Pilates for Beginners Class 1 is suitable for those with a little previous experience of Pilates. The 45 minute class uses expert tuition to teach a number of simple and effective mat based Pilates exercises that will lengthen, tone and relax your body. The class contains a selection of effective Pilates exercises that are suitable for those with just a little previous experience of this wonderful mind/body exercise system. Subtle background music sets the perfect mood and pace whilst the clear, expert instruction provides all the information needed for the exercises to be performed correctly, safely and effectively. For those of you who are visual learners, Pilates for Beginners Class 1 is accompanied by a free PDF guide booklet that highlights the instructions and provides reference photographs of each exercise. The class is instructed by Lucy Owen. Lucy specialises in teaching newcomers and in this class she uses easy-to-follow tuition to instruct each exercise.


Revel in exceptional services and amenities at Sheraton Hotel Newfoundland. Steeped in history and built on the site of the old Fort William at the base of Signal Hill, our downtown St. John's hotel blends elegance with the vibrant and colourful atmosphere of one of the oldest cities in North America. Take advantage of our premier location, whether traveling to Newfoundland for business or enjoying a relaxing vacation. Easily accessible from the St. John's airport and overlooking the harbour, our pet-friendly hotel is just minutes from area attractions, boutique shopping and legendary George Street. Within our inviting hotel, you'll find a host of amenities waiting. Catch up on email with the complimentary Wi-Fi in Link@Sheraton. Dine in our popular restaurants, boasting creative twists on local cuisines and Iceberg Beer. Workout in our 24-hour Sheraton fitness centre or take a dip in our indoor pool. No matter what brings you here, we look forward to welcoming you to our St. John's, Newfoundland hotel.
Host impressive business meetings, social events and weddings in our sophisticated venues, featuring the lush Garden Court and Fort William Ballroom.
Upgrade your stay at our downtown St. John's hotel to enjoy our updated Sheraton Club Lounge, offering daily breakfast and evening hors d'oeuvres.
Visit local attractions, go whale watching or iceberg hunting, or shop downtown St. John's boutiques, all just minutes from our Newfoundland hotel.


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In Brief: A Digest of Transportation Projects
Lead counsel for airline in connection with firm order of 100 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, plus options, and the restructuring of existing purchase and other agreements regarding Boeing 787, 737NG and 777 aircraft and associated engines.
Achieved cancellation of million-dollar penalty imposed by U.S. Customs over client's alleged negligent tariff classification of certain parts of electrical machines based on error by customs, while advocating a corrected classification with a zero rate of duty.
Advised one of North America's largest less-than-truckload shippers in the sale of a division.
Represented major Midwest airport in numerous environmental compliance and transactional matters. Extensively involved with the airport in planning for and negotiating terms in new National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) storm water discharge permit, which revised discharge limits for deicing chemical discharge, resolving compliance issues associated with past discharge limits. Advised airport in defending compliance order associated with alleged discharge violations. Assisted airport in evaluating new regulations associated with storm water discharges and underground storage tank regulations for airport hydrant systems.
Lead counsel for airline in connection with cross-border sale-leaseback of multiple aircraft with aggregate transaction value of approximately $200 million.
Obtained summary judgment on behalf of transportation client in case involving cargo loss claims.
Represented airline in its dispute with Denver regarding the construction of a new airport in Denver. Partial summary judgment was obtained in favor of client, leading to a favorable settlement of remaining aspects of the case.
Investigated and prepared claim for multiple changes and changed conditions encountered under a logistics services contract that resulted in agency making a multimillion-dollar payment to contractor in negotiated settlement.
Advised multinational energy company on aviation regulatory and tax compliance issues, including personal use of the company's aircraft by its executives, reimbursement arrangements by subsidiaries and affiliates to comply with FAA guidelines and related federal excise and state sales and use tax matters.
Represented North America's largest intercity bus transportation provider in $200 million defective design and breach of contract lawsuit brought in Illinois Circuit Court.
Represented U.S. airline in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against designer and constructor of Denver International Airport's automated baggage system, alleging design and construction deficiencies and delays.
Represented a transportation systems company in a case in which Texas Medical Center, four of its member institutions, and Thermal Energy Corporation, filed suit against the Metropolitan Transit Authority and our client, one of the contractors hired by METRO to construct the Houston METRO Light Rail Transit System. Plaintiffs alleged that stray electrical voltage leaked from the Houston METRO rail line. Summary judgment was granted in favor of our client.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang
5 km from northern foot of Mount Li, east of Lintong District, Xian, Shaanxi Province, China
A UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (Qin Shi Huang)
The Mausoleum of Emperor Qing Shi Huang is situated at the foot of Mount Li and 2 km west of the Terracotta Army. It is the largest preserved underground tomb in the world. According to the biography Emperor Qin from the Records of the Grand Historian, more than 720,000 laborers were sent to build the Mausoleum. The mausoleum was constructed from 246 to 208 BC, lasted over 38 years, which is 8 year longer than the construction of Khufu Pyramid in Egypt.
The layout of themausoleum is modeled on the capital of Qin, Xianyang. In size, the mausoleum is larger than the Great pyramid in Egypt. The mound of the mausoleum is 55.05 meters high and 2000 meters in girth. Through investigating finding, originally, the mausoleum covers an area of 220 square km, and it has large-scale palace Pavilion buildings. The mausoleum construction can be divided into two part, an interior city and an exterior city. Between the interior and the exterior city are the sites of gardens, temples, stalls and the houses for officials. The underground palace which located right under the mound is the core of the mausoleum. In the center of the palace is housing the coffin of the Emperor Qin.
The Qin Empire is really a marvelous page in the history of China. Plus the Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang almost represent the highest achievement of the civilization in Qin Dynasty.
Layout Structure
The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang divided into two parts of cemetery and burial area, the cemetery covers an area of nearly 8 square kilometers.
Tomb of approximate square, flat at the top and its waist slightly presented stepped appearance, the height of 76 meters, 345 meters long, from north to south 350 meters wide, covers an area of 120750 square meters. Cemetery centered on the pyramid-shaped, surrounded by many buried distribution.
Imitated Architecture of Xianyang City
The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is the first emperor cemetery in the China history, the cemetery, according to the principle of "treated death the same as alive", modeled on the layout of the capital city Xianyang of Qin dynasty, general it is rectangular-ambulatory-plane.
Grave mound as the core, The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang has a twofold wall of inside and outside wall and all rounds are tall gate, is where the empire mandated penalty and civilized intercourse and statute.
Majestic gates and sleeping chambers building group, and more than six hundred subordinate tombs and funerary pits, together constituted the complete form of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the ground. And this kind of form is clearly imitating palace and the capital structure of capital Xianyang in Qin dynasty.
Main Buildings
The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang has a twofold wall of inside and outside, inside and outside walls are about 8 to 10 meters high, and today there is still remaining sites.
Inner city is rectangular, perimeter of 3840 meters, in the north wall there are 2 doors, and in the east, west and south there is one door each wall, inside is grave mound. Outer city is rectangular, perimeter of 6210 meters; the four corners of walls have one door per wall. Burial area is in the south, sleeping chamber and palaces complex are in the north.
【Graves Mound】
Grave Mound of The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is three-level ladder, shaped like funnel, approximate square at the bottom.
Han inherited Qin system, in Qin dynasty, one chi is about 23 cm, 50 zhangs is about 115 meters. In Qin dynasty one li is 414 meters, five li is 2070 m. The bottom of the grave mound area is of about 250000 square meters, 115 meters high; this probably is the size of the The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang at the beginning. But after more than two thousand of the erosion of natural and artificial exploitation, the existing grave mound is smaller than the original one, now the bottom of the grave mound area is of about 120000 square meters, is 87 meters high.
【Underground Palace】
Below the grave mound is underground palace which is square. Underground palace is the center of all buildings of The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. According to archaeological discovery, the underground palace has area of about 180000 square meters, center depth of about 30 meters. Underground palace is placed in coffin and implements buried with emperor, it is the core of the Qin tomb construction.
【Palace Wall】
It was verified that the palace wall is about 168 meters long, from north to south is 141 meters, the south wall is 16 meters wide, 22 meters wide at the north wall.
Wall is done with multilayer fine soil compaction, and each layer is about 5 ~ 6 cm thick, very delicate and strong. In the process while built, in order to detect whether the soil compaction of wall was hard, construction personnel will stand at a distance with bows and arrows shot wall, the constructors would shoot arrow and if the arrow could be plugged into the wall then the wall must be torn down. The wall was much higher than the ground of the Qin dynasty, and the entire wall is about 30 meters high, very spectacular. This palace is unprecedented, and this new form of burial could be called "Qin Tomb Type".
How to get to The Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang
You may take green bus No.306 tourism line from Train Station to there. It is recommended to spend 2 to 3 hours to visit there.
Top Attractions in Xian
Big Wild Goose Pagoda
The Bell Tower
Xian City Wall
Great Mosque Xian
Banpo Neolithic Village Museum
The Steles Forest
Muslim Street
Famen Temple
Qian Mausoleum
Mount Huashan
Shuyuanmen Ancient Culture Street
Zhao Mausoleum of the Tang Dynasty
Huaqing Palace
Hanyang Mausoleum
Small Wild Goose Pagoda
The Drum Tower
Recommended Xian Tours
4 Days Xian and Mt. Huashan Tour
4 Days Xian Highlight Tour
7 Days Beijing Xian Tour


Over the next few weeks, you will see some major changes coming to Empire Avenue. Some will be new, or the expansion of features that we are currently beta testing (like Missions); and in other cases we are going to remove features of the site that are not seeing as much use as we initially thought, so that we can focus the user experience going forward.
This week we will remove the ability to invest in accounts that have not joined Empire Avenue. This is what we used to call the Twitter Index; on the Facebook version of Empire Avenue, it's where you could buy Facebook or LinkedIn friends/connections.
The reasons are varied, but the simplest is that these were features that very few people used and needlessly complicated the site. So, when we remove the feature, we will automatically sell all shares you own in Twitter/Facebook and LinkedIn IPOs at their current share price.
At the same time as we implement the IPO changes detailed above, our Facebook version of Empire Avenue will change to become a Portfolio Manager for use within Facebook. Our focus and our success has come in driving engagement on the main empireavenue.com platform, and we believe the changes we have made to the Facebook application will streamline the experience between Facebook and the main site.
We see a future where many different types of applications on Facebook -- and other platforms and devices -- will access the Empire Avenue Platform. You are welcome to access the current beta version of our API and develop your own applications. Please go here for information on the API.


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Universal basic income isn't a magic bullet— but it's a start
A big trade on transfers could reduce waste and disincentives
John H. Cochrane | Aug 26, 2016
Sections Economics Public Policy
Although it is hardly a new idea, universal basic income (UBI) has become something of a trendy idea for policy makers and policy pundits of late. Swiss voters considered—and overwhelmingly rejected—a referendum in June that would have guaranteed 2,500 Swiss francs to every adult and a smaller monthly income for children. Finland has cleared the way for a pilot project to test UBI next year. The renewed interest in minimum guaranteed income prompted Chicago Booth's Initiative on Global Markets to poll its Economic Experts Panel on UBI, and Charles Murray to write a thoughtful piece on the subject in the Wall Street Journal.
Murray's proposal in particular has a lot to recommend it. He suggests that "every American citizen age 21 and older would get [$10,000 per year] deposited electronically into a bank account in monthly installments." He would add a $3,000-per-year health-insurance voucher. The most important part: UBI would completely replace social security, Medicare, agricultural subsidies, food stamps, and all other transfer programs.
Replacing transfers with a single direct payment to citizens has a number of advantages. First, it would reduce the dramatic waste in the current system. Moreover, the bulk of government spending does not currently go to people who are really poor: social security and Medicare go to old people, many of whom are quite well-off. Housing subsidies such as the mortgage interest deduction go to people with big mortgages and big tax rates—not poor people.
In addition, UBI would reduce the current system's high disincentives for work. Murray's plan does include a reduction in benefits based on earnings—your UBI starts dropping if you make $30,000 or more per year—but that reduction is capped at $3,500. That applies on top of the federal 25 percent marginal rate, 16 percent payroll tax, state income and payroll taxes, and so forth. So the disincentive is not zero, but the plan poses a lot less disincentive than many current programs.
The biggest problem in the argument is also the biggest selling point: we trade a check for complete elimination of everything else.
Universal basic income in practice
A number of city, state, and national governments have tried out some form of universal basic income, and several more are planning to experiment with the idea in the near future.
There are a lot of these "big trades" on the table, and there should be more. A big carbon tax, in return for complete elimination of all the regulatory nudges and crony energy-related subsidies. A hefty value-added consumption tax (VAT) in return for complete elimination of income, corporate, estate, and other taxes, and all deductions. Lots of infrastructure money in return for elimination of the Davis-Bacon Act, endless legal challenges, Environmental Protection Agency reviews, and other regulations. And so on.
In all these much simpler cases, the deal doesn't get off the ground. Will the Right allow a big enough carbon tax? Will the Left really get rid of their subsidies? Will the Right really allow a large enough VAT? Will the Left really not just pile all the other taxes back on top? Making these deals is hard enough even when both sides admit the deal would be good. That case is going to be even harder here.
Social programs in their current form will remain tempting, because a flat basic income is not close to the so-called perfect-world social-insurance system, or even common sense. We want to give more help to people who need more help. Social security goes to old people, because old people objectively are less able to work. Disability goes to disabled people, because it's harder for them to work as well. Unemployment insurance goes to people who just lost jobs, because we know they are more likely to have suffered a bad shock. Insurance payments go to people whose houses have burned down.
Social-insurance programs are indeed ineffective and bureaucratically bloated, and they do a terrible job of separating who really needs help from who doesn't. But UBI takes a pretty extreme view that the project is completely hopeless, and that the government should do no conditioning at all, other than on reported income.
Even with this UBI, there will still be unfortunate people, they will still need help, and our electorate will still demand programs to help them. Disability has grown out of control, sure, but some people really are disabled. You're going to give them $10,000 and turn your back? And what about the guy who takes his check, blows it all on a weekend of meth and beer, and now is lying in the gutter, his children homeless?
I don't think our electorate is ready to completely forswear all bureaucratic help. Eliminating housing subsidies, agricultural subsidies, and corporate welfare are all great ideas on their own—if we could do those things, the US economy would be in a lot better shape than it is. But a bit of paternalism is pretty ingrained in social policies, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm happier paying taxes to support food, clothes, and school for the kids, and basic housing, than I am to subsidize a beer-and-meth weekend. Murray already gives in, by restricting the first $3,000 (of $13,000 total) to a health-insurance voucher. If he's going to get rid of social security, he should restrict the next $1,000 to a forced savings plan. If we're going to get rid of all housing programs (a great idea), the next $2,000 should be a rent/mortgage voucher.
Maybe some paternalism is justified as a precommitment: we know if people blow the money, we'll enact social programs to help them after the fact. But there is a deeper problem, and I have a constructive solution.
"I fear that welfare states fall apart when the social stigma of taking the money fades."
In fact, Americans use far fewer benefits than they are eligible for. Many programs have 2 percent take-up rates. Lots of people eligible for Medicare, Obamacare subsidies, disability, food stamps, welfare, home heating subsidies, and so on, and so on, all the way down to Palo Alto's income-based parking-permit system, don't take advantage of the benefits. If each American took advantage of every subsidy and social program to which he or she is entitled, the country would be bankrupt in about 10 minutes.
Why are such programs underused? Well, filling out the forms is a pain. And, more importantly, most people really do use social programs for a limited time. Chalk it up to a stubborn ethic of independence or some remaining stigma attached to taking assistance; it's an observable phenomenon. For now. I fear that welfare states fall apart when the social stigma of taking the money fades.
For now, the costs of participating in these social programs act to limit moral hazard. If it takes a few hours and trips down to an unpleasant bureaucratic office to get help, only people who really need it are likely to seek it. If there is some remaining social stigma to getting help, only people who really need it are likely to ask for it—and they're more likely to get out as fast as possible.
If that sounds heartless, remember the objectives: money is limited. We want to use it to help people who really need it, and if we can do something to keep out the people who don't really need it, we can be a lot more generous to those who do. If we impose some cost to getting help, we reveal who really needs it, and we can help those people a lot more.
So, my major suggestion for the project of UBI is: please, don't automatically send the check to every American the minute they turn 21! Don't send it to my kids! At least make people go down to a dull and dirty office, stand in line, fill out a long form, and repeat once a year.
We do have some experience with communities that live off government checks. We have more experience with places where lots of people don't work. Welfare neighborhoods in the US in the 1970s through the mid-1990s. Europeans living on the dole. Molenbeek, Belgium. Saudi Arabia. By and large, places where most people live on government checks, or where large numbers of people don't work, are not happy places.
UBI also threatens progress on the agenda to integrate people to markets. Labor markets are more and more regulated and restricted. Well, if people can all get $10,000 from the government, why fight for lower minimum wages for entry-level workers, looser occupational restrictions, and so forth? Keeping our current, highly restricted labor markets, and our awful education system for low-income people, and then sending those people checks because they're not qualified to do legal work is what supposedly caring progressives advocate. But what an awful and hopeless life they leave people with.
A big trade remains attractive. Substantial cash grants and vouchers in place of many current programs—in place of middle-class subsidies, in place of corporate subsidies—offer substantially more help to people who need it, with far fewer distortions. But let's not pretend a big trade will cure social ills. It very well could be an improvement; it would not be a panacea.
John H. Cochrane is distinguished senior fellow at Chicago Booth and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
This essay originally appeared as a post on The Grumpy Economist blog, at johnhcochrane.blogspot.com.
Zip-Code Economics
Are markets efficient?
Consumer protection takes more than transparency


I gave a lightning talk earlier this month to the PyData Atlanta Meetup. I've given hour-long talks on technical subjects before, but I hadn't done anything quite that concise before. This fact freaked me out quite a bit. I wanted to reflect a bit on why it's always a good idea to communicate more what you do.
No matter how mundane or "been done before" you believe your work is, there's value in showing it to others because some people will learn from it. In machine learning, some methods are designed to try all possible permutations of a set of options to choose the one with the best performance. As the complexity of a model about your data grows, inevitably this tree search method breaks down and you need to apply some heuristics to the problem. What people don't mention is that these heuristics can come from anywhere, whether it's a research paper, a book, a mentor, or even a five minute talk you saw on a Thursday night.
Oh yeah. I think my talk went pretty well. Here's a link to my Google Drive slides or a PDF copy. If you'd like to chat about data or about my work, feel free to reach out to me via email or on Twitter.


Do you engage independent contractors? How do you know that they are not employees? Have you been exposed to the risk of a huge underpayment claim as well as substantial penalties?
The reality is that any business which engages independent contractors is at risk. You cannot be certain that your contractors are not in fact employees.
Whether you choose to engage someone as an independent contractor or as an employee is a crucial business decision that will have far reaching implications for that individual's rights and entitlements. These entitlements may include responsibility for superannuation, payroll tax, workers' compensation, minimum rates of pay, leave entitlements and access to unfair dismissal.
It is not enough to simply describe someone as either a 'contractor' or an 'employee'. As one Judge colourfully put it, you "cannot create something which has every feature of a rooster, but call it a duck". And there are big penalties for those who get it wrong; up to $54,000 per contravention!
HRA Cloud is our innovative Human Resources Information Solution (HRIS). This cradle-to-grave management system provides you with the right tools and processes to minimise the risk of being exposed to penalties for sham contracting.
A place to upload and store the person's insurance details, including Workers Compensation Insurance, Public Liability Insurance and Professional Indemnity Insurance.
Sham contracting is set to become an even bigger issue for Australian businesses with at least one law firm reportedly considering legal action to determine whether 'technology services' such as Uber, Foodora and Deliveroo are using sham contracting to evade minimum rights and entitlements.
Our advice? Watch this space.


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International Portal of Teacher Education
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Teacher Educators' Collective Professional Agency and Identity - Transforming Marginality to Strength
Hokka Paivi,
Vähäsantanen Katja,
Mahlakaarto Salme
Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 63 (2017) 36- 46
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
This article examined teacher educators' collective professional agency and identity within an identity coaching programme.
The authors focused on collective agency in terms of teachers' shared efforts to influence matters, and to take stances within their work and the work organization.
This study describes a coaching programme, which took place in 2013. The participants were eleven arts and crafts educators (seven females, four males) from Finland. All the participants were working as lecturers or university teachers. They all held a master's degree, and several had a licentiate or doctoral degree. Their teaching experience in the field varied from 7.5 years to 39 years. All the participants had recently faced major external pressures, including new professional requirements (e.g. increased demands to publish academic research) and decreasing resources (involving e.g. discontinuous employment).
The authors collected data through pre- and post-interviews with participants. The pre-interviews took place during the two weeks prior to starting the programme. The post-interviews were conducted within one month from the end of the programme. The authors also collected video material from the identity workshops.
Initially, the participants consisted of individual actors without close relationships, or identification with the group. Through the shared activities of the coaching programme, the participants became empowered in terms of their collective professional identity and agency. The results revealed that as a group, the participants renegotiated a collective professional identity via functional and close professional relationships, group affinity, and identification with the group. The participants' collective agency was transformed from a marginalized feeling of invisibility within teacher education towards a shared understanding, and the will to make choices that could affect their work, and their professional identities. The participants also indicated the importance of building bridges and of making constructive suggestions together as a group, in efforts to influence their work, and work community.
This article illustrates how collective agency and identity are closely intertwined. The authors argue that it appears that a shared understanding of collective identity directs collective agency.
In addition, the study reveals the importance of agency in negotiating new kinds of crystallized collective identity. Through strengthened collective agency, the participants were able to give a new meaning to themselves as a professional group within the department, deserving of respect.
These results support the notion of agency and identity as being closely intertwined. The authors also highlight collective agency, demonstrating how a group can come to an understanding of itself as able to exercise influence on work and professional identities.
Furthermore, the authors emphasize that one of the most crucial issues in building collective agency was the development of trust and of a sense of affinity.
In conclusion, this study suggests that when one is seeking to understand collective identity and agency in professional contexts, it is important to address people's own individual narratives and learning pathways. Hence, this research emphasizes that in supporting collective identity and agency among professionals, it is pivotal to create shared learning platforms and processes (time, space, place) that will allow the professionals to encounter each other, and to discuss issues concerning continuous changes, work, and professional identities.
Updated: May. 31, 2018
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Susan G. Pinkston, PLLC, a Mississippi law firm, was formed in November of 1996. Susan Pinkston, the primary attorney, spent the first fourteen years of her legal career with two well established multi service law firms in downtown Jackson, as an associate and then partner. After that, she was state counsel for one of the largest national title insurance companies. In 1996, she decided to take what she had learned from those previous employers and begin her own firm.


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Q: using public key encryption in swift I am trying to use a public key provided to me by web service developer to securely transfer data. I have tried hard but I am not able to find any working example with latest swift version. I have coded it like following(with help from here:
func connection(connection: NSURLConnection, willSendRequestForAuthenticationChallenge challenge: NSURLAuthenticationChallenge){
    if(challenge.protectionSpace.authenticationMethod == NSURLAuthenticationMethodServerTrust) {
        var localTrust: UnsafeMutablePointer<SecTrust?>
        let serverTrust = challenge.protectionSpace.serverTrust!
        let serverPublicKey = SecTrustCopyPublicKey(serverTrust)
        let certificateData = NSData(contentsOfFile: NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("pinning-certificate", ofType: "der")!)
        let localCertificate = SecCertificateCreateWithData(kCFAllocatorDefault, certificateData!)
        let policy = SecPolicyCreateBasicX509()

        if SecTrustCreateWithCertificates(localCertificate!, policy, localTrust) == errSecSuccess {
            let localTrustRef = localTrust
            let localPublicKey = SecTrustCopyPublicKey(localTrustRef)!
            if (localPublicKey as AnyObject).isEqual(serverPublicKey as! AnyObject) {
                print("trusted")
                return challenge.sender!.performDefaultHandlingForAuthenticationChallenge!(challenge)
            }
        }
    }
    print("not trusted")
    return challenge.sender!.cancelAuthenticationChallenge(challenge)
   }

But I am getting following error during compilation in SecTrustCreateWithCertificates() and SecTrustCopyPublicKey():
Cannot convert value of type 'UnsafeMutablePointer?' to expected argument type 'UnsafeMutablePointer' (aka 'UnsafeMutablePointer>').
Edit 1: I have changed my code to following and now my code is executed but server is not receiving any request:
func extractIdentity(certData:NSData) -> IdentityAndTrust {
    var identityAndTrust:IdentityAndTrust!
    var securityError:OSStatus = errSecSuccess

    let path: String = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("MobileAppClient", ofType: "pfx")!
    let PKCS12Data = NSData(contentsOfFile:path)!
    let key : NSString = kSecImportExportPassphrase as NSString
    let options : NSDictionary = [key : "client"]

    //create variable for holding security information
    //var privateKeyRef: SecKeyRef? = nil

    var items : CFArray?
    securityError = SecPKCS12Import(PKCS12Data, options, &items)

        if securityError == errSecSuccess {
        let certItems:CFArray = items as CFArray!;
        let certItemsArray:Array = certItems as Array
        let dict:AnyObject? = certItemsArray.first;
        if let certEntry:Dictionary = dict as? Dictionary<String, AnyObject> {

            // grab the identity
            let identityPointer:AnyObject? = certEntry["identity"];
            let secIdentityRef:SecIdentityRef = identityPointer as! SecIdentityRef!;
            print("\(identityPointer)  :::: \(secIdentityRef)")
            // grab the trust
            let trustPointer:AnyObject? = certEntry["trust"];
            let trustRef:SecTrustRef = trustPointer as! SecTrustRef;
            print("\(trustPointer)  :::: \(trustRef)")
            // grab the cert
            let chainPointer:AnyObject? = certEntry["chain"];
            identityAndTrust = IdentityAndTrust(identityRef: secIdentityRef, trust: trustRef, certArray:  chainPointer! as! NSArray);
        }
    }
    return identityAndTrust;
}
func connection(connection: NSURLConnection, willSendRequestForAuthenticationChallenge challenge: NSURLAuthenticationChallenge){

    if challenge.protectionSpace.authenticationMethod == (NSURLAuthenticationMethodServerTrust) {

        let serverTrust:SecTrustRef = challenge.protectionSpace.serverTrust!
        let certificate: SecCertificateRef = SecTrustGetCertificateAtIndex(serverTrust, 0)!
        let remoteCertificateData = CFBridgingRetain(SecCertificateCopyData(certificate))!
        let cerPath: String = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("Certificates", ofType: "cer")!
        let localCertificateData = NSData(contentsOfFile:cerPath)!

        challenge.sender?.useCredential(credential, forAuthenticationChallenge: challenge)

                    if (remoteCertificateData.isEqualToData(localCertificateData) == true) {
            let credential:NSURLCredential = NSURLCredential(forTrust: serverTrust)

            challenge.sender?.useCredential(credential, forAuthenticationChallenge: challenge)

        } else {
            SVProgressHUD.dismiss()
            return challenge.sender!.performDefaultHandlingForAuthenticationChallenge!(challenge)
        }

    }
    else if challenge.protectionSpace.authenticationMethod == NSURLAuthenticationMethodClientCertificate
    {

        let path: String = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("Certificates", ofType: "p12")!
        let PKCS12Data = NSData(contentsOfFile:path)!

        let identityAndTrust:IdentityAndTrust = self.extractIdentity(PKCS12Data);

        let urlCredential:NSURLCredential = NSURLCredential(
            identity: identityAndTrust.identityRef,
            certificates: identityAndTrust.certArray as? [AnyObject],
            persistence: NSURLCredentialPersistence.ForSession);
        challenge.sender?.useCredential(urlCredential, forAuthenticationChallenge: challenge)

    }

}

A: I think that there are 2 problems:
1) To cast UnsafeMutablePointer you should call localTrust.memory but it will give you next error
2) Next error will give you that pointer in uninitialized, I think you can use code like this:
func connection(connection: NSURLConnection, willSendRequestForAuthenticationChallenge challenge: NSURLAuthenticationChallenge){
    if(challenge.protectionSpace.authenticationMethod == NSURLAuthenticationMethodServerTrust) {
        var localTrust: UnsafeMutablePointer<SecTrust?> = nil
        let serverTrust = challenge.protectionSpace.serverTrust!
        let serverPublicKey = SecTrustCopyPublicKey(serverTrust)
        let certificateData = NSData(contentsOfFile: NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("pinning-certificate", ofType: "der")!)
        let localCertificate = SecCertificateCreateWithData(kCFAllocatorDefault, certificateData!)
        let policy = SecPolicyCreateBasicX509()

        if SecTrustCreateWithCertificates(localCertificate!, policy, localTrust) == errSecSuccess {
            let localTrustRef = localTrust
            let localPublicKey = SecTrustCopyPublicKey(localTrustRef.memory!)!
            if (localPublicKey as AnyObject).isEqual(serverPublicKey as! AnyObject) {
                print("trusted")
                return challenge.sender!.performDefaultHandlingForAuthenticationChallenge!(challenge)
            }
        }
    }
    print("not trusted")
    return challenge.sender!.cancelAuthenticationChallenge(challenge)
}

P.s. it's NOT safe to forcecast optional. Plese consider using if let statement

A: Please find the answer given below:
 func URLSession(session: NSURLSession, didReceiveChallenge challenge: NSURLAuthenticationChallenge, completionHandler: (NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition, NSURLCredential?) -> Void) {

   if challenge.protectionSpace.authenticationMethod == (NSURLAuthenticationMethodServerTrust) {

    let serverTrust:SecTrustRef = challenge.protectionSpace.serverTrust!
    let certificate: SecCertificateRef = SecTrustGetCertificateAtIndex(serverTrust, 0)!
    let remoteCertificateData = CFBridgingRetain(SecCertificateCopyData(certificate))!
    let cerPath: String = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("xyz.com", ofType: "cer")!
    let localCertificateData = NSData(contentsOfFile:cerPath)!

        if (remoteCertificateData.isEqualToData(localCertificateData) == true) {
            let credential:NSURLCredential = NSURLCredential(forTrust: serverTrust)

            challenge.sender?.useCredential(credential, forAuthenticationChallenge: challenge)

            completionHandler(NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition.UseCredential, NSURLCredential(forTrust: challenge.protectionSpace.serverTrust!))

        } else {

            completionHandler(NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition.CancelAuthenticationChallenge, nil)
        }
    }
    else if challenge.protectionSpace.authenticationMethod == NSURLAuthenticationMethodClientCertificate
    {

        let path: String = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("client", ofType: "p12")!
        let PKCS12Data = NSData(contentsOfFile:path)!

        let identityAndTrust:IdentityAndTrust = self.extractIdentity(PKCS12Data);

            let urlCredential:NSURLCredential = NSURLCredential(
                identity: identityAndTrust.identityRef,
                certificates: identityAndTrust.certArray as? [AnyObject],
                persistence: NSURLCredentialPersistence.ForSession);

            completionHandler(NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition.UseCredential, urlCredential);

    }
    else
    {
        completionHandler(NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition.CancelAuthenticationChallenge, nil);
    }
  }

Add the following Code
 struct IdentityAndTrust {

    var identityRef:SecIdentityRef
    var trust:SecTrustRef
    var certArray:AnyObject
}

func extractIdentity(certData:NSData) -> IdentityAndTrust {
    var identityAndTrust:IdentityAndTrust!
    var securityError:OSStatus = errSecSuccess

    let path: String = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("client", ofType: "p12")!
    let PKCS12Data = NSData(contentsOfFile:path)!
    let key : NSString = kSecImportExportPassphrase as NSString
    let options : NSDictionary = [key : "xyz"]
    //create variable for holding security information
    //var privateKeyRef: SecKeyRef? = nil

    var items : CFArray?

     securityError = SecPKCS12Import(PKCS12Data, options, &items)

    if securityError == errSecSuccess {
        let certItems:CFArray = items as CFArray!;
        let certItemsArray:Array = certItems as Array
        let dict:AnyObject? = certItemsArray.first;
        if let certEntry:Dictionary = dict as? Dictionary<String, AnyObject> {

            // grab the identity
            let identityPointer:AnyObject? = certEntry["identity"];
            let secIdentityRef:SecIdentityRef = identityPointer as! SecIdentityRef!;
            print("\(identityPointer)  :::: \(secIdentityRef)")
            // grab the trust
            let trustPointer:AnyObject? = certEntry["trust"];
            let trustRef:SecTrustRef = trustPointer as! SecTrustRef;
            print("\(trustPointer)  :::: \(trustRef)")
            // grab the cert
            let chainPointer:AnyObject? = certEntry["chain"];
            identityAndTrust = IdentityAndTrust(identityRef: secIdentityRef, trust: trustRef, certArray:  chainPointer!);
        }
    }
    return identityAndTrust;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Political Agenda
Two new members to join St. Paul City Council at inauguration
By Joe Kimball | 01/05/2016
Two new St. Paul City Council members will be sworn in today when the new council is inaugurated at the Ordway Center.
Newcomers to the seven-member council are Rebecca Noecker in Ward 2, who replaces the retiring Dave Thune, and Jane Prince Ward 7; that's the seat Kathy Lantry held until she resigned last year to head Public Works. Former Police Chief William Finney was the interim council member.
In the other five wards, the incumbents were returned to office by the voters:
Dai Thao, Ward 1
Chris Tolbert, Ward 3
Russ Stark, Ward 4
Amy Brendmoen, Ward 5
Dan Bostrom, Ward 6
Today's inauguration ceremony, at 4:30 p.m., will be broadcast on cable channel 18 and streamed at www.stpaul.gov.
Pageantry at the ceremony includes: swearing in by City Clerk Shari Moore, introduction by Mayor Chris Coleman and words from St. Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connolly. The St. Paul Fire Department and Police Department Color Guards will be on hand, with music by the Capital City Wind Ensemble co-directed by Roger Grupp and Mary Livingston.
Joe Kimball
Joe Kimball, formerly of the Star Tribune, reports on state politics and St. Paul City Hall.
Support Nonprofit Journalism
Become a MinnPost sustaining member.


text:
USA. Stephen Russell Mallory served on the US Senate Committee on Naval Affairs and was highly influential in reforming the officer corps and improving the efficiency and equipment of the US Navy. Mallory's tenure on the Committee on Naval Affairs came during a time of great innovation in naval warfare. He kept abreast of developments in other navies and ensured that the US Navy incorporated the latest thinking when building new ships. Britain and France, the two foremost navies in the world, were converting their fleets from sail to steam, and from paddles to screws. In 1853, his committee recommended the addition of six modern screw frigates to the fleet; and many considered them to be the best frigates in the world at that time. In 1857, his committee persuaded the Senate to authorise the construction of twelve new sloops-of-war. Mallory was ahead of his time in his enthusiastic support for cladding warships with iron armour, advocating this step even before the metals industry could supply iron in sufficient quantity. He later became the innovative Confederate Secretary of the Navy.
Florida. Senator Stephen Russell Mallory, hearing that USS Brooklyn was en route to reinforce the US garrison at Fort Pickens, warned that such an action would result in conflict between the state of Florida and the Federal authorities.
Georgia. Georgia ratified the secession passed on 19 January 1861 and selected commissioners to negotiate with other slave-holding states.
Louisiana. New Orleans and Fort Macomb were occupied by 1st Louisiana State Infantry. The property of US Army officers in New Orleans was seized by state authorities.
Texas. The Texas People's state convention met to discuss matters related to secession.
Texas. Fort Macon was occupied by Texas State forces.
Commander in Chief: President James Buchanan
Vice-President: John Cabell Breckinridge
Secretary of War: Joseph Holt
Secretary of the Navy: Isaac Toucey
African Squadron: William Inman
Brazil Squadron: Joshua Ratoon Sands
East Indian (Asiatic) Squadron: Cornelius Kinchiloe Stribling
European Squadron: vacant
Home Squadron: Garrett J Prendergast
Mediterranean Squadron: Charles H Bell
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of New Mexico: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy interim, William Wing Loring awaited
Department of the Pacific: Albert Sidney Johnston
District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Texas: David Emanuel Twiggs
Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke
Department of the West: William Selby Harney
Winfield Scott
John Ellis Wool
David Emanuel Twiggs
William Selby Harney


text:
Home/Magazine/Conservation by Computer—Land&People
Conservation by Computer—Land&People
Green Valley Road weaves through the dark, productive bottomland of southeast King County, Washington. Roadside signs advertise brown eggs and homemade berry jams, remnants of a time when this part of the county was entirely agricultural. Other signs remind the traveler that the region is changing, with burgeoning Seattle only 45 minutes to the north. Giant real estate signs promise rural peace amid the placid Holsteins. Arched wrought-iron gates mark where a one-time farm has become a luxury residence for a commuter or telecommuter. Where the road crosses the Green River, every bridge holds another kind of sign, this one depicting a graceful salmon above the words "This stream is in your care."
Lisa Parsons has taken that message to heart. Parsons is founder and executive director of the Middle Green Coalition—composed of recreation groups, governments, and conservation nonprofits, including the Trust for Public Land, working to protect a wild, 12-mile stretch of the Green River and to guarantee that, as the region changes, the lands needed to protect the health of the river and its salmon are conserved.
By way of example, Parsons takes me to a parcel of privately owned land where Icy Creek springs from a hillside quilt of leaves, moss, and ferns. Surrounded by native cedar, Douglas fir, maple, and hemlock, this clear, frigid rivulet delivers a consistent and pure supply of water to the Green River, especially important in the dry summer months. Where the creek meets the river, a state salmon hatchery also relies on the cool, clean water to fill its pond, brimming with restless, two-inch-long salmon smolts. On the day we visited, returning salmon—nearly as long as the creek was wide—finned in the current among slick boulders. This land, says Parsons, could be developed with 28 homes.
"This place is home to bear, cougars, ospreys, eagles, pileated woodpeckers, and these incredible salmon that come all the way up the Green River through pollution and sludge to reach this stream," Parsons marvels. "It just makes sense to save land like this before it gets developed."
To Parsons and many other residents, it seems self-evident that lands such as those surrounding Icy Creek should be protected, if only for their importance to water quality and fisheries. But while King County has been a national leader in conservation, it faces a daunting challenge in prioritizing conservation expenditures.
Now an innovative GIS computer modeling approach developed by TPL and its partners is helping King County decide what lands need to be protected and why. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems: computer-based tools for gathering and analyzing information about land and its uses. The Icy Creek watershed is one of many places that may benefit from this groundbreaking technology.
King County covers 2,130 square miles—an area the size of Delaware—from the Cascade Mountains in the east, through thick evergreen forests cut by rushing snowmelt rivers, to the densely populated shelf of coastal land that is home to Seattle and many of the county's 1.8 million residents. The county is home to five threatened or endangered species of fish that depend on clean land and water. But this is far from the only conservation need. Farms and forests are being threatened by inappropriate development. Land needs to be conserved to mitigate flooding, and a growing population is demanding more parks and trails for recreation.
How do you decide which land is most important to protect and which should be protected first with limited conservation funds? This is the problem facing the county's Water and Land Resources Division (WLRD), which must apportion limited (and shrinking) conservation dollars to five separate programs: parks and trails, ecological open space, flood control, agricultural protection, and forestry. Agency staff and elected officials have long sought an objective way to ensure that every dollar invested in purchasing, restoring, and managing land provided maximum benefit, says Mark Isaacson, assistant director of WRLD. "In the past, it was very hard to pull together our team and figure out how to divvy up a limited pot of funding," Isaacson notes. "Everyone had their priorities with good justification. Sometimes we even had several programs competing for the same money."
Mapping Conservation
TPL calls its computer mapping service for conservation "greenprinting." In turn, greenprinting is part of TPL's larger effort to help regions and communities develop a proactive conservation strategy in the face of growth. In response to local concerns, TPL has developed greenprints for cities, towns, counties, and watersheds across the country. Other county- and ecosystem-wide greenprints now under way include those for the Quinault Nation of Native Americans on Washington's Olympic Peninsula; around Biscayne Bay in Florida; in the ecosystem of Cherry Creek near Denver, Colorado; and in northwest Connecticut's Litchfield County.
The King County Greenprint is among TPL's most ambitious to date. It includes data on every parcel of land in the county—more than a half million parcels in all. The county had heard about TPL's greenprinting work and asked TPL to create a greenprint for the county. Partners in the project also included the Seattle-based firm of Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), the primary producer of GIS software and developers of the software used in the project. "This was a tremendous partnership effort," says Breece Robertson, TPL's director of GIS, whose team also included consultants from Foresite Consulting and Earth Analytic, Inc.
To create the greenprint, Robertson and her team gathered information on topography, geology, plant and animal biology, and hydrology, along with data about population growth, zoning, and road networks, and fed it all into a greenprint model. Demographic data was added to analyze where parks were needed most. The computer was programmed to prioritize 42 different criteria that define the resources of greatest concern to the county.
After a yearlong effort all this information has now been converted into visual workflows that can be viewed as maps, revealing which parcels are most important for each of the county's programs. The results also inform DWLR which specific places would achieve the highest number of conservation objectives through protection.
"This is the first time anyone has undertaken such a complex landscape-level analysis," says Roger Hoesterey, director of TPL's Northwest and Rocky Mountain Region. "The project encompasses not just biological data and mapping. It combines natural systems, demographics, and social and economic considerations such as park equity and development threats to help King County prioritize future acquisitions."
King County Executive Ron Sims recalls that previously the county "had no sense of which pieces were the most critical. Now we can think parcel by parcel, from the highest peaks to the bottom of Puget Sound. It is absolutely key to have that capacity because we can answer questions such as 'What land do we need for salmon?' With this tool you can really see and understand the land."
An Objective Measure of Conservation Need
"For 20 years I've been asking for something that can help determine gaps and prioritize among choices," says Terry Lavender, who has been working on county conservation efforts for more than two decades and chairs the citizens' advisory committee for King County's Conservation Futures Fund.
The old methodology for determining protection priorities involved colored pencils and large pieces of paper, Lavender recalls. But those maps couldn't be updated—when parcels were developed, for example—as the computerized greenprint can be. "Having the ability to show people the changes is going to be very powerful," Lavender predicts. "The most important and threatened parcels are going to jump out at us and say, we need to get that conserved."
Another strength of the greenprint, Lavender points out, is that it can objectively highlight critical conservation lands that may not enjoy vocal political constituencies—places like the still sparsely settled area targeted by Lisa Parsons and the Middle Green Coalition. "A lot of really important open space doesn't have champions to push for it," she notes. "The maps will be visual champions for those places."
County Executive Ron Sims agrees. "Decisions have sometimes been made because a particular property had a gallant spokesperson who knew how to work the system and said 'Save this!' With the greenprint as a guide, King County will be able to respond appropriately. Sometimes the spokesperson's efforts will be rewarded and sometimes they are going to have to wait because we will be able to judge how the property fits in to the big picture."
Already the greenprint has provided important insights. TPL and consultants for the Point Wilson Group, another project partner, conducted one-on-one interviews with the leaders of 24 of the county's 39 municipalities. From this work a single map has been produced that includes a complete inventory of properties acquired by all agencies, priority acquisitions for each community, and a vision for how a regional system of parks and natural areas might be created and connected. By comparing existing parks and open space with census data, the greenprint reveals where new parks are needed to serve changing populations. And by including underwater and shoreline data, the greenprint shows what land needs to be protected to save aquatic resources and increase public access to Puget Sound.
The new greenprint is also yielding important insights for those who must prioritize conservation purchases among WLRD's five conservation programs. A TPL analysis based on the greenprint identified 30,000 acres whose conservation would serve all five of the program areas. Likewise it specified an additional 39,000 acres that could support four areas, and an additional 35,000 that would be important to at least three areas. The parcel where Icy Creek meets the Green River rates high for forestry and ecological value.
TPL is already studying how to fund an ambitious slate of priority acquisitions based on the greenprint. In the opinion of ESRI's Bill Miller, TPL's integrated approach to conservation—its ability to follow up greenprints by helping to raise funds and complete transactions—sets the organization's work apart from other GIS efforts. "TPL integrates the process that identifies land resources with the ability to implement conservation action. Lots of advanced analysis gets done, but often nothing happens. You just get a nice plan to put on the dusty shelf with other plans. TPL takes the analysis to the ground."
Roger Hoesterey is thrilled with the greenprint for King County and its potential to aid the conservation community. He has every intention of taking it to the ground. "We can go forward with a positive message that says, 'Specific actions can preserve and improve ecological health even in a heavily developed area.' With this tool, we can help local, county, state, and federal entities work together in more strategic ways with the funds that are available. Plus, we can enhance economic development by steering growth to low-priority lands while protecting the places that preserve the character of the region."
This message is sure to be welcomed by Lisa Parsons of the Middle Green Coalition and by others racing to protect important natural resources across King County. Parsons remembers driving by the entrance to the Icy Creek headwaters parcel, seeing the subdivision notice, and saying, "You have got to be kidding! We're going to allow development of one of the most pristine places in the Green River watershed?!" With the King County GIS Greenprint to back up her passion, perhaps the next new sign will read "This property protected for salmon and the citizens of King County."
Former Trust for Public Land staffer Sandra Tassel is a conservation consultant and freelance writer based in Seattle.


text:
London's Red Buses Turning INTO Greener
London's double-deck red buses are as familiar in the capital as the changing of the guards and the chimes of Big Ben.
But one thing is set to change in 2017 when hundreds of buses will become greener than ever, thanks to an anti-pollution drive by mayor Sadiq Khan.
Khan on Friday announced 10 new Low Emission Bus Zones to tackle toxic air pollution in Britain's capital city.
The biggest ever "green bus" program will cut harmful bus emissions across a number of key routes in London by 84 percent.
It will also protect thousands of school children at 172 schools along the bus routes from being exposed to dangerous pollution.
The scheme will see all-electric or hybrid electric buses, or ultra low emission vehicles on the routes.
Khan announced plans 10 more Low Emission Bus Zones to be added to the two already in operation, bringing the greenest buses to the capital's most polluted routes to cut harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.
A spokesman for Khan's office at city hall said: "The buses are part of the mayor's hard-hitting measures to tackle London's filthy air, responsible for the premature deaths of more than 9,000 Londoners every year."
The mayor has targeted air quality hotspots where people are exposed to some of the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution and where older buses contribute significantly to road transport emissions.
The new greener buses, which will be a combination of hybrid and clean buses that meet European standards, are part of an improvement program to 3,000 buses outside central London.
The zones are expected to reduce NOx emissions from buses along the routes by around 84 percent and will fulfill the Mayor's manifesto commitment to introduce Low Emission Bus Zones by 2020.
"Tackling London's filthy air is one of my main priorities and I am delighted to be delivering on that commitment by introducing these new Low Emission Bus Zones," Khan said.
Removing the oldest, dirtiest buses from London streets and delivering Low Emission Bus Zones will make a big contribution to tackling transport pollution, he said.


Pray for our Repent and Witness Evangelism Camp Missionary Team!
Pray for our 2008 Repent and Witness Evangelism Camp Missionary Team to New York City!
We've got missionaries from Canada and all over the United States coming out to this CCN evangelism camp. Saints from all different backgrounds and ages will team up for witnessing and open-air preaching in Union Square, Battery Park, Times Square, Staten Island Ferry, Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, and the NYC subway system.
Please pray that the Lord will save many and that they will get filtered into local churches for discipleship. Also, pray for protection and unity as we travel Manhattan boldly proclaiming God's glorious gospel.