text:
\section{INTRODUCTION}

 Safe recovery from planned drops or unexpected falls is one of the most crucial features of animals and is beneficial both in navigating challenging terrain and preventing significant damage in the case of unexpected drops. Furthermore, a robust landing controller opens up the possibility of deploying quadruped robots directly into harsh environments where supervision can be difficult. However, in contrast to the progress in quadrupedal locomotion on robotic platforms \cite{mc-vision, hutter-RL-locomotion}, there has been relatively little work exploring how robots address significant changes in elevation or react to falling. Several works have explored controlling a body's orientation while rotating, but do not focus on the reaction force profiles and poses needed to safely recover from the fall \cite{Bingham-orient, Kurtz-fallingCat}.

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.95\columnwidth]{figures/exp_sim-1.png}
    \caption{ {\bf High speed landing of quadruped robot.} The proposed controller enables the robot to safely land after falling from a high place. (a) In the simulation, we accomplished safe landing from 2.5\si{\meter}-high free drop. (b) In hardware experiments, we demonstrated 2\si{\meter}-high free drop.}
    \label{fig:mc-landing}
    \vspace{-0.3cm}
\end{figure}

A common approach for landing actuated systems is to control contact point impedances with some additional feedforward reaction forces. Lynch et al. describes the so-called `soft landing problem', exploring control methods to minimize foot penetration depth into a surface from a fall with prismatic actuation, but discussion was limited to single impacts on a body without rigid contacts \cite{Lynch-softLanding}.
Similar to quadrupeds, \cite{Kiefer-rotorcraft} explores actuated landing gear for rotorcraft and finding optimal impedances to mitigate impacts, but considers only horizontal landings. Although previous works demonstrated the effectiveness of impedance control, they did not capture all detailed motion included in landing behavior such as landing posture, reaction force profile, contact location, and sequence. Without taking into account these complexities, we cannot fully utilize the robot hardware's capability to achieve smooth and safe landings.
\par

For motion planning problems consisting of multiple, complex decision processes, trajectory optimization methods have been widely used. It is worth noting that automatic contact sequence selection is crucial to controlling an landing because feasible contact sequences could be entirely different depending on the orientation of the body at touchdown. This timing becomes especially important at higher velocities. Previous work by Winkler et al. parameterizes the gait to optimize for the timings of the contact schedule, but the complexity of the formulation makes it difficult to solve for real-time applications \cite{Winkler-gaitPhase}. Similarly, the work of \cite{Mordatch-CIO} shows realistic, dynamic behaviors independent of prescribed contacts, but is likewise intractable for real-time performance.
\par

Several other approaches such as reinforcement learning or model-predictive control (MPC) present interesting landing behaviors also demonstrated on hardware. \cite{hutter-RL-landing} demonstrated planar landing and airborne orientation control on the SpaceBok quadruped in a "low-gravity" environment, but it is unclear how easily the algorithm could be applied for real-world, 3D conditions with more dramatic impacts and inertial effects. While planar landing and jumping was also demonstrated in \cite{quan-mitCheetah3-jumping} and \cite{hutter-starlETH}, touchdown was made without considering optimal touchdown positions or timings, and were from relatively low heights with little pitch or roll of the body.
With a heuristics-guided MPC, \cite{Bledt-RPC} demonstrated dropping the MIT Mini Cheetah from around 1.5 \si{\meter}, but did not investigate landing with changes in orientation or body velocities. Simple joint or Cartesian impedance control can often be enough to stabilize a robot's motion from small drops, but fail consistently at higher velocities or with significant orientations away from the horizontal.
\par

In this work, we use a nonlinear trajectory optimization including contact complementary constraints to find optimal landing postures and reaction force profiles. The formulation is based on \cite{Posa-CCC}, and we modified the algorithm to accommodate actuator torque and leg kinematic limits. The optimization is solved while the robot is airborne in a MPC fashion at approximately 10 \si{\hertz}.
Once touchdown is detected, the optimized trajectory is then tracked with a whole-body impulse controller \cite{DHKim-highlyDynamic}.
In our high-fidelity physics simulation environment, the Mini Cheetah robot recovered from drops of up to 8 \si{\meter} high, angular velocities between -0.5 and 0.5 \si{\radian\per\second}, horizontal velocities ranging from -1.5 to 1.5 \si{\meter\per\second}, pitch orientations ranging from $-{\frac{\pi}{3}}$ to $\frac{\pi}{3}$, and roll orientations ranging from $-{\frac{\pi}{6}}$ to $\frac{\pi}{6}$.
In hardware tests, the Mini Cheetah was able to land successfully from a height of 2 \si{\meter}.

The contribution of this work is two-fold: 1) we formulate a real-time landing control framework that finds optimal contact locations and timings from various orientations and body velocities, and 2) we demonstrate successful landings in simulation from significant heights and orientations and in hardware from heights of up to 2 \si{\meter}, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:mc-landing}.

\section{SYSTEM OVERVIEW}

The MIT Mini Cheetah has a mass of approximately 9 kg with 12 modular actuators (ab/ad, hip, and knee for each of its four legs). Each actuator is capable of producing a maximum torque of 17 \si{\newton\meter} and a continuous torque of 6.9 \si{\newton\meter} \cite{Katz-MC}. Because the legs make up less than 10\% of its mass, the dynamics of the Mini Cheetah can be approximated as a single rigid body model (SRBM) given as
\begin{eqnarray} \label{eqn:srbm}
    m \ddot{\mathbf{p}} &=& \sum_{i = 1}^{n_c}\boldsymbol{\lambda}_i - \mathbf{f}_g,\\
    {d \over dt}(\mathbf{I}\boldsymbol{\omega}) &=& \sum_{i = 1}^{n_c}(\mathbf{r}_i-\mathbf{p}) \times \boldsymbol{\lambda}_i,
\end{eqnarray}
where $m$ is the mass, $n_c$ is the number of contacts, $\mathbf{p}$, $\mathbf{r}_i$, $\boldsymbol{\lambda}_i$, and $\mathbf{f}_g$ are the vectors for the body position, foot positions, reaction forces, and gravitational force, expressed in the world frame.  $\mathbf{I} \in \mathbb{R}^{3 \times 3}$ and $\mathbf{\omega}$ are the rotational inertia tensor of the body and angular velocity of the body respectively, expressed in the body frame.

\section{FRAMEWORK}
The landing controller in this work consists of three major components: nonlinear model predictive control, a trained neural network that outputs initial guesses for trajectories, and a whole-body controller.
Based on its current state estimate, a nonlinear program (NLP) solves for dynamically feasible landing trajectories. The optimization is "warm started" with a guess for the trajectories output by the trained neural network to improve convergence speed.
Finally, when touchdown is detected, the optimized trajectory is used as a reference and tracked by a whole-body controller. An overview of this framework is shown in Figure \ref{fig:control-diagram}.

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=1.0\columnwidth]{figures/control-diagram.png}
    \caption{ {\bf Overview of the components of the landing controller.} If contact is detected, the latest optimization solution is tracked with whole-body control. Otherwise, the robot maintains a nominal or optimized pose with joint PD control while airborne.}
    \label{fig:control-diagram}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Optimization Formulation}
The controller is formulated as a direct transcription, kino-dynamic trajectory optimization over $N$ timesteps, similar to \cite{Dai-KDTO} and \cite{Chignoli-MITHumanoid} with three key modifications for real-time performance: the use of a simpler model, assuming no-slip conditions in the CCCs, and reducing the number of decision variables necessary for the optimization.
\par

The centroidal dynamics of a system considers the aggregate effects of each rigid link projected onto its center of mass frame, as detailed in \cite{Orin-centroidal}. However, given the low inertia limbs of many quadrupedal platforms and relatively small swinging movements during, this contribution is ignored, and the SRBM is used instead. This simplification significantly simplifies the dynamic constraints on the optimization.
\par

With significant roll or pitch, it is difficult to determine how to prescribe appropriate contact schedules or sequences for landing, especially with the short timeframes high-speed landings would involve.
However, the contact complementarity constraints allow these contact schedules to be directly optimized over without using mixed-integer formulations to characterize making and breaking contact.
They are a set of conditions that require \textit{either} the vertical ground reaction forces \emph{or} the foot's height in the world frame to be zero when the other is positive.
While the CCCs outlined in \cite{Posa-CCC} consider the full Coulomb friction model with sliding, this formulation only considers no-slip constraints, expressed as
\begin{eqnarray}
\phi_i(\mathbf{q}_b, \mathbf{q}_j) \geq 0 \label{eqn:ccc1} \\
\lambda_z \geq 0 \label{eqn:ccc2}  \\
\lambda_z \phi_i(\mathbf{q}_b, \mathbf{q}_j) \leq \epsilon, \label{eqn:ccc3}
\end{eqnarray}
where $\phi_i(\mathbf{q}_b, \mathbf{q}_j)$ is the signed distance to the ground from the $i^{th}$ foot, $\mathbf{q}_b$ and $\mathbf{q_j}$ are the floating base and joint generalized coordinates respectively, and $\epsilon$ is a slack parameter to encourage convergence. The no-slip condition is enforced with
\begin{equation}
(\mathbf{r}_{k+1} - \mathbf{r}_k)\lambda_{z,k} = 0, \label{eqn:no-slip}
\end{equation}
where $k$ is a timestep index in the optimization.
This modification of the CCCs allows for more consistent and faster convergence to solutions, a key requirement for real-time performance.
\par

To further reduce the complexity of the problem, the joint velocities are also excluded as decision variables.
We post-process the optimized joint angle trajectories to find reasonable approximations for the joint velocities.
This likewise improves the convergence and solve times of the NLP.
\par

The full optimization formulation can be then be given as
\begin{align}
\min_{\mathbf{x}, \mathbf{u}, \mathbf{q}_j} & \quad ||{(\mathbf{x}_N - \mathbf{x}_{ref})}||_Q^2 \quad \textrm{s.t.} \label{eqn:cost} \\
\textrm{(Dynamics)} & \quad  \dot{\mathbf{x}}_{k+1} = f(\mathbf{x}_k, \mathbf{u}_k), \label{eqn:dynamics} \\
\textrm{(Initial conditions)} & \quad \mathbf{x}(0) = \mathbf{x}_{0}, \\
              & \quad \mathbf{r}(0) = \mathbf{r}_{0}, \\
\textrm{(Contact constraints)} & \quad CCC(\boldsymbol{\lambda}_i, \mathbf{r}_{i,k}) \label{eqn:CCC} \\
              & \quad (\mathbf{r}_{k+1} - \mathbf{r}_k)\lambda_{z,k} = 0,\\
              & \quad \lambda_{x,y} \; \epsilon \; \mathcal{F}(\mu, \lambda_z), \label{eqn:friction_cone} \\
\textrm{(Kin. constraints)}              & \quad \mathbf{r}_{i, k}^T\mathbf{r}_{i,k} \leq l_{max}^2, \label{eqn:leg_max}\\
              & \quad \mathbf{r}_{i,k} - g(\mathbf{q}_j) = 0, \label{eqn:leg_kin}\\
\textrm{(Force limits)}
              & \quad |J^T\boldsymbol{\lambda}_k| \leq \boldsymbol{\tau}_{max}, \label{eqn:torque_lim}\\
\textrm{(Bounds)}
              & \quad \mathbf{r} \; \epsilon \; \mathcal{R}_{x,y,z}(\mathbf{x}_i), \\
              & \quad \mathbf{x}_i \; \epsilon \; \mathcal{X}, \\
              & \quad \mathbf{x}(t_f) \; \epsilon \; \mathcal{X}_{term}, \\
              & \quad \mathbf{q}_{j,i} \; \epsilon \; \mathcal{Q},
\end{align}
where the decision variables $X = [\mathbf{\Theta}^T \; \mathbf{p}^T \; \boldsymbol{\omega}^T \; \mathbf{\dot{p}}^T]^T \, \in \, \mathbb{R}^{12}$ is the state of the SRBM with roll-pitch-yaw orientation, $U = [\mathbf{r}^T \; \boldsymbol{\lambda}^T]^T \, \in \, \mathbb{R}^{24}$ is the inputs, and $\mathbf{q}_j \, \in \, \mathbb{R}^{12}$ is the joint positions of the legs. The foot Jacobians are represented by $J$, $Q$ is a weighting matrix, $\mu$ is the friction coefficient, $CCC(\boldsymbol{\lambda}_i, \mathbf{r}_{i,k})$ is the set of contact complementarity conditions, and $f(\mathbf{x}_k, \mathbf{u}_k)$, $g(\mathbf{q}_j)$, $\mathcal{F}(\mu, \lambda_z)$, and $\mathcal{R}(\mathbf{x}_i)$ are functions for the dynamics of the SRBM, the forward kinematics of the feet, friction pyramid constraints, and foot kinematic box constraints respectively. The optimization variables are bounded by $l_{max}$, $\boldsymbol{\tau}_{max}$, $\mathcal{X}$, and $\mathcal{Q}$, which are the maximum leg length, torque limits, state limits, and joint limits respectively. The dynamics of the system are propagated through the $N$ timesteps with Euler forward integration. An example of an optimized trajectory in the \texttt{MATLAB} environment can be seen in Figure \ref{fig:MATLAB-TO}. Additionally, instantaneous changes in velocity due to impact are not considered. Due to the light, low-inertia limbs of the Mini Cheetah, it was assumed that impact forces could be ignored at touchdown.

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=1.0\columnwidth]{figures/landing-TO-MATLAB.png}
    \caption{{\bf Landing trajectory optimizations visualized in MATLAB.} The optimization scheme is able to find solutions involving a variety of different contact timings to stabilize the body to a nominal resting height.}
    \label{fig:MATLAB-TO}
\end{figure}

\textbf{Discretization and Initial Conditions: }
To reduce solve times, it was important to keep the number of timesteps $N$ small.
However, certain phases of the trajectory, such as directly after impact, requires high resolution for faithful tracking and smoother force profiles.
This tradeoff was approached by implementing unevenly discretized timesteps for the phases of the trajectory.
The timesteps nears the final phase of the landing trajectory are larger in comparison to the period directly after impact.
This allows the optimization to find smaller forces over longer time periods to stabilize the robot's state.
\par

The final landing height of the quadruped is unknown, so its initial height is set to "expect" a touchdown immediately at all times.
With constant updates from state estimation, this makes the controller independent of the global height of the robot relative to the ground plane it is landing on.
The initial height of the robot is calculated to be
\begin{align}
    p_{z, h_{min}}      &= \mathrm{min}(S_z{}^BR_0\mathbf{p}_{h,i} \; \forall \; i) \\
    p_{z,0}             &= l_{max} + |p_{z, h_{min}}| + |v_{z, 0}\Delta t_0|, \label{eq:offset-height}
\end{align}
where $^BR_0$ is the rotation matrix from the initial roll-pitch-yaw orientation of the SRBM, $\mathbf{p}_{h,i}$ is the vector from the COM to the $i^{th}$ hip, $S_z$ is a selection matrix to find the z-component of a position vector, $p_{z, h_{min}}$ is the lowest height of the hips of the quadruped, and $\Delta t_0$ is the duration of the first timestep.
While the initial angular velocity of the robot would also contribute to the orientation of the robot at touchdown, small angular velocities are assumed for simplicity.
\par

This offset ensures that the lowest foot is able to reach the ground only \emph{after} the first timestep from the forward Euler integration $p_{z,1} = p_{z,0} + \Delta t_0 v_{z,0}$, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:landing-schematic}.
While the height of the SRBM could be positioned so that feet begin in contact with the ground as in \cite{Samy-postImpactLanding}, this prevents the NLP from finding optimal footstep locations relative to the body.
With this formulation, the trajectory is always "expecting" to touchdown immediately after the first timestep based on its current velocity, and by solving this problem in a model-predictive fashion, becomes independent of the global coordinates of the body.
\par

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=1.0\columnwidth]{figures/landing-schematic.png}
    \caption{{\bf The initial height setting given by Eq. \ref{eq:offset-height}.} This guarantees that the robot is unable to make contact during the first timestep and to touchdown in the second, allowing for contact locations and poses to be optimized over. If the optimal pose from a previous solution is unavailable, it is initialized with some nominal pose.}
    \label{fig:landing-schematic}
\end{figure}

\textbf{Cost: } The cost in Eqn \eqref{eqn:cost} consists only of the quadratic penalty between the final state of the optimized trajectory, $X_N$, and a desired final position, $X_{ref}$.
The weighting matrix $Q$ was only non-zero for entries corresponding to velocities, orientation, and a final desired resting height.
It was found that penalizing only the terminal state significantly improved convergence speed, and, in some cases, solution quality.
Introducing running costs on applied forces or states often generated impractical trajectories, where the knees of the Mini Cheetah would penetrate the ground, or significant forces would be commanded before touchdown.
In \cite{Winkler-gaitPhase}, costs similarly seemed to increase solve times and the overall complexity of the NLP.
\par

Without thorough biomechanical study, it is difficult to ascertain which quantities, if any, are best to optimize for landing.
This cost formulation allows for more flexibility in finding landing trajectories instead of imposing costs that may guide the optimization to infeasible solutions.
By only penalizing the final desired state, feasible landing trajectories can be generated quickly and reliably.

\textbf{Kinematic Box Limits: }
From initial trajectory optimizations, it was observed that the touchdown angle of the feet correlated strongly with the direction of the COM velocity in the world frame, as shown in Figure [FOOT ANGLE AND VEL PLOT].
Intuitively, it follows that in order to generate force to oppose some velocity, it would be efficient to align the moment arm of the contact point with the direction of that velocity as well.
With this observation, a simple heuristic constraint was added to the optimization that would adjust the kinematic box limits of the quadruped's feet based on its current velocity similar to \cite{Winkler-gaitPhase}, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:kin-box-limits}.
The equations to govern the size of the box limits are given as
\begin{equation}
    \mathcal{R}_{x,y,z}(\mathbf{x}_i) = \{r|r \leq d|{v \over v_{max}}|\},
\end{equation}
where $d$ is the maximum limit of the box in $x$, $y$, and $z$ directions, $v$ is the $x$, $y$, or $z$ component of the body velocity expressed in the body frame, and $v_{max}$ determines the speed  limit at which the box will extend to the kinematic limits of the leg.
The values for $d$ and $v_{max}$ were determined experimentally and adjusted based on the solutions of the trajectory optimizations.
By limiting the range of locations the feet could be positioned relative to the body, kinematic limits can be implicitly enforced, improving the convergence of the optimization.
\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.75\columnwidth]{figures/kin-box-limits.png}
    \caption{{\bf Visualized kinematic box limits.} The red box marks the \emph{default} foot position bounds, the dimensions of which are determined by $\mathcal{R}_0$. The kinematic bounds in the optimization (green) adapt to the body velocity $v$ expressed in the body frame and falling conditions as necessary to encourage convergence, the lengths of which are denoted with $\mathcal{R}$.}
    \label{fig:kin-box-limits}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Supervised Learning Framework}
As studied in \cite{Mansard-warmstart}, the initial guess provided to a nonlinear optimization is crucial.
Depending on its quality, the optimization could be attracted to undesirable local minima or fail to find a feasible solution entirely.
To improve convergence speed as well as solution quality, a neural network is trained in a supervised learning fashion to warm start the nonlinear trajectory optimization outlined in Section III.
The inputs to the optimization are only the initial orientation, velocity, and angular velocity of the SRBM, which will be denoted $\mathbf{z} = [\mathbf{\Theta}^T \; \boldsymbol{\omega}^T \; \mathbf{\dot{p}}^T]^T \in \mathbb{R}^9$.
Random samples are taken from selected ranges of $\mathbf{z}$ and optimal trajectories are generated for each initial falling condition to train the network. Table 1 details the selected ranges for each element in $\mathbf{z}$.
\par

\begin{table}[h]
\caption{Range of sampled input space for supervised learning}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|c||c|c|c|c|c|c|}
\hline
$\mathbf{z}$ & $\Theta_x$ & $\Theta_y$ & $\Theta_z$ & $\boldsymbol{\omega}$ (r/s) & $v_{x,y}$ (m/s) & $v_z$ (m/s) \\
\hline
Min. & -$\pi/4$ & -$\pi/3$ & -$\pi/2$ & -1 & -1.5 & -6\\
\hline
Max. & $\pi/4$ & $\pi/3$ & $\pi/2$ & 1 & 1.5 & -2\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}
The generated solutions were post-processed so that trajectories with ground penetration or resteps were removed.
The data was normalized with respect to the mean and standard deviation of each variable in the output trajectory.
A neural network with 2 hidden layers with 128 nodes each was trained to generate output trajectories to serve as a warm start to the optimization.

\subsection{Whole-body Controller}
\par

The whole-body controller used in this work is a quadratic program (QP) detailed in \cite{DHKim-highlyDynamic} with a control bandwidth of 500 Hz.
The fast update rates allow for reference trajectories to be tracked closely and stabilized with small deviations in expected states.
An optimized landing trajectory is tracked by the WBC when touchdown is detected. Because timesteps are discretized unevenly, interpolated values of the trajectory are calculated to be tracked by the WBC.

\section{IMPLEMENTATION}
The controller was developed in \texttt{MATLAB} with the \texttt{CasADi} symbolic framework and the \texttt{spatial v2} package from Roy Featherstone \cite{Casadi, spatialv2}.
With \texttt{Casadi}'s internal code generation features, the optimization was exported to \texttt{C++} where the Lightweight Communications and Marshalling package (LCM) was used to communicate between the optimization and the simulation environment and the robot hardware asynchronously \cite{LCM}.
The commercial nonlinear optimization solver \texttt{Artelys Knitro} was used to solve the problem online \cite{KNITRO}.
While the solver \texttt{IPOPT} demonstrated similar solve speeds, \texttt{Knitro} was far more consistent in finding solutions from the range of initial falling conditions given.
\par

The neural network was developed with \texttt{Pytorch} and similarly exported to \texttt{C++} with the \texttt{LibTorch} packages.
Without the overhead of the \texttt{MATLAB} interface, the optimizations were able to be solved faster as well.

The optimization is run as a process separate from the main body of the software on the Mini Cheetah.
Requests for optimizations are sent via LCM from the robot's state estimator and received when a solution is found.
If a solution is not found within 300 ms, a new request is made and the optimization is restarted.
Decoupling the optimization from the main processes on Mini Cheetah in this manner allows for asynchronous, model-predictive control.

Touchdown is detected when a threshold on the joint velocities of the legs is exceeded.
The latest feasible trajectory is then interpolated and tracked with the QP-based whole-body controller from \cite{DHKim-highlyDynamic}.
While there have been learned and probabilistic approaches to detecting contact proprioceptively \cite{Bledt-contact, Lin-MLcontact}, joint encoder feedback is used instead.
Due to its low response time of around 3 ms and the impulsive nature of landing that could be difficult to learn, encoder data was used as a touchdown trigger for its simplicity.

\section{RESULTS}
\subsection{Trained Trajectory Generation}
The network was trained with roughly 1500 samples of trajectory data over a range of falling conditions. The state space was uniformly sampled over, but the majority of the successful landings tended to be near the horizontal body posture, as landing in a near-horizontal position is the simplest landing to stabilize.
Samples from the space of successful landing conditions are shown in Figure \ref{fig:nn-solve-time}.

\subsection{Real-time Performance}
By warm starting the optimization with the trajectories generated by the neural net, there is a significant decrease in computation time that allows for real-time performance to be possible.
On a typical desktop computer in the \texttt{MATLAB} environment, $\mathbf{z}$ was randomly sampled across the same ranges as in Table 1 and optimized with the warm-start from the neural net.
This was compared with the solve times from cold-starts and a two-stage optimization process.
The two-stage optimization involved solving the NLP outlined in Section III \emph{without} kinematic decision variables, and using its solution as a warm start to the full kino-dynamic optimization.
As shown in Figure \ref{fig:nn-solve-time}, the neural-net warm started optimization showed speedups of roughly ~5-10 times over the range of falling conditions.
Even with the overhead of \texttt{MATLAB}, solve times were in the range of 5-8 Hz, allowing for real-time performance onboard the Mini Cheetah.

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=1\columnwidth]{figures/nn-plot.png}
    \caption{{\bf Training data sampling and warm-start evaluation.} A: sampled space of falling conditions for training data. B: comparisons of solve times for neural net warm-started optimization, cold-started optimization, and two-stage warm-started optimization, from left to right.}
    \label{fig:nn-solve-time}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Simulation}
The Mini Cheetah was initialized in various falling configurations (orientation and velocities) in the Robot-Software environment and simulated to test recovery behavior.
The desired final state for $X_{ref} = [\mathbf{\Theta}^T \; \mathbf{p}^T \; \boldsymbol{\omega}^T \; \mathbf{\dot{p}}^T]^T$ was set to be all zero except the height, which was set to 0.25 m.
Zero entries in the weighting matrix $Q$, ensures no penalty was applied on the final yaw, $p_x$, or $p_y$.
\par

The Robot-Software simulation evaluates its dynamics at 1000 Hz and includes motor constraints, rotor inertias, and impact calculations in its environment.
A friction coefficient of $\mu = 0.75$ was used, and it was assumed that there was no state estimation error in the simulation.
Torque and force plots for a landing trajectory from a 2.5 m high pitched landing with small lateral velocities are shown in Figure \ref{fig:sim-plots}.
While the impact on touchdown causes a high initial tracking error, this quickly goes to zero within the first 0.1 s, and both torque and force profiles are tracked closely.
With the adjustments from the whole-body controller, the trajectories are well followed even with significant disturbances.
Deliberate errors in velocity, orientation, or angular velocity were used as inputs to the optimization, but the controller was often able to stabilize to a nominal resting position with small errors in the expected falling conditions $\mathbf{z}$. The authors plan to more fully characterize the robustness of this controller in future work.
\par

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=1\columnwidth]{figures/force-torque-sim.png}
    \caption{{\bf Actuation limits during simulated landing.} A: desired ($\tau*$) and actual ($\tau$) torques from the simulation environment. The black dotted lines represent the absolute torque limits of the individual motors. B: desired ($\lambda*$) and actual ($\lambda$) ground reaction forces commanded by the whole-body controller. The Mini Cheetah is able to stabilize itself from significant drops while respecting the torque limits of the system.}
    \label{fig:sim-plots}
\end{figure}
To test the limits of the hardware in simulation, the Mini Cheetah was dropped horizontally from a height of 8 m, corresponding to vertical velocities of roughly -12 m s$^{-1}$. The controller was able to stabilize the fall, but further work must be done to investigate the effect of the impacts and post-impact velocities at these higher speeds.

Recovering from landing is far more sensitive to roll and lateral velocity than pitch and longitudinal velocity.
This is intuitive given the design of the Mini Cheetah, where only the single ab/ad motor is dedicated to stabilizing significant disturbances in body roll and lateral velocity.

\subsection{Hardware}
To verify the controller on hardware and ensure safe landings, it was critical that the state estimation of the Mini Cheetah was as accurate as possible.
However, there was severe and constant drift in state estimates once the robot is in the air because kinematics based estimation is not possible while airborne. With unreliable state estimation, falling conditions were instead hard coded to be approximately similar to the state of the robot at touchdown instead.
\par

Several horizontal drops were performed from heights of up to 2 \si{\meter} successfully, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:mc-landing}.
Although hard-coded conditions were used as inputs to the optimization, the Mini Cheetah was released by hand, causing deviations from the expected falling state.
Despite these errors, the Mini Cheetah was able to recover to a nominal resting height, as shown in the plots in Figures \ref{fig:hardware-plots}. The state estimator was paused in a resting state until touchdown was detected because of its drift, causing a significant difference between the estimated and actual velocities of the quadruped at touchdown, but the WBC is able to stabilize the robot about the planned trajectory.
\par

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.6\columnwidth]{figures/body-tracking-hardware.png}
    \caption{{\bf Trajectory tracking on hardware.} Desired body posture ($p*$, $v*$) and body posture from state estimation ($p$, $v$). Note that the velocity discrepancy is due to pausing the state estimation until touchdown.}
    \label{fig:hardware-plots}
\end{figure}

Because of the unreliable state estimation, drops with significant pitch, roll, or lateral velocities were not tested to prevent damage to the robot.
While simulation results suggest these landings would also be possible, we found that significant orientation errors in the state estimator quickly caused the controller to become unstable in the Robot-Software environment.
\par

\section{CONCLUSIONS}
This paper presents a control framework that is able to reason about optimal contact locations and timings in real-time, and demonstrates successful landings in both simulation and hardware. By modifying the contact constraints and model considered, dynamic trajectories can be planned independently from prescribed contact modes at real-time rates.
\par

Future work will involve hardware upgrades to the Mini Cheetah, implementing onboard vision, and characterizing the robustness of the controller.
Processor and power board upgrades to the Mini Cheetah will enable it to solve the presented formulation completely untethered and onboard, and with greater margin for motor failure.
The authors also plan to integrate an event camera into the Mini Cheetah for more accurate localization and state estimation.
Additionally, while it was shown that the controller was able to stabilize itself from small errors in the falling conditions, we have yet to characterize this.
In the future, the robustness of the controller and its performance over uneven terrain will be explored in greater detail.

\section*{ACKNOWLEDGMENT}
This work was supported by Naver Labs and the Centers for ME Research and Education at MIT and SUSTech. The authors would like to thank Elijah Stanger-Jones and Aditya Mehrotra for their assistance in hardware experimentation, and the other members of the Biomimetic Robotics Lab for their insight and support in this work.
\addtolength{\textheight}{0cm}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Temperature and precipitation developments influence the seasonality and distribution of infectious diseases. Public well being plays an vital function in disease prevention efforts in each the growing world and in developed countries by local well being systems and non-governmental organizations The World Health Organization (WHO) is the international agency that coordinates and acts on world public health issues.
Whether or not you've gotten a background in or is new to the field of public well being, our programme is adaptable to your particular pursuits, whereas it would provide you with the right mix of grounding in the core disciplines of public health, in addition to a specialised focus to fulfill your particular person targets.
Alumni of the Master's programme in Public Well being are at the moment employed at a variety of prime governing establishments akin to national ministries of health, UNICEF, World Fund, WHO, and varied NGOs equivalent to Save the Children, the Danish Household Planning Association, Headspace Australia, and FIMRC.
The challenge in West Africa has been to undertake these tasks in communities with no electricity or operating water, no Internet or cell-cellphone coverage, giant segments of society which are nonliterate and trust neither the federal government nor modern medicine, and a near complete lack of core public health infrastructure.
AÂ dynamic, complicated and analytical department of health sciences, where policy is linked with statistics and mathematics, behavioural sciences with physiology, anatomy and aetiology of ailments, and where environmental well being is as important historical issues and predictions for the future.


A letter was read from the Local Government Board respecting the election of Dr. Williams as vaccination officer for the Pentrefoelas district. The letter also alluded to the fact that the Gywdyr Arms Inn, Dolwyddelan, was used as a vaccination station, and added that experience led then to hold strong objections to the use of public-houses as vaccination stations, – Mr. Daniel Williams: They are quiet right. – It was mentioned that in three parishes inns were used for such a purpose. – The Chairman: In places like Dolwyddelan it does not much matter, because there are no characters fond of drink there (laughter), – Mr. Daniel Williams: Like Trefriw (much laughter). – The Chairman thought that perhaps the schoolroom might be used in the parishes named and the relieving officer was instructed to try and get the use of other buildings for vaccination purposes.


Ray White Canberra is Australia's largest property advertiser. Their handpicked team of sales agents handles everything from studio apartments to multimillion-dollar campaigns and helps to find the right buyer and the best price for a property. The company mostly works with property buyers, property sellers, investors, developers, and owners.
Ray White Canberra was looking for the best solution that could help the company keep up with the latest technology and create electronic presentations for their sales team easily and quickly, without paying a fortune. The company also needed a tool to create Welcome Packs with – materials for new property owners that contained essential information about the property as well as links and educational videos. These packs were of high importance to the company, and they had to look great and communicate information to the customers in the most effective way.
Karen Ferguson, Marketing Manager at Ray White Canberra, wanted to find a solution that would allow her to create professional publications herself without outsourcing to other companies, which could be rather costly.
Definitely, the cost is a major factor. Being able to be in control of creating something for our business is a much easier and cheaper option than trying to get an external company to create it for us.
Ray White Canberra turned to FlippingBook, because it allowed the company to easily create beautiful and professional publications that could be sent to clients, embedded on the website, and used in the Welcome Packs.
I made our new owners' Welcome Pack with the help of FlippingBook. Owners receive a beautiful glossy folder with a USB stick enclosed. They have the option to view the publication online on Mac or Windows.
What Ray White Canberra values the most about FlippingBook is customization and branding: they like the ability to customize the background, logos, and colors, to add the company's own branding, and to embed their new educational videos within the document.
In the last 12 months, I have worked on coordinating the production of a series of short educational and tutorial videos. I also create a biannual glossy hard copy publication, CityStyle Magazine, with the help of FlippingBook and upload it to the front page of our website.
With FlippingBook, Ray White Canberra publishes a variety of online documents that are interactive, with embedded videos and links. Creating the documents is pretty quick and easy. Karen is currently integrating FlippingBook in the administrative department of the company.
I'm in the process of training the administrative team for Strata to send out the new owners' Welcome Packs. My only challenge is training someone who's not very IT-savvy, but we will get there in the end.
Ray White Canberra has not had a great deal of feedback to date, but expects to receive it shortly from the new owners who get Welcome Packs with USB drives. The company hopes that the new documents will be a success among the owners who access the USB version. It's really just a much nicer way of presenting relevant information about the building to the owners. Ray White Canberra hopes to continue using FlippingBook for many future projects.
Want to have as much control over your content?
Ray White Canberra is an Australian real estate company that provides property management services for all commercial properties, including services in the loan market.


text:
Inaugural cruise – Treasures of the Atlantic coast
Inaugural cruise
New itinerary
Cruise Northern Europe, The Mediterranean
from 25 October 2018 to 1 November 2018
Departure Port : Honfleur
Arrival Port : Lisbon
Ship : LE CHAMPLAIN
Ref : C251018
Inaugural cruise aboard Le Champlain – In the presence of Jean Emmanuel Sauvée – CEO and Founder of PONANT
From Honfleur to Lisbon, PONANT invites you on Le Champlain's inaugural cruise in the presence of many special guests*. This brand-new 8-day itinerary, guaranteed to be full of surprises and discoveries, will take you along the French, Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic coastlines.
From Dinard, don't miss out on the visit to Saint-Malo, where preparations for the Route du Rhum, the legendary race celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, will be in full swing, to the great delight of sailing enthusiasts.
The next port of call for this new ship is Pasajes, in Spain. This will give you the opportunity to discover San Sebastián, the elegant capital of Gipuzkoa province. With its distinctive shell-shaped bay, opulent-looking buildings and small streets that are ideal for strolling, this city provides a fine glimpse at the charms of the Spanish Basque Country.
Your journey will continue to Galicia and the city of Vigo, the biggest fishing port in Spain. Not far from here, Santiago de Compostela awaits you. This unmissable pilgrimage destination is home to a number of monuments from the Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque periods, testimony to its illustrious past.
Finally, from the port of Leixões, you will visit Porto. The capital of Portugal's northern region, this "city of granite" is renowned for its wine but also for its remarkable historic centre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For one day, the presence on board of Jean Emmanuel Sauvée, CEO and Founder of PONANT, and Erik Orsenna, economist, writer and member of the Académie Française, who will give a conference. For the entire cruise, the presence on board of Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, a former minister, and Christine Clerc, journalist.
Inaugural cruise: be the first to embark aboard the latest addition to the PONANT fleet: Le Champlain.
A brand-new cruise along the Atlantic coast of three countries: France, Spain and Portugal.
UNESCO World Heritage sites: the old town of Santiago de Compostela (from Vigo) and the historic centre of Porto (from Leixões).
Two brand-new ports of call on the Atlantic coast: Pasajes (San Sebastián) and Vigo.
From Dinard, possibility of visiting the Route du Rhum multihull racing yacht village, in Saint-Malo.
From San Sebastián, opportunity to visit the Balenciaga Museum in Getaria and the town of Biarritz.
Excursion included in Galicia to discover Santiago de Compostela.
(*)Except in the event of force majeure.
As the second ship in a new series that remains true to the Ponant spirit, Le Champlain will embody the unique atmosphere that is the cruise line's hallmark: a subtle blend of refinement, intimacy and comfort.
A treasure of the Côte Fleurie, Honfleur is located on the edge of la Crique de Rouen in Normandy. You will no doubt admire the historical ships moored in its old port. With its tall, slate-covered houses, the quays provide a great setting for a very nice walk. In the streets behind the harbour, you will see many timber houses. These picturesque places were the cradle of several pre-impressionist painters. You can see their works in the Eugène Boudin museum. Exhibited works represent scenes of medieval streets and the coastline as it used to be, as illustrated by the Butin beach and its lush green hillsides.
26 October 2018 – Dinard
A renowned seaside resort on the Emerald Coast, Dinard still retains all the charm of the Belle Époque. Chic and elegant, the city nicknamed the "Nice of the North" is home to splendid buildings, small streets that are pleasant to stroll along, and a wild and jagged coastline. On its magnificent Promenade du Clair-de-Lune, you'll discover spectacular panoramas as well as surprising Mediterranean-type vegetation. Be sure to visit the Port-Breton Park and make the most of the Plage de l'Écluse too: located near the Palais des Arts et du Festival venue and famous for its blue-and-white striped canvas tents, this beach has magnificent views over Saint-Malo.
See excursion
27 October 2018 – At sea
28 October 2018 – Pasajes – San Sebastián
Arrival 28/10/2018 mid morning. Departure 28/10/2018 evening.
On the Spanish Basque coast, discover Pasaia, a picturesque little town nestling in the hollow of verdant mountains, on the shores of the bay. The town is home to buildings with historical significance, such as the Arizabalo Palace, a baroque-style edifice dating from the 17th century, the Santo Christo de Bonanza Basilica and the house where the French writer Victor Hugo stayed. The coastal footpath offers magnificent views over the sea and goes all the way to San Sebastián. Nicknamed the "Pearl of Cantabria" because of its shell-shaped bay, this renowned seaside resort in the Bay of Biscay combines an idyllic natural setting with the charm of the Belle Époque.
30 October 2018 – Vigo – Santiago de Compostela
Arrival 30/10/2018 early morning. Departure 30/10/2018 evening.
Nestling on the Atlantic coast, in the south of Galicia, the former fishing port of Vigo is now the region's largest municipality. Its old town, more commonly known as O Berbés, will unveil its many historical monuments and the unusual architectural style of its homes. Off the coast, the Cíes Islands, declared a Nature Reserve and located in the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park, offer truly splendid landscapes and exceptional biodiversity. Further north, make sure you visit Santiago de Compostela, which welcomes many pilgrims from all over the world every year. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its historical centre has significant architectural heritage.
31 October 2018 – Leixões - Porto
Arrival 31/10/2018 early morning. Departure 31/10/2018 early afternoon.
Located at the mouth of the Douro River, the port of Leixões lies less than 10 kilometres from Porto. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the historic centre of Porto is worth a visit for its famous Ribeira district, the metallic silhouette of the Dom-Luis bridge looming over its ancient houses, its richly decorated Baroque churches and its national Soares dos Reis museum. The São Bento station is also interesting for its typically Portuguese decoration, using Azulejos, blue square ceramic tiles decorated with geometric patterns or figurative scenes.
Portugal's capital city located on the banks of the Tagus, only a few kilometres from the Atlantic coast, is a city of exceptionally rich cultural diversity. At the mouth of the river harbour, impose two UNESCO World Heritage monuments, Jeronimos monastery and Belem tower. The Alfama hillside is also worth visiting: known for its fado bars and its Moorish streets, this district is the oldest one of the city and one of the most typical. Not far from there, Chiado's elegant streets are home to big fashion labels and are an invitation to a bit of of luxury shopping.
Erik Orsenna is an economist by training. He was cultural advisor to former President François Mitterrand and sat on the Conseil d'État (State Council).
Winner of the Goncourt Prize for L'exposition coloniale in 1988 (Seuil), he has published a dozen novels, including Mali, ô Mali (Stock, 2014) and L'origine de nos amours (Stock, 2016). He is also author of several biographies including La vie, la mort, la vie - Louis Pasteur, 1822-1895 (Fayard, 2015) and La Fontaine : Une école buissonnière (Stock, 2017).
For more than a decade, Erik Orsenna has been exploring the many facets of globalisation through his works on cotton, water and paper. In 2017, he published his 4th "little handbook on globalisation", Géopolitique du moustique (Fayard).
Actively engaged in promoting a circular economy and sustainable development and author of L'Avenir de l'eau (Stock, 2008), he chairs an international think-tank on the future of our great rivers, IAGF (Initiatives pour l'Avenir des Grands Fleuves) launched on the initiative of the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône.
Passionate about entrepreneurship, Erik Orsenna supports two forward-thinking companies: Carbios (organic recycling of plastics) and Greenflex (energy efficiency).
Spoken language: French
Photo credit: Bernard Matussière
Bernard Antony
Bernard Antony, whose business operates in Vieux-Ferrette (Alsace), is one of the most renowned cheese ripeners in the world. His Alsace cellar plays host to a high-end international clientele. Prince Albert of Monaco and Archduke Otto of Austria have both been known to visit his boutique. Today, nineteen 3-star Michelin restaurants entrust Antony with their cheese board selection. Prominent French chefs from Alain Ducasse to Pierre Gagnaire are among those keen to access these heavenly cheeses, as are the major vineyards which use the services of this master cheese ripener in Vieux-Ferrette.
Photo credit: Marcel Ehrhard
Following her academic studies at the French Institute of Political Science and the Louvre Institute, Christine Clerc became a journalist for l'Express under the helm of Françoise Giroud (1971). She continued her career as a senior reporter and columnist for the weekly newspaper Le Point. She then worked as a regular columnist for various national publications such as Le Figaro, Figaro Magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, Marianne — as well as for the regional press (Télégramme de Brest and Midi Libre).
She also produced special portraits of great artists (such as Yves Saint Laurent, Paul Delvaux, Charlotte Perriand, Lorin Maazel) for Elle magazine, the Reader's Digest and Connaissance des Arts.
Christine has been also a radio commentator for RMC and RTL and a member of Europe1's Press Club. She was the first woman awarded the prestigious Prix Albert Londres (the French equivalent of the Pulitzer prize), with her first novel Le Bonheur d'être Français (1982) — an account of interviews throughout the country, meeting the famous and the anonymous to capture the essence of being French.
Christine also published around 20 other novels: La Guerre de Mitterrand; Journal intime de Jacques Chirac; Les de Gaulle, une famille française; Tigres et Tigresses - Histoire intime des couples présidentiels sous la Ve République; De Gaulle-Malraux, une histoire d'amour; Les Conquérantes; « Tout est fichu ! » Les coups de blues du Général and in 2016 Victor Hugo amoureux. She contributed to various TV documentaries.
She was bestowed as a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) and Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of of Honour). She is the president of the "Prix d'Aujourd'hui" award, which nominates the best historical or philosophic publication of the year.
Photo credit: Free copyright
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres is graduated in economic sciences from Sciences po Paris, and is a former student of the National School of Administration (ENA, "Voltaire" class).
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres first devoted his career to serving the French state: thus he joined the prefectural administration, then he became member of the Council of State before working in François Leotard's cabinet in the Ministry of Culture and then in the Ministry of National Defence.
Member of Parliament (deputy for Indre-et-Loire) in 1997 and re-elected in 2002, he was the same year appointed European Affairs Minister. From 2004 to 2007, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres was France's Minister of Culture and Communication under Jacques Chirac's Presidency, in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's and Dominique de Villepin's governments.
During the French Presidency of the European Union, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres was Ambassador in charge of the cultural programme. Then he became Alexandre Allard's counsellor (Groupe Allard) in charge of strategy, development, and culture from 2009 to 2011 (La Royale Project for the Hôtel de la Marine, the French Government's 18th century landmark building, and the launching of the Architecture d'Aujourd'hui review).
He has also been Chairman of the Board of the Tourist Minister Development agency, ATOUT France, from 2009 to 2012.
In January 2012, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres decided to create his own consulting firm: RDDV Partner. Besides he is a member of the managing board of Dior and of the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation.
Languages spoken: French, English
Photo credit: ARR
01/11/2018 – Panoramic tour of Lisbon
Travel with peace of mind as PONANT organises your day of disembarkation.
Disembarkation. Meet and greet your local representative.
You will depart the port by coach for a tour which will give you a little taste of Lisbon. You will pass through the famous Black Horse Square rebuilt after the earthquake of 1755 and the 24th July Avenue, one of Lisbon longest avenue and home of the Orient Museum. You will continue to Belem, also known as the Discoveries quarter due to all its 16th-century monuments. You will pass by the Coach Museum, the magnificent Jeronimos Monastery and the Belém Tower (Torre de Belém), one of the most emblematic monument of Portugal with its Venetian balconies and turreted towers, and once departure place of the Portuguese vessels. At the end, a stop will be made at the Monument of Discoveries.
Lunch will take place in a Fado House.
Classified as World Heritage by Unesco, Fado represents the soul of Portuguese culture. It is sung by both men and women and there are two types of Fado; the Lisbon Fado and the Coimbra Fado. You can enjoy a live performance whilst having lunch.
You will be transferred by coach to the Lisbon Airport, in time for check-in of the PONANT selected flight.
Lunch with beverage package (mineral water + 1 soft drink or 1 local beer or 1 glass of white or red wine + 1 coffee or tea).
Duration of the visits are given as a guide only. The order of the visits may be reversed. For the times of your PONANT flight, please contact your travel agent; they are also shown on your electronic ticket included in your travel documents.
25/10/2018 – Transfer by coach from Paris CDG airport (Terminal 2) to the port of Honfleur
Travel with peace of mind as PONANT organizes your transfer between CDG Airport and the port of embarkation.
Paris CDG Airport (Terminal 2F) / Honfleur
9h30 Please meet our local representative at Paris CDG Airport – Terminal 2F.
The exact meeting point is given at the Information desk located in front of Sheraton Hotel (level 4), close to the TGV Station.
Look for PONANT sign.
10h00 Your deluxe coach departs for the port of Honfleur.
En route to Honfleur, a 30-minute comfort stop is scheduled half-way.
13h00 Estimated arrival time in Honfleur for your embarkation and lunch onboard.
Around 15h00 Installation in your cabin.
A lunch onboard your ship.
Group transfer by deluxe coach from Paris CDG Airport (Terminal 2) to the port of Honfleur.
Services of a local English-speaking hostess at the airport and during the transfer.
Tips for the driver and the hostess.
Duration of the transfer is given as a guide only. A minimum of 20 participants is required.
25/10/2018 – Transfer by coach from Paris the Port of Honfleur
Travel with peace of mind as PONANT organizes your transfer between Paris and your port of embarkation.
Fondation Louis Vuitton (8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, 75116 Paris) / Honfleur
9h45 Please meet our local representative at Foundation Louis Vuitton (8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, 75116 Paris).
Group transfer by deluxe coach from Paris Porte Maillot to the port of Honfleur.
Services of a local English-speaking hostess at Foundation Louis Vuitton and during the transfer.
01/11/2018 – Flight To Paris (Economic Class) + Panoramic tour of Lisbon (Post)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Remove Suction Swab and attach to suction line.
Clean teeth and oral cavity for approximately 1 minute.
To suction, place thumb over port.
Repeat cleaning with other Suction Swab as needed.
To clear tubing, rinse with sterile saline or appropriate solution.
Use up to 4 times daily, or as directed by a dentist or doctor.
Children under 12 years of age: supervise use.
Use a bite block when performing oral care on patients with altered levels of consciousness or those who cannot comprehend commands.
Ensure foam is intact after use. If not, remove any particles from oral cavity.


Nature's power bar is packed with potassium and carbohydrates! They are great for supporting nerve and muscle function. Bananas have also been linked to building stronger bones and a sharper mind.
Oats are a great snack, especially if you want to train longer and harder. They are filled with fiber and gradually release carbohydrates, which keeps your energy levels consistent. They are also a great source of Vitamin B, which converts carbohydrates to energy.
If you want something that is easily digestible and filled with simple carbohydrates, this is the snack for you! Peaches, apricots, pineapple, raisins, cranberries, and apples are all great to snack on.
Eating a single slice of whole grain bread is a great way to intake carbohydrates. If you want to add some protein, pair it with a hard boiled egg or low-fat turkey.
The perfect combo! Fruit is filled with carbohydrates, while greek yogurt is a great source of protein. The carbs breakdown quickly and become fuel for your workout, while the protein lasts longer and helps prevent muscle damage.
Nuts have a high fat content. They provide protein and calories that are required for gaining muscle mass. With that being said, this is not a snack you want if you are trying to lose weight. When buying store bought trail mix, try and find it without chocolate or yogurt covered nuts.
It's a good idea to eat 30-90 minutes before your workout to reduce bloating. If you're eating a light snack, eat 30 minutes before. If you're wanting to eat a larger meal, do so 90 minutes before.


Developers will begin building a lithium battery project in Morowali, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, on Jan. 11. The $4 billion project involves investors from South Korea, Japan and China, Coordinating Maritime Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told reporters, without naming the companies involved or providing further details on the project.
"Looking at its resources, Indonesia will become the main player in lithium batteries," Pandjaitan told reporters, referring to forecasts for surging demand for batteries for electric vehicles. Major nickel producers have already been eyeing Indonesia's large nickel laterite ore reserves – prized for nickel pig iron used in stainless steel production – for use in battery materials. But nickel is also a vital ingredient for the lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles, where demand is set to accelerate over coming years.
The Morowali site where the proposed battery plant would be located currently has 20 nickel ore processing facilities that feed 1.5 million tonnes of nickel pig iron a year into a 3-million tonne-per-year stainless steel mill. Chinese battery firm GEM Co Ltd said in late September that it was teaming up with four companies to invest a total of $700 million in a project to produce battery-grade nickel chemicals in Morowali.
That project would be undertaken alongside units of top Chinese lithium battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) and Chinese stainless steel-maker Tsingshan Holding Group.


This article has been republished from materials provided by the California Institute of Technology. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.


text:
Bronze (Matthew Bronson) talks working on Netflix's Inside Job theme, BBRC and his production career
By Katie Lovatt December 15, 2021 January 2nd, 2022 Features, Interviews, News
Home » Bronze (Matthew Bronson) talks working on Netflix's Inside Job theme, BBRC and his production career
Dom sits down and talks to producer Bronze all about his experiences from working on the Netflix original Inside Job, BBRC and his production and solo career.
The definition of success is different for everyone, and many people put a lot of pressure on themselves to be 'successful' in life; Bronze goes on to explain what success means to him as an artist and as a person.
"I'm still trying to find myself in my art, which isn't necessarily a struggle it's a journey of finding what your inner joy is, just to be able to be yourself on these records and give the world something that feels more like you. If I were to give any advice to these young people on the come up, it might be cliché but to quote Rick Rubin "the best records are the records that don't fit" I always went about making music in a very unorthodox way, I finally concluded that this is me, this is how I sound, I'm starting to come into my own and it took a long time."
Bronze expresses how the new projects he is working on pushes himself more in new ways, different from his production work and projects with BBRC.
"It started when I thought I don't have to fit in this box anymore, that's just making music or my day job as a creative director or a designer artist, I can lean more into having a voice musically as a solo artist not just being a rapper in a group. I started to feel like I can do this, and I can make a go of it on my own, with my own decisions behind my own music."
Reflecting on his career and experiences Bronze expresses some of the biggest lessons he has learnt over the years and what advice he would give his younger self.
"I think it would probably be don't overthink anything, I think the idea of overproducing and just like stewing in your own juices too long is detrimental to any artists. If it feels good at that moment the world at some moment should know what that feels like to you and give them the opportunity if its something they want to tune into, and I think I learnt that way late."
Being a creative director has a lot of transferable skills with the other work Bronze does and creates, subconsciously they all link with each other.
"I don't think I think about it consciously, it all bleeds into the way I, not just produce music but maybe the way I present music. I'm really not good at promoting myself, I'm not a marketing genius that's not what I do, I'm super creative I come up with 100's of concepts, everyday I'm just clicking through things. I think it works a lot for me because I'm six steps ahead in my head, that those transferable skills I can already see into my own future, it's all about what feels right. It was my day job for a long time, and it still is but not just as a creative director but as a designer and managing Rob and a few other artists, helping with their brands."
In this type of industry and career there are many time scales and deadlines, Bronze speaks about his experiences with this working on Netflix's Inside Job and working on 'Pa$$ The Time'.
"In this situation I'm fortunate because Shion [Takeuchi] who is the creator and head writer of the show and Jeff who is the art director are close friends of mine, they're like family. So, I didn't have the pressure it was like, so this is how it happened I put out a free tape with my group I think in 2017/2018 and we ended up adding to it and having a formal release in 2019, we decided to put it on streaming platforms and the last song on the tape was this solo song of mine and it was an early version of pass the time. My LA squad like Jeff, Shion, Alex [Hirsch] all these guys, creators of Inside Job before putting that project together three-dimensionally, that song became their crew anthem.
We'd go on road trips, that was the song! It was Shion that was like this has got to be my theme song, quite literally, for this show it just feels right. I was fortunate there was no pressure the song was basically done all I had to do was kind of remix it and remaster it a little bit. I really didn't have to change anything apart from speeding some things up a little bit, it was already what I had created, they just wanted the Bronze sound."
With working with different people who have supported Bronze, especially the BBRC, Bronze expresses how grateful he is and how important having that collective and support is.
"It starts with my formative years as a teenager, finding my people. People who were like-minded and didn't judge me and we just went at it. I fell into creative direction because it was just a natural skill that the group needed. I'm grateful that they even return my calls, even just in the last 5 years of diving into TV and me and Jeff doing television together and pitching it to networks and finding myself in a different way. Personally, I thrive off collaborative experiences."
The tips and advice Bronze has for young people wanting to follow the path into production and that mistakes do happen along the way.
"You've got to be yourself; I think I found that out too late in my career, I would've preferred to of figured that out 10 or 15 years ago. You've just got to be yourself and not overthink anything. As coming out as a solo artist, sometimes you've just got to trust yourself and your gut-instinct. At some point you've got to realise you've got to be who you got to be. You have to make mistakes to learn from them."
Anything to promote?
"I'll start with my core, personal brand which is just Bronze. Then there's pass the time and flying cars just came out on Friday, it's a digital release and its streaming everywhere and I would start there because it gives people a good idea of what's happening right now. Less than a month ago I put out a full-length project with my group BBRC as a collaborative project [with Plutonic Lab] and that's called 'SHWING'.
I'm just out here trying to have fun and I'm so grateful for the support, don't think twice about hitting me up, I'm not somebody who looks the other way, I'll engage. So, if anybody wants to holler at me, I'm approachable."
Check out the following links to support Bronze:
Bronze (fan links)
https://linktr.ee/builtbybronze
pa$$ the time (ft. BBRC)
https://ad.idmusic.co/passthetime
Produced by Bronze
FLYING CAR (ft. BBRC)
https://idm.fm/FLYINGCAR
SHWING
(BBRC & Plutonic Lab)
https://ad.idmusic.co/SHWING
Produced by Plutonic Lab & Bronze
Rob GF, Gabagool Gang
P.Y.P.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc9AKMeEorY
Directed by Matthew 'Bronze' Bronson & Nick Genova
https://idm.fm/robgfpyp
Produced by Book & Bronze
Words: Katie Lovatt / Original Interview: Dom Smith
Listen to the full interview below:
Book & Bronze Notes to SelfBronzeBronze musicFlying CarJeffrey ThomsponMatthew Bronson BronzeOne BBRC Shwingpa$$ the timepass the timeRob gfShion Takeuchi
Venom Prison's Ash Gray on the passion behind 'Erebos', favourite games and more


text:
Beat Saber developer Beat Games acquired by Facebook
Johnny Cullen
Oculus hints it's open to acquiring more developers, but is this the start of a build to a bigger first-party foundation? We ask analysts for their thoughts.
Beat Games, the Czech Republic-based developer responsible for the VR breakout hit Beat Saber, has been acquired by Facebook, its been announced.
Facebook-owned VR platform Oculus announced the buyout in a post on its website by content director Mike Verdu, who said the studio will continue to operate "as an independently operated studio in Prague" as well as maintaining "what the community has come to love" of the game across many platforms, including PlayStation VR. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
"Beat Games' accomplishments are already impressive, but Facebook and the Beat Games team know that there is so much more that can be done across VR, games, and music," said Verdu. "They have only scratched the surface with Beat Saber in terms of social features, new modes, music, and more. We are thrilled to join forces to see where this talented team takes VR gaming in the future.
"Beat Saber is a perfect example of why VR is so exciting—VR reimagines old genres and invents new ones. The team at Beat Games made a leap forward in innovation and design with the stellar blend of game mechanics and music in Beat Saber, and yet we know that they, along with so many other devs, are just getting started."
In a FAQ in the same pos,t when answering the question on whether to expect more acquisitions, without explicitly stating as such, Verdu said Oculus was "exploring many ways to accelerate VR," adding 2020 will be "an incredible one of VR game launches and announcements." That doesn't exactly sound like a no, does it?
Either way, this is the biggest acquisition in the VR space since Google bought Job Simulator developer Owlchemy Labs back in May 2017. In fact, it could be argued it's bigger than even that deal considering how much of an impact Beat Saber has had in the VR space with the game appearing in the mainstream more than any other VR game to date. Part of the reason for Beat Saber's mainstream appeal comes from its easy pick-up-and-play style.
"Content for VR will be key in driving adoption of the technology. Beat Saber is a good entry level game for VR, allowing anyone to pick up and play it easily, without needing to learn an intricate control scheme," Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad told GameDaily. "With Oculus/Facebook having developers onboard that can create these entry level experiences, it can help more people understand how VR can work in gaming and offer a compelling reason for more people to try VR gaming."
"It's a good acquisition and I think reflects growing confidence in the direction of Facebook's VR business now that it is releasing standalone headsets and has a primary focus on games content," IHS Markit's Piers Harding-Rolls added to GameDaily. "I can see a positive roadmap for Beat Games in the VR rhythm action space and I would expect significantly more to come from the Beat Saber franchise."
Could the purchase of Beat Games by Facebook mark the start of a foundation to build upon for a lineup of first-party studios for Oculus not too dissimilar to what Sony and Microsoft has going for it? Harding-Rolls said the deal "reflects a more focused strategy centred on games content" on Oculus' part.
"More generally, big internet, tech and media companies involved in games are all on the lookout for acquisition opportunities as they are aware that they need exclusive content to drive adoption of their products and services," he continued.
"New market entrants and new storefronts, be it Oculus' store, Google Stadia or Epic Games Store, are all eager to secure exclusive content and this is going to drive up the value of third-party content. Having a first-party capability is pretty essential moving forward."
Ahmad noted the acquisition "will allow Oculus to further refine its content offering in the VR gaming space," although mentioned there were still "a number of barriers to entry for VR gaming, and whilst more developers working on VR games can solve the content issue, there are still multiple barriers such as price, usability and quality that also need to be addressed before VR gaming can reach a mass market audience."
Despite recent comments from Xbox boss Phil Spencer that Microsoft would not be focusing on VR for the next Xbox, it feels like we're on the precipice of VR gaining bigger traction and appeal as a platform. That's not only thanks to the success of Beat Saber, but also thanks to the barrier to entry dropping with each passing month, the success of the Oculus Quest, and the upcoming launch of Half-Life: Alyx in March. Moreover, PSVR sales are already approaching 5 million to date, and with backwards compatibilty planned with next year's PlayStation 5, PSVR momentum is likely to continue.
Buying Beat Games is a shrewd move by Facebook as it seeks to reach 1 billion people in VR. Facebook may have gotten a bargain, too, as Harding-Rolls pointed out that "valuations now [are expected] to be lower than at the height of the VR hype cycle back in 2015/2016." Beat Saber is the epitome of VR done right, and it's a solid foundation for Facebook to build upon.
Johnny Cullen is a freelance writer and author from Derry, Northern Ireland who has written for Eurogamer, VG247, Official PlayStation Magazine UK, and so many more since July 2009. Come @ him about The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid 3, Jonsi and Alex, or the Four Horsewomen of WWE on Twitter @JohnnyCullen.


The Arrowstar Bronze Niche Urn is specifically designed to fit in an urn niche offered by churches, columbariums, and some cemeteries. The Arrowstar Urn is made of sheet bronze in a cube shape and is polished to a bright finish. This urn is preferred by families who are looking for the permanence of bronze and the compact, clean lines of this design.
This bronze cube urn is accessed from the bottom. Once the ashes have been placed inside, the Arrowstar Bronze Niche Urn closes with a permanent snap-lock feature. At 210 cubic inches, this urn can hold the ashes of a person who weighed 210 lbs. or less prior to cremation.
For personalization, a brass plate is recommended which can be engraved and affixed to the urn wherever you prefer.


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Home » Football » Chris Kirchner Withdraws Bid to Buy Championship club Derby County
Chris Kirchner Withdraws Bid to Buy Championship club Derby County
American businessman Chris Kirchner withdrew his bid to buy Championship club Derby County who sit bottom of the league and are 18 points from safety. The announcement came both from Kirchner, as well as the club.
"It is with real sadness that I can confirm I am withdrawing from the process to buy Derby County Football Club," Kirchner said in a statement via social media. "First and foremost, I would like to apologize to the fans. As you know, I've been in talks with the administrators for about two months. Two weeks ago, I made a formal offer to buy the club. I believe I presented a very detailed, generous and ambitious long-term sustainable business plan. It included purchasing the stadium, future funding and maintaining the academy's status. We improved that offer further today. I wanted to agree a deal that I thought was in the best interests of all parties but, unfortunately, the last 24 hours has proven that just isn't possible."
An administrator from the club said there will be an upcoming announcement of a bidder the club preferred to go with. That 'preference' ultimately pushed Kirchner to back out.
"So it is with deep regret that I must now stand aside and let the administrators pursue their own course," Kirchner said.
Derby County is currently managed by former Manchester United legend, Wayne Rooney.
Rooney had already put his stamp of approval on Kirchner back in October.
"I think it is a real positive," Rooney said then. "As I have said before there are quite a few people or a few groups interested in the club.He [Chris Kirchner] was at the game last week. I spent a bit of time with him, so he has got some really good ideas and as long as everything is right for the club I can see it being a real positive."
"We expect to name preferred bidder status imminently," Quantuma, Derby's administrators, said. "We repeat that we are moving as quickly as possible to achieve a sale of the club."
Derby County, 24th in Championship, are back in action on Monday, 27 November, against West Brom.


This tutorial will take you through all the stages involved in creating a simple learning agent that can interact with a small simulated world that we've provided. We assume some familiarity with Python programming and the GLib framework, but all PSchema related concepts will be introduced from scratch.
To start off with we create a very simple skeleton of an application that initialises the PSchema library and sets up a GTK window which we'll use later for showing a few buttons. Because GTK and PSchema are both based around GLib they can share the same main loop, however it is not necessary to make use of GTK when writing the control software, instead a simple GLib main loop can be created without the need for GTK. Later on we'll also be communicating with the simulator over a socket connection.
Note that when we create our schema memory object instantiate it by running PSchema.Memory.new() rather than the more traditional PSchema.Memory(), this is a product of the way the dynamic bindings are created. It is important to remember this difference as using simply PSchema.Memory() will work, in that it will instantiate a Memory object, but it won't run that class's initialisation code which can result in unexpected behaviour later on.
First can set up our connection to the simulator in our general initialisation code.
This create our new observation based on the abstract Observation class and sets up a few properties for us to use later.
Note that when overriding methods from the Observation class (or any other PSchema class) it is necessary to prepend their method name with do_.
These methods are also made use of by the generaliser for creating new generalised values and for instantiating existing generalised values at execution/planning time.
This completes the MyObjectObservation class, however to fully represent the information we get back about the world we'll need two other Observation types, MyTouchObservation and MyHoldingObservation. Using MyObjectObservation as an example try writing these two Observations. MyTouchObservation should have one boolean property "touching" and MyHoldingObservation should have one string property "object". If you have difficulty implementing these you can find a reference implementation in the doc/tutorial/python/controller/ directory.
With our new Observation classes we can now create world states representing the robot's current view of the world. First we need to include our new observations in our controller.
We already have a stub of a method for receiving sensor data, so we can expand this to process the data we're being sent from the simulator.
The only main difference from the Observation classes that deserves additional extra attention is the introduction of signals. Rather than directly implementing the code used to make our agent carry out these action within our Action class we send a signal back to the controller software. This means that our action types can be portable across many different agents, all with different controllers. We'll look at this in more detail when we connect to the signal to the move() function within our main Controller.py file.
It will now be necessary for you to create a couple of additional Action classes based on this; MyGraspAction and MyReleaseAction. Again if you have difficulties there are reference implementations in doc/tutorial/python/controller/.
The final version of the controller developed throughout this tutorial can be found in the doc/tutorial/python/controller/ directory, however it is recommended that you construct the controller yourself whilst following the tutorial so that each concept can be studied in isolation and then built upon.


Adoption UK responds to House of Commons Science & Technology Committee's inquiry into Adverse Childhood Experiences. Download the full response below.
Adoption UK consultation response form.
Our statement on the Government's announcement on support packages .
Adoption UK conducts survey for Department for Education on adopters' experiences of accessing adoption support.
The Government announces a £19.3 million fund for adoption support.
The Government announced that the Pupil Premium initiative is to be extended to include adopted children.
An inspection of local areas' effectiveness in identifying and meeting the needs of disabled children and young people and those who have special educational needs.


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Woodlawn High School students hold planting and cooking demos
Students show off new greenhouse and urban farm
Adrian Castellano
What once was an open lot and old soccer field is now Woodlawn High School's brand new outdoor learning area. Students showed off their new urban farm and greenhouse Thursday. The students displayed the early results of their hard work by holding cooking and planting demos inside the school's two-acre facility. They prepared a salad with fresh ingredients and planted a flower bed.Jones Valley Teaching Farm helped build the greenhouse and urban farm. The structure, which was built in December, gives students a hands-on experience to supplement coursework. "Just to see all these talents come out in the students that you would never see in the classroom, and giving them the opportunity here that they would not have anywhere else, has been really amazing for me to see," says Woodlawn High teacher Scotty Feltman. The students' work is not done just yet. Woodlawn High's next goal is to plant a fruit tree orchard next to the greenhouse.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala —
What once was an open lot and old soccer field is now Woodlawn High School's brand new outdoor learning area. Students showed off their new urban farm and greenhouse Thursday.
The students displayed the early results of their hard work by holding cooking and planting demos inside the school's two-acre facility. They prepared a salad with fresh ingredients and planted a flower bed.
Woodlawn High shows off urban farm and greenhouse
Jones Valley Teaching Farm helped build the greenhouse and urban farm. The structure, which was built in December, gives students a hands-on experience to supplement coursework.
"Just to see all these talents come out in the students that you would never see in the classroom, and giving them the opportunity here that they would not have anywhere else, has been really amazing for me to see," says Woodlawn High teacher Scotty Feltman.
The students' work is not done just yet. Woodlawn High's next goal is to plant a fruit tree orchard next to the greenhouse.


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Q: Sugestão de palavras Ao digitar algo no Visual Studio Code, ele sempre vai sugerindo palavras de acordo com as já encontradas naquele documento.
Ha alguma forma de, em vez de o VS analisar apenas o doc em foco, observar também as palavras em outros documentos que estão abertos, nas outras abas? para assim sugerir palavras em comum entre todos os arquivos abertos?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Even when the Orlando Magic aren't playing well offensively, their play on the other end is giving them a chance to win.
They'll aim for a seventh victory in 10 games Saturday night against the visiting Sacramento Kings.
The Magic (6-6) won 104-101 in overtime against Minnesota on Wednesday despite shooting 37.3 percent. They held the Timberwolves to 41 second-half points to force the extra period after trailing by 14 at halftime.
They've shot 39.1 percent or worse in three victories but hold opponents to 42.3 to rank among the league leaders.
Evan Fournier put Orlando ahead with a 3-pointer with 3.1 seconds left in overtime and was 5 of 7 from beyond the arc with 26 points. Fournier is averaging 19.4 points compared to 12.0 in 2014-15, the seventh-largest increase in the NBA this season.
Elfrid Payton added 24 points and six rebounds while fellow starters Victor Oladipo and Nikola Vucevic struggled. Oladipo was 0 for 6 with one point in 20 minutes after missing two games with a concussion, and Vucevic had eight points on 4-for-13 shooting.
Oladipo played seven minutes after halftime while Vucevic didn't see the floor at all over the final 29 minutes.
"I'm not trying to send messages," coach Scott Skiles said. "I mean, I get a fairly sizable check every two weeks to win games. That's what I'm trying to do. I felt like we got some good energy out of (backups)."
Orlando's bench also struggled, though, going 12 of 36 from the floor.
The Kings (4-9) showed improvement with a three-game winning streak but have since dropped back-to-back games at Atlanta and Miami.
DeMarcus Cousins will be back after serving a one-game suspension in Thursday's 116-109 loss to the Heat after his forearm shot to the head of Atlanta's Al Horford in Wednesday's defeat.
Sacramento fell to 0-5 without its All-Star big man, who is averaging 27.5 points and 11.1 rebounds. Rudy Gay also didn't return after suffering a shoulder injury on a drive to the basket in the third quarter, though he's expected to play.
"Our two superstars were out but guys stepped up when needed," Rajon Rondo said. "We were able to make a run at it but we weren't able to continue to get enough stops."
Rondo had 18 assists, 14 points and nine rebounds, narrowly missing a fifth triple-double in seven games.
"He's playing like Rondo," Miami's Dwyane Wade said. "As a fan of the game, I'm just happy to see him healthy and when he's healthy he's one of the top point guards in this league. He's back to proving that."
The Kings continue this five-game trip having gone 0-4 on the road after not taking much advantage of an early home-heavy schedule.
Orlando shot 53.6 percent while winning both of last season's meetings. Oladipo played one of his best games as a pro in a 119-114 victory March 6, scoring 32 on 14-of-24 shooting with 10 assists.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) At times during his career, frustration has gotten the best of Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins.
He did the frustrating against the Orlando Magic.
Cousins had 29 points and 12 rebounds as the Kings held off the Magic 97-91 on Saturday night.
It was just the latest complete performance for Cousins, who has recorded four straight games with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds. He also went 13 for 15 from the free throw line and had six assists.
"I don't think I was as aggressive as I usually am, but that's just kind of how the game went," Cousins said. "I didn't really have to be as aggressive, we kept moving the ball."
He was back in the lineup after serving a one-game suspension for hitting Atlanta's Al Horford with a forearm to the head on Wednesday.
Cousins carried the offensive load for the Kings in the first half, scoring 15 points. Sacramento entered the night averaging nearly 104 points per game, but recovered from shooting just 37 percent from the field in the opening 24 minutes.
Rajon Rondo added 13 points, nine assists and seven rebounds for Sacramento, which had lost two in a row. Marco Belinelli chipped in 13 points off the bench.
Trailing 65-61, the Kings outscored the Magic 22-2 in the final 5:03 of the third quarter to take an 83-67 lead into the fourth. Sacramento led by as many as 16 points in the final period.
Orlando surged within 87-80 in the fourth, but after Evan Fournier was called for a technical for arguing an offensive foul, the Kings got the lead back up to double digits.
"We came apart when the ball was thrown up tonight," Magic coach Skiles said. "We just couldn't find a way to stabilize ourselves."
Tobias Harris led the Magic with 24 points. Fournier added 17.
The Magic were 1 for 8 from the field with five turnovers during Sacramento's third-quarter spurt. Those five turnovers led to eight Kings points. Orlando also had just eight free throw attempts for the game, compared to 31 for Sacramento.
After being benched in the second half of the Magic's win over Minnesota on Wednesday, center Nik Vucevic started on Saturday and appeared more engaged on both ends of the floor.
He finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds, but again sat the entire fourth quarter as the Magic tried to get back into the game.
TIP-INS: The Kings were 28 of 31 from the free throw line. ... Sacramento's bench outscored the Magic's 36-21. ...Vucevic recorded his fourth double-double of the season. ...The Magic were called for three technical fouls, including one on Skiles.
Despite reportedly having issues at times with Cousins since taking over as Sacramento's coach, George Karl scoffed at the notion that he is tough to coach. "Cous is a frustrated guy who wants to win," Karl said. "Sometimes it gets to him maybe in a negative way, but he cares, he wants to win and he lashes out sometimes in maybe a disruptive way. But he's doing it because he wants to win."
One of the goals Skiles set for his team this season was to see it to improve on an opponent field goal percentage that ranked 28th in the league last season. It's early, but entering Saturday the Magic were on track, allowing opponents to shoot just 42.3 percent this season. That ranked fourth among NBA teams.
Kings: Visit Charlotte on Monday.
Magic: At Cavaliers on Monday.


Just a few thoughts...hopefully my own.
1. For whatever reason, it is necessary for people to justify/understand/contextualize/ "rein in" art.
2. After these things occur, or at least the process has begun, this justified/understood/contextualized/ "reined in" art is packaged for a mass consumption and defined as art that is accessible, unchallenging, and main stream.
3. Other art is labeled as follows: difficult; abstract; challenging; elite; outsider and spun in such as a way as to make any of that art impossible for the general public to even understand.
4. Art is divided into two and leads a double life, one of mainstream access (group A) and one of obscure inaccessibility (group B).
5. This second life is where art is allowed to blossom and fulfill a variety of goals that people set out for through aesthetic texts, etc. Movements and challenges filter through group B continually, creating tension and thus a counter-public.
6. Any time art of the second life becomes too popular, it becomes part of the first life at which point it begins the whole process of becoming contextualized for mass consumption.
7. The part that is contextualized remains in the first part while anything that is impossible to "rein in" goes back to being part of group B.


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Q: Aurelia router, html only views, add some javascript? I have a child router in one of my views. This child router is used to allow people to navigate to different subviews. Now these subviews do not require any logic so using just a .html view with no js viewmodel works find. The this is that some of these subviews are quite long and if you navigate from one to the next then the scroll position stays at the same spot as in the previous page.
configureRouter(config, router) {

  config.map([
    { route: '', name: 'main', moduleId: 'main_view', nav: false, title: 'Main' },
    { route: 'sub_view_1', name: 'p1', moduleId: 'sub_view_1.html', nav: true },
    { route: 'sub_view_2', name: 'p1', moduleId: 'sub_view_2.html', nav: true },
    { route: 'sub_view_3', name: 'p2', moduleId: 'sub_view_3.html', nav: true },
    { route: 'sub_view_4', name: 'p3', moduleId: 'sub_view_4.html', nav: true },
    { route: 'sub_view_5', name: 'p4', moduleId: 'sub_view_5.html', nav: true },
    { route: 'sub_view_6', name: 'p5', moduleId: 'sub_view_6.html', nav: true }
  ]);

  this.router = router;
}

A possible solution is to add a script tag with the following query to each subview:
$('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: 0 }, 'slow');

However, that would be mixing js and html.
Another possible solution would be to create a viewmodel for each of the subviews. But this seems like a lot of work to just add one line of code.
Is there any other possible solution? Maybe have each subview reference the same viewmodel?

A: Currently, you are required to have a VM class for each page. It's annoying, but it is how it is for now. The class can be empty, though. It can be as simple as this:
export class EmptyVM { }

As far as code that you want to run when every view is rendered, I'd recommend hooking in a postRender hook to the router.
export class Page {
  configureRouter(config, router) {
    config.addPostRenderStep(ScrollToTopRenderStep);

    config.map([
      { route: '', name: 'main', moduleId: 'main_view', nav: false, title: 'Main' },
      { route: 'sub_view_1', name: 'p1', moduleId: 'sub_view_1', nav: true },
      //...
    ]);

    this.router = router;
   }
 }

 class ScrollToTopRenderStep {
   run(navigationInstruction, next) {
     $('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: 0 }, 'slow');
   }
 }

A: I've found an interesting way of scrolling back to top without JQuery and without adding an extra VM class.
I assume you have an overflow container in each of your views (the element that have the actual scrollbar).
just add a one-time binding to that container for the scrolltop property, you will bind it to the 0 value, and your done.
this works because each time a new view will be loaded, aurelia will rebind this binding - causing the scrollTop property of that element to be 0.
the only downsize is that you will not have a nice scrolling affect.
<template>

      a very big html fragment that causes scrolling

      a very big html fragment that causes scrolling

      ...

</template>


text:
(-) Ukraine (14)
(-) Morocco (17)
Exporting (13)
Capacity Building & Economic Development (1)
Morocco Trade Agreement (1)
Ukraine Situation (7)
Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust (1)
Food for Progress (3)
McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program (2)
Export Sales Announcement (4)
Dairy, Livestock and Poultry (1)
(-) Ukraine
(-) Morocco
Grant Opportunity: Supporting Animal Health and Food Safety in Ukraine
FAS is offering a grant opportunity to provide technical assistance to Ukrainian agricultural producers, focusing on the detection and mitigation of animal diseases and prevention of their introduction into the food supply.
Ukraine Agricultural Production and Trade
Ukraine is one of the world's top agricultural producers and exporters and plays a critical role in supplying grains and oilseeds to the global market.
Global Fertilizer Challenge
The Global Fertilizer Challenge will support innovative research, demonstrations, and training to help countries with high fertilizer usage and loss adopt efficient nutrient management and alternative fertilizers and cropping systems.
USDA to Partner with Ukraine to Strengthen Agricultural Collaboration, Fight Global Food Insecurity
USDA and Ukraine's Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food are entering into a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance coordination between the U.S. and Ukrainian agriculture and food sectors and build a strategic partnership to address food security.
Food Security is Focus as Vilsack Travels to G7, Poland
Secretary Vilsack traveled Germany and Poland to engage with world leaders on food security, sustainability, and other key issues.
Biden Administration Announces Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Global Food Aid to Respond to Putin's Unprovoked Invasion of Ukraine
USDA and USAID intend to draw down entire Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust to respond to global food insecurity
G7 Agriculture Ministers Respond to Russian Invasion of Ukraine
The G7 Agriculture Ministers met virtually on March 11 to response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
USDA Accepting Applications for Trade Mission to North Africa
Washington, D.C., Jan. 2, 2020 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture is recruiting interested U.S. exporters for its first 2020 trade mission, which will take place in Casablanca, Morocco, March 16-19. The mission will focus on boosting U.S...
Under Secretary McKinney Discusses 2020 USDA Ag Trade Missions
Seven USDA-led Agricultural Trade Missions are scheduled for next year in continuing efforts to increase export opportunities. USDA Radio's Rod Bain talks to Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Ted McKinney about the 2020 trade...
USDA to Expand Agriculture Export Opportunities on Seven Trade Missions in 2020
Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2019 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will sponsor seven agribusiness trade missions in 2020 to grow and diversify export opportunities around the world for America's farmers and ranchers, Under Secretary for...
Export Sales Announcement
Private Exporters Report Sales Activity for Morocco
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4, 2019—Private exporters reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture export sales of 20,000 metric tons of soybean oil for delivery to Morocco during the 2019/2020 marketing year. The marketing year for soybean oil began Oct.1...


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Jan 10, 2021 by Marcus J. Ström in B-17 Entertainment
Title: History of Swear Words
Genre: Comedy |Documentary |
Seasons: 1 |
Runtime: 20 min/Episode
Created by: Christopher D'Elia
Starring: Nikki Glaser, London Hughes, Elvis Mitchell
https://mackansfilm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/history-of-swear-words-_-official-trailer-_-netflix_1080p.mp4
An education in expletives: the history lesson you didn't know you needed to be hosted by Nicolas Cage. A loud and proudly profane series that explores the origins, pop culture-usage, science and cultural impact of curse words.
REPETITIVE, UN-INFORMATIVE AND TONE-DEAF
Nicolas Cage hosts a six times 20 minutes series, covering the most common and explicit swearwords we have in the English language. Why this series is even necessary is certainly unclear. However, the series covers fuck, bitch, dick, damn, pussy and shit among the words. Every episode has a monologue done by Cage and a couple of low-key actors tries to humour the usage of this explicitness. The formula is repetitive and doesn't really make for a binge-worthing series.
It doesn't go deep and as expected, History of Swearwords might be entertaining for a brief moment before it gets boring. Although, it's occasionally informative in how it was originated and with abstract animation, it clarifies backgrounds to these words. Celebrities talk about these words like it's something new with a green screen behind them, which indicates a clear lack of creativity.
The significant part to observe is each word's entomology, the origin of the story and the way Nicolas Cage hosts the series who pursue an energetic and transformative performance. However, the history of the words in linguistic form doesn't cut deep and doesn't prevail the acknowledge. As it implies, it has a comic overtone that quickly becomes political with a small amount of substance to the true history of each word. It's a series that's hard to been taken seriously and doesn't shape a worthy narrative, as each of the episodes undermines a good potential. It could have been far more in-depth in its entomology and the linguistic instead of having celebrities blundering around on the screen.
Nicolas Cage is the only reason this series is worth the bare minimum of twenty minutes. He clarifies each word and gives interesting energy on how to pursue his hosting, even if it's a difficult task to take him seriously throughout the series. In the end, the result isn't craving for more. It's lack of creativity, depth and constant repetitive breeds the series ultimatum to be not more than a Netflix click-bait mini-series and doesn't need so much of the glorified recognition it occasionally gets.
Tagged with: 20 min /episode, 2021, B17 Entertainment, Comedy, Documentary, Elvis Mitchell, Funny or Die, Grade 1 of 5, History of Swear Words, London Hughes, Netflix, Nicolas Cage, Nikki Glaser, Review, Review by Marcus Ström, TV, TV-Review, TV-Series


DJ Ian Head drops his October 2009 mix entitled Good 'Ol Soul (For Carlos), which is dedicated to Carlos Alvarez.
Today Native Instruments ABSYNTH 5, GUITAR RIG 4 PRO, KONTAKT 4, and KOMPLETE 6 became officially available.
The New York Times tells the story of NYC's distributor hosted Vinylmania event.
Visually based record fiends can overdose on pics of sweet vinyl over at the Cratedigging Culture Flickr photo group.
Producer Emile breaks down the making of Kid Cudi's album.
Argh, I hope that's not his abused record collection. So many vinyl crimes being committed there.
Well known digging spot. Sometimes, you'll find gems.


text:
Mesochorus castaneus är en stekelart som beskrevs av Tohru Uchida 1933. Mesochorus castaneus ingår i släktet Mesochorus och familjen brokparasitsteklar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Brokparasitsteklar
castaneus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia