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At Massy Stores we are mindful of our leadership position in our industry and our Nation, and as such, always aim to be good corporate citizens.
With family and community as our bedrock, we understand and are passionate about our responsibility to society, to go beyond our core engagement and help build a national community that cares for every one of its members.
For many years we have supported a numerous social institutions with donations of food products towards the feeding of those in their care, and today, we continue to advocate for these institutions, by engaging our customers through our Loyalty Card program, to consider donating accumulated Points to any of these institutions.
We have also supported disaster relief efforts within Trinidad and Tobago with necessary and much needed food donations.
Being the leading supermarket chain in the country, we believed it was our corporate social responsibility to help curb the negative effects of plastic on our environment. These reusable bags are not only durable and functional but extremely trendy!


text:
Joseph T. Owens (November 8, 1946 – June 9, 2013) was an American football defensive end in the National Football League. He was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in the 9th round of the 1969 NFL Draft. He played college football at Alcorn State University.

Owens also played for the San Diego Chargers and Houston Oilers.

References

1946 births
2013 deaths
People from Columbia, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
American football defensive ends
Alcorn State Braves football players
San Diego Chargers players
New Orleans Saints players
Houston Oilers players

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Best Party Hotels in the Dominican Republic
After staying in 160 hotels throughout the D.R., we've determined the best ones to head to for a party-hearty good time. Check out our list of the top party hotels in the Dominican Republic.
See All Dominican Republic Hotels
Bavaro, Punta Cana
With 1,790 rooms, 13 pools, 13 restaurants, 23 bars, a nightclub, an 18-hole golf course, a massive spa and fitness center, and the Dominican Republic's largest -- and best -- casino (it's 45,000 square feet), the word "huge" doesn't even seem big enough to describe the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana. But the Hard Rock isn't all about size — the massive luxury property also happens to be one of the nicest all-inclusives in Punta Cana. It's equally suitable for families, couples, and those just looking to have a good time. With so much space, it's easy for each group to find its niche, and the hotel's mile-long list of amenities ensures everyone will find something to keep themselves occupied.
Barcelo Bavaro Palace
The 1,600-room Palace Deluxe is the main resort at the Barcelo Bavaro complex, and features tons of on-site features including an attractive spa, four pools, and tons of dining and nightlife options including buffets, a seafood restaurant, a 24-hour casino, and a disco. The are 14 bars in total (including a swim-up bar at the main pool), and minibars come stocked with local beer. But aside from substantial lines at the front desk, the guest capacity of the resort rarely shows: Guests do not have to search for spots at the pools and beach, and reservation requirements keep restaurants well organized. Couples, families, and partiers all mingle seamlessly at the property. Though the adults-only sister property has a slightly more romantic vibe, plenty of couples opt to stay here as it is where most of the features are located. The hotel's rooms feature iPod docks, flat-screen TVs, and attractive, sleek decor.
Hotel Riu Palace Macao
Punta Cana, La Altagracia Province
The sole adults-only hotel on the five-resort Riu complex, the Macao has a generally upscale vibe that's significantly more tranquil than its sister properties. There's still the requisite poolside entertainment and loud music by the gorgeous, white-sand beach, but couple-friendly amenities (which the other properties lack) include name-brand liquor and a designated VIP section on the beach. While this all-inclusive features sleek rooms and fun nightly entertainment, many guests complain about the mediocre food and the long walk to the gym and spa.
Paradisus Punta Cana Resort
The largest of four Paradisus resorts in Punta Cana, this 683-room property still manages to feel uncrowded due to its expansive grounds. Guests can expect to walk or hitch rides on the regular shuttle service to get to the beach, pools, luxury spa, yoga studio and impressive restaurants around the resort; there are also bike stations for those who prefer to cycle. The prime beach area with a fun bar scene doesn't quiet down at night as it can at other resorts, but rather comes alive with a partiers both young and old. The Royal Service upgrade -- expect a sales pitch upon arrival -- allows access to the private lounge and a separate pool and beach area.
The 674-room Grand Palladium Bavaro is spread over spacious grounds (guests also have access to two sister properties) offering 15 bars, five buffets, and eight restaurants. In 2014, the resort added 178 units including a swim-up option overlooking the beach (a great pick for honeymooners -- otherwise romantics may want to check out the adults-only Royal Turquesa next door). Entertainment includes evening shows, a casino, and a disco.
Secrets Royal Beach Punta Cana
The adults-only Secrets caters to honeymooners and couples, but of the more party-hearty variety: The resort offers numerous on-site bars as well as nightly entertainment. However, tranquility (and romance) can certainly be found in the kid-free restaurants, lazy river, and intimate spa, and all rooms feature balconies or terraces with large whirlpool tubs. Room decor is similar to, but a step above, that at the Now: Floral throws, bright furniture, accent walls, flat-screen TVs, iPod docks, and large marble bathrooms all come together to make comfortable, if not particularly luxurious, accommodations. The resort lacks a golf course, but overall its a solid choice for couples looking to let loose -- and still enjoy a bit of romance.
IFA Bavaro Village Resort & Spa
This 652-room property offers some amenities that stand out from other all-inclusives in Punta Cana, including a wide beach that stays relatively uncrowded, lively bars that serve craft cocktails, and a disco that stays open late-night. There are two buffets as well as three a la carte restaurants requiring reservations; dining is not a strong point here, though, and restaurants book up quickly. Rooms are divided into two areas: the garden-view, bungalow-style Standard Rooms, and the newer Superior Rooms with more contemporary furnishings. Expect an upgrade pitch upon arrival, but know that this more expensive option lacks a walk-out balcony. Guests use the free shuttle service to get around to the two main pools, outdoor whirlpool area, theater, bar, and the peaceful Cafe Dominicano. Beware of pesky sales people wandering around selling extras.
BlueBay Villas Doradas
Puerto Plata, Puerto Plata Province
BlueBay Villas Doradas is an adult-only, upper-middle-range, all-inclusive resort with lots of entertainment options. Whether its dipping in one of the multiple pools (including a designated quiet pool and one with a swim-up bar), nightly theater performances, mini-golf, or beachfront massages, there's always something to do. White shag rugs, back-lit headboards, and sleek tile bathrooms give the 244 guest rooms a modern feel -- but dingy tile floors and worn bedding look less upscale. Food is mediocre throughout the hotel (if better than at some nearby all-inclusive resorts) and drinks are made with bottom-shelf liquor. The hotel charges for things like beach towels, Wi-Fi, and room service.
Catalonia Punta Cana Golf & Casino Resort
This lively 658-room resort, not to be confused with the more romantic adults-only Royal property, is situated on a pretty section of Bavaro Beach. It appeals to a mix of families, spring breakers, and wedding groups. No guest shall go hungry or thirsty with the all-inclusive's five bars, two buffets, four a la carte restaurants, and a 24-hour snack-bar. The resort is more walkable that other mega-resorts in the area (it's shuttle-free). Rooms have modern tropical style, whirlpool tubs, and balconies, but they are not the highlight here. Golf fans will love having easy access to the 18- and nine-hole golf courses, and other activities include biking, tennis, archery, and a range of free non-motorized water sports (wind surfing, too!). Plenty of people are around to sell extra excursions -- start practicing "no, gracias."
Grand Palladium Punta Cana Resort & Spa
The oldest of the four resorts that make up the 2,000-plus-room Palladium mega-resort in Bavaro, the upscale, 537-room Palladium Punta Cana is also the most affordable, attracting an active and party-friendly crowd of younger, mostly North American adults. Every room has a big jetted tub, and the main draws are the clean white-sand beach, access to four free-form pools, and eight reservation-free restaurants with some of the D.R.'s best all-inclusive fare -- a good value, if you don't mind the impersonal size and lines at dinner.
IFA Villas Bavaro Resort & Spa
This 652-room, upper-middle-range all-inclusive offers solid value in tourist-heavy Bavaro. Clean, modern rooms, a huge, lively lake-style pool (popular with partiers), quieter pool by the villas, and a bar surrounded by several hot tubs are all points in the hotel's favor. A prime section of beach is a 10-minute walk (or short shuttle ride) away. Not a resort for those seeking peace and quiet, the IFA Villas Bavaro has an incredibly busy and crowded atmosphere and thumping music and dirty dancing at the theater and disco.
Sunscape Dominican Beach Punta Cana
With over 700 rooms in this section alone, the Dominican Beach all-inclusive property (the cheapest in the Barcelo lot) is perhaps best suited for a young, party crowd -- think international groups and spring breakers. Food and beverage options are impressive in number -- seven bars, seven a la carte restaurants, and three buffets -- but not impressive in quality. There are three pools and a lovely white-sand beach studded with palm trees, though outside vendors can be a nuisance. Rooms are basic and bright with white linens and nice-sized terraces but there is a fee for Wi-Fi and it can be a challenge to connect.
whala!bavaro
A dirt-cheap all-inclusive not far from the beach, whala!bavaro attracts a young, international crowd who's ready to party. Though the hotel itself isn't particularly rowdy, guests take advantage of whala!'s all-inclusive alcohol, three pool areas, and fun beach club. whala!'s proximity to downtown Bavaro's restaurants and bars is another plus, but the hotel seriously lacks on-site entertainment options — unless of course, one considers watching the masses viscously overtake the buffet a form of entertainment. Rooms are clean, but pretty bare bones, with humdrum decor and few amenities.
Be Live Collection Canoa
Bayahibe, La Altagracia Province
This 871-room mid-range all-inclusive resort just outside the sleepy tourist town of Dominicus Americanus provides a dizzying array of options for eating, drinking, and playing -- specifically, seven restaurants, seven bars, a disco, a big main pool with a swim-up bar, and a beautiful beach. Rooms range from slightly dated to stylish and beachy; most guests consider the VIP amenities well worth the upgrade.
The Iberostar mega-complex is made up of four neighboring properties, and the 500-room Iberostar Dominicana is perhaps the best option for families given its more compact size and adjoining rooms. It's also popular with couples, who can likely appreciate the romantic, manicured grounds and fountains, while partiers can take advantage of the lively scene at the pool and beach bars. The beach here is renowned for a reason, but the chairs nearest to the ocean often get snagged in the early morning. With access to the golf course, tennis center, late-night disco and quality food and beverage options, it's a stand-out option for the low price. Just don't expect to be wowed by room decor, or have free Wi-Fi.
Coral Costa Caribe All Inclusive
Juan Dolio, San Pedro de Macoris Province
With a 24-hour sports bar, large beach, three pools, late-night snack shack, and one of the area's only casinos, the theme of the all-inclusive, three-pearl Costa Caribe Coral is best defined as beachfront block party. Almost everything here comes with a "but." The beach has white sand and calm water, but relentless hawkers and dated water sports equipment. The 416 guest rooms are clean and spacious, but have dull decor and some maintenance issues. Five restaurants include everything from Caribbean cuisine to a buffet to Tex-Mex, but the quality of food varies and some restaurants are closed during the week. There's Wi-Fi in the rooms, but there's a fee. Alcohol is included in the all-inclusive package, but it's low quality. The price tag and the beach are the biggest selling points here.
The massive pool and the beach are highlights at this resort, and also the scenes of lively, booze-fueled fun throughout the day. Nonetheless, the mid-range property attracts plenty of families with amenities such as a kids club' and a teen club. Rooms are large, albeit with generic decor, and the food quality varies significantly (our advice: stick to the basics), but overall the Now Larimar is a solid all-inclusive option.
More Dominican Republic Recommendations
Best Boutique Hotels
Best Solo Travel Hotels
Browse Hotels by Area
Puerto Plata Province
Samana Province
Santo Domingo Province
San Pedro de Macoris Province
La Romana Province
Maria Trinidad Sanchez Province
La Vega Province

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


What they say: Please say hello to the 2017 winter issue of Adventure Journal!
Adventure Journal is an online [and print] magazine devoted to outdoor adventure in all its forms. It was founded in 2008 by Steve Casimiro, former editor of Powder magazine, founding editor of Bike magazine, and West Coast editor of National Geographic Adventure.
Inside this issue you'll learn about the etymology of "glisse"; read about a high-elevation bikepacking trip in Pakistan; learn some of the back-stories behind such adventuring greats as Nellie Bly, George Mallory, and Earnest Shackleton; ponder the question of whether Nature has legal rights; freeze vicariously through the portfolio of images capturing ice climbing in Zion National Park; and so much more. In addition, there is a page of outdoor book reviews and three absolutely delicious looking recipes that we can't wait to try!
Put all these ingredients together and you've got more than a collection of stories of places you might never get, you've got Adventure Journal, Issue 7. Local, discerning readers should even be able to identify where the map on the back cover hails from!


Retiring to Manitouwadge isn't for everyone, but imagine retiring to a place with breathtaking natural beauty, unspoiled forests, rivers, waterfalls and lakes that stretch as far as the eye can see and its all right in your own backyard in Manitouwadge.
The community also hosts numerous active sports and recreational clubs that will appeal to anyone's social or athletic side.
The Golden Age Club plays a big part in the life of our seniors. They host many functions during the year.
Our population study just completed shows our town has a population of 2000. The study illustrates clearly that the 40-49 and 50-59 age groups dominate the population.


text:
\section{Introduction}

Observations of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) have been widely
recognized to be of fundamental significance to cosmology,
offering a unique insight into the physical conditions in the early
Universe. The amplitudes and distribution of such fluctuations provide
critical tests of the origin of the initial perturbations from which
the structures seen today have formed. On scales \mbox{$\stackrel{>}{_{\sim}}$}  few degrees,
CMB observations probe scales of 1000's of Mpc, inaccessible to
conventional astronomy. At these large angles, the structures form part
of an intrinsic spectrum of fluctuations generated through topological
defects or inflation. In this linear growth regime, observations of the
scalar CMB fluctuations provide a clean measure of the normalisation of
the intrinsic fluctuation power spectrum.  This normalisation has been
established by a number of independent CMB observations
(Smoot {\it et~al.~} 1992, Ganga {\it et~al.~} 1993, Hancock {\it et~al.~} 1994).
In many theories, tensor CMB fluctuations from a background of
gravitational waves are also expected to be significant on these large
scales, and measuring the slope of the power spectrum offers the
potential to constrain this contribution to the CMB anisotropy (Hancock
{\it et~al.~} 1994, Steinhardt 1993, Crittenden {\it et~al.~} 1993). A comparison of the
large-scale anisotropy results with those on medium scales can also
be used to separate the scalar and tensor components under the assumption
of a specific cosmological model.

The Tenerife CMB experiments were initiated in 1984, with the
installation of the first 10 GHz switched-beam radiometer system at the
Teide Observatory on Tenerife Island. A subsequent programme of
development has led to the present trio of independent instruments
working at 10, 15 and 33 GHz. The ultimate objective is to obtain three
fully sampled sky maps covering some $\sim 5000$ square degrees of the
sky at each frequency and attaining a sensitivity of $\sim 50$ $\mu$K
at 10 GHz, and $\sim 20$ $\mu$K in the two highest frequency channels.
Drift scan observations have been conducted over a number of years
covering the sky area between Dec=+30\degg~and +45\degg.  The deepest
integrations have been conducted in the Dec=+40\degg~region and
resulted in strong evidence for the presence of individual CMB features
(Hancock {\it et~al.~} 1994).

Davies {\it et~al.~} 1995 (hereafter Paper I) described the performance of the
experiments and gave an assessment of the atmospheric and foreground
contributions to our data at Dec=+40\degg; here we analyse in detail
the results and cosmological implications of such observations. Section
2 describes the observational strategy and presents the stacked scans
at each frequency. In Section 3 we use several statistical methods to
calculate the level of the detected signals and their origin. A
statistical comparison with the results of the COBE DMR two-year data
is conducted in Section 4 and used to place limits on the spectral index
of the primordial fluctuations. In Section 5 we use the additional information
provided by medium-scale anisotropy results to provide improved limits
on $n$.

\section{The scans at Dec $+40\nobreak^\circ$}

\subsection{Observations}

Observations were conducted at the three frequencies 10, 15 and 33 GHz
by drift scanning in right ascension at a fixed declination of
40\degg. The measurements were made independently at each frequency,
using separate dual-beam radiometer systems as described in Paper I.
The three instruments are physically scaled so as to produce
approximately the same beam pattern (FWHM$\sim 5\degg$) on the sky,
thus allowing a direct comparison of structure between frequencies. A
characteristic triple beam profile (switching angle 8\deg 1) is
obtained by the combination of fast switching (63 Hz) of the horns
between two independent receivers and secondary switching
(0.125 Hz) provided by a wagging mirror. We make repeated observations
of the sky, binning the data in 1\degg~intervals in RA and stacking them
together in order to reduce the noise as compared with individual
measurements. As a consequence of using two independent channels, the
receiver noise contribution to the final data scans is reduced by a
factor $\sqrt{2}$ compared with single channel observations.

The data considered in this paper are the same as those presented in
the preliminary report by Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  (1994). As before we restrict our
analysis to the RA range $161\nobreak^\circ-230\nobreak^\circ$ corresponding to Galactic
latitude $b>56\nobreak^\circ$. At these high latitudes foreground emission from
the Galaxy is expected to be at a minimum. This sky region has also been
selected (see Paper I) to be free from discrete radio sources above the 1.5 Jy
level at 10 GHz; assuming a flat spectrum this corresponds to an
antenna temperature contribution of 48, 21 and 5 $\mu$K at 10, 15 and
33 GHz respectively in the Dec=+40\degg~data.
The actual contamination is reduced below these levels by using the K\"{u}hr catalogue (K\"{u}hr {\it et~al.\/}  1981)
supplemented by the VLA calibrators list to subtract the
discrete source contribution from each data scan.
This amounts to making corrections to the
{\em rms}  signal level of 13, 8, and 3 $\mu$K at 10, 15 and 33 GHz respectively
The contribution of
unresolved radio sources is expected to be $\Delta T/T \le 5\times
10^{-6}$ at 15 GHz and significantly smaller at 33 GHz (Aizu {\it et~al.~} 1987,
Franceschini {\it et~al.~} 1989).

Figure 1 presents our final stacked scans at 10, 15, 33 GHz and the
weighted addition (named 15+33) of the data at the two higher
frequencies. We have calculated the standard error-bars of each point
considering the presence of correlated atmospheric
noise between the two channels
of each receiver system as described in Paper I. This represents a mean
enhancement of 3 \% at 10 GHz, 4 \% at 15 GHz, and 16 \% at 33 GHz with
respect to the estimation of the noise computed in Hancock {\it et~al.~} (1994).
The
revised sensitivities per beam-sized area are 61, 32, 25 and 20 $\mu$K
at 10, 15, 33 and 15+33 respectively. A visual inspection reveals the
presence of common features in the scans at the two higher frequencies;
this is supported by a cross-correlation analysis in Section 3.2.

\begin{figure}
\hspace*{-6in}
\special{psfile=f1.2p hoffset=0 voffset=0}
\vspace*{13cm}
\caption{The stacked scans at Dec=+40\degg. The second
differences in temperature are shown binned at
$4\nobreak^\circ$ intervals in RA.
The error bars are at 68 \% confidence and take into
account any atmospheric correlations between receiver channels.
The scans labeled 15+33 represent
the weighted addition of the data at 15 and 33 GHz. }
\label{Figure1}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Reliability of the detected signals}

Determination of the amplitude of the CMB component of the structure
requires one to consider the contributions of random noise and
foreground signals to the observed data scans. The former has its
origin in the thermal variations in the receivers and in the
fluctuating component of the atmosphere, whilst the latter consists
primarily of free-free and synchrotron emission in the Galaxy, plus
emission from the Sun and Moon. Of these effects, only the Galactic
emission remains constant from day to day at a given frequency. In
Paper I we have estimated a maximum Galactic contribution of $\Delta T_{rms}
=4 \mu$K
in the results at 33 GHz. An improved separation between the Galactic
and the cosmological signal at each frequency will be presented in a
forthcoming paper. We have removed the effects of the Sun and Moon to
better than 50 dB in each daily scan, and stacking $n$ days of
observations with the Sun and Moon in different positions will reduce
any residual contribution to an insignificant level.

The thermal noise contribution from the receivers conforms to a random
Gaussian distribution and integrates down accordingly. In each
instrument, the channel 1 receiver is fully independent of the channel
2 receiver and hence there is no correlation between the receiver noise
in the data recorded for the two channels.  Atmospheric emission varies
randomly over days and thus at each frequency, stacking together $n$
days of observations reduces the atmospheric signals in a given day by
$\sqrt{n}$. Additionally, the Tenerife observing strategy is such that
the {\em independent} 10, 15 and 33 GHz instruments observe {\em
different} declination strips on any given day so that the atmospheric
contribution to data taken at each frequency is uncorrelated. This
offers a key advantage over experiments such as Saskatoon (Wollack {\it et~al.~}
1993), where the data in all of the frequency channels are highly
correlated thus introducing an element of uncertainty due to the need
to account for this. In our individual measurements the atmospheric
contribution to each channel is correlated, since the timescale of the
receiver switching is short compared with that for typical atmospheric
fluctuations.  In previous papers (Davies {\it et~al.\/}  1987, Watson {\it et~al.\/}  1992,
Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  1994 and Guti\'errez {\it et~al.\/}  1995) this effect was not
considered. The presence of a correlated atmospheric component affects the
estimation of
the astronomical signal based on the difference of the $(A+B)/2$ and
$(A-B)/2$ data sets ($A$ and $B$ being separate subsets of the data).
In particular if $A$ and $B$ each correspond to one
channel, $(A+B)/2$ contains the contribution of the astronomical
signal, and the atmospheric and instrumental noise, whilst $(A-B)/2$
only contains the instrumental noise. This is the case for
the analysis of the 33 GHz data presented in
Hancock {\it et~al.~} (1994) and therefore the signal level obtained from the
difference in variance between the $(A+B)/2$ and $(A-B)/2$ scans
contains a contribution from the atmosphere as well as the astronomy.
Note that at 15 GHz the data were subdivided according to the
observing epoch and consequently the contribution of the atmosphere to
the derived signal was largely reduced.

Here we present a new split of the 33 GHz data into two subsets
$X$ and $Y$ such that both channels of a given scan are included
in the same data subset. Considering the non-repeatiblity of the atmosphere
from day to day common atmospheric signals are not expected to occur
in both subsets. Also, considering the large number of independent
observations (more than 50 for each channel)  we expect that the net
effect of the atmospheric signals will be just an increase of the
variance in the final stacked scans of each subset, this increase in
variance being
approximately the same in both. For these reasons, when $X$ and $Y$ are
combined to form the $(X+Y)/2$ and the $(X-Y)/2$ scans we expect to
have approximately the same atmospheric signals in the sum and in
the difference. Figure 2 shows the stacked data scans for the $X$ and $Y$
subsets and their sum and
difference. We see a general agreement between the results of splits
$X$ and $Y$, and the presence of common features in both. An analysis
similar to that presented in Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  (1994) gives an astronomical signal
($\sigma _s^2=\sigma_{(X+Y)/2}^2-\sigma_{(X-Y)/2}^2$) with an amplitude
$\sigma _s=43 \pm 12$ $\mu$K.
The value of the signal quoted in Hancock {\it et~al.~}
was $\sigma_{old}=49 \pm 10$ $\mu$K; the difference with our improved
estimation is certainly due to the subtraction of the atmospheric
signal. The difference between both estimates ($\sigma
=(\sigma_{old}^2-\sigma _s^2)^{1/2}$) is $\sim 23$ $\mu$K
which is our best
assessment of the atmospheric contamination in the analysis based on
the addition and difference of the 33 GHz data; this value is in good
agreement with estimates obtained using other methods.

\begin{figure}
\psfig{file=atmos33.new.ps,width=3in,clip=}
\caption{The data scans obtained from the analysis of two subsets
of the 33 GHz data. In a) and b) are shown
the subsets denoted X and Y which are constructed
such that the atmospheric contributions to each are independent:
see main text for details. The differences in the
$(X+Y)/2$ (panel c)) and $(X-Y)/2$ (panel d)) scans should therefore be
due only to astronomical signals.}
\label{Fugure2}
\end{figure}

\section{Statistical analysis}
The estimates of the astronomical signals made
in the previous section can be improved on using a detailed statistical
analysis. Here we use a likelihood analysis and
take into account the contribution of the correlated atmospheric noise
by enlarging the error bars on the scans as shown in Figure 1.
These modified scans are also used to study the presence of
common features at 15 and 33 GHz by the calculation of the
cross-correlation function.

\subsection{Likelihood analysis}
\label{likelihood}

This analysis takes into account all the relevant parameters of the
observations: experimental configuration, sampling, binning, etc.  The
combination of the atmospheric and instrumental noise can be modeled by
a Gaussian distribution uncorrelated from point to point, (see previous
section), which implies that the noise only contributes to the diagonal
terms of the covariance matrix. We also assume that the astronomical
signal is described by a Gaussian random field and therefore our
results correspond to a superposition of Gaussian fields in which all
their statistical properties are specified by the covariance matrix,
which takes into account the full correlation between the data points.

We have analyzed our results for two hypothetical sky models, the first
of which corresponds to a signal described by a Gaussian
auto-correlation function (ACF) with amplitude $\sqrt{C_0}$ and width
$\theta _c$. This is not a realistic physical scenario but has been
used widely in the past (Davies {\it et~al.~} 1987, Readhead {\it et~al.~} 1989, Watson {\it et~al.~}
1992) because it provides for an easy comparison between the results of
experiments with different configurations. The intrinsic ACF for these
models is given by

\begin{equation}
C(\theta)=C_0\exp (-\frac{\theta ^2}{2\theta _c ^2}).
\end{equation}
which is modified accordingly by our triple beam filtering (Watson {\it et~al.~}
1992).  Our instrument is sensitive over a range of coherence angles $
1\nobreak^\circ \mbox{$\stackrel{<}{_{\sim}}$}  \theta_c \mbox{$\stackrel{<}{_{\sim}}$}  10\nobreak^\circ$, attaining peak sensitivity for a
coherence angle of 4\degg. We have analyzed the $X$ and $Y$ subsets for
15 and 33 GHz, the total stacked scans at these two frequencies, and
our best scan 15+33. The results for $\theta_c=4\nobreak^\circ$ are presented in
the third column of Table~1.  The amplitude of the intrinsic signal
corresponding to the maximum likelihood is given, along with the
one-sigma confidence bounds calculated in a Bayesian sense with uniform
prior. All results look consistent with clear detections at the two to
three sigma level, and mean values of the signal slightly smaller than
those presented in Hancock {\it et~al.~}, due to our improved estimate
of the error bars in the stacked scans (see Section 2 and Paper I).
Figure 3 presents the contours of equal probability for the 15+33 scan.
We see a well defined point of maximum likelihood at $\theta
_c\sim 4$\degg~and $\sqrt{C_0}\sim 50$ $\mu$K.

The second model considered here is more interesting from a
cosmological viewpoint. It corresponds to the prediction of the power
law form ($P(k)\propto k^n$) for the spectrum of the primordial
fluctuations. Considering only the Sachs-Wolfe part of the spectrum of
the fluctuations the intrinsic ACF can be expressed as
\begin{eqnarray}
C(\theta)=\frac{\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} ^2}{5}\sum _l (2l+1) C_l^{(S)} P_l(\cos \theta)
\label{eq:cl}
\\
C_l^{(S)}=C_2^{(S)}
\frac{\Gamma[l+(n-1)/2]\;\Gamma[(9-n)/2]}{\Gamma[l+(5-n)/2]\;\Gamma
[(3+n)/2]} \nonumber
\end{eqnarray}
where the sum is extended to the multipoles $l\lta 60$ which
corresponds to the range of angular sensitivity of our experiments.
For $l \gta 20$, standard models predict additional contributions to the CMB
anisotropy, as one moves into the low $l$ tail of the CMB Doppler peak.
Hence fitting for the Sachs-Wolfe term alone (Equation~2) to CMB data on these
scales can lead to the derived values for $n$ being increased by as much as
10\% over the true primordial value. This point should be borne in mind when
comparing the limits on $n$ from the Sachs-Wolfe term (Sections~3 and~4) to
those from a fit to a full CDM type functional form as in Section 5.

For
a given value of the spectral index $n$, the intrinsic ACF is a
function only of \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} .
Figure 4 shows the likelihood surface as a function of \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  and $n$
for the 15+33 scan.
The peak likelihood forms a ridge displaced from zero
in \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  and corresponds to a $3-4$ sigma detection of structure
for each value of $n$ considered. The shape of the surface implies
that all values of $n$ in this range are equally likely.
This is predominantly
a consequence of our observing technique which samples
only a small angular range of the spectrum of fluctuations. Thus whilst
our observations provide a good measure of the fluctuation power on
$\sim 4\nobreak^\circ$ scales, they do not in themselves contain sufficient
information about the distribution of power with angular scale to allow a useful
determination of the spectral slope: for this one must compare with
experiments on other angular scales (see Sections 4 and 5).  For the
specific case of a Harrison-Zel'dovich  spectrum ($n=1$)
the results of the likelihood
analysis are given in column two of Table~1. The normalisation \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}
corresponds to the maximum of the likelihood function and the
confidence intervals are at 68 \%, calculated in the standard Bayesian
manner using uniform prior. We see that in general the results are
consistent and agree with a global normalization of the quadrupole
$\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  \sim 20-25$ $\mu$K. Our best estimate for \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  of $22^{+10}_{-6}
\mu$K from the 15+33 scan is reduced over the value of $26\pm 6 \mu$K
previously reported due to our now having properly accounted for the correlated
atmospheric noise.
\begin{table}
\begin{center}
\caption{Results of the likelihood analysis for a Harrison-Zel'dovich
spectrum of fluctuations (second column) and for a Gaussian ACF (third
column).}
\vskip 0.2 cm
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
& &  \\
$\nu$ (GHz) &  \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  ($\mu$K) & $\sqrt{C_0}$ ($\mu$K) \\
\hline
& & \\

15A & $27^{+16}_{-16}$ & $54^{+37}_{-30}$ \\
& & \\

15B & $17^{+9}_{-17}$ & $24^{+21}_{-24}$ \\
& & \\

15  & $21^{+12}_{-9}$  & $44^{+26}_{-19}$\\
& & \\

33A & $22^{+14}_{-10}$ & $45^{+32}_{-24}$ \\
& & \\

33B & $28^{+12}_{-9}$ & $57^{+28}_{-25}$ \\
& & \\

33  & $24^{+11}_{-8}$ & $49^{+27}_{-17}$ \\
& & \\

15+33 & $22^{+10}_{-6}$ & $48^{+21}_{-15}$ \\
& & \\

\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}

\begin{figure}
\psfig{file=f3.p,width=5in,angle=270}
\caption{Contour levels of equal likelihood for the 15+33 scan in the
case of a Gaussian shaped ACF. The contours correspond to 10, 20, 30 ...
90 \% of the total probability distribution.
The Tenerife configuration obtains maximum sensitivity for coherence
angles in the range $2\nobreak^\circ \mbox{$\stackrel{<}{_{\sim}}$}  \theta \mbox{$\stackrel{<}{_{\sim}}$}  6\nobreak^\circ$;
structure is clearly detected at $\sim 50 \mu$K over this angular scale
range.}
\label{Figure3}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
\hspace*{-0.36in}
\psfig{file=nq3d.ps,width=4in}
\caption{The two-dimensional normalised likelihood surface as a
function of the spectral index $n$ and the normalisation \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}
for the Tenerife data. The projected contours are at 68 \%, 95 \% and
99 \% confidence.}
\label{Figure4}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Cross-correlation analysis}
\label{ccf}

We have investigated the presence of common features in our $15+33$
scans at
Dec=+40\degg~by evaluating the cross-correlation function,
\begin{equation} C(\theta)=\frac{\sum _{i,j} \Delta T_i\Delta
T_j^{\prime} w_iw_j^{\prime}}{\sum_{i,j} w_iw_j^{\prime}} \end
{equation} where $\Delta T$ and $\Delta T^{\prime}$ denote the second
differences in the stacked scans at 15 and 33 GHz respectively. The sum
is extended over all points subtending a mutual angle $\theta$ in RA,
with weights $w_i=1/\sigma _i^2$ and $w_j^{\prime}=1/\sigma^{\prime
2}_j$ respectively.  The data points in Figure 5 represent the mean and
68 \% confidence intervals of $C(\theta)$. The observed profile is
characteristic of the triple beam sampling and it is clear that for
angles $\theta \lta 20\degg$ the results are consistent with the
presence of common signals in the two independent data sets.  Because
of the non-independence of the data points in the cross-correlation
function, the statistical significance is difficult to evaluate,
requiring the computation of the covariance matrix of the correlation
function (see {\it e.g.\ } Ganga {\it et~al.~}
1993).  However, considering only the correlation at zero lag, the
observed value of $C(\theta)=1100^{+680}_{-720}$ $\mu$K$^2$ is found to be
inconsistent with noise at the 95 \% level. This value for the
amplitude of the component of the signal common to the 15 and 33 GHz
data is in agreement with the equivalent estimates of the variance of
the signals present in each data scan separately, demonstrating that
common signals can account for all of
the structure seen in the separate scans. This is contrary to what one
expects for structure of Galactic origin, which in the case of
synchrotron and free-free emission would exhibit a change in amplitude
by a factor 9 and 5 respectively on moving from 15 GHz to the higher
frequency of 33 GHz. This result taken in conjuction with
the limits on the Galactic contamination of the 33 GHz scan (see
above) and the successful comparison of the features seen in the 15 and 33
GHz scans with the higher frequency COBE data (Lineweaver {\it et~al.\/} , 1995),
leads us to assign a cosmological origin to the majority of the
signal present in the 15 GHz data.

We have explicitly tested the consistency of the common signals with
fluctuations originating in inflationary type models which predict
an approximately scale invariant $n\simeq 1$ spectrum of fluctuations.
Using the normalisation of $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  = 22 \mu$K as
derived from the likelihood analysis of the 15+33 scan we simulated
5000 realisations of a sky conforming to a Harrison-Zel'dovich  spectrum and repeated
the Tenerife sampling strategy. The mean value (solid line) and
one-sigma confidence intervals (dashed lines) of the auto-correlation
function obtained from these realisations are plotted in Figure 5.
There is clearly a good level of agreement in the amplitude and
shape of the experimental results and the theoretical model.
Statistically the Tenerife observations have the properties expected for
primordial fluctuations generated from inflation, and although these
results do not prove inflationary theory, this does offer a plausible
explanation for the existence of structure on scales greater than the horizon
volume at recombination. In this case, the clearly defined structures
visible in the scans in Figure 1 represent the seed perturbations
generated in the inflationary era at $t<10^{-34}$s. In the following section
we investigate the potential to prove or disprove inflation by measuring
the slope $n$ of this primordial spectrum of fluctuations using large
scale CMB anisotropy measurements.

\section{Statistical comparison with COBE DMR}
\label{comb}
A comparison between the results of different CMB experiments offers
the opportunity to check independent measurements, to extend the range
in frequency and angular scale, to constrain cosmological models and,
if the sensitivity of the experiments is sufficient, to compare
features. There are several experiments operating on angular scales of
a few degrees: MIT (Ganga {\it et~al.~} 1993), COBE (Smoot {\it et~al.~} 1992, Bennett {\it et~al.~}
1994), RELIKT (Strukov {\it et~al.~} 1993), ARGO (De Bernardis {\it et~al.~} 1994a)
and Tenerife. The
first comparison between independent CMB observations
was made by Ganga {\it et~al.~} (1993) who  found a
clear correlation between the results of the first year of COBE DMR
observations and those of the MIT experiment. De Bernardis {\it et~al.~} (1994b)
have also made a statistical comparison between the amplitude of the
signal reported for ARGO and that of the COBE DMR first year results,
from which they constrain the spectral index to be
$0.5\le n \le 1.2$ in the absence of any gravity wave background.
In our preliminary report (Hancock {\it et~al.~} 1994)
we compared the amplitude of the signal detected on $\sim 5\nobreak^\circ$ scales
in our Dec=+40\degg~data with that on $\sim 7\nobreak^\circ$ scales for the first
year of COBE data. We found that both results were consistent with
inflationary models ($n\mbox{$\stackrel{>}{_{\sim}}$}  0.9$)
but with a favoured spectral index of $n=1.6$.
Lineweaver {\it et~al.~} (1995) have presented the first direct comparison of CMB
features between the two-year COBE DMR data and the Tenerife
Dec=+40\degg~observations, confirming the agreement in the level of the
normalization of both experiments and providing clear evidence for
the presence of common hot and
cold spots in both data sets. The comparison presented here is
different to that  conducted in Hancock {\it et~al.~} (1994) in that we use
a more rigorous comparison technique that utilises the likelihood
function to incorporate fully the effects of cosmic and sample variance,
random noise and the interdependence of the model parameters.
In addition to the improvements from this revised analysis, our new
results also reflect the increased sensitivity of the COBE data after
two years of observing, along with the more accurate estimate of
the cosmological signal in the Tenerife data.

\subsection{Properties of the two data sets}
The instrumental profile of the COBE data is described approximately by a
Gaussian beam with FWHM$\sim 7\degg$. As can be seen in Figure 1 of Watson
{\it et~al.~} (1992)
there is a range of angular scales to which the COBE DMR and
Tenerife experiments are both sensitive. Measurements taken by COBE
cover the full sky, but to determine the CMB fluctuations the region of
the Galactic plane has been excluded  ($|b|\le 20$\degg) thereby
introducing a degree of uncertainty in estimating the properties of the
global field; this effect is commonly termed sample variance
(Scott, Srednicki \& White 1994). The
uncertainties in the COBE two year
results are dominated by the effect of cosmic
variance {\it i.e.} the fact that our stochastic theory describes the
Universe as a particular realisation of a random field.
Together the cosmic and sample uncertainties form an intrinsic limitation
of the COBE experiment since unlike random errors they
are not reduced by increased integration time.
The two year COBE data have been analysed independently by a number
of authors ({\it e.g.\ } Banday {\it et~al.\/}  1994, Bennett {\it et~al.\/}  1994, Bond 1994, Gorski {\it et~al.\/}  1994,
Wright {\it et~al.\/}  1994). All find evidence for statistically significant structure
at an amplitude consistent with that of $30\pm5$ $\mu$K {\em rms}  on a $10\nobreak^\circ$
scale announced by Smoot {\it et~al.\/}  (1992) for the first year data.
The best fit values for $n$ and \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  depend on the precise analysis
techniques employed, but are generally consistent with the
values of $n=1.10 \pm 0.29$,
$\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =20.3\pm 4.6$ $\mu$K found by Tegmark and Bunn (1995) for the combined
53 and 90 GHz data with
the quadrupole included.
In the case of the Tenerife experiment the
double-switching scheme removes the contribution of low order
multipoles decreasing the cosmic variance of the signal on these
large scales; the major
source of uncertainty is produced by the partial sky coverage (sample
variance) and the instrumental noise. The region observed by the
Tenerife experiments covers $\sim 5000$ square degrees but here we have
limited our analysis to our region of deepest integration at high
Galactic latitude which constitutes a sample $\sim 500$ square degrees.
For such a region the uncertainties due to the partial sky coverage
dominate over the intrinsic variance by a factor $\sim 10$ (Scott,
Srednicki \& White
1994) and the combined uncertainty is approximately of the order of
that introduced by the instrumental noise in the 15+33 scan.

In previous work (Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  1994) we explicitly took into account the
effects of cosmic and sample variance by using Monte Carlo simulations.
This was necessary because the simple excess variance statistic used in
the comparison incorporated only the uncertainty due to random noise.
The comparison by necessity assigned equal probability
to all values of $n$ for the COBE data, since the COBE first year
results were only published in the form of a best fit $n$ versus \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}
relation rather than a full two dimensional probability distribution.
What is required is a data analysis technique that allows the joint
probability of any combination of the model parameters to be calculated
and which implicitly takes into account random errors and cosmic and
sample uncertainties.  The Bayesian approach using the likelihood
function as described in Section 3 attempts to do precisely this.  The
likelihood function peaks at the most likely parameters (the best estimate
of the true
values if the likelihood function is unbiased) and has some
distribution which through Bayes theorem is representative of the
combined effects of the cosmic, sample and random uncertainties.  The
issue of how well this distribution reflects the true uncertainties is
addressed explicitly in a forthcoming paper (Rocha {\it et~al.\/}  in preparation)
by comparison of the Bayesian probability distribution with that
obtained from direct Monte Carlo simulations of the data. The Bayesian
and frequentist approaches are found to be consistent for the Tenerife
data and to a good approximation
the likelihood function is also seen to be an unbiased
estimator of the model parameters.  Consequently the likelihood surface
for the joint Tenerife and COBE data set provides the definitive means
of comparison of the observations under some assumed sky model.

\subsection{The Tenerife-COBE likelihood function}
\label{likejoint}
Here we apply the likelihood analysis to the COBE two year data and the
Tenerife 15+33 scan, assuming a power law model with free parameters
$n$ and $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} $. The COBE Galaxy-cut two-year map consists of 4038
pixels, whilst the Tenerife Galaxy cut (RA $161\nobreak^\circ-230\nobreak^\circ$) scan contains 70
pixels, requiring a 4108 $\times$ 4108 covariance matrix for a joint
likelihood analysis of the data. The direct inversion of such a large
matrix, necessary for the likelihood analysis, is computationally
intensive, but has been implemented for the combined 53 and 90 GHz COBE
two-year data by Tegmark and Bunn (1995), hereafter ``TB95".
A number of other authors
(Bond 1994, Bunn and Sugiyama 1994, Gorski 1994) have computed the
likelihood function by using various
data compression techniques to reduce the
size of the covariance matrix. The compression is achieved by
discarding noisy data vectors whilst retaining most of the cosmological
signal, and although the results are close to optimal, the slight loss of
signal results in marginally larger error bars than the ``brute
force'' approach.
The latter method is conceptually the simplest one, since it
is merely a likelihood analysis using all available data, and involves
no adjustable parameters such as the degree of data compression.
Since each matrix inversion requires merely about 10 minutes on a
fast workstation, we use the brute force method here.

We arrange the pixels in a 4108-dimensional vector and compute the
likelihood function as in TB95 by Cholesky
decomposition of the 4108 $\times$ 4108 covariance matrix at a dense grid
of points in the $(n,\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} )$-parameter space, marginalizing over
the four ``nuisance parameters" that describe the monopole and dipole.
The covariance matrix consists of three parts: a $70 \times 70$ block with the
covariance between the Tenerife pixels, a $4038 \times 4038$
block with the covariance between the COBE pixels,
and off-diagonal $4038 \times 70$ blocks containing the covariance between
the Tenerife and COBE pixels.
Simply multiplying the likelihood curves resulting from
two separate analyses of the COBE and Tenerife data sets would correspond
to neglecting the off-diagonal blocks, and this is clearly only a good
approximation if the two data sets are almost uncorrelated. We find that
the inclusion of the cross-terms makes a non-negligible difference, which
is not surprising in view of the fact that the two experiments
probe comparable angular scales
and have observed a common region of the sky.

For our Tenerife data, the best estimate of the cosmological signal is
obtained from the 15+33 combined scan after correction of the error
bars for the correlated atmospheric noise term.  The possible
contribution of Galactic signals has been estimated from the 10 GHz
data to be less than 4 $\mu$K at 33 GHz and has not been considered in
the current comparison. The normalised likelihood function for this
scan, as plotted in Figure 6, represents the joint probability of
obtaining a given combination of $n$ and $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} $. On its own, the Tenerife
configuration provides less leverage on the slope of the spectrum than
the COBE satellite. This is because the Tenerife experiment is
insensitive to the largest angular scales, and because
the one-dimensional shape of the
dec$+40^\circ$ strip makes it
difficult to separate the power contributions from different
scales. In other words, a narrow strip corresponds to
wide window functions in $\ell$-space, with considerable
aliasing of small-scale power onto larger scales
(just as the case is with one-dimensional ``pencil beam"
galaxy surveys).
As a result, the Tenerife data can be equally well
fit by a range of $n$ and $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} $ values,
resulting in a likelihood ridge in $(n,\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} )$-space
with minimal discriminatory power for
the parameter $n$. In contrast, the COBE observations are
sensitive to the slope to the extent that the likelihood surface is
peaked in the $n$-dimension.
Combining the COBE information with the
Tenerife data improves the situation in two ways:
it extends the lever arm on the spectral slope from the COBE scales down to
the $4\nobreak^\circ$ scale of Tenerife, and in addition eliminates the above-mentioned
aliasing problem, since the joint data set is no longer
one-dimensional.

\begin{figure}
\hspace*{-1.in}
\psfig{file=15x33enhan.save,width=5in,angle=270}
\caption{The cross-correlation function $C(\theta)$ for the 15 GHz and
33 GHz data over RA=161\degg$-$230\degg~showing the data points and the
one sigma  error-bars. The solid line corresponds to the prediction of
a Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum of fluctuations with a normalization of
$\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =22$ $\mu$K. The dashed lines are the 1$\sigma$ confidence bounds
arising from cosmic variance and sample variance.}
\label{Figure5}
\end{figure}

Figure 6 shows the confidence contours obtained from
Bayesian integration under the combined COBE and Tenerife likelihood
surface assuming a uniform prior. The 68\% joint confidence region in
$(n,\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} )$-space encloses a region from 0.90 to 1.73 in $n$ for
$\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} $ in the range from $12.1$ to $22.9$ $\mu$K,
with the peak at $n=1.37$,
$\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =16.1\mu$K. Marginalizing over $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} $ with a uniform
prior, one obtains the probability
distribution for $n$ as given in Figure 7,
corresponding to $n=1.33\pm 0.30$ at $68\%$ confidence.
The resulting limits on the normalization, conditioned on
$n=1$ as is customary, are $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =21.0\pm 1.6$.
The corresponding results in TB95 using just the COBE data, and
including the weak correlated noise term (Lineweaver {\it et~al.\/}  1995),
were $n=1.10\pm 0.29$ and $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =20.3\pm 1.5$, with the peak likelihood
located at $n=1.15$, $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =18.2 \mu$K.
In other words, although the total normalization has risen by
a mere $3\%$, the slope estimate has risen by $12\%$ and the peak
likelihood has been shifted to higher $n$ and lower $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} $.
This indicates that the higher angular
resolution data from the Tenerife experiment contains slightly more
power on small scales. As explained in Section~3.1, this is not unexpected,
since the presence of a Doppler peak would cause a rise in the power spectrum
at higher $l$.

\begin{figure}
\hspace*{-0.35in}
\psfig{file=jointd40_nod_enh.ps,width=4in}
\caption{Constraints on the quadrupole \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  and on the
spectral index $n$ of fluctuations obtained from a joint likelihood analysis of
the Tenerife data and COBE DMR two-year data. The contour levels
represent 68 \%, 95 \% and 99 \% of the region of joint probability.
The peak of the distribution lies at $n=1.37$, $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =16.1 \mu$K and is identified by the cross.}
\label{Figure6}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
\psfig{file=fign.ps,width=3in}
\caption{The marginal likelihood for the spectral index $n$ as
obtained from the joint analysis of the Tenerife and COBE data.
The spectral index is seen to lie in the range $1.02 \le n \le 1.62$ at
68\% confidence, with a best fit value of $n=1.33$.}
\label{Figure7}
\end{figure}

\section{Additional constraints on the primordial spectral index}

The large
angular scale CMB observations from Tenerife and COBE probe
fluctuations that have yet to go non-linear and the shape of the power
spectrum is thus insensitive to the exact abundance of the baryonic
mass ($\Omega_b$)
and to the value of $h=\mbox{$\mbox{H}_0$} /100\,\hbox{km}\,\hbox{s}^{-1}\,\hbox{Mpc}^{-1}$. However, together
the Tenerife and COBE observations provide a direct measure of the
CMB power spectrum normalisation, against which one can compare
intermediate scale observations and hence discriminate between competing
cosmological models.
Here we stress the importance in the agreement between the derived normalisation
for the independent Tenerife and COBE experiments, which are
subject to different systematic errors and different
foreground contamination. The accuracy to which we know the
normalisation of the power spectrum
clearly becomes an issue when comparing with smaller
scale observations to determine cosmological parameters.
This is a particular concern if, as has been suggested (Crittenden
{\it et~al.\/}  1993, Steinhardt 1993, Abbott and Wise 1984),
a component of the large scale anisotropy
may be due to tensor metric perturbations produced from a background of
gravitational waves. These can
arise naturally in inflationary scenarios and would contribute a component
$\mbox{$C_l^{(T)}$}=<|a_{lm}^{T}|^2>$ to the observed CMB angular power spectrum
(cf Equation \ref{eq:cl}).
The ratio of
the tensor modes \mbox{$C_l^{(T)}$} to the scalar modes \mbox{$C_l^{(S)}$} (primordial
density fluctuations) is highly suppressed for fluctuations
contained within the horizon volume at recombination and hence their
contribution is only significant on scales \mbox{$\stackrel{>}{_{\sim}}$}  $2\nobreak^\circ$.
Consequently the existence of a tensor contribution has implications when
comparing the large scale anisotropy level with that on smaller scales
and with large scale structure
observations in order to test cosmological models.
The anisotropy measurements from Tenerife and COBE fix the sum of
\mbox{$C_l^{(T)}$} and \mbox{$C_l^{(S)}$}, but the separation of the two terms requires a comparison with smaller scale observations under the  assumption
that a given cosmological model is correct (Crittenden {\it et~al.\/}
1993, Steinhardt 1993). In the case of power law inflation
a relation exists between the tensor to scalar ratio
$C_2^{(T)}/C_2^{(S)}$ and the slope of the primordial power spectrum
(Crittenden {\it et~al.\/}  1993, Steinhardt 1993) :
\begin{equation}
C_2^{(T)}/C_2^{(S)} \approx 7(1-n)
\label{eq:tensors}
\end{equation}
from which we see that the two contributions are comparable at
$n=0.85$ with \mbox{$C_l^{(T)}$} decreasing relative to \mbox{$C_l^{(S)}$} for higher values of $n$.
Thus the limit of $n \ge 1.0$ obtained from the analysis of the
combined Tenerife and COBE data in Section \ref{likejoint}
implies that it is unlikely that the tensor component will be dominant in such models.
In the remainder
of this section we shall investigate this in more detail by comparing with
medium-scale anisotropy results.

Contemporary cosmological models with adiabatic fluctuations predict a sequence of peaks on the power spectrum which are generated by acoustic oscillations of the photon-baryon fluid at recombination. Of particular interest is the height and position of the main acoustic peak --- the so called Doppler peak: the height depends on quantities like the baryonic content of the universe, $\Omega_{b}$, and Hubble constant, $H_{0}$, whilst the position depends on the total density of the Universe, $\Omega_{0}$.

The work required to place the existing medium scale anisotropy results
into a common statistical framework and then to compare them with the predictions of cosmological models, has been carried out by Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  (submitted) who find strong evidence for the
 existence of a Doppler peak on medium scales.
Further details together with a comparison with a fuller range of cosmological models will be presented in Rocha {\it et al} (in preparation).
For the current purpose of discussion of the value of $n$, and comparison with the results obtained
from Tenerife and COBE alone, we present here a version of the results for $n$ found in
Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  (submitted).

The precise form
of the Doppler peak depends on the nature of the dark matter, and the
values of $\Omega_0$, $\Omega_b$ and $\mbox{$\mbox{H}_0$} $. Thus
in order to use the medium-scale anisotropy results to provide additional
leverage on the spectral index determination it is necessary to adopt
a given cosmological model. Taking the minimalist assumption of the
standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model, without gravity waves,
with $\mbox{$\mbox{H}_0$} =50 \,\hbox{km}\,\hbox{s}^{-1}\,\hbox{Mpc}^{-1}$,
$\Omega_b=0.07$, Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  (submitted) find this offers a good
fit to all of the data. Tilting the initial spectrum of fluctuations
away from scale invariance and fitting to the $\Delta T_{l}$ we can delimit $n$ using the full data set.

Hancock {\it et~al.\/}  considered the four-year COBE data, and used the binned angular power spectrum (Tegmark 1996) in conjunction with Tenerife, Python, South-Pole, Saskatoon, MAX, ARGO, MSAM and CAT experiments.
As seen in Figure 8, only models with initial spectra in the range
$1.0 \le n \le 1.2$ are allowed by this improved analysis, with best fit values
of $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  =15$ $\mu$K for $n=1.1$. These
results are consistent with those from large scales alone, and with
the inflationary value of $n\simeq 1.0$.
We note that the presence of a gravity wave component in our model
would require even larger values of $n$ than those derived above and
given Equation \ref{eq:tensors} this reaffirms our conclusion that
a significant gravity wave contribution is unlikely.
The above constraint on $n$ depends on which values of $\Omega_0$, $\Omega_b$
and $\mbox{$\mbox{H}_0$} $ are chosen, but is not simply related to any one parameter.
Constraints on $n$ derived using a fuller set of models are
given in Rocha {\it et al} (in preparation).

Prior to the COBE detection the most common normalization of models used was
 based  on the value of $\sigma _8$( $(\Delta M/M)_{rms}$
in a sphere of radius $8h^{-1}$Mpc)
derived from galaxy clustering assuming a bias $b=1$ {\it i.e.\ } that light
traces mass (Kaiser 1984, Davis {\it et~al.\/}  1985).
If in fact galaxies are more highly clustered than matter, the amplitude of the
initial matter perturbations (and hence $\Delta T_{rms}/T$ ) necessary to produce
the observed clustering is reduced by the factor $b$.
The Tenerife and
COBE data provide an independent and more accurate value for the normalisation
which for a given cosmological model
allows us to determine the degree of bias necessary for
consistency with the large scale structure observations.

In particular the COBE normalized CDM model with a tilt of $n=1.1$ gives a bias of the order $\simeq 0.7$.

\begin{figure}
\psfig{file=tilt-50-07.1.alt.ps,width=3in,angle=270}
\caption{Recent CMB anisotropy results on large and
intermediate angular scales are used to delimit the spectral index
$n$ of the primordial fluctuations.}
\label{Figure8}
\end{figure}

\section{Discussion and Conclusions}

We have presented a detailed analysis of the measurements taken at
Dec=+40\degg~by the Tenerife experiments at 10, 15 and 33 GHz.
After accounting for both local atmospheric and discrete radio source
foregrounds, the 15
and 33 GHz data at high Galactic latitude are seen to contain
statistically significant signals which have their origin in
common hot and cold features. The cross-correlation function between
the data at these two frequencies demonstrates that the amplitudes and
shapes of the structures detected at 15 and 33 GHz are similar. This,
combined with our measurements at the lower frequency of 10 GHz,
implies that the CMB
signal dominates over the Galactic contribution at 15 GHz, and that the
maximum possible Galactic contribution at 33 GHz is smaller than 10 \%
of the detected signal.
Our best estimate of the cosmological signal is $\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$} =22^{+10}_{-6} \mu$K
for an $n=1$ inflationary spectrum.
This amplitude is reduced by $4\mu$K over that previously reported for the same
data set and results from an improved separation of signal from
atmospheric noise.
Comparison of the Tenerife and COBE two year anisotropy detections
by means of the likelihood function allows a detailed investigation of
the allowed parameter space for a power law model of the fluctuation spectrum.
The best fit values of $n$ and \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  are $1.37$ and $16 \mu$K,
and marginalising over
\mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  we find both data sets consistent with $n$ in the range $1.0
\le n \le 1.6$.
These results support inflationary models, which predict $n \simeq 1$
and future improvements in the Tenerife data and use of the 4 year COBE data will narrow
the range of allowed $n$. Improvements of this kind are important to determine
the power spectrum normalisation, since {\em only} on these large
angular scales is it possible to place limits on the tensor to scalar ratio
independent of the precise details of the cosmological model.
By combining
the large scale anisotropy measurements from Tenerife and COBE
with observations of medium scale anisotropy
measurements, improved limits have been placed on $n$, but at the
expense of assuming an underlying cosmological model (in our case CDM).

For a CDM model with $\mbox{$\mbox{H}_0$} =50 \,\hbox{km}\,\hbox{s}^{-1}\,\hbox{Mpc}^{-1}$, $\Omega_{b}=0.07$, we find that this data set is consistent with $n$ in the range  $1.0 \leq n \leq 1.2$. The best fit values of $n$ and \mbox{$Q_{rms-ps}$}  are 1.1 and $15 \mu$K. This COBE normalized tilted model predicts a bias of the order $\simeq 0.7$.
So although this model fits well the CMB data alone it may not give a realistic scenario when we consider jointly the CMB data and the observed galaxy clustering.

Our attempts to place increasingly more accurate limits on fundamental
cosmological parameters will undoubtedly place increasing demands on
observers for ever improved accuracy until the point where the intrinsic
cosmic variance becomes the dominant form of error. Confidence in the results
to this tolerance level will probably require close co-operation between
observers and the combination of results from space-based, balloon-based
and ground-based telescopes working over a range of frequencies.
Potentially the most powerful observations will result from mapping
overlapping/
interlocking CMB fields with independent multi-frequency instruments.
In contrast to the statistical results currently being reported,
this method builds in the necessary redundancy to reduce systematic
errors to an acceptable level. Such observations are currently in progress
with the Tenerife instruments, which in conjunction with the COBE 4 year data
should provide a high signal to noise
map of the last scattering surface thus providing a two dimensional
representation of the seed structures as compared to the simple
1-D scans reported here. Being on scales greater than
the horizon size at recombination the form of such a map would reflect
the structures generated in an inflationary driven phase in the very early universe.

\subsection*{ACKNOWLEDGMENTS}

\noindent The Tenerife experiments are supported by the UK Particle
Physics and Astronomy Research Council, the European Community Science
programme contract SCI-ST920830, the Human Capital and Mobility
contract CHRXCT920079 and the Spanish DGICYT science programme. S.
Hancock wishes to acknowledge a Research Fellowship at St. John's
College, Cambridge, G. Rocha wishes to acknowledge a JNICT
studentship from Portugal.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


On Monday, we noted that the director of Europol, which conducted an investigation into the massive match-fixing scandal that has called into question a great deal of soccer's recent history, was a little surprised that the plot infiltrated the United Kingdom. Europol's Rob Wainwright told reporters, "[W]e were surprised by the scale generally of the criminal enterprise and just how widespread it was. It would be naive and complacent of those in the UK to think such a criminal conspiracy does not involve the English game and all the football in Europe."
It might also be naive to think that match-fixers left the United States untouched. Yesterday, Outside the Lines played video of an anonymous El Salvadoran player rhetorically asking why El Salvador was so compliant at moments in games that might have affected betting lines, and the program noted the possibility that a friendly between the U.S. Men's National Team and El Salvador in February of 2010 had been affected by match-fixers. The U.S. won in the 92nd minute (see the play at 6:25 in the video above) after a series of agonizing missed opportunities at the goal. The investigation is ongoing, but according to Outside the Lines, the U.S. Soccer Federation itself is not under suspicion of match-fixing. FIFA confirmed that a number of matches played by the El Salvador national team are under investigation.
Outside the Lines reported that U.S. matches, plural, could have been fixed: "Such fixes have permeated the game for years, including allegedly matches played in the United States." This game may only be the most obvious candidate among many.


text:
Health board says threatened surgeries will stay open until at least April
News | Richard Gurner | Published: 17:29, Wednesday January 29th, 2020.
Last updated: 17:30, Wednesday January 29th, 2020
THREATENED: Troed y Bryn Surgery in Penyrheol, left, and Lansbury Surgery
Doctor surgeries in Lansbury Park and Penyrheol will remain open while health bosses look for a replacement.
GPs are independent contractors tasked by the NHS to provide primary care services.
In this case, the GP, Dr Fakande has decided to retire and resign from the contract for the two surgeries, which looks after 3,962 registered patients.
Dr Fakande will remain until the end of April when the contract ends.
The health board will now advertise the Lansbury practice, with its Penyrheol branch, nationally to look for a replacement GP to take over the contract.
A spokesman for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: "The health board will ensure that all patients that are currently registered with Lansbury Surgery will have access to a GP practice from May 1 2020 and Dr Fakande will continue to deliver General Medical Services to patients as normal until the contract ends on April 30 2020.
"The health board's Vacant Practice Panel met on Friday January 24 to discuss the options available."
If a GP cannot be found, then the practice could remain open under health board control or close with patients transferring to other nearby surgeries.
Llanbradach man, 96, jailed after killing pedestrian with car Friday, January 27, 2023
Residents to protest over Bluebell Woods sale outside Paul Fosh Auctions offices Friday, January 27, 2023
Council hits back over levelling-up criticisms from councillor Friday, January 27, 2023
6.78% Gwent Police tax precept rise backed by panel Friday, January 27, 2023
Waste site reopens after car fire Friday, January 27, 2023
Penyrheol councillor Lindsay Whittle, of Plaid Cymru, who first heard about the potential for the surgeries' closure last year said: "If they closed, the impact on both communities would be catastrophic."
Cllr Whittle said job losses would result if the surgeries closed and the viability of the chemists on both estates could be threatened.
He added: "Job losses and loss of services would have a major impact on these two council estates.
"It is of major concern to me and I will meet with the health board to fight for them."
Caerphilly Assembly Member Hefn David and its Member of Parliament Wayne David have been discussing the issue with the health board.
Dr David AM said: "The health board have acknowledged the importance of the surgeries within those communities.
"I am fully supportive of the measures that are being taken to ensure the surgeries continue to run, now and in the future.
"I will be contacting the health board in the next few weeks as recruitment progresses."
3 thoughts on "Health board says threatened surgeries will stay open until at least April"
Local Resident says:
Thursday, January 30, 2020 at 16:06
Closing these surgeries will be a disaster. A lot of the patients using these surgeries are not only elderly, but possibly may not got access to cars or public transport to travel to newly appointed Doctor Surgeries. We must not also forget the extension to the Hendredenny Estate with over 260 houses being built. What impact will this have on already overloaded Doctor's, Dentists etc.
Michael Woods says:
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 16:24
Could the wife and I change to a nother surgerie in Caerphilly
Why have surgeries been told not to take any patients from lansbury park surgerie


text:
package cn.edu.hdu.webbf.dao;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

import cn.edu.hdu.webbf.model.User;

/**
 * @author Pi Chen
 * @version webbf V1.0.0, 2016年8月12日
 * @see
 * @since webbf V1.0.0
 */

public interface IUserDao
{
    public List<User> query(Map<String, Object> param);

    public int saveUser(Map<String, Object> param);

    public void deleteUser(Map<String, Object> param);

    public int updateUser(User user);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Muscle Twitching - A Bad Omen Or A Nutrient Deficiency Or Something Else?
It can be caused due to caffeine consumption, exercising, anxiety/stress; it can also be a side effect of certain medications. Deficiency of certain nutrients like magnesium, iron and vitamin D also can cause muscle twitching. Most of these factors are controllable factors. Avoid excess caffeine intake, try to stay calm under stressful situations, ask your Physician about the medications prescribed if you experience twitching.
To avoid nutrient deficiencies make sure to have a variety of whole cereals, dals, vegetables (especially green leafy vegetables), fruits, soya products, go for nuts like almonds, walnuts, raisins; have low fat milk and its products daily.
More severe causes include stroke, brain tumour, trauma to face or neck or brain, weak muscles, Parkinson's disease and many more.
Next time you experience muscle twitching, don't take it superstitiously; instead be careful about your health!


Strengthening public safety has been a priority of ours since the very first day we arrived at City Hall, and our actions have demonstrated that.
I'm proud of yet another action that we announced this week: In our upcoming budget proposal, we'll propose a 3 percent pay increase for all commissioned Fire and Police employees.
It's the right thing to do for the men and women who quite literally put their lives on the line every day.
Employee pay has been a hot-button issue at City Hall for years — but particularly in the last decade, as our financial limitations have become more acute. Between 2010 and 2015, City employees did not get a single cent in pay increases — and, in fact, endured a painful 4.6 percent pay cut from 2011 to 2013.
When we took office, we knew just how much this impacted morale and, frankly, our staffing levels. So with public safety in particular, we've worked to address this — and I'm incredibly proud of what we've partnered with the City Council to accomplish, thanks to improving revenues, fiscal discipline, and some private donors.
Commissioned police officers with 11 or fewer years of service will have received a total of 8.75 percent in pay increases, a $500 bonus and retention bonuses ranging from $6,400 to $7,000.
Commissioned police officers with 12 years or more will have received a total of 10.75 percent in pay increases and a $2,100 bonus.
Commissioned firefighters and fire operators will have received a total of 9 percent in pay increases and a $500 bonus.
Would I like to do more? You bet. Would I like to go beyond just public safety employees? Absolutely. But here's the reality: Our budget only increases by about $10 million each year. The pay increases we propose will eat up the vast majority of that — which I think sends a strong message of just how big of a priority public safety pay is.
Good jobs news: We tell you over and over in this space about how our economy has been adding jobs, but it never hurts to have someone from outside of Memphis take note, too. That came this week from Bloomberg, which crunched the federal jobs numbers and found that the Memphis metro area was the No. 1 metro area for job growth last year when compared to its 10-year average. Yes, that means we were ahead of such metro areas like Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Seattle.
Even more, the Greater Memphis Chamber's study of jobs data showed that the metro area added 13,500 jobs in 2018 alone, according to the Daily Memphian.
It's a snapshot in time and there's plenty more work ahead, sure. But we must acknowledge good news when we see it.
Paving has started: The calendar officially turned from winter to spring this week. To us, there's another welcome turn: from pothole season to paving season.
You know that we've doubled paving funds from just a few years ago, and now that the weather's warming, you'll start to see even more of that in action. Contractor crews were milling sections of Yale Road and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard this week, and also starting preliminary improvements to Riverdale Road in anticipation of full asphalt work in the coming days and weeks.
We've worked this winter to improve our processes so that we maximize the amount of paving we can do this calendar year. It will be a big help to clear the backlog we're experiencing due to years of underfunding, and a big leap forward in our quest for smoother streets.
Sending our prayers: You probably saw this week where Lt. Myron Fair, a dedicated 25-year veteran of the Memphis Police Department, died in a car crash. Simply put, it was a somber reminder of how precious life is, and how it can change in an instant.
I ask each and every Memphian to join me in praying for Lt. Fair's family and the entire MPD family in this difficult time.


Hi Ann. Wanted to let you know that Hamlet and I completed our first two-day 50 mile ride this past weekend at GMHA and won blue with a score of 98.25 with no points off for back soreness!!!! The saddle and Skito pad worked perfectly for him. We had an awesome ride. Thanks so much for all your help getting us to this point.


Checking the marina feeders on route to Brandon Marsh this morning our now resident Raven was causing havoc among the other birds. I've never seen a Raven take a bird but I'm certain their well capable with their devious and intelligent nature.
However, this one seems quite content with the grain and fruit scatterings I've laid out. No I'm not about to read the great writings of Edgar Allan Poe but these birds really do fascinate me and I can't wait to get my lens back from repair next week in the hope of capturing some interesting images.
I arrived at Brandon Big Hide just in time to be told that I'd missed a Bittern by seconds but wasn't too despondent as it was just great to be out and I'd managed some good sightings of one on Newlands during my visit last Wednesday. The sluices to East Marsh Pool are now fully open with water battering through but with the current levels It's going to take a good while for the waters to drop, allowing the Islands to re-appear. This is of course assuming that no further deluges are on the way.
After a short stay in Big Hide, the best of which being (3) Shelduck and some excellent numbers of Shoveler, several of the Sunday crew decided to have a walk through Horsetail Glade, the target Lesser-spotted Woodpecker. Over recent years January through March has always been a good time to spot one and so it's always worth a look, sadly no joy today. The walk did produce a good flock of Lesser Redpoll, several Siskin, Redwing and at least 3 Goldcrest.
The team have two additional Barn Owl boxes to place this year and so we had a good tour of the reserve checking out possible locations. During our walk (2) Woodcock were inadvertently flushed and also of note a Sparrowhawk was seen chasing a flock of around 50 or so Thrushes, mainly Redwing, over the Farm Field area.
I ended the day with an evening tour of the marina and here the adjacent field was awash with Fieldfare, which headed off towards Napton Reservoir at sunset. The recent Pied Wagtail roost has depleted and only 2 birds were noted. Finally in the gloom as I headed back aboard a Barn Owl was heard but unfortunately not seen.


16 Club champions competed in this year's Champion of Champions hosted at Oxford City and County. Banbury Borough, Banbury Chestnuts, Blackbird Leys, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Headington, Kidlington, Oxford City and County, Oxford University Press, South Oxford, Thame, Watlington, West Witney, Witney Mills, Witney Town and Woodstock were all represented for the one day that the competition came to its conclusion.
After the morning's rounds it was West Witney's Paul Skidmore against Woodstock's Brian Clarke and Chipping Norton's Nigel Siford against South Oxford's Keith Mobley left in the semi-finals fighting for a final place. After a very strong start from Woodstock's Brian Clarke saw him 14 shots to 1 up against West Witney's Paul Skidmore, he had to battle to save a quick exit. Skidmore did just this and brought the score right up to 20-19 and was holding game when Clarke played a fantastic trail on the jack with his last bowl to go from being game down to win the semi-final 21-19.
The other semi-final saw Chipping Norton's Nigel Siford against South Oxford's Keith Mobley in a close match which saw Mobley take a 17-7 lead after 13 ends. 6 shots over the next 5 ends saw Siford fight back to 19-13 down before Mobley progressed to the final with 2 singles to win 21-19.
The final between Brian Clarke and Keith Mobley was a close fought battle. There was never more than 4 shots between them taking the all the way to 18-14 in Clarke's favour after 20 ends. Mobley picked up 2 singles to take the score to 18-16 before a fantastic end to see Mobley to take the lead 19-18 for the first time in the game. Mobley secured the double he needed on the next end to be crowned Champion of Champions to close out a fantastic season of competitive bowling.
Thanks a due once again to Oxford City and County for providing excellent facilities and catering throughout the day, Lorraine behind the bar all day and a huge thank you to Alan Ley for organising markers for the day. Thank you to Alan Ley, Chris Lewis, Keith Croxon, Colin Pollard, Grahame Kerr, Ken Buckingham, Andrew Galloway, Karen Galloway, Steve Tolhurst and Bradley Squires for marking games throughout the day. Thanks are also due to Pete Davies who was the umpire for the day.
Oxfordshire played Essex at Thame BC on Tuesday 19th September to play their final friendly of the 2017 season against Essex. The match was always close and at the end four rinks were within two shots. With 2 ending in ties the overall match swung on the last 2 ends on rink 4.Trailing by 1 Mike Andrew's four picked up a 5 on end 20 to raise hopes of a narrow Oxfordshire win. However a dropped 5 on the final end crushed such hopes. It was left to Paul Robbins' four on the show rink to pick up 6 shots to produce a match draw but that proved too much and they produced a single shot.Jim Lucas played his 200th game for Oxfordshire and was presented with the appropriate badge by Deputy President Eddie Dorling.
Terry Gripe Alan Wase Allan Hall Brian Bloomfield lost 12-14.
In the last domestic competition of the season, the 10 qualifying teams from across the County descended on Banbury Chestnuts for the Summertown Trophy final, sponsored by Oxford Auto Care. All teams playing each other over 7 ends in a round-robin format, to compete for over £1,000 in prize money.
Watlington A and Banbury Borough B were the early pace setters, picking up some good wins in their first 4 games to lead the competition at lunch. After 7 matches hosts Banbury Chestnuts along with Headington B had climbed into contention on +19 shots, but still trailed both Banbury Borough and Watlington who were comfortably ahead.
With just 2 games remaining, the heavens opened and the bowlers found themselves adjusting to the rainy conditions and a heavier green. Previous winners Banbury Borough and Headington then came face-to-face, with the Oxford side needing a good result to mount a late challenge. Headington adapted quickly to the wet weather and their 7 shot victory over Borough, now put them 2 shots ahead of their rivals. With both Watlington and Chestnuts suffering costly defeats, the competition had suddenly swung in favour of defending champions Headington B, with just 1 game remaining.
By pure coincidence the final round saw Chris Gilkes' Watlington rink come up against Mark Sykes' four from the Borough, whilst Headington B faced Chestnuts. After 3 ends Watlington had edged back into pole position as they led the Borough, whilst there was little to choose between Headington v Chestnuts. On the penultimate end though, and with the scores still tight, Mark Charlett trailed the jack with his final wood to pick up a massive 7 shots for Headington. This late surge saw Headington B beat Chestnuts by 10 shots and recapture their title on +36 shots overall.
Watlington A defeated Banbury Borough by 4 shots in their last game to claim the runners-up prizes and the Astall Ley Trophy, also capping a fine season for the south Oxfordshire club.
Whether you win use or draw, at least we all have the same after match meal.
Unfortunately for the Past Presidents, playing their last game of the season, at Thame BC against Hertfordshire, the after match meal was the highlight of the afternoon and it was a meal well worth waiting for. One again the Thame club proved to be excellent hosts.
The game itself went to Hertfordshire 116-83 as Oxfordshire took the hospitality bit a little too far losing on four of the five rinks.
Out on the famed rink 6 with the swinging ditch hand, Alan Ley's rink trailed 3-15 after twelve ends but then collected ten shots over the next three ends to bring themselves back into the game and although the last six ends were shared, they just missed out by one shot.
Chairman Mike Andrew and his merry men were even more generous, waiting until the twelfth end before recording a score to leave them only seventeen shots beind their opponents. A flurry of shots between the sixteenth and nineteenth ends made the scoreline look a little more respectable but they have given the Herts lads too good a start.
Melvin Brain's foursome were only three shots adrift at fourteen but only managed to score on one more end as they ran out 14-29 losers. Whoever kept the scorecard on this rink had a very creative scoring technique.
John McGeough's card keeper also tried a new method of staying close to their opponents by actually detracting shots scored by the opposition on the last two ends of their game.
Sorry boy's, it was noticed and you lost by 9.
Oxfordshire's only ray of sunshine was provided by Ian Whelpton's four in their seesaw match. Having dropped seven shots on the first two ends they took the next five to lead by 5, only to then lose the next four to go 3 down. The following four ends put them back in the lead by four shots only for the Herts rink to collect the next two. Thankfully the last three ends went in Oxfordshire favour resulting in a 24-18 win.
David Varney, Martin Oliver, Ken williams & Ian Whelpton 24-18.
Francis Benham, John Timms, Alex Fleming & John McGeough 17-26.
Bexhill BC was the choice venue for this year's HCBA finals day, which provided excellent services throughout the day. After a very cold and early start, the Oxon pairing of Alistair Heyes and Will Parker were up against John and Jason Lyttle of Middlesex on the show rink of the four greens. The Oxon pair started well gaining a 5 shot to 2 lead after 4 ends before a 3 shot comeback from the Middlesex pair saw the score level at 5 ends. Good battling saw the Oxon pair 10-6 up at ten ends before a fantastic end saw a 5 shot pickup and a comfortable 15-6 lead. After 14 ends the Oxon boys were 20-8 up and looking promising before a late surge from the Lyttle pair see them gain 8 shots over the next three ends and reduce the deficit to 20-16 before the Oxon pair regained command in the game taking the score to 23-18 playing the last. A fantastic head was built by Heyes which left Parker smiling playing covering bowls to take the game 26-18 victors and progress to the pairs final.
The other representative from Oxfordshire was Shane Cooper competing in the Under 25 Singles. He was up against Buckinghamshire's representative, Jamie Seymour. A strong start from Bucks saw Seymour take an early 8-0 lead before Cooper battled back well to only be 1 shot down with the score at 10-9. Another surge from Seymour saw him in another comfortable position at 17-11. Good bowling from Cooper kept him in contention all the way through the game, battling once more to get the deficit back to 2 shots at 18-16. 2 Singles from Seymour saw him just needing 1 shot to progress to the final before 4 huge ends from Cooper leveling the game at 20 shots apiece. Nip and tuck bowling from both competitors saw Cooper take the game 21-20 victor, only being in front at the end of the game to win it!
The HCBA under 25 singles final was between Oxfordshire's Shane Cooper and Kent junior international Andy Rodger. Rodger took an early 10-3 lead and looked strong from the off. Confident bowling from Cooper was deserving of more shots than what actually prevailed seeing him 17 shots to 6 down after 15 ends. Unfortunately the difference proved too great for Cooper to recover from and he lost 21-8 to Rodger who was brilliant throughout. A tremendous effort from Shane Cooper has to be noted and credit must be given for his fantastic achievements this year, his final one as an Oxfordshire under 25 player.
The HCBA pair's final was between Oxfordshire's Alistair Heyes and Will Parker against Buckinghamshire's Malcolm Pratt and David Clay. A very even tussle from start to finish saw neither pair take a lead of more than 5 shots throughout the game. After 6 ends the Oxfordshire lads were 8-3 up and looking strong. A weak end on the 8th saw them drop a 6 shot count to see them 10-8 down. The next 7 ends saw fantastic bowling from both Heyes and Parker seeing them pick up 6 shots to Bucks' 2. With the score at 14-12 in Oxfordshire's favour, the Bucks skip played some world class bowls to pick up 6 shots over the next 5 ends to Oxfordshire's 3 seeing the final end being played with Oxfordshire 18-17 down. Pratt's fantastic last end put Parker under pressure and with his last bowl narrowly missing the target, saw Bucks win the Pairs title 21-17. Once again a fantastic achievement from Alistair Heyes and Will Parker who were unlucky not to have claimed the title.
The Oxfordshire Bowling Association wishes to thank Shane Cooper, Alistair Heyes, Will Parker and Bradley Squires for attending the day and driving the 300 mile round trip to represent the county.
Oxford City and County provided once again a fabulous venue for the Hawker Cup semi-finals and final with four teams competing for the Hawker Cup title. Banbury Central A against Carterton A, and Headington B against West Witney were the two semi-finals. Central's Alan Carter, Tom McKenna, Lee Young and Will Campion were up against Carterton's Andy Wise, Steve Aldren, Robbie Clanfield and Paul Sharman. A close affair for the first half of the game before saw the score all tied at 9 shots after 10 ends. Carterton took a 17-9 lead after 13 ends before Central battled well to end the game only losing to Carterton 20-16. In Contrast the other Carterton rink, of Pete Latter, Phil Monahan, Dave Clanfield and Remy Clanfield took an early 11-1 lead after 7 ends against Central's Graham Morbey, Malcolm Leather, Keith McNeil and Nigel Galletly. A great fight back from Central saw them only 2 shots adrift at the end of the game, losing out 20-18 to Carterton. Carterton progressed to the final winning 40-34.
The other semi-final was between Headington B and West Witney. Harvey Alder, Gerald Coombs, Paul Skidmore and Kevin Alder were up against Bernie May, Alan Manger, Gary May and Howard Watts. A very tight tussle from start to finish saw neither side able to break away after 16 ends. 5 shots over the next from West Witney saw them 17-11 up before Watts' men picked up 3 on the last losing to Alder's men 17-14. The other Headington rink was Jon Philpott, Kalvin Woodward, Nathan Lewis and Mark Charlett up against West Witney's Bradley Squires, David Leighfield, Will Parker and Andy McIntyre. A strong start from Charlett's rink saw them 11-1 up after just 4 ends before West Witney kicked into gear 8 shots in the next 6 ends to see the score 12-9 after 10 ends in Headington's favour. A strong second half saw the Headington boys command a 22 shot to 15 win over the Witney rink which compensated for their other rinks' loss. Headington progressed to the final 36-32 winners.
The third place playoff saw Banbury Central A face West Witney in the glorious afternoon sunshine. Nigel Galletly's rink up against Kevin Alder's rink saw a close affair with neither side able to gain a sizeable lead. The Witney rink came over the line 18 shots to 17 victors. Will Campion's rink were up against a rearranged rink, this time skipped by David Leighfield. The Witney rink had a good first half game which saw them 20 shots to 8 up after 13 ends. 9 shots over 4 following ends saw the Witney rink take an uncatchable lead which saw them with a 30 shot to 15 win. West Witney taking third place, 48-32.
The Hawker Cup final between Carterton A and Headington B saw Howards Watt's rink up against Remy Clanfield's side. Good quality bowling from both teams saw a tense final which saw Headington 12 shots to 10 up at 16 ends. A 4 shot pick up from Watt's men on the 17th end gave them a 16-10 lead before Carterton battled well winning all remaining 4 ends to pip victory 17-16. The other rink saw Paul Sharman's team against Mark Charlett's rink. Again a high quality battle which saw the scores tied at 10 shots apiece after 12 ends before Carterton picked up 7 shots over 2 ends to go 17-10 in front. 3 strong ends from Headington saw them take 12 shots and a 24-17 lead after 18 ends. Although winning the final 3 ends, Carterton only picked up 5 shots to leave a deficit of 2 shots on their rink. Combining the rink scores saw Headington B claim the Hawker Cup title 40-39 victors.
A big thank you to everyone at Oxford City and County and to all competitors who arrived so promptly and provided an excellent day for competitive bowls in the blissful sunshine. Also a huge thank you to Duncan Muir for umpiring the day.
Margaret Morris of Banbury Borough BC has won the county champion of champions after beating Katherine Hawes, Oxford City and County BC in the final.
14 Club Singles Winners were in the draw for the Champion of Champions which was played in fairly good conditions until the Final when the heavens opened. The day provided excellent bowling up to and including the final which was a very closely fought game.
Margaret got off to a very good start but by the 6th end Katherine had evened the score. Until the 17th end the scores were level at 13-13. With conditions getting extremely wet and the light fading Margaret picked up 4 shots on the next two ends but Katherine came back again with a 2 to make the score 15-17. By the 23rd end the score was 17-19 in Margaret's favour then Katherine picked up a 1 to make it 18-19. The last end saw Katherine holding shot until Margaret played her last wood into the head and ran the jack to pick up the winning 2 shots.
Thanks to everyone who attended, including all the markers and to all the supporters, especially those who stayed to the end but watched from inside to avoid getting wet!
Oxfordshire travelled to Hewell BC on Tuesday 11th September to play their final away friendly of the 2017 season against Worcestershire Once more losing 4 rinks, this time the winning margins on the 2 winning rinks were insufficient to cover the losses on the other 4. Struggling to score shots throughout the afternoon, Alan Ley's rink picked up a single on the last end to not only win their rink by a single shot but to raise the counties total to 100. With Worcestershire scoring 121 the overall result was clear cut, thoughts turn to the last game of the season next week at Thame and the 2018 season.
Allan Smith John Timms Allan Hall Ken Williams lost 15-25.
Mel Cameron Eddie Dorling Alan Wase Melvin Brain lost 17-21.
Ron Slater Douglas Wright Alex Fleming John McGeough won 24-19.
Headington A were looking to crown a record breaking season, by becoming the Oxfordshire Bowls League Cup champions for the fourth year in a row.
Having celebrated reaching the final for the first time, their opponents Witney Town brought plenty of support to cheer their team on. With the floodlights warming up ready to brighten up the Kidlington green, the stage was all set.
Unfortunately for the Witney challengers it was already looking ominous after the first 3 ends, as the League Champions got quickly into their stride. By the half way point Headington A had already amassed an unassailable lead, with only Witney Town's President, Alan Scholan, ahead on his rink.
By 15 ends all four Headington rinks were comfortably in front and the defending Champions continued their good form and marched on to victory – remaining unbeaten in the League and Cup for the whole season. Ray Gaskins skipped the highest winning rink for Headington, with Mick Nash, Norman Rae, and Colin Whitehead completing the four.
Headington A 94; Witney Town 45: H Watts 18, A Scholan 15; R gaskins 31, B Bloomfield 7; J King 26, P Demczak; M Charlett 19, T Ludlow 9.
Another disappointing league result and the last match of the season with only two winning rinks against Cambridgeshire.


text:
This is a source code described in our blog post
[Road to a more functional Java with Javaslang - example refactoring](https://softwaremill.com/road-to-more-functional-java-with-javaslang/)
showing how Javaslang library could be used to make even a small logic more readable and written in a more functional way.

## Show your Java refactoring and win a ticket to the GeeCON conference

This is also a place to send your Pull Request to **win a GeeCON ticket** as described in
[Show your Java refactoring and win a ticket to the GeeCON conference](http://softwaremill.com/show-your-java-refactoring-win-geecon-ticket).

#### Important note

Tests requires [Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jce8-download-2133166.html) installed.


text:
Our new Head Golf Professional
On September 29, 2014 October 1, 2014 By springingforwardIn Administration
I am pleased to announce the hiring of our new Head Golf Professional at Spring Run, Mr. Jeffrey B. Carter, PGA Class A. Jeff will be starting his new position on Monday, October 13th, after leaving Quail West where working for the past 6 years. Born and raised in Wise, Virginia, Jeff moved to South Florida to compete on the Space Coast Mini Tour shortly after graduation. While competing, Jeff also graduated from Edison State College and made the decision to move into Golf Operations at Bent Pine Golf Club in Vero Beach, FL. In 1988, he became a Class "A" PGA Professional while working at Hobe Sound Golf Club in Hobe Sound, FL. He since has been privileged to work at other prestigious clubs in the area such as Williams Island Country Club, Quail West Golf & Country Club and Pelican's Nest Golf Club. Jeff has remained active in the PGA both professionally and competitively, earning many accolades along the way. He actively participates on the PGA President's Council and is currently obtaining Certified Professional status. Jeff lives in Estero with his wife Wendy, their daughter Taban and his two sons Justin and Jordan, and enjoys playing golf, fishing, traveling, and family time.
We are looking forward to another great Season full of exciting new enhancements!
Pitfalls and Progress!
Golf Course Update
4 thoughts on "Our new Head Golf Professional"
Jess Lovatt
Great news Mike. Looking forward to meeting Jeffrey. I return Oct 30. Thank you.
Jessie Sent from my iPhone
herbert driscoll
Sounds great Mike. Look forward to meeting him n January. How is the course coming along??
Herb Driscoll
Joe and Sue Evans
Nice intro Mike. We look forward to meeting Jeff in October.
Would love to see a picture of our new pro.