Mumbai: Jonathan Nelson has been chief executive officer of Omnicom Digital, a unit of the $12.5 billion global marketing communications conglomerate Omnicon Group Inc., for the past three years.
Nelson has founded, or played a critical role in building, a number of organizations, including Accrue, a Web measurement and analytics company, and Organic, which developed the Apache server.
What's your digital strategy in India, especially after acquiring a stake in Mudra Group?
Omnicom has a three-stage strategy for building our digital offering across India. First is to drive digital into every corner of our business. We don't see digital as a separate communications channel. I believe that in the next four-five years, no one will be talking about "digital" technology, just as no one talks about "the digital iPhone" or the "digital notebook computer" today. Second, we make sure all our talent, across all of our agencies, is digital capable. We run many educational programmes, such as "Emerge", held in New York a few weeks ago, or "Digital: Works", held in India and Shanghai in October. We also have a distance learning programme aimed at educating people about emerging technologies. Third, digital technology rests on a platform that generates efficiencies and economies of scale. To create that platform, we rely on technology partners from inside and outside of the Omnicom universe.
Jonathan Nelson talks about how he believes Indian companies are awakening to the potential in digital marketing.
Are you planning any more acquisitions in India?
We don't comment on our acquisition efforts.
How do digital ad spends in India compare with that in the West, especially the US?
Digital marketing spending, in general, is lower in India. Comparing the total online ad spend per user in the US and India, about $140 is spent per Internet user on digital advertising in the US, while in India, that number is roughly $2.18 per Internet user. There are a number of factors behind these differences, not the least of which is the overall penetration of the Internet in the two markets. In the US, you can use the Internet to reach over 74% of the population, while in India it reaches under 7%.
The popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and now Google+ is catching brands on the wrong foot at times. How are they coping?
Brands are starting to understand that social media is more than just a part of their communications strategy, and touches their external relations, customer service and even product development efforts. Many brands now understand not just how social media impacts what they do online, but how they are organized internally to do it. Those types of changes take time.
Please share your perspective on mobile advertising and m-commerce. Will these pick up with 3G and 4G?
Faster connection speeds will help, but getting more capable phones deeper into populations will be the biggest boon to m-commerce and mobile advertising. Increasingly, affordable data plans will also be a significant contributor. In a market like India, technology such as NFC (near field communications), if it is affordable and available across multiple price points and the payment ecosystem is put in place, will have a major impact. I understand that a recent Bollywood film marketed content using NFC and this is a good starting point.
What about the opportunity to advertise within mobile apps, given their popularity?
Mobile apps are great, but it is important to view them in the broader marketing ecosystem. How are you going to make people aware of them and download them, how is the app going to deliver ongoing value to people, and how does the app, ultimately, contribute to your marketing and business objectives.
What are the challenges you face when devising digital strategies for your clients?
One of the biggest challenges is to gauge how fast technology changes, and try to understand where it moves so that one can nurture talent that can work with new technologies and deliver results.


text:
Book Shows Parents How to Encourage Children to Play Outdoors
Wild Play: Parenting Adventures in the Great Outdoors, a new book by David Sobel, core faculty member in the Department of Education, has just been published by Sierra Club Books.
Wild Play is Sobel's memoir of integrating the experience of nature into family life with his children, Tara and Eli. It's also a guide for parents, showing them how to encourage their children to play outdoors and engage with their natural surroundings.
"I strongly believe that the value of free play in the outdoors outweighs much of the risk that may be involved," according to Sobel. "We have become such a risk-averse society, especially where children are concernedâ€partly due to the media's harping on dangers outside the home and also to liability excesses.
"Of course there's some risk when kids climb trees, teeter across a stream on a log, scramble up a steep trail or learn to make fires. Of course parents need to calibrate risk and use appropriate supervision. But at a certain point, a child's need to find independence and exercise agency must be respected."
Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, calls Sobel's book "an eloquent, valuable and heartfelt contribution to the children and nature movement, and to the children and those who love them."
Sobel is the author of six books, including Children's Special Places and Childhood and Nature, and more than sixty articles about children and nature. He consults and speaks widely on environmental education.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Music bursts out of class, followed by the silence of intense concentration and the roar of laughter as young performers from Kinder to Grade Twelve learn to sing and act.
The performing arts program at ExitLeft focuses on developing the voice, body and imagination, teaching students how to work as a team, develop communication skills and become creative on demand. Singers need to learn to tell stories which is where developing acting skills become important and actors need to be able to use their voices well which is best developed through learning singing.
Our program is all about long term growth. The majority of our students start with us in primary school and grow through to the end of their schooling, making long term friends and developing into confident, creative performers, who aren't afraid to tackle whatever life throws at them.
Ignite the flame of your budding performer. ExitLeft's class, for Kinder to Grade 2, develops performance skills in singing and acting through story and song. Kids develop creativity, musicality and learn how to follow direction. Watch your child bounce out of the car with absolute joy each week. Concerts and in-class performances for family and friends see Ignite students introduced to performing in a safe friendly environment.
Kids in Grade 3-6 will accelerate their skills in ExitLeft's singing and acting class. They will learn to work as a team and be creative on demand. Through singing and acting, accelerate kids develop confidence, giving them the skills to perform in front of anyone. The primary years are when kids develop life-long friendships, ExitLeft classes become the high point of the week.
Students Blaze their own trail in our Grade 7+ singing and acting class. The studio feels like home, giving students a safe space to build amazing skills in interpretation and storytelling. Music bursts out of class, followed by the silence of intense concentration and the roar of laughter with impromptu 'Glee Club' style jam sessions breaking out. Blaze classes see students advance their technical skills as they work toward becoming elite level performers.
Step into the inferno with ExitLeft's class for advanced performers. Bridging the gap between High school and University this College class pushes the envelope. There is a big jump in expectation from music and drama offered in high school to what is expected when students hit College and even more so for those who want to audition for the big performing arts Universities. Students learn to deliver music and scripts featuring adult concepts, build believable characters and get advice and feedback on their College monologues and performance pieces. This class is free for Grade 11/12/uni students enrolled in the Blaze program.
People often ask why ExitLeft students appear fearless when they perform. From an early age all our students are expected to learn together in a group whenever possible. It is easier for developing students to pick up musical technique when they are learning with and from each other. When combined with our individualised music lessons it becomes a winning combination that achieves fast track results.
With technique being taught in class, our singing tutors focus on students' individual vocal strengths and weaknesses. Material is carefully selected to challenge and grow each singer's individual sense of style and performance. We work with students to build a safe foundation for their voice as it develops with puberty and give them the tips and tricks for creating great performances from their very first solo on stage through to Uni music exams.
Select an individual lesson when you enrol and we will arrange a time that suits you.
As a bonus, Students in the Accelerate, Blaze and Inferno Singing and Acting classes have the opportunity to join the Hobart Children's Choir, shine in our ExitLeft Musicals and Plays and perform at corporate and community events. There is no extra charge for rehearsals for these bonus programs.


text:
Tag: Shinobu Sakagami
Downtown Heroes (ダウンタウンヒーローズ, AKA Hope and Pain, Yoji Yamada, 1988)
Posted on September 14, 2018 by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Yoji Yamada was an infrequent visitor to the youth movie. Best remembered for his long running Tora-san series, Yamada's later output is marked by an alternation of laughter and tears, running between raucous family comedies and poignant examinations of wartime loss. Set in the immediate postwar period, 1988's Downtown Heroes (ダウンタウンヒーローズ, AKA Hope and Pain) adapts the autobiographical novel by Akira Hayasaka for a twin tale of endings and beginnings as a group of boys prepare to leave the Japan of their childhood behind and set out into the brand-new post-war future.
Our narrator for the tale is Hayasaka's stand-in, Kosuke (Hashinosuke Nakamura), a sensitive young man from the mountains studying at the prestigious boys' boarding school in town. The Matsuyama high school is one of the last to still be operating in Japan's pre-war educational model. In fact, when the boys graduate the school will shut down in favour of the American 6-3-3 standard model of organising the educational system. Nevertheless, Kosuke and his friends enjoy what seems like a fantastically broad curriculum to modern eyes, much of which consists of classic German literature. Rather than their family names, the boys refer to each other with a series of nicknames inspired by their studies and have been heavily influenced by European left-wing political ideology. Accordingly, they are less than happy about the imposed American "reforms" and, paradoxically, the restrictions placed on their individual "freedom" by the "imperialist" occupation.
The central drama revolves around two episodes occurring one after another during the final year of high school. The first involves Kosuke's friend Arles (Toshinori Omi) and a prostitute he helps to rescue from the red light district – Sakiko (Eri Ishida) was supposed to elope with a student from the school, but he didn't show up and if the people from the brothel she was sold to find her she'll be in big trouble. Her suitor turns out to be a fraud, but the boys are committed to saving her and hide Sakiko in their dorm, sharing their meagre rations with her before helping her escape to her home town. Meanwhile, the boys are also preparing for the very last culture festival the school will ever see at which they will present their adaptation of a classic German play. The snag is, the play needs a girl. Eventually the gang enlist the help of Fusako (Hiroko Yakushimaru) – a student at the girls' school recently repatriated from Manchuria who also happens to be the young lady Kosuke had a meet cute with on the road and has been in love with ever since. Trouble brews when Gan (Tetta Sugimoto), the play's director, falls in love with her too.
Told from the POV both of the old and the young Kosuke, the atmosphere is one of intense melancholy and inescapable nostalgia. Though these were times of hardship – rationing is fierce and intense, so much so that the school no longer serves meals at all on Sundays and the boys largely subsist on rice gruel, they were also times of joy and possibility. These are however youngsters in the best tradition of the sensitive young men of Japanese literature. They feel everything deeply, fully aware that they are living on the cusp of something new, which necessarily also means to be standing atop a grave. Their world is collapsing and the values they've been given (progressive though they seem to be) are about to be thrown out of the window. They have been taught that nothing is more important than their personal autonomy and that personal freedom is attained only through overcoming hardship, but their lives will increasingly be dictated by occupying forces and they feel themselves robbed of something without the right to reply.
Nevertheless their problems are also ordinary teenage ones of romantic crises and friendship dilemmas. Kosuke struggles with his love at first sight crush on Fusako but remains too diffident to say anything until it's almost too late, while he also struggles to figure out what the most proper thing to do is when Gan reveals he is also in love with her. Gan, a sensitive writer, apparently burns with longing – so much so that he's written a book long confession of love in apology for being unable to declare himself in person. Kosuke, a good friend, agrees to deliver the letter but both of them have neglected to consider Fusakao's feelings so bound up are they in their own solipsistic dramas. Fusako was also struck by the love bug on her first meeting with Kosuke and has been patiently waiting for him to say something (as is the custom of the time). She is therefore doubly hurt and offended when he delivers a mini-tome on the theme of love from someone else before attempting to leave abruptly in a huff. Truth be told, there are few women who would enjoy being handed a thesis as a confession, but Fusako is really not in the mood to read one now.
Ending on a melancholy epilogue in which the old Kosuke looks on at field of young men playing American football before some others in running shorts brush past him and a young couple enjoy an evening walk, Yamada embraces the mild sense of deflation that has been building since the beginning. Young love faded and the dreams of youth were destined to come to nothing – not quite a tragedy, or perhaps only one of the ordinary kind, but food for the regrets of age all the same. The times were hard, and then they got better but somehow they were never so happy again. A youth drama indeed.
Theme song "Jidai" performed by Hiroko Yakushimaru
Tagged 1980s, 1988, Akira Hayasaka, book to film, Chieko Baisho, Eri Ishida, Fumie Kashiyama, Hashinosuke Nakamura, Hikaru Kurosaki, Hiroko Yakushimaru, Japan, Japanese, Jun Togawa, Kei Suma, Keiko Awaji, Kiyoshi Atsumi, Masakane Yonekura, Osamu Kuroda, Shikan Nakamura, Shinobu Sakagami, Takashi Sasano, Takeshi Kato, Teizo Matsumura, Tetsuo Takaha, Tetta Sugimoto, Toshinori Omi, Toshiro Yanagiba, Yoji Yamada, Yoshitaka Asama
P. P. Rider (ションベンライダー, Shinji Somai, 1983)
Despite a brief resurgence following a retrospective at Tokyo Filmex followed by another at Edinburgh International Film Festival, Shinji Somai remains frustratingly underrepresented in the West. Though his career is more varied than most give him credit for, encompassing the melancholy pink film Love Hotel and masculinity drama The Catch among others, Somai is justifiably most closely associated with his youth films. Running from the artier Typhoon Club and The Friends to the rabidly populist in the Kadokawa idol movies Sailor Suit and Machine Gun and Tokyo Heaven, Somai's work is unique in managing to catch hold of a zeitgeist, capturing the essence of the contemporary teenager more or less in the way they saw themselves rather than the way they were generally seen by adults. Like many Japanese teen movies of the '80s, the world of P.P. Rider (ションベンライダー, Shonben Rider) is essentially a safe one – our three protagonists get themselves mixed up in some dark and shady business but they are never afraid, do not lose heart, and face danger with only contempt and determination.
Somai opens with one of his trademark long takes which whirls around from two suspicious looking yakuza types to a bunch of kids playing around in the school swimming pool. One of the kids, a rotund boy who goes by the nickname Debunaga (he has the rather pretentious name of Nobunaga Deguchi, "Nobunaga" being the first name of a historical tyrant) is being a bit of a twit and having a go at one of our heroes – JoJo (Masatoshi Nagase). Debunaga (Yoshikazu Suzuki) then tries to "drown" JoJo's friend Jisho (lit. Dictionary) (Shinobu Sakagami), before the third member of the trio arrives – an androgynous girl who goes by the name of Bruce (Michiko Kawai). Bruce neatly dispatches the petty high school punks while a teacher, Arane (Hideko Hara), attempts to shift some bosozoku who've invaded school property.
Meanwhile, the petty yakuza get on with their plan. They've come to kidnap Debunaga – his pharmacist dad apparently has a sideline in drug dealing, but before they can grab him, Debunaga is kidnapped by entirely different kidnappers! Our three heroes, JoJo, Jisho, and Bruce are very annoyed about this because they didn't get a proper chance to get even with Debunaga. Accordingly, they decide the best way to make use of their summer holiday is to rescue him themselves and make sure they get their revenge before the kidnappers do him in.
P.P. Rider means exactly you think it means, except it doesn't quite mean anything at all aside from perfectly capturing the strange mix of childish jokes and serious crime that defines the movie's tone. The atmosphere is absurd and ironic, the kids distrust adult authority and attempt to define their own nascent personalities by effectively rejecting them – using nicknames, dressing in highly codified ways, and either conforming to or subverting social codes as they see fit. Amusingly enough, the trio take a brief pause in the middle of their quest to get haircuts and change outfits, after which they emerge dressed in each other's clothes as if implying they are almost interchangeable.
In keeping with most Japanese youth dramas, parents are an entirely off screen presence. Adult input comes from two very different directions (plus the occasional interventions of bumbling beat cop Tanaka) – a down-at-heels yakuza called Gombei (Tatsuya Fuji), and the kids' teacher, Arane. Gombei, a drug addled gangster, is hardly an ideal role model (especially when he tries to drown Bruce and attacks Jisho with a samurai sword), but he does eventually take the kids under his wing with JoJo picking up the classic deputy role in learning the yakuza ropes. Arane, by contrast begins by letting them down. Harried by the bosozoku she tells the kids to buzz off when they try to talk to her, telling them that she's off to hot springs town Atami and they'd best come back next term. Nevertheless she eventually becomes an integral part of their group, assisting in the quest and helping to rescue Debunaga while the strange finale plays out before her impassive eyes.
The kids didn't really want to save Debunaga, and are conflicted when they eventually locate him, but in the end it's friendship which wins out as they each celebrate their various roles in the successful rescue whilst lamenting the relative lack of care they've received from adults and authority figures aside from Arane and Gombei. Absurdist and ironic, P.P. Rider is a strange children's odyssey in which the adolescent teens head out on a dark and dangerous adventure but live in the relative safety of the world and so nothing very bad is going to happen to them despite the terrible things they eventually witness. Classical long takes jostle alongside Somai's mobile camera, random intertitles, and frequent breaks for pop music (this is an idol movie after all) in a frenzy of post-modern gags but somehow it all just works, and does so with wit and charm.
Interview with actor Masatoshi Nagase from the Tokyo Filmex screening in 2011 (Japanese only, no subtitles)
Michiko Kawai's main titles song – Watashi, Takanna Koro
Tagged 1980s, 1983, Akihiro Ito, Casey Takamine, Hideko Hara, Hiroaki Murakami, Ichiro Zaitsu, idol, idol movie, Japan, Japanese, Katsu Hoshi, Masaki Tamura, Masato Ibu, Masatoshi Nagase, Michiko Kawai, Minori Terada, Mitsuko Baisho, Ryo Kinomoto, Shinji Somai, Shinobu Sakagami, Takehiko Maeda, Takuya Nishioka, Tatsuya Fuji, Toho, Yoshikazu Suzuki


This is my wee boy, and his cat. My wee boy has been very sick, and his cat has been helping take care of him. Which mostly amounts to curling up nearby and providing nap companionship, but also involves attacking the humans who make the boy wail by holding him down and putting breathing masks on his face, which is a torture that the cat does not understand but recognizes as inhumane. So she attacks. I have the claw marks on my head to prove it.
I'm trying to not worry about the little man and his lungs. He's a robust boy, a solid boy, a boy made for running and shouting. That his lungs might be compromised is inconceivable – I was a sickly child with respiratory problems that kept me in puffers and masks and that put me in hospital too frequently, but I was a frail, skinny thing, whereas Jasper… Jasper is the very picture of boyish strength, all hale chub and muscle and barely-contained energy, a wee Wagnerian hero ready to slay dragons, or stuffed purple dinosaurs, whichever gets in his way. That he might have inherited some of my physical vulnerabilities just seems wrong, impossible. This is not a child who should wear a breathing mask. No child should, of course, but Jasper… he just shouldn't. My heart constricts every time we hold him still to get the mask on his face, hear his sobs through the clear plastic, feel him struggle.
And so, it seems, does the cat's. And so she flings herself at my head, willing me to stop, insisting, with her yowls, that the boy does not like this the boy does not want this STOP MESSING WITH THE BOY and she grips my scalp with her claws and all I can is shake her off, and sympathize, and wish that I had somewhere to sink my claws and tell my frustration and worry and defend the boy against the misguided ministrations of Big People, but I don't and I can't because I am the Big Person and this is what it means to be a Big Person, to have to suffer the tears and tell everyone and oneself that it's for the best and it won't hurt a bit and Mommy's sorry and we really have to do this this will make you better and honestly…?
… it's days like this I wish I was a cat.
Bad Dad, Bad Dad, Whatcha Gonna Google?


text:
class Violation < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :address, :city, :latitude, :longitude, :description, :title, :datetime_of_incident, :violator_id, :user_id, :photos_attributes, :slug, :license_plate, :flagged, :user_ip, :user_agent, :referrer, :spammed, :violator_attributes, :date_of_incident, :time_of_incident

  extend FriendlyId
  friendly_id :title, :use => [:slugged, :history]

  GTA_CITIES = %w(Toronto Markham Vaughan King Newmarket Aurora Richmond\ Hill Whitchurch-Stouffville East\ Gwillimbury Georgina Brock Uxbridge Scugog Pickering Ajax Whitby Oshawa Clarington Caledon Brampton Mississauga Oakville Milton Halton\ Hills Burlington).sort

  # anti-spam measures
  include Rakismet::Model
  rakismet_attrs :content => :description
  # default_scope where(:spammed => false) # Breaks more than you think
  scope :only_spammed, lambda { where(:spammed => true) }
  scope :without_spammed, lambda { where(:spammed => false) }

  # a custom version of plusminus_tally so it can play well with Kaminari or will_paginate
  scope :by_score, joins("LEFT OUTER JOIN votes ON violations.id = votes.voteable_id AND votes.voteable_type = 'Violation'").
                   group("violations.id").
                   order("SUM(CASE votes.vote WHEN 't' THEN 1 WHEN 'f' THEN -1 ELSE 0 END) DESC")

  acts_as_voteable

  belongs_to :user
  belongs_to :violator, :counter_cache => true
  has_many :photos, :dependent => :destroy

  accepts_nested_attributes_for :photos, :reject_if => :all_blank, :allow_destroy => true
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :violator, :reject_if => :all_blank, :allow_destroy => false

  validates_presence_of :title, :address, :city

  # Fixes the counter_cache in a has_many through relationship
  after_create :increment_organization_counter_cache
  after_destroy :decrement_organization_counter_cache

  def date_of_incident
    return '' if datetime_of_incident.blank?
    # default is "yyyy-mm-ddd"
    datetime_of_incident.to_date.strftime
  end

  def time_of_incident
    return '' if datetime_of_incident.blank?
    datetime_of_incident.to_time.strftime "%I:%M %p"
  end

  def date_of_incident=(date_str)
    return '' if date_str.blank?
    @date = Date.parse date_str
    merge_date_and_time
  end

  def time_of_incident=(time_str)
    return '' if time_str.blank?
    @time = Time.parse time_str
    merge_date_and_time
  end

  def full_address
    GTA_CITIES.include?(city) ? "#{address}, #{city}" : address
  end

  def license_plate
    violator.try(:license)
  end

  def license_plate=(number)
    self.violator = Violator.find_or_initialize_by_license(number) if number.present?
  end

  def photo_urls
    if self.photos.count > 0
      photo_urls = []
      for photo in self.photos
        photo_urls.append ActionController::Base.helpers.asset_path(photo.image)
      end
      photo_urls
    end
  end

  def as_json(options = { })
    super((options || { }).merge({:methods => [:photo_urls]}))
  end

  private

  def increment_organization_counter_cache
    if self.violator.present? && self.violator.organization.present?
      Organization.increment_counter 'violations_count', self.violator.organization.id
    end
  end

  def decrement_organization_counter_cache
    if self.violator.present? && self.violator.organization.present?
      Organization.decrement_counter 'violations_count', self.violator.organization.id
    end
  end

  def merge_date_and_time
    if @date.present?
      if @time.present?
        self.datetime_of_incident = DateTime.parse "#{@date.to_s}, #{@time.strftime "%I:%M %p"}"
      else
        self.datetime_of_incident = DateTime.parse "#{@date.to_s}"
      end
    end
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Lancefield will be conducting a Tartrus and Lancefield Brahman Sale on October 27, 2008. The sale will be held at Gracemere. At present, Lancefield has sires which include Lancefield Significant 9159, Lancefield Kalahari 9125, Lancefield Kinsman Manso 8950, Lancefield Succession 8395, Lancefield Mason Manso 7167, Lancefield Duke Manso 2168, Lancefield Rugby 9392, Lancefield Coby 8930, Lancefield Jed 9693, JDH Sir Reno Manso 761, JDH Mr Manso 537, JDH Briscoe Manso 151, JDH Baxter Manso 33 and JDH Federation Manso 76.
Lancefield conducted a private bull sale on Friday 13 June 2008. A diverse range of bulls were displayed for sale. Bulls included Lancefield D Dunkirk 3120/D (AI) (ET) (H), Lancefield D Dennison 3121/D (AI) (ET) (H), lancefield M Massey 1525/M (AI) (H), Lancefield M Instructor 1749/M (H), lancefield M Iceberg 1599/M (H), Lancefield M Headturner 1589/M (H), Lancefield M Equal 1513/M (H), Lancefield M Danzibar 1590/M (H), lancefield M Pentecost 1717/M (H), Lancefield M Lowry 1551/M (P), Lancefield M Railings 1738/M (H), lancefield M Red Lord 1577/M (H) and Lancefield m rogerson 1580/M (H). All bulls were registered grey and red cattle.


text:
Rice pests
Breakthrough in the search for insect-resistant plants
Lack of "happiness" hormone makes rice plants less attractive to insects
Inhibiting the production of the 'happiness' hormone – serotonin – in rice plants, increases their resistance to two of the world's most destructive and costly insect pests, new research has shown.
The study, published this week in Nature Plants, shows that by suppressing the production of serotonin, rice plants become more resistant to their two most serious predators – the brown plant-hopper and the striped stem borer.
Using gene editing techniques on rice plants to switch off the serotonin-producing gene, the team found the plants also produced higher levels of salicylic acid –  a chemical similar to aspirin.
Conversely, adding serotonin to the resistant rice led to a loss in insect resistance.
the same chemicals that modify behaviour in animals can be used to regulate plant defence against insect pests
Professor Angharad Gatehouse, Newcastle University
Important role played by serotonin in plant defence
Led by experts from Newcastle University, UK, and Zhejiang University, China, the team says these new findings demonstrate the important role that serotonin plays in plant defence and opens up new opportunities for breeding insect-resistant varieties of rice and other cereal crops.
Professor Angharad Gatehouse, co-author on the study and a Professor of invertebrate molecular biology at Newcastle University, explains:
"Recent research has suggested that, even though they lack a nervous system, plants are much more responsive to their surroundings than was previously thought.
"This example shows how the same chemicals that modify behaviour in animals can be used to regulate plant defence against insect pests and is another reminder that all living organisms have more similarities than differences at a basic level."
Primary pests in rice crops
Rice is one of the world's most important foods and the brown plant-hopper and striped stem borer are the two most serious pests in rice production causing losses of billions of dollars.
The plant hopper is a sap-sucking pest, which transmits plant viruses, as well as causing "hopper burn" where blockage of the water-carrying vascular tissue causes plants to wilt and die causing significant yield loss.
The borer is a chewing insect which feeds on young plants causing 'dead hearts' and 'white heads' and again resulting in significant yield losses.
"Indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides has resulted in these two pests becoming increasingly difficult to control," explains Professor Gatehouse.
"The development of insect-resistant rice varieties is seen as a viable and ecologically sustainable approach for controlling these devastating insect pests."
Serotonin - mood regulator and appetite booster
Serotonin is ubiquitous across all forms of life and in mammals it is an important neurotransmitter.
In humans, serotonin helps to regulate mood, boost our appetite, regulate digestion and helps with sleep and memory.
In plants, serotonin is involved in growth and development, while in insects it is used to seek out resources and food.
Analysing the plant's response to insect attack, the team found both serotonin and salicylic acid were produced in response to an infestation but supressing serotonin production made the rice plants more pest-resistant.
And by disabling the gene responsible for making serotonin, the team were able to further increase levels of salicylic acid in the plant and increase its resistance.
Reference: 'Resistance of rice to insect pests mediated by suppression of serotonin biosynthesis'
DOI: 10.1038/s41477-018-0152-7.
Last updated 15 May 2018 © Newcastle University


Wild animals can pose a serious risk when allowed to come into regular contact with humans. A co-existing scenario is not possible when talking about wildlife. Living at home with an animal at large can be a scary thought. This is quite possible if you live in the Golden area. Raccoons, skunks, rats, bats and squirrels, are some of the animals that are constantly foraying into homes and buildings and are a pain in Golden wildlife removal cases. Apart from the annoying experience of running around to catch an animal, these animals can potentially damage the structure of your house and are a threat to the health of people staying in.
Wildlife infestation in homes can be eliminated by using the services of a professional. This is the safest and easiest way of getting rid of unwanted animals from your house or office. The most popular methods used for wildlife removal are discussed here.
Traps: Trapping an animal is quick and effective method of removal from premises. Traps can be laid out on the entry or exit routes of the site that has become a host to the animals. Others like armadillos are only susceptible to traps. Trapping is ethical also, as the animals are relocated to their natural habitat after getting caught.
Live removal: Live removal is possible in cases where the animals are small and unable to attack. Most of the animals that usually cause trouble in homes carry diseases like rabies and plague with them. So, a live removal has to be avoided when doing alone. Professional servicemen are trained to sort out such situations and therefore, should be the first choice when live removal is to be attempted.
Some animals require special ways of removal. Creatures such as bats should not be trapped. Bet netting and exclusion cones are made just for the purpose of keeping bats out of the house. Similarly, armadillos don't eat anything other than insects or grubs. So trapping them can be problematic, as precise trap placement is necessary. For pests like moles, killing traps have to be used to control the population. Snakes, on the other hand, can be very dangerous and should never be attempted to trap by you.
When relocating or removing an animal from your house, it may be required to get approval from the authorities. A professional service firm will handle all these responsibilities, lessening your work even more. Pest control can also work in the removal of wildlife, but it involves killing the animal to remove it from the place. As such, removal techniques are generally preferred, due to their more humane approach towards solving the problem. Pest control measures should be used, only when no other option is viable.
Removal can be a painful job. It can get worse if the infestation has gone on for a long time and there's a whole settlement up your attic. Deterring the animals from straying into your premises can save a lot of trouble later on. Also, you should get your house checked as soon as you see signs of wildlife inside. As any Golden wildlife removal personnel will testify, prevention can take you a long way in curbing this problem.


text:
GOOGLE CHALLENGED OVER LOCATION TRACKING
Google has been accused of flouting European data protection laws when it tracks users' locations.
A coalition of seven consumer organizations is filing complaints with local data protection regulators over Google's tracking system.
The complaints draw on research by one coalition member, which alleges people are forced to use the location system.
Google said tracking was turned off by default and could be paused at any time by users.
In a statement, the coalition said Google used "deceptive practices" to make people turn on its different tracking systems. Consent, it said, was not being freely given.
In addition, it alleged, Google did not give "straightforward information" about what surrendering the data entailed.
Location data could give deep insights into someone's lifestyle including their religious beliefs, political activity, health, and sexual orientation, said the statement.
"These unfair practices leave consumers in the dark about the use of their personal data," said BEUC, speaking for the consumer groups.
Organizations in the Netherlands, Poland, Greece, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, and the Czech Republic all plan to file complaints to their local regulators under Europe's General Data Protection Regulation.
The seven organizations are members of BEUC – an umbrella group that represents and lobbies for European consumer advocacy groups in Brussels.
In response, Google said: "Location history is turned off by default and you can edit, delete, or pause it at any time.
"If it's on, it helps to improve services like predicted traffic on your commute," it added.
Anyone who did pause tracking was told that Google might still, "depending on your individual phone and app settings", collect data about where people went, it said.
"We're constantly working to improve our controls and we'll be reading this report closely to see if there are things we can take on board," said Google.


Green Room Gardens is owned and run by Colin O'Reilly. Colin has nearly 20 years experience in horticulture and landscaping. He started as a trainee groundsman at Milton Agriculture and horticulture (now the College of west Anglia) where he attended classes and looked after the greenhouses and grounds for 2 years. He then joined the ground maintenance teams of Cambridgeshire District Council for 2 years looking after school sites and public parks around Cambridgeshire.
After leaving the maintenance teams, Colin then worked for 3 different landscaping companies, one of the companies is renowned through out the region and regularly picks up awards in national competitions, this is where Colin learnt and perfected his skills. After working his way up to foreman, and being in charge of a team and organising complete projects, Colin took the next step and set up his own company Green Room Gardens.
Green Room Gardens operates mainly around Cambridgeshire and surrounding areas.


text:
News | Middle East and Africa
Going nuclear in Iran
Ever closer to getting the bomb
The Iranian government's first and biggest hope for 2009 is, unsurprisingly, that its country will not be bombed—either by Israel or by an American administration, especially the outgoing one in its dying weeks. So it will try to spin out talks with the six-country negotiating group (China, Russia, the United States and the European trio of Britain, France and Germany) for as long as possible, as before. It will carry on playing cat and mouse with the increasingly frustrated International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog. Meanwhile, it will continue to enrich uranium, getting ever closer to the point where it will be able to make a nuclear bomb. Indeed, it is likely, within a few years, to achieve that aim.
Mr Khamenei takes aim
Thanks to Russia's falling-out with America, Iran should also be safe from wider or tighter UN sanctions. The Russians will probably veto another round of them in the UN Security Council.
Even so, Iran's economy is in dire straits, despite its oil. If the price of oil keeps dropping, popular dissatisfaction will rise. As it is, Iranian living standards will go on falling. But there is virtually no mass opposition to the regime, and little likelihood of it brewing up in 2009. So the regime, though pained by sanctions, will reckon on surviving them.
The biggest political event in Iran's calendar will be the presidential election. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent, is widely considered to have messed up the economy, so more pragmatic leaders will bid to oust him. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who opposes Mr Ahmadinejad, is ineligible to run, because he will turn 75 in February, but Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament, and Muhammad Khatami, another former president, may stand for the pragmatists' wing. As before, out-and-out reformers will be barred by vetting councils of conservative clerics.
The final say in all policy, including nuclear issues, will remain with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. Despite rumours that he is annoyed with Mr Ahmadinejad, Mr Khamenei has broadly backed him. A few pragmatists have suggested a wider election for the supreme leader and fixed seven-year terms of office; Mr Khamenei has held power since succeeding the revolution's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on his death in 1989. He will be 70 in July, and is said to be in good health.
Whether or not Mr Ahmadinejad hangs on, Mr Khamenei is likely to stay in ultimate power for a good many years yet. Especially if Iran manages not to be bombed in 2009, he will continue the campaign to achieve nuclear capability—and will ensure that Iran remains a thorn in America's side in the region.


text:
GE Calibration & Maintenance
Getting your eggs in one ba...
Back to GE Calibration & Maintenance
Getting your eggs in one basket the fast and accurate way
Robot palletising technology is transforming industry and as CKF shows, it can even cope with the delicate job of packing eggs fast.
Supplying goods to UK supermarkets is a demanding and highly competitive arena with the focus on producing faster and better.
When it comes to something as delicate as a chicken egg, greater speed can impact the number of breakages that occur with a knock back effect on costs.
One long-standing and major supplier of eggs to many of the UK's leading supermarkets needed to reduce the number of its eggs that were damaged, increase throughput and reduce the amount of manual handling involved, reducing costs and increasing safety.
The firm turned to CKF which was commissioned to automate their packing at one of the client's two sites.
CKF designed and manufactured a cutting-edge egg packing and palletising systems that aimed to dramatically improving their customer's operations.
"We encountered a number of issues through the planning and implementation of this project due to the variety in pack materials," explains Chris Young, project engineer, CKF Systems.
If the lid is not closed or the date is incorrect or missing, the product is rejected and sent to the reject conveyor for removal
Their existing out-feed egg packing system fills cartons of various sizes and materials and closes their lids. It previously fed the eggs to a manual packing station.
The new system, installed into the existing system, was made to feed the filled and closed cartons onto the out-feed conveyor. The set-up is determined by their current production requirements.
This solution includes a vision system which verifies that the use-by date has been included and that the lid is closed. If the lid is not closed or the date is incorrect or missing, the product is rejected and sent to the reject conveyor for removal.
Automating this process means faulty product is removed swiftly from the line, preventing it reaching the customer and ensuring the quality of the end product. If the product passes the test then the egg carton is transferred onto the collation infeed conveyor unit which transfers and orientates the product correctly, ready to be conveyed to the box splitter unit.
Where two packs of six-egg cartons are joined and need to be split, the box splitter unit is used to split the cartons using a blade without damaging the eggs. The box splitter can cut both pulp and plastic. The solution has a product spacing unit which uses pneumatic stop gates to ensure there is a set amount of space between the cartons of eggs or group of egg cartons to allow for pack orientation or for repositioning into the correct lane.
Palletising the egg cartons
A low back pressure chain roller conveyor moves the egg cartons through to the robot sorting collation conveyor. The sorting modular belt conveyor encoder is used to track the cartons' positions, enabling the sorting robot to reposition the packs thus creating the required collation.
The system utilises an ABB IRB1200 sorting robot system to arrange cartons into specific patterns on the sorting modular belt conveyors. The type of carton and the type of container determine the collation pattern, says Young: "Being able to handle different materials was absolutely vital."


text:
Fire Without Flame
Precious metals in your car burn up the dirty exhaust, with no flame to be seen
By Theodore Gray | Published Jan 29, 2008 11:14 PM
Invisible propane gas flows, unlit, from a torch. On hitting the rhodium-studded ceramic honeycomb from a catalytic converter, it burns without flame, heating the ceramic red-hot.
To a chemist, burning means the rapid combination of a fuel with oxygen, called oxidation. You might say, for instance, "Oh, no, we didn't have a fire at the nuclear power plant, we just had a 'rapid oxidation event,' " a phrase that won officials at Three Mile Island the Doublespeak Award in 1979.
When gasoline or propane burns in air, the result is a bright flame—fire in the traditional sense. But there are other ways to combine these fuels rapidly with air. The catalytic converter in your car is a perfect example. Most contain a ceramic honeycomb studded with microscopic particles of platinum, palladium or rhodium. Among other functions, these metals split oxygen molecules that land on their surface into more-reactive single oxygen atoms, which can combine with fuel at a much lower temperature than in a flame.
In cars, this burns uncombusted fuel to reduce its polluting effect. But if you give a catalytic converter a richer stream of fuel—say, by blowing an unlit propane torch at it—it will glow red-hot for as long as you keep the gas on, even though the gas isn't hot when it hits the ceramic and you see no flame.
This starts working only once the catalyst reaches a few hundred degrees, so you have to heat the ceramic first. I did this with a lit torch and then quickly turned the gas off and on again to extinguish the flame. It takes awhile to get the converter hot enough to do its job, which is one reason city driving creates more pollution than highway driving.
It's unfortunate for automakers that this works only with very expensive metals. Ford Motor Company once lost a billion dollars speculating in the palladium market trying to secure a steady supply. But compared with cities full of smog, it's a small price to pay.
Like what you see? For more Gray Matter, subscribe to our Gray-Matter-only RSS feed here or see the full list of projects at popsci.com/graymatter. And for Theodore Gray's one-of-a-kind periodic table poster, head to periodictable.com/posters
Science and Technology Videos
Take control of your audio and video files on Windows 11.
How to avoid seeing yourself on video calls
Sometimes you can't turn your camera off but you still want to stay out of view.
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It's not as easy as select > rename.


text:
Thomas M. "Toby" Tobin
July 10, 1937 ~ December 2, 2018 (age 81)
Mr. Thomas M. "Toby" Tobin, 81, a resident of Plains Township, entered into Eternal Life Sunday morning in the care of the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital following an illness.
Born on July 10, 1937 in Edwardsville, he was one of two sons to the late Thomas J. and Margaret (Gabler) Tobin. Educated in the Edwardsville schools, he was a member of the 1955 graduating class of the former Edwardsville High School. It was during those years Toby excelled as an athlete, being a member of the football team. He and his teammates won co-championship of the West Side Conference in 1954.
His glory days didn't end after graduation. Toby was instrumental in organizing the many annual class reunions shared over the years almost single-handedly for his classmates of whom he would keep updated through emails.
He and his brother Jim owned and operated Tobin Brothers Roofing and Siding where he remained active for some 45 years.
In his spare time, Toby kept his athletic abilities sharp as an avid bowler, golfer and also enjoyed playing basketball and baseball. His skills in bowling garnered him a perfect "300" game, enlisting him in the Wyoming Valley Bowler's Hall of Fame in 2000. He also was a member of the Northeast Pennsylvania Senior Golf League at Emanon Country Club in Falls.
Devoted to his Catholic faith, Toby was a member of the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola in Kingston where he served religiously as an usher for 10:30 a.m. Sunday Mass over thirty-seven years.
Despite his involvement in church, bowling, golfing and class reunions, Toby is probably best known for being half of the locally popular Tobin Brothers Band. A consummate performer, he and Jimmy would play music for local social halls and events. Above all, he is most notably remembered for his quick wit and ability to bring laughter to his audience through the many skits and impersonations he would perform. He will be greatly missed by all those who knew and loved him.
He and his wife, the former Sharon Hester celebrated thirty-seven years of married life together on October 10th of this year.
Left to cherish his wonderful memory in addition to Sharon at home are his brother James Tobin of Edwardsville; Sisters-in-law, Pat Wiggins of Port Hadlock, WA; Linda Jones and Martha Hester of Plains Township; Nieces, nephews including his godson, John Karazia Jr.; numerous cousins and dear friends.
Funeral services for Toby will be conducted on Wednesday at 9:45 a.m. from the North Wilkes-Barre location of the John V. Morris Family Funeral Homes Inc., 625 North Main Street, followed by a Funeral Mass at 10:30 a.m. in the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, 335 North Maple Avenue, Kingston. The Reverend Joseph J. Mosely, parochial vicar, will serve as celebrant and homilist.
Interment with the Rite of Committal will follow in the parish cemetery, Hoyt Street, Pringle.
Relatives and friends may join Toby's family for visitation and remembrances Tuesday evening at the funeral home from 4:00 until 7:00 p.m.


BestSecretary . xAdamxEvax. MilaYong. UncutHairyHunk.
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JenniferSaintLaylaGoldLaylaGoldAronTaylor .xAdamxEvaxJonahMercuryyurBIGdomMISTRESSTHIAGOCUTE .JonahMercuryyaprilcollRastaInkBLONDESMELLING .MayaHotBabeXtattoedstudShuYengNoelyandRose .NancyClaireJoeMcnastyMagdarinaSAMUELBROWN .aprilcollDIVAKITTY1Micka2Hot1RusianBarbieX .boygaysexBLONDESMELLINGJaxBrayLoveEleanora .LovelySarahXxXJolieDarkLeoNIGHTKmoney24 .JhennaGreychocolatebabbyJonahMercuryyLiitlegirl .SiennaMiconiLovelySarahXxXLaylaGoldGoldieAnnaFR .NaimahSiennaMiconi01AmazingAss88LavishCole .


text:
Nik Krasno, Galaxy of Authors
Nik Krasno
'Time to fill the glasses (…and then empty them).'
Smashwords author page
Mortal Showdown review
In the beginning…tell me what made you decide to start writing?
I think almost everyone wishes to write a book. Usually, it's just a momentarily thought and they don't follow through with it. Same thing with me. I thought I'd been witnessing incredible events unfolding in front of my eyes that deserved a story. I had an outline and a few scenes. I doubt I would've actually written an entire book were it not for my good friend and published non-fiction author, who took a look at what I had and got enthusiastic about the idea.. So we've done the first book together. After that I just contracted this writing disease -:)
Are there any authors or artists who influence(d) you?
Not so much consciously, however to a certain degree, I guess Oligarch has similarities with The Godfather, but – Russian style. Irvine Welsh inspired not to stay away from grit, filth and literary mischief (and I like mischief), while Tarantino and Guy Richie evoked the desire to compete in action and grotesque.
Tell me about your series.
Big money – big risks. In order to survive Michael needs to prevail. How? Magnates would rather you never read it….
Michael (Misha) is just a little boy, when his father is prosecuted and sent away to Siberia. From a luxurious living Misha's reduced to survival and poverty, but he vows it's not for long.
Mikhail climbs the ladder, caring less about the means, his eyes on the target – to become rich. Very rich. The richest. Achievable? Unlikely, allowing for the opposition he confronts when reaching each next level of affluence. But money already becomes his life…
Is the Big Bang of the USSR a hurdle? More an advantage for a shady businessman like him, who never follows the rules and who soon gets into the position to impose his own.
His wealth grows, but the higher he goes, the more resistance he encounters and the farther the extent his enemies are willing to go against him.
Blood? It comes pretty soon.
Corruption? Plenty. And lots of debauchery to overcome the stress of every day struggle. That's his story: snappy, gritty, uncomfortable, compelling. Big money, big trouble, big balls.
Tell me about a principal character in your book(s). What makes them memorable?
Michael is a complex personage. On the one hand – a natural born swindler, a ruthless thug, a cunning businessman, cynical politician, living according to his own gangster-like code. On the other hand – a loving son and father, true friend, an idealist of a sort consumed by the constant internal struggle between greed and purpose. Long way, high toll – he becomes a billionaire. But was it really a worthy purpose?
Indie, or traditionally published – and why?
Me? I'm indie, but not by choice. Seeing little interest from agents and having a ready-made book crying to be released, we let it go. With the following I didn't bother to pitch the agents. Of course, indie route offers fewer constraints from any side, but it equally demands a lot of investment in marketing to give your books some exposure and that's something I neither know nor want to deal with. Thus, I'd rather outsource the 'biz' part, which trad publishers still know how to do.
Tell me what you feel the worst, and the best, aspects of being an author are, and why.
The worst – you have to deal with rejection of your creation in the form of negative reviews or disinterest. That's on emotional level. On practical, if you are an indie – marketing and stuff is really time-consuming and there is no promise that it'll ever bear fruit. The best – 'writing' provides a plausibly-sounding excuse for skipping house chores-:)
Are you a plotter, or a pantser? What do you think of the opposite approach?
I usually have a general outline where I want the story to go, but I let the scenes flow.. Whatever works is fine, in my opinion.
Secrets – not so much, but ideas – sure. You don't expect much from implanting them into fiction books, but I do hope some of them will trigger extra-curricular thinking effort -:)
Tell me about one favourite hobby or pastime that isn't writing or reading.
I hang out a lot at 'Wealth, Writing, World' group on Goodreads, which I'm honored to co-moderate, and that's probably a fave pastime. It encompasses authors, readers, bloggers, but first of all – lots of cool people from various locations, with diverse background, from teenagers to 80+ years old. I enjoy and learn a lot, being its part. And there are always drinking companions online -:)
If you could, would you live in the world you've created? Why / why not?
I depict our world, but with the purpose and hope to make it better!
If you could go back to the start of your writing career, what is the one piece of advice you'd give yourself?
'Don't do it, mate', maybe? -:)
Nik, thank you for participating in Galaxy of Authors!
Chris Tullbane, Galaxy of Authors
Galaxy of Authors: Keyla Damaer
J I Rogers, Galaxy of Authors
F Stephan, Galaxy of Authors
C Rene Astle, Galaxy of Authors


Melbourne Theatre Company is delighted to announce the 12 new participants in its 2018 Women in Theatre Program.
Commencing in February, this year's successful applicants are Anne Bravos (Scenic Art), Kat Chan (Set & Costume Design), Siobhan Connors (Emerging Producer), Tahli Corin (Artistic Director), Susannah Day (Executive Director & Operations), Tasnim Hossain (Dramaturgy & Literary Management), Anna Kerrigan (Education & Outreach), Lauren Makin (Production Management), Sidney Millar (Sound Design & Composition), Scarlet McGlynn (Director), Clare Springett (Lighting Design) and Katy Warner (Playwright).
MTC Artistic Director Brett Sheehy said, 'It's with great pleasure that we welcome these 12 participants to the 2018 program and to MTC as they commence a year-long journey with us. Each year as we select and announce the new participants for our Women in Theatre program, I am struck by the talent of applicants from all areas of the industry and the burning desire for opportunities to network and grow their careers.
MTC's Women in Theatre Program is a 12 month career development initiative that pairs each participant with a mentor in their chosen field and provides a calendar of networking opportunities, leadership training and workshops covering a range of topics to afford participants with a rounded understanding of how a major performing arts company operates.
Now in its fifth year, MTC's Women in Theatre Program has supported 45 theatre professionals in their career development to date and continues to provide invaluable opportunities for women working in the sector. In 2018 the program includes participants working in education and scenic art for the first time.
This MTC initiative was established in 2014 as the Women Directors Program and later expanded in 2016 to the Women in Theatre Program to include a broader range of disciplines. Since 2016 it has been supported by MTC's Women in Theatre Giving Circle.


On our Birding & Natural History Tour you can experience the outdoors by a Guided (combined) Driving, Walking Tour. Your Adventure will take place in the State Parks &/or on different Ranches & Private properties not open to the general public. Depending on what Birds you want to see we will take you to the crystal clear Frio, Nueces or Sabinal River Canyons and miles of beautiful rugged Hill Country.
With our Entertaining & Educational Natural History/ Birding Tour you will learn about some Geology of the Edwards Plateau, Native Peoples, Medicinal & Edible Plants, Wildflowers, Grasses, Birds, Butterflies, Insects, Animals & more.
Have your camera & binoculars ready for your guided Tour. Where you can catch a glimpse of some of the many wonderful Specialty Birds & Butterfly found in our area. Plus White-tail deer, Axis deer, lizards & many other critters.
*Requests for all day tours prompted us to add all day trips.
15 min. from Utopia, 15 min. from Leakey, 40 min. from Uvalde.
Rio Frio Lodging & Hill Country Adventure Tours; come in & park in parking area.
Rio Frio Lodging & Hill Country Adventure Tours.
*Guide will meet you in Office or on Porch. If you have room in your car he/ or she can ride with you. This cuts down on our liability & we can talk to you & point out birds or interesting sites.
eggs or baby Bluebirds & other small cavity nesting birds.


text:
Q: How configure daterange filter in SonataAdminBundle? I have the next issue.
In admin class
    protected function configureDatagridFilters(DatagridMapper $datagridMapper)
{
    $datagridMapper
        ->add('createdAt', 'doctrine_orm_date_range', array('field_type'=>'sonata_type_date_range_picker',))
            ;}

But when I try to apply it I have next error, seems it could not parse input filter fields and the filtering is not happening. Look at the screenshot  screenshot please.

A: Mabey try to set format for this field (any). Like as:
protected function configureDatagridFilters(DatagridMapper $datagridMapper)
{
    $datagridMapper
        ->add('createdAt', 'doctrine_orm_date_range', array(
            'field_type' => 'sonata_type_date_range_picker',
                'field_options' => [
                    'field_options' => [
                        'format' => 'yyyy-MM-dd'
                     ],
                ]
        ))
    ;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Chalinula confusa är en svampdjursart som först beskrevs av Arthur Dendy 1922.  Chalinula confusa ingår i släktet Chalinula och familjen Chalinidae.

Artens utbredningsområde är Seychellerna. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Horn- och kiselsvampar
confusa

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
package labels

import (
	"bytes"
	"log"
	"os"

	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/internal/plugins/builtinconfig"
	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/kyaml/kio"
)

func ExampleFilter() {
	fss := builtinconfig.MakeDefaultConfig().CommonLabels
	err := kio.Pipeline{
		Inputs: []kio.Reader{&kio.ByteReader{Reader: bytes.NewBufferString(`
apiVersion: example.com/v1
kind: Foo
metadata:
  name: instance
---
apiVersion: example.com/v1
kind: Bar
metadata:
  name: instance
`)}},
		Filters: []kio.Filter{Filter{
			Labels: map[string]string{
				"foo": "bar",
			},
			FsSlice: fss,
		}},
		Outputs: []kio.Writer{kio.ByteWriter{Writer: os.Stdout}},
	}.Execute()
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	// Output:
	// apiVersion: example.com/v1
	// kind: Foo
	// metadata:
	//   name: instance
	//   labels:
	//     foo: bar
	// ---
	// apiVersion: example.com/v1
	// kind: Bar
	// metadata:
	//   name: instance
	//   labels:
	//     foo: bar
}


text:
SBC Bulletin, December 20, 2021
As we approach the end of another year, there is a flurry of activity that takes place in our office, our home, and at the border. This holiday season we are thankful for the reopening of borders to most people, the end of a difficult period for many merchants, the access to vaccines, and the renewed hope of better days to come. We also remember those we lost along the way, the families and friends who loved them, people who had a long bout with the virus and survived it, the businesses that closed their doors forever, and the people affected because of it.
Our board of directors met on December 2nd at SIMNSA in Tijuana. There was great curiosity about Frank Carrillo's investment to modernize and increase the square footage of the facility. Well, he did not disappoint. The place is nothing short of spectacular, with is spacious lobbies, urgent care area and operating rooms, electric escalators, use of display technology and friendly personnel.
The investment is well over $100 million. Above all, Frank is making a statement about his belief in the future of medicine and medical tourism in Tijuana. He sees the industry growing several fold in the next decade. With 400 physicians and 1,000 employees, SIMNSA already serves at least 2,000 patients daily and will now have room for many more.
An important part of our discussion at the board of directors meeting was about how the coalition grows in stature. I invited Rafael Fernandez de Castro, Director of the Center for US-Mexican Studies at UCSD, to facilitate the dialogue. In the end, it is rather important that we change the way we do things as a border region in the areas of advocacy, governance and relationships.
Fernandez de Castro put forth a controversial thesis: Covid-19 unveiled the fact that cross-border coordination is still far away from being ideal. Washington, D.C. continues to monopolize decisions at the border, and Mexico City has marginal decision making and influence. Second, the region's lobbying efforts are outdated: There is little lobbying in the first place and there is no strategy to lobby Congress.
Third, we lack the appropriate mechanisms for dialogue: We do not have enough governance --forums such as the Border Governors Conference, have disappeared-- and the City Mayors organization has been farmed out to a D.C. think tank.
He strongly suggested the creation of a grand "Smart CaliBaja Coalition" to manage the various issues.
The Tijuana Development Council's Tomás Pérez Vragas has been busy at work with a parks system and mobility issues. Luis Lutteroth, the current President, has tapped Pérez-Vargas to lead the organization's efforts to create dozens of parks in Tijuana and to accelerate mobility efforts to get fewer people to use vehicles and find ways to leverage technology to obtain sorely needed data to better understand why and where people travel.
At CDT's Holiday party at the Lutteroth "compound" near the Club Campestre, it was evident that there is a renewed effort to make sure projects get done, but it is also clear that funding is a great concern. Typically, funds for EDC and business association enabled projects in Baja California come out of a 5% payroll tax. In recent years, state governments had not abided by the fund's stated purpose, diverting resources for other, many times unspecified, needs.
Consequently, Tijuana faced a $200 million peso deficit for the 2020-2021 years. Instead of paying CDT with money transfers, the former state government opted to give away tracts of land in Tijuana whose claimed value was debatable, to say the least.
The new state government is currently reviewing the obligations left by the previous public administration and will hopefully go back to the model of collecting payroll taxes and channeling them to productive civil society and business association projects.
I don't always agree with Jason Wells of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, but some of his opinions are spot on. For starters, he talks about a "balance" we had some 12 years ago when security and economy were both given equal importance by the federal government and CBP, thus allowing for shorter wait times.
Back in 2010, Alan Bersin was CBP Commissioner, overseeing the 57,000-employee work force. Bersin understood the equilibrium we needed to have between trade and security. He has been associated with the border since then, having occupied positions as Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security until January of 2017.
Wells also states that border communities as a whole do not have adequate representation in D.C. This is quite evident in our day-to-day dialogues with the crossing community as well as our local authorities. I realize that our Congressional delegation has done good things for our region, but it has fallen far short of where we need to be.
Now, with Chris Magnus as new CBP chief in Washington, D.C., we are hopeful that we can return to an era of more balance. And with our very own Pete Flores stepping away from his 11-year role as Director of Field Operations in our sector and becoming Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations in D.C., we will have a strategic connection to CBP.
Our Border Trade Alliance board meeting in mid-November featured Armando Taboada, head of CBP in Laredo, Texas. He listed a slew of important facts we should keep in mind. The Del Rio, Texas border crossing was shut down for one entire week due to migrant camps and attempts at crossing. This was the first time in 34 years we had seen a closure. And to give you a sense for the importance of Texas as a trading state, there are 23 ports of entry with commercial facilities on the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as 96 commercial lanes. 47 of these lanes –49% of the total-- are in Laredo, and four more will be added this year at the city's World Trade Bridge!
The November meeting of our US-Mexico Foundation C26+ group looked at trade and people movement changes at our border as well as expectations. My experienced colleague Gerry Schwebel, Executive Vice President of IBC Bank in South Texas, has truly great expectations for the border, including "maintaining a strong supply chain network", anticipating a much "stronger binational infrastructure planning effort", and eyeing a "technology infrastructure movement." Another colleague, Karyl Fowler of startup sensation Transmute (www.transmute.industries), sees interoperable data sharing and technology integration in the steel, automotive and ecommerce sectors as keys to a new, digitized border.
There are challenges such as CBP imposed disruptions with pilots. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, and sometimes they last far too long. The end result is that we have multiple pilots but infrequent implementations. Another challenge is CTPAT, the program that allows for more expedited trade for trusted shippers. Its growth has been stagnant.
The Smart Border Coalition recently launched a CaliBaja Travel Experience Task Force to galvanize efforts from various groups to advocate for better
flowing borders. We have a lot of pressure to perform as a region, and though CaliBaja is known for its innovative cross-border dynamic and its collaboration, there is much to improve.
Let's take lobbying as an example. While there are groups and companies across the U.S. that devote millions to getting the word out about what they want, creating sophisticated campaigns and reaping the benefits of organized and well-funded work, we as a region cannot claim to have such organization or firepower. We are characterized by groups doing significant yet mostly isolated efforts to advocate for border issues, but it is in doing things together that we are going to get a bigger bang for the buck.
WinWerks continues to present their water treatment projects for Baja California as a complement to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding on the U.S. side of the border. The EPA has already chosen a set of solutions for the Tijuana River Valley (TRV), which it presented late last month. The Mexican Government, through the Foreign Relations Ministry (SRE) has developed a 15-project plan for water use and treatment along the entire Mexican border with the U.S., and 7 of these projects are in Tijuana. Their value is in the 500 million dollar range. However, Tijuana projects do not address water treatment and reuse. They focus on fixing an outdated distribution and collection system. I was surprised to see this as the sole objective.
I made a statement at Nadbank's December 3rd public meeting that in part addressed the latest positive news about the bank's decision to expand the scope of projects it handles, whether loans or grants. Essentially, I asked the bank to expand its grant making capacity in 4 areas.
The first is an opportunity to grant seed money to a mobility as a service solution (MaaS) that allows passengers in vehicles to book themselves before they go to the border, thus allowing them to wait at home and not in line. The
second is to work with our coalition to fund a Qualcomm-based Smart City program to enable traveler data at the border. The third option is to work with border communities and CBP to fund staffing for our ports of entry. The last point focused on supporting United States companies that have practical, technically and economically sound strategies to treat and reuse water in Tijuana.
Olivia Graeve, UCSD Professor and head of the University's Center for Resilient Materials and Systems, has walked the binational walk all her life. Back in 2013 she launched a virtual summer research experience called ENLACE (http://resilientmaterials.ucsd.edu/ENLACE) for high school and college students from Tijuana and San Diego. Next summer she expects 200 students. She is working on the CaliBaja Symposium for 2022 to highlight ENLACE and its graduates. She is planning for a huge celebration with over 500 guests!
It was excellent to see Mayor Todd Gloria next to Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas on December 7th. Mayorkas referred to Mayor Gloria as his "partner" and underscored the collaboration with the City of San Diego. In part, Mayorkas was celebrating border economic prosperity with the lifting of restrictions to non-essential travel so long as travelers show proof of Covid-19 vaccination.
Kudos to Paola Avila, the Mayor's Chief of Staff, for having a hand in a strategy to show Gloria's "muscle" as the Mayor of the largest city along the border. I am convinced this strategy will continue to bear fruit.
I appreciated the opportunity to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, EPA Director Michael Regan, IBWC chief Maria Elena Giner and CILA
Director Adriana Resendez in the context of EPA's new water treatment solution for the Tijuana River Valley. Mexico's Foreign Relations Ministry was also present. Leading the Mexican group was Roberto Velasco, Chief for North America, with Consul General Carlos González Gutiérrez. I was also joined by Baja California's Water Management, Sanitation and Protection Secretary, Francisco Robledo.
It is increasingly clear to me that these top level people want to solve the Tijuana River Valley crisis once and for all and that there is real camaraderie between them. I want to thank our host, Consul General Tom Reott of the Tijuana Consulate, for making this possible.
Air quality at the border is now a "thing." In the months and years to come, the quality of the air we breathe, particularly at or close to the ports of entry, will be a significant factor in our approach to elected officials and organizations like Nadbank. For decades, crossers on foot and in vehicles have been subjected to abnormal levels of toxic fumes. We have not yet scratched the surface of the health impact these conditions have wrought. It is time we not only monitor the air but use our learnings to influence policy.
In Mexicali, there is an organization called Redspira (https://www.redspira.org/) that has done more to monitor air quality at the border than any other organization. Its founder, Alberto Mexía, is an entrepreneur (www. www.certuit.com) who funds most of the needs of the small organization. In the last few years, he has been able to set up 150 monitors in different households and businesses in the Mexicali Valley and has an incredible amount of data coming from all neighborhoods in the city and valley. Thanks to his efforts, the Imperial Valley, CalEPA, and others have taken notice. A $50,000 dollar donation from Imperial Valley allowed Alberto to set up most of the sensors in place today. He has partnered with the Comité Cívico Ambiental de Mexicali (www.facebook.com/comitecivicoambiental/) to get the word out, in turn creating various educational campaigns, primarily in elementary schools.
It is conscientious and "invested" people such as Alberto who will help us move the needle on environmental justice for all borderlanders.
Maria Elena Giner, International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) Director, met with me and a very successful water treatment expert to discuss Tijuana River Valley (TRV) treatment and reuse needs on the Mexican side of the border. The meeting was especially useful since the EPA has just approved a comprehensive water treatment plan for the TRV on the U.S. side of the border.
The EPA will be working hand-in-hand with the IBWC for years to come due to the approved $300 million for water treatment and water pollution prevention in the United States. There will be another $300 million needed to complete the U.S. side. The expansion of the International Waste Water Treatment Plant's capacity in San Diego will be subject to an upcoming bid.
To dispel any confusion, the role of the IBWC is to apply boundary and water treaties between the U.S. and Mexico and settling differences that may arise in their application. It is technology agnostic, is not an entity that does public-private partnerships, does not given out concessions of any type and does not assume debt of any kind.
It was indeed a pleasure to speak with Senator Toni Atkins, current President of the California State Senate. She is a San Diegan with a wealth of experience in government and someone who is deeply concerned about the quality of our air and water at the border, among other aspects of the cross-border relationship. The Senator and I discussed many issues, including vehicles and used tires imported illegally into Baja California, long wait times and the effect on people's health, Otay Mesa East Port of Entry, and cargo rail crossing at Tecate. She has two very dynamic and sharp people at her side in district representative Diana Lara and policy director Deanna Spehn.
Our next online Stakeholders Working Committee meeting will convene on January 13, 2022 from 9:00AM to 11:00AM in San Diego. You have been receiving invitations. Please register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcldeCgrzgvHN37YaqAp1psbns6ozq6m5TX
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Gustavo De La Fuente
gdelafuente@smartbordercoalition.com / (619) 814-1386


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What is the Turnpike Widening Program's current schedule?
The Authority has recently completed the Preliminary Engineering and Environmental Investigation Phase of the Program and is transitioning into the Final Design Phase. Construction activities are scheduled to commence in 2009 and be completed in 2014.
Will the Authority be conducting Public Hearings for the Widening Program?
Yes. The Authority held Executive Order 172 Public Hearings for the Widening Program in September of 2007.
Has an Environmental Impact State (EIS) been prepared for the Program?
Yes. A copy of the EIS, dated January 2007, is available for review in "Available Documents" located under Widening Program Overview in the left hand navigation bar.
Will Noise Barriers be constructed as part of the Widening Program?
Yes. Preliminary Engineering has identified a total of ten locations within the Widening Program's corridor that warrant the construction of a Noise Barrier. These locations were depicted on the maps available at the Public Information Center held in December 2006 and will again be presented at the Executive Order 172 Public Hearings, anticipated to be conducted in the Summer of 2007.
When will I be notified that all, or part, of my property is needed for the Turnpike Widening Program?
As per the requirements of New Jersey's Eminent Domain Act of 1971 (N.J.S.A. 20:3-1 et seq.), if your property is needed, you will be contacted by the Authority's appraiser via certified mail. The purpose of the contact is to allow for you to have an opportunity to meet with the appraiser during his or her inspection of the property, in order to ask questions and provide information you consider relevant to the valuation process. At that time you will be provided a map depicting the parcel being acquired, accompanied by a narrative description. Once the appraisal is completed and approved by the Authority, you will be given a written offer of the amount believed to represent just compensation.
The Authority determines the just compensation amount to be offered the property owner in a two-step process. The appraiser researches the real estate market and presents an appraisal of the fair market value. A review appraiser evaluates that appraisal and recommends an amount for approval as the Authority's estimate of just compensation. Under no circumstances will this amount be less that the Authority's approved appraisal.
Must all offers to acquire property be made in writing?
The first time an offer to purchase is made; it must be in writing and be in the full amount of the approved appraisal. Subsequent formal offers and notices are also required to be in writing. This does not preclude the use of verbal discussions during negotiations to arrive at an agreed purchase price for the property.
What if the owner doesn't agree with the amount offered? Is condemnation the only solution when an agreement can't be reached on the purchase of property for the project?
The possibility of an administrative settlement should be explored. Authority officials may approve the use of an administrative settlement if it is reasonable, prudent and in the public interest. If all efforts to acquire the property by agreement fail, then the process of condemnation will be instituted. There are considerable protections for property owners established within this process. Among these are judicial review to ensure that the Authority has acted properly with respect to the governing statute; preliminary review by three independent commissioners, who will hear the evidence and render an award as to just compensation; if either side disagrees with the commissioner's award, it has the right to appeal for a formal trial of the matter in Superior Court.
Can property owners provide their own appraisal to the acquiring Authority?
Yes. The Authority will consider all relevant information in its negotiations with property owners.
When should property owners be paid for their property?
Property owners should be paid as quickly as possible under the applicable laws, on or before the time the owner is required to give up physical possession. This must occur when the property owner transfers title. The Authority will work with the property owner to resolve any liens against the property.
When can a property owner be required to turn possession of the property over to the Authority?
A property owner may voluntarily turn control of his or her property over to the Authority at any mutually agreeable time. The owner will not be required to give possession until the sale of the property is complete, payment is made and title transferred. In the case of property used for business, residence, or farm, the owner must be given a minimum 90-day notice in writing.
Qualified appraisers are those determined by the New Jersey Board of Real Estate Appraisers and the Authority to be capable to perform the appraisal work needed. Only those appraisers and review appraisers who have met the requirements of each agency will be hired.
How early can the Authority give a 90-day notice? Does it have to be written?
The notice must be in writing and can be given at the initiation of negotiations or later, providing at least 90 days advance notice of the specific date possession will be required. When given at the initiation of negotiations it will include an assurance that another notice will be given at least 30 days before the property needs to be vacated. This latter date shall not be any earlier than the date provided in the initial 90-day notice.
Can I talk to an attorney or get my own appraisal?
Yes. In order for you to make an informed decision about the offer, you may seek the advice and counsel of a private attorney. Expenses for doing so however, are not compensable under New Jersey law.
If the Authority determines that the remainder property has little or no value or utility to you, then it will make an additional offer to acquire the remainder property.
Will I have to move as a result of the Authority's project?
It depends on the effect a project has on the property you currently occupy. This determination will be made well in advance of your being required to move and a relocation agent will answer any questions you may have and will be available to provide relocation assistance to you throughout the process.
When should an interview be conducted with the owners of businesses being displaced?
General information can be included in a relocation plan, survey or study, or in an environmental document. Interviews with business owners and early advisory services are an important part of relocation planning, and are intended to facilitate the successful reestablishment of the business. Interviews should be conducted with enough lead-time to maximize the likelihood that information obtained from the interviews can assist in the successful relocation of the business. The Authority can conduct more than one interview with a business. The timing of the business interview(s) and planning may depend on the nature of the business and kind of issues involved in its relocation.
Can I refuse to move?
If the Authority satisfies all requirements of governing law for acquiring the property you own and/or occupy, whether it is acquired through negotiation or eminent domain, then you are required to move.
Will I have a say in where I choose to move?
If you are required to move from your principal residence (domicile), the Authority will assist you in locating and purchasing a comparable replacement residential dwelling, however, you may choose a new location and dwelling of your choice as long as it meets applicable housing standard requirements. There may be restrictions on the amount of financial assistance provided by the Authority in your purchase of a replacement dwelling and such restrictions will be explained to you in advance. If you are relocating a business, assistance is available to help you find a replacement location by providing listings of available properties for your consideration. You will be responsible for selecting a replacement location.
Yes, you will be reimbursed the actual, reasonable and necessary costs incurred for moving your personal property to a new location. You will also receive reimbursement of certain expenses that are necessary to purchase or rent and occupy a comparable replacement residential dwelling. A business is also eligible for reimbursement for the actual, reasonable and necessary costs incurred for moving personal property to a new location. A relocation agent will provide you with detailed information about these, and all other benefits eligible to you in this regard.
Yes, the Authority places a high priority on its provision of advisory services to persons who must relocate to accommodate a transportation project. You will be provided with the name, address and telephone number of a relocation agent who will be available to assist you throughout the moving process.
Is there a process available to contest the Authority's relocation assistance actions.


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Om Namo Venkatesaya 6th Day Total Box Office Collection: Get the Business Analysis of the Telugu Film
Om Namo Venkatesaya 6th Day Domestic Collection
Om Namo Venkatesaya Collection in Overseas on Day 6
Om Namo Venkatesaya Worldwide Collection on Day 6
Om Namo Venkatesaya Box Office Collection: It has been proved that the Telugu film industry doesn't have a dearth of talent with the release of K. Raghavendra Rao's Om Namo Venkatesaya. Being a devotional movie, it has touched the hearts of almost all the devotees of Baba Hathiram. Due to which Om Namo Venkatesaya box office collection has been coming out with flying colors with its earnings. Some reports have stated that the Nagarjuna and Anushka Shetty starrer Telugu movie has surpassed the 10 Crore mark globally, and now let's figure out the estimated earnings of Om Namo Venkatesaya 6th day total box office collection.
The moviegoers could not wait to witness Nagarjuna depicting the character of respected and notable Saint Baba Hathiram, and the grandeur in Anushka Shetty's outlook literally grabbed all eyeballs. Due to which viewers are still heading towards the multiplexes to watch the Telugu devotional movie. And now Om Namo Venkatesaya box office collection in India on its 6th day of release is anticipated to amass an amount of nearly Rs. 2.86 Crores.
South Indian movies fall under the category of highest grossing films and the recently released Nagarjuna starrer film has been acquiring decent amounts since its opening day. Even quite a few international audiences have given good reviews regarding the movie, due to which Om Namo Venkatesaya 6th day overseas collection may end up earning almost Rs. 0.67 Crores. But would there be a jaw-dropping rise in the earnings of Om Namo Venkatesaya total collection in the coming days?
Om Namo Venkatesaya total collection on its 6th day of release is speculated to settle down to an estimated figure of Rs. 3.53 Crores with an occupancy of nearly 39%. However, the Telugu devotional movie has attracted the maximum number of moviegoers from Nellore, Hyderabad and Guntur.
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Penguins scouting Versteeg and Arnott?
The Pittsburgh Penguins scouting efforts have amped up as the team looks to bolster their offensive attack and on Thursday night
the Penguins had multiple scouts in attendance for the Toronto Maple Leafs/New Jersey Devils game at the Air Canada Center.
Which teams have scouts in attendance is often over-rated but not at this time of the year, especially when Director of Player Personnel Dan MacKinnon and Director of Professional Scouting Derek Clancey are the ones in attendance, which was the case last night.
So who are the Penguins scouting?
Sources say the Penguins are doing their due dillgence on Toronto Maple Leafs winger Kris Versteeg and New Jersey Devils center Jason Arnott.
Both are potential new targets compared to past weeks, since the Penguins now have up to $9 million in cap space.
The Penguins are said to not be engaged in serious discussions with either club at this time, but have made preliminary inquiries into Versteeg. The Penguins made a play for Versteeg during the 2010 NHL draft, while Versteeg was a member of the Chicago Blackhawks. It is unclear if they intend to aggressively go after Versteeg again.
Right now he appears to just be a player whose getting some looks from a scouting standpoint.
However, a package centering around Eric Tangradi is believed to be what it would take for Pittsburgh to get into the mix. With the Leafs losing Francois Beauchemin and the likely departure of Tomas Kaberle, Alex Goligoski would surely become a player of interest for Toronto, but the Penguins wouldn't consider moving Goligoski in any package for Versteeg.
Interest in Jason Arnott is high around the league, with the Kings, Canadiens, Lightning, Bruins and Rangers among the teams actively looking for a center.
Sources say, the surging Devils are likely to wait until right up to the deadline to move Arnott.


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74 percent businesses comply with Covid-19 safety measures
Rajesh Rai | Phuentsholing
A recent survey of the business establishments in Phuentsholing showed that 74 percent of businesses in Phuentsholing follow the Covid-19 protocols mandated by the Southern Covid-19 taskforce.
As part of the day-long sensitisation and awareness programme on the Omicron variant and related Covid-19 safety protocols, 12 teams surveyed 572 shops, restaurants, and salons in the town.
These business establishments were inspected because they are considered high-risk areas since they come in contact with people every day.
Out of the 493 owners counted, 81 percent of them were found wearing surgical facemasks, out of which 66 percent were with three-ply masks.
Paan shops had poor compliance with safety protocols
Paan shops had the least compliance with the Covid-19 safety checklist with only 65 percent compliance, followed by photo labs (67 percent) and garment shops (69 percent). Over 74 paan shops were inspected.
Under this, the business community has approximately 84 percent compliance in ventilation adequacy, and 75 percent on hand washing. Only 28 percent of the businesses had signage encouraging people to leave the shop as soon as the shopping was done, and 43 percent had mechanisms to monitor safety compliance of staff and customers.
Most businesses (97 percent) used electronic transaction services.
Issues reported by business communities and recommendations
Several business firms have pointed out that they have a large amount of inventory, worth Nu 2.5 million (M), of spongy export quality masks. They are worried about selling the inventory.
Also, shopkeepers have pointed out that customers are not using the Druk Trace QR code while entering the shops. There is also no one monitoring if three-ply masks are sold and used, shopkeepers said.
Relocating students from Phuentsholing to the low-risk areas has also affected residents, as one of the parents has to be with the children.
Restaurant owners said that families want to sit in a group while visiting restaurants. However, many tend to leave the restaurant when told that they have to sit separately to maintain a physical distance.
Some restaurateurs said that there are no customers, as most of the buildings around are used as quarantine facilities.
There is also no adequate space to keep water buckets for hand washing. Shopkeepers pointed out that it is not necessary to keep hand washing buckets.
"Customers get irritated when they are asked to wear masks, use the Druk Trace app, and wash their hands," the survey report stated.
Further, the business community highlighted that there is no reduction in rents, despite the difficult situation and decline in customers. SC19TF could explore the possibility of an income tax waiver for the business community of Phuentsholing for 2021, they said.
Business community recommends
The business community said the SC19TF should explore the possibility of lifting internal checkpoints, and Sorchen switching stations to promote business after the booster dose vaccination ends.
Due to the shortage of skilled manpower for restaurants in Phuentsholing, some businessmen also said it would be better if the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources could provide Bhutanese workers.
The businesspersons also said more frequent awareness programmes on Omicron and strict monitoring by police and de-suups on the proper use of facemasks are needed.
The report further said that business people feel protocol violators must be fined.
As per the sensitisation report, the recommendations will be implemented and followed by respective agencies as per SC19TF instructions. The taskforce will notify all the shops and restaurants to update the checklist on a daily basis.
Police will also develop a schedule to monitor the safety compliance in the town. The regional inspection team (RIT) will submit a scheduled plan for monitoring the containment centres.
Similar programs will be organised for truckers and taxi drivers.


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Il salto con l'asta maschile ai campionati del mondo di atletica leggera 2011 si è tenuto il 27 ed il 29 agosto. Gli standard di qualificazione erano di 5,72 m (standard A) e 5,60 m (B).

Programma

Risultati

Qualificazioni
Va in finale chi passa la misura di 5.70 (Q) o rientra tra i primi 12.

Finale

Collegamenti esterni
 Pole vault results at IAAF website

Campionati del mondo di atletica leggera 2011
Salto con l'asta ai campionati del mondo di atletica leggera