text:
\section{Introduction}
Decentralized optimization methods have been widely used in the machine learning community. Compared to  centralized optimization methods, they
enjoy several advantages, including aggregating the computing power of distributed
machines, robustness to dynamic network topologies, and preserving data privacy \citep{yin_decentralized_grad_descent}. These
advantages make them an attractive option when data are collected by
distributed agents, and either communicating the data to a central processing
agent is computational prohibitive, or due to privacy concern each agent needs to
keep the local data privately.

After the seminal work in  \citet{tsitsiklis_seminal_2,tsitsiklis_seminal_1},
there have been fruitful development on  distributed optimization. For non-smooth
objective functions, consensus-based subgradient methods have been analyzed in
\citet{nedic_multi_agent,nedic_stochastic_subgrad_projection,nedic_aynchronous}.
Dual averaging method proposed in \citep{duchi_dual_averaging}
further explains the effect of the network topology on the convergence. Usually
distributed subgradient methods converge at the rate of
$\mathcal{O}(\frac{\log(T)}{\sqrt{T}})$. For smooth
(and possibly strongly convex) objective, \citet{yin_extra,yin_proximal_extra}
propose an \emph{exact} first-order algorithm EXTRA and its proximal variant,
which attain an improved rate of $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{T})$
for general smooth objective, and a linear rate of $\mathcal{O}(c^T)$ for smooth and strongly
convex objective with $c < 1$ (see also
\citet{nedic_geometric_convergence,yin_decentralized_grad_descent}).
Asynchronous decentralized (sub)gradient descent algorithms have also been proposed and analyzed
\citet{nedic_aynchronous,tsitsiklis_seminal_1}. Another class of mainstream distributed algorithms are based
on the dual method, which include the classic idea of dual decomposition
\citep{murray_dual_decomposition}, and the celebrated alternating direction
method of multipliers (ADMM)
\citep{boyd_admm,ozdaglar_distributed_admm,ozdaglar_asynchronous_dadmm}. ADMM
attains $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{T})$ convergence rate for the smooth problem and
$\mathcal{O}(c^T)$ for smooth and strongly convex problem, but such results
rely on strong assumptions such as having no constraints
\citep{yin_linear_convergence_admm} or the local subproblem of each agent being easy
to solve \citep{ozdaglar_asynchronous_dadmm}.

All the aforementioned methods can be categorized as \emph{projection-based}
methods, as they all require to take projection back to the feasible set of the constraints at each iteration. Though
commonly assumed to be easy,  in numerous applications such
projection indeed can either be computational expensive  (projection onto the trace norm ball, base
polytopes \citep{Fujishige_asubmodular}) or even
intractable \citep{collins_intractable}. Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithm arises as a
natural alternative in these scenarios. Unlike projection-based methods, FW
assumes a linear oracle (LO) that solves a linear optimization problem over the
feasible set which can be significantly easier than the projection. We
refer to algorithms that avoid projection as \emph{projection-free}
algorithms. FW algorithm has been revisited in recent years for its projection-free property
\citep{jaggi_revisiting_fw,jaggi_phd_thesis,clarkson_coreset,bach_herding_and_fw} and numerous improvements have been made. These include
regularized FW \citep{nemirovski_regularzied_fw}, linearly convergent variants under additional assumptions
\citep{hazan_linear_convergence,julien_linear_convergence},  and stochastic variants
\citep{hazan_proj_free_online_learning,hazan_vr_projection_free}.

\textbf{Related Work.} Despite the progress on centralized FW algorithm, results on distributed FW
algorithm are surprisingly limited. Specialized versions of decentralized FW
algorithm have been proposed. \citet{wang_pdfw} propose a distributed
block-coordinate FW algorithm for block-separable feasible sets
\citep{julien_bcfw}. \citet{balcan_dfw_sparse_learning} consider a Lasso-type
distributed learning problem. They neither assume nor exploit the fact that
the global objective is a natural summation of each agent's local objective,  and their communication scheme is also different from the usual ``within
neighborhood'' communication scheme and could be significantly more complicated.
\citet{wai_dfw_comm_efficient} consider a distributed FW algorithm also for
the Lasso-type problem that leverages the sparsity of iterates to improve
communication overhead. To the best of our knowledge, the most recent
distributed FW (DFW) algorithm on general smooth convex problems is by
\citet{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex}, wherein the DFW convergence rate is
$\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{T})$ for smooth objectives; and
$\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{T^2})$ for smooth and strongly convex objective {\em under the assumption that  the minimizer lies in the  interior of constraint set}. This assumption is almost unrealistic for two reasons: it implies the problem is essentially unconstrained, which usually fails to impose structural properties (such as sparsity, low-rankness) to the solution; and for a unconstrained problem the vanilla distributed gradient descent algorithm suffices to solve the problem efficiently \citep{yin_decentralized_grad_descent}. Whether such
restrictive assumption could be removed  while retaining the same complexity remains an open question.

We should note that all the previously discussed methods share the
same communication complexity and projection/LO complexity to obtain an
$\epsilon$-optimal solution, regardless of being projection-based or
projection-free. In practice, however, the time consumed by a single communication
and a LO/projection often differ by \emph{orders of magnitude}, which could incur
significant latency. Modern CPUs perform IO at over 10 GB/s yet
communication over TCP/IP is about 10 MB/s, this gap is even more significant
when LO oracle is already cheap. Consider the matrix completion problem, in Section \ref{experiments} we will show that for an iteration consisting one round of communication and one LO, communication would take up over $97 \%$ time. This implies in DFW  the actual running time   would be largely consumed by communication.
To alleviate the problem of latency in communication expensive applications, whether it is possible to trade for a better
communication complexity with a moderately worse LO complexity becomes another open question.

\textbf{Contributions.} In this paper we answer the above mentioned questions with an (almost)
affirmative answer. Our contributions are the following:
\begin{itemize}
  \item We propose a new distributed projection-free algorithm named Decentralized
  Conditional Gradient Sliding (DCGS), and show that it attains
  $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon})$ communication complexity and
  $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon^2})$ LO complexity for smooth convex objectives.

 \item Without assuming the minimizer being in the {\em interior} of the feasible set, we
 show that DCGS attains $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$ communication
 complexity and $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon^2})$ LO complexity for
 smooth and strongly convex objectives.

 \item Our algorithm builds upon a distributed version of primal-dual algorithm
 and is hence modular. As a consequence, improvement on centralized FW can  be easily
 exploited by DCGS. We demonstrate this advantage when the feasible
 set is polyhedral, for smooth and convex objective the LO complexity can be reduced to
 $\tilde{\mathcal{O}} (\frac{1}{\epsilon})$\footnote{Throughout this paper we use
 $\tilde{\mathcal{O}} () $ to hide any additional logrithmic factor}, while for smooth and strongly convex
 objective the LO complexity can be further reduced to $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}
 (\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$, which matches the result of
 \citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex}, but without the restrictive assumption on the minimizer.

 \end{itemize}

\section{Problem formulation}
 We consider an undirected graph $G = (V, E)$, where $V = \{1, \ldots, m \}$ denotes the vertex set and $E \subset V \times V$ denotes the edge set. Each node $i \in V$ is associated with an agent indexed also by $i$, and has its local objective $f_i(x): \mathbb{R}^d \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$. We define the neighborhood of agent $i$ to be $N(i) = \{j \in V: (i,j) \in E \}$. Each agent $i$ can only communicate information with its neighbors. Naturally, $G$ is assumed to be connected or otherwise distributed optimization is impossible. Our objective is to minimize the summation of the local objectives, subject to the constraint that $x$ belongs to a closed compact convex set $X$, that is:
\begin{align}\label{distributed_formulation}
 \underset{x \in X}{\mbox{Minimize:}} \quad f(x):= \sum_{i=1}^m f_i(x).
\end{align}
We assume each function $f_i$ is $u$ (possibly $0$)-strongly convex and $l$-smooth,
i.e., $ \frac{u}{2} \norm{y-x}^2 \leqslant f_i(y) - f_i(x) - \nabla f_i(x)^{T} (y-x) \leqslant \frac{l}{2} \norm{y-x}^2 $. Our algorithm could also be easily adapted to the setting where $f_i$ has different smoothness and strong convexity. We present here only the homogeneous case for simplicity.

The distributed formulation (\ref{distributed_formulation}) can be reformulated as the following linearly constrained optimization problem. Consider each agent $i$ keeps its local copy of decision variable $x_i$, we can impose a linear constraint on $\mathbf{x} = (x_1, \ldots, x_m)$ so that $x_i = x_j$ for all $(i,j) \in E$. Define the graph Laplacian $L \in \mathbb{R}^{m \times m}$ to be:
\begin{align}
 L_{ij} = \begin{cases}
  |N(i)| & \text{if }  i=j, \\
  -1 & \text{if }  i \neq j \text{ and } (i,j) \in E, \\
  0 &  \text{otherwise.}
\end{cases}
\end{align}
Then (\ref{distributed_formulation}) could be reformulated as:
\begin{align} \label{linear_constraint_formulation}
  \begin{split}
 \min_{\mathbf{x} \in X^m}\quad F(\mathbf{x})  & = \sum_{i = 1}^m f_i(x_i) \\
 s.t. \quad \mathbf{Lx}  &=  \mathbf{0},
\end{split}
\end{align}
Let $\otimes$ denotes the Kronecker product, here $\mathbf{L} = L \otimes I_d$ and $X^m = \{(x_1,\ldots, x_m): x_i \in X \}$. Since $G$ is assumed to be connected,   (\ref{distributed_formulation}) and (\ref{linear_constraint_formulation}) are equivalent.

We can further reformulate the linearly constrained problem as a bilinear saddle point problem. Observe that (\ref{linear_constraint_formulation}) is equivalent to:
\begin{align} \label{bilinear_saddle_formulation}
  \min_{\mathbf{x} \in X^m} \max_{\mathbf{y} \in \mathbb{R}^{md}} F(\mathbf{x}) + \inner{\mathbf{Lx}}{\mathbf{y}}.
\end{align}
The bilinear saddle point problem (\ref{bilinear_saddle_formulation}) is well suited for the primal-dual algorithm proposed in \citep{chambolle_primal_dual}. We present the orginal primal-dual algorithm applied to our problem in Algorithm~\ref{alg:raw_primal-dual}.

\begin{algorithm}
    \caption{Primal-dual algorithm \citep{chambolle_primal_dual}}
    \label{alg:raw_primal-dual}
    \begin{algorithmic}[1]
        \STATE{Let $\mathbf{x}^{0} = \mathbf{x}^{-1} \in X^m$ and $\mathbf{y}^0 \in \mathbb{R}^{md}$ and $\{\alpha_k\}, \{\tau_k\}, \{\eta_k\}$ be given.}
        \FOR{$k=1, \ldots, N$ do}
        \STATE{ $\tilde{\mathbf{x}}^k = \alpha_k (\mathbf{x}^{k-1} - \mathbf{x}^{k-2}) + \mathbf{x}^{k-1}$}
        \STATE{ $ \mathbf{y}^k = \argmin_{\mathbf{y} \in \mathbb{R}^{md}} \inner{-\mathbf{L} \tilde{\mathbf{x}}^k}{\mathbf{y}} + \frac{\tau_k}{2} \norm{\mathbf{y} - \mathbf{y}^{k-1}}^2$}
        \STATE{ $ \mathbf{x}^k = \argmin_{\mathbf{x} \in x^m} \inner{\mathbf{L y^k}}{\mathbf{x}} + F(\mathbf{x}) + \frac{\eta_k}{2} \norm{\mathbf{x}^{k-1} - \mathbf{x}}^2 $}
        \ENDFOR
    \end{algorithmic}

\end{algorithm}

\citet{lan_comm_efficient} observe that since $F(\mathbf{x})$ is a summation splitted across agents, all the updates in the primal-dual algorithm can be performed in a distributed way. They propose a distributed primal-dual algorithm and show that to find an $\epsilon$-optimal solution, one needs $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon})$ rounds of communication for a non-smooth convex objective and $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$ for a non-smooth strongly convex objective, which improves upon the previous results. However, their algorithm still lies in the category of projection-based algorithms and they consider non-smooth problem, which is different from our setting.

\section{Algorithm}
In this section we present in Algorithm \ref{alg:pdcgs} the Decentralized Conditional Gradient Sliding for a general convex feasible set equipped with a linear oracle.
At a high-level, DCGS is closely related to Conditional Gradient Sliding (CGS) algorithm proposed in \citet{lan_cgs}. However CGS considers only the primal problem, here we consider a primal-dual problem due to performing distributed optimization. As such, the analysis is significantly more involved.

\begin{algorithm}
    \caption{Distributed Conditional Gradient Sliding (DCGS)}
    \label{alg:dcgs}
    \begin{algorithmic}[1]
        \STATE{Let $\mathbf{x}^{0} = \mathbf{x}^{-1} \in X^m$ and $\mathbf{y}^0 \in \mathbb{R}^{md}$ and $\{\alpha_k\}, \{\tau_k\}, \{\eta_k\}$ be given.}
        \FOR{$k=1, \ldots, N$ do}
        \STATE{Update for all agents as the following:}
        \STATE{ $\tilde{x}_i^k = \alpha_k (x_i^{k-1} - x_i^{k-2}) + x_i^{k-1} $}
        \STATE{ $ v_i^k = \sum_{j \in N(i) \cup \{i\}} L_{ij} \tilde{x}_j^k $}
        \STATE{ $ y_i^k = y_i^{k-1} + \frac{1}{\tau_k} v_i^k $}
        \STATE{ $ w_i^k = \sum_{j \in N(i) \cup \{i\} } L_{ij} y_j^k$}
        \STATE{ $x_i^k = CG(f_i, x_i^{k-1}, w_i^k, \eta_k, e_i^k)$}\label{lo_subproblem}
        \ENDFOR
        \RETURN $\overline{\mathbf{x}}^N = (\sum_{k=1}^N \theta_k)^{-1} \sum_{k=1}^N \theta_k \mathbf{x}^k$
        \STATE{}
        \STATE{\textbf{Procedure:} $x^+ = CG(f, x, w, \eta, e)$}\label{cg_procedure}
        \STATE{Let $x^0 \in X$}
        \WHILE{$t=0,\ldots$}
        \STATE{Let $s^t = \argmin_{s \in X} \inner{\nabla f(x^t) + w + \eta(x^t - x)}{s}$}
        \IF{ $\inner{\nabla f(x^t) + w + \eta(x^t - x)}{x^t - s^t} \leqslant e$ }
        \RETURN $x^t$
        \ENDIF
        \STATE{ $x^{t+1} = (1 - \gamma_t) x^t + \gamma_t s^t$, where $\gamma_t  = \frac{2}{t+2}$ or computed by line search}
        \ENDWHILE
        \STATE{\textbf{End procedure}}
    \end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
The most important step of DCGS algorithm is in Line \ref{lo_subproblem}, where we update decision variable $x_i^k$ by calling the CG procedure defined in Line \ref{cg_procedure}. If we define $\phi_i^k (x_i) = \inner{w_i^k}{x_i} + f_i(x_i) + \frac{\eta_k}{2} \norm{x_i - x_i^{k-1}}^2$, then the CG procedure could be seemed as the FW algorithm applied to $\min_{x_i \in X} \phi_i^k(x_i)$, with termination criterion $ \inner{ \nabla \phi_i^k(x_i^k)}{x_i^k - x_i^{k-1}} \leqslant e_i^k$, where the left hand side is often called the Wolfe gap. Below we make a few remarks on the communication mechanism, the main technical challenges and the modularity of our algorithm.

\textbf{Communication Mechanism.}
At each outer iteration $k$, each local agent first computes $\tilde{x}_i^k$ based on
extrapolation of two previous primal iterates, and broadcase $\tilde{x}_i^k$ to
all of its neighbors $j \in N(i)$. After one round of broadcasting, each agent
uses $\tilde{x}_j^k$ received from its neighbors and perform dual variable update
$y_i^k$, then broadcast the updated dual variable to all of its neighbors $j \in
N(i)$. After second round of broadcasting, each agent uses $y_j^k$ received from
its neighbors and call the CG procedure to update primal variable $x_i^{k+1}$. Each iteration incurs two rounds
of communication within the network, hence the overall communication complexity is
the same as the outer iteration complexity.

\textbf{Trade-off between Communication and LO.}
If we set $e_i^k=0$ in Line \ref{lo_subproblem}, we are solving problem $\min_{x_i \in X} \phi_i^k(x_i)$ exactly. The outer iteration of DCGS then reduces to the primal-dual algorithm applied to our problem (\ref{bilinear_saddle_formulation}), implemented in a distributed fashion. By well-known results of the primal-dual algorithm \citep{chambolle_primal_dual,lan_comm_efficient}, to get an $\epsilon$-optimal solution one needs $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon})$ iterations for a convex objective and $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$ iterations for a strongly convex objective.
From our previous discussion, this yields the communication complexity of DCGS to be $ \mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon})$ and $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$ respectively. However in this extreme case LO calls in the CG procedure would be prohibitively large.
Consequently, we need to carefully choose $e_i^k$ to ensure that the subproblem $\min_{x_i \in X} \phi_i^k(x_i)$ is solved in a controlled way: the convergence of outer iteration should be approximately at the same speed as the case when the subproblem is solved exactly, but meanwhile we need to keep LO complexity in the CG procedure to remain relatively small.

\textbf{Modularity.} The CG procedure in DCGS algorithm is where all the calls to LO take place.  We believe there are not much room for improvement in terms of the communication complexity, as our complexity in the general case matches that of the DFW algorithm under additional (very strong) assumption that the optimal solution is in the interior of the feasible set. The room for improvement then lies in possibly reducing LO complexity. If we treat the CG procedure as a module in the DCGS algorithm, can we replace it with a module that runs much faster for specific objectives or feasible sets, and obtain a better DCGS variant? The answer is affirmative. As an example we will show that significant improvement on LO complexity could be made when the feasible set is polyhedral.

\section{Theoretical Results}\label{result}
\subsection{General Feasible Set}
In this section we set suitable parameters to DCGS for convex and strongly convex objectives. We will present its convergence results, communication and LO complexity. We also present a detailed comparison with results of DFW in \citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex}.

\begin{theorem}[Convergence for Smooth and Convex Objectives]\label{thrm:smooth}
  \hfill \\
  Set $ \theta_k = \alpha_k = 1, \eta_k = 2\norm{L}, \tau_k = \norm{L}, e_i^k = \frac{\norm{L} \max(\norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}^2, \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2)}{mN}$ in Algorithm \ref{alg:dcgs}, where $\norm{L}$ denotes the spectral norm of Laplacian matrix $L$.
  Assume each $f_i$ is $l$-smooth, we have:
  \begin{align} \label{smooth_convergence}
    F(\overline{\mathbf{x}}_N) - F(\mathbf{x}^*) \leqslant \frac{ \norm{L}}{N} \max(\norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^{*}}^2, \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2).
  \end{align}
\end{theorem}
From (\ref{smooth_convergence}) it is straightforward to establish communication complexity. Note that it only depends on the number of agents and the network topology, and is \emph{independent} of the objective function $f$, which is a feature that DFW does not have.
\begin{corollary}[Complexity for Smooth and Convex Objectives]\label{complexity:smooth}
\hfill \\
Under the same conditions as in Theorem \ref{thrm:smooth}, to get a solution such that $F(\overline{\mathbf{x}}_N) - F(\mathbf{x}^*) \leqslant \epsilon$, the number of communications and LO for each agent are respectively bounded by:
\begin{align}\label{communication:smooth}
\mathcal{O} \left(\frac{\norm{L} \max(\norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^{*}}^2, \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2)}{\epsilon} \right)
\end{align}
and
\begin{align}\label{lo:smooth}
 \mathcal{O} \left( \frac{ m \norm{L}(l + \norm{L})  \max(\norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^{*}}^2, \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2)}{\epsilon^2}  \right)
\end{align}
\end{corollary}

\textbf{Detailed Comparison.} DFW in
\citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex} has communication and LO complexity
both bounded by $\mathcal{O} \left(\frac{l m D^2 G}{\epsilon} \right)$, where
$D$ denotes the diameter of the feasible set and $G$ inversely relates to the spectral gap
of the weighted communication matrix. If we set $\mathbf{y}^0 = \mathbf{0}$, and observe that
$\frac{\norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}}{D^2} = \mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{m})$, then it
can be seen that our algorithm is at least $\mathcal{O}
(\frac{lG}{\norm{L}})$ times better in terms of the communication complexity, and at
most $\mathcal{O} (\frac{ m(l+\norm{L})}{\epsilon} \cdot
\frac{\norm{L}}{lG})$ worse in LO complexity. Suppose in application where the
agents network is set beforehand so that $(m, \norm{L}, G)$ be treated as constants, as
objective becomes increasingly non-smooth, our algorithm outperforms DFW by factor of $\mathcal{O}(l)$ in communication with $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon})$ worsened LO complexity. For tasks that communication is time consuming but  LO is much cheaper (e.g., matrix completion), such a trade-off can be significant, especially when we are not solving for a high precision solution.

\begin{theorem}[Convergence for Smooth and Strongly Convex Objectives]\label{thrm:sc} \hfill \\
Set $\alpha_k = \frac{k}{k+1}, \theta_k = k+1, \eta_k = \frac{ku}{2}, \tau_k = \frac{4\norm{L}^2}{(k+1)u}, e_i^k = \frac{\max(u \norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}^2, \norm{L}^2 \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2/u )}{mNk} $ in Algorithm \ref{alg:dcgs}. Assume $f_i$ is $u$-strongly convex and $l$-smooth, we have:
\begin{align}\label{sc:convergence}
 F(\overline{\mathbf{x}}_N) - F(\mathbf{x}^*) \leqslant \frac{1}{N^2} \max\left(u \norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}^2, \frac{\norm{L}^2 \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2}{u} \right).
\end{align}
\end{theorem}
Similarly to establishing (\ref{communication:smooth}) and (\ref{lo:smooth}), we bound the communication and LO complexity in the following corollary.

\begin{corollary}[Complexity for Smooth and Strongly Convex Objective] \hfill \label{complexity:sc}\\
Under the same conditions as in Theorem \ref{thrm:sc}, to get a solution such that $F(\overline{\mathbf{x}}_N) - F(\mathbf{x}^*) \leqslant \epsilon$, the number of communications and LO for each agent can be respectively bounded by:
\begin{align}\label{communication:sc}
 \mathcal{O} \left( \sqrt{\frac{\max(u \norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}^2, \frac{\norm{L}^2 \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2}{u} )} {\epsilon}}  \right),
\end{align}
and
\begin{align}\label{lo:sc}
\mathcal{O} \left( \frac{m l  \max(u\norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}^2, \frac{\norm{L}^2 \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2}{u} )}{\epsilon^2} \right).
\end{align}
\end{corollary}

\textbf{Detailed Comparison.}
DFW in \citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex} has both communication and LO complexity bounded by $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$, but requires the minimizer to be bounded way from boundary of the feasible set.
Our complexity result does not rely on this unrealistic assumption that often fails, especially when the constraint should be active to impose structural assumption (e.g., sparsity) on the solution. It is then fair to compare with their result in the convex setting. Our result can be deemed as trading for a better communication complexity from $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon})$ to $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$, with a moderately worse LO complexity from $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon})$ to $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{\epsilon^2})$.

\subsection{Polyhedral Feasible Sets}
The trade-off between communication and LO however is almost unnecessary, when the feasible set is polyhedral. Specifically, DCGS achieves the same communication and LO complexity (with additionally logarithmic factor), regardless of $f_i$ being strongly convex or not. This improvement is a direct result  from the modularity of DCGS: we replace the CG procedure in DCGS with a faster one adapted from \citep{julien_linear_convergence}. We present the modified DCGS for a polyhedral feasible set in Algorithm \ref{alg:pdcgs}.
\begin{algorithm}
    \caption{Distributed Conditional Gradient Sliding (DCGS) over polyhedral}
    \label{alg:pdcgs}
    \begin{algorithmic}[1]
      \STATE{ \dots as in Algorithm~\ref{alg:dcgs}, except replace Line \ref{lo_subproblem} by:}
      \STATE{$ x_i^k = PCG( f_i, x_i^{k-1}, w_i^k, \eta_k, e_i^k )$ }
      \STATE{}
      \STATE{\textbf{Procedure:} $x^+ = PCG(f,x,w,\eta,e)$}
      \STATE{Let $x^0 \in X, S^0 = \{x^0\}, \alpha_{x^0}^0 = 1 $ and $\alpha_{\mu}^0 = 0$ for all $\mu \in X\setminus \{x^0\}$}
      \WHILE{ $t=0, \ldots$}
      \STATE{ Compute $s^t = \argmin_{s \in X} \inner{\nabla f(x^t) + w + \eta(x^t - x)}{s}$}
      \STATE{ Compute $v^t = \argmin_{s \in S^t} - \inner{ \nabla f(x^t) + w + \eta(x^t - x)}{s}$}
      \IF{ $\inner{\nabla f(x^t) + w + \eta(x^t - x)}{x^t - s^t}  \leqslant e$}
      \RETURN $x^t$
      \ENDIF
      \STATE{Let $d^t = s^t -v^t$ and compute $\gamma_t = \argmin_{\gamma \in [0,\alpha_{v^t}^t]} f(x^t + \gamma d^t)$}
      \STATE{Update $x^{t+1} = x^t + \gamma_t d^t$}
      \STATE{Update $\alpha_{s^t}^{t+1} = \alpha_{s^t}^{t} + \gamma_t$, $\alpha_{v^t}^{t+1} = \alpha_{v^t}^{t} - \gamma_t $, and $\alpha_{\mu^t}^{t+1} = \alpha_{\mu^t}^{t}$ for all $\mu \in S^t \setminus \{s^t, v^t \}$ }
      \STATE{ Update $S^{t+1} = \{\mu \in X: \alpha_{\mu}^{t+1} >0 \}$}
      \ENDWHILE
    \end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}

\begin{corollary}[Smooth and Convex: polyhedral set] \label{complexity:smooth_poly}\hfill \\
Under the same conditions as in Theorem \ref{thrm:smooth}, suppose $X$ is a polyhedral set with pyramidal width $W$ and width $D$, for DCGS each agent has the same communication complexity as in (\ref{communication:smooth}), and has LO complexity:
\begin{align}\label{lo:smooth-poly}
 \tilde{\mathcal{O}} \left( \frac{D^2}{W^2} \frac{\log m(l+\norm{L}) \max( \norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}^2, \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2)}{\epsilon} \right).
\end{align}
\end{corollary}

\textbf{Improvements.} Observe that the LO complexity is now at the same order of magnitude as in \citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex} in terms of dependence on $\epsilon$. If we set $\mathbf{y}^0 = \mathbf{0}$, LO complexity of DCGS in this setting is at most $\tilde{\mathcal{O}} (\frac{D^2}{W^2} \frac{\log m (l+ \norm{L})}{lG})$ worse than in \citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex}, which could even be better when the network is pooly connected (so that $G$ is large). Our complexity also depends on $\frac{D^2}{W^2}$ which could be interpretated as the condition number of the polyhedral constraint set $X$.

\begin{corollary}[Smooth and strongly convex: polyhedral set]\label{complexity:sc_poly}\hfill \\
  Under the same conditions as in Theorem \ref{thrm:sc}, suppose $X$ is a polyhedral set with pyramidal width $W$ and width $D$, for DCGS each agent has the same communication complexity as in (\ref{communication:sc}), and has LO complexity:
\begin{align}\label{lo:sc-poly}
 \tilde{\mathcal{O}} \left( \frac{D^2}{W^2} \frac{ l \log m }{u} \sqrt{\frac{\max( u \norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}^2, \frac{\norm{L}^2 \norm{\mathbf{y}^0}^2}{u})}{\epsilon}}  \right).
\end{align}
\end{corollary}

\textbf{Improvements.} The LO complexity is now improved to $\tilde{\mathcal{O}} (\frac{1}{\sqrt{\epsilon}})$ which is of the same order of magnitude as in \citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex} in terms dependence on $\epsilon$, but this result makes no assumption on the minimizer. If we choose $\mathbf{y}^0 = \mathbf{0}$, our LO complexity reduces to:
$
\tilde{\mathcal{O}} \left(\frac{D^2}{W^2} \frac{l \log m}{\sqrt{u}} \frac{\norm{\mathbf{x}^0 - \mathbf{x}^*}}{\sqrt{\epsilon}}  \right)
$
which has a clean interpretation in terms of its dependency on condition number of the objective and condition number of the polyhedral constraint.

\section{Experimental Results}\label{experiments}
In this section we present experiments comparing DCGS with the existing distributed FW algorithm in \citep{wai_dfw_convex_nonconvex} and demonstrate the superiority of our algorithm. For both of the following experiments, we set the number of agents $m=10$, and the associated network to be a $1$-connected cycle, i.e. each agent $i$ is connected to its previous one $i-1$ and the latter one $i+1$.

\textbf{Lasso.}
We compare DCGS and DFW applying to the Lasso problem
 on a synthetic dataset and E2006-tfidf dataset \citep{e2006_dataset}. The Lasso problem is formulated as:
\begin{align}
  \min_{\norm{\theta}_1  \leqslant \rho} \norm{X \theta - Y}^2 & = \sum_{i=1}^n (X_i^{\intercal}\theta - Y_i)^2.
\end{align}
Similar experiment was also conducted in \citep{julien_linear_convergence} which showed linear convergence of FW variant over the polyhedral set. For synthetic data, we generate $n=2000$ samples, with $X_i$ sampled i.i.d.\ from $N(0, I_d)$ and $d=10000$. We
generate $\norm{\theta_{0}} = 100$ with randomly selected $100$ non-zero
entries, and $Y_i = X_i^{\intercal} \theta_{0} + \epsilon_i $ with
$\epsilon_i \sim N(0,1)$. For the real dataset, $d = 150360$ and we randomly draw $n=4000$ samples from the entire E2006-tfidf dataset. We set $\rho = 10^3$ and distribute data evenly across
agents. The results are presented in Figure \ref{fig:Lasso}.
\begin{figure}
\begin{subfigure}{.26\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{lasso_synthetic_lo}
  \caption{LO vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:synthetic_lo}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}{.24\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{lasso_synthetic_comm}
  \caption{Comm. vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:synthetic_comm}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}{.25\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{lasso_real_lo}
  \caption{LO vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:real_lo}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}{.25\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{lasso_real_comm}
  \caption{Comm. vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:real_comm}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{Lasso. (a)(b) are for the synthetic data; (c)(d) are for the real data.}
\label{fig:Lasso}
\end{figure}
We observed significant performance improvement of DCGS over DFW. For the synthetic data, Figure (\ref{fig:synthetic_lo}, \ref{fig:synthetic_comm}) shows that DCGS with a moderately number of LO, converges to a high-quality solution that has loss by orders of magnitude better than DFW. The gap on communication complexity is even more significant. DFW algorithm takes more than $800$ rounds of communications while DCGS only takes $3$ rounds. We observe similar performance gap on E2006-tfidf dataset in Figure (\ref{fig:real_lo},\ref{fig:real_comm}).

\textbf{Matrix completion.}
We compare DCGS and DFW applying to matrix completion problems on synthetic dataset and MovieLens 100K dataset \citep{movie100k_dataset}. We remark that matrix completion is in fact a communication expensive task. As a toy example, consider a $10^4 \times 10^4$ matrix which takes $800$ MB memory, sending this matrix with 10 MB/s network speed takes $80$ seconds, however an LO on a 4-core machine with Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6267U CPU @ 2.90GHz processor and 16GB RAM takes less than $2$ seconds. This means for algorithms such as DFW, over $97\%$ of computation time would be waiting for the communication to complete.
We present our simulation results in Figure (\ref{fig:completion}). For the synthetic data set we generate the ground truth matrix $\Theta^* \in \mathbb{R}^{d\times d}$ with $d = 200$ and rank $r =5$. We randomly sample $n=5000$ entries $\{\left(a(i),b(i)\right)\}_{i=1}^n$ and observe
$\Theta^P_{a(i)b(i)} = \Theta^*_{a(i)b(i)} + \epsilon_i $with $\epsilon_i\sim N(0,0.1)$. For MovieLens 100K dataset we want to recover the rating matrix $\Theta^* \in \mathbb{R}^{d_1 \times d_2} $ with $d_1 = 943$, $d_2 = 1682$ and we observed $n=10^5$ ratings.
We set $\rho = 10^4$ and run the algorithms on solving the following objective:
\begin{align}
 \min_{\norm{X}_* \leqslant \rho} \sum_{i=1}^n \left(X_{a(i)b(i)} - \Theta^P_{a(i)b(i)} \right)^2.
\end{align}
For the synthetic data, Figure \ref{fig:synthetic_lo_completion} and \ref{fig:synthetic_comm_completion} show DCGS and DFW need comparable LO to converge to a moderate precision solution, however DFW takes significantly more rounds of communication   ($800 \text{ vs. } 5$). Since communication is the main computation bottle as we discussed above, DCGS would significantly outperform DFW  in terms the actual running time. We observe similar performance gap on MovieLens 100K dataset in Figure (\ref{fig:real_lo_completion},\ref{fig:real_comm_completion}). Our experiment results thus suggest the applicability of DCGS in communication expensive applications.
\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{subfigure}{.25\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{mat_synthetic_lo}
  \caption{LO vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:synthetic_lo_completion}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}{.25\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{mat_synthetic_comm}
  \caption{Comm. vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:synthetic_comm_completion}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}{.25\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{mat_real_lo}
  \caption{LO vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:real_lo_completion}
\end{subfigure
\begin{subfigure}{.25\textwidth}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{mat_real_comm}
  \caption{Comm. vs. Loss}
  \label{fig:real_comm_completion}
\end{subfigure
\caption{Matrix Completion. (a)(b) are for the synthetic data; (c)(d) are for the real data.}
\label{fig:completion}
\end{figure}

\section{Conclusions}
In this paper, we propose a communication efficient, distributed projection-free algorithm called DCGS. We show that DCGS is communication efficient under convex and strongly convex setting without restrictive assumptions in existing work, and demonstrate the superiority of DCGS in communication expensive learning tasks such as matrix completion. We also show DCGS can be further improved when the feasible set is polyhedral, which is also validated by our numerical experiments. Future research directions include developing asynchronous DCGS variant and extending DCGS to non-convex settings.

\newpage
\bibliographystyle{elsarticle-harv}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


You bet. All you need to be able to do is match numbers to numbers, and stay (somewhat) within the lines. The numbers lay out a roadmap to Paintillio-success - so no need to worry about the imposing nature of a blank canvas (which can intimidate even the most experienced artists!).


text:
Human Rights and MinoritiesThematic fields and strategic focus are monitoring Intolerance, migration and asylum policies, gay and lesbians tudies, racism and xenophobia, conflict resolution in communities and educational programmes for the prevention of discrimination.
MediaThematic fields and strategic focus are monitoring, studying and reporting on media practices and media policy, media pluralism, media and minorities and access to public information.
GenderThematic fields and strategic focus are gender mainstreaming, women in transition countries, human trafficking and prostitution, gender and equal opportunities policies, unpaid work and male studies.
Cultural policyThematic fields and strategic focus are intellectual property and copyright, culture and the economy, cultural education and culture as a factor in social development.
1st column
Publications order
PolitikeThe series Politike addresses a range of issues pertaining to civil society and public policies. The essays in this series mainly proceed from policy and other research studies conducted by the Peace Institute's researchers and other regular contributors. The target readership includes civil society experts, policy makers, university teachers, students and researchers as well as all those interested in recent developments in the humanities and social sciences. The editor of the Politike series is Aldo Milohnić.
Politike SymposionThis is a sub-series of Politike dedicated to the proceedings of international projects carried out by the Peace Institute and its partners. The subjects are dealt with from an international perspective and include the issues of public policy that are frequently concealed from the public eye. The editor of this sub-series is Mojca Pajnik.
2nd column
Media WatchThe bi-lingual series, Media Watch, is based on the project bearing the same name. It focuses on the monitoring and analysis of the mass media in Slovenia. The project was launched at the end of 1997 with the first publication appearing in March 1998. It brings together media researchers, journalists and other individuals concerned with the quality and openness of the media space in Slovenia. The project is open to new initiatives and contributing authors. The starting point for this project was belief that journalism and public speech significantly influence the openness of social spaces and determine the level of control the public has over authorities and other centres of power. The editor of Media Watch series is Brankica Petković.
Other publicationsOther publications contains manuals, collections of documents or of scientific papers. Publications are focused on human rights, politics, gender studies, cultural policy and media.
Research reportsResearch reports of the Peace Institute Fellows.
Intolerance Monitor ReportIntolerance monitor is an annual report, published by the Peace Institute. It features analyses of various forms of intolerance emerging in Slovenia. The report does not focus only on media discourses as it also brings analyses of discourses and praxis of exclusions from other walks of social life. A special attention is devoted to institutionalized forms of intolerance and theoretical discussions about issues related to tolerance and intolerance. The editors of Intolerance Monitor Report series are Sabina Autor and Roman Kuhar.
3rd column
Sacred CowsEvery society has its 'sacred cows' and post-socialist Slovenia is not an exception. The series of 'pamphlets' will tackle both individual sacred cows and entire herds. The first in line were the police, the media, Bush and NATO. Others wait their turn. The editor of Sacred Cows series is Tonči Kuzmanić.
Workers-Punks UniversityThis series comprises several volumes of lecturers delivered to the Workers and Punks University of the Peace Institute. The texts are based on revised recordings of the lecturers including the most interesting topics from the discussions. This series is recomended to everyone interested in current political reflection. The editor of Workers and Punks University series is Cilir Oberstar.
EU MonitorThe EU Monitor series has been designed with the aim of encouraging critical considerations of the EU, the enlargement process, and Slovenia's accession to the EU. Studies in this series addresses various EU policies in an attempt to create a space for public debate on various areas of social and political life. The editor of the EU Monitor series is Mojca Pajnik.
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Peace Institute – Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies > Projects > Play It for Change – raising awareness and empowerment of girls and boys for the prevention of gender based violence through audio – visual media and music (PfC)
Play It for Change – raising awareness and empowerment of girls and boys for the prevention of gender based violence through audio – visual media and music (PfC)
Gender | Project duration: 20/12/2017 - 20/12/2019
Project Play It for Change aims to educate and raise awareness of youth through audiovisual media and music by encouraging their critical thinking and fostering their empowerment to prevent and combat gender based violence.
In the project, we will conduct a survey about the attitudes and thinking of young people between 12 and 18 years of age about gender equality and gender based violence. We will collect the evidence on the impact of gender stereotypes in the audiovisual media and music on youth's attitudes and behaviors. In addition, teachers and education professionals, who work with young people will also be involved in the survey in order to assess their needs for the prevention of gender based violence.
The Capacity Building Programme for teachers and education professionals will be developed and implemented in order to enrich knowledge and competencies for the prevention of gender based violence among youth. The Capacity Building Programme will also allow schools to actively participate in the project in working with young people, especially in the production of audiovisual materials. Young people will have the opportunity to create audiovisual materials with the aim of preventing gender based violence and eliminating gender stereotypes. With regard to the production of gender sensitive audiovisual materials, workshops for young people, teachers and education professionals will be held.
Audiovisual and music works, developed by youth, will be presented at the National Youth Festival and at the European Youth Festival in Warsaw (Poland) at the end of the project. The project fosters communication of young people through social media (Facebook, Instagram) and the project's website. School representatives, who will actively participate in the project, will have the opportunity to participate in the education and sharing of knowledge and experience with colleagues from the participating countries, Spain, Poland, Cyprus, Greece, and Croatia.
Project website: http://playitforchange.org/
RAISING AWARENESS AND EMPOWERMENT OF GIRLS AND BOYS FOR THE PREVENTION OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE THROUGH AUDIO-VISUAL MEDIA AND MUSIC
Collection of Evidence and Needs Assessment report – Slovenia
Prepared by Živa Humer and Mojca Frelih, 2018
COLLECTION OF EVIDENCE AND NEEDS ASSESSMENT
TRANSNATIONAL REPORT
Živa Humer
November 2018, Ljubljana
Greeting of Equality (Pozdrav enakosti)
Remain Yourself (Ostani ti)
SURT (Catalonia, Spain) – project coordinator
KMOP (Greece)
Fundacja Feminoteka (Poland)
Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS, Cyprus)
CESI (Croatia)
EC, Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC Programme 2014-2020)
Building coalition of defenders of human rights, media freedom and independent journalism
Sustainable. Local. Global.
Franja Arlič
Jasna Babić
Mojca Frelih
Support our work!
Peace Institute
Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies
Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana
Email: info@mirovni-institut.si
©2020 Mirovni inštitut | Zasebnost | O spletnem mestu
Spletno mesto Mirovnega inštituta uporablja piškotke, da vam lahko omogočimo boljšo uporabniško izkušnjo. Ok Več informacij

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Everyone has style preferences. Some women look great in strapless dresses, while others find one-shoulder or off-the-shoulder dresses to be more flattering. It's also highly unlikely that all of the bridesmaids in a party will have the same build. As a result, many women who agree to be bridesmaids complain that the style of the dress selected is all wrong. When picking your bridesmaid dresses out, keep the body types of all your girls in mind. Ideally, all of your bridesmaids will be able to try the dress on before the final decision is made. This will ensure that everyone in your party looks their best on the big day!
While coral is an ideal color for flowers, it doesn't always make for the perfect dress. And because of varying skin tones, the perfect color for one bridesmaid may be absolutely terrible for another. These are important factors you will need to keep in mind as you make your dress selection. Luckily, most color schemes include at least two or three options. Make sure to carefully consider which color is best suited for a dress, as well as which color will look best on a variety of skin tones.
Many brides get so wrapped up in their own budgets that they forget about those of their bridesmaids. While being a bride is certainly more costly than being a bridesmaid, this is certainly something you need to keep in mind. Dress prices vary drastically, and some can be quite expensive. For that reason, you'll want to select one that works with everyone's budget. Remember, your bridesmaids are doing you a favor by agreeing to be part of your big day, so don't make them regret the decision by emptying out their bank accounts.
Would I want to wear this dress again if it were for me?
Where could I wear this dress in the future?
Is the color appropriate for other events?
Additionally, don't assume you have to get your bridesmaid dresses from a bridal dress company. There are plenty of other options out there. The important thing is that you and your girls love the final selection.
This last one is a factor you've likely kept in mind while picking out your own dress: comfort. Comfort is everything when it comes to big day-long events like weddings. While you definitely want your girls to look amazing, it's just as important that they feel amazing, too. One very important way to do this is to keep the season in mind when selecting the dress. Are you having a winter or summer wedding? You can't predict the exact weather conditions for the day of your wedding, but you can make some general assumptions regarding the temperature. If your wedding will take place in the middle of summer, longer dresses are probably a no-go. Likewise, avoid strapless, short dresses if you know that the ceremony is going to be in the dead of winter.
One great alternative to selecting a single dress for all of your drastically different bridesmaids is to let them choose one themselves. I know what you're thinking — "But wait, what about my color scheme?" Not a problem. You can select a specific color from your favorite company and let your girls pick the style that best suits them based on your selection, or you can send them a color swatch and ask that they match it as closely as possible. Either option is viable and results in a matching ensemble. And don't forget about the shoes! Not everyone does well in heels, so consider opting for a nice flat instead. Alternatively, provide a color preference for the shoes as well and let your bridesmaids find one that best matches their dress selection. If you decide to go this route, make sure you ask your girls to send you pictures of their picks before purchasing, just so you can confirm that they'll fit in with the other things you've envisioned for your wedding.


text:
Larry "Cork" Walsh (1949 – 2017)
Obituaries | June 2, 2017
Larry Francis "Cork" Walsh, a Las Vegas, Nev., resident who grew up in Carbondale and graduated from Roaring Fork High School in 1967, died May 28 in an ATV accident in southern Utah.
Corkwas born May 24, 1949, in Gilman to Vince and Yvonne Walsh. An excellent athlete, he played football, basketball and ran track all four years in high school, and played Little League and American Legion baseball in the summer.
After graduation, Cork joined the U.S. Army, spending most of his enlistment working in Germany and throughout Europe.
After his discharge, he returned to Carbondale and married the former Darla Davis, with whom he had a daughter, Heather. He also attended the University of Northern Colorado, graduating with a teaching certificate and a math degree. But he decided he did not want to be a teacher, and began helping manage and maintain apartment complexes in Greeley and, later, Denver.
After a divorce, Cork moved to Southern California and then to Las Vegas, working as a Customer Service Manager for a major home builder in the two states. He met, fell in love with and married Paula Miller while living in Las Vegas. In 2010 he became a Marshall for the Clark County, Nevada, court system, retiring in August 2015.
In his later years, Cork was an avid golfer. Always an ardent Denver Broncos supporter, he proudly displayed his loyalty through his golf bag and clothing. He also was a long-time Boston Celtics fan.
Cork is survived by Paula, his wife of 22 years; his daughter Heather (Jeff); a grandson (Nathan); two brothers (Robert and Terry); a sister (Sharon); and several nieces and nephews. His parents and a younger brother, Ken "Stoney" Walsh, preceded him in death. His family and his many friends will miss his indomitable spirit, his big heart, his humor and his joy of life.
He will be interred in Las Vegas.
Justin Bair
Doug Davis
Juanita Grace McCracken
Sheila Devore
Guy "Elliott" Leonard
What's your favorite wolf tale?
Three Among the Wolves
L: 9°
Sunday Profile: 'Thank you for your service'
Garfield County veteran services officer Lisa Reed-Scott urges the community to show appreciation for our local veterans.
Sunlight snowmaking is in full swing, in anticipation of possible early opening
After last week's cold, snowy weather, snowmaking operations continued at Sunlight during the colder nighttime and morning hours through the weekend. Weather permitting, Sunlight could open early.
Video: Halloween pumpkin carving with CT editor Kyle Mills
This Halloween we challenged our Citizen Telegram editor and western Garfield County reporter Kyle Mills to show us his pumpkin carving skills at the CT office in downtown Rifle. Mills did not disappoint and created...
Video: Glenwood Springs spookiest outdoor Halloween decorations
This week we went on a hunt for the spookiest outdoor Halloween decorations across Glenwood Springs and were not disappointed!
Dozens turn out for Carbondale's first indigenous peoples' celebration
Ute leaders, singers and dancers share their culture for the first Indigenous Peoples Day in Carbondale. Event organizers see environmental benefits to thinking indigenous peoples.


text:
Ghana: Fisheries Ministry to launch aquaculture for food and jobs programme
Deputy Minister, Mr Francis Ato Cudjoe, made this known at a stakeholders' workshop
The Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MoFAD) is expected to launch the Aquaculture for Food and Jobs Programme this year as part of moves to make fish farming a viable industry in Ghana.
The Deputy Minister of MoFAD, Mr Francis Ato Cudjoe who made this known Thursday at a stakeholders' workshop to disseminate results of Zonation of the Volta Lake for Aquaculture Study said the Ministry was collaborating with identifiable institutions interested in undertaking fish farming to boost the country's demand for fish.
The Zonation of the Volta Lake for Aquaculture study was carried out under the West Africa Regional Fisheries Project and coordinated by the Fisheries Commission between 205 and 2016.
The study, among other things, was aimed at establishing the best possible areas for aquaculture production on the Volta Lake.
It was also aimed at determining the maximum fish production from aquaculture that can be sustained by the Volta Lake.
Ghana, which consumes over 950,000 metric tons of fish annually, currently imports over 60 percent of its fish, and in 2016, imported 135 million dollars' worth of fish because of the reduction in the country's fish stock.
Addressing participants at the workshop, Mr Cudjoe said although some aquaculture activities were being carried out on the Volta Lake, the country was not achieving the expected dividends because not every portion of the lake is conducive for farming.
He therefore welcomed the results of the study noting that it would provide the necessary information needed for government agencies to guide potential investors on areas to site their farms.
He stated that based on the findings and recommendations of the study, government would collaborate with the Norwegian government under the Fish for Development Programme to enhance the capacity of stakeholders for spatial planning for Aquaculture on the countries water bodies.
Source: https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Fisheries-Ministry-to-launch-Aquaculture-for-Food-and-Jobs-Programme-618803


Volleyball opens the state tournament on Thursday, Nov. 1 at 5:00 PM vs East and will play again at 8:00 PM on Thursday. The tournament continues either on Friday or Saturday based on results from the first 2 rounds. All matches are at Utah Valley University. You can click here for parking info at UVU.
Football hosts Viewmont on Friday at 4:00 PM at Charger Stadium.


text:
Big Sean Set for First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart
February 26th, 2015 by K104
ABC/Kelsey McNealBig Sean is set for a big first week with his latest album, Dark Sky Paradise.
The rapper's third studio effort is projected to land atop the Billboard 200 chart, according to the publication. His sales are estimated to amass over 140,000 album equivalent units earned in the week ending March 1.
In addition to potentially becoming his first chart-topper, Dark Sky Paradise could sell more than 110,000 in traditional album sales — besting his last effort 2013's Hall of Fame, which opened at #3 and sold 72,000 copies.
Elsewhere, Chris Brown and Tyga's collaborative album Fan of a Fan could open in the top 10, selling more than 60,000 copies in its first week.
The official sales tally will be released next Wednesday.
album billboard chart first
Nicki Minaj Blames a Baby For Not Being #1 Read More
Nicki Minaj Pushes Back QUEEN Album Release Date AGAIN Read More
Drake Continues to Make Chart History with One Dance and Views Read More
Beyonce Earns Four Emmy Nods for Lemonade Visual Album Read More


text:
All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. This
project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org).

## 0.8.0 - 2016-11-28

### Added

   - Project and schematics revision.

## 0.7.0 - 2016-11-27

### Added

  - MMUN2133LT1G component library.
  - MMUN2133LT1G component datasheet.

## 0.6.1 - 2016-11-26

### Fixed

  - Typographical errors from this CHANGELOG.

## 0.6.0 - 2016-11-26

### Added

  - TPS6109RSAR component library.
  - TPS6109RSAR component datasheet.

## 0.5.0 - 2016-11-25

### Added

  - MIC5225-3.3v component library.
  - MIC5225-3.3v component datasheet.

## 0.4.0 - 2016-11-24

### Added

  - MCP73871 component library.
  - MCP73871 component datasheet.

## 0.3.0 - 2016-11-23

### Added

  - FAN5333BSX component library.
  - FAN5333BSX component datasheet.

## 0.2.0 - 2016-11-22

### Added

  - Main KiCAD project.
  - Project schematics.

## 0.1.0 - 2016-11-21

### Added

  - A README which covers project description and usage.
  - This CHANGELOG file to document project changes and versions.
  - An EditorConfig to suggest syntax and format standards.
  - A LICENSE file to define project ownership and rights.
  - A .gitignore list for untracked resources.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


We take the brand new iPad Air 3 and it's Apple A8X processor and pit it against the original iPad Air, updated iPad mini 3, and iPad mini 2 with Geekbench for CPU and GFXbench for GPU, and Sun Spider. Just how monstrous is Apple's monstrous new chipset? Find out!


text:
Epichorista gonodesma is een vlinder uit de familie van de bladrollers (Tortricidae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1929 door Turner.

gonodesma

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The Fantasia Daily 2015.03 (16 July 2015): "L'Etrange Province: Le Sasquatch", Torrente: Mission Eurovegas, and Office.
No guests/horrible photography today, and an early start needed on Friday, so we'll keep this very brief.
As in, just today's plan: Therapy for a Vampire, Bridgend, and Cruel in de Seve; Assassination Classroom and Cooties in Hall; and then back across the street for the Ugandan madness.
"L'Étrange Province: Le Sasquatch"
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 16 July 2015 in Theatre Hall Concordia (Fantasia International Film Festival, HD)
I haven't yet checked to see if the webseries "L'Étrange Province" is generally available with English subtitles or not. I'll be a bit upset if it's not, because this "Sasquatch" episode made me laugh pretty hard at several points, and I would certainly like to see more.
The gag is that Carl & Frank (Mathieu Handfield & Simon Lacroix) are investigating the weird and unusual, and though both tend to be believers to a point, Frank is more likely to call BS on cryptozoology than aliens, ghosts, etc., and do it rather cheerfully. Confronted with a guy in Coaticook who claims to have been abducted by a pair of the creatures, he's sarcastically undercutting everything his partner does.
It's a fun dynamic, and probably even more fun for native Quebeckers who likely get a lot more of the regional humor (and regional legends). The energy to it is fun regardless, and though we were clearly coming into the middle of a TV season, it feels like something that woul be really easy to pick up.
Torrente V: Misión Eurovegas (Torrente: Mission Eurovegas)
* ¾ (out of four)
Seen 16 July 2015 in Theatre Hall Concordia (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
The fifth entry in a Spanish action-comedy series is an odd place for a well-known American actor like Alec Baldwin who has apparently not burned that many bridges back home to show up, and his character spends much of the movie grumbling questions about why he's working with these dolts. And, honestly, it's a question that folks who aren't fans of the franchise are going to be asking in a more meta sense, even if there's a bit of Ugly American-ism in wondering why he would bother with this movie which was, actually, a massive hit in Spain.
For those of us coming in late, José Luis Torrente (writer/director/star Santiago Segura) is a former cop of the racist-sexist-moron variety, and he has just spent several years in jail for whatever the heck happened in Torrente 4. Now it's 2018, Spain has been kicked out of the European Union and Catalan has declared its independence, and Torrente has decided he will become an outlaw. Fortunately, the contacts he made in prison include John Marshall (Baldwin), an American security consultant who knows Madrid's "EuroVegas" casino inside out, and has Torrente recruit a team to take it down during the final of the World Cup. Unfortunately, the people Torrente knows are, by and large, idiots.
Truth be told, I don't get much of a kick out of characters like Torrente where the audience is supposed to laugh at not just his bumbling but also his political incorrectness; the story always has them drifting toward being protagonists rather than just objects of ridicule. Comedy doesn't require someone to root for, but it's a natural thing to seek in a narrative, and Mission Eurovegas has too much plot to just point an laugh for its entire length unless the satire is a lot sharper.
Full review on EFC.
O piseu (Office)
I don't know if Office ever really gets back around to the question that kicks it off in a definitive way, or if where it winds up going instead is really as fascinating as the filmmakers would have us think. Its corporate pressure-cooker environment certainly does a nice job of building into a potentially cutthroat situation.
That initial hook has Kim Byung-guk (Bae Sung-woo), a manager at the Cheil Company in Seoul, getting a drink after work, heading home, passing a completely normal evening with his family, and then viciously killing them with a hammer. The next day, intern Lee Mirae (Ko A-Sung) arrives at the same office to find a detective (Park Sung-woong) managing the case and her bosses telling her that the police don't need to know anything that might just embarrass the company. On top of this, a new intern (Son Soo-hyun) is being brought in, and the police have found surveillance footage that suggests Byung-guk returned to the office building after the murders and hasn't been seen to leave yet.
Cheil won't soon be found on any "great places to work" lists; it's cliquy and Director Kim Sang-gyu (Kim Eui-sung) seems to be the type that considers bullying and leadership to be one and the same. It's the sort of office where workplace stress leading to serial murder - and the culture valuing company loyalty and difficulty of landing a new job means that having a murderer lurking in the shadows may not quite be enough to finally quit. While writer Choi Yun-jin sets that up, director Hong Won-chan and crew make sure that the corporate chill appears on-screen, with a tight cube farm that tucks everybody away until they need to show up but does't actually afford any privacy, complemented by an eerie silence that gets drowned out when there's a storm outside. It's corporate hell, with Mirae not just exploited as the young girl desperate to move up from her humble origins, but not even able to look away from the people doing so.
Posted by Jason at 11:36 AM
Labels: action, comedy, Fantasia, fantasy, horror, independent, Korea, mystery, Quebec, shorts, Spain, thriller
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Forever Young (2015)
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Live music, Corporate Events, Private Parties, Weddings, etc.
I am a singer/guitarist who covers the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, Bob Marley, Ed Sheeran, Neil Young, John Mellencamp to name a few… When I perform I give it 100%, and adapt to the event in which I am playing. My PA can handle small to large spaces and has a great natural reverb. I have performed at Loews Coronado Bay Resort, Kona Kai Resort, Palm Plaza UTC Mall, Leroy's, Parc Bistro, as well as countless private events/parties.


This Self-Learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 1.00 Mainpro+ Credit(s).
Acetaminophen: A Better Pain Relief Option For Hypertensive Or CVD Patients?
Treating pain poses many challenges in an aging population, especially in patients with comorbidities or other health concerns. Taking a "multimodal" approach that includes non-pharmacological and pharmacological treatments can help in the management of pain. Determining the best course of pain relief for certain patients can be challenging. This includes patients with hypertension, those taking daily low dose acetylsalicylic acid 81 mg (ASA) for cardioprotection and some osteoarthritis (OA) patients.
This program discusses the role of acetaminophen in providing mild to moderate pain relief for certain patients.
Christine Palmay, HBArt Sci., MD, CCFP.
Lydia Hatcher, MD, CCFP, FCFP, CHE, CAPM.
Effectively utilize acetaminophen for mild to moderate pain relief in those suffering from hypertension or currently on low dose acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) 81 mg for cardioprotection.
Identify appropriate use of over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers such as acetaminophen for specific patients (e.g. patients with hypertension, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis).
Explore the efficacy and safety of acetaminophen and its role in providing mild to moderate pain relief for specific patients.
Identify reasons for recommending an OTC pain reliever such as acetaminophen compared to other products, particularly in certain patient groups.
Implement patient counselling regarding the appropriate use of an OTC pain reliever such as acetaminophen.
What do you advise your patients experiencing mild to moderate pain about the use of an over-the-counter OTC analgesic like acetaminophen, particularly when they suffer from hypertension or cardiovascular disease?
What do you advise specific patients about the appropriate use of an OTC pain reliever such as acetaminophen?
What are the key points to communicate to patients or caregivers about possible interactions with some pain relievers such as NSAIDs when they are taking medication for heart disease or acetylsalicylic acid (81 mg) for cardioprotective heart health?
What specific information do you provide when counselling patients about the proper use of (OTC) analgesics and acetaminophen in particular?
How do you counsel patients currently taking warfarin as an anticoagulant and using acetaminophen for pain?


This entry was posted on March 2, 2019 at 12:12 pm	and is filed under Uncategorized. Tagged: AIPAC, Anti-Semitism Scam, Israel, Shulamit Aloni. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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Artur Jorge ()

Note

Legături externe

Nașteri în 1994
Nașteri pe 14 august
Fotbaliști portughezi
Fotbaliști ai FC Steaua București
Portughezi expatriați în România


In Elite Forces: Jungle Strike, You can pick to be Thug or Kate. You need to go through the jungle trying to kill every bad guy for a high score. Defeat the two bosses and escape the Jungle. Play Elite Forces Jungle Strike now and Compete for a HIGH SCORE!


I'm sat here at my desk in the Channel 4 News room listening to Solardo on Mixcloud. I've just run up GIR because the delightful British weather has decided to rain reality down on me and to be fair, it might help wash my Ibiza blues away. I'm posting all my photos a week late because I was having too much fun out there and I've already booked to go back next month. I've just returned from one of the best trips I've ever had on the island. Everyone probably thinks I say this every time but I feel like this year's little plan and set up is spot on. I'll be flying out once a month, Friday to Tuesday when my four days off are bunched together on cheap flights at tactical hours which are allowing me a few much needed breaks as it's been pretty relentless working in news recently. Last weekend was the perfect escape and now I feel like summer has really begun!
I constantly find myself defending San Antonio in Ibiza. I think it's because people's perception of the resort is that it's just really tacky and full of crazy, partying youngsters. And don't get me wrong it really can be especially down at the bottom by 'The Egg', but we like the top end and there are so many great things about San An, I'm so proud to see it on the up again.
There were various trips in my Ibiza history where I would love just going to Playa d'en Bossa. We'd stay there, party there and go straight back to the airport. But since my season, I prefer to go back to San An to see friends so we stay up by Kanya and hang out at the beach cafes with pools along the strip further up from Mambos. You still get the same gorgeous sunset, it's just a lot less busy.
Bossa seems to have taken a dive the same way in which San An did a couple of seasons ago, maybe it's just in transition. Space has closed and become Hi. It seems we are in the middle of 'The Ushuaia take over' – it's all EDM and all VIP poolside tables. Yes, that draws in the wealthy American crowd but isn't too popular with the locals and 'worker' community. I know Bossa have also had various licensing issues halting their major Sunday day parties at Bora beach and Jet. I just hope it doesn't affect Sankey's popularity.
So now the new Sunday plans are the DNS Pool party at Ibiza Rocks then onto Defected at Eden. It was great to see both events absolutely packed and they had a great vibe and were literally on our doorstep. Nothing posey and pretentious just good music and loads of dancing. Exactly what we like!
At Ibiza Rocks we met a group of Americans that were staying at Ushuaia – them making the trip to San An says it all really.
I didn't hire a car this trip. Last September we learned about the boat taxi from San An to Cala Bassa and Cala Conta (where Sunset Ashram is) and when we realised we would only really be leaving San An to go to Amnesia we decided not to. The boat taxis are so convenient and priced about the same as splitting a cab anyway. It's definitely worth getting out and going to one of these beaches, the water is crystal clear and they're stunning.
Our plans to go to Cotton Beach Club at Cala Tarida also got ditched because Cotton have opened a fitness club next to Kanya! We went down for their awesome €15 Breakfast around 11:30/12 and laid out there til about 5pm before moving onto Golden Buddha for wine then to Kasbah for tapas at Sunset.
Mambos and Café del Mar have still got nightly sunset pre parties as well and it seemed the Americans we met staying in Bossa were getting taxis over to San An more than sticking around over there. I'm so happy to see San An on the rise!
We just felt no reason to venture out this trip. If it ain't broke right?
Speaking of which, Carola knocked it out the park as usual and I'm not sure about Elrow at Amnesia. Probably means I need to give it another go.
Flights are booked for the same again July 15th.


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Scale and corrosion can significantly reduce efficiency and ultimately destroy a steam system. Additionally, improper water treatment costs thousands of dollars in wasted fuel and even more when production is halted due to equipment downtime. Plymouth Technology helps prevent these problems with a variety of custom chemical treatment products for pre-boiler, boiler internal, and condensate systems.


The Yamaha EF2400iS silent inverter generator is a powerful unit producing a massive maximum power output of 2,400 watts. We recommend this generator for use in motor homes and camper vans where extra power is required for running air conditioners, larger fridges, freezers or ovens. The aluminium die-cast frame and smooth design lines with minimal interruptions ensure easy access to the oil filler cap and air filter, and convenient access for oil changes and other servicing.
Pros : Simply put, this generator is awesome.It is quiet and provides enough power for my needs. It wont run a big AC unit but it surely delivers the juice.We recently had a 4 hour power outtage and I got to put it to the test. I ran a power cord from the generator sitting outside and in to my house. I plugged in my 55 inch TV, Stereo receiver, DVD player and Digital cable box. I plugged in several lights to keep the house lit up... No problems at all. We watched movies until the power came back on. I bought the generator for camping but this little test proved that it is more than I need when in the bush. While having my gear plugged in it ramped up a little but was quiet enough not to disturb my neighbors. highly recommend this generator. Get the bigger unit if you have more power needs, obviously.
Pros : Great product, very easy starting 1-2 pulls. Not to heavy for one person to move around. Very quite, runs A/C, microwave with no problems. Very good value.
Pros : Everything about this piece of equipment feels quality. It feels well designed and engineered. While I was hesitant to pay the much for the rated power when cheaper generators are readily available, I knew right away my money had been well spent..As for the noise levels, yesterday my wife asked me who I was speaking to outside. I told her I was showing the neighbor our generator. She asked me if I was going to run it for him. It had been running the entire time. From inside the house, she heard our conversation over the generator! think the clean inverter power will be much easier on my electronics and appliances.
Pros : Received my generator in perfect condition. It was well packed and was very easy to set up. The start up procedure is simple to follow in the instructions. Have used the generator on a couple occasions (about 4 hours each time). Easy to start and amazingly QUIET (running in economy mode)!!! Used at a football game and had several people come up to me and comment how surprised they were that it was so quitet! I haven't pushed the 1000 watt rating yet, but I can't imagine any issues. My only improvement suggestion to Yamaha was to make the oil filling process easier. They provide a funnel (of sorts), but it is a bit difficult to gauge a proper fill without overfilling. Just have to add slowly. Overall, it far exceeds my expectations.


Just as you used to go vacations when you were a kid, it is also important that you take a little time off from work and your daily activities and travel for a couple of days. Although as a working adult it may be difficult for you to get little free time because of heavy workloads and stress and you may often forget that it is necessary and healthy for you to take some time off. In some companies, workers are given a couple of days annually to take some time off from work and get a break from long days working. However, many responsibilities may make you forget how important is for you to take a vacation and it is, therefore, important to know the numerous benefits that come along with going on a vacation.
Vacations at ingeniaholidays.com.au help improve your health status. Continuous working without taking some time off to rest may put your body at the risks of contracting chronic diseases such as heart attacks since when your body is stressed; it puts a strain on your body. A vacation, will help you refresh, meditate turning off the stress systems in your body enabling your body to repair and be ready to work again freshly.
Essentially, by going for vacations at Ingenia Holidays you increase your productivity and workflow. After a couple days resting, your body is refreshed and when you come back to work you will be able to work effectively since both your body and mind is relaxed and therefore handling work becomes a lot easier. The more productive you become the more the chances of earning a lot and even you may get promotions at your workplaces thus increasing your income.
Also, vacations enable you to spend some time with your loved ones away from work. Even though you might get a chance to see your family members and your loved ones on a daily basis when you are from work, at times you will need some time off to enjoy your free time with them. During these vacations, you will be able to take your loved ones to places that they would love to enjoy their holiday from. A place where they will meet new people with different cultures and beliefs where they will learn new things, and enjoy doing many things that they will keep in their memories. Vacations also help you bond with your loved ones and improve your relationship with them. Look for more information about vacations at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_travel.


Our 10 year-old Boston Terrier has suffered on and off for a period of at least 5 years itchy, scaly, skin lesions where she loses most of the hair. These pop up from time to time, then they seem to "heal" and the hair grows back. They are roundish and the size of silver dollars or half dollars.
She also licks her paws.
She has been treated by many specialists, specifically an oncologist, dermatologist, and internist in the New York City area, Connecticut, and Florida. Skin cultures were submitted to Cornell labs but no fungus grew. A biopsy performed 4 years ago revealed what was explained as "HPV virus in dogs."
An expensive cancer drug was prescribed but there was no improvement over the course of a 30-day period.
She has taken several types of antibiotics and steroids without improvement.
She eats a grain-free food made by Wellness-a kibble for small dogs. She eats twice a day-morning and evening. She has a voracious appetite and drinks a lot of water.
She has been living in Florida the past month, and has recently experienced another break out.
Prior to this she lived in the country in New York and was basically symptom free, although we can always see a small "raising" of the skin where the lesions once were, and it is still itchy under the hair where it's raised.
We are at the end of the rope. We are hanging on.....! Please advise.
Regarding your 10 year old Boston Terrier, with skin problems for 5 years, with a "biopsy performed 4 years ago revealed what was explained as "HPV virus in dogs."
I am very suspicious she has a syndrome known as 'vaccinosis'. This is considered by holistic veterinarians to be caused by vaccinations, and results in chronic illness in those susceptible individuals. It can appear as a wart, growth or tumor, chronic ear infections, bladder problems, or skin allergies. Your Boston Terrier has inhaled allergies, (chewing at her feet), and these raised lesions on her back, that are chronic.
In her history, you did not mention if she has continued to receive vaccinations. Or if she has any other health issues, ear infections, bladder problems, etc.
Dr Larry Bernstein in Miami, Florida is an excellent holistic veterinarian!
2. DIET: no more DRY dog food. Check our page on 10 Best Dog Food Options, http://www.organic-pet-digest.com/10-best-dog-food-options.html, and consider a RAW diet for your dog. Some good brands are Primal, Nature's Variety, and Bravo.
3. BATHS: Once a week massage in coconut oil to the skin on her back, on all the dry lesions. Let it soak in for 2-3 hours or more. Bathe her with baby shampoo, rinse well. If she is still greasy, then bathe her first with DAWN dish soap, rinse and do the second shampoo with baby shampoo.
4. T-shirt--make her wear a child or baby size cotton T-shirt to minimize her itching and causing other problems.
5. Thuya (Thuja occidentalis) 6C or 12C potency is an 'anti-vaccinosis- homeopathic remedy. There are several other anti-vaccinosis remedies, but start with this one.
Give her one pellet by mouth TWO times daily for 3-4 weeks.
Or you can dissolve one pellet in a 2 oz glass dropper bottle filled with Spring Water, and give her 1/2 dropperful by mouth TWO times daily. Succuss, or shake the bottle, 20 times by hitting it against the palm of your hand prior to each dose.
In 3-4 weeks, (or sooner, if you have any problems!), please keep us posted by coming back to this page and clicking the 'click here to add your own comments' link below.


Front Office Services NC II is a technical-vocational program that teaches students how to receive and process reservations, register, check-in and check-out a guest in hotels and motels, operate a computerized reservation system, provide reception services, conduct night audit, provide club services and porter services.
The Front Office Services NC II program is supervised and accredited by TESDA (a government agency that regulates vocational courses), and TESDA-accredited education institutions may offer this program.
The program may also be incorporated in undergraduate courses such as BS in Hotel and Restaurant Management (BSHRM) and BS in Tourism (BST).
The lessons in the Front Office Services NC II program are taught to students through lectures and demonstrations, self-paced instruction and group discussions. Student learning assessment and evaluation is conducted at the end of every module.
Is Front Office Services a profession?
Front Office Jobs are usually not considered as professions, because they can be learned in a matter of weeks, and do not require a government certificate.
Schools and training centers offering the program may include additional requirements.
What skills, traits and attitude will help you succeed in Front Office jobs?
Comfortable giving service to others – one of the most important traits that you must possess if you intend to study this program is the willingness to serve others. In the hospitality industry your job will always require you to serve clients. Giving service might be very difficult for people who are not inclined for it.
Interpersonal skills – establishes and maintains positive mutual working relationships with superiors, workmates and clients.
Oral and written English skills – in hotels, resorts and travel agencies the use of English is important both to entertain customers and for job related tasks.
Basic Arithmetic skills – while on duty you might be assigned in the accounting department of an establishment the reason why it's important to have this skill; in addition you will also take on the role of a cashier during your OJT.
Administrative skill – basic abilities in organization and planning, computing and scheduling.
Endurance – the ability to withstand tiresome work such as greeting and entertaining guests, standing up and walking from one area to another and being in an uncomfortable environment.
Patience – you may encounter irritable and demanding clients therefore you must be patient enough to deal with different types of people.
How difficult is Front Office Services NC II?
Front Office Services is not difficult; the program is described by many as fun and easy.
How long does it take to complete the Front Office Services NC II program in the Philippines?
The standard duration of Food and Beverage Services NC II program according to TESDA regulations is 442 hours: 18 hours of Basic Competencies, 24 hours of Common Competencies and 400 hours of Core competencies. However the duration may be longer due to the OJT or the school's curriculum.
TESDA-accredited institutions may integrate an On the Job Training (OJT) in the Front Office Services NC II program. Students may be assigned in hotels, motels, resorts and other similar businesses. The student will report to the designated authority in the agency who will supervise and guide his practice. The assigned authority will evaluate the student periodically and submit an evaluation form to the assigned TVET trainer.
The required number of hours for OJT varies from one institution to another.
The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) is the regulating body for all vocational courses in the Philippines and is in-charge of the assessment and certification of the competencies of technical-vocational workers through the Philippine TVET Qualification and Certification System (PTQCS). The assessment process aims to determine whether the graduate will be able to perform according to workplace standards based on a defined competency standard. Certification is given to those who meet the competency standards.
The Assessment and Certification process is not required among graduates of vocational courses. Graduate trainees have the option whether to undergo the process or not. However, a TESDA certification will give a graduate an advantage since local and foreign companies who hire skilled workers may require this credential.
Graduates of Front Office Services NCII are advised to take the Assessment and Certification Exam, National Certificate – Level II (NCII).
The National Certificate is only valid for five years, which means that it has to be renewed. The requirements and steps in applying for assessment and certification as well as the methods used for assessment are found in the TESDA website.
Front Office Desk Clerk / Receptionist – accommodate hotel, motel, and resort visitors by registering and assigning rooms to guests, issuing room keys or cards, transmitting and receiving messages, keeping records of occupied rooms and guests' accounts, making and confirming reservations, and presenting statements to and collecting payments from departing guests.
Travel Agency Reservation/Ticketing Officer – work usually takes place behind an agency counter where he helps clients book the necessary travelling requirements. Converse with customer to determine destination, mode of transportation, travel dates, financial considerations, and accommodations required.
Concierge – assist patrons at hotel, apartment or office building with personal services. May take messages, arrange or give advice on transportation, business services or entertainment, or monitor guest requests for housekeeping and maintenance.
Front Office manager – in charge of the front office staff, ensures smooth and efficient operations, and deals with any problems that arise with customers.
Hotel Night Auditor – prepares a summary of cash, check, and credit card activities, reflecting the hotel's financial performance for the day.


Did you know veterans with nonservice-connected injuries are eligible for a one-time van modification?
A veteran having nonservice-connected disabilities may be eligible for a van lift, but isn't entitled to any operational equipment (automatic transmission, power brakes, power steering, hand controls, modifications of the driver area, etc.).
The veteran must also have a medical determination supporting the need for the adaptive equipment. Even though it doesn't amount to the same as an Auto Grant and adaptive equipment benefit, assistance with a one-time van conversion for a nonservice-connected veteran can substantially bring down the overall price of a new or used vehicle.
Learn more about eligibility for the VA Auto Grant at www.nor-calvans.com.


On behalf of Galloway and Collens, PLLC posted in Estate Administration on Monday, October 8, 2012.
When a person owns substantial assets, a will or trust can play an important part in the distribution of these assets. However, some people would prefer a more complex estate plan than simply passing on their assets to their children or partner. If someone gives assets to a charity, either through a charitable trust or outright donation, it can be beneficial to check how this will affect the overall administration of the estate, particularly with regard to tax issues and benefits when it comes to charitable giving.
A 43-year-old former engineer who worked in Michigan in the auto industry has given away three plots of land from his late wife's estate to Habitat to Humanity. The charity, which helps people get onto the housing ladder, has built several homes on the lots, and families are already living happily in them.
The man, who originally comes from Tokyo, came to the US when he was 15 on a cultural exchange program. He originally trained as an engineer, but later he took advantage of his knowledge of social work and desire to help people and retrained as a social worker. Because his wife had a background in real estate, the couple oversaw a number of properties. They focused on keeping their tenants happy. His wife's father spent his later years in San Angelo, Texas, where the lots are located.
When donating land and the like to charities or organizations, benefactors often want to make sure that the donation is used in the spirit intended. It helps to seek advice to make sure this happens and is properly stated in any will or trusts created to handle the charitable gift and specify its purpose.


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1937 Four-on-One Exhibits and Checklist
Title W463 Exhibits
Images Blue/Gray or Green Ink
Type Exhibit
1937 Four-on-One Exhibit Set Overview
Eight different pre-war sets make up the W463 Exhibits issue. In addition to the pre-war era W463s (and the earlier W461s from 1921 through 1928), additional Exhibit card sets from the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s were also printed as well.
Exhibits are sometimes called postcards, although that isn't really accurate since only some have postcard backings. Many Exhibit cards are blank-backed and some cards include a corner coupon printed on the back.
These are classified in the American Card Catalog as W-Cards, but they are not strip cards like other W-card issues.
Most Exhibits look fairly nice. However, almost all of the sets have plenty of typos and misspelled names. Players were also misidentified throughout the series.
Starting in 1929, Exhibit moved to a different design to feature four players on one card. All W463 classified cards have this same design with four players to a single card. Collectors should note that many of these cards have been cut up over the years. Thus, instead of having one large card with four pictures, they were left with four smaller individual cut 'cards.' That has also confused many collectors unfamiliar with W463s as to the origins of these new, smaller cut cards. While there is some value for these cut outs, the fully intact four-in-one cards, of course, are worth much more.
Specifically, the 1937 Exhibit card set features cards with either a blueish-gray ink color or a light green color against a white background. The blue-gray color is often referred to as a light blue but the cards typically look more like a pure black and white. The most distinguishing characteristic for the 1937 cards was that, for the second time, a small line of 'PTD. IN U.S.A.' was added to the bottom of each card. The last three years of the Four-on-One Exhibit cards (1936, 1937, and 1938) are the only ones in this series to include that type of text. The 1938 cards actually say 'Made in U.S.A.' instead.
Similar to the 1935 Goudey set, these cards do not merely contain random players. Instead, four players from the same team were used. Each of baseball's 16 teams were featured on a card — this was a change from the first few years in this series when each team had two cards. All of the 1937 Exhibit cards have blank backs.
These cards included the name and team/league of the player pictured. As with past Exhibit sets, a dark ink was used when the print was over top of a lighter background and a light ink was used when the background was darker. Formatting is varied with some players having their full first/last names printed and others only having initials of their first and or middle name printed.
Cards do not include card numbers. All of the cards have a vertical layout. Many of the same players and pictures were kept in this set from earlier issues.
The Yankees also continued their tradition of having a card with four Hall of Famers on it. Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, and Tony Lazzeri were joined by fellow Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio, who replaced Red Ruffing from the 1936 card.
DiMaggio was one big addition to the 1937 set — the other being fellow second-year player, Bob Feller of the Indians.
The Yankees weren't the only ones keeping with tradition in this set. For the third straight time, the Tigers card used the same four players – Mickey Cochrane, Goose Goslin, Charlie Gehringer, and Schoolboy Rowe. Unlike in 1936, though, they were not the only team to have a card that did not change in terms of players featured. The Boston Red Sox card featuring Joe Cronin, Lefty Grove, Jimmie Foxx, and Rick Ferrell was a repeat of the 1936 Red Sox card. Additionally, the Red Sox were the only other team besides the Yankees to picture four Hall of Famers.
A final notable card is that of the Boston Braves. That card featured Hall of Famer Al Lopez, who was featured in earlier sets with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Lopez was misidentified on all of his prior Four-on-One Exhibit cards as 'Vincent' Lopez but is correctly identified here as Alfonso (his full first name).
1937 Four-on-One Exhibit Set Checklist
Below, I have arranged the checklist by team with the players featured on each card.
Athletics – Johnson, Kelly, Moses, Weber
Braves – Berger, Lopez, Macfayden, Urbanski
Browns – Clift, Hemsley, Hildebrand, West
Cardinals – Dean, Martin, Medwick, Warneke
Cubs – Galan, Hartnett, Herman, Lee
Dodgers – English, Moore, Mungo, Phelps
Giants – Hubbell, Leslie, Mancuso, Ott
Indians – Averill, Feller, Pytlak, Trosky
Phillies – Camilli, Moore, Walters, Whitney
Pirates – Blanton, Suhr, Vaughan, P. Waner
Red Sox – Cronin, Ferrell, Foxx, Grove
Reds – Derringer, Lombardi, Riggs, Weintraub
Senators – Kuhel, Myer, Newsom, Stone
Tigers – Cochrane, Gehringer, Goslin, Rowe
White Sox – Appling, Bonura, Dykes, Kennedy
Yankees – DiMaggio, Gehrig, Gomez, Lazzeri
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tagged with 1937 Four-on-One Exhibits, Baseball, Exhibit Cards


Anders # 53 was my pattern choice for my 2012 auction entry for a local charity that provides dolls to be given to children in need at Christmas. The auction provides the funds necessary to buy the dolls. Volunteers dress them.
This was such a fun pattern to make! I loved how each piece came together to create a finished outfit that reminded me of clothing we wore long ago when cross country skiing. I no longer live in an area that gets enough snow for skiing, but the fond memories all came back while knitting this. For my doll I opted for snowshoes since they were more readily available than doll sized skis.
Thank you for making such spectacular patterns available and for the support you provide to those of us knitting from them.
Wow, Penny, this is just awesome. The colors really pop and your knitting is perfection. Your generosity exceeds all expectations. If I made this pattern it would be hard for me to give away. One perfect outfit!