Metro Inns was formed in 2006 to support the acquisition and expansion of a new budget brand in the UK. The five hotels, formerly Hotel Formule 1, were acquired from Accor. The hotels were re-branded as Metro Inns and opened early 2007. The hotels were located in accessible and thriving towns along the A1 route in England and Scotland: Peterborough, Doncaster, Teesside, Newcastle and Falkirk.
The vision was to establish Metro Inns as the market leader in the low budget sector by becoming the "best in class" budget brand hotel group.
We inherited a small percentage of staff and recruited the rest of the team, eventually employing 55 members of staff including one National Sales Executive and one Regional General Manager.
Core markets were special interest groups, contractors and tradesmen and the student & youth markets, the latter generating in the region of 150K per annum.
e-Distribution optimisation programmes ensured www.metroinns.co.uk always appeared on page one of the search engines. Hotelinfo ensured that Metro Inns had GDS presence allowing them to participate in affiliate programmes and dot com connectivity which generated in the region of 50% of the total room bookings.
The board was made up of 4 Directors, all successful entrepreneurs in their own right with a mixed background of hospitality, leisure and property. They appointed the Inn-telligence team to fulfill the remaining disciplines including recruitment & training; finance and sales & marketing plus the day to day operation of the 5 units.


Four Councilmembers Agendize Item Seeking Support For Annual 64-Day "Season For Non-Violence"
Asks the City Manager to designate other resources for supporting A Season for Nonviolence in this and coming years, that could include but not be limited to resources such as street banners,street closures or other actions taken to promote Season of Nonviolence events.
The agendizing memo, written on the letterhead of 2nd district Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal and joined by her three Council colleagues, speaks for itself. It can be accessed at Jan. 9 "Season For Nonviolence" Memo.


In an editorial in Tuesday's issue of The Tech, Shruti Sharma's first name was spelled incorrectly on one mention.
Additionally, while the original article was not in error on this issue, the ban on electronic communication with undergraduates applied to the candidacy of Jeffrey M. Sperling '15 and Nathan H. Varady '16 by the UA Elections Commission was relaxed early Thursday to extend only to email communication. Additionally, the Commission said that new information obtained from MIT IS&T led it to believe that the campaign did not in fact violate the MITnet rules of use as previously stated.


text:
Q: How to create Custom Broadcast Receiver I need to create custom broadcast receiver which will show me about any PHONE_STATE event occurred.

A: In your manifest you should define the following:
<receiver
        android:enabled="true"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:name=".PhoneStateReceiver">
        <intent-filter>
            <action
                android:name="android.intent.action.PHONE_STATE" />
        </intent-filter>
</receiver>

The sample receiver class:
public class PhoneStateReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {

    TelephonyManager telManager = (TelephonyManager) context.getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE);

    switch(telManager.getCallState()) {
    case TelephonyManager.CALL_STATE_IDLE:
      //do something
    }
}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Search in titles only Search in Film, TV and Radio only
One Touch Football
If you had an account on the WSC forum and are having trouble logging in, trying to reset your password usually fixes the problem.
Current Watching
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Femme Folle
This Ken Burns 18-hour Vietnam documentary film is riveting. I'm not sure if everyone would have the same experience watching it, but for me, this was happening during my childhood. I remember these people (the politicians and the military brass, etc.), but I was largely unaware of a lot of things. I had friends whose older brothers were serving in Vietnam. One of them came home in a wheelchair. It's also interesting to me because my NPD pathological liar ex-husband used to tell people that he had flown helicopters in the war. Later, his brother would tell me that he never served. Watching this, I can tell you that he wouldn't have come home alive if he had.
Anyway, if you get a chance to watch it, I can't recommend it enough.
Cal Alamein
Ken Burns & co have created a masterpiece. Haven't missed a minute yet.
Hot Pepsi
I may. But I've read a fair bit about that war and seen a lot of the previous docs and not sure I can handle more. It's so infuriating on so many levels.
One criticism of American documentaries and films on the Vietnam War is that we tend to focus only on how much it messed up America and American soldiers and we don't talk much about Vietnam or the Vietnamese. Oliver Stone made a decent movie out of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip, but it bombed commercially and wasn't as well reviewed as Platoon or Born on the Fourth of July.
And even that story was a lot about Americans. She married an American and came here. In the film, her husband and his PTSD is a big subplot (not in the book/reality).
Part of that is simply that it wasn't as easy to get the stories of the Vietnamese as it was to find stories of Americans, both because of the language barrier and that it wasn't a very open country for a while. But I suspect all of that has changed somewhat.
Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 25-09-2017, 01:32.
Reed, this is not like that. All sides are represented.
Yes, I heard that. That's where I was going with all that but then lost my place and hit send.
Patrick Thistle
Favourite Team(s): Salop, Y Barri, Cymru, Devils, Padres
Favourite Biscuit: Iced gems
I watched the Netflix special "Jerry before Seinfeld". I know there isn't a lot of love for Seinfeld on this board but I enjoyed the special. Mainly his stand up and a few bio bits dropped in. Mrs Thistle liked his joke about close captioned films for the movie impaired where the subtitles explain the plot.
Also on Netflix we watched the first episode of The Good Place, which made us laugh enough to make us want to watch the rest of the series.
Watched a couple more episodes of The Good Place and still enjoying it. The show was created by Michael Schur, who is one half of the duo who created Parks & Recreation and Brooklyn Nine Nine.
San Bernardhinault
Favourite Team(s): Oxford United
Favourite Biscuit: Petit Ecolier (milk chocolate)
I really enjoyed Season One of The Good Place. I thought it was pretty underrated and both quite charming and quite funny. And (no spoilers here) the end of the final episode of the season is a cracker.
I have wondered if there will be a twist like actually it's purgatory and the idea is it helps people to become good. I guess I'll have to watch the rest of the show.
Favourite Team(s): Liverpool
Favourite Biscuit: Jaffa Cake
Watched the first 2 eps of Star Trek Disco last night.
S'alright. Lots of nice space fighting.
RobW
Favourite Team(s): Lincoln City
Favourite Biscuit: Garibaldi
Watched The Vietnam War on BBC 4 last night. BBC are showing back to episodes, but a truncated version (10 hours long), so if I want the full version i'll have to fork out £70 on the DVD, or at least wait until that price drops. Anyway, really fascinating doc, pity the Beeb are already shunting it from 9pm (as it was last night) to 10pm next Monday.
Ginger Yellow
Favourite Biscuit: Choco Leibniz
PBS are airing it on their website. You may need to VPN it, I haven't tried.
Favourite Biscuit: Something by Mulino Bianco...
I have enjoyed "Tin Star" quite a lot, even with Tim Roth chewing scenery like a hungry hippo....
I'm only halfway through the first of the 10 hour BBC Vietnam but it strikes me as odd that he keeps cutting to US soldiers talking about their experiences when we're still on France. Are there no French veterans still alive? Did they not write anything down?
Edit: I'm being too hard. It's a series about the US war in Vietnam not a series about the Vietnamese struggle for independence.
Last edited by Levin; 26-09-2017, 18:59.
Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
I really liked that too, even though it was all old material.
Levin: Surely there's a French documentary maker who has made that film by now, no?
Tonight's episode (#8) was really hard to watch. It included the footage of the My Lai Massacre aftermath.
Just watching The Good Place (as mentioned earlier on the thread.)
In episode 10 there is the best joke I've heard all year. It's about a BBC comedy and it rendered me insensible for a good 5 minutes.
Eggchaser
Catching up with the latest series of Grand Designs. Kevin the Fertility God is at it again.
NickSTFU
Tin Star. Long on style, short on substance (well, long on the white stuff).
It has Tim Roth, Christina Hendricks and Genevieve O'Reilly in it and apart from the first episode, nothing much has happened. Episode 4 was this week.
I suspect I'm the only person in the UK watching this. Certainly on OTF.
I'm behind everyone else on The Good Place but you're making me keen to catch up
It's worth it. I'm up to date on season 2 and it's still really funny.
tracteurgarçon
Favourite Team(s): Ipswich Town
Favourite Biscuit: Chocolate Hobnob
Because of this thread I've just watched the first two episodes of "The Good Place" and, whilst loving the concept, and Ted Danson, I'm not really enjoying it because of the main character, she's just so unloveable that I just don't care enough about what happens to her.
I find this an increasing problem with TV comedy shows, the main character is usually such an insufferable arsehole that I struggle to maintain any interest.
It's odd because classic sitcom characters have always been selfish, angry, self-obsessed idiots (Del Boy, Father Ted, Basil Fawlty, Steptoe, Blackadder, etc) but, I guess, they had something loveable to latch onto, not sure what's missing with modern characters or whether it's a problem with me?
Amor de Cosmos
Favourite Team(s): QPR, Hitchin Town
Favourite Biscuit: Fig Roll
Kristen Bell has had a solid audience since Veronica Mars., which includes me (for some reason.) She has limitations as an actor for sure, range being the main one. I agree that others could have done more with Eleanor than she does, but I think it's because she's not unloveable enough. She's OK in the flashback scenes where she's just a plain bitch, but doesn't do as well with conflictedness in the Good Place. Sadly she just ends up being kinda blandly cute.
Quite like the new Star Trek so far. Although it's basically filler until the new Stranger Things is out.
Lang Spoon
Favourite Team(s): Raith Rovers/Liverpool
Favourite Biscuit: Abernethies
Stranger Things was great. That's all I've got.
Redirect Topic Title Add-on by vBMods.rocks
Clear System Cache Cron Add-on by vBMods.rocks

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


THE ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT DESIGN ALLOWS THE POTENTIAL FOR AN INADVERTENT AIR BAG DEPLOYMENT UPON VEHICLE IGNITION SHUT DOWN.
Consequences UNEXPECTED AIR BAG DEPLOYMENT CAN RESULT IN OCCUPANT INJURY.
Corrective action DEALERS WILL REPLACE THE AIR BAG ELECTRONIC CONTROL MODULE WITH A NEWLY DESIGNED MODULE.
Notes OWNER NOTIFICATION BEGAN DURING JULY 1997. OWNERS WHO TAKE THEIR VEHICLES TO AN AUTHORIZED DEALER ON AN AGREED UPON SERVICE DATE AND DO NOT RECEIVE THE FREE REMEDY WITHIN A REASONABLE TIME SHOULD CONTACT CHRYSLER AT 1-800-853-1403.ALSO CONTACT THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION'S AUTO SAFETY HOTLINE AT 1-800-424-9393.


text:
Q: Why is there a little padding at bottom of my UITableView? UPDATE 1: I have confirmed that this is NOT the footer.
Here is what it looks like. Notice the small space below the last cell. Also shown in the picture, the scroll IS at the proper spot:

Here are the settings of the view controller:

A: Try to set adjust scroll view insets to true.


The Winchester Model 1894 was not chambered for pistol cartridges, however, the new Umarex Legends Lever Action Rifle is compatible with the rear BB (and pellet) loading cartridges from the Umarex Peacemaker pistols making this the first companion CO2 rifle for the Colt revolvers.
The X-Five ASP in either the original Black finish or new Silver finish delivers good 10-meter accuracy. While the period of time separating these two models is short, the Silver seems to have upped the game slightly with a lighter feeling trigger, although the two CO2 models have the same internal components. This leads to the question of slight variations from one gun to another and how or if that will influence accuracy.
This is what happens when you make a good gun better. Sometimes all it takes is a change in color, from the first Sig Sauer X-Five ASP's Nitron-like black finish to a brushed stainless steel look. It's the same gun, but much more visually appealing. But is there more to it than that?
Sig Sauer's airgun division has its eye on multiple markets from CO2 powered BB models like the WE THE PEOPLE 1911, to pellet-firing training guns like the new M17 ASP, and as far reaching as target pistols such as the X-Five ASP and ASP20 breakbarrel pellet rifle. The X-Five falls into its own classification within the Sig lineup as the only current pellet-firing target model (with adjustable rear sight) to use the 20-round rotary Rapid Pellet Magazine (RPM).
Like the earlier X-Five the new ASP Silver is slightly larger than the P226 it is based on and is a tough gun to holster. It does, however, fit nicely into a Galco Quick Slide made for the P226 Rail gun. The front sight does not catch on the lip of the holster when drawing the gun.
After a long look at the X-Five ASP, it comes down to the loading and shooting. This is a two step process, loading the CO2 into the grip frame by opening the backstrap panel. This is done by pulling down on the latch (arrow) and letting it swing all the way back to expose the channel and cam-operated CO2 quick loading and piercing system. After the CO2 you load the magazine (and it is a good idea to buy at least two extras, they come in a set of two).
The Sig Sauer X-Five ASP Silver is the same as the black model, however, as it has been proven in the past, sighting can be different due to the finish of the slide (silver or nickel compared to blued or matte black). In addition, the 9mm and .40 S&W models were almost all brushed stainless steel, so the ASP is also a little more authentic in its appearance.
Compared to the vast majority of contemporary handgun manufacturers, Glock is a young company with a mere 36 year history compared to others that have been around for centuries. As a CO2 pistol it is also the newest brand compared to established names like Sig Sauer, Heckler & Koch, Colt, Beretta and Smith & Wesson. Interestingly, Glock's influence on older armsmakers like Sig, Walther, H&K, and S&W (among others), has led to a new era of striker-fired, polymer-framed pistols following the Glock design method.
Making it realistic means making it the right size in every detail and the new Umarex Glock G17 is dimensionally exact to the centerfire Third Model (top) and it fits into all Glock holsters as cleanly as the 9x19mm pistols.


Consultant, "Connectologist," and industry observer Tim Gee's Medical Connectivity site is one of the rare places on the internet that covers the healthcare alarm management middleware space. Recently he published a series of posts tracking activities at Globestar's Annual User group meeting in Lisbon, where he served as the keynote speaker where he brings to life some real life examples of middleware applications in acute care.
In his 05/01/09 post Tim reports on case studies shared by three Canadian hospitals who are using Globestar's ConnexALL® to meet their respective workflow and alarm management requirements. And while these case studies will be of great interest to hospitals attacking similar requirements, Tim's posts from Portugal makes some important commentary regarding the "middleware" space as a whole that go beyond ConnexALL.
These are very well taken points, and there is no doubt that a coordinated organizational effort that adheres to enterprise standards will yield the most impacting results. And in as much as the stories told at WorldConnex are wonderful representations of what can be done by creative folks working across departmental lines, the actual state of the products on the ground often tells a different story.
Because of the specific "point" needs that have driven organizations to adopt middleware implementation (e.g. nursecall or patient monitoring), middleware applications have quietly crept into hospitals for over 10 years, often with very little visibility. In many cases, the players involved with fulfilling the immediate need didn't even think to consider larger organizational collaboration or standards at all (e.g. a nursecall middleware project may have been bundled into a construction budget).
In the last few years, this has started to change, especially since the middleware applications increasingly require IP network connectivity that requires IT involvement. But while this connectivity is a welcome move forward, it has quickly changed what was once a much simpler "acceptance" dynamic.
Today, when one of these solutions becomes necessary for a project, middleware can become a battleground between BioMed, Clinical Engineering, IT, Telecom, and various other enterprise stakeholders. Throw in middleware vendors hungry to keep their competitors out, and those on the input/output side (devices and end points) not especially eager to cooperate for their own selfish reasons, and nasty turf wars can beak out that can grind these projects to an absolute halt, the enterprise be damned.
As an example of how this can play out, I was recently involved with a project where the nursecall integrator simply refused to allow connectivity to their system in spite of the fact that the customer had already purchased the middleware application. And having been involved in this space for 6 years, I can assure you that this is not an isolated incident.
But it's not just organizational and vendor politics that make the enterprise middleware vision a difficult goal to achieve. As I've observed (and worked with) the key players in this space (Emergin, Globestar and Ascom), enterprise thinking has absolutely crept into the feature set and marketing materials, but there are still large gaps here in respect to enterprise-readiness when it comes to product and system implementation.
Despite the fact that these solutions are becoming more common, this is such a small niche that you won't see technical reviews or evaluations that explore these issues. Customers are truly left in the dark for lack of available information.
To be fair to the middleware vendors, keeping pace with rapid changes in the input and output devices is a dizzying effort. The demands on their respective engines for the delivery of an increasing amount of traffic has forced attention on bolstering a core framework that was never built to anticipate the current demands. Throw the likely tide of regulatory attention into the mix, and you can understand why we haven't seen entirely new platforms built to contemporary specifications.
In as much as I may be poking holes in the current state middleware applications, the promise of applications of this technology that cross departmental boundaries outweighs whatever weaknesses I point out. The technology is far improved and the potential for an enterprise future state is within reach. Indeed, as was pointed out to me by an insider close to Globestar, the soon to released ConnexALL® V4 will have a high availability and database connectivity features not seen in earlier versions of the product.
As we talk to customers regarding alarm management initiatives, we advise to not rush to conclusions or assume that any one product can magically bring devices, users, and alarms together in a cohesive fashion. Great gains can be had here; however, one needs to start first with the business issues that are driving adoption, rather than the technology platform.
Not only will this require process engineering, but change management that's difficult to manage within healthcare. It's easy to quickly assume that "enterprise" is a hard technology concept, where we would argue that it's a systems principle whereby the components (not just technical) are intended to serve the larger organization. The manufacturers have struggled with participating with this process from a distance, and this is a place where systems integrators like TPC Healthcare can help (shameless plug). It's not easy to fly in a swat team to work through the type of complex re-engineering that's likely to be required.
The manufacturers need to get closer to customer requirements (especially the end-users) to understand what they need to do with alarms, escalations, notifications, and the resulting data trail left behind. If they observe closely, they will see that interfaces need to be simpler, and that changes to workflow and reporting shouldn't always require deep technical intervention (especially from the manufacturer's HQ). I would also argue to that there needs to an openness at the application level that we've yet to see. Today this is all way too hard to prone to error because of lack of standardization.
As the Globestar global user conference case studies clearly show, compelling business issues (that involved alarm notification and workflow) can be solved by smart folks with good enabling technologies. Globestar, Emergin, Ascom, Amcom/Commtech (and others like Radianta) have a great opportunity to step up and see past their own platforms and create better tools that are truly aligned with customer's enterprise needs.
Kenny Schiff (www.tpchealthcare.com) is founder and President of TPC Healthcare, a specialty provider of point-of-care communication technologies, such as wireless voice, alarm notification, and workflow automation, to hospitals and healthcare organizations.


Today's vinyl siding styles include many different textures, shadow lines and colors to meet individual preferences.
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text:
Ken Griffey Jr. being elected to the Hall of Fame means little to WCPO.com Editor Mike Canan
By: Mike Canan
EDITOR'S NOTE: WCPO is looking back on Ken Griffey Jr.'s life growing up in Cincinnati, stunning success and Hall of Fame career. See all of our coverage at WCPO.com/griffey.
People of a certain age remember where they were when they found out John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Or what they were doing when they heard about 9/11.
I remember I was walking out of Morton Hall at Ohio University in Athens on my way back to my dorm room after class when a friend stopped me:
"Did you hear the Reds got Griffey?"
This was, of course, before Internet-enabled phones that would have quickly alerted me. I rushed to the student newspaper office where I worked so I could read all about the trade.
I remember thinking: "That's it. With Ken Griffey Jr. the next nine years the Reds are going to be really good. It will be the mid-1970s all over again. If they don't win a couple of World Series titles in the next decade, I'll be shocked."
It was like Christmas morning for Reds fans.
Back in the winter of 2000, the Reds were coming off a 96-win season. They had lost a disappointing one-game playoff to Al Leiter and the New York Mets. This was a team on the rise. A team with a future.
And General Manager Jim Bowden just dropped the best player in baseball — the best player in a generation — onto that team.
Remember the disappointment of 2012? Now, imagine if the Reds, instead of trading for Shin Soo Choo in that offseason, would have traded for Mike Trout.
Even that isn't an equal comparison. Because Griffey was the hometown Kid. He was everything that was right for my generation of baseball fans.
But instead of ushering in a new era of the Big Red Machine, the Griffey trade marked the end of a pretty successful decade of baseball in Cincinnati.
Instead, it marked the beginning of the wasteland of the 2000s.
In Griffey's nine years in Cincinnati, the Reds never made the playoffs. They finished with a winning record only once — Griffey's first year.
Little of those dreary days can be blamed on Griffey.
It's not Griffey's fault owner Marge Schott and Bowden gutted the team's farm system.
It's not Griffey's fault the team never had any pitching. To illustrate how bad the pitching staff was, before Aaron Harang emerged to start on Opening Day in 2006, here were the previous four Reds Opening Day starters: Joey Hamilton, Jimmy Haynes, Cory Lidle and Paul Wilson. Heck, Haynes still has the all-time record for highest earned-run average among pitchers with 1,000 or more innings pitched.
And it's not Griffey's fault the back half of his career was destroyed by injuries. He only played more than 140 games for the Reds twice. Three years he played fewer than 100 games.
Yes, Griffey took home a large proportion of the team's salary, leaving less money for others. But the guy even deferred money to try to free up payroll to make his hometown team a winner.
But fair or not in the hearts of Reds fans, Griffey is saddled with all of that disappointment. Every time I hear his name or see his picture, I think of what should have been.
He never put up numbers in Cincinnati like he did in Seattle. He never carried the Reds to success.
I even looked at his numbers with the Reds again tonight. He had three seasons that by most players' standards would have been considered excellent.
But they weren't what we were expecting on Feb. 10, 2000.
Griffey's previous four seasons in Seattle he had averaged 52 homers and 141 RBI.
SEE Griffey's career stats.
That's what we all thought we were getting.
Griffey should have been all of that and more. He was Brandon Phillips' charisma and love of the game crossed with Pete Rose's hometown hero-ness (and a bit of his hustle) crossed with Willie Mays' talent.
He should have been the ultimate Cincinnati hero — with his family legacy to the Big Red Machine, his talent, his personality.
But we fans rarely glimpsed the Seattle Junior. The player dubbed "The Kid," who wore his hat backward and played with such joy.
We mostly got the hurt, surly Junior.
Instead of a fun-loving kid superhero, we got a very human, but still very good baseball player.
I've only lived here in Cincinnati for a year — even though I've been a Reds fan for close to 30 years now. So I can't profess to speak for a city of Reds' fans. But the fans that I have talked to have all felt like me.
Griffey's headed to the Hall of Fame?
I don't really care that much.
And that's sad.
It's sad that a player with such amazing promise never realized all of that potential.
It's sad all we really have to show for Griffey's tenure here are his 500th and 600th home run milestones.
It's sad we fans never truly got to experience Griffey the way he was meant to be experienced.
It's sad the Reds had a futile, ugly decade.
But mostly it's sad that we held Griffey to those original expectations from Feb. 10, 2000. And we never really embraced him for the player he still was.
He still had the sweetest swing I've ever seen.
Mike Canan is editor of WCPO.com. Contact him at mike.canan@wcpo.com. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram at @Mike_Canan.


text:
\section{Introduction}
Since its introduction in 1963, the Hubbard model~\cite{Hubbard} has
become, one of the most popular models of correlated electrons
on a lattice. It has been used in the literature to study a great variety
of many-body effects in metals, of which ferromagnetism, metal-insulator
transitions, charge-density waves and superconductivity are the most common
examples. Of all these cooperative phenomena, the problem of ferromagnetism
in the Hubbard model has the longest history. Although the model was
originally introduced to describe the itinerant ferromagnetism
in narrow-band metals like $Fe, Co, Ni$ and others, it soon turned
out that the single-band Hubbard model is not the canonical model
for ferromagnetism. Indeed, the existence of saturated
ferromagnetism has been proven rigorously only for very special limits.
The first well-known example is the Nagaoka limit that corresponds
to the infinite-$U$ Hubbard model with one hole in a half-filled
band~\cite{Nagaoka}.
Another example, where saturated ferromagnetism has been shown to
exist, is the case of the one-dimensional Hubbard model with
nearest and next-nearest-neighbor hopping at low electron
densities~\cite{M_H}.
Furthermore, several examples of the fully polarized ground state
have been found on special lattices as are the bipartite lattices
with sublattices containing a different number of sites~\cite{Lieb},
the fcc-type lattices~\cite{Ulmke,Pandey},
the lattices with long-range electron
hopping~\cite{UH1,UH2,Fark1,Fark2,Fark3},
the flat bands~\cite{FB2,FB3,FB4,FB5} and the nearly flat-band
systems~\cite{NFB1,NFB2,NFB3,NFB4}.
This indicates that the lattice structure, which dictates the shape
of the density of states (DOS), plays an important role in stabilizing
the ferromagnetic state.

Motivated by these results, in the current paper we focus our attention
on the special type of lattice, the so-called Shastry-Sutherland
lattice (SSL). The SSL represents one of the simplest systems with
geometrical frustration, so that putting the electrons on this lattice
one can examine simultaneously both, the effect of interaction as well as
the effect of geometrical frustration on ground-state properties of the
Hubbard model. This lattice was first introduced by Shastry
and Sutherland~\cite{Shastry} as an interesting example of
a frustrated quantum spin system with an exact ground state.
It can be described as a square lattice with
the nearest-neighbor links $t_1$ and the next-nearest neighbors
links $t_2$ in every second square (see Fig.~1a).
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=7cm]{figure1a.eps}
\includegraphics[width=7cm]{figure1b.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{\small (a) The original SSL with the first ($t_1$) and second ($t_2$)
nearest-neighbor couplings. (b) The generalized SSL with the first ($t_1$),
second ($t_2$) and third ($t_3$) nearest-neighbor couplings.
}
\label{fig1}
\end{figure}
The SSL attracted much attention after its experimental realization
in the $SrCu_2(BO_3)_2$ compound~\cite{Kageyama2}. The observation
of a fascinating sequence of magnetization plateaus (at
$m/m_s=$1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and 1/8 of  the  saturated  magnetization $m_s$)
in this material~\cite{Kodama} stimulated further theoretical and experimental
studies of the SSL. Some time later, many other Shastry-Sutherland
magnets have been discovered~\cite{Yoshii,Gabani}. In particular,
this concerns an entire group of rare-earth metal tetraborides $RB_4$
($R=La-Lu$). These materials exhibit similar sequences of fractional
magnetization plateaus as observed in the $SrCu_2(BO_3)_2$ compound.
For example, for $TbB_4$ the magnetization plateau has been found
at $m/m_s=$2/9, 1/3, 4/9, 1/2  and 7/9~\cite{Yoshii} and for $TmB_4$
at $m/m_s=$1/11, 1/9, 1/7 and 1/2~\cite{Gabani}. To describe some of
the above mentioned plateaus correctly, it was necessearry to generalize
the Shastry-Sutherland model by including couplings between the third
and even between the forth nearest neighbors~\cite{pssb}.
The SSL with the first, second and third nearest-neighbor links is
shown in Fig.~1b and this is just the lattice that will be used in our
next numerical calculations.

Thus our starting Hamiltonian, corresponding to the one band Hubbard
model on the SSL, can be written as
\begin{equation}
H=
-t_1\sum_{\langle ij \rangle_1, \sigma}c^+_{i\sigma}c_{j\sigma}
-t_2\sum_{\langle ij \rangle_2, \sigma}c^+_{i\sigma}c_{j\sigma}
-t_3\sum_{\langle ij \rangle_3, \sigma}c^+_{i\sigma}c_{j\sigma}
+U\sum_{i}n_{i\uparrow}n_{i\downarrow},
\label{Eq3}
\end{equation}
where $c^+_{i\sigma}$ and $c_{i\sigma}$ are the creation and annihilation
operators  for an electron of spin $\sigma$ at site $i$ and
$n_{i\sigma}$ is the corresponding number operator
($N=N_{\uparrow}+N_{\downarrow}=\sum_{i\sigma} n_{i\sigma}$).
The first three terms of (1) are the kinetic energies
corresponding to the quantum-mechanical hopping of electrons
between the first, second and third nearest neighbors and the
last term is the Hubbard on-site repulsion between two electrons
with opposite spins. We set $t_1=1$ as the energy unit and thus
$t_2$ ($t_3$) can be seen as a measure of the frustration strength.

To identify the nature of the ground state of the Hubbard model
on the SSL we have used the small-cluster-exact-diagonalization
(Lanczos) method~\cite{Lanczos} and the projector quantum Monte-Carlo
method~\cite{PQMC}.
In both cases the numerical calculations proceed in the folloving steps.
Firstly, the ground-state energy of the model $E_g(S_z)$ is
calculated in all different spin sectors $S_z=N_{\uparrow}-N_{\downarrow}$
as a function of model parameters $t_2,t_3$ and $U$. Then the resulting
behaviors of $E_g(S_z)$  are used directly to identify the regions
in the parametric space of the model, where the fully polarized state
has the lowest energy.

\section{Results and discussion}
To reveal possible stability regions of the ferromagnetic
state in the Hubbard model on the SSL, let us first examine
the effects of the geometrical frustration, represented by nonzero
values of $t_2$ and $t_3$, on the behavior of the non-interacting DOS.
The previous numerical studies of the standard one and two-dimensional
Hubbard model with next-nearest~\cite{M_H} as well as
long-range~\cite{Fark1,Fark2,Fark3} hopping showed that just this quantity
could be used as a good indicator for the emergence of ferromagnetism
in the interacting systems. Indeed, in both models the strong correlation
between ferromagnetism and the anomalies in the noninteracting DOS
are observed. In the first model the ferromagentic state is found
at low electron concentrations and the noninteracting DOS is strongly
enhanced at the low-energy band edge, while in the second one the ferromagnetic
phase is stabilized at the high electron concentrations and the spectral
weight is enhanced at the high-energy band edge. This leads to the scenario
according to which the large spectral weight in the noninteracting DOS
that appears at the low (high) energy band edges allows for a small
kinetic-energy loss for a state with total spin $S \ne 0$ in reference to one
with $S=0$. At some finite value of interaction $U$, the Coulomb repulsion
paid for the low-spin states overcomes this energy loss and the high-spin
state becomes energetically favored. The key point in this picture
is the assumption that the shape of the DOS is only weakly modified
as the interaction $U$ is switched on, at least within its low (high)
energy sector.

The noninteracting DOS of the $U=0$ Hubbard model on the SSL
of size $L=200 \times 200$, obtained by exact diagonalization
of $H$ (for $U=0$) is shown in Fig.~2. The left panels correspond
to the situation when $t_2 >0$ and $t_3=0$, while the right panels correspond
to the situation when both $t_2$ and $t_3$ are finite.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=10cm]{figure2.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{\small Non-interacting DOS calculated numerically for different
values of $t_2$ and $t_3$ on the finite cluster of $L=200 \times 200$ sites.}
\label{fig2}
\end{figure}
One can see that once the frustration parameter $t_2$ is nonzero,
the spectral weight starts to shift to the upper band edge and
the noninteracting DOS becomes strongly asymmetric. Thus taking
into account the above mentioned scenario, there is a real chance
that the interacting system could be ferromagnetic in the limit
of high electron concentrations. To verify this conjecture we have
performed exhaustive numerical studies of the model Hamiltonian (1)
for a wide range of the model parameters $U,t_2$ and $n$ at $t_3=0$.
Typical results of our PQMC calculations obtained on finite cluster of
$L=6\times6$ sites, in two different concentration limits
($n\leq 1$ and $n>1$) are shown in Fig.~3.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=7cm]{figure3a.eps}
\includegraphics[width=7cm]{figure3b.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{\small The difference $\Delta E=E_f-E_{min}$ between the
ferromagnetic state $E_f$ and the lowest ground-state energy
from $E_g(S_z)$ as a function of the frustration parameter $t_2$
calculated for $n\leq 1$ (a) and $n>1$ (b) on the finite cluster
of $L=6 \times 6$ sites ($U=1, t_3=0$). The inset shows $\Delta E$,
calculated for two different electron densities on clusters of
$L=6 \times 6$ and $L=8 \times 8$ sites.}
\label{fig3}
\end{figure}
There is plotted the difference
$\Delta E=E_f-E_{min}$ between the ferromagnetic state $E_f$, which
can be calculated exactly and the lowest ground-state energy
from $E_g(S_z)$ as a function of the frustration parameter $t_2$.
According to this definition
the ferromagnetic state corresponds to $\Delta E=0$. It is seen that
for electron concentrations below the half filled band case $n=1$,
$\Delta E$ is the increasing function of $t_2$, and thus
there is no sign  of stabilization of the ferromagnetic state
for $n\leq 1$, in accordance with the above mentioned
scenario. The situation looks more promising in the opposite
limit $n>1$. In this case, $\Delta E$ is considerably reduced
with increasing $t_2$, however, this reduction is still insufficient
to reach the ferromagnetic state $\Delta E=0$ for physically
reasonable values of $t_2$ ($t_2<1.6$) that correspond to the situation
in the real materials. To exclude the finite-size effect, we have also
performed the same calculations on the larger cluster
of $L=8 \times 8$ sites, but again no signs of stabilization the
ferromagnetic state have been observed (see inset to Fig.~4b).

For this reason we have turned our attention to
the case $t_2>0$ and $t_3>0$. The noninteracting DOS corresponding
to this case is displayed in Fig.~1 (the right panels). These
panels clearly demonstrate that with the increasing value of the
frustration parameter $t_3$, still a more spectral weight is shifted
to the upper band edge. A special situation arises at $t_3=0.6$,
when the spectral weight is strongly peaked at the upper band edge.
In this case the nonintercting DOS is practically identical with
one corresponding to noninteracting electrons with long-range
hopping~\cite{Fark1}.
Since the long-range hopping supports ferromagnetism in the standard
Hubbard model for electron concentrations above the half-filled band
case~\cite{Fark1,Fark2,Fark3}, we expect that this could be true also
for the Hubbard model on the SSL, at least for some values of frustration
parameters $t_2$ and $t_3$. Therefore, we have decided to perform numerical
studies of the model for a wide range of $t_3$ values at fixed $t_2, U$
and $n$ ($t_2=1, U=1, n=7/4$). To minimize the finite-size effects,
the  numerical calculations have been done on two different finite clusters
of $L=6\times 6$ and $L=8\times 8$ sites. The results of our calculations
for $\Delta E$ as a function of $t_3$ are displayed in Fig.~4a.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=7cm]{figure4a.eps}
\includegraphics[width=7cm]{figure4b.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{\small (a) The difference $\Delta E=E_f-E_{min}$ as a function of
the frustration parameter $t_3$ calculated for $U=1, t_2=1, n=7/4$ and two
different finite clusters of $L=6 \times 6$ and $L=8 \times 8$ sites. The
inset shows the ground-state diagram of the model in the $t_3$-$U$ plane.
(b) The comprehensive phase diagrams of the model in the $t_3$-$t_2$
and $t_3$-$n$ plane.}
\label{fig4}
\end{figure}
In accordance with the above mentioned assumptions we find a relatively
wide region of $t_3$ values around $t_3=0.6$, where the ferromagnetic
state is stable. It is seen that the finite-size effects on the stability
region of the ferromagnetic phase are negligible and thus these
results can be satisfactorily extrapolated to the thermodynamic limit
$L=\to \infty$. Moreover, the same calculations performed
for different values of the Hubbard interaction $U$ showed that correlation
effects  (nonzero $U$) further stabilize the ferromagnetic state and lead
to the emergence of macroscopic ferromagnetic domain in the $t_3$-$U$
phase diagram (see inset to Fig.~4a). This confirms the crucial role
of the Hubbard interaction $U$ in the mechanism of stabilization
of ferromagnetism on the geometrically frustrated lattice.
In Fig.~4b we have also plotted the comprehensive
phase diagrams of the model in the $t_3$-$n$ as well as $t_3$-$t_2$ plane,
which clearly demonstrate that the ferromagnetic state is robust
with respect to doping ($n \gtrsim 7/4$) and frustration.

To check the convergence of PQMC results we have performed the same
calculations by the Lanczos exact diagonalization method. Of course,
on such a large cluster, consisting of $L=6 \times 6$ sites, we were
able to examine (due to high memory requirements) only several electron
fillings near the fully occupied band ($N=2L$). The exact diagonalization
and PQMC results for the width of the ferromagnetic phase
obtained on finite cluster of $L=6 \times 6$ sites, for three
different electron fillings from the high concentration limit
($N=66,67,68$), are displayed in the inset to Fig.~4b and
they show a nice convergence of PQMC results.

Let us finally turn our attention to the question of possible connection
between ferromagnetism and the noninteracting DOS that has been discussed
at the beginning of the paper. Figs.~4a and 4b  show, that for each finite $U$
and $n$ sufficiently large ($n \gtrsim 7/4$), there exists a finite interval
of $t_3$ values, around $t_3\sim 0.6$, where the ferromagnetic state is
the ground state of the model. To examine a possible connection
between ferromagnetism and the noninteracting DOS, we have
calculated numerically the noniteracting DOS for several different
values of $t_3$ from this interval and its vicinity. The results
obtained for $U=1, n=7/4$ and  $t_2=1$ are displayed in Fig.~5.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=10cm]{figure5.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{\small Non-interacting DOS calculated numericallly for $t_2=1$
and different values of $t_3$ (near $t_3=0.6$) on the finite cluster
of $L=200 \times 200$ sites.}
\label{fig5}
\end{figure}
Comparing these results with the ones presented in Fig.~4a for
the stability region of the ferromagnetic phase at the same values
of $U,n$ and $t_3$, one can see that there is an obvious correlation
between the shape of the noninteracting DOS and ferromagnetism.
Indeed, the ferromagnetic state is stabilized only for these values
of frustration parameters $t_2,t_3$, which lead to the single peaked
noninterating DOS at the band edge. Once, two or more peaks appear
in the noninteracting DOS at the band egde (by changing $t_2$ or $t_3$),
ferromagnetism is suppressed.

In summary, the small-cluster exact-diagonalization calculations
and the PQMC method were used to examine possible mechanisms leading
to the stabilization of ferromagnetism in strongly correlated systems
with geometrical frustration. Modelling such systems by the Hubbard model
on the SSL, we have found that the combined effects of geometrical
frustration and interaction strongly support the formation of the
ferromagnetic phase at high electron densities. The effects of geometrical
frustration transform to the mechanism of stabilization of ferromagnetism
via the behaviour of the noninteracting DOS, the shape of which is determined
uniquely by the values of frustration parameters $t_2$ and $t_3$. We have
found that it is just the shape of the noninteracting DOS near the band edge
(the single peaked DOS) that plays the central role in the stabilization
of the ferromagnetic  state. Since the same signs have been observed also
in some other works (e.g., the Hubbard model with nearest and next-nearest
neighbor hopping, or the Hubbard model with long range hopping), it seems
that such a behaviour of the noninteracting DOS near the band edge should
be used like the universal indicator for the emergence of ferromagnetism
in the interacting systems.

\vspace{0.5cm}
This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency (APVV)
under Grant APVV-0097-12 and  ERDF EU Grant under the contract No.
ITMS26210120002 and ITMS26220120005.

\newpage

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Clubs Martin Odegaard could join in January or the summer
Premier League agrees to implement concussion substitutions trial
Wesley Fofana is latest example of Leicester City's incredible recruitment
Jürgen Klopp Names 5 Liverpool Youngsters Who Are Nearing First-Team Breakthrough
?Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has named five youngsters at the club who he believes are close to commanding a place in his first-team squad.
Klopp has not shied away from using his young players in cup competitions this season, while the Reds are even set to name a squad made up almost entirely of academy stars when they face Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup quarter-final on Tuesday.
The boss penned a new contract on Friday, and he explained his reasons for doing so to the club's ?official website. One factor in his decision was the recent development of the academy, and Klopp was happy to name five specific players who have caught his eye.
"We want to go, we had to go, to the academy to bring it closer together because that will be our future," Klopp said.
"In the moment we have four fantastic players really close to the first team: Rhian Brewster, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott and Neco Williams, plus we have Caoimhin [Kelleher] as a goalkeeper. That's five boys who I would have no problem to line up tomorrow if needed.
"Curtis now had his first ?Premier League minutes and of course they have time as well to develop, but that's four or five and we want to increase that number in the future."
Klopp insisted that youth development is one of the most important parts of the club. Not only does it give youngsters the chance to make it at the top level, but it could also encourage some of the world's most talented young stars to head to Anfield in the future.
"With Brexit and stuff like this then things will change, and for the youth departments as well – where can we get the players from?" he added.
"So these players need a perspective and they need to feel 'if I go to ?Liverpool then I have the best chance compared to all the other top six clubs, for example, to make my first steps in the Premier League'.
"That's all very important and we are constantly thinking about 'how can we solve the problem today and tomorrow?' but we are also thinking always about 'how can this club look when we are not here anymore?' because this club is not only bigger than pretty much all other clubs, it's bigger than us for sure as well so it needs to have a bright future and we are all working on that."
For more from Tom Gott, follow him on Twitter!
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text:
Newslink
REFLECTIONS and WORSHIP
CERI'S BLOG
Home Newslink REFLECTIONS and WORSHIP REDEVELOPMENT CERI'S BLOG
Welcome to Canton Uniting Church!
There's no need to spell out the unprecedented situation that we find ourselves in - indeed, it's fairly impossible with every day bringing new eye-stretching surprises, mostly that restrict the richness of our lives in some way or other. Here at CUC we have to face the closure of our building for an unknown period. But if we are going to rescue anything from this, we should remember, as the hymn has it, that:
The Church is wherever God's people are praising, singing their thanks for his goodness this day…
The Church is wherever God's people are helping, caring for neighbours in sickness and need…
Canton Uniting is a community, not just a building. That community is still here and we hope that this website becomes a means to keep in touch and to reach out to the increasing needs around us.
So in response to this, please see a letter from our Church Secretary under 'Church Information' at the foot of this page and encouraging reading from the Cardiff and Penarth URC Pastorate under 'Reflections and Worship'. More useful material with this link: https://padlet.com/cucsecretary/svf9eo3c4lq5
You can listen to the pastorate service anytime at https://www.mixcloud.com/cardiffurcs/ and the details of the service are under 'Reflections and Worship'...
In spite of Canton Uniting Church having been closed for months, the plans for its redevelopment - in consideration for a long while - are pressing ahead. See 'Redevelopment Plans' at the foot of this page...
The Church community
Gardening & cooking
Space for hire
Touch Trust
Contact us and Location
PSALM of the week
© Canton Uniting Church 2021


text:
Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945–1980 was a scholarly initiative funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust to historicize the contributions to contemporary art history of artists, curators, critics, and others based in Los Angeles. Planned for nearly a decade, PST, as it was called, granted nearly 60 organizations throughout Southern California a total of $10 million to produce exhibitions (on view between September 2011 and April 2012) that explored the years between 1945 and 1980. Underscoring the significance of this project, art critic Roberta Smith wrote in The New York Times:

ARTnews named the initiative as the decade's most important exhibition and cited how its archival research project had already impacted the history of art by the end of the decade through multiple exhibitions of historically underrepresented work.

Among the artists included
 Vija Celmins
 Jay DeFeo
 Sonia Gechtoff
 Wally Hedrick
 Craig Kauffman
 Linda Nishio
 Gordon Wagner

Participating arts institutions
The following organizations presented exhibitions in conjunction with Pacific Standard Time:

 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica
 A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles
 American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA), Pomona
 Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena
 Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara
 Autry National Center, Los Angeles
 Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley
 California African American Museum (CAAM), Los Angeles
 California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) / REDCAT, Los Angeles
 California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside
 Chapman University Guggenheim Gallery, Orange
 Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles
 Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles
 City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs
 Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM), Los Angeles
 Craft in America, Los Angeles
 Crossroads School, Sam Francis Gallery, Santa Monica
 Eames House Foundation, Pacific Palisades
 Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
 Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles
 Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles
 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
 Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
 The GRAMMY Museum, Los Angeles
 Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles
 Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
 Institute for Arts and Media, California State University, Northridge
 Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles
 Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach
 LA><ART, Los Angeles
 Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)
 Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA)
 (LACE) Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
 Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
 Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
 MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, West Hollywood
 Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts, Rancho Cucamungo
 Mingei International Museum, San Diego
 Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles
 Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
 Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach
 Natural History Museum, Los Angeles
 Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
 ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles & West Hollywood
 Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach
 Otis College of Art and Design Ben Maltz Gallery, Los Angeles
 Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena
 Palm Springs Art Museum
 Pasadena Museum of California Art
 Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont
 Santa Barbara Museum of Art
 Santa Monica Museum of Art
 Scripps College, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Claremont
 University Art Gallery, University of California, Irvine
 University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach
 Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College
 Watts Towers Arts Center, Los Angeles
 Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu

See also

 Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA

References

Further reading

Art exhibitions in the United States
Art in Greater Los Angeles
1940s in Los Angeles
1950s in Los Angeles
1960s in Los Angeles
1970s in Los Angeles
2011 in Los Angeles
2012 in Los Angeles

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Servicing is something that many of us would like to be able to do exactly when it is due, but simply do not always have the funds so it is pushed to the back. Having your care regularly serviced can be beneficial in a number of ways, it can help with fuel consumption, keep the engine running as it should and be an opportunity for faults that are developing to be picked up before they become too serious.
Car servicing can vary in price depending on the make and model of the car, the service that is required and the garage you chose to take it to. Main dealerships will usually charge quite a bit more than independent garages to carry out a service but if the car is new, you may wish to pay the extra. Cars that are sold with full manufacturer's service history can retain their value but often the extra money you have paid out over the years to use a main dealer will not ultimately be reflected in the price you achieve for the car when you come to sell it. If you are struggling to afford a full service then just getting a mini one which changes the oil and filters will be better than nothing.


I am excited to announce that I have accepted a call from Redeemer Church of the Silicon Valley in Fremont, CA to join their church planting team. We are looking forward to this next mission assignment, and the opportunity it gives us to serve together as a family, doing what we believe we've been called to do—make disciples of the nations. As excited as we are to go, we are also sad to leave. On Sunday I announced that I am stepping down from my role as pastor-elder at Community Evangelical Free Church of Harrisburg, and previously it was announced to our staff and missionaries at ABWE that I would be resigning from my role as Vice President of Mobilization and Communications. Paul Davis, President of ABWE, is graciously allowing me to remain with ABWE as a West Coast missions mobilizer, and I will continue to cohost The Missions Podcast and be involved in various projects for the mission.
My wife, Tara, and I first joined ABWE in 2006. At the time I was serving as an associate pastor in Perry, Michigan, and felt God leading us to serve him overseas. Although we eventually returned to our sending church where I resumed my pastoral ministry, our time with ABWE left an indelible imprint on our lives. In 2015 we again found ourselves in the midst of transition—one not of our own making. Our ministry at Northland International University had come to an abrupt and unexpected end when the school was forced to close. I was hurting. My family was hurting. I was struggling with feelings of anger, doubt, and distrust. In those dark days, I struggled with insecurity and fear about not only my gifting, but about my future in ministry. As we evaluated our calling and our opportunities for service, we had to weigh them against the very real need for employment. As I wrestled with the possibility of returning pastoral ministry, I began to realize that I wasn't ready emotionally for the demands of that form of ministry. It was an incredible blessing when Duane Early and Jim O'Neill from ABWE reached out to us about joining the team as the Vice President of Mobilization.
The last three years have been a blessing even though they've had their share of challenges. It has been a blessing working with men and women who are committed to Jesus Christ with every fiber of their being. I've been able to travel the world and see first-hand the work of ABWE missionaries. I've spoken in dozens of churches and Christian Universities about God's heart for the nations. I've been able to witness hundreds of men and women mobilized for service in the harvest field, and although I can take credit for none of the fruit, I have been able to take part in the joy as a result of Christ's work in the hearts of men and women. ABWE has allowed me to be involved in missions in ways that I had never imagined were possible.
A second great blessing of our time in Harrisburg has been our involvement in Community Evangelical Free Church. From the first time we visited as a family, we knew this was meant to be our church home. Jason Abbott, Benjamin Vrbicek, and Ben Bechtel have been incredible pastors to our family. Every week we have been challenged by the preaching of the Word, and have experienced the blessing of serving in a community of believers. For the past two years I've been able to serve on the elder team. Through serving with that band of brothers, I felt my desire for pastoral ministry returning, and my heart for life on life ministry being renewed. Our time with our small group, and my wife and children's involvement in the youth group have been life giving. My wife has loved her job as office administrator at Lingelstown Life and the team there has loved her and treated her as family.
Despite these blessings, the challenges of a traveling ministry, the needs of my family, and a growing desire to be reengaged in missions and local church ministry, caused Tara and me to realize that a change was necessary. As we began to pray for guidance we had no inkling that the end of our prayers would lead us to the Bay Area. Some time ago, old friends of ours, Bob and Jennie Bixby, reached out to us with the dream of approaching the Bay Area and Silicon Valley as a mission field. Their desire was to see families with the battle scars of experience come to the area as pastor-missionaries. Those that know me know that I am a cheesehead through and through. I love snowy winters, cool summers, and Packers season (otherwise known as Autumn). The majority of our family and friends are in Wisconsin and Michigan. I have always preferred the Great Lakes to the Ocean. Moving to California has never been on my wish list. But as we explored the challenges and opportunities that the Bay Area provided, I could feel my mind and heart make the shift from advisor to participant.
The Bay Area is made up of San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and the 12 counties that surround those cities. Together they make the 5thlargest metro area in the country with over 8.8 million people. If the Bay Area was its own nation, it would have the 17thlargest economy in the world. The area is not only populous and wealthy, but it is culturally influential. As home to tech giants such as Facebook, Google, and Apple, and universities such as Stanford and Cal Berkley, the thoughts and content coming out of the Bay Area have an outsized influence on our world and culture.
This area is also in incredibly needy missions field. The Bay Area has attracted people from all over the globe. The culture is inviting and diverse, but also without Christ. Barnarecently called the San Francisco area as the most "unchurched" city in America. Another Barna poll called the Bay Area the 8thmost "post Christian city in America." While one portion of the population is post-Christian, another portion of the population has never been evangelized. Fremont alone, a city with almost 250,000 people is over 50% Asian with many coming from people groups who would be considered unreached or formerly unreached. There are neighborhoods with so much Chinese language advertising that I could imagine I was back in China. Fremont is home to the largest Afghan community in America, and the Bay Area is home to over 250,000 Muslims. There is even a small Uyghur community in Fremont. The area is home to at least 22 communities of unreached peoples with 11 of those completely unengaged with the gospel.
There are churches in the Bay Area, but not enough to reach the growing and diverse population. Redeemer Church is a small body with a big vision. As a church replant itself, they have a vision to see a network of churches planted with a missionary DNA. God has fanned a flame of general interest into a flame of passion for the people and the area. We know from experience that local church ministry needs to be long term and not itinerant. It is our prayer and desire that we put down roots in the community, invest in our neighborhood, and open our home and our lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our current plan is to transition out of our current roles and move to the Bay Area by the end of January.
If you would like to hear more you can listen to Bob and I talk about our vision on The Missions Podcast.We would love to have you pray with us about this move. Moves are hard and this one will be hard on all of us, but especially on Halee, Basil, Augustine, and Caedmon. Pray for my boys that they leave well, and that they adjust quickly to life in a new place. Pray for Halee as this transition is uniquely odd for her as she is in college. She will start her semester with a home in one location and return to her family in a home on the other side of the continent. We'd love to have you partner in prayer with us for the ministry we are joining and the ministries we are leaving behind. We are also in need of financial partners. While my salary is currently covered, the cost of church planting in one of the most expensive regions of the United States is high. We have set a goal to raise $100,000 for church planting and operating expenses. If God would lead you to partner with us, you can give directly to Redeemer Church until my new account with ABWE is set up. We are also praying for a number of intrepid, missions minded people to join us in this endeavor. We have a need for people to move to the area, get jobs, establish themselves in the neighborhoods and pour their lives into the community with us.
We know that we are in a spiritual battle. The enemy is great, but our Champion and King is greater by far. The weapons of our warfare are not found in the strength of our flesh, but are grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ. "Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power" (Ephesians 3:7).
Thanks for this update, Scott! Will miss you at IHQ but really excited for you and your family as you step out in faith in response to God's direction in your lives!!
I look forward to meeting you once you arrive. May the Lord give us fruit for our labors in the Bay Area!
Will be praying for you and your family in this new endeavor, Scott!


Introducing House Aerandos — Lord Saeros, Lady Tamia and their son Caelon. Caelon meets Dia.
Colonel Lord Caelon Aerandos stalked down the hall of the imperial palace on his way to his mother's apartments. His habit of movement, more crisp and decisive than was the norm among the nobility, had already attracted the fascinated attention of many members of court. They wondered why he squandered such energy doing nothing more urgent than walking, while disdaining those pastimes that they considered much more diverting and thus worth the effort. He seemed quite humorless to them; he barely drank more than a cup of wine with his endmeal; he had not taken a lady to his bed since he had arrived at court some time ago. Yet, even as they tried to shrug him off as a dull fellow, they secretly drank in his aura of purposefulness as a starving man might wistfully breathe the perfume of a well-cooked meal, seeing in it a devotion to something more sustaining than pleasures of the flesh.
Caelon was well aware of, and grimly amused by, the fascinated horror with which the Emperor's courtiers beheld him. For his part, on a good day, he eyed them with barely veiled contempt. Was this the much-vaunted imperial court, that was said to impart some sort of worldly wisdom upon the scions of noble houses? It seemed to him that they could learn as much in the back alleys of any town large enough to boast a tavern and a brothel. Surely, it was a very wise man who had said that idle hands bred feeble minds.
On a bad day, his lordship was not so generous and today was turning out to be a very bad day. Caelon was no more prudish than the next fellow but he found himself thinking, as he strode down the hall, that if he had to spend much more time among the drunken sots and unrepentant whores of His Imperial Majesty's court, he was likely to do something desperate. And, to make matters worse, when he wasn't fending off the advances of another energetic gentlewoman or indulging his male peers in wine-scented conversation, he was listening to addle-brained proposals from the madman on the throne.
His scowl softened into the quizzical smile that was more habitual to him. "I had rather hoped for that effect, Mama, but alas! it is not so," he told her.
"I, too, am a soldier, ma'am, and Thaerd is a very sensible fellow," Caelon contradicted himself promptly.
"And what is there in that to put you out, Caelon?" asked her Grace in some surprise.
Lady Tamia frowned thoughtfully and charmingly. "I would not offend His Majesty for the world, but I do not think his troops would be able to hold the north against the Throk," she said hesitantly.
"They would be about as effective as those kittens you keep about the estate in such abundance," Caelon said in disgust.
Caelon turned quickly as Lord Saeros stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He advanced into the room to greet his lady, placing an affectionate hand on Caelon's shoulder in passing. "Your departure was somewhat precipitous, my boy," he noted to his heir as he bowed over Lady Tamia's hand.
"Well, if there is more that I will require, I beg you will not ask me to learn it here," Caelon said, making no effort to mask his contempt.
Lord Saeros did not smile at this banter between his wife and his heir. "A moment of your attention, Caelon!" he said, throwing back his shoulders and assuming what Caelon undutifully called "commander stance".
"Off with you, Impudence!" said his father, trying to scowl around the smile that was blossoming on his face.
Caelon quit the room in a much better frame of mind than he had entered it. He strode down the hall, trying to decide which of the numerous saloons and sitting rooms in the palace was most likely to be empty. He did not particularly want to remain closeted in his room, but neither did he want to make himself too accessible to his empty-headed peers by arriving for endmeal any sooner than was absolutely necessary. The closest thing in the palace to an exercise gymnasium was the imperial steam rooms, which Caelon had avoided since he had learned, early in his stay, that the courtiers were likely to use the rooms for purposes for which they were not originally designed. He would have given a great deal for the sort of equestrian exercise arena that Lord Saeros had constructed at Aerandos, to be used for training cavalry units in inclement weather. In truth, Caelon was not used to having a great deal of unoccupied time on his hands; he was restless and felt sure he was growing soft with so much enforced idleness.
He wondered what could have occurred after he had excused himself to his father that had roused that gentleman's ire. Caelon doubted it was simply a matter of wanting him to observe the smooth technique which his Grace used to divert imperial importunities. He'd had plenty of opportunity to observe that during that thrice-blighted conference, so he had! A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. Perhaps there was something to be said for acquiring a touch of court polish.
The imperial summons had come to Aerandos at a bad time, for his Grace had been busy about his estate, repairing flood damage and preparing for the long dry spell that had just begun. Still, the Grand Duke of Aerandos knew his duty to the Emperor better than most, occupied as he was with the defense of the empire, so he had placed his well trained steward in charge of the repairs and brought his family south.
But his Imperial Majesty, once the Grand Duke Saeros and his family were ensconced in the palace, seemed in no hurry to get to the matter that had inspired him to summon them. Instead, they had been treated to interminable banquets and insipid soirees, the Emperor apparently determined to demonstrate to House Aerandos the endless congeniality of his court. His parents had been heartily bored by what His Imperial Majesty had referred to as "picking up the neglected threads of their acquaintance", although they tactfully refrained from pointing out that none of the minor nobility currently at court were known to them. Caelon had been passed around among the younger visitors to the palace like a platter of savories and soon grew every bit as bored.
So all three of them were pleased when Lord Saeros had been summoned to an imperial audience as they had been finishing a substantial midmeal. Caelon and his father had exchanged a single startled, hopeful glance before attacking the remaining wine in their glasses with what Lady Tamia had laughingly called unseemly haste. Neither of them had spoken of it, but father and son both hoped the summons meant that his Imperial Majesty was finally going to get on with it. Caelon, indulging optimism, thought that perhaps they might be on their way back to Aerandos before endmeal.
Lord Saeros and his heir, therefor, arrived in the conference room and greeted the Emperor with such affability that his Imperial Majesty seemed smugly gratified. Since the cordiality of father and son had nothing to do with their delight in the imperial court, and everything to do with relief at the notion that they might soon be done with it, Caelon reflected that it was as well that the Emperor could not read their thoughts as the TimeKeepers had been said to do. Politely, he bowed to General Kraetus and to the imperial heir, Prince Maermat.
"How may I serve you, my emperor?" Lord Saeros had asked, once the introductions were over and all the men were seated.
"A wise choice, your Majesty," Lord Saeros had agreed politely.
An awkward pause had followed that courteous remark as everyone had waited for him to continue. Curious, Caelon glanced around the table. General Kraetus was scowling down at the fine grain of the hardwood table under his hands. Prince Maermat wore a faint smile and the imperial visage held nothing but polite interest. Yet, all three men betrayed a taut expectation in the set of their shoulders, in Maermat's narrowed eyes and the Emperor's fingers, which drummed absently and arhythmically on the table.
Now, what's afoot? wondered Caelon. It was quite obvious that his father had been expected to offer to see to the task of sprucing up the imperial army, and it was equally clear to everyone in the room that his Grace had missed his cue. Lord Saeros appeared to be the only one of them who was in command of his face and body language; he seemed completely at his ease, his expression politely enquiring. Caelon carefully hid a smile; his Grace certainly knew how to bring conversation to an abrupt halt.
"Your Majesty has a very fine General Staff," Lord Saeros pointed out.
"Nonsense!" the Emperor stated. "How fine can they be if they have allowed the army to deteriorate in this fashion?" His Imperial Majesty seemed to have forgotten that a member of the General Staff sat at the table with them. The General's scowl grew blacker.
"Your Highness is very kind." Lord Saeros murmured the formula response, still apparently unwilling to help these three say what they seemed so reluctant to say.
That plan seemed so fraught with disaster, that Caelon remained silent only with the greatest difficulty. Of all the ridiculous notions … !
"A home question," said the Emperor, clearly delighted. Caelon wondered if the man were deliberately needling his general or if he was simply an idiot. Much more of this, and Lord Saeros would need to guard himself most assiduously during the remainder of his stay at the palace.
Prince Maermat chuckled, but his glance remained watchful.
Striding easily down the hall, Caelon considered the matter now. That his father's reaction at being offered a special commission by the Emperor was less than effusive did not seem to disturb a ruler known far and wide for his intolerance to opposition. Caelon found that interesting. He did not think that report had lied or exaggerated; there was that in Kaerkas' eyes that made one hesitate to cross him.
Lord Saeros, Caelon realized, had handled the situation with admirable skill. He had failed to instantly fall in the scheme and volunteered neither action nor information, yet he had managed to avoid placing the Emperor in a position in which an imperial ultimatum would have been justified. They were going to have to volunteer more information before they acquired his Grace's cooperation, much less his army, and that was just as well. The general's hostility was not difficult to fathom but Prince Maermat's calculating gaze suggested that there was more to this very plausible imperial request than met the eye.
All at once, Caelon realized that he was being watched and he cursed his inattention. Automatically, his steps slowed as his eyes darted around, trying to penetrate the shadows. The watcher was unfriendly, instinct told him; the level of malevolence he could feel from that silent observer caused him to wish, not for the first time, that the Emperor would allow his guests to be armed with more serious weapons than their fashionable daggers. This corridor, like the entire palace, was ill-lit and quiet. Waves of coldly brooding menace chilled him, inhuman in their intensity.
Inhuman? Caelon was not a fanciful sort but he had learned not to cast aside those random, instinctive impressions if he would save his own life. Surely, this corridor had not been this dark a few moments ago? Those instincts, which had served him so well for so long, could sense that dark menace building, reaching toward a crescendo that could only mean his unseen watcher was working himself up to launch an attack. Caelon's nerves stretched taut as his body automatically prepared for battle, but his mind seethed with helpless frustration. How could he fight what he could not see? What was it?
A door latch sounded and Caelon, poised for a fight despite the dimness that seemed to shroud his sight, whirled to his left with his knife in his hand.
"What ails you, my lord?" a sharp, feminine voice asked.
She glanced up at him with eyes the color of a stormy sky. "You are churlish, my lord," she said, her voice flat with hostility and her hands twitching, although she wore no daggers.
"Do you mean to say that you were not watching as I came up this hall?" he asked her, suspiciously.
Caelon knew, as soon as he had asked her, that she could not have been that silent watcher. That aura of menace had been far too strong for her to successfully hide it now that they were face to face, and her present annoyance was a zephyr compared to the brooding hatred he had sensed. She did not even reply to his distrustful question, merely staring at him with her remarkably fine gray eyes. Those eyes held a peculiar expression, a combination of cynical amusement and the sort of wariness one usually employs when dealing with lunatics.
Aware that he had behaved in such a way as to completely justify her apparent impression that she had encountered a raving maniac, he bowed and suppressed an untimely fit of laughter. "I can see that I was very much mistaken and can only beg your pardon, my lady. You must think I learned my manners in the stables," he told her ruefully.
She took another breath and open her mouth to speak, but what reply she might have made him he would never know. Suddenly, as she gazed at him, her eyes widened in astonishment and her irritation seemed to melt away. She seemed amazed by something only she could see and Caelon found himself wondering who she was and why she was looking at him so oddly. Finally, she seemed to recollect herself, for she released her pent up breath and, in some confusion, dropped a curtsey. "Of course, my lord," was all she said.
"Thank you," and Caelon bowed again, feeling rather irrationally as if he had been robbed of some very good sport. "No doubt you will be attending His Imperial Majesty's tedious endmeal, at which I expect we shall be formally presented to each other. There, I shall behave so irreproachably that I daresay you will be astonished and I shall be fully redeemed in your eyes." He reflected, as he made that extravagant promise, that once she had a taste of the rest of the imperial court, she would no doubt think him a model of rectitude.
He turned from her and continued down the hall, entertaining himself with speculations about her likely reaction to that particular treat in store — or should he rather call it an ordeal? — his unseen watcher momentarily forgotten.


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Last updated on Thursday 01/26/2023 at 05:00 AM, the fares mentioned above are for Round Trip flight tickets and inclusive of fuel surcharges, service fee and taxes service fee and taxes. Based on historical data, these fares are subject to change without prior notice and cannot be guaranteed at the time of booking. Kindly go through our terms and conditions terms and conditions before booking.
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All rugs have amazing details with beautiful, vibrant colors that depict wintery seasonal scenes in all their glory. Want a different size or style of rug? SEE OUR FULL RUG CATALOG for all available designs and sizes here: Seasonal Holiday Rug Catalog If you would like to order a rug from this catalog, please give us a call at 517-543-7120.
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Cycling Weekly has confirmed details for its 2019 awards, which will return to 8 Northumberland Avenue on 28th November.
Last year 300 guests from the world of cycling, including Sir Bradley Wiggins and Sir Chris Hoy, were in attendance for the inaugural awards in association with Garmin.
Ten awards were given out, recognising the efforts of Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas alongside those of local volunteers, cycling clubs and charity fundraisers.
Two new categories are being introduced for 2019, including team of the year and inspiration of the year. Cycling Weekly has said there will be more reader involvement too, as it is putting more categories to the vote.
The black-tie event will include dinner, drinks, special guests and live music until 2am.


Eurovet launched its own b2b online platform The Lingerie Place, created for business communications between lingerie, swimwear and sportswear brands, manufacturers, fabric specialists, designers and retailers.
As it usually happens in presentations, it is slightly embellished: there are many lingerie b2b online-magazines: The Lingerie Insight, created in 2000, and The Lingerie Journal (also founded in 2000), and Underlines (has been working since 1998, the founder – Dessous Group).
What is the difference: at the time of publication, The Lingerie Place has convenient filters for databases with all brands of underwear and swimwear, as well as fabrics and accessories.
Eurovet is a company based on the expertise of its two major shareholders: French Fédération de la Maille et de la Lingerie, and Comexposium, the world's leading trade fair organizer for both professionals and the general public . Eurovet conducts the most large-scale key exhibitions of underwear, swimwear and textiles all over the world.
Predict a long life for this new project. A giant like Eurovet simply can not help but shoot.
It is surprising that the project is not implemented ten years ago, but only now.


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Q: How to shuffle a large data set without touching every row? Let's say I have two larges arrays of users with equals number of rows and I want to match them randomly and one to one(one from the first array,one from the second), I will first need to shuffle one of the two sets because I need to do this every x hours, and i don't want matchs to be the same everytime.The problem is that as said they are large, and I don't want to do a for loop when implementing a shuffle method. Ideally I would like a fonction that takes an index from the first array, and some random generated key and returns me the matching index.
My problem is that I don't know how to generate such a key. I don't even know if it's possible or what to look for.

A: If you want a stateless way to shuffle, sorry, but that's impossible. A shuffle needs state. If you're content with random pairings that are independent of previous pairings then that can be stateless but it's not a shuffle. In that case your function is just an evenly distributed random number from 0 to length-1.
If you must have a shuffle, are willing to keep some state, but can't be moving users around in their array I have a solution.
Use indirection. You have arrays of users that you don't want to touch. Fine but they're arrays, so you have random access to them. You don't have to move the users. You just have to shuffle an array of indexes into one of them.
Say you have two arrays of 10 girls and 10 boys. Just add an array of 10 ints. Lets call it partner.
let partner = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
partner.shuffle()
Your 'function' is now partner[index]. You could use it like this:
dance(girls[index], boys[partner[index]])
Also, understand that in many languages, and data structures, if you shuffle your array of users you aren't actually moving around the user data. You're moving around a small little reference that points to the user data. That reference is usually no bigger than an int.
If you're in that situation then the indirection provided by partner is pointless. Just shuffle your array directly. If you can't because you have to preserve the original order you can simply make a copy of the references and shuffle the copy.
So be sure you can't directly sort your array before you add a level of indirection you might not need.
As for the issue of large, if you're up against more references than will fit in memory you might want to not assume you have full random access to the array. IO is slow and works better as a stream.
A two pass shuffle can read the array sequentially (as a stream) and work on a chunk small enough to fit in memory as a full blown random access array. Create files for each chunk. Append to the chunks randomly from the whole stream. Then, one at a time, load up each memory sized chunk and shuffle it now that you have fast random access. After that you can append the shuffled chunk into one file for them all.
Here's an artical on this technique that comes with a rather nice visualization:

A: What you can do is create an independent array of a data structure containing your index keys (1..N) and a random number.  Then sort it on the random number.  When you need to re-shuffle, update the random numbers and sort it again.  I did this last night on a data set of a couple million rows and the sorting time was negligible.  I don't know if it would suffice for real-time graphics rendering, but for most other cases the performance should be fine.