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The EU is Roman The European Union is a self-avowed political project. The forerunner of the EU, the European Economic Community (EEC), was founded by the Treaty of Rome in 1957, in order to " lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe " and " preserve and strengthen peace and liberty ". In 1957 Europe was still reeling from the destruction and upheavals of the Second World War, which had swept over its founding members: Belgium, The Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany": Germany was two countries at the time, and the Warsaw Pact German Democratic Republic was not a party), France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The "European Union" itself was only formerly created by the Maastricht treaty in 1992, with the objective of continuing the process of " ever closer union " - albeit the UK had an opt out for that political aim. People of my generation who were in the UK at the time will remember it was the great political subject of the day (as well as the butt of many Spitting Image jokes), and the origins of the UK Conservative Party's great schism over Europe, which ultimately led to Brexit. The EEC's overriding aim was to prevent another destructive European war, albeit predominantly through a series of economic measures: but even these had a political aim for the Members to reduce " the differences existing between the various regions and the backwardness of the less favoured regions " amongst other things. With this grand project of European integration in mind, it was not a coincidence that Rome was chosen as the location and name for the EEC's founding treaty. The EEC wanted to conjure the image - the fantasy perhaps - of the last time Europe was politically and culturally coherent; under the Emperors. Ukraine in, Turkey Out Although the EU had its origin in the romance of Rome - or perhaps for the extract same reason - it mattered which "Emperor" one followed. The European project was always just that, European. The inheritors of the erstwhile Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, ruled from Constantinople by "Roman" emperors for a thousand years after the fall of Rome itself and the Empire in the West was (and is) not invited to the party. Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 (in fact is was a process of decline, culminating in the fall of Constantinople). The Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans, large parts of what is now Ukraine and much of the Middle East until it collapsed after the First World War, and Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk" created the modern, secular state of Turkey in 1923. Turkey applied for EEC membership in 1959, and it still waiting to be admitted. Turkey has customs and cooperation agreements with the EU, which smooths some trade, and in recent times it was paid by the EU to absorb refugees from Syria and Iraq. Turkey is the 6th largest economy in Europe and its airbases were used by Coalition forces in the "war on terror". However after many attempts at joining the European club Turkey has not been admitted, nor has it yet been flatly refused. The EU was implicitly designed as a Christian club, or at least - explicitly - with Western European Christian culture at its core. Last week Ursula von der Leyen, the German politician who is current President of the European Commission (the EU's permanent administrative infrastructure and civil service), advocated that Ukraine be admitted to the EU as a Member, saying " Ukraine has clearly demonstrated the country's aspiration and the country's determination to live up to European values and standards " and that " Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective. We want them to live with us the European dream ." So it appears Ukraine, which has an unenviable record as far as perceived corruption goes (see the "The Forge of Institutions" paragraph in my last Scriber https://the-perspective-pool.scriber.to/article/the-jubilee-and-the-end-of-the-elizabethan-age ) has done enough in its defiance of Russia to be European. However, it seems that Turkey has not. The EU may ultimately go the way of the Eurovision Song Contest, in which geography has become irrelevant and far away Australia has been admitted; one must assume because it lives up to " European values and standards" . "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have founded empires…." (Napoleon Bonaparte) The 207th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo was on Sunday. The main battle took place in Belgium on 18 June 1815, and British, Dutch and Prussian troops defeated the army of the Emperor Napoleon, another man who was trying to create a unified Europe and liked to invoke the glories of the ancient world. His quote above ignores the empires of Atilla, Genghis, the Ottomans, and the Mughals: he cared about Europe and a European political vision. At the time the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland made a single country of all the British Isles. The UK exerted economic and military force to prevent the domination of Europe by one power; in fact preventing a single power dominating Europe has been one of the UK's main foreign policy aims for centuries. Now the aftermath of Brexit seems to have imperiled the Union of the British Kingdoms further, with another Scottish independence referendum being suggested, political stalemate in Northern Ireland as the UK government considers introducing legislation to reverse elements of the "Protocol" it agreed with the EU and Republic of Ireland at the time of its exit. Part of the problem with the British political class since 1975 is that it convinced itself that the EU was about economics, not politics. Their political predecessors knew all too well that Europe is always about politics. The Return of the Emperor The narrative of the EU has always recalled the distantly echoing glory of the Roman Empire. However, like Napoleon it is not the first European leader to invoke the power and glory of Rome to support their own legitimacy. In the Dark Ages, nostalgia for the relative peace and order of the pax romana of earlier centuries led French warlord Charlemagne to travel to the crumbling Rome, centuries after its fall, to be anointed "Emperor" by the Pope amidst the chaos of the 8th century and to use Christianity as a political weapon to create order; a political technique repeated by the German warlord Otto who was similarly anointed Emperor by the Pope in the 10th century. Voltaire wittily remarked that the Holy Roman Empire, was " neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire ". It will remain to be seen if the European Union actually ever becomes a union or stays European. Further Reading
The Jubilee and the end of the Elizabethan Age
The Era of Global Super-growth The UK and Commonwealth have just celebrated the Platinum Jubilee of " Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith ", to give the Sovereign her more formal titles. An amazing achievement never before reached by any monarch of the British Isles, though their kingship has lasted a thousand years. A 70 year reign that started 1952 while the UK and Europe was still recovering from the travails and destruction of the Second World War (elements of rationing remained in place in the UK until 1958, more than a dozen years after the War had ended) to the current time with the advent of Web3, crypto, global connectivity and an app for just about everything. A 70 year period that has seen changes to society, populations and the economy that have been as - if not more - radical than any other period of human history. In 1952 the human population of the world was 2.6 billion. Now it is nearly 8 billion. The overwhelming economic drivers of the last 70 years have been (i) this population explosion and (ii) the introduction of technology in to every aspect of our working and personal lives. And although there have been small wars, recessions the global financial crisis, on a global basis during this period the economy has boomed, life expectancy has risen, child mortality has dropped, diseases have been bested by antibiotics and vaccines, literacy and access to information has grown and violence has reduced. Global GDP rose from circa $10 trillion at the end of the 1950's to more than $80 trillion (on a constant currency basis) in 2020. The Elizabethan era genuinely has been one where the sacrifices of earlier generations - the wars against despotism, the investment in science, the creation of national health and social services - have given a better standard of living and longer life to their descendants. Jubilees, Guards and Palace Coups Although the UK remains generally supportive of its Monarchy as an institution (in a recent YouGov survey 62% approved of the constitutional monarchy and only 22% preferred the idea of an elected Head of State), the longer running trend is slowly declining approval, particularly among young adults, where the percentages are closer to 50/50. This is perhaps not surprising: a combination of modern social and mainstream media coverage means that much more of the Royal Family's actions are under constant scrutiny (and criticism), and for others the only apparent function of the institution of the Monarchy is opening new hospitals and encouraging tourism. Watching the Jubilee celebrations on TV, with squadrons of armored cavalry, swords flashing and tack jingling, it could indeed all seem rather anachronistic; however, those mounted "Guards" have their regimental origins in the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, created as a bodyguard to the newly restored Charles II, after the Civil War of the 1640's that saw his father, Charles I publicly tried and executed. Following the deposition of Charles I the British engaging in a short experiment with republicanism in the 1650's. When the republic's "president" the Lord High Protector Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 a period of political uncertainty followed and the British decided that Monarchy had its uses - even after a bloody Civil War that should have settled the issue - and brought the Monarchy back, albeit with more constraints, and have slowly adjusted down its powers ever since. The British in fact staged another coup against Charles II successor and younger brother, the catholic-inclined James II in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, quietly replacing him with the protestant William of Orange and William's wife, Mary who was James' child from an earlier (protestant) marriage. Much of the pomp and circumstance of the Jubilee has its origins in the political tumult of Britain and Ireland in the 17th Century; the regiments, crown jewels (most of the medieval versions were destroyed by Cromwell), royal symbols, flags, and protocols; and so to does the core of the political apparatus of the modern UK; and also several of its most challenging political issues; Brexit, Northern Ireland, Scottish independence and the continuation of the Union. Many institutions do not seem to have much relevance while the economy and life in general seem to be progressing well, or at least progressing, but can become much more relevant in times of crisis, war or insurrection. The Forge of Institutions The obvious recent example is Ukraine: before the Russian invasion the government of President Volodomir Zelensky was incredibly unpopular, with an approval rating of only 23%. Ukraine also had a reputation for being extremely corrupt: in the 2022 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index published in January (again before the invasion) Ukraine scored 32 out of a maximum 100 points, putting it in the same category as Gabon, Mexico, Niger and Papua New Guinea, and scoring worse than Sierra Leone, Bosnia and El Salvador. Near the top-end of the list the UK scores 78, and New Zealand, Denmark and Finland jointly-lead with scores of 88. However, the conflict in Ukraine has made a local and international hero of Zelensky, and politicians everywhere now fly the Ukraine flag on their buildings and wear it proudly on their lapels. For Ukraine the current crisis — assuming Ukraine survives it - will be a nation defining event, and will solidify the institutions that have been perceived to be doing well in the crisis; the Presidency, the law courts that have already tried their first Russian war criminals and the central bank, finance, defense and foreign ministries that have raised billions from foreign donors. The idea of heroism and effectiveness of these institutions could in fact make Ukraine less corrupt. The Queen's War Her Majesty the Queen is perhaps the only current Head of State on the planet who lived through the Second World War - serving in uniform herself - and therefore understands some of what Zelensky is going through. Her first Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, developed a successful working relationship with the Queen's late father, King George VI, during darkest moments of the War: Churchill had political primacy of course, and a tough, bombastic personal style, but could not ignore the "soft power" influence of the Monarch. The King and indeed the young Princess Elizabeth provided calm reassurance to many, in public radio broadcasts, messages and visits to see troops (my grandfather, a doctor and then a Lt Col in the Royal Army Medical Corps, looked after the King when he visited British and Allied troops in North Africa in 1943). The King and Princess provided another form of leadership, separate from the politicians, when it was needed. Churchill was promptly voted out of power at the end of the War in 1945, but the King was not, providing continuity for the new - and first ever - Labour administration (the new Prime Minister, Clement Atlee was famously surprised and impressed by the warm and positive reception he received from the King after his election win). Because of the great events they had seen out together, when King George VI died in 1952, Churchill said of him that " His conduct on the Throne may well be a model and a guide to constitutional sovereigns throughout the world today and also in future generations". It is that guiding experience that makes the Queen's approach to public service what it is: she is stoic, practical and disciplined, and has put her duty first in her life. Her Majesty understands that the role of the Monarch has been forged in crisis and is therefore much more important and bigger than the flesh and blood individual that occupies it. The End of the Elizabethan Age Now, towards the end of her reign (the Queen is 96, and still working, although visibly slowing down), the era of post-Second World War super-growth appears to be at an end. Population growth rates are slowing everywhere except Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East, and the increasing cost of money - and of things - is denting the high valuations of tech stocks that have been leading the growth in investor portfolios for the last two decades. Technology businesses will still grow and be valuable, but we are entering a period when physical security, energy security, supply chain resilience and good old-fashioned cash generation are more important than they were. Central banks are raising interest rates to curb inflation - making borrowing more costly for companies and governments - inflation is on the rise, and the very low rates of unemployment we see in the G7 economies seem destined to rise again as those forces exert themselves on businesses everywhere resulting in job losses. Globalization has ended, and new economic drivers will replace the old. At the same time the geopolitical world order is changing, as I have written before: https://the-perspective-pool.scriber.to/article/ukraine-democracy-and-the-most-dangerous-moment-in-human-history . The Elizabethan era is near its end, and the Carolingian will follow it (let's hope rather more successfully than the prior Kings Charles). We should all appreciate the golden era we have just lived through, for all its faults. As an optimist I still believe the future will be better, even if we have to traverse difficult times to get there. Whatever the future holds I will always be proud and think myself fortunate to have been an Elizabethan. Further reading
The Global Food War
Let them eat avocados The last 25 years has seen a transformation in the way the world produces and consumes food. Population growth has driven some of the revolution but so has a benign economic backdrop - the shocks of the Dot.com bubble and Global Financial Crisis notwithstanding: even in those moments of economic uncertainty bread and milk prices did not soar and the range of food expanded further. Globalization and JIT (just-in-time) supply chains meant that groceries and supermarkets made exotic products and out of season flowers, vegetables and fruits available at any time of year - and with the advent of food delivery apps like Instacart, Amazon Prime Now, Grab, Uber Eats, and Gorillas, at any time of day. As the range of food available expanded as it became cheaper, so more people, and greater percentage of the population were able to eat formerly exotic delicacies such as avocado, sushi, or mozzarella. Between 2013 and 2021 fresh avocado imports in to the US rose from 1.2bn pounds weight to 2.6bn pounds (1.2 million metric tons) - in addition to domestically grown fruit. In the same period the annual consumption of avocados per capita in the US rose from 5 pounds to nearly 9 pounds (4kgs of avocado per man, woman and child). That is a lot of avocados: in the 1970's they were the preserve of high end restaurants and Upper East Side dinner parties, now they are available at 2am to anyone in a city with a smartphone. Climate, Bread Riots and The Arab Spring The Western world may have addicted itself to ultimate choice and free availability, but in the developing economies it is grains that provide the staple food to many. In 2010 a series of extreme weather events hit many of the largest grain and food exporting countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Argentina and Australia and led to a 30%+ increase in global food prices. A "Rossby" heat wave ignited wildfires that swept through South Western Russia, destroying crops, thousands of homes and claiming dozens of lives (the same heatwave caused destructive flash flooding and landslides killing hundreds in Pakistan), Argentina and Australia had severe droughts and crops in Canada were destroyed by exceptionally heavy rains. The Middle East absorbs one third of all grain imports: particularly in economies like Egypt, bread is the staple food of the poor, and consequently accounts for a proportionately larger component of people's disposable income. The series of riots and public demonstrations seen across much of the Arab World in the early summer of 2011 - the "Arab Spring" as it became known - was driven by a number of factors, but frustration over bread prices and food inflation was one of them. Riots and political upheavals rocked Tunisia, Morocco and Bahrain, caused the collapse of the Mubarak government in Egypt and led to the chaotic civil wars in Libya and Syria. The disruption cause by the global pandemic, exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, has led to record food commodity prices: in relative and absolute terms exceeding the dark days of the early 1970's where an energy shock was followed by rampant food inflation. In current events one can discern the climate-food-politics-geopolitics cycle, and how interrelated global issues now are: how a Rossby wave can put the G7 and G20 on a collision path and contribute to Russia invading Ukraine. See my previous essay on the related geopolitics at: https://the-perspective-pool.scriber.to/article/ukraine-democracy-and-the-most-dangerous-moment-in-human-history Growing Food Protectionism Added to the already volatile inflationary mix is the invasion of Ukraine (the world's 5th largest wheat exporter) by Russia (the world's largest wheat exporter). Notably, most of Ukraine and Russia's wheat is destined for emerging markets and much of that to the Middle East. With growing concerns about food affordability and availability China and India have already imposed protectionist measures, reducing exports to improve their own food security. Last week China publicly rejected the G7's criticism of India's recent wheat export ban via its state controlled English language news site Global Times; making the point that it is not helpful for the West to blame developing economies for the situation. The Chinese have a point, in as much as the USA and Canada are amongst the planet's largest grain exporters, while China, Brazil and India (three of the big-boys of the G20 not in the G7) are net importers. There is political power in food. The Food Security Index The Economist Impact Food Security Index, which ranks countries on the basis of food affordability, availability, quality, safety, natural resources and resilience, places Russia at 23rd, China 34th, Brazil 63rd, and India at 71st. The USA is 9th, Canada is 7th and the UK sits near the top in 3rd (the Republic of Ireland is top, with relatively low population density, lots of agricultural land, and as those who have been there will know, plenty of rain). Amongst the most vulnerable countries are those in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Middle East (the "contested areas" of the Tri-Polar world, that sit between the great power blocks of the USA, Europe and China: see https://the-perspective-pool.scriber.to/article/the-tri-polar-world-and-why-the-west-rules-for-now ). As the price of food soars on rising energy price rises and the risk of recession it is hard not to think that it will drive the climate-food-politics-geopolitics cycle once again. Even for well-off urbanites Avocados will become more expensive and less available. Countries with weak food supply chains and low per capita incomes are vulnerable to genuine human and political catastrophe: for the hard core investors and policy-makers out there wanting to understand more see my erudite friend and colleague Hasnain Malik's recent research on Tellimer.com . This will be an uncomfortable ride for everyone, but for those based in economies with good Food Security Index rankings - much as the cost of living is going up rapidly and will undoubtedly cause hardship for many - we should all count ourselves lucky. Further Reading:
May 24, 2022 · 6 min read
Victory Day: history repeats itself
The Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany May 9th is Victory Day in the modern Russian Federation, celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany and its Axis allies by the Soviet Union in 1945. It has far greater resonance and political importance in Russia than the often-overlooked "VE" (Victory in Europe) celebrations in Western Europe of the day before. Despite the horrors of destruction, occupation and death suffered in Western Europe, for the Soviet Union the Second World War had been its greatest existential threat: an estimated 27 million Russians, mainly civilians, died in the bitter struggle against the Axis invasion. I have previously written on the paranoia of the Soviet state and its willingness to sacrifice its own people to achieve its political ends; see https://the-perspective-pool.scriber.to/article/russia-is-a-bolshevik-state-once-again , but I have sympathy with the view that the stoic and resilient peoples of the Soviet Union - which included both Russia and Ukraine - saved Europe and maybe further afield from Nazism. May 9 is usually Victory Day in Ukraine as well: this year it takes on a new resonance. The war between the Axis and USSR defies statistics, even if one can encapsulate the magnitude of human suffering in mere numbers. On its own that war was the greatest and most bloody conflict humanity has ever engaged in, with millions of combatants engaged simultaneously, over thousands of kilometers of territory, and killing more people than any other war before or since. This was a "total war" of the ultimately destructive type envisioned by aristocratic Prussian general and military thinker Carl Von Clausewitz more than a century before. Such was the ideological (and ethnic) hatred between the sides that to become a prisoner of either was a near-guaranteed death sentence. For the Soviet Union, and now particularly Russia, the defeat of Germany and the Axis was a nation-defining event, creating a myth around which political and national identify have gravitated ever since. Molotov Cocktails and the Secret Pact Germany and the Soviet Union had not started the War as enemies. They had entered a mutual non-aggression pact in August 1939, not much more than a week before the Nazi invasion of Poland and the declaration of war against Germany by the UK and France. The pact became known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, named after the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and Germany who signed it, although Stalin attended in person. The Pact is made up of seven simple Articles addressing non-aggression between the parties for a 10 year period. However, below the main Articles is a secret addendum with an additional four articles that were not published at the time. The secret agreement divided Central and Eastern Europe in to "spheres of influence" between the two powers, giving control over Finland, Estonia and Latvia to the Soviet Union, some of Lithuania to Germany, an agreement to carve up Poland when it suited them and a confirmation by Germany that it had no political interest in "Southeastern Europe" and "Bessarabia"; what we would now think of as Moldova and Ukraine. Left unfettered by risk of interference from each other, Germany invaded Poland from the West, shortly thereafter the USSR invaded Poland from the East and not many months later the USSR invaded Finland. Molotov said that the invasion of Finland in November 1939 was a humanitarian mission to provide food to the Finns. In another echo of events repeated in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Finns resisted more fiercely than their attackers expected and gave the invading Soviet armor a robust petrol bombing. With characteristically dark Scandinavian humor the Finns described those home-made explosives as Molotov Cocktails: an appropriate drink to serve back to the invading Soviets in recognition of their "humanitarian" efforts. Warlords and Oil With the Soviet Union pursuing its own agenda with Finland and Germany and the Axis Powers creating a German Empire and " lebensraum " for the ethnically pure in Europe, it was a very dark moment of uncertainty. By the fall of France in June 1940, the UK "stood alone" armed only with the Channel and Royal Airforce as its defense and the Victorian-style political backbone of its new Prime Minister Winston S Churchill. In late 1940 Hitler and the Axis very much had the upper hand. German panzers had swept through Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Low Countries and France; Fascist Spain, exhausted after its dreadful civil war remained neutral, the Soviet Union was occupied with Finland and Poland and the US, although supplying the UK with finance and arms showed no immediate signs of joining the War. There aren't many single decisions that can be said to have changed the course of world history, but Hitler's decision to renege on the Molotov-Ribbentrop deal and invade the Soviet Union is certainly one of them. On 18 December 1940, Hitler issued Directive 21, ordering an assault on the USSR. The operation was named after a 12th Century Teutonic warlord Frederick "Barbarossa". Anointed by the Pope - the last surviving official role of the long-since collapsed Western Roman Empire - in 1155 Barbarossa became the Holy Roman Emperor: a paragon of the warrior emperor that Hitler aspired to be and a symbol of the new German Empire cast in a romanticized (and entirely unrealistic) vision of the past. Op BARBAROSSA was launched in June 1941 on a front more than two thousand kilometers long, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Axis committed 3.5million troops to the offensive, hoping to destroy Soviet resistance quickly, and swiftly took territory across all its axes of attack. Within months Axis troops were within striking distance of Moscow and in the South advanced to Odessa, the Black Sea coast and Crimea, and besieged Kyiv. The lightening panzer tactics of the Germans allowed them to encircle 650,000 Soviet troops in Kyiv, all of whom were killed or captured. Despite early successes by the end of the year, with winter coming on, the Axis assault stalled along all parts of the front, and Soviet counter attacks pushed the Axis forces back. In 1942 the Axis redoubled its efforts mounting more operations, including Op BLAU (Blue), particularly aiming to capture the industrial heartlands and oil fields of the South. Again the armies clashed in increasingly concentrated pockets; the most notorious being Stalingrad (now Volgograd), East of the Donbas in Ukraine, controlling the routes along the Volga river, including to the oil-rich Caspian Sea and strategically influential to the River Don leading down to the Sea of Azov. At Stalingrad in 1943 after months of bitter fighting nearly half of the remaining 600,000 exhausted and starving Axis troops - many of them Romanians - were surrounded by the army of Soviet General Zhukov and eventually surrendered. The Axis commander, the German General Friedrich Paulus who was trapped with his men in the kessel (literally "cauldron", the word the Germans used for an encircled defense) had urged Hitler to let him surrender to Zhukov some time before, which was rebuffed: instead Hitler made Paulus a Field Marshal, knowing that no German Field Marshal had ever surrendered (suicide would have been frustrating but acceptable). Paulus surrendered anyway, and his captured army of more than 280,000 was marched away to gulags from which hardly any emerged alive (estimates vary but it could have been as little as a few hundreds). By this stage the US had joined the War (late 1941), the Allies won victories in North Africa (1942; my grandfather commanded field hospitals in the desert from the invasion to the Allied victory) and were soon to launch an invasion of Italy. With Germany overcommitted and depleted of men and materiel, the momentum of the War shifted in the Allies favor. The invasion of the Soviet Union, and the inability to win quickly, ultimately proved to be the undoing of Hitler and the Nazis. Lessons for Ukraine Operation BARBAROSSA and the operations that followed it were a failure, for many of the same reasons Russia is failing in Ukraine. By failing to succeed Germany created a national myth and powerful sense of identify and moral self-worth in the Soviet Union, which Russia has inherited. Russia's actions in Ukraine invoke the memory of that myth - President Putin has described the Russian invasion is a special military operation to "de-Nazify" Ukraine. This conflict, with great and dangerous irony, will create a similar national myth for Ukraine. Further Reading
Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Nuclear Option
Know who your Friends are While the western powers were introspectively wrestling with Brexit, extending human rights and the political implications of Trump, others have been planning for a different geopolitical and strategic future. I have written before about the ejection of Russia from the G8 not being mirrored by the G20, and that China, Russia, India and others have all become better trading partners and defense collaborators with each other than the G7 had appreciated; https://the-perspective-pool.scriber.to/article/ukraine-democracy-and-the-most-dangerous-moment-in-human-history . In 2001 China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a permanent inter-governmental body to develop ties in the region. India and Pakistan joined in 2017. It also has four observer countries; Belarus, Iran and Mongolia, and since 2012, Afghanistan. The SCO's stated goals are as follows (emphasis added): Amidst the idealistic rhetoric there is a clear implication that the SCO members feel that the current international political and economic order is neither fair nor rational . It also illustrates a more strategic and longer term vision of developing the world than the West - riven by divisive politics and short election cycles - now tends to engage in. What is interesting about Afghanistan achieving observer (akin to associate member) status with the SCO, which is fundamentally a group run by China and Russia, is that it was obtained while Afghanistan was being almost entirely bankrolled by the US. It is as if Afghanistan knew even then it would need friends in the region more than friends from thousands of miles away, like the US and its allies. Afghanistan, Karzai and Riding Two Horses Former President of Afghanistan, Hamed Karzai, was interviewed a couple of times last week by the BBC. Amidst some stuttering and coughing he managed to make his view clear, that Ukraine should be wary of the fate of Afghanistan, and make better friends in the region and world - implicitly with a different group than just the US and its allies. Karzai is a mercurial figure, and has had a complex and not entirely happy relationship with the West, but fairly cordial relations with President Putin. He originally became President of Afghanistan in 2002 with the explicit and enthusiastic backing of the US. By the start of his second (and constitutionally final) term in office in 2009, he had been accused of vote rigging and presiding over corruption in the Afghan government and the US and UK were finding him increasingly frustrating to deal with. Karzai is a Pashtun, from near Kandahar in the South of Afghanistan, the birthplace of the Taliban, and is a keen horseman (the Afghans look great on horseback, natural riders, even without a saddle and only a length of bailing twine as a halter). Karzai has always seemed to want to leave a door open for the Taliban, calling them "angry brothers" while the civil war against them was at its height; by November last year, after the Coalition's humiliating withdrawal he was calling them just "brothers". Bombings against non-Pashtun mosques and schools continue in Afghanistan, committed by Da'ish (IS) according to the Taliban, and by or at least with the complicity of the Taliban according to a young Hazara refugee I discussed this with recently. Just before leaving office in 2014 Karzai supported the Russian annexation of Crimea, with an official release saying " The president said that Afghanistan respects the free will of the people of Crimea to decide about their own future ". Despite Karzai's patchy political history, he seemed to foresee that Afghanistan would need more friends than just the US Coalition that had been operating with unclear objectives in his country since 2001. By the time of the precipitous withdrawal of the US and its allies from Afghanistan in 2021, Karzai's view seemed one of great prescience: he is a man open to the idea of riding two horses at once. The lesson is that in the Western liberal democracies priorities can shift quickly, on the turn of a single election. In particular, President Biden of the US believes in isolating and sanctioning his enemies, not fighting them. Ukraine and the Nuclear Option Russia's objectives in Ukraine have now changed: from swiftly removing what it saw as an unpopular Ukrainian government and dominating the whole country, to seizing the Donbas, Crimea and the littoral of the Sea of Azov than connects them; and potentially denying all of Ukraine's access to the Black Sea by pushing on to take Odessa. One overarching aspect of Moscow's aims have not changed, however; it still intends to very damage and neutralize Ukraine as much as it can. Russia has so far been able to launch an assault on Ukraine, an independent country and member of the United Nations, displace millions of civilians, have allegations of organized murders and retribution killings of civilians made against it, and implicitly threaten the use of nuclear weapons if it is interfered with by foreign threats. No other country has ridden to the rescue of Ukraine with their own forces: yes, many neighbors and global power players have contributed arms and advice, but none dare impose a no-fly zone or put their own troops in direct conflict with Russia's. And that, very simply, is because Russia has nuclear weapons, and the West finds President Putin's threats to use them credible. The conflict in Ukraine has two clear geopolitical implications for the rest of the world looking on: Escalation, Finland and Sweden The very moment Russian armor rolled over the border in to Ukraine, Finland and Sweden, mindful of the points above, considered joining NATO, who's members are very clearly obliged to support each other actively against attacks. This is decades of neutrality (centuries in Sweden's case), overturned by the new realpolitik . If, as expected, Sweden and Finland apply for membership some time this year, that in itself will be an escalation of tensions with Russia. As the conflict in Ukraine grinds on, not only will it destroy more of Ukraine, it will chew up more of Russia's conventional military capability. Such are the causalities and destruction of materiel it is suffering, it may take years for the Russian military to rebuild itself, so it seems unlikely that an invasion of the Baltic is imminent. A general mobilization of Russia would provide more capacity, and be a significant escalation of risk, tantamount to a declaration of war. In the meantime, Russia has said repeatedly it will rely on nuclear threat - or escalation - if it feels threatened. And that sense of threat will be dictated by how far Western countries go in actively supporting Ukraine or aggressively expanding NATO. Both sides know what the other is trying to do, and are explicit about it: on Monday (25 April) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US wanted to see Russia " weakened to the degree that it cannot do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine ". On the same day Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov said that NATO was " engaged in a war through a proxy " against Russia by supplying arms to Ukraine. Inflation, Abandonment and Reconstruction The irony is that escalation is now in the hands of the West. It is probable that Russia will use all the destructive force of its military to flatten as much of Ukraine as it can: Russia's military has no compunction about causing civilian casualties or destroying cities and farmland. Indeed destruction is very likely now one of its main aims. And it seems that the US and NATO's main objective is now to destroy as much Russian military capability as possible through its indirect support to Ukraine. If we cast our minds forward to where this might end - and let's hope the bloodshed ends sooner than later - Ukraine will be a shattered mess. Russia will not pay to reconstruct any parts of Ukraine it has not annexed. If Ukraine survives it will need to be reconstructed by the West: the IMF already foresees this; however, Ukraine is not a member of the EU, so its economic future would be debt-laden and very uncertain. Other political priorities, such as inflation and the cost of living pressures on voters will increasingly distract Western democracies. If military confrontation outside Ukraine is avoided a likely outcome is that - notwithstanding its indirect support - the West will stand by and watch the destruction of Ukraine. A bleak thought though it is, strategically that may be an acceptable outcome to NATO if enough of Russia's military capability is also destroyed in the process. Further Reading


text:
Q: Change color of font-awesome icons with React How do I change color of Font Awesome's icon using React, Firebase, NPM. Directly
Current code:
<FontAwesomeIcon icon={faCaretDown} size="2x" />

A: You can use color props in Fontawesome  component. like below
<FontAwesomeIcon icon = "faCaretDown"   color="green"/ >

or else you can use the below,
usually fontawsome inherit colour and css size

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
\section{Introduction}
\IEEEPARstart{O}{PTIMIZATION} technologies have been widely used in many decision-making processes in the operation, control, and planning of power systems, such as optimal power flow (OPF). However, the increasing uncertainty introduced by distributed energy resources (DER) makes it extremely hard for operators to make accurate optimal decisions ahead of real time. There mainly exist three types of frameworks for modeling power system optimization problems that involve uncertainty: 1) stochastic framework, 2) robust framework, and 3) chance-constrained framework \cite{aien2016comprehensive}. Unfortunately, these frameworks are rather computationally expensive for large-scale, highly-nonconvex problems. As a result, a large portion of existing works investigate proper assumptions to simplify these frameworks for power system applications. In contrast, based on regression analysis \cite{murphy2012machine}, this paper develops a novel uncertainty-aware optimization (UaO) framework using a new measurement of uncertainty that considers the prediction errors of stochastic variables (see Section III for more details).

Convex optimization \cite{boyd2004convex} has applications in a broad range of disciplines including power system engineering, mainly because: 1) many classes of convex optimization problems are computationally tractable as they admit polynomial-time algorithms; and, 2) it plays a fundamental role in the theories of both distributed optimization and bi-level optimization. The general idea is to relax the nonconvex constraints into convex ones. However, the solutions of the resulting convex problem may be infeasible to the original nonconvex problem due to the nature of relaxations, which now becomes one of the bottlenecks of this technology. To mitigate the infeasibility issue, this paper proposes a data-driven approach to construct convex relaxations with stronger tightness and lower complexity (see Subsection II-B for more details). The resulting convex relaxation is applied to convexify the developed UoA framework. The paper demonstrates the UoA framework on a three-phase optimal power flow (3$\phi$OPF) problem with uncertainty introduced by distributed energy resources and uncontrollable loads. The 3$\phi$OPF is balanced for transmission networks while unbalanced for distribution networks. It is worth noting that, theoretically, the proposed methods can be
applied to general optimization problems under uncertainty.

\section{Theory of Data-Driven Convexification}

\subsection{Three-Phase Power Flow Equations}

In an OPF problem, the objective function is generally convex or linear. Thus, we focus on the main nonconvex constraints, i.e. the power flow (PF) equations, which are also considered as the mathematical model of power networks. Let $\mathcal{N}$ and $\Phi$ denote the sets of buses and phases respectively. For each $i$, $j \in \mathcal{N}$ and $\phi$, $\phi^\prime\in \Phi$, the compact formulation of three-phase PF equations \cite{hu2019ensemble} is given as
\begin{subequations} \label{PF}
\begin{align}
    &e_i^\phi\sum_{j\in \mathcal{N}}\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}(G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} e_j^{\phi^\prime}-B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} f_j^{\phi^\prime}) \nonumber \\
    &+f_i^\phi\sum_{j\in \mathcal{N}}\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}(B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} e_j^{\phi^\prime}
    +G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} f_j^{\phi^\prime})=p_i^\phi +p_{S,i}^\phi\\
     &f_i^\phi\sum_{j\in \mathcal{N}}\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}(G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} e_j^{\phi^\prime}-B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} f_j^{\phi^\prime}) \nonumber \\
    &-e_i^\phi\sum_{j\in \mathcal{N}}\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}(B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} e_j^{\phi^\prime}+G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} f_j^{\phi^\prime})=q_i^\phi
    +q_{S,i}^\phi\\
    &e_i^\phi\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}[G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (e_j^{\phi^\prime}-e_i^{\phi^\prime})-B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (f_j^{\phi^\prime}-f_i^{\phi^\prime})]\nonumber \\
    &+f_i^\phi\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}[B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (e_j^{\phi^\prime}-e_i^{\phi^\prime})
    +G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (f_j^{\phi^\prime}-f_i^{\phi^\prime})]=p_{ij}^\phi \\
     &f_i^\phi\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}[G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (e_j^{\phi^\prime}-e_i^{\phi^\prime})-B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (f_j^{\phi^\prime}-f_i^{\phi^\prime})] \nonumber \\
    &-e_i^\phi\sum_{\phi^\prime\in \Phi}[B_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (e_j^{\phi^\prime}-e_i^{\phi^\prime})+G_{ij}^{\phi \phi^\prime} (f_j^{\phi^\prime}-f_i^{\phi^\prime})]=q_{ij}^\phi \\
    &(e_i^\phi)^2+(f_i^\phi)^2=v_i
\end{align}
\end{subequations}
where $p_{S,i}^\phi$ and $q_{S,i}^\phi$ denote the stochastic components of active and reactive power injections at each bus. Each of the quadratic equations in (\ref{PF}) can be compactly formulated as
\begin{equation} \label{CompactPF}
     g(x)=x^{\rm{T}}A x=y=z+u
\end{equation}
where $z$ and $u$ denote the deterministic and stochastic components of the power injections respectively. Further define a set $\Omega = \{(x,\,y) |\,\underline{p}_i^\phi \le p_i^\phi +p_{S,i}^\phi \le \overline{p}_i^\phi,\,\underline{q}_i^\phi \le q_i^\phi +q_{S,i}^\phi \le \overline{q}_i^\phi, \, (p_{ij}^\phi)^2+(q_{ij}^\phi)^2 \le \overline{S}_{ij}, \, \text{and}\, \underline{v}_i \le v_i \le \overline{v}_i, \, \forall i \in \mathcal{N}\, \text{and}\, \phi \in \Phi \}$, then the feasible set of 3$\phi$PF (\ref{PF}) is $\Psi = \{(x,\,y)\in \Omega |\,(2),\,\forall i \in \mathcal{N}\, \text{and}\, \phi \in \Phi \}$. Note that $\Omega$ is convex while $\Psi$ is not. Moreover, the three-phase \textit{DistFlow} model of radial networks is also a nonconvex quadratic system that can be represented in the form of (\ref{CompactPF}). That means the proposed methods can be directly applied to DistFlow-based 3$\phi$OPF.

\subsection{Data-Driven Convex Relaxation}

In this subsection, a methodology of data-driven convex relaxation is established and applied to construct a tight convex quadratic relaxation of 3$\phi$PF equations (\ref{PF}). For the sake of simplicity, we start from a deterministic case, namely $u=0$. Let $\mathcal{D}$ denotes a historical data set where the $k$th data point $D^{(k)}=( x^{(k)}, y^{(k)})$, we have $\mathcal{D} \subset \Psi$. The following regression algorithm is proposed to train  $\mathcal{D}$ to obtain a positive semi-definite (PSD) matrix $P$ and a complementary vector $B$ and scalar $c$ for each quadratic equations in (\ref{CompactPF}) (i.e. (\ref{PF})):
\begin{subequations} \label{Regression}
\begin{align}
\min_{P,B,c}\;& \frac{1}{|\mathcal{D}|} \sum_kt^{(k)} \label{Reg1} \\
\mathrm{s.t.}\; & (x^{(k)})^{\rm{T}}Px^{(k)}+B^{\rm{T}}x^{(k)}+c - y^{(k)} = m^{(k)} \le 0 \label{Reg2} \\
&\left[
\begin{array}{cc} 1     & m^{(k)} \\
 m^{(k)}  & t^{(k)} \\
\end{array}
\right],\,P \succeq 0 \label{Reg3}
\end{align}
\end{subequations}
where $k=1,\,\ldots,\, |\mathcal{D}|$.
The dimensions of $P$'s, $B$'s, and $c$'s are consistent with the dimensions of the corresponding quadratic equations in (\ref{PF}). Note that the $A$ matrix in (1e) is already PSD. Therefore, we don't need to train a $P$ for (1e). The optimization model (\ref{Regression}) is a standard semidefinite programming problem which can be effectively and globally solved by mature solvers like MOSEK, GUROBI, and CPLEX.

Define a quadratic convex set:
\begin{equation}
   \Theta =\{(x,\,y) \in \Omega\,|\, x^{\rm{T}}Px+B^{\rm{T}}x +c \le y, \forall i \in \mathcal{N}\, \text{and}\, \phi \in \Phi \}, \nonumber
\end{equation}
we have the following theorem.

\textbf{Theorem of Data-driven Convex Relaxation}. \textit{The set $\Theta$ is a convex relaxation of the feasible set $\Psi$ of the original three-phase AC power flow} (\ref{CompactPF}) \textit{if:}

\textit{a) the PSD matrices $P$'s, vectors $B$'s, and scalars $c$'s are obtained by training $\mathcal{D}$ using the regression algorithm (\ref{Regression}),}

\textit{b) $\mathcal{D}$ contains all extreme points\footnote{An extreme point of a convex set is a point in this set that does not line in any open line segment joining two points of this set \cite{bazaraa2013nonlinear}. We use this definition to define an extreme point of nonconvex sets.} of $\Psi$.}

\noindent
\textit{Proof}: Constraint (\ref{Reg2}) guarantees that each $D^{(k)} \in \mathcal{D}$ satisfies
\begin{equation}
    (x^{(k)})^{\rm{T}}Px^{(k)}+B^{\rm{T}}x^{(k)} +c \le y^{(k)}, \nonumber
\end{equation}
which implies $\mathcal{D} \subset \Theta$. Therefore, $\Theta$ is a convex quadratic relaxation of $\mathcal{D}$ since $P$'s are PSD.

All extreme points of a feasible set are linearly independent according to the definition \cite{bazaraa2013nonlinear}. Suppose $\psi$ is an arbitrary point in $\Psi$, there must exist a vector of extreme points $X=[\theta_1,\theta_2,...,\theta_l]^{\rm{T}}$  of $\Psi$ and a vector of multipliers $\alpha=[\alpha_1, \alpha_2,...,\alpha_l]^{\rm{T}}$ that satisfy
\begin{equation}
    \psi=\alpha^{\rm{T}}X  , \nonumber
\end{equation}
where $0 \le \alpha_i \le 1$ ($i=1,\,\ldots,\, l$), $\sum_i^l \alpha_i =1$, and  $l$ equals to the dimension of the ($x, y$)-space. Since all $\theta_i \in \mathcal{D} \subset \Theta$ according to condition b), then $\psi \in \Theta$ due to the convexity of $\Theta$. Therefore, $\Psi \subset \Theta$ as $\psi$ is an arbitrary point in $\Psi$, which means $\Theta$ is convex relaxation of $\Psi$. \hfill$\square$

\noindent
\textbf{Remark}. Condition b) in the theorem of data-driven convex relaxation is not easy to strictly satisfy. However, under the concept of \textit{Big Data}, it is reasonable to assume that the data set $\mathcal{D}$ is big enough to represent the original feasible set $\Psi$, which implies $\Theta$ is highly close to a strictly convex relaxation of $\Psi$. Moreover, regression (\ref{Regression}) is a convex optimization problem that can be globally solved, which implies that $\Theta$ is the \textit{tightest} quadratic convex relaxation of $\Psi$.

\section{Uncertainty-aware Optimization Framework}
\subsection{Novel Measurement of Uncertainty}
\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.45\textwidth]{Uncertainty_2.pdf}
\caption{Illustration of the impact of uncertainty and the proposed method.}
\label{fig:uncertainty}
\end{figure}
In the stochastic and chance-constrained frameworks, uncertainty is measured by probability distributions, while it is captured by a deterministic sets under the robust framework \cite{aien2016comprehensive}. Actually, the impact of uncertainty on power system operation is illustrated in Fig. \ref{fig:uncertainty}. Suppose $u$ is the actual generation of stochastic resources at moment $t$ and its system response is $x$ as in Fig. \ref{fig:uncertainty}(a). The operation decision is generally made in advance (e.g. 5 minutes, 1 hour, or even a day before $t$) based on the forecast $\tilde{u}$ of $u$ as in Fig. \ref{fig:uncertainty}(b). One can consider that the uncertainty originates from the prediction error $|\tilde{u}-u|$, since the resulting model output error $|\tilde{x}-x|$ may lead to failures in ahead-of-real-time decision-making of power systems. In fact, a ``good prediction" and a ``bad prediction" may have totally different impacts on the operation, control, and planning of power systems. However, none of the existing optimization frameworks considers the information of forecast in the measurement of uncertainty, which increases the conservativeness. In this research, we use the prediction error $|\tilde{u}-u|$ as the new measurement of uncertainty which will be incorporated into the following machine learning process.

\subsection{Uncertainty-awre Modeling}

Researchers from the field of renewable generation and load forecast attempts to reduce the prediction errors $|\tilde{u}-u|$, while this research focuses on reducing the model output errors $|\hat{x}-x|$ in the process of system modeling given the information of $\tilde{u}$, for which the key is to properly learn a PSD matrix $P$ and complementary vector $B$ and scalar $c$ for each quadratic equation in (\ref{PF}). In order to do so, we first design a historical data set $\bar{\mathcal{D}}$ that contains information of forecast errors and its $k$th data point $\bar{D}^{(k)}=(\tilde{u}^{(k)}, u^{(k)},z^{(k)}, x^{(k)})$, where the historical operating point $(x^{(k)}, u^{(k)}+z^{(k)})$ is a solution of (\ref{CompactPF}). Then, the regression model (\ref{Regression}) is modified as
\begin{subequations} \label{U_regression}
\begin{align}
&\min_{P,b}\; \text{(\ref{Reg1})} \quad  \mathrm{s.t.}\; \text{(\ref{Reg3})} \; \text{and}  \\
& (x^{(k)})^{\rm{T}}Px^{(k)}+B^{\rm{T}}x^{(k)} +c - u^{(k)}-z^{(k)} \le 0 \label{U_reg2} \\
& (x^{(k)})^{\rm{T}}Px^{(k)}+B^{\rm{T}}x^{(k)}+c - \tilde{u}^{(k)}-z^{(k)} = m^{(k)}, \label{U_reg3}
\end{align}
\end{subequations}
to train the new data set $\bar{\mathcal{D}}$. With the $P$, $B$ and $c$ inferred by regression (\ref{U_regression}), the following equation (\ref{UAM}) is defined as an \textit{uncertainty-aware model} (UaM) of 3$\phi$PF (\ref{CompactPF}), which relies on the predictions rather than the actual values (i.e. perfect predictions) of the stochastic parameters:
\begin{equation} \label{UAM}
     h(x)=x^{\rm{T}}P x+B^{\rm{T}}x+c=\tilde{y}=z+\tilde{u}
\end{equation}

Regression process (\ref{Regression}) aims at fitting a convex mapping between the actual system response $x$ and the actual input $u$ of the stochastic variables. In contrast, regression (\ref{U_regression}) infer the convex mapping between $x$ and $\tilde{u}$ (the aforehand prediction of $u$). For a future case ($x^{(|\mathcal{D}|+1)},y^{(|\mathcal{D}|+1)}$),  a forecast $\tilde{u}^{(|\mathcal{D}|+1)}$ is used in the ahead-of-real-time decision-making since the actual value $u^{(|\mathcal{D}|+1)}$ of the stochastic parameters is not available at that moment. With $\tilde{u}^{(|\mathcal{D}|+1)}$ as input, the UaM (\ref{UAM}) provides a close prediction $\hat{x}^{(|\mathcal{D}|+1)}$ to the actual system response $x^{(|\mathcal{D}|+1)}$, as illustrated in Fig. \ref{fig:uncertainty}(c). Constraint (\ref{U_reg2}) guarantees that $\Theta$ with parameters inferred by (\ref{U_regression}) is a convex quadratic relaxation for the projection of $\bar{\mathcal{D}}$ on ($x$, $y$)-space.
\subsection{Uncertainty-aware 3$\phi$OPF}
With the typical objective that minimizes generation costs, the uncertainty-aware 3$\phi$OPF can be compactly formulated as
  \begin{equation} \label{OPF}
   \min_{z}\,\left \{ \sum_{i \in \mathcal{G}} \sum_{\phi \in \Phi}C(z^{\phi}_{i}):\,(x,z+\tilde{u}) \in \Theta \right\},
\end{equation}
where $\mathcal{G}$ denotes the generator set, and $P$'s, $B$'s, $c$'s in $\Theta$ are inferred by training $\bar{\mathcal{D}}$ using regression (\ref{U_regression}). A typical objective of OPF in distribution systems is to minimize the active power from transmission grids. It is worth noting that (\ref{OPF}) is a deterministic optimization problem which is much less-complex than the existing robust, stochastic, and chance-constrained optimization frameworks.
\section{Numerical Experiment}
Due to page limit, we only present the preliminary studies on three scenarios of two small balanced networks, i.e. a 5-bus and a 57-bus systems. More comprehensive numerical studies based on real-world data will be presented in future publications to compare the proposed methods with existing convex relaxations and uncertainty-involved optimization frameworks. The three scenarios compared in this experiment are: 1) the original ACOPF with perfect predictions $u$ of stochastic power injections which is used as the reference; 2) the original ACOPF with inaccurate predictions $\tilde{u}$ which simulates the actual practice; and 3) the proposed UaO framework with inaccurate predictions $\tilde{u}$.

In the first step of generating the training data sets $\bar{\mathcal{D}}$, a set of 5000 load profiles $y=z+u$ for each test system are randomly produced. Then, voltage profile $x$ for each load profile of each system is obtained by solving PF (\ref{PF}). Finally, the prediction $\tilde{u}$ is randomly generated based on the corresponding $u$ assuming that the maximum forecast error is $\pm 30\%$, namely $|\tilde{u}-u| \le 0.3|u|$. The UaO models (\ref{OPF}) are obtained by training data sets $\bar{\mathcal{D}}$ of the two systems, respectively, using regression (\ref{U_regression}). The three scenarios mentioned above are compared on 50 load cases for each test system. The average errors of objective values defined in in Table \ref{Results} are used to quantify the performance, where $C_k^{(i)}$ denotes the optimal cost of the $k$th scenario in the $i$th load case. It can be observed that, with inaccurate forecast, the original ACOPF (scenario 2) produces inaccurate solutions. Nevertheless, the UaO (scenario 3) can provide better solutions than the original ACOPF model does since the forecast errors are taken into account in the data-driven modeling process. Although the UaO framework is still not able to produce a strictly accurate solution, fortunately, it can be improved by training a larger, better data set due to its learning-based nature.
\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\caption{Average Errors of Optimal Costs}
\label{Results}
\begin{tabular}{lcc}
\hline \hline
                       & $E_1=\frac{1}{50}\sum_{i=1}^{50}\frac{|C_1^{(i)}-C_2^{(i)}|}{C_1^{(i)}}$ & $E_2=\frac{1}{50}\sum_{i=1}^{50}\frac{|C_1^{(i)}-C_3^{(i)}|}{C_1^{(i)}}$ \\ \hline
\textbf{5-bus}  & 20.21\% & 3.72\%  \\
\textbf{57-bus} & 21.43\% & 1.66\%  \\ \hline \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\section{Conclusion and Future Work}
This paper presents a preliminary study on a novel UaO framework which shows that the UaO framework can effectively mitigate the impacts of uncertainty in solving 3$\phi$OPF. Our future work mainly consists of two aspects: first, explore advanced machine learning technologies, such as ensemble learning \cite{murphy2012machine}, to improve the efficiency of UaO framework; second, apply to UaO framework to model other power system optimzation problems other than OPF problems.

\ifCLASSOPTIONcaptionsoff
  \newpage
\fi

\bibliographystyle{}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


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Kindergarten: Approximately 30-35 new students each year
Class IX: Approximately 20-25 new students each year
Non-entry points: We typically do not know whether we will have available spots until later in the admissions season, often as late as February when re-enrollment contracts are due. Thus, availability is based on attrition. We welcome applicants at all grade levels, but warn them that there may not be openings at the end.
What is the cut-off date for Nursery-Kindergarten applicants?
Nursery applicants need to be three by August 31st of the enrollment year (born by 8/31/17).
Pre-K applicants need to be four by August 31st of the enrollment year (born by 8/31/16).
Kindergarten applicants need to be five by August 31st of the enrollment year (born by 8/31/15).
We do not make exceptions with regards to the cut-off date.
What is the legacy/sibling early decision policy?
Siblings of Marymount students and children of Marymount New York alumnae have the option of applying for Early Notification at the Nursery, Pre-K, and Kindergarten levels. Information about that option is mailed to legacy/sibling families upon receipt of their application. Legacies and siblings are given special consideration in the admissions process, but acceptance is not automatic. Decisions regarding legacy/sibling financial aid awards are made at the same time as early notification.
Do you have room for students other than legacy/siblings in your Nursery class?
Our Nursery Class is open to applicants other than siblings and legacies. We typically have 5-10 spots open for non-sibling/legacy candidates. We only accept boys in Nursery and Pre-K if they are a sibling or legacy.
What is the total enrollment at Marymount?
760 students in grades Nursery through XII.
What is the average class size?
Nursery: 1 section of 13 students with one head teacher, one assistant, and one early childhood coordinator
Pre-K: 2 sections of 13 studentswith one head teacher, one assistant, and one early childhood coordinator
Kindergarten-Class II: 3 sections of 18 students with one head teacher, one assistant, and specialists for math, reading, science, music, art, STEAM, religion, Spanish, and dance/fitness
Classes III-VIII: 52 students in a grade, with 3 sections of 14-18 students in major subject areas
Classes IX-XII: 60 in a grade, with 3+ sections of 8-18 students in all subject areas depending on size
What is the teacher/faculty ratio?
With a school-wide 6:1 student to teacher ratio, we are committed to meeting the individual needs of our students. Our instructional class sizes are approximately 8-18 students from the Lower Mid through Upper School. Dedicated math and reading coordinators and learning specialists are also available to students.
How long is the school day?
For the 2018-2019 school year:
Nursery/Pre-K: half-day program 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Nursery/Pre-K: full-day program 8:00 a.m. - 2:45 p.m.
Nursery/Pre-K partial full week program: Option 1: Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. or Option 2: Tuesday - Thursday 8:00 a.m. - 2:45 p.m.
Kindergarten-Class VIII: 8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Classes IX-XII: 8:00 a.m. - 2:50 p.m.
How diverse is Marymount?
Marymount is committed to diversity on many levels:
Religious diversity = 31%
Socio-economic diversity = 22% on financial aid
Geographic diversity = approximately 50% are not from the Upper East Side
International diversity = 35% of our parents were not born in the USA. A number of our students come from one of the 21 other Marymount schools around the world. We enjoy a close network and encourage international exchanges.
Marymount admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.
What percent of the student body is Catholic? Is religious education obligatory?
69% of the student body is Catholic. However, we welcome students of all religious faiths and encourage their own spiritual growth. All students attend religion classes, participate in Chapel services once per cycle, and attend Mass 5-6 times per year for feast days and other special Class-level ceremonies. Our religious studies curriculum includes preparation for the Catholic sacraments, and students of all faith traditions are included in Marymount's spiritual life programming.
Where do Marymount students go to college?
We have a very diverse student body with a variety of interests. Therefore, our students go to many types of colleges and universities around the country and around the world: Ivy-league, public, private, single-gender, co-ed, small, large. We aim to meet the needs and interests of individual students in the college selection process. A complete list can be found here.
Do you provide lunch for the students?
Students in Kindergarten through Class VIII receive a well-balanced, family-style hot lunch with many organic ingredients. These students gather daily as a community to eat their lunch.
Upper School students are provided with a lunch bar offering soups, salads, sandwiches, and hot entrees. As a special privilege for Classes IX-XII, students may also bring their own lunch from home or purchase their lunch off-campus from facilities in the local community.
Lunch and all snacks are included in the cost of tuition.
Do you have an after-school program?
Yes, our after-school activities program begins in Kindergarten. In the Lower School, there are a variety of options from which to choose (cooking, chorus, dance, etc.). After-school activities take place every day until 4:30 p.m. There is an extended day program offered until 6:00 p.m. (with the exception of Friday).
In the Lower Mid, there are a variety of after-school activities including Rising Stars, Uptown Broadway, Chess, Makers, and sports, as well as clubs that take place during the school day (improv, karaoke, calligraphy, chemical engineering, creative writing, digital game design, and Math Olympiad). There is also extended day for supervised study until 6:00 p.m.
In the Upper Mid, day-time clubs include Fashion Design and Sewing, Film Appreciation, Jewelry Making, Music Recording, and Newspaper. After-school clubs include School of Rock, Model Congress, Makers Club, and a large variety of athletic opportunities. There is also extended day for supervised study until 6:00 p.m.
In the Upper School, there is a wealth of extracurricular activities as well as an extensive sports program.
Individual instrumental lessons are offered for students in classes K-XII, as well as an Instrumental Ensemble for Upper Mid and Upper Schools.
Do you provide transportation to your school?
There is a free bus service provided by the Department of Education/Office of Pupil Transportation. Eligibility is based on the distance between your home and school. Marymount is conveniently located a short walk from the 4/5/6 trains and near numerous bus lines. Marymount provides a daily shuttle between campuses.
How is the foreign language program structured?
Kindergarten-Class IV: Spanish
Class V: Trimester each of Spanish, French, and Latin
Classes VI-XII: Students choose their foreign language course (Spanish, French, or Latin). In the Upper School, students must complete either a three-year sequence of a language in Classes IX-XII or study through level 4 of the language. Students may opt to add a second language in Class X.
What college-level courses are offered?
Advanced or AP courses are offered in most subjects: 2-D Design Portfolio, Art History, Calculus AB and BC, Chemistry, Computer Science, Computer Science Principles, Drawing Portfolio, English Literature, Francophone Cinema, French Language and Culture, Latin Poetry Survey, Latin Prose Survey, Molecular Biology, Physics C: Mechanics with WE Service, Psychology, Spanish Film, Literature, and Culture, Spanish Language & Culture, Statistics, and U.S. History.
What tests are required to apply to Marymount?
Nursery - Class IV: no exam
Classes V-XII: ISEE or SSAT exam scores accepted. Please arrange appointments directly through the testing administrators. We do not accept the TACHS exam.
Are there any current parents I can speak to about their experience at the School?
Of course! We have dedicated parent volunteers for each division that you are invited to email with questions:
Lower School (N-II): Joan Kuhl
Lower Mid (III-V): Luisa Gardner
Upper Mid (VI-VIII): Sandi Taylor
Upper School (IX-XII): Cindy Kendrot
Meet the Admissions Team
List of 5 members.
Carolyn Booth
Director of Admissions
cbooth@marymountnyc.org
Jillian Pagliocca
Associate Director of Admissions; English Teacher
jpagliocca@marymountnyc.org
Aoife Farrell
Admissions Associate; LS/LMS Learning Support
afarrell@marymountnyc.org
Teresa Lonergan
Admissions Support Staff
tlonergan@marymountnyc.org
Khaliah Adams-Joseph
Diversity Coordinator
kadams@marymountnyc.org
Pratt Mansions

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
9 Restaurants With Hidden Fine Art In Las Vegas
Haute Cuisine, Haute Design, News
"Mayan Story of Creation" by J. Chester Armstrong.
Photo Credit: Javier's
The city, already a destination known for its lavish taste, has been an enthusiastic art collector throughout the years. There are currently nine restaurants on The Las Vegas Strip home to undiscovered fine art. These magnificent works of art will draw out the wonder and the unforgettable feeling of being in the presence of some of the world's most accredited work.
1. WORLD'S LARGEST CHAINSAW ART
ARIA's high-end Mexican restaurant Javier's features a 3,000-pound masterpiece. It illustrates the mythical "Mayan Story of Creation" spanning 25 feet. It was handcrafted by artist J. Chester Armstrong who carved the entire wall with chainsaws. It is the largest carved wall of its kind in the world.
2. ORIGINAL PICASSOS
Picasso was created by "James Beard Award-winning" Chef Julian Serrano. The contemporary French restaurant inside the Bellagio features an extensive collection of original Picasso artwork. Guests in the dining room area can find two paintings that were hidden from Nazis during World War II.
3. AMERICAN EXPRESSIONISTS
"Christopher Walken" by Julian Schnabel.
Photo Credit: Carbone
Expressionist Robert De Niro Sr. (actor Robert De Niro's father) is just one of the artists whose works of art can be seen at Carbone inside ARIA Resort & Casino. Another prominent artist that adorns the Italian-American restaurant is Julian Schnabel. He inspired the owners of Carbone to tweak one of their recipes. The chefs liked it so much they kept the recipe and renamed the dish "Spaghetti Julian."
4. SURREALIST STREET ART
Graffiti mural by Alexis Diaz.
Photo Credit: Libertine Social
Chef Shawn McClain's eclectic gastropub Libertine Social at Mandalay Bay celebrates the free-spirited, adventurous nature of Americans with a large graffiti mural on the restaurant's exterior. Created by world-renowned graffiti artist Alexis Diaz, it draws inspiration from nature, animals, and surrealism.
5. MOSAIC MAP
At the entrance of Lago by Julian Serrano inside the Bellagio, a colossal 1,500-square-foot mosaic map of Milan welcomes guests as they enter the restaurant. It is inspired by Italian Futurism, the sweeping artistic cultural movement of early 20th century Italy. The abstract map is comprised of colored back-lit glass panels that employ a color gradient for contrast separated by bright metal inserts to represent Milan's roadways.
6. MURANO-GLASS CHANDELIER Photo Credit: Rivea
A glass chandelier composed of 15,000 hand-blown glass spheres made in Murano, Italy serves as the focal point in the center of the dining room at Rivea inside Delano Las Vegas. The enchanting light fixtures are arranged to ignite visions of waterdrops pearling down.
7. HAND-PAINTED MURALS
Inside Sage at ARIA, the hand-painted murals by Paulin Paris offer reinterpretations of famous early modernist paintings. Manet's "The Lunch on the Grass" graces the walls around the mirrors in the bar. Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" overlooks the main dining room comprised of muted gold pillars and tiled walls to create a seductive and comfortable ambiance.
8. THE 3D MORIMOTO SCULPTURE
"3D Sculpture of Morimoto" by Mozart Guerra.
Photo Credit: Morimoto
Upon entering Morimoto at MGM Grand, guests are greeted by a 3D sculpture of Morimoto himself made entirely of ropes by Brazilian sculptor Mozart Guerra. The art piece pays homage to the eccentric chef by wrapping several layers of rope creating a realistic yet whimsical figure that compliments the restaurant's contemporary design.
9. FRENCH STATUES
"The Age of Bronze" by Auguste Rodin.
Photo Credit: Joël Robuchon
Three Michelin-starred Joël Robuchon inside MGM Grand is comprised of five lavish spaces inspired by the glamour of 1930s Paris. It includes a beautifully landscaped garden presided over by the Auguste Rodin replica "The Age of Bronze."
Haute Design
The Shopkeep Gift Guide With St. Frank's Christina Bryant
Chef David Burke Created An All Black Menu For Black Friday
By fabiana Santana


text:
Q: Kivy: How to move other buttons down/up when dropdown is down Problem:
I have a dropdown button that produces a label. This label overlaps another button below it. Picture of what is going wrong.
What I Want:
I want the button that is being overlapped by the label from the dropdown to be moved downwards, preferably by same height as the label from the drop down. I then want the button to move back up when the drop down is "pulled up"
MRE
KV File:
#:import utils kivy.utils
#:import Factory kivy.factory.Factory

<CustomDropdown@DropDown>:
    id: dropdown
    on_select:
        app.root.ids.btn.text = '{}'.format(args[1])
        self.dismiss()
    Label:
        id: btn1
        text: ' Information '
        size_hint_y: None
        height: 200
        background_color: (1, 0, 0, .9)
        canvas.before:
            Color:
                rgba: self.background_color
            Rectangle:
                size: self.size
                pos: self.pos

<HomeScreen>:
    FloatLayout:
        canvas:
            Color:
                rgb: utils.get_color_from_hex("#FFFFFF")
            Rectangle:
                size: self.size
                pos:  self.pos
        GridLayout:
            rows: 8
            cols: 1
            spacing: 10
            size_hint_y: None
            height: 1200
            width: self.minimum_width

            Button:
                text:"stuff1"
                color: "black"
                size_hint: 1,.18
                on_press: Factory.CustomDropdown().open(self)

            Button:
                text:"stuff2"
                color: "black"
                size_hint: 1,.18

Main.py
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.core.window import Window
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.screenmanager import Screen
Window.size = (286.110236, 570.33070866)

class HomeScreen(Screen):
    pass

GUI = Builder.load_file("main.kv")

class MainApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return GUI

MainApp().run()


home Home arrow_right Forums arrow_right Pmc arrow_right Discussion arrow_right Bad video card drivers!
Hey guys, I really hope somebody can give me a hand with this. So I recently invested in a new motherboard and RAM for my computer. After installing windows 8 64 bit I put in my external HDD to play Minecraft and it gives me the "Bad video card drivers!" message, and says I need to update my video card drivers.
Well that would be easy enough, but the disc that came with my new motherboard won't load my video card drivers. The ATI catalyst pops up and stays on the "Enumerating source media for installable packages..." I looked on the Asus website and typed in my motherboard type (ASUS M5A88-m) and no video card drivers could be found.
Strangely enough, it seems as though everything should be working alright because when I go to my video card properties the driver says it is "up to date" and is "working properly". If anybody has any answers or even experience with an issue related to this, I would appreciate any response greatly.
P.S. I am rather new to computer building/ customization. In all honesty this is my first time trying to improve my computers performance, so please do not respond negatively.
First off, I'd like to say thanks for all of the great feedback from everyone! This has really helped me out, and hopefully I can purchase a good video card soon. I you have any suggestions, I would appreciate them very much.
You purposefully downgraded to eight?
You mean Windows 8? That's the latest operating system there is (by Microsoft).
Second, I was actually looking for a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, but I was hasty to find an OS and my friend had an extra copy, so i figured why not install Windows 8? So far i have mixed feelings about it... but its a very clean looking OS in my opinion.
Athlon 245, regor, AMD, integrated graphics, of these the only word I know is "graphics". GIBBERISH.
Torched Hey guys, I really hope somebody can give me a hand with this. So I recently invested in a new motherboard and RAM for my computer. After installing windows 8 64 bit I put in my external HDD to play Minecraft and it gives me the "Bad video card drivers!" message, and says I need to update my video card drivers.
Go to AMD and download the catylist tool( http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/w ... etect.aspx ), You have Generic windows drivers.
The issue is that the drivers from microsoft don't support OpenGL Acceleration.
Please don't drop opinions as fact, and back up any opinions you are going to leave with actual reasoning. I've had my AMD/ATi setup last for several years, and it blows away any nVidia + Intel setup I used to have (I switched to AMD/ATi after seeing how well the newer chipsets were performing, and it was hard to beat the price).
Uninstall then reinstall the video card drivers, probably the only thing I can think of. It could also be possible that your integrated driver doesn't support the requirements for Minecraft (I don't see how, but, stranger things have happened). It is recommended you get an actual video card, as integrated ones just won't cut it these days.
Well my motherboard model has integrated graphics and it says "Windows 7 ready" right on the box, so i think that it should work. A friend of mine also said that windows 8 is compatible with all of my hardware... i tried to re-download all of my drivers and still no luck.
If your video card to really old, it is possible that updating to Windows 8 made it incompatible for gaming. That's what happened to me. My card is so old, that the most up-to-date software is still severely outdated. There is no fix unless you either backdate to an older OS or get a newer graphics card.


My house or business needs to be fumigated. What does PG&E need to do?
Can I set up a new residence in advance?
How do I get my gas service turned back on after fumigation is complete?
Does my electric service need to be turned off for fumigation?
How do I start multiple services, such as cable and Internet, at my new address?
I'm an agricultural customer. Why can't I start or stop my service online?
I'm starting service at a new location. How can I get a new PG&E account number online?
Can I start or stop service online for a multifamily location?
You can schedule service to start at a new residence up to 60 days in advance, if PG&E has provided gas or electric service to the residence in the past. Go to Start or Stop Service and follow the steps to schedule your service start.
At that point you can schedule service to start, up to 60 days in advance, at Start or Stop Service.
If you are still in the construction process and want to bring in PG&E to begin setting up gas and electric connections to your future residence, the steps required are outlined in our Building and Renovation section.
I'm a new customer, and I entered my address online. Nothing happened. What should I do?
I'm a PG&E customer who is moving to another location that has PG&E service. Can I do that online?


From an early age, we're led to believe that fruits and vegetables can do no wrong and should thus be consumed in vast quantities in order for us to stay healthy. Indeed, many of us will remember being ordered to finish up all our greens, and wondering how on earth we were going to squeeze in five pieces of fruit each day.
But there are some fruits and vegetables that may also lead to weight gain and are best avoided if you're aiming to lose a few pounds.
"Although it would be difficult to get fat on a vegetable-based diet, if you're looking to burn body fat, not all vegetables are as beneficial as others – as some have a higher calorie count," says Chris Hall, founder of Hall Training Systems.
In addition, some vegetables have a far higher GI – glycaemic index – than others. We found out the worst fruit and vegetables for your waistline.
"These contain a lot of protein and have a high-nutrient density. One cup of lentils has 227 calories, compared to broccoli with just 31 – so if you are on a limited calorie diet, you would need to watch your intake of these vegetables," advises Hall.
According to Fresh Fitness Food's Nutritional Expert, Emma Rose, this starchy vegetable has a high glycaemic index, which raises your blood sugar levels, resulting in a drop in glucose levels after only a few hours and leaving you feeling hungry quicker.
According to Elouise Bauskis, a nutritionist at NutriCentre, the much-loved potato is perhaps the worst vegetable for those watching their weight. Very high in starch and carbohydrates, excessive consumption can lead to weight gain over time.
A nutrient alternative would be low-calorie broccoli, which contains more vitamin C but fewer calories, or even sweet potatoes, which have a lower glycaemic load (GL).
Technically a fruit, this creamy and delicious addition to any meal is surprisingly calorific, with a large avocado containing a whopping 332 calories. So if you're watching the calories closely, this is perhaps one to avoid.
This is far more calorie-dense than fresh fruit, so by adding even a small amount to liven up your muesli, yoghurt or salads, you may be adding more calories to your meal than you think.
Fruits that generally taste sweeter are high in sugars, which can lead to a drop in glucose levels and leave you feeling hungry quicker.
These are all low-starch foods and can leave you feeling fuller for longer while regulating your blood sugar levels.
"If you're trying to increase your vegetable intake at the same time as losing body fat, try choosing vegetables with high levels of dietary fibre. These foods will make you feel full without bumping up your calorie intake too much. Cooked carrots contain nearly 4 grams of soluble fibre per cup," says Hall.
According to Rose, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries can leave you feeling fuller for longer and are packed with antioxidants to boost your intake of vitamins. This should keep you from reaching for unhealthy snacks!
This super-fruit can help speed up your metabolism and help you burn those extra calories.


South Hadley resident Norma McCain was expecting her annual mammogram in January at Baystate Radiology to run smoothly, as usual. But those two little words put a wrench in her plans.
Her thoughts turned immediately to not being able to grow old with her grandchildren.
But Norma remained optimistic. She sought the silver lining.
Her doctor told Norma the breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ, was small, Stage 0 and 1. "This is doable," she thought.
Only a mammogram could have detected the small tumor. The type of cancer she had does not spread through cell walls and it had not yet spread to Norma's lymph nodes.
"I felt like I was very lucky," she said.
What she found was the more she talked with others, radiologists, family, friends and those she met in the waiting rooms, the more she learned about breast cancer and was able to share her own experience.
"Out of this bad thing, it really turned out to be an enlightening experience," she said. "I didn't try to hide it. The more I got it out there, the more I talked about it, the more I was learning. It was like, just get it out there, talk about it! That, I found, to be very helpful," she said.
"This whole experience, it affects so many people," said Norma. The amount of those battling the disease was eye opening for her. "I couldn't believe how busy the waiting rooms were wherever I went," she said.
Through this experience, Norma chose to remain optimistic, a trend she discovered through the majority of people she met and with whom she conversed.
Today, Norma feels like the word "lucky" is insufficient for describing her experience with breast cancer. She credits her life, being able to play with and watch her grandchildren grow, to a routine mammogram. Those "further evaluations" which initially scared her became a lifesaver.
Norma expresses her admiration to the staff at Baystate Radiology for finding her tumor and their diligent work.
– Those willing to share their personal stories should contact Town Reminder Editor Kristin Will at kwill@turley.com or (413) 536-5333. Short features will appear throughout October editions of the paper.