Two weeks, we commenced teaching on spiritual gifts, which are divided into three broad categories with three sub types. The first consists of prophecy, divers kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues usually referred to as the gift of utterance. Next includes gift of faith, working of miracles and the gifts of healing known as the power gifts. The final category consists word of wisdom, word of knowledge and discerning of spirits known as revelational gifts. Last week, we considered the gift of prophecy. We defined prophecy as speaking for God. We differentiated between having the gift of prophecy and occupying the office of a prophet. The former is given for edification, exhortation and comfort without revelation while the latter incorporates some form of revelation or foretelling. Old Testament prophecy involves foretelling while the New Testament is strongly tilting to forth telling. This week, we shall begin a two-part series on the gift of word of knowledge and pray that these teachings will create desires in us to long and prayerful "covet" these spiritual gifts.
The first thing to note in this gift is that it is referred to as "the word of knowledge." and not "the gift of knowledge." The word of knowledge is the supernatural revelation by the Holy Ghost of certain facts in the mind of God. God is all knowing. But He doesn't reveal everything He knows to man. He just gives him a word or a part of what He knows. A word is a fragmentary part of a sentence, so a word of knowledge would simply be a fragmentary part of the entire knowledge or counsel of God. God is all knowing. He has all knowledge. But He doesn't impart all of His knowledge to us; He imparts a word of knowledge to us – just what He wants us to know at a given time.
1. The Word of Knowledge Is Not Natural Knowledge: This word of knowledge is a supernatural manifestation as are all of these gifts of the Spirit. None of them are natural gifts; they are all supernatural gifts. Since one of them is supernatural, they all are supernatural. If one of them were natural, then all of them would be natural.
2. The Word of Knowledge Is Not A Profound Knowledge of the Bible. Also, this gift of the word of knowledge is sometimes confused with a profound knowledge of the Bible. It doesn't come by solely studying the bible so much even though it works in connection with God's words. Indeed, we are to study God's words as Paul admonished Timothy "STUDY to shew thyself approved ..." (2 Tim. 2:15). So that a profound knowledge of the Bible comes by studying, but the word of knowledge comes by a supernatural revelation.
3. The Word of Knowledge Is Not Necessarily Knowledge of God Through Close Communion With Him. Please note that one does gain a real knowledge of God by walking with Him, but that is different from a supernatural impartation of knowledge of certain facts in the mind of God. Example of Samuel vs Eli in I Sam. 3:1-10 clearly illustrates this point that one can know about the things of God but not hear His voice so that this kind of knowledge doesn't necessarily come by a longtime experience of walking with God.
1. The Word of Knowledge to John: Rev. 1:10-20. For John, it came through vision so we can also learn that this gift can come through vision. It is clear that John, exiled to the Isle of Patmos, couldn't possibly have known what was going on in these cities or churches, but Jesus revealed to him their spiritual conditions. That was a word of knowledge!
2. The Word of Knowledge to Ananias: Acts 9:10-12. Again, this gift was revealed to a layman (not an apostle), Ananias, through vision. The Bible calls him a disciple. He was just a member of the church at Damascus. If the Lord wills, laymen as well as ministers can have a manifestation of the word of knowledge or any of the gifts of the Spirit. Ananias couldn't have known in the natural that in a certain house on a certain street a man named Saul was praying at that minute. Ananias couldn't have known that Saul had had a vision in which he had seen a man called Ananias coming in and putting his hands on him that he might receive his sight. Ananias couldn't have known this any other way than by supernatural revelation. He knew it by the word of knowledge!
3. The Word of Knowledge to Peter: Acts 10:9-19: Peter received a supernatural revelation - a word of knowledge: ". . . Behold, three men seek thee" (Acts 10:19). Peter did not know there were three men who were seeking him (v. 19). He had fallen into a trance and had seen the vision of the sheet descending out of heaven. While Peter was thinking about what that vision meant, the Holy Spirit told him that three men were seeking him. The men were already standing at the gate. Peter hadn't seen these men. He had no way of knowing they were there except by the Spirit of God.
4. There are also many other present day examples about of the manifestation of this gift to Christians.
To conclude this part of the gift of word of knowledge, it will be important to emphasize that this gift as with other spiritual gifts is used to bless others. It is also an effective gift to witness and get people saved (E.g. Cornelius and his household). We certainly need the manifestation of this gift to be effective in witnessing as individuals and as a church.
To be balanced, it will be great to add that the word of knowledge may come by an inward revelation, an audible voice, by the Spirit of God speaking to you. Also, the gifts of the Spirit often operate together. We just separate them in order to define them. For example, the word of knowledge may come through tongues and interpretation of tongues, or through the gift of prophecy. Or an angel might come to deliver a word of knowledge. God has many means of doing things, including manifesting the word of knowledge in various ways. God is visiting hungry hearts everywhere. He is manifesting His power through the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, and one of these gifts is the word of knowledge.


Scientists are investigating what they call CR mimetics, or compounds that mimic the effects of calorie restriction. "This includes naturally occurring compounds and pharmaceuticals," explained Carter, the University of Florida researcher. "One that has received much attention lately is a compound called resveratrol, found in red wine."
Researchers have long pondered the French paradox: The French eat high-fat diets but live relatively long lives. Resveratrol and other compounds in red wine are thought by many to contribute to that good life. . . .
You may be aware of a media report that is suggesting there has been an outbreak of leprosy in Springdale. This is not true. The Chamber has been in touch this morning with Gov. Mike Beebe, Congressman John Boozman, the Center for Disease Control and the Washington County Health Department. Each of these entities are fully engaged and are reporting to us that there is no "outbreak" of leprosy in Springdale or Northwest Arkansas.
Dr Maria Cerruto says 2ins high heels can help improve pelvic floor muscles, reports the BBC.
Dr Cerruto, a urologist and self-professed lover of high heels, set out to prove they were not as bad for women's health as some suggest.
Her study of 66 women under 50 found those who held their foot at a 15 degree angle to the ground - the equivalent of a two inch heel - had as good posture as those who wore flat shoes.
And, crucially, they showed less electrical activity in their pelvic muscles suggesting they were at an optimum position, which could improve their strength and ability to contract.


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Home > On Practice > Opt-in OSAs drag on practice values
Opt-in OSAs drag on practice values
Tahn SharpeMay 3, 2019
Radar Results' John Birt
Advice business professionals have differing opinions on the effect looming changes to Ongoing Service Agreements is having on valuations, with little agreement on the average price for a quality firm and the factors behind it.
Hayne's royal commission final report recommendation that opt-in periods become annual, instead of every two years, is a particular bone of contention with mergers and acquisition experts.
Paul Tynan, chief executive of Connect Financial Services Brokers, says that the opt-in recommendation has driven the price of advice firms down "more than anything else".
Speaking on a podcast with Baz Gardner from The Social Adviser, Tynan said the mooted change from ongoing service agreements to annual service agreements was "the biggest change [stemming] from the royal commission".
"It's pushed the valuations down because you've got to engage the client every year instead of just issuing an invoice," Tynan tells Professional Planner.
He says advisers will be increasingly unable to service the bottom half of their revenue books – the threat of which is limiting the asking price for sellers.
"I'm getting a lot of people saying 'I have these 200 clients I can't service anymore'," Tynan reveals.
Tynan says practice values have come down considerably in the last year and are being sold at revenue multiples "nowhere the threes".
"It's always been 2.5 to 3.5 [revenue multiples] but that changed since the royal commission," he says. "I would say the average multiple for a fee-for-service business is around 1.5 to 2.5."
No real effect
Tynan's contemporaries are more bullish on current valuations. John Birt, principal at mergers and acquisitions consultancy firm Radar Results, says "good quality advice businesses still command between 2.5 and 2.8 x recurring revenue".
This is a drop from "around 3 to 3.2 x three to five years ago," he adds.
"If you're talking about quality advice firms with no grandfathered commissions then prices are quite stable," Birt believes.
The spectre of annual OSA's "hasn't had any real effect," he says. Valuations have gone down, but this is due to tighter lending restrictions rather than the threat of changes to contracting arrangements.
"When we started Radar Results 13 years ago it was a seller's market, from about 2006 up until about a year ago," he says. "Then the banks decided they weren't going to lend as much to planning businesses."
"We're probably receiving two to three sellers per week now," Birt reveals. "Five to eight years ago we'd get one per month, now we're getting ten."
Birt reckons the royal commission has also had a broad effect on valuations, together with new requirements from the Financial Adviser Standards and Education Authority.
"But the change of the opt-in rule hasn't done anything at all," he says.
Steve Prendeville, managing director of consultancy firm Forte Asset Solutions, says he "completely disagrees" that the prospect of annual opt-ins for OSAs is hurting advice practice values.
The mooted changes are actually increasing practice valuations, he says, because they shift business remuneration towards fixed fee models and away from funds-under-management arrangements that leave the firm susceptible to market fluctuations.
"The report said the OSA should show the services for the next 12 months and the specific price, which means were moving to fixed fees and annual engagement," Prendeville says. "Both of those initiatives are affirming for prices.
"As soon as you introduce fixed fees you've actually reduced risk to that revenue," he continues. You've uncoupled from economic influences, because on a fixed fee basis the market can go up or down and it doesn't affect the value of the business."
Prendeville says "good businesses" are still getting a high premium.
"We had a transaction at 3.5 times in December, but that was a high-profit business," he says. "But lesser quality businesses are still coming into the market at 3 times."
If there has been a reduction in valuations, Prendeville believes, it should be attributed to another likely outcome from the royal commission – the abolition of grandfathered commissions.
"I'm currently placing zero value on grandfathered revenue," he says.
Baz Gardner, Business Valuations, Connect Financial Services Brokers, Forte Asset Solutions, Hayne royal commission, john birt, Paul Tynan, Steve Prendeville, The social adviser
Tahn Sharpe is a Sydney-based financial services journalist with a background in financial planning. He writes on advice, superannuation, investment, banking and insurance issues, is a certified SMSF Adviser and holds an Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning.
Tahn's Profile
Help clients avoid the executor trap
Business planning has taken a back seat: Business Health
Licensees and product providers could play an important part in helping advice practices prioritise essential business planning again, according to Terry Bell.
Celebrate wins, even if they are small
If you're not used to celebrating wins, here's a list of things that could be worth celebrating in your business – the perfect antidote to the 'busyness' disease.
Sarah PennJuly 12, 2019
Where advisers really add value
Technical know-how is a baseline for advisers but its the mentoring, coaching, counselling and project management that clients really value, according to David Haintz.
David HaintzJuly 9, 2019

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
66 Maja (mednarodno ime 66 Maja) je velik asteroid tipa C v glavnem asteroidnem pasu.

Odkritje

Asteroid je odkril Horace Parnell Tuttle (1839 – 1923) 9. aprila 1861.. Asteroid je poimenovan po Maji, eni izmed Plejad iz grške mitologije.

Lastnosti

Asteroid Maja obkroži Sonce v 4,30 letih. Njegova tirnica ima izsrednost 0,173, nagnjena pa je za 7,665° proti ekliptiki. Njegov premer je 72,8 km, okrog svoje osi pa se zavrti v 9,733 urah .

Reference in opombe

Zunanje povezave

 Simulacija tirnice

Asteroidi, poimenovani po grški mitologiji
Asteroidi tipa C
Astronomska telesa, odkrita leta 1861

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Chloe's Steptember Challenge Completed and Street Fighter Limited Edition Poster Sets Winners Announced!
Throughout the month of September one of our staff members embarked on a challenge to raise money and awareness for people living with Cerebral Palsy. From the 3rd of September to the 30th of September Chloe completed 10,000 steps per day and managed to raise $555. Highway Entertainment was proud to support Chloe in this journey and supplied prizes to be raffled off. For every donation over $10 that Chloe received the Donors name would go into a prize to to win limited edition Street Fighter poster sets.
Capcom have announced that the next production of Super Street Fighter 4 kits will be available for shipping at the end of April. Limited stock is available, so please contact Sales Staff to place your order as soon as possible.
We currently have a number of Street Fighter 4 Twin machines on clearance for $8750usd per unit. These machines are brand new and the cabinets are ready to be upgraded to Super Street Fighter 4. Each unit is ex Asia, 110-240v and sold with 30 days warranty. The game is housed in a 32" inch LCD cabinet.
Capcom have announced that an arcade version of Super Street Fighter IV will be released. Super Street Fighter IV is the updated version of the popular arcade fighting game, Street Fighter IV. It runs on the Taito Type X2 hardware and has been said to mark the definitive end of the fourth instalment of the Street Fighter series.


The small Speyside village of Dufftown is home to seven stills, one of which is a distillery of the same name. Established in 1896 Dufftown Distillery was built on the site of an old mill. The original owners of the distillery sold out in 1897 to The MacKenzie Company (who also owned Blair Athol Distillery), before later being sold to Arthur Bell & Sons in 1933. United Distillers purchased the site in 1985.


text:
Purple Heart Profile: William "Bill" Curtis Smith
Staff Sergeant William "Bill" Curtis Smith was born in Athens, GA in 1922. He attended Leon High School in Tallahassee, FL then Castle Heights Military Academy and Junior College in Lebanon, TN. In 1943, he enlisted in the United States Army at Camp Blanding, FL and received his infantry boot training in Fort Benning, GA. In 1944, he was deployed to Northern Africa as a replacement, and he was later sent to conduct small arms training in Sicily, Italy. In late 1944, SSgt Smith was assigned as a platoon sergeant with Company C, the 361 Regiment's, 91st Infantry Division in Italy. SSgt Smith endured many days of combat and was wounded twice. He particularly remembers November 6, 1944 when a rocket attack demolished the building where he was positioned, leaving him with a hearing loss in his left ear, a broken left arm and a severe head concussion. SSgt Smith's valiant career continued as he received the Combat Infantry Badge with four Battle Stars for invasions in Africa, Sicily, Salarno and Anzio. He was awarded the Bronze Star medal, the Presidential Unit Citation and the Purple Heart with Clusters. As a result of his war injuries, SSgt. Smith spent over 13 months in Italian and American hospitals before he was medically discharged from Deshon General Hospital in Butler, PA.
Today, Mr. Smith acknowledges that his military training helped him develop the leadership that has crafted for him an outstanding civilian career. Upon leaving the military, Mr. Smith attended Loyola University, Florida State University and Tulane University before starting his career in the the surgical supply business. In 1964, he founded the Southeastern Surgical Supply Company in Tallahassee, FL and became its president and chairman of the board. The company flourished, and he later opened Florida branches in Jacksonville, Pensacola, and Gainesville with a Georgia branch in Albany, GA. Subsequently, his Surgical Supply Company became Consurgico Corporation and on August 12, 1971, reached a significant milestone when its common stock was accepted for trading on the National Stock Exchange.
Mr. Smith is not only a very successful businessman, but he is also an enthusiastic, ingenious, and diligent volunteer. He served with the following organizations: Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce as vice president of the executive board, Tallahassee Chamber's Committee of 100 as chairman, Northwest Florida Water Management Board as a member of the board of directors, Tallahassee Barnett Bank as a member of the board of directors, Florida Governor Reubin Askew's Inauguration Committee in 1971 as chairman, Northwest Florida Rotary Club as governor, Leon County Cattleman's Association as president, "1975 Springtime Tallahassee festivities" as president, and the Suwannee River Area Council of the Boy Scouts as president.
Mr. Smith and his wife Clara Jane have three children: Robert Mills Smith, Carroll Smith Rodrigues and Polly Smith Kleissas. We salute patriot William "Bill" Smith for his distinguished service to the United States of America and to his fellow man.
Purple Heart Membership Application Form


Product description: Rabbit polyclonal antibody raised against synthetic peptide of Tlr11.
Immunogen: A synthetic peptide corresponding to amino acids 900-950 of mouse Tlr11.
Application image note: Intracellular flow analysis of Tlr11 in Balb/c mouse splenocytes. Using Tlr11 polyclonal antibody (Cat # PAB0229) at 0.5 ug/10^6 cells. Shaded histogram represents cells without antibody; Green represents rabbit IgG isotype control; red represents anti-TLR11 antibody. Goat anti-rabbit PE was used as secondary antibody.


Reports, news, pics, videos, discussions and documentation from a studded world.
/r/lego is about all things LEGO^®.
A place to submit links to sales on Lego sets.
For fans of the Bionicle series produced by Lego.
A place to discuss, collect, share and help all the awesome Lego Dimension fans!
MiniLego exists for those who enjoy a little simplicity in their Lego designs. From Minimalist builds to the tiny and abstract.
True creativity comes in all sizes!
legoleaks: New Sets and Speculation!
This subreddit aims to preserve and keep leaked information and images available up until the release of sets. We also aim to prevent any false information from being spread.
A community for trading LEGO.
Giant robots! LEGO®! Strategy and tactics!


WARSAW, Poland Doctors in Poland say they have successfully completed a total face transplant only a few weeks following the victim's accident. Typically, the procedure only occurs months or even years after the incident.
The urgent procedure was done on a 33-year-old man whose face was torn off in an accident which also crushed his jaws.
Doctors at the Oncology Center in Gliwice said the 27-hour operation was performed May 15.
A picture of the patient taken Tuesday, six days after the surgery, showed him making a thumbs-up gesture from his hospital bed.
The head of the team of doctors, Adam Maciejewski, said it was the world's first life-saving face transplant carried out so soon after the damage. Previous transplants took months or years to prepare. The surgery reconstructed the face, jaws, palate and the bottom of the man's eye sockets.
Other face transplant victims around the world have had success stories. A Texan who was the first in the U.S. to receive a full face transplant after a power line accident in 2008 was recently married to a burn victim he met at a support group. A Vermont woman who was burned with lye by her estranged husband received a new face at Brigham and Women's Hospital, despite the fact that she only had a 1 to 2 percent chance of finding a perfect match for a face donor.


The best practice to adjust parameters of MZpack NinjaTrader Indicators is do it in NinjaTrader Market Replay. Get some screen time and edge in Market Replay before you can start to trade.
ATTENTION. You need to download Level I & II data for Market Replay.
Watch this video to learn how to setup and use NinjaTrader Market Replay.


Celeste De Blasis was born in Santa Monica, California and grew up at the Kemper Campbell Ranch in Victorville, located in the high Mojave Desert. She attended Wellesley College, transferred to Oregon State University, and eventually graduated from Pomona College. She contributed poems to a number of poetry magazines and in 1969 received the Southern Division National League of PEN Women Award for Letters for her poetry. She published her first novel, The Night Child, in 1975. It was followed by Suffer a Sea Change (1976), The Proud Breed (1978), The Tiger's Woman (1981), and her "Wild Swan" trilogy of novels published from 1984 to 1989. She also wrote an autobiography, Graveyard Peaches (1991). She died from complications of lupus erythematosus in 2001.
Celeste De Blasis is currently considered a "single author." If one or more works are by a distinct, homonymous authors, go ahead and split the author.
Celeste De Blasis is composed of 7 names. You can examine and separate out names.


text:
TOM ODELL RELEASES NEW TRACK MONSTER V.1.
RELEASES NEW TRACK MONSTER V.1.
ANNOUNCES FOURTH ALBUM MONSTERS
TO BE RELEASED JUNE 25
PERFORMS LIVE ON GRAHAM NORTON SHOW MARCH 12
Toronto, ON – March 12, 2021 – Today, Brit and Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter, plus platinum-selling, chart-topping artist, Tom Odell, releases his new single, monster v.1. on Columbia Records. After a dark period of mental health stalked most of his 2018 and 2019, Odell wrote his way through it, eventually letting down his guard and pouring his feelings into new music that will form his fourth album, monsters, due to be released June 25. It feels like both a daring creative rebirth and a solidifying of Odell's strengths. Pre-order the album here.
The first single from the new album was numb, (premiered as Radio 1 'Hottest Record' by Jack Saunders standing in for Annie Mac.), now Odell returns with his new song, monster v.1., (the first of two versions). The new single grabs hold of numb's inky molasses and confronts it head on. With the sky-scraping chorus ("you're just a monster and I'm not scared") initially inspired by Trump, and more specifically climate change activist, Great Thunberg, staring him down at the UN Climate Summit in 2019, the song soon morphed into something more abstract; a self-help mantra for Odell's ongoing battle with anxiety. "In 2019, my anxiety got so bad that I had to stop making music for a while. there was a period when it felt like I couldn't leave the house without having a panic attack. I wrote this song, monster, about trying to overcome my struggles with those mental health problems. It makes me super sad to listen at moments because it brings back some tough times, but I am super proud of it and hope it resonates with people who are dealing with similar struggles. This first version is the song in its purest form, which I wanted you all to hear first, as the lyrics mean so much to me."
Odell has been working as a musician in the public eye since he was 21 when self-penned debut album Long Way Down earned him a number 1 album, a top 10 single (the epic Another Love) and a Brit. Now, 30, it's clear to Odell that the whirlwind around his debut kickstarted a work ethic that eventually became an obsession It reached an apex in September 2019 when Odell, fresh off touring Jubilee Road, went straight to LA to start writing the next album. "Then this chronic anxiety that I'd had for a couple of years just got worse," Odell woke up one morning "and I couldn't do anymore music." He knew something had to change. In the end he flew back home, went straight to his parent's house and slowly got better.
Slowly but surely, Odell alchemised that experience into a new album. He also realized his broader lyrical horizons needed to be matched by a musical expansion, with a lot of the songs on the album – created alongside songwriter Laurie Blundell and producer Miles James – leaning into a more electronic, bedroom pop sound that Odell has steadily become obsessed with over the last few years. This new found love of DIY electronic pop chimed with the pandemic's arrival and songs were crafted in a more threadbare way around instruments he had at hand, like Moog synths. It was a move underpinned by both necessity and a desire to explore. So eerie synths and head-rattling beats augment the sound. And while his new music is at times heavy, there's a lightness of touch that means Odell is able to pull off pop's greatest trick; hiding sadness in the melodies. In this strangest of times this new music represents the start of chapter two in Odell's ongoing musical journey.
Tom Odell recently sold out of his two Virtual Live performances. More live dates to be announced soon. Fans pre-ordering the album (vinyl, cd, cassette and more) on Tom's official website will guarantee first access to tickets. He will be performing on the Graham Norton show on BBC1 March 12.


text:
\section{acknowledgements}

We thank the staffs at Fermilab and collaborating institutions,
and acknowledge support from the
DOE and NSF (USA);
CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France);
MON, NRC KI and RFBR (Russia);
CNPq, FAPERJ, FAPESP and FUNDUNESP (Brazil);
DAE and DST (India);
Colciencias (Colombia);
CONACyT (Mexico);
NRF (Korea);
FOM (The Netherlands);
STFC and the Royal Society (United Kingdom);
MSMT and GACR (Czech Republic);
BMBF and DFG (Germany);
SFI (Ireland);
The Swedish Research Council (Sweden);
and
CAS and CNSF (China).

\section{Conclusion}
\label{sec:conclusion}
We have presented measurements of asymmetries in angular distributions of leptons
produced in \ttbar\ dilepton final states.
Using the full Run~II Tevatron dataset recorded by the D0 detector,
we measure the single lepton and dilepton asymmetries,
corrected for reconstruction efficiency as:
\[\Alfb =  (4.1 \pm 3.5~(\text{stat}) \pm 1.0~(\text{syst}))\%\ ,  |\eta| < 2.0, |\Delta\eta| < 2.4, \] \text{and}
\[\All = (10.5 \pm 4.7~(\text{stat}) \pm 1.1~(\text{syst}))\%\ ,  |\eta| < 2.0, |\Delta\eta| < 2.4.\]
In addition, extrapolating these asymmetries for acceptance selections yields the inclusive \ttbar\ lepton asymmetries:
\[\Alfb = (4.4 \pm 3.7~(\text{stat}) \pm 1.1~(\text{syst}))\%,\] \text{and}
\[\All = (12.3 \pm 5.4~(\text{stat}) \pm 1.5~(\text{syst}))\%.\]
These values are compatible with the SM NLO calculation that includes
QCD and EW corrections~\cite{Bernreuther:2012sx}.
We have studied the correlation between \Alfb\ and \All\ and
computed the ratio of the two asymmetries, which also
shows agreement with calculations based on the standard model.

\section{The \dzero\ Detector and Object Identification}
\label{sec:det}

The \dzero\ detector~\cite{run2det,Angstadt2010,Abolins2008} has a central tracking system consisting of a
silicon microstrip tracker and a central fiber tracker,
both located within a 2~T superconducting solenoidal
magnet, with designs optimized for tracking and
vertexing at detector pseudorapidities (relative to the center of the \dzero\ detector) of
$|\etadet|<3$ and $|\etadet|<2.5$, respectively.
A liquid-argon sampling calorimeter has a
central section (CC) covering pseudorapidities $|\etadet|$ up to
$\approx 1.1$, and two end calorimeters (EC) that extend coverage
to $|\etadet|\approx 4.2$, with all three housed in separate
cryostats~\cite{run1det}. An outer muon system, at $|\etadet|<2$,
consists of a layer of tracking detectors and scintillation trigger
counters in front of 1.8~T toroids, followed by two similar layers
after the toroids~\cite{run2muon}.

In the current analysis, we focus on \ttbar\ dilepton final states that contain two isolated charged leptons ($ee$, $e\mu$, or $\mu\mu$),
at least two candidate $b$-quark jets, and significant \met\ attributed to escaping neutrinos.
Electrons are identified as energy clusters in the calorimeter within a cone of radius ${\cal R}=\sqrt{(\Delta\eta)^2+(\Delta\phi)^2}=0.2$
(with $\phi$ the azimuthal angle), that are
consistent in their longitudinal and transverse profiles
with those expected of an electromagnetic shower.
More than 90\% of the energy of an electron candidate must be deposited  in the
electromagnetic part of the calorimeter.
Electrons are required to be isolated by demanding that les than $20$\% of its energy deposited in an
annulus of $0.2 < {\cal R} < 0.4$ around its direction.
This cluster has to be matched to a track reconstructed in the central tracking system.
We consider electrons in the CC with  $|\etadet| <1.1$ and in the EC with $1.5 < |\etadet| < 2.5$.
Transverse momentum \pt\ of electrons must be greater than $15$ GeV.
In addition, we use an
electron multivariate discriminant based on tracking
and calorimeter information, to reject jets misidentified as electrons.
It has an 75\%--80\% efficiency to select real electrons,
and a rejection $\approx 96$\% for misidentified jets.

A muon is identified~\cite{muonID} as a segment in at least one layer
of the  muon system that is
matched to a track reconstructed in the central tracking system.
Reconstructed muons must have $p_T>15$ GeV and satisfy two isolation criteria.
First, the transverse energy deposited in the calorimeter annulus
around the muon $0.1 < {\cal R} < 0.4$ ($E_T^{\mu,\text{iso}}$)
has to be less than 15\% of the transverse momentum of the muon ($p^{\mu}_T$).
Second, the sum of the transverse momenta of the tracks in a cone of radius ${\cal R}=0.5$ around the muon track
in the central tracking system ($p_T^{\mu,\text{iso}}$) has to be less than 15\% of $p^{\mu}_T$.

Jets are identified as energy clusters in the electromagnetic and hadronic parts of the calorimeter
reconstructed using an iterative mid-point cone algorithm with radius ${\cal R}=0.5$~\cite{Blazey:2000qt}
and $|\etadet|< 2.5$.
A jet energy scale  correction is determined by calibrating
the energy deposited in the jet cone
using transverse momentum balance in photon+jet and dijet events.
When a muon track overlaps the jet cone,
the momentum of that muon is added to the jet \pt, assuming
that the muon originates from the semileptonic decay of a hadron belonging to the jet.
Jets in simulated events are corrected
for residual differences in energy resolution and energy scale between data and simulation.
These correction factors are measured by comparing data and simulation
in Drell-Yan (\Z$\to ee$) plus jets events.

We use a multivariate analysis (MVA) to identify jets originating from $b$ quarks~\cite{Abazov:2010ab}.
The algorithm combines into a single discriminant variable the information from the  impact parameters of tracks and from variables
that characterize the properties of
secondary vertices within jets using a single discriminant.
Jet candidates for $b$~tagging
are required to have at least two tracks with $p_T>0.5$ GeV originating from the vertex of the $p\bar{p}$ interaction
and to be matched to a jet reconstructed from the tracks.

The \met\ is reconstructed from the energy deposited in the calorimeter
cells, and corrections to $p_T$ for leptons and jets are propagated into the \met.
A significance in \met\  [\metsig]
is defined for each event through a likelihood discriminant constructed from the ratio
of the \met\ to its uncertainty.

\section{Method}
\label{sec:measurements}
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=.40\textwidth]{All_channel_Afbl.eps}
\includegraphics[width=.40\textwidth]{All_channel_Afbll.eps}

\begin{picture}(00,00)

\put(-55,365){\text{\bf (a)}}
\put(-55,168){\text{\bf (b)}}

\end{picture}

\caption{(color online) Distributions in (a) $q\times\eta$ and (b) $\Delta\eta = \eta_{\ell^+} -\eta_{\ell^-}$, for the
sum of $ee$, $e\mu$ and $\mu\mu$ channels, along with predictions of the backgrounds and \ttbar\ signal.
The black points show data events and the error bars indicate the statistical uncertainty on the data.
\label{fig:rec_level}}
\end{figure}

Figure~\ref{fig:rec_level} presents the  $q\times\eta$ and $\Delta\eta$
distributions for dilepton events after applying all but item~(\ref{sel:sameevts}) of the selection criteria.
We compute \Alfb\ and \All\ in two steps.
First, within each of the four channels,  we perform a bin-by-bin subtraction of the estimated  background contributions to the data.
The lepton pseudorapidities are measured in \dzero\ with a resolution better than 1\% resulting in negligible migration effects.
We therefore apply a simple bin-by-bin correction, which suffices to account for the efficiency of reconstruction and selection requirements.
The correction function is determined using \ttbar\ \mcatnlo\ events at the parton level within the fiducial region
$|\eta|<2$, $|\Delta\eta|<2.4$ (here $\eta$ refers to the generated lepton pseudorapidity)
and events after reconstruction and selection.
The asymmetries in the $q\times\eta$ and $\Delta\eta$ distributions after correction for selection efficiency
are referred as
``corrected'' asymmetries.
Figure~\ref{fig:corr_level} shows the corrected distributions for data compared to the predictions from \mcatnlo.
The cross section in each bin is calculated as a weighted sum of the measurements in all channels, where only the
statistical uncertainty is taken into account.

In the second step, we extrapolate the corrected asymmetries to the full range of $\eta$
by multiplying the corrected asymmetries with the calculated extrapolation factor,
which is given by the ratio of
the generator level SM \ttbar\ asymmetries from \mcatnlo\, without selections to
asymmetries within the fiducial region ($|\eta|<2$ and $|\Delta\eta|<2.4$).
We refer to these asymmetries as ``extrapolated'' asymmetries.
The exact values of the $|\eta|$ and $|\Delta\eta|$ requirements are chosen to optimize the expected statistical
precision of the extrapolated asymmetries.

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=.40\textwidth]{All_corrected_channel_Afbl.eps}
\includegraphics[width=.40\textwidth]{All_corrected_channel_Afbll.eps}

\begin{picture}(00,00)

\put(-55,365){\text{\bf (a)}}
\put(-55,168){\text{\bf (b)}}

\end{picture}

\caption{Distributions in (a) $q\times\eta$ and (b) $\Delta\eta$,
for the combined $ee$, $e\mu$, and $\mu\mu$ channels after subtraction of background and correction for selection efficiency
within the acceptance.
The error bars indicate the statistical uncertainty on data.
The dashed lines show the predictions from \mcatnlo\ outside the analysis acceptance.
\label{fig:corr_level}}
\end{figure}

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

We combine  the asymmetries measured in the $ee$, $e\mu$ 2 jets, $e\mu$ 1 jet, and $\mu\mu$ channels using the BLUE method~\cite{Valassi2003391,Lyons1988110},
assuming 100\% correlation among their systematic uncertainties.
Table~\ref{tab:results} summarizes the corrected and extrapolated asymmetries, as well as
the prediction from a SM NLO calculation including QCD and electroweak (EW) corrections~\cite{Bernreuther:2012sx}.
The measured values are consistent with theoretical predictions based on the SM.

\begin{table}
\caption{The measured corrected and extrapolated asymmetries defined in Eqs.~(\ref{eq:al}) and  (\ref{eq:all})
combined for all channels separately and combined, compared to the predicted SM NLO asymmetries~\cite{Bernreuther:2012sx} for inclusive \ttbar\ production.
The measured extrapolated asymmetry should be compared with the SM NLO prediction.
The first uncertainty on the measured values corresponds to the statistical and the second to the systematic
contribution. All values are given in \%.
The uncertainty on the SM NLO predictions are due to renormalization and factorization scale variations.
\label{tab:results}}
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2}
\begin{tabular}{lccc}
\hline
\hline
\Alfb  & Corrected & Extrapolated & Prediction \\
$ee$ & \phantom{$-$}6.8 $\pm$ \phantom{1}8.5 $\pm$ 1.3 & & \\
$e\mu$ 2 jets & \phantom{$-$}5.0 $\pm$ \phantom{1}4.6 $\pm$ 1.0 & & \\
$e\mu$ 1 jet & $-$0.1 $\pm$ 10.4 $\pm$ 2.5 & & \\
$\mu\mu$ & \phantom{$-$}0.8 $\pm$ \phantom{1}8.5 $\pm$ 1.4 & & \\
Combined & \phantom{$-$}4.1 $\pm$ \phantom{1}3.5 $\pm$ 1.0 & \phantom{0}4.4 $\pm$ 3.7 $\pm$ 1.1 & 3.8 $\pm$ 0.3 \\
\hline
\All  & Corrected & Extrapolated & Prediction \\
$ee$ & \phantom{-}16.4 $\pm$ 10.4 $\pm$ 1.6 & & \\
$e\mu$ 2 jets & \phantom{-}11.1 $\pm$ \phantom{1}6.3 $\pm$ 1.3 & & \\
$e\mu$ 1 jet & $-$2.1 $\pm$ 15.7 $\pm$ 3.4 & & \\
$\mu\mu$ & \phantom{-1}7.4 $\pm$ 11.7 $\pm$ 1.4 & & \\
Combined & \phantom{-}10.5 $\pm$ \phantom{1}4.7 $\pm$ 1.1 & 12.3 $\pm$ 5.4 $\pm$ 1.5 & 4.8 $\pm$ 0.4 \\
\hline
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

In addition, we study the dependence of the corrected asymmetries as a function of $q\times\eta$
and $\Delta\eta$ in Fig.~\ref{fig:asym_eta}, where
we observe no significant dependence on these variables in the data and
consistent with the \mcatnlo~\cite{Frixione:2002ik,Frixione:2008ym} predictions. Figure~\ref{fig:asym_eta} also shows the comparison with the two axigluon models described in
Sec.~\ref{sec:samples}.
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=.40\textwidth]{All_corrected_channel_Afbl_Asym_diff.eps}
\includegraphics[width=.40\textwidth]{All_corrected_channel_Afbll_Asym_diff.eps}

\begin{picture}(00,00)

\put(70,380){\text{\bf (a)}}
\put(70,183){\text{\bf (b)}}

\end{picture}

\caption{(color online) Asymmetry distributions in (a) $|q\times\eta|$ and (b) $|\Delta\eta| = |\eta_{\ell^+} -\eta_{\ell^-}|$, for the
combined $ee$, $e\mu$, and $\mu\mu$ channels after background subtraction and after corrections for selection efficiency.
The error bars indicate statistical uncertainties on the data.
The data are compared with expectations from \mcatnlo\ and axigluon Model 1 and Model 2 as defined in the text.
\label{fig:asym_eta}}
\end{figure}

To study the statistical correlation between \Alfb\ and \All, we
assume that positive and negative leptons have identical rapidity distributions, and we use the lepton $q\times \eta$
distribution in data (Fig.~\ref{fig:corr_level})
as the basis for generating an ensemble of $q\times \eta$ distributions. The residual
reconstruction level differences between positive and negative leptons distributions  are made negligible
by the regular flip of the solenoid and toroid polarities during the data taking.
The number of events in each bin is drawn from a Gaussian distribution with mean equal to the number of events in the bin
of the initial distribution and width equal to the statistical uncertainty on the number of events.
The resulting distributions are used as probability density functions to generate
pairs of rapidity values for positive and
negative leptons ($\eta_{l^+}, \eta_{l^-}$).
Since the value of $\eta$ for each lepton is generated independently, there is no direct correlation between them.
Repeating this  procedure many times, we form the $\Delta\eta=\eta_{\ell^+} - \eta_{\ell^-}$ distribution
and calculate both the \Alfb\ and \All\ asymmetries.
Using the (\Alfb, \All) pairs generated  in this way, we measure the correlation
between the two asymmetries to be 0.82.
We verify that the value of \All\ obtained with the same method but using the MC $q\times \eta$ event distribution as input
accurately reproduces the simulated asymmetry from \mcatnlo\ and axigluon models.
Using this correlation coefficient, we can compute the ratio of the two extrapolated asymmetries in data to be $R =  \Alfb/\All = 0.36 \pm 0.20$, consistent at the level
of 2 SD with the prediction of $0.79 \pm 0.10$.
The uncertainty on the theoretical ratio is estimated by adding in quadrature
the uncertainty on the theoretical expectations for \Alfb\ and \All\
and without taking into account the possible correlation between these two values.
This predicted ratio is found to be almost the same for the different tested models as can be seen in Fig.~\ref{fig:al_vs_all}.

The mean value of \All\ measured in this analysis differs from that in our previous measurement~\cite{Abazov:2012bfa},
but are compatible. The change in central value is due to
changes in object identification and event selections (in particular, the use of $b$-quark jet identification) that improve the
signal-to-background ratio and significantly reduce all systematic uncertainties related to background contributions,
which affects the central values of the results.

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=.40\textwidth]{Al_vs_all.eps}
\caption{Extrapolated \Alfb\ versus \All\ asymmetries in \ttbar\ data, the predictions from \mcatnlo,  axigluon models,
and from the latest SM NLO prediction~\cite{Bernreuther:2012sx}. The ellipses represent contours of total uncertainty
at 1, 2, and 3 SD on the measured result. All values are given in \%.
Predicted asymmetries are shown with their statistical uncertainties.
\label{fig:al_vs_all}}
\end{figure}

\section{Simulated events}
\label{sec:samples}

Monte Carlo (MC) events are processed through a \geant-based~\cite{geant}
simulation of the D0 detector.
To simulate effects from additional overlapping \ppbar\ interactions, ``zero bias'' events
are selected randomly in collider data and overlaid on the fully simulated MC events.
Residual differences between data and simulation of electron and muon
\pt\ resolution and identification are corrected
by comparing \Z$\to\ell\ell$ events in data and MC, applying tight requirements
on one of the two leptons and using
the other one to measure efficiencies and resolutions.

We use the NLO generator \mcatnlo~3.4~\cite{Frixione:2002ik,Frixione:2008ym},
interfaced with \herwig~6.510~\cite{Corcella:2000bw} for parton
showering and hadronization, to simulate \ttbar\ events.
The main sources of background in the dilepton channel correspond to
$q\bar{q}\to\Z\to\ell\ell$, diboson production ({\sl WW, WZ, ZZ}), and instrumental background.
The instrumental background arises mainly from multijet and $(W \to \ell \nu)$+jets events in which one or two
jets are misidentified as electrons or where
muons or electrons originating from the semileptonic decay of a heavy-flavor hadron appear isolated.
This background is evaluated using data, as described in Sec.~\ref{sec:selection}.
\Z\ events are generated with the tree-level
LO matrix element generator \alpgen~v2.11~\cite{Mangano2003}
interfaced with \pythia~6.409~\cite{Sjostrand2006} (D0 modified tune~A~\cite{Affolder2002})
for parton showering and hadronization.
Diboson events are generated with \pythia.
The \mcatnlo\ generator uses the CTEQ6M1 set of parton distribution functions~(PDFs),
and all other simulated samples are generated using the CTEQ6L1
PDFs~\cite{Nadolsky:2008zw}.
The \Z\ samples are normalized to the next-to-next-to-leading-order cross section
computed with the {\sc fewz} program~\cite{Gavin:2010az}.
We separately simulate \Z\ accompanied by heavy-flavor quarks ($b\bar{b}$ or $c\bar{c}$) using \alpgen,
and enhance the corresponding LO cross sections by a factor
estimated from the NLO values computed with the {\sc mcfm} program~\cite{Ellis:2006ar}.
The diboson samples are normalized to the NLO cross section calculated with  {\sc mcfm}.

In addition, we apply a correction to the $\Z$+jets simulation, based on data~\cite{Abazov:2010kn}, to address
small discrepancy in the modeling of $Z$ boson transverse momentum$p_T^Z$ in the simulation.

In $Z$ boson events the asymmetries defined in Eqs.~(\ref{eq:al}) and  (\ref{eq:all})
are not well-modeled in the simulation, especially in the $e\mu$ channel for
$Z/\gamma^\star\to \tau\tau\to e\nu\mu\nu$ events.
We therefore apply an additional correction using \pythia~8~\cite{Sjostrand2008}, which correctly takes into account the
tau lepton polarization and spin correlations for the tau decays.
This reweighting is explained in detail in Sec.~\ref{sec:systematics}.

An interesting class of BSM models that can generate a large \ttbar\ forward-backward asymmetry at tree level
arises from the presence of a color-octet vector particle $G_\mu^a$  (the so-called axigluon) with large mass $m_G$ and chiral couplings.
To check the sensitivity of our measurements to such new phenomena, we generate two
axigluon samples~\cite{Falkowski:2012cu} and pass these events through the full \dzero\ simulation and reconstruction programs.
Model 1 has a right-handed coupling to the SM quarks
of $0.8 g_s$ (where $g_s= \sqrt{\alpha_s/4\pi}$ is the QCD coupling) and no left-handed coupling. The axigluon mass is set to
0.2~TeV and the width to 50~GeV.
Model 2 has a right-handed coupling to light SM quarks
of $-1.5 g_s$, a coupling of $6 g_s$  to the top quark, and no left-handed coupling, with
the axigluon mass and width set to 2~TeV and 670~GeV, respectively.
Table~\ref{tab:axigluons} summarizes
the values of the asymmetry predicted by these two models.
These models are in agreement with experimental constraints (\ttbar\ resonance
searches and dijet production) from the Tevatron and the LHC,
but in slight tension with the $\ttbar$ production cross section measurements.
\begin{table}[!hbt]
\caption{Asymmetries predicted by \mcatnlo\ and by the two models of axigluons described in the text.
Uncertainties reflect only the statistical MC contributions. All values are given in \%.
\label{tab:axigluons}}
\begin{tabular}{cccc}
\hline\hline
& Model 1 & Model 2 & \mcatnlo \\
\hline
\All\ & 21.3 $\pm$ 0.6 & 11.3 $\pm$ 0.5 & 3.3 $\pm$ 0.1 \\
\Alfb\ & 14.9 $\pm$ 1.0 & \phantom{0}8.9 $\pm$ 0.8 & 2.4 $\pm$ 0.1 \\
\hline\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\section{Systematic Uncertainties}
\label{sec:systematics}

Systematic effects can affect the measured asymmetries in different ways: (i) they can change the
normalization or the differential dependence, i.e., ``shape'', of the background distributions, (ii) they can affect the
efficiency corrections and thereby modify the corrected and extrapolated asymmetries,
and (iii) different MC generators or model assumptions can impact the extrapolation to all phase space.
For item (iii), we verify that when axigluon MC samples (see Sec~\ref{sec:samples} and Table~\ref{tab:axigluons} for predicted asymmetries) are used instead of \mcatnlo\
to compute the extrapolation factor, we get consistent extrapolation factors.
This shows that the model assumed for the extrapolation does not significantly affect the
extrapolated correction.

We first consider the following sources of the systematic uncertainty:
uncertainties on the efficiencies of electron and muon identification, uncertainties on trigger efficiencies,
and uncertainties on jet-related
quantities. The latter  include contributions from the uncertainty in jet energy scale, jet energy resolution, jet identification
efficiency, and $b$-quark jet tagging efficiency. All of these systematic uncertainties are propagated to the
background distributions and to the corrections for \ttbar\ signal efficiency; they are found to be small and
are grouped into the object identification (Object ID) category.

Next, we consider uncertainties specific to the background model. These include uncertainties
on the asymmetries generated for $Z$ boson events (see Sec.~\ref{sec:samples}) and
on background normalization, which is typically $\approx 10$\%.
The background normalization uncertainty accounts for the uncertainties on the integrated luminosity~\cite{Andeen:2007zc}, object ID efficiency,
$b$-tagging identification efficiency, and theoretical background cross sections.
We also calibrate our ability to reconstruct angular asymmetries by comparing asymmetries observed for $Z$ bosons in data with MC simulation.
We use samples with requirements~(\ref{sel:first})--(\ref{sel:incl}) only
and ignore any jet selection in order to have a significant number of events and therefore a small
statistical uncertainty on the asymmetry ($\approx$0.13\% in data and $\approx$0.04\% in simulation).
We verify that  we can reproduce the asymmetries observed in data if we reweight the MC distributions using distributions
obtained with \pythia~8~\cite{Sjostrand2008}.
This reweighting is based on the ratio of two-dimensional distributions in ($\eta_{\ell^+},\eta_{\ell^-}$) space for \alpgen\ and \pythia~8.
After requiring one or two jets, we observe a residual difference
between the data and MC asymmetries in a sample dominated by background obtained by reversing the $b$-quark-tagging requirement~(\ref{sel:btag}).
We take this difference as a systematic uncertainty on the contribution from the $Z$ boson background.

The most significant contribution to the background-related uncertainty is from the uncertainty on instrumental background.
We estimate this by changing the
amount of instrumental background according to the uncertainty on its normalization.
We also account for possible uncertainties in the distribution of instrumental background
by changing the number of events in each bin of the of this instrumental background distribution by $\pm$~1~SD of its statistical uncertainty.
The changes are applied in opposite directions for the positive $q\times\eta\ge 0$ or $\Delta\eta\ge 0$ and negative $q\times\eta<0$ or $\Delta\eta<0$
parts of the distributions in order to maximize the effect.

Another important uncertainty is related to the choice of parton showering and hadronization in \ttbar\ events.
This is evaluated by taking the difference between the asymmetries obtained  with efficiency corrections and extrapolation factors using
\mcatnlo+\herwig\ and \alpgen+\pythia. This estimation also includes the difference in the simulation of NLO effects between \mcatnlo\ and \alpgen\ generators.

Finally, we consider the limited statistics of the MC samples used to measure the efficiency correction.
These provide the smallest contributions to the systematic uncertainties on the extracted asymmetries.
All the above systematic uncertainties are listed in Table~\ref{tab:syst}.

As shown in the following section, the main uncertainty on the measured asymmetries is due to the limited size of the data sample.

\begin{table}
\caption{Systematic uncertainties for the corrected and the extrapolated asymmetries.
All values are given in \%.
\label{tab:syst}}
\input{publi_Systematics_comb_Afbl_corr.tex}
\end{table}

\section{Appendix: differential asymmetry tables}
\label{sec:tables}
Table~\ref{tab:corr} shows the \ttbar\ differential cross section in bins of $q\times\eta$ and $\Delta\eta$ as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:corr_level}.
${1 \over 2} \times {({{d\sigma_{t\bar{t}}}\over{d\eta_{l^{+}}}} + {{d\sigma_{t\bar{t}}}\over{d\eta_{l^{-}} }})}$ represents the \ttbar\ differential cross section in $q\times\eta$
 and ${d\sigma_{t\bar{t}}}\over{d(\eta_{l^{+}}-\eta_{l^{-}})}$ the \ttbar\ differential cross section in $\Delta\eta$.
Table~\ref{tab:corr_diff} shows the values of the asymmetries in different angular regions as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:asym_eta}.
\begin{table}[!h]
\caption{\ttbar\ cross section in each bin of Fig.~\ref{fig:corr_level}.
\label{tab:corr}}
\input{All_corrected_channel_Afbll.tex}
\end{table}
\begin{table}[!h]
\caption{Value of the asymmetries in different bins of the
distributions of Fig.~\ref{fig:asym_eta}.
\label{tab:corr_diff}}
\input{All_corrected_channel_Afbl_Asym_diff.tex}
\end{table}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


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text:
#import <OfficeImport/CMProperty.h>

// Not exported
@interface CMToggleProperty : CMProperty
{
    int wdValue;
}

- (id)cssStringForName:(id)arg1;
- (id)mapStrikeTrough;
- (id)mapItalic;
- (id)mapBold;
- (void)resolveWithBaseProperty:(id)arg1;
- (int)compareValue:(id)arg1;
- (int)value;
- (id)initWithCMTogglePropertyValue:(int)arg1;

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


With all the trouble in the world, it can be difficult to maintain our focus on the good things in life. Youngest Daughter has taken the attitude that since the world will end in a year or two, she may as well do whatever she likes until then. A melodramatic teen, perhaps. A common perception, maybe. What I do know is the perpetuation of misery and promotion of fear by politicians and media, is poisoning our children's perception of their future.
We have federal, state and local governments who are promoting safety, taking a stance against family violence. The cognitive dissonance here is a government claiming anti violence who are the perpetrators of violence against the families being interred on Manus and Nauru. How can they live with themselves? How can we?
I face this darkness and dishonesty by focusing on what I can do. I focus on sustainability and strengthening our communities. I focus on being honest (sometimes too bluntly) and doing my part for a sustainable future, despite the dismal picture being painted by our 'leaders'.
I am keen to follow the lead of Transition Newcastle who held a Fair Share Festival last year. A festival where community come together to explore re-thinking, re-sharing, re-using, re-purposing and re-hoping our lives. Tiny homes, food sharing, community energy, wicking beds, re-fashion, repair cafes, the list of ways in which we can share hope for the future is endless.
I'm taking a stand for hope.
I have been a foster carer for over fourteen years. In that time I have given much thought to the system we have for protecting our children.
I began fostering because I desperately wanted to care for children and could not have my own. Apparently I said to my ex, we foster together or I foster alone. I've been on my own with the kids now for ten years. Says it all really.
I wanted to be of help to families who were unable to stay together. I realised it would be difficult and as I had been a youth worker and housing worker, I had some idea of how difficult. What I didn't know people have written books about.
Fostering has been the most challenging and affirming thing I have done in my life. I am done now. I simply cannot continue in a system where children are treated as possessions and parents have to measure up to an invisible standard. All parents know about the invisible standards, those we don't know we've crossed until we've crossed them. All parents feel at some time that they don't make the grade, they don't know what to do and they are not going to make it. As a carer, add to that dealing with a government department, a community-based foster agency, the natural birth parents, access and a child traumatised by removal (at least) and you need to be a self-assured, self-confident, self-certain human being.
Human beings just aren't like that. There are accusations and investigations, there are accreditations and ongoing training. There is dealing day in and out with a child who is most likely exhibiting traumatised behaviour. There is never being considered a professional in the care of that child. There is financial reimbursement that somehow never makes up the cost of having said child not to mention the toll physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually.
I did say that it was also the most affirming thing I have done too, didn't I? It has been. I can raise children. I raise strong happy children. When the conditions are right, I can foster natural parents' relationships with those children and include them in my family. I have done really well in getting fostered children through school, which is not common, and have them complete successfully. I have gone onto have adult relationships with those children. I have done well.
It just about broke me, in every way. The thing I question here though is why do we do it? I have worked in family support and community development most of my working life. I have seen this from more than one side. I have seen parents, whose children have been removed for whatever infraction, be allocated family support and with that support meet all the obligations and hoops the government demands and get their children back! Most parents however do not receive family support to assist them through the terrible process of proving they are adequate parents (and let's face it most of us are just adequate) and become demoralised and defeated. They give up. I don't blame them. There are a myriad complexities that got them into the situation in the first place. There is double that to get them out.
I agree that if a child is in danger (like Youngest Daughter who was failing to thrive with her addict mother) they need to be removed to a place of safety. However why is the natural parent not allocated a worker to assist them? How does someone already struggling, navigate the tangled web of the courts? Would our children be better off staying with their family with appropriate support to ensure their health and wellbeing? Would this help develop resilient children?
I was not removed from my adoptive family. They were violent and found pedophiles for everyone. I did tell someone when I was seven and got branded a liar. It was a nightmare growing up with them but you know what? I survived it. I more than survived it. Despite it all I am resilient and determined to have my life be as I choose. Yes, it would have been wonderful to have a support worker calling my parents to account and working alongside them to do better. How much better could life have been? No-one came and I had to rescue myself. And I did.
The investment required to support parents and travel with them on their journey to be a family again is worthwhile making. No matter how bad it was at home, most children would rather be there. So, why don't we do that? Why don't we become the villages our children need?
Cockatoo is part of the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne and located in Cardinia Shire. The small towns that are part of the Hills have a tendency to suffer low levels of community infrastructure exacerbated by poor transport and high social isolation. Food insecurity is an issue in these towns with poor opportunity to access resources available to Pakenham and other Shire residents.
Emerald Community House developed a program they call Community Dining. Different to the Community Kitchen model, Community Dining has an universal platform that allows collaboration between businesses, community organisation and local residents. Open to everyone, the program asks that individuals contribute their time, fresh produce or a few dollars as their situation allows.
Statistically, residents in Hills area experience a high degree of disadvantage (social isolation and incidents of family violence, drug or alcohol abuse or mental health concerns). Community-minded residents are concerned to reach out to vulnerable and disadvantaged families who cannot access services in Pakenham, mainly due to finance and transport issues.
The only emergency relief centre, Cardinia Combined Churches Caring(4Cs), in Cardinia Shire is in Pakenham. They are feeding above 900 families in Cardinia Shire a week. There is poor public transport between the Hills and Pakenham. Families are rarely able to access the services available in the larger residential areas of the Shire.
Cockatoo Neighbourhood House is supporting locals through a Community Dining program (inspired by Emerald Community House's Dig In Cafe) and food co-operative (as a buying group of the South East Food Hub). The Mentoring Activity funded by Communities for Children in Cockatoo already utilises a shared meal with families and mentors as part of the program. The shared meal has helped create a feeling of Community amongst the families. The Community Dining experience has been an absolute delight with opportunity for families new to the area to meet locals and locals to meet locals!
Cockatoo Neighbourhood House is keen to expand Community Dining and include the many musicians and artists in the area. We'll be singing for our supper. Other groups, such as the Hills' Community Gardens and the Hills' Men Shed are hopefully watching the development of the shared meal and food co-op with interest. It would be great to have their involvement.
This level of support and disparate groups willing to collaborate on a project is unprecedented and inspirational. The level of co-operation has inspired 4Cs to consider out posting a food store in the Hills area which will assist vulnerable and disadvantaged families considerably. We need a free permanent space to set up the free food store and volunteers to staff it (4Cs will train the volunteers). Lots more to do.
The possible community development model for Community Food is expandable. There are many potential links and developmental aspects, e.g. seed banks and Guerilla Gardening. I look forward to what might come.
In conversation with a co-worker today we noted that our move to small country towns had netted us some really good friendships. We moved, with our families, to different towns in the same Shire. The towns themselves are very different. Mine is a bush town and hers more a farming community. Both of us have experienced very different levels of inclusion than when we lived in suburbia.
Is this just our experience? Does it say more about us as newcomers? Is it a general experience for people moving into small towns? Has it anything to do with our Shire? I don't know the answer to these questions but, as always, I am curious.
My town is in the Dandenong Ranges of Melbourne and it really it a bush town. Summer poses its own risks of bush fire but for the most people live here because hearing the birds calling throughout the day and the wildlife that lives around us and the trees that are in every yard, is our choice. In the back corner of my block (and it is the once traditional 1/4 acre) is a group of ten gum trees. I think of it as my mini forest. Now I am well aware that eucalypts go up like candles when fire comes through. Facing facts though, I have no hope of beating back fires so figure I may as well enjoy my trees. My hopeful theory is that fire may leap to the trees and leave my house alone. I said hopeful.
Anyway, we moved here 6 1/2 years ago although it does seem longer. At first because I was working off the mountain, it seemed quite lonely. While my children were at school, I didn't know any of the parents. We did the usual round of sporting activities and I gradually became a more familiar face. Even with being unfamiliar, people were friendly and would smile and nod hello long before they knew who we were. The mail here is collected from the post office (it is a very small town) which gives everyone a chance to pick up mail and get to visit the shops.
It took awhile for me to get involved in anything here. Mainly because my full time work left me too tired to add in anything else. Last year I changed jobs and came to work in the Shire in which I lived. I now travel 20 minutes through the trees to get to work without any traffic. Bliss. More than that, my new job didn't ebb my creativity and it began to flow back into my life and demand attention. More than that, my work involves community development and I have been able to focus some of that up here in the hills.
It's interesting to live in the area in which you work or work in the area in which you live. I love it. It is such a blessing to have an insight into the towns and people for whom you are intending to make a difference and to know some of the people who are leaders in the communities you frequent.
So, is it the towns that are friendlier or is it life arrangements that allow access? My co-worker's new living situation gave them much more space to run and a happier place to be. Maybe our tree-changes are working because we were ready for it. Maybe small towns have more to offer than a lot of people realise.
One thing is for sure, I am very glad we are here.
While I am a Storyteller, I have been a Community Development Worker for as long or longer. Nothing gives me more excitement or satisfaction than weaving stories of disparate groups together into the stronger fabric of Community. That's Community with a capital C.
Aboriginal community use Community as a way of describing the interconnectedness and interdependence of people. Non-Aboriginal community use the word to generally describe groups other than their own, often not recognising their own participation in Community. It is an interesting distinction. For me, Community has a capital C. Within Community, that winding of spirit, heart and mind, can be numerous smaller communities. All of them link and require connectedness to survive.
In my region, we have real concerns with food security. It is astonishing to me that in a world that over produces, access to fresh produce is minimised for monopoly of profit. I live in a bush town, surrounded by farming community. Most of the farmers are tied into contracts that do not allow them to offer their produce outside those contracts. That way madness lies.
So, we are starting our own Community Food Project and coming together to look after ourselves. It's quite clear that that governments simply couldn't care less, nor do big producers or organisations that seek profit above Community. We will do it for ourselves as must so many others. We are starting our own Community Dining program. This is shared meal once a month where everyone contributes, either their time, money or fresh produce. It is a great opportunity to meet a broad range of people from your local community.
This will be coupled with a food co-op. I am very keen that each buyer contributes an extra dollar to our one and only emergency relief centre (for the whole region!) to increase their capacity to feed the 900 families per week they cater for in this flourishing, farming region. Crazy, isn't it? The co-op buying group will allow us to access local producers through a food hub.
We are also linking with the local community gardening group and I am particularly looking forward to a bit of Gorilla Gardening (opportunistic gardening in public and private spaces), in fact I might get started on that this weekend. This will be enhanced by the courses offered by the Neighbourhood House, the gardening group and links to local businesses.
Ah, that feels better already and we are only just getting started.


text:
Speak to your wild side at Wells Gray Park
Sci-Tech Sep. 17, 2013 editorofomega
Taylor Fry, Contributor Ω
On the weekend of Sept. 14, Wells Gray Park saw a gathering of some of Canada's top writers and scientists discussing conservation at the Speak to the Wild conference hosted by Thompson Rivers University and the Wells Gray World Heritage Committee.
Speak to the Wild took place in Wells Grey Park, noted for its many waterfalls. Frank Kovalchek/Flickr Commons
Speak to the Wild was a four day gathering of people across multiple disciplines to discuss the importance of wild areas and their place in the human psyche, as well as the current pressures on these areas. The goal of the conference was to help develop ideas for land ethics in Canada.
The event led guests on hikes through the park, highlighting its historical and environmental importance.
According to TRU's dean of science, Thomas Dickinson, who helped organize the event, those headlining the conference were brought together due to backgrounds and expertise in writing and the science of conservation.
Guests included Canadian poet Patrick Lane, ethnobotanist Nancy Turner and Faisal Moola, director general of Ontario and Northern Canada for the David Suzuki Foundation.
The event was part of a larger, year-long series of events co-hosted by TRU and Edgewood Blue focusing on the Wells Gray World Heritage Year, a campaign to achieve world heritage site status for Wells Gray Park.
The events are in celebration of the Wells Gray TRU Wilderness Centre currently being built. This centre will replace the old red schoolhouse that has been in use since 1992.
In addition to helping coordinate the event, Dickinson has been involved in promoting understanding of the values and importance of Wells Gray Park.
The last event of the series will be held on Oct. 5, with visits from Yorke Edwards, a nature interpretation visionary, and Robert Bateman, a Canadian naturalist and painter. The following day will see the opening of the TRU field station by Dickinson himself.
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text:
Liverpool\'s signing of James Milner after beating Arsenal is massive for Reds says Phil Thompson
By Naveen Ullal
June 5, 2015 07:45 BST
James Milner\'s has ended the speculation surrounding his future by agreeing a deal to join Liverpool Getty
Liverpool legend Phil Thompson believes the signing of James Milner after beating Arsenal for the midfielder's signature is a "massive positive" for the Reds.
The England international agreed a deal to join the Merseyside club after his contract at Manchester City expires on 30 June. He was also on the Gunners' radar, before confirming his move to Anfield.
Brendan Rodgers' side are out of next season's Champions League after finishing sixth in the league table during 2014/15 season. Thompson claims Liverpool's acquisition of Milner is a terrific signing
"It looks as though we've beaten Arsenal to his signature and that's a massive positive for the club," Thompson told Sky Sports.
"I think this deal could have been pretty much done a long time ago, with him being free to speak to clubs from January. He lives up in this area and is happy in this part of the country – he's a Leeds lad – so I think everything was spot on for both parties."
"I love his attitude, I love his ability, and I think it is a terrific signing for Liverpool," he added.
Milner scored five goals and managed seven assists, despite managing only 18 starts in the league for City last term. Thompson is delighted with the midfielder's stats and has backed him to take the central midfield role at Anfield.
The former Reds defender says Milner's ability to create chances will be vital for Liverpool when they compete for the top four spot next season.
"He's got to play in central midfield as much as he can. I was watching Sky Sports News HQ after the news broke and I think I saw he had seven assists last season, whereas Steven Gerrard only had one assist from more games. He'd also created 52 chances – that's exactly what Liverpool want," the Liverpool legend stressed.
The 18-times English champions lost their long serving player Steven Gerrard as the midfielder ended his time at Liverpool after signing for La Galaxy. Milner could replace his compatriot in the central midfield role as he can play either in middle or on the wings.
More about Liverpool
Javier Mascherano: I had to improve after leaving Liverpool for Barcelona
Arsenal target Pedro snubs move to the Premier League by signing long-term Barcelona deal
Real Madrid not interested in Liverpool star Raheem Sterling despite Rafael Benitez praise
Liverpool: Martin Skrtel has rejected the Reds\' latest contract offer
Related topics : Liverpool FC Brendan Rodgers Manchester City FC Arsenal FC


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text:
"""Main standalone execution stub, used when the executor is run.

It should be run as a module with one argument: the relative module name
of the concrete executor class to use. The current working directory
should be where the ``executors`` module directory is, so that it can be
imported with python's ``-m <module>`` interpreter option.

Usage format:

.. code-block:: none

    /path/to/python -m executors .executor_type

Concrete example, run from the directory where ``./executors/`` is:

.. code-block:: none

    /venv/bin/python -m executors .docker

using the python from the ``venv`` virtualenv.

.. note::

    The startup code adds the concrete class name as needed, so that in
    the example above, what's actually instantiated is
    ``.docker.run.FlowExecutor``.
"""

import argparse
import asyncio
import logging
import sys
import traceback
from contextlib import suppress
from importlib import import_module

import zmq
import zmq.asyncio

from .connectors import connectors
from .global_settings import initialize_constants
from .logger import configure_logging
from .zeromq_utils import ZMQCommunicator

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

def handle_exception(exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback):
    """Log unhandled exceptions."""
    message = "".join(traceback.format_exception(exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback))
    logger.error("Unhandled exception in executor: {}".format(message))

sys.excepthook = handle_exception

async def open_listener_connection(data_id, host, port, protocol) -> ZMQCommunicator:
    """Connect to the listener service."""
    zmq_context = zmq.asyncio.Context.instance()
    zmq_socket = zmq_context.socket(zmq.DEALER)
    zmq_socket.setsockopt(zmq.IDENTITY, f"-{data_id}".encode())
    connect_string = f"{protocol}://{host}:{port}"
    zmq_socket.connect(connect_string)
    null_logger = logging.getLogger("Docker executor<->Listener")
    null_logger.propagate = False
    null_logger.handlers = []
    return ZMQCommunicator(zmq_socket, "executor<->listener", null_logger)

async def _run_executor():
    """Start the actual execution; instantiate the executor and run."""
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Run the specified executor.")
    parser.add_argument(
        "module", help="The module from which to instantiate the concrete executor."
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        "data_id",
        type=int,
        help="The ID of the data object this executor will process.",
    )
    parser.add_argument("host", help="The address of the listener to connect to.")
    parser.add_argument(
        "port", type=int, help="The port of the listener to connect to."
    )
    parser.add_argument("protocol", help="The protocol of the listener to connect to.")

    args = parser.parse_args()

    communicator = await open_listener_connection(
        args.data_id, args.host, args.port, args.protocol
    )
    # Start listening for responses.
    asyncio.ensure_future(communicator.start_listening())
    configure_logging(communicator)

    response = await communicator.bootstrap((args.data_id, "executor"))
    initialize_constants(args.data_id, response.message_data)
    connectors.recreate_connectors()

    module_name = "{}.run".format(args.module)
    class_name = "FlowExecutor"

    try:
        module = import_module(module_name, __package__)
        executor = getattr(module, class_name)(
            args.data_id, communicator, (args.host, args.port, args.protocol)
        )
        await executor.run()
    except:
        logger.exception("Unexpected exception while running executor %s.", module_name)

async def _close_tasks(pending_tasks, timeout=5):
    """Close still pending tasks."""
    if pending_tasks:
        # Give tasks time to cancel.
        with suppress(asyncio.CancelledError):
            await asyncio.wait_for(asyncio.gather(*pending_tasks), timeout=timeout)
            await asyncio.gather(*pending_tasks)

async def start():
    """Start and stop all the services."""
    try:
        await _run_executor()
    finally:
        # TODO: remove asyncio.Task.all_tasks when we stop supporting Python 3.6.
        all_tasks = getattr(asyncio, "all_tasks", None) or asyncio.Task.all_tasks
        await _close_tasks(all_tasks())

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # TODO: remove this condition when we stop supporting Python 3.6.
    if sys.version_info < (3, 7):
        loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
        loop.run_until_complete(start())
        loop.close()
    else:
        asyncio.run(start())


text:
By Dom Robinson Contributing Editor
Creating NASDAQ's Cloud-Based Virtual Workflow
Many people view content delivery networks (CDNs) as SaaS clouds -- and thus, they are seen as some of the first commercially available clouds. You are not, for example, buying time on a computer to run your own media servers. Instead, you are buying just the software service of (for example) real time messaging protocol (RTMP) Flash streaming.
At the time, only three operators had significant IaaS infrastructure available for global services, and we really struggled with another well-known provider. While the company touted its cloud proposition, the reality was that its offering was more of a virtual hosting environment. Its control API was limited -- certainly compared to Amazon EC2's -- and while the pricing per hour of compute time was competitive, we had many occasions where the servers we ordered through its system were taking not seconds or minutes to provision and become available; they were sometimes taking hours and even days! To be fair, I would imagine the other vendor has addressed this issue by now -- we did provide an extensive debug for its staffers to work against at the time -- but the lack of confidence was already instilled in our client's mind, and we were left with only one option: to build an Amazon-Amazon resilience. Essentially, this means that we always launch the workflow in two totally separate regions and availability zones and are ready to instantly deploy a third workflow in a third region within a few seconds.
To summarize and answer the question directly, the key reason we use Amazon EC2 is that we had no real option at the time. We are still open to vendor diversification, and, to be fair, we will review other vendors during the next 12 months. However, the reality is that for IaaS, Amazon EC2 is an extraordinary platform -- way ahead of the pack as far as public IaaS -- and has proven to be extremely reliable and cost-effective, as well as truly global.
A still from an animated model representing actual activity in the cloud shows Amazon East (red) and Amazon Ireland (green) scaling up to meet demand during peak usage. The blue and yellow represent the 24/7 central management systems. Video of this visualization can be seen by clicking on "Data" at id3as.co.uk.
This data model shows the 24/7 central management systems during quiet times; the Amazon nodes have been spun down to save money.
What Sort of Scaling Issues Did You Face?
The NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions platform has extremely volatile usage patterns. At the end of the financial year, we may see thousands of companies reporting at pretty much the same time; this requires, along with several management and reporting servers, at least double that number of encoders to deliver. This level of spikiness is an outlier even for a company the size of Amazon EC2, so we had to negotiate specific permission to create such large demands on its infrastructure on short notice.
One thing that was crucial was the ability to move encoders from one availability zone to an alternative in the circumstances that the initial target zone didn't have capacity. Our technology completely abstracts NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions' working processes from all that underlying complexity.
How About SLA?
Amazon EC2 offers at least 99.95% (aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla) availability. This translates to a target of 4.38 hours annually that the entire service may be unavailable. Our application always runs in at least two regions all the time. Broadly speaking, this means we end up with an overall service-level agreement (SLA) for our application of (100-(0.05% x 0.05%)) = 99.9975%. The key to maintaining this availability is the autonomy of the different regions and the applications. The chances of something going wrong on a server in a public cloud data center are hardly different from the odds of something going wrong on a machine you own and host in your own location. In the case of an IaaS public cloud, however, you have instant access to many thousands of other resources to use in place, and you can -- and should -- be using multiple systems for redundancy all the time.
I have written before about people who claim Amazon EC2 is not reliable after famous Reddit and Netflix outages. Amazon EC2 is usually operating well within its SLA; the issue was that Reddit and Netflix did not code their applications well to respect outages or failures. In contrast, the platform we delivered to NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions is automatically operating hundreds of servers in multiple regions of Amazon EC2, and we only knew that the previously mentioned outages had had any effect on our delivery by inspecting our logs. Our applications simply fail between machines (in a single frame of video or audio), the downstream origination, and the upstream CDNs, and the clients would have been unaware.
What About Signal Acquisition?
In simple terms, signal acquisition into Amazon EC2 has to be facilitated on IP. We use both videoconferencing and broadcast MPEG transport stream video sources to contribute signals into the infrastructures directly from events. Likewise, we use voice over IP (VoIP) for audio-only signal acquisition. The Amazon web services data centers are all extremely well-connected, so contribution issues have usually been down to remote connectivity at the origin (on-site at the event). We have, at times, experienced network splits within the Amazon infrastructure, emphasizing the importance of being able to automatically select alternative zones for encoders on-the-fly.
What About OS Choices and Stacks?
The initial implementation was built using Windows, as it made use of several Windows-only third-party tools, such as Windows and Flash media encoders. Once it was live, we found that almost all of the operational challenges we faced arose from these third-party tools. Over time, id3as developed its own end-to-end suite of technologies (id3as.media) capable of replacing all these third-party tools (apart from codecs) and doing so in a platform-agnostic way. This has allowed us to greatly improve platform stability and significantly reduce IaaS costs by moving from Windows to Linux, which is considerably cheaper by the hour.
How Is the System Controlled?
Agents in a NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions operations center based in Manila, Philippines, and Leipzig, Germany, supervise the entire system, although there are disaster recovery capabilities across the world, since the management layer is entirely web-based. Schedules for events are delivered by the NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions management systems into a resilient and distributed (cloud-based) database. These management systems are in multiple availability zones, and they receive instructions about when to fire up encoders for various events. Notification is presented on the web GUI to the supervisors.
This same web GUI allows the operator full control over the events, including cutting and editing on-the-fly (using DVR-like techniques to mark up the edit decision list) to ultimately produce on-demand files within moments of the live event finishing. The GUI also alerts the operator to any signal confidence failures and enables a single operator to supervise multiple events at the same time, greatly increasing the productiveness of the call center team. The id3as.media management and control subsystem is all written in Erlang, a language designed specifically to produce very large scale, extremely available/reliable distributed systems.
How Does it Report?
As the id3as.media software replaced all the third-party technologies in the workflow, it provided an opportunity to consolidate reporting into a clean, clear, and dynamic reporting model using graph-like output. This means that id3as can drill into any issue in the workflow in a graphical way, with an almost unlimited amount of detail available. This ensures that stand-alone, real-time monitoring is possible out of the box; it's also tightly integrated into NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions' own management and reporting systems.
To summarize -- and I have said it before -- the IT craze for all things cloud would, at first, seem to be all about technology, but it's not: It is really a broad term for dynamic economic models that are underpinned by a variety of technologies.
Yes, you can generally (technically) do in the cloud what you would do on private dedicated equipment, but the key advantage should be cost and flexibility. It should, such as with the example in this article, be driven by the real value proposition to the customer and not clouded with trendy buzzwords.
This article appears in the August/September 2013 issue of Streaming Media magazine as "NASDAQ's Cloud-Based Virtual Workflow."
Companies and Suppliers Mentioned


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