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Chat with Wayne Bennett this Wednesday
Tue 4 Jan 2011, 10:00 AM
To assist with the selection process for Stage Two of the voting current NRL All Stars coach, Wayne Bennett, has offered his services in an exclusive chat on NRL.com.
The chat, which will begin at 12:00pm AEDT (11:00am Qld / 2:00pm NZ), will give fans the chance to quiz the master coach about who he feels should be selected in the NRL All Stars side and his overall strategy for the side as they look to take on an impressive Indigenous All Stars squad at Skilled Park in February.
The chat will run for approximately 45 minutes, and fans have the opportunity to submit their questions in early by clicking here.
To register for a reminder for the chat, please add your email address below. Wayne Bennett (05/01/2011)
Rugby League unites to support communities get back in the game
Vale Mark Harris and Brian James

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Home › The Embassy › Ambassador Profile
H.E. Mr. Abhishek Singh
H.E. Abhishek Singh assumed charge as the Ambassador of India to Venezuela on 3 August, 2020.
Prior to this, Ambassador Singh was the Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of India, Kabul from August, 2018 to March, 2020. He also served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Embassy of India, Berlin from August 2016 to December 2017.
Before coming to Berlin, Ambassador Singh was Counsellor/Political Officer at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN New York (2013-16) covering political issues related to neighboring countries of India, P-5 countries, UN Security Council matters, Peacekeeping issues, NAM, Counter-Terrorism, Disarmament & First Committee issues, Humanitarian issues, Commonwealth etc. He has attended the UNGA as a delegate in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Ambassador Singh joined the Indian Foreign Service in 2003. After the initial training for two years at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service, New Delhi and External Publicity Division (XP), MEA, he served 5 years in Embassy of India, Beijing from 2005-10. Thereafter, he moved to the Ministry of External Affairs in 2010, first as Desk Officer covering India's bilateral and political relations with Pakistan. He was then selected to be the Officer on Special Duty in the Office of the Minister of State for External Affairs between 2011-2013.
Born in 1977, Ambassador Abhishek Singh schooled from the Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, New Delhi. He graduated with top honors in political science from Hindu College, University of Delhi where he stood overall second in the Delhi University. He also holds a PGDM (Human Resources) and has successfully completed an eighteen month course in Mandarin language from the China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing. Ambassador Singh has done a course on Foreign Policy from the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C.
Ambassador Abhishek Singh is married to Mrs. Meghna Singh, an international education professional and they have two children.


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Executive Power
What Trump's Trans Order Gets Wrong and Why It Matters
By Alex Wagner, Richard Eisenberg
On July 26, President Donald Trump lashed out against the transgender community, declaring in a series of tweets that the United States would not "accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military." In so doing, Trump brought to broad public attention a matter that most Americans likely had no prior reason to consider: the military's policies toward transgender individuals serving—or seeking to serve—in the United States military.
Trump's August 28th presidential memorandum to the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security formalized his Twitter declaration into official policy guidance. The guidance purports to accomplish two principal objectives: first, halting impending policies that would have provided for enlistment and commissioning of openly transgender people into the military ("the ban"); and second, punting to the Secretaries the challenge of how to remove those transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines currently serving from the ranks ("the purge").
And yet, true to form and similar to his previous failed endeavors to ban Muslims or replace Obamacare, Trump's official policy memorandum is full of factual inaccuracies and ambiguities. Perhaps its most fundamental error is in misunderstanding—or misrepresenting, or both—the nature and meaning of the military's current and historical policies regarding military service of transgender individuals. Clearly, Trump is focused on undoing the actions taken by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in 2016, when he announced that he was "eliminating policies that can result in transgender members being treated differently from their peers based solely upon their gender identity, rather than upon their ability to serve." But what is apparent from the language of Trump's directive is that he and his team are clueless as to the state of play before 2016, what it was at the end of the Obama administration, and the true impact on the military.
Trump's memorandum starts from the misleading premise that until 2016, the Department of Defense (DoD) "generally prohibited openly transgender individuals from accession into the United States military and authorized the discharge of such individuals" and that the Obama administration "dismantled" this "established framework." From that premise, the memo directs DoD "to return to the longstanding policy and practice on military service by transgender individuals that was in place prior to June 2016."
For those, like us, who worked on the implementation of the June 2016 policy changes—and far more so for transgender service members and their commanders—it is laughable to suggest that there was anything like a prior "established framework," or "longstanding policy or practice" for military service by transgender individuals prior to 2016.
Let us be clear: Transgender troops have been serving in the armed forces for decades, in some cases even finding ways to do so more or less "openly." For example, during the Army's recent review, we found anecdotally that a number of formerly active component Soldiers switched their gender markers when they transitioned to the reserve component, obviating the necessity of in-service transition but finding a way to continue serving the country they love in the gender with which they identified.
Moreover, there has never been a categorical ban on military service by transgender individuals comparable to DoD's longstanding policy of prohibition against homosexuality that ultimately morphed into "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the legislative prohibition on open service by gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. With respect to transgender service, and unlike "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," there was no history of investigations and hearings held to determine whether a service member was transgender, nor comparably large discharges of service members believed to be transgender. None of this is to suggest that transgender service members were uniformly welcomed into the military with open arms, acknowledged, and treated fairly; but any negative (or even positive) treatment of transgender service members was the result of individual actions and decisions at the unit level rather than as a result of any overarching policy.
In fact, the only DoD-wide policy to ever suggest something like a "ban" on transgender service members was DoD's policy regarding service members with physical disabilities. Prior to August 2014, this policy lumped "Sexual Gender and Identity Disorders" into a broader category of "conditions and defects of a developmental nature" that would render service members subject to "appropriate administrative action."[1] Inevitably, this ambiguous terminology proved confusing to both military leaders and medical professionals, given that nothing else in DoD policy defines or refers to so-called "Sexual Gender and Identity Disorders." The DoD transgender working group heard evidence that although some commanders believed that they were required to discharge individuals identifying as transgender, others believed they were not obligated to do so.
In August 2014, DoD clarified and updated this policy, eliminating its listing of "conditions and defects of a developmental nature." The Military Services were still authorized to separate service members on the basis of certain unidentified "defects" , but only if they "interfere with assignment to or performance of duty." As a result, the update both removed the archaic language that some had interpreted to require discharge of transgender service members while prohibiting the discharge of any person on such basis unless their condition interfered with their work.
It was against this background that Secretary Carter acknowledged in 2015 that transgender service members were "being hurt by an outdated, confusing, inconsistent approach" that was "contrary to our value of service and individual merit." In short, the problem was not that transgender service members were "banned" in a meaningful sense, but rather that transgender individuals were being harmed by outdated military policies that failed to provide them equal treatment if they could do their jobs, and threatened them with the possibility of arbitrary dismissal.
Secretary Carter's June 2016 policy accomplished three objectives: (1) clarified that transgender service members were allowed to serve and could not be discharged solely on the basis of their gender identity; (2) provided a process by which transgender service members could transition in the military while maintaining all relevant standards while obtaining necessary and appropriate medical care; and (3) directed that accession policies be updated to allow for individuals who had previously undergone a gender transition or related treatment to enlist or commission into the military services if they had been stable in their conditions for at least 18 months.
The last of these changes was scheduled to go into effect no later than July 1, 2017. However, on June 30—the last day before this deadline—Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis announced that he would "defer the start of accessions [of transgender individuals] for six months," in order "to evaluate more carefully the impact of such accessions on readiness and lethality." Trump's August 25th directive indefinitely delayed that timeline, maintaining a ban on new recruits who have already transitioned successfully, as judged by a medical professional. By itself, this is unlikely to have a major impact on military recruiting. However, Trump's prohibition on transgender accessions, combined with dismantlement of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program that provides an expedited pathway citizenship for noncitizens through service, as well as Trump's recent announcement ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), will be significant, particularly for the Army. These two programs enable the Army to recruit from populations with specialized skills; putting up more barriers to service while subjecting hundreds of current soldiers to "immediate deportation" makes the job of recruiting the best America has to offer even more difficult.
This context renders Trump's instruction "to return to the longstanding policy and practice toward military service by transgender individuals that was in place before June 2016" as nonsensical. The June 2016 policy changes did not introduce transgender people to the military or constitute an end to a program of discharging of transgender service members. Rather, it merely acknowledged transgender servicemembers' existence in the ranks and provided a framework for their open service, holding them to the same standards as every other one of their colleagues and guaranteeing the same rights and benefits.
In reality, a true "return to the longstanding policy and practice on military service by transgender individuals" would be not a ban on transgender troops but rather to a muddled and incoherent approach that provided little guidance to transgender service members or their commanders. And, to the extent Trump's memorandum imposes an unprecedented ban on service by transgender individuals, it punts to the Secretaries the challenge of how to purge those transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and coast guardsmen currently serving from the ranks while cruelly offering those service members little predictability as to when or if they will be kicked out.
Against the backdrop of a chaotic and confused White House and Secretary Mattis' ongoing internal review, we believe that now is the time for Senate and House leaders on both sides of the aisle to step up. Rather than relying on Trump administration officials to decide this important issue, Congress should hold hearings, with testimony from real experts—both inside and outside of government—to determine the true impact on military effectiveness and lethality, unit cohesion, and budget that artificially reducing the recruiting pool, forcing an unnecessary witch hunt, and ripping out well-trained and integrated service members from their units would have on the military.
Richard Eisenberg was special counsel to both the General Counsels of the Army and the Air Force during the Obama administration. Alex Wagner was chief of staff to the 22nd Secretary of the Army and is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project.
[1] Notably, other categories for discharge included "Stammering or Stuttering," "Allergy to Uniformed Clothing," and "Unsanitary habits including repeated venereal disease infections."
Transgender Servicemembers,
Alex Wagner served in the Department of Defense for nearly seven years, most recently as Chief of Staff to the 22nd Secretary of the Army. In prior appointments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Alex helped shape the development and implementation of DoD policies where the law is either unclear or undefined, specifically on drones, detention, landmines, and autonomy in weapon systems. Previously, Alex worked at Uber Technologies, as the principal staffer responsible for managing Obama for America's 150-member National LGBT Steering and Policy committee in 2008, and as an attorney at K&L Gates in Seattle.
Richard Eisenberg served as an attorney in the Department of Defense during President Obama's second term in office, first as Special Assistant to the General Counsel of the Air Force and then as Special Counsel in the Department of the Army. In those roles, Rich worked on a wide range of legal and policy matters of the utmost interest to the Secretaries of the Air Force and Army, including, in 2016, the development and implementation of the Army's new policy on service by openly transgender soldiers. In part for this work, he received the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the Secretary of the Army. Previously, Rich worked as an attorney on President Obama's re-election campaign and, before that, as a Litigation Associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Targeting Shahla'i in Addition to Soleimani: Unpacking the Legal Questions
Robert Chesney Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:45 PM
Did the President Have the Domestic Legal Authority to Kill Qassem Soleimani?
Scott R. Anderson Fri, Jan 3, 2020, 4:49 PM
Trump Litigation Round Up
Samantha Fry Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 11:45 AM
Federal Judge Rules Trump Cannot Spend Emergency Funds on Border Wall
Jacob Schulz Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 11:30 AM
President Trump Requests that Supreme Court Hear Financial Records Case
Gordon Ahl Thu, Dec 5, 2019, 2:19 PM


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AIB signs up to z15-powered transformation
Leave a Comment	/ Information Technology / By livingogroup_22v5tq
Irish bank AIB has signed a €65m, three-year agreement with IBM to deliver digital transformation using IBM's z15 computer system.
Under the deal, IBM will provide AIB with a z15 system along with IBM Cloud Pak for hybrid cloud computing and Red Hat OpenShift for container orchestration using Kubernetes.
Fergal Coburn, group chief technology officer at AIB, said: "As we accelerate into the future of banking, we need the most advanced technology to underpin our ongoing digital transformation efforts. IBM technology has been the backbone of our service delivery for over 30 years and this agreement maintains our relationship in the innovation space.
"This will be a core contributor in ensuring that we achieve the key technology objectives that underpin our 2023 strategic ambitions and to meet the challenges faced in our industry."
AIB said the IBM technology platform will also be used to improve the bank's cyber resilience and fraud detection capabilities, ensuring its digital services remain highly performant, available and secure for its customers.
The tech portfolio provided by IBM to AIB includes data analytics and process automation tools, which IBM said complement AIB's existing technology roadmap and business requirements. It will also enable enhanced system availability capabilities which will support the bank's approach to operational resilience.
Deborah Threadgold, country general manager, IBM Ireland, said: "The IBM z15 is a key part of the bank's overall hybrid cloud strategy and will enable AIB to efficiently and securely manage traditional operations and provide our highly experienced team with the tools to deliver new digital services in a very agile manner."
Recognising the shift to online banking during the pandemic, in December 2020, AIB completed a strategic review that set out a three-year plan for digital transformation. The bank aims to cut its costs by more than 10% by 2023. The plan prioritises its digital capability to give customers faster and more efficient access to products and services.
Between 2015 and 2019, AIB invested €1.4bn in a modern, resilient and flexible digital IT architecture. In its strategic review, it said this made it well-placed to serve its customers digitally during the pandemic as cash usage fell dramatically. As part of the strategic review, the bank announced sustained investment of €300m a year to improve functionality, customer experience and security.
Graham Fagan, group director of enterprise technology & cloud engineering at AIB, said: "As financial organisations progress on their cloud journeys, they need an approach that allows various cloud-based applications to work in concert. Our hybrid cloud strategy is helping us to simplify our technological infrastructure so that we can move and manage data, services and workflows across multiple clouds and on-premise platforms.
"The IBM products and services we are acquiring allow us to further extend that hybrid cloud ambition in an innovative, agile, secure and compliant manner."


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CGI Underwear
When ABC television digitally altered Plenty O'Toole in Diamonds Are Forever
When it came to showing 'Diamonds Are Forever' in their weekly 'Bond Picture Show' back on March 2nd, 2002, the ABC television network in the United States felt that Plenty O'Toole's costume, or lack thereof, was problematic for their audience. This despite the same network broadcasting the Victoria's Secret 'fashion show' to 12.4 million viewers.
Months before a CGI bullet, CGI tsunami, and CGI James Bond would hit the big screen in 'Die Another Day' that year, ABC digitally painted Plenty O'Toole's panties to black and added a bra she was not wearing in the scene where Blofeld's mobsters throw her out of 007's hotel window.
What is particularly strange about ABC's prudish choice was that the film was classified as PG and suitable for broadcast with no changes. ABC had already embraced nudity in primetime back in 1994 with controversial episodes of NYPD Blue.
The New York Daily News reported on the digital cover-up as "bizarre", whilst the New York Post again pointed to the fact that the network had no problem showing scantily clad Victoria's Secrets models. A spokeswoman for the broadcaster in 2002 said: "We've done it all the time, particularly with Bond movies. It's certainly not the first time," she said.
More Diamonds Are Forever
0126: Debrief Diamonds Are Forever
The Christmas Bond Film


Journalists across the Middle East and North Africa can apply for this program.
The Social Media Solutions program, a new initiative from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Facebook Journalism Project, will host its first webinar Jan. 22, 2019. The time will be announced soon.
The webinar will cover the latest tools to sort fact from fiction on social media platforms. Participants will learn practical skills in four key areas: verification, security, engagement and storytelling.
Expert trainers will teach participants how to identify fake accounts, secure their digital footprint, and involve audiences in the news gathering process, among other critical skills.
The deadline is Jan. 15, 2019.


> machine and not a user....what's up with that???
Thus Administrators is placed in both passwd and group.
> I checked /etc/passwd and found that "Administrators"
> a group in win2k) by default?
setup is not a Cygwin program, so you will to ask MS.
that are not in PowerUser, make sure "other" has rw access.


I'm not really sure what kind of plant this is – maybe a salvia – but it has the most lovely little, blue flowers on it. They sort of got lost in all the bluish-green foliage.
This entry was posted in Glimpses and tagged 35mm, blue flowers, Ektar 100, film analog, Kodak, Olympus Trip 35, photography, plant. Bookmark the permalink.


2 Yaskov, P. A. – Academic Secretary of Council Candidate, Phys.-Math. Sci.
15 Pechen, A. N. Doctor, Phys.-Math. Sci.
16 Slavnov, N. A. Doctor, Phys.-Math. Sci.
17 Zubkov, A. M. Doctor, Phys.-Math. Sci.
18 Andreev, N. N. Candidate, Phys.-Math. Sci.
19 Izaak, A. D. Candidate, Phys.-Math. Sci.


We would, once again, like to extend our deepest thanks to all of those who took the time to vote for their favourite releases of the year. We had a blast discussing and deliberating each and every category, and we hope you enjoy listening. You can find the full awards episode of True to Size HERE.
For a full list of results from each category, please see below.


The pervasiveness of American slating references here, particularly in this century, is unquestionable. American architectural books and construction guides, which were well known in Canada, often contained advice to slaters or to roof replace contractors. The Canadian Architect and Builder in answer to inquiries concerning slate drew on American pocketbook authorities such as Kidder and Hodgson. That Hodgson was, in fact, a Canadian could suggest a greater exchange of technical experience between Canada and the United States than his co-authored publications out of Chicago might imply. American dominance of the architectural press in North America was, nevertheless, paramount and was reflected in journals like The Canadian Engineer that reprinted articles on slating from American periodicals such as Stone andВ reported American research on slate.В The United States quarries and their agents also produced pamphlets for their clients, Canadians included, explaining the kinds of slate and how slates were put on the roof. The National Slate Association, organized in 1922 by American slate producers, architects and contractors published a 1926 handbook, Slate Roofs, detailing information on types of slate, roof construction and slate application techniques. Definitions for standard, textural and graduated slate roofs worked out by the Association were the basis of roofing slate standards adopted by the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) and influenced slate specifications adopted by the as Canadian Bureau of Standards. as The 20th-century standards for roofing slate were building material classifications that did not encompass application practice.


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USS Wenonah (YT-148/YTB-148/YTM-148) was a Woban-class district harbor tug which served during World War II in California ports, and continued her service until she was struck by the Navy in 1974.  On 17 August 2009, the Wenonah sank while berthed at Treasure Island, CA, and was raised by the floating crane Left Coast Lifter on 28 August 2009.

Constructed in New York

Wenonah (YT-148) -- a harbor tug constructed during the winter of 1940 and 1941 at Morris Heights, New York, by the Consolidated Shipbuilding Corp. -- was placed in service soon after her completion in June 1941.

World War II service
Wenonah served in the 11th Naval District throughout her entire Navy career. She was initially based at San Diego, California; but, during her 33 years of service, she also operated at and visited various other ports on the California coast.

Designation changes
On 15 May 1944, she was redesignated a large harbor tug with the hull designation, YTB-148. Some 18 years later, she again changed designation and became YTM-148, a medium harbor tug.

Decommissioning and scrapping
In April 1974, she concluded her long career and went out of service. Her name was struck from the Navy list, and she was sold for scrapping. The identity of her purchaser is unrecorded, but sources say that the tug was owned by the Historic Tugboat Education and Restoration Society (HTERS). Wenonah was laid up at Pier 1 at Treasure Island, California, and sank in August 2009, spilling oil into San Francisco Bay. The Coast Guard contracted Global Diving to recover the vessel to prevent further leaks, and Global Diving turned to the American Bridge/Fluor Joint Venture for use of the Left Coast Lifter sheerleg crane to recover the vessel. Wenonah was turned over to the Coast Guard for disposal, and Bay Ship & Yacht in Alameda assumed the lease of Pier 1 in Treasure Island, which included taking possession of Wenonah and a sister tug owned by HTERS, USS Nokomis. Both vessels were scrapped in 2010 in Alameda.

References

Citations

World War II auxiliary ships of the United States
Tugs of the United States Navy
Ships built in Morris Heights, Bronx
1940 ships

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


→Flipkart Big Shopping Days Sale 2018 – 80% Discount for 80 Hours!
Flipkart Big Shopping Days Sale 2018 – 80% Discount for 80 Hours!
Are you a shopaholic? Well, this is just about the right time for you to tighten your seat belts because Flipkart Big Shopping Days are just a couple of days away. Start shopping at Flipkart Now.
To take on Amazon's Prime Days Sales, Flipkart has also announced their own sale from 16th to 19th July. Don't miss the quick sale pages from Flipkart.
And guess what is more to it! They are offering up to 80% discount on a wide range of products available on their website and that too for eighty straight hours.
To add on to the sale, Flipkart has partnered with the State Bank of India to avail its customers a flat discount of 10% when a product is bought with the SBI credit card. In addition, No Cost EMI transactions are also available on Bajaj FinServ cards.
Now if you are ready for the sale, let us get into a little more details of the schedule. The e-commerce website is claiming to offer prices for products never seen before. Can you just believe that the product prices will fall every 8 hours?
Start shopping at Flipkart Now.
Well, you have to believe it. Also, they are planning for rush hour sales from 4 P.M. to 6 P.M. where they will be providing you with blockbuster deals you can hardly resist. This is similar to the flash sale provided by Amazon during their sale period of 36 hours.
Flipkart Big Shopping Days – What to Expect?
Flipkart has not yet fully declared the items on sale. They are keeping it a secret in comparison to the declaration of Amazon's sale on over 200 products as well as new launches from the reputed brands like Bosch, Acer & others.
The main attention of the Flipkart Big Shopping Days Sale is focused on various electronic items like smartphones, televisions and other large appliances.
The smartphone by Google, the Pixel 2 is declared to be on sale at a dropped price of Rs. 42,999/- only, a flat discount of 37,000 rupees.
In addition, there will be another 3,000 rupees discount on exchange and 8,000 rupees cash back.
Samsung ON Nxt (64 GB) is to be offered at a flat price of 10,900 rupees instead of Rs. 17,900 during the tenure of the sale.
Another attractive offer that Flipkart has given is on the Predator Gaming Laptop from Acer.
Instead of its general price of Rs. 89,990, the product will be available at a discounted price of 63,990 rupees only.
A flat discount of 10,000 rupees is also offered on the smartwatches from Fit bit Blaze and the product will be available for just Rs. 9,999/- only.
This is not just limited to the Google Pixel 2 or Samsung Galaxy On Nxt. There are offers on other smartphones as well.
The sale is also announced to slash prices of smartphones from Honor, Panasonic, Vivo and even Apple products.
Save 80% on fashion items @ Flipkart Now.
Are the things getting exciting? Hold on guys, that is not just all. The sale is also planning to provide heavy discount rates on laptops, DSLR cameras, mobile accessories, power banks and a whole lot collection of other products. TVs and other large appliances are announced to be a sale with 70% discount.
Is that all? Not really.
Other categories that are going to come under the sale include beauty and fitness, fashion items and home and furniture products as well.
The best way to miss no deal is to keep a keen eye on the e-commerce website as you never know what product will get its price slashed at what hour as there will be repeated slashing of the rates after every fixed interval.
Flipkart is planning really high to take this sale to the next level. Apart from the huge attractive rates they are providing on electronic products, their listed products for the sale have got a huge serial number. And it is sure to have the product you really want to buy.
So, if you are ready to spend some money, get ready to bag some of the most profiting deals till date. Be sure to miss no offer. To ease your shopping, you may register on Flipkart.com beforehand and fill out your address and card details for faster checkouts during the Flipkart Big Shopping Days sale.


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Trademark infringement through online advertising – ECJ on jurisdiction of EU courts
The European Court of Justice today issued an important ruling on the jurisdiction of EU courts when an action is brought for infringement of a Union trademark by online advertising. Where is the infringement action to be filed? In the EU country where advertising and sales offers were shown, the ECJ ruled today.
The main focus of the hearing was Article 97(5) of Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 and its interpretation with regard to the jurisdiction of the EU courts.
Is an infringement action concerning a Union trade mark to be brought before the courts in the EU country in which the defendant is domiciled or in the country in which advertising and sales offers were shown?
The latter was confirmed by today's judgement. An infringement action must be brought before a Union trade mark court in the EU Member State in which the consumers or traders to whom the infringing advertising or sales offers are addressed are located, the ECJ ruled.
Both parties are manufacturers and sellers of audio equipment, AMS Neve Ltd (UK) and Heritage Audio SL (Spain). In October 2015, the British AMS Neve brought an action against the Spanish competitor for infringement of two trade marks registered in the UK. The contested Union trade mark consists of the number 1073 and was registered in Nice Class 9 for essentially "recording, mixing and processing equipment for sound studios".
AMS Neve alleges that Heritage Audio SL offered for sale audio equipment bearing identical or similar signs. In particular, the case concerned that representation in an English-language online portal listing distributors in various countries, including the UK, under 'where to buy'. Furthermore, it is clear from the General Conditions of Sale that Heritage Audio accepts orders from any Member State of the European Union.
The defendants argued that they did not themselves advertise, offer for sale or sell in the United Kingdom. However, they did not rule out the possibility that Heritage Audio's products might have been acquired in the United Kingdom through other companies. In addition, the defendants in the main proceedings raised a plea of lack of jurisdiction of the United Kingdom court seised.
The United Kingdom Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court held that the Spanish courts had jurisdiction, since that is where the defendant is domiciled. This is also apparent from Article 97(5), which provides that actions for infringement may be brought before the courts of the Member State in which the act of infringement was committed. That was in Spain, where the defendants were planning their sales activities.
The UK Court of Appeal (England & Wales) again found that "the Member State in which an act of infringement was committed" is the Member State in which the defendant organised his website and social media accounts within the meaning of Article 97(5) of Regulation No 207/2009. It refers to the territory of the Member State in which the consumers or traders to whom the advertising and sales offers are addressed are established.
ECJ on the rules on jurisdiction of EU courts
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) first clarified that Directive 2008/95/EC and Directive (EU) 2015/2436, which replaced Directive 2008/95/EC with effect from 19 January 2019, did not contain any specific rules on jurisdiction. An infringement action such as the one at issue in the present case, in so far as it concerns national trade marks, falls under the rules on jurisdiction laid down in Regulation No 1215/2012. The infringement of a Union trade mark falls under the rules on jurisdiction laid down in Regulation No 207/2009, the ECJ stated.
According to the Court, an action must be brought before the courts in the EU where the defendant is domiciled in accordance with Article 97(1) of Regulation No 207/2009. However, the plaintiff may "also" bring his action before the courts of the Member State "in which an infringing act has been committed or is threatened", as provided by Article 97(5).
Plaintiff must decide in favour of a plea in law
The applicant has determined the extent of the territorial jurisdiction of the court seised according to whether he chooses to bring an action for infringement before the Union trade mark court of the defendant's domicile or before the court of the territory in which the act of infringement was committed or threatened. The ECJ stated that an infringement action under Article 97(1) potentially concerned acts of infringement committed throughout the territory of the Union, whereas, if based on Article 97(5), the action was limited to acts of infringement committed or threatened in a single Member State, namely the Member State in which the court seised was situated.
Multiple actions brought side by side are not possible
Several actions based side by side on Article 97(1) and (5) cannot, however, be brought; a plaintiff must choose between the alternatives, the court specified. However, where several infringement actions between the same parties concern the use of the same sign but not the same territory, those actions do not relate to the same subject-matter and are therefore not subject to the lis pendens rules. The ECJ pointed out that in such a case the courts of different Member States cannot give "divergent judgments" within the meaning of recital 17 of Regulation No 207/2009, as the plaintiff's actions concern different territories.
Online display of advertising and sales offers
If the acts alleged against the defendant consist in the online display of advertising and sales offers for goods bearing a sign identical with, or similar to, an EU trade mark without the proprietor's consent, it must be held that those acts were committed in the territory of the consumers or traders to whom those advertising and sales offers are addressed. Such acts fall within the scope of Article 9(2)(b) and (d) of Regulation No 207/2009.
The expression "act of infringement" refers to such acts, the ECJ ruled. Whether these advertisements and offers subsequently led to the purchase of the defendant's goods is irrelevant.
Ruling of the ECJ
The ECJ ruled that an action for infringement – in the interpretation of Article 97(5) of Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 – must be brought before a Union trade mark court in the EU Member State in which consumers or traders to whom the infringing advertising or sales offers are addressed are located. This also applies if the decisions and measures with regard to online notification were taken in another EU member state.
Do you also need support in a trademark or patent infringement action?
Our attorneys have many years of experience in trademark and patent law and are entitled to represent you before any court in Germany as well as internationally.
If you are interested, please contact us.
Today's judgement of ECJ EU:C:2019:674 "AMS Neve"
collage of our own, using AJEL/pixabay.com / CCO License and photosforyou /pixabay.com / CCO License
International Intellectual Property, Trademark Law, Copyright ECJ, Heritage Audio SL, EU:C:2019:674, trademark infringement, action, jurisdiction EU courts, Article 97(5) of Regulation (EC) No 207/2009, jurisdiction, online advertising, Trade Mark Infringement, jurisdiction of EU courts, Union Trade Mark, Regulation No 207/2009, judgment, Neve, defendant, AMS Neve Ltd
More articles about: International Intellectual Property


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All signed up to coach? Here are some tips to prepare you for the season.
Here you will find a few fundamental drills to help develop basic skills like ball handling and shooting. Instructional videos also included.


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Man Utd Transfer News: Rumours, Updates, Done Deals & More - Live Blog
Tottenham Demanding Incredible Fee for Toby Alderweireld as Man Utd Open Talks Over Transfer
Ben Davies 24 May 2018
Manchester United could be forced to pay a fee of up to £75m for Tottenham centre back Toby Alderweireld this summer, despite the Belgian being available for only £22m this time next year.
United's interest in the commanding centre half is no secret. As reports begin to emerge linking Eric Bailly with a move away from Old Trafford, the rumours of Jose Mourinho's interest in Alderweireld will only begin to spike as the Portuguese looks to improve on his defensive line.
However, that move for the 29-year-old could be about to hit a stumbling block, if a report from the Mirror is true.
According to the paper, Spurs are insistent that the Red Devils shell out the same kind of money as Liverpool did for Virgil van Dijk back in January - a record breaking £75m.
This will no doubt frustrate the United hierarchy. A clause written into Alderweireld's Spurs contract means that the centre half can leave north London for a mere £22m next summer, and Spurs are desperate to avoid that - but also recognise his talent.
Before the Belgian was replaced in Mauricio Pochettino's Spurs squad by Davinson Sanchez, claims were being made that Alderweireld was the best defensive talent that that the Premier League has to offer. To get the best, you have to pay.
It was initially believed that Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy was only after £55m for the out of favour defender, but that has since ramped up as Tottenham become willing to listen to offers for their once star centre back.
Which country has the best football fan culture?


The Torrent is a compact SUV. Handsome styling and unique interior packaging help set the Torrent apart from other offerings. The rear seat slides back and forth 8 in allowing you to trade off rear-seat legroom versus cargo hauling capability. AWD and FWD versions are offered. Base models are powered by a 185-hp V-6 mated to a 5-speed automatic. GXP models are powered by a 264 bhp 3.6L V6 coupled with a 6-speed automatic.


I am a postdoctoral researcher at MIT's computer science department, supervised by Vinod Vaikunthanathan. My research to date has focused mostly on lattices and computational problems on lattices, but I am also interested in theoretical computer science and cryptography more broadly.
I received my PhD from NYU's Courant Institute, advised by Professors Oded Regev and Yevgeniy Dodis. Before MIT, I was a postdoc at Princeton's computer science department and a visiting researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study's math department---both as part of the Simons Collaboration on Algorithms and Geometry.
My email is noahsd (at) gmail (dot) com.
Lecture notes on Ring-SIS and Ring-LWE for Vinod's Fall 2018 LWE class.
Program committees: Africacrypt 2018, Crypto 2018, Approx 2018, C2SI 2019, Africacrypt 2019.


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<?php declare(strict_types=1);

namespace CleverAge\ProcessBundle\Task\File\JsonStream;

use CleverAge\ProcessBundle\Filesystem\JsonStreamFile;
use CleverAge\ProcessBundle\Model\IterableTaskInterface;
use CleverAge\ProcessBundle\Model\ProcessState;

/**
 */
class JsonStreamReaderTask implements IterableTaskInterface
{
    /** @var JsonStreamFile */
    protected $file;

    /**
     * @param ProcessState $state
     */
    public function execute(ProcessState $state)
    {
        if (null === $this->file) {
            $this->file = new JsonStreamFile($this->getFilePath($state), 'rb');
        }

        $line = $this->file->readLine();
        if (isset($line)) {
            $state->setOutput($line);
        } else {
            $state->setSkipped(true);
        }

    }

    public function next(ProcessState $state)
    {
        $eof = $this->file->isEndOfFile();
        if ($eof) {
            $this->file = null;
        }

        return !$eof;
    }

    protected function getFilePath(ProcessState $state)
    {
        return $state->getInput();
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Kristjana S Williams Lear 04
The extraordinarily vivid cotton cushions by critically acclaimed Central St Martin's graduate Kristjana S Williams reach out and grasp the world of febrile dreams. A collision of the improbable created and the impossible imagined it is a place of exotic creatures, fragments of Victorian engravings, architectural oddities, menacing landscapes all bound by original illustration and colouring. This infinite set of artistic possibilities is filtered through the volcanic rock of Icelandic born Kristjana to bring to life something almost familiar yet not previously seen, something that she describes as the nature within nature, the symmetry in all living things. She said it not me.
Dimensions: 55cms x 55cms.
Add to Basket • £114.75
Designer & Brand
Appearance: Bird wearing a butterfly on both sides.
Designer: Kristjana S Williams. London.
Material: Matte microfibre velvet. Concealed zip.
Pad: Duck feather as standard or synthetic fibre on request.
Cleaning: Dry clean only.
Size: 55cms x 55cms.
Origin: Designed and made in England.
View all products by Kristjana S. Williams.
Kristjana S Williams was born in Iceland and studied graphic design and illustration at Central St Martins in London gaining critical acclaim for her work at Beyond the Valley where she was Creative Director for 8 years. In 2011 Williams presented an interactive print journey at the V&A during the London Design Festival, a show inspired by an interest in the way new technologies can be used in interiors and fashion design. The illustrations used juxtaposed strong graphic lines with intricate Victorian engravings creating incredibly striking and unique art work. These ideas led to the creation in 2012 of her own studio which specialises in the creation of art pieces, prints and furniture. Each piece created by the artist is it's own universe of botanicals, atmosphere and animals, each born and grown from the things that have inspired her since being a child in Iceland. Williams' popular work has recently won her a D&AD award and a New York Festivals Grand Prix, First Prize.
Wendt Dot Red
Wendt Dot Orange
Wendt Dot Blue
Timorous Beasties Spray Tag


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Yussef Kamaal – Black Focus
Black Focus by Yussef Kamaal
There's probably no need to tell anybody about Yussef Kamaal anymore, the hype machine has been running for weeks. I don't care too much about a hype anymore, there's been to much of that in my life and oftentimes it ended in nothing but disappointment. Hype has sort of become a standard tool in our already oversaturated tool. The good news is, that Yussef Kamaal's debut is impeccable. The pair concisting of United Vibrations drummer Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams aka Henry Wu manages to attract the heads as well as the new generation of jazz listeners, and they do so with the versatility and their ability to groove. Both qualities that have been lacking on other fore-runners of this new jazz revival, say Kamasi Washington's much hyped album.
Listening to "Strings of Light" and "Yo Chavez" has been enough for me to click on that shiny buy button, but with every listen there's a new tune that grows on me, that I didn't seem to pay attention to at all. My favourite album this week and available through Brownswood.
album 2016brownswoodhenry wujazzyussef dayesyussef kamaal
emanative – Love In Outer Space (Live at Cafe Oto)
About a year ago, London-based jazz musician Nick Woodmansey aka emanative released The Light Years of the Darkness, an album taking a nod to the greatest figures in spiritual jazz. Released by the Steve Reid Foundation it featured cover versions of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler and, of course, Sun Ra. Two weeks ago, on January 29th, emanative and live-band brought that album to the stage of London's Cafe Oto, with one of the highlights being their version of Sun Ra's Love In Outer Space. Enjoy!
cafe otoemanativejazzlivelondonnick woidmanseysun ra
Oh my, how long has it been since the rumors about a Miles Davis first surfaced? Years! I'm always a bit cautious when it comes to biographies about musicians, or just any other artist. Sure, they're often interesting, but then I often crave for a decent in-depth documentary on that person instead of taking the shortcut of a Hollywood adaptation. It's different with Don Cheadle's take on the life of Miles Davis, titled Miles Ahead after the album, but not revolved around it (I remember teasers from the Kind of Blue recording session.) Cheadle is not only taking on the role of Miles himself, he also directed the movie, and from the looks he did a hell of a good job, both in applying an appealing visual quality to the movie and, more importantly, performing convincingly.
The preliminary ratings for the movie on IMDb (7.7), Rotten Tomatoes (73%) and Metacritic (64%) make hope the high expectations are met. "Miles Ahead" is set for a U.S. release on April 1st, 2016.
biopicdon cheadlejazzkind of bluemiles davismovie 2015
Ian Johnson's Inversions Skateboards
A couple of years back, we did a feature called Jazz & Skateboards, in which we talked to painter Ian Johnson and showcased some of his work. What lead to this feature were his skateboard designs for Western Edition, in particular the Miles Davis Quintet series and the Marvin Gaye tribute. Only a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across his brilliant Out To Lunch series, a tribute to the Eric Dolphy album of the same name and very hard to find – especially if you're after the whole series.
This time, the chances to cop one (or all) of his skateboards are better, as the new "Inversions" series was just announced on Ian's Instagram account. As always, it's a jazzy affair featuring musicians such as Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra, and Bud Powell. All available from the Western Edition store and selected stores around the world. Be quick, as I'm sure these will soon be gone!
bill evansbud powellian m. johnsoninversionsjazzskateboardsun rathelonious monkwestern edition
When The World Was One
When The World Was One by Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra
It's been a long time since I last heard a contemporary jazz album that I enjoyed from start to finish. Last year's Yatha Bhuta Jazz Combo was such a record, and so is the new album by Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra. Titled "When The World Was One", the 7-track recording features fine spiritual jazz reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders or Alice Coltrane, the latter even received a proper tribute.
1. When The World Was One
2. A Far Away Place
3. Falling Water
5. Kiyomizu-Dera
6. Sagano Bamboo Forest
7. Tribute To Alice
"When The World Was One" was released last week on Gondwana Records and available in all kinds of formats from their Bandcamp store. You can stream the entire record in the player above!
PS: Oh and in case you're wondering, that beautiful artwork is courtesy of Daniel Halsall, presumably Matthew's brother.
album 2014gondwana recordsjazzmatthew halsallthe gondwana orchestrawhen the world was one
Austin Peralta live at Futura
To commemorate the late Austin Peralta, Alpha Pups' Daddy Kev has uploaded a recording of the full concert from the Endless Planets release party. The concert took place on February 11, 2011 and features Austin Peralta on keys, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson on viola, Sam Gendel on the saxophone, Ryan McGillicuddy on bass, Zach Harmon on drums, and Earnest Blount on electronics. Witness 72 minutes of fantastic live jazz with an introduction by Flying Lotus.
austin peraltacenter for the arts eagle rockflying lotusfree downloadfuturajazzlivemiguel atwood-ferguson
Austin Peralta, 1990-2012
When I first read about Austin Peralta's passing today, I was confused. Why would a young man leave us so soon? I don't usually write about the dead, but in this case I was touched too deeply. Austin Peralta was exciting for many reasons. A young gifted musician born in California with a passion for jazz, that alone stands out in days like these. His father is a legend of his own, surfer and pioneering skateboarder Stacy Peralta, original Z-Boy, founder of the iconic Powell-Peralta brand, and director of Dogtown and Z-Boys, Riding Giants and the forthcoming Bones Brigade documentary. In his short lifetime, Austin released three albums, the last one came out on the forward-thinking Brainfeeder label. Despite label-head Flying Lotus' own jazz background, it was a bit of an unlikely choice, an oddity, but it also widened the perception of Brainfeeder as a label releasing more than beats made in LA. More importantly, it put the name Austin Peralta on the map for a lot of people, including myself. The release of Endless Planets certainly played a part leading to collaborations with The Cinematic Orchestra, Thundercat, Teebs or Amon Tobin. I had the pleasure to see Austin perform live at the Worldwide Awards in London, probably my best concert all year. The joy of playing the keys was written over his face, it's one of those attributes of a musician that touches me as much as hearing the music. It was a special moment, so much talent in one place and it made me wonder about the things to come. He left way too soon, but he will not be forgotten. May he rest in peace.
Brainfeeder put together a selection of his works and live perfomances on their website, there's a recording from the Maida Vale session on Heidi Vogel's SoundCloud, and of course I invite you to revisit this live jam with Taylor McFerrin or the rehearsals from the Endless Planets release party.
November 23, 2012 Found an old interview in L.A. Record
January 15, 2013 The L.A. Weekly has an extended article on Austin worth reading. Also, in case you missed it, watch his last interview at Warsoul Sessions
austin peraltabrainfeederjazzlos angeles
Bitches Brew Skateboards
Remember those Miles Davis Quintet skateboards designed by Ian Johnson? This year, Western Edition pays tribute to the Miles Davis album Bitches Brew with a series of eight four decks. The original artwork for the album cover was created by Mati Klarwein, whose son Balthazar is a passionate skater himself. That little detail led to the commissioning of the artwork, but unfortunately the decks have sold out in no time, despite the high price tag. Maybe you'll have more luck at your local skate shop.
July 18, 2012 If you don't mind shady Facebook pages, here is your chance to win the entire set!
July 19, 2012 Turns out I could hunt down the series in a local store. Disappointingly, the series consists of only four decks and not eight as the images suggest. The dark motives are on the upper side of the decks, the bright one on the lower. In the end, I decided against buying as I found the price tag too high.
bitches brewjazzmati klarweinmiles davisskateboardwestern edition
Jazz Covers Vol. 2
Back in November 2008, I wrote about Taschen's Jazz Covers book, so I wanted to mention the publisher is now offering a follow-up. The book features a selection of top 10 favourite records by the likes of King Britt, Gilles Peterson, Rainer Trüby and others, as well as interview with Blue Note engineer Rudy Van Gelder, label founder Creed Taylor, producer Michael Cuscuna, designer Bob Ciano and Jazz Record Center owner Fred Cohen.
For a better impression, take a look at the images taken from the book over on the Taschen website. The book is 12-inch sized, has 560 pages and is available now for €39.99!
Joaquim Paulo, Julius Wiedemann
Hardcover, 2 vols. in slipcase, 30 x 30 cm, 560 pages, €39.99
bookbook 2012jazzjazz covers vol. 2joaquim paulojulius wiedemanntaschen
Jazz re:freshed Live – Prelude
Only yesterday we talked about the Jazz re:freshed anniversary. Now there's a free compilation for everyone that couldn't make it to their celebration yesterday. Oh Jazz:refreshed, I always wanted to, but I never attended one in 9 years. Anyway, here is one track for every year, including favourites such as Kaidi Tatham, Mark de Clive-Lowe or Richard Spaven – and a lot of artists I'm looking forward to discover myself!01. Kaidi Tatham – Night With Jude
02. 12 Tone Brass Band – Good Times
03. Séb Pipe's Life Experience – Dice
04. Dan Waldman Band – Vulcan Elements
05. Mark de Clive-Lowe Trio – Smoked Something (interlude)
06. Grant Windsor's 3 Five Blind – 3 Five Blind
07. Richard Spaven – Maz Live
08. Al Scott Trio – It's A Start Live
09. The Unknown Mystic Musound – Into The Unknown Live
You can download this live album for free, it's only the prelude of more live recordings to come in the future.
I have to big up Adam, Bunny Bread and all the others for the artwork, the liner notes and of course for making all of this happen in the first place. If you read this, please grant me one wish and announce your events as early as possible – I would love to witness Jazz re:freshed live once in my life!
compilation 2012free downloadjazzjazz refreshedkaidi tathamlivelondonmark de clive-lowerichard spaven
Dave Lambert: Audition at RCA
This is a fifteen minute documentary by D.A. Pennebaker on jazz singer and vocalese originator Dave Lambert.
Pennebaker is an acclaimed filmmaker, known for his documentaries on Bob Dylan and David Bowie. In 1964 he filmed this audition of Lambert's then newly formed quartet Lambert & Co., only months before the latter died in a tragic car accident. This audition is the last filmed footage of Lambert and the only recording of the quartet's music.
Read the full story on Lambert and the making of this documentary over at All About Jazz.
(via Brownswood)
audition at rcad.a. pennebakerdave lambertdocumentaryjazzrcavocalese
Endless Planets Release Party
Hanging out in Los Angeles and not sure what to do tonight? Well, it's kind of last minute, but we just felt like we should recommend you the Austin Peralta album release party.
You might have heard his new album Endless Planets, which only came out this week on Brainfeeder. In any case check out the videos below.
The full band includes Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (viola), Sam Gendel (alto sax), Ryan McGillicuddy (bass), Zach Harmon (drums & tabla), Earnest Blount aka Ian Simon (laptop) and Austin Peralta himself on the piano.
Check out the events page on Facebook for details!
November 24, 2012 As of today, the entire concert is available for free download!
austin peraltabrainfeederconcertendless planetsfuturajazzlivemiguel atwood-ferguson
Matthew Halsall – Ode To The Big Sea
I had a rather stressful week so I'm glad to find myself in the weekend with some smooth jazz to listen to, like this Cinematic Orchestra cover by Matthew Halsall which I found in my inbox this morning.
On request, Matthew allowed embedding the track and now it's even available for download. You know where you can thank him for that!
cinematic orchestrafree downloadgondwana recordsjazzmatthew halsall
Sven Swift – I'm Odd Fashioned pt. 1
You know Sven Swift best from his work as Error Broadcast label manager or you probably came across one of his mixtapes before. A couple of weeks ago, he asked if I wanted to host his jazz mixtape and today it's finally going up.
I'm Odd Fashioned pt. 1 (stream)
01. Eric Dolphy – Hat & Beard
02. Joe Henderson – Black
03. Antônio Carlos Jobim – God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun
04. Bobby Hutcherson – Idle While
05. John Coltrane – Lonnie's Lament
06. Sam Rivers – Involution
07. Pharoah Sanders – Colors
But let's hear about Sven's motives for digging out some jazz records rather than the ill beats from all corners of the world (like Russia.)
The 1960s were awesome times for Jazz music, or more precisely, Anti-Jazz music. Pioniered by the likes of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, young US American Jazz cats shifted the genre to a whole new level exploring the modal qualities of Jazzmusic. At the edges of Free and Avantgarde Jazz (the New Thing!), music full of beauty and adventure was created.
My two-parts mixtape showcases a small selection of artists and songs from this period of time I found matching each other, somehow. There's a certain atmosphere of odditiy about each work, bridging antithetic artists as Sam Rivers and Antonio Carlos Jobim or Anthony Williams and Charles Mingus.
As if you didn't know, there will be a second part available some time next week. Only, you won't find it here, it will be hosted and posted by our mates of You'll Soon Know. And that's not the only good reason to check their blog!
October 18, 2010 As promised, here's the second part of this mix..
free downloadi'm off fashionedjazzmixtapesven swift
The Jazz Loft Project
Once a photographer for Life in World War II Okinawa and Iwo Jima, W. Eugene Smith photographed and recorded jazz musicians at his Manhattan loft from 1957 to 1965. It was here that now legendary musicians like Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Alice Coltrane or Steve Reich met for late-night jam sessions.
In that period, Smith made over 4000 hours of recordings and took nearly 40,000 photographs. The Jazz Loft Project is trying to uncover and document these moments, a book by Sam Stephesonwas recently published. Rare audio-footage of that loft's era was aired by WNYC in a 10 episode radio-series, which is also available on-demand. Throughout this month, NPR will also report about The Jazz Loft Project.
(via Grain Edit)
jazznew yorkphotographerthe jazz loft projectwilliam eugene smith


"Robbie Mac Iver is the Owner and Principal Consultant of The Mac Iver Group, LP, providing professional services in project management, agile leadership, training and coaching. Robbie brings business and technology teams together to create and implement innovative solutions to complex business problems. By providing practical, sensible, and effective project leadership, Robbie improves both teams and processes to achieve visible, predictable results. Robbie holds the PMP certification from the Project Management Institute and is certified by the ScrumAlliance as a Certified Scrum Master and a Certified Scrum Practitioner. He is well versed in the values and principles of agile practices as well as more traditional project management methods and can bring the most appropriate project leadership practices and tools to bear on the project at hand. Because of his experience in both the traditional and agile worlds, Robbie is also very effective in transitioning traditional teams and organizations to agile principles. In addition, Robbie is an Agile Advisor with Corpus Optima where he is incorporating agile principles into the organization's service offerings, delivery methods and internal operations to enhance Corpus Optima's ability to help clients accelerate and sustain the advanced process and culture transformation practices of Superperformance. Robbie is on the board of directors of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN) and a co-founder of the Houston APLN chapter. "


The designers believe that your award inscription should be more than just a few lines of type placed unimaginatively below your logo. That is why we have turned your message into an eyecatching design element that promises to get good reviews at your next event. Plate stand included. Please note that the dimensions and curvature of this item have been slightly changed from previous years.


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Artists Index: Keith Piper
Keith Piper (b. 1960, Malta, lives and works in London). Piper was born in Malta to Caribbean parents, who moved
to Birmingham in 1963. As a student at Trent Polytechnic
in the early 1980s, he was a founder member of the Blk Art Group, a clustering of young black artists who were influential within the emergence of the British Black Art Movement of the 1980s. Since then he has exhibited work internationally, published writings and taught in institutions nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include: "Migrations: Journeys into British Art", Tate Britain (2012); "Nothing in the World but Youth", Turner Contemporary, Margate; "The Perfect City", commissioned by Film London (2007), "How to improve the World: 60 years of British Art", Hayward Gallery London, (2006); "Crusade, relocating the remains", Ikon Gallery (1998).
"Birmingham Show"
31.1 – 11.4.2015


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This 3 bedroom home is located in the Pavedway (plats) neighborhood at 13726 Wadsworth St, Detroit Mi 48227. This $36,900 property has approximately 1,010 square feet and was built in 1929. This home is located in the Detroit school district. Properties located in the Detroit district have an average price per square foot of $43/SqFt. Houses with similar square footage range in price from $6,995 to $99,800 and have an average price per square foot of $35/SqFt. The average priced home in 48227 with 3 bedrooms is $41,514. Depending on where you live in Detroit your children and/or teenagers may go to the Detroit school district, Lincoln Consolidated school district, or Hamtramck school district. 13726 Wadsworth St has property taxes in the amount of $526, which are assessed as non-homestead because the home is considered a second home for the owner and/or not occupied by the primary owner. The property taxes will be lowered if you purchase this property, occupy it as your primary residence and file the homestead exemption form.
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text:
\section{Introduction}
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are gaining more attention of the researchers due to their numerous advantages, such as robustness, agility, cost-effectiveness, over ground vehicles. These benefits have created even more demand for the autonomous UAVs and especially their swarms in various applications and fields, for instance threat detection, intelligent transportation systems, search and rescue, military purposes, surveying, and mapping \cite{ladd2009non, 8682048, HE2018327}.

Drones and swarms of drones, despite getting more sophisticated, still face several mission or design limitations and challenges, such as optimal navigation and obstacle avoidance, dynamic reformation, payload, flight time due to limited battery life, design of state-of-the-art stability controllers, and optimal resource allocation \cite{8500274, tseng2017flight, jdiscsic}. UAVs can encounter stationary or dynamic obstacles while navigating and therefore require a reliable collision avoidance system on-board for safe navigation \cite{7947166, 776ccee71a23417a93377ba6abc18a23}. Different types of collision avoidance methods can be generalized into four categories \cite{jdsurvey, 10.1007/978-3-030-37393-1_32}: potential field based methods \cite{doi:10.2514/6.2020-0487, SENANAYAKE2016422}; geometric methods \cite{6722091, 8682048, 10.1007/978-3-030-37393-1_32}; sense and avoid methods \cite{prats2012requirements, jdiscsic, 5412074}; optimization based methods \cite{zhang2017optimization, doi:10.2514/6.2014-0966}. Furthermore, the methodologies for formation maintenance can be categorized into three approaches \cite{1657384, OH2015424}: leader follower based \cite{Shen2014, jdpaams}; virtual structure based \cite{li2008formation, DONG2016415}; behaviour based \cite{lawton2003decentralized, 736776}.

One of the biggest limitation for UAVs is the mission life due to their limited battery capacity \cite{tseng2017flight, jdpaams}. More deviation from the path would result in more power consumption leading to shortened mission life. Similarly, if the swarm slows down or hovers at a certain location for reshaping before continuing, it increases the mission time meaning more power consumed and shortened mission life on a single charge. Maintaining formation and only reshaping the formation while continuing towards the destination can lower the unexpected deviations and power consumption or losing a drone, as while navigating through the obstacles (e.g. going through the window of a building) breaking the formation to bypass the obstacles in different directions may cause inter-drone communication failure or excessive deviation, resulting in more power consumption.

In this paper, for maintaining the formation, we utilize the leader-follower based approach due to its simplicity, non-complex implementation, reliability, and scalability \cite{jdiscsic}. Keeping the above mentioned limitations and time criticality, we propose our algorithm where a swarm formation comes across multiple obstacles and can go through the gap between them while dynamically changing the formation and reforming to original shape without slowing down. In the proposed algorithm, upon detection of the obstacles and the available gap between them, the swarm reshapes into a queue formation. In order to do so, the agents in the swarm select their temporary leaders and navigate to reach and maintain the minimum defined distance between two agents. Once the agents come out of the obstacles, to reform the original formation shape, they immediately start navigating to the best possible position determined through the point-set registration technique.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides the development of the proposed approach. Section 3 is based on simulation results. And finally, conclusions, discussions, and future work is provided in Section 4.

\section{Proposed Approach}

In this section we describe the proposed Dynamic Formation Reshaping Based on Point Set Registration (DFRPSR) algorithm in a Swarm of Drones. The overall strategy is to be able to navigate through the available gap between multiple obstacles while reshaping the formation in a near-optimal manner, without slowing down, and after passing through the obstacles bringing the agents back into formation dynamically while navigating towards the destination in order to minimize the overall time it takes to reach the destination. A novel top-level algorithm is developed to accomplish this, i.e., composed of partial feedback algorithms: one for realigning the agents into a queue formation for passing through the narrow openings between the obstacles and one for bringing them back into the original formation shape. Upon detection of the available gap between the obstacles in the planned route, the algorithm starts evaluating the possible reshaping solutions based on the calculated gap between the obstacles and the angle at which the available gap for safe passage lies. If the detected obstacles already lie in such a manner that the leader does not require any deviation from its original path, then the leader continues to navigate forward while its followers reshape into a queue formation by merging both \textit{Left Leg} and \textit{Right Leg} of the formation while communicating with each other to allow for an efficient integration of both legs of the swarm as shown in Figure \ref{fig:obsang}. After successfully passing the obstacles, the \textit{Turn-Back} function brings the agents back into the initial formation shape in an effective manner by utilizing the point set registration technique, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:reshape}.

\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{center}
    \subfigure[\label{fig:obsang}]{\includegraphics[width=0.485\linewidth]{fig1.pdf}}\hspace{0.2cm}
    \subfigure[\label{fig:reshape}]{\includegraphics[width=0.485\linewidth]{fig2.pdf}}
   \end{center}

  \caption{Illustration of the \textit{Left and Right Legs} and angles and transition phases (a) formation reshaping process while going through the obstacles, (b) Transitioning back to initial formation}
  \label{fig:navianddist}
\end{figure}
\vspace{-1.0cm}

\subsection{Navigation}

\begin{algorithm}
\caption{Global Routine}\label{algo1}
\scriptsize
\begin{algorithmic}[2]
\Procedure{Navigation}{}
\State{$ObsFlag$ $\gets$ $False$;}
\State{$PSR$ $\gets$ $False$;}
\State{TShape $\gets$ Initialized based on the current state;}
\While{True}
    \State{$ObsFlag, ObsDist, ObsAng, ObsNum$ $\gets$ Obstacle\_Detection();}
    \If{$ObsFlag$}
        \State{Reshape\&Avoidance($ObsDist, ObsAng, ObsNum$);}
        \State{$ObsFlag$ $\gets$ $False$;}
        \State{$PSR$ $\gets$ $True$;}
    \Else
        \State{Update TShape;}

    \EndIf
    \State{Update CShape;}
    \If{PSR}
        \State{Turn-Back(TShape);}
    \EndIf
\EndWhile
\EndProcedure
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}

The general pseudo-code of the top-level routine is given in Algorithm 1. As our initial setup, we presume that the agents are already in the defined formation shape, and the leader is dedicated and the ID assignment to the agents is completed before the mission is started. This top-level algorithm is executed by every agent locally. A Boolean variable (\textit{ObsFlag}) is initialized, whose role is to indicate the presence of an obstacle \textit{True} or absence \textit{False} (Line 2). Similarly, a Boolean variable (\textit{PSR}) is initialized (Line 3), whose role is to allow (if \textit{True}) the algorithm to call the \textit{Turn-Back} function after successful reshaping and collision avoidance or bypass the \textit{Turn-Back} function (if \textit{False}). Then based on the current position of the every agent, the target shape of the swarm \textit{TShape} is then set up, i.e., initialized, (Line 4). This shape is calculated for every agent at every time interval for the next interval where they have to navigate to. After the initialization, \textit{Obstacle\_Detection} procedure is called (Line 6). And based on the presence of an obstacle in the vicinity, the information of the characteristics of the obstacle, such as, distance, angle at which the obstacle is detected, number of obstacles are updated. If \textit{ObsFlag == True}, indicating an obstacle(s) has been detected, the Reshape\&Avoidance procedure is invoked (Lines 7-8). Once the reshaping and avoidance has been successfully performed, the \textit{ObsFlag} is reset to \textit{False} and \textit{PSR} is set to \textit{True} (Lines 9-10), indicating that the formation shape has been changed due to avoidance maneuver and now initial formation shape needs to be restored. On the other hand, if after the \textit{Obstacle\_Detection} procedure, the condition \textit{ObsFlag == False} (Line 7), indicating that no obstacle is detected, then only the \textit{TShape} is updated (Line 12). Then the current shape ($CShape$) of the swarm is updated (Line 14). Finally, if \textit{Reshape\&Avoidance} procedure was invoked earlier, i.e., \textit{PSR == True}, then \textit{Turn-Back} procedure is called for bringing the agents back into the original formation shape (Line 15-16).
\vspace{-0.3cm}

\subsection{Obstacle Detection}

The pseudo-code for the \textit{Obstacle\_Detection} procedure is given in Algorithm 2. The node, while being in this procedure, continuously keeps on scanning for the obstacles in the vicinity, and as soon as an obstacle is detected the obstacle detection flag \textit{ObsFlag} is set to \textit{True} (Lines 2-3). After the detection of the obstacle, the parameters of the detected obstacle(s) are calculated and updated (Line 4), such as, the distance of the obstacle (\textit{ObsDist}), the angle at which the obstacle is detected (\textit{ObsAng}), and the number of detected obstacles (\textit{ObsNum}).

\begin{algorithm}
\caption{Obstacle Detection}\label{algo2}
\scriptsize
\begin{algorithmic}[1]
\Procedure{Obstacle\_Detection()}{}

\If{$obs$ in $Detection\_Range$}
    \State{$ObsFlag$ $\gets$ $True$;}
    \State {$ObsNum, ObsDist, ObsAng$ $\gets$ Calculate number of obstacles, the distance and angles\par
    \hskip\algorithmicindent at which the edges lie;}
\EndIf
\EndProcedure
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}

\subsection{Formation Reshaping and Avoidance}

After the detection of obstacles, the \textit{Reshape\&Avoidance} procedure is called, pseudo-code given in Algorithm 3. This procedure is responsible for reshaping the formation, according to the situation, and successful collision avoidance. As soon as this procedure takes control, the node calculates the $Gap$ between the detected obstacles, in case of multiple detected obstacles (Lines 2-3). This algorithm works on three cases (Lines 5-18). If only one obstacle was detected, i.e., $ObsNum\not> 1$, in this case the algorithm simply calls for collision avoidance procedure, developed and presented in \cite{jdiscsic}, to perform the avoidance maneuver (Lines 7-8). If more than one obstacles were detected, i.e., $ObsNum > 1$, but the calculated $Gap$ between the obstacles is less than the defined safe distance $Safe\_dist$ indicating the gap is not wide enough for the agent to go through. In this case, the algorithm treats them as a single obstacle to perform the collision avoidance maneuver (Lines 9-10). And the third case, the condition $ObsNum > 1$ holds True, i.e., more than one obstacles detected and the gap between the obstacles more than the defined safe distance for the agents to pass through, i.e., $Gap >= Safe\_dist$ holds True (Line 11). The algorithm then checks if the $ObsAng$ is negative, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:obsang}. In this case, the leader has to move towards its right to align itself to be able to pass through the gap between the obstacles without colliding. And consequently, the \textit{Right leg}, i.e., the agents with "odd" IDs (ID= 3, 5, 7,.., n), will have to move less to be able to come into the queue formation as compared to the agents with "even" IDs (ID=2, 4, 6,.., n+1), i.e., the \textit{Left leg}, will have to move more towards their right to align properly. And therefore, the \textit{Left leg} is merged into the \textit{Right leg}, (Lines 12-13) as shown in Figure \ref{fig:reshape}. In this case, every agent follow the following protocol:

\begin{enumerate}
    \item if SELF.ID is even number
    \item make SELF.ID - 1 as temporary leader
    \item if SELF.ID is odd number
    \item make SELF.ID - 1 as temporary leader
\end{enumerate}

On the other hand, if the $ObsAng$ is positive, then \textit{Right leg} is merged into the \textit{Left leg} (Lines 14-16). And the agents follow the following protocol:

\begin{enumerate}
    \item if SELF.ID is odd number
    \item make SELF.ID - 3 as temporary leader
    \item if SELF.ID is even number
    \item make SELF.ID + 1 as temporary leader
\end{enumerate}

However, if the $ObsAng$ is neither negative or positive (Lines 17-18), meaning that the leader is already well aligned in the gap, in this case \textit{Left leg} is merged into the \textit{Right leg} as well. It is important to note here that in this case either leg can be merged into the other without any efficiency or energy difference, but instead of randomizing the routine, the routine has been hard-coded for easier function.

\begin{algorithm}
\caption{Formation Reshaping and Collision Avoidance}\label{algo3}
\scriptsize
\begin{algorithmic}[2]
\Procedure{Reshape\&Avoidance}{$ObsNum, ObstDist, ObsAng$}

\If{$ObsNum$ $>$ 1}
    \State $Gap$ $\gets$ calculated gap between the obstacles;
\EndIf
\State $STATE$ $\gets$ ($Gap$ $>$= $Safe\_dist$, $ObsNum$ $>$ 1);
\Switch{$STATE$}
\Case{(-, False)}
    \State{collision avoidance(); \Comment{single obstacle}}
    \EndCase
\Case{(False, True)}
    \State{collision avoidance(); \Comment{Treated as single obstacle}}
    \EndCase
\Case{(True, True)}
    \Comment{Multi-obstacle}
    \If{$ObsAng$ is negative}

        \State{Left leg merges into the right leg;}
    \Else \If{$ObsAng$ is positive}
        \State{Right leg merges into the left leg;}
    \Else
        \State{Left leg merges into the right leg;}\Comment{Priority assignment}
    \EndIf
    \EndIf
    \EndCase
\EndSwitch
\EndProcedure
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
\vspace{-0.5cm}

\subsection{Turn-Back Function}

Once the original formation shape is distorted or reshaped, into a queue formation in our case, a procedure for bringing the swarm back into their original formation shape in a near-optimal manner is presented in this part. While bringing the swarm back to the original shape we utilize the point set registration technique \cite{8594514, DBLP:journals/corr/abs-0905-2635} that is based on the thin-plate spline \cite{854733} and is a well known methodology in data interpolation and smoothing. This technique is used as due to its non-complicated construction, complicated shapes are approximated easily using splines \cite{854733}. Here we provide and discuss for 2-dimensional formulation, where we have two sets of correlating points $X$ ({$x_i$, i = 1, 2, . . . , $n$}) and $V$ ({$v_i$, i = 1, 2, . . . , $n$}), for current shape $CShape$ and the original/target shape $TShape$ respectively. Here the coordinates of the location of a point are represented by $x_i$ = (1, $x_{ix}$, $x_{iy}$) and $v_i$ = (1, $v_{ix}$, $v_{iy}$). The mapping function $f(v_i)$ can be found by minimizing the following:

\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
    E(f) = \sum_{i=1}^{n}||x_i - f(v_i)||^2 + \\ \lambda\iint[(\frac{\partial^2f}{\partial x^2})^2 +2(\frac{\partial^2f}{\partial x\partial y})^2 + (\frac{\partial^2f}{\partial y^2})]dxdy
\end{split}
\label{etps}
\end{equation}

where $E$ is the energy function, i.e., the amount of disturbance in the formation, the integral part of the equation represents the mapping of the corresponding point sets to the correlating ones while considering the intended formation, and the scaling factor is provided by the $\lambda$. Here we set $\lambda$ to zero, as our intention is to map one point set over the other without considering the $CShape$, and therefore the closest points are mapped accordingly. Once the mapping process is performed, every node navigates towards its calculated position by utilizing the shortest path approach.
\vspace{-0.5cm}
\begin{algorithm}
\caption{Turn-Back}\label{algo4}
\scriptsize
\begin{algorithmic}[2]
\Procedure{Turn-Back}{TShape}
\While{$PSR$}
    \State{$NLoc$ $\gets$ Calculate the new coordinates for each agent;}
    \State{Temperature minimization function($NLoc$);}
    \State {Update $CShape$;}
    \If{$TShape$ == $CShape$}
        \State{$PSR$ $\gets$ False;}
    \EndIf
\EndWhile
\EndProcedure
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
\vspace{-0.5cm}

An overview of our \textit{Turn-Back} function is given in Algorithm 4. First the next location (\textit{NLoc}) of every agent is calculated, i.e., the coordinates where every respective node should be in order to maintain the initial formation shape (Line 3). These values are then fed to the temperature minimization function for bringing the nodes to their new locations as optimally as possible (Line 4). Then the current shape (\textit{CShape}) of the swarm is updated (Line 5). Finally it is checked if the swarm has reached its intended formation shape, if the current shape matches with the target shape, the $PSR$ flag is set to False and the control is returned to the main function (Lines 6-7).

\section{Simulation Results}

The initial conditions defined for our work are as follows:

\begin{enumerate}
    \item all UAVs/agents travel with constant ground speeds
    \item the communication between UAVs is ideal, i.e., without information loss
    \item all UAVs are at the same altitude
    \item on-board localization techniques are utilized by the UAVs for obtaining their respective positions
\end{enumerate}

The simulation results are shown in Figure \ref{fig:navianddist}. Figure \ref{fig:navi} shows the overall trend of the trajectories of the swarm from mission start till the destination, including the transition phases while going through the narrow opening between the obstacles and returning back to the initial formation shape. In \ref{fig:navi}, at around  $X-Axis = 85m$ the obstacle is detected by the leader, i.e., UAV 1 (green trajectory). Upon calculating the gap between them, UAV 1 realigns itself to safely pass through the obstacles and at the same time the followers are notified of the detected obstacle. As it can be seen from the figure, the followers nodes start rearranging and realigning themselves, even before the obstacle is visible to them, by merging both \textit{legs} of the swarm and following the optimal path to now follow their temporary respective leaders in a queue formation. At $X-Axis$ around 116m, the swarm coming out of the gap between the obstacles and starting the reformation process to the initial formation shape at the same time.

\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{center}
    \subfigure[\label{fig:navi}]{\includegraphics[width=0.485\linewidth]{Navigation.pdf}}\hspace{0.2cm}
    \subfigure[\label{fig:dist}]{\includegraphics[width=0.485\linewidth]{Distances_graph_1.pdf}}
    \subfigure[\label{fig:distno}]{\includegraphics[width=0.485\linewidth]{Distances_graph_noalgo.pdf}}

   \end{center}
   \vspace{-0.7cm}
  \caption{Simulation results (a) Overall trend of the trajectories of all UAVs. (b) Distances maintained by UAVs from their immediate leaders and temporary leaders utilizing DFRPSR algorithm. (c) Distances maintained by UAVs from their immediate leaders and temporary leaders utilizing sense\&avoid only}
  \label{fig:navianddist}
  \vspace{-0.4cm}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[h]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[height= 0.5\textwidth]{distance_per.pdf}
    \vspace{0.2cm}
    \caption{Distance relationship characteristics \label{fig:dist_ave}}
\end{figure}

The distances maintained by the UAVs, with their immediate leaders and the temporary leaders (while in transition shape), through out the mission is shown in Figure \ref{fig:dist}, where distance maintained between UAV 2 and UAV 1 is represented by \textit{d21}, distance maintained between UAV 3 and UAV 1 \textit{d31}, distance maintained between UAV 3 and UAV 2 \textit{d32}, and so on. The overall distance maintenance between the nodes and their immediate leaders without utilizing the proposed DFRPSR algorithm is shown in Figure \ref{fig:distno}. In Figure \ref{fig:dist}, we show the trend of distance maintenance between the nodes and their immediate leaders only, for easier visualization and cleaner graphs. As it can be seen that as the obstacles come in the vicinity, at around $t = 17s$, the drones started reshaping, to be able to pass through the narrow passage between the obstacles, by temporarily changing their respective leaders to form a queue. From $t = 31s$ to $t = 56s$, the swarm in reformed queue shape is navigating through the gap between the obstacles. And as soon as the nodes emerge from the end of the obstacles, they start navigating to regain the initial V-shaped formation as can be seen from their trajectories and the changed inter-node distances. However, Figure \ref{fig:distno} shows that utilizing standard sense\&avoid algorithm with formation, every agent started the reshaping process based on their respective local detection. Utilizing the proposed DFRPSR approach, the swarm came back to the initial formation at $t = 97s$, whereas while local sense\&avoid methodology was applied the swarm came back to the initial formation at $t = 111s$. It shows the efficiency of the DFRPSR approach in reducing the disturbance in the formation shape more efficiently.

Figure \ref{fig:dist_ave} shows the overall trend of the minimum, maximum, and the percentile of the distances maintained by the respective nodes. Minimum distance, while navigating between UAV 1 and 2 is 12.8m, whereas the maximum distance is 40m that is due to the reshaping process and changed leaders while in transition phase, i.e., queue formation. Similarly, UAV 3 to UAV 1 the minimum distance maintained is 7.81m due to the compression between the agents while dynamic reformation process and the maximum is 38m, with three outliers. The minimum distance between UAV 4 and 2 is 9m, maximum distance was 22.82m, and the median 14.86m, that is due to the fact that UAV 2 remained the leader for UAV 4 even while in transition phase.

\section{Conclusions}

In this paper, we developed an algorithm for smooth and dynamic transformation from initial formation shape into a queue formation, by smoothly merging the agents together, to enable the swarm to efficiently pass through the gap or opening between obstacles. Upon detection of the obstacles, the leader of the swarm calculates the gap between the obstacles, aligns itself to pass through the gap, and sends that information to the followers. At the same time, the followers, start realigning and reforming the swarm by re-selecting their temporary leaders respectively. Upon successful avoidance, the nodes rearrange themselves to regain the initial formation shape as optimally as possible. The simulation results show that the proposed method works reliably and efficiently in static environments. All the agents maintained the respective defined distances between them, reshaped to maintained the minimum defined distances while being in queue formation, and expanded back to attain the original formation effectively.

The proposed approach is limited to 2-dimensional movement, with fixed altitude, in its current form and its efficiency needs to be evaluated by extending the work by introducing the third dimension. Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed approach still needs to be tested by introducing the environmental effects such as air drag on individual drones as well as on the overall shape of the swarm.
In the future work, we plan to further investigate the effectiveness of this approach for multi-layered formations. Another interesting analysis will be the optimization of resource management in the swarm. This will be very interesting to analyze especially when considering other environmental effects, for instance air drag on the layers, and dynamic swapping of the outer layered drones while reforming to increase the mission life.

\section*{Acknowledgement}
This work has been supported by the Academy of Finland-funded research project 314048.

\bibliographystyle{splncs03_unsrt}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


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text:
import { MissingParameter } from 'exceptions';

export function isUndefined (value) {
  return typeof(value) === 'undefined';
}

export function isNull (value) {
  return value === null;
}

export function randomInt (max) {
  if (isUndefined(max)) {
    throw new MissingParameter('Max value not set.');
  }
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * max);
}


text:
Cinema Online
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Charles Dickens` timeless tale of an old miser who must face the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come, as they help bring kindness to his otherwise cold heart. The Ghosts remind him of the man he used to be, the hard truth of what the world is today, and what will happen if he does not strive to be a better man. Set around Christmas, the most joyous day of the year, Scrooge realizes the sharp contrast of his own personality. Jim Carrey plays four separate roles in this updated version of "A Christmas Carol." Carrey portrays Scrooge, as well as the three ghosts (Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come). Robert Zemeckis ("Back to the Future" trilogy) has his chance to dabble in telling a story through the windows of time, as he directs the long-awaited remake.
Subtitle: NA
Classification: U
Genre: Drama / Fantasy / Animation
Running Time: 1 Hour 36 Minutes
Distributor: BUENA VISTA
Cast: Jim Carrey, Robin Wright, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins
Format: NA, 35MM
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Watch this if you liked: "A Christmas Carol" films, "How The Grinch Stole Christmas"
The brilliant Academy Award winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis ("The Polar Express") realised that out of all the countless Charles Dickens' adapted movies and cartoons over the years, none were ever made into 3-D! Disney's "A Christmas Carol" was shot entirely in 3-D, where moviegoers can expect to see constant scenes of the cold-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge hurtling through the skies above London, squeezing through tight locations, narrowly missing objects and falling from a distant height. It literally takes you on a thrill ride, bringing the classic story-telling to a whole new level.
Although there are numerous screen adaptations of this Christmas tale, audiences never seem to get tired of it in a new incarnation as the film topped the North American box office on opening weekend garnering US$30.1 million, outgrossing the previous performance-capture Christmas animation "The Polar Express" (2004). However, it sold fewer tickets than "Elf" and "The Santa Clause 2" and far fewer than Jim Carrey's last Christmas movie, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", according to Box Office Mojo.
The film remains faithful to Dickens' story and the original 1843 book illustrations. Moreover, it's striking to see the life-like appearances of the characters and the likeness of the actors in animation form. Apparently, the technique depends on its cast putting in full physical as well as vocal performances, which are then 'wrapped' digitally with clothes and skin to create an animated image.
Chameleon actor Jim Carry is an outstanding choice to play seven different characters namely Scrooge, Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come (who doesn't really talk much at all). In fact, you'd barely even recognise him if it wasn't for the characters' resemblance. Out of all the ghosts, Christmas Past is the most fun with a peculiar twitchy habit that will squeeze out a chuckle or two. Gary Oldman gave a solid performance playing multiple roles as well, while Colin Firth is one of the few actors playing only one role as the highly optimistic Fred, whose cheery nature and outlook on life is a stark contrast to that of his grumpy uncle Scrooge.
The tone of the film varies from one point to another. It can be silly-goofy at one point and turn freaky-scary the next, such as a scene involving a ghost's dislocated jaw. However, it incorporates well into the story, making it more appealing to the adults, not so sure about the kids. Moreover, the dialogues can be hard to understand at times with its Victorian accent and vocabulary that will make no sense to young children.
Well, in the wise words of Scrooge - "Bah humbug!" This is by far the most exciting re-imagining of Charles Dickens classic tale that is best enjoyed in 3-D.
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