text:
Annual Hunt
April 7, 2015 April 6, 2015 ~ jonolsonauthor
Ed Rutledge hugged his rifle under his right arm as he adjusted his toque with his left. The early morning hours were always cold this time of year and the fact that it was the Annual Hunt just made it that much worse.
He was glad that he wasn't facing the task alone, though. John Glasgow and Christian Stevenson were on either side of him as they made their way through the empty streets of Emmettsville.
John looked at his watch. "It's almost four. We still have three and a half hours to go before dawn."
"Good," Christian said. "Three and a half hours to kill this fucker."
Ed nodded.
It was his eighth time participating in the hunt and the forty-nine year old welder had become something of a legend around Emmettsville when just five years earlier he had successfully killed the first werewolf, Terry Indigo. He should've felt proud of the accomplishment, but he knew the feeling would be short lived as there would be a new werewolf to hunt the following year.
"There's something that never ceases to amaze me," Ed said. "Even though everyone in town is told to go to the church hall to wait out the hunt, the werewolf always manages to kill a few every year."
"I wish a lot more people would leave their lights on," John said. "These old street lamps create more shadows than they cut through."
"There are two things I hate about the hunt," Christian said. "The fact we're not allowed to shoot the werewolf in human form or while it's changing and that the werewolf has to bite someone every year."
"The bite guarantees that there will be a hunt the following year if the hunters are successful," Ed said. "Plus you never know what can happen between hunts. You two are aware that Brendon Jenkins has been the wolf for the last five years, correct?"
Both men nodded.
"Shortly after the hunt last year, Brendon got diagnosed with cancer and they only gave him six to eight months to live. He's lasted twelve. I would say either way that this will be his last hunt."
"Who was it last year?" John asked. "I mean, who got bit?"
"Carly Fortner," Ed replied. "She was only fourteen."
Christian shook his head in disgust. "I can't believe he chose to bite a fourteen year old girl."
The three hunters walked in silence as they remembered how Carly had been found crying with a large bite in her shoulder, knowing her fate had been sealed.
"That doesn't mean that she'll be the next one though," John said. "Remember, Todd Charleston had been bitten in the second year of the hunt. He still hasn't assumed his role. Strange how the disease or whatever it is only allows one person to change in a given area at one time. Why do you think that is?"
Christian shrugged and was about to say something when Ed held his arms out, stopping them. All three immediately brought their rifles up to the shoulders and looked about.
"What is it?" John whispered.
"There's blood on the road."
Ed walked up to the small accumulation of blood, knelt down and stuck two fingers into it. As he turned his hand over to look at his fingertips, he cringed. Even though he had seen his fair share of bodies over the years during the hunt, feeling someone else's blood on his skin never got easy.
"It's still warm," he said, wiping his fingers on his pants.
"Is it a trail?" John asked.
"No. It's a small pool but, it was left here deliberately. He's close so keep your eyes open."
Christian let his rifle drift down from his shoulder a bit as he looked at Ed. "Did you say it was deliberate?"
"Why would it…"
The attack happened incredibly fast. It leapt out of the shadows with a snarl and tackled Christian onto the pavement. Even in the shitty streetlight, the werewolf was an impressive and horrifying sight. Underneath the dark brown coat of fur was a six and a half foot muscular frame built to hunt man.
It easily bit through Christian's shirt into his flesh.
John fired off a shot but not surprisingly missed. The werewolf howled as it sprung off Christian and disappeared into the shadows on the other side of the street. Within seconds, they heard it crash through branches into the woods.
Christian screamed, clutching his torn shoulder. "It fucking bit me!"
Ed and John both knelt down beside their injured friend but he turned away their assistance.
"I know how to take care of myself. Go kill that fucking thing!"
Without hesitating, Ed was on his feet and running. On the way by, he grabbed John by the back of his shirt, yanking him along towards the dark tree line.
Somewhere in the distance, the werewolf howled.
It felt like they had been going in circles for a couple of hours. John was breathing heavy and Ed knew that his friend was tired. The adrenalin from the attack had worn off long ago, and now they were barely able to keep on the werewolf's trail.
"Ed," John said between breaths. "I've been thinking a lot about what you said earlier… about Brendon being sick."
"Well, what do you think a disease such as that would do to a werewolf?"
Another howl pierced the night.
"Have you been listening to the howls?" John asked, looking around. "They don't sound as strong or vocal as they did earlier in the night." The werewolf cried out again. "Ed, to me the howls sound weak… almost as if the werewolf is sick."
Ed thought for a moment. What his friend was saying sounded plausible – if the cancer did transfer over, how would it affect it?
"You might be on to something. What do you say we end this one?"
John sighed, nodded and pushed off from the tree.
They pressed on but had only walked another twenty minutes when they heard another howl that was quickly cut off by a high-pitched whine intertwined with pain.
The sounds were close by.
John looked over at Ed, clearly unnerved.
"What the hell is that?" John asked.
"I don't know," Ed replied.
The whining continued as they moved forward with their rifles repositioned for firing at a moment's notice. Within a few minutes, the trees thinned out as they approached the area where the sound originated. They stepped into a small clearing and stopped with their mouths agape.
It was lying on its side.
The beast was convulsing as if it were suffering a seizure, it wasn't completely transformed. Its lower extremities resembled a wolf's hind haunches but the fur on its torso had started to rip, human skin pushing its way through. Partially formed hands twitched uncontrollably at the end of human arms.
"Oh my god, look at its face," John managed to say before he threw up.
The head was a misshapen mess that reminded Ed of the bizarre animal fetuses he had seen in the freak show of last summer's carnival – half Brendon, half wolf. Inside its malformed mouth, a tongue rolled and lapped up against its snout.
He cautiously approached and the beast tried to squirm away, but the tremors had eliminated any ability to control its movement. One golden wolf eye, along with Brendon's own blue eye, stared back as he tried to come to grips with what he was looking at.
With a deep breath, Ed raised his rifle and fired twice into its head. Within seconds, the body lay still.
"Ed, what happened to it?" John asked. He stared long and hard at the misshapen corpse.
"It couldn't change."
John looked up to the sky and then at his watch. "It's still not sunrise, so why would it be changing?"
Ed took his hat off and ran his hand over his balding head. "Maybe it was sick like you said."
"Do you really think the cancer could interfere with a werewolf changing?"
Ed shrugged. "It's possible."
"This is fucked up," John bent at the waist and placed his hands on his knees preparing for another round of vomiting. "Did you see its eyes?"
"I don't think I'll ever forget those."
"Neither will I," Ed said as he watched John look over at the body and then back at him. "The wolf eye wanted me dead but its human eye…" Ed swallowed. "Brendon's eye was pleading… pleading for me to kill him."
"Oh my god…" John trailed off.
"You know, when I shot and killed the werewolf a few years ago, I had killed in the course of the hunt. I felt justified and like a hero." Ed placed his hat back on his head and looked at the body. "This time, I feel like a murderer."
~ Jon Olson
© Copyright 2015 Jon Olson. All Rights Reserved
Posted in Past Members	DeathhuntJon OlsonlycanthropemurderPen of the DamnedshapeshiftingThe DamnedWerewolf
Published by jonolsonauthor
On top of working full time as a Security Checkpoint Coordinator at the Halifax Robert L. Stanfield International Airport and still learning the ropes of being a father, Jon is also a writer of horror and dark fiction. While he writes predominantly about the dark and horrible, he will step out into other areas if the interest is there. Jon is a proud member of Pen of the Damned and is also a member of the Horror Writer's Association (Affiliate level).	View all posts by jonolsonauthor
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11 thoughts on "Annual Hunt"
Hey Jon, great story this week in 'ANNUAL HUNT!' I appreciated the twist you put on the legend of the werewolf, as well the concept of the annual hunt. It gives the reader much to think about. Personally, I'd like to know how the 'hunt' actually came to be in the first place…but I guess that's a story for another day. 😉 Kudo's, Jon!! 🙂
Thanks a lot, Joe! Don't worry, the tale of how the hunt came to be is in the works, my friend!
Magenta Nero says:
I love the idea of a transformation gone wrong, a further deviation of a hybrid. I really liked this Jon, I found it quite moving, it was well portrayed.
blazemcrob says:
Some traditions are better than others. I really love this story, Jon! Great twist on an old legend. Old monsters can always remain fascinating when viewed in the manner you portrayed here. It's not easy to put humanity into a tale of horror. However, you did so here. 😀
Thanks a lot, Blaze! I always find that the old monsters are at their best when they are portrayed as monsters. And sometimes, our own actions when facing these monsters are more horrifying than the actual beast.
Thanks Magenta! Werewolves (and vampires for that matter) have lately seemed too 'pretty' for my liking. I prefer my monsters to be monsters and sometimes you have show that their 'gift' isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Glad you enjoyed it!
Very, very good job on this one, adding another layer to the werewolf mythos. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I keep thinking about chemo for werewolves. 🙂
Thanks a lot, Hunter! Makes you wonder if the werewolf would lose all of it's fur!
Thomas Brown says:
An interesting take on the werewolf myth, Jon! A strangely humane spin highlighting an underlying issue inherent to werewolf stories – are you killing a beast or a man?
Thanks a lot, Thomas! It may be easy to kill the monster in its form but it's easy to forget that there's a person in there somewhere!
Ah… a Were story, I love these. And population control to boot! Great story, Jon!! 🙂


Next week UM Neuroscience will host its first ever "Brain Burn" bonfire social at the fire pit behind the Payne Family Native American Center. A number of neuroscience faculty will be present, as well as plenty of marshmallows. This will be a purely casual social event--a chance to connect with one-another and professors outside of the classroom/office/lab. We also expect that it won't be the last neuroscience social, and there has been some talk among students about forming a neuroscience club.
Time: 6:30 (sunset)-8:30 pm Thursday, October 25th.
Brains to burn or not, we hope to see you there.


text:
Business, Economics and Jobs
There are more rumors and theories than clues about the missing Malaysia Airlines plane
March 11, 2014 · 9:45 PM EDT
Reporter Matthew Bell
Malaysia Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 11, 2014.
Edgar Su/Reuters
The massive international search and rescue effort in Southeast Asia entered its fourth day with very little to show in the way of solid leads on where the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 ended up, after it went missing less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur Friday night.
"This is one of the most perplexing mysteries regarding something lost at sea that I've ever encountered in my career," says David Gallo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Gallo has some experience with planes lost as sea. He was co-leader of the team that located an Air France passenger jet that went down over the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. The plane was en route from Brazil to France and crashed without making radio contact. Five days later, floating debris from the airliner and bodies of the victims were found.
David Gallo was co-leader for the search team that located Air France flight 447 in the South Atlantic.
Provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
It still took Gallo's team two years to find the actualy wreckage of the Air France plane, which was sitting in deep water, in a very remote location, on top of an underwater mountain range. But pieces had already been found — confirming that the plane had crashed.
The case of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is very different. The area being currently being searched includes some very busy sea lanes, and some rather shallow water.
"In another sense, there is still no evidence at all — not a shred of evidence — that that plane landed in the water," Gallo says. It is a bit like trying to solve a murder case without the victim's body.
"We're making a lot of assumptions that it ended up in the ocean," Gallo says. "The last known position, which is important, was over water," he points out. But at this point, there is still no real evidence of a crash.
Debris from a passenger jet that broke apart over the water might remain on the surface for some time. In the case of the Air France crash, Gallo says, "it was amazing to me how much of that plane could actually float." Whole galleys, along with the plane's tail fin, were found afloat. In the waters around Malaysia, however, not so much as a life vest or seat cushion has been found.
The pilot of flight 370 could have landed the plane in one piece on the water's surface, Gallo says. And then it might have sunk rather suddenly. He says this is an unlikely scenario, but possible. "In that case, you would expect that they would have popped open the doors and put out the emergency chutes and all," he says. That would mean visible evidence — rafts, people — for all the search vessels looking for signs of a crash.
"It's entirely possible that the search craft [have] missed it," Gallo adds. But he says he is confident the plane will be found eventually.
In the meantime, those in charge of the search effort will be under pressure to find some real clues about what happened with the plane and its 227 passengers and 12 crew. Gallo has been in that position himself.
"It's horrible," he says. "The pressure is building from the families and friends and loved ones of the victims. The pressure is building from the international community. The questions are, 'Are you confident? Are you hiding something? When are we going to have some answers?'"
As the American wage gap grows, workers of color are being left behind
Life after death of the 'Love Bug' in Ethiopia
Kuala LumpurAsiaMalaysiaDavid Gallodisaster

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


CSVnet is the Italian national association of service centres for volunteering (CSV, Centri di Servizio per il Volontariato). Founded in January 2003, it includes 64 of the 65 CSVs established in accordance with the framework law on volunteering (n. 266/1991) and represents them both at national and European level. Taking inspiration from the principles of the Volunteering Charter of Values and the Charter of Representation, it aims at increasing the collaboration and the exchange of experiences and expertise between CSVs to help them achieve their objectives, while respecting their autonomy. To this end, it provides counselling, training and support, working to make the CSVs network more effective as a system of "agencies for the local development of responsible citizenship".
Chairman - Since 2011, the association is chaired by Stefano Tabò. Born in Genoa in 1961, he earned a Laurea degree in Political Sciences with a thesis entitled "Gruppi di volontariato: elementi di definizione" (Volunteering groups: elements of definition). He was also awarded a post lauream diploma degree in "Perfezionamento del Terzo settore" (Refinement of the third sector) by Università Cattolica of Milan. Engaged in volunteering since the 1970s, he worked as deputy manager at Caritas, Genoa, from 1991 to 2014 and until the same year he was the director of the Auxilium Foundation. Since 2015 he is vice-president and legal representative of Opere Pie Riunite Foundation, in Genoa. He was one of the founder members of Celivo (CSV Genoa), that he chaired from 2004 to 2011. Among other things, he was the editor of the whole text of the Charter of representation.
Social bodies – Assembly of member CSVs; Governing Council (36 members); Executive Committee (8 members).
"Volontariato post-moderno. Da Expo Milano 2015 alle nuove forme di impegno sociale" (Post-modern volunteering. From Expo Milan 2015 to new forms of social commitment) (Franco Angeli, 2016), a research study in collaboration with Ciessevi, Università Cattolica of Milan, University of Milan 'La Statale', University of Verona, University of Pisa.
infobandi.net: one of the most important free portals to get information on opportunities related to national and international calls for tenders.
infocontinuaterzosettore.it: a portal of daily information and documentation (news, regulations, calls for tenders, events) on volunteering and the third sector.
tantipertutti.it: born from the homonymous project of CSVnet and Fiaf (Federazione italiana associazioni fotografiche, Italian federation of photography associations), this web site makes publicly available a selection of 1,400 of the over 10,000 photographs taken by 700 authors in volunteering Italy.


text:
\section{Introduction}
\label{subsection:sciencegoal}

The Fanaroff-Riley (FR) binary classification of radio galaxies has been widely adopted and utilised since its inception over four decades ago \cite{Fanaroff1974}. However, in spite of progress in relating the two classes to the dynamics and energetics of the sources \cite{Ineson2017,Saripalli2012}, our understanding of the causal relationship between the source physical properties/environment and FR classification is far from complete. To improve our inferences about the physics of these objects, we need to accurately identify and classify more radio galaxies while also detecting anomalous/rare examples \cite{Mingo2019}.

In particular for new sky surveys, such as those anticipated for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, automated classification algorithms are increasingly being developed to replace the manual \textit{by eye} approaches used historically. CNNs have been used with success for image-based classification of radio galaxies (\cite{Wu2019, Aniyan2017}), including attempts to use more novel techniques such as capsule networks \cite{Lukic2018} and attention gating \cite{Bowles2021} to help improve performance and interpretability. \cite{Becker2020} provides a more comprehensive survey of current techniques.

Currently, archival data-sets for training radio galaxy classifiers  are of comparable size to many of those used in computer vision (e.g. CIFAR \cite{Krizhevsky2009}), with around $10^5$ samples available. However, a fundamental difference is the sparsity of labels in radio galaxy data-sets: only a small fraction of data-points are labelled. This is largely due to the domain knowledge required for labelling, which incurs a high cost per label compared to typical machine learning data-sets. Currently, the largest labelled machine learning data-set of radio galaxies is  MiraBest \cite{Miraghaei2017, Porter2020MiraBestDataset} which has 1256 samples, orders of magnitude lower than the number of unlabelled images in its originating sky survey.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.4\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{images/certainFRI.png}
    \caption{FR Class I}

\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.4\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{images/certainFRII.png}
    \caption{FR Class II}

\end{subfigure}
\caption{Example radio galaxies from the MiraBest dataset (cherry-picked for prototypicity) \cite{Miraghaei2017}.}
\label{figure:fr}
\end{figure}

\noindent
\textbf{This work:} In this work, we focus on morphological classification of radio-galaxies within the FR classification scheme, see Figure~\ref{figure:fr}. We aim to test whether we can achieve performance comparable to the current supervised state of the art on the MiraBest dataset with many fewer labels by using semi-supervised learning (SSL). This work will guide decision making on how to construct pipelines for upcoming radio surveys such as those for the SKA.

Many SSL algorithms are successful on benchmarking datasets such as CIFAR-10 \cite{Krizhevsky2009}, MNIST \cite{Lecun1998} and SVHN \cite{Netzer2011} in the regime of low data ($ \sim [10, 10^3]$ data points). However, less work has been done in assessing the robustness to various real world problems, such as unclean or covariate shifted data, new classes appearing in the unlabelled data or even simply varying sizes of labelled/unlabelled data: the shortcomings of the SSL literature have previously been documented in this context \cite{Oliver2018RealisticAlgorithms}.

Of particular interest in astronomy is the problem of biased sampling for our training data. We observe phenomena driven by complex natural processes which are selected for labelling in a biased manner due to instrumental, observational and intrinsic effects which favour, for example, particular flux density (brightness) and redshift (distance) ranges. This makes it difficult to know how representative our data catalogues are of all observed data, and the consequent effects on model performance are therefore not always clear a priori. Specific examples of how this is being addressed for machine learning applications in astronomy include the use of Gaussian process modelling to augment training data and make it more representative of test data in photometric classification \cite{Boone2019Avocado:Augmentation} and in galaxy merger classification where domain adaptation techniques have also been explored \cite{Ciprijanovic2020DomainMergers}. In both of these cases the solutions are tackling covariate shift between the labelled and test data.

\section{FixMatch}
\label{sec:fixmatch}
Semi-supervised learning leverages unlabelled data when only a small labelled data-set is available. The model is fed a set of image-label pairs $({\bm{x}}_l, y_l) \in {\bm{X}}_l$ along with a (usually larger) set of unlabelled images ${\bm{x}}_u \in {\bm{X}}_u$. The goal is to predict labels for held out samples ${\bm{x}}_{test} \in {\bm{X}}_{test}$. An overview of semi-supervised learning can be found in \cite{ChapelleSSL}
\par
We choose the FixMatch algorithm \cite{Sohn2020FixMatch:Confidence} from the pool of SSL techniques as it achieves state of the art performance on benchmarking datasets, has few hyperparameters, and is computationally cheap \cite{Sohn2020FixMatch:Confidence}. FixMatch makes use of the unlabelled data through consistency regularisation and pseudo-labelling by adding a loss term computed on two different augmentations of the same image:
\begin{equation}
\label{equation:fmloss}
\mathcal{L} = \lambda \sum_{u=0}^{\mu B}\underbrace{\mathds{1}(\textup{max}(p_m(\alpha({\bm{x}}_u))) \geq \tau)}_\text{threshold mask} \times \underbrace{H(\hat{q}_u, p_m(y | \mathcal{A}({\bm{x}}_u)))}_\text{pseudo-label cross entropy} +
\sum_{l=0}^B \underbrace{H(y_l , p_m(y | \alpha({\bm{x}}_l)))}_\text{supervised loss}.
\end{equation}
Here the "weak" augmentation, denoted $\alpha(\cdot)$, retains the semantic meaning of the image and simply uses the standard rotation/flipping augmentations. The "strong" augmentation, denoted by $\mathcal{A}( \cdot)$, uses RandAugment \cite{Cubuk2019} to apply a sequence of augmentations that can significantly alter the image.
\par
If $\mathrm{max}(p_m(y | \alpha({\bm{x}}_u))) > \tau$, the prediction $\hat{q}_u = \mathrm{argmax}(p_m(y | \alpha({\bm{x}}_u))$ is used as a pseudo-label for $\mathcal{A}({\bm{x}}_u)$. Figure~\ref{figure:fixmatch} shows how an unlabelled data point flows through the model. $B$ is the labelled batch size, $\mu$, $\tau$ are hyperparameters controlling unlabelled batch size and confidence threshold respectively. $\lambda$ controls the weighting of the unlabelled loss term and is set to 1, following \cite{Sohn2020FixMatch:Confidence}.

\begin{figure}[ht]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{images/fixmatch.png}
    \caption{An unlabelled data point flowing through the FixMatch algorithm \cite{Sohn2020FixMatch:Confidence}}
    \label{figure:fixmatch}
\end{figure}

\section{Experiments}

\subsection{Ensuring fair evaluation}
\label{subsec:fairevaluation}
Fair evaluation is a problem in the SSL literature \cite{Oliver2018RealisticAlgorithms}, yet is crucial if we wish to apply it to real data.
\textbf{Hyperparameters and validation set}: we keep the validation set a realistic size by scaling it to $20 \%$ of ${\bm{X}}_l$, but set a hard lower limit to produce meaningful results when ${\bm{X}}_l$ is small. We set the learning rate to 0.005 but scale the batch size, $B$, with ${\bm{X}}_l$. Astronomical data-sets vary in size and content and large validation sets may not be available: our models need to perform well across a range of scenarios without too much hyperparameter sensitivity. For these reasons, we keep hyperparameter tuning to a minimum, opting instead to choose reasonable values close to the optimal values in the computer vision literature \cite{Sohn2020FixMatch:Confidence}. We choose $\mu = 7$, which allows the model to use a large proportion of the unlabelled data in a single epoch, and $\tau = 0.95$, which allows the model's confidence on unlabelled data to pass the threshold before it begins to overfit.
\textbf{Model architecture}: we use the convolutional architecture from \cite{Tang2019}, which has good performance for radio galaxy classification and relatively few parameters, giving a realistic baseline that isn't prone to overfitting. \textbf{Reproducibility and variance in results and data splits}: each experiment's results are averaged over 10 runs initialised using seeds 0-9. This ensures that the same splits are used during each experiment, while keeping weight initialisations consistent. We use randomly selected, stratified labelled/unlabelled data splits. The same test set is used after choosing the model weights with the best validation set accuracy.
\par
The experiments were performed on a single Nvidia A100 GPU with a total of 2.34 days of runtime. We used \href{https://wandb.ai/home}{Weights \& Biases} \cite{wandb} to track experiment results. Code can be found at \url{https://github.com/inigoval/fixmatch}.

\subsection{Does FixMatch outperform the baseline?}
\label{subsec:performance}

\textbf{Fully supervised baseline.} The baseline model is trained in a fully supervised fashion with a cross-entropy loss, shown as the second term in Equation~\ref{equation:fmloss}. We use the same subset of (weakly augmented) labelled samples as in the FixMatch case, but ignore the unlabelled samples.

\textbf{Throwing away labels to create an artificial SSL scenario (Case A)}. We perform multiple experiments by using a small labelled subset of the MiraBest dataset \cite{Miraghaei2017} and using the remainder as unlabelled data. In all cases we keep the labelled data stratified (class balance is preserved). In Figure~\ref{figure:datafrac} we see that FixMatch achieves a consistently lower loss on the test data and outperforms the baseline in test set accuracy when there is little labelled data available. We are able to recover comparable accuracy ($85.1 \% \pm 1.1\%$) to the supervised baseline with all labels ($86.93 \% \pm 0.54 \% $) using just $20\%$ (203) of the labels. However, FixMatch's performance degrades quickly with very few labels, which is in stark contrast to similar experiments in \cite{Sohn2020FixMatch:Confidence}, where good performance is achieved even with only one sample per class. Furthermore, the "sweet spot" where FixMatch has a significant advantage does not cover the full range of labelled data volumes.

We hypothesise that there is a strong regularisation effect from the strongly augmented samples, as well as new information being learned from the unlabelled data. This is illustrated in Figure~\ref{figure:val_loss0.05}, where FixMatch avoids overfitting at low data volumes, as demonstrated by the well behaved validation loss. We also observe that this effect is not present with 393 labelled samples, which is reflected in the equal test loss at high label volumes in Figure~\ref{figure:val_loss0.4}.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{images/acc.png}
    \caption{Accuracy on the test set.}
    \label{fig:datafracacc}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{images/loss.png}
    \caption{Loss on the test set}
    \label{fig:datafracloss}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Performance as a function of ${\bm{X}}_l$ size.}
\label{figure:datafrac}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.45\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{images/validation_loss.png}
\caption{Validation loss with 50 labelled samples.}
    \label{figure:val_loss0.05}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{images/validation_loss_0.4.png}
    \caption{Validation loss with 393 labelled samples.}
    \label{figure:val_loss0.4}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{FixMatch (Case A) regularisation effect on validation loss. The shaded area shows the standard error over 10 runs. We use exponential moving average smoothing with a weight of 0.3.}
\label{figure:val_loss}
\end{figure}

\label{section:datatest}

\textbf{Testing FixMatch on real unlabelled data (Case B)}. We test FixMatch by using a pool of 20,000 unlabelled data from the Radio Galaxy Zoo Data Release 1 (RGZ DR1) catalogue (Wong et al. in prep) with labelled samples from MiraBest. While these data originate from the same radio survey and are pre-processed in the same manner as MiraBest, the class balance of the RGZ DR1 catalogue is unknown and the choice of filters for choosing data-points is wider, resulting in a dataset of $\sim 10^5$ datapoints. We find that the RGZ DR1 data-set contains many unresolved sources, which are uninformative to our model. To remove these sources, we enforce a lower limit on source extension by calculating the Frechet Distance (FD; \cite{Heusel2017}) between the labelled data-set and the RGZ DR1 dataset (in feature space) for a range of lower limits. We take the limit with the lowest score (28 arcsec), after which a total of 8848 unlabelled data samples remain.

We find that in Case B FixMatch still provides regularisation as shown by the comparable test set loss to Case A, see Figure~\ref{fig:datafracloss}. However, this does not result in an improvement in accuracy. Indeed we  see a decrease in test set accuracy compared to the baseline in Case B, for all labelled data volumes. We hypothesise that this may be due to the unknown class imbalance in the RGZ DR1 data-set.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.45\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{images/friR-low.png}
\caption{Removing FRI samples}
    \label{fig:balaccfri}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}[t]{.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{images/friR-high.png}
    \caption{Removing FRII samples.}
    \label{fig:balaccfrii}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Test set accuracy as a function of label balance in the unlabelled (MiraBest) data-set. We use only samples qualified as confidently classified in the MiraBest dataset for the labelled subset (69 labels) to reduce the noise in our results, see \cite{Scaife2021} for more details on this qualification. Label balance is quantified by computing $4(1-\beta) \beta $. Error bars show the standard error after aggregating 20 runs (seeded 0-19).}
\label{fig:balacc}
\end{figure}

To test this hypothesis we rerun Case A with an artificially class imbalanced unlabelled data-set, produced by removing either FRI or FRII samples from the unlabelled data.
We measure test set accuracy for unlabelled data with varying proportion $\beta$ of FRIs. Figure~\ref{fig:balacc} shows that class imbalance has a significant negative effect on test set accuracy. This suggests that the performance gap between Cases A and B could be accounted for by class imbalance in RGZ DR1, although it is not conclusive that this is the only factor.

\section{Conclusion}
We find that FixMatch provides some regularisation benefits when learning with few labelled samples, mitigating the effect of overfitting, as well as learning from unlabelled data. Furthermore, we are able to achieve better accuracy on the test set than the baseline with fewer labels. While this is relatively promising, the improvement in accuracy is much smaller than for the computer vision data-sets the algorithm was initially tested on.

Poor results using the ``real'' RGZ DR1 data highlight an important obstacle to applying SSL ``in the wild'' on scientific observational data: ${\bm{X}}_l$ and ${\bm{X}}_u$ are unlikely to be drawn from identical distributions. We see that even class imbalance in ${\bm{X}}_{\rm u}$ can have a major effect on SSL performance, noting that in a real scenario we have no way of knowing the class balance of ${\bm{X}}_{\rm u}$.

We believe that a naive application of SSL, although it may outperform the baseline in some cases and provide useful regularisation, requires further domain specific development to give a worthwhile advantage in the case of radio galaxy morphology classification. Future work will consider handcrafting radio galaxy specific augmentations and implementing more sophisticated SSL approaches to help tackle the problem of covariate shift between ${\bm{X}}_{\rm u}$ and ${\bm{X}}_{\rm l}$, such as pretraining and/or incorporating domain adaptation (e.g. \cite{Cai2021}).

\begin{ack}
The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the UK Alan Turing Institute under grant reference EP/V030302/1. IVS gratefully acknowledges support from the Frankopan Foundation.

This work has been made possible by the participation of more than 12,000 volunteers in the Radio Galaxy Zoo Project. The data in this paper are the result of the efforts of the Radio Galaxy Zoo volunteers, without whom none of this work would be possible. Their efforts are individually acknowledged at \url{ http://rgzauthors.galaxyzoo.org}.
\end{ack}

\clearpage

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
https://www.concordia.ca/content/concordia/en/library/guides/exercise-science/review-vs-research.html
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Review vs. research articles
How can you tell if you are looking at a Research Paper, Review Paper or a Systematic Review? Examples and article characteristics are provided below to help you figure it out.
A research article describes a study that was performed by the article's author(s). It explains the methodology of the study, such as how data was collected and analyzed, and clarifies what the results mean. Each step of the study is reported in detail so that other researchers can repeat the experiment.
To determine if a paper is a research article, examine its wording. Research articles describe actions taken by the researcher(s) during the experimental process. Look for statements like "we tested," "I measured," or "we investigated." Research articles also describe the outcomes of studies. Check for phrases like "the study found" or "the results indicate." Next, look closely at the formatting of the article. Research papers are divided into sections that occur in a particular order: abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and references.
Let's take a closer look at this research paper by Bacon et al. published in the International Journal of Hypertension:
Review articles do not describe original research conducted by the author(s). Instead, they give an overview of a specific subject by examining previously published studies on the topic. The author searches for and selects studies on the subject and then tries to make sense of their findings. In particular, review articles look at whether the outcomes of the chosen studies are similar, and if they are not, attempt to explain the conflicting results. By interpreting the findings of previous studies, review articles are able to present the current knowledge and understanding of a specific topic.
Since review articles summarize the research on a particular topic, students should read them for background information before consulting detailed, technical research articles. Furthermore, review articles are a useful starting point for a research project because their reference lists can be used to find additional articles on the subject.
Let's take a closer look at this review paper by Bacon et al. published in Sports Medicine:
Systematic Review Papers
A systematic review is a type of review article that tries to limit the occurrence of bias. Traditional, non-systematic reviews can be biased because they do not include all of the available papers on the review's topic; only certain studies are discussed by the author. No formal process is used to decide which articles to include in the review. Consequently, unpublished articles, older papers, works in foreign languages, manuscripts published in small journals, and studies that conflict with the author's beliefs can be overlooked or excluded. Since traditional reviews do not have to explain the techniques used to select the studies, it can be difficult to determine if the author's bias affected the review's findings.
Systematic reviews were developed to address the problem of bias. Unlike traditional reviews, which cover a broad topic, systematic reviews focus on a single question, such as if a particular intervention successfully treats a medical condition. Systematic reviews then track down all of the available studies that address the question, choose some to include in the review, and critique them using predetermined criteria. The studies are found, selected, and evaluated using a formal, scientific methodology in order to minimize the effect of the author's bias. The methodology is clearly explained in the systematic review so that readers can form opinions about the quality of the review.
Let's take a closer look this systematic review paper by Vigano et al. published in Lancet Oncology:
Finding Review and Research Papers in PubMed
Many databases have special features that allow the searcher to restrict results to articles that match specific criteria. In other words, only articles of a certain type will be displayed in the search results. These "limiters" can be useful when searching for research or review articles. PubMed has a limiter for article type, which is located on the left sidebar of the search results page. This limiter can filter the search results to show only review articles.
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Apollo and Daphne
After Pietro Buonaccorsi, called Perino del Vaga (Italian, 1501-1547)
or after Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio (Italian, 1500/05-1565)
Roman Intaglio of Mars
Self-Portrait of My Sister
Perino del Vaga
Italy (Artist's nationality)
Brush and blue wash, heightened with lead white (oxidized), on blue laid paper, laid down on blue laid paper
20.9 × 16 cm (8 1/4 × 6 5/16 in.)
The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura M. Giles, Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1997), pp. 359-60 and 362, no. 569 (ill.).
McCullagh & Giles 569
Return of the Prodigal Son, 1536/40
Andrea Meldolla Schiavone
Fragment of a Composition: Attendants Bearing Flagons, n.d.
Biagio Pupini
Fortitude (Study for the "Cabinet du roi" [King's Study]), 1541/45
Francesco Primaticcio
Study for the Virgin Annunciate, 1529/30
Camillo Boccaccino
Seated Faun Holding Cornucopia (recto); Sketch of Tree and House (verso), n.d.
Fragment of a Composition with People Gesturing and Horses in the Background, n.d.
Study for Perseus Liberating Andromeda, n.d.
Seated Church Father (Saint Augustine?) with Putti, n.d.
Apollo Driving the Chariot of the Sun, 1519/21
The Virgin Enthroned with Saints Gregory and James, and a Family of Donors, 1535/36
Study of a Nude Seen from the Back, and Two Studies of an Arm (recto); Nude Seen from the Back, with Subsidiary Studies of a Shoulder and Leg (verso), c. 1528
Studies of Warriors, Horsemen, and Lions (recto); Studies of Heads and Nude Figures, Ceiling Plan, and Inscriptions (verso), 1528/33


Save chicken carcass or vegetable scraps to make your own nourishing broth.
Use leftover meats to top off salads or pizza—a little goes a long way in these dishes!
Stretch leftover mashed potatoes by making them a filling for enchiladas or samosas.
Add leftover fish to a whole wheat tortilla with some greens for a tasty wrap.
After roasting vegetables for a side dish, use them later as a healthy taco base.
Repurpose extra rice by making a quick fried rice.


Share what you think about Montgomery Ward, and your favorite ways to save there!
I love the products! Stuff you can't find at other places. I also love the facts that I can buy now and pay later with a low monthly payment! That works for me.


This section describes using POP or IMAP to handle remote mail.
Other options include nfs-mounting the spool partition on client machines (Danger Will Robinson! Is everyone using the same lock method?) or using a mail-to-web gateway (quite popular now).
Or you take a mail hub, "mailhost.foo.com" with rules for rewriting, so every user seems to post from the same address, even if they are on different computers.
But in that case, how can users read their mail?
It would overload our mail hub! One method was forwarding or UUCP, smtp, etc. but it's too complicated.
Then came POP/IMAP, both with security problems at the beginning, (now fixed using ssh on new versions): a mail program has sometimes to be set locally (like qmail, smail or vmail if, for example, you use elm, but mozilla will avoid that!) however, getting and sending Email is simpler.
some POP servers (e.g. qpopper, ipop3d) on high-use servers can load the machine significantly. Consider controlling options (such as not leaving mail on the server) and/or changing the pop server (e.g. cucipop), as well as avoiding running it from inetd.
The password problem can be solved creating a crypted "channel" to have POP on it or using APOP or RPOP extensions. The mail reader problem can be solved either by changing mail reader (don't underestimate the effort required to re-educate users!) or by using a POP "mail sucker" with a local mail program.
IMAP can be preferable to POP in various situations like remote (and especially roaming) access, while you restrict POP to a LAN where snooping of passwords isn't so much of a concern. Mark Aitchison reported a solution here is to use hosts.deny and hosts.allow files (please see Net-3 HOWTO ; this assumes you are starting pop from inet).
The policy of leaving mail on the server or not has implications for server disk space and easier backup/security of the mail, as well as allowing roaming, so the best solution depends on the type of organization. Of course, this will not ensure your mail can't be read, but nobody will be able to delete it ; if all your mail is pgp encrypted this is a better solution.
gwpop (a Good Way to POP) is very protected since it creates a crypted "channel" and puts mail directly in the "spool" ; however, it depends on Perl.
It is strongly discouraged in case of multi-user machine; other user can see your password by, for example with "ps auxw"
Don't forget to "chmod 600 /.fetchmailrc" or fetchmail will ask for it. Please note that the forcecr option is needed to use fetchmail with qmail, which strictly respects RFCs.
Go to one of the previous sections to install and configure the one you like best. Then, when you will reach "Testing", try to send some mail to a local account on the mail hub.
If your program doesn't do everything itself, you can install elm, pgp, mush, pine ... many good programs are freely available for linux platforms!
If it works, you will get something like "OK Pop server (...) starting": type "quit"!
Then will you hopefully see mail hub's pop banner. If you don't use ssh, don't forget to comment out $ssh on gwpop script. To check whether procmail is running, try "procmail -v"
If gwpop "error messages" are normal, the mail from mail hub will be downloaded to your local machine wherever you told gwpop to put it. (please test with some mail!).
gwpop messages are then sent to syslog and gwpop will run endlessly ; a "HUP" signal will force gwpop to get your mail.


Mary-Claire King was the first to prove that breast cancer is inherited in some families as the result of mutations in the gene that she named BRCA1. In addition to inherited breast and ovarian cancer, her research interests include the genetic basis of schizophrenia and human genetic diversity and evolution. She also pioneered the use of DNA sequencing for human rights investigations, developing the approach of sequencing mitochondrial DNA preserved in human remains, then applying this method to the identification of kidnapped children in Argentina and subsequently to cases of human rights violations on six continents.
Dr. King received her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California at Berkeley, where her dissertation in 1973 demonstrated that humans and chimpanzees are 99% genetically identical. Dr. King has served on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health and the National Commission on Breast Cancer of the President's Cancer Panel.


"Recognition of the sector's importance has resulted in the creation of D&G Food and Drink, led by marketing expert Lorna Young. It is a business information support service provided on behalf of Dumfries and Galloway Council and it caters for all aspects of the industry from production to retail and hospitality.
"Here is just a taster of what's on offer.
"Kilnford, is a large mixed farm at Ingleston. It has a farm shop with a famed delicatessen as well as a restaurant and a nature trail which attract visitors from miles around. Barony Country Foods offer a wide variety of fish poultry and game and operate a traditional Scottish smokehouse – and the produce can be bought online.
"Cream O' Galloway ice cream also offers a very attractive visitor experience alongside its delicious product, as indeed does Drummuir Farm Ice Cream in the village of Collin.
"Then there is the award winning Criffel Cheese from Loch Arthur, made by residents of the Camphill Community. I could add to that several chocolatiers, including the extremely creative Abbots in Langholm and Liz Cole in Moniaive.
"We also have Scotland's newest whisky producer, Annandale Distillery. It lay derelict after closing in 1918 until it was lovingly restored by Professor David Thomson and his wife Teresa. The distillery's location makes it first in Scotland and it will act as a gateway to Dumfries and Galloway itself. Can I respectfully suggest to the Cabinet Secretary that he visit Annandale – he would find it a very satisfying experience and a great way to experience the food trail himself.
Ms McAlpine also used the debate to highlight the crisis facing cider producers Waulkmill, in Langholm.
"In Langholm, Waulkmill produces a 100% Scottish craft cider from traditionally grown apples and pears. The business, like other small cider producers, plays a vital role in preserving ancient orchards and apple varieties.
"However, Waulkmill like other craft cider producers is under threat despite the best efforts of local and national government here in Scotland. The UK currently has a duty exemption for small scale cider producers dating back to the time of chancellor Dennis Healy.
"I congratulate Joan McAlpine on securing a fantastic debate this afternoon.
"Food and Drink in Dumfries and Galloway, and across Scotland is a sector which is growing in strength and stature, and is now world renowned.
"In Scotland we are enjoying a Food and drink revolution. And in Dumfries and Galloway we have some of the most fantastic food - tasty, fresh, environmentally sustainable.
"Dumfries and Galloway has one of Scotland's richest larders, and there is no doubt that the region is playing a huge role in the year of Food and Drink in Scotland.


Shorter versions of this review have appeared in several major metropolitan newspapers. This is the review that appears on my Science Shelf on-line book review archive.
Buy Rocket Men at discount price and support The Science Shelf Book Review Archive.
Readers of Rocket Men may also enjoy discovering other books on space exploration and astronomy featured at The Science Shelf.
It was a time not unlike our own. A newly elected young president with a flair for inspirational rhetoric and ambitious goals challenged the United States to re-establish its world leadership.
Eight years later, on July 20, 1969, a rapt world watched grainy black-and-white analog broadcast television images as Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon.
Today we watch elaborately produced retrospectives of the Apollo 11 moon landing in crisp, full-color, high-definition, digital format. But as Craig Nelson notes in his new book Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon, the mythology surrounding the accomplishment is the same as it was when Armstrong took that "one small step" four decades ago.
Nelson, a former publishing executive and author of Thomas Paine, which won the 2007 Henry Adams Prize, captures not only the historical richness behind NASA's greatest accomplishment, but also and the breadth, depth, and humanity of the team that achieved it.
The book is filled with in-their-own-words descriptions drawn from NASA's transcripts and oral history archive. These place readers on the scene with the astronauts, their families, and the launch and mission control teams.
Its centerpiece, of course, is the Apollo 11 mission.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I is the pre-launch story of the Apollo 11 astronauts, Armstrong, his fellow moon-walker Buzz Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins.
This you-are-there approach continues throughout the book's three sections. At critical moments in Apollo 11 and other missions, Nelson's vivid detail rivets readers to their seats before releasing them to rise in celebration or to sink in despair (as in the sights, sounds, and odors of the tragic Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts).
By the end of Part I, when Apollo 11's launch vehicle has just cleared its tower, readers have made intimate acquaintances with Armstrong and his crewmates, the astronauts' families, and key members of the mission control and launch teams.
This section is the most nuanced of the book. It begins in the final days of World War II with Operation Paper Clip that brought Wernher von Braun and his brilliant team of ex-Nazi rocket scientists to the United States rather than Russia. Their moral ambiguity and engineering excellence are on display side-by-side. Nelson never falls into the trap of either lionizing or demonizing these problematic but important figures–including one who was eventually revealed to be a war criminal, stripped of U.S. citizenship, and deported, but not before he made important contributions to NASA rocketry.
Part II also explores complex political calculations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Though the public saw the Apollo program as largely civilian with emphasis on science and technology, it had major military and geopolitical implications.
In many ways, Nelson's task in presenting this history is as daunting as NASA's original challenge. But he rises to the occasion with meticulous research, skillful storytelling rich in detail, and a narrative arc as stimulating and disciplined as Apollo 11's own trajectory through space and history.
Part III picks up where part I ended just after Apollo 11 liftoff and continues to the Moon and beyond. It is full of vivid, heart-pounding detail that reaches its peak as Armstrong searches for a boulder-free area to set down the Eagle.
"From a height of two thousand feet while traveling twenty feet per second, Armstrong tried to orient himself to the landscape below from his studies of the Apollo 10 photographs, but Eagle was now too low to the ground, and too far off-course," Nelson writes. Then, drawing on the NASA archive, he leaves the rest of the narration to Flight Director Gene Kranz, Aldrin, Armstrong, and Armstrong's wife, Jan.
The book closes with a poignant and thought-provoking discussion of the biggest question faced by the astronauts and agency alike: What do you do after you've been to the moon?
The most dramatic story is Buzz Aldrin's. The second man on the moon was unprepared for the spotlight. He was a pilot who wanted nothing else but his next assignment, but NASA did not want to put the life of its new national treasures at risk. He fell into depression and alcoholism and eventually had to be secretly hospitalized.
Fortunately, Nelson writes, Aldrin emerged into a new life with his old determination intact. "In time, Buzz became one of the bravest of all of America's astronauts by publicly revealing his mental illness." He wrote a memoir about his troubles and recovery and served as chair of the National Mental Health Association.
Michael Collins has had a surprisingly normal life, including a stint as director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Like Aldrin, Neil Armstrong missed being a pilot and struggled with too much attention from too many people. But he learned to use his fame to his benefit, including taking several corporate directorships, traveling to the North Pole with Sir Edmund Hillary, and serving as vice-chair of the presidential commission investigating the Challenger tragedy. He also became a much-sought-after speaker.
Today, the future of manned spaceflight is in doubt. In the 21st century, NASA is much less willing to take risks than it was in the Apollo years.
Their alignment was just right in the 1960s for Apollo to flourish. If they come into alignment again, will we be ready?
Rocket Men could have been written simply to exploit the fortieth anniversary of Apollo 11 for commercial success, but Craig Nelson has produced something far better. It is that rare combination of a definitive history and a "great read." When the centennial of mankind's giant leap is celebrated, readers will be hard pressed to find anything better.


text:
All posts by administration
Validation task force, what about transversal skills?
18 May 2022 Policy newsletteradministration
The European Digital Learning Network is participating to a series of webinars as part of a pan-European Validation task force. The first webinar, held on the morning of 28th April 2022, focused on the finding of TRANSVAL-EU project research, revealing that the Netherlands is one of the most advanced EU countries in the validation of READ MORE >
Creative pact for skills manifesto formally launched!
The European Digital Learning Network is part of the large-scale skills partnership in the Cultural and Creative Industries ecosystem under the EU Pact for Skills. On the 28th April the partnership was officially launched and announced in the news and official social media by the European Commission. The mission is to strengthen and support the READ MORE >
Policy coherence 2030
The European Digital Learning Network was delighted to take part and contributing to the EU2030 Working Group on policy coherence organised by LLLP. The meeting, to which The European Digital Learning Network officer participated remotely, was held on the 11th April 2022. The Working Group work plan has the goal of boosting policy synergies within the READ MORE >
How can hybrid learning methods help the integration of STEAME in schools?
12 April 2022 Digital Newscovid19, digital education, hybrid learning, STEAME, STEAME GOES HYBRIDadministration
Due to the onset of the Covid19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, everyone had to adapt to the idea of interacting with others through a computer, both for work but also and above all for the school. After two years, the possibility of going back to studying face to face has become real again READ MORE >
Including landscape in the new e-learning methodologies
1 April 2022 European projectsEducational Handbook, Erasmus + project, European project, GIS platform, landscapeadministration
Previously, on other occasions, we have defined what is considered as landscape. That is, all those visible features that we can find in a given area of land, what are its forms, and in turn, the way in which natural and artificial elements are integrated. We can differentiate between the physical elements which are the READ MORE >


Section 5905.01 - Veterans' Guardianship Law Definitions.
Section 5905.02 - Commitment To The United States Veterans' Administration.
Section 5905.03 - Administrator Shall Be A Party In Interest.
Section 5905.04 - Appointment Of Guardian.
Section 5905.05 - Petition For Appointment Of Guardian.
Section 5905.06 - Limitation Of Guardianship - Exception.
Section 5905.07 - Guardian Of Minor Ward.
Section 5905.08 - Guardian Of Mentally Incompetent Ward.
Section 5905.09 - Notice To Be Given.
Section 5905.10 - Bond Of Guardian.
Section 5905.11 - Annual Account Filed With The Court.
Section 5905.12 - Failure To File Account.
Section 5905.13 - Compensation Of Guardian.
Section 5905.14 - Investment Of Surplus Funds Of Estate.
Section 5905.15 - Provisions Applicable To Income And Estate.
Section 5905.16 - Support Of Person Other Than Ward.
Section 5905.17 - Real Estate May Be Purchased By Guardian.
Section 5905.18 - Certification Of Public Record Without Charge.
Section 5905.19 - Termination Of Guardianship.


Gregory A. Stoner to Debra M. Stoner, QCD; all Lot 4, E 100' Lot 5, E 80' Lot 6, Blk. 83, North Peabody Addn., Peabody.
Paul J. Fulsom and wife to Paul J. Fulsom, Inc., QCD; Tract1: All, 34-27-22; Tract 2: SW/4 and S/2 SE/4, 27-22-5.
Don Rosine and wife to Thomas E. Clark and wife, WD; pt. NW/4, 35-20-2.
Glenn Litke to Virgil G. Litke et al, trustees, WD; E/2 W/2 SW/4, 35-20-2.
John C. Webb to Steven Lee Shriner Sr., WD; Lots 16, 18, 20, Blk. 3, Buller's Addn., Goessel.
Donna Carlson to Darlene Carlson, WD; S/2 NE/4, 2-18-5, undivided 1/2 interest.
John L. Hybsha et al to Dale Bentley, QCD; all Lots 13, 14, 15, and 16, Blk. 12, Original Town, Lincolnville.
Tamara L. Suffield to Dale Bentley, QCD; all Lots 13, 14, 15, and 16, Blk.12, Original Town, Lincolnville.
Barbara Nordling to Barbara Nordling, trustee, WD; pt. SE/4, 9-20-4 (Lot 3, Schlotthauer 2).
Dale Ade and wife to Deeanne Norberg Johnson Revocable Trust, WD; all that part of W/2, 5-19-1, north of railroad.
Wilma Wilcox by power of attorney to Duane F. Remmers, WD; pt. SW/4, 11-18-4.
Myron D. Schmidt et al, trustees to Floyd H. Nickel et al, trustees, trustee's deed; a tract in NE/4, 4-21-1.


Mario Draghi struck a cautiously optimistic note about the prospects for a rebound in the euro-area economy this year, saying some of the factors that have held back growth appear to be waning.
The 19-nation economy has shown "remarkable resilience" faced with headwinds such as Brexit, trade protectionism and political uncertainties in some of its members, the European Central Bank president said on Saturday. Still, the balance of risks remains tilted to the downside and the ECB needs to maintain its accommodative policy, he said.
His remarks echo earlier comments from some of his Governing Council colleagues including Finnish central banker Olli Rehn, who told Bloomberg in an interview that the latest economic indicators confirm the ECB's outlook for a rebound this year.
The assessment is important because policy makers have pinned the design of new long-term loans -- likely to be announced in June -- and the potential need for measures mitigating the impact of negative interest rates to economic prospects in the 19-nation economy.
Chief economist Peter Praet said on Friday there are good reasons to believe the situation is stabilizing after a significant economic slowdown forced the ECB in March to announce fresh support and delay rate increases beyond this year.
Draghi said markets have understood the ECB's reaction function, with financial conditions "where we want them to be." Investors are currently expecting the first interest-rate increase well into 2020.
"This should help conditions to create convergence for inflation to our medium-term objective," Draghi said.
While market-based inflation expectation have slipped recently, they aren't "being deanchored," and the ECB is fully committed to reaching its inflation goal of just under 2 percent "without undue delay," he said. The central bank is "fully equipped to achieve its mandate," he said.


For young people interested in ballet or already involved in ballet dancing, the Canadian National Ballet School's second edition on ballet is a must. The Ballet Book, a large-format trade paperback prepared by the school's two artistic directors, is both an instructional and reference book for budding ballet dancers. It is beautifully prepared with well over one hundred mostly full-page color photos, with the help of seventeen of the school's dancers, demonstrating the various ballet positions. Each photo has a caption naming the position and describing it in a short but succinct paragraph. Most are demonstrated by a solo dancer, but some have two or more dancers or even a group. The book is divided into five chapters, the first two giving the basics: how to choose a good school and good teacher, appearance and dancewear, and so on. Then the book gets into the basic positions from first to fifth position of feet and body, again, each with a short, good description by which the students can practice between classes. Later chapters get into the more difficult positions and performing the dances.


text:
Q: Copy few lines from one file to another Here is my question let's say I have a file file1.txt with contents:
abc
def ->[
    sff
    ghi
]
dqq

Now I want to copy all the line starting from sff to ghi from file1.txt to end of file2.txt
i.e. the following lines should added to file2.txt
sff
ghi

This is waht i have. Suggest me instead of "last" what should i have use to fullfill my requirement:
My $fh="file1.txt";

my @lines = read_file($fh);

while ( my $line = shift @lines) {

      next unless ($line =~ m/def/);

      last; # this code will write till end of file i.e. dqq

}

append_file('file2.txt', @lines);

A: here it is
while(<DATA>){
print $_ if /sff/ ... /ghi/
}

__DATA__
abc
def ->[
    sff
    l1
    l2
    ghi
]
dqq

A: my $fh1 = "file1.txt";
use File::Slurp;
$search1 = "start";
$search2 = "end";
open (WRITE,'>>',$new);
open (fh,"<","$fh1");
while()
{
push @array,$_ if/$search1/../$search2/;
}
close(fh);
append_file('file2.txt',@array);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Jay Norton
Ryan Hare
Lindsay Hare
David Fairbanks
Kyle Crane
DUI and DWI Defense
Drug Defense
The Law Blog
Kansas DUI Manual
Home » Kansas Sex Crimes Defense Lawyer
Kansas Sex Crimes Defense Lawyer
There are few things more devastating to a person's life than being accused of or charged with committing a Kansas sex crime, including electronic solicitation, indecent liberties, possession of child pornography or a crime of sexual violence. It is very important to retain legal counsel immediately to begin representing your interests.
Sex crimes laws in Kansas can be very confusing, and attempting to navigate this area of the law without an experienced criminal defense lawyer well-versed in the field can result in terrible consequences. The mere allegation or rumor of such an act can cost people their jobs, families, reputations and freedom. More catastrophic is the possibility of conviction of a Kansas sex offense, which may result in imprisonment and /or public registration as a sex offender on the Kansas Sex Offender Registry. Most Kansas sex crimes are also non-expungeable, meaning that a conviction for such an offense will remain on your record for life, rendering you incapable of escaping your past. This can forever impact one's ability to find employment or enjoy other right and privileges. The following is a guide to the process and issues typical in a Kansas sex crimes investigation.
The Kansas Sex Offense Process Starts with Police Investigations
There are many different types of evidence that are relevant to police investigations of Kansas sexual offenses. Each type of evidence has a specific role in the eyes of police and prosecutors, and should be dealt with accordingly by an experienced sex crime defense lawyer.
Victim Statements
A victim's statement about a sex offense falls under 2 main categories: Adult statements, or child statements. Investigators will give special care and attention to statements of sexual abuse made by children, and so should a sex crime defense attorney.
A child who alleges sexual abuse is likely to be referred by police to the Sunflower House agency. The agency employs professionals who are specially trained in forensic interviewing of children.
Interviewers may use drawings, diagrams and anatomical dolls during the process. However, use of leading and suggestive questions by the interviewer is not allowable, and careful review of the session for any improprieties needs to be taken by the defense.
Adult statements of a sexual offense are normally taken and recorded by a police officer or detective. These statements may also include video as well as audio recordings by police which attorneys can review.
Physical evidence for consideration in charging a person with a sex crime in Kansas may include various types of samples and submissions, including:
Hair samples
Finger or palm prints
Pictures/video
Other miscellaneous objects, and
Biological materials
Biological materials can be collected from a victim at a hospital by a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. These nurses are specially trained to document a detailed report and collect bodily evidence from a victim of a sexual offense.
A suspect may be approached by police during the investigation and asked for consent to give a DNA sample, or for permission to search the home or vehicle. This may happen if investigators feel there is no time to obtain proper search warrants.
A suspect is also very likely to be approached by a detective in order to answer a "few questions" regarding the accusations. The investigator may appear friendly and/or sympathetic to the accused, in efforts to coax as much information as possible from them.
John Demarco, A Kansas Lawyer Experienced in Sex Crime Defense
John DeMarco, Attorney at Law
It is almost never a good idea to cooperate with investigators of a sex crime without your attorney present. If you are being investigated or are accused of a sex crime in Kansas, you owe it to yourself to contact Attorney John DeMarco to discuss your case.
John has extensive knowledge of the procedures, personnel and defenses in Kansas sex crimes cases. He worked for the Johnson County Public Defender's Office for the first five years of his legal career, defending clients solely on felony charges, including aggravated sexual battery, aggravated assault, rape and aggravated sodomy.
If you've been accused of a sex offense in Kansas we encourage you to learn about the charging process, when to hire an attorney and the laws involved by clicking the links below.
Learn The Process of Being Charged With A Sex Crime in Kansas
Why You Need An Attorney If You're Facing Sexual Abuse Allegations
Kansas Sex Offense Laws, Statutes and Penalties
Aggravated Sodomy Laws in Kansas
Information on Kansas Jessica's Law Offenses
Information on Kansas Sex Offender Registry If You Are Convicted
Kansas Rape Charges
Prostitution and Soliciting a Prostitute
The Process of Being Charged With A Sex Crime in Kansas
Sex Crime Accusations? You Need To Hire An Attorney!
Kansas Sex Crime Laws, Statutes and Penalties
Kansas Jessica Law Offenses
Sex Offender Registry in Kansas
Sex Crimes E-book
Being Charged with Rape in Kansas
Soliciting a Prostitute And Prostitution In Kansas
Select State *KansasMissouri
Details of Your Case
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What You Need To Know About Kansas Domestic Violence Charges February 15, 2019
Can Your Smart Phone Help You During a DUI Investigation? January 19, 2017
Missouri DWI Law – What Is a DUID? January 6, 2017
How long does a DUI stay on your record in MO? December 13, 2016
DUI DWI Defense
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text:
Senate indicts CBN over MTN's $13.9bn repatriation
Senate. File copy
By Taiwo Ojoye
Leke Baiyewu, Abuja
The Senate has blamed the Central Bank of Nigeria in its investigation of the alleged illegal repatriation of $13.9bn by telecommunication giant, MTN.
Adopting the report by the Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions on the probe at the plenary on Wednesday, the Senate accused the CBN of laxity, leading to sharp practices by commercial banks.
The Senate had in October 2016 started a probe into the allegation that MTN illegally transferred $13.9bn from Nigeria to other countries between 2006 and 2016.
The Senate panel had summoned the CBN, MTN management, the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, three commercial banks and some businessmen over alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous) Act to a public hearing where they made counter-claims.
The recommendations by the panel were unanimously approved by the lawmakers.
They include to "condemn the CBN for failing in its duty to bring forth those observed deficiencies of FEMMA for amendment rather than granting extensions and exemptions, which became prone to abuses.
"Mandate the CBN to sanction Stanbic IBTC for improper documentations in respect of capital repatriation and loan repayments amounting to $388,195,183 and $199,440,952:07, respectively.
"Mandate the CBN to sanction the activities of Stanbic IBTC nominees in the matter of shares transfer and splitting for the purpose of dividend repatriation.
"Mandate the CBN to come up with a proposal for the amendment to FEMMA, with a view to ensuring the growth of the economy through massive foreign capital inflow and greater retention of foreign exchange. The amendment is still ongoing in the Senate.
"Direct the CBN to forthwith render periodic status reports to Senate on the performance of foreign investments inflows and outflows."
New naira: Anger spreads over scarcity, Reps oppose CBN extension
Naira swap: House committee rejects extension, threatens Emefiele's arrest
In his comment, Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi-West) said the findings by the panel had vindicated the Senate.
He said, "As the mover of the motion that resulted in this very fantastic report, I am particularly pleased and happy that a vigorous investigation was carried out but my worry and the worry of the Senate as expressed the day the motion was moved has been captured in this report."
The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, in his remarks, commended the panel.
He said, "Clearly, we have seen here that the CBN reneged in carrying out its proper regulatory and supervisory roles in the implementation of foreign exchange laws.
"Secondly, the case of where the bank has admitted some infringements, the CBN should see that the necessary sanction is applied.
"The message here really is that the regulatory institutions must play their roles. If they create lapses that create these opportunities and the lapses are there, then we must hold ourselves accountable. As a Senate, the signal we send is very important to the investment sector. I do not believe that as a country we are hostile to investments coming here. Once they invest here, they must play by the rules."
The Senate made the investigation based on a motion by Melaye in which he alleged that MTN illegally repatriated the sum out of Nigeria through its bankers.
The lawmaker alleged that MTN transferred the funds through Stanbic IBTC, $4.87bn; Standard Chartered Bank, $5.72bn; Citi Bank, $2.98bn; and Diamond Bank, $0.35bn.


If you are looking for an easy way to roast garlic, you've found it.
Roasting garlic is not complicated or tricky. Plus it tastes so delicious you will want it on hand all the time.
Slice the top pointed end off a whole head of garlic to expose the tops of the cloves. Place head of garlic on aluminum foil and drizzle oil over the top. Wrap tightly.
Bake alongside whatever you have cooking in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the garlic is soft.
Roasted garlic can be stored in the refrigerator for several days and is delicious added to meat, salads, potatoes – or anything else you can think of.
I often roast garlic when I have the oven on for something else, even if I won't be using it for that particular meal.
That way the oven doesn't get used just for a tiny head of garlic and I have roasted garlic on hand any time I want to use it.
You can use the roasted garlic for so many things.
Mix it in with mashed potatoes for a luscious roasted garlic mashed potatoes recipe, spread it on Italian bread or French baguette, or spread it on toasted Italian bread before you add bruschetta topping.
Garlic is SO healthy for us, it is one of those ingredients you should try to put in as many things as you can.
In diabetic recipes, gluten free recipes or low carb recipes – pile on the roasted garlic! It's delicious and suits every one of those special diets.
If you like this recipe, I'd love you to Pin it to Pinterest, Tweet about it, Like it on Facebook and leave a comment below. Submit your own recipe below in the comments section too. We would love to help you share your creations with the world.
Now that you will be roasting garlic soon, look here for our garlic mashed potatoes recipe that uses roasted garlic.
We eat it with a teaspoon whilst watching TV.
Sounds good Andy. I'll put it on my must try list. And garlic is SO healthy for you. The more ways we can find it eat it the better. And roasting takes the "sting" out of it. It makes the garlic much mellower. Delicious on salads, or on good crusty bread that you have toasted. Yummy. Can't wait to try it again.
I looove roasted garlic! Thanks for the info.


Alieu Kosiah, the Liberian war crime suspect held by Switzerland, is expected to remain in preventive detention for another three months.
A source told Nordic Africa News that the decision to extend was made after a hearing recently.
When contacted the spokeswoman of the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland Jeannette Balmer said "We can just confirm that the criminal proceedings are still ongoing with the accused in prevention detention".
In a short email response she said her office could not go into any details about the case: " We cannot confirm or invalidate elements subject to investigation secrecy".
Kosiah, who has been living in the European nation was arrested last November, following complaints by a number of Liberians, and has since been held on suspicion of carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity while serving as a militia commander for one of the warring factions in the Liberian civil war.


Q-SYS I/O peripherals help connect the power of the Q-SYS Core processor to the outside world of audio. I/O cards provide connectivity to analog and digital sources and destinations, while the I/O-Frame and I/O-22 allow local or remote inputs or outputs anywhere that a standard Gigabit Ethernet network is available with connectivity back to the Core.
When deployed in "I/O Frame mode", the Q-SYS Core 510i processor offers the ability to integrate up to 128 x 128 audio channels in to the Q-SYS system for processing on a separate Q-SYS Core. It can accommodate any combination of Q-SYS Type-II I/O cards. This is particularly useful when integrating large numbers of networked audio channels from Dante™, CobraNet™ or AVB™ devices and subsystems in to the Q-SYS Platform.
The Q-SYS I/O Frame can be used to physically locate input and output connections near their sources and destinations. Each I/O Frame features four card slots, which can support up to four I/O cards, mixed and matched in any configuration.
The Q-SYS I/O-22, is a compact, standalone unit designed for use when audio sources and destinations are physically spread out, such as the individual seats in a conferencing system or individual rooms in a multi-room venue. Providing two mic/line inputs and two line outputs, the I/O-22 is ideal for applications such as legislative or judicial chambers, meeting rooms, ballrooms, ancillary zones, classrooms, VIP suites, and stage patching.
I/O cards provide connectivity to analog and digital sources and destinations include high quality mic/line input cards, line output, as well as bridge network cards for Dante™, AVB™, CobraNet™ and more.


text:
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS wen_test DEFAULT CHARSET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `t_userinfo`;
CREATE TABLE `t_userinfo` (
	`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
	`name` varchar(30) NOT NULL,
	`title` varchar(100) NULL default '',
	`status` int(1) NOT NULL default 0,
	PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=0 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
using SOURCE.Domaine;
using System.Linq;

namespace SOURCE.Business.Depots
{
    public partial interface IDepotMailGabarit : IDepot<MailGabarit>
    {

    }
}


Inevitably, job searching is a difficult time, and you need to be on top of your game to perform well during interviews. Financial strain during your job search only serves to exasperate the stress that can come when you're looking for a job. Fortunately, you can take your finances into your own hands when you are unemployed or underemployed.
Put your opinions to work! Share them in paid surveys from Opinion Outpost. You can earn cash, gift cards, and chances to win $10,000 all by completing surveys on topics relevant to you!
How to Get Started: You can sign up here to start earning cash. Want more options? Check out our guide on how to make money when you're unemployed.
It's very possible that you have skills that you can leverage as a freelancer. There is ample opportunity to make money online as a freelancer, and you can find everything from entry-level gigs anyone can do to corporate consulting work.
Graphic design is another way to make money online fast. While it sounds like a major feat, with the proliferation of free graphic tools like Canva, it's easier than ever to become a graphic designer, especially if you focus on digital, rather than print design.
How to Get Started: Here's a list of free graphic design courses. In addition to free design tools like Canva and Vectr, you can also do a free trial on standard industry platforms such as Adobe Photoshop and Sketch. You can find freelance design gigs on sites like Upwork.com, Peopleperhour.com, or Guru.com, or even on Craigslist! In addition, participating in contests on 99 Designs is a great way to get experience while potentially earning cash.
If you have clothes, shoes or accessories you don't wear, considering selling them online. You don't need to own designer duds in order to make money selling your clothes online. With the right approach, you can sell gently-worn, mainstream brands.
How to Get Started: Platforms like Poshmark and Mercari make it super easy and quick to sell your clothes from the comfort of your own home. To sell your items fast, be sure to take quality photos, describe your items thoroughly, and match or beat prices of similar items. Another way to make money from clothes sitting in your closet is through ThredUp. ThredUp will mail you a bag that you'll fill with clothes and mail back to them.
5. Offer your services on Fiverr.
On Fiverr, you can find a cornucopia of services for sale, from data entry to translation, genealogy research to greeting card creation, astrology readings to voice-overs. Fiverr is different from other freelance sites in that you list the services you can offer, and buyers come to you with a proposal.
How to Get Started: You can sign up for free on Fiverr.com! When listing your services, it's important to be aware of the "going rate" for that service and set your prices accordingly. Most gigs are for sale for amounts ranging from $5 to $10.
6. Join Amazon Mechanical Turk.
Despite the recent progress in AI technology, there are still many things that humans can do better than computers. Amazon Mechanical Turk allows companies to post "HITs," or business intelligence tasks, that workers can complete for minimal amounts of cash.
How to Get Started: You can join as a worker here. Note, you'll need an Amazon account to sign up.
7. Leverage your car or home.
The "sharing economy" is only getting stronger. Your car or home could be a great way to bring in some extra income!
How to Get Started: If you have extra space in your home, consider listing it on Airbnb. Airbnb allows you have total control over the rental experience. You can choose the days you'd like to list, how much notice you need, and the minimum and maximum days that a guest can stay. If you're experienced with animals, another way to make use of the space in your home is through pet sitting. On sites like Rover.com, you can sign up to board pets at your home while their owners are on vacation.
If you like driving, consider signing up as a driver for Uber or Lyft. Alternately, rent your car out for others to use in Turo marketplace.


Forget bath bombs and bubbles, this is the ultimate indulgent gift. Echo Falls White Zinfandel rosé wine is light and summery, full of berry flavours and strawberry notes for an easy drinking tasty tipple. Then bite into one of the Lindor Milk Chocolate Truffles for that luscious melt-in-the-mouth sensation. Wine plus chocolate, what more can you want?


Ben Hazlewood released his latest single "Sail Away" on his birthday, today. Ben will also be hitting the road on the west coast, tour dates below! If you share the track on social media via Ben's Facebook, you will receive a free download of the single.
One Ok Rock Vans Warped Tour Interview!


text:
Raise your Glass to West Michigan Wineries!
When one thinks of wine, the vineyards of France and Napa Valley comes to mind. But in recent years, Michigan has joined California, Oregon, and Washington as being top producers of grapes. Michigan's cool climate region, along with sufficient water and nutrient rich soil, is the perfect recipe to grow quality grapes. From these grapes come delicious dry and semi-dry wines, sparkling wines, and dessert wines.
The major wine regions are along the Lake Michigan shoreline, from New Buffalo in the southwest region, up through Saugatuck and into the Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula in the north. Here in central western Michigan, we have four vineyards and wineries that are producing top quality wines.
Douglas Valley Organic Vineyard
Set upon land that was formerly a railroad station stop, Douglas Valley is an organic agricultural community on rolling hills that overlook Lake Michigan just outside Manistee. Their vision is to transform this 640-acre fruit farm into a new development that is environmentally friendly. They feature award-winning hard ciders and wines, and are open Monday-Saturday 11am-6pm and Sunday Noon-5pm. Take M-22 north two miles from the Little River Casino Resort in Manistee, turn right on Schoedel Rd and go 1.5 miles.
Jomagrha Vineyards and Winery
Pentwater is the location of this small winery, just one mile from Lake Michigan. They supplement their French hybrid plantings with harvests from the Leelanau Peninsula and other local vineyards. During the winter, their tasting room is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from noon-5pm. They are located 11 miles south of Ludington, just off US-31.
Krolczyk Cellars
This fast-growing winery in Freesoil has seen production grow from 500 bottles to 5,000, featuring many varieties, including Riesling, Chardonnay and Cabernet. This husband-wife team bring a spirit of fun, passion, and love of winemaking to their work. Their tasting room is open by appointment November-April. They are located between Ludington and Manistee, just 1.5 miles off US-31 and Freesoil Road.
Tartan Hill Winery
Located in New Era, this winery has been in operation for 24 years, and they're known for producing wines that are made from a blend of different vintages. They are a relatively small operation and sell only at their winery and a few area stores. Tartan Hill Winery is open seven days a week from noon-5pm, and is located 30 miles south of Ludington. Take the New Era exit and travel 1.5 miles west on New Era/Stony Lake Road to 52nd Avenue.
Click here for a complete list of wine shops and wineries.
Discover More Wineries...
Northwest Michigan Area Wineries and Breweries – Several wineries give tours and have tasting rooms where customers can taste wines before they make a purchase. Each winery is different and features unique wines.
Wisconsin Area Wineries and Breweries – Eastern Wisconsin features an area conducive to the growing of wine grapes.
More West Michigan Travel Info...
Discover West Michigan - Watch These Short Travel Videos
Save Money With West Michigan Coupons
Ludington's Skate Plaza
Discover Michigan Lakes and Rivers for Canoeing or Kayaking
Hamlin Lake--A Lake for All Seasons
Discover Our Beaches & Parks
Helpful Hints When Visiting Port Ludington on the S.S. Badger: Transportation, Lodging, Dining & More
Weddings & Celebrations Information for Your Next Event in West Michigan
Hamlin Lake Travel Information
Ludington Michigan Travel Information
West Michigan Travel Information
Fishing on Hamlin Lake - What a Catch!
Take a Self-Guided Tour of the Mason County Cultural Trails
Lake Winds Energy Park
Rent a Travel Trailer Camper from Vacation Station in Ludington
Save Money With These West Michigan Travel & Vacation Specials
Camping Along the Pere Marquette River
Discover West Michigan Destinations Along the Lakeshore...
Last Updated: 03-12-2019 01:38 PM ID: 302


Lladro's "Beautiful Blossoms-Carnations" Special Edition is a reinterpretation of one of Lladro's best selling figurines, in which a little girl gathers an abundance of flowers in her shirt. What makes this version so special is the fact that it features red carnations modeled petal by petal. In Japan, red carnations are closely associated with Mother's Day. Made in Spain. Measures 9 1/2"H x 5"W. Free shipping. Item is safely and securely packaged.


text:
Q: Confused with a false proof I made
Let $x$ and $y$ be numbers satisfying
  \begin{cases}
x+2y=4 \\
2x + y = 6 \\
x= y +1
\end{cases}
  Find $x$ and  $y$.

$x + 2y = 4$ is equivalent to $x=4-2y$
We substitute $x$ in the second equation
$$
2x+y=6 \\
8-4y+y=6 \\
-3y=-2 \\
y=2/3
$$
But $x =4-2y=4-4/3=8/3$ and we have $x = y +2=2/3+1=5/3$
which gives $y=2/3=5/3$.
WHAT?!
I'm in grade 9 and studying equations with two unknowns and thought about this example in my head and that's confusing me.

A: What you did proves that the system has no solution. It's just that.

A: Jose's answer is correct - this system of equations does not have a solution. I thought I would add by giving some more intuition.
Each of the equations you wrote is the equation of a line in the x-y plane. When you take any two lines, unless they are parallel, they must intersect at some point. That point of intersection (x,y) is exactly the solution to the system of the two equations.
The reason (thought of in this way) that your system does not have a solution, is because you have three equations, and the lines they represent do not all intersect at one point. You should find that any two of your three equations will have a solution when put together. All three, however, do not.


text:
#TigerBites
Tigers' John Hicks wouldn't have his 1st career home run ball without Justin Verlander
Hicks hit a three-run blast on Sunday, but needed a little help getting it back.
By Ashley MacLennan@90feetfromhome Apr 26, 2017, 11:00am EDT
Share All sharing options for: Tigers' John Hicks wouldn't have his 1st career home run ball without Justin Verlander
Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
There are few things in a player's career more exciting than their first home run in the big leagues. It's a moment that announces "I've arrived," and the ball itself is a little piece of their personal history. Yet, with the ball long gone into the bleachers it can sometimes be a tricky process to get it back for the player to keep.
This becomes especially difficult when the home run occurs in enemy territory, like it did for John Hick on April 23 at Target Field in Minneapolis. Hicks, who had just been called up in that series when Miguel Cabrera was placed on the 10-day disabled list, made quite a splash against his former team, the Twins.
Often, an opposing team home run will be tossed back onto the field. In this case the fan held onto the ball and staff at Target Field had to work with him to get the prize back. What did the fan want in exchange? Well, an autographed Justin Verlander ball, naturally.
John Hicks has his first MLB HR ball. Fellow Goochland, Va. native Justin Verlander offered an autographed ball in exchange to get it back.
— Jason Beck (@beckjason) April 23, 2017
Verlander, who attended school and played high school ball with Hicks' older brother, complied without realizing what he was helping with at first, by signing a ball at the request of the equipment manager. Hicks also signed a ball for the fan, and can now proudly display his first home run ball. But not without a little friendly teasing from Verlander first.
Of getting the home run ball back, Hicks said, "It's special. The highlight of my career. To have that, to have forever, is pretty cool."
Maybe when Verlander gets his first home run ball, Hicks can help return the favor.


In my experience, cold usually means electrical issues. I had a similar problem with my Aprilia. Turns out the sparkplug boot eroded and wasn't providing enough spark to get it to kick. Once it did start, it ran fine, but I blew up way too many starters. I use lots of dielectric grease on my plug boots which usually helps. You can always use a screwdriver to ground out the boot against the engine or frame to see if you are getting spark. If you aren't, trace the wiring back. If you are getting spark, it's likely fuel not getting all the way to the cylinders for some reason. Also check the start/kill switch to make sure its not intentionally killing the engine. Those are the first things I would do.
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