Bioabsorbable Stents Market - Growth, Future Prospects and Competitive Analysis, 2017-2025, the global bioabsorbable stents market was valued at US$ 212.5 Mn in 2016, and is expected to reach US$ 511.1 Mn by 2025, expanding at a CAGR of 10.1% from 2017 to 2025.
Bioabsorbable stents is touted as one of the biggest revolutionary moves in the field of percutaneous coronary intervention. Bioabsorbable stents are absorbed in the body after providing desired support to the blood vessel for a stipulated period of time and thus ensure natural restoration of endothelial functions and properties. Bioabsorbable stents appropriately reduce the risk of complications related to permanent metallic stenting. Bioabsorbable stents also avoid the need for undergoing second procedure for stent removal, thereby facilitating faster recovery. Major factors driving the growth of the global bioabsorbable stents market include factors such as growing prevalence of coronary and peripheral artery diseases, growing life expectancy and increasing burden of chronic diseases on the healthcare system. It is expected the bioabsorbable stents will take over the position of bare metal and drug eluting stents during the upcoming period. With technological innovation, this market will witness significant growth. Conversely, issues in terms of regulatory hurdles, safety and efficacy reporting and costs may hold back the growth of this market.
Based on material type, the global bioabsorbable stents are classified as polymeric bioabsorbable stents and metallic bioabsorbable stents. Materials such as poly-L-lactic acid, polyglycolic acid, polycaprolactone and poly copolymer are mainly used in manufacturing polymeric stents. At present, polymeric stents experience significant position in the global market due to their established advantages over conventional bare metal stents. Optimized polymer composition facilitate targeted drug deliver to higher precision and limit proliferation of smooth muscle cells on the albuminal side and encourage endothelialization. Morepver polymer stents also have higher drug loading capacity and greater MRI and CT compatibility (delivering improved diagnostic interpretations since there is no interaction from metallic elements).
Additionally, metallic bioabsorbable stents are gradually becoming more attractive segment since these devices have the potential to overcome the drawbacks witnessed in the use of biodegradable polymer stents. At present magnesium and iron stents are being studied in humans. Both magnesium and iron bioabsorbable stents is mainly justified due to its known metabolism in humans.
Several magnesium alloys are being studied for adoption in manufacturing bioabsorbable stents. Magnesium alloys have limited ductility as against iron alloys. Improvement in processing technologies may possibly improve ductility of magnesium alloys through methods such as hot melt extrusion. Several investigational studies have been conducted to scrutinize the use of magnesium alloys in bioabsorbable stents.
Iron is also observed to be a promising and among the most studied bioabsorbable stent. However, pure iron as against other metals shows ferromagnetic properties and thus may interfere with MRI/CT observation. This property is altered by alloying iron with manganese thus nullifying the ferromagnetic property along with increasing the stent's mechanical properties.
Geographically, the global bioabsorbable stents market is cumulative to North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa. At present, North America dominates the global bioabsorbable stents market due to growing awareness about the benefits availed from implanting these stents in the treatment of coronary artery diseases. Furthermore, technological advancements in the field and early adoption of innovative treatment solutions in the region also support the dominance of North America on the global front. Additionally, Asia Pacific is expected to witness rapid growth during the forecast period due to growing skills of surgeon, and escalating prevalence of coronary artery and peripheral artery diseases. China, Japan and India are the most prominent markets in Asia Pacific.
The global bioabsorbable stents market is highly competitive and the major market players are entering into strategic and research partnerships to retain or enhance their stronghold in the market. However, the recent move from Abbott Vascular announcing the end of commercial sales of its Absorb bioresorbable vascular scaffold in September 2017 may reflect as a slack in the market competition and overall growth.


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Home / Buy Art / Etching / Stećci
Stećci
Stećci. original color aquatint and etching, 1983.
Artist: Dževad Hozo
Stećci quantity
SKU: 1140 Categories: Aquatint, Etching Tags: 1-100 cm, 80s, Abstraction, contemporary art, Dževad Hozo, medieval
Dževad Hozo is a Bosnian graphic artist. He finds inspiration and preoccupation in the past – in the material heritage and in the texts of Bosnian writers who wrote about that time. Through his style and research, Hozo related to the trend of lyrical abstraction but in a restrained and contained way. In a formal abstraction, he looked for the effects of materials, where shadows and contrasts are moving. He had over 40 individual exhibitions in the country and around the world and he also created one of the artistic posters for the Olympic Games in Sarajevo in the 1984. Stećci (singular: Stećak) is the name for monumental medieval tombstones from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. Some of them have ornamental decoration like spirals, arcades, rosettes, floral motives and similar as we can see in this graphic.
Dževad Hozo
Le peintre et la voiture
Le peintre aux lunettes

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text:
Toshiba Satellite S55t-A5277 Review
By Brian Westover
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/toshiba-satellite-s55t-a5277
The Toshiba Satellite S55t-A5277 offers category leading performance and a healthy feature set, but the ho-hum design and short battery life keep it from ranking higher.
Great performance from fourth-gen Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia graphics.
Touch screen.
DVD drive reads and burns to disc.
A sizeable 1TB hard drive offers lots of storage capacity.
Display is only 720p.
Battery life is a little short.
Looking for a desktop replacement notebook for less than a grand? The Toshiba Satellite S55t-A5277 has plenty to offer, like a 15.6-inch touch screen, a rich feature set, and superb performance thanks to a fourth-generation Intel Core i7-4700MQ procecssor and Nvidia GeForce GT 740M discrete GPU. It may not be the most portable laptop around, but for the user who is likely to keep close to home, the blend of performance and features make it a smart buy.
The Toshiba Satellite S55t weds mostly plastic construction with a layer of brushed aluminum across the lid and palmrest, adding a luxurious note to an otherwise utilitarian design. The combination of plastic and aluminum is a little thick and bulky, measuring 1.2 by 15.2 by 9.9 inches (HWD) and weighing 5.3 pounds.
The 15.6-inch display is a bit plain with only 1366-by-768 resolution, but for a touch-capable system, we wouldn't expect more without a bump in price. The HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook 15-4010nr( at Amazon Canada), for example, offers a 1080p touch screen, but costs considerably more.
Our Experts Have Tested 151 Products in the Laptops Category This Year
Just below the display is a speaker grill concealing two Harman/Kardon speakers. Paired with DTS Studio Sound, the overall sound quality is very good, with a wide volume range and clear sound even when turned up high. The bass was a little weaker than I'd like, but you'll still be able to enjoy a bass-heavy song. You can also tweak the sound to your liking with the DTS Sound Studio, which includes several audio optimization tools.
Asus VivoBook V551LB-DB71T
Read Our Asus VivoBook V551LB-DB71T Review
HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook 15-4010nr
Read Our HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook 15-4010nr Review
Dell Inspiron 15z (I15Z-4801SLV)
Read Our Dell Inspiron 15z (I15Z-4801SLV) Review
The Satellite S55t features a full-size chiclet keyboard and 10-key numeric pad, complete with LED backlight. Unlike the compact numeric pad seen on the Asus VivoBook V551LB-DB71T( at Amazon Canada), the Toshiba keeps the same key shape and spacing as the rest of the keyboard, which should make things a bit more comfortable for anyone doing data entry or working in spreadsheets.
The accompanying clickpad has a plasticy surface, but it's responsive and the integrated right and left buttons didn't give us any trouble during testing. The touchpad also gestures like two-fingered scrolling and zoom, along with Windows 8 gestures, such as swiping in from the edges to access the Charms Bar or cycle through open apps.
On the front edge of the laptop is an SD card slot. Two USB 3.0 ports are on the side, with a third USB 2.0 port featuring Sleep-and-Charge, letting you use it to power and charge your phone or media player even when the laptop is powered off. A LAN connection gives you wired Gigabit Ethernet, while the laptop is also equipped with 802.11n Wi-Fi.
A tray-loading optical drive (DVD+-RW dual-layer) is on one side, and features video upscaling to make standard definition content look better on the 720p screen or when connected to an HDTV through the HDMI output. A VGA output also lets you connect to a second monitor or projector.
Internally, the Satellite S55t is outfitted with a 1TB hard drive, offering copious space for all of your stuff, even a sizeable media collection. Toshiba regularly includes a number of preinstalled programs and apps on its systems, and the Satellite S55t is no exception, with more than a dozen proprietary and third-party apps already on the system at purchase, including regular Microsoft offerings, like Skype, Internet Explorer 10, and a 30-day trial of Office 365. There are additional 1-month trials of Norton Anti-Theft, Norton Internet Security, and Norton Online Backup. Toshiba also throws in its own app store (Toshiba AppPlace), ebook store (BookPlace), and some game extras from EA Games and WildTangent Games. Toshiba covers the Satellite S55t with a one-year limited warranty.
The Satellite S55t is equipped with a fourth-generation quad-core processor, the Intel Core i7-4700MQ (2.4GHz), paired with an impressive 12GB of RAM. The new CPU is a full generation ahead of the Ivy Bridge processors found in the HP Spectre XT TouchSmart and Dell Inspiron 15z (I15Z-4801SLV)( at Amazon Canada), and the extra ram will help keep performance feeling pretty speedy even after a few months, and you likely won't ever need to upgrade the RAM, though you could bump it up to 16GB.
The combination of a quad-core processor and 12GB of RAM produced solid results in our various tests. It finished PCMark 7 with 4,924 points, pulling ahead of the Asus VivoBook V551LB (3,176 points) and the HP Spectre XT TouchSmart (4,720 points). In the processor intensive Cinebench R11.5, it scored 5.84 points, a dramatic improvement over the likes of the Asus VivoBook V551LB-DB71T (2.92 points) and the Dell Inspiron 15z (2.89 points). That difference also translated into dramatically improved performance in Handbrake, finishing the video transcoding test in 39 seconds, while the Asus VivoBook V551LB-DB71T and the Dell Inspiron 15z both took more than a minute to complete the same task.
Performance was also boosted thanks to the inclusion of an Nvidia GeForce GT 740M graphics processor with 2GB of dedicated memory. Thanks to the extra processing hardware, the Satellite S55t completed 3DMark 11 with scores of 3,245 points (Entry) and 560 (Extreme). In our gaming tests, the Satellite S55t eked out 23 frames per second in both Heaven and Aliens vs. Predator, when set to low detail settings. As such, we can't recommend it for any sort of serious gaming, but you should be able to enjoy less demanding games like Team Fortress 2. The graphics card includes Nvidia's Optimus automatic switching, which extends battery life by switching to Intel integrated graphics solution when the discrete GPU isn't needed.
In our rundown test the Satellite S55t lasted 3 hours 41 minutes, which isn't terrible for a smaller 4-cell 43Wh battery, but you will need to bring along the AC adapter for anything more than a long lunch. In stark contrast, the Asus VivoBook V551LB-DB71T lasted a stunning 7:47, but it easily leads the category, which averages closer to 4 hours.
The Toshiba Satellite S55t-A5277 may not be as portable as we'd like--it's a little bulky, and the battery life is on the shorter side--but the overall performance leads the competition, making it hard to ignore. The design is a bit drab, and the 720p display left us wanting more, but it does offer a decent set of features, making the Toshiba Satellite S55t-A5277 worth a good look from anybody in the market for a desktop replacement.
Toshiba Satellite S55t-A5277
The Fastest Laptops for 2022
How to Run Your Laptop With the Lid Closed
By Tom Brant
About Brian Westover
Brian Westover is an Analyst for the Hardware Team, reviewing laptops, desktops, and storage devices. As a child, Brian was frequently asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?" His answer alternated between Superman and Batman. This was cute when he was five, but worrisome at seventeen. Naturally, he is now a journalist, writing about technology and gadgets. Brian has been writing professionally since 2007, and his work has appeared in business newsletters, websites, textbooks, and magazines. He earned his degree in Communications from Brigham Young University - Idaho. When not writing or fighting villainy, Brian enjoys sampling the culinary delights of New York, perusing obscure trivia, and spending time with his wife.
Read the latest from Brian Westover
Rugged HP Fortis Chromebooks, Windows PCs Coming to a Classroom Near You
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CES First Look: MSI's Stealth, Creator Laptops Get Intel 12th Gen, RTX 3080 Ti
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Toshiba Satellite S55t-A5277 at Amazon


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(Joseph) Rupert Eric Robert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton    (22 January 1924 – 8 August 2003), DL, of Houghton Hall in the parish of Sancton, Yorkshire, was a British soldier, landowner and racehorse owner who served as Senior Steward of the Jockey Club (1982-5).

Origins
He was the only son and heir of Miles Watson, 2nd Baron Manton of Compton Verney, Warwickshire and later of Plumpton Place, East Sussex, by his first wife Alethea Langdale, the younger of the two daughters and co-heiresses of Colonel Philip Joseph Langdale, OBE, JP, DL, of Houghton Hall. In 1936 when Watson was 12 years of age, his parents were divorced and his father remarried two years later.

Inheritance
He inherited the barony of Manton on the death of his father in 1968. He was given Houghton Hall, the ancient seat of the extinct Barony of Langdale, by his maternal aunt Countess FitzWilliam (1898-1995) (née Joyce Elizabeth Mary Langdale), eldest daughter and co-heiress of Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Joseph Langdale, who from 1956 was the wife of Thomas Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 10th Earl Fitzwilliam (1904–1979). With her husband's home, Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, being the largest private residence in England, and with his second seat of Milton Hall, Peterborough, being the largest house in Cambridgeshire, also at her disposal, she may have felt little need to retain Houghton for her own use.

Career
He lived near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, the centre of English fox-hunting, until moving to the East Riding of Yorkshire to run Houghton Hall and its  estate. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Humberside in 1980.

Military career
He was educated at Eton College.
In 1942 Watson joined the British Army and the next year was commissioned into the Life Guards.  He saw service in Egypt, Germany, and Italy. He was promoted captain and retired in 1947. In 1951 he returned to the army and served in the 7th Queen's Own Hussars until 1956. He then served in the Leicestershire Yeomanry, in which he was appointed Adjutant.

Horse racing
From a young age, Watson was a successful jockey having won 130 times as an amateur. He won the Kim Muir Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 1955 riding Gay Monarch.

Following the example of his father, who had established a stud at Plumpton Place in Sussex, and of his grandfather the 1st Baron Manton who took his title from the famous racehorse training establishment at Manton, Wiltshire, purchased by him shortly before his early death, he became a successful owner and breeder of racehorses. In 1970 he was a director of Thirsk Racecourse in Yorkshire. From 1970 to 1975 he was a member of the Horserace Betting Levy Board, created to divert monies from bookmakers to the racing industry. From 1982-5 he served as  Senior Steward of the Jockey Club, when that role was still effectively the chief executive of the British horse racing industry, before the creation of the British Horseracing Board in 1993. As Senior Steward he led the campaign to persuade the government to allow betting shops to show televised races.

Manton was a steward at several racecourses, Doncaster, Beverley and York Racecourse. He was a Tattersalls Committee member and between 1985 and 1991 he chaired the York Race Committee. In 1998 he entered a horse he bred and owned, Silver Stick, in the Horse & Hound Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown Park. His son Miles was the jockey and won the race. When the Queen Mother presented Manton with his trophy he told her: "I saddled the horse; I bred the horse - and the jockey."

Fox-hunting
He was Field Master of both the Belvoir and the Quorn Foxhounds and was a "well known" hunter in Leicestershire.

Marriage and children
In 1951 he married Mary Elizabeth Hallinan (born 1925) (known as "Mimi"), elder daughter of Major Thomas Francis Dennehy Hallinan (d.1959) of Ashbourne House, Glounthaune, County Cork, Ireland (of the T. Hallinan & Sons flour milling family which had mills at Glandalane, Fermoy; Avoncore, Midleton, etc) and aunt of John Magnier the Irish billionaire business magnate and leading thoroughbred stud owner, son of her twin sister Evelyn Hallinan (Evie Stockwell). By coincidence Magnier's racing partner, Robert Sangster, was based at the famous training establishment at Manton, Wiltshire, which he purchased in 1985, formerly owned by Rupert's grandfather the 1st Baron Manton, and from which he took his title. By his wife he had two sons and a daughter who were triplets and two elder daughters.

Death and succession
On his death on 8 August 2003 the title passed to Miles Watson, 4th Baron Manton, his eldest son. Miles was formerly a successful amateur jockey and was an officer in the Life Guards.

References

Further reading

External links

1924 births
2003 deaths
People educated at Eton College
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Deputy Lieutenants in England
Leicestershire Yeomanry officers
Manton

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In this article, Horwitz argues that the foreign information reporting penalties under chapter 61 of the code are not a tax and can't be assessed and collected in the same manner as a tax.
In National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB),1 the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. To reach the merits, the Court had to clear the hurdle of the prohibition against injunctive relief in tax cases under the Anti-Injunction Act.2 It did so by noting that unlike the penalties in subchapters 68A and 68B of the code, the ACA individual mandate penalty is not designated a tax. Thus, it was not a tax, even though it was to be assessed and collected like a tax. Because the Anti-Injunction Act applies only to a tax, it did not apply to the ACA penalty.


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Q: Why do we hear frequencies in the basis of sine waves? When we talk about hearing frequencies and overtones, we almost always mean in the basis of sine waves, according to a standard Fourier decomposition. Couldn't we also decompose a signal into a different basis of orthogonal periodic functions, like square waves? According to a Fourier decomposition, a square wave has many frequencies. Indeed, when I hear a square wave, I can hear overtones. But in the basis of square waves, it has one frequency. Why is the Fourier decomposition more fundamental to human hearing?

A: I refute the premise: we don't hear frequencies in the basis of sines. When we hear a sawtooth-like wave, we don't perceive it as a lot of superimposed sinusoidal partials, but rather as a single sound with a particular pitch and timbre. Only when you boost some individual partials strongly above the level of their neighbours, do they stand out as tones of their own right, though even then we ascribe the result rather to have a quality "like certain vocals", depending on where the boost lies. The wah-wah guitar effect is based around this phenomenon.
What is closer to true is to say Fourier basis provides a decomposition into information that we are sensitive to (amplitudes) and information we are not (or only hardly) sensitive to (phases). This can be witnessed by listening through music through all-pass filters, which scramble the phases of the partials but leave their amplitudes as they are. If you look at the waveform of an all-pass filtered signal, it appears completely different from the orginal, but if you listen to it it'll sound very similar.
It's pretty useful that the ears work this way, because phase information is completely unreliable in a natural environment: with delayed reflections from walls, wind dispersion etc., the same person speaking in two different rooms would be perceived as very different if we took phase into account. Different rooms do also change the amplitudes – sometimes a particular sine mode will phase-cancel between reflections – but most of the amplitude-ratios are generally similar between different acoustic spaces.
Now, the very name all-pass of course refers to the Fourier decomposition, to the fact that all sinusoidals come out with the same amplitude. But these filters can actually be defined without any reference to that at all:
All-pass filters are the operators under whose action any signal's autocorrelation stays invariant.
The autocorrelation of a signal $u$ is simply the $L^2$ correlation (i.e. inner product) with time-shifted versions of itself:
$$
  R_u(\tau) = \int_\mathbb{R}\!\mathrm{d}t\: u(t)\cdot u(t+\tau).
$$
It's easy to see why this is a good thing to look at if we want to be not sensitive to room acoustics: if you create a time-shifted version of the signal $\tilde u(t) = u(t-0.17\,\mathrm{s})$ (corresponding to sound reflection from a wall 30 metres away) then the autocorrelation comes out just the same:
$$\begin{align}
  R_{\tilde{u}}(\tau)
   =& \int\limits_{-\infty}^{\infty}\!\mathrm{d}t\: u(t-0.17\,\mathrm{s})\cdot u(t+\tau-0.17\,\mathrm{s})
   \\=& \int\limits_{-\infty+0.17\,\mathrm{s}}^{\infty+0.17\,\mathrm{s}}\!\mathrm{d}t\: u(t)\cdot u(t+\tau)
   = R_u(\tau).
\end{align}$$
What Fourier decomposition does have to do with this is that it can be used to calculate the autocorrelation efficiently. Observe that autocorrelation is convolution of the signal with a time-mirrored version of itself, and the Fourier transform the unique linear decomposition such that
$$
\mathcal{F}(\phi\star\psi)(\omega) = \mathcal{F}(\phi)(\omega) \cdot \mathcal{F}(\psi)(\omega).
$$
That's perhaps the most important reason why Fourier analysis is such a useful tool, though the point that march made about harmonic oscillators is certainly also relevant.

A: We can and do in some cases.  Take a look at the Zernike Polynomials for decomposing 2-dimensional frequency distributions, for example.
The short answer is that sine waves are nice and clean, behave well when applying Fourier or other transforms,  so why go make things difficult?

A: The "reason" that the Fourier decomposition is the "correct" one has to do with the fact that both signal detectors (microphones, ears, etc.) operate as driven harmonic oscillators. Or rather, it is the fact that the harmonic approximation tends to be a very good approximation for describing the kinematics of a objects that we use as detection devices.
If an object is a simple harmonic oscillator, then it has a natural frequency, and this frequency corresponds to sinusoidal motion of the oscillator. As a consequence, the simplest (and reasonable!) model for the coupling of a sound wave to the oscillator is one in which resonance occurs.  In this case, if the natural frequency of the oscillator appears in the Fourier expansion of the sound wave, then the oscillator will vibrate at this resonant frequency with an amplitude that depends directly on the amplitude of that Fourier component in the sound.  In this way, the Fourier components of the wave are "real" and therefore the Fourier expansion is a physically natural one to use.

Now, there is are a couple of huge caveats that go along with this.  The first is less important, so I'll deal with it first.  Direct detection objects like the diaphragms in microphones and the eardrum are very low-Q oscillators, which means that they don't really have a well-defined natural frequency.  They are in fact designed in such a way that they will respond relatively strongly across a broad frequency range, making them useful as detectors.  However, later on, there are often objects that have relatively well-defined natural frequencies, such as places on the basilar membrane in the inner ear.
The second problem is worse: the perception of sound is hugely complicated, not only because the signal processing going on in our brains involves non-linearities (such as feedback and feedforward between the processing centers of the brain and the sensory apparatus) but also because the mechanics of the detection itself in the inner ear is not so straight-forward as there being different objects that have well-defined natural frequencies.
As a first approximation, we can think of different places on the basilar membrane in the cochlea (where the nerves are that fire and send signals to the brain) having different well-defined natural frequencies of (sinusoidal) oscillation that individually respond to the different Fourier components of a wave traveling through the inner ear.  However, this simple picture is complicated by the fact that the modes are coupled to each other linearly due to the fact that the membrane is a membrane (there aren't actually isolated oscillators).  As a consequence, there is significant overlap between the different places on the membrane in terms of frequency response, especially at lower frequencies.
For this reason, the process of hearing involves at least two different mechanisms: the place theory that we've just described and the temporal theory, which doesn't involve a resonance phenomenon.  But that is a story for another question.

A: The vast majority of sound-conducting media are very well approximated by linear time-invariant systems: the response to added stimuli is the addition of the individual responses, and moving the stimulus in time will move the result in time.
LTI systems are completely characterised by their "impulse response".
The eigenfunctions of linear time-invariant systems are complex exponentials (essentially, sinoids with amplitude and phase shift): those functions as input to an LTI system are reproduced exactly, though with possibly differing phase and amplitude.
Other wave forms aren't.  The stacked impedance transformation and separation layers in the ear are also by and large LTI systems, and sound sources are usually well understood in terms of pulsed or synchronised excitations acting on resonating LTI systems.
If you start with a sine wave as signal, the arriving result will be a sine wave (snares are not LTI because the triggered contact noise is not linear in nature).  No other wave form is essentially unfazed by an LTI medium.  You cannot "muffle" a pure sine wave's sound, only dampen it.  It will not change character or clarity, only loudness.
In contrast, if you pass a triangular wave or a rectangular wave through a pillow, it will change character.
Because sine waves are such exceptionally important constituting invariants in any soundscape, the hearing is well-tuned to dealing with them, partly by the construction of the whole inner ear, but also by the resulting conversion to nerve pulse trains (which are not linear phenomena but able to represent them comparatively well) from spatially separated detectors and the interpretive layers in the cortical processing.

A: To put your question in a wider perspective: consider white noise
As we know: the expression 'white noise' is used for continuous sound that consists of random frequencies; random shifting of frequency, random shifting of the  volume of each consisting frequency (resulting in a roughly  continuous volume for the overall white noise).
In the case of white noise any decomposition is useless.
That is: in the case of white noise decomposition into a basis of sine waves is as useless as any other decomposition into some basis. So: in the case of white noise fourier decomposition into a a basis of sines is not a preferred decomposition.

Music instruments and resonance
Music instruments that are build to a tried and tested design have the property that the sound that is produced carries well.
Early versions of that instrment may have had a sound that carried less well, and those versions were abandoned. The tried and tested designs developed over centuries, always with an ear for producing sound that carries well.
A flute is designed to have good resonance at every pitch of its range. Of course: by opening and closing specific holes/valves the instrument is reconfigured to resonate at the pitch that the flute player is producing.
Resonance is always best when the vibrating medium has optimal opportunity to oscillate in harmonic oscillation.
So: even when instrument design developed through mostly trial and error, the design very much tends to favor producing sound that consists of harmonic oscillations that are multiples of the base frequency that the instrument is producing.

The psychological dimension is that we humans are far more interested in sounds that consist of multiple harmonics.
White noise is totally uninteresting; we cannot hear anything in it.
It is sounds with discernible internal structure that interest us the most.
For the sounds that are the most interesting to our human auditory perception: Fourier decomposition into a basis of sines is in effect the only option.

A: The human sensory system is a large ensemble of detectors which are made of nerve cells.  A complex sensation occurs when a stimulus triggers a large number of nerve cells, while a simple sensation triggers a small number of nerve cells.
For a "touch" example, lay a pencil flat in the palm of your hand. You feel the pencil near the wrist, and also near the fingers, and in between. Now take that pencil and poke your palm with the point. You are triggering a smaller number of sensory cells, so the sensation feels more "pure."
The palm of your hand has a high density of touch sensors, but your back has a much lower density.  There is a well-known party trick where you touch someone of the back with the points of an unknown number of pencils: maybe just one, or maybe four or six held together in your fist.  The different pencil points don't activate different sensory nerves in your back, so the person being poked can't distinguish between one point versus several points.
In your eye, the lens of your eye takes light rays from a particular direction and focuses them onto a particular location on your retina, where there is a particular nerve cell waiting to sense them.
In your ear, the nerve cells line the cochlea, which is a fluid-filled tapered tube.  A "pure" tone excites some of these nerve cells without exciting others.  I am a little murky on exactly how this happens. I have read in the past that the tapered shape of the cochlea sets up a wavelength-dependent standing wave with an antinode at the nerve cells corresponding to a particular pitch.  As a physicist, I get excited about the idea of resonant amplification playing a role in biology. However, this antinode hypothesis seems inconsistent with the fact that high frequencies are detected at the wide mouth of the cochlea, and lower frequencies deeper in.  Another possibility is that sound waves in the cochlear fluid undergo frequency-dependent extinction, and that the sensation of a "pure" pitch corresponds to a well-defined boundary between upstream cochlear cells which are excited versus downstream cells which are idle.
This extinction-based model of pitch sensitivity explains why loud low-frequency sounds accelerate age-related high-frequency hearing loss.  It also moves the question of sinusoidal "pure" tones from biology and neurology to the domain of frequency analysis of damped oscillations in fluids.

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In a saucepan, over medium heat, combine the shoyu, mirin and sugar. Simmer until the sauce reduces somewhat and thickens. Set aside.
In a deep frying pan or wok, heat about 1 inch of oil until very hot, but not smoking. Dredge the chicken pieces in seasoned flour then carefully place in the hot oil. Fry until golden brown. Place on absorbent towel and keep warm until ready to serve. Serve with the dipping sauce. Serves 4.


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The business of dieting is a multi-billion dollar industry. Its marketing is designed to make you feel bad about yourself, not good enough, and foster the belief that you must fit some narrow definition of beauty to be happy and successful.
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If weight loss was simply calories in vs calories out North America would not have the obesity epidemic that currently exists. Other factors such as hormones, stress, toxicity, liver health, insulin, thyroid disorders, sensitivities, emotions, and more, can all affect one's ability to maintain a healthy weight.
I take a personalized approach focusing on your unique needs and challenges which results in lasting change, and results!
Located 10 minutes east of London in Dorchester, ON.
Some appointments also available by Skype, Face Time, or Phone.
Indigo Wellness Centre's services and opinions are not intended to treat, diagnose or cure disease.


CAIRO, EGYPT - FEBRUARY 04, 2016: Camels for rent in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Camels on Moses Mountain. Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. Mount Sinai, also known as Mount Horeb, is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is the traditional and most accepted identification of the Biblical Mount Sinai.


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Greater Vancouver Condo & House Price Gap Is Narrowing
As our real estate group have stated in previous updates, the gap between sale prices of new condos and those for single-family homes could be closing as more buyers pay ever-climbing prices for condominiums in Greater Vancouver.
So far this year, there have been more than 2,000 new condo sales than at the same point last year, a 20-per-cent increase, according to Michael Ferreira, managing principal of Vancouver-based Urban Analytics, who addressed the Urban Development Institute last week.
The figure totals two-thirds more sales than in 2013, he said. Our sales manager Mandeep Sendher and our marketing manager Robert Pybus were both in attendance and spoke with many industry partners on these subjects including the burgeoning condo valuation increases versus overall detached values outside of Vancouver's west side.
Looking ahead, Ferreira said 87 per cent of the 21,600-plus concrete condo units scheduled to be finished by the end of 2018 have already sold.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said Tuesday sales of apartments reached 1,543 in October 2015, an increase of 21.7 per cent compared to the 1,268 sales in October 2014, and an increase of 40.5 per cent compared to the 1,098 sales in October 2013. The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 11.4 per cent from October 2014 to $425,800.
Ferreira told the UDI that condo sales in some areas are increasing more than others and, across the board, rising construction and land costs are becoming large factors.
He said mainland Chinese buyers have been more active than in past years because the Chinese currency has increased by 30 per cent relative to the Canadian dollar.
This has also spurred companies with offshore capital from mainland China to buy land for building multi-family developments such as condos.
Some are well-established developers looking to set up here. These are "well-capitalized, patient and reasonably sophisticated," said Ferreira.
He said they are attracted to and willing to overpay current market value for large or prime sites as a way of getting a foothold. The other breed is more of a mom-and-pop investor, whose "first priority is to park cash here."
Aside from the "immense amount of offshore capital," Ferreira said the "perfect storm" also includes more active local buyers.
At the soon-to-be-built Burrard Place, 350 of 395 units sold within a month. Priced at over $1,200 a square foot, these are nearing the cost of a single-family home in Vancouver. About half of the units, mostly those under $1 million, were sold to investors and the remaining, at about $2 million, to end users.
Older downsizers with money to spend on new condos after cashing out of their single-family homes are also a factor. In West Vancouver, apartments account for only about 19 per cent of all properties, said Michael Ward, senior vice-president of Grosvenor America. He is building and selling Grosvenor Ambleside in West Vancouver, where penthouse units are priced at between $3,500 to $4,000 a square foot and other units range from $3.5 million to $15 million. It's about 70-per-cent sold, with more than 85 per cent to purchasers who live within 10 kilometres, said Ward.
"This is exactly what our real estate group expected." "There are wealthy local people to absorb these condos, a mix of locals in West Vancouver with Caucasian, Iranian and Chinese buyers, who are equity rich in their homes."
All of this has led to prices for prime Vancouver real estate — defined as properties in the top five per cent of the housing market — to increase by 20.4 per cent between September 2014 and September 2015, far outstripping Sydney, the city with the second largest price increase at 10.7 per cent for the same period, according to a report released Tuesday by London-based real estate consultants Knight Frank.
"Supply is tight with the number of homes for sale down 32 per cent year-on-year, and local demand is strengthening alongside foreign interest. The big question mark surrounds not Greece and the eurozone, but the slowdown in the Chinese economy. Wealth from China will continue to flow into overseas property markets with the U.K., U.S., Canada and Australia being key target destinations."
Whatever direction your moving in our real estate team at The BC Home Hunter Group (BCHH) knows your way home. Don't hesitate to call, email or text us with your questions or for your complimentary home and property evaluation anytime, 604-767-6736.


Original artwork created by Scott D Van Osdol on canvas. A one-of-a-kind creation using acrylic paints on canvas! A bright, beautiful wall accent, statement piece! Size: 16″ x 20″ x 1/2 thick. Condition: Notice top right corner of canvas has indention or pressed spot where canvas has been over-stretched inwards, see photo and use zoom. Clear coat sealed for protection! Listing is for the art only, any possible décor shown in some images are NOT included. Perfect accent painting for a home or office wall! A unique, great conversation piece! You will receive the art as described in the title and description as well as shown in the first image(s), other images may show other artwork examples listed inside our shop and are NOT included in this link. The item "SARDINES Color Original Fish Coastal Art On Canvas Painting by SDV 16×20 Large" is in sale since Saturday, May 21, 2016. This item is in the category "Art\Paintings". The seller is "mysalvagedpast" and is located in Columbus, Indiana. This item can be shipped to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Estonia, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, Japan, Sweden, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, South africa, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Norway, Saudi arabia, United arab emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Croatia, Malaysia, Chile, Colombia, Costa rica, Panama, Trinidad and tobago, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, China, Thailand, Switzerland, Brazil, Antigua and barbuda, Aruba, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Saint kitts and nevis, Saint lucia, Montserrat, Turks and caicos islands, Barbados, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Brunei darussalam, Bolivia, Ecuador, Egypt, French guiana, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, Iceland, Jersey, Jordan, Cambodia, Cayman islands, Liechtenstein, Sri lanka, Luxembourg, Monaco, Macao, Martinique, Maldives, Nicaragua, Oman, Peru, Pakistan, Paraguay, Reunion.


Join an award-winning team of passionate Restauranteurs!
What restaurant are you interested in an opportunity at?
Tell us a little bit about why you are interested in working with us? Let your personality shine through!
We are seeking talented and inspired Line Cooks to join our team.
We are searching for high-energy, experienced line cooks who are passionate about food and bring positive attitudes to work with them every day.
We want team players who love what they do, understand customer service and work under the ethic that every plate should be better than the last.
Applicants should have two years of culinary experience working in a fast-paced kitchen. Day, night and/or weekend availability is a must.
For candidates, this is a unique opportunity to join a successful restaurant group poised for significant growth. We are industry leaders, currently owning and operating Bonterra Trattoria, Cibo, Posto Pizzeria and Bar, Scopa Neighbourhood Italian, Lina's Italian Market and Mill Street Brewery.
Applicants should have one year of culinary experience working in a fast-paced kitchen. Day, night and/or weekend availability is a must.
For candidates, this is a unique opportunity to join a successful restaurant group poised for significant growth. We are industry leaders, currently owning and operating Bonterra Trattoria, Cibo, Posto Pizzeria and Bar, Scopa Neighbourhood Italian, Lina's Italian Market and Mill Street Brewpub Calgary.
We are looking to fill some positions in the Mill Street Calgary Brewpub kitchen. Please email Cody at cquan@millstreetcalgarybrewpub.com to apply with a resume.
Must have cooking experience and work in a face paced kitchen.


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A Letter from the President
Mayors Leadership Council
Honorary Board Alumni
SCI Foundation
Work at SCI
SCI At A Glance
What is a Sister City?
Business and Trade
SCI Global Conversations
Youth Leadership Summit
J-1 High School Homestay
Young Artist and Authors Showcase
2022 YAAS
YLS 2021
City Connection Marketplace
Governance and Policy
Resources and Discounts
Global Leaders Circle
Wunderbar Together: A Norfolk-Wilhelmshaven Exchange Transcending Generations
Even a fleeting international exchange can challenge perceptions, break down stereotypes, and build mutual respect for other cultures and customs. However, often the intercultural friendships fostered by Sister Cities programming are ones that last – even across generations.
US and German participants in the Norfolk-Wilhelmshaven youth exchange visit the office of US Senator Tim Kane (VA, D) in Washington, DC
The youth exchange between sister cities of Norfolk, Virginia, USA and Wilhelmshaven, Germany is a testament to this continued impact. Since 1978, the Norfolk Sister Cities Association has administered the summer program that sends roughly 10 Norfolk high school students to Wilhelmshaven one year and 16-18 Wilhelmshaven students to Norfolk the next. In the past, German parents would also travel to Norfolk for one week at the conclusion of the summer.
Jennifer Priest of the Norfolk Sister City Association and her family have personally been impacted by the lasting German-American ties formed through this program. "My daughter participated in the 2001-02 exchange. We are still close with those German 'kids' who are now 30-somethings with their own families. They still come to us for holidays. Because of the age of our program, we have had second generation participants."
One remaining challenge is to recruit more Americans for the program due to an ongoing struggle to teach German in Norfolk Public Schools, despite the impact of exchanges showcasing the value of learning the German language. Nevertheless, the Norfolk Sister City Association has still been able to expand its program offerings through the Young Global Citizen Program, which launched in 2015. The program provides German students and adults with the experience of delivering a two-hour program to Norfolk Public School summer school students. The program aims to "assist in educating and exposing future leaders about the world" (view the program flyer here).
Students from Wilhelmshaven, Germany Instructing at Richard Bowling Elementary in Norfolk, VA
As the Norfolk Sister City Association works to expand the breadth of its programs, the depth is unmistakable. The intercultural friendships and family ties both sparked and sustained by these youth exchange programs add up to facilitate mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation between Norfolk and Wilhelmshaven, and ultimately between the US and Germany.
This blog post forms part of Sister Cities' "Wunderbar Together" series, part of our ongoing involvement in "Wunderbar Together," funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, implemented by the Goethe-Institut, and supported by the Federation of German Industries (BDI). This year, we are showcasing stories that highlight the impact of German-American exchange on the local level, as well as the heritage, interests, and common values shared by the United States and Germany. To submit your own experience with German-American exchange or involvement in a German-American sister city partnership, please fill out our form here.
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So, a pretty spectacular first name and a rather drab surname for me.
the contributions in this thread!
Dylan is a welsh name which means of the tide. In Google translate on modern welsh 'y llanw' is of the tide. Freeman is the name of a class of free men of fedual England.
However I don't know what Corel means, it dosen't mean the reef and it comes from my great-grandfather had a french last name if that helps.
I'll go through my family's last names. Like a lot of other names in the US, some have changed when my ancestors passed through Ellis Island.
Henry: Shortened from McHenery when they came to America, meaning has already been discussed.
Bruhn: Did not change when my great-grandfather came over from Denmark - it means brown. He married a German girl here with the last name of Diehl. I can't find anything on that surname, other than a note that it was a pet form of a personal name.
Olson: Did not change when my great-grandparents came over from Norway - son of Ole/Olaf, which in turn means ancestral relic, from what I understand, but correct me if someone knows a more precise origin.
Shafer: Changed from Schäfer when my great-great-grandparents came over from Germany, means Shepherd.
My surname is "Voßmann". Voß is the low German (Platt) word for "fox".
So I guess my ancestors were either red-haired or.. uh.. cunning?
Nice thread! My name is Francesco, which is an old Italian word for "French". On its turn, "French" comes from the Germanic word "frank" meaning free.


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Thousands of eBay entrepreneurs to start their own online business this month
The most popular products sold by new eBay businesses include car accessories, wall decals and stickers, CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays
by Shane Donnelly
Updated: Feb 29, 2020 Published: Jan 29, 2018
January is officially the most popular month to start an eBay business, after figures released from the e-commerce giant revealed that the site saw a 30% surge in new business registrations this month.
The new year is historically one of the most popular times to start a business, with aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to diversify their income and be their own boss.
A sure sign of the continued rise of entrepreneurialism in the UK, 75,000 businesses have started up via eBay's mobile app alone in the UK over the past three years, with the top 10 most successful new businesses that registered in 2017 now turning over a combined total of £6m – an average of £600,000 per online business.
It's also been revealed that the peak time of the day for launching a business on eBay is between 12-4pm, as workers resolve to escape the office humdrum for the independence of running a business during lunch.
An important point for those looking to start their own e-commerce business, the most popular products sold by new eBay businesses include car accessories, wall decals and stickers, CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays.
35% of the top 20 new sellers on eBay over the past three years operate in the car accessories category, where buyers can purchase niche parts for specific car models.
Home and garden and physical media (such as vinyl) are the other most popular categories for most successful new firms.
Most popular products sold by new eBay businesses
1. Rear light assemblies
2. Wall decals and stickers
3. Headlight assemblies
4. Wing mirrors and accessories
5. Doors and door parts
6. CDs
7. Seat covers and cushions
8. DVDs and Blu-rays
9. Window motors, winders and parts
10. Wings and quarter panels
Started by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, eBay presents a promising launchpad for e-commerce businesses, giving them the opportunity to sell to the website's 18 million UK users – or, for start-ups with global ambitions, 167 million users worldwide.
With business packages starting from £25 a month, setting up an eBay store is low-cost and does not require extensive resources. eBay entrepreneurs can sell on products which they have bought in bulk from wholesalers, deal in high-value one-off items or simply auction knickknacks.
Considering the potential for success that can be found through a relatively low-maintenance operation, managing an eBay store serves as a good option for aspiring entrepreneurs who are keen to run their own company but do not have a business idea.
Speaking about the figures, Rob Hattrell, vice president of eBay in the UK, said:
"2017 was a fantastic year for our sellers, many of whom saw export growth, with countries like Australia, the US and France the lead destinations for UK goods on eBay.
"2018 looks set to be even better with start-ups launching in droves this January – providing even more choice for savvy shoppers looking to find a unique product online.
"We are optimistic about the future for online retail, which is increasingly a story of changing customer demands and the nimble businesses that are able to adapt at pace."
To read Startups' extensive free guide to starting an eBay business, click here.


We're working hard on it! A lot of testing of changes on the A318-A321 being done as well. Hang in there!
And above all, one thing, that you haven't updated for a long time, the manuals.
Mathijs has been working on those was well!
I hope it is soon updating PDF manuals, and not be in a hurry.
Honestly, but why are the manuals that important?
Because not everybody know 100% the plane and the procedures?
Although I honestly consider myself a non-expert in simulated flights, there are things that escape my knowledge, then I always turn to the manuals, which supposedly would have to be updated, and well explained and reviewed, by those who develop the Simulator and its applications. and thus avoid having to ask for help in the forum, and wait for someone to respond by giving a solution or explanation, which sometimes increases the doubt and others solves it.
Although for some questions to problems that occur to "The questioner " are irrelevant, for the questioner "Sure they are not "
I could give you many different examples, but I'll just say that we wrote the manuals to provide customers with instant answers instead of having to wait hours or days for answers in the forums.
Also, flight sim at this level is all about learning. Most of our Airbus customers go on the Internet and find as much information as they can to learn more and more about the aircraft. This is long been an integral part of flight simulation.
When customers ask questions which are covered in our documentation, we simply refer them to the documentation, which we wrote to impart our knowledge to as many people as possible.
I could go on and on and on. Bottom line... even though flight simulation is what individuals make of it, at this level it always starts with the documentation.
Well, imagine one that starts from scratch, if the manuals do not guide you correctly from the beginning, as it will end after time, I imagine tired.
As I already stated, the manuals are being updated to reflect the CHANGES we made AFTER the initial release. Many of these changes had to do with the Copilot and Checklist functions... which aren't needed after you're first few flights anyway. Remember, the Copilot and Checklist is only for basic orientation.
Alright, I get it. I assumed that most of the people would already know how an airbus works, because flight simulation is a niche market. And most of the people know how a plane works. Obviously every plane is different. But still thanks for your answer, Dave!
Can you give us in percentage how far the next update is already done?
I'm basically hyped for each update.
We've been providing experimental updates via the ASUpdater, and the team has been working on the next such update as well as on SP1. Unfortunately I can't give you a date because of the complexities and different prioritized work items. Mathijs has been doing an excellent job of keeping everyone updated, and I'm sure he'll let the community know as soon as the next update is ready.
I assume that there will be no update today? Regards.
1.2.2.0 now available, use the updater to get it.


Our requirement is to pull list of all Web Intelligence reports using a specific universe object in BI 4.1. Based on my research I got to know that this was possible using JAVA Enterprise SDKs in BO XI 3.1; however same is not supported BI 4.0 SP3 onward; and possible using RESTFul Web Services SDKs only.
I have followed few links where in same question were asked; however no one has documented RESTFul SDK code to achive this requirement for SAP BI 4.1 on Windows Platform.
In BI 4.1 REST SDKs it is possible to get all of the Universes used in a Webi Document, but it is not possible to get a list of all of the reports using a universe. This is still possible with the BI Platform Java and .NET sdks though. You can create a query returning the properties of a universe and get a list of document IDs that reference that universe.
In BI 4.2, the Platform RESTful SDK has the ability to pass a query to the CMS database ( ../biprws/infostore/cmsQuery) so this can be used to achieve the same result. Again this is only available in BI4.2.
If this is a one-time thing where you know which universe you want to delete, there is a QueryBuilder tool that ships with BOE that you can use to get a list of report IDs using a universe. If its something you will need to do more often, then an application would help.
The query will return the properties for the uinverse and one of the properties, SI_WEBI, will contain a list of webi document IDs which use the universe.
If you need to build an application to do this, the cmsQuery API in the BI Platform RESTful SDK will work in BI4.2. If you don't have BI4.2, then you would need to write an application that executes this query using either the Java or .NET SDK. All of our samples on SCN ( http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-51445 ) will show how to log on an execute a query.
Once you have the list of Webi Documents using the universe, you can follow Prithviraj's suggestion to loop through the elements of each report in each document using the REST SDK to see if the Universe object is used.


Developing new products - from exclusive fragrances for some of our retailers, to variations on old favorites (like the new Spearmint flavored Coconut Pulling Oil, which remains our #1 seller).
The online shop is well stocked with the last of Summer's spoils. Otherwise stay tuned for Fall news and dlights and the like.
From left to right: Osha root tincture, Mugwort-rose tincture, Energy tincture (darjeeling, eleuthero, rhodiola rosea); facial toner with essential oils including rose, lavender and more; Sacred Space perfume with Peruvian Agua Florida; Calming kava kava blackberry extract; and Spearmint Coconut Pulling Oil.
Sundays have been so beautiful, I had to share. Starting the day with Rx deliveries - on the bike - and recently to a new boutique in Greenpoint - Mind Over Matter. It opened this month, taking over the old One Well location, and among the housewares and holistic health and beauty products, you'll find most of my line there.
One of the products I'll stock there is new-ish for me, which I teased a while ago (on Instagram) and have been tweaking the recipe for, but is definitely there now: Remineralizing Whitening Toothpowder. An all natural dry "toothpaste" that will actually help repair your teeth, rather than stripping them of their natural strength (minerals). It's on the shelves at m|m and in my shop.
After a stop at Botica & Co. for a shot of their exceptional mushroom extract (including eight different varieties) it was off to errands in the city.
Not pictured: my biker's shoulders tan.
While the sun was out, I recharged my quartz. In the remaining calendula-Epsom salt mix from the batch made for products, just because it looked good: Juiced some beautiful, brrright orange turmeric from Dual Specialty in the east village. They're consistently the best source for fresh turmeric and I don't know where they get it but this stuff was Jurassic sized.
Realized that it matched my necklace. Which was about all I was wearing. Which is another reason I love summer. Let's call this my "hut practice" look: Which wasn't dinner appropriate so we clean up, but keep the chain as there's an orange theme going at this point.


Since 2010 nearly 200 students from over 60 countries have successfully participated in the MBL-FU programme. Such an intercultural variety of students accounts for a unique and inspirational learning environment that has a lasting personal and professional impact on our alumni.
It is with great excitement that we have learnt about the admission of Antonella Salgueiro, MBL alumna of 2017, to the Young Professionals Programme of the World Trade Organization in Geneva. The Programme was launched in 2016 to enhance the knowledge and skills on WTO issues of young professionals. Antonella works in the Intellectual Property, Government Procurement and Competition Division and is currently preparing several publications that we will be happy to announce once completed. For more information about the Young Professionals Programme and Antonella's cohort in particular, please see here.
We have learnt that Mahshid Risseh, a graduate of our class of 2014/15, has published a book about the search engine market titled "Google Under Investigation, Search Engines And Their World". More information can be found here. Congratulations, Mahshid!
Another great publication by an MBL Alumni. Olga Stefanowicz, graduate of the class of 2015/16 and currently PhD candidate at the University of Wrocław (EMS), published her Case Comment on the ECJ's decision in SIA 'Maxima Latvija' v Konkurences padome (Case C-345/14) in the Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies last year. The analysis focusses on the different cases falling within the 'by object' box of restrictions and can be read here. Congratulations, Olga!
Ehab Shamah, a graduate of our class of 2015/16, has told his amazing story of how he went from the chaos of the Syrian civil war to study at FU Berlin to the university's online publication Campus Leben. The English version of the article can be found here.
We are proud to announce that Vasil Stoynov, a graduate of our 2015/16 class, has published his analysis of direct effect of EU bi- and multilateral trade agreements in the winter edition of the Amsterdam Law Forum. The article can be found here.
We are proud to announce that while currently finishing her master thesis, our student Jelena Mičetić Krowarz has published her case study on the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in In Re Loestrin 24 Fe in the Oxford Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice. Find the abstract here.
It is great to see that what started out as a 1500 word case study of our e-learning segment has become such a wonderful article through Jelena's hard work and dedication to good academic principles. Congratulations!


I keep seeing tech articles talking about NPD's recent numbers saying Apple has 91% of the market for $1,000+ computers. And people are saying wow, they're so dominant.
Well they're are all ignoring the fact that the report only covers computers sold in RETAIL STORES. The largest PC sellers like Dell and HP primarily sell online and Apple's main sales channel is retail, so that stat is not surprising. With enough spin, any statistic can look favorable. Also note retail stores like Best Buy that actually sell PC's usually sell the cheapo ones. I'd like to see Apple's share of ALL $1,000+ computer sales – it's probably more like 5%.


WALL, N.J., Nov. 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Student Transportation Inc. (STI) (TSX:STB) (NASDAQ:STB) today announced that a subsidiary of the company's Managed Services Group (MSG) has closed on a strategic investment in the Los Angeles-based company HopSkipDrive, the leading rideshare service for children. HopSkipDrive provides customized transportation services to meet the diverse needs of today's school children and busy families. HopSkipDrive knows the challenges of getting students to sports, band practice, the doctor's office, volunteer activities, and school enhancement activities and has designed a ridesharing service that revolutionizes the definition of student transportation.
HopSkipDrive is the safe and dependable ridesharing service that helps parents get their kids where they need to go when they're not able to do so themselves. Founded by three working moms who understand the challenges busy families face, HopSkipDrive puts parents in control with notifications at pickup and drop off, personalized code words for pickups, monitored driver behavior, and a live customer service team committed to getting kids to their destination safely and on-time. Drivers, called 'CareDrivers', are owner-operators of their vehicles, but are carefully vetted, screened, trained and go through extensive background compliance checks prior to providing service. HopSkipDrive's technology provides ease of use and the comforts of safety and security.
Founded in 1997, Student Transportation Inc. (STI) is an industry leader in school transportation, safety and fleet services. STI operates the youngest fleet in the business with more than 13,500 vehicles, providing customers with the highest level of safe and reliable student transportation, management, logistics and technology solutions throughout the U.S. and Canada. STI's services are delivered by drivers, dispatchers, maintenance technicians, terminal managers, information technology professionals and others who are caring members of their local communities. For more information, please visit www.RideSTBus.com.


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BookSeriesInOrder.com
Until Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.
Publication Order of Until Books
Until November (2013) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
Until Trevor (2013) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
Until Lilly (2014) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
Until Nico (2014) Hardcover Paperback Kindle
'Until' is a series of romance novels written by Aurora Rose Reynolds. The books tell the stories of the Mayson brothers and the women who keep stealing their hearts.
+The Story
Asher Mayson met November in a strip club and she completely took his breath away. But Asher made some false assumptions and his attitude ruined any shot he might have had with the beautiful young woman.
However, Asher wouldn't be deterred. He had a way with women and nothing would keep him from dominating November.
November had a rough childhood. Her mother was cruel and self-absorbed and she kept November from ever knowing her father. The young woman was 25-years-old when she finally broke away from the poisonous influences in New York that had oppressed her for so long.
She moved to Tennessee where her long-lost father awaited with open arms. Unlike her mother, the man was everything November wanted in a parent. And his side of the family gave their new daughter a warm and sincere welcome, availing her the sense of belonging she had sought for so long.
Determined to start over, November joined her father at his strip club. She only ever came around in the day to do his books. Her father did not want to expose her to the sleaze and the grime that came with night time.
And November was happy to oblige. She had a home and a job, and for the time being, she did not really want anything else. So her encounter with Asher was unexpected. And even after he so thoroughly mistreated her, she couldn't get him out of her mind.
And so began a tale of love, lust, and desire that would consume not only November and Asher but their immediate family.
Asher and November's story is told in 'Until November', the first novel in the Until series. The book is a perfect starting point for readers that might be unaware of Aurora Rose Reynolds' work because it paints an accurate picture of the Until series as a whole.
Each book has a distinct couple at its center. The hero is always an alpha male. You might say that he is strong and handsome but also a bit of a brute. He has a way with the ladies and his physical attributes have always empowered him to bed any woman that caught his attention.
The hero has no real interest in settling down. However, his determination to keep playing the field for as long as possible is tested when he meets the one woman he simply cannot forget.
The heroines typically vary in character. Some of them are wounded souls just looking for a fresh start. They don't quite know what they want or how to go about getting it. Others are strong and confident, and they waste no time in pursuing the hero.
You also have a few meek and shy women who must be coerced for their true feelings to manifest.
As is often the case with the romance genre, the protagonists always fall for one another from the moment their eyes meet. But one or two obstacles arise to keep them from finding their happy endings.
Sometimes those obstacles are external. More often than not, though, they are internal, stemming from a personal weakness or a past failure. Like her colleagues in the genre, Aurora Rose Reynolds uses miscommunications and misunderstandings to draw out the conflicts keeping her protagonists apart.
But eventually, sanity prevails and the hero and the heroine find happiness in one another's arms.
The connecting thread between all the novels in this series is the presence of the Maysons. Every novel in the Until series has a Mayson brother at its center. Asher kicks things off in the first novel.
Trevor Mayson takes over in the sequel, then Cash Mayson in Book 3, and Nico Mayson in Book 4.
The Mayson brothers are cut from a similar cloth. They are all strong and attractive. They are also very protective of the women for whom they fall. But they are not always willing to give in to their emotions and desires.
While each of the 'Until' novels follows a distinct couple, there is enough connective tissue between the different stories to make it necessary to read these books in the order they were published.
All the Mayson brothers are introduced in the first novel along with some of the women they will fall for down the line. Each book tries to build upon the development each Mayson brother received in the previous book. As such, people who choose to read this series out of order are unlikely to enjoy it to the extent that the author intended.
+The Author
Aurora Rose Reynolds is a bestselling author of romance. She was compelled to start writing when she realized that she had too many alpha males running around in her head. Writing fiction gave her imagination an appropriate outlet.
+Until November
November's mother failed as a parent. And when the young woman finally left New York for Tennessee, she was hoping to find a place where she belonged. Her new town gave November everything she could ever want, this including a father who loved her, a family that wanted her in their lives, and a job.
Asher Mayson was a surprise, one that November didn't know she wanted until she ran into him at her father's strip club.
+Until Trevor
Trevor knew he would settle down eventually. But he was certain that family life was a long way off. For the moment, he was content to simply play the field. But then he met Liz Hayes and everything changed.
Liz was perfect. Her shy, meek personality only made her beauty stand out. And Trevor knew he wanted her. But he couldn't deny the fact that she did not fit into his plans.
So he summarily rejected her. That should have been the end of their courtship. But then Liz began to move on and Trevor realized that he couldn't let her go, not just yet. The thought of seeing her with other men kept driving him crazy.
But Trevor wasn't so sure that Liz would willingly give him another chance.
Book Series In Order » Characters » Until
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BOOK OF THE MONTH:
Out of all the recommendations I've ever given, there's no book series that has received such positive feedback as the Peter Ash series by Nick Petrie. If you are a Jack Reacher fan, this is a must-read. The 7th novel in the series releases this month! Pre-Order Now
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The Big Nate series is always popular at this time of year. Whether it's people looking to buy gifts, or kids receiving them for Christmas and looking for more! A great series by Lincoln Peirce, and Big Nate is our series of the month.
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With a warm climate and year-round flowers, Costa Rica is an ideal habitat for butterflies. Approximately 90 percent of the butterfly species in Central America and 18 percent of all the world's species can be found in Costa Rica. Butterfly farms help preserve these beautiful creatures and also educate visitors about their growth cycle, eating habits, and colorful markings. Tours of butterfly farms are a hands-on educational experience that allow visitors to get close to both live butterflies and specimens.
La Paz Waterfalls offer a way to see a beautiful cross-section of Costa Rican wilderness. With species exhibits like the Butterfly Observatory, the Jungle Cat Garden, and these gardens are a great way to see a cross-section of Costa Rican wildlife.
The Tree Top walkway is the ideal cloud forest experience for those who wish to explore the beauty of the canopy at their own pace. The Butterfly garden of Selvatura is one of the largest in the Americas, a real treat for nature lovers. The hummingbird garden is a serene place to sit down and take a break and observe colorful and very active hummingbirds.
Diamante Eco Adventure Park is in Costa Rica's rural Guanacaste region. Guanacaste is known for its rainforests and beaches, and colorful wildlife. This park is committed to eco-tourism and works hard to make sure the local plants and animals stay healthy.
Selvatura's stunning butterfly garden is one of the largest on the continent. At 300ft long and 90ft wide, with a huge 50ft dome ceiling, the giant garden is host to 50 species of butterflies.
This 2-hour butterfly farm tour offers an in-depth look at this colorful insect's life cycle. You can climb up the main enclosure's treehouse platforms to look for pupas, butterfly eggs, and caterpillars. Next, you'll head to the classroom to learn more about butterfly breeding. A trip to the butterfly farm is ideal for small groups or couples who are interested in an educational nature tour.


It's my mission in life to make sure secondary students don't lose their love of reading. Elementary teachers do a fantastic job of making reading a magical experience, and I believe this magic can continue in middle and high school as well.
One way I have fostered a love of books in my classroom is by allowing my students to read for 10 minutes at the beginning of each class. I prioritize this time more than any other time during my 90-minute class. We never skip it...ever. I tell them that it belongs in the forefront our time because reading is essential to becoming better writers and thinkers. I allow them to choose any free-choice book that they desire.
During this time, I read with my students. Even though I have a million things I need to be doing, I don't do them. I read. I model how much I value my reading time by not allowing any interruptions during this time. I will always have students who blurt out questions that popped into their heads during this time, but I silently ignore them and later remind them that we are to be quiet and respectful during our reading time.
Once we establish this habit, all of my students have their books out reading....or appear to be reading.... As much as I would love to think all of my 75 teenage angels are blissfully engaged in reading each day, I'm a realist and know that this isn't the case. However, I do want all of my students to actually read, so I give fun little assignments make them accountable for their daily reading. I want these assignments to be fun as to not take the joy out of reading, but I also want these assignments to ensure that everyone takes their reading time seriously.
Tip: Undoubtedly, you will have students who forget their books some days. I keep a stack of UpFront nonfiction magazines in my room so that when a student forgets, they read a magazine. If a student makes a habit of forgetting their book, then I conference with them and let them know that this will reflect on their grade and help them find a book that they like well enough to not forget.
1. Make sure students have a purpose for reading each day. For me, this means that I allow my students to find their own vocabulary words for the week from their free-choice books. I give a thorough explanation of how I do this in my most popular blog post, How and Why to Use Word Walls with Older Students, but here is an overview: After our reading time, I give students about 3 minutes to fill out a Frayer model for one challenging word they found from their reading that day. Then each Monday, I choose the best of the best words and those go on our Word Wall.
Some other purposes for reading each day can be formed as a type of bell-ringer activity.
*Monday Matinee: If you were the producer of the film version of your book, who would you hire to play the lead?
*Tuesday Technique: What are some techniques the author uses to create suspense or intrigue?
Sidenote: Now that I'm brainstorming these book bellringers, I'm thinking that a full set of these would be so helpful for teachers to have on hand. Is this something you would be interested in? There are so many awesome bellringer resources out there, but I haven't seen any that directly incorporates free-choice reading. Let me know in the comments if this is something you would like to have!
2. Have an end date in mind. I set mine up to where students know they need to be finished with a book by their first mid-term. If they finish before this date, they get another book. I don't like to rush their reading, but I also want to make sure they actually finish a book. This is also a great opportunity to practice goal-setting with older students. I went to the ILA conference in Boston this past summer, and my favorite presenter set reading goals with each student at the beginning of the semester. By conferencing with students and checking in on their personal reading goals, he was able to get 9th grade boys to read an average of 15 books each school year. Amazing right?
*Speed-Dating a Book. This activity serves two purposes by giving students an opportunity to discuss their book in a creative way and encourage excitement around selecting another book for the next round of free-choice books.
I added these free conversation starters and directions to my TpT store, but the gist is that you line your desks and chairs so that students are facing each other just like in a speed dating format (I only used one row of desks with two chairs on each side to save time). Then, students talk to each from their book's point-of-view. For example, "Where are you from? Tell me about your setting." After about a minute of conversing, one row rotates and discusses their books with someone new. It only took me about 10 minutes to add plastic table cloths, string lights, and candles to my tables, but the students LOVED this added touch. Also, note the Harry Potter ambient noise playing in the background ***heart eyes*** You can find all of my favorite HP ambient sounds and how I use them on my Harry Potter Classroom Pinterest Board .
This is another freebie that I have in my store, but as an overview, students use the symbolic meanings of texture and taste to create a culinary creation that represents their book or a character in their book. I give project options that don't involve real food in case some students don't have the means to cook at home, but most of my students opt for the cooking choice.
After seeing what a success my Book Speeding dating was, I think that I'm going to set up this book tasting differently this time. Instead of letting each student go to the front of the room and explain their creation, I'm going to line up the chefs (two groups at a time) and do it like a culinary expo where the "tasters" walk by each chef and the chef explains their book and culinary symbolism before giving the taster a sample. I will add more pictures to this post once I try it this way! I think this will make it more interactive.
I hope that this post gives you some ideas and helps promote the love of reading in your classroom. If you want to get more secondary English ideas, I would love for you to sign up for my newsletter by adding your email address to the sign-up box at the top.
Would love some ideas for independent reading bell ringers :)!
I would love more ideas for the free reading bell ringers!!!
I just purchased a bunch of your amazing resources on TPT. I can't wait to use them with my Gr. 12 Literacy Intervention class. I tried to download your OneNote interactive vocabulary activities templace, but One Note is not cooperating. Is there another way I can download it?
If you haven't done this already, I would love more bell-ringer ideas for free choice-reading.
Hahhaha its genuinely hilarious.I liked reading this and seriously want to share this dog idea with my site team.May be it works.How's this?


Shimosaka Research Group – Our paper on Early Destination Prediction with Spatio-temporal User Behavior Patterns has been published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT).
News Our paper on Early Destination Prediction with Spatio-temporal User Behavior Patterns has been published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT).
Our paper on Early Destination Prediction with Spatio-temporal User Behavior Patterns has been published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT).
trajectory tracking that narrows down the candidates with respect to the trip progress, and Next Place Prediction (NPP) that infers the future location of a user from user habits.
The advantage of our model is that it drastically narrows down the destination candidates efficiently at the early stage of a trip, owing to the staying information derived from the NPP approach.
The proposed method provides improved performance compared to conventional approaches based on the experimental results using the GPS logs of 1,646 actual users from the commercial services.
The paper is publicly available, i.e. open access in the following url, please check our paper.
Early Destination Prediction with Spatio-temporal User Behavior Patterns.
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 142:1–142:19, 2017.


text:
'Sex for six days, six times': Alibaba founder Jack Ma's advice to employees
After advocating people to follow the spirit of "996" (9 am to 9 pm, six days a week at workplace), Alibaba founder Jack Ma now has given another advice for an improved life: Follow the spirit of "669" (sex for six days, six times, with duration being the key).
world Updated: May 14, 2019 14:58 IST
Indo Asian News Service
Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba(AP photo)
According to a report in Daily Mail, China's richest man gave this advice to the employees during Alibaba staff's group wedding in the country.
"At work, we emphasize the spirit of '996'. In life, we should follow '669,'" Ma said.
The 54-year-old Ma was speaking at his company's mass wedding which takes place every year on 'Ali Day' on May 10 at the company's headquarters in Hangzhou.
The "996" work philosophy was criticised by the tech industry.
The "669" philosophy has also created a social media storm, with many net users calling it lewd.
"Who on earth would have the energy to do 669 at home after 996 during work?" quipped one user.
The "669" quote was posted on Alibaba's official page on Weibo with a winking emoji.
"Making a lewd joke in public and notoriously promoting it - are you being responsible to minors? Thumbs down this time," read another comment.
(The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text, only the headline has been changed)
Kulbhushan Jadhav Verdict Live Updates


New Hampshire artist Hannah Phelps creates paintings and woodblock prints of her favorite things - the New England coast and her two Golden Retriever studio assistants.
Starting as a study painted from life, each painting and print here contains a little bit of Maine's and New Hampshire's natural beauty.
For those who long to be near the sea but can't always be there, let the artwork here transport you to your favorite place.


He only recently took office as European Commission president, but now, Jean-Claude Juncker is under pressure due to potentially illegal tax deals forged in Luxembourg during his stint as the country's prime minister. Some believe he may have to resign.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker faces questions regarding his country's taxation practices.
Jean-Claude Juncker's first public appearance as the new European Commission president was a symbolic one. Early this month, he traveled to Frankfurt to present former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's new book in the luxury hotel Villa Kennedy. Called "Aus Sorge um Europa" -- "Out of Concern for Europe" -- the book warns that the pursuit of national interests represents a danger to the European ideal. And Juncker is quick to endorse Kohl, a man he calls "a friend and role model."
"Kohl is right in deploring the fact that we are increasingly sliding down the slope toward reflexive regionalism and nationalism," Juncker said.
It is certainly not the first time Juncker has uttered such a sentence. Indeed, his delivery of the message has often been even more direct. "I've had it," he erupted during an EU summit in December of 2012, for example. "Eighty percent of the time, only national interests are being presented. We can't go on like this!"
Such sentiments have served Juncker well throughout his career and have helped transform the politician from tiny Luxembourg into a well-known defender of Europe. Now, though, at the apex of his European career, Juncker and his beloved European Union are facing a significant problem. And it is one that has led even advisors close to Juncker to wonder whether he may soon have to step down from his new position, despite having taken office only recently.
Last week, several media outlets, including the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, published the most detailed accounts yet of the tricks used -- and the eagerness brought to bear -- by Luxembourg officials to help companies avoid paying taxes. The strategies were often developed together with company leaders and served to entice multinationals to set up shop in Luxembourg. The tiny country on Germany's western border, for its part, benefited from tax revenues it wouldn't otherwise have seen. It was, in short, a reciprocal relationship.
Jean-Claude Juncker served for 19 years as prime minister of Luxembourg, and his country's tax system was very much one of those "national interests" that he so often complained about. Still, his reputation as "Mr. Euro" did not suffer as a result.
The revelations, to be sure, are nothing new. Indeed, as a German minister said on the sidelines of one of last week's many events scheduled to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall: "Everybody knew about it." The minister added that the Luxembourgian tax schemes were consistent with the legal framework, even if they managed to "artistically expand" that framework. "What is the big news?"
That, though, is perhaps the wrong question. The correct one is: Should a politician representing his country's national interests be held to different standards than the European Commission president charged with upholding EU treaties? The answer is clearly "yes". And therein lies the political problem that is currently facing Jean-Claude Juncker.
As the head of his country's government, Juncker -- who concurrently served as finance minister for several years -- helped develop Luxembourg into a tax paradise and blocked outside attempts to investigate its tax system. In 2004, after the Social Democrats joined Juncker as a coalition partner, the government agreed to establish a working group to compare the Luxembourgian tax code with international standards. But the working group never actually came to fruition.
Even back in 1997, Juncker displayed certain alacrity when it came to defending his country's tax laws. At the time, he held the rotating presidency of the European Council as Luxembourg's prime minister. Under his stewardship, the EU passed a Code of Conduct for business taxation rules aimed at "tackling harmful tax competition in the European Union." The code, though, is not legally binding -- a fact for which Juncker is also largely responsible. The European Commission may only penalize country's tax system if the savings it offers to companies are determined to be forbidden state subsidies and thus contrary to EU free trade rules.
The European Commission's competition authorities, it soon became clear, would receive no help from Juncker when they began investigating his country's complicated tax code. It was only after December 2013, when Juncker was voted out of office at home, that Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia received information pertaining to a total of 22 questionable tax deals.
Thus far, the Commission is reasonably certain that it can prove Luxembourg granted impermissible state aid in two cases and has opened investigations into both the Luxembourg branch of Amazon and into the automobile multi Fiat Chrysler. Both companies, officials believe, received precise pledges regarding the future tax burdens faced by their Luxembourg-based operations.
In a 30-page letter to the Luxembourg government, Almunia laid out the Commission's suspicions for why Fiat has spent years channeling financial transactions through Luxembourg. The country's tax authorities allegedly accepted a tax savings model developed for Fiat Finance and Trade Ltd. by the financial auditing firm KPMG. Fiat Finance and Trade lends money to other companies within the Fiat group and has a small office on Boulevard Royal not far from the Luxembourg government quarter. The Commission believes that, on Sept. 3, 2012, Fiat Finance and Trade received confirmation of a tax deal that was to run from 2012 to 2016. The result was that Fiat knew precisely how large its tax bill would be each year. According to Commission calculations, Fiat Finance and Trade was assigned annual taxable income of between €2.3 billion and €2.8 billion, regardless of the company's economic performance. The resulting tax bill on such income translates to the laughably small sum of €732,000.
Almunia's verdict in the letter is harsh. Luxembourg finance officials ignored the company's "economic reality," the document reads, and notes that the deal with Fiat Finance and Trade is not based on "financial logic." The measures had the effect of "lowering the tax burden of the undertakings concerned as compared to undertakings in a similar legal and factual situation," the letter reads. In other words, Luxembourg granted Fiat an unfair competitive advantage. Fiat Finance and Trade is contesting the allegation.
Margrethe Verstager from Denmark has taken over from Almunia as Competition Commissioner and is likely to continue on the course charted by her predecessor. And there are several other possible investigations looming -- such as tax deals initiated by auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers for clients such as German energy utility E.on, Deutsche Bank and the US food conglomerate Heinz. Could such deals have been made without Juncker's involvement or approval? It is a question that will dog him for as long as the investigations are underway.
that I actively promoted tax evasion is an outrageous attack on my country and my person. I will not accept that," he snapped. There were other incidents on the campaign trail as well, including a lack of overt support from German conservatives and some personal attacks perpetrated by the British press -- to the point that a rumor began making the rounds that Juncker had wanted to withdraw his candidacy but was talked out of it by friends.
Following last week's reports, his first reaction was to keep a low profile, cancelling a planned podium discussion at the last minute. Chief Commission Spokesperson Margaritis Schinas insisted that Juncker was "very serene" about the revelations.
Few have jumped to his defense. "The revelations are a blow that will hit Luxembourg's reputation hard," said the country's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, who served as Juncker's deputy prime minister. He promised that the new government would make his country's tax code more transparent and noted that the country had already lifted its opposition to EU financial data sharing rules. "Luxembourg cannot become a place that welcomes companies that don't want to pay taxes," Asselborn says. "We will no longer be a part of such tricks."
The revelations have been met with concern in European Parliament, with President Schulz calling for more information. The United Left group in parliament has demanded that Juncker appear before the lawmaking body this week and plans to instigate a vote of confidence against him. Such a vote must be held if supported by 10 percent of parliamentarians.
"Someone who ensured the existence of large-scale tax dodging and the creation of an unjust system within the EU cannot lead the European Commission," says Gabi Zimmer, chair of the United Left group. Liberals, the majority of whom voted for Juncker when he was confirmed by European Parliament, have also distanced themselves. "When it comes to Jean-Claude Juncker and the EU battle against tax dodging, it would seem that the fox has been enlisted to guard the henhouse," says Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, a Liberal parliamentarian.
Thus far, it seems unlikely that Juncker will lose his position, but that could change. Were it proven that Luxembourg provided illegal state aid to the companies in question, he would stand exposed for having spent years breaking EU law. "Then, it would get tight," says a political colleague, echoing the sentiments of others. "He would hardly be able to endure." EU lawyers are already researching the question as to whether the resignation of a Commission president would force the other 27 commissioners to forfeit their portfolios as well.
Many are now wondering if Juncker will be able to withstand this kind of pressure for the several months the investigations will take. Some political allies and party colleagues doubt that he can.
Still, he is likely anxious to avoid an overly hasty response, if only out of concern that his resignation could trigger a leadership crisis in Brussels -- particularly at a time when the euro crisis seems to be once again rearing its ugly head. Juncker's widely praised renewal of the European Commission could also be derailed. That renewal was instigated on the basis of years of service as prime minister of an EU country. Now though, it is exactly that experience that could prove his downfall.
Cameron was quite correct to oppose Junckers and he should be removed as soon as possible.
It is amazing that the EU has lasted so long, since it has all the flaws of unsuccussful political federations. That one or two states have hegemony. That it lacks Fiscal Union. It lacks democratic accountability. And its un-audited finances are a scandal of corruption.
Doesn't this show why many Europeans are turning against the EU? When Kohl claims "the pursuit of national interests represents a danger to the European ideal'. He should be writing that "corruption in the leadership of the EU represents a danger to the European ideal". Junker is a disgrace and those EU states that support him are more of a disgrace. As for the rest of the sheep, as Burke wrote : "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".
Everyone in the UK understands that there has been much annoyance at the petulance and lack of leadership provided by our current Prime Minister- and I do not support his attitudes in any way. Yet it is important to understand that the tax issue unites people from left and right: we are all disgusted by the tricks played by Luxembourg (and in other ways by Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland and, sadly, by our own tax havens. Yet to appoint a man who presided over large scale fraud in this way is clearly outrageous and supports the Euro sceptic thesis that the EU's elite is hopelessly corrupt, at least when it comes to defending their own interests. Dare I suggest that the poor old Brits have always been the best Europeans of all? We do not cheat the system, we slavishly obey the rules and do not interpret them to our own advantage. That's why we are always demanding changes to the rules. If you do not intend to follow them precisely then you have no great interest in seeking change. Juncker is a symbol of everything that is wrong in Europe- he should never have been elected and the coterie of elite politicians who pushed him into place should feel ashamed.