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San Francisco cleans up
Used to be in San Francisco, Calif., every rainfall, shower or downpour, caused the combined sewers to overflow at the shoreline of San Francisco Bay,
Written by American City & County Administrator
Used to be in San Francisco, Calif., every rainfall, shower or downpour, caused the combined sewers to overflow at the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, contaminating the beaches, preventing residents from swimming, surfing and board sailing and forcing the city to post health warnings at the shoreline for months at a time.
In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, which set in motion a nationwide effort to clean up the country's waterways.
Two years later, San Francisco adopted a master plan for wastewater management. In 1997, the city embarked on a program to build necessary facilities to upgrade wastewater treatment and protect San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The major components of the program were completed in March 1997.
The construction projects have included new treatment plants located on both sides of the city; wet weather storage tunnels that ring the city and store and treat combined sewage during wet weather; and a deep outfall discharge that conveys treated Westside wastewater 4.5 miles beyond the shoreline.
As a result, San Francisco is one of the first cities in the country with combined sewers to achieve full compliance with Clean Water Act requirements. The city wastewater facilities now capture, store and treat all wet weather flows, sewage and stormwater, protecting the bay and the ocean.
Upgrading its system presented a unique challenge to San Francisco, because, during rainstorms, the city's many hills, combined with the high percentage of paved surfaces, quickly created a large volume of stormwater runoff. The highly urbanized city had very little space for the construction of facilities or the large storage and transport systems needed to hold stormwater. These physical factors complicated the construction of wastewater control facilities.
Additionally, the rocky terrain and the shoreline areas used for the system's storage/transports are below sea level, so engineers did whatever they could to make the building process easier. For example, they used open trench construction with pilings to hold back the sides of excavations.
And in sandy areas below the waterline, contractors introduced soft soil tunneling techniques never before used in the United States. Coffer dams were used along the shoreline to protect the bay's resources.
The storage/transports catch the combined stormwater and sewage as it overflows the sewer system but before it reaches the shoreline of the bay or ocean. The transports also hold stormwater and sewage for later treatment.
Total storage capacity is equivalent to two days of waste flow during dry weather. The transports also provide treatment consisting of settling and removal of floatable materials prior to shoreline discharge when wastewater flows exceed the system's total storage capacity.
By 1982, about 70 percent of the combined sewage was controlled. By 1986, an additional 20 percent was controlled with primary treatment. In 1993, secondary treatment was available for this component. Program completion provided control and treatment for the remaining 10 percent. Although this last component constituted the smallest volume, it also involved some of the most difficult construction, with costs that exceeded $300 million.
The Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant, a major component of the master plan, was built two-thirds underground so that part of the San Francisco Zoo could be built above it. This sharing of land was necessary in the relatively small and dense city; otherwise, it would have been impossible to site the facility. Such concepts won awards for design, construction and operation.
For wastewater treatment systems, the ultimate environmental performance measure involves sampling marine organisms and conducting bioassay tests to determine if the treated effluent causes harm. This sampling and testing has consistently shown no adverse affects to the marine life of the bay or ocean.
The newly completed program means that sewage-carried trash is no longer on the beach or in the water. Additionally, the beaches can now be used after rainstorms because bacteria levels are not a threat to public health.
Community involvement was a major component of each project within the program. The Citizen's Advisory Committee on Wastewater provided overall program oversight for 25 years, and the city established special task forces, comprised of government agencies, community groups and individuals, for several component projects.
Issues addressed by the residents included facility location, appropriate treatment levels and localized construction impacts. Community involvement resulted in improvements to public resources.
Areas receiving improvement included a community center in one of the affected neighborhoods, a park, jogging paths, the oceanside highway (which was re-configured to hiking, biking and equestrian trails), and a seawall.
To meet the strict deadlines, including those for permits and enforcement orders, the city established a separate organization within the government: the Clean Water Enterprise.
This group, which made all the key decisions, consisted of managers, administrators, engineers and scientists who focused solely on the waterway construction program. The projects included two secondary treatment plants, three tunnels, four major pump stations and 11 major storage/transport facilities providing 190 million gallons worth of storage for combined sewage.
The facilities have been designed to high aesthetic standards to enhance the city's visual environment. Most are underground, but the above-ground pump stations and treatment plants are intended to improve the urban landscape.
San Francisco paid approximately half the construction cost for the new facilities, and EPA and the California State Water Resources Control Board provided the remainder. (The city's sewer service fees are in the mid-range nationwide and are the exclusive source of revenue to pay for debt service on bonds and repay loans as well as provide funds for regular operations and maintenance.)
Construction took 20 years and required an expenditure of more than $1.4 billion, or $1,900 for every person in the city.
How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient
This article first appeared on Urgent Communication. It's a scenario we've all experienced: an ambulance with a blaring siren racing against time to get a person in medical distress to a hospital through traffic. What we don't see is 5G connectivity enabling paramedics to communicate with hospital staff via video conference and coordinate care in […]
North Texas alliance partners with Marketplace.city on smart government solutions
Harris County deploys next-generation security in 150 public buildings
Public procurement can be transformative for stakeholders in a community
The 10 Most Sustainable Large U.S. Cities


Below you will find a list of discussions in the 6th Element Engineering forums at the Kia Forte Turbo Forum. The 6th Element Engineering forum is for discussion of: 6th Element Engineering - Pooler, GA - 888.400.8414.
Sticky: 6th Element Engineering Shifter Bushings!
Sticky: Forum member discount code!
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6th Element Engineering Downpipe update!


Scooper - Technology News: How does sensory information translate into behaviour?
How does sensory information translate into behaviour?
It remains one of the most fundamental questions in neuroscience: How does the flood of sensory information — everything an animal touches, tastes, smells, sees, and hears — translate into behavior?
A state-of-the-art microscope, which allows scientists to peer into the brains of animals in real time, may provide the answers.
Built by Vivek Venkatachalam, a postdoctoral fellow working in the lab of Professor of Physics Aravinthan Samuel in collaboration with fellow postdoc Ni Ji, Professor Mark Alkema of UMass Worcester, and Professor Mei Zhen, a former Radcliffe Fellow at the University of Toronto, the microscope captures 3-D images of all neural activity in the brains of tiny, transparent C. elegansworms as they crawl.
The microscope is described in a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Though the brains of other animals can be imaged — similar techniques have been used with larval zebrafish in the past — whole nervous system wiring diagrams have not yet been mapped for other species.
The precise location and activity of every neuron is recorded 10 times a second.
Capturing all the neural activity in the brain, however, is easier said than done.
Using fluorescent markers, researchers then extract the activity of the neurons and identify which neural pathways are active. With a simple model of how the worms crawl, researchers also reconstructed the worms' posture, enabling them to connect specific neural activity patterns to movements.
Ultimately, Samuel said, the microscope will be used to study a wide range of questions in neuroscience. The new tool complements and draws upon the wide range of powerful tools and knowledge already available in the worm. This is reflected in how the study arose from an extensive collaboration between the Samuel, Zhen, and Alkema labs with other C. elegans experts, including Andrew D. Chisholm at University of California, San Diego, and Jagan Srinivasan from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The prospect of future collaboration in many areas of worm neuroscience is enticing.
One day, Samuel said, researchers may be able to monitor all the worms' neural activity as they grow from birth to adulthood in an effort to understand the functional and structural basis of the maturation of behavior.


Azide compounds have vast applications in military and civilian industries. Some of their applications include use in drug or drug intermediate production, macro cyclic polymer production through click reaction, automobile airbag production, energetic binders such as GAP, oxidizer, plasticizer and burning rate control additive in solid composite propellants. Due to the wide range of applications of azide compounds, the synthesis of these compounds is important. Although the SN2 reaction between alkyl halides and sodium azide is usually used for the synthesis of alkyl azides; the direct synthesis of these compounds from alcohols, which are commercially available, is more attractive. In this paper, synthesis methods and military applications of alkyl azides have been discussed.


text:
Q: How to create nodes in c++? Write a function to insert a node to the head of the linked list. The function takes two arguments: a pointer to the first node in the double linked list and a string value. It should create a new node with the given value to the head of the double linked list.
This is the question I need to answer. I'm not looking for the answer I'm just unsure how to create a node in C++.

A: That should be what you wanted.
struct node{
    node * next;
    std::string value;
};

node * addToTheFront(node * front, std::string value){
    node * temp = new node;
    temp->next = front;
    temp->value = value;
    return temp;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


New Year's Day holiday, there must be a lot of people choose in the winter lazy sunshine nest on the couch playing mobile phone games, to pass the holiday time. But recently, 360 Mobile Applications Research Center found that some malicious games after the user installed successfully, collect mobile phone serial number and other privacy information and upload to the server, and then to buy props and game coins in the way to induce users to send text messages, and intercept http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/ aggregation/34499.html "> Custom service feedback information, so privately customized a variety of deduction business, to the user to bring property losses!" In this respect, 360 security experts advised users to download the game when the choice of 360 mobile phone assistant security of the third party market.
According to 360 security experts analysis, such a disorderly deduction of mobile phone games will recommend users to send text messages to buy the game of gold coins, props and other virtual items, and actually sent is the SP business custom text messages, while shielding service provider feedback message, the deduction fee behavior is very covert, users are usually mobile phone owed only wake. In addition, this kind of application also collects the user handset IMEI, APN and so on information, hidden privacy leakage risk.


On Thursday, the gold price fell amid a recovery in the dollar and weak statistics from China.
For several days, the US currency was under pressure from domestic statistics, which were slightly below market expectations. Yesterday, there were no important economic reports in the United States, so the dollar was able to partially restore its position. Since gold is nominated in dollars, the increase in its value makes the yellow metal more expensive for most investors.
China yesterday published a weak report on industrial production, which put pressure on the entire market of non-ferrous and precious metals. China remains the largest consumer of metals, so a further decline in economic activity will adversely affect on physical demand for metals. As a result, at the end of the day, gold lost just over 1% in price, silver declined by 1.8%, platinum lost 1.7% in price.
Today the market is trying to recover due to the weakening of the dollar. USD index is still being traded with a decrease of 0.1%. But, the situation as a whole remains rather uncertain, since the market is currently influenced by some factors that are completely unknown. Investors are waiting for the resolution of the trade conflict between the United States and China, but when and how it will be resolved is not yet clear. Trump said today that the negotiations are going well, but so far they can not unequivocally answer the question whether the parties will succeed in concluding a deal. Earlier it became known that the American side decided to postpone the meeting of Trump and Xi Jinping from late March to April. Therefore, most likely in the coming weeks, the signing of a trade agreement should not be expected.
The problem of Brexit, which investors have been closely watching this week, remains unresolved. Yesterday, the British Parliament voted to postpone Brexit. But the timing will depend on the further results of the voting, which will take place next week. If the parliament accepts the May's plan by March 20, Brexit will be rescheduled for June 30. If parliament rejects the May plan, Brexit will be delayed for a longer period.
On the chart, there are still more signals in favor of resuming upward movement and further development of a bullish trend that has dominated the market for several months. But, this option does not exclude the possibility of forming a short-term kickback price movement, in order to retest the support area located in the region of 1290.00. Therefore, today we focus on the level of 1300.00. If the price manages to overcome it - we are waiting for growth to 1310.00. If the level of 1300.00 is not passed - the option with the retest of the level of 1290.00 will be relevant.
Support levels: 1297.00, 1290.00, 1285.00.
The main scenario - a decline to 1290.00.
Locally, the market situation remains rather uncertain, although for a longer perspective, the graph has significantly more signals in support of the growth scenario. Today better to refrain from active trading with gold.


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Combatting fraud in open banking
May 1, 2020 | By Hayden Harrison
How will we enable the frictionless future of open banking? By effectively combatting fraud and financial crime. But open banking poses new challenges in addition to those the industry has dealt with before, notably the introduction of third-party providers into what has traditionally been a relatively closed relationship between a financial institution and its customers.
While regulation offers some guidance for verifying third parties and transaction requests, it's far from perfect. Mastercard's solution, Open Banking Protect (which is enabled in part by Konsentus [1]) provides real-time verification of third-party registration status combined with behavioural fraud monitoring and alerts to protect financial institutions and their customers from liability and loss.
We invited Mastercard's David Head, Vice President for Open Banking Product Management, and Brendan Jones, Chief Commercial Officer at Konsentus to tell us more. Follow the discussion below.
Welcome, Brendan and David. Let's start by considering the challenges: What is the risk of fraud and financial crime in open banking, and how does this differ from traditional banking and payment risk?
Brendan Jones, Konsentus: We all know that within the payments industry, new payment methods are vulnerable — let's call it the soft underbelly for financial crime.[2] Open banking is a relatively new concept, and the ecosystem is just at the start of its journey. Financial criminals will look to exploit any vulnerability until the industry can effectively shut them down.
But the construct of open banking is very different to any of the other mechanisms that are familiar to financial institutions today. In the four-party model for card-based transactions, for example, there are well-established mechanisms for financial institutions to deal with financial crime and resolve disputes. In open banking, these mechanisms are still being established — every participant is learning as we go.
David Head, Mastercard: Financial institutions go to a lot of effort to secure the channels between themselves and their customers, whether that be in a branch, over the telephone, via the internet or using a mobile device — that's a one-to-one relationship. What open banking then does, is put another entity — a third-party provider — between the customer and the bank, opening up new challenges. Not only does the bank need to understand who its customer is, they also need to understand that this new third-party that's operating on behalf of the customer is operating legitimately, and that the entity itself hasn't been compromised in any way.
Brendan: Regulators have taken the view that as TPPs are regulated in their own right, there's no requirement for them to strike commercial contracts with the banks to access their payment service users' data. So, banks now face the daunting task of having third-party providers looking to access payment accounts they hold on behalf of payment service users with whom the bank has no established commercial relationship.
How do the risks differ between open banking-enabled payment initiation and account information services?
David: From a customer perspective, the perception of risks between payment initiation and account information services is potentially the opposite of reality. Payment related risk is very tangible — if I'm victim of payment fraud, that's real money out of my bank account. It's very easy to quantify what the loss is. However, the underlying payment system already has levels of protection, and the PSD2 legislation ensures the customer will get their money back. Whereas account information… if someone started intercepting your bank statement data every month, and built up that data and profile on you, on one hand you ask, 'Well, what can anyone do with that?' But if criminals get access to that information, they can undertake a number of different potentially bigger fraudulent activities. Particularly in the small business market: if a fraudster can see what kind of payments a business makes, and who it usually pays, they can start instigating some really sophisticated attacks.
Brendan: If criminals are in possession of that information, there's an awful lot of havoc they can wreak. They can use the accounts for illegal activities such as money laundering and receipt of fraudulent funds.
So, what are the challenges when it comes to validating the regulatory status of third-party providers for financial institutions? How do these challenges impact the financial institutions?
David: End customers, to a certain extent, are protected by PSD2 legislation — if they lose money through an open banking transaction the bank is obliged to pay them back. The challenge and the risk then sits with the financial institution. Therefore, it's really important for banks to make sure they are dealing with legitimate third-parties to determine whether a transaction should be processed or not.
The challenges come in the way the trust model has been built in Europe: each third party needs to obtain a license from a national regulator, and once they've got that license they can passport it to a number of European markets.[3] Immediately, there's a pan-European dimension — you're dealing with third-party providers whose home NCA could be in a different country and will therefore be operating under potentially slightly different regulatory regimes.
Then, these providers need to obtain an eIDAS certificate (a digital credential) from a specialist Qualified Trust Service Provider (QTSP) to prove their identity every time they attempt to access a customer's account.[4]
Brendan: The problem with an eIDAS certificate is that it only proves the validity of a third-party at the time of issue, and certificates can last for a period of up to two years. Within that intervening period, many different things could have happened to the regulated status of the third-party.[5]
Then we come to the challenges at an operational level. I, as a bank receive an API call from a third-party in possession of an eIDAS certificate. I then need to establish which QTSP issued that certificate to the third-party in order to validate its true identity with the QTSP in real-time. There are approximately 90 QTSPs across the whole of the European Economic Area (EEA).
Secondly, and perhaps the most complex part of this, is that the only legal system of record of authorisation for a third-party provider is its host National Competent Authority — of which there are 31 across the EEA. It's difficult for a bank to reach out to 31 National Competent Authorities in real-time: All 31 NCAs, across the 115 registers maintained, run on different technology stacks; the information presented is not standardised or consistent, and there's often duplication or information missing.[6]
I imagine the complexity and risk of error when checking the regulatory status of a third-party provider negatively impacts the experience of the end user wanting to use the service being provided, and any legitimate third-party provider that is wrongly red-flagged…
Brendan: You raise a good point, and the regulation is very specific about this: when a user accesses a service that is provided by a third-party, it must be consummate with the service they would receive if they were accessing the financial institution directly —there must not be additional latency in the process. If banks aren't performing to the minimum service level agreements (SLAs) required, then the third-parties have a right to complain to the regulators of the detrimental impact on their business.
Brendan, you've said previously that Konsentus spent three and a half years developing its solution before bringing it to market, and that for the first six months everyone you spoke to about it looked at you like you'd "just got off a spaceship." Tell us more… why didn't the industry recognise these challenges, and how did you educate them otherwise?
Brendan: When regulation drives change there are many unforeseen consequences, for example: National Competent Authorities not having a responsibly to update QTSPs and vice versa. As with all legislation, the devil is in the detail: it's only once you start implementing it that you uncover bumps in the road.
Our mission has been one of education, education, education - to inform participants in the market of the issues and challenges they face from a regulatory perspective, and the 'what if?' scenarios if things go wrong. As David mentioned earlier, liability resides on the banks' shoulders — if an end user complains about a fraudulent transaction, they complain to their bank rather than the third-party, and it's the bank's obligation to repay any funds lost.
Thankfully a lot of banks are looking to embrace open banking, and see it as an opportunity themselves to act as third-party providers or commercialise open banking APIs, but in the early days there was a lack of understanding — only education has been able to overcome that.
David, when Mastercard was looking to develop its product strategy for Mastercard Open Banking Solutions™, we conducted research with financial institutions to help us understand their challenges. What did we find?
David: We spoke to forty or fifty financial institutions around Europe about open banking, and the consistent number one concern was fraud risk and security. It was clear they felt that the legislation was stacked against them: how should they manage their risks accordingly? It's a very complicated market, and what the banks were looking for was a solution that made it easier for them to meet their obligations.
We built our Open Banking Protect solution with the banks in mind: Giving them greater confidence that the third-party that's knocking on their door asking for access to their customer's data or to make a payment on their behalf is actually who they say they are, and that there's no evidence they've been compromised.
So, how are we doing that then? What is Konsentus's solution and how does it enable Open Banking Protect?
Brendan: We recognised early on the complexity of checking the regulatory status of a third party: having to reach out to more than 70 QTSPs and 31 NCAs (with over 115 registers) in real-time.
We had a vision to deliver confidence in open banking, and do that by taking away the complexity and the heavy lifting from our customers — the banks. We developed a software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based solution in the cloud called Konsentus Verify, which helps protect financial institutions and their customers from the risk of fraud in open banking. It works by consolidating multiple databases and registers: collecting data from all the QTSPs and all the NCAs across the EEA, along with the two European Banking Authority registers, into a master system of record. We maintain a one-hour service level agreement during normal working hours to check the regulated status of third parties with the relevant NCA; any change is quickly reflected in our master data set.
It's an online platform that can be consumed in real-time to verify the identity of the third-party provider and positively check the authorisations that the third-party holds at that particular point in time to help the bank to decide whether or not to proceed with a given transaction.
Its underpinned by an immutable audit log, so every action and activity that takes place within the system is stored and available for our customers to access at a later date in case of dispute. This allows the bank to conform with the requirement of Article 26 Traceability of the Regulatory Technical Standards for Strong Customer Authentication and Common and Secure Communication.
David: There were two things about Konsentus that made it a natural choice to enable Open Banking Protect. First, as Brendan has demonstrated, when an ecosystem is this complicated you have to understand it really well: Konsentus understands what the risks are; what the gaps in the models are… we're working with a partner that has the expertise.
Second, the solution Konsentus has developed makes it easy for customers to undertake open banking transactions with as little friction as possible. That frictionless experience is what Konsentus Verify helps us provide via Open Banking Protect, and do it faster and using more up-to-date information than any other solution in the market.
Brendan: Konsentus is a very focused and specialised organisation. We deal with the complex issues of identification and regulatory authorisation status within open banking. What was exciting for us… Mastercard had identified quite early on the opportunities that open banking was going to bring its bank customers. The partnership with Mastercard has enabled us to provide these critical services that broaden the Mastercard offering to its clients.
Let's broaden our consideration to other financial crime risks that might exist in the open banking ecosystem. How can we solve them?
Brendan: The ecosystem is just at the start of its journey, and every participant is learning as we go. There's no doubt that there will be threats in the future; we still have fraud in established channels today, and it would be naïve to think it wouldn't impact open banking.
"Open banking is dealing with people's money and data; it's all predicated on a trust that that money and data will remain safe."
David Head, VP for Open Banking Product Management
David: What we've identified so far is the risk that the third-party is unauthorised to access the user's payment information… The other risk to banks and their customers is that the third-party itself has been compromised, either internally by a bad actor or if they've been hacked in some way by an external agency. That's what the second part of Open Banking Protect looks to do. It asks, 'What are the clues a third-party has been compromised?'
We leverage the capabilities of our NuData business to build up a picture of what normal behaviour looks like for a given third-party. If we see changes in its behaviour — if it starts putting in more requests, or different types of requests; if the transaction amounts suddenly vary significantly — we alert the financial institutions to a potential breach of that third-party so they can respond accordingly. It helps them prevent fraud or loss of funds before they occur.
What is the role of security in growing adoption of end-user trust in open banking?
David: Security is fundamental. At the end of the day, open banking is dealing with people's money and data; it's all predicated on a trust that that money and data will remain safe. If open banking is discovered to have flaws, if money disappears from people's accounts or if their data gets leaked, people won't use it. All the benefits of open banking will be destroyed.
Brendan: The UK is proving to be a great barometer for what open banking can be. Back in January 2018, there were something like 2 million transactions a month; in March this year, we're at 409.5 million.[7] The UK now has over 169 authorised third-parties, with at least another 200 in the process of being approved by the UK Financial Conduct Authority
The transaction volumes represent approximately 2 percent of the UK's banked population: about one million users engaging in open banking services. And they probably don't even know they're engaging in open banking services — they just know there's a new service they've signed up to and it's delivering value.
Security is fundamental — trust has to be developed and maintained in the open banking ecosystem to ensure that payment service users, whether they be consumers, small to medium enterprise, or big businesses, actually engage in using these services and that we don't end up with a white elephant.
The vast majority of services coming to market are centred around account information rather than payment initiation — will one prevail over the other?
Brendan: We're always in danger of looking at Europe as one homogenous block, when it's far from it. The EEA is comprised of 31 member states and the preferred payment method from one country to another can be quite different: here in the UK, for example, we're a very card-based payment oriented society, especially for eCommerce and in-store point of sale; in other countries like the Netherlands, payment initiation from a bank account is much more commonplace — so open banking-enabled payment initiation services have a much lower barrier to entry.
In mid-2018, Accenture put out a report that predicted that by 2025, at least 30 percent of card-based traffic could move onto open banking rails because of the benefits to merchants of using these new payment types. Open banking is an evolution, not a revolution — we're only at the start of the journey.
Looking forward, what are your future hopes and predictions for open banking? What are the future challenges, and how might we overcome them?
Brendan: The whole point of the regulation was to foster competition and innovation in the market, and to deliver better financial outcomes for payment service users. If those two things can be achieved, then the regulation has been regulation for good.
I hope, and we're already seeing moves towards this in both the UK and in Europe, to see a move towards open finance — savings, mortgage and trading accounts, insurance etc. — giving people a much better view of their financial position and access to better deals and so on. And further, to open data: Big tech companies are sitting on a wealth of data — that's people's data, and if they want to share it with other providers they should be able to.
David: Open banking is almost here to stay. Already customers are seeing the benefit of having all of their accounts in one place; a lot of lenders are using open banking to make better and faster decisions for their customers. We're seeing the real benefits of open banking coming through.
"Open banking is about organisations coming together to collectively deliver greater solutions to the market."
Brendan Jones, COO of Konsentus
The ultimate challenge is making sure that there are compelling propositions for both customers, banks and third-parties to build, and it's a balanced ecosystem in terms of risk and reward. If people are making their data available there's got to be something in it for them.
Underpinning all that, it's pertinent for this conversation, is that it still has to be secure. If there's more data available and more things to do with it, then the sophistication of fraudsters will increase. We've got to make sure we're keeping the fences as high as possible.
Brendan: From Konsentus's perspective, and that flows through to our partnership with Mastercard, as new verticals come under the regulatory umbrella, then the new databases that will need to be accessed to collect data from will be in scope of our service and we will broaden our solutions accordingly.
Any final thoughts?
David: It's been an exciting journey so far. Mastercard is tackling open banking by bringing its existing strengths and assets to work in partnership with all members of the ecosystem to drive a greater number of better, more innovative answers and solutions. We look forward to working with Konsentus and, growing our strategic partnership with them and other specialist technology providers, to do even more of that in the coming years. Forming strategic partnerships is at the heart of what Mastercard does to deliver value for our customers, and in a new area such as open banking they are vital if we want to deliver the best solutions.
Brendan: Open banking is about collaboration; it's about partnership, and it's about organisations coming together to collectively deliver greater solutions to the market than any one organisation alone.
[1] In June 2019, Mastercard led a multi-million-pound pre-Series A funding round in Konsentus
[2] Akamai recently reported a four-fold increase in fraudulent API calls by organisations illegally attempting to access account data over a period of six months in 2019. Most of these were using a technique called credential stuffing whereby fraudsters obtain information from other sources and try to use that to access payment service users' bank accounts to commit fraud, money laundering and so on.
[3] Passporting allows a firm registered in the European Economic Area (EEA) to do business in any other EEA state without the need for further authorisation from each country.
[4] An eIDAS certificate includes details of the services a third-party provider Is regulated to provide (i.e. the data they're allowed to access and for what purpose), and the jurisdiction(s) they're regulated to operate
[5] If there is a change to a third-party's regulatory status, there is no legal responsibility for the National Competent Authority to inform the QTSP that there had been a change, and arguably, the NCA might not know which QTSP had issued the certificate for the third-party provider. Likewise, there is no legal requirement for the QTSP to monitor the National Competent Authority databases on a regular basis to ensure there has not been a change.
Read Konsentus' white paper entitled 'Understanding the data and overcoming the issues'
[6] A prime example would be a third-party provider operating in Germany. The German bank would have to refer to the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, but the FCA doesn't publish whether a third-party is authorised to operate under passporting laws — that information is only available at the European Banking Authority level
[7] Source: OpenBanking.org.uk
Hayden Harrison, marketing and communications, Mastercard
Q3 2021 Open Banking tracker
Fraud in open banking

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Read These Books
Five Books by Indigenous Authors You Might Not Have Read Yet
In case you're looking for something to read, here are five books by Indigenous authors you might not have read yet. I highly recommend all of them!
In My Own Moccasins, A Memoir of Resilience, by Helen Knott
"Helen Knott speaks truth to the experience of Indigenous women living through the violence of colonized spaces, and she does so with grace, beauty, and a ferocity that makes me feel so proud." —Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of The Accident of Being Lost
Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq
"What Tagaq offers with Split Tooth is a still too rare glimpse of the inner lives of young people, particularly girls and women, living in northern and rural communities… Tagaq's music is intensely corporeal and so is her writing…[Her] emotional intelligence is aspirational." —Anupa Mistry, The Globe and Mail
The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline
"There's a quality in Dimaline's writing that reached from the page, into my being … That's a specific reference to the residential schools of the past, where so much was taken from Native children. It is one of many points in The Marrow Thieves where – painfully or with exquisite beauty – Dimaline's story resonates with me. It will resonate with other Native readers, too, especially those who are Anishinabe. Several tribal nations are mentioned in here, too … There's so much more to say … about Miggs and Isaac, about Ri, about Minerva, about French. But I'll stop and let you be with these achingly dear characters. I highly recommend The Marrow Thieves."
— Debbie Reese, American Indians in Children's Literature
Son of a Trickster, by Eden Robinson
"Son of a Trickster is an incredibly engaging coming-of-age story of an Indigenous teen in northern British Columbia. Eden Robinson's almost magical ability to blend wry humour, magical realism, and teenage reality will have you holding your breath for the next in the series." —The New York Times
Coyote Tales, by Thomas King
"This is an entertaining story, great fun to read aloud because the language is crisp, colloquial, and very expressive. It is also extremely thought-provoking." —Quill & Quire, starred review
What are you reading this summer? Any recommendations? I'd love to hear them!
Laurie MacNevin, HF Associate Editor
Laurie is an editor, writer, and researcher. Her deep love of stories led to an Honours degree and a Master's degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Windsor. Originally from Southern Ontario, Laurie has lived in Manitoba for more than ten years, exploring the stories, landscape, plants, and people of some of the most remote parts of the province including three years in Churchill and two years in God's Lake Narrows First Nation. Laurie and her family now live on an acreage outside of Carberry.
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A Writer's Guide to Setting
How to Write Setting


For the first time since 2010, a bodybuilder not named Phil Heath has been crowned Mr. Olympia.
Shawn Rhoden stunned the seven-time defending champion to capture the 2018 title on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
In addition to breaking Heath's run of dominance, Rhoden earned a $675,000 payout, the largest in the 53-year history of the Mr. Olympia competition.
Heath was chasing his record-tying eighth consecutive win in the competition. Lee Haney (1984-91) and Ronnie Coleman (1998-2005) remain the only bodybuilders to reach that mark. The 38-year-old did tie Arnold Schwarzenegger's career mark of seven straight titles, so he is still keeping good company.
Appearing in his eighth Mr. Olympia competition, Rhoden earned his first victory. The Jamaican did have one runner-up finish in 2016, but he was finally able to capture the Eugen Sandow Trophy in one of the most memorable bodybuilding competitions in recent history.
"Not only did I have the horrible flu going around but my hemoglobin level was at 4 (should be around 14). I lost A LOT of blood due to two ulcers bleeding into my intestine over a period of time. I was given 6 blood transfusions that brought my body back to levels where my body could reproduce enough blood on its own to normal levels. Since it is so close to the Arnold, I am disappointed that I must announce that I will not be competing in this years Arnold Classic 2018."
Given the physical state Rhoden was in at that point seven months ago, being able to get back into prime shape and dethrone the most dominant Mr. Olympia competitor of the past decade speaks to his impressive condition.
At the age of 43, Rhoden tied the record for the oldest Mr. Olympia winner. Chris Dickerson was the same age when he came out on top in 1982.
Based on Rhoden's conditioning and impeccable symmetry with his perfect lines, there's no reason to think he can't repeat as champion when next year's competition rolls around. He's been steadily building to this moment for the past eight years, and that hard work paid off.


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Because we now seem to be entering a second phase of this revolution…where cord-cutting goes mainstream…and the biggest tech companies do not want to get left behind.
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La topologie numérique est l'étude des propriétés et attributs topologiques (e.g. connectivité, frontières) des images à 2 ou 3 dimensions (dites respectivement 2D et 3D).

La topologie numérique est principalement utilisée dans le cadre d'algorithmes bas niveau d'analyse des images telles que les algorithmes de squelettisation, de détection de contours ou de régions, d' et de tous les algorithmes de morphologie mathématique.

Historique

Les études sur la topologie numérique ont débuté à la fin des années 1960 sous l'impulsion d' (1931-2004) dont les publications ont joué un rôle majeur dans le développement et la reconnaissance du domaine ; le terme  apparait pour la première fois dans une publication de .

Des travaux connexes ont été présentés sous le nom de «  » par Pavel Aleksandrov et Heinz Hopf dans leur traité Topologie  de 1935 : ils sont considérés comme un lien entre la topologie combinatoire classique et la topologie numérique.

Rosenfeld  ont proposé une notion de connectivité digitale, comme la 4-connectivité et 8-connectivité pour les images en 2D, ainsi que 6-connectivité et 26-connectivité pour les images en 3D. Une méthode d'étiquetage en composantes connexes pour les images en 2D a été décrite en 1966 (le domaine est toujours très actif). En 1982, T. Pavlidis a proposé l'utilisation d'algorithmes de la théorie des graphes tel que les algorithmes de parcours en profondeur.

Application

Une application en topologie numérique est la suivante : on peut définir des ouverts (et donc une topologie) sur les nombres naturels ou un sous ensemble.  La définition suivante aide dans des algorithmes de compression :  si n est impair et  si n est pair. On définit les ouverts de la topologie comme le vide ou des intersections de .
Cette définition a du sens quand  est un pixel de l'écran.

Notes et références

Articles connexes
 Complexe simplicial
 Géométrie discrète
 Topologie d'Alexandrov

Topologie

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Marine arrested for sex crimes in Rowan County
by: FOX8 Digital Desk
24-year-old Marine Sergeant Derek Craig Percival (Rowan Co. Sheriff's Office)
SALISBURY, N.C. — Law enforcement in Rowan County arrested a Marine recruiter Saturday on charges that he sexually assaulted two female recruits in his office.
Officials said 24-year-old Marine Sergeant Derek Craig Percival faces numerous charges including one count each of sexual servitude and attempted second degree rape, both felonies.
The Rowan County Sheriff's Office and Salisbury police began investigating Thursday, when officials said they received complaints that Percival had sexually assaulted the recruits.
Deputies said the police made contact with United States Marine Corps authorities about the allegations on Friday.
Authorities said the suspect is currently being held under $100,000 secure bond in the Rowan County Detention Center.


JIm Nwobodo and his wife Patricia, after 22 years of marriage in Anglican Communion, converted to the Catholic Church at the heat of the crisis over the burial of his son, Dr Ifeanyi Nwobodo.
A former Governor of old Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo, yesterday repelled pressures to coerce him back to the Anglican Church.
Nwobodo, who was honoured by his former Church, the Anglican Communion Awkunanaw, said he would remain a Catholic, because it was the church that came to his help in time of difficulty.
The occasion was the centenary celebration and thanksgiving of Christianity in Awkunanaw land held at St. Mathew Anglican Church, Amechi, Awkunanaw. Nwobodo built the church single handedly in 1982.
At the service, which was conducted by the Archbishop, Enugu Ecclesiastical Province, Dr. Emmanuel Chukwuma, a galaxy of Catholic priests led by Monsignor John Amadi accompanied Nwobodo.
Archbishop Chukwuma had told the congregation that by honouring the invitation to honor him, Nwobodo has finally returned to the Anglican Communion, which he left in 2015.
Chukwuma admonished Nwobodo to consider the fact he single handedly built the church and for the fact that his father, late Pa Peter Nwobodo was one of the pillars of the church should make reconsider coming back.
"Peter was one of the pillars of the church in Amechi and left it for his son Jim. Jim took up the challenge and built the church single handedly. His father, Peter will be happy today in his grave as his son Jim is back to the fold," posited the Archbishop.
He further told Nwobodo: "You are a baptized and confirmed Anglican. These Catholic priests that accompanied you to this occasion should bid you bye because you are not going back to Catholic again with them.
But Nwobodo in his response told the congregation that the question of his returning to Anglican Church should be a matter for another day.
Nwobodo and his wife Patricia, after 22 years of marriage in Anglican Communion, converted to the Catholic Church at the heat of the crisis over the burial of his son, Dr Ifeanyi Nwobodo.
Earlier, the Church had endorsed Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State for reelection in 2019, saying that the governor deserves a second term because of his commitment to peace, good governance, love for the poor masses and development of the Church.
Archbishop Chukwuma who made the endorsement while preaching a sermon at the Centenary Anniversary service commended Ugwuanyi for the good works he is doing in Enugu State and his uncommon leadership style that has restored peace, unity and good governance in the state, declaring that his re-election is "assured and not contestable" urging all other political parties including the All Progressives Congress (APC) to shelve party leanings to support the governor.
He congratulated the governor for being in the saddle as Governor of Enugu State during the celebrations, saying, "good things are happening in Enugu State under Governor Ugwuanyi's regime.
"My dear Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, I congratulate you that you are the Governor of Enugu State and this is happening. Sometime ago, you were at Ngwo to celebrate our Diocesan Centenary Thanksgiving. Today, we are in Nkanuland for the same celebration. I am glad that good things are happening in Enugu State under Ugwuanyi's regime," the Archbishop said.
Ugwuanyi who was conferred with an "Outstanding Leadership Award" by the Anglican Communion, in his address, felicitated with the Archbishop, the Archdeacon and all the Clergy and the Laity of the Awkunanaw Archdeaconry, on the historic event and equally thanked them for the award.
The governor appreciated God's faithfulness, special grace and compassion for everything his administration has been able to achieve in spite of the severe economic and other challenges confronting the country and prayed that with the continued support of the people, his government will not fail to deliver on its promise to take the state to a higher level of growth and development, for the benefit of all.
"It is my prayer that God will continue to strengthen and empower this Archdeaconry, keeping it strong and progressive to the Glory of His Name,"the governor prayed.


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Title: Analysis of land use/land cover changes and prediction of future changes with land change modeler: Case of Belek, Turkey
Authors: Akdeniz, Halil Burak
Serdaroğlu Sağ, Neslihan
İnam, Şaban
Keywords: Land use
Land Change Modeler
LULC modelling
Tourism center
Cellular-Automata
Urban-Growth
Markov-Chain
Neural-Networks
Abstract: In the areas declared to be a tourism center by state planning, a rapid tourism-related development occurs depending on the investments in tourism, which causes a dramatic land use/land cover (LULC) change. Determining, monitoring, and modeling of LULC changes are required in order to ensure the conservation-use balance and sustainability within such vulnerable areas that are under development pressure. This study consists of four steps. In the first step, the Landsat images dated 1985, 2000, 2010, and 2021 were classified using the maximum likelihood method and the LULC of Belek Tourism Center located in Turkey were determined. The second step included the identification of areal and spatial changes between the LULC classes for the four periods. In the third step, the LULC changes in Belek Tourism Center for 2040 were modeled using the land change modeler. Last step evaluated the relationship between the modeled spatial development pattern and the current planning decisions. According to the results obtained during 36 years, the rates of built-up, forest, and water body areas have increased by 11.91%, 13.67%, and 0.82%, respectively, whereas the rates of barren land and agricultural areas have reduced by 22.25% and 4.15%, respectively. The LULC map modeled for 2040 predicts the built-up areas to expand by 8.25% and the agricultural areas to shrink by 5.42% by comparison with 2021. This study will contribute as a key measure for planners, policy-, and decision-makers to make decisions related to sustainable land use in the areas declared to be a tourism center.
URI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10746-w
Appears in Collections: Mimarlık ve Tasarım Fakültesi Koleksiyonu
PubMed İndeksli Yayınlar Koleksiyonu / PubMed Indexed Publications Collections


Complex software systems possess concurrent and reactive behaviors requiring precise specifications prior to development. Lamport's transition axiom method is a formal specification method which combines axiomatic and operational approaches. On the other hand Unified Modeling Language (UML), a de facto industry standard visual language, lacks suitable constructs and semantics regarding concurrency aspects.
Jagadish Suryadevara, Lawrence Chung, R.K. Shyamasundar, "cmUML - A UML based Framework for Formal Specification of Concurrent, Reactive Systems", Journal of Object Technology, Volume 7, no. 8 (November 2008), pp. 187-207, doi:10.5381/jot.2008.7.8.a7.


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Revolutionary Congress? Let's hope so....
Gary Cohen, former CEO Goldman Sachs addressing new members of Congress today: "You guys are way over your head, you don't know how the game is played."
No Gary, YOU don't know what's coming - a revolutionary Congress that puts people over profits. https://t.co/ZLML2qzAW6
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) December 6, 2018
See more on this story here
Yellow Vests Rise Against Neo-Liberal 'King' Macron
By Diana Johnstone in Paris
Every automobile in France is supposed to be equipped with a yellow vest. This is so that in case of accident or breakdown on a highway, the driver can put it on to ensure visibility and avoid getting run over.
So the idea of wearing your yellow vest to demonstrate against unpopular government measures caught on quickly. The costume was at hand and didn't have to be provided by Soros for some more or less manufactured "color revolution". The symbolism was fitting: in case of socio-economic emergency, show that you don't want to be run over.
As everybody knows, what set off the protest movement was yet another rise in gasoline taxes. But it was immediately clear that much more was involved. The gasoline tax was the last straw in a long series of measures favoring the rich at the expense of the majority of the population. That is why the movement achieved almost instant popularity and support.
The Voices of the People
The Yellow Vests held their first demonstrations on Saturday, November 17, on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. It was totally unlike the usual trade union demonstrations, well organized to march down the boulevard between the Place de la République and the Place de la Bastille, or the other way around, carrying banners and listening to speeches from leaders at the end. The Gilets Jaunes just came, with no organization, no leaders to tell them where to go or to harangue the crowd. They were just there, in the yellow vests, angry and ready to explain their anger to any sympathetic listener.
Briefly, the message was this: we can't make ends meet. The cost of living keeps going up, and our incomes keep going down. We just can't take it any more. The government must stop, think and change course.
But so far, the reaction of the government was to send police to spray torrents of tear gas on the crowd, apparently to keep the people at a distance from the nearby Presidential residence, the Elysee Palace. President Macron was somewhere else, apparently considering himself above and beyond it all.
But those who were listening could learn a lot about the state of France today. Especially in the small towns and rural areas, where many protesters came from. Things are much worse than officials and media in Paris have let on.
There were young women who were working seven days a week and despaired of having enough money to feed and clothe their children.
People were angry but ready to explain very clearly the economic issues.
Colette, age 83, doesn't own a car, but explained to whoever would listen that the steep raise of gasoline prices would also hurt people who don't drive, by affecting prices of food and other necessities. She had done the calculations and figured it would cost a retired person 80 euros per month.
"Macron didn't run on the promise to freeze pensions", recalled a Yellow Vest, but that is what he has done, along with increasing solidarity taxes on pensioners.
A significant and recurring complaint concerned the matter of health care. France has long had the best public health program in the world, but this is being steadily undermined to meet the primary need of capital: profit. In the past few years, there has been a growing government campaign to encourage, and finally to oblige people to subscribe to a "mutuelle", that is, a private health insurance, ostensibly to fill "the gaps" not covered by France's universal health coverage. The "gaps" can be the 15% that is not covered for ordinary illnesses (grave illnesses are covered 100%), or for medicines taken off the "covered" list, or for dental work, among other things. The "gaps" to fill keep expanding, along with the cost of subscribing to the mutuelle. In reality, this program, sold to the public as modernizing improvement, is a gradual move toward privatization of health care. It is a sneaky method of opening the whole field of public health to international financial capital investment. This gambit has not fooled ordinary people and is high on the list of complaints by the Gilets Jaunes.
The degradation of care in the public hospitals is another complaint. There are fewer and fewer hospitals in rural areas, and one must "wait long enough to die" emergency rooms. Those who can afford it are turning to private hospitals. But most can't. Nurses are overworked and underpaid. When one hears what nurses have to endure, one is reminded that this is indeed a noble profession.
In all this I was reminded of a young woman we met at a public picnic in southwestern France last summer. She cares for elderly people who live at home alone in rural areas, driving from one to another, to feed them, bathe them, offer a moment of cheerful company and understanding. She loves her vocation, loves helping old people, although it barely allows her to make a living. She will be among those who will have to pay more to get from one patient to the next.
People pay taxes willingly when they are getting something for it. But not when the things they are used to are being taken away. The tax evaders are the super-rich and the big corporations with their batteries of lawyers and safe havens, or intruders like Amazon and Google, but ordinary French people have been relatively disciplined in paying taxes in return for excellent public services: optimum health care, first class public transport, rapid and efficient postal service, free university education. But all that is under assault from the reign of financial capital called "neo-liberalism" here. In rural areas, more and more post offices, schools and hospitals are shut down, unprofitable train service is discontinued as "free competition" is introduced following European Union directives – measures which oblige people to drive their cars more than ever. Especially when huge shopping centers drain small towns of their traditional shops.
Incoherent Energy Policies
And the tax announced by the government – an additional 6.6 cents per liter for diesel and an additional 2.9 centers per liter of gasoline – are only the first steps in a series of planned increases over the next years. The measures are supposed to incite people to drive less or even better, to scrap their old vehicles and buy nice new electric cars.
More and more "governance" is an exercise in social engineering by technocrats who know what is best. This particular exercise goes directly opposite to an earlier government measure of social engineering which used economic incitements to get people to buy cars running on diesel. Now the government has changed its mind. Over half of personal vehicles still run on diesel, although the percentage has been dropping. Now their owners are told to go buy an electric car instead. But people living on the edge simply can't afford the switch.
Besides, the energy policy is incoherent. In theory, the "green" economy includes shutting down France's many nuclear power plants. Without them, where would the electricity come from to run the electric cars? And nuclear power is "clean", no CO2. So what is going on? People wonder.
The most promising alternative sources of energy in France are the strong tides along northern coasts. But last July, the Tidal Energies project on the Normandy coast was suddenly dropped because it wasn't profitable – not enough customers. This is symptomatic of what is wrong with the current government. Major new industrial projects are almost never profitable at first, which is why they need government support and subsidies to get going, with a view to the future. Such projects were supported under de Gaulle, raising France to the status of major industrial power, and providing unprecedented prosperity for the population as a whole. But the Macron government is not investing in the future nor doing anything to preserve industries that remain. The key French energy corporation Alstom was sold to General Electric under his watch.
Indeed, it is perfectly hypocritical to call the French gas tax an "ecotax" since the returns from a genuine ecotax would be invested to develop clean energies – such as tidal power plants. Rather, the benefits are earmarked to balance the budget, that is, to serve the government debt. The Macronian gas tax is just another austerity measure – along with cutting back public services and "selling the family jewels", that is, selling potential money-makers like Alstom, port facilities and the Paris airports.
The Government Misses the Point
Initial government responses showed that they weren't listening. They dipped into their pool of clichés to denigrate something they didn't want to bother to understand.
President Macron's first reaction was to guilt-trip the protesters by invoking the globalists' most powerful argument for imposing unpopular measures: global warming. Whatever small complaints people may have, he indicated, that is nothing compared to the future of the planet.
This did not impress people who, yes, have heard all about climate change and care as much as anyone for the environment, but who are obliged to retort: "I'm more worried about the end of the month than about the end of the world."
After the second Yellow Vest Saturday, November 25, which saw more demonstrators and more tear gas, the Minister in charge of the budget, Gérard Darmanin, declared that what had demonstrated on the Champs-Elysée was "la peste brune", the brown plague, meaning fascists. (For those who enjoy excoriating the French as racist, it should be noted that Darmanin is of Algerian working class origins). This remark caused an uproar of indignation that revealed just how great is public sympathy for the movement – over 70% approval by latest polls, even after uncontrolled vandalism. Macron's Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, was obliged to declare that government communication had been badly managed. Of course, that is the familiar technocratic excuse: we are always right, but it is all a matter of our "communication", not of the facts on the ground.
Maybe I have missed something, but of the many interviews I have listened to, I have not heard one word that would fall into the categories of "far right", much less "fascism" – or even that indicated any particular preference in regard to political parties. These people are wholly concerned with concrete practical issues. Not a whiff of ideology – remarkable in Paris!
Some people ignorant of French history and eager to exhibit their leftist purism have suggested that the Yellow Vests are dangerously nationalistic because they occasionally wave French flags and sing La Marseillaise. That simply means that they are French. Historically, the French left is patriotic, especially when it is revolting against the aristocrats and the rich or during the Nazi Occupation. ( The exception was the student uprising of May 1968, which was not a revolt of the poor but a revolt in a time of prosperity in favor of greater personal freedom: "it is forbidden to forbid". The May '68 generation has turned out to be the most anti-French generation in history, for reasons that can't be dealt with here. To some extent, the Yellow Vests mark a return of the people after half a century of scorn from the liberal intelligentsia.) It is just a way of saying, We are the people, we do the work, and you must listen to our grievances. To be bad, "nationalism" must be aggressive toward other nations. This movement is not attacking anybody, it is strictly staying home.
The Weakness of Macron
The Yellow Vests have made clear to the whole world that Emmanuel Macron was an artificial product sold to the electorate by an extraordinary media campaign.
Macron was the rabbit magically pulled out of a top hat, sponsored by what must be called the French oligarchy. After catching the eye of established king-maker Jacques Attali, the young Macron was given a stint at the Rothschild bank where he could quickly gain a small fortune, ensuring his class loyalty to his sponsors. Media saturation and the scare campaign against "fascist" Marine LePen (who moreover flubbed her major debate) put Macron in office. He had met his wife when she was teaching his theater class, and now he gets to play President.
The mission assigned to him by his sponsors was clear. He must carry through more vigorously the "reforms" (austerity measures) already undertaken by previous governments, which had often dawdled at hastening the decline of the social State.
And beyond that, Macron was supposed to "save Europe". Saving Europe means saving the European Union from the quagmire in which it finds itself.
This is why cutting expenses and balancing the budget is his obsession. Because that's what he was chosen to do by the oligarchy that sponsored his candidacy. He was chosen by the financial oligarchy above all to save the European Union from threatening disintegration caused by the euro. The treaties establishing the EU and above all the common currency, the euro, have created an imbalance between member states that is unsustainable. The irony is that previous French governments, starting with Mitterrand, are largely responsible for this state of affairs. In a desperate and technically ill-examined effort to keep newly unified Germany from becoming the dominant power in Europe, the French insisted on binding Germany to France by a common currency. Reluctantly, the Germans agreed to the euro – but only on German terms. The result is that Germany has become the unwilling creditor of equally unwilling EU member states, Italy, Spain, Portugal and of course, ruined Greece. The financial gap between Germany and its southern neighbors keeps expanding, which causes ill will on all sides.
Germany doesn't want to share economic power with states it considers irresponsible spendthrifts. So Macron's mission is to show Germany that France, despite its flagging economy, is "responsible", by squeezing the population in order to pay interest on the debt. Macron's idea is that the politicians in Berlin and the bankers in Frankfurt will be so impressed that they will turn around and say, well done Emmanuel, we are ready to throw our wealth into a common pot for the benefit of all 27 Member States. And that is why Macron will stop at nothing to balance the budget, to make the Germans love him.
So far, the Macron magic is not working on the Germans, and it's driving his own people into the streets.
Or are they his own people? Does Macron really care about his run of the mill compatriots who just work for a living? The consensus is that he does not.
Macron is losing the support both of the people in the streets and the oligarchs who sponsored him. He is not getting the job done.
Macron's rabbit-out-of-the hat political ascension leaves him with little legitimacy, once the glow of glossy magazine covers wears off. With help from his friends, Macron invented his own party, La République en Marche, which doesn't mean much of anything but suggested action. He peopled his party with individuals from "civil society", often medium entrepreneurs with no political experience, plus a few defectors from either the Socialist or the Republican Parties, to occupy the most important government posts.
The only well-known recruit from "civil society" was the popular environmental activist, Nicolas Hulot, who was given the post of Minister of Environment, but who abruptly resigned in a radio announcement last August, citing frustration.
Macron's strongest supporter from the political class was Gérard Collomb, Socialist Mayor of Lyons, who was given the top cabinet post of Minister of Interior, in charge of national police. But shortly after Hulot left, Collomb said he was leaving too, to go back to Lyons. Macron entreated him to stay on, but on October 3, Collomb went ahead and resigned, with a stunning statement referring to "immense problems" facing his successor. In the "difficult neighborhoods" in the suburbs of major cities, he said, the situation is "very much degraded : it's the law of the jungle that rules, drug dealers and radical Islamists have taken the place of the Republic." Such suburbs need to be "reconquered".
After such a job description, Macron was at a loss to recruit a new Interior Minister. He groped around and came up with a crony he had chosen to head his party, ex-Socialist Christophe Castaner. With a degree in criminology, Castaner's main experience qualifying him to head the national police is his close connection, back in his youth in the 1970s, with a Marseilles Mafioso, apparently due to his penchant for playing poker and drinking whiskey in illegal dens.
Saturday, November 17, demonstrators were peaceful, but resented the heavy teargas attacks. Saturday November 25, things got a big rougher, and on Saturday December 1st, all hell broke loose. With no leaders and no service d'ordre (militants assigned to protect the demonstrators from attacks, provocations and infiltration), it was inevitable that casseurs (smashers) got into the act and started smashing things, looting shops and setting fires to trash cans, cars and even buildings. Not only in Paris, but all over France: from Marseilles to Brest, from Toulouse to Strasbourg. In the remote town of Puy en Velay, known for its chapel perched on a rock and its traditional lace-making, the Prefecture (national government authority) was set on fire. Tourist arrivals are cancelled and fancy restaurants are empty and department stores fear for their Christmas windows. The economic damages are enormous.
And yet, support for the Yellow Vests remains high, probably because people are able to distinguish between those grieved citizens and the vandals who love to wreak destruction for its own sake.
On Monday, there were suddenly fresh riots in the troubled suburbs that Collomb warned about as he retreated to Lyons. This was a new front for the national police, whose representatives let it be known that all this was getting to be much too much for them to cope with. Announcing a state of emergency is not likely to solve anything.
Macron is a bubble that has burst. The legitimacy of his authority is very much in question. Yet he was elected in 2017 for a five year term, and his party holds a large majority in parliament that makes his destitution almost impossible.
So what next? Despite having been sidelined by Macron's electoral victory in 2017, politicians of all hews are trying to recuperate the movement – but discreetly, because the Gilets Jaunes have made clear their distrust of all politicians. This is not a movement that seeks to take power. It simply seeks redress of its grievances. The government should have listened in the first place, accepted discussions and compromise. This gets more difficult as time goes on, but nothing is impossible.
For some two or three hundred years, people one could call "left" hoped that popular movements would lead to changes for the better. Today, many leftists seem terrified of popular movements for change, convinced "populism" must lead to "fascism". This attitude is one of many factors indicating that the changes ahead will not be led by the left as it exists today. Those who fear change will not be there to help make it happen. But change is inevitable and it need not be for the worse.
~ Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her new book is Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton. The memoirs of Diana Johnstone's father Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness, was published by Clarity Press, with her commentary. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr
"Preble Street Resource Center saved my life"
This is where Mary Beth works.....nice to see something good on TV for once.
Killer plastics
The real Bush story
By Regis Tremblay
US Military's Carbon 'Boot'print Largest in World
Listen to "US Military's Carbon 'Boot'print Largest in World" on Spreaker.
In this special segment of "By Any Means Necessary" Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator with Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space joins the show to talk about the US military's global carbon 'bootprint', the bad economics of military spending, why people fear speaking out on US environmental degradation, and the international solidarity efforts to combat climate change.
He also discussed the need to convert the military industrial complex and called for the US military to be transformed into the 'Natural Guard' that would work to help deal with communities devastated by big weather events due to the climate change.
Report On Militarism: The International Conference Against US/NATO Bases
By Roger Harris
For the first time in the history of humanity, the technical means are at hand to eliminate poverty if resources were not diverted to making war. World hunger could be abolished with only a small diversion from military budgets. The only luxuries that so-called middle-class Americans would have to forego would be the Blue Angels air show and drone-bombing wedding parties in the Middle East. Yet, military spending is expanding, and with it global poverty.
On November 16-18, some 300 peace activists representing over 35 countries gathered in Dublin, Ireland for the first International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases to address this tragic paradox of the technical ability to serve humanity and the political proclivity by the ruling circles in the West to do the opposite. Roger Cole of the Irish peace organization PANA identified the twin threats to humankind of global warming and global war, both driven by accelerating militarization.
Ajamu Baraka of the US-based Black Alliance for Peace highlighted the reactionary role of the US and its allies, which have by far the largest military expenditures in the world. The material basis for the absence of peace and the accelerating proliferation of military bases, in his words, is US imperialism.
Guantánamo was the first of the world network of US foreign military bases, according to keynote speaker Dr. Aleida Guevara from Cuba, daughter of Che. Cuba opposes this violation of national sovereignty. Today the US possesses some 1000 foreign military bases with troops stationed in over 170 countries.
Australian Annette Brownlie of IPAN warned of a new Cold War. The recent US National Security Strategy document, focusing on "great power confrontation," signals open preparations for direct military confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia and China.
David Webb of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK [and the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space] explained that the US is the only nation with nuclear weapons based outside its soil. US policy is to develop "usable" nuclear weapons in an enhanced first-strike capacity. Missile defense, he reproved, is the shield for the sword of nuclear weapons. The purpose of missile defense is to protect the aggressor against the inevitable retaliation after a first nuclear strike.
Margaret Flowers of Popular Resistance reported that the recent US midterm elections brought in more Congressional representatives with military or security state backgrounds. The duopoly of the two US "war parties" is united in supporting an accelerated arms race. Well over half of the US government's discretionary budget now goes to the military.
Unlike so much liberal and progressive political discourse in the US, which is obsessed with the personality of President Trump, the international perspective of this conference penetrated that distracting fog and concentrated on the continuity of US militarism regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
The session on the environmental and health impacts featured testimony on the toxic effects of military bases in Okinawa, Czech Republic, and Turkey. The US Department of Defense is the world's largest polluter.
National Coordinator of the Irish Trade Union Federation and Secretary of the People's Movement, Frank Keoghan, described the transformation of the European Union (EU) into a war project with the recent rush to create a single EU army. Ilda Figueiredo from the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation and another activist from France warned that the drive for an EU army would transform all national military bases into NATO bases and would in effect allow "nuclear bomb sharing."
Margaret Kimberley of the Black Agenda Report chaired the Africa session. South African Chris Matlhako and Kenyan Ann Atambo discussed the dependency of African states on foreign aid, which is used as a tool to facilitate the occupation of Africa by foreign militaries.
Paul Pumphrey of Friends of the Congo described the development of US strategy in Africa, which has used African proxies to allow domination and extraction of valuable resources such as coltan from the Congo. Now the strategy also includes direct occupation by the US military. George W. Bush established AFRICOM in 2008 with just a single acknowledged US military base on the continent, followed by an explosion to some 50 bases and a military presence in practically every African nation under Obama.
The session on Latin America and the Caribbean outlined the immediate threat of military intervention in Venezuela, caught in the crosshairs of US imperialism. Veteran Cuban peace activist Silvio Platero of MOVPAZ condemned the continuing US blockade of Cuba and the colonial status of Puerto Rico. Speakers from Colombia (now a NATO partner), Argentina, and Brazil reported that their right-wing governments are cooperating militarily with the US.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire from Ireland made an impassioned plea for all-out support of WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange, "our hero of truth," lest he die in a US prison.
The conference concluded on a high note of unity among the international peace forces. Conference coordinator Bahman Azad of the World Peace Council closed with a call to first educate and then mobilize.
Actions are being planned in Washington, D.C., around the 70th anniversary of NATO on April 4th. Coincidentally that is the date of the assassination of Martin Luther King and of his famous speech a year before when he presciently admonished, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government."
~ Roger Harris is on the board of the 33-year-old anti-imperialist human rights organization, Task Force on the Americas (taskforceamericas.org), and is active with the Campaign to End US-Canadian Sanctions Against Venezuela (https://tinyurl.com/yd4ptxkx).
When Boobus Americanus was a young lad and delivered groceries, he was called a boy.
When he worked at the mill, he was called a hand.
When he labored in the fields, he was called help.
When he worked at the co-op he was called a partner.
When he worked as a bagger at Wal-Mart's, he was called an associate.
When he was unemployed he was called a bum.
When he joined the military he was called a grunt.
When he went overseas, he was called a patriot.
When he arrived overseas, he was called cannon fodder.
At his funeral, he was called a hero.
-~ By Herschel Sternlieb (formerly from Brunswick, Maine) who is now living in a nursing home in Washington DC waiting for the 'inevitable' as he calls it. In the meantime he has given me permission to print any of his many fables that are appropriate to the times we are living in.
Mary Beth and I traveled to Washington last weekend to see Hersch who we love and admire having sat at his knee for the last 15 years soaking up his wit and wisdom.
Learning to live with nature....
Climate change requires we convert the U.S. war machine now!
Banner made by artist Russell Wray from Hancock, Maine
This is the message we will be carrying to Bath Iron Works (BIW) during the next Navy destroyer 'christening' protest. (We don't know the date of that event yet.)
At this point 53 people from across Maine and the US have signed up to commit non-violent civil disobedience outside the shipyard during the ceremony. Others will be there at the protest to hold signs and banners like the one above calling for the conversion of the shipyard to build sustainable technologies so that we can give the future generations a real chance to live on our Mother Earth.
Sadly I must admit that some environmental groups are very reluctant to recognize the cold hard facts that the Pentagon has the largest carbon boot print of any single institution on the planet. We cannot effectively deal with the ravages of climate change by ignoring the colossus in the middle of the tea shop.
Over the years we have heard some say that while they agree that BIW must be converted if we wish to deal with climate change they fear going public with that demand because they are timid about angering the workers at BIW. They say they don't want to negatively impact jobs.
OK fair enough. Of course we all want the workers at BIW (and at any other military industrial facility) to keep their jobs. In fact Brown University in Rhode Island has done the definitive study on just this point and they have found that conversion to building sustainable technology creates more job. Let me repeat - the transition from building war machines to sustainable production creates more jobs. See the Brown study here.
Once we share that information you'd think that the reluctant environmental activists would say 'OK that makes great sense. Let's do it." But most still remain timid. Why?
I can only speculate but I've come to the conclusion that many (not all) enviros are really afraid to confront the #1 mythology of America that says we are the 'exceptional nation' - that America deserves to rule the global roost and that anyone who questions that military mythology is unpatriotic and potentially a 'red'. So they become frozen by the worn out notion that if you don't stay silent about the war machine you must be a commie pinko type.
At this point it becomes instructive to look back to the controversial days in America when we had that other deep evil economic institution called slavery. Many were opposed to that system of production but they were afraid to directly confront it because they wanted to stay away from arguing with their friends and neighbors and wanted to be liked more than they wanted to see real change happen.
The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass met many people like that during his day and this is what he said to them:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
So the lesson here is that if we are truly serious about protecting the future generations (if that is still even possible) then we have to give up timidity - we have to non-violently confront the institutions blocking serious progress on dealing with climate change - and we can't keep ignoring the massive impact that the US military empire and war machine has in creating this current calamity!
In simpler words - it's time to get real - to fish or cut bait - to shit or get off the pot. Take your pick.
Street fighting in Paris
Yellow paint & rubber bullets: Paris descends into chaos as protests continue over Macron's effort to squeeze the working class on behalf of the bankster class.
This short film tells the whole $tory.


text:
Regional maldistribution of industry
Regional industrial imbalance
Imbalance in distribution of industrial processes
Economic growth if not checked by appropriate measures has the tendency to limit itself to its original centres or regions. When a region becomes developed, it tends to make other areas appear backward and unpromising. Private enterprise easily overestimates the external economies accruing to these growing centres. They may have scavenged the opportunities that exist in the centres but are reluctant to venture out of the area to investigate possibilities elsewhere. Government policy tends to be influenced by this impressive picture of growth poles. Thus it is that in all developing countries the bulk of public investment in new plants and projects goes to centres that have already 'taken off'. Like private operators, the majority of governments in developing countries are either too timid or find it too difficult to break away from the growing centres to establish new basic industries in underdeveloped regions.
At some stage in the development of an industrial complex, maximum economies of scale are achieved and further expansion may result in 'dis-economies' which offset or more than offset the economies. There is, for example, the constant competition between various industries which increases the price of materials and other factors of production such as skilled labour, land, capital and transportation. There may be militant labour unions whose activities affect wages and attitudes towards labour. Strikes may be frequent and widespread. When the provision of services and amenities increases in cost, taxes are raised to pay for them. Costs rise as a result of congestion and the strain on existing services such as transportation, water supply and waste disposal. Rural population, attracted by employment opportunities in growing centres, migrate to these centres in quest of jobs ranging from work in trades, administration and services, to labouring jobs such as digging, carrying, loading and cleaning. The urban-industrial complexes are usually ill-prepared to receive the 'in-migrants'. The preparation of building sites, the provision of roads and services and the construction of houses cannot keep pace with the influx. Without money or possessions and willing to live at a lower standard than other residents, the newcomers crowd in with friends who have arrived earlier, become squatters and create shanty towns; in extreme cases some band together into gangs and go foraging.
The negative aspects of economic concentrations are not only localized within the concentrations themselves, but at the national level they have produced one of the most urgent problems facing the large developing countries, namely the problem of regional inequality and stranded or neglected areas. Undue emphasis has often been laid on the development of the privileged areas. Consequently, other regions, some of them very promising growth poles, may be left relatively inaccessible and virtually neglected.
Governments in developing countries are faced with serious locational maladjustments as a result of unguided population movement and an unprecedented development of urban areas. The growth of the 'primate city' has become an inevitable concomitant of economic development. With these cities have come the social and economic problems connected with excessive urban centralization and severe congestion of both population and industrial enterprises. While these urban-industrial centres exist and flourish in each country, a vast interior awaits settlement and development.
Counter Claim:
The processes by which urban concentrations grow in the early stages of development are the same in all developing countries. Many industrial processes are generally attracted to the same location and the process is cumulative. The initial attraction, for example, may have been the availability of raw material, or the presence of some source of energy, or such favourable nodal situations as a major port or a national administrative capital. Whatever the initial reason for the establishment of industrial enterprise, the very existence of industry often makes the location attractive to other industries. Some may want to use a by-product, previously wasted, and therefore available at a low cost. New industrial undertakings may also be established to furnish existing firms with various goods and services. As the nucleus grows it gradually becomes a centre of concentrated earning power and, hence, of purchasing power. It becomes an increasingly better market for the consumer goods industries, which will in turn be attracted to the already growing centre. Service industries will also grow with the expanding centre, as will the labour force, both in quantity and in the variety of its skills. This adds further to the attractiveness of the concentration for yet other processes.
Through such geographic concentration, opportunities for economizing in certain areas will increase. Just as a single industry can, up to a point, achieve internal economies as it expands its output and capacity, so can the mass of industries in a concentrated area as the industrial capacity of the area grows. As the nucleus grows, banking and insurance facilities become available, maintenance and repair services are established, journals are produced and a host of tertiary activities develop.
Enormous economic advantages can thus be derived from the concentration of economic activities within a few large centres. Consequently, the development of these concentrations is inevitable in the early stages of industrial development and their existence in developing countries is, to a large extent, justified.
Regional underdevelopment
Maldistribution of productive capacity
Commercial disregard of social responsibility
Imbalance in shipbuilding industry distribution
Imbalance in city sizes within a country
Sectoral imbalances
Lack of local industries
Imbalance between urbanization and industrialization
Reduces:
Unattractive development sites
Reduced By:
Loss of internal political borders
Unbalancing regional industrial activity
Balancing regional industrial activity
Unbalancing regional development within countries
Balancing regional development within countries
Distributing industry
Maldistribution
Industry → Industry
Societal Problems → Imbalances
Transportation, Telecommunications → Distribution


Originally Published: May 22, 2007 12:24 p.m.
Program grade 6: Time: 3:15 p.m. Place: Mt. Tipton School in Dolan Springs. Contact: (928) 767-3350.
Karaoke at Senior Center: Time: 5 to 8 p.m. Place: Kathryn Heidenreich Adult Center, 1776 Airway Ave. Cost: Donation of $1. Contact: 757-2778.
Human Resources Seminar: Time: 8 to 9:30 a.m. Place: Powerhouse Visitor Center, 120 W. Andy Devine Ave. Doors open at 7:30 with free donuts and coffee available. Cost: Free. Contact: 753-6253.
Spring program: Time: 6 p.m. Place: Black Mountain School in Golden Valley: Contact: 565-9111.
Band concert: Time: 7 p.m. Place: Kingman High School. Contact: 692-6480.
Spring concert: Time: 6 p.m. Place: Manzanita Elementary School. Contact: 753-6197.
Homemade pizza: Time: 5 to 7 p.m. Place: Kingman Elks Lodge, 900 Gates Ave. Cost: $2 a slice, $4 half, $8 whole. Contact: 753-2547.
Kingman City Council: Time: 6 p.m. Place: Council Chambers, 310 N. Fourth St.
Nicotine Anonymous: Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Angel House, Los Angeles and Golden Gate. Contact: 565-7337.
Co-dependents Anonymous: Time: 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Place: Angel House, 2012 Los Angeles.
Al-Anon: Time: 7 p.m. Place: Cholla Conference Room, KRMC. Contact: 692-4640.
MOMS Club of Kingman: Meets throughout the week for playgroups, activity groups, outings and more. Mothers bring children to all activities. Contact: Lorissa at 727-1314.
Narcotics Anonymous 'Stairway to Recovery' (Co-Ed): Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Ocotillo Conference Room, KRMC. Contact: 692-4640 or the N.A. Hotline is (800) 584-2169.
Alcoholics Anonymous Kingman District: Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: Cerbat Room, 1719 Beverly. Contact: (800) 864-1606, or Hotline at 715-4800.
Amateur Radio Repeater Club: Time: 7:30 p.m. Place: 147.160 PL131.8. All amateurs are invited to participate. Contact: Lou Tewell (WB6TLH) 757-0302.
Narcotics Anonymous: Time: 9 a.m. Place: Salvation Army, 603 Beale St. Contact: (800) 584-2169 is the N.A. Hotline.
Mohave Senior Singles (50-plus) Bowling: Time: 2 p.m. Place: Cerbat Lanes. Contact: 279-8394 or 753-9136.
Fraternal Order of Eagles Auxiliary: Time: 7:30 p.m. Place: 4536 Patsy Drive. Contact: 757-8635.
Amnesty International Group: Time: 7 p.m. Place: 1565 Northern Ave., No. 3. Contact: Renee at 757-8589.
Walapai Four-Wheelers 4x4 Club: Time: 7 p.m. Place: Elks Lodge. Call 753-5360.
VFW Post No. 10386 Men's Auxiliary: Time: 6 p.m. Contact: 757-9191.
DAV Auxiliary bingo: Time: Doors open at 4 p.m., games start at 6:30. Place: Elks Lodge, 900 W. Gates Ave. Minimum payout $50. Cost: $10 per 6. Contact: 692-0096.
Bingo at Knights of Columbus Council 3145: Time: 6:30 p.m. Place: KOC Hall, 2255 Butler Ave. No smoking.


text:
Q: Dynamic orWhere Clause I want to create a nested parameter grouping in my query where the value of one of my nested where is gotten from the form.
if($request->view != '') {
    $query->where(function ($query) {
    $query->where('type', $request->view)
            ->orWhere('type', 2);
    })->get();
}

Right now I'm getting Undefined variable: request.
How do I get the value of $request->view in the function?

A: You're not passing the $request variable into the anonymous function. Have a look at the PHP documentation.
In order to make your code work, you have to change it as follows:
if($request->view != '') {
    $query->where(function ($query) use($request) { // <-- without use, your
      $query->where('type', $request->view)         //     anonymous function
            ->orWhere('type', 2);                   //     cannot access $request
    })->get();
}

A: if($request->view != '') {
    $query->where(function ($query) use ($request) {
    $query->where('type', $request->view)
            ->orWhere('type', 2);
    })->get();
}

A: Add it to scope with use
if($request->view != '') {
    $query->where(function ($query) use ($request) {
        $query->where('type', $request->view)
            ->orWhere('type', 2);
    })->get();
}

A: In your case not need use orWhere(). you can use whereIn()
if($request->view != '') {
    $query->whereIn('type', [$request->view, 2])
}