Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films were deposited on Si (100) substrates by using plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition method (PEALD). Optimal PEALD parameters for AlN deposition were investigated. Under saturated deposition conditions, the clearly resolved fringes are observed from X-ray reflectivity (XRR) measurements, showing the perfectly smooth interface between the AlN film and Si (100). It is consistent with high-resolution image of the sharp interface analyzed by transmission electron microscope (TEM). The highly uniform thickness throughout the 2-inch size AlN film with blue covered surface was determined by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). Grazing incident X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) patterns indicate that the AlN films are polycrystalline with wurtzite structure and have a tendency to form (002) preferential orientation with increasing of the thickness. The obtained AlN films could open up a new approach of research in the use of AlN as the template to support gallium nitride (GaN) growth on silicon substrates.
With a direct wide bandgap of 6.2 eV , high resistivity and resistance of breakdown voltage, and good thermal conductivity and stability , aluminum nitride (AlN) is suitable for various applications, such as photodetectors, ultraviolet light-emitting diodes, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), and solar cells. As we know, low-temperature prepared AlN was used as a critical buffer layer for the growth of epitaxial gallium nitride (GaN) layers on sapphire substrates [3–5], which contributed to the development of GaN electronic and optoelectronic devices. Since large and high-quality silicon wafers are readily available at relatively low cost, AlN films grown on silicon substrates are highly desirable and have the potential to develop GaN electronic and optoelectronic devices on silicon substrates in future. Recently, ultrathin AlN films deposited at low temperatures were widely applied for passivation layers on high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) by controlling their thickness at atomic level [6–11]. Therefore, great efforts have been carried out for fabricating high-quality AlN growth at low temperature. It is well known that plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) is a low-temperature growth method based on self-limiting growth mechanism, which can deposit highly uniform and conformal angstrom-scale thin films. In the literatures, Alevli et al.  fabricated polycrystalline AlN films using PEALD, and the polar (002)-preferred orientation appeared with increasing the temperature up to 400 °C. Ozgit et al.  obtained (100)-oriented polycrystalline AlN films on Si (100) substrates. Epitaxial growth of (002)-oriented crystalline AlN films on GaN and sapphire were achieved [14, 15]. However, high-quality (002)-preferred orientation AlN films on silicon substrates have not been realized at low temperature up to now.
In this work, we have deposited polycrystalline hexagonal AlN films with (002) preferential orientation on Si (100) substrates at temperature as low as 300 °C. Interface between the AlN film and Si (100) has been investigated. AlN films with sharp interface and good uniformity are obtained.
AlN thin films were deposited on Si (100) substrates using an Angstrom-dep III PEALD reactor, Thin Film Technologies Ltd. of USA, equipped with an inductively coupled remote plasma (ICP) source. After cleaned by RCA standard cleaning process, the substrates are immediately loaded onto the reactor chuck in the PEALD system and pumped down to the system base pressure of ~0.15 Torr. Once reaching the system base pressure, the substrate chuck is heated resistively to the growth temperature. Upon at deposition temperature, another 20 min is needed for temperature to reach a balance. After that, the substrate surfaces are treated with high-purity (HP) Ar/N2/H2 (1:3:6) plasma to form NH groups, followed by purging the chamber with HP Ar. Subsequently, HP trimethylaluminum (TMA) is introduced separately for AlN growth. Unreacted TMA and by-products are removed by purging the chamber with HP Ar. Thus, each cycle of AlN growth consists of Ar/N2/H2 plasma pulse/Ar purge/TMA pulse/Ar purge. Table 1 summarizes the deposition conditions of the AlN films by PEALD.
After deposition, the thickness and the optical constants of AlN films were measured by spectroscopic ellipsometer (SE) in the energy range of 1.5–4.5 eV at incidence angle of 70°. X-ray reflectivity (XRR) with a PANalytical system X-ray reflectometry was used to study the interface between the films and substrates. The crystallinity of the as-deposited AlN was analyzed by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) measurement. The thickness, uniformity, and interface of the as-deposited AlN films were further characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM).
Deposition rate, also called growth per cycle (GPC), as a function of temperature is shown in Fig. 1a. It is obvious that GPC decreases from 3.76 to 1.4 Å/cycle with the temperature increases from 125 to 150 °C due to the condensation of TMA. The value of GPC within the temperature range of 150–300 °C is lower than the literal value of 2.5 Å/cycle , indicating a self-limited growth process. When the deposition temperature is above 300 °C, the GPC increases with the increase of growth temperature due to the self-decomposition of TMA molecules . Hence, the temperature range of 150–300 °C is atomic layer deposition window for this case, where the GPC varies with the deposition temperature. This variation can be attributed to the effect of temperature on the number and type of reactive sites present on the surface . Figure 1b shows the saturation curves of aluminum and nitrogen precursors obtained at 300 °C. For the TMA saturation curve, GPC increases with TMA dose until 0.05 s, where the deposition rate saturates at ~2.18 Å/cycle. For the N2/H2 plasma saturation curve, GPC increases with increased N2/H2 plasma pulse time until a constant deposition rate is obtained at 15 s. The achieved deposition rate of ~2.18 Å/cycle is higher than the reported values of PEALD-grown AlN [19–25] owing to the component of our plasma Ar:H2:N2 (1:6:3) in this work. The H2:N2 ratio is sufficient for AlN deposition process  in terms of the required N source. On the other hand, Ar acts as an ignition providing plasma with enough energy to overcome steric hindrance of methyl groups and make more complete reducing reaction.
where η and d are the non-uniformity and thickness of the film, respectively, the non-uniformity η of around 1% is calculated, suggesting that the AlN nucleation on Si (100) is highly uniform. Deposition of large-size uniform AlN films by PEALD at low temperatures broadens application of AlN in the areas that require uniform growth at low temperature with thickness controlled at the atomic level.
Figure 3 shows the X-ray diffraction XRD patterns of AlN thin films deposited at 300 °C with different thickness. From XRD analysis, it can be observed that AlN layers are polycrystalline. For the 87-nm-thick AlN film, different diffraction peaks at 2θ value of 33.2°, 35.8°, 37.7°, 51.7°, 59.3°, 65.0°, and 71.0° are assigned to the (100), (002), (101), (102), (110), (103), and (112) planes of hexagonal AlN, respectively, based on the PDF card (no: 01-080-6097). AlN films display a higher degree of crystallization with increasing of thickness. For the 20-nm-thick AlN, only the (102) peak is evident. When the thickness is increased to 52 nm, peaks for (100), (002), (101), (102), and (110) planes can be found in the XRD patterns. The (002) preferential orientation appears as the thickness increases to 87 nm, indicating that AlN films promote crystallization in (002) plane with increasing of thickness. Consequently, epitaxial growth of (002)-oriented AlN is feasible by improving the film thickness to a certain value. As we know, raising the process temperature is conductive to the formation of single-crystalline structure. Hence, increasing both of the thickness of AlN films and deposition temperature of PEALD process might suppress the polycrystalline nature of the film and form a single-crystalline AlN by PEALD on silicon substrate, and we will make further efforts to study about it in the future.
The optical performance of the 87-nm-thick AlN film is analyzed in Fig. 4. Refractive index (n) decreases from 2.20 to 1.96 with increasing wavelength from 275 to 826 nm. The value of n at 632 nm is 1.97, which is consistent with the value reported by Barshilia et al. . The extinction coefficient (k), which is 0.002 at 275 nm, decreases rapidly within the wavelength range of 275–300 nm. For higher wavelengths k is zero, indicating that films are transparent above 300 nm in wavelength, which is a red shift as compared with the band-edge wavelength of single-crystalline AlN. This feature might widen the utilization of AlN films as a window in solar photovoltaic technology.
It is well known that the interface between AlN passivation layer and III-nitride surface is crucial for the reduction of the current collapse in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs . The clearly resolved fringes from XRR measurement in Fig. 5 reveal that the interface between the AlN film and Si (100) is perfectly smooth. The film thickness of around 87 nm can be obtained using a fit to the experimental curve (not shown here), which is in good agreement with the thickness measured by TEM as shown in Fig. 6a. Inset of Fig. 6a shows that the film is highly uniform, verifying the good uniformity measured by SE. Figure 6b is the high-resolution TEM (HR-TEM) image of the same sample. The sharp interface is observed between the as-deposited AlN and Si (100) consistent with the results of XRR as shown in Fig. 5. This image also shows that the AlN is amorphous at the initial thickness of ~5 nm and then starts to crystallize. A hexagonal lattice structure is shown in the corresponding selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern (Fig. 6c), which confirms the results made by GIXRD. With the increase of film thickness, AlN gradually exhibits a preferred orientation, as presented in Fig. 6d. Inset of Fig. 6d is a magnification of the square area, the distance for ten lattice planes of which is measured as 2.524 nm, corresponding to the (002) plane of hexagonal AlN materials. From both XRR measurements and HR-TEM images, we can conclude that the AlN films deposited on Si (100) substrates have sharp interface. This feature of sharp interface between as-deposited AlN and Si (100) could benefit for the deposition of the passivation layer or the window layer as a conformal way.
In summary, polycrystalline hexagonal AlN films with sharp interface and good uniformity have been deposited on Si (100) at 300 °C by PEALD. Increasing the thickness of AlN films promotes crystallization in (002) orientation. AlN films exhibit a high transparency in the visible region of the spectrum, which can be utilized in solar photovoltaic technology. The achieved AlN films are not only potential buffer layer materials for GaN growth but also promising materials for applications in other microelectronic and optoelectronic devices.
This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61274134, 51402064), USTB Start-up Program (Grant No. 06105033), Beijing Innovation and Research Base (Grant No. Z161100005016095), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. FRF-UM-15-032, 06400071), and Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2015387). Authors would like to acknowledge Yuanjun Song from USTB for TEM measurements and thank Yangfeng Li from Institute of Physics CAS for the XRR measurements. Authors would also like to acknowledge Zhengwei Chen from Saga University for his useful comments and suggestions.
SJL designed and performed the experiments, analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. XHZ and MZP supervised this study. All authors read and approved the manuscript.


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Interactive Webinar on Melanoma
SIVUH Dermatology Consultants host an Interactive Webinar on Melanoma - Tuesday 18th June 2019...click here for more details
New Consultant Otolaryngologist Mr Dias
We wish to confirm the appointment of a new Consultant Otolaryngologist, Mr Andrew Dias who commenced on Monday 15th October 2018. Mr Dias is employed as Consultant Otolaryngologist in replacement of Mr Gerard O'Leary. Please extend a warm welcome to Mr Dias. We wish him every success in his new role.
Medical Manpower Manager, 16/10/18
New Consultant Otolaryngologist Mr Khan
We are happy to confirm the arrival of our new Consultant Otolaryngologist Mr Khan who rejoined SIVUH on Monday 23rd April 2018. Mr Khan previously worked in SIVUH and is will be employed as Consultant Otolaryngologist in direct replacement of Professor Sheahan. We extend a warm welcome to our colleague as he embarks on his new post at SIVUH.
Archive news announcements

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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(Credit: Alamy)
Revisiting The MC5 concert shortly before the notorious 1968 Chicago riots
Mick McStarkey
Tue 21st Dec 2021 20.00 GMT
The Motor City Five, or The MC5 as they are most commonly known, were one of the most important bands of the counterculture. Their Michigan brothers in arms and labelmates, The Stooges, are often mentioned before The MC5 in terms of importance because of their pioneering proto-punk and visceral live energy. However, The MC5 were equals to The Stooges in almost every aspect, bar Iggy Pop's subversive and often violent onstage antics.
One would argue that The MC5 were a lot more in tune with the energy of the era than The Stooges. The brilliance of The Stooges was that no one had ever heard anything like their sinister thunder before and they were almost like psychotic, extremist outsiders. The MC5, meanwhile, provided a bridge between the rest of countercultural rock and The Stooges.
Angry, unrelenting, and prone to a hypnotic freakout or two, The MC5 were the embodiment of countercultural fury, and for anyone thinking that the hippies were just a set of frail dropouts, The MC5 were there to prove them wrong. One would even argue that their music is perhaps more powerful than that of The Stooges — drenched in politics and shrouded in unbeatable energy. The Stooges were nihilistic and detached, whereas The MC5 were very present.
If you listen to 'Come Together' today, the song still packs a rather weighty punch. Rob Tyner, Wayne Kramer, Fred 'Sonic' Smith, Michael Davis and Dennis Thompson made music for the hippies who weren't willing to be walked all over by their perceived oppressors. This was hippiedom at it's most defiant. Apocalyptic and rebellious, for those that thought the end of days were round the corner, this is sure as hell was what it would have sounded like.
Formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1964, the band were inextricably linked to Detroit's leftwing political scene. Famously, the band performed at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which became synonymous with the brutal attacks of the police against the thousands of protestors in attendance.
If you wanted a taste of how the city was at breaking point, the year before, 1967, had witnessed the total destruction of The Detroit Riots. Furthermore, April 1968 saw the assassination of Martin Luther King and, in June, that of Robert F. Kennedy, which saw racial tensions and that between the counterculture and the law reach heights that were hitherto unseen.
The MC5 were hugely influenced by the works of activists Fred Hampton and Huey Newton, and notoriously their manager, the poet John Sinclair, was the founder of the 'White Panthers', a militantly anti-racist socialist group who were the counterparts of The Black Panthers. Sinclair's group were formed after a suggestion by Newton, and before long, The MC5 became representatives.
6 tracks that prove the genius of The Stooges drummer Scott Asheton
Interestingly, in September 1968, Sinclair was arrested for his involvement in the bombing of a CIA branch in Ann Arbor, the home of The Stooges. However, before he felt the wrath of the law, he had overseen The MC5's performance at the Chicago Democratic National Convention. The band were booked by one of the most prominent countercultural figures of the era, Abbie Hoffman, who was staging a 'Festival of Life'. The festival attracted 100,000 people to Chicago for five days of peaceful protest and music, aimed to attract more young people to their cause.
Things did not go to plan, though. Hoffman's plans for an organised music festival were scuppered by the fact he failed to secure permits for the bands, leaving The MC5 as the only band on the bill. They played to a few thousand for less than an hour.
In a 2008 interview on the 40th anniversary of the riots with The Huffington Post, guitarist Wayne Kramer recalled: "There was no stage, there was no flatbed truck, there was no sound system, there were no porta-toilets, there was no electricity. We had to run an electrical cord from the hot dog stand to power our gear. We played on the ground in the middle of Lincoln Park in Chicago with the crowd all around us sitting on the ground, in the back standing."
He explained: "I'm going to guess there were maybe 3,000 young people there. And it was very tense. The Chicago police had been very aggressive and very intimidating all day, and even though it was a rock concert and we were the only band to play, it didn't feel like a rock concert. There was a dark cloud over the day because we knew the likelihood of people being hurt was great."
Before too long, after the band's set, the day would disintegrate into widespread rioting. Incensed by their treatment at the hands of the police, and all of the political scandals that had led up to the day, there was no real surprise that it happened. The MC5 could sense it coming, and their raucous music provided the perfect precursor to the events that would unfold, giving way to the protracted court case of the 'Chicago Eight'. But that's a story for another day.
Watch footage of the rioting set to The MC5's 'Kick Out The Jams' below.


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Moby Dick (Paperback)
By Edinson Saguez (Editor), Herman Melville
Not Available In-Store - Usually Ships from Warehouse in 1-5 Days
The novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville is an epic tale of the voyage of the whaling ship the Pequod and its captain, Ahab, who relentlessly pursues the great Sperm Whale (the title character) during a journey around the world. The narrator of the novel is Ishmael, a sailor on the Pequod who undertakes the journey out of his affection for the sea. Moby Dick begins with Ishmael's arrival in New Bedford as he travels toward Nantucket. He rests at the Spouter Inn in New Bedford, where he meets Queequeg, a harpooner from New Zealand who will also sail on the Pequod. Although Queequeg appears dangerous, he and Ishmael must share a bed together and the narrator quickly grows fond of the somewhat uncivilized harpooner. Queequeg is actually the son of a High Chief who left New Zealand because of his desire to learn among Christians. The next day, Ishmael attends a church service and listens to a sermon by Father Mapple, a renowned preacher who delivers a sermon considering Jonah and the whale that concludes that the tale is a lesson to preacher Truth in the face of Falsehood. On a schooner to Nantucket, Ishmael and Queequeg come across a local bumpkin who mocks Queequeg. However, when this bumpkin is swept overboard, Queequeg saves him. In Nantucket, Queequeg and Ishmael choose between three ships for a year journey, and decide upon the Pequod. The Captain of the Pequod, Peleg, is now retired, and merely owns the boat with another Quaker, Bildad. Peleg tells them of the new captain, Ahab, and immediately describes him as a grand and ungodly man. Before leaving for their voyage, Ishmael and Queequeg come across a stranger named Elijah who predicts disaster on their journey. Before leaving on the Pequod, Elijah again predicts disaster.
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Date: April 30th, 2016
Paperback (November 4th, 2011): $13.88
Paperback (Icelandic) (January 6th, 2019): $16.99
Paperback (August 10th, 2015): $22.99
Paperback (Spanish) (January 6th, 2019): $18.99
Paperback (Danish) (December 1st, 2018): $16.99
Paperback (Italian) (September 14th, 2018): $18.99
Paperback (December 11th, 2015): $12.99
Paperback (October 2nd, 2018): $10.71
Paperback (June 14th, 2017): $9.98
Paperback (May 31st, 2019): $18.79
Paperback (October 10th, 2018): $36.99
Paperback (August 3rd, 2016): $26.00
Hardcover (October 31st, 2018): $18.01
Hardcover (November 18th, 2018): $34.24


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Compton man sentenced to 15 years to life for killing his wife
Melanie Ann Cunningham, 58
By Iris Lee
A 67-year-old man was sentenced Sept. 25 to 15 years to life in prison for killing his wife of more than 30 years in their Compton home last year, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
Henry Cunningham pleaded no contest July 29 to one count of second-degree murder in the killing of Melanie Ann Cunningham, according to prosecutors.
Around 1 a.m. on Dec. 17, 2018, Cunningham slit his wife's throat with a knife while she was sleeping in bed with their 1-year-old granddaughter, according to a probation report filed in court.
Cunningham then took his granddaughter, who was unharmed, to a spare bedroom and went back to sleep. The next morning, he drove to his daughter's work with about $6,000 in cash and told her that he had just killed Melanie.
Cunningham told sheriff's homicide detectives that he had not fought with his wife for over 20 years, but "things started going downhill" after she stared working as an in-home care nurse in Chatsworth. He suspected she was abusing drugs, according to the report.
Hours before the murder, Cunningham, his wife and their granddaughter went out to dinner to celebrate the victim's 58th birthday. After the outing, they returned home and went to bed.
Cunningham told the detectives that he believed his wife was putting drugs into his body, and felt the "drug stuff," in his system when he woke up shortly after. He said he had a strange feeling that told him to "get her or she was going to get him," which prompted him to retrieve a 12-inch knife from the kitchen to cut the victim's throat.
Prosecutors said there were no traces of drugs in his system at the time of his arrest.
Cunningham had initially been charged with one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of cruelty to a child by inflicting injury. The misdemeanor count was later dismissed as a result of the plea, according to district attorney's office.
Contact the Homicide Report. Follow @latimeshomicide on Twitter.
Oct. 15, 2019 Michael Phillip Uccello, 48
Oct. 14, 2019 Aristides Antonio Ruiz Jr., 29
I agree with what Tomato said.
Poor lady.
RIP mam.
— Babs Oct. 16, 2019 at 3:52 p.m.
This is a sad crazy story rip to the lady
— Tomato Oct. 10, 2019 at 12:15 p.m.


Tekoäly (Artificial Intelligence) tulee olemaan ihmiskunnan tärkein keksintö. Keinoälystä kiinnostuneita varten olen koonnut tälle sivulle tärkeimmät resurssit, joiden avulla pääset kiinni mahdollisimman nopeasti tekoälykehityksen kelkkaan.
Artifcial Ingellifence — foundations of computational agents (ilmainen) Book about the science of artificial intelligence (AI). It presents artificial intelligence as the study of the design of intelligent computational agents.
Joscha, Bach: Principles of Synthetic Intelligence PSI: An Architecture of Motivated Cognition Oxford Series on Cognitive Models and Architectures.
AI, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning: A Primer A Good primer for the subject in video/podcast -format.
Berkeleyn yliopiston luentosarja (kevät 2014) Käytännön esimerkkejä, miten tekoälyä voi käyttää ohjelmoinnissa.
Dreamscope app Tool for creating neural net images.
Joscha Bach Ph.D., AI researcher.
Amy Your AI powered personal assistant for scheduling meetings.
Angel.ai NLP as a platform (same company is behind GoButler).
AtomNet Drug design with convolutional neural networks.
BigML — machine learning made easy.
Clara Clara is a Virtual employee.
Cleo An A.I. assistant for your money.
ConversicaVirtual sales assistant that fosters real conversations to discover your most qualified sales opportunities.
Deep Instinct Deep learning in cybersecurity.
Dextro Dextro makes videos discoverable, searchable, and curatable using machine learning.
Expertmaker Intelligent Automation & Optimization — Acquired by eBay.
GoButler A personal travel agent.
Grok Solutions Company behind the open source NuPIC project.
Howdy.ai Meet Howdy — a friendly, trainable bot that helps Slack teams with work.
Jibo The World's First Social Robot for the Home.
LeadCrunch High precision B2B leads using artificial intelligence.
MindMeld Platform for language understanding.
Neokami AI based cyber security.
OnlyBoth Automated, AI enhanced benchmarking service.
Pepper First personal and emotional humanoid robot.
TaylorBot A.I. powered travel assistant.
TinMan AI Builder AI Builder V3.0 is a powerful integrated development environment for the visual design, real-time simulation, testing and deployment of autonomous and semi-autonomous systems.
Vicarious They are trying to build unified algorithmic architecture.
Wipro Holmes Artificial Intelligence Platform.
Wit.ai Natural Language for Developers.
Amazon Machine Learning Amazon Machine Learning is a service that makes it easy for developers to use machine learning technology.
Braina Virtual Assistant Braina is an Artificial Intelligence(AI) software for PC.
Google Cloud Platform (machine learning) Fast, large scale and easy to use Machine Learning services.
NuPIC Open Source Platform and Community for Machine Intelligence based on HTM Theory.
ROS The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a set of software libraries and tools that help you build robot applications.
The Blue Brain Project Blue Brain is a project to simulate the brain at molecular detail.
Tämä kirjoitus on julkaistu kategoriassa AIavainsanoilla Artificial IntelligenceMachine Learning.


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Localidades
 Reading, uma cidade no condado de Berkshire, Inglaterra
 Reading (Michigan), uma cidade do estado americano de Michigan
 Reading (Ohio), uma cidade do estado americano de Ohio
 Reading (Pensilvânia), uma cidade do estado americano de Pensilvânia
 Port Reading, uma região censo-designada localizada no estado americano de Nova Jérsei
 West Reading, um distrito estadunidense localizado no estado americano de Pensilvânia

 Outros
 Reading Football Club, uma equipe de futebol da Inglaterra
 Burn After Reading, um filme estadunidense de 2008
 Festivais de Reading e Leeds, uma festival
 Nirvana Live Reading Festival 1992 DVD, um DVD da banda Nirvana
 Open reading frame
 Universidade de Reading, uma universidade da Inglaterra

Desambiguação

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Here's what you should know about today's Starbucks anti-bias training
Anna Sheffer Updated May 29, 2018 @ 11:50 am
Starbucks anti-bias training will be held today, May 29th.
Credit: Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In April, after two innocent black men were wrongfully arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks, the coffee chain apologized and announced that, in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again, 8,000 stores would be closing early on May 29th for anti-racial bias training. Well, that day has arrived, and many are currently wondering: What will today's training entail?
According to Reuters, the 8,000 company-owned locations involved in the training session will close at around 2 p.m. local time. About 175,000 employees will participate in this afternoon's session, and the participating stores will reopen tomorrow, May 30th. Licensed Starbucks cafes, such as those in grocery stores and airports, will remain open, but will have a separate anti-bias training session at a later date.
During today's session, NPR reports that employees will receive a "Team Guidebook" to accompany several videos — including one narrated by Common and one created by Stanley Nelson, the director of the documentary Freedom Riders. After watching the videos, participants will discuss questions like, "What makes individuals unique?" The people who helped create these materials include the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative.
Starbucks founder and executive chairman Howard Schultz said on CBS This Morning that the May 29th training will not be the only one of its kind.
"We hire 100,000 new people a year. This is going to be part of the on-boarding training. We're going to globalize this," Schultz said on the program. "I've been through the training myself as has all the global leaders. And this is something that we're going to stay with. Not something that's going to be a marketing or PR — we could have spent marketing dollars a lot different than something like this."
Of course, the Starbucks anti-bias training today won't end racial bias and discrimination in the U.S. But starting a conversation about this issue is crucial, and hopefully, this first session will be the beginning of a larger reckoning.


December 31, 2017: Murphy's Law.
January 1, 2018: Whatever Will Be, Will Be.
That was how my year began. Nothing would bend to my will.
I love all things New Year's Eve. Standing on an almost tangible edge into the future, the feeling of freshness and newness excites me. It encourages me. It allows me to move into a literal and figurative new dimension. Amore.
But this year? This year though? Pfft. Let's recap, shall we? It's my blog so yes we shall.
Feathery Inception, Fresh Off The Press, Peacock On The Go!!!, Shake A Tailfeather, What's Haute?
Feathery Inception, Shake A Tailfeather, What's Haute?
Hey Alyssa, Where Have You Been?


This month's Italian journey begins in the crystal blue waters of the Maddalena Archipelago, just off the northeastern tip of Sardinia. Check out the quieter coves of the Costa Smeralda (no bling required) and travel inland to explore an ancient landscape, with copious helpings of delicious Sardinian food to sustain you along the way. Beth, our newest writer, revisits her beloved Rome, this time with a baby and grandparents in tow. Perugina, the producers of theiconic Baci, are under the spotlight as we trace the history of this venerable chocolate company, and we meet up with Giorgio Locatelli in our exclusive interview.
Below is a selection of articles in Italia! May 2019.


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Q: How to zip the folders and its sub-folders in vb.net 2.0? I have folder in the name of Main1. And inside that folders, i have multiple folders. Like
Folders1
Folders2
Folders3
Folders4

Each folders have their own files. My requirement is to zip "Main1" folder including all the sub-folders and their files.
I dont want to use any third part tools. I'm planning to use namespace System.Compression with Gzip. Please guys advice.

A: ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory() can easily do this for you. Just pass it the path of your Day1 folder and it will zip the entire folder to a zip file. You can iterate over all the Day folders using System.IO.Directory class.
(Just realized that you want to stick to .NET Fx 2.0. There is no direct way of doing this in that version. You must either use 3rd-party lib, which you don't want to, or do low-level stuff).
Edit
If you're really inclined towards doing it by hand, here is a crude way:

*

*Get the list of all directories (recursive) in your Day directory; call it DirList.

*Get the list of all files (recursive) in your Day directory; call it FilesList.

*Create a Dictionary(Of String, String) and store the name of each file in FilesList and the BASE64 representation of its contents; name as Key, content as Value.

*Save the Dictionary to an XML file using .NET's built-in XML serialization.

*At the very start of the file, inject the contents of DirList.

*Save the file again. (you could do steps 4-6 in a single step too).

*Read this file as binary and use GZip to compress the entire content.

*Write it to a zip file.

To uncompress this file:

*

*Open the file and use GZip to decompress and get your entire content.

*Grab the list of directories from the top and create all recursively.

*Read the remaining section in its entirety and use XML Serialization to create your Dictionary object from it.

*Iterate through the Dictionary and create files using the Key part and then inject contents into the files by converting their Value from BASE64 back to binary.

Let me know if you have questions about any of these steps.
Edit 2
The following code is compiled against .NET 2.0 and will compress and decompress a directory:
Public Function ZipDirectory(DirPath As String) As Byte()
    If Not Directory.Exists(DirPath) Then Return Nothing

    Dim Directories = Directory.GetDirectories(DirPath, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories)
    Dim Files = Directory.GetFiles(DirPath, "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories)

    Dim X As New XmlDocument
    Dim RootNode = X.CreateElement("Content")
    Dim DirsNode = X.CreateElement("Directories")
    Dim FilesNode = X.CreateElement("Directories")

    X.AppendChild(RootNode)
    RootNode.AppendChild(DirsNode)
    RootNode.AppendChild(FilesNode)

    For Each d In Directories
      Dim DirNode = X.CreateElement("Directory")
      Dim PathAttrib = X.CreateAttribute("Path")
      PathAttrib.Value = d.Replace(DirPath & "\", "") 'Create relative paths
      DirNode.Attributes.Append(PathAttrib)
      DirsNode.AppendChild(DirNode)
    Next

    For Each f In Files
      Dim FileNode = X.CreateElement("File")
      Dim PathAttrib = X.CreateAttribute("Path")
      PathAttrib.Value = f.Replace(DirPath & "\", "") 'Create relative paths
      FileNode.Attributes.Append(PathAttrib)
      FileNode.InnerText = Convert.ToBase64String(File.ReadAllBytes(f))
      FilesNode.AppendChild(FileNode)
    Next

    Using Mem As New MemoryStream()
      X.Save(Mem)
      Dim AllContentsAsByteArray = Mem.ToArray()
      Dim CompressedContent = CompressArray(AllContentsAsByteArray)
      Return CompressedContent
    End Using
  End Function

  Public Sub UnzipDirectory(compressed() As Byte, outputPath As String)
    If Not Directory.Exists(outputPath) Then Directory.CreateDirectory(outputPath)

    Dim Uncompressed = DecompressArray(Compressed)

    Dim X As New XmlDocument

    Using Mem As New MemoryStream(Uncompressed)
      X.Load(Mem)

      Dim RootNode = X.FirstChild
      Dim DirsNode = RootNode.FirstChild
      Dim FilesNode = RootNode.FirstChild.NextSibling

      For Each ChildDir In DirsNode.ChildNodes
        Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.Combine(outputPath, DirectCast(ChildDir, XmlNode).Attributes.Item(0).Value))
      Next

      For Each ChildFile In FilesNode.ChildNodes
        Dim FilePath = Path.Combine(outputPath, DirectCast(ChildFile, XmlNode).Attributes.Item(0).Value)
        Dim Content = Convert.FromBase64String(DirectCast(ChildFile, XmlNode).InnerText)
        File.WriteAllBytes(FilePath, Content)
      Next
    End Using
  End Sub

  Private Function CompressArray(ByVal content() As Byte) As Byte()
    Using outFile As New MemoryStream()
      Using Compress As New GZipStream(outFile, CompressionMode.Compress)
        Compress.Write(content, 0, content.Length)
      End Using

      Return outFile.ToArray()
    End Using
  End Function

  Private Function DecompressArray(ByVal content() As Byte) As Byte()
    Using outFile As New MemoryStream()
      Using inFile As New MemoryStream(content)
        Using Compress As New GZipStream(inFile, CompressionMode.Decompress)
          Dim buffer(1023) As Byte
          Dim nRead As Integer
          Do
            nRead = Compress.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)
            outFile.Write(buffer, 0, nRead)
          Loop While nRead > 0
        End Using
      End Using

      Return outFile.ToArray()
    End Using
  End Function

The code should be used like this:
'To zip a directory
Dim Compressed = ZipDirectory("C:\SomeDir")
File.WriteAllBytes("C:\somedir.zip", Compressed)

'To unzip a zipped file
Dim Compressed = File.ReadAllBytes("C:\somedir.zip")
UnzipDirectory(Compressed, "C:\SomeDir2")

A: Below code is using System.IO.Compression
Example from MSDN site:
Link
Imports System
Imports System.Collections.Generic
imports System.IO
imports System.IO.Compression

Public Class CompressionSnippet

    Public Shared Sub Main()
        Dim path As String = "test.txt"

        ' Create the text file if it doesn't already exist.
        If Not File.Exists(path) Then
            Console.WriteLine("Creating a new test.txt file")
            Dim text() As String = {"This is a test text file.", _
                "This file will be compressed and written to the disk.", _
                "Once the file is written, it can be decompressed", _
                "imports various compression tools.", _
                "The GZipStream and DeflateStream class use the same", _
                "compression algorithms, the primary difference is that", _
                "the GZipStream class includes a cyclic redundancy check", _
                "that can be useful for detecting data corruption.", _
                "One other side note: both the GZipStream and DeflateStream", _
                "classes operate on streams as opposed to file-based", _
                "compression data is read on a byte-by-byte basis, so it", _
                "is not possible to perform multiple passes to determine the", _
                "best compression method. Already compressed data can actually", _
                "increase in size if compressed with these classes."}

            File.WriteAllLines(path, text)
        End If

        Console.WriteLine("Contents of {0}", path)
        Console.WriteLine(File.ReadAllText(path))

        CompressFile(path)
        Console.WriteLine()

        UncompressFile(path + ".gz")
        Console.WriteLine()

        Console.WriteLine("Contents of {0}", path + ".gz.txt")
        Console.WriteLine(File.ReadAllText(path + ".gz.txt"))

    End Sub

    Public Shared Sub CompressFile(ByVal path As String)
        Dim sourceFile As FileStream = File.OpenRead(path)
        Dim destinationFile As FileStream = File.Create(path + ".gz")

        Dim buffer(sourceFile.Length) As Byte
        sourceFile.Read(Buffer, 0, Buffer.Length)

        Using output As New GZipStream(destinationFile, _
            CompressionMode.Compress)

            Console.WriteLine("Compressing {0} to {1}.", sourceFile.Name, _
                destinationFile.Name, False)

            output.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)
        End Using

        ' Close the files.
        sourceFile.Close()
        destinationFile.Close()
    End Sub

    Public Shared Sub UncompressFile(ByVal path As String)
        Dim sourceFile As FileStream = File.OpenRead(path)
        Dim destinationFile As FileStream = File.Create(path + ".txt")

        ' Because the uncompressed size of the file is unknown,
        ' we are imports an arbitrary buffer size.
        Dim buffer(4096) As Byte
        Dim n As Integer

        Using input As New GZipStream(sourceFile, _
            CompressionMode.Decompress, False)

            Console.WriteLine("Decompressing {0} to {1}.", sourceFile.Name, _
                destinationFile.Name)

            n = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)
            destinationFile.Write(buffer, 0, n)
        End Using

        ' Close the files.
        sourceFile.Close()
        destinationFile.Close()
    End Sub
End Class

Truly you would be better off using SharpLibZip

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


When Jessie O'Bourne is asked to stand in, at the last minute for an indisposed friend, as guest artist at the annual Crooked Creek Art Expo in Montana, she is thrilled to do so. Travelling in her beloved RV, she's nicknamed Hawk, along with her 'ornery, ginger tom cat, the King Jack Dempsey, she is excited about the opportunity to present her work, run some workshops, and possibly sell some of her paintings at the Expo. Although she lives and paints in Santa Fe, these days, Jessie is a born and bred Montanan, coming from just up the road from Crooked Creek, in Sage Bluff. She knows she will run into many old friends at the expo, both from Montana, as well as among the group of fellow artists who tour the Art Expos of the Mid-west, as part of their business. What she doesn't expect is that she will be caught up in a murder-mystery that just gets deeper and odder, the further she delves into it. This is the scenario Mary Ann Cherry presents us, the readers, with, in her murder mystery, Death at Crooked Creek. Currently sworn off men, after a messy encounter with FBI Agent, Grant Kennedy and a difficult breakup with her childhood sweetheart, Russell Bonham, now sheriff of Sage Bluff, Jessie certainly does not expects the romance that comes her way in this story, either.
I've read a few murder mysteries in my time, but few of them have been as cleverly crafted, with as many red-herrings thrown in, as this story, Death at Crooked Creek, by Mary Ann Cherry. This is superbly written, with as plot that takes you on twists and turns you don't expect and leaves you guessing, or even better makes you think you know, "whodunit" before the actual reveal. I loved the artistic setting of the story and the fact that the author, an artist of note herself, was able to inject her knowledge into the story naturally and without artifice. As someone who struggles to draw a stick-figure, I could really appreciate the skill and artistry of the characters, described in the story. The book is so easy to read that I just kept going, effectively finishing the story in one long sitting. I've never read any of this author's work before, but this book has definitely awakened my interest in her writing and I will be checking out what else she has published. I cannot pay this author any higher compliment than to say, I want to read more about Jessie O'Bourne's crime-solving adventures. I note there are currently two Jessie O'Bourne books in the marketplace and I can only hope there are more on the way. A highly-recommended read.


The unspoken rules on Americas roads are constantly changing and evolving as new drivers and their vehicles merge onto freeways.
We wave to let others in our lanes, we stop for pedestrians to cross, and we continuously check our blind spots to make sure that a teenager in his brand new set of wheels doesn't impale the side of our car. But what if all these rules of unspoken communication were about to change?
If you or anyone you know has been injured by a distracted driver please call our experienced auto accident attorneys today for a free case evaluation.
Enter Google Inc., Tesla, and General Motors. These three companies (though there are many more on the horizon) are entering the newly formed field of automated vehicle production, planning to make those dreams of hands-free driving and autopilot spark to life.
Fully autonomous vehicles are likely years from entering the market but many companies are already installing hands-free and navigational technology to aid drivers. While this may seem like a dream come true, it begs the inevitable question whats going to happen when something goes wrong?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently in the works to put together federal and state regulations in hopes of giving the public an avenue of relief and recovery should a hit-and-run or three-car-pile-up occur. However, there still isn't a clear line or any definitive regulations to protect drivers; even NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind told reporters, We have a lot of catch-up to do.
At the law offices of O'Connor, Acciani and Levy, our personal injury attorneys specialize in personal injury and auto accident litigation throughout Ohio and Kentucky and we understand that technology can sometimes go astray from the road paved ahead.
We are always studying and planning ahead, recognizing those new additions to the automotive industry that could cause problems down the line. Our highly experienced team of litigators and researchers will strive to get you the justice you deserve. Please don't hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns you might have were here for you.
Call (877) 288-3241 or fill out an online contact form.


After extensive customer feedback, One in a Million has re-launched with additional features including an integrated chat system, improved graphical content and games that run every hour. One in a Million is an online betting game reminiscent of the popular TV game show Deal or No Deal.
Regulated by the UK Gambling Commission, One in a Million (OIAM) is a new peer-to-peer online feature game that fuses elements from other popular games like bingo, poker, the lottery and game shows like Deal or No-Deal. New game features bring together the ease and playability of bingo, the nerves of steel from poker and a deal or no-deal feel, where users can leave the game at any time (as long as they are still in play).
One in a Million is a multi-player game with unrivalled odds. Quite simply it is a player vs player random elimination game. Players can buy up to 9999 seats per game for a cost of 1p, 10p, or £1. Over a 10-round period the seats progress to win prizes. In each game the prize pool is made up by those that have entered with a maximum prize pool up to £10,000, £100,000, and £1,000,000 respectively. Throughout the game players have the choice to collect your prize at the end of each round. However by choosing to continue to the later rounds they have a greater chance of winning larger cash prizes. The greater the risk, the higher the reward.
Watching the video really helped to understand how the game works, look forward to playing!


text:
http://www.barrons.com/articles/caring-for-aging-parents-1443243692
Stacy Perman
Click here to see: Barron's Ranking of America's Top 40 Wealth Management Firms
Wealthy families are increasingly turning to their private bankers—skipping talks about college savings and financial returns—and anxiously asking, "How do we care for our elderly parents?" and, "How can we remain independent without becoming a burden to our children?" The reason for this is as simple as it is stark: For the first time in history, two generations of retirees are coexisting within a single family, as baby boomers retire while their elderly parents are still alive. The fastest growing age group in the country consists of those 85 and older, as 75 million Americans sail past age 60 in the next 20 to 30 years.
Photo: redheadpictures/GettyImages
Lori Sieber, trust director at Bank of America U.S. Trust Private Wealth Management in New York, says that's why the bank launched its Eldercare Planning Services program three years ago. Its surveys repeatedly turned up long-term health-care costs and eldercare as the most pressing issues among its wealthy clientele. "It made us sit back and ask, 'What can we do to help clients and their families with these issues that are more prevalent in society?' "
Eldercare programs are now being offered by firms such as Bank of America's U.S. Trust and Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Private Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Northern Trust. Such programs build contingency plans that involve organizing all of an elderly client's information in the event that he or she becomes incapacitated; overseeing and paying medical bills; navigating coverage issues associated with Medicare and the Affordable Healthcare Act, or Obamacare; vetting in-home care; evaluating long-term care facilities; and even managing the sale of a home. Some banks, acting like a concierge, might even charter a private jet to transport a patient to their chosen hospital, say, or organize specially outfitted hotel rooms for their convalescence.
They can also go deep in the trenches, helping families that are dealing with sensitive and divisive health-care choices. In one case, Chicago-based Northern Trust worked with a client who was in his 80s and in declining health, with four children from two marriages who were in disagreement about his ongoing care. The bank brought in an outside case manager to facilitate and mediate a conversation among the children, helping them reach the consensus that ultimately brought in a 24-hour caregiver to his home.
Photo: Thomas Tolstrup/GettyImages
Some of the requests for help are enough to make you weep. Recently, a U.S. Trust client wanted to take his father—suffering from kidney failure and on dialysis—on one last grand tour through Europe. The private bank found a U.S.-based care-management company with ties to Europe, and was able to arrange for thrice-weekly dialysis treatments in each city they visited, enabling father and son to share this final experience together.
Wells Fargo similarly has arranged a host of social pursuits around the interests of aging clients, such as the opera and dining out. It once helped a client with a passion for antique dolls maintain her collection while she lived in a high-end continuing-care facility, establishing an entire room there dedicated to her collection, where she could enjoy the dolls and invite other residents to view them. More often than not, however, private-banking clients simply want help in dealing with the more prosaic concerns of finding health and wealth solutions that can mitigate emotional stress. Boiled down to its essence, clients are looking for the best care and services they can find for a loved one—before a situation reaches a crisis stage.
LITA ASKANAS, 78, was a Wells Fargo private-bank client when, three years ago, her husband, Charles, then 81, was told he had dementia. Askanas was anxiously facing an avalanche of long- and short-term issues, and was ill-prepared. "I am very bad with numbers," she says. "I was an English major, and I let my husband do all the work." The couple's Wells Fargo financial advisor suggested they meet with Mia Hernandez, one of the bank's Life Management Services specialists, who came to their Saratoga, Calif., home to discuss how she might help.
Wells Fargo's eldercare program, founded in 1997 and based in Minneapolis, originally offered basic crisis management for seniors, which meant things like supporting elderly clients with hospitalizations. Since then, the program has evolved into its Life Management Services, available in 32 states and offering health and wellness assessments, insurance processing, and tax preparation. Complementary life- and wealth management assistance offers everything from providing fiduciary specialists to reviewing health-care documents, ensuring that beneficiary designations are current, as well as assets wisely invested. Anne Tinyo, the program's national manager, says the program's main goals are to ensure that clients "may age as independently and as long as possible."
Hernandez went to work on the Askanas' medical bills, found a home health-care provider to help with Charles, and a tax preparer to handle the couple's taxes. When Lita couldn't find her Social Security documents, Hernandez came to their house, went through their computer to find the information, and reordered the necessary documents. When the couple decided to take a last cruise before Charles' condition deteriorated, says Lita, "I called Mia and said, 'I'm going on a trip but my passport has expired. What do I do?' Mia came to the house, got my picture, and had my passport rushed."
Lita Askanas wasn't prepared for the avalanche of issues she faced when her husband, Charles, was told he had dementia. Photo: Robert Houser for Barron?s
When Charles' condition went beyond home- care capabilities, Hernandez accompanied Lita, helping her find a suitable facility for him. No small thing: Charles had a form of dementia that often results in aggressive and violent behavior, making placement in a home difficult. In February, Charles passed away, and Lita, who said she didn't want to live alone in their big house or burden her two adult sons, decided to move into a senior retirement home.
Hernandez is helping her research facilities and accompanying her on in-person visits. "I'm a worrier," Askanas says, "and it means so much to me to be taken care of when I am alone and know that my finances and end of life are being cared for. I have more of a sense of freedom to do things now. I'd be scared and worried if I didn't have this help."
The cost for all this hand-holding usually comes "free" with the minimum account size at the private bank, often $5 million, and is generally covered by asset-management fees. At Wells Fargo Private Bank, for its high-quality eldercare service, the firm charges 0.75% on the first $2 million of assets under management; that's on top of its regular asset-management fees. But the eldercare charge falls steadily to 0.1% when assets are $20 million and above. Generally, when a private bank engages a third party to cover a client's need, such as medication management or patient advocacy, the outside party charges a separate fee.
BANK OF AMERICA, through its U.S. Trust and Merrill Lynch units, is a major player in this space, too. U.S. Trust provides "complimentary" eldercare services to its clients, and says it will even pass on third-party discounts to its clients when steering them to third-party providers. U.S. Trust wouldn't disclose what the discounts might amount to, but even a little relief can help a great deal. Many high-end assisted-living facilities charge hefty entry fees. The VI in Palo Alto, Calif., structures its entry fee based on the size of a unit and ranges from $589,400 to $4,055,700; a one-bedroom unit can go for $5,110 a month, and a three-bedroom, including a den, costs $9,550 a month.
Banks are finding that any such assistance helps lift their aging clients' burdens. U.S. Trust routinely deals with the issues thrown up by Alzheimer's, for example. In one case, U.S. Trust provided assistance to family members living some 5,000 miles away from their mother, who had advanced Alzheimer's. The stricken woman insisted on remaining in her own home in Hawaii. The bank researched and found a local firm that would visit the mother in her home and provide her children with weekly updates on her well-being and assessments of her needs. "It really worked out very well," says U.S. Trust's Sieber. "It took the emotional toll and stress off her two daughters, which was compounded by the fact that they lived so far away."
Almost two years ago, BofA's Merrill Lynch hired Cynthia Hutchins, an expert on financial issues affecting the elderly. She became the wealth management firm's first director of gerontology. Her primary job, she says, is to help the firm's financial advisors "acknowledge that we have to be talking to our clients differently" from the way they were talked to 20 years ago.
Hutchins points to her own grandmother—who retired at 55 and died three years ago at 96, four decades after she retired—as an example of how new issues of longevity, legacy planning, and meshing family needs with financial planning need to be tackled head-on. "We get inquiries from Gen Xers who have parents up in years about how to care for them, and that causes them to turn inward and ask, 'How should I prepare for myself?' " she says.
Last year, the bank launched Merrill Lynch Clear, a program organized around seven categories: home, family, finance, giving, health, work, and leisure. The program's tools support financial advisors assisting their clients with, say, Medicare and long-term care issues. And it doesn't neglect quality-of-life issues. In February, the bank partnered with luxury-travel firm Virtuoso. "If a client wants a trip that concentrates on art, we will put together a trip to Paris and coordinate with all of the museums there," says Hutchins.
Not all wealth management firms offer comprehensive eldercare services in-house, but are tapping outside firms to round out their offerings. Two years ago, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management broadened its client health-care offerings by partnering with PinnacleCare, a health-care advisory in Baltimore. The platform operates on a three-tier basis, with fees ranging from $7,500 to $26,500 per annum: Its basic Eldercare Assessment services include in-home-living evaluations and Medicare consultations. Its Platinum Circle Membership entitles a client to tap a dedicated personal-health advisor, travel assistance, and 24/7 emergency access. The Eldercare Membership combines the benefits of the lowest-tier offerings with services to coordinate and assess a client's health and medical needs, such as managing medical billing and insurance claims.
Outfits like U.S. Bank and Bank of New York Mellon don't operate dedicated eldercare divisions, but provide such services as part of their overall role. "We are seeing long-lasting care needs that can substantially deplete even high-net-worth assets," says Margaret Paddock, who runs the Minneapolis-St. Paul private-client wealth management business for U.S. Bank.
In one case, the bank helped the children of a couple with $7 million under management prepare an asset-based annuity long-term care plan; both parents were in their 80s and had been turned down by several insurance advisors because the family had a history of dementia and the wife suffered from Type-2 diabetes. "It's crucial to have a trusted advisor to help navigate long-term care options and where to obtain them," says Paddock.
BNY Mellon, meanwhile, had a client who was a decade older than his wife. Worried he might become a burden should he become incapacitated or suffer a critical illness, he wanted a specific insurance policy that would cover nonqualified expenses for long-term care—for example, paying for someone to drive him around. The bank connected him with a specialist who helped him find a policy. "We don't sell insurance," says Ed Mooney, senior director of wealth management at BNY Mellon, "but we can connect our clients to experts."
While firms like U.S. Trust and Wells Fargo are taking the lead building formal eldercare services for clients, others will surely follow suit. Jamie McLaughlin, CEO of J.H. McLaughlin & Co., a management consultant to the wealth management industry, notes that private banks are in an "arms race" to provide wealthy clients "the deepest, most bespoke service" possible, with eldercare services high on their priority list. It is precisely that competition that will result in more choice of services, and provide clients with a slightly less tortured walk to the assisted-living center's dining hall.
E-mail: penta@barrons.com


text:
NoWar2019 Pathways to Peace – Limerick, Ireland October 5-6
World BEYOND War's fourth annual global conference on the abolition of war will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 5th and 6th, in Limerick, Ireland, and include a rally on the 6th at Shannon Airport, where U.S. military forces routinely pass through in violation of Irish neutrality and of laws against war.
We'll be marking the completion of the 18th year of the endless war on Afghanistan, as well as the 150th birthday of Mohandas Gandhi.
See list of 2019 speakers.
You can read about and watch videos of past conferences here: 2018 Toronto, 2017 Washington, 2016 Washington.
Location: Great National South Court Hotel
Address: Raheen Roundabout, Raheen, Limerick, V94 E77X, Ireland. Google map.
Timing: 9 to 6:30 Saturday October 5th, and 9 to 2:30 Sunday October 6th, followed by 3:00 to 5:00 rally and tour at Shannon Airport.
Shannon Airport Address: M3XP+V4 Lismacleane, County Clare, Ireland. Google map.
Facebook event to share.
Tweet to re-tweet.
Instagram post to like.
Registrants for the conference can get reimbursed by World BEYOND War for travel cost to get there and back, up to 50 euros. Registrants can also get a discounted rate to stay at the hotel Friday and/or Saturday evenings, and can stay additional nights at the standard rate. Or particpants can stay at our Peace Camp for free! Details on these and other options are at our rides and lodging board.
Limerick is easily accessible from Shannon Airport or by bus from Dublin Airport.
Saturday October 5
9:00 to 10:00 a.m. Welcome and hear from World BEYOND War organizers from around the world: Leah Bolger, Greta Zarro, Barry Sweeney, Liz Remmerswaal Hughes, Joseph Essertier, Tim Pluta, et alia.
10:00 to 11:15 a.m. Nonviolence: The Foundation of Peace
Mairead Maguire, Kathy Kelly, Vijay Mehta.
Moderator: Pat Elder.
11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Irish Neutrality & the EU
Roger Cole, John Maguire, Clare Daly.
Moderator: Barry Sweeney
1:00 to 2:15 p.m. vegan lunch provided.
2:30 to 3:45 p.m. Human and Environmental Rights: Sanctions, Wars, and Refugees.
Maya Evans, John Lannon, Foad Izadi, Pat Elder.
Moderator: Liz Remmerswaal Hughes
4:00 to 5:15 p.m. Participatory Workshops and Discussions
1) Divestment
Greta Zarro, __________.
2) Youth Activism and Peace in Schools
Luke Addison, Vanda Proskova.
3) Art Creation for Sunday
________.
4) Activism to End the War on Afghanistan
Kathy Kelly, Maya Evans, Hakim Young
5) Closing Bases to Protect the Environment
Pat Elder, Glenda Cimino, John Molyneaux.
6) Using Music to Build the Movement
Laura Hassler
In this interactive, participatory workshop led by the Director of Musicians Without Borders, and limited to 30 participants, those taking part will learn skills to make use of music in their activism to end war. Musicians Without Borders' working principles are: safety, inclusion, equality, creativity, and quality. In this 'taster' workshop, Laura Hassler will lead participants in participatory exercises exemplifying these principles and introduce various approaches within the training program.
5:30 to 6:30 Reports Back From Workshops
Moderator: Marc Eliot Stein
8:30 Film screening and discussion with the filmmaker: Palestinian Refugees in The Lebanon: No Direction Home, by Peadar King.
See list of speakers.
Sunday October 6
9:00 to 10:15 a.m. Demilitarising Security: Closing Bases, Outlawing the Arms Trade
Mairead Maguire, Abby Martin, Dave Webb.
Moderator: David Swanson
10:30 to 11:45 a.m. Activism to Abolish War
Mike Prysner, John Reuwer, Kristine Karch.
Moderator: Foad Izadi
12:00 to 1:15 p.m. Plans for Shannon and Ireland Today and in the Days to Come:
Barry Sweeney, Ed Horgan, Tarak Kauff, Kenneth Mayers.
Moderator: Leah Bolger
3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Rally and tour at Shannon Airport.
Informal networking, strategizing, and open-mic Sunday evening at Peace Camp near Shannon and Monday morning.
Sign the petition: U.S. Military Out of Ireland!
Send an email to remove the U.S. military from Shannon Airport, and to restore Irish neutrality:
Irish government webmaster@taoiseach.gov.ie
Shannon airport info@shannongroup.ie
For more information on the U.S. Military use of Shannon see shannonwatch.org
For updates on Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers go here.
Peace Makers:
Uniting for Peace
War Enders:
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
RootsAction.org
Commonweal – For a Nonviolent World
Environmentalists Against War
Galway One World Centre
INNATE (Irish Network for Nonviolent Action training and Education)
International Network: No to War No to NATO
International Peace Bureau
International Philosophers for Peace
Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Irish CND
Oracle Insitute & Peace Pentagon HUB
People Before Profit
People's Movement
Shannonwatch
Smiles Africa International Youth Development Initiative
Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research
Vegantopia
Veterans For Peace 27
WESPAC


text:
Arsenal: The lowdown on the four front runners to replace Wenger as manager
adminFebruary 27, 20182 Mins read2 Views
Uncertainty surrounding the future of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger – and speculation over who might succeed him – has escalated following their 3-0 loss to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday.
With the Frenchman's position set to be reviewed at the end of the season, four names have emerged as leading candidates to replace him. Here's the lowdown.
Read more:Could a robot replace Arsene Wenger? The growing presence of artificial intelligence in football
Leonardo Jardim
Jardim was named manager of the season in France's Ligue 1 last year as his Monaco side outperformed super-rich Paris Saint-Germain (Source: Getty)
Who? Monaco manager who led a dazzling young side to the Champions League semi-finals last season.
CV: Camacha, Chaves, Beira-Mar, Braga, Olympiacos, Sporting Lisbon, Monaco.
Need to know: Like Wenger before he arrived in north London, Jardim's most impressive achievement to date is winning the French league title with Monaco. Jardim never played football professionally and instead started his coaching career at 27, working his way up the ladder in his native Portugal before moving to Olympiacos where he won the Greek league and cup double.
Mikel Arteta
Arteta has learned from the best under Guardiola, but has no experience of the top job himself (Source: Getty)
Who? Former Arsenal captain and now a Manchester City assistant coach.
Age: 35.
CV: One of Pep Guardiola's right-hand men at City since retiring almost two years ago, but no management experience.
Need to know: A popular figure among Arsenal fans, having made 149 appearances for the Gunners as a midfielder in the final years of his career. He turned down a coaching role under Wenger at Arsenal and a similar position at Tottenham for the chance to work with Guardiola at City, where his reputation has grown.
Read more:Wenger doesn't want one at Arsenal, but what does a director of football do and are they a good thing?
Rodgers' stock has steadily risen at Celtic, but he failed to win a trophy when in charge at Liverpool (Source: Getty)
Who? Celtic manager who came close to delivering the Premier League at Liverpool.
CV: Chelsea (youth and reserve team coach), Watford, Reading, Swansea City, Liverpool, Celtic.
Need to know: Rodgers turned Swansea City into an established Premier League side known for playing attractive passing football before being appointed Liverpool manager in 2012. The Reds had finished eighth the previous season and within two years were a whisker away from their first league title for 24 years. Yet after losing Luis Suarez, Rodgers was unable to repeat the feat and was sacked in October 2015 with his side 10th. He has rebuilt his reputation at Celtic where his team broke numerous records while winning the treble last season.
Read more:Wenger is a genius but is not the man England need to end decades of underachievement
The World Cup winner has been one of the most successful international coaches in the last decade (Source: Getty)
Who? World Cup-winning German national team coach.
CV: Playing career in Germany's top two divisions, then coach ofFC Frauenfeld, VfB Stuttgart, Fenerbahce, Karlsruher SC, Adanaspor, Tirol Innsbruck, Austria Wien, Germany (assistant), Germany.
Need to know: The central figure in Germany's football revolution that led to their 2014 World Cup triumph. He provided the craft to Jurgen Klinsmann's charisma as assistant in Germany's 2006 campaign, before taking over the top job and steering his team to the semi-finals or final in each of the last five major tournaments. As a club manager he enjoyed cup success with Stuttgart but has only won a league title once, with Austria's Tirol Innsbruck in 2002.
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(mylbsonline.com/Liberia)-Liberia has been named to head the Judge-Two position on following ECOWAS Leaders' approval of a 15-member Commission and other institutions.
The country has been named to the position of Vice President of the 15-member ECOWAS Commission, and to the position of Judge-2 of the Community's Court of Justice.
The move is in accordance with the new structure and in line with ECOWAS Leaders' agreement in Yamoussoukro, Cote D'Ivoire in February, 2013 under the ongoing institutional reform.
Former Foreign Minister, Dr. Toga McIntosh, currently serves as Vice President.
The Liberian Government is expected to nominate a candidate for the position of Judge 2. The new-look Commission has non-renewable four-year tenure.
The expansion, which follows the transformation of ECOWAS from an Executive Secretariat to a Commission in 2007, seeks to ensure impartiality and a sense of belonging among the member states of the Community, organized in 1975 to facilitate economic development and integration.
According to a dispatch, the decisions were contained in a communiqué at the end of the Forty-Third Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, at the head of a high-powered Liberian delegation, attended the two-day Summit.


text:
Camera IconR.Kelly "bought his acquittal" by paying an alleged victim not to take the stand, a lawyer says.
R.Kelly paid $2m to silence girl: lawyer
Don BabwinAAP
July 16, 2019 12:16PM
Celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti says R&B singer R.Kelly paid $US2 million to keep the alleged victim in a child pornography case off the witness stand during a 2008 trial that ended with his acquittal on all charges.
"R.Kelly bought his acquittal," Avenatti said at a Monday news conference in which he provided details of what he said has been a years-long effort by Kelly to prevent his sexual abuse of several girls from becoming public.
He said Kelly paid at least one associate $US100,000 to hunt down videos of him having sex with a minor that had gone missing.
Avenatti said he represented three alleged victims, three parents of victims and three associates of Kelly he called "whistleblowers".
Avenatti's comments come just days after federal prosecutors announced they'd indicted Kelly in New York and Chicago on charges he and his entourage recruited girls and young women to engage in illegal sexual activity and covered it up by paying and threatening witnesses and victims.
Kelly, 52, was arrested and remains in federal custody. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday for a bond hearing.
Much of what Avenatti said Monday had already been outlined in the indictments.
Avenatti said two associates of Kelly turned tapes of the singer having sex with minors over to him and he turned them over to Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's office this year.
He said Foxx's office turned those tapes over to federal prosecutors.
Avenatti faces his own legal problems: the one-time lawyer for Stormy Daniels, who says President Donald Trump tried to pay her off after she had a sexual encounter with him in 2006, has been charged with stealing money from clients and attempting to extort money from sportswear maker Nike.


Kent Fire and Rescue Service was called to a fire in the front upstairs bedroom of a terraced property in Bredgar Close, Ashford. Wearing breathing apparatus, firefighters used a hose reel jet and a main jet to extinguish the fire. There were no other casualties. The cause of the fire isn't yet known and there were no reported injuries. A fire investigation will take place later. The bedroom suffered severe fire damage and the upstairs of the property suffered smoke damage.


text:
The Game Changers at AMC Northpark Center 15- Buy Your Tickets NOW!!
by Plant-BasedDFW
Mon, September 16, 2019, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT
Mon, September 16, 2019
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT
AMC Northpark Center 15
8687 N. Central Expressway
Let's meet up at the AMC theater on September 16 to watch The Game Changers. Tickets must be purchased online. https://www.atomtickets.com/checkout/329015905?ref=fat&_ga=2.97853404.2136865122.1562532330-119171059.1562532330#/tickets
We will be meeting up at the AMC Northpark Center 15. Movie begins at 7:30 p.m. We can have a short discussion after the film. Watch the trailer here: https://gamechangersmovie.com/#trailer
Fueled by the truth
The Game Changers is a new film executive produced by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan that documents the explosive rise of plant-based eating in professional sports, mixing real-time, groundbreaking science with cinematic stories of struggle and triumph. The film features some of the strongest, fastest and toughest athletes on the planet — and it's backed by them too — with additional EPs including Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, top-ranked tennis player Novak Djokovic, and nine-time NBA All-Star Chris Paul.
Directed by Oscar®-winner Louie Psihoyos, The Game Changers follows the story of James Wilks—elite Special Forces trainer and winner of The Ultimate Fighter—as he travels the world on a quest for the truth about meat, protein, and strength. Showcasing elite athletes, special ops soldiers, and visionary scientists. Wilks' journey exposes outdated myths about food that not only affect human performance, but the health of the entire global population.
United States Events Texas Events Things to do in Dallas, TX Dallas Screenings Dallas Health Screenings
The Game Changers at AMC Northpark Center 15- Buy Your Tickets NOW!! at AMC Northpark Center 15
8687 N. Central Expressway,, Dallas, TX 75225
Browse Dallas Events


text:
//
//  BMKeychainUtil.h
//  BMCommons
//
//  Created by Werner Altewischer on 12/10/11.
//  Copyright 2011 BehindMedia. All rights reserved.
//

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <BMCommons/BMCoreObject.h>

NS_ASSUME_NONNULL_BEGIN

/**
 Helper methods which use the iOS Security framework.
 */
@interface BMSecurityHelper : BMCoreObject {

}

/**
 Imports data from the specified p12 file into the keychain using the specified password.

 @param filePath The path to the file containing the p12 private key data
 @param password The password to use to open the encrypted file
 @return An NSData object representing a persistent ref to the item that may be used subsequently to retrieve the security identity from the keychain.
 @see newIdentityForPersistentRef:
 */
+ (nullable NSData *)importP12DataFromFile:(NSString *)filePath usingPassword:(NSString *)password withError:(NSError * _Nullable * _Nullable)error;

/**
 Retrieves and creates a new security identity using the specified persistent reference.

 @param ref object containing a persistent reference to a keychain item.
 @return A reference to the found security entity or nil if not found. The caller is responsible for releasing the returned reference using CFRelease.
 */
+ (nullable SecIdentityRef)newIdentityForPersistentRef:(NSData *)ref;

/**
 Creates a new certificate by importing the data from the specified file.

 Returns nil in case of error.

 @param filePath The file path to the certificate file in DER format.
 @param error Pointer to the an error object which will be filled in case an error occured.
 @return The reference to the certificate or nil if an error occured. The caller is responsible for releasing the returned reference using CFRelease.
 */
+ (nullable SecCertificateRef)newCertificateByImportingFromFile:(NSString *)filePath withError:(NSError * _Nullable * _Nullable)error;

/**
 Copies the certificate from the supplied identity reference.

 @param identity Reference to a security identity.
 @return The reference to the certificate. The caller is responsible for releasing the returned reference using CFRelease.
 */
+ (nullable SecCertificateRef)copyCertificateFromIdentity:(SecIdentityRef)identity;

/**
 Wipes all the data from the keychain for the current app.
 */
+ (void)wipeKeychain;

/**
 Generates a new keypair and adds it to the keychain.

 The new keys are returned to the supplied pointers. It is the responsibility of the caller to call CFRelease on the returned keys when done.

 @param keySize Size in bits of the keys to generate which must be 512, 1024 or 2048.
 @param publicKeyTag Tag for the public key to be able to find it by in the keychain later.
 @param privateKeyTag Tag for the private key to be able to find it by in the keychain later.
 @param publicKey Contains a reference to the public key if the method returns succesfully. The caller is responsible for releasing the reference using CFRelease.
 @param privateKey Contains a reference to the private key if the method returns successfully. The caller is responsible for releasing the reference using CFRelease.
 @return The OSStatus code which is noErr upon succes or an error code upon failure.
 */
#if TARGET_OS_IPHONE
+ (OSStatus)generateKeyPairWithKeySize:(NSUInteger)keySize publicKeyTag:(NSString *)publicKeyTag privateKeyTag:(NSString *)privateKeyTag newPublicKey:(SecKeyRef _Nullable * _Nonnull)publicKey newPrivateKey:(SecKeyRef _Nullable * _Nonnull)privateKey;
#endif

/**
 Reads a certificate file in DER format containing a public key and returns a reference to this key if found.

 @param data The certificate data
 @return A reference to the public key upon success. The caller is responsible for releasing the reference using CFRelease.
 */
+ (nullable SecKeyRef)newPublicKeyRefFromData:(NSData *)data;

/**
 Reads private key data in p12 format using the supplied password and returns a reference to the key if successful.

 @param password The password for the p12 data
 @param data The p12 data
 @return A reference to the private key if succesful. The caller is responsible for releasing the reference using CFRelease.
 */
+ (nullable SecKeyRef)newPrivateKeyRefWithPassword:(NSString *)password fromData:(NSData *)data;

@end

NS_ASSUME_NONNULL_END

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Want to know what the top ten things to do in Tokyo are? The capital city of the Land of the Rising Sun has a great deal to offer. Whether you are a tourist, a new resident or have lived there your entire life, Tokyo will never cease to amaze you. The marvelous mix of old-fashioned manners and modern lifestyle come together in an incredible blend, giving way to unique subcultures that clash with the sometimes rigid culture that we expect from the Japanese. Culinary adventures, a sometimes bizarre nightlife, crowded streets, and modern skyscrapers are just some of the things that come to mind when talking about Tokyo.
If you plan on visiting Japan, then you should definitely have a to-do list at hand since there is simply so much to see. In a previous list we have already presented you with 50 crazy facts about Japan you will never believe, yet now it is time to turn our attention to the capital and tell you about the top ten things to do in Tokyo. After all, it would be quite a waste to visit this city and miss out on some of its most spectacular aspects. Hence, the following list seeks to provide you with the most exciting places to visit, allowing you to have the best possible Tokyo experience possible.
If for some reason you can't afford to visit Japan, you might still want to continue reading, since some of the top things to do in Tokyo will leave you baffled. In the end, you might actually end up saving money to make the trip in the future! Hence, whether you are already a Japan enthusiast or have not the slightest idea of what this country has to offer, be sure to keep on reading.
Now let's take a closer look at the top ten things to do in Tokyo and see what awaits us in Japan's largest and most vibrant city.
Ever wonder what the largest and busiest fish market in the world looks like? Live tuna auctions and a sushi breakfast are things you probably have never experienced before, so make sure to check this place out.
Probably one of the things Japan is most famous for around the world is sumo wrestling. If you want to catch this spectacle, be sure to visit Tokyo's National Sumo Hall, also known as Ryogoku Kokugikan.
If you are a fan of Japanese culture, the Meiji Shrine will leave you in awe. This famous Shinto shrine is not only beautiful, but offers tourists the chance to experience ancient rituals, such as the purification of hands and mouth at the communal water tank.
The list of top things to do in Tokyo continues on the next page with Tokyo's version of New York's Central Park.


text:
Q: How do you add dynamic anchor text in wordpress links. We would like to have links in a word press site that have the current meta description of the  target site as the anchor text of the link.
I understand this requires either javascript or php and am not sure which is the appropriate approach and which is most easily supported within word press.

A: Interesting question and yes it is possible. You can't do it with javascript or AJAX because the browsers' cross-domain policy won't allow you to do this. I think it has to be a combination of both.
The first solution that i can think of is creating some kind of proxy with PHP, that returns the contents of the targeted URL (the one you link to):
<?php
  $url=$_POST['url'];
  if($url!="")
    echo file_get_contents($url);
?>

Lets say we call this little script "getit.php". Now you can get a AJAX call going, that sends the target url to your .php file and the .php file returns the content of the targeted page. Then you are going to extract the description meta-tag from the returned data.
Of course you could get it in the PHP file and only return the meta description, because that would even be a better solution. You could try something like this in the PHP:
<?php
   $url=$_POST['url'];
   $tags = get_meta_tags($url);

   return $tags['description'];
?>

PS. Apologies for my bad English, it's not my native language.

A: If you have Wordpress then you should have cURL installed and activated (or find the way). Also, there is a PHP function called  get_meta_tags(). So, you could do something like this assuming you have an array of links with each URL called $links_array:
foreach($links_array as $link){
    $tags = get_meta_tags($link);
    $description = @$tags['description'];
    //Printing each link
    echo "$description";
}