text:
\subsection{Mask sub-challenge}
The Mask sub-challenge (MSC) focuses on detecting whether the speaker is wearing a mask or not.
This task is crucial these days as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on in the world. Mask-wearing is recommended in many countries to slow the spread of the virus. The systems developed for this competition could be monitor if oneself or others around are wearing a mask when speaking~\cite{Schuller2020COVID19AC}.

What makes this extremely challenging is that the decision must be made using only 1 second of speech (typically one word). The audio data comes from the Mask Augsburg Speech Corpus (MASC), where 32 German speakers were recorded (16 male and 16 female). The total duration of the recordings is about 10 hours, which was split into three sets. The speakers were performing various tasks while speaking with or without a mask. Their activities include question answering, reading words from the professional medical vocabulary and describing pictures.
The data was mostly balanced; approximately 5.5K samples were given for the masked category and 5.3K for the non-masked in the training data, while the development set contained almost 8K masked and 6.6K non-masked recordings. The test set did not differ from this distribution and consisted of about 5.5K recordings for each class.

\subsection{Breathing sub-challenge}
For the Breathing sub-challenge (BSC),  a subset of the UCL Speech Breath Monitoring (UCL-SBM) database~\cite{compare2020} was used. The speakers wore respiratory belts while speaking, and the database consists of the synchronized speech and belt signals. The aim here is to estimate the measurements of the belt from the recorded speech as closely as possible.
Naturally, a system that can predict respiratory signals from speech without a belt has high potentials in real-life applications. Such algorithms could be run on smart devices and used to detect the symptoms of diseases like COVID-19~\cite{Schuller2020COVID19AC}, without visiting medical experts. As such, they could be essential tools to recognize the early signs of sickness and even aid diagnosis.

In total, 5 minutes of spontaneous speech was available from 49 speakers. All speakers reported English as their native language, with varying accents (e.g. American, Irish, etc.). The recordings contain spontaneous speech, all participants answered some questions about their experience of visiting or living in the city of London, and they were allowed to speak about different topics. This data was split into three subsets, 17 subjects were allocated to the training part, 16 for the development set, and the rest of the recordings were dedicated for testing purposes. This task is a so-called sequence-to-sequence problem, where using the audio, we need to predict the 6000 measurements produced by the respiratory belt while the patient spoke. The main challenge to overcome in BSC was the limited amount of data (only 17 training instances).

\subsection{Prior works on INTERSPEECH 2020 Computational Paralinguistics Challenge}
The mask detection and breathing state detection were studied in the sub-challenges of the INTERSPEECH 2020 ComParE challenge.
For the mask detection sub-challenge, authors in \cite{Yang2020} explored the  Fisher Vector (FV) encoding over the traditional mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) features and found promising results. FVs also found to provide complementary information when fused with other acoustic features. The authors also investigated several fusion techniques; Majority Vote, Harmonic Mean, support-vector machine (SVM) fusion,
and deep neural network (DNN) fusion to combine various acoustic information from baseline features such as ComParE functionals, bag of audio words (BoAWs), Deep Spectrum and auDeep~\cite{Freitag2017AuDeep}, and demonstrated the contribution of FV-MFCC feature in model fusion.

Authors in \cite{Montacie2020} have investigated the phonetic context and intelligibility measurements to determine whether a speech signal produced with or without wearing a surgical mask. The most sensitive phonemes are nasals, front and back vowels for the speech produced with mask wearing. Two systems were developed, one using a larger audio feature set and the second using a bottom-up approach with phonetic analysis and clustering. Fusion of the systems were shown to improve the performance over the baseline. In \cite{Klumpp2020}, authors proposed the usage of deep recurrent phoneme recognition model which was trained on spectrograms to learn the spectral properties of various speech sound categories. Their assumption is that, each phoneme sounds differently between mask and clear speech. The phoneme recognition model consists of a convolutional network for feature extraction from the spectrogram and a recurrent network for sequential phoneme classification. The phoneme recognition model was used to differentiate between mask and clear phoneme productions. Phonetic representations were shown to perform better compared to well-established acoustic features as well as deep feature representation in mask speech detection.

In another work \cite{Szep2020} the use of pre-trained deep convolutional neural network-based image classifiers is investigated with spectrograms. In it, specifically three different image classifier architectures were used: VGGNet, ResNet, and DenseNet. Several types of spectrograms were investigated for input, such as linear and quasi-logarithmic frequency-scale, Mel-spectrograms, Constant-Q Spectrograms, and MFCCs. The ensemble of models found to improve the accuracy for mask challenge.

Perhaps the most related work from the literature is \cite{Markitantov2020}, in which end-to-end deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures are explored with raw waveforms, log Mel-spectrograms, and MFCCs. For mask sub-challenge, experiments were conducted with several pre-trained CNN architectures on log-Mel spectrograms, as well as SVMs on baseline features. For the breathing state detection sub-challenge, an ensemble deep learning system that exploits end-to-end learning and sequence prediction were investigated. Also, authors have shown that by effectively increasing the training data via N-Fold cross-validation and careful selection of pretrained models, performance can be improved.

In \cite{MacIntyre2020}, learning the speech features in an end-to-end architecture was shown to be beneficial for breathing sub-challenge, and also the attention mechanism was shown to be helpful in identifying the useful patterns. The information present in the AM-FM (amplitude modulation-frequency modulation) decomposition was shown to be helpful in characterizing the \textit{breathiness} from the speech signal in \cite{Mendonca2020}. For AM-FM decomposition, frequency domain linear prediction (FDLP) approach is used. End-to-end architecture (similar to baseline in \cite{compare2020}) was used for the experiments. Authors also analysed the original and predicted signals to overcome the main pitfalls, and found that the subsets of most irregular belt signals yielded the worst results (measured by the Pearson correlation coefficient). This indicates the effect on results that were obtained by baseline systems and various proposed systems.

Studies in \cite{Illium2020,Koike2020,Ristea2020} explored the data augmentation  to overcome the lack of training data for deep neural architectures for mask speech detection. Specifically, five different augmentation methods were used in \cite{Illium2020}, they are: speed perturbation, loudness perturbation, shift perturbation, spec-augmentation, and noise augmentation. Transfer learning strategy combined with data augmentation was investigated for mask sub-challenge in \cite{Koike2020}. Instead of pre-trained models obtained from image data, authors used a pre-trained model developed on large amount audio data. Apart from pre-trained model, the data augmentation (spec-Augmentation and mixup (to increase volume) methods) and late fusion strategy were used to improve the performance. Novel  data augmentation method was proposed by transferring data of one class to another through cycle-consistent Generative Adversarial Networks (cycle-GANs) in \cite{Ristea2020} for mask speech detection. In this, the spectrograms of original and augmented data are used as input to set of ResNet neural networks with various depths and then the networks are combined into an ensemble through a SVM classifier.

\begin{comment}
\begin{itemize}
    \item Official baseline systems \cite{Schuller2020}
    \item IS2020 papers \cite{Koike2020,Illium2020,Klumpp2020,Montacie2020,Markitantov2020,Mendonca2020,MacIntyre2020,Szep2020,Yang2020,Ristea2020}
    \item Arxiv papers \cite{wu2020mask,egaslopez2020wearing,das2020classification,gosztolya2020applying}
\end{itemize}
\end{comment}

\subsection{Highlights/contributions of this study}
\begin{itemize}
    \item E2E Ensemble solution
    \item New gradient-based feature selection method
    \item Exploration of new features for mask challenge
    \item Model fusion experiments

\end{itemize}
As we can see, many works have found that E2E ensemble-based solutions are the best for these paralinguistic tasks. Unfortunately, one vital aspect is ignored by these works, namely the practicality of the systems. Using ensembles of multiple large models could eventually lead to extremely slow solutions that cannot be used by real-life applications. One key difference between our work and the previously published works is that we aim to use small, feasible models, which could become part of real-world applications. Furthermore, we also explore several input features and a new feature selection method that can pick the most important features using several well-performing DNNs.  These feature selection methods aim to reduce model sizes and inference times while maintaining a good performance.  Although our ensembles could not beat the best systems in the competition, they came quite close, while being much faster and smaller than the ensembles of the  state-of-the-art ResNet models.

\section{Introduction}\label{sec:introduction}}

\input{introduction}

\section{Computational Paralinguistics Sub-Challenges}
\input{data}

\section{Methods}
\input{methods}

\section{Experiments and results}
\label{sec:exp_res}
Next, we explain the experiments carried out for each task.
Keeping in mind that this paper describes our solutions for a competition, so we broke with the tradition of using only a limited amount of techniques. Instead, we tried several techniques to create the best system that can be deployed to hand-held devices. Keeping it in mind, we did our best to measure the impact of each modification on the development data and tested only the best ones.

\subsection{Mask recognition}
\input{mask_res}

\subsection{Breathing signal prediction}
\input{breath_res}

\section{Conclusion}
\input{conclusion}

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}

\subsubsection{Low-frequency features}
To enrich our feature set, we tested two straightforward approaches. The first solution utilizes a pre-processing step, enhancing the lower frequencies by manipulating the input audio. We apply low-frequency enhancing schemes like pre-emphasing the audio (with filter coefficients $h=[1~0.97]$ and passing through a fifth-order low-pass Butterworth filter whose cutoff frequency is $400~Hz$~\cite{oppenheimBook}, before spectral feature extraction, denoted as \textbf{preemphasized spectrogram}. This process could allow the Mel-spectrogram to represent the relevant information for this task better if it is hidden in the low-frequency bands.

The second approach is even simpler, it represents the information in a given time frame by calculating the ratio between the energies in the low- and high-frequency domain (denoted as Freq. ratio).

In Table~\ref{tab:new_feats}, we can see that models trained on these new features failed to outperform the ensemble utilizing the original spectrogram. Nevertheless, we kept these features, hoping that we can use them to build a better system by fusing them to the original input. Ultimately, these experiments showed us that the low-frequency part is not the only vital input region.

\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \caption{Results got by using our custom (low-frequency) features on the Dev set of the Mask Sub-Challenge.}
    \begin{tabular}{c|c}
         Features & Dev \\ \hline
         Original spectrogram & 67.4\\
         Pre-emphasized spectrogram & 59.3\\
         Freq. ratio & 57.2 \\\hline
    \end{tabular}

    \label{tab:new_feats}
\end{table}

\subsubsection{Feature selection}
\begin{table}[t]
    \centering
    \caption{Results of the feature selections approaches for the Mask Sub-Challenge. Inference time calculated as the average time required to evaluate the ensemble of 10 DNNs on one example (including feature extraction) from the Dev set using a single core of an Intel Xeon W-2133 CPU.}
    \begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c}
        Features & Dev & Inference time & Model size\\ \hline
        DeepSpectrum~\cite{compare2020} & 63.4 & 3090 ms & 23M\\\hline
        Complete spectrogram & 67.4 & 4.1 ms & 88K\\\hline
        Lowest 10 bands & 62.9 & \multirow{6}{*}{2.8 ms} & \multirow{6}{*}{80K}\\
        10 least important (output) & 59.7 &&\\
        10 random & 62.0 &&\\
        10 most important (loss) & 65.1 &&\\
        10 most important (SFFS) & 65.9 && \\
        10 most important (output) & \textbf{67.9} &&\\\hline
    \end{tabular}

    \label{tab:res_select}
\end{table}

A natural choice for this is to select the ones deemed important by the initial models. We tested multiple different approaches. As a simple baseline, we tested using only the 10 lowest frequency bands. To determine the frequencies with the highest impact, we calculated the importance scores by attributing the output or the loss of the model to the inputs (as described in Sec.~\ref{sec:feat_selection}). All models in the initial ensemble voted for the indices of their 10 most valued bands. After that, we selected the ones that received the most vote. The choice to use only 10 bands was based on the fact that these features had majority support, meaning that at least 5 out of the 10 models voted for them. To validate that the importance scores are indeed meaningful, we also trained two systems, one with the least important features and one with 10 randomly selected frequency bands. Table~\ref{tab:res_select} confirms that using only a small portion of the original features can lead to good results. It is also clear that the naive approach to use only the low-frequency part (Lowest 10 bands) is inferior to the feature selection systems; still, it managed to outperform our handcrafted features. Comparing the two selection criteria, we saw the output gradient-based importance scores lead to better models. This ensemble even managed to outperform the one that was trained using the whole spectrogram. Furthermore, choosing the 10 least important features led to the worst results, while the random selection performed slightly worse than the naive baseline.

To validate that our feature selection solution is well suited for E2E solutions, we compared it with the widely used Sequential Forward Feature Selection (SFFS) algorithm~\cite{FERRI1994403}. The SFFS algorithm starts by selecting the single best feature and then sequentially adds features that produce the best results. Its main drawback is that it requires the training of a large number of models, to be precise, we needed to train 1235 models to select the 10 best frequency bands out of the 128. Naturally, using the E2E models in this procedure is not feasible due to their considerable training time. Instead, we opted to use simple linear SVMs as proxies during the selection process and then trained the E2E ensemble using the chosen features. In Table~\ref{tab:res_select}, we can see that SFFS yielded better results than our loss-based feature selection, but it failed to reach the performance of the output-based selection method.

Another important aspect we need to consider is the speed and model size. The networks that used the selected features were significantly faster than those that used all 128 frequency bins. They had 10\% fewer parameters. During inference, they operated on far less data (10 features vs 128 frequency bands). Please note that our inference time measurement also includes the time needed for spectrogram extraction (on average 1 ms per example).  Overall, the reduced models needed about half the time (inference time reduced by 45\%) to process the inputs compared to the ensemble working with the complete spectrogram.

\subsubsection{Feature fusion}
At this stage, we had a wide range of features at our disposal. In the challenge paper \cite{compare2020}, we saw that fusing different features is quite beneficial. This inspired us to investigate whether training models using a granularity of features could offer any improvements.

After some initial experiments, we decided to use the middle fusion technique. This meant that our DNNs first processed each input separately and only concatenated the outputs of the LSTM layer before the feedforward layers. Having a dedicated convolutional and recurrent part for each feature allows the network to extract meaningful latent information from each modality. The joint feedforward layer's task in this setup is to combine the different feature-dependent pieces of information for the final classification. This approach proved to better than using early- or late fusion.

Since we had to test several combinations to select the best, we decided to narrow down the number of choices. Our preliminary experiments established that it is always beneficial to show the original spectrogram data to the models, so we tried fusing the other features with the original spectrogram. In the end, we opted to try the 10 features selected using the output gradient-based importance scores, the frequency ratios and the pre-emphasized spectrograms.

Table~\ref{tab:fusion_res} reports the results of the input fusion experiments. As we can see, fusing the 10 most influential bands with the original data lead to the best results, meaning that our system managed to combine the knowledge extracted from these redundant sets. A possible explanation for this is that the network part that worked on the selected features could extract the most relevant information; simultaneously, the part that operated on the whole spectrogram could focus on the rest of the bands to extract extra information. The pre-emphasis and frequency ratio features on their own were not useful, but fusing both of them to the original spectral input, we saw some improvements. This shows that it is indeed important to utilize a sufficiently rich feature representation of the task.

\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \caption{Results got by middle fusion of various input types using ensembles of 10 models for Mask Sub-Challenge. '+': inclusion and '-':exclusion}
    \begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c||c}
        \multicolumn{4}{c||}{Inputs} & \multirow{2}{*}{Dev}  \\
        orig. spect. & selected 10 & pre-emph. & freq. ratio &\\ \hline
         + & -- & -- & -- & 67.4  \\ \hline
        + & + & -- & -- & 68.4  \\
        + & -- & + & -- & 67.3  \\
        + & -- & -- & + & 67.4  \\
        + & + & + & -- & 67.5  \\
        + & + & -- & + & 68.1 \\
        + & -- & +  & + & 68.0  \\
        + & + & +  & + & 68.2 \\
         \hline
    \end{tabular}

    \label{tab:fusion_res}
\end{table}

\subsubsection{Final results}

Before evaluating the test set, we trained new models on the combined training and development set, using the parameters that we found optimal in the previous experiments. Simultaneously, we also increased the number of models from 10 to 50, as we saw some improvements by using more DNNs in the ensemble (adding more than 50 models offered little to no improvement on the Dev set).
Out of the many systems presented before, we selected three to evaluate on the test partition. The first model that we tested was the ensemble trained on the spectral inputs (E2E). Although this system managed to outperform the non-fused SVM systems, it proved to be inferior to the combined models presented in~\cite{compare2020}. Next, we saw that our feature selection method managed to reach markedly higher performance, and it proved to be an equal to the official score in~\cite{compare2020}. Upon inspecting the confidence interval of the feature selection method on the test set (71.3 -- 73.0), we saw that the selection process led to a significantly better model compared to the original ensemble (E2E).  Interestingly, the ensemble using both of these features failed to improve the test set results, suggesting that it might have overfitted for the dev data.

Lastly, we also experimented with the fusion of different models.
Our aim was to create a more accurate alternative to the on-device ensemble at the expanse of the inference speed. These combined solutions are not applicable to be used in real-time systems, but offer the option of higher accuracy to the users, if they are willing to wait for the results.
We selected the best two ensembles and combined their predictions with those produced by the SVM-based solutions. We found that BoAW and DeepSpectrum SVM models are the most beneficial, so we fused them into our ensemble. The results confirmed that enriching the model types is quite advantageous. The late fusion of the SVMs and the feature-selected E2E ensemble yielded a 77.1 UAR score, which is significantly better than the 71.8 UAR achieved by the fused SVMs.

From the competitions, we selected two works~\cite{Markitantov2020,Szep2020}, which are closely related to ours. In~\cite{Markitantov2020} the authors use an ensemble of ResNet18v2 models trained using various optimization algorithms and cross-validation data folds. Their best result on the MSC 75.9 UAR is better than our purely DNN-based results, which is not surprising since their individual models contain considerably more parameters than ours. On the other hand, fusing with the SVM systems allowed our solution to outperform the purely SVM ensemble markedly. The second work~\cite{Szep2020} employed large pre-trained DNNs and created ensembles by fine-tuning them on the MSC data. This system won the competition by achieving 80.1 UAR. The gap between our best result (77.1) and this 80.1 seems quite big at first glance; however, we should also consider that our entire ensemble of 50 models contained far fewer parameters (4.4 M) than the smallest DNN in their pre-trained ensemble (DenseNet-121 with 8 M). Furthermore, we estimate that their solution is not really applicable in real-life solutions due to the model sizes. Although the authors of~\cite{Szep2020} did not report their inference times, we can estimate it based on the benchmark paper~\cite{Bianco2018Benchmark} analyzing pre-trained Image classification models. Looking at the reported inference times using a Jetson TX1 GPU, we can see that even single pre-trained models would have trouble processing the spectral data in a feasible amount of time. In contrast, our models can easily evaluate data in real-time without using a GPU.

\begin{table*}[!htbp]
    \centering
        \caption{UAR values of our solutions for the Mask Sub-Challenge. The E2E solutions fused 50 models to get the final predictions on the test set.}
        \resizebox{12cm}{2.7cm}{
    \begin{tabular}{c|c|c} \hline
        {\bf System} & {\bf Dev} & {\bf Test}  \\
        \hline
        Fusion of SVM models~\cite{compare2020}& -- & 71.8 \\
        \hline
        E2E & 67.4 & 69.9\\
        E2E selected 10 & 67.9 & \textbf{71.8}\\
        E2E middle fusion (spect + selected 10) & \textbf{68.4} & 70.6\\ \hline
        E2E selected 10 + SVMs & \textbf{71.1} & \textbf{77.1}\\
        E2E middle fusion (spect + selected 10) + SVMs & 70.0 & 75.2\\ \hline
        E2E ResNet18 ensemble~\cite{Markitantov2020} & -- & 75.9 \\
        Pre-trained E2E ensemble~\cite{Szep2020} & -- & \textbf{80.1} \\
\hline
    \end{tabular}}
    \label{tab:mask_final}

\end{table*}
\subsection{End-to-end learning}
End-to-end learning is a new emerging paradigm within deep learning. Researchers across various fields have adopted this paradigm supported by the availability of large data and powerful computational resources. Theoretically,  end-to-end systems are built to replace the traditional pipeline-based solutions with a single deep neural network. The end-to-end systems allow using a single optimization step to training the complete model. They also have the promise of bypassing the laborious feature-engineering step by having a single system for solving every aspect of the prediction problem. In practice, however, these systems are built on top of existing features. The advantages of this paradigm make it an attractive choice for ComParE tasks.

Our models process either spectral input features or raw audio signals in case of the breathing task. Then the DNNs can directly be optimized to perform the given task. Using this single model approach allowed us to quickly modify the general framework to the specialties of the sub-challenges.

\subsection{Ensemble learning}
DNNs are known to be sensitive to the random initialization, and our experiments also confirm this. This issue is especially severe if the amount of training data is limited, which is usually the case for paralinguistic tasks. A solution to this problem is applying ensemble learning. We train several differently initialized DNNs and then combine their predictions to get stable and even better results.

Here, we employ a specific bootstrap aggregation method, called bagging. Originally, bagging trains each model using only a random subset of the training data to produce diverse systems. As the training data is already limited, we decide to use all available data during training and rely on random initialization and data shuffling to produce a diverse set of DNNs. In the combination, we average the outputs of differently-initialized DNN ($f_i i \in \{1..N\}$) on input $x$ together to make the final prediction ($\bar f$). For regression-based breathing task, the final prediction can be calculated as:
\begin{equation}
    \bar f(x) = \frac{1}{N} \cdot \sum_{i=1}^N f_i(x)
\end{equation}

For classification-based mask task, we apply a soft voting scheme to average output probabilities (prob$_i$) for every DNN $f_i$ obtain the final prediction. In this scheme, the ensemble probability ($\overline{\mathrm{prob}}$) of class $C$ for a given input $x$ can be obtained as follows:
\begin{equation}
    \overline{\mathrm{prob}}(C | x) = \frac{1}{N} \cdot (\sum_{i=1}^N\mathrm{prob}_i(C|x)
\end{equation}

The ensemble learning can also be performed with other approaches.
By combining different approaches we can leverage their individual strengths and create a better solution.

\subsection{Input sensitivity analysis}

Traditionally, DNNs are viewed as black boxes, and during their evaluation, most studies only focus on the performance measures. This trend started changing as recent attempts have been made at investigating how and why DNNs can achieve high performance~\cite{Nguyen2019}. A convenient tool to examine trained DNN models is Sensitivity Analysis that aims to identify the crucial features using a trained DNN. The prerequisites for the analysis are only a well-trained model and some data. Of course, several ways are available to perform the sensitivity analysis like Saliency maps~\cite{simonyan2014deep}, Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping~\cite{selvaraju2017grad}, Layer-Wise Relevance Propagation~\cite{montavon2019layer}. Out of those, we focus on the Saliency maps-based approach, which was originally proposed to visualize how image processing DNNs function. Saliency maps are simply constructed by calculating each pixel's importance scores, gaining insights into which parts of the image have the largest influence on the model's output.
In our work, we take this one step further and propose that Saliency maps can also be used for selecting important features.

\subsection{Input sensitivity-based feature selection}
\label{sec:feat_selection}
In our work, we aimed to understand the individual DNNs better and leverage the findings to build smaller and faster models. Calculating the Saliency maps~\cite{simonyan2014deep} gave us insights into which parts of the input was most influential. Our working hypothesis was that we could use this information to select the essential features to reduce the input size and make the training process more straightforward.
To calculate the individual features' importance, we calculate and aggregate the model's locally evaluated gradient w.r.t. the input neurons.

Naturally, the gradient calculation can be done in various ways. One such method called Activation Potential analysis~\cite{Roy2015DNNfeatSelection} proposes that the first hidden layers' activations can be used. This method assigns importance to the input features by determining their contribution to the hidden neurons activation potential.
Another solution is to use the output of the DNN directly. In this case, we can choose to propagate either the output values or the loss values to find essential inputs. Other methods use more complicated approaches to calculate the importance score of inputs.  DeepLIFT~\cite{shrikumar17DeepLIFT} proposes that each neuron's activation can be compared to a task dependent 'reference value', then the contribution scores are determined by backpropagating these differences to the input layer.
 Another method, Integrated Gradients~\cite{sundararajan2016Intgradients} scales the inputs from some starting value to their actual value and integrates the gradients to calculate the final importance scores.

In our experiments, we employed two simple approaches; the output and loss-based gradients were compared to measure the individual features' impact on the whole network. This way, we can inspect the DNNs function and reduce the input at the same time.
Formally, let $x_i$ denote the $i^{th}$ input feature, and $\hat{y}=DNN(x)$ is the output value produced by the DNN. If we have the labels ($y$) available, then the loss function ($F_{loss}$) can also be calculated.
The importance then can be calculated using the output as:
\begin{equation}
    R(x_i) = \sum_{x \in D} |\frac{\partial\hat{y}}{\partial x_i}| ,
\end{equation}
or by propagating the loss values:
\begin{equation}
    R(x_i) = \sum_{x \in D} |\frac{\partial F_{loss}(y, \hat{y})}{\partial x_i}|.
\end{equation}
Lastly, to get the reduced feature set, we select the ones with the largest accumulated gradients.

Comparing these two methods, the first thing that we can notice is that the output-based one does not require labeled data. It can be applied to any data, technically making it an unsupervised method. In contrast, the loss-based selection can only be employed if we have ground truth labels. Another vital thing to note here is the fact that the two methods highlights different groups of features. While the output-gradient propagation ensures that we get the features that have the most significant impact on the network's decision, the loss-based one determines the problematic inputs responsible for the network's errors. The reason for this is simple; well-predicted examples will have low loss values, and thus the gradients propagated to the inputs will also be minimal. On the other hand, when the DNN makes mistakes, we get high loss gradients. Consequently, the propagation method will assign high importance to features responsible for the loss (i.e., inputs that can potentially change the loss value quickly).

The previously introduced techniques can be readily used with a single DNN, and here we show a simple way to apply them with ensembles of DNNs. We argue that relying on the features selected by a single model is dangerous as the selection could be a result of overfitting or some initialization anomaly. To avoid depending on single models, we propose a way to reduce the feature set using multiple networks. The procedure is simple; individual models select their $N$ most important features, and each DNN votes for it's chosen inputs. We then aggregate these feature sets by a majority voting scheme to select the $N$ most supported ones. This way, we can ensure that we use only the inputs supported by multiple models, reducing the risk of choosing features due to the previously mentioned problems. Our proposed workflow is depicted in Fig.~\ref{fig:workflow}.

\begin{figure*}[ht]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=11cm]{imgs/workflow.png}
    \caption{General workflow of our proposed input importance-based feature selection system. The saliency maps are computed using the outputs of an ensemble of large DNNs trained on the full feature set. The input importance scores helps us to select features on which we can train a new ensemble of smaller but more focused DNNs.}
    \label{fig:workflow}
\end{figure*}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


What follows, are some heretical thoughts related to DIY hobby.
One of the key questions to solve in context of electronics/radio/repair as a hobby, is the available assortment of parts/details. At Soviet times, all electronic parts (then called radio details) were luxury goods. In 1970-s, while an Soviet average salary was 60 RUB, official KT315 transistor costed 4.50 while Latvian made "Selga" receiver contained 6 of these transistors at 28 RUB pricetag.
These days it is not so evident anymore, whether or not to have an assortment of electronics parts at your hamshack. Provided the parts shop is situated just in the opposite building, there is actually no need to provision parts. But if it is a 30 minutes ride away? This way, if person is not very organized (to the extent of serial killer or so) and if repair is a more frequent action than DIY, a missing resistor means 1 hour delay.
Meanwhile, it is not a secret that much experience actually comes from taking apart somebody's else designs. Quite accidentally, this is where the most scrap yard spare parts come, too. I have repaired to earn but not anymore! Now I earn by shuffling the bits. The habit of taking designs apart and reusing the parts inside of these, has remained. The time waste associated with the measuring and organizing activity is called recreation now and is written into CV as "having a bunch of very technical hobbies" 😉 And believe or not, these parts from old devices (with a notable exclusion – electrolytes) tend to be very reliable, thnx to aging.
In Western society, another approach is possible – to buy these so called "assortments" of electronics parts from China via eBay. The planning cycle turns longer and the hit rate (e.g. having popular parts you actually need) is relatively low. Do you know, which resistor value is most popular while soldering resistors off the old Western electronical devices? Very obviously I know – it is 10 kOhm.
Thus, the main question is: how to organize the parts. It turns out, we have to divide our DIY activities into several stages. The first one is measuring the parts which I'll cover today. The second stage is storing the parts rationally which is a separate topic.
This is my current workhorse (called ESR meter on eBay). I bought it locally as a PCB and paid double because I needed it FAST. As you see, reuse of the electrolytic capacitors is a dubious business.
However, I have to warn you – the zero force socket only will last some 5000 transistors to measure (been there). It also would be clever to open the bolts, drill holes via the PCB and install somewhat longer bolts (that forceful event is scheduled by Chinese to around 500 measurements done). My recommendation: do source a new socket today and take soldering courses meanwhile. 123111 is the order of pins in the upper row, in case of yet nobody told you. Row 2 is a full pin 2 camp.
This is what you see on the PCB. The big blue electrolyte is my own addition.
Of course, of course … some people are only able to steal (oops, to gather everything valuable in Midland). I know. Thus read the huge manuscript of original authors here and think twice before feeding the thieves. And then, feed the thieves and possibly send a beer or a box of it to Herr Karl-Heinz and his friends .
Anyway, somewhat later within a somewhat longer planning cycle, I ordered yet another counterfeit device from eBay, this time together with a transparent box. The cost – a little less than 20EUR. As with anything of Chinese or Russian origin, some DIY has been left on the consumer.
Now let's see what these devices are capable for. Honestly said, they mostly work. The problems arise with non-standard structures like AS431A which frequently show up in old designs and with capacitors below 26 pF.
Regarding the artefacts that Chinese ppl were unable to measure, that polite nation is using euphemisms like "4" (a great joke!). BTW, error message "5" also exist but is more rare.
As intel pros could deduce from the pic, I use 10x averaging. The measuring cycle is still shorter than with cheap ESR meter (9-10 sec due to the missing ads). Vice versa, ESR meters are useful if your input is unsorted (R, C, L) and you need to sort it out fast.
The "immitance meter" was bought as new and unboxed when Soviets left my country and everything was for sale. I paid 10-th of my monthly salary for it which I haven't regretted yet.
And … there exist parts that either devices cannot measure, like 10V Zeners.


Do you need a script for someone special whom you would like to be at the heart of your ceremony?
Do you want an event with a difference, but don't necessarily want to use a celebrant?
Would you like your ceremony delivered by a family member or friend, but you or they don't know where to start with the script?
I am able to offer a script-only service.
One of the most difficult things to do is to actually start the writing process… What do we want to say, how do we want to say it?
I will help relieve some of that pressure, so that you can create your perfect ceremony.
The script is then yours to do with as you wish, to be delivered by the person of your choosing.
Obviously I would still love to be a part of your big day. I love all aspects of the ceremony, from the first meeting to the final delivery. But I do understand time and financial constraints can get in the way, and so maybe this is the service for you?
2 ~ All of the above, with the inclusion of printing your script for the person who will be conducting the ceremony, along with a meeting with that person to talk them through the process of delivering the ceremony. I also provide you with a keepsake copy with a certificate. All of the readings/ vows etc that are to be spoken would also be printed for you as well.
3 ~ As per option 2 with the inclusion of my attendance and help to coordinate a practice so that all your participants are comfortable and know their role on your big day.


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Visit to the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela
Visit to the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela https://www.jimmycricket.co.uk/wp-content/themes/blade/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 mhamer mhamer https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e3e9e71d9bef1ab16642587b224d590b?s=96&d=mm&r=g August 5, 2018 August 5, 2018
Jimmy Cricket has paid a visit to a special cathedral during a day's sight-seeing in north-west Spain.
The well-known Northern Irish entertainer is currently working on a cruise ship which is sailing along the coasts of France, Portugal and Spain.
He and his wife May are on board the Magellan – a sailing vessel belonging to Cruise and Maritime Voyages.
Jimmy posted on social media that he had visited the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, the resting place for the relics of the apostle St James and the finishing point for a popular pilgrimage route, the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St James).
The cathedral is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela and is an integral part of the world heritage site in Galicia.
Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela
cruise and maritime voyages
Molly Malone
Way of St James
Dublin's great genius wit himself… & Molly Malone!
Visiting the Portugal tomb of a football legend

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Nice Price or No Dice
At $6,900, Would You Make A Pass At This 2000 VW Passat 4Motion Wagon?
Rob Emslie
Photo: Craigslist
Today's Nice Price or No Dice Passat 4Motion has done less than 2,000 miles a year over the course of its life. Let's see if that makes it worth digging into your life's savings to buy it.
If you think about Lincoln these days, you probably picture one of its surprisingly competent SUVs or crossovers. That said, you probably can't identify any of those various models by name save for the Navigator. Lincoln does still build cars, two of them in fact. But both of those — the MKZ and the Continental — are already destined to go to car heaven by the end of this model year.
Perhaps that soon-to-be-ex Continental would have done better had its name not been associated with models like yesterday's 1994 Continental Executive. That particular car was in amazing condition for its age and relative lack of fan base. It was that latter lack of enthusiasm for the car, however, that really hurt its chances, even at a modest $3,800 asking. You all helped the seller's chances a bit, giving the Lincoln a decent 65 percent Nice Price win.
Being in better than expected shape can really help out a car's value. Of course, there is that old maxim about polishing a turd, so you do need to start out with something that has a basic level of appeal and then work from there.
This 2000 Volkswagen Passat GLX 4Motion wagon has a certain amount of appeal. It is, after all basically an Audi A4 Avant under its lederhosen, and we all like those. The cherry on top, however, is the extreme lack of exercise that has been asked of the odometer. According to the ad, the car has a mere 38,280 miles on its clock.
It's a three-owner car and comes with a clear title and a recent state safety inspection. Surprisingly for a car sold in the Northeast, this Passat exhibits no signs of rust or excessive paint wear. That paint is Blue Anthracite Pearl and is well-paired with a beige interior. This being a GLX, that interior features leather seating surfaces and fake wood on the dash. Other niceties of the upscale model include automatic climate control, power windows and locks, heated seats and a roof through which you may moon.
Unfortunately, the cabin hasn't held up quite as well as has the exterior. The most evident of this is the significant discoloration seen on both front seats. Along with that, there's also some elbow damage and a missing bit of trim on the driver's door. Other tactile surfaces, including the steering wheel and dash buttons, all look to be in fine shape. The load area shows far less wear and comes with a soft cover to keep that fact a secret.
Power comes from a 30-valve 2.8-liter V6, which again shows its Audi roots. That 190 horsepower mill sits longitudinally under the hood, just ahead of a five-speed Tiptronic automatic transaxle. A Torsen center diff behind that controls the torque to the independently sprung rear end.
The ad says that "everything works as expected" with the car as well as that the "V6 motor is running excellent and the 4-motion (AWD) transmission is shifting smoothly." The seller also states this is "the lowest mileage Passat GLX wagon currently available in the country!"
That's a somewhat dubious distinction, but the low mileage does play in this Passat's favor. The seller obviously thinks so and has set an asking price of $6,900 as a result. That's a lot of beans, but then there is a small but vocal fanbase for these cars. That may just make the price palatable to someone looking for the best they can find.
What do you think, is this the best Passat 4Motion wagon that $6,900 could buy? Or, does that price make you want to Passat out?
You decide!
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Paul T. for the hookup!
Help me out with NPOND. Hit me up at rob@jalopnik.com and send me a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your Kinja handle.
Car BuyingNice Price or No Dice


The afternoon of the game ... Associate Head Coach Eric Henderson and his wife had a baby boy born the afternoon of the 6th. Baby and wife are doing well. Eric celebrated the birth with a victory later that evening!
Awesome! Congrats to Coach Henderson and family.
I understand the value of midcourt seating for paying customers, but there is something to be said for having a huge student body filling one side of the court. That atmosphere brings back memories of when the students filled one side of Frost during our dominant runs during the 1980's. That was loud and an incredible atmosphere to have 6,000 to 9,000 fans filling the stands with the student body being incredible vocal leaders. It was heard to hear your buddy standing next to you. It also amazed me during the 1980's for big games that you had to stand in line outside in cold winter conditions long before the gates opened to assure yourself of a good seat.
The other thing I like about what is happening at GCU is how the stands were so jacked 10 minutes before the game! I understand the music was leading them, but I didn't see any cheerleaders leading the choreographed dancing in the stands nor cheesy graphics leading an orchestrated third quarter SD-SU cheer. It was organic and student lead.
Until recently Grand Canyon University was a "for-profit" school. They generated a ton of money with their online degree mill.
Here's a good story on GCU, granted this is from February, before they changed back to "non-profit" in July (basically to save money on property tax).
Interesting article. Arizona has some deep pockets. So much for the For Profit path. It did not work at GCU.


Clinical studies have shown that supplementation with the amino acid l-arginine spares loss of muscle mass. L-arginine enhances vascular function by increasing nitric oxide, which dilates blood vessels. It also helps clear ammonia from the body. L-arginine is a primary nutrient scavenged by Mycoplasma, and replacement may be beneficial.
Suggested Dosage: 3-6 grams (3000-6000 mg) daily.


Plaid in the summer? Definitely yes, and at Children's Couture we do it best! Tranquil sea greens and blues, with a glimmer of warm tropical sunshine and a sprinkling of white sand beaches, our plaid capris and splash print top are so cool, they're hot!
Our Seychelles Top features a high waist with our pristine signature pintucks, highlighted by our rolling stylized hemline, a definite design statement! Center back fabric-covered button and loop closure with a simple back tie for perfection. Hip length.
Our Seychelles Capris feature our perfectly matched plaid with a breezy summer tie at the hemline for fun. A softly gathered elastic waistband for comfort and room to grow since she'll want to wear this outfit ... well, forever! Below knee length.


Escape to Kauri Cliffs for the perfect retreat.
Enlightened entrepreneurs have long since recognised New Zealand's potential as a haven for those in search of the perfect getaway.
One such pioneer, Julian Robinson, has arguably founded the most palatial of these establishments at Kauri Cliffs. Situated to the north of Auckland on New Zealand's Matauri Bay, this majestic hotel has already been showered with awards. The result is a central lodge of colonial design accompanied by a progeny of designer suites. Each of the 22 guest suites incorporates a private porch, walk-in wardrobe and open fire place. Such homely familiarities create an environment that is both seductive and immediately reassuring.
Kauri Cliffs is the ideal destination for isolation seekers and for those who wish to avoid the aridity associated with other secluded corners in the world. There are 6,500 acres of salubrious parkland flanking a coastline ornamented by a series of half-submerged peaks. Built into the architecture of this invigorating landscape is a world class golf course. The 72-par Championship course, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, is as much a delight to wander through as it is to play.
Although golf is one of the hotel's key selling features, do not be afraid if, like me, the thought of lush fairways and putting greens does not set your heart on fire. Whilst friends and partners scurry off to compare golf handicaps, there are a multitude of other pleasures which, for us dissenters, are all the more intoxicating. Gourmet picnics, boar hunting and spa treatments – to name but a few – can all be enjoyed on-site at Kauri Cliffs.
Peak season at the lodge is between December and March and it is advisable to book early. Regarding transfers, if the 4 hour drive from Auckland seems unnecessarily strenuous there is a local airport at Kerikeri. Failing that, private helicopters can be arranged on request.


The 1962 Dutch Grand Prix was the eleventh time the Dutch Grand Prix (or Grote Prijs van Nederland) motor race was held. The race also held the honorary designation of the 22nd European Grand Prix. It was run to Formula One regulations as the opening round of the 1962 World Drivers' Championship on 20 May 1962. It was held over 80 laps of the compact 2.6 mile Circuit Park Zandvoort for a race distance of just over 200 miles.
It was won by British driver Graham Hill driving a BRM P57. It was the first Grand Prix victory for the future dual-World Champion and the second time a BRM driver had won the race after Jo Bonnier in 1959. Hill finished over 27 seconds ahead of Team Lotus driver Trevor Taylor driving a Lotus 25. The reigning World Champion, Ferrari's Phil Hill (Ferrari 156) completed the podium.


Solutions Generation is a management consultant company which offers advice to help businesses improve their performance.
Find out what people are saying about places on Larch Road.
Map showing Larch Road in Glasgow.


Getting started is as easy as ever! Arthur Murray Dance Studio is a great place to prepare for weddings, formal dances, or other special occasions. Schedule classes with our dance instructors to impress everybody at your next big event! Ballroom dancing is a fun, exciting way to get exercise and stay healthy! Why spend hours on the same treadmill at the gym when you could be dancing the night away getting fit and having fun? All of our students start with a private 30-minute Introductory Consultation. The first step is to schedule your introductory lesson with one of our trained instructors. During that lesson, your instructor will determine your current level and recommend an appropriate course for you to continue.


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Tag Archive for: Jeff Denham
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Military Connection: Enlist Act Reintroduced
May 22, 2015 /0 Comments/in Military, Military Blog
Originally introduced to Congress on June 14, 2013, the ENLIST Act proposes that aliens unlawfully present in the United States would be permitted to enlist in the armed forces. Upon completion of service and honorably discharged, individuals would be considered legal permanent residents and then be eligible to apply for citizenship.
The bill was proposed by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.). In 2013, the criteria would require that the individual would have been brought to the United States as a youth, younger than 15, and had been continually present in the U.S. since December, 2011. Additionally, the criteria requires the individual to meet the enlistment requirements, such as the ability to speak English, pass a background test, and be a high school graduate.
The proposal was originally faced with mixed support. It was suggested that it be debated as a stand-alone measure, and ultimately the House GOP leaders would not grant a vote on the House floor. Denham recently reintroduced the proposal both as a separate bill and an amendment to the annual national defense authorization. He is one of few Republicans who has endorsed comprehensive immigration reform; feeling strongly about the issue, his constituents are comprised of a large Hispanic population. In bringing attention to the bill once more, he articulated that these individuals have embraced this nation, and feel impassioned to defend it as their own.
"As a matter of military readiness and national defense, if the Department of Defense changes its criteria, that is something that I would welcome," Denham said at a recent news conference. His comments were delivered with a group of young, undocumented immigrants at his side who said they wanted to serve in the armed forces.
While still faced with considerable criticism, Denham is hopeful that the ENLIST Act will secure a vote on the House floor sometime this year.
Military Connection: Enlist Act Reintroduced: By Debbie Gregory
Mitalis https://militaryconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/mc-logo2.png Mitalis2015-05-22 08:00:452015-05-22 08:00:45Military Connection: Enlist Act Reintroduced


Laptop? Check. Cell phone? Check. Self? Hmmmm.
Many people are familiar with the Benedictines' motto of "work and prayer." That is, Benedictines seek to balance prayer time and work time. Today, however, Sr. Antoinette helped us explore what it should really mean in practice.


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Gary Neville makes claim about Arsenal ahead of FA Cup clash with Man City
Gary Neville says Arsenal's players were fighting for their places at Wembley against Middlesbrough on Monday night
Wednesday 19 April 2017, 00:15 UK
Manchester United legend Gary Neville Photo: Sky Sports
Gary Neville has claimed that some of Arsenal's players stepped their game up in the 2-1 win at Middlesbrough on Monday night because they were playing for their places in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City.
The Gunners returned to winning ways in the top flight with a battling win at the Riverside Stadium thanks to goals from Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil.
The win was a welcome one for the north London side and handed Arsene Wenger's men a much-needed boost ahead of their FA Cup semi-final clash against Manchester City at Wembley on Sunday afternoon.
And former Manchester United defender Neville has claimed that some of Arsenal's players were clearly trying to prove themselves to Wenger ahead of Sunday's showdown.
Speaking on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football, Neville said: "It takes the pressure off before that big game at the weekend.
"I think tonight we saw a lot of players playing for their places at Wembley. There was a lot of effort in that game tonight from Arsenal's players."
Monday's win left Arsenal in sixth place in the Premier League table but the Gunners know that they can move to within three points of third-placed Liverpool if they win their two games in hand over the Reds.
Guillem Balague provides latest update on Liverpool's transfer link to exciting attacker
Ian Wright makes claim about Man United signings, fans will be excited


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Computer & Software Products & Electr...
45CRESCENT
45CRESCENT Trademark Information
Trademark by STRATEGY SELECT LLC
Range finders for golf
Computer & Software Products & Electrical & Scientific Products
range finders golf
This is a brand page for the 45CRESCENT trademark by STRATEGY SELECT LLC in *********, **********, ***** ****.
Write a review about a product or service associated with this 45CRESCENT trademark. Or, contact the owner STRATEGY SELECT LLC of the 45CRESCENT trademark by filing a request to communicate with the Legal Correspondent for licensing, use, and/or questions related to the 45CRESCENT trademark.
On Monday, December 18, 2017, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for 45CRESCENT. The USPTO has given the 45CRESCENT trademark serial number of 87724959. The current federal status of this trademark filing is ABANDONED - NO STATEMENT OF USE FILED. The correspondent listed for 45CRESCENT is ERIN A. MARTIN of ********,********, ***** **** . The 45CRESCENT trademark is filed in the category of Computer & Software Products & Electrical & Scientific Products . The description provided to the USPTO for 45CRESCENT is Range finders for golf.
Scientific, nautical, surveying, photographic, cinematographic, optical, weighing, measuring, signalling, checking (supervision), life-saving and teaching apparatus and instruments; apparatus and instruments for conducting, switching, transforming, accumulating, regulating or controlling electricity; apparatus for recording, transmission or reproduction of sound or images; magnetic data carriers, recording discs; automatic vending machines and mechanisms for coin operated apparatus; cash registers, calculating machines, data processing equipment and computers; fire extinguishing apparatus.
Word mark: 45CRESCENT
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Goods and Services: Range finders for golf
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Trademarkia-Network law firms can help you incorporate a business around your 45CRESCENT trademark in less than 5 minutes. Trademarkia makes the process easy and convenient, so start now!
ERIN A. MARTIN is a correspondent of 45CRESCENT trademark.
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45CRESCENT is providing Range finders for golf.


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Category: Wearables
[Tip] Get your Android Wear Watch Face Fix with Facerepo
Are you one of those people who likes to swap watch faces all the time? If so, I found a site that will take care of your addiction (don't have to be addicted though). FaceRepo is basically a repository of a lot of watch faces - round and square. In order to use them, you will need to download Facer ($0.99) from ...
Moto 360 battery life 'dramatically improved' thanks to latest update (YMMV)
The Moto 360 was most anticipated Android Wear smart watches in the tech community. Upon its release, many users and media members reported that its battery life isn't a great as everyone as expected . In fact, Samsung and LG Android Wear watches were better in that department. That may not be the case anymore ...
ICYMI: Moto 360 smartwatch with Stone leather strap available at Best Buy (updated)
Not even available on Motorola.com,the Moto 360 with the Stone Leather strap is now available at Best Buy for delivery only. This is basically the same stainless steel watch you'd get with the gray-colored strap. This one here looks a little better than the gray in my opinion. The Moto 360 is out of stock at ...
Possible LG smartwatch with 3G connectivity hits the FCC
The wearable industry, although still new, is gaining popularity with both consumers and manufacturers. The introduction of Android Wear which is Google's operating system for wearables is pushing manufacturers to expand their product portfolio to appeal to the masses. One of those manufacturers, LG, has been ...
Samsung Gear S on its way to U.S. carriers this fall
Announced less than a month ago, the Gear S, a Tizen-powered Samsung smartwatch, will be available through AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon Wireless this fall. We first learned about it from T-Mobile who mentioned that the curved watch will be sold on their Equipment Installment Plan (EIP) and that they'll share ...
LG makes a G Watch R product movie, reminds us that it doesn't have a sensor bar
The Moto 360, the only round Android smartwatch out now, is going to see some competition from the upcoming LG Watch R. One of its biggest pet peeves has been its battery life which is all over the place. It also has an ambient sensor which annoyingly blocks the bottom section on the watch - LG made a 2-minute ...
It's Time: The Moto 360 smartwach goes on sale again in limited quantities
Since it's release, the Moto 360 has been the hottest smartwatch to buy. All of the retailers including Motorola, have sold out. Best Buy had some this past weekend but they were quickly gone. As promised, Motorola now has it on sale for $250 with free shipping. Both the black and gray colors are available. We ...
Android Wear smartwatch Com 1 hits Indiegogo, promises 2-day battery life
There is no denying that Wearables are a thing of the future. The first generation Android Wear smartwatches including the Moto 360 cannot last more than a day at best. A company called COM based out of Brooklyn, New York started an Indiegogo campaign for a new Android-Wear-powered watch called Com1.Starting at ...
PSA: Best Buy will carry the Moto 360 tomorrow according to flyer (update: sold out)
Are you still in the hunt for a Moto 360? Or is Motorola messing up your orders? According to Best Buy's newspaper flyer for tomorrow, you may be able to score one. In the ad, you can see that both the black (SKU: 8307152) and gray (SKU: 8307143) will be on sale. The Moto 360 is currently sold out at ...
[Deal] LG G Watch Refurbished $89.99 at CowBoom (Update: Sold Out)
Cowboom is a website that is owned by Best Buy where products are offered at low prices because they're either open boxes or refurbished.I have bought several items from them and have been pretty satisfied with the quality of the merchandise. Today, CowBoom is offering the LG G Watch, refurbished, for $89.99 ...
Early 2015 is when we'll see the HTC Smartwatch
Rumors about an HTC smartwatch have been floating around the web for a little while. HTC has even come out and denied that they're building one. According to a report from CNET, HTC is planning to release a smartwatch in early 2015. If this report happens to be true. HTC is probably working on something as ...
Still looking for a Moto 360? Try this tool to track it in the Play Store, Best Buy and Motorola
The talk in the tech world right now is about the Moto 360, Motorola's first smartwatch. It is beautiful, sexy and round. It runs on Android Wear and receives updates directly from Google. An indication that this watch is hot now. It is sold out everywhere. Well except in eBay where they're selling for almost ...
Samsung Galaxy Gear S Hands On
The Samsung Galaxy Gear S was announced last week. Samsung decided to load it with its own Tizen OS instead with Android Wear. I have to admit that Tizen isn't that bad at all and I would even go further and say that it is a little more advanced than Android Wear. Battery life for one is much much better. The ...
Moto 360 with Metal Band available for pre-order at Verizon, ships on November 11
When the Moto 360 was initially announced, only the ones with the leather bands were made available. The models with steel bands were st to launch sometimes before the end of the year. Although not available at Motorola.com, the metal-banded Moto 360 can now be pre-ordered from Verizon with a November 11 delivery ...
[Deal] Pebble, Pebble Steel on sale for $99, $199 respectively through Facebook
With everything that has been going with Android Wear this week, Pebble has decided to start a sale on both of their smartwatches, the OG Pebble and the Pebble Steel. If you're looking for days and days of battery life, you can grab both for $99 and $199 respectively. The Deal is available through the company's ...
PSA: The Moto 360 is now available through Best Buy (updated)
When Motorola announced the Moto 360 earlier today, they mentioned that you could pre-order at 11AM CT via their website and other authorized retailers such as Best Buy. If this is the place where you planning to buy it any way, you should know that the black model of the watch is now available. One caveat though, ...
You can buy a Moto 360 later on today at 12 PM EST from Motorola.com, Best Buy
The wait is finally over. Motorola has finally re-announced the release of their circular Android-Wear-powered smartwatch. If you have been patiently waiting to grab one, you can do so today at Noon Eastern time (11 AM CT). It will be available via Motorola.com, Google Play. Best Buy B&M, BestBuy.com and some ...
[Official] The Android Wear Powered ASUS ZenWatch is here
Today has been a really busy day at IFA 214. A slew of Android devices were announced including wearables. ASUS, the ever popular laptop and tablet maker, unveiled the ZenWatch, an Android-Wear powered smartwatch. And it does really look different when compared to the other smartwatches such as the Gear Live or ...
[Deal] Best buy has the LG G Watch on sale for $179, that's $50 off
This is a pretty decent deal if you're in the market for a smartwatch. Best Buy has the LG G Watch on sale for $179.99, which is $50 off the regular price of $229.99. The deal will probably go until Saturday, September 5. Unless, this is a permanent price drop in the heels of the G Watch R launch. We have not ...
European price of the G Watch R found to be €299, thanks to LG Germany
As you guys may already know, LG announced their newest smartwatch the G Watch R last night. The letter "R" stands for round which is what the watch is. This LG's attempt at competing with the ever-popular-unreleased Moto 360. Both watches are pretty similar in terms of specs but not really on design - except for ...


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San Sebastián de Garabandal (em português: São Sebastião de Garabandal), mas normalmente chamada apenas de Garabandal, é uma aldeia rural situada na montanha de Peña Sagra, na região norte de Espanha. Localizada na comunidade autónoma de Cantábria, a cerca de 600 metros de altitude, Garabandal fica a cerca de 55 quilômetros de Santander, capital cantábrica, e a cerca de 400 quilômetros da capital espanhola, Madrid. Estima-se que a sua população ronde, atualmente, os 300 habitantes.

As aparições de Garabandal

Desde 1961 até 1965, quatro meninas, de onze e doze anos de idade – Mari Loli Mazón, Jacinta Gonzalez, Mari Cruz Gonzalez e Conchita Gonzalez –, afirmaram ter recebido inúmeras aparições e mensagens de São Miguel Arcanjo e da Santíssima Virgem Maria (sob a advocação mariana de Nossa Senhora do Monte Carmelo). Em quase 3.000 aparições públicas, elas constituíram um dos fenómenos sobrenaturais mais extraordinários do final do século XX, com momentos de quedas em êxtase por parte das meninas videntes, comunhões eucarísticas milagrosas, entre outros. Tais eventos foram testemunhados por milhares de pessoas e registradas em fotografias e gravações de vídeo.

Milagres
As aparições marianas eram acompanhadas de fenômenos extraordinários que os médicos não puderam comprovar. Os momentos de êxtase apresentavam uma insensibilidade à dor quando as jovens eram picadas com agulhas ou quando as queimavam com pontas de cigarro. Os seus corpos adquiriam um peso extraordinário que não era possível levantá-las, nem sequer fazer um pequeno movimento dos seus membros. Quando luzes eram jogadas os seus olhos enquanto contemplavam a aparição, a expressão dos seus rostos não era perturbada. Além disso, corriam até ao lugar da visão e chegavam antes das outras pessoas sem sinais de esforço físico, ao passo que os demais chegavam cansados. Caiam de forma repentina com os joelhos sobre as rochas sem se machucar e caminhavam em êxtase pelas ruas com a cabeça totalmente levantada, com os olhos fixos no alto durante todo o tempo.

Mensagens da Virgem
Em outubro de 1961, Nossa Senhora comunicou primeiro a Conchita sobre o Grande Milagre, depois comunicando às outras três videntes. Conchita disse que será numa quinta-feira às 20h30 da noite e durará quinze minutos, onde um sinal ficará visível nos "pinos" até o fim dos tempos.

A segunda mensagem da Virgem Maria aconteceu em 18 de Junho de 1965, quando revelou:

O Grande Milagre coincidirá com um grande evento eclesial, todos os enfermos presentes ficarão curados, os pecadores serão convertidos e os incrédulos acreditarão. Conchita anunciará com oito dias de antecedência a data do Milagre. Antes do Milagre haverá um aviso sobrenatural que virá diretamente de Deus para nos preparar.

O aviso se verá no Céu e em todo o mundo e será sentido por todos, qualquer que seja a sua condição e conhecimento de Deus, exatamente ao mesmo tempo. Será uma experiência terrível, no entanto será para o bem das nossas almas, porque veremos no interior de nós mesmos, na nossa consciência, o bem e o mal que fizemos. Deus deseja a nossa salvação. Portanto, o Aviso não tem como finalidade o temor, mas que possamos acercarmo-nos mais Dele e que tenhamos mais fé. Se depois do Milagre o mundo não mudar, virá um castigo.

A posição da Igreja Católica
A Igreja Católica esteve bastante atenta aos acontecimentos ocorridos em Garabandal. A principal vidente, Conchita Gonzalez, por exemplo, foi notificada para comparecer em Roma duas vezes. Na primeira vez, em 1966, foi convocada pelo Cardeal Alfredo Ottaviani, Prefeito do Santo Ofício (agora chamada Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé), o qual a interrogou na presença de outros membros dessa alta instância eclesiástica. Durante essa visita ao Vaticano, Conchita foi ainda convidada para uma audiência privada com o Papa Paulo VI que lhe dirigiu estas palavras:

Mais tarde, ainda o Papa Paulo VI se pronunciou publicamente sobre o assunto dizendo:

Foi também durante a sua primeira viagem a Roma que Conchita Gonzalez visitou San Giovanni Rotondo, onde foi recebida pelo famoso santo estigmatizado Padre Pio de Pietrelcina. Diretamente relacionado com a história das aparições de Garabandal, o Padre Pio confirmou a veracidade das manifestações celestes às quatro meninas do norte de Espanha. Na verdade, Nossa Senhora já tinha, em 1962, prometido de este sacerdote assistiria, por antecipação, ao Milagre de Garabandal.

Em Dezembro de 1967, Conchita Gonzalez foi chamada novamente a Roma, mas desta vez pelo Cardeal Franjo Seper, sucessor do Cardeal Alfredo Ottaviani como Perfeito da Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé. Realizou essa segunda viagem em Fevereiro de 1968. Não se souberam grandes pormenores sobre o encontro, na medida em que a Santa Sé impôs a Conchita total silêncio acerca desse mesmo encontro com os superiores eclesiásticos.

Fátima e Garabandal
A relação entre as aparições de Fátima e as aparições de Garabandal foi explicada por Dom João Pereira Venâncio, Bispo de Leiria e Fátima, o qual testemunhou:

Padre Pio e Garabandal
Entre os defensores das aparições e mensagens de Garabandal contaram-se nomes importantes no seio da Igreja Católica como os de Madre Teresa de Calcutá e Padre Pio de Pietrelcina. Madre Teresa foi madrinha de batismo de um dos filhos de Conchita. No caso do santo estigmatizado italiano, é-lhe publicamente conhecida uma carta de encorajamento e apelo às meninas videntes de Garabandal datada de 3 de março de 1962 e escrita pelo seu próprio punho:

Leituras recomendadas
 Padre Eusébio Garcia de Pesquera; Subiu depressa à Montanha - As aparições de Garabandal (1º Volume). Requião: Edições Boa Nova.
 Padre Eusébio Garcia de Pesquera; Subiu depressa à Montanha - As aparições de Garabandal (2º Volume). Requião: Edições Boa Nova.
 Padre Eusébio Garcia de Pesquera; Subiu depressa à Montanha - As aparições de Garabandal (3º Volume). Requião: Edições Boa Nova.
 Associação Cultural Tudo Instaurar em Cristo; As aparições e mensagens de Garabandal vistas à luz dos nossos tempos. Mem Martins: A.C.T.I.C., 1996.
 Revista Garabandal (versão em português) - Edição do Apostolado de Garabandal em Portugal
 Garabandal, um chamamento urgente à conversão - Edição do Apostolado de Garabandal em Portugal

Ver também

 Aparições marianas
 Nossa Senhora das Lágrimas
 Nossa Senhora de Fátima
 Santuário de Fátima
 Nossa Senhora de Medugorje

Ligações externas
 As aparições de Nossa Senhora em Garabandal – Página dedicada às aparições marianas de Garabandal.
 Garabandal: Só Deus sabe – Filme cinematográfico sobre as aparições de Garabandal (2018)
 Apostolado de Garabandal em língua portuguesa (Brasil e Portugal) – Site oficial em Português sobre as aparições de Nossa Senhora em Garabandal.
 Obreiros de Nossa Senhora do Monte Carmelo de Garabandal – Esta organização foi fundada por Joey Lomangino em Lindenhurst, Nova York (1968).
 Vídeos de Garabandal – Video-clips das aparições, incluindo testemunhos do Bispo José Viliplana de Santander e do Cardeal Franjo Seper.
 Peregrinações a Garabandal – no site do Apostolado de Garabandal em língua portuguesa

Aparições marianas
Cantábria
Lugares de peregrinação cristã em Espanha
Igreja Católica na Espanha

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Earlier this month, I participated for two days in The Big Read Holland Area. Holland is located on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. The first Europeans who settled there were — you guessed it — from the Netherlands.
Holland's nickname is "The Tulip City." This whimsical sculpture by Stuart Padnos stands in front of the Holland Area Arts Council.
My experience in Holland was simply powerful. Rarely does an experience resonate in so many ways: as a writer, former teacher, politically conscious citizen, and human being.
The Big Read, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, is a program that provides grants annually to about 75 communities across America. Led by Associate Professor Deb Van Duinen of Hope College, Holland received its fourth consecutive grant this year. They're doing something right!
I had the joy of seeing a community putting NEA's aim into action — particularly refreshing during this time of national turmoil.
For this year's Big Read, Holland chose Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine, a heartbreaking novel about a family's experiences before, during, and after the Japanese American internment. Built around this novel and the internment, Holland offered a month-long array of programs incorporating book clubs, lectures, visual arts, music, film, and so on.
The Big Read is not just for adults! The committee chose my book, A Place Where Sunflowers Grow, so that kids would have an accessible book about the Japanese American internment. A committee member told me that 600-700 copies of my book were distributed in the community. Wow! What an honor to think that so many kids in Holland have my book in their hands.
As you may imagine, the internment is a difficult subject to discuss with young people. The last thing I want to do, in my personal or professional life, is to crush a kid's spirit. On the contrary, I try my best to lift up.
Whenever I share my book and give a program, I walk a fine line between educating kids about this dark chapter of American history and trying to inspire feelings of hope for their lives and our country. It feels like, and is, a tremendous responsibility.
Why were there guns?" He was referring to the guards who pointed guns toward the internees from the watchtowers.
At the library and at the schools, I spoke with a total of about 600 kids. What an opportunity to reach so many young people about the internment!
Yet my primary goal was to connect with them, in one way or another. I think that when we experience connections, it's hard not to care about each other and the world. And I think that connections can also foster hope. Don't we all need more hope these days?
…and Felicia Hoshino's illustrations which were, in part, inspired by my grandmother's art. Do you see the girl in the red cape in both pieces?
I asked kids to think about what it is they love doing and encouraged them to nurture that love. What brings you joy? What brings you peace? Their faces lit up and they were eager to share.
Of course, I read and took questions.
You never know what someone might connect with, and it was eye-opening to see the range of connections that students made during my visits.
Still others focused on personal experience. Between school visits, I heard that my book resonated with a student whose parent had been removed from home due to immigration issues.
Then there was a question that cut through the weight of the subject matter and made me chuckle: How old were you during WWII? You gotta love kids!
At one of the schools, I offered a high-five to students as they were filing out of the gym. I was surprised to be offered hug after hug. Ever mindful of physical boundaries, I repeatedly said, "You don't have to hug me." But many students chose to give a hug over a high-five.
In addition to kids, I had the pleasure of connecting with adults in Holland. I shared a yummy lunch with Hope College students who serve on the college committee of The Big Read Holland Area. It's a big operation (and even includes a high school committee). These bright students are getting it done!
I also shared a long dinner with two wonderful librarians, Anne Harrison and Anne Pott, who serve on the main committee of The Big Read Holland Area. Dinner was scrumptious, the company lovely, and the conversation meaningful. Could I love librarians more? Authors and librarians (and teachers) share a special bond when it comes to books and kids.
With Anne Pott (front) and Anne Harrison (back), celebrating The Big Read Holland Area.
I asked the waitress for a menu to take home as a memento. Salt of the Earth seemed like a fitting description of the evening and of my experience in Holland.
I went to Holland hoping, most of all, to connect with people. I did and left with a renewed sense of hope — born of a community's commitment to learning and growing, even when the conversation gets difficult. As with most things in life, going through the process can bring on something positive.
I found this downtown — footsteps leading up to an inspiring sculpture.
The President aims to start shutting down the National Endowment for the Arts in 2018. NEA programs like The Big Read, which reach millions of Americans, would cease to exist. It's hard to fathom the loss that this would cause in our country, both individually and collectively. Please click here to read about it and to speak up for the arts.
I often quote Kate DiCamillo: "Stories connect us." I think the same goes for all of the arts. They have a way of sparking connections within and between people, sometimes in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.
My first time spotting a fireplace on a sidewalk!
Thank you, Holland, for your warm welcome. As 2017 comes to a close, I'll remember my time there as one of the brightest spots of my year!


text:
>Album Review: "Live At The Olympia" by R.E.M.
Posted on November 26, 2009 by spydabass
pretty sure Stipe stopped wearing that stupid facepaint for these shows
Oh hey! Today is Thanksgiving in these United States! I hope most of you have enjoyed your turkey and stuffing and gravy and naptime. To celebrate this holiday of thanks I will go ahead and write about a band that I have written about many times before and has nothing to do with Thanksgiving: R.E.M.
R.E.M. are one of my favorite bands ever. I have made this pretty obvious in the past, but it is worth repeating. They are a band that cuts me deep, you see. So when I heard they were putting out a double-disc live album, one that was getting more-than-decent reviews, I figured it was worth a shot. And not only was I not disappointed – I was enthralled. I mean, I expected quality, but I did not expect this much quality. For a huge R.E.M. fan like myself, it is a special treat.
Perhaps some context is necessary. R.E.M., surprisingly enough, have issued only two official live albums in their entire 25+ year existence – and they've both been released only in the past couple years. The first one, R.E.M. Live, came out in '07 and focused on a few 2005 shows in support of Around the Sun, quite possibly the least exciting R.E.M. album ever released. And the tracklisting bore this out: not only was Sun the most represented album there with a whopping six tracks, but most of the other songs were the usual, predictable hits (a little "Losing My Religion" here, a little "Everybody Hurts" there) and questionable album cuts (like "So Fast So Numb," a decent but middling selection from the otherwise lovely New Adventures In Hi Fi, and "I Took Your Name" from the always-bleghh Monster). As for their classic I.R.S. albums, "Cuyahoga" was the only out-of-nowhere choice there; otherwise, they were barely represented. The band sounded OK, but the album was nothing that was going to bring anybody back to the R.E.M. fold after almost a decade of mediocre albums. If anything, the band sounded more out of touch than ever, trotting out their biggest hits without much gusto. It was, in a word, depressing.
Fast forward to the present. We now have R.E.M. Live At The Olympia, a two-disc 39-song set recorded during their "working rehearsal" shows in July 2007. At this point, Around The Sun had been thoroughly panned and ignored, and the band were determined to write better material for their next record in the face of rapidly thinning fan support. Most of those new songs are previewed here, and would eventually see official release on 2008's Accelerate, far and away their best album in a decade; so while it's the most represented record on here, it at least deserves to be, unlike Around the Sun. And as for their older songs, well, let me put it this way: besides Accelerate, the most represented albums on here are (in descending order) Reckoning, Fables Of The Reconstruction, and Chronic Town (FOUR songs from Chronic Town – that's one song shy of the whole thing). Coming from a band whose setlists have been painfully 90's-heavy since, well, the 90's, this is pretty remarkable; I mean, maybe Reckoning isn't a huge shock, but Fables Of The Reconstruction? With FIVE songs?! And so much of Chronic Town? These are albums most R.E.M. fans assumed they had just plain forgotten about – and maybe they had, considering how cautious they are in the introductions to each older song (especially on "Kohoutek" where Peter Buck goes as far as to say to Michael Stipe, "You should probably apologize to the audience before we play this – it could be bad").
The important thing is, though, that these old hits sound great. I mean, it doesn't hurt that they're great songs to begin with – the early-mid 80's were a good time for this band – but here they sound even more energetic than ever. I can't imagine songs like "Maps and Legends" and especially "1,000,000" sounding better; they play these older hits as if they were Lifes Rich Pageant or Accelerate songs, with more muscular guitarwork and front-and-center vocals (Michael Stipe is in really good voice the whole way through – just saying). It's really something, man. And as for the less-represented albums on here, the song choices are surprisingly top-notch. What would you expect from Document: maybe "The One I Love" and "It's The End Of the World"? Try "Welcome To The Occupation" and oh-my-lord-yes "Disturbance At The Heron House." Murmur gets "Sitting Still"(!!) and "West of the Fields"; Lifes Rich Pageant gets "Cuyahoga" and "These Days"; and the wrongs of R.E.M. Live are thankfully righted with the inclusion of "New Test Leper" and "Electrolite" from New Adventures, two of the honest-to-goodness most beautiful songs in the band's catalog. There are times when I almost feel like this setlist was tailor made for me.
But there could be some complaints. If you are more of a fan of R.E.M.'s more commercially successful late 80's-early 90's work, this record will sadden you deeply. There's nothing from Green or Out Of Time here, and only one song each from Automatic For The People and Monster. Speaking as a diehard Automatic fan, this is a little upsetting, since its one song here – "Drive" – was also on R.E.M. Live (still sounds great though, and at least it's not the horrible "rock" version they used to play on the Monster tour). But it's a testament to the quality of this live release that I honestly don't even notice they're missing most of the time. Those old hits are just so overwhelmingly well played that it just doesn't matter. And hey – "Circus Envy," from Monster, sounds a lot better here than it has any right to.
As for the newer songs, well. Accelerate's songs are still wonderful, even in their early incarnations (and I am reminded that "Living Well Is The Best Revenge," which kicks off the first disc, might be the best song they've recorded in the past decade). There's also a couple of unreleased tracks intended for Accelerate that didn't quite make the cut: the so-so rocker "Staring Down The Barrel Of The Middle Distance" and the kinda-boring "On The Fly" which finds the band still grappling with the dull-as-nails Around The Sun sound. And speaking of that album, "The Worst Joke Ever" is on here, and isn't much more exciting than the album version. "I've Been High" from Reveal fares a little better – definitely a pretty song, but not a remarkable one. These are the only songs taken from their last few albums, however, and they stick out like a sore thumb (they are literally the SLOWEST SONGS EVER WRITTEN). It just goes to show how eager they were back in the post-Sun fallout to reconnect with the sound that made them great. Listening to this show all the way though, it is easy to see why Accelerate turned out so damn good.
Oh sure, you could trifle a bit with the song choices (as I just did). You could even think to yourself, "hey, maybe these live songs sound a little TOO good to not have been meticulously overdubbed," but then you would just be a nagging nelly, wouldn't you? Honestly, if you are an R.E.M. fan of any stripe, this is essential listening – ESPECIALLY if you fell off the wagon after Bill Berry left and haven't even bothered giving Accelerate a chance. This one, unlike the last live album, will convince you. This release reminds me happily of when I saw these guys live last year, just being shocked at how re-energized, charismatic, and entertaining they were. And hey, they brought out "Ignoreland" and "Find The River" for that show, so I'll excuse their exclusion of Automatic tracks on here for now. Consider us even, band I love so dearly!!
I'll end this with a couple videos for you to see: one from one of the Dublin rehearsals, with them playing "Romance," a B-side they hadn't played in about twenty years. (Stipe is reading from a lyric sheet, which I'm sure he had to do for most of these old songs.):
Also as a bonus, and old live version of one of my favorite Out of Time tracks, "Half A World Away" (which, in a perfect world, would be on this thing):
This entry was posted in album review, chronic town, live at the olympia, live music, music, r.e.m., r.e.m. live, reckoning by spydabass. Bookmark the permalink.
2 thoughts on ">Album Review: "Live At The Olympia" by R.E.M."
james on November 30, 2009 at 8:37 am said:
>Hey, just some random guy here. I stumbled upon your blog and I find your opinions interesting, so I figured I'd request an album.It's "Angel dust" by Faith No More. It seems a good deal odder than most stuff you've reviewed, so I'd like to see your take on it.Thanks, peace out!
Sean Rose on December 6, 2009 at 7:29 pm said:
>Thanks dude! Nice request, I will get on that whenever I get the chance.And by that I mean, I will get on that whenever I finish up all these other backed up requested reviews I have to do. I apologize if it takes me a while to review your request. 😦 But I promise I will at some point!


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::: Home Events
ANiMAL-Art Science Nature Society
Post date:2019-12-19
Updates:2019-12-19
Add to calendar (iOS) Add to calendar (Google)
No.221, Sec. 2, Zhishan Rd., Shilin Dist., Taipei City Taiwan, R.O.C
"As a biologist, I can't think of myself as anything but an animal among animals and plant."-Barbara Kingsolver
"Just as our ancient ancestors drew animals on cave walls and carved animals from wood and bone, we decorate our homes with animal prints and motifs, give our children stuffed animals to clutch, cartoon animals to watch, animal stories to read."-Diane Ackerman
"We are the storytelling animal."- Salman Rushdie
ANiMAL - Art Science Nature Society is a storytelling exhibition about the animal world seen through the lenses of Art, Science, Nature and Society.
During the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty, Ferdinand Verbiest illustrated the Kunyu Quantu, a world map used to impart geophysical knowledge to Emperor Kangxi. The map included over twenty animal illustrations as well as descriptions of their habitats, implying a possibility to perceive the world through a deeper understanding of the animals. Animals are an elemental presence in our cognizance of the world; they occupy virtually all of earth's habitats and microhabitats, and they have been the subject of art since the earliest times of cave paintings. Insects, birds and mammals play compelling roles in literature and film, and they are the enduring protagonists in mythology and religion. The human population exploits a large number of animal species for food, while animal pets provide their owners with physical and emotional benefits. Zoological studies of the animal kingdom are already evident in the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, India and China, and the Graeco-Romans are credited with creating the modern science of biology.
The ANiMAL exhibition seeks to weave these threads together into a compelling narrative that elucidates our multi-various interactions with the animal domain via the treasury of animal-related artworks in the collection of the National Palace Museum. This aesthetic trajectory is conjoined with the One Health sciences, coming out of CityU's new Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, the critical practices of contemporary art championed by CityU's School of Creative Media.
The exhibition also flags today's growing threats to animal life posed for example by climate change, environmental degradation and poaching. Most importantly, the insights provided in the field of Animal Studies have increased our respect for animal sentience, acknowledging their ability to perceive and feel things, and hopefully changing our behavior accordingly.
The narrative artery that runs through this exhibition is also expressed materially in its design, both delineate and bind together the five main chapters offered the visitor in this journey of engagement through the Exhibition Gallery:
Encyclopaedia, compendia and scientific inquiry
Auspicious symbols and homophonic puns
Mythical creatures and bestiaries from fantasy to manufactury and the popular imaginary
The harmony and disharmonies of animal and nature
A.A. Milne wrote: "Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though." The ANiMAL exhibition invites its visitors to listen to the extraordinary web of stories that emanate from the animal world, stories that we in turn build upon and project back to create a condition of universal wonder and inspiration.
The Beigou Legacy: The National Palace Museum's Early Years in Taiwan
2021 Taipei Camellias Show


text:
package proj.me.imagewindow.images.dimentions;

import java.util.List;

/**
 * Created by root on 23/3/16.
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public class BeanShade2 extends BeanShade1{
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        this.addInLayout = addInLayout;
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    public void setHeight2(int height2) {
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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text:
86-Year-Old Beats COVID-19, Greeted by Family At Hospital
Wednesday, April 29th 2020, 5:34 pm
By: Brian Mueller
Lori and Gerald Hightower were patiently waiting to see their mother in-person for the first time in more than a month.
She was supposed to come down at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, but she was fashionably late at 11:15 a.m.
Mary Ann Hightower spent a total of 35 days in the hospital and at Integris Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation. She battled and beat COVID-19.
At one point, she even ripped the ventilator out of her mouth because it was uncomfortable.
The 35 days felt like an eternity for Mary Ann Hightower's children. They stayed connected with their mom via FaceTime, calling at least twice a day.
Now that Mary Ann Hightower has a clean bill of health, she knows just what she's going to do when she gets home.
"Well, we have five acres. I think I'm going to go out and take a walk," Mary Ann Hightower said.
Brian Mueller 86-Year-Old Beats COVID-19, Greeted by Family At Hospital
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