text:
Nausea-free VR immersion could take 1600fps say researchers
A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has figured out a way to render immersive 3D virtual reality images without the often dizzying and nausea-inducing side effects created by the so-called vergence-accommodation conflict, when our eyes have to focus on a fixed display despite receiving different depth cues.
Driving a focus-tunable liquid lens in an innovative way and synchronizing the display with it, the researchers propose a multifocal display that goes well beyond the typical limitations of focus-tunable lenses. In a paper titled "Towards Multifocal Displays with Dense Focal Stacks" presented at the SIGGRAPH Asia conference last December, the researchers describe an optical system able to produce thousands of focal planes per second, which if the display is fast enough, could be used to project just the images relevant to each focal plane.
While varifocal displays generate a single but adaptive
focal plane using an eye tracker (left), the new displays
outputs dense focal plane stacks synchronized with the
accurate tracking of the focal-length of an oscillating
focus-tunable lens.
In that case, an observer could look anywhere at the display and would naturally get a coordinated vergence and focus thanks to the images' depth maps sequentially assigned to a dense stack of focal planes. Multifocal displays are not a new concept per se, but previous demonstrations often found their limitation due to the focus-tunable liquid lens' relatively slow settling time. Based on an input driving voltage, such lenses can take about 5ms to settle onto a particular focal length, which would limit their output at 200 focal planes per second at most. Taking in consideration a display operating in the range of 30 to 60 frames per second (fps), this would limit the number of available focal planes to between three and six focal planes per frame, creating accommodation artefacts for the viewer.


text:
Matt Barnes is the morning co-anchor of NBC4 Today, a position he took in January 2016. He joined the NBC4 staff in May 2010 as a sports anchor and reporter.
Matt began his broadcasting career at NBC4 as an intern, working in the sports department in the summer of 2007, learning all the ins and out of the television business. During his time as an intern. he helped with coverage of the Memorial Tournament and NHL Draft.
He is a proud graduate from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, graduating cum laude with a degree in broadcast journalism. While at OU, he worked for Gridiron Glory at WOUB, which won a student production Emmy. He was also one of 12 OU students who were featured in a commercial campaign, including a billboard.
After college, Matt worked at WRDW-TV in Augusta, GA as a sports anchor/reporter, covering numerous sporting events, including the Masters tournament. Matt said his biggest thrill was playing Augusta National twice and shooting over 100 both times.
His favorite part about working in television is being able to tell people's stories. Whether it is talking to someone making a difference in their community, a young person fighting against a terminal disease, or an athlete striving for a championship, everyone has a unique story to tell.
As a native of Columbus, being out and about in the community is very important to him. He is an avid volunteer and supporter of the Ronald McDonald House in Columbus. He also serves as a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters. You also might see him talking to schools around the area, including his alma maters Indianola Elementary, Johnson Park Middle and Bishop Hartley High.
His first job was working as a cook/server at Columbus Country Club. But now, he is working his dream job in his hometown!
Food: Chicken fingers, chicken alfredo, brownies
Movies: The Lion King, Anchorman, Hardball, Forrest Gump, Whiplash
Books: Oh The Places You'll Go, To Kill A Mockingbird
Music: Pretty much anything but country
Hobbies: Working out, Golf, Volunteering
Sports: All of them
Travel destination: Athens, Ohio, Anywhere I haven't been
Ohio/Central Ohio place: CBJ games at Nationwide Arena, Short North, Columbus Zoo
NBC show: This Is Us, Sunday Night Football, Saturday Night Live
Latest from Matt Barnes
Mother shares signs of hope, encouragement on Columbus' highway overpasses
Local News / 1 month ago
OSU club football playing for a national championship
Sports / 2 months ago
Young Buckeye fans' view of The Rivalry
Mentoring initiative in Columbus City Schools changing lives
Checking out Ohio Stadium's new luxury seating
Central Ohio man's Buckeye basement is an Ohio State treasure trove
Brutus Buckeye brotherhood comes together during Pelotonia
Matt Barnes to try his hand at steer showing during Ohio State Fair
A VIP experience at the Memorial for deserving kids
Local teenager overcoming obstacles gets great opportunity at Memorial

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
More than half of data is unnecessary copies: Actifio
Data management vendor sees value in virtualising data.
Patrick Budmar (New Zealand Reseller News) 22 September, 2014 16:27
Over 60 per cent of what is stored in datacentres is actually unnecessary copies, according to Actifio.
President, Jim Sullivan, said this can be traced back to the popularity of back-ups, which then expanded to cover business continuity, disaster recovery and replication.
"This was followed by business requirements regarding compliance, retention and data warehousing," he said.
"People were required for protection to keep copies of data, which created more storage silos that are not very efficient."
Sullivan attributes the storage growth over the last few decades predominantly to copies of the same data, an approach that has the tendency to be "inefficient, complex and expensive."
"What people would do is buy storage systems and deploy multiple different software products in very different silos that would be physically attached to those storage systems, and there's not a lot of freedom or agility in that," he said.
Time to virtualise
Actifio is attempting to address this with its own data management platform, which Sullivan said discover the data at its native format at the application level
It then create one gold copy of the data while virtual images can be written to, a process Sullivan said could reduce the storage footprint by up to 50 per cent, storage costs up to 90 per cent, and network bandwidth up to 70 per cent.
Read more Violin Memory promises resellers a 'true channel' model
"Most importantly, the customer can become fast and agile in accessing data for whatever the business requirement is," he said.
Sullivan has high hopes for Actifio, with the company attempting to "do for the data management layer what VMware did for the compute layer."
"We're virtualising it, therefore taking a lot of cost out of the model yet helping the customer to become more flexible and agile," he said.
Patrick Budmar covers consumer and enterprise technology breaking news for IDG Communications. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_budmar.
Read more: Dell adopts Xeon E5 v3 for software-defined storage and beyond
Resellers pushed IronKey Windows To Go towards VDI
Which vendor sits top of the storage shop with IDC?
CommVault's Melbourne Cup party in Sydney (+25 photos)
All the tools you need to become the go-to technology partner for Cloud and HCI
More from Dell Technologies
Tags Data managementvirtualisationstorageback up and recoveryActifio
How enterprises are looking at transformation as a competitive advantage moving forward
Events of 2020 have proven to be transformative to businesses, how they operate, and how they think about everything from their supply lines to staff health, through to resilience and continuity.


Emily Crookshank studied Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art and exhibits regularly across the UK. Her work has been selected for a number of highly regarded exhibitions, alongside some of the most exciting and innovative artists and contemporary printmakers.
Emily enjoys the developmental nature of printmaking and allows her work to evolve organically. This happens over many dedicated hours, experimenting with technique and exploring the natural characteristics of the medium. Through these stripped back and balanced compositions, her work celebrates the materials and the many satisfactions of the medium itself.
We are delighted to have selected Emily as the Artist in Residence for this year's Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2018.


Good nutrition can keep your brain functioning properly for a lifetime. Whether supporting healthy neurons or avoiding unhealthy inflammation, the right nutrients can support lasting cognitive health.
Vitamin E with natural tocopherols acts as a powerful antioxidant maintaining overall health.


Thyroid Disorders | Samantha F. Grant, C.N.
TSH: "the gold standard" for diagnosing thyroid disorders only detects 20% of thyroid imbalances. 1 in 8 women suffer from thyroid disorders. Dr.Holtorf, featured in this video is a pioneer in treating such disorders that other doctors simply dismiss as Menopause, being too fat, or simply being Female. Make sure you get a full thyroid panel and see a specialist like Dr. Eva Cwynar or Dr. Dominique Fradin-Read.
I can help you navigate thyroid disease! Often, the adrenals or our "stress organs" are at the root of a thyroid disorder. By performing a saliva test of cortisol levels throughout the day, we can see when you need extra support to combat the effects of stress on your entire body, including your thyroid gland.


text:
Chase Llyod
By Tim Turner Legacy Author September 17, 2007
What is the price one pays for truth? For the past few months I've asked myself this, over and over, until the question and bother of it all just fades to nothing; an unintelligible string of words set to the pace of the voice in my head. I have a job to do now, anyways, and I can't stop until it was done. No, perhaps that's not the correct attitude. Perhaps I have to look at the reason behind the job. I have to look at what it is that makes me work so hard towards my goal. I need to look at the truth.
Geminis sat, low in the pale moonlight, near an outlet gutter in a long row of sewage canals near what is known as Crey's Folly. It had been almost three months since Geminis found the wrecked body in this dank line of sewage on a nightly response to a very bad feeling; three months since he first learned the truth. On that night his life changed forever and he could recall it very well. As the moon began to rise in the backdrop of the derelict city district, Geminis leaned his head back and revisited that night. The night he learned of Crey's true folly.
Dusk was just beginning to introduce itself to the day as a man emerged from the public transit railway, his blue hair hang nonchalantly and unkempt over similar shaded eyes. The night before was ridden with an eerie attraction to this place, a gut feeling that the individual knew would lead him to something. His name was Paul Castor, a young man living on his own in a small loft in King's Row. He had no story to tell; his life was pretty average up until then, at least when compared to some of the other greats in Paragon City. Paul shook off a chilly feeling as he approached the city limits; a barb-wire fence bearing a warning sign greeted him as he tried to make his way past and into the dark canals beyond. It was something about the stars that night that made him come out this way; they always seemed to call to him when something needed to be done. Crouching low now, as not to be seen, Paul crept along the slick path between the sewage lines and finally made it to a small concrete clearing in the middle of many of then. Sighing to himself and questioning his mental health, Paul gazed around the uninviting environment and scanned for something. Anything, really, that would give him an answer to all of this calling. A few moments later, his answer came calling back to him.
A few yards off a low, scratchy alarm seemed to be keening, repeatedly and in different tones much like that of a car or burglary alarm. Paul held his breath in anxiety as he crept over to the cause of the distress signal. Pushing some brush aside, Paul squinted at what appeared to be a dim red light floating in the middle of the sewage pool; a dense evening fog masking whatever the source may be. As he climbed down to the water's edge, the light drifted closer to Paul and a figure appeared, clutched to a drift log. As the mass touched land, Paul waved to hail the mysterious stranger. Answered only by the distress signal giving out to a dull fizzle, Paul gathered himself and approached even closer now. Upon closer investigation, the figure was a robotic suit in appearance with many wide scratches on the chassis and framework. The helmet took the worst damage, many sections were missing, charred and broken off into pieces surrounding the floating vessel. Paul dragged the injured robot on to the dry concrete and turned it around to face upwards towards to the sky. Paul's eyes widened and he swore aloud as he observed the front of the suit; missing plates of the armor in the calf area gave way to a painful sight of blood and sinew where severe burning must have taken place. Geminis moved up the body and froze when he reached the face; it was a familiar sight indeed.
Footsteps alerted Geminis to someone's approach as he lurched out of dream-mode. A small wave of static was followed by a voice spoke in monotone, "Geminis, are you there? I have located our target. They have what we want, let's get into position." It was Zecroda or, as Paul knew him from another life and time, Tervious Domme. The robot armor-clad man stood, ten feet off with his red visor gleaning in the dark of the night. It was he that Paul found that night three months ago, his friend since youth that left college to pursue a career with Crey; then left for dead in a drainage channel amongst filth and sewage, betrayed by his own company. It was this man that told Paul of everything that Crey did during the Rikti Invasion to win their precious battles, and the suffering that innocents were subjected to all in the name of science and industry. The days following that incident lead to the death of Paul Castor, and the birth of Geminis and the company of Ecodigm. Those seeking the truth now had a rebellion to join; a fight for the cause. They would do whatever it took to expose Crey and raids on the industry's shipments like this only helped their cause. But they couldn't be too hasty; they had to wait for the right place and time before they could let the world know of the evils of Crey. They had to collect their forces and find others like Zecroda that were betrayed and abused by Crey, and they were out there to be found. The days to come weren't going to be easy, but Geminis knew that they would be worth it. They were worth the price one pays for Truth.
chase lloyd
city of villains
price of truth


Norway's new submerged restaurant Under will offer a $430 tasting menu that features the aquatic flora and fauna living outside its windows.
"No swimwear is required for your evening with us, but neither is formal wear," reads a line from the FAQ portion of the website for the restaurant Under, which opened in Norway this week.
That experience begins with the structure itself. The restaurant appears to be half-sunken into the sea, giving it an otherworldly feel, and the design elements, both ethereal and stark, mirror that. Oak, concrete, and raw steel all come together to create a feeling of a ship's hull that's landed on the ocean floor. And while the food is no doubt the star here, the restaurant's design is also an undeniable highlight.
The Immersion menu costs around $266, but with the recommended wine pairings it can cost more than $400 (there's also a non-alcoholic juice pairing available). And the restaurant, despite its far-flung location, is already booked out for more than six months in advance.


text:
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace VkApi.Wrapper.Objects
{
    public class FriendsMutualFriend
    {
        ///
        /// Total mutual friends number
        ///
        [JsonProperty("common_count")]
        public int CommonCount { get; set; }
        [JsonProperty("common_friends")]
        public int[] CommonFriends { get; set; }

        ///
        /// User ID
        ///
        [JsonProperty("id")]
        public int Id { get; set; }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


These web sites may include a wide range of components including text, images, audio, video and weblogs. Here program users may voice their opinions, offered updates troubles life, present insight into current events or accomplish a number of other goals. Yet , bloggers who have utilize a online social network to maintain the blog must look into a few different facets. This article will talk about some of these factors including whether to make the blogs available to the population or keep the private, considering the audience within the blog and dealing with nuisance through the weblog.
Most support systems enable users to make their website either public use or private. Private websites are only available to the user and other users he specifically approves to view his website although public websites are available to everyone users within the system. The capabilities as well apply to the blogs that happen to be maintained on the social network. That is why bloggers need to determine whether they wish to make their blog posts available to the whole social network as well as to only a fraction on this network.
This decision will be typically based on an issue of personal inclination. Social networks can be extremely extensive plus some bloggers could possibly be apprehensive of their blog getting available to this sort of a large visitors while other bloggers might have no apprehensions about the length of the potential readership. Bloggers should carefully consider this to be option before staring a blog yet always have the possibility to change these settings following the blog has become established any time they transform their mind about the decision they actually made.
Bloggers who utilize a social network to maintain a blog should also cautiously consider the potential audience for the purpose of the blog. Most social networks include a broad mix section of everyone. Therefore writers should be aware of this audience once posting a blog and should consider how a blog entries will be interpreted by simply blog viewers members. Whilst it will never be likely to avoid problem all potential audience users some writers may wish to consider at least attempting to make certain the blog posts they post are appropriate for members of the social network. If this is not possible the blogger might consider producing the blog private.
An additional aspect blog writers who make use of a social network to write their blog page should be aware of contains the potential for harassment from other members through the blog. This can be in the form of offensive opinions posted in response to blog articles. Depending on the level of the nuisance the blogger may choose to dismiss these lemoxo.com reviews or take stronger activities. Bloggers should review the policies of this social network and solicit their very own assistance in dealing with harassment from other users. Generally dealing with the condition may be as simple as hindering the user by making responses on the blog but in some instances it may be necessary to contact the social network administrators in an attempt to get the user prohibited from the program. In this circumstance the administrators will assessment the situation and make a judgment concerning whether or not the customer has violated the terms of service.


text:
If you're looking for a fight, you're not going to find it.
Not here, anyway. There are fights within the Trump administration, there are fights in Congress and there are fights in other states. But it's all peace, love and coronavirus-fighting harmony in the Hoosier state.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett strained to embody unity Thursday at a time when it would have been easy to perceive friction. Hogsett and Virginia Caine, the director of the Marion County Public Health Department, held a press conference to get out in front of the state by extending the local stay-at-home order for at least another two weeks. Indiana's is scheduled to expire Friday.
That has been a persistent tension across the U.S. in recent weeks. States want to reopen and cities want to remain on lockdown, or vice versa depending on the politics. But Hogsett emphasized he is moving in concert with Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, who all week has been teasing an announcement for Friday. The governor is expected to lighten at least some social distancing restrictions, while also offering guidance on how Indiana will reopen.
"We will work very closely and collaboratively with Gov. Holcomb and his staff," Hogsett said. "The governor has to keep into consideration the needs and the desires, the pressures and the vulnerability of all 92 counties. Dr. Caine and I have a unique responsibility for charting a course for the city of Indianapolis and the Marion County residents.
"I don't think we will be at odds with the governor, but if the state, through our governor (Friday), articulates fundamentally different directives or lessens restrictions, we certainly will work with them."
Hogsett is linking arms with Holcomb, socially distantly speaking, and he wants you to know it. Hogsett even used Holcomb's new marketing catchphrase, "IN this together," before explaining why Indianapolis residents should plan to shelter in place a while longer.
More:Briggs: Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is boring, but he won re-election because he's doing a good job
The explanation is pretty simple. The trends in COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest Indianapolis has made some progress, largely due to the policies that have separated infected people from healthy people, but not so much progress that it would be responsible to let people congregate in public places again.
Holcomb might reach a different conclusion for Indiana's more rural counties. But, whatever Holcomb announces Friday, he said Thursday he is on board with Indianapolis' extended stay-at-home order.
"I fully support Mayor Hogsett," Holcomb said during his daily press briefing. "I've said before, local jurisdictions can always be stricter than what we have set. We'll seek to 100% of the time work with those local officials, just like we'll continue to work with Mayor Hogsett."
That collaboration might be deeply disappointing to some Democrats, who have reason to wish Hogsett would criticize Holcomb during this gubernatorial election year. In that context, it's worth noting that Hogsett, a centrist Democrat, is rumored to be interested in running for governor in four years and could stand to benefit from a close working relationship with a popular Republican governor, crisis or no crisis.
For those who care more about good government than politics, though, it is ideal to be in a state where the governor and largest-city mayor recognize they are jointly responsible for overcoming a massive challenge.
Consider the alternative example of Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp blazed full speed ahead toward reopening the state without seeking input or consent from cities. Keren Landman, an epidemiologist, wrote in The New York Times about how political dysfunction has dominated Georgia's response to the coronavirus.
"It's unclear why Mr. Kemp made such a unilateral decision, but it's not surprising. The move might be intended as payback: For several weeks in March, Mr. Kemp declined to shut Georgia down despite dire projections of the pandemic's public health impact," Landman wrote. "Many local governments issued countywide shelter-in-place orders during that time, which Mr. Kemp's chief of staff decried as 'overreach.'"
It's fair to criticize portions of the coronavirus response by both Hogsett and Holcomb — and I have — but so far they have prioritized public health over politics. Their similar workmanlike executive leadership styles and seeming deference to public health experts have served the city and state well through a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.
Let other states have their bickering mayors and governors. Indiana is fortunate to be in a season of political peacetime between blue Indianapolis and the red sea that surrounds it.
Contact IndyStar metro columnist James Briggs at 317-444-6307. Follow him on Twitter: @JamesEBriggs.


-= Canon EOS R owners unite! Post photos and discuss.
Post edited 1 month ago by A1original.
I was trying the new camera out in the panning mode. I really didn't want to start changing the exposer. Just a little lazy I guess.
PS You still get the feeling of motion from the tire/wheel spinning.
I like the Peak Design. I replaced a Black Rapids that I used for years because I never liked how the camera flopped around at my hip.
Hype chimping - The act of looking at your screen after every shot, then wildly behaving like it's the best picture in the world, to try and impress other photographers around you.
Post edited 1 month ago by kennikins.
Post edited 1 month ago by Mistabernie.
Wonder what the EXIF looks like on this.. SOOC to phone to LR App, lol.
Feel free to call me Bernie.
To put a bow on this, I wound up sending it back to Amazon. Based on what I saw and what I've seen elsewhere, you're all probably right that it was probably just dust - it certainly looked like what's dust on other cameras. However, when I inspected the sensor I couldn't see anything, and I didn't love the thing enough to deal with trying to clean it or send it for service after having it for a whole week, and the dust appearing in a few days when the lens never came off. It's a nice camera, but I missed the ergonomics of my 5D3, and it seemed to be stuck with a neither-fish-nor-fowl issue: it was small enough that my fingers had to curl a little too tightly to hit the controls, but not small enough to be much easier to pack and carry around all day. For travel (especially Italy in June and HK again sometime next year) I'll go with an SL2 or M50, and for Alohaman back on the Big Island I will be checking bags and taking my 5D3 (unless it gets swapped for a 5D4 in the meantime, because that sensor was nice).
It did take some nice images while I had it.
Anyone using a good strap they like with the weight of the R?
I need to ditch this Canon billboard.
The customer reviews for that strap seem more useful than many other sets of reviews I've read before.
I found the folding ballhead to be interesting, but the page didn't seem to clarify exactly how to use it. Many reviews referred to instructions either being missing or in Japanese if they were included.
I cant imagine what would need Loctite. Nothing on my strap comes unthreaded on it's own.
I just put together an XL Optech sling. But substituted their camera attachment system for the promedia gear setup.
Works perfect comfortable adjustable and easy attach and detach to my Joby tripod. I just snapped the two optech clips together to use as a stop. All I need is a tether.
If we follow the link he posted and read the review with the photo of the ball attachment off showing threads, the word "imagine" may vacate. Working parts in one person's gear have zero influence on the report of the same part malfunctioning elsewhere. It reminds me of recalls with autos. So it sounds like one guy got loose threads. And it's good he pointed it out. If $4000 worth of body and lens dangling on it depends on the part, it may be best to consider his suggestion to try some loctite.
Post edited 1 month ago by fi20100.
Not a Canon EOS R owner yet, but I'm seriously thinking about getting one. Will my old 430EX flashes (the original 430EX) work with the R?
5D3, 5Dc, 5Dc, 40D + 17-40L, 24-70L, 70-200L, 50/1.4, 85/1.8, 100L Macro and some other stuff.


Compression and expansion of the housing by deformation of the housing is also conceivable, by means of using shape memory materials. The resilient behaviour of shape memory materials at specific temperatures is hereby exploited. Through the slots 16, 17 which extend in the axial direction of the shaft 6, fluid, i.e. in the present case blood, can pass through the pump housing 5 towards the rotor 18 of the pump and can be conveyed further through the latter, for example axially through the cannula 4. In FIG. 2, the inflow of the rotor has a radial configuration. In FIG. 2 a, an embodiment with axial inflow and outflow is represented schematically.
In FIG. 7, a rotor blade is represented in cross-section, the detail VIII in FIG. 8 being shown in more detail. The detail VIII thereby shows the compression-resistant second material layer 31 a which, for its part, has a multilayer construction in the manner of a sandwich structure, the latter comprising tension- and/or compression-resistant external layers 33, 34, 35, 36 and also a volume layer 37. The external layers 35, 36 can be reinforced for example with a woven material.
TR201207222A2 (en) 2012-06-21 2012-11-21 Oran Bülent Intravenous heart assist device.
FR2688923B1 (en) 1992-03-23 1994-06-10 Sagem A magnetic drive device sealed without crossing wall and ultrasonic probe comprising application.


Chapter One of my book, "Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian," is titled, The Breakfast of Agrarians (Click here to read chapter One). When you read that short story, you will discover that my family makes our own maple syrup. We do this on a very small scale in our backyard using a relatively simple procedure. Our yearly production of the heavenly-flavored maple sweetness is around five gallons a year. But this year we ended up with a harvest of eight gallons. It was a good year for making "maple."
In this series of essays I will introduce you to the idea of Backyard Sugarin'. Then, in the next four essays, I'll tell you about how we tap trees, collect sap, boil it down, and finish it off. I'll also provide lots of pictures along the way.
Some people question why I make maple syrup at all. They see it as a lot of work for a relatively small amount of finished product.
"Wouldn't it be easier to just buy maple syrup?" That's the kind of question I get from people who have never done Backyard Sugaring. Folks who have made their own maple syrup don't ask that question.
Well, it so happens that making maple syrup with my family isn't about saving money, and it isn't about doing what's easy. It's all about working together as a family, doing something that is productive and enjoyable, which doesn't cost much money to do. It's all about getting outside in the fresh spring air, walking through the woods, feeding a wood fire, and standing over a boiling pan of tree sap, while breathing in the maple steam. In the end, we end up with sweet memories and sweet syrup.
So that's why we make maple syrup.
"I've got to say that there is something magical about sugarin', and if you talk with people who make maple syrup, either in a big commercial evaporator or out in the backyard, you'll find out there's a lot of agreement on that fact.
Maybe it's the time of year—the warm sun climbing higher into the sky, warming the back after a long winter, turning the snow to piles of white corn, turning the brooks from trickles to torrents, starting the maple sap flowing—a sort of hint of the Spring and Summer lying ahead. Maybe it's the drip drip of sap falling into the buckets, the telltale aroma of boiling sap, or the hissing sound of sap in a rolling boil. Maybe it's the magic of converting sweet water, as the Indians used to call it, to delicious golden syrup. But whatever it is, it's there.
My first experience with making maple syrup came, like so many other first experiences, after high school when I headed off to further my education in Vermont. While there, I spent part of a spring day helping collect sap from buckets hanging on trees, and I spent some time watching the boiling operation in the sugar house. I experienced my first drink of warm maple syrup, right out of the evaporator. One drink, and I was hooked.
It would be a few years before I had land of my own with a few maple trees, and a few more years after that before I finally got around to getting my own sugaring operation going. Part of the delay was that I didn't really think I had enough trees to justify making syrup, and the sugaring equipment was expensive.
I like to think, too, that most backyard sugarers must have a little of the moonshiner's blood in them. And there are a surprising number of similarities between boiling maple sap and distilling out the old mountain dew. In both cases you're separating water from something else. In the case of sugarin' you want what's left in the pan after the boiling, while with moonshining it's what comes off that counts. In both cases, too, you try to set up operations in a nice secluded spot, where you won't get laughed at for your mechanical eccentricities (in the case of sugarin') or arrested (in the case of moonshining).
The title of this series of how-to essays is the same as Mr. Mann's book because his whole philosophy of small-scale, home-scale, on-the-cheap syrup making is summed up nicely in the book's title; Backyard Sugarin'. His informative little book was the inspiration I needed to make my own maple syrup. Perhaps this series of essays will be the inspiration you need to start making your own maple syrup.
If you ever decide to sell any of the product from your "Backyard Sugarin'", let me know. I'm a diehard fan of your garlic powder, so I'm sure I'd love your maple syrup. We buy it in the little tins at the store, and we love it. I even put it in my coffee sometimes, besides on my homemade from scratch buttermilk pancakes. Sounds like lots of fun. More power to you and your family. Seems like a worthwhile way to spend some quality family time.
I concur that there is nothing like the fellowship and outdoor fun that comes from producing by the sweat of the brows of those we live in close community with, especially family and friends. But there is one more factor that will come into play all the more as our economy unwinds . . . availability. We take for granted the foods that are available today and just assume that in America it will always be there for us. Your recent post on the disappearing wheat reserves should be a real wake up call for all of us. More so, I am sure everyone is noticing the rapid increase in prices. On a more delicious note, perhaps this fall after we have produced several boxes of sorghum lasses', the Lord willing, we can do some horse trading for some of your backyard maple syrup. God bless brother.
I just drew off about 5 gallons a few minutes ago. Still have the taste on my mouth and a little on my beard :) I do think this is one of the few things I'd miss about the north east if I was ever to move. Its my favorite time of the year!
Scott, Sugar Maples grow quite well here in Missouri and at one time making syrup was quite popular, but for whatever reasons it has largely disappeared.
It's good to hear from you. I'm glad you are enjoying the garlic powder. Who knows, maybe someday I'll get a sugar bush and some "real" equipment and make a small business out of it. That would be neat. For now, though, we take the "hillbilly" approach, as you'll see when I show you the equipment we use.
Rick Mann's book does not discuss making maple syrup in the midwestern states. But I would think the same techniques apply no matter where you live.
I've never had sorghum molasses and would love to trade with you.
Howdy neighbor. 5 GALLONS?! Wow, we draw off 5 quarts and figure that's a good boil. you're a big time producer compared to me. Did you think this was a good year for making syrup?
I am new to this website but can see myself spending a lot of time here in the future. We are looking at giving maple sugaring a try this winter and are interested in knowing if there are suitable everyday (less costly) substitutes for the felt filters and preliners. Thank you in advance.
I don't know of any less costly substitutes for the felt and preliners. But I can tell you that we have used the same felt filter with the same preliner over and over for many seasons.


text:
\section{Introduction}

Optimization is ubiquitous in science and industry. From the search for the ground state of exotic states of matter such as high-temperature superconductors in physics \cite{stanev:18}, topology optimization in material science \cite{bendsoe:09}, lead optimization in pharmaceutical drug discovery \cite{keseru:06}, spacecraft trajectory optimization \cite{shirazi:18}, portfolio optimization in finance \cite{doering:16}, scheduling in transportation \cite{guihaire:08}, to speech recognition in artificial intelligence \cite{kinnunen:10}, to name a few.  One important category of optimization problems is combinatorial optimization, which is the search for the minima of an objective function within a finite but often large set of solutions. Paradigmatic examples are the traveling salesman problem, the geometrical packing problem \cite{karp:72}, graph coloring, the cutting stock problem, integer linear programming, etc. Many of these problems are NP-hard, in the sense that the worst-case time to find the optimum scales worse than a polynomial in the size of the input. Moreover, these problems are not only computationally hard to solve in the worst-case, but also in the typical case. These problems have a rough energy (cost function) landscape, consisting of numerous metastable states. Therefore, heuristics based on local search---e.g., the greedy algorithm \cite{cormen:90}---tend to perform poorly on these types of problems as they can easily become trapped in local minima \cite{bendall:06}.

One way to circumvent this difficulty is to use a stochastic process such as Metropolis dynamics \cite{metropolis:49} to randomly access different parts of the phase space. An example of an algorithm that utilizes such random sampling is simulated annealing (SA) \cite{kirkpatrick:83}. Simulated annealing is a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) process where a series of quasi-equilibrium states are visited by following an ``annealing schedule'' during which the system is gradually cooled from a sufficiently high temperature to a target low temperature. The goal is to guide the stochastic process through an occasionally complex energy landscape toward the low-lying states. At high temperatures, the random ``walker'' can take long strides across phase space, thus allowing for the exploration of configurations far away in Hamming distance. As the system is cooled, the exploration domain of the walker is reduced according to the Gibbs distribution, and it eventually lands in a low-lying state. There is no guarantee that this is the true optimum, unless an (impractical) infinite annealing time is used \cite{geman:84}. Because SA is stochastic in nature, running many such processes in parallel can increase the chance of finding the true optimum. Nevertheless, without establishing a way for the phase-space information gathered by the random walkers to be shared, mere replication of a simulated annealing process will not yield any meaningful speedup. Multiple Markov chain algorithms such as path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) \cite{trotter:59,suzuki:71,suzuki:76,suzuki:93,landau:00,troyer:03}, parallel tempering (PT) \cite{geyer:91,hukushima:96}, and population annealing (PA) \cite{hukushima:03,machta:10,wang:15e,amey:18,barzegar:18a} take advantage of this ``collective knowledge'' to efficiently probe the solution space of a problem.

Closely related to the genetic local search approaches \cite{brady:85,muhlenbein:88,freisleben:96,merz:98}, the thermal cycling algorithm (TCA) \cite{moebius:97,moebius:05} is another heuristic that integrates the power of parallel annealing processes with the utility of local search methods. The annealing part of this algorithm ensures that the phase space can be visited ergodically, whereas the local search part biases the dynamics toward the lower-energy states. When introduced almost twenty years ago, thermal cycling was shown to outperform simulated annealing in solving some limited instances of the traveling salesman problem. Despite the early indications that TCA might be a useful tool in dealing with hard optimization problems, it has not been carefully benchmarked and hence widely adopted by the optimization community. Here we reintroduce the thermal cycling algorithm and outline the basic pseudocode. In addition, we conduct a comprehensive parameter optimization of TCA using synthetic planted problems, where we compare the performance of TCA to a number of modern optimizers, including simulated quantum annealing (SQA). In order to quantify the efficiency of the aforementioned heuristics, we study how their time to solution (TTS) \cite{boixo:14,ronnow:14a} scales with the problem size. Our results show that when optimized properly, TCA can indeed be competitive with the state-of-the-art heuristics and therefore should be included in physics-inspired optimization platforms.

The paper is structured as follows. In Sec.~\ref{sec2:analysis} we explain the analysis techniques followed by the details of the algorithm in Sec.~\ref{sec3:TCA}. Section \ref{sec4:results} is dedicated to the benchmarking results of the study. Concluding remarks are presented in Sec.~\ref{sec5:conclusion}.

\section{Details of Analysis}
\label{sec2:analysis}

The cost function that we minimize in this benchmarking study is a 2-local Ising spin system, i.e.,
\begin{align}
\mathcal{H}=\sum_{i}^N\sum_{j\in\mathcal{N}_i}J_{ij}s_is_j +\sum_i^Nh_is_i,
\end{align}
where $N$ is the total number of variables, $\mathcal{N}_i$ is the adjacency list of the $i$'th lattice site, $J_{ij}$ is the coupling between spin $s_i$ and $s_j$, and finally $h_i$ is an external field applied to spin $s_i \in \{\pm 1\}$.

Most algorithms involve multiple parameters that need to be carefully tuned to observe the true asymptotic scaling. As such, a comprehensive hyperparameter optimization is in order. For benchmarking, we use synthetic problems whose ground state is unique and known beforehand. Here, we use the deceptive cluster loop (DCL) problems \cite{mandra:18} that are specifically designed for testing the performance of the D-Wave \cite{dwave} quantum annealer against classical algorithms. DCL's are inspired by the original frustrated cluster loop (FCL) problems \cite{hen:15a,king:19}, which have a ferromagnetic planted ground state defined on a Chimera graph \cite{bunyk:14}. The Chimera topology consists of a two-dimensional lattice of fully-connected bipartite $K_{4,4}$ cells in which all qubits are coupled ferromagnetically. The entire $K_{4,4}$ unit cell can, therefore, be viewed as one virtual variable. The cells are then connected via randomly-chosen frustrated loops. The magnitude of inter-cell couplings are capped at a finite value $R$ that adds local ``ruggedness" to the problems \cite{king:15, king:17}. The hardness of the FCL instances can be tuned by varying the density of the frustrated loops, often denoted by parameter $\alpha$. In the DCL problems, the inter-cell couplers are multiplied by a scaling factor $\lambda$. Depending on the value of $\lambda$, the internal structure of the cells can be masked or accentuated, thus deceiving the annealers to spend more time optimizing the local structures rather than finding the global minimum.

As the measure of performance, we use the time to solution (TTS) \cite{boixo:14,ronnow:14a} that is defined in the following way:
\begin{align}
{\rm TTS}(\alpha)=n(\alpha)\,\tau_{\rm run},\label{tts}
\end{align}
where $n(\alpha)$ is the number of times that the algorithm must be repeated, for a given parameter set $\alpha$, to find the ground state at least once with a desired probability of $p_{\rm d}$. $\tau_{\rm run}$ is the average run time, conventionally measured in microseconds. If we assume that the {\em success probability}, {\em i.e.}, the chance of hitting the ground state in a single run of the algorithm is $p_{\rm s}(\alpha)$, then one can show from the binomial distribution that
\begin{align}
p_{\rm d} = \sum_{k\geq 1}^{n}{n\choose k}p_{\rm s}^k(1-p_{\rm s})^{n-k}=1-(1-p_{\rm s})^n.\label{binomial}
\end{align}
We may now use the above expression to find $n(\alpha)$ in Eq.~\eqref{tts}:
\begin{align}
n(\alpha)=\frac{\log[1-p_{\rm d}]}{\log[1-p_{\rm s}(\alpha)]}.
\label{repetitions}
\end{align}
It is customary to set the desired probability in Eq.~\eqref{repetitions} to a high confidence value of $p_{\rm d} = 0.99$. Because the TTS is a function of the algorithm parameters, a thorough optimization of the parameters must be performed to reliably compare heuristics based upon it. Note that the optimization is often multidimensional, which makes the benchmarking a relatively laborious task. For each set of parameters $\alpha$ and each problem instance, we repeat the runs $100$ times and calculate the success probability $p_{\rm s}(\alpha)$ as the percentage of the ground state hits. This process is repeated for all instances, in this case, $100$, to calculate the median TTS, and the error bars are estimated using the bootstrap method. The above procedure is carried out for many other parameter-set values, and the optimal parameters are identified as the global minimum point of the TTS function. Having calculated the optimal TTS for all problem sizes ($N = 8L^2$), we can study the scaling behavior of the algorithm, which is often a power law, {\em i.e.},
\begin{align}
{\rm TTS}_{\rm opt}\sim 10^{a + bL}.\label{scaling}
\end{align}
The scaling exponent $b$ determines the performance of an algorithm in the asymptotic limit, whereas $a$ is a constant offset that depends on the factors nonintrinsic to the algorithm, such as hardware speed, code efficiency, etc. Therefore, a relatively unbiased way to compare different algorithms is to focus on the scaling exponent.

\section{Thermal Cycling Algorithm}
\label{sec3:TCA}

The thermal cycling algorithm works by periodically heating and cooling an ensemble of states while following a decreasing temperature schedule. The ensemble is prepared by selecting $N_{\rm p}$ lowest energy states among $N_0$ quenched random configurations. Starting from the initial inverse temperature $\beta_{\rm i}=0$, the above pool of states is annealed toward a final inverse temperature of $\beta_{\rm f}$ in $N_{\rm T}$ steps. At a given temperature, some energy is deposited into the ensemble states using $N_{\rm s}$ Metropolis updates (heating) followed by an immediate quench via a local search method (cooling). If any of the resulting states are lower in energy than the original set, they are replaced in the pool. The heating-cooling cycle is repeated $N_{\rm c}$ times at a fixed temperature. In practice, the above process steers the ensemble toward the low-lying states while ensuring that metastable configurations do not hinder the dynamics. The temperature is then reduced, and the cycles start over. In Algorithm~\ref{algorithm:TCA}, we present a concise outline of the thermal cycling algorithm.

\begin{algorithm}[t!]
  \caption{Thermal Cycling}
   \begin{algorithmic}[1]
   \State Randomly initialize $N_0$ configurations of the problem.
   \State Quench each of the $N_0$ states using a local search algorithm.
   \State Construct a pool of states by selecting $N_{\rm p}$ states with the lowest energy from the above quenched states.
	\State Build a list of lattice sites by comparing the spins on a given site between all pools states. If all aligned, add the site to the list.
   \For { $N_{\rm T}$ steps starting from $\beta=0$ until $\beta=\beta_{\rm f}$}
		\For {$N_{\rm c}$ cycles}
			\State Pick a random state from the pool.
			\State {
				\begin{varwidth}[t]{\linewidth}
					Add heat to the pool state using $N_{\rm s}$ Metropolis sweeps \par
		        	\hspace{-2cm} at $\beta$, excluding the spins in the site list.
			  	\end{varwidth}
			 }
			\State Quench the selected state.
			\If {lower energy is achieved}
				\State Replace the old state in the pool with the new one.
				\State{
					\begin{varwidth}[t]{\linewidth}
						Rebuild the site list by comparing the spins between \par
						\hspace{-3.6cm} the updated pool states.
				   \end{varwidth}
				}
			\EndIf
		\EndFor
   		\State {
   			\begin{varwidth}[t]{\linewidth}
   				 Increase $\beta\rightarrow \beta+\Delta \beta$ in which the step size  $\Delta\beta$  is \par
   				    \hspace{-1.9cm} usually constant, i.e, linear schedule.
   			\end{varwidth}
   		}
   \EndFor
   \State Identify the pool state with the lowest energy as the solution of the problem.
   \end{algorithmic}
   \label{algorithm:TCA}
\end{algorithm}

The main advantage of thermal cycling is the possibility of using a variety of variable-update classes in the quenching phase. By using more complex updates, exponentially many smaller local minima can be skipped in favor of lower-energy and configurationally more differing ones. This, however, does not necessarily translate to increased efficiency of the algorithm as the implementation overhead associated with those complex moves can negate the overall gain. Thus, there must be a trade-off between the complexity of the moves and the speedup owing to the reduced metastability. One of the simplest updates is a single-spin greedy move (SSGM) in which the most unstable spins ({\em i.e.,} spins with the largest positive local fields) are flipped in a sequential fashion until no further improvement can be made. Another subset of the move classes are the double-spin random moves (DSRM), which consist of first attempting to flip a randomly-chosen spin by itself, and if this is rejected, then trying to flip it together with one of the neighboring spins (looked up sequentially) that results in lowering the overall energy. The updates stop when the rejections accumulate to the total number of bonds in the problem.  Another important type of move that we have studied here is the Lin-Kernighan cluster move (LKCM) that is based on the famous Lin-Kernighan algorithm \cite{lin:73,helsgaun:00} which is considered, to date, one of the most efficient heuristics for solving the traveling salesman problem (TSP).  In a LKCM, a cluster of spins of size $M$ is constructed starting from the most unstable spin and then appending the neighboring spins to it until the total cost of flipping the cluster becomes positive. The LKCM is essentially a $k$-opt local search algorithm \cite{flood:56,croes:58,lin:65}, where $k$ is determined from a sequence of partial costs, {\em i.e.}, $\{c_1,c_2,\ldots, c_M\}$. Here, $c_1$ is the cost of flipping the first spin, $c_2$ is the cost of flipping the first and the second spin together, and so on. One then flips the set of $k$ spins with the lowest partial cost, $c_k$. We report the performance of each of the above move classes in the next section.

Another important point that one has to bear in mind is the duration of the heating phase. As mentioned earlier, the heating part of TCA ensures that the algorithm remains dynamic in spite of being quenched to often deep local minima. This requires that the system is subjected to a sufficient number of Metropolis updates. On the other hand, to preserve the gains of the previous cycles, the equilibration must be terminated in early stages. Otherwise, the system might end up in a configuration too far away in the phase space.

During the cycling process, the states in the pool are treated independently from one another. This has the potential pitfall that some of the states in the pool might wander off to energetically unfavorable parts of the configuration space. As mentioned earlier, this shortcoming can be alleviated by establishing an interaction between the pool states. One way to do this is to freeze the variables that are common among all of the states. We can justify this reduction by realizing that if the states in the pool have a feature in common, it is very likely that the feature will also appear in the ground-state configuration. Note that this step is closely related to metaheuristics such as tabu search \cite{glover:89,glover:90} as well as self-avoiding random dynamics on integer complex systems (SARDONICS) \cite{hamze:11}, search for backbones \cite{schneider:96,zhang:04,wang:11b, wang:13d} often used in genetic type algorithms, and sample persistence \cite{chardaire:95,karimi:17a} which has been used in conjunction with algorithms such as simulated annealing as well as simulated quantum annealing.

\section{Results}
\label{sec4:results}

In this study, we compare TCA to simulated annealing (SA) \cite{kirkpatrick:83}, simulated quantum annealing (SQA) \cite{suzuki:76}, parallel tempering (PT) \cite{geyer:91,hukushima:96}, and parallel tempering with isoenergetic cluster moves (PT+ICM) \cite{zhu:15b}. SQA is the classical implementation of the quantum annealing process \cite{finnila:94, kadowaki:98} in which the system is initialized in the ground state of a simple Hamiltonian and adiabatically \cite{born:28} deformed into a target Hamiltonian whose ground state is difficult to find. PT is a Monte Carlo algorithm that efficiently samples the equilibrium configurations of a system using the replica-exchange technique. The ICM update---which consist of rearranging a large collection of variables by inspecting the overlap between two replicas---is extremely effective for low connectivity graphs in which the cluster percolation threshold is small.

For this benchmarking study we have generated $100$ DCL instances for each linear size ranging from $L=8$ to $L=16$. The DCL parameters are fixed to a relatively hard regime of $\alpha=0.24$, $R=1$, and $\lambda=3.0$ \cite{mandra:18}. For each studied algorithm, we optimize the parameters via a grid search within its parameter space. All of the simulations are done on a single thread using Intel Xeon E5-2680 v4 2.40GHz processors. In Fig.~\ref{fig1:param_optimization}, we show some examples of such hyperparameter optimization. Figure \ref{fig1:param_optimization}(a) illustrates the parameter optimization of TCA for the system size $L=12$ in which the color map represents the TTS values in the logarithmic scale and the axes are the number of cycles $N_{\rm c}$ and the number of annealing steps $N_{\rm T}$. Note that this is only a two-dimensional cross-section of the entire parameter space on which the rest of the parameters have fixed values of  $N_0=1024$, $N_{\rm p}\!=\!16$, $N_{\rm s}\!=\!32$, and $\beta_{\rm f}\!=\!0.30$. We observe two minima with comparable depth within the error bars. This shows that  $N_{\rm T}$ and  $N_{\rm c}$ are anti-correlated. Figure \ref{fig1:param_optimization}(b) shows the optimization of sweeps for PT+ICM using various system sizes. The minimum TTS values correspond to the optimal sweep values. The above optimization has been done for all other algorithms as well, and we omit details for clarity.

\begin{figure}[t!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{optimal_TTS.pdf}
\caption{
(a) Parameter tuning of the thermal cycling algorithm using deceptive cluster loop (DCL) problems of linear size $L\!=\!12$. The figure shows the number of cycles $N_{\rm c}$  versus the number of annealing steps $N_{\rm T}$, with the rest of the parameters fixed. The color map shows the TTS values. Two minima with similar depths are observed. The lowest minimum corresponds to the optimal parameters. (b) Optimization of the number of sweeps for PT+ICM for various systems sizes. The minima of the TTS curves mark the optimal sweep values used in the scaling analysis.}
\label{fig1:param_optimization}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\begin{table}[t!]
\begin{center}
\caption{
Parameters of the thermal cycling algorithm for different linear problem sizes $L$. $N_{\rm T}$ is the number of annealing steps, $N_{\rm p}$ is the pool size,  $N_{\rm c}$ is the number of heating-cooling cycles per temperature, $N_{\rm s}$ is the number of Metropolis sweeps, and $\beta_{\rm f}$ is the target inverse temperature (lowest temperature).}
\label{table1:TCA parameters}
\begin{tabular*}{\columnwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}} l l l l l r}
\hline
\hline
$L$ & $N_{\rm T}$ & $N_{\rm p}$ & $N_{\rm c}$ & $N_{\rm s}$ & $\beta_{\rm f}$ \\
\hline
$8$ & $128$ & $16$ & $32$ & $16$  & $0.2$0\\
$9$ & $256$  & $16$ & $32$ & $16$ & $0.2$5\\
$10$ & $512$  & $16$ & $64$ & $32$  & $0.25$ \\
$11$ & $512$  & $16$ & $128$ & $32$  & $0.30$\\
$12$ & $724$  & $16$ & $128$ & $32$ & $0.3$0\\
$13$ & $724$  & $16$ & $128$ & $32$ & $0.30$\\
$14$ & $1024$  & $16$ & $128$ & $32$ & $0.30$\\
$15$ & $1024$  & $16$ & $128$ & $32$ & $0.3$0\\
$16$ & $1448$  & $16$ & $128$ & $32$ & $0.3$0\\
\hline
\hline
\end{tabular*}
\end{center}
\end{table}

In Table.~\ref{table1:TCA parameters}, we have listed the optimal parameters of the thermal cycling algorithm for the studied system sizes. We observe that most of the algorithm parameters are robust with respect to the problem size and the number of annealing steps $N_{\rm T}$---much like SA---is the only varying parameter. This is valuable information as it eliminates the necessity of a full parameter optimization in a practical application of the algorithm. In reality, the total effort in a TCA simulation is roughly proportional to $N_{\rm T}N_{\rm p}N_{\rm c}N_{\rm s}$ with some additional overhead caused by the local search. Although this might seem like a large effort compared to SA, in terms of time to solution, TCA is orders of magnitude more efficient than SA as we demonstrate below. This can, in part, be attributed to the use of complex quenching moves in TCA that significantly reduce the number of the visited local minima.

In Fig.~\ref{fig2:scaling_TCA} we show the scaling results of the thermal cycling algorithm with various move classes--that is, SSGM, DSRM, and LKCM, as explained in Sec.~\ref{sec3:TCA}. The main panel of Fig.~\ref{fig2:scaling_TCA} displays the optimal TTS values for different system sizes $L$, with the lines fitted to the largest five system sizes. The inset of the figure shows the scaling exponent $b$ in Eq.~\eqref{scaling} obtained from the linear fits. Note that the height of the boxes represents the error bars. It is clear that the double-spin random moves (DSRM) are significantly more efficient than the other two types of move classes that we have studied here. It is interesting to note that the Lin-Kernighan cluster moves (LKCM) become less efficient as the problem size increases despite giving almost two orders of magnitude in constant speedup for smaller systems sizes. We speculate that this is due to the increased overhead of constructing a long sequence of partial costs---which requires building a large cluster of spins as we explained in Sec.~\ref{sec3:TCA}---relative to the optimal subcluster that is flipped in the end. It is worth mentioning here that the efficiency of the LKCM is to some extent topology-dependent because the updates are, in essence,  cluster moves, and therefore might perform better when implemented on a different set of problems.

\begin{figure}[t!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.9\columnwidth]{scaling_TCA.pdf}
\caption{
Main Panel: Time to solution (TTS) of the thermal cycling algorithm versus the linear problem size $L$. Various quenching schemes consisting of single-spin greedy moves (SSGM), double-spin random moves (DSRM), and Lin-Kernighan cluster moves (LKCM) are displayed. The lines represent a linear fit in the logarithmic (base 10) scale to the five largest system sizes. We observe a sizable constant speedup with the LKCM although it diminishes at larger system sizes. Inset: Scaling exponent $b$ corresponding to the slope of the linear fits in the main panel. The height of the boxes represents the error bars. The best scaling is obtained when TCA is used in conjunction with DSRM. These moves are simple enough to cause minimal overhead, yet complex enough to considerably reduce the number of the metastable states.
}
\label{fig2:scaling_TCA}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

In Fig.~\ref{fig3:scaling_all_solvers}(a), we show the scaling curves of various algorithms, corresponding to the optimal values of their parameters, as a function of the linear size $L$.  As before, the TTS values are reported in the logarithmic (base 10) scale where the linear fits are interpreted as exponential scalings. There is a considerable constant offset associated with PT and PT+ICM, which is due to the use of a highly-optimized implementation by Salvatore Mandr{\`a} as a part of NASA/TAMU Unified Framework for Optimization (UFO). Figure \ref{fig3:scaling_all_solvers}(b) shows the scaling exponent $b$ [the slope of the linear fit in  Fig.~\ref{fig3:scaling_all_solvers}(a)]. We observe that TCA (with DSRM) scales overwhelmingly better than SA, in agreement with previous TSP studies. It is also more efficient than PT and even competitively close to SQA. Note that PT is already established as a powerful heuristic in many optimization-related applications. SQA and PT+ICM show the best performances among the studied solvers. This can be ascribed to the structure of the DCL problems, which involve tall but thin barriers that can be easily tunneled through using SQA. Isoenergetic cluster moves are also well-suited for the DCL problems as they cause large rearrangements of the variables, resulting in an efficient sampling of the configuration space.

\begin{figure}[t!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.9\columnwidth]{scaling_all_solvers.pdf}
\caption{
Comparison between the scaling results of the studied algorithms using the deceptive cluster loop (DCL) problems. (a) Time to solution (TTS) versus the linear problem size $L$ for various algorithms. Note that TTS is given on a logarithmic (base 10) scale. The sizable offsets in PT and PT+ICM are due to the use of a highly optimized code. (b) Scaling exponent $b$ in Eq.~\eqref{scaling} for various algorithms. The height of the boxes represents the error bars. The TCA data points correspond to the best performing quenching scheme, {\em i.e.}, DSRM, shown in Fig.~\ref{fig2:scaling_TCA}. TCA scales better than SA and PT, and even comparable to SQA within the error bars. PT+ICM shows the best scaling. However, the latter is due to the great efficiency of the ICM updates in sampling the DCL phase space which is nonrepresentative for denser industrial problems.
}
\label{fig3:scaling_all_solvers}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\section{Conclusion}
\label{sec5:conclusion}

In this paper we have thoroughly benchmarked the thermal cycling algorithm. Our results demonstrate that TCA is a competitive heuristic for solving problems with complex structures as it takes advantage of repeated heating and cooling to push the system toward the lower-energy states while ensuring that the system does not get trapped in an excited state. By reducing the variables among the TCA replicas, the stochastic process can be further accelerated, and the system can be guided more effectively toward the global minimum using the collective ``memory" of the solution pool. Having carefully tuned the parameters, we show that TCA can be as effective as the state-of-the-art algorithms such as SQA, while overpowering SA and PT by great margins in the asymptotic scaling.

Due to the special structure of the DCL problems, which involve tall yet narrow barriers, SQA and PT+ICM outperform TCA because they utilize quantum effects and cluster updates to bypass those barriers. The true advantage of TCA might be revealed when using dense graphs with broad barriers, where PT+ICM and SQA would naturally struggle. TCA also lends itself to being integrated with ICM updates because it involves simultaneous annealing of many system replicas. This is in close analogy with to the Iterative Partial Transcription (IPT) algorithm \cite{moebius:99a, moebius:99b}.  It has been shown by Ochoa {\em et.~al.} \cite{ochoa:19} that a lower-energy state can be generated by overlapping two excited states via an ICM update. Therefore, one interesting addition to TCA could be trying to push the pool states further down in energy by performing ICM updates at the end of the cycle, provided that the graph density is low enough and the clusters do not percolate.

\begin{acknowledgments}

We would like to thank A.~M{\"o}bius for useful discussions regarding various aspects of
the thermal cycling algorithm, and also providing code for the double-spin random moves (DSRM).
The authors would also like to acknowledge Jonathan Machta for critically reviewing the
manuscript. H.G.K.~would like to thanks Dr.~Pimple Popper for visualizations of energy
landscapes. We thank  Texas A\&M University, and NASA Ames Research Center for providing access
to computational resources. This work is supported in part by the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence (ODNI), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), via MIT
Lincoln Laboratory Air Force Contract No.~FA8721-05-C-0002. SM also acknowledges
the support from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)
-- IARPA~IAA~1198 -- and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) -- IAA~8839, Annex~125 --.
The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be
interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed
or implied, of ODNI, IARPA, DARPA or the U.S. Government. The U.S.  Government is authorized to
reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright
annotation thereon.

\end{acknowledgments}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Home Music U2: Single Release and Album Tracklisting
U2: Single Release and Album Tracklisting
"Get On Your Boots," the first single from U2's new album No Line On The Horizon, will be released on January 19th on Interscope Records. The album is currently available for pre-order and will be released on March 3rd.
Produced by Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite, sessions for No Line On The Horizon began in Fez, Morocco, and continued at the band's Dublin studio, New York's Platinum Sound Recording Studios, and Olympic Studios in London.
The album will be released in a standard format with a 24- page booklet and in digipak format. The digipak includes an extended booklet and the album's companion film "Linear" by Anton Corbijn. A limited edition 64-page magazine will also be available, featuring the band in conversation with artist Catherine Owens, and new Anton Corbijn photographs. No Line On The Horizon will be released on 180gm vinyl.
The cover artwork for the album is an image of the sea meeting the sky by Japanese artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto.
The full track listing is as follows:
1 No Line On The Horizon
2 Magnificent
3 Moment of Surrender
4 Unknown Caller
5 I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
6 Get On Your Boots
7 Stand Up Comedy
8 Fez – Being Born
9 White As Snow
10 Breathe
11 Cedars Of Lebanon
Full format information is available at u2.com
Visit http://www.u2.com/
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text:
Advice Notice to General Practitioners Concerning Patient Benefits and Other Subsidies (Amendment No. 16)
Pursuant to sections 88(1) and (3) of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000, and with the approval of the Minister of Health under section 89(3) of that Act, the Northland District Health Board, Waitemata District Health Board, Auckland District Health Board, Counties Manukau District Health Board, Waikato District Health Board, Lakes District Health Board, Bay of Plenty District Health Board, Tairawhiti District Health Board, Taranaki District Health Board, Hawke's Bay District Health Board, Whanganui District Health Board, MidCentral District Health Board, Hutt Valley District Health Board, Capital & Coast District Health Board, Wairarapa District Health Board, Nelson Marlborough District Health Board, West Coast District Health Board, Canterbury District Health Board, South Canterbury District Health Board and Southern District Health Board give the following notice.
1. Title—(1) This notice is the Advice Notice to General Practitioners Concerning Patient Benefits and Other Subsidies (Amendment No. 16).
(2) In this notice, the Advice Notice to General Practitioners Concerning Patient Benefits and Other Subsidies1 is called the "principal notice".
2. Commencement—This notice comes into force on 1 July 2015.
3. Variation of Notice (automatic increases)—the principal notice is varied by inserting, after clause 6.4, the following clause:
6.5 Despite clause 6.4, no notice is required to be given by the Ministry of Health where any patient entitlement for immunisation services [Schedule 3 of Part B] is increased by the Government. The relevant entitlement under this notice is increased automatically consistent with the payment rate for immunisation services in the Primary Health Organisation Services Agreement in accordance with Part F, clause F.21 and Schedule F1.3.2
4. Amendment—Schedule 3 of Part B of the principal notice is amended as follows:
Clause 4.6 is amended by deleting "$19.79" and replacing it with "$19.94" in both places where it occurs;
Clause 5.5 is amended by deleting "$19.79" and replacing it with "$19.94"; and
Clause 5.7 is amended by deleting "$19.79" and replacing it with "$19.94".
5. Statement of reasons for departure from terms and conditions of the principal notice for purposes of section 89(5) of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000—Following Cabinet approval, the subsidised fee for immunisations is increased by 0.8%.
Dated this 9th day of June 2015.
Dr NICK CHAMBERLAIN, Chief Executive.
For and on behalf of the: NORTHLAND DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD and as delegate on behalf of the 19 district health boards listed below:
WAITEMATA DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
AUCKLAND DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
COUNTIES MANUKAU DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
WAIKATO DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
LAKES DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
BAY OF PLENTY DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
TAIRAWHITI DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
TARANAKI DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
HAWKE'S BAY DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
WHANGANUI DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
MIDCENTRAL DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
HUTT VALLEY DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
CAPITAL & COAST DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
WAIRARAPA DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
NELSON MARLBOROUGH DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
WEST COAST DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
CANTERBURY DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
SOUTH CANTERBURY DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
SOUTHERN DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD.
1In force 1 May 2000:
Amendment No. 1: Supplement to New Zealand Gazette, 19 December 2001, No. 172, page 4201
Amendment No. 2: New Zealand Gazette, 20 June 2002, No. 67, page 1769
Amendment No. 3: New Zealand Gazette, 15 April 2004, No. 42, page 1068
Amendment No. 4: New Zealand Gazette, 5 May 2005, No. 76, page 1794
Amendment No. 5: New Zealand Gazette, 1 September 2005, No. 152, page 3752
Amendment No. 7: Supplement to New Zealand Gazette, 27 June 2007, No. 73, page 1845
Amendment No. 8: New Zealand Gazette, 26 June 2008, No. 104, page 2776
Amendment No. 10: New Zealand Gazette, 17 June 2010, No. 66, page 1967
Amendment No. 11: New Zealand Gazette, 30 September 2010, No. 134, page 3397
2 http://www.dhbsharedservices.health.nz/Site/PSAAP/default.aspx
New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act Advice notice to general practitioners concerning patient benefits and other subsidies Health
Principal Edition, 25 June 2015


text:
Sami Kukkohovi (born 26 July 1974) is a Finnish musician, best known as the bassist of the metal band Sentenced. He joined the band in 1996, replacing Taneli Jarva, and stayed with Sentenced up until they disbanded in 2005. Firstly, he was only a session member on gigs, but after that he joined the band officially. In addition to playing the bass guitar, he was also the back-up vocalist. Kukkohovi has been the guitar player for the hard rock band Solution 13 during his time with Sentenced. On live shows of the Doom metal band KYPCK, the crew is strengthened by Sami Kukkohovi, playing the second guitar. Currently Kukkohovi is playing with his new band Fiasco General.

Discography

Studio albums
with Sentenced
 Frozen (1998)
 Crimson (2000)
 The Cold White Light (2002)
 The Funeral Album (2005)

Live album
with Sentenced
 Buried Alive (2 discs, 2006)

Demotracks
with Fiasco General
 All Roads Lead To Pain (2007)
 Void (2007)

DVDs
with Sentenced
 Buried Alive (two discs, 2006)

Singles
with Sentenced
 Killing Me Killing You (1999)
 No One There (2002)
 Routasydän (2003)
 Ever-Frost'' (2005)

References

1974 births
Living people
Finnish male musicians
People from Oulu

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Sammy Sosa's Net Worth Proves Some Cheaters Do Win
Sammy Sosa Looks So Different Now That He's Retired
Patrick Pinak, June 14, 2020 11:16 am
Tommy Lasorda, Hall of Fame Dodgers Manager, Dead at 93
Associated Press , January 8, 2021 12:49 pm
President Trump Blasts Indians for Reportedly Changing Name: "Cancel Culture at Work!"
Associated Press , December 14, 2020 1:45 pm
Little Leaguer Trucks Catcher, Gets Ejected Immediately
Former FanBuzz Staff , December 11, 2020 1:44 pm
Athletes' bodies oftentimes undergo extreme changes once their careers are over. Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Mike Tyson, Tonya Harding, Roger Clemens and Ken Griffey Jr. all know about gaining weight post-career.
It's natural. They aren't training anymore. They're getting older. That's how life goes. Some professional athletes, like baseball's big lovable Bartolo Colon, even pack on the pounds before hanging the cleats up. Others, like Caitlyn Jenner, transform entirely years after their athletic career has ended.
Then there's Sammy Sosa, the former Major League Baseball player you probably wouldn't recognize if he walked past you on the street today. He pulled off an unprecedented Michael Jackson-esque transformation.
I'm not sure Sosa needs much of an introduction. For those that didn't watch baseball at the height of the Steroid Era, he was smack dab in the middle of it. Alongside Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, he was one of MLB's poster children during a time of insane growth for baseball in the United States (and beyond) and was featured in the ESPN 30 for 30 "Long Gone Summer."
Across 18 seasons with the Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles, he clobbered 609 home runs and knocked in 1,667 runs. Born in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, Sosa ranks ninth on baseball's all-time home run leaderboard.
Sosa was a great player throughout the 1990s, but the outfielder ascended to stardom in 1998 when he duked it out with McGwire for the MLB single-season home run record. He also gave us one of the great moments in baseball history following the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Sammy Sosa's Skin Bleaching: Before and After
Anyway, this is what the Dominican-born Sosa looked like during his playing days:
If you have a bad day in baseball, and start thinking about it, you will have 10 more. -Sammy Sosa pic.twitter.com/I9Q31qTzyu
— Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) May 18, 2018
And this is what he looks like now with a much lighter skin tone:
Sammy Sosa making light skin Michael Jackson look like Wesley Snipes. pic.twitter.com/YOR0MtBrWY
— Alvin aqua Blanco (@Aqua174) July 13, 2017
Yes, that is the same person.
Why Did Sammy Sosa Bleach His Skin?
Sosa's skin transformation is the result of skin bleaching. He's said he's been using what he calls a skin bleaching cream since at least 2009, when he told Univision's Primer Impacto show in 2009.
"It's a bleaching cream that I apply before going to bed and whitens my skin tone," Sosa said. "It's a cream that I have that I use to soften [my skin], but has bleached me some. I'm not a racist, I live my life happily.
"What happened was that I had been using the cream for a long time and that, combined with the bright TV lights, made my face look whiter than it really is. I don't think I look like Michael Jackson."
But the pressing question on everyone's mind is why? Why change your entire appearance? Why apply a bleaching cream every night?
The answer: none of our damn business. Sosa can do whatever he pleases to his appearance. Now that he's out of the spotlight, it isn't really the public's concern.
That's pretty much the answer Sosa gave Sports Illustrated when he sat down with the publication in 2018 at the luxurious Burj Al Arab Jumeriah hotel in Dubai.
"Look at what I am today," he said. "This is my life, and I don't take garbage from nobody. I do whatever I want."
You do you, Sammy.
Where is Sammy Sosa Now?
RELATED: Mark McGwire Cheated. What Happened to Him After Baseball?
Sosa, married to his wife Sonia for more than 25 years, lives in the United Arab Emirates. The slugger has apparently done well for himself, as he has business interests around the world. They range from oil in the Dominican Republic, stormproof housing in Panama, real estate in the UAE and beverages and hospitality in the United Kingdom. He even has houses in Miami and Santo Domingo.
Sosa seems to have put performance-enhancing drugs and steroid use allegations and his entire baseball life well behind him, and that should be applauded. He's appeared on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot ever year since 2013 but has failed to muster much support. In 2019, he was listed on just 8.5 percent of ballots.
No matter what the Hall of Fame thinks, Slammin' Sammy's legacy wearing a Chicago Cubs uniform in Wrigley Field is impossible to dispute for what he meant to that city and franchise for over a decade.
Sosa Not Alone In Skin Bleaching Practice
As for the skin-whitening, Sosa is not alone in the practice. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry in other countries and continents. The New York Times in 2016 estimated that 70 percent of women in West and South Africa used lightening cream to achieve a lighter complexion. In Asia, where a white, milky skin color is viewed as a symbol of status and wealth, the industry is reportedly worth some $13 billion.
While not as talked about, skin lightening exists in the states. Celebrity A-listers like Beyonce, Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez have all been accused of whitening their skin. Rapper Lil Kim was forced to defend herself against accusations in 2016.
Still, it's odd to see Sosa's appearance in its current form. He went from a ripped crusher of baseballs with dark, melanin-filled skin to practically a white man wearing Cowboy outfits going viral on social media like this photo below:
Sammy Sosa out here serving looks. pic.twitter.com/635bB1fnHE
— Cut4 (@Cut4) February 11, 2018
She got a light skinned friend look like Sammy Sosa, got a dark skinned friend look like Sammy Sosa pic.twitter.com/ABvav39czd
— Shannon Moorer (@ShannonMoorer) February 11, 2018
The next 50 Shades movie should be about Sammy Sosa pic.twitter.com/oyMkm7qQr3
— Will Presti (@WillPresti) February 11, 2018
Never change, Sammy. Err, I guess, keep changing? You know what, do what you want.
This article was originally published February 17, 2020.
READ MORE: Sammy Sosa's Net Worth Proves Some Cheaters Do Win
About the author: Patrick Pinak, Staff Writer
Patrick has spent parts of the last four years covering University of Florida athletics and spent two seasons with Major League Baseball. He's a baseball junkie who spends his days defending Derek Jeter and the Miami Marlins. A recent Gator grad, Patrick currently resides in Gainesville, Florida.


text:
Chaetocnema simplicifrons — вид жуков- рода Chaetocnema трибы земляные блошки из подсемейства . Палеарктика и Юго-Восточная Азия: Вьетнам, Индия, Китай (Xinjiang, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Tibet), Непал, Пакистан.

Описание
Длина 1,65—1,80 мм, ширина 1,01—1,04 мм. Соотношение максимальной ширины обоих надкрылий к максимальной ширине пронотума 1,08—1,10.
Переднеспинка и надкрылья чёрные с металлическим блеском. Ноги и усики в основном желтовато-коричневые. Голова гипогнатная (ротовые органы направлены вниз). От других видов рода (Chaetocnema yaosanica, Chaetocnema basalis, Chaetocnema tristis, Chaetocnema puncticollis) отличается формой тела, пунктировкой надкрылий и строением гениталий самцов. Фронтолатеральная борозда присутствует. Кормовые растения: Rubus .
Средние и задние голени с выемкой на наружной стороне перед вершиной. Лобные бугорки не развиты. Переднеспинка без базальной бороздки. Вид был впервые описан в 1876 году британским энтомологом Джозефом Бейли (Joseph Sugar Baly, 1816—1890) по материалам из Китая. Валидный статус был подтверждён в 2011 году в ходе ревизии палеарктической фауны рода Chaetocnema, которую провели энтомологи Александр Константинов (Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA, c/o Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Вашингтон, США), Андрес Баселга (Andrés Baselga; Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Испания), Василий Гребенников (Ottawa Plant Laboratory, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Оттава, Канада) с соавторами (Jens Prena, Steven W. Lingafelter).

Примечания

Литература

Ссылки
 Wydział Nauk Biologicznych

Щётконоги
Животные, описанные в 1876 году
Насекомые Азии
Эндемики Азии