Purpose: This study was conducted to identify the factors associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) risk in patients with metabolic syndrome (MS). Methods: Patients with MS between 30 and 74 years of age were recruited in an outpatient clinic of a cardiovascular center in Seoul, South Korea. MS and the risk of OSA were evaluated by Berlin questionnaire survey, the medical records of the participants were reviewed and a comprehensive lifestyle survey was performed. SPSS WIN 21.0 was used for statistical analysis. Results: BMI (OR: 1.31, CI: 1.14-1.51, p<.001) and lifestyle score (OR: 0.96, CI: 0.93-0.99, p=.028) were associated with the risk of OSA. Physical activity, weight control and diet were specifically associated with the risk of OSA after controlling for age, gender and BMI. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that lifestyle was an important factor associated with OSA risk in patients with MS.


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Opposition Day — Public Ownership of Railways — Bus Regulation — 19 Jan 2016 at 18:53
The majority of MPs voted against regulation of local bus networks and against public ownership of the railways.
The motion rejected by the majority of MPs was:
That this House
believes that the rising cost of public transport is adding to the financial pressures facing many households;
notes that over 2,400 local authority-supported bus routes have been cut or downgraded since 2010;
regrets that bus fares have risen by 26 per cent on average and regulated rail fares have risen by up to 38 per cent since 2010;
further regrets delays to rail infrastructure projects including the electrification of the Great Western Main Line, the North TransPennine route and the Midland Main Line;
notes with regret the decision by the Scottish Government to award the ScotRail franchise to a private operator, rather than exploring alternative options;
calls on the Government to bring forward a buses bill as announced in the Queen's Speech to enable the regulation of local bus networks; and
further calls on the Government to rule out the privatisation of Network Rail and instead extend to franchised services the model of rail public ownership that delivered record passenger satisfaction scores on the East Coast Main Line.
Debate in Parliament | Source |
Party Majority (No) Minority (Aye) Both Turnout

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
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Google to soon make wearables as it is eyeing to acquire FitBit
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2011-2014 Mustang Talk
Had to foot massive repair bill, should I be mad about this one?
KDMatt
Bear with me for a second if this seems like a bad place to post this, or if this is in poor form, but I feel like I just got screwed on a repair and I need to figure out what the right play is, or if there even is a right play.
Back in October 2013 I bought a used 2012 Mustang V6 premium with just over 15,000 miles on it. It was sold to me with a remaining factory warranty from a Ford dealership. I also bought extended warranty coverage at that time.
I just got done shelling out 900 bucks to get the rear parking sensors fixed. According to the mechanic at the dealership that did the work, an aftermarket module of some kind had been installed and was interfering with the operation of the sensors.
He speculated with me that the previous owner, at some point, had installed an aftermarket security system, or remote starter or something, and that this was a remnant from that system after being removed. As a result, he said, there was no warranty coverage available to me, as the parking sensors allegedly failed as a result of this aftermarket module the he found in there.
So, here's the question:
Do I get mad at the dealership that sold me the car? Were they legally able to sell it with a warranty if there were defective/modified components? Are they liable if they didn't know?
Do I get mad at the dealership that did the work. Is there something fishy about this diagnosis?
... or is this really just an unfortunate set of circumstances and I just need to suck it up?
It always sucks to shell out this kind of cash, but I want to hear from some other owners before I start calling around tomorrow . What are your thoughts, guys?
mystery.gif
5.0 Coyote
I would contact DEYSHA,our Ford Customer Service Rep on this site,I would run this repair issue by her, and get her take on what happened,she is a very nice lady, and has helped out many of us with our problems with Ford & there dealerships,give her all the info, and let her do her thing.
Beechkid
Its called fraud....the dealer (in most states) must conduct an inspection on the car and disclose any "defects"...if it was that easy to see, it should have been detected. and they would have a difficult time explaining why they didn't inspect the electrical harness since its a critical part of the smog & vehicle operation
:hello:
Member: Never trust a person over 40 who drives a Chevy club
Flatheads ain't so bad!
Certified backyard mechanic I & II
AC13GT5.0
I believe since it is an aftermarket part and not a factory stock item part, it's not usually covered under warranty. Stock items are covered 100% most of the time.
It's also not your fault since you purchased the mustang used from a Ford dealer and you had no way of knowing it wasn't modified but those are the risks when buying used cars. I am pretty sure the dealer didn't know about it. You may want to run by a Ford customer service rep.
Chitownpete
If it had aftermarket stuff on it don't be mad at the dealer who fixed it, warranty is for OEM parts. You can get mad at the dealer who sold it and contact them but they likely didn't know about it or think it was a problem.
Fatopotomus
Beechkid said:
Sorry, while I feel for the OP, this is absolutely not fraud. Making that argument in a courtroom would result in getting laughed out of the building.
First off, the original dealership probably had no idea whatsoever that there was an aftermarket modification to the remote sensing system. Second, the trade in inspection on a newer car that doesnt have any obvious problems is pretty cursory and I can assure you 'electrical harnesses' arent checked unless there is some major glaring problem (the body harness is laying in the passenger seat).
OP, once the second dealer advised you of the situation, why didnt you contact the first dealer and see if they would handle the repair under warranty as a 'good will' for a recent customer?
It seems that it is likely all parties are acting in good faith but the circumstances are unfortunate for the OP.
2011 Mustang GT M6 3.31s
Matt HONEYCUTT Tune, Lethal Off-Road X, GT500 axlebacks, J&M LCAs, UPR UCA, Whiteline LCA relocation brackets, Eibach Pro-Kit Springs, Koni STR.T shocks/struts, GT500 strut mounts, SR Strut Tower Brace
Best 1/4 E/T (05/18/14 MIR - no tune, X-pipe, or UCA): 12.920 @ 109.40 mph (2.059 60ft)
derklug
Sounds like a bad case of no party is at fault, but in the end, it is your car so you get the bill. Even if the first dealer removed the aftermarket system, the mechanic is not an electrical engineer and had no idea that 8 months later the system would fail. The dealer that repaired the problem was faced with a situation outside of the normal diagnostic routine, and the time spent is reflected in the bill. You are the owner, and even if it isn't fair since you didn't install the system, like I said before, it's your bill.
Life is hard, it's harder if your stupid.
Discussion Starter • #8 • Jul 11, 2014 (Edited by Moderator)
Thanks for the replies everyone.
I kind of figured this is how it'd play out.
Fatopotomus said:
Because, and here's the bad part, they didn't tell me what was wrong until I came to pick up the car.
"By the way, this isn't covered under warranty. That'll be 850 dollars please."
88gtandi12355
Any aftermarket parts installed usually void the warranty on any part system that is involved in anyway with the aftermarket part. Some warranties will still cover certain aftermarket parts if installed by certified installer, so it really depends on how your warranty is written. The last thing you want to do, however, is be rude or have an attitude with the dealership doing your work (keep your friends close and enemies closer). Most states will have a lemon law of some kind for all used car so I would suggest contacting a lawyer first for some guidance...The warranty should upheld in some way as the car should have been inspected before the seller issued or sold you a warranty, at the least, you should receive the money you spent on the extended warranty if its invalid or null now due to the aftermarket upgrades.
2005 white s197
Did the dealer remove the aftermarket stuff? If so do you have it? Proof, proof, proof!
Strange Mud
+1 on going to original dealer and was it CPO? If so you MAY have a chance. Also $900 seems rather high but idk what was involved in the repair. I would also want some type of proof. I doubt you'll get anywhere but talk to the selling dealer (polite/respectfull) good luck
2012 V6 traded in for a 2017 VW GTI.
#12 • Jul 11, 2014 (Edited by Moderator)
KDMatt said:
Well, there's your issue. This is where you should've thrown a fit.
JBert
Read the warranty and see what it says about aftermarket parts.
Also see if it says anything about the state of the car when it was sold to you; and aftermarket parts that were in the car at that time.
Also check local laws about disclosure of repair cost BEFORE the work is done. In a lot of places, they are actually required to tell you before they spend your money, and get your authorization to do so.
| 2010 GT coupe | Daily Driver with some Steeda and GT500 take-off stuff for the occasional track day
Bobby B
Let the buyer beware. The responsibility to check a used car when buying it is ultimately yours. In my opinion, it is likely that the dealer did not know the non-stock parts were there.
When I trade my cars into the Ford dealer, the first question from the dealer is typically, "Are there any modifications made to the car?" Modified cars do not sell well, so dealers want them to be stock.
Bobby B, a patriotic Long Island Senior Citizen who drives a 2011 5.0 Premium GT Coupe, all black, 6-speed MT82, 3.55:1 differential, Bama 87S Tune, 18" diameter wheels, Pirelli P-Zeros, Comfort & Security Packages, spoiler delete.
God, please bless the USA
Bobby B said:
I think the key issue here isnt whether warranty covers aftermarket parts or not, or if the original dealer know or didnt know there was aftermarket modifications to the harness but the fact that the second dealer went ahead and performed customer pay work that apparently wasnt authorized as the OP brought the car in believing it was covered under warranty. This is the key issue of the whole story and the fulcrum on which everything rests.
Bill seems pretty high. Not sure what all they did, but I've been looking at getting rear parking sensors installed on mine (didn't come with them). Dealer quoted $400 for parts and install.
5.0 Code Blue
Before they started the work they should of let you know it was after market add on not a stock part.,how much it was going to cost out of your pocket.that way you could of went somewhere else and saved some bucks.
Personally I think there should be some "good faith" here... They sold the car and it wasn't "as is", it was still under factory warranty and they sold an extension... Then it failed while still as is...
Debatable to be sure... But I bought a used Audi S4 with a full APR tune, the dealership did an update and wiped out the tune... They absorbed the cost (1000.00) for the tune being put back into place...
all good faith work...
Just my 2 cents...
It's not known if the OP brought the car in and told them to fix it thinking it would be covered under warranty or if he told them call me with the explanation of the problem and cost if it's not under warranty.
Either way I think the key issue is what all the warranty covers (electrical?) and whether or not the warranty covers aftermarket parts. The car only has 15000 miles on it so it is pretty much a new car.
I would be frustrated too but normally things that go wrong with cars are hardly ever covered under warranty. I think extended warranties are kind of a rip off but that's a whole different soap box.
Thereaper
Was your car sold to you as Ford Certified Pre-Owned ? It had to be returned to factory specs
to do so.
Shadow Black 2018 GT 10R80-355
FordService Jul 14, 2014


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Osoby o tym nazwisku:
 Adam Marszałkowski – polski perkusista
 Janusz Marszałkowski – polski samorządowiec, nauczyciel i urzędnik
 Tomasz Marszałkowski – polski politolog, oficer policji

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Ruts DC Feat. In South China Morning Post Ahead Of Hong Kong Show
|In RUTS, RUTS DC, Travel
British 1970s punk legends The Ruts DC on making their Hong Kong debut at the Fringe
News Source: http://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2130372/british-1970s-punk-legends-ruts-dc-making-their-hong-kong-debut-fringe
The Ruts were probably the angriest band of the 1970s punk era. They spat their anti-establishment lyrics with a venom the art-school kids in The Clash could only dream of.
The good news is that, four decades later, they're still raging. If that wasn't obvious from title of their latest album, Music Must Destroy, then long-time bass player and songwriter John "Segs" Jennings paints it clearly in an interview ahead of the punk band's first performance in Hong Kong the end of the month.
"What it's about to me, right now, is trying to fight back – still – against a whole corporate view of life," says Jennings, who brings a reformed and renamed version of the band, Ruts DC, for a show at the Fringe Club on January 31. "We've come back with an album and, you know, I'm surprised at myself, while writing all the lyrics, that I'm still quite angry."
Now an amiable gent living in south London, Jennings is far from the wild kid who helped pen anthems such as Babylon's Burning and Staring at the Rude Boys, songs that lacerated the establishment of 1970s Britain and helped usher in a brasher, politicised version of punk.
The scruffy clothes may have been replaced by sharp black Blues Brothers suits and fedoras, and the screams have given way to humorous banter, but the punk ire still seethes in his heart.
"It's about anger, but to me it's also about providing – as a 61-year-old punk – part of the solution as well," he explains. "I'm trying to be more positive in the songs. Back in the day it was more about complaining. Now we're trying to give some sort of solution."
If punk was a genre made for and by outsiders, then The Ruts were the ultimate punk band. They were never part of the scene's starry establishment, eschewing the fashions worn by the bigger bands and sticking to what mattered – the music.
Formed in 1977 after the members met in record shops and at gigs, the Ruts began life in west London from the embers of funk covers band Hit and Run. Their early tracks played clumsily on punk's reputation for loutishness – I Ain't Sofisticated was one such gem – until Jennings was recruited and they began refining their sound to better reflect the political anxiety of the times.
After being noticed by legendary radio DJ John Peel, their stock rose and the next single, Babylon's Burning, entered the UK top 10. A few more charting singles and a hit debut album kept the Ruts in the public eye for a year until singer Malcolm Owen was sacked when his heroin addiction spiralled out of control.
In their prime, they were among Britain's most exciting live acts, their direct, angry songs matched only by their take-no-prisoners attitude. One of the first bands to openly fuse punk and reggae – they were indelibly linked to Misty in Roots, with whom they recorded and toured – the Ruts were vocal in their support of anti-racist causes.
"The main thing was to kick back against the establishment and we quickly went from a sort of faddish thing to quickly getting involved with some big movements," he remembers. "It was a breaking down of the barriers.
"Everybody was welcome … it wasn't just that you had to turn up with pink hair or else you couldn't get in. We used to get Sikhs, black, white – everyone. We'd have bands that were like dancing drum bands. It was an amazing cultural eye opener for me, being from Southend [a town in Essex, eastern England]. All the outsiders were embraced – a lot of people who were freaks got the confidence to be in bands."
Chinese metal band taps ancient poets, occult to ride nationalist wave
Unfortunately, that open-to-all ethos meant punk attracted a less savoury element, usually in the form of right-wingers attracted by the aggressive music. Jennings even remembers that as a positive.
"A lot of people from back then were a bit BNP," he says, referring to the British National Party, a fringe, far-right, racist political party in the UK. "They grew up in places where it would be very difficult not to be like that. But people would come up to us afterwards, and say the music changed them. So when you do get things like that, you know the music is strong."
Owens' death from an overdose in early 1980 precipitated a series of line-up changes that never managed to recapture the band's early excitement. Later that year, after a string of disappointing record sales, the band changed its name to Ruts DC, from the Italian "da capo" meaning from the beginning. They trudged on until 1983, when they split.
"The only thing I regret from that period is losing that unity – that sense of [racial] unity in the scene," Jennings says. "Now, you just don't see that unity of spirit any more."
Ruts DC reformed in 2007 after name checks from succeeding generations of punk bands convinced Jennings and founding member Dave Ruffy that there was a market for their music.
Myanmar music festivals help to unite youth, heal old wounds and work for a better future
If it was hard making a success of the Ruts' brand of hard-hitting politicised punk in the 1970s and 1980s, it's even harder now. CD sales have all but dried up and streaming pays the band 0.0002 pence per play. Most of their money is made from local gigs and merchandising, including sales of vinyl records, the pressing of which the band has to organise.
But for Jennings, that's part of the fun – keeping close to the original punk ethos of doing things yourself. And it doesn't get more fun than when the band plays overseas – even if it is often for little or no money.
"It's about adventure," he beams as he anticipates the band's Asian tour, which will also take the Ruts DC to Japan for the first time. "It's great; you know it's going to be really tiring but we'll come back enriched people."
Click here to read in detail
© 2017-19 RUTS D.C. | SOSUMI POLICY


Today I wanted to share yet another guest post from a favorite fellow blogger. I figure by now you're a bit tired of listening to an old guy like me whine about all my dumb financial blunders. So today I'm welcoming someone much younger to the stage. She is by far the savviest financial Latina I know and has been tearing it up on her blog lately. Savvy Financial Latina is a 20-something woman learning to manage life, career and money in Dallas, Tex. She has a Bachelor's in Global Business, a Master's in Supply Chain Management, and an MBA, all without any debt. She now works for a Global 500 company as a sourcing analyst. Savvy Financial Latina is, also, a member of the Dimespring 30, a community of bloggers sharing their thoughts, experiences and perspectives on personal finance.
This is a totally different financial Latina.
I'm 23 years old. I graduated with a Bachelor's in Global Business, Master's in Supply Chain Management, and M.B.A. I'm married to a wonderful man and we are searching for a nice, affordable home to live in Dallas, Texas. We try to have a frugal lifestyle and invest in our future.
Pretired Nick and I have been commenting on each other's blogs for a couple months now. I think I have pretty much read every article he's written. I find the topics stimulating and the possibilities endless. When he asked me to write about pretirement from a Gen Y's perspective, I jumped at the opportunity.
I ran into Guy X one day leaving the building. He was really cheery, and so was I! Surprise! He mentioned he had just finished talking to his daughter who was helping him build his home in Hawaii. He quickly delved into how he had less than 2 years to retire fully. At which point he was going to split his time between Hawaii and Colorado. He deserved it. He had spent 30 years working at a manufacturing company, and another 10 years working for our company. Dang… if you count the other two years of work he has left, he has worked a total of 42 years. Astonishing! The guy had a calendar counting down day by day, minute by minute!
Most people don't have a plan for their retirement. They think retirement is scary. If you think about it, retirement is a fairly new concept. Prior to the 20th century, you either died early or you worked until you no longer could, and then your kids took care of you. The baby boomers will be the generation that takes advantage of social security and/or pensions. And please, if you say social security and your pension will not be enough to fund your lifestyle, please think before you speak. My generation will have no pensions or social security to rely on. I truly believe social security will no longer be in existence by the time I qualify.
What's wrong with this picture? Just because something is scary does not mean there should not be a plan.
Retirement: Sitting on a recliner watching TV. I could do this for one week before I would start going crazy. Not my cup of tea.
Financial Independence – Not having to rely on the corporate paycheck to fund your lifestyle. Not having to care about politics at work, impressing anyone, tied to a set schedule, etc. Freedom is what I want. This is what Pretired Nick defines as pretirement.
Do I have a number?
So, I can't say I have a number yet. I do know my husband and I want to have the freedom to do whatever we want earlier rather than later. We don't want to be in our sixties and stuck because we have too much debt, etc.
I once saw an episode on House Hunters International of a couple looking for a home in South America. The couple was in their 40s, and had "retired" early. This seems like a very lovely idea!
Max out my 401K (So we have income when we're old and wrinkly).
Max out ROTH IRAs (Again, our old and wrinkly selves will thank me!).
Develop side hustles that bring extra money.
I want us to save/invest 50% of our income. I know our plan is not very definitive, but I do feel we are trying to invest toward our future. It's extremely hard to put a net worth goal when you are so young. Any thoughts?
I feel so lucky having an entire troop of personal finance bloggers talking about their financial choices and how that has affected their lifestyles. It is extremely encouraging to maintain a financial conscious, yet comfortable lifestyle.
Pretired Nick here again. Well, what do you all think? Savvy Financial Latina is building her retirement fund and a nice pretirement fund at the same time. And she's working toward saving 50% of her income. Sounds pretty good to me. Let us know what you think in the comments!
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici via FreeDigitalPhotos.net.


Read about our School Board, Annual Report, Strategic Plan and School Policies.
The School was formed in 1983, commenced operating on 4 February 1984, and was formally incorporated as a non-profit company on 6 July 1984. The company is now known as The International Grammar School, Sydney, Ltd. It is limited by guarantee, and managed by a Board of non-paid directors. The current Board is made up of six directors. Each director is a member of the company.


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Alex Svejkovsky
St. Cloud has always been a second home to me. After growing up in the town of Paynesville, I moved to Sartell to begin my college career at St. Cloud State University, majoring in Mass Communications. In my time there I mostly focused on the television side of things, spending most of my time with the campus television station UTVS. While at UTVS I did many roles such as news anchor, reporter and sports anchor for our many live newscasts. I even did play by play for the football and basketball games that we had televised. However, I didn't just limit myself to television. While putting myself through school I worked with Leighton Broadcasting in their sports department, doing many things behind the scenes and over the air. Upon my graduation from St. Cloud State in 2012, I began to find that first opportunity to enter the broadcast journalism world and to my excitement landed here at WJON as a field reporter/news anchor. I love what I do and can honestly say that I never think of my job as work. While I cover all news in our listening area, my main beats are Waite Park, Sartell, Sartell-St. Stephen School District, Rice and Arts/Entertainment. I am also the host of Rush Hour weeknights from 5p-6pm. Feel free to message me for any possible story ideas. Outside of the news room my pastimes include sports, music, hanging with my family and just enjoying the great Minnesota weather.
Waite Park Officials Get Update on Strategic Planning Process
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Catholic Charities 40th Annual Mardi Gras Event Goes Virtual
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Sartell Officials Approve Mister Carwash Development
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Annual Charity Challenge Raises Over $540,000
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Driver Falls Asleep At The Wheel Causing Crash Near Cushing
Two people were taken to the hospital after the driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed.
Moonlight Ski Event Reschedule Due to Cold Temperatures
The cold weather has pushed back the annual Moonlight Ski event at Quarry Park.
SCSU Athletics Requiring Masks For Fans Attending Games
Starting Monday, fans will need to wear a mask when attending St. Cloud State University sporting events.
SCSU Men's Hockey Coach Named Assistant of U.S. Olympic Team
St. Cloud State University Men's Hockey coach Brett Larson has been named an assistant coach for the 2022 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team.
CSB/SJU Encouraging Students to Test for COVID Before Classes
The College of St. Benedict and St. John's University are encouraging students to get tested for COVID-19 before returning to campus.
The Weekender: SCSU Athletics, Open Skate and More!
If you're New Years Resolution is get out more, then check out this weeks central Minnesota entertainment guide.
LeSauk Lions Collecting Christmas Trees in Sartell Saturday
Sartell residents have a few options to get rid of their Christmas tree this weekend.
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Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cutting its COVID isolation guidance in half, area school districts are not making the same adjustments just yet.


/ Frosty's on our Freezer!
After seeing several refrigerator "snowmen" posts on Facebook and Pinterest, I was totally bummed that our fridge was non-compatible in about every way possible (french doors, stainless, non-magnetic). Then it occurred to me — the garage freezer is white and has a single door. Perfect!
So, my nap-time mission today was to convert it into a snowman to surprise L&L when they woke.
I started by viewing the snowmen I had pinned on Pinterest to get some inspiration. Then I chose the colors I would need (red, yellow, orange, and lots of black). I laminated several whole sheets of card stock in the colors and amounts I thought I'd need. I used a sharpie and a small Corelle bowl to trace circles onto the laminated black cardstock to make the eyes and buttons for the snowman. I used a sharpie and a small drinking glass to trace circles onto the black cardstock to make the mouth. I free-handed a carrot shape for the nose onto orange cardstock; once it was cut out, I traced around the edge with the black sharpie marker. The red and yellow cardstock sheets I cut in half (like a hot dog) and then cut each strip into 3 random-sized rectangular pieces to create the "blocks" I would need to build a striped scarf. I then traced around each rectangle with the sharpie. For the hat, I free-handed a brim using the long side of a piece of black cardstock, while the upper portion of the hat is the majority of a whole piece of cardstock used vertically and just shaped a bit; I added a red strip for color, and taped the hat together. To all of the pieces, I added a small strip of magnet from a magnet roll. Then I arranged them on the garage freezer.
I tried my creation with the hat on the freezer, and also with the hat up on the small, dorm-sized fridge above the freezer.
I think I like it attached to the actual freezer the best.
allow the kids (or adults!) to rearrange the snowman to their liking. I think it'd also be fun to create additional, interchangeable pieces, similar to a Mr. Potato Head toy.
— Kobe, CA22DB6-0197SRCORONA, GA8WR6-3215JRROCKWALL, CA66OL6-6280FRREDWOOD CITY, CA78C6-4290SOLOS ALTOS, Additionally, The three Bryant children practiced Italian together after school, Jan 97-7 (0-1)Sun, Jan 128-7 (1-1)Fri, Dec 133-5 (0-0)Sat.


Due to the parting of a loved one, we have not prepared a new episode of Growing in Grace for this week. We will be back next week, talking about God's grace and the New Covenant.
Thanks to all who listen to the podcast.
Thank you very much, Cliff and Carol. I really appreciate it.
Joel my heart goes out to you and your family.


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Jump to: Board index » F-35 Lightning II » General F-35 Forum
Basement Dweller Butthurt.
Discuss the F-35 Lightning II
First unread post • 194 posts • Page 9 of 13 • 1 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
lbk000 wrote:
hornetfinn wrote: I totally fail to see any resemblance or connection between F-35 program and Maginot Line.
Canada and Belgium are both northern points of failure?
LOL, good point!
boogieman
Was over at the F35 and Airshows thread and had a look at this video:
https://youtu.be/G0hWzaKEeZo
Scrolled down to the comments and saw that Kurt Plummer was up to his old tricks:
You're all missing several points.
1. The F-16 can be beaten by the Typhoon, Rafale and Su-27/30/35 and F-22. On a good day, at or below 15K, it can be beaten by either Hornet. To say that the F-16 is matched by the F-35 is not a point of pride. It's performance should never have been the threshold bar for a 21st century replacement.
2. One of the several KPPs the F-35 failed was a promise that the jet would AT LEAST MATCH both the sustained turn capability of the F-16 and the instantaneous (alpha pointing) capability of the F/A-18. It does neither. In a situation where OPEVAL is pass/fail and IOT&E is pass/fix, the F-35 never met a key kinematic KPP.
3. Missiles and sensors drive air combat performance, much like bullets and optics drive the metrics of rifles, far more than physical performance.
Without the AIM-9X, which is fitted SOLELY to an outboard pylon because it cannot be bay launched (rail weapon, not ejector) the F-35 loses it's VLO. Without a close-in weapon, the F-35's superior DAS is pointless as indeed, IMO, the Falcon Knight or Falcon Eye could do 90% of what the DAS does, in air combat, (SAIRST and night time thermal visionics) back in the early 90s and would be vastly more reliable, in the present tense where they are effectively stripping the entire system for an untested alternate in the near term.
4. The true measure of an air combat platform's utility lies in it's energy addition because fights are expected to be won, BVR and the outcome of BVR is determined in the intercept phase whereby you control the geometry of the fight by being supersonic, cold, and warping around to an advantaged shot position whereby you are beyond the threat jet's radar cone and contrail expectation band. Whether the final shot is taken BVR or WVR, properly accomplished air combat is a murder, not a duel and the F-35 simply lacks the ability get supersonic, quickly, hold it outside of burner, or get high enough to avoid drawing cons which will increasingly be visible themselves, to modern optronics, even at night.
The F-16C.50, clean at about 30K, has a 29 second acceleration from Mach .85 to 1.2. The F/A-18C with GE-402 engines does the same in about 34 seconds. Again, this is nothing special, today, but formed the KPP range of sprint performances that it was expected the F-35A would fall between. And yet the Lightning is about 8 seconds lagged. The F-35B is 16 seconds slower to accelerate and the F-35C is some 43 seconds longer accelerating than either of the aircraft they are expected to replace.
This is a crucial difference in a jet which is bay-limited to the number and size (depth as well as length) of any BVR weapons it carries and whose 110lb/sqft wingloading prevents it from fighting in the 35-40,000ft regime where the F-22, J-20 and Su-57 are quite comfortable and have a 50% missile pole leverage, at Mach 1.4.
Perhaps most importantly, as the global standard for QWIP staring focal plane array IRST continues to become more and more normed around multi and even hyperspectral pixel densities in excess of 1,500X1,500 detectors, the ability to use burner to achieve and hold supersonic speeds will become less and less tactically relevant. You will be detected in excess of 50nm FQ and 80nm RQ and a high heat signature jet with no RCS return is as good as an IFF tag.
Where having a supersonic shock, prebuilt on the missile as it exits the airframe is equal to about 20% greater missile range in the 1.2 @ FL250 height band, having NO supersonics performance makes the fighter highly questionable in it's effectiveness, especially if it's operating on the wrong side of a 900nm combat radius and has no fuel to spare for dogfighting.
5. Fuel burn and flat-plating the airframe are also problems with dogfighting in a radar controlled threat airspace but when the shot goes wrong and you are nose on committed, sometimes there is no choice. In this, it is true that the F-16 is alpha limited (27.5, clean) and that this number drops a fair bit when cheek and belly stations are loaded. While the F-35 had a nominal ~60` capability and can combine this with helicopter yaw turns and the like. Does this matter? No.
First because, to put significant lateral loads on the pilot is unwise in either case and to be sufficiently slow to do what is shown by the F-35 is to have ZERO energy to defeat a Pyrrhic return shot from either the intended target or an outsider shooter threat. While HOBS capable missiles increasingly don't need the pointed-on sweetening of the shot.
You will notice that the F-35 loses altitude, significantly, in it's pedal turn and realizing that the majority of a stealth assets flight time is going to be at or above 25,000ft, to extend range, remain outside of SHORADS threat bubbles and provide best sensor slant, this becomes a significant vulnerability.
At FL250, the air is half as dense as it is at sea level. Just to maintain MINIMUM beyond-stall lift on the jet requires it to be a third again as fast. This rapidly develops into a situation where there is too much entrance G for the pilot or airframe (note, lateral loads are dangerous for heavy A2G munitions, whether they are freestream or in a weapons bay).
Secondly, the F-35 is going to be fighting at night, under conditions where it is likely carrying only 2 AIM-120 and even if those AMRAAMs are Deltas (with significantly more close-in dogfight performance), it will be foolish to withhold shots until after the radar merge at 10-15nm. If it misses with those shots, at these distances, it should separate and extend. Something which is made easy if the section wingman is providing midcourse guidance updates and the parent fighter can roll and displace, massively, to leave the fight plane.
Fighting at night pushes spatial disorientation and rapid target loss and while DAS can compensate for the latter, it is unwise to get into falling leaf, spinning horizon, conditions 'on purpose', in the primary advantaged condition F-35s can be expected to be fighting an air war with an active DCA threat component: stealth in low visibility.
Third, while some unfortunately equate high alpha with 'agility' as the ability to shoot your own a$$ off under complete control, the reality is that agile is to maneuverable as quick is to fast.
And this is particularly crucial in evaluating the F-16 vs. F-35 comparison in that the F-16 always has roll authority with which to reverse it's loaded turn. And always has speed of entry and sustained energy within the turn to not bleed everything when it does cut back.
This is largely because of the way the RSS design condition sets CofL and CofG harmoniously, allowing a nominally 300ft2 wing area to add another 150ft2 of stab lift as the wing LEF deflect upwards and the tails trim neutral, to supply added lift.
On the F-35, the need to maintain a neutral CL trim displacement in supporting a large weapons bay and STOVL meant small, straight, wings, near the CG.
And for this airframe configuration to not completely ruin transonics performance meant using the intake trunking and belly as 1G neutral lift augments, similar to fat LEX and pushing the heavy engine as far back as possible so that the wings may be similarly aft set and not totally screw up the area ruling.
Unfortunately, this then means that as the alpha comes up the tails immediately have to dig to keep it that way while the intakes and weapons bay area rapidly transition from thick airfoil to speed brake as the variance in effective AOA between the aft set wing and the forebody is considerable.
So that, instead of a complimentary lift curve in which the stabs are free to add roll authority as needed, you have a divergent set of curves which effects additive alpha capability as the authority inherent to the aft controls has to be bled off, more and more, just to keep the nose going up and the glowie bit pointed aft.
The result, as reported by F-35 TPs, is that the jet has a low-transitional-high (blended) AOA limit on the order of 18-20`, 23-25`, 27-30` whereas most modern jets don't begin to seriously self-limit maneuver authority in the high regime now until 35` or more.
While the F-35 can get there as a function of absolute alpha rates, by the time it does so, it's a monorail with the roll and pitch authority to rapidly un-point and recover the jet very slow. This is unacceptable as the standard defensive tactic is to simply roll under, tuck and reverse to spit the other jet out and the F-35 is going to lag on this, so badly that it cannot maintain a dominant position as everything is dedicated to stabilizing the achieved alpha.
Which is why the F-35 shown in the video, while it has similar or even greater total alpha range (square turn) for a given speed, shows an overall less fluid and more sluggish ability to change it's axis of maneuver in a fashion that can best be described as plodding.
Again, the F-35 Test Pilot report which highlights these shortcomings is quite explicit: In the simplest of BFM maneuvering, he not only could not prosecute an F-16D with a GE-100 engine and two wing bubbles but he could not prevent the subsequent threat reversal into his own six.
Where his fancy helmet sight and DAS were useless, due to the tight confines of the canopy and the bulky headrest which kept him from even SEEING the threat to maneuvering, defensively, against the Viper.
Subsequent OFPs have supposedly been released which open out the F-35's performance envelope from an F-101 level 4.5G sustained to something nearer 7Gs, at primary fight heights (the JSF also has severe low level performance limits, thanks to thermal issues).
This is about right for a 470sqft wing maneuvering in the 20-25K region, subsonic.
The F-22 does better, only because it is supercruise capable of generating four or five times the lift off an 840sqft wing area while exploiting TVC to max pitch rates.
The fact remains that the F-35 is not really competitive with ANY fourth gen fighter (excepting, perhaps, the Super Hornet) in the primary regime where it can be expected to fight, as nearly every other jet has the same or similar alpha limits, equal or better thrust to weight and vastly superior, canard-delta, aerodynamics for the transonic fight.
With appropriate munitions development (Peregrine/CUDA, AARGM-ER, JAGM-F, SPEAR 3) the F-35 will likely make a pretty good weasel airframe it has the ELS and global thermals to do so. It will never be, even with sidekick and LREW/JATM, more than an adequate air to air fighter.
And people who try to sell a long range multisensor interdiction platform as a DCA fighter because that is what their country needs are doing themselves and their nation's defense no honest benefit, whatsoever. The F-35 will remain exceptionally costly to maintain, throughout it's service life. Partially do to the added systems requirements for stealth and partially because hey, it's Lockheed and they have been screwing customers since the F-104 days.
But in terms of aerodynamic performance, what counts is the ability to overcome inertia in rapidly transitioning between maneuver modes across a wide speed band (thrust loading) and altitude regime (wing loading) to be able to rapidly change-state so as to drag the fight to a point on the EM globals where you can achieve dominance over the enemy airframe.
The F-35 doesn't have this and, as far as I can tell, it does not have a lot of the systems it needs (dense kinematic EXCM/MSDM and TADIRCM steerable dazzlers plus multishot missile loads with full 2-way datalinks and MEMS seekers) to be able to compensate for it's innate, kinematic, shortcomings.
I simply don't have the expertise to respond to the claims on kinematics but I am sure there are members on here that do. Have at it folks!
juretrn
Yeah, yeah, the F-35 is the worst thing since the bubonic plague, we've all heard it before
While it may not be the best dogfighter out there, it's more than good enough to bring its advantage in sensors and stealth to bear on unsuspecting opponents. Gotta love how the author (as always with F-35 haters) just brushes that off as irrelevant.
Russia stronk
...and the fan boy flame wars go on and on and on and on — like one of those gag birthday candles you can never blow out. Ya just gotta let them burn themselves out. And stop slipping them TV dinners under the door.
Many are masters of the old saying, "...if you can't blind them with your brilliance, baffle 'em with your bs." Throw in some technical or pseudo-technical jargon and some semantic excess and you can live for an internet eternity.
And then we have non sequitur — in this case the writer contradicts himself in successive paragraphs —
"3. Missiles and sensors drive air combat performance, much like bullets and optics drive the metrics of rifles, far more than physical performance...
4. The true measure of an air combat platform's utility lies in it's energy addition..."
Bottom line? Don't waste your time w 'em.
mixelflick
Now I don't know what to believe about the F-35. It's not just this guys points.... it was the F-35 pilot interview on TFPP a few weeks back. It didn't sound like either that the F-35 could "rate like a Viper, and radius like a SH". Nor did I hear anything about its superior acceleration. That stand in stark contrast to what many F-35 supporters contend here. So which is it?
"Super maneuverable strike fighter with power to spare" or...
"Sort of maneuverable strike fighter, that's somewhat sluggish (that was the word used in TFPP)
NOTE: I don't doubt the bottom line - The F-35 will kill almost everything long before it knows its there.
I just want to know the truth as to its kinematic performance..
You've been around here for years, mix. If you haven't figured it out by now, nothing is going to convince you.
When you have countless pilots with 1000s of hours in F-15/16/18/22, Typhoon, etc... say how impressed they are by how the F-35 flies, you should probably listen to them, and not lone anecdotes.
charlielima223
mixelflick wrote: Now I don't know what to believe about the F-35. It's not just this guys points.... it was the F-35 pilot interview on TFPP a few weeks back. It didn't sound like either that the F-35 could "rate like a Viper, and radius like a SH". Nor did I hear anything about its superior acceleration. That stand in stark contrast to what many F-35 supporters contend here. So which is it?
I think the better way to answer your question is how will the pilot use their aircraft. You will always hear and read about F-22 pilots extolling the kinematic capabilities of the Raptor. When compared to other western fighter aircraft the F-22 is second to none. Yet there has been instances where the F-22 in ACM when the F-22 got defeated. Much like in the TFPP F-22 ep where the guest speaker talked about how anViper got the better of him because of the way he initially tried to fight the Viper.
The guest speaker of on TFPP F-35 ep did mention briefly about other pilots experience doing BFM and ACM in the F-35. He remarked that initially the veteran Viper pilots flew the F-35 like it was their old Viper. Then they gradually started to use more pedal input and greater AoA abilities to their advantage.
charlielima223 wrote:
These kind of thoughts have all been explained many, many times before. It is a well-trafficked rabbit hole.
quicksilver wrote: You've been around here for years, mix. If you haven't figured it out by now, nothing is going to convince you.
Well from what I've seen, you can find anecdotes from different places/people to support either view. I have heard from F-16 pilots though, who could not "see" it on radar from 12 miles, and that was AFTER ground control told them where to look! That and the other pilots surveyed who almost unanimously picked it to go to war in.
Still, I'd love to really stick it to guys like this who painted it otherwise with a broad brush. Will be nice when it gets a more powerful engine, sidekick, Perigrine etc. or even better, when it's combat record reflects what was seen during Red Flag. I wouldn't want to be flying against it, that's for sure.
There has been more than enough discussion here for anyone to come to their own conclusion(s) about the jet. Ultimately, you have to decide what you want to believe and form your own opinion accordingly.
Yes I noticed that as well. I found his input puzzling, as he described the F35's high alpha performance as more comparable to that of a Strike Eagle than a Hornet. This is despite the fact that we have seen the F35 perform some of the Hornet's best tricks in the high alpha/low speed regime (pirouette, square loop, power slides, low speed/high alpha pass). These are all things that the Mud Hen simply can't do. My hunch is that he was being particularly conservative in his input, but why that was the case is hard to know. IIRC he was involved as a test pilot, not in an operational squadron, so maybe he didn't get much time exploring everything the 3F+ jets can do.
As for Kurt's trademark diatribe, my take away is that it is very entrenched in 4th gen thinking. That is to view BVR/ACM as a race for high energy state to both impart said energy into missile shots (maximise pK via added missile speed and range), while also using it to conduct defensive and subsequent offensive maneuvers. This is all well and good when all else is equal (eg. detection and engagement range), but with the F35 it isn't (by design).
The reality is that for the next ~20 years the OPFOR air threat will overwhelmingly consist of evolved Flanker derivatives, followed by J10, J20, Foxhound and Fulcrum with Su57 likely somewhere off in the distance. The vast majority of these will have parasitic drag issues in combat. On top of this you are also looking at threat aircraft that probably don't have the sensors to independently complete a reliable/viable kill chain on the F35 until somewhere in the neighbourhood of ~10nm. Even if it is double that (generous) you have still turned the BVR fight on its head, because zooming up to Mach1.5+ at 50k feet won't mean squat if the F35 sitting at M0.9 and 40k feet still has you locked and inside its AIM120/260 NEZ before you can shoot at it. On top of this, at such high altitude and speed OPFOR are stuck on a high speed train track with few available options for defensive maneuver (turn circle the size of Texas) while the F35 can crank away at a moment's notice. The fight becomes less about who can get/stay more energetic (4th gen) and more about who can take their high pK/NEZ missile shot first, using the combination of VLO and co-operative EW rather than raw kinematics to get there (5th gen).
The main point Kurt may have here is that the F35 does need to use AB to break the Mach barrier & stay above it for prolonged periods. It would certainly be handy for the F35 to be able to launch its missiles at or around Mach 1.2 without risking detection from enemy IRST due to AB use but alas, nobody's perfect! Even so, I suspect there is a tactical workaround if a supersonic AAM shot is desired. Simply speed up to desired Mach using AB from outside OPFOR IRST range, then back off to mil power to coast into the missile shot(s). The jet will undoubtedly bleed some of the additional speed once AB is extinguished, but with an airframe as slick as the F35's, I suspect it should hold much of it for the last few dozen nm until missile launch. Kind of reminiscent of the way Indian Fulcrum pilots would back off the throttle as they approached the merge to reduce the visual signature of their smokey engines. Now couple the above with an off-axis approach vector to place the F35(s) outside the threat IRST FOV altogether and you have yourself a routinely bad day for red air.
boogieman wrote: Was over at the F35 and Airshows thread and had a look at this video:
1) Typhoon, Rafale, Su-27/30/35 can also be beaten by F-16 though, so they are on equal footing. F-16 acceleration in dogfight regime is in fact better than all but the typhoon and its roll rate are likely the best among those.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/0 ... en_by_f16/
2) F-35 can't match the sustain turn rate of a clean F-16, unfortunately, a clean F-16 is quite useless as it has nothing to defend itself. F-35 has better nose pointing than F-18 though. Nevertheless, F-35 has better ITR than F-16 and better STR than F-18 and better acceleration than both at dogfighting speed.
3) F-35 doesn't lose VLO with external AIM-9, the weapon certainly increase the total RCS, however the RCS is still hundred times smaller than a clean 4 generation aircraft, the launched were designed to have lower RCS than conventional launcher as well:
Secondly, Falcon eye doesn't do 90 % the task of DAS, not even remotely close in fact. Falcon eye is a nose low-resolution IIR sensor without LRF, with the only role of helping the pilot get rid of the Night navigation binocular while DAS is a group of 6 high resolution IIR sensor with automatic target tracking and classification capability. Compare them is basically the same as comparing an Iphone X and Nokia 1120
4) The outcome of BVR combat is dictated by the information available to the pilot. This has been shown plenty of time in history, Mig-25 can fly far higher, far faster, than any F-16 and F-15, so how many time have Mig-25 shot down F-15 or F-16? zero time. While F-15, F-16 have shot down Mig-25 a few times. The main advantage of F-35 are stealth, sensor and networking.
F-16 acceleration isn't normal, even now, it is considered as one of the fastest in acceleration, better than Rafale and Su-27/30/35. And there is no such thing as he F/A-18C with GE-402 in production so it is irrelevant.
And wing loading value can't be directly compared like that because these aircraft don't have the same wing shape and wing thickness, F-35 while have higher wing loading, it also has lower wing sweep, so at any AoA, the CL is higher so flying at decently high altitude isn't a very hard task, fighting at 35-45k ft regime should be normal for F-35.
Flying at supersonic speed will give your missile more length, but at the same time will increase your own IR signature and that give enemy chance to detect and attack you from a greater distance.
QWIP isn't all that popular but even if it is, it doesn't get rid of the biggest weak point of IRST, that is they can't measure range without LRF or triangulation and infrared radiation can't go through cloud. LRF range are very short, on the order of 15-20 km for OLS-35. While triangulation requires datalink, without a stealth directional datalink like MADL, you pretty much let everyone know where you are when you use it, good luck turn and burn with Mach 6 SAM.
5) that just a bunch of techno sounding words group together but little fact.
HOBS missile increasing the value of nose pointing ability because sustain turn no longer enough to create enough angle separation to stay outside of missile's FoV. And no pilot start the fight with a post stall maneuver. His condition doesn't make any sense either, why does F-35 carry 2 heavy AG mution and only 2 AMRAAMs ? even if it is doing an air to ground mission, why not an asymmetric load of 2 AIM-132 /AIM-9X on wing tip, 4 AIM-120D and 4 SDB/SPEAR?. If he entered dogfight why not eject the bombs?
Secondly, talking about dogfighting at night? which aircraft can really dogfight at night? Rafale, Gripen, Typhoon, F-16, F-15, Su-57 all can't dogfight at night. Because they don't have anything that gives them 360 degrees view like DAS. Don't tell me about DDM-NG, the distorted fish eye view is the last thing you want in a dogfight. So that leaves F-35 and J-20 with night dogfighting ability.
Can anyone shed any light on this? I vaguely remember there being some heat management issues with the weapons bays at low altitude years ago but haven't heard any updates on if/how it has been addressed.
Depending upon F-35 Variant the MAX G is 9 for A; 7 for B & 7.5 for C from LM F-35 Fast Facts April 2020: [full int load]
https://a855196877272cb14560-2a4fa819a6 ... l_2020.pdf (2Mb)
IIRC when taxiing in high temps there was a time limit for doors closed due to overheating however AFAIK the issue fixed by wiring changes in bomb bay a long time ago. The F-35A & B variants operate in high temp desert environments today.
Discussion about it here: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=52580 Weapons bay thermal environment 11 Dec 2016
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text:
Villingili peut désigner :
 Villingili, une île des Maldives dans l'atoll Ari ;
 Villingili, une île des Maldives dans l'atoll Huvadhu ;
 Villingili, une île des Maldives dans l'atoll Addu ;
 Villingili, une île des Maldives dans la subdivision de Malé ;
 Viringili,  aussi appelée Vilingili, une île d'Inde dans le territoire de Lakshadweep.


The purpose of the park planning process is to ensure that operational and facility improvements are designed to meet the recreational needs of Oakland County residents and are welcoming to people of all abilities, ages, and cultures. The primary focus is on the long-term stability, management, and programming of existing assets and facilities, with a secondary focus on the development of new assets and facilities. Park plans consist of three documents that are updated annually: Park Planning Process Executive Summary, which outlines the overall objectives for all parks; the Baseline Park Analysis; and the Park Vision and Facility Concepts. These documents are received and filed by the Parks Commission and are incorporated into the Recreation Plan 2018-2022. Contact Donna Folland, Senior Planner, at 248-736-9087 or FollandD@oakgov.com for more information about individual park plans.


Why, yes. That is Corey from Florida Beer out front!
Because you all have been hanging on my every word for the last week or so, you know I attended a Craft Beer Dinner at 5 Napkin Burger last night, featuring Florida Beer Company's lineup. My date for the night was Ed Roberts, and despite a rainy, not-so-short commute, we showed up a few minutes early. Go figure, on time in South Beach!
After rubbing elbows with the restaurant and brewery brass for 10 or 15 minutes, we were seated with the other guests. It was an intimate crowd, so it was easy to communicate with everyone there. General Manager Carlos welcomed everyone, introduced himself and his staff, and told us a little about the dinner we were about to eat. He then turned the floor over to Corey from Florida Beer Company. Shockingly, this was the first time I'd ever met Corey, after all these years. And Carlos sat down with Ed and I for the evening. Nice company.
Corey introduced craft beer in general and set some expectations for how his beers would complement the different courses. He explained how the beers would either play off similar flavors in the food or contrast them and set them apart. That's when glasses of Key West Southernmost Wheat were served.
Alongside Southernmost Wheat, four different appetizers were offered. For me, the Pickles and Pastrami offering was the most interesting and definitely had the best flavors. I also enjoyed the lobster and endives. The Pork Taquitos and Spinach on Crostini were also very good.
Wow! I better pace myself for the real three courses, right?
Next up. Key West Sunset Ale paired with Bacon, Ale and Gruyere Soup also made with the same beer. This was one of the most popular pairings of the evening. Carlos also seemed to really enjoy the way the Sunset Ale worked in the actual cooking of the meal, how the malty sweetness took some of the bitter edge off of the Gruyere. And he also let everyone know that moving forward, that soup would be made with this beer from Florida Beer.
Hello Florida Lager. This beer was paired with either their Avocado Ranch Burger or their Veggie Burger. Carlos told us that the Avocado Ranch Burger was their best seller, so it was a no-brainer to order that one. He also let us know about how Chef Andy D'Amico came to start the 5 Napkin Burger restaurants. Apparently, his fine French restaurant in New York started offering a burger. Not just any burger, one that was so popular that it inspired and named the new 5 Napkin Burger restaurant.
Before the burgers were served, we were shocked to see multiple side dishes. Fries, spiced fries, onion rings, and these really cool tater tots with mashed potatoes inside. ALL. PILED. HIGH. As we sat in awe, our beautiful burgers arrived. Lots of guacamole too, mmm. Honestly, I've never heard so many people order medium-rare, but I must say those people seemed really satisfied. Maybe next time! I finished my burger, but I think many of the guests were absolutely stuffed by then, including myself.
Mood lighting was on. Sorry it's a little dark.
Dessert was next, an awesome creme brulee paired with an equally awesome Swamp Ape IPA. I thought the food and beer matched up well, though I can see how some may have thought it was a little different than the other pairings. For me, the crunchy top to the creme brulee was so nice with the high alcohol of the beer. Swamp Ape is sweet but has enough hoppiness to make those bitter elements pop against a sweet dessert.
After all the food was served, Carlos had Chef David come out and say hello. Was a nice touch. Corey was looking for favorite beers and pairings for the night. I heard several people say the soup while others mentioned the dessert. For me, I liked the other two pairings better, the appetizers and burger. I remembered the beers better than the last time I had them, and I think they all were great with the paired food.
If you're not convinced by now, you probably were just skimming this article. However, I think what you should do right now is sign up for next week's beer dinner featuring Holy Mackerel Beers. I'm sure you won't be let down!
On the way out, we were given a Florida Beer pint glass. My wife was thrilled with that. Perhaps I'll save it for my first glass of Bermuda Triangle (Devil's Triangle) IPA, the newest beer that Florida Beer is working on!
Here are some additional pictures. Enjoy.


So rumor has it you've got a smokin' hot date this Friday. She's basically everything you've ever wanted and even though you only know her in the context of your Salem Witchcraft Trials class, you're pretty sure you'd like to reproduce with her in the very near future. The only problem? She asked you to plan the date. Well, fear not, potential bachelor-for-life, because when it comes to impressing a lady with some dinner, I know a thing or two about a thing or two.
For the first date, you want amazing food without a stuffy atmosphere. That way, if the conversation turns to mush, you will still have something to talk about without the pressure of the deafening awkward silence of a super-prim restaurant. My point? John Thomas Steakhouse is out.Second, you don't want to show off too much on your first date by taking her to a restaurant usually populated by members of the Board of Trustees and whatever visiting dignitaries might be in the area. She'll know the dinner is really on your parents' credit card, so there's no real gain. So long, Hazelnut Kitchen and The Heights Cafe.At the same time, you'll want to keep things edgy and fresh. Don't take her to a place you know she frequents often — she'll probably know your waiter and he's probably way cuter than you, anyway. Forget Collegetown. That leaves you with The Commons, an amalgamation of Ithaca's finest and… Ithaca's not-so-fine. If you know your lady has a sweet tooth — read: if she's got a little more cushion for the pushing — then your best bet would be Madeline's. Their pan-Asian fare is delicious in its own right, but their dessert bar is mind-blowingly good. Plus, at the end of the meal at Madeline's, guests stand up from the table and walk to the dessert bar to select a delicacy. That means if you weren't playing footsie with your date under the table all night long, now's the time to slip a casual arm over her shoulder as you ponder, "Apple Torte or Molten Chocolate Cake?"But if that doesn't appeal to you, a strong runner-up would have to be Just a Taste.Their tapas-style menu will allow you both to pick and choose your favorites, and the barrage of new courses throughout your meal will give you a constant stream of goodies to talk about. And if you're the type of person that will look at a wine menu, close your eyes, and point, there's nothing to fear here. Just a Taste offers wine pairings with their menu. So basically, someone else has done all the eye-closing and pointing for you.Of course, you could just invite her over and cook her dinner yourself. That way, you could tell all your buddies you brought someone home last night… and not be totally lying, either.


Osteoporosis, as defined by the National Institutes of Health conference is a "skeletal disorder characterized by compromised bone strength predisposing a person to an increased risk for fracture." It increases the patient's likelihood of fracture (importantly vertebral, forearm, and hip fractures). Worldwide 8.9 million osteoporotic fractures occur annually leading to one osteoporotic fracture every 3 s. It is a growing public health problem. Around one in two women and one in five men aged 50 years and above will suffer osteoporotic fractures., These low-trauma fractures are associated with increased mortality. Post hip fractures expected survival is reduced from 12% to 20%.
India with population of 1.32 billion is the second largest country in the world. Life expectancy and median age of Indian population has increased over the decades. At present about 14% of population is >55 years of age. There is a paucity of data on fracture rates and fracture trends in India. A study in 2017 estimated 0.142 million hip fractures annually in India and showed that rates are approximately equal to that seen in China, Iran, and South Korea. Owing to aging of the population, these are expected to increase further. Thus there is an urgent need to reduce fracture risk in our population.
After sustaining an osteoporotic fracture, the risk of second osteoporotic fracture is markedly increased. Hence, thorough evaluation of patients with fragility fractures is warranted to evaluate for osteoporosis and other risk factors for fracture (e.g., risk for fall). Potent medicines have been available for treatment of osteoporosis for over three decades. There is compelling evidence regarding efficacy of anti-osteoporotic medications in terms of preventing secondary fracture and even to reduce death. It is estimated that around 80% of patients are currently never offered screening and/or treatment for osteoporosis. Many orthopedic surgeons and physicians do not have necessary information available to help their patients make informed decision regarding treatment. Lack of proper counseling or communication often leads to premature stoppage of treatment by many patients. This increases the risk of disability, loss of independence, and even death. Apart from medical complications, it is a huge financial burden to patient and family.
With an aim to close this treatment gap, various measures such as population-based screening programs; healthcare professional education; and patient education were tried. Fracture liaison service (FLS) is a healthcare model with the aim to reduce second fracture in patients with fragility fracture. It is a coordinator-based service implemented by healthcare system to ensure that all patients with fragility fracture are assessed for fracture risk and treated if appropriate. Coordinator (often a clinical nurse) will act as a link between patient, orthopedic team, primary care physician, and fall prevention services.
FLS was first designed and implemented in two separate National Health Service trusts in Glasgow in 1999. Since then it has been adopted in many countries, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and Thailand. It has been actively promoted by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) since 2012. The FLS model of care has been endorsed by governments, healthcare professional organizations, national osteoporosis societies, and national alliances comprising these and other groups.
There are many different types of FLS models depending on the intensity of services offered in the program. However, all models have unifying theme of identifying high-risk patients and referring to FLS coordinator. Then depending upon the model, coordinator does one or all of the following tasks of investigating, educating, treating, and follow up of patient. Ganda et al. have classified FLS models into four types.
Type D: In this type patients are identified and educated but no further communication is given to primary physician or other team members.
Indian Society of Bone and Mineral Research (ISBMR) has set up a pilot project at PGI, Chandigarh and PD Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai in 2018 after ethics committee clearance. It plans to start another 4–5 centers in 2019.
Data base: Institutional base of these patients is kept with plans to share with regional and national data base. Reduction in re-fracture risk (hazard ratio) will be evaluated.
FLS ensures that BMD is done on maximum patients with osteoporotic fracture. Education and fall prevention services are delivered to all patients. Thus by preventing secondary fracture they are cost effective. Local, regional, or national data base would be built up.
Many studies have studied fracture risk reduction which is primary function of FLS. For measurement purpose patients in the FLS program are compared against historic cohorts, those following up with primary physician, or from patients in hospital without FLS. Dell et al. showed 38.1% reduction in hip fracture by FLS when compared against previous hospital performance. Similarly, studies have shown reduction in mortality and improvement in bone health assessment, treatment initiation after FLS. Best outcomes are seen in most intensive FLS models (Type A and B).
With high prevalence of osteoporosis, preventing all osteoporotic fracture is a herculean task. Even if provisions were made for finances and manpower, it would be next-to-impossible to track all senior citizens at high risk for fragility fractures. But patients who already have had an osteoporotic fracture are at high risk for another fracture. Targeting them for secondary prevention is reasonable. Try and get the low-hanging fruit first! FLS aims to achieve this by working on institutionally accepted protocols. A single coordinator is given the responsibility which varies depending on FLS type. In most intensive types FLS identifies, educates, investigates, initiates treatment, keeps follow up, and maintains data base under supervision of FLS head. Successful implementation requires cooperation from multiple departments. On successful implementation, benefits in terms of reduction in secondary fracture, mortality, and healthcare expenditure on fractures are seen.
NIH Consensus Development Panel on Osteoporosis Prevention, Diagnosis and Therapy. Osteoporosis prevention diagnosis and therapy. JAMA 2001;285:785-95.
Melton LJ 3rd, Chrischilles EA, Cooper C, Lane AW, Riggs BL. Perspective. How many women have osteoporosis? J Bone Miner Res 1992;7:1005-10.
Kanis JA, Johnell O, Oden A, Sembo I, Redlund-Johnell I, Dawson A, et al. Long-term risk of osteoporotic fracture in Malmo. Osteoporos Int 2000;11:669-74.
"World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision". United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Available from: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/DataQuery/. [Last accessed on 2018 Oct 15].
Dhanwal DK, Siwach R, Dixit V, Mithal A, Jameson K, Cooper C. Incidence of hip fracture in Rohtak district, North India. Arch Osteoporos 2013;8:135.
Johansson H, Siggeirsdóttir K, Harvey NC, Odén A, Gudnason V, McCloskey E, et al. Imminent risk of fracture after fracture. Osteoporos Int 2017;28:775-80.
Bessette L, Ste-Marie LG, Jean S, Davison KS, Beaulieu M, Baranci M, et al. The care gap in diagnosis and treatment of women with a fragility fracture. Osteoporos Int 2008;19:79-86.
McLellan AR, Gallacher SJ, Fraser M, McQuillian C. The fracture liaison service: Success of a program for the evaluation and management of patients with osteoporotic fracture. Osteoporos Int 2003;14:1028-34.
Ganda K, Puech M, Chen JS, Speerin R, Bleasel J, Center JR, et al. Models of care for the secondary prevention of osteoporotic fractures: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Osteoporos Int 2013;24:393-406.
Dell R, Greene D, Scheikun SR, Williams K. Osteoporosis disease management: The role of the orthopaedic surgeon. J Bone Joint Surg Am 2008;90(Suppl 4):188-94.


text:
Press Release, June 30, 2021
Recent Closing Announcement - Premier Chicago Asset 1K Fulton
American Realty Advisors, LLC ("ARA") is pleased to announce the sale of 1K Fulton, a LEED® Platinum creative office building located in the heart of Chicago's Fulton Market District. The 531,190 square-foot office asset is 99% leased with 73% occupied by Google's Midwest headquarters.
1K Fulton was acquired for ARA's core portfolio in July 2016. With a cost basis of $290 million, the asset was sold on June 24, 2021 to a public REIT for $355 million.
Located in Fulton Market, one of the most sought-after high-growth submarkets in the country, the property was originally a ten-story redeveloped (built in 1923) cold storage facility annexed to a new six-story office building. Google's 2013 decision to relocate to 1K Fulton significantly propelled this market, which subsequently demonstrated substantial growth via a mix of creative office, luxury residential, hospitality, entertainment, and retail product. The property features a large tiered public plaza, landscaped rooftop deck, 24-hour fitness facility, 157- subterranean parking stalls, a high end steakhouse, and a shuttle bus service to and from the commuter rail station.
"The success of the 1K Fulton asset is a proof statement for our core strategy and showcases the vison that our research and investment team had for this market and the asset coming to reality. From purchase to disposition, 1K Fulton has been a tremendous opportunity for us to create value for our clients while also having a significant economic impact on the local market. We would like to thank the entire team at ARA who contributed to the success of this transaction," said Austin Maddux, Executive Vice President/Deputy Portfolio Manager.
ARA would also like to thank Stephen Livaditis, Jeff Scott, Matt Graham and the entire Eastdil Secured team.


Textile cluster will be soon coming up in Khaira block of Balasore district in Odisha, which aims at bringing economic boom for the weavers who are mostly dependent on trade of handloom and handicraft products for their living.
With the establishment of the cluster, it would help strengthen the working capital base of the primary weavers' cooperative societies to develop modernized looms, accessories, training to weavers, marketing support and design innovations.
Union minister of state for textiles Ajay Tamta replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, said that a proposal for setting up a block-level cluster at Khaira has been approved under National Handloom Development Programme (NHDP).
He said Rs. 48.52 lakh has been released out of central share of Rs.147.04 lakh to cover 144 beneficiaries.
In a bid to provide assistance for modernization of textile industry, the government has taken a large number of steps through its various policy initiatives and schemes. Special packages for employment generation and promotion of exports in textile and apparel sectors have also been launched recently.
As of now, the country has three power-loom clusters at Erode in Tamil Nadu, Bhilwara in Rajasthan and Ichalkaranji in Maharashtra while 11 more power-loom, handloom and silk clusters are coming up in 10 states.
In Odisha, cluster approach is being adopted where viable societies, NGOs and small and medium entrepreneurs will be actively associated for development of the sector, the minister added.


text:
\section{Introduction}
	\label{sec:intro}

Multi-talker speaker separation methods based on deep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved impressive progress in recent years~\cite{wang2018supervised}.
Existing separation methods are mainly concerned with fully overlapped utterances in short segments.
For practical applications, however, a separation model is required to process long audio recordings with occasional speech overlaps.
Recently, continuous speech separation (CSS) is proposed to handle overlapped speech in conversational or meeting environments~\cite{chen2020continuous}.
CSS usually divides a long audio stream into short segments. Each segment is independently processed by a separation model with permutation-invariant training (PIT) criterion. Separated signals are then concatenated to create individual speaker streams.

Many studies have been proposed to improve different aspects of the CSS framework~\cite{taherian2021time, Yixuan22, zhang22y_interspeech, neumann21_interspeech, Chenda, wang2021multi, saijo22b_interspeech, boeddeker22_interspeech}.
We introduced a modulation factor based on segment overlap ratio to dynamically adjust the separation loss~\cite{taherian2021time}. In \cite{Yixuan22}, a recurrent selective attention network is used to separate one speaker at a time.
The work in \cite{zhang22y_interspeech} and \cite{neumann21_interspeech} proposed new training criteria that generalizes PIT to capture long speech contexts.
Li et al.~\cite{Chenda} proposed a dual-path separation model to leverage inter-segment information from a memory embedding pool.
Wang et al. adopted a multi-stage approach by combining a multi-channel separation model with masking-based beamforming and a post-filtering network to achieve strong separation performance~\cite{wang2021multi}.
Other works employed unsupervised multi-channel source separation for CSS.
Saijo et al. proposed a spatial loss that uses the estimated direction of arrival to impose spatial constraints on the demixing  matrix~\cite{saijo22b_interspeech}.
Boeddeker et al.~\cite{boeddeker22_interspeech} introduced an initialization scheme for a beamformer based on a complex Angular Central Gaussian Mixture model.

\begin{figure*}[!t]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.90\textwidth]{images/diagram5-01.png}
	\caption{ \small
	  Schematic diagram of multi-resolution location-based training for a MC-CSM network with $K_e=3$ encoder layers and $K_d=2$ decoder layers.
	  A strided $2 \times 2$ depthwise convolutional layer is used after each
	  dense block for downsampling and upsampling in encoder and decoder, respectively. Each cube represents an output feature map. Skip connections link encoders to the corresponding decoders.
	  Feature maps in the decoder middle layers are divided into four groups and assigned to speakers according to their locations.}
	\label{fig_diagram}
	\end{figure*}

In our previous study, we introduced a new training criterion, named location-based training (LBT), to assign DNN outputs according to speaker locations in physical space~\cite{taherian2022Multi}. We showed that LBT performs better than PIT for fully overlapped utterances in simulated and matched reverberant conditions. This paper extends LBT to conversational multi-channel speaker separation and unmatched reverberant conditions. We train a multichannel input single-channel output (MISO) system which directly estimates the real and imaginary spectrograms of speakers from multi-channel mixture. We also propose a multi-resolution loss for convolutional neural networks by estimating the complex spectrograms from low to high time and frequency resolutions. With the multi-resolution loss, convolutional kernels are consistently paired with speakers according to their locations.
We demonstrate that multi-resolution LBT generalizes well to real conversational recordings, despite using simulated room impulse responses (RIRs) for training only. Experiments on the LibriCSS corpus~\cite{chen2020continuous} show that the proposed separation model produces superior separation performance compared to other competitive methods.

\section{System Description}
	\label{sec:sys_description}
\subsection{Location-based training for CSS}
	\label{sec:location_based_training}

The objective of CSS is to generate multiple non-overlapped streams from a multi-channel signal that contains occasional speech overlaps~\cite{chen2020continuous}. The CSS framework can handle any number of speakers as long as there are at most $N$ active speakers in a segment at the same time. In this study, we assume $N=2$ as more than two concurrent speakers rarely happens for a short length segment. Most prior works in CSS employ utterance-wise PIT for training the separation model~\cite{chen2020continuous, wang2021multi, Chen2021conformer}:
\begin{equation}
	\mathcal{L}_{\text{PIT}}(\hat{S}, S)  = \min_{\phi \in \Phi}  \sum_{n=1}^{N} \mathcal{L}(\hat{S}_n, S_{\phi(n)}),
	\label{eq_pit_loss}
 \end{equation}
where $\hat{S}$ and $S$ are estimated and clean speech signals in the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) domain, respectively.
$\mathcal{L}$ denotes a loss function, symbol $\Phi$ the set of all permutations and $\phi$ refers to one permutation. For the segments with no speech overlap, the PIT-based separation model puts the input to one of its outputs while the other output channel produces a zero signal.

Recently LBT was proposed to resolve the permutation ambiguity problem in multi-channel talker-independent speaker separation~\cite{taherian2022Multi}. LBT leverages distinct spatial locations of multiple speakers in physical space and produces superior separation performance compared to PIT. Moreover, LBT has a linear training complexity to the number of speakers which computationally much more efficient than PIT with a factorial complexity. In this study, we extend the LBT criterion to CSS:

\begin{equation}
	\mathcal{L}_{\text{LBT}}(\hat{S}, S)  = \sum_{n=1}^{N} \mathcal{L}(\hat{S}_n, S_{\lambda_{n}}),
	  \label{eq_azi_loss}
\end{equation}
where $ \lambda_{n} \in \{1, 2\}$  is speaker index sorted in ascending order based on speaker azimuths or distances relative to the microphone array. Different from PIT, Eq.~\eqref{eq_azi_loss} organizes DNN outputs on the basis of speaker azimuths or distances. For non-overlap segments, the input is mapped to the first output and a zero signal is assigned to the second output.

\subsection{Multi-channel complex spectral mapping}

Our separation model is based on multi-channel complex spectral mapping (MC-CSM) which achieves better separation performance than masking-based beamforming~\cite{williamson2016complex, neuralSpatialFilter}. We employ the Dense-UNet architecture proposed in \cite{liu2019divide} for MC-CSM. The Dense-UNet input is the real and imaginary components of the mixture STFT at all microphones as well as the spectral magnitude of the first microphone. The Dense-UNet contains an encoder and decoder with $K_e=5$ and $K_d=4$ layers of densely-connected convolutional blocks, respectively.
Each dense block has 5 convolutional layers with 76 channels, a kernel size of $3 \times 3$, and a stride of $1 \times  1$. After the last dense block, we use a $1 \times  1$ convolutional layer with 4 channels to produce estimates of the real and imaginary components for each speaker. MC-CSM contains around 6.9 million parameters.
For more details about the Dense-UNet architecture, we refer the reader to \cite{liu2019divide}. The model is trained with the loss function proposed by~\cite{wang2020multijournal}:
\begin{equation}
  \begin{split}
	\mathcal{L}(\hat{S}, S) &=  \left\lVert \hat{S}^{(r)} - S^{(r)} \right\rVert_{1} + \left\lVert \hat{S}^{(i)} - S^{(i)} \right\rVert_{1} \\
   &+ \left\lVert |\hat{S}| - |S| \right\rVert_{1},
  \end{split}
\end{equation}
where superscripts $r$ and $i$ denote real and imaginary parts, $|~.~|$ computes magnitude and $ \left\lVert~.~\right\rVert_{1}$ computes $\ell_1$ norm.

\subsection{Multi-resolution location-based training}

The key idea of multi-resolution LBT is to estimate the complex
spectrograms using dedicated convolutional kernels in the decoder by progressively increasing the time and frequency resolutions. Fig.~\ref{fig_diagram} illustrates  multi-resolution LBT for a Dense-UNet  with $K_e=3$ encoder layers and $K_d=2$ decoder layers. For every middle layer $k$ in the decoder, we split the channel dimension of the output feature maps $F^k$ into four groups:
\begin{equation}
f_{1r}^k, f_{1i}^k, f_{2r}^k, f_{2i}^k  = \text{Split}(F^k)
	  \label{eq_split}
\end{equation}
where $f_{nr}^k$ and $f_{ni}^k$ are the real and imaginary feature maps for speaker $n\in \{1, 2\}$, respectively. Then, the feature maps within each group are averaged across the channel dimension.
A low-resolution estimate of the speech signals in the STFT domain is created at layer $k$ for each speaker:
\begin{equation}
	\hat{S}_n^k  = \bar{f}_{nr}^k +i \bar{f}_{ni}^k
	  \label{eq_average}
\end{equation}
where $\bar{f}$ is the averaged feature maps and $i$ denotes the imaginary unit. The LBT loss between lower resolution estimates and clean signals is calculated for every middle layer and added to the final loss:

\begin{equation}
	\mathcal{L}_{\text{LBT}}(\hat{S}, S) + \sum_{k}^{K_d-1} \mathcal{L}_{\text{LBT}}(\hat{S}^k, g^{K_d-k}(S))
	  \label{eq_avg_pool}
\end{equation}

\noindent where $g^x(.)$ is a 2D average pooling function with a kernel size of $2 \times 2$ and a stride of $2 \times  2$, applied recursively for $x$ iterations.
Intuitively, we assign a group of convolutional kernels to learn the real and imaginary spectrograms of each speaker with different time and frequency resolutions. The kernel assignment is consistent at every decoder layer based on sorted speaker azimuth angles or distances.

Note that this is different from multi-scale loss~\cite{nachmani2020voice} which enforces producing a waveform estimate after each layer by using a shared decoder for a PIT-based separation model. We emphasize that consistent assignments of convolutions kernels is essential for the multi-resolution loss. We expect that combining the multi-resolution loss with PIT criterion would not perform well as PIT allows label permutation and the order of convolutions kernels can change from one mixture to another.

\begin{table*}
	\caption{WER results (in \%) of comparison systems for utterance-wise and continuous evaluation on LibriCSS. `MISO\textsubscript{1}+SC' and `MC-CSM+SC' refer to MISO\textsubscript{1} and MC-CSM with a speaker counting network, respectively. }

	\label{tab:res}
	\centering
	\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.00}
	\resizebox{0.95\textwidth}{!}{
	  \begin{tabular}{{l c c cccccc | cccccc  }}
	  \toprule
	  \multicolumn{3}{l}{\multirow{2}{*}{}}  & \multicolumn{6}{c}{\textbf{Utterance-wise}} & \multicolumn{6}{c}{\textbf{Continuous}}  \\
	  \cmidrule{4-9} \cmidrule{10-15}
	  & Criterion & \shortstack{Multi- \\ resolution}   & 0S & 0L & 10\%  & 20\% & 30\% & 40\%   & 0S & 0L & 10\%  & 20\% & 30\% & 40\%  \\
	  \midrule
	  Unprocessed 									&--	&--				& 11.8		&11.7	&18.8	&27.2	&35.6	&43.3
																	  &15.4		&11.5	&21.7	&27.0		&34.3	&40.5\\

	  BLSTM~\cite{chen2020continuous}    		&PIT&--			& 8.3		&8.4	&11.6	&16.0		&18.4	&21.6
																	  &11.9		&9.7	&13.4	&15.1	&19.7	&22.0\\

	  Conformer~\cite{Chen2021conformer}    		&PIT&--			& 7.2		&7.5	&9.6	&11.3	&13.7	&15.1
																	&11.0			&8.7	&12.6	&13.5	&17.6	&19.6\\

	  MISO\textsubscript{1}~\cite{wang2021multi}	&PIT&--			& 7.7		&7.5	&7.9	&9.6	&11.3	&13.0
																	  &10.7		&10.5	&10.9	&11.5	&13.8	&15.3\\

	  MISO\textsubscript{1}+SC~\cite{wang2021multi}	&PIT&--			& --		&--		&--		&--		&--		&--
																	  &7.9		&8.5	&8.5	&10.5	&12.3	&14.3\\
	  \midrule
	  \multirow{5}{*}{MC-CSM}						&PIT&-- 			&7.0	&7.5	&7.9	&9.3	&11.3	&13.0
																	  &10.0			&9.4	&11.1	&11.8	&14.3	&15.2 \\

	  												&Azimuth&--		&8.6		&8.8	&9.2	&10.3	&11.3	&12.4
																	  &13.5		&14.5	&13.6	&13.4	&14.7	&15.4 \\

	  		 										&PIT&\checkmark		&7.6	&7.6	&7.8	&9.4	&11.0	&12.8
																	  &11.4	    &12.5	&11.3	&13.0	&15.1	&16.3 \\

	  		 										&Azimuth&\checkmark		&7.3		&7.9	&7.6	&\textbf{9.2}	&\textbf{10.8}	&\textbf{11.4}
																	  &9.2		&9.8	&9.1	&10.5	&12.2	&\textbf{12.8} \\

	  		 										&Distance&\checkmark	&8.7		&10		&10.5	&12.9	&14.6	&17.8
												   					&12.2		&12.8	&12.4	&14.8	&17.1	&19.0	 \\
	  \midrule

	\multirow{5}{*}{MC-CSM+SC}						&PIT &--			&\textbf{6.5}		&\textbf{6.9}	&7.4	&9.3	&11.7	&13.6
																	  &8.0			&\textbf{7.4}	&8.8	&10.7	&12.6	&13.8 \\

	  												&Azimuth&--			&7.4		&7.7	&8.1	&9.5	&11.3	&12.5
																		  &7.9		&7.9	&8.5	&9.4	&\textbf{11.6}	&12.9\\

	  		 										&PIT&\checkmark		&\textbf{6.5}	    &7.3	&\textbf{7.3}	&9.6	&11.3	&13.5
																	    &8.1	    &8.1	&8.3	&10.2	&12.4	&14.0 \\

	  			 									&Azimuth&\checkmark			&6.7		&7.1	&7.5	&\textbf{9.2}	&10.9	&12.1
																		  &\textbf{7.7}		&7.7	&\textbf{8.0}		&\textbf{9.3}	&\textbf{11.6}	&13.0 \\

													&Distance&\checkmark		&7.6	&8.3	&9.3	&12.1	&14.2	&17.8
																		  &8.3	&8.4	&9.4	&11.7	&14.9	&16.8	 \\
	  \bottomrule

	  \end{tabular}
	}
  \end{table*}

\section{Experimental Setup}
	\label{sec:exp_setup}

\subsection{Datasets}\label{sec_dataset}

We evaluate the proposed separation models with the LibriCSS corpus~\cite{chen2020continuous} which is a conversational speech recognition task with speech overlaps. This dataset contains 10 hours of recordings from the Librispeech development set that are retransmitted with loudspeakers to capture real room reverberation.
The loudspeakers are positioned around a table and their distance to the array ranges from 33 to 409 cm.
The recordings are divided into 6 sessions with different overlap ratios: 0S (no overlap with a 0.1-0.5s pause between utterances), 0L (no overlap with a 2.9-3.0s pause between utterances), 10\%, 20\%, 30\% and 40\% overlaps. The LibriCSS corpus is recorded using a 7-channel circular microphone array with 4.25 cm radius.

We follow the setup described in \cite{wang2021multi} for simulating training and validation data using the image method~\cite{allen1979image, scheibler2018pyroomacoustics}. We created 192K two-speaker mixtures with different overlap ratios using the LibriSpeech dataset. Simulating the LibriCSS recording device, each mixture is convolved with 7-channel microphone array RIRs. For generating RIRs, we simulate rectangular rooms with random length, width and height dimensions in the range of [5$\times$5$\times$3, 10$\times$10$\times$4] meters, with the microphone array placed in the center of the room. The speaker positions are uniformly sampled from 360 candidate azimuth angles in the range of -180\degree~ to 180\degree~ with a 1\degree~ resolution. The speaker-array distances are randomly selected such that the two speakers are at least 5 cm far apart. The reverberation time (T60) is randomly sampled between 0.2 and 0.6 s. Stationary ambient noise is also added to the mixture signal at a random SNR from 10 to 30 dB.

The separation models are evaluated using the default ASR system provided with the LibriCSS corpus~\cite{chen2020continuous}. The LibriCSS contains two evaluation scenarios: utterance-wise and continuous evaluations. In the utterance-wise scenario, word error rate (WER) is calculated for both separated signals of pre-segmented mixtures, and the one with lower WER is considered. The continuous scenario evaluates long mixture segments that contain 8-10 utterances. The decoding results from both streams are combined for evaluation.

For both scenarios, the input mixture is processed in 2.4 s segments with a segment shift of 1.2 s.
The processed segments are concatenated using the stitching algorithm proposed by \cite{chen2020continuous}. All signals are sampled at 16 kHz. We use STFT with a frame length of 32 ms and a frame shift of 8 ms. The sample variance of the multi-channel input mixture is normalized. Global mean and variance normalization is also applied to STFT features.

\subsection{Speaker counting}\label{sec_source_counting}
For the segments without speaker overlaps, the separation model is expected to produce a zero signal in one of its outputs. However, it is observed that the model sometimes emits an intelligible residual signal for non-overlapped segments, leading to more decoding errors. Following~\cite{wang2021multi}, we utilize a frame-level speaker counting (SC) to find non-overlapped frames and remove the signal residual by combining the two separated outputs. For each frame, SC produces the probabilities for three classes: zero, one or two speakers. The SC model is based on a modified  MC-CSM architecture. Specifically, SC consists of the MC-CSM encoder followed by two bi-directional long short-term memory (BLSTM) layers and a softmax layer. The SC labels for training were generated using a pre-trained DNN based voice activity detector~\cite{Kaldi_VAD}.

\section{Evaluation Results}\label{sec:eval}

We trained MC-CSM using PIT and LBT criteria with and without the multi-resolution loss. For LBT, output-speaker assignments are ordered based on speaker azimuth angles. Table~\ref{tab:res} presents the WER results of MC-CSM models for utterance-wise and continuous evaluations.
We observe MC-CSM trained with azimuth criteria yields comparable results to PIT in higher overlap ratios but it performs worse than PIT in lower overlap ratios.
However, clear improvement is observed with azimuth-based training when SC is used to suppress the residual signal in non-overlapped segments. Combining the multi-resolution loss and azimuth-based training shows excellent speech recognition performance and outperforms PIT with or without speaker counting.
For example, MC-CSM based on multi-resolution LBT leads to a 2.4\% absolute WER reduction compared to PIT on the 40\% overlap condition in continuous evaluation.
The results indicate that LBT models trained with simulated RIRs generalize well to real microphone array recordings.
On the other hand, PIT-based separation model performance does not improve when the multi-resolution loss is used. This is because the PIT criterion is order-agnostic and features maps are not sorted consistently with the multi-resolution loss for different mixtures.

We also trained MC-CSM with LBT by using speaker distances instead of azimuth angles. As shown in the table, distance-based training underperforms both azimuth-based training and PIT. The reason could be that the distance criterion is not discriminative enough in the LibriCSS dataset as loudspeakers are positioned symmetrically and their distances to the microphone array are close.

Finally, we compare our MC-CSM models with other competitive separation methods that are evaluated with the LibriCSS default ASR. For all methods, we list the best reported results, and leave unreported fields blank.  The proposed systems in \cite{chen2020continuous} and \cite{Chen2021conformer} respectively use BLSTM and conformer architectures to estimate real-valued masks. The system in \cite{wang2021multi} performs complex spectral mapping using a UNet model with a temporal convolutional network. A dedicated speaker counting network was also utilized to further improve WER scores. Our LBT models trained with the  multi-resolution loss produce much better WER scores compared to other systems. We should mention that WER scores can be further decreased by using a speech enhancement network on top of the separation model as done in~\cite{wang2021multi}. Our focus in this study is on the separation model, and further improvements can be expected by introducing speech enhancement.

\section{Concluding Remarks}
	\label{sec:conclude}

In this study, we have extended LBT to conversational multi-channel speaker separation. We have proposed a multi-resolution loss to consistently assign convolutional kernels according to speaker locations. We have demonstrated LBT yields significantly better separation and ASR performance than other competitive methods on the LibriCSS corpus.

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv