2 Samuel 6:2 – And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims.
Hello readers, firstly happy new year, first blog of 2017! Today's blog is from both 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13. They are the same story recorded in two different parts of Scripture, and when read together help to develop a deeper understanding of what exactly was going on. The story is unusual, it is easy to think and ask why and how did what happened… happen? To set the scene, King David had just come to power following the demise of king Saul, and he wanted to bring the ark of God back home to him, back to Israel. He wanted to see revival towards God in Israel, he wanted to get God back to being the center of lives and worship in Israel, he recognized the importance of putting God first. He wanted to restore the ark of God, which was a great symbol of God's presence, glory, and deliverance, and the ark itself is one of the greatest pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ. Under king Saul's reign the ark had become lost, discarded, irrelevant, and abandoned. This is true of today, Jesus has been pushed to the back burner even in "Christian" homes, churches and lives today. So what David wanted to do was very noble and very right… so what was so wrong in this story?
David asked after the initial failure of his mission (which we will be looking at in this blog), How shall I bring the ark of God home to me? You, like David, might be seeking to bring God into your life, into your worship, into your church, you may be trying to bring the ark of God home to you, you may be trying to bring the ark of God to others. But we see in this story a serious warning to Christians and churchgoers alike, in fact it is a warning to everyone, to all of us, as we see the Holy God who will only accept obedience to his word, who demands that we come to him and worship him and praise him HIS way, according to HIS word, by HIS Son. Bringing the ark back was and is a great idea, that was not the problem. In this story though, we see that something went badly wrong, and this story is a very true picture of contemporary Christianity today, Christianity today which is "new cart" Christianity. Christianity done a different way. No according to the Bible, but instead in a non-offensive gospel, which caters to everyone, which won't rub anyone the wrong way, a sanitized gospel with no traces of things like sin, judgement, repentance, mercy, wrath, hell. Leaders and followers want to have God, but also have the world and the flesh at the same time, and a compromise is struck, a deal with the devil, and thus we have a new Jesus, Jesus in a new cart, not the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible who everyone can like, who won't alienate anybody, who will get people back in churches, who will get money back in the coffers, who will make church popular, successful and cool.
We see first of all that King David consulted the people, this was his first mistake. Instead of going to the word of God, he enquired of the people to form a consensus. Truth has never been established by consensus, or to be determined by the people. The Bible says let God be true and every man a liar. It is God's word alone that is the sole authority, what David should have done was looked in the scripture at how the ark was to be brought back. Because God had detailed very clearly how to move the ark around, who was to to do what, and how it was to be done. But this is what church is doing today, instead of being subject to God's word, God's word has become subject to us. A people's religion, instead of a Bible authorized by a king, they now have a "people's" Bible, a "critical" Bible. In the book of Judges, a few books previous to 2 Samuel, we see a time marked by people doing that which was right in their own eyes. And we see that here, the Bible says the thing seemed good in the people's eyes. David and the people formed a consensus about how to bring the ark back. Bringing the ark back was a good idea, but HOW they set about doing it was already doomed from the start… because scripture had been put aside, and David and Israel were going to get this done in their own effort, in their own way, by their own means.
They got the ark, and they placed the ark in a new cart. When the ark had first been captured by the Philistines, the Philistines had moved the ark around in a cart, and here we see Israel COPYING!!! the Philistines. The Philistines were Israel's mortal enemy, whom God wanted them to destroy, yet David and Israel were copying the Philistines in how they were dealing with the ark. And how true is this today? We see Christians copying the world, they try to make Jesus "world" friendly, world compatible, to compromise between both. To strike concord between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, which cannot be done, because God divided the light from the darkness, and it was and is so. No one wants the God of judgement, who hates sin, who warns of wrath and hell, but they don't mind the new cart God who just loves everyone, who winks at sin, who doesn't judge you, who makes you feel fuzzy and warm and comfortable in your sin. We see disobedience to God's word in how they were bringing the ark back , and we see them instead attempting bring the ark to them in a worldly manner. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy of people who have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Israel had the ark there, they were doing it in the "right name", under the banner of righteousness, but when we look a little deeper, we see that there were serious problems here.
The next thing we see is music. Lots of music. And they played their music with all their might. There was a great commotion. The sound of shouting, of praise, it must've sounded so… right. But it wasn't. Before the ark was taken back in 1 Samuel, when Israel brought the ark up in the hope that God would deliver them despite their wickedness and unrepentant hearts, they were shouting so loudly that even the Philistines were afraid and said surely God is with them! But what followed was an abject slaughter and defeat as Israel was destroyed and the ark captured by the Philistines. Israel was in an "Ichabod" state, the glory had departed, they had the Philistines fooled temporarily (and themselves!). There was a big show going on here, enough to fool everyone. But the reality was missing, God wasn't in it. That's why we should never be fooled by performance, by a commotion, by the outward. God looks on the inside. We could have easily been impressed by this performance as the ark was being brought back, we could say God is really in this thing, and this is great, but disaster was about to happen. Many churches today proclaim their attendances, great movements of God, great zeal and enthusiasm for worship, but it is all meaningless and empty without reality, without the true Holy Spirit (who is also called the Spirit of truth) present. If you don't worship God according to God's word, your worship is rejected. Look at Saul's worship, he was rejected because he disobeyed God in 1 Samuel 15, look at the prophets of Baal, they cut themselves, they did not lack for enthusiasm, but Baal did not answer them or honor them, because he was not God.
And back to the music… music is worship, music is entertainment, and we see churches today marked by music, and very entertaining, they keep their audiences coming back by putting on a show…. rather than by the preaching and declaration of the truth of God's word. We see truly dead Ichabod churches who in order to make up for the lack of spiritual reality, instead whip up a substitute, they put on a show to keep people coming, to keep them entertained, to en-trance them. Counterfeiting is Satan's business, Pharaoh's magicians counterfeited Moses' miracles with their magic for a while, but at the end of the day they were just counterfeits, and their foolishness and folly was quickly manifested. Music is just one of many things that has been substituted for God's word, and obedience to God's word today… music definitely has it's place, but music should be done God's way, which is another area in which David went wrong. David made it all up himself, he didn't do it God's way. There was a lot of worship going on, but the worship was rejected. Jesus said they that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. Instead David and Israel were trying to work it up themselves. They had to make it alive, they had to drive it all along, and in fact the ark had to be pulled along.
We see new cart Christianity today that is being pulled along, and trying to be made alive by adding the world, by adding music … none of which can substitute for the real thing. What we see so far is a manufactured worship service, in disobedience to God, and God is not going to be brought home to any of us in such a way. We have noted that the ark was pulled along. And who is ultimately pulling new cart Christianity along? What was wrong with the oxen pulling the cart? Well, the ark was actually meant to be carried by the Levites, but instead they had the ark in a new cart being pulled by oxen. And this shows us who exactly was in charge of what was going on here. The devil. It is the devil who is pulling new cart Christianity along! The devil authors new Bibles, he sows corrupt seed, he ceaselessly seeks to pervert the gospel, to cast doubt, to deceive, entice, steal, destroy, the devil tirelessly sows tares amongst the wheat while the men sleep as Jesus said. The oxen are a picture of the devil, when Moses was away the people made a golden calf and started worshipping it. And people prefer to worship the creature rather than the Creator just as Paul said. The devil is a creature, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator.
So the ark was going along successfully, and so can false religion, false beliefs, false works, things and lives built upon the sand … for a time… but the storm, the test of reality is coming. Things built by God last, things built by man, things propelled along by man's efforts do not. And this whole thing came tumbling down. The ark came to the threshingfloor of Nachon and the oxen stumbled, the ark began to fall, Uzzah was struck dead for attempting to steady the ark, and the whole thing ground to a halt. The fact is, new cart Christianity does not pass the threshingfloor of Christ. The threshingfloor test. In 2 Samuel we are told it was the threshingfloor of Nachon, which means "prepared". And these guys were not prepared, or ready at all for the threshingfloor test. It was unprepared service, unprepared worship, because it was not done according to God's word, and the parable of the ten virgins is all about preparedness, or lack thereof, it is a warning to us to be prepared for when Jesus comes, to be prepared to have the reality of our lives, our worship tested by Jesus Christ. Oil is representative of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, and the foolish virgins were unprepared, they did not have oil. Do you have the Holy Spirit or a substitute? Are you living your life in the energy of your flesh? At the start of Jesus' ministry, when John the Baptist was preaching, John talked about the threshing floor of Christ, that Jesus gathers the wheat into his garner but the chaff is burnt up with unquenchable fire. Are you wheat or chaff? Does your life consist of wheat or chaff? Are your works wheat or chaff? Because your worship will be found out, your contemporary church service will be found out, it won't pass the litmus test, as God's two edged sword of his word perfectly judges your life. Dead works or live works, which are yours? You can dedicate your whole life to worthless religion, and be rejected. All your works will be burnt up. God judged this situation, and the whole thing ground to a halt.
And what all this hullabaloo produces is people such as Uzzah, who are not afraid to put their hand to the ark. Uzzahs of today, who have no fear of God, who live and walk contrary to God's word, who make up their own "god", who practice their own "religion". The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, it is the fear of the Lord that causes men to depart from evil, fearing God is what will save you from hell. Is there fear of God in you? Uzzah was struck dead for his error in a flash. Man has nothing to do with what Jesus did. We cannot add or take away to what Jesus did, what Jesus says, who Jesus is, what Jesus does. When we will learn it is all about him, we must decrease, he must increase. Jesus said he will build his church. Who is building your church? Your life? What is your life based upon? Is your house built upon the sand or upon the rock of Christ? It is all about him start to finish, and him alone. It was Jesus alone who lived a sinless life who died on the cross and arose from the dead… the same Jesus whom the Bible says did not commit himself unto man for he knew what was in man. David said that there was a breach upon Uzzah, and today we see "breached" Christianity. Ruptured, split, fractured, cracked Christianity, whose members are separated from Christ by their unbelief, their sin, their disobedience, who violate his word. Because that is what the word "breach" refers to, and the breach was upon Uzzah, is there a breach upon you? Will God break forth upon you in his wrath because you do not trust in his Son Jesus Christ, because you have no substitute in your place who pays for your sins, who forgives you freely, who intercedes for you, who gives eternal life? Christianity today has largely separated from Jesus Christ, and Jesus said in the the final letter to the church (Laodieca) that he stands at the door and knocks. Jesus has been kicked out of church, and replaced by false substitutues, false messiahs, false Christs. The solution for the breach of our lives is Jesus Christ, he is the healer of the breach!
At the end of all this we see a man, Obededom. The ark of God didn't come home that day to David and Israel. It would later on, when David read the Bible, and brought the ark back God's way. But it found a place at Obededom's house. Does the ark have a place for you as it did for Obededom? He was blessed because he had the ark. We are blessed when we are saved, because when are saved, we are in the ark, we have the ark, because the ark of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the reason we can be and are blessed by God. God is well pleased in his Son, and when you have the Son, you have life, you have the blessing. All you need to do to have the Son is believe. Receive his forgiveness for your sins, receive eternal life. It is a free gift. In the midst of all this carnage, a man simply received the ark into his home. He was blessed because of it. David and Israel in violation of God's word were unable to bring it home to them, but it found a home, a lodging in the house of Obededom. It is a good thing to have the ark at your home, in your life, but we must get God in our lives his way. Obey his word, the Bible says his sheep hear his voice. If you are his sheep you will hear his voice, his unmistakable voice, let him lead you to the green pastures, let him restore your soul. You will know your master's crib, you will only find rest in the truth, in doing things the right way, God's way. Bring the ark of God home to you God's way.
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Blarney! On March 18th, Columbia, SC will become a sea of green for the 35th Annual St. Pat's in Five Points celebration. And you're in luck, because we have everything you need to know to make the most of the weekend's festivities!
Get hyped for the holiday at the Official Kick-Off to St. Pat's in Five Points on March 3rd as the Five Points fountain gets dyed green. Irish entertainment including bagpipers and Rince N'ah Erieann dancers will be on hand. And don't leave without getting a four-leaf clover painted onto your cheek!
Start early and earn free entry into the festival with the Get to the Green 15K, 10K, 5K & Fun Run. That first pint afterward will feel like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
You'll be doing a jig as more than 20 national, regional and local bands play on five stages. The line-up this year includes St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Michael Ray, Superchunk, Drivin' N Cryin' and more. You can find the schedule here and map out which shows you want to see in advance!
Head over to Harden Street for a pair of headphones and an afternoon of dancing at the Silent Disco.
Finally, be sure to check out the Bluegrass stage on Santee Avenue, a new addition to the festival this year.
Take your wee ones to join in on the fun! Watch the St. Pat's Parade wind its way through Devine Street and Five Points, then pop over to the Pot O' Gold Playland at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park.
Festival-goers can also shop handmade items, refuel at local and regional food trucks, catch a few March Madness games, visit the new Craft Beer Tasting Room and write a special message on the "St. Pat's Wall" - an interactive, oversized chalkboard.
Get your tickets for $15 in advance, $20 day-of or go all out with the $95 St. Pat's Saluda's VIP Experience, which includes festival admission, food, an open bar, balcony access and restrooms.


but they all seem to run indefinitely. Any ideas how to get around this?
Those options refer to server-side resources identified by their URL, in your case it's the DOM that's creating an infinite amount of states based on URL fragments, which affect the client side of things.
Try using the nightlies and setting the --scope-dom-event-limit option. It doesn't give you as much control as the other options but it's a start, so give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
Thanks for the response, but that did not seem to help. I used the nightly build and tried several different values for --scope-dom-event-limit, including 5, 1, and 0, but all resulted in an infinite crawl. I also tried using --scope-dom-depth-limit and even a vector feed trained from the proxy usage, but they all exhibited the same unlimited crawl over the time parameter. I've considered passing a specific set of paths to scan if I have to, but that is obviously not ideal since it would have to be updated as the app changes and it would be nice to have the better coverage of an actual crawl. I would appreciate any other ideas of what I can try to do a crawl but avoid this issue.
Would it possibly help to use the audit options to avoid this issue? I'm trying to test them out, but I'm not clear on how they work in the CLI. As in, if --audit-ui-forms and --audit-ui-inputs are enabled by default, would passing them then disable them since they don't take any parameter like false? I'm also not clear on what should be passed into the --audit-exclude-vector option, like is it the name of inputs within my app or just a shortcut for listing out Arachni's audit options by name.
All audit options are enabled by default, but if you start setting your own then all others will be disabled.
From what I understand though no existing option will help your situation, I'll need to add some new ones.
Any chance I can be given access to that site in order to see the cause of the issue and also use it as a test-case?
I appreciate the help if you want to take a look at the site. We need to know the IP address/range you would be coming from though in order to enable access to the dev version of our site since we would prefer not to put excess load on our prod/beta version. I also have a rb login script with test credentials I can send you that should cover the authentication portion of the test. What would be the best way to exchange that information? Should I start a private discussion?


text:
Chevy Bolt Announces The Latest Battery Fix – Sufficient Or Deficient?
< AUTO SHIPPING >
Richmond Auto Transport Community
The Chevy Bolt has been able to show off their LG Chem batteries in earlier years. But lately, they have very much been the wrong kind of "fire." Chevy Bolt batteries have been burning profusely, much to the chagrin of Chevrolet. However, the Chevy Bolt gas been giving off full charge with unplugged potential. Which, however impressive, still limits the charge state to a mere 90%. This can therefore interfere with the wiring. Throughout 2020, examples of this faulty mess were exemplary to the point where General Motors had no choice but to issue a recall. Even the NHTSA isn't totally convinced that these Chevy Bolt units are a good idea.
If you remember correctly, Chevy Bolt had recalls on several models. Including 2017, 2018 and 2018 Chevy Bolts. This was especially after five of these cars had suffered from battery fires. Would you believe it if I said time flies? The Chevy Bolt had its batteries made by the good people at LG Chem. Which by now has turned into LG Energy Solution. Whom is involved with General Motors immensely. Either company happens to be far along the manufacturing process. Hyundai and KIA themselves have already made mention to switch out the battery packs in over 85,000 vehicles. This campaign would have cost about $1 billion. Yet GM is deciding to choose their own path. General Motors thinks their engineers were able to solve the battery fire.
GM spokesman Dan Flores believes "rare manufacturing defect in certain battery modules in vehicles from these production years." Such a defect like that could cause "a heat source or a short in a cell, which could propagate into a fire." Chevy Bolts are going to be updating their software over the air. As the fix is built-in, these cars will charge 100%. Gas-powered vehicles shouldn't be causing fires. Let alone batteries.
Four Speed Films: A Shift Up For Classic Cars
Mazda is Recalling Mazda3 Cars over a Steering-Wheel Logo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Cae has a new set for the just opened round of FaMESHed. The Darling collection features a necklace, earrings and a bracelet, which can be bought together or individually. There are 3 metals and 10 gemstone options, changeable via the included HUD. This set is incredibly versatile. The necklace can be worn in multiple ways and you have two styles of earrings to choose from! While this is perfect for the coming Valentine's Day season, this set is definitely adorable enough to wear year-round!


Many MOOCs make use of peer assessment as a grading/learning tool. It tends to generate a great deal of complaints as students feel that they have been unfairly graded by their peers. Some complain that the feedback from their peers are of no help at all. This course that I'm taking is no exception. Dissatifaction aplenty after we completed Phase I of a writing project and the peer assessment. One of my colleagues summed up a list of valid reasons why students dislike peer grading.
Peer assessment will never work as a grading tool in a MOOC for the simple reason that participants are not in the same peer group - Carrie is a grad student doing instructional design and I'm learning elementary English. We are not "peers" but we are taking the same course. An entrance examination may partially address the problem. A well designed rubric (contents + weighting) will help. Neither will provide a full remedy. I'm less interested in what the students like or dislike. The question is how to make peer assessment work as an effective grading tool, whether for an online course or not. The reasons listed in Carrie's original post is equally applicable in a traditional classroom of 12 students.
As a learning tool, peer assessment should work both ways. A student in elementary English will certainly benefit from Carrie's comment on his/her draft and Carrie can learn how best to guide a student in his/her pursuit.
I believe that assessment is always a critical issue in designing a course. At a more fundamental level, the debate on formative/summative assessment, their merits and demerits is far from being conclusive. Setting our priority may enable an easier decision. I tend to put learning before grading; peer assessment always has its important role to play as its pros outweigh the cons.
What I'd like to see in MOOC and particularly the application of technology in an educational setting is to cater for the needs of 60,000 different "sweet spots". Enabling the more able students to go further while being careful not to leave behind the rest is already a huge challenge in a traditional classroom of 12. We may be tempted to throw in the towel with a class of 60,000. Technology, however, can make classroom differentiation a reality. Classroom differentiation, in my mind, means 12 lesson plans for 12 students, 60,000 lesson plan for 60,000 students. It is entirely feasible to do so with the help of today's technology but I have yet to see any evidence of it being implemented, not even a trial implementation.


The advisors have a combined 35 years' experience in unpacking the most complex issues for clients from all sectors and industries. They have a deep understanding of the local political and regulatory landscape and of the issues that drive and impact upon the South African news agenda.
Dani Cohen has provided counsel to global and South African companies and organisations for over 15 years in the area of strategic communications and public relations.
Her areas of expertise include corporate communications, advocacy, media relations, litigation support, stakeholder engagement, thought leadership and crisis communications. She has particular experience in managing campaigns for companies facing regulatory challenges.
Her clients span a wide range of sectors, industries and professions and have included Woolworths, Shell, the SA Competition Commission and the Cape Town Central City Improvement District.
Prior to starting Prolog, she was the Managing Director and Head of South Africa at one of the largest strategic communications consultancies in the world.
Dani is a lawyer by training and began her career as a State Prosecutor in South Africa, and then in the litigation department of a London-based corporate law firm.
She left legal practice to work at the South African Parliament, as a speechwriter and policy researcher before beginning her career as a communications strategist and consultant.
Dani believes protecting and engendering trust sits at the centre of successful reputation management.
Sandra Sowray has over 20 years' experience in providing strategic counsel to some of the world's largest companies.
Her areas of expertise are campaign strategy development, crisis and issues management, coalition building and advocacy, litigation support, thought leadership, regulatory and policy engagement and public affairs.
She has gained most of her experience in South Africa, but has also consulted to the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom, the US and Central America.
Some of the companies and organisations that she has worked with include Telkom, Absa Capital, Santam, Vodacom, Sun International, Shell, Regent, Wonga, Murray & Roberts, Mondi, the Honduran Ministry of Tourism, MTN, the Institute for Accountability, Freedom Under Law and The Elders.
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Her passion is to develop communications campaigns that create balance and debate, educate and open commercial and emotional doors for clients. She speaks English, Afrikaans and Spanish.


text:
Rivers in China are drying up due to record drought
5 months ago Brian Rodriguez
NOS . News• Today 21:08
China is also dealing with severe drought and heat. The ongoing drought is already breaking records and no rain is expected at the moment. The high temperatures will likely continue into September.
The Yangtze River, the third largest river in the world, has dried up in some places. Because of the low water level, hardly any electricity can be generated from hydroelectric power stations at a time of high demand. Air conditioning in Chinese buildings and homes is running at full speed.
Sichuan Province is particularly affected by electricity shortages because the region is 80 percent dependent on hydropower; Water generated electricity. Neighboring Hubei Province also has to deal with a power shortage.
Drought also leads to forest fires. In the southwest of the country, 1,500 people were evacuated from the incoming fire. At least 5,000 civilians and military personnel are trying to control the fires.
According to China, this is the hottest and driest summer since national measurements began in 1961. Temperatures have been above 40 degrees for more than a week.
France Press agency
The water level of the Yangtze River has dropped dramatically, and it can be seen on this bridge in Chongqing.
The water level of the Jialing River, a tributary of the Yangtze, has almost fallen to the lowest level ever recorded. Although the waters are low, people head to the rivers for a refreshing swim. Temperatures in China locally reach 45 degrees.
A Chongqing resident swimming in Jialing
In the Yangtze River, these Buddhist statues appeared, whose age, according to Chinese state media, is about 600 years. The images were found at the top of an island called Foyeliang, CNN reports.
See also Why not be afraid of these German speed cameras | Sentences
In Europe too, ships and ancient texts appeared in various places due to the low water level in the rivers.
A statue in the Yangtze River shows a monk sitting on a lotus pedestal
Factories in southwestern Sichuan Province are being forced to cut production to save energy for homes. Shopping malls in Chongqing are closed most of the day due to lack of power.
The sidewalks of the Yangtze River near Wuhan are dry
As in Europe, trade in China is made more difficult because ships cannot navigate rivers or with less tonnage due to lower water levels.
Ships on the Yangtze River near Badong
Chinese farmers are also suffering from drought. Crops fail because crops do not get enough water. State media say the government will do its best to secure the autumn grain harvest. To do this, chemicals are sprayed into the clouds that generate rain.
A farmer stands under dry melon plants in a village near Chongqing
Due to the hot and dry weather, the Chinese government issued a national drought alert on Friday. The hardest-hit parts of the country are in the southwest, such as Sichuan Province, which has a population of 81 million. But temperatures are also high in the country's capital, Beijing.
Children playing in fountains in Beijing, a city of 21 million people
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text:
The significance of a big loss
By JerryvonKramer,
June 3, 2011 in Pro Wrestling
JerryvonKramer
Some of the bigger egos in the industry, Hogan for example, are well known for not wishing to job if they can possibly help it. This is something I've never quite understood.
Why was Hogan always so reticent to lose a match?
Can anyone think of any examples where a big loss has significantly damaged someone's career?
jdw 7 posts
El-P 6 posts
Matt D 7 posts
JerryvonKramer 15 posts
I'm not sure how much farther he could have really gone but I think it is accepted wisdom that Goldberg's first loss to Nash effectively cut his balls off.
MikeCampbell
Location:Carlsbad, NM
Goldberg to Nash was the only one that I could think of too. The loss itself didn't really hurt him too much, it was more along the lines of one of the stupid mistakes WCW made that led to them falling to the lows that they did. But, between getting screwed out of the title and then screwed out of his rematch, I seem to recall Goldberg getting even more over with the fans.
I also think you could make the case that HHH beating Booker (especially the way he did) at Mania really hurt Book. He did eventually have the King Booker run but you get the feeling if he had won that match he would have been a huge player for his whole run rather than a guy who just got shuffled from upper mid-card into main event back and fourth at random
What about Vader/Michaels?
Kurt Angle coming into TNA and beating Samoa Joe was the beginning of the end for Joe.
Mr Wrestling X
Some argue that Ultimate Warrior winning against Hogan damaged his career, since Hogan pretty much stole the spotlight. Bob Backlund's 8 second loss to Diesel for the WWF Title, pretty much ended Backlund's career as a credible performer, although Backlund's style of performing was pretty much over when Vince brought in guys like Hogan, Savage and Ultimate Warrior. Triple H definetly hurt several careers (although minor) in his 2002-2005 dominance. Insisting on winning against Goldberg, when the fans were just getting into his latest run, pretty much destroyed it before it got off. His series with Randy Orton, where barring a Survivor Series match, was dominated by 'The Game'. Most recently in the E, CM Punk's constant losses to the likes of Orton have severly tarnished him as a performer. Punk isn't quite at the level of Jericho, where it doesn't matter if he loses because his character and ability to deliver in a match is what keeps him over.
I think with Hogan's ego, its just that. He's never really seen anyone as being his equal in popularity and that is what the motivation to insist on winning has been when someone has asked him to do a job. On the rare occasions Hogan has been open to losing, its usually because he has a friendship or respects the wrestler going over. With Ultimate Warrior, it was a question of money, Hogan knew there was going to be a big payoff and realised that Warrior was probably not going to last. So with pressure from Vince, Hogan decided to do the job for Warrior and then used his ability to connect with audience to look like he came out the winner. Hogan was more open about losing in his last WWE run in 2002, but if you notice, the only people he lost cleanly to were the ones considered the top guys (Rock, Undertaker and Angle). Bare in mind, also, that Hogan refused to put Steve Austin over when a potential match was brought up, even though the payoff would likely have been huge. Hogan's ego goes beyond money, it would seem.
Johnny Sorrow
I don't think Punk's losses have hurt him at all. Does anybody actually watch wrestling and think, "I can't buy this guy anymore because he lost some matches?" Especially when it's a bad guy who is supposed to get his comeuppance.
Typically you leave a feud with the babyface stronger/more over and the heel having more heat. Punk didn't even get to fuck Orton over and steal a win in any single one of their matches, it was just Orton beating him clean, over and over at every turn. So Punk didn't gain any heat from the program, and Orton didnt really have anything to overcome/get revenge for as he just kept beating a guy that didn't have any momentum left. Its not the end of the world for Punk but it was a feud that definitely did nothing for either guy moving forward.
Punk and Orton only had two matches, both on PPV. Orton beat Punk at Mania, with the buildup that Orton had taken out the rest of Nexus so that Punk had no backup. And then beat Punk at Extreme Rules in the blowoff.
It's not like Punk got beaten like a drum, he'd gotten one over on Orton a few times himself during the feud.
And Punk is so good at this point, nothing is gonna kill him. Shit, he's the leader of the worst gang in recent memory and he's getting them over and having fun. People are still booing him loudly, so there ya go.
smkelly
Location:Somewhere between here and over there
You answered your question before you asked it, man.
A desire not to lose.
Location:Wilkes-Barre, PA
30-40 years ago I think it meant something. Losing the NWA title for example, that is a big, career changing deal. Now the positions of the top wrestlers are pretty much set regardless of wins and losses.
El-P
Hogan comes from a different era, in which big stars didn't do jobs, and that's why they were perceived as such. Hogan didn't had to lose as long as he was super over. Hogan didn't lose. Sammartino didn't lose. Inoki didn't lose. Baba didn't lose. Then things changed. The Rock did more jobs than any big stars at his level, and it never hurt him.
But Goldberg was all about him being invincible and unbeatable. The loss just killed the mystique. Was he still over after the loss ? Sure, but it was not the same thing, he was just another guy who had been screwed and beaten up by the nWo. People forget that after the Fingerpoke of Doom, Goldberg was beat down and screwed by Luger, got handcuffed to the ropes and spraypainted. Like just another guy during the past 2 years and a half. Goldberg mystique was gone. I remember Bobby Heenan saying he would have gone until 3000 - 0. Sure, why not, as long as people weren't tired of Goldy winning, there was zero reasons to beat him, zero. And the more he was invincible, the more people loved him. It killed the aura dead, right there.
Another loss that killed any chance of someone being special, is Big Show jobbing clean to Austin on Raw a few weeks afetr he debuted. Stupidest decision ever. Big Show could have been special. After this, he was just another guy beig stunned by Austin. Just a big guy. Hell, I would say the Giant was a lot more special than Big Show at the beginning when he was in the Dungeon of Doom.
Location:Pittsburgh, PA
I'd say 3/4ths the reason no one gets over anymore is because everyone does even-steven booking which means everyone gets their wins back. There's ego involved no doubt, but guys like Hogan or the Road Warriors hardly ever lost and that helped make them big deals. Hell, I think even Goldberg would probably admit he wasn't the best wrestler in the world but when WCW had him come out and destroy people every week he became a big deal.
A lot has changed in wrestling, but if you push a guy and don't have him lose half of the time to whoever he beat the week before, it's amazing how often it works to get them over.
jdw
This kind of depends on how you define it.
HTM losing to Warrior ended his run with the IC Title.
It was a squash, which didn't help. But in the end, HTM really was a nothing wrestler without the belt in terms of promotability. He wasn't Savage, who by the time he dropped the IC Title was something really big. HTM was a gimmick guy, pretty small, not terribly exciting to fans, whose primary thing of getting over was his Greatest Of All-Time smack which no one buyed... and once the IC Title was off him (and not coming back), he really was something lesser.
There probably are quite a few people like that on a national level: once they pass through their highpoint, they drop quite a bit.
I've always thought Steamboat losing to HTM kind of hurt him. It's a debatable point (in fact I think it was on this board about 5 years or so ago) but it still sticks out
Not sure if it hurt him as much as simply wandering off, and never fully returning.
Steamboat seemed like a guy who could be over without a belt / being in a belt picture. The feuds with Muraco and Jake were pretty strongly focused and over.
I suspect he could have come back for a strong feud against HTM... their matches at MSG drew and were over. It's just that he never came back consistently in that period.
Jingus
I'd say 3/4ths the reason no one gets over anymore is because everyone does even-steven booking which means everyone gets their wins back.
But that might be an insurmountable problem to fix, just from the nature of modern televised wrestling. Stars wrestle on free TV pretty much every week. Combine that with the rarity of jobber squashes, and you've got a situation where the same guys are destined to wrestle each other over and over again. Which produces two different problems: the "these guys feuded for months and Wrestler #1 always beat Wrestler #2, so it sucked" and "these guys feuded for months and traded wins every week, so it sucked". Walking the fine line between the two is something that's nearly impossible for wrestling writers to do, especially in a climate where Vince changes his mind at least twice per day about the entire direction of the company. The only alternate solutions would be to either go back to the Attitude model of constant fuck finishes (which really isn't an improvement over where we are now), or to change the whole model of the way they tell stories. And I don't see them doing the latter anytime soon.
Going in the other direction: Big Win that screwed up a career.
Ron Garvin comes to mind.
He wasn't a spring chicken at that point: 42 years old. He sort of moved out of his "good utility wrestler" position into "Is He Really The Champ?" position. After dropping the title, it didn't seem like he slid back into the utility wrestler spot: it seemed like folks couldn't get the Champ part out of their mind, and not in a good way.
Big win that screwed up a career? Hmm. Maybe both times that Micheals beat Hart for the title?
One that immediately comes to mind is Luger winning by countout vs. Yokozuna at Summerslam 93 and celebrating it like he'd just won World War 2 single handedly.
I really think that hurt Luger in the long run as a credible main eventer. Still don't really understand how he managed to get another WCW World title reign after that.
Victator
He seems really complacent in the 88 stuff I'm watching. It seems like after winning and losing the big belt he had nothing to prove. So he just hangs out with brother Jimmy and fights the Varsity Club. Maybe the heel turn changes things.
Show probably should not of lost. But he did not come out of that match looking weak. He kicked the shit out of Austin for most of the match. in an era when nobody dominated Austin. Even Undertaker and Kane did not dominate him like that at Breakdown. Show looked better losing to Austin than anybody else would winning.
Still don't really understand how he managed to get another WCW World title reign after that.
Because he was one of the most over acts in wrestling in 97.
Luger beat Yoko by countout in August '93. He won the WCW title in August of '97. Four years is an eternity in pro wrestling. Luger was red-hot as a babyface chasing Hogan that summer. I'd say the title reign was more than deserved.
I do think his little feud with Greg Valentine a year later is one of the more underrated ones.
As an aside: what the hell did Garvin do after his WWF run? Seems like he more or less disappeared into "the indies" if you read his Wikipedia entry. I mean was he so sick and tired of being jobbed out to Dino Bravo that he couldn't take it any more and just quit wrestling altogether?
EDIT: wow, he was around pretty late in 1990. Look at this:
Gets a decent amount of offence vs. Perfect there too. Looked in good shape.
Here he is teaming with a pure jobber against Rhythm and Blues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hFfqM8q3uw
RE-EDIT: I just read that on October 13th, 1990 Superstars, Garvin teamed with the pure jobber Major Yates in a loss vs. The Orient Express!!
Bloody hell, has anyone else ever been relegated to being THAT low on the roster? I mean Garvin was in SD Jones territory right there.
I do think losing the belt back less than a week later hurt him. They did not have much choice since they were still building to Sting/Hogan but Lex ended up looking like a chump.


text:
October 2020 Boutique Fitness Industry Trends: Insights and Impact Report
By Hilary Achauer|2020-11-13T20:12:55+00:00November 12th, 2020|Industry Trends, Rapid Recovery Toolkit|0 Comments
A Reopening Success Story: Strongside
Mitchel Black opened Strongside in Woodstock, Georgia in 2013. It took him about five years to hit his stride, but once he focused on general population fitness with a sense of variety and fun, his membership took off, building to over 300 members by early 2020.
Then came COVID-19.
When gyms in Georgia were ordered to close in the spring of 2020, Strongside stayed closed for eight weeks, twice as long as mandated by the state. While they were closed, Mitchel loaned out all his equipment, ran multiple Zoom classes a day, hosted a virtual 5K, and made t-shirts with the slogan, "The Fitness Never Stops."
"We did everything we could think of, and it was about reaching (the members) and making them feel supported. We lent out all of our equipment, we put together packages for people," Mitchel said.
Even so, Mitchel said they lost about 25 percent of their members right away, which he said was scary. However, instead of shutting down and retreating, Mitchel took action. He began listening to his members to find out what would make them comfortable and sent out surveys every week before he reopened to understand how his members were feeling.
Once they opened, Strongside went back to their full schedule. They made deals with nearby gyms that had closed down to absorb their members.
The strategy worked.
"We will do a record amount of revenue (in November), we're opening two locations, and we're hiring people left and right," Mitchel said.
"We are not through anything and I am proceeding with caution, but you have to expand into the contraction, no matter how uncomfortable it is," he said.
Mitchel's biggest piece of advice for gym owners facing closure or trying to figure out how to reopen is to listen to your members and actively seek out their thoughts, and keep doing everything you can to make sure you're meeting their needs.
"We've gotten an insane amount of new members," Mitchel said, "and we will end at a record amount of revenue this year."
Many gyms around the country are not able to operate at full capacity like Strongside, but the overall trends are improving.
In general, our data from Zen Planner shows a continued uptick in overall revenue numbers, meaning members are keeping their memberships active. Nationwide, revenue is at 77% of 2019 numbers, up two percent from last month. Check-ins, however, are down seven percent from last month — they're at 72% of the numbers from 2019. Active members are up one percent from last month to 79% of 2019's totals.
We're still in the fight, but the lessons to take from these numbers are to stay creative and find new ways to keep members engaged and connected with their fitness community. As we head into the holidays, you can offer special activities or incentives to encourage your members to keep their memberships active. Remember that increased COVID-19 cases might mean people opt to stay at home instead of traveling for the holidays, which means more opportunities to keep your members engaged.
Increased COVID-19 numbers may also mean attendance restrictions and more aggressive implementation of hybrid or virtual membership models. You might want to consider diversifying your program options to include a steady virtual component to help you weather any shutdowns.
Be ready to lean in and guide your community through the season by celebrating wellness and fitness!
Know what's happening in your industry. Explore the Insights and Impact Report today!
Hilary Achauer
Hilary Achauer is a health and wellness writer with over 10 years of experience helping gym owners and small businesses tell their stories through articles and marketing content. Prior to joining UpLaunch, Zen Planner, and SugarWOD, Hilary spent seven years writing for the CrossFit Journal and covering the CrossFit Games. She's published articles in the Washington Post, The Week, Eating Well, Greatist, and Men's Health.


text:
Palácio de Vênus é um filme brasileiro de 1980, com direção de Ody Fraga.

Elenco
Arlindo Barreto
Sérgio Boldrin
Wilson Bonifácio
Lola Brah
Eudes Carvalho
Jaime Cortez
Suleiman Daoud
Zélia Diniz
Fátima Fonseca
Virgínia Gil
Elizabeth Hartmann
Joyce Laine
Sandra Lamar
Paulo Leite
Felipe Levy
José Lucas
Vera Lúcia
Cinira Maia
Clóvis Marcos
Matilde Mastrangi
Paulo Minervino
Arlete Montenegro
Helena Ramos
Neide Ribeiro
Marcos Ricciardi
Roque Rodrigues
Arthur Roveder
Clarisse Ruiz
Adriano Silva

Filmes do Brasil de 1980
Filmes de drama do Brasil
Filmes dirigidos por Ody Fraga
Filmes em língua portuguesa

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
// The exported functions in this module makes a call to Bing Spell Check API that returns spelling corrections.
// For more info, check out the API reference:
// https://dev.cognitive.microsoft.com/docs/services/56e73033cf5ff80c2008c679/operations/56e73036cf5ff81048ee6727
var request = require('request');

var SPELL_CHECK_API_URL = 'https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v5.0/spellcheck/?form=BCSSCK',
    SPELL_CHECK_API_KEY = process.env.BING_SPELL_CHECK_API_KEY;

/**
 * Gets the correct spelling for the given text
 * @param {string} text The text to be corrected
 * @returns {Promise} Promise with corrected text if succeeded, error otherwise.
 */
exports.getCorrectedText = function (text) {
    return new Promise(
        function (resolve, reject) {
            if (text) {
                var requestData = {
                    url: SPELL_CHECK_API_URL,
                    headers: {
                        "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key": SPELL_CHECK_API_KEY
                    },
                    form: {
                        text: text
                    },
                    json: true
                }

                request.post(requestData, function (error, response, body) {
                    if (error) {
                        reject(error);
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                    else if (response.statusCode != 200) {
                        reject(body);
                    }
                    else {
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                        var result = '';

                        for (var i = 0; i < body.flaggedTokens.length; i++) {
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                            // Append the text from the previous offset to the current misspelled word offset
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                            // Append the corrected word instead of the misspelled word
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                            // Increment the offset by the length of the misspelled word
                            previousOffset = element.offset + element.token.length;
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                        // Append the text after the last misspelled word.
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                        resolve(result);
                    }

                });
            } else {
                resolve(text);
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    )
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


diesen Wunsch wollen wir Ihnen nachhaltig erfüllen.
We look after your most valuable possession – your health!
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In order to achieve this, we invest much time and attention in determining the best-suited, scientifically highest quality course of medicinal therapy for each and every patient.
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text:
Jens Sjölund, Filip Szczepankiewicz, Markus Nilsson, Daniel Topgaard, Carl-Fredrik Westin, and Hans Knutsson. 12/2015. "Constrained Optimization of Gradient Waveforms for Generalized Diffusion Encoding." J Magn Reson, 261, Pp. 157-68.Abstract
Diffusion MRI is a useful probe of tissue microstructure. The conventional diffusion encoding sequence, the single pulsed field gradient, has recently been challenged as more general gradient waveforms have been introduced. Out of these, we focus on q-space trajectory imaging, which generalizes the scalar b-value to a tensor valued entity. To take full advantage of its capabilities, it is imperative to respect the constraints imposed by the hardware, while at the same time maximizing the diffusion encoding strength. We provide a tool that achieves this by solving a constrained optimization problem that accommodates constraints on maximum gradient amplitude, slew rate, coil heating and positioning of radio frequency pulses. The method's efficacy and flexibility is demonstrated both experimentally and by comparison with previous work on optimization of isotropic diffusion sequences.
Yifei Lou and Allen Tannenbaum. 10/2015. "Inter-modality Deformable Registration." In Jia, X., and Jiang, S.B. (Eds.). (2015). Graphics Processing Unit-Based High Performance Computing in Radiation Therapy. Vol. Ch 10. CRC Press.Abstract
Deformable image registration (DIR) is one of the major problems in medical image processing, such as dose calculation [18], treatment planning [33] and scatter removal of cone beam CT (CBCT) [22]. It is of prime importance to establish a pixel-to-pixel correspondence between two images in many clinical scenarios. For instance, registration of a CT image to MRI of a patient taken at different time can provide complementary diagnostic information. For applications as such, since the deformation of the patient anatomy cannot be represented by a rigid transform, DIR is almost the sole means to establish this mapping. DIR can be generally categorized into intra-modality and inter-modality, or multi-modality. While intra-modality DIR can be easily handled by conventional intensity-based methods [11, 30], intermodality DIR problems are still far from being satisfactory. Yet, since different imaging modalities usually provide their unique angles to reveal patient anatomy and delineate microscopic disease, intermodality registration plays a key role to combine the information from multiple modalities to facilitate diagnostics and treatment of a certain disease.
Frank King, Jagadeesan Jayender, Steve Pieper, Tina Kapur, Andras Lasso, and Gabor Fichtinger. 10/2015. "An Immersive Virtual Reality Environment for Diagnostic Imaging." Int Conf Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 18(WS). King MICCAI WS 2015
Mukund Balasubramanian, Robert V. Mulkern, William M Wells III, Padmavathi Sundaram, and Darren B Orbach. 10/2015. "Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Ionic Currents in Solution: The Effect of Magnetohydrodynamic Flow." Magn Reson Med, 74, 4, Pp. 1145-55.Abstract
PURPOSE: Reliably detecting MRI signals in the brain that are more tightly coupled to neural activity than blood-oxygen-level-dependent fMRI signals could not only prove valuable for basic scientific research but could also enhance clinical applications such as epilepsy presurgical mapping. This endeavor will likely benefit from an improved understanding of the behavior of ionic currents, the mediators of neural activity, in the presence of the strong magnetic fields that are typical of modern-day MRI scanners. THEORY: Of the various mechanisms that have been proposed to explain the behavior of ionic volume currents in a magnetic field, only one-magnetohydrodynamic flow-predicts a slow evolution of signals, on the order of a minute for normal saline in a typical MRI scanner. METHODS: This prediction was tested by scanning a volume-current phantom containing normal saline with gradient-echo-planar imaging at 3 T. RESULTS: Greater signal changes were observed in the phase of the images than in the magnitude, with the changes evolving on the order of a minute. CONCLUSION: These results provide experimental support for the MHD flow hypothesis. Furthermore, MHD-driven cerebrospinal fluid flow could provide a novel fMRI contrast mechanism.
Bjoern H Menze, Andras Jakab, Stefan Bauer, Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, Keyvan Farahani, and et al. 10/2015. "The Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation Benchmark (BRATS)." IEEE Trans Med Imaging, 34, 10, Pp. 1993-2024.Abstract
In this paper we report the set-up and results of the Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation Benchmark (BRATS) organized in conjunction with the MICCAI 2012 and 2013 conferences. Twenty state-of-the-art tumor segmentation algorithms were applied to a set of 65 multi-contrast MR scans of low- and high-grade glioma patients-manually annotated by up to four raters-and to 65 comparable scans generated using tumor image simulation software. Quantitative evaluations revealed considerable disagreement between the human raters in segmenting various tumor sub-regions (Dice scores in the range 74%-85%), illustrating the difficulty of this task. We found that different algorithms worked best for different sub-regions (reaching performance comparable to human inter-rater variability), but that no single algorithm ranked in the top for all sub-regions simultaneously. Fusing several good algorithms using a hierarchical majority vote yielded segmentations that consistently ranked above all individual algorithms, indicating remaining opportunities for further methodological improvements. The BRATS image data and manual annotations continue to be publicly available through an online evaluation system as an ongoing benchmarking resource.
Adrian V Dalca, Ramesh Sridharan, Mert R Sabuncu, and Polina Golland. 10/2015. "Predictive Modeling of Anatomy with Genetic and Clinical Data." Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv, 9351, Pp. 519-26.Abstract
We present a semi-parametric generative model for predicting anatomy of a patient in subsequent scans following a single baseline image. Such predictive modeling promises to facilitate novel analyses in both voxel-level studies and longitudinal biomarker evaluation. We capture anatomical change through a combination of population-wide regression and a non-parametric model of the subject's health based on individual genetic and clinical indicators. In contrast to classical correlation and longitudinal analysis, we focus on predicting new observations from a single subject observation. We demonstrate prediction of follow-up anatomical scans in the ADNI cohort, and illustrate a novel analysis approach that compares a patient's scans to the predicted subject-specific healthy anatomical trajectory.
Tassilo Klein and William M Wells III. 10/2015. "RF Ultrasound Distribution-Based Confidence Maps." Int Conf Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 18 (Pt2), Pp. 595-602.Abstract
Ultrasound is becoming an ever increasingly important modality in medical care. However, underlying physical acquisition principles are prone to image artifacts and result in overall quality variation. Therefore processing medical ultrasound data remains a challenging task. We propose a novel distribution-based measure of assessing the confidence in the signal, which emphasizes uncertainty in attenuated as well as shadow regions. In contrast to the similar recently proposed method that relies on image intensities, the new approach makes use of the enveloped-detected radio-frequency data, facilitating the use of Nakagami speckle statistics. Employing J-divergence as distance measure for the random-walk based algorithm, provides a natural measure of similarity, yielding a more reliable estimate of confidence. For evaluation of the model's performance, tests are conducted on the application of shadow detection. Additionally, computed maps are presented for different organs such as neck, liver and prostate, showcasing the properties of the model. The probabilistic approach is shown to have beneficial features for image processing tasks.
Klein MICCAI 2015
Ion-Florin Talos, Marianna Jakab, and Ron Kikinis. 9/2015. CT-based Atlas of the Abdomen. Surgical Planning Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The Surgical Planning Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, developed the SPL Abdominal Atlas. The atlas was derived from a computed tomography (CT) scan, using semi-automated image segmentation and three-dimensional reconstruction techniques. The current version consists of: 1. the original CT scan; 2. a set of detailed label maps; 3. a set of three-dimensional models of the labeled anatomical structures; 4. a mrml-file that allows loading all of the data into the 3D Slicer for visualization (see the tutorial associated with the atlas); 5. several pre-defined 3D-views ("anatomy teaching files"). The SPL Abdominal Atlas provides important reference information for surgical planning, anatomy teaching, and template driven segmentation. Visualization of the data requires Slicer 3. This software package can be downloaded from here. We are pleased to make this atlas available to our colleagues for free download. Please note that the data is being distributed under the Slicer license. By downloading these data, you agree to acknowledge our contribution in any of your publications that result form the use of this atlas.
The Slicer4 version archived in a mrb (Medical Reality Bundle) file that contains the mrml scene file and all data for loading into Slicer 4 for displaying the volumes in 3D Slicer version 4.0 or greater, available for download.
This work is funded as part of the Neuroimaging Analysis Center, grant number P41 RR013218, by the NIH's National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) and grant number P41 EB015902, by the NIH's National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and the Google Faculty Research Award.
Contributors: Matthew D'Artista, Alex Kikinis, Tobias Schmidt, Svenja van der Gaag.
This atlas maybe viewed with our Open Anatomy Browser.
Marianna Jakab and Ron Kikinis. 9/2015. CT-based Atlas of the Head and Neck. Surgical Planning Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.Abstract
This Head and Neck Atlas has been made available by the Surgical Planning Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital. The data set consists of: 1. Reduced resolution (256x256) of the MANIX data set from the OSIRIX data sets. 2. A set of detailed label maps. 3. A set of three-dimensional models of the labeled anatomical structures. 4. Several pre-defined Scene Views ("anatomy teaching files"). 5. Annotation as supplementary information associated with a scene. 6. Anatomical model hierarchy. All in a mrb (Medical Reality Bundle) archive file that contains the mrml scene file and all data for loading into Slicer 4 for displaying the volumes in 3D Slicer version 4.0 or greater, available for download. The atlas data is made available under terms of the 3D Slicer License section B.
This work is funded as part of the Neuroimaging Analysis Center, grant number P41 EB015902, by the NIH's National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and the Google Faculty Research Award.
Contributors: Neha Agrawal, Matthew D'Artista, Susan Kikinis, Dashawn Richardson, Daniel Sachs.
Jens Richolt, Marianna Jakab, and Ron Kikinis. 9/2015. MRI-based Atlas of the Knee. Surgical Planning Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Publisher's VersionAbstract
The Surgical Planning Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, developed the SPL Knee Atlas. The atlas was derived from a MRI scan, using semi-automated image segmentation and three-dimensional reconstruction techniques. The current version consists of: 1. the original MRI scan; 2. a set of detailed label maps; 3. a set of three-dimensional models of the labeled anatomical structures; 4. a mrml-file that allows loading all of the data into the 3D Slicer for visualization. 5. several pre-defined 3D views ("anatomy teaching files"). The SPL Knee Atlas provides important reference information for anatomy teaching, and template driven segmentation. Visualization of the data requires Slicer 3. This software package can be downloaded from here. We are pleased to make this atlas available to our colleagues for free download. Please note that the data is being distributed under the Slicer license. By downloading these data, you agree to acknowledge our contribution in any of your publications that result form the use of this atlas.
Contributors: Matthew D'Artista, Alex Kikinis.
Lipeng Ning, Kawin Setsompop, Oleg Michailovich, Nikos Makris, Carl-Fredrik Westin, and Yogesh Rathi. 6/2015. "A Compressed-Sensing Approach for Super-Resolution Reconstruction of Diffusion MRI." Inf Process Med Imaging, 24, Pp. 57-68.Abstract
We present an innovative framework for reconstructing high-spatial-resolution diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) from multiple low-resolution (LR) images. Our approach combines the twin concepts of compressed sensing (CS) and classical super-resolution to reduce acquisition time while increasing spatial resolution. We use subpixel-shifted LR images with down-sampled and non-overlapping diffusion directions to reduce acquisition time. The diffusion signal in the high resolution (HR) image is represented in a sparsifying basis of spherical ridgelets to model complex fiber orientations with reduced number of measurements. The HR image is obtained as the solution of a convex optimization problem which can be solved using the proposed algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). We qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate the performance of our method on two sets of in-vivo human brain data and show its effectiveness in accurately recovering very high resolution diffusion images.
Matthew Toews, Christian Wachinger, Raul San Jose Estepar, and William M Wells III. 6/2015. "A Feature-Based Approach to Big Data Analysis of Medical Images." Inf Process Med Imaging, 24, Pp. 339-50.Abstract
This paper proposes an inference method well-suited to large sets of medical images. The method is based upon a framework where distinctive 3D scale-invariant features are indexed efficiently to identify approximate nearest-neighbor (NN) feature matches-in O (log N) computational complexity in the number of images N. It thus scales well to large data sets, in contrast to methods based on pair-wise image registration or feature matching requiring O(N) complexity. Our theoretical contribution is a density estimator based on a generative model that generalizes kernel density estimation and K-nearest neighbor (KNN) methods.. The estimator can be used for on-the-fly queries, without requiring explicit parametric models or an off-line training phase. The method is validated on a large multi-site data set of 95,000,000 features extracted from 19,000 lung CT scans. Subject-level classification identifies all images of the same subjects across the entire data set despite deformation due to breathing state, including unintentional duplicate scans. State-of-the-art performance is achieved in predicting chronic pulmonary obstructive disorder (COPD) severity across the 5-category GOLD clinical rating, with an accuracy of 89% if both exact and one-off predictions are considered correct.
Christian Wachinger, Matthew Toews, Georg Langs, William M Wells III, and Polina Golland. 6/2015. "Keypoint Transfer Segmentation." Inf Process Med Imaging, 24, Pp. 233-45.Abstract
We present an image segmentation method that transfers label maps of entire organs from the training images to the novel image to be segmented. The transfer is based on sparse correspondences between keypoints that represent automatically identified distinctive image locations. Our segmentation algorithm consists of three steps: (i) keypoint matching, (ii) voting-based keypoint labeling, and (iii) keypoint-based probabilistic transfer of organ label maps. We introduce generative models for the inference of keypoint labels and for image segmentation, where keypoint matches are treated as a latent random variable and are marginalized out as part of the algorithm. We report segmentation results for abdominal organs in whole-body CT and in contrast-enhanced CT images. The accuracy of our method compares favorably to common multi-atlas segmentation while offering a speed-up of about three orders of magnitude. Furthermore, keypoint transfer requires no training phase or registration to an atlas. The algorithm's robustness enables the segmentation of scans with highly variable field-of-view.
Siqi Liu, Sidong Liu, Weidong Cai, Sonia Pujol, Ron Kikinis, and David Dagan Feng. 2/2015. "Multi-Phase Feature Representation Learning for Neurodegenerative Disease Diagnosis." Artificial Life and Computational Intelligence LNAI 8955, Pp. 350-9.Abstract
Feature learning with high dimensional neuroimaging features has been explored for the applications on neurodegenerative diseases. Low-dimensional biomarkers, such as mental status test scores and cerebrospinal fluid level, are essential in clinical diagnosis of neurological disorders, because they could be simple and effective for the clinicians to assess the disorder's progression and severity. Rather than only using the low-dimensional biomarkers as inputs for decision making systems, we believe that such low-dimensional biomarkers can be used for enhancing the feature learning pipeline. In this study, we proposed a novel feature representation learning framework, Multi-Phase Feature Representation (MPFR), with low-dimensional biomarkers embedded. MPFR learns high-level neuroimaging features by extracting the associations between the low-dimensional biomarkers and the highdimensional neuroimaging features with a deep neural network. We validated the proposed framework using the Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE) scores as a low-dimensional biomarker and multi-modal neuroimaging data as the high-dimensional neuroimaging features from the ADNI baseline cohort. The proposed approach outperformed the original neural network in both binary and ternary Alzheimer's disease classification tasks.
Liu ACALCI 2015
Clare B Poynton, Mark Jenkinson, Elfar Adalsteinsson, Edith V Sullivan, Adolf Pfefferbaum, and William M Wells III. 1/2015. "Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping by Inversion of a Perturbation Field Model: Correlation with Brain Iron in Normal Aging." IEEE Trans Med Imaging, 34, 1, Pp. 339-53.Abstract
There is increasing evidence that iron deposition occurs in specific regions of the brain in normal aging and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's, Huntington's, and Alzheimer's disease. Iron deposition changes the magnetic susceptibility of tissue, which alters the MR signal phase, and allows estimation of susceptibility differences using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM). We present a method for quantifying susceptibility by inversion of a perturbation model, or "QSIP." The perturbation model relates phase to susceptibility using a kernel calculated in the spatial domain, in contrast to previous Fourier-based techniques. A tissue/air susceptibility atlas is used to estimate B0 inhomogeneity. QSIP estimates in young and elderly subjects are compared to postmortem iron estimates, maps of the Field-Dependent Relaxation Rate Increase, and the L1-QSM method. Results for both groups showed excellent agreement with published postmortem data and in vivo FDRI: statistically significant Spearman correlations ranging from Rho=0.905 to Rho=1.00 were obtained. QSIP also showed improvement over FDRI and L1-QSM: reduced variance in susceptibility estimates and statistically significant group differences were detected in striatal and brainstem nuclei, consistent with age-dependent iron accumulation in these regions.
Julie M Stamm, Inga K Koerte, Marc Muehlmann, Ofer Pasternak, Alexandra P Bourlas, Christine M Baugh, Michelle Y Giwerc, Anni Zhu, Michael J Coleman, Sylvain Bouix, Nathan G Fritts, Brett M Martin, Christine Chaisson, Michael D McClean, Alexander P Lin, Robert C Cantu, Yorghos Tripodis, Robert A Stern, and Martha E Shenton. 2015. "Age at First Exposure to Football Is Associated with Altered Corpus Callosum White Matter Microstructure in Former Professional Football Players." J Neurotrauma, 32, 22, Pp. 1768-76.Abstract
Youth football players may incur hundreds of repetitive head impacts (RHI) in one season. Our recent research suggests that exposure to RHI during a critical neurodevelopmental period prior to age 12 may lead to greater later-life mood, behavioral, and cognitive impairments. Here, we examine the relationship between age of first exposure (AFE) to RHI through tackle football and later-life corpus callosum (CC) microstructure using magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Forty retired National Football League (NFL) players, ages 40-65, were matched by age and divided into two groups based on their AFE to tackle football: before age 12 or at age 12 or older. Participants underwent DTI on a 3 Tesla Siemens (TIM-Verio) magnet. The whole CC and five subregions were defined and seeded using deterministic tractography. Dependent measures were fractional anisotropy (FA), trace, axial diffusivity, and radial diffusivity. Results showed that former NFL players in the AFE <12 group had significantly lower FA in anterior three CC regions and higher radial diffusivity in the most anterior CC region than those in the AFE ≥12 group. This is the first study to find a relationship between AFE to RHI and later-life CC microstructure. These results suggest that incurring RHI during critical periods of CC development may disrupt neurodevelopmental processes, including myelination, resulting in altered CC microstructure.
Alireza Radmanesh, Amir A Zamani, Stephen Whalen, Yanmei Tie, Ralph O Suarez, and Alexandra J Golby. 2015. "Comparison of seeding methods for visualization of the corticospinal tracts using single tensor tractography." Clin Neurol Neurosurg, 129, Pp. 44-9.Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To compare five different seeding methods to delineate hand, foot, and lip components of the corticospinal tract (CST) using single tensor tractography. METHODS: We studied five healthy subjects and 10 brain tumor patients. For each subject, we used five different seeding methods, from (1) cerebral peduncle (CP), (2) posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC), (3) white matter subjacent to functional MRI activations (fMRI), (4) whole brain and then selecting the fibers that pass through both fMRI and CP (WBF-CP), and (5) whole brain and then selecting the fibers that pass through both fMRI and PLIC (WBF-PLIC). Two blinded neuroradiologists rated delineations as anatomically successful or unsuccessful tractography. The proportions of successful trials from different methods were compared by Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: To delineate hand motor tract, seeding through fMRI activation areas was more effective than through CP (p<0.01), but not significantly different from PLIC (p>0.1). WBF-CP delineated hand motor tracts in a larger proportion of trials than CP alone (p<0.05). Similarly, WBF-PLIC depicted hand motor tracts in a larger proportion of trials than PLIC alone (p<0.01). Foot motor tracts were delineated in all trials by either PLIC or whole brain seeding (WBF-CP and WBF-PLIC). Seeding from CP or fMRI activation resulted in foot motor tract visualization in 87% of the trials (95% confidence interval: 60-98%). The lip motor tracts were delineated only by WBF-PLIC and in 36% of trials (95% confidence interval: 11-69%). CONCLUSIONS: Whole brain seeding and then selecting the tracts that pass through two anatomically relevant ROIs can delineate more plausible hand and lip motor tracts than seeding from a single ROI. Foot motor tracts can be successfully delineated regardless of the seeding method used.
Lauren J O'Donnell and Ofer Pasternak. 2015. "Does diffusion MRI tell us anything about the white matter? An overview of methods and pitfalls." Schizophr Res, 161, 1, Pp. 133-41.Abstract
One key pitfall in diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) clinical neuroimaging research is the challenge of understanding and interpreting the results of a complex analysis pipeline. The sophisticated algorithms employed by the analysis software, combined with the relatively non-specific nature of many diffusion measurements, lead to challenges in interpretation of the results. This paper is aimed at an intended audience of clinical researchers who are learning about dMRI or trying to interpret dMRI results, and who may be wondering "Does dMRI tell us anything about the white matter?" We present a critical review of dMRI methods and measures used in clinical neuroimaging research, focusing on the most commonly used analysis methods and the most commonly reported measures. We describe important pitfalls in every section, and provide extensive references for the reader interested in more detail.
Romeil Sandhu, Tryphon Georgiou, Ed Reznik, Liangjia Zhu, Ivan Kolesov, Yasin Senbabaoglu, and Allen Tannenbaum. 2015. "Graph Curvature for Differentiating Cancer Networks." Sci Rep, 5, Pp. 12323.Abstract
Cellular interactions can be modeled as complex dynamical systems represented by weighted graphs. The functionality of such networks, including measures of robustness, reliability, performance, and efficiency, are intrinsically tied to the topology and geometry of the underlying graph. Utilizing recently proposed geometric notions of curvature on weighted graphs, we investigate the features of gene co-expression networks derived from large-scale genomic studies of cancer. We find that the curvature of these networks reliably distinguishes between cancer and normal samples, with cancer networks exhibiting higher curvature than their normal counterparts. We establish a quantitative relationship between our findings and prior investigations of network entropy. Furthermore, we demonstrate how our approach yields additional, non-trivial pair-wise (i.e. gene-gene) interactions which may be disrupted in cancer samples. The mathematical formulation of our approach yields an exact solution to calculating pair-wise changes in curvature which was computationally infeasible using prior methods. As such, our findings lay the foundation for an analytical approach to studying complex biological networks.


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in Fun
Gabbing With God: Reverend Lovejoy and the First Church of Springfield
Every Christian should aspire to have Flanders like qualities. Sure, he's a caricature, but when you strip him down to his core, he's someone who earnestly loves Jesus and wants to love and serve his fellow man. That's an example worth following. Reverend Lovejoy on the other hand, the Protestant minister of Springfield, is a different deal all together.
You often hear people saying we should be more like Flanders, but you never hear them say we should be more like Lovejoy. Why's that? Reverend Lovejoy is an example of what not to be in ministry. He's sanctimonious and doesn't care about people at all. He's in the job for the title and that's about it. He's a character that would probably fit in better on Moral Orel than on the Simpsons.
I recently bought the First Church of Sprinfield playset, which comes with a Lovejoy figure. It's part of a toyline that was released a few years ago. When you put certain characters in the set and press a button, you get some random sound bites. Lovejoy says things like: "It's all over people! We don't have a prayer!" and "There's more to being a minister than not caring about people." I'm thinking I want a Flanders action figure to sit in the Church pew and listen to Lovejoy's sermons. I'll have to keep an eye out on ebay to see if I can find one cheap.
Here's a picture of the set. Anyone want to have a shot at a caption? What kind of sub par sermon titles would Rev. Lovejoy be giving this week? Let me know in the comments.
Tags: Reverend Lovejoy, Simpsons, World of Springfield
2 responses to "Gabbing With God: Reverend Lovejoy and the First Church of Springfield"
Trevon says : May 15, 2011 at 2:15 pm
The vulgar and profane subjects given out in this church dare not call themselves a "Protestant" or "Christian" Church. Rev. Lovejoy preaches sermons under subjects such as "Satan's boners" and "Gabbing With God." It is disgraceful how this man is teaching the people of Springfield such things as these and corrupting the minds of that city. Their outdoor church sign also portrays inappropriate, crude, and uncouth humor.
Joel A Moroney says : May 15, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Not sure I agree with you Trevon. Not sure why you see titles like "Gabbing with God" as vulgar. Also not sure how he is "corrupting the minds" of Springfield. Are you able to share some examples? I don't always agree with Lovejoy but at least he's trying to engage with the people he's preaching to. Many missional churches would follow his lead in this area.