet) made up for them, as far as I can see. George Lane, can a person make more than one boarding on a single-ride fare where you are? Or do they have to pay the whole day pass price after the first boarding?
Yep. You just wave the card as you get on and off of the bus and it calculates your fare. We have fare zones and you get charged based on how many zones you pass through and get charged the same price regardless of how many vehicles you use to do it.
This isn't a technology question though. Any smart card system can do that. The transit authority in any area just need to decide to implement that policy within the card. If you aren't convinced of this, then ask yourself which part of the technology required to do that does your system not use, there won't be one.
OK I should delete all my previous comments because… David Vartanhoff, VTA Clipper Card already does this. ??
Mea culpa. I had forgotten they do that. AC Transit does, too.
"Automatically applied on the third trip when using Clipper." It is SF Muni which doesn't do this yet.
Possibly George Lane misunderstood my question… I just looked at the Auckland Transit site to learn about the HOP card. It looks to me like you do have an open transfer window of 4 hours on one fare, as long as you don't exceed 5 boardings or wait more than 30 mins between exiting one vehicle and boarding another. But with reference to the day pass, it looks like that's a separate product, and only lasts until midnight on the day activated, not for 24 hours. Let me know if I've got that wrong! But the idea I really like for my community is the day pass that automatically activates at your third "tap" and lasts 24 hours from your first tap. It would eliminate having to carry two cards (one for day passes and one for continuous use of stored value) or to know your whole day's plan in advance in order to get the best price. It would also incentivize more transit trips later in the day, rather than resorting to the car for an evening out once you've already used the bus or streetcar. This is what David Vartanhoff was describing… does it exist? Any info on revenue impact?
You understand perfectly how the fare structure works in Auckland. However, you seem to think that this is related to the card used; it isn't.
This is a fare policy set by the local government. The card already collects all of the data used to implement either fare structure, or indeed both fare structures, our council/transit authority just doesn't want to do that.
I'm not sure about the detailed revenue breakdown; we introduced the card about four years ago and then introduced the free transfers last year (but we changed fares at the same time) total revenue dropped about 4%.
VTA Clipper Card currently turns into a day pass at the third tap, but only in the VTA system. No idea what the fare impact was. I know that it does lead me to forego the expensive monthly pass a lot of the time, because my utilization is right on the edge where the occasional day pass makes more sense than the up front $70.
For me, a lot of days I only make two trips, either there and back, or a two-step one-way trip. But with the routes changing, I'll be racking up that third–and free fourth– tap more often, for traveling the same distance. For things like deciding whether to jump off the 22 to the 522, knowing that I'll have to pay an extra couple bucks plus a wait is a strong disincentive to transfer, unless I know I'll be making multiple stops that day. Along those lines where there's a local and a rapid, a transfer window system is more appealing than a day pass one. But it's not a big deal for my personal situation.
Something that worked better between agencies for longer trips would be nice. Inter-agency there is very little fare coordination.
Oh, and day passes expire at 3am. Not a full 24 hours, but doesn't penalize most people who are using transit late at least.


text:
Q: Emulate DirectoryIndex in Django dev server I'm able to configure a new Django project to serve static files. This is the project layout:
.
├── __init__.py
├── manage.py
├── settings.py
├── mystatic
│   └── index.html
└── urls.py

settings.py:
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    join(abspath(dirname(__file__)), 'mystatic'),
)

I run the server the usual way:
./manage.py runserver

This works pretty well. At http://127.0.0.1:8000/static/index.html it shows my custom index page. What I'd like to do is access to http://127.0.0.1:8000/static/ (with or without trailing slash) and get the same page. Instead the server doesn't respond with my own page, but with the default Django project page (It worked! Congratulations on your first Django-powered page. etc.).
How should I change things (maybe in urls.py or in some view), so that even if without specifying index.html both the URLs give the page I want? Using plain Apache this is the default behavior, because when a page name is not specified index.html is used (see Apache's DirectoryIndex). I need to replicate the same on Django development server.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
2021 Reappraisal Information
Let's Talk Reappraisal: Virtual Town Halls with Buncombe Property Assessor
Buncombe County will host two virtual town halls on Aug. 10, and Aug. 24, on the 2021 reappraisal process. The public is invited to join a community conversation with Buncombe County Property Assessor Keith Miller. The town halls will cover everything from what is fair market value, how property is appraised, how to appeal a value, exemptions available, and more.
Register for the event at the link below to take part in the Town Hall, questions will be answered from those registered. The town halls will also be aired live on Facebook.
· Reappraisal Town Hall #1
Monday, Aug. 10, 2020 at 2 p.m.
Register in advance for this webinar
Biltmore Forest Tax Information
Biltmore Forest residents pay both Town and Buncombe County property taxes. The 2021 Biltmore Forest tax rate is 0.345 cents per each $100 of assessed value. Property taxes are due September 1st and become delinquent after January 5th, 2022. 2% Interest begins on January 6th, 2022.
How to pay your tax bill
Payment is accepted by cash (in person), check or money order. Checks/money orders should be made payable to the Town of Biltmore Forest. Please note the bill number from your tax bill in the memo section.
Payments can be made:
In Person at Town Hall, 355 Vanderbilt Rd, Asheville, NC 28803;
By Mail to Town of Biltmore Forest, PO Box 5352, Asheville, NC 28813;
By Dropbox which is the green box labeled Town Hall in the parking lot of Town Hall next to the flag pole.
Online through Official Payments (a convenience charge will apply)
Questions about your tax bill
For questions regarding address/name changes, assessment/valuations, personal property listings-please contact Buncombe County Tax Department at (828) 250-4910.
For questions regarding your Biltmore Forest tax bill, please contact Town Hall (828) 274-0824. Please note that Biltmore Forest tax bills are sent to the address on record with Buncombe County as of the scroll date.
Escrowed Taxes
Tax bills are mailed, upon request, to mortgage/lending companies. If the request is made prior to the billing date of the taxes, the homeowner will not be mailed a copy of the Biltmore Forest tax bill.
If no request is made prior to the billing of Biltmore Forest tax bills, the bill will be mailed to the homeowner. Requests from mortgage/lending companies will still be processed after the tax bills are mailed. Please contact your mortgage/lending company if you have questions regarding the status of your escrow account.


Everything about you is lovely. You're an immensely charming girl with a beautiful heart and more grace and elegance than I know how to describe. You are a true princess from a dreamy fairy tale, and above all, I just want you to know... I was enchanted to meet you too."


Yes! Yes to all of this! The "real" books thing really ruffles my feathers. I really want to have a big-ole sign that says "libraries: all we carry are 'real' books!" Something like that.
This is great stuff, Sarah! I wish that all kids could have the benefit of your advocacy for choice in summer reading.


The geographical position of Russia meant that it was influenced by both the West and the East, and this showed in their fighting men. A rich variety of styles, including imports from as far away as Scandinavia and Byzantium, made the Rus warriors of the thirteenth century an impressive sight, particularly those with the money to import the best. This set from Strelets is intended to complement the Zvezda set of Russian Knights, with both being intended for the Battle of Lake Peipus in 1242.
The twelve poses in this set are all different, and feature many different weapons. Swords and bows, lances and maces are all on show, as is one man with an axe and another with a flail. Three of the figures have ring hands, and several weapons have been provided to fit these (one of each). All the poses are reasonable, and lend themselves to either charging or melee scenes.
The types of costume and armour are varied, as they should be, but all the items are appropriate for this period and place. In all cases the shields are moulded with the figure, so setting up is easier, and the various shield shapes seem correct. The emphasis on bows and swords is about right for these warriors, but we liked the inclusion of ring hands to allow some flexibility of weapon choice as well as realising better poses.
Such figures as these require a lot of surface detail, and those in this set do pretty well. All the armour, mail etc is nicely textured and every shield has a design embossed on it (though as always we would prefer plain shields). Though there are some very small areas of plastic where the mould could not reach, we found no flash at all. Even the separate lances were straight (unlike some earlier sets), though the very thick joins with the sprue means such delicate items need a lot of trimming to produce a good result. The ring hands needed slight enlargement to take some of the weapons, but this at least means the fit is tight, which is much better than being too loose. The horse poses are a great improvement on some previous efforts, and all the men sit on any horse, though they will require gluing to remain seated. When placed next to the set from Zvezda these figures are on comparable size, but exhibit a rather more chunky appearance which is a feature of all the figures from Strelets. Nonetheless the two sets could easily be placed next to each other without looking mismatched. This is a fair set which, at the time of release, filled a hole for this period left by the Zvezda sets.


text:
namespace paint_preview {

GlyphUsage::GlyphUsage() : first_(0), last_(0) {}
GlyphUsage::GlyphUsage(uint16_t first, uint16_t last)
    : first_(first), last_(last) {
  DCHECK_EQ(first, 1U);
  DCHECK_LE(first, last);
}
GlyphUsage::~GlyphUsage() = default;

DenseGlyphUsage::DenseGlyphUsage() : GlyphUsage(), bitset_(0, 0) {}
DenseGlyphUsage::DenseGlyphUsage(uint16_t num_glyphs)
    : GlyphUsage(1, num_glyphs), bitset_(num_glyphs + 1, false) {}
DenseGlyphUsage::~DenseGlyphUsage() = default;

void DenseGlyphUsage::Set(uint16_t glyph_id) {
  if (!ShouldSubset() ||
      (glyph_id != 0 && (glyph_id < First() || glyph_id > Last())))
    return;
  bitset_[glyph_id] = true;
}

bool DenseGlyphUsage::IsSet(uint16_t glyph_id) const {
  if (!ShouldSubset() ||
      (glyph_id != 0 && (glyph_id < First() || glyph_id > Last())))
    return false;
  return bitset_[glyph_id];
}

void DenseGlyphUsage::ForEach(
    const base::RepeatingCallback<void(uint16_t)>& callback) const {
  for (uint16_t i = 0; i < bitset_.size(); ++i) {
    if (bitset_[i])
      callback.Run(i);
  }
}

SparseGlyphUsage::SparseGlyphUsage() : GlyphUsage() {}
SparseGlyphUsage::SparseGlyphUsage(uint16_t num_glyphs)
    : GlyphUsage(1, num_glyphs) {}
SparseGlyphUsage::~SparseGlyphUsage() = default;

void SparseGlyphUsage::Set(uint16_t glyph_id) {
  if (!ShouldSubset() ||
      (glyph_id != 0 && (glyph_id < First() || glyph_id > Last())))
    return;
  glyph_ids_.insert(glyph_id);
}

bool SparseGlyphUsage::IsSet(uint16_t glyph_id) const {
  return glyph_ids_.count(glyph_id);
}

void SparseGlyphUsage::ForEach(
    const base::RepeatingCallback<void(uint16_t)>& callback) const {
  for (const auto& key : glyph_ids_)
    callback.Run(key);
}

}  // namespace paint_preview


text:
Indian automaker Mahindra considers second US plant in Michigan
Published Thu, Aug 8 201911:30 AM EDT
Indian automaker Mahindra and Mahindra said on Thursday it plans to open a plant in Flint, Michigan, to make vehicles including mail delivery trucks for the US market, a move that could create up to 2,000 jobs.
Mahindra already produces its off-road Roxor vehicle at its manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan, which is at full capacity.
A Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Roxor off-road vehicle sits on display during the 2019 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Michigan, Jan. 15, 2019.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Indian automaker Mahindra and Mahindra said on Thursday it plans to open a plant in Flint, Michigan, to make vehicles including mail delivery trucks for the U.S. market, a move that could create up to 2,000 jobs.
"A significant facility expansion is envisioned to support manufacturing and assembly of new products for the U.S. market," Mahindra said in a statement.
Production of the company's mail delivery trucks is dependent on Mahindra winning the United States Postal Service's 'next generation delivery vehicle' contract, which will be announced later this year and has four other contenders, the company said.
Mahindra said it is also in talks with several other states that have suitable sites, and its decision could be influenced in part by the financial incentives that Michigan will provide.
"While we're keeping our options open, we think the former Buick City site in Flint would be a great fit for us," said Rick Haas, chief executive officer of Mahindra Automotive North America.
"It's close to our current facility, which improves overall enterprise efficiency."