text:
Fool's Sanctuary
Fool's Sanctuary by Jennifer Johnston
book purchased from Kennys Bookshop
Summary from back of book:
The Great War is over; but the war in Ireland is only just beginning, as the IRA and the Black and Tans move on to the attack. It all seems very remote to Miranda Martin, during that miraculous Indian summer.
Her father, hoping to forget his dead wife, thinks of nothing but his trees; Miranda thinks of the future, a future which must surely include Cathal, who brings news from Dublin. Everything seems calm and serene.
But then Andrew, her officer brother, comes home, bringing his eccentric, likeable friend Harry, and as the Indian summer fades, the scent is set for tragedy.
For such a short novel, it is quite powerful. The beginning of Fool's Sanctuary takes place much after the main action of the novel. It is retold in the flashbacks of a seemingly very old and frail Miranda Martin. The novel begins:
There are no new days ahead of me.
Is this what they meant by limbo?
Waiting time, floating time, time for snatching at the comfortable and uncomfortable
moments of the past.
It is so sad and sort of ethereal. In the flashbacks to that fateful summer that changed all their lives forever, Miranda seemed to be so sheltered from what was going on in the world and in Ireland all round her. She and her father seemed to inhabit a quiet oasis in the midst of turmoil. Unfortunately, such a state cannot exist indefinitely.
There is much left unsaid and the reader must gather it as the story unfolds. Her father seems to be trying to cope with his wife's death by plunging himself into his work. He is a sharp contrast to his son, Andrew, who finds his father's work and his way of life contemptible. Andrew is full of anger and violence -at whom he is angry is somewhat in doubt. He seems to be angry with everyone.
Like most Irish novels, Fool's Sanctuary is quite sad. It is quite effective at shining a light on a time in Irish history that many in America are only vaguely aware if they are aware of it at all.
fiction Irish Lit Kennys
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Belated Readathon
Cutting for Stone
Upcoming Challenges
In the Forests of the Night


text:
Transiting Gas Giant a 'Rosetta Stone'
by Paul Gilster on March 17, 2010
Claire Moutou, one of an international team of astronomers behind the discovery of the planet CoRoT-9b, says the distant world will become a 'Rosetta stone in exoplanet research.' And perhaps it will, for this is a transiting gas giant, but not a 'hot Jupiter.' In an orbit not dissimilar to that of Mercury, CoRoT-9b transits its star every 95 days, each transit lasting about eight hours. We've identified approximately 70 planets by transit methods, but this one is ten times farther from its host star than most gas giants previously discovered by this technique.
We may be jumping the gun a bit to call the climate here 'temperate,' as this European Southern Observatory news release does, because temperatures here will depend on layers of highly reflective clouds that may or may not exist on CoRoT-9b. ESO cites temperatures between 160 degrees and minus twenty degrees Celsius beneath those assumed clouds, but we should be able to learn much more because of the lengthy transit periods. Didier Queloz, a co-author of the Nature paper announcing the find, sees it this way:
"Our analysis has provided more information on CoRoT-9B than for other exoplanets of the same type. It may open up a new field of research to understand the atmospheres of moderate- and low-temperature planets, and in particular a completely new window in our understanding of low-temperature chemistry."
The planet is about eighty percent the mass of Jupiter and was identified by CoRoT after 145 days of observations in 2008, with follow-up observations confirming the find at the 3.6-meter ESO telescope at La Silla (Chile). Team member Tristan Guillot says that it is mostly hydrogen and helium, with as much as 20 Earth masses of other elements, including water and rock at high-temperatures and pressures. The host star is similar to the Sun and is located some 1500 light years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Serpens.
From the paper:
…Corot-9b is the first transiting planet among those with longer periods that does not represent a case of extreme eccentricity with associated extreme temperature changes (e.g. HD80806b's temperature is estimated to rise from ~800K to ~1,500K over a six-hour period near periastron). On the contrary, it is the first transiting planet whose general properties coincide with the largest known population of planets, those of longer periods and low- to-moderate eccentricities, but which previously were known only from RV surveys. Our results on Corot-9b show that these planets may be expected to be rather similar to the giants of our Solar System.
Image: The orbital parameters of CoRoT-9b among extrasolar planets. Shown is the eccentricity and period of all 339 exoplanets for which both values are known as of Nov 1, 2009. Solid dots are the 58 transiting planets among them – most of them have short periods of < ~5 days and zero or low eccentricities. Only two further transiting planets have orbital periods longer than 10 days; they are HD17156b with 21.2 and HD80806b with 111.4 days. However, both of them also have the highest eccentricity among planets of similar periods. Open dots are the remaining exoplanets, known only from radial velocity observations. Credit: www.exoplanet.eu/Deeg et al. So we have a transiting gas giant that is not a hot Jupiter, allowing us to study a category of 'temperate' gas giants in much greater depth now that we can apply both transit observations (revealing the planet's diameter) and radial velocity measurements, which can help us figure out its mass and hence its density. That should produce information that will illuminate the large number of temperate gas giants found thus far by non-transit methods. The paper is Deeg et al., "A Transiting Giant Planet with a Temperature Between 250 K and 430 K," Nature 464 (18 March 2010), pp. 384-387.
Edward March 17, 2010, 14:56
The ESO just released some nice media on this: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1011/
Zen Blade March 17, 2010, 15:47
I first saw this as a brief write up on some news site and my reaction was "… okay… so what"…
I think the brief write up here is much better at highlighting the significance of this find. It is interesting that it took more than a year, perhaps a year and a half to confirm and publish this data.
Does this suggest that an orbit of ~300-400 days might take several years (After initial discovery) to confirm/generate sufficient data for publication?
I hope we are recording our observations throughout space (perhaps this is not possible considering what may be required… but it seems like it should be) so that we can always go BACK in time to confirm newly-generated data. It strikes me that recorded data from previous years is really one of the most powerful ways to speed up and enhance exoplanet discovery and characterization.
-Zen Blade
Administrator March 17, 2010, 15:52
Good point, Zen Blade, and it's certainly true that there are exoplanets lurking in older data that we'll uncover with time. Proper data storage gets to be a huge issue when we're culling as much information as we are. In any case, longer orbital periods do indeed take more time to confirm, which is one reason why we'll have an anxious few years as we wait for Kepler's discoveries — they'll be coming in, to be sure, but these worlds will need multiple transits before they can be confirmed.
andy March 17, 2010, 16:02
Looks like you've left some reference numbers in there, the planets in question are HD 17156b and HD 80606b…
95 days puts it near the outer edge of the intermediate period planet desert: there seems to be a lack of gas giant planets between about 10 and 100 days around solar-type stars. I guess this is the first transiting giant planet which has a reasonable chance of hosting a system of massive satellites. Unfortunately since the Nature paper is behind a paywall, I'm unable to find out what kind of limits the CoRoT photometry sets on this.
I assume those are extra reference numbers; in any case, I'm quoting the caption directly from the paper and didn't want to change it without checking. But I think you're right and will alter the copy slightly.
Adam March 17, 2010, 18:00
Makes me wonder how long a habitable moon might remain habitable around such a planet. With a tidally pumped magnetosphere it might hang on to atmosphere for aeons, though whether any could accrete in the first place is an open question – consider the differences between the Galilean moons and Titan.
Thomas March 17, 2010, 22:20
@ Zen Blade,
Yes, it takes at least three transits to fully confirm the orbital period of a transiting planet through photometry. First is the initial detection. Second likely tells you the orbital period. Third confirms the orbital period (because there may be multiple transiting planets in the system, or the transits may be artifacts of other phenomena, one needs to check for a consistent period).
Radial velocity is also needed to constrain the mass (and it can also constrain the orbital period).
Thus, a planet in an Earth-like orbit will need three years of continuous monitoring to really say for sure that you have detected it photometrically (assuming no pre-emptive RV follow-up, which might be costly if there are many targets and they are so dim that it takes a lot of telescope time). Kepler was built with this in mind, thus the three-year (minimum) mission.
Zen Blade March 18, 2010, 8:20
Do you know anything about whether Kepler or other space telescopes have the ability to record data/light of coming from star/planetary systems that are not currently the focus of investigation/data processing.
Essentially, can Kepler or multitask (if so, how much) such that data can be built up and that past data can be processed in the future to confirm new findings?
Adam: in the case of CoRoT-9b, the planet is probably too close to the star for habitable moons. As for whether such moons would accrete, it is somewhat discouraging that instead of forming a "super-Titan", the Jovian system formed multiple satellites with masses comparable to the Earth's moon. Then again, if exoplanet research has taught us anything, it is to expect suprises.
Ronald March 19, 2010, 6:09
I was surprised that the media called this a rather 'normal' planet: the star is a G3, probably about 0.80 – 0.85 of solar luminosity.
Since the planet is at about 0.4 AU, the it receives between 4 and 5 times as much light as Earth. Conditions must be between Mercurian and Venusian.
Not a place you want to be.
Administrator March 19, 2010, 8:20
Ronald, another ESO news release just came out, including the following:
Corot-9b is the first transiting planet to have both a longer period and a near-circular orbit. Its orbit is slightly elliptical but at closest approach to its parent star it reaches a distance of 54 million kilometres. Although that is only about the distance of Mercury in our Solar System, it is by far the largest orbit of any transiting planet found so far. Because it orbits a star cooler than our Sun, calculations estimate that Corot-9b's temperature could lie somewhere between –23°C and 157°C.
andy March 20, 2010, 9:48
Ronald:
Defining "normal" based on the planets in our system may not be a very good way of doing things. Given the currently-known populations of gas giant planets, this is pretty normal: the majority of known giant planets are members of the "eccentric Jupiters", i.e. planets with periods of more than about 100 days and a wide eccentricity distributions. This is despite the strong bias towards finding hot Jupiters (which are easy to find but apparently quite rare). CoRoT-9b is at the short-period, low-eccentricity end of the main giant planets population.
Thomas March 24, 2010, 9:28
Kepler can detect the phase curve for non-transiting planets. The difficulty would probably be recognizing that it has been discovered (instead of, say, intrinsic stellar variability), and getting the resources to confirm it.
Kepler is observing several stars that are not expected to host transiting planets (or at least planets that may be seen as transiting) to get in extra science as part of a guest observer program or something.
Next post: Passing Stars and Interstellar Speculations
Previous post: Finding the Real Planet X

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Categories: Insight
How Federal File Sharing is Hampered by Legacy Systems - and What U.S. Agencies Can Do About It
By Aron Brand
The ability to efficiently and securely transfer and share data is a top priority for IT departments within U.S. federal government agencies like the Department of Defense.
But federal file sharing can be hampered by legacy solutions that just aren't as secure, fast, or flexible enough to meet today's demands. This post looks at these traditional file sharing systems and methods, what's missing, and what to look for in alternative approaches.
Overview of Legacy Federal File Sharing Approaches
SharePoint has been the traditional go-to file sharing system given its integration with Microsoft Office and its ability for central storage, but agencies have found this solution prohibitively expensive as their teams grew because of the nature of the licensing structure. Moreover, SharePoint is not as nimble as modern, file access anywhere alternatives needed for today's roaming users.
Web-based file transfer tools came on the scene and filled the gap for a while, but they are not user friendly to large organizations requiring military-grade security. In addition, the protocol used to transfer large files, UDP, does not guarantee that all packets will arrive, making it an unreliable method. Alternatively, you could use TCP, but that is slower. There is no one good choice here.
If it were up to users, they might just attach files to their email, but the limitations here are obvious — there is no central place to retrieve files and large files cannot be reliably sent due to size caps. Large files, such as those over 5 MB, and some file types, such as .exe, are refused by many mail servers.
Legacy Network Attached Storage (NAS) has been a reliable file storage method, but is less ideal for file sharing, as it does not support multi-site collaboration, leading to data silos – the silent killer of organizational productivity. As well, NAS can be expensive to maintain as data volumes continue to grow unabated.
Lastly, agencies have used Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), but this method does not always provide reliable, secure access to key systems from remote locations. That's especially problematic given the mission-critical, always-ready nature of field deployments, for example.
Modern Federal File Sharing Checklist
What's missing for many agencies is a simple yet secure means to securely transfer, collaborate, and store files across globally distributed (and sometimes, geographically remote) locations. Such a solution should be easy to deploy, manage, and use, with always-on reliability and uptime to meet real-world missions.
To accomplish this, federal IT professionals should look for:
Efficient, Reliable Transfer and Sharing of Data. Look for a cyber-hardened platform that enables modern content collaboration (regardless of location and available links). Understand how the solution can enable efficient data transfer in the face of high-latency, low-bandwidth environments. This is done today through a variety of WAN-optimization and sync technologies.
Military-Grade Security. Most modern file transfer and sharing solutions cannot meet the requirements of sensitive federal workloads. That's why agencies are seeking solutions that are FIPS 140-2 validated, and not just 'compliant,' to ensure the highest levels of data encryption. As well, federal organizations should look for multi-factor client-side authentication using PKI certificates and smart cards, to ensure that files are not improperly accessed or collaborated on by rogue users.
Compatibility with DISA-hosted solutions to ensure that users of DISA milCloud® have a secure, resilient, and flexible method to access their data anywhere, anytime, and on any device globally.
VDI Support to deliver high-performance and highly-resilient file experiences for users traveling to remote locations. The solution should work not only with satellite communications but also emerging technologies such as 5G.
Download the Enterprise File Services Know-It-All Pack.
The goal for government and military agencies should be the deployment of a federal file sharing solution that enables secure and modern file data transfer across any number of distributed locations and users. Forward-looking agencies are deploying on-premises file services platforms that deliver the same resiliency, productivity, and elasticity as cloud-based file services, while meeting stringent military-grade data security requirements.
We'd love to show you how CTERA can modernize federal file sharing within your agency through our enterprise file system please contact us for a demo and visit our federal government industry webpage for more information CTERA's government file sharing solutions.
Saimon Michelson is CTERA's Chief Architect for North America.
How to Protect Your NAS from Ransomware
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Four Tips for Successful Federal Government IT Modernization Initiatives
CTERA Awarded Patent for Multi-Level Namespace Management, Introduces Team Projects
Latency and the Impact on Enterprise Application Performance


text:
\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}

Light fields aim to capture all light rays passing through a given volume of space~\cite{Levoy1996}.
Compared to traditional 2D imaging systems which capture the spatial intensity of light rays, a 4D light field contains the angular direction of the rays.
Light fields have thus become a topic of growing interest in several research areas such as image processing, computer vision, and computer graphics.
Applications include refocusing of an image after capture, rendering new images from virtual points of view, or computational displays for virtual and augmented reality.
In this paper, we focus on depth map estimation from a light field.

3D scene reconstruction or depth estimation from light fields is a major topic of interest and many methods have been proposed in the past years.
Several methods have been proposed which estimate disparity between views of the light field with respect to the center view using existing stereo-matching techniques~\cite{Jeon2015,Neri2015}.
To better exploit the light field structure, novel approaches have been introduced relying either on angular patch analysis~\cite{Chen2014b,Wang2015a,Si2017} or the Epipolar Plane Images (EPI) representation of light fields~\cite{Wanner2012a,Zhang2016a,Kim2013,Johannsen,Tao2013}.

In this paper, we present a novel pipeline to estimate depth maps from light fields based on optical flow, where the measured displacements correspond to disparity, from which we can then obtain the depth.
Our main contributions are:
(a): We propose a novel depth map estimation scheme based on an spatio-angular edge aware optical flow~\cite{lang2012practical} applied over an angular dimension of the light field.
(b): We propose to combine the spatio-angular optical flow with the state-of-the-art coarse-to-fine patch matching method~\cite{hu2016efficient} as initialization, which significantly improves the results without increasing the running time.
(c): We propose to directly combine our multiple and consistent depth map estimates in the 3D space to obtain very dense depth maps or point clouds.
We show that the proposed approach achieves comparable performances to the best state-of-the-art method in terms of balance between speed and accuracy.

This paper is organized as follows.
In section \ref{sec:relatedWork} we review the 4D structure of light fields and existing methods to retrieve depth from light fields, as well as the state-of-the-art optical flow estimation techniques.
Section \ref{sec:approach} describes more in details the proposed approach.
Finally, in section \ref{sec:eva} we evaluate the performance of our method.

\section{Background and related work}
\label{sec:relatedWork}

\subsection{Light field 4D structure}

We adopt in this paper the common two-plane parametrization as shown in Figure~\ref{fig:light_field_geo}, and a light field can be formally represented as a 4D function $\Omega \times \Pi \to \mathbb{R}, (x, y, s, t) \to L(x, y, s, t)$ in which the plane $\Omega$ represents the spatial distribution of light rays, indexed by $(x, y)$, while $\Pi$ corresponds to their angular distribution, indexed by $(s, t)$.

Perhaps the easiest way to visualize a light field is to consider it as a collection of views, also called sub-aperture images, taken from several view points parallel to a common plane.
The light field can then be considered as a matrix of views (see Figure~\ref{fig:light_field_geo}).
Note that an important assumption when using such representation is that the different views are rectified.
Another common representation of light fields are Epipolar Plane Images (EPI), which are 2D slices of the 4D light field obtained by fixing one spatial and one angular dimension ($sy$- or $xt$-planes, see Figure~\ref{fig:light_field_geo}).

Note that light fields can be captured using lenslet camera such as Lytro \cite{Lytro} or camera arrays, however we use in our experiments synthetic light fields for which the depth map ground truth is known.

\begin{figure}[t!]
    \begin{center}
    \includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth,trim={0cm 0cm 0cm 7cm},clip]{./LFstructure.pdf}
    \end{center}
    \caption{Light field two-plane parametrization (left), matrix of views representation (middle), and Epipolar Plane Images (EPI) representation (right).}
    \label{fig:light_field_geo}
    \vspace{-0.5cm}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Depth estimation from light fields}
\label{DPfromLF}

A 4D light field implicitly captures the 3D geometry of a scene.
As illustrated in Figure~\ref{fig:light_field_geo}, the depth $Z$ of a point $P$ in 3D space can be obtained as: $Z = -f\frac{\Delta s}{\Delta x} \label{eq:depth_vs_disp}$, where $f$ and $\Delta s$ are respectively the focal length and the distance between camera positions, which are known parameters at the time of capture.
The depth $Z$ can thus be obtained by estimating the disparity $\Delta x$.

Multiple methods taking advantage of the existing literature in stereo disparity estimation have then been proposed to estimate depth from light fields.
These techniques rely on various matching approaches to estimate the disparity between views from the light field and a reference view (often the center one).
In~\cite{Jeon2015}, the authors proposed an accurate block-matching method reaching sub-pixel accuracy based on the Fourier phase-shift theorem.
To reduce the complexity, a multi-resolution approach was proposed in~\cite{Neri2015}.

To better take into account the light field structure, extensions of the previous methods have been proposed based on the analysis of texture patches sampled along the angular dimensions instead of the spatial dimensions.
These angular patches, also called SCam, were first exploited in~\cite{Chen2014b}.
This work was further extended in~\cite{Wang2015a} to be robust to occlusion.
More recently, this idea was included in a global optimization framework~\cite{Si2017} in order to obtain a dense depth map estimation.

Several techniques also exploit the light field structure through EPI, as in such images the slope of a line has a linear relationship with the depth.
In~\cite{Wanner2012a}, the slope of the epipolar lines are estimated using a structure tensor, while in~\cite{Zhang2016a} a spinning parallelogram operator is proposed.
In~\cite{Kim2013}, depth from high spatio-angular resolution light fields is obtained by first estimating high confidence depth values on the EPI edges, and then propagating this information to homogeneous regions using a fine-to-coarse approach.
In~\cite{Johannsen}, a sparse decomposition of the EPI is performed over a depth-based dictionary built from fixed disparities, and the scene disparity is deduced from the sparse coding coefficients.
In~\cite{Tao2013}, defocus and correspondence cues are obtained from the EPI by shearing the epipolar lines.
The shearing angle optimizing the multiple cues response gives the slope of the epipolar lines, and thus the depth.

Note that most of the aforementioned methods require an additional regularization or optimization step, which is usually a computationally intensive global process.

\subsection{Optical flow}

Since Horn and Schunck's pioneer work~\cite{HS} in variational optical flow estimation, many methods have been proposed exploring their idea based on energy minimization.
In this subsection, we will briefly introduce the related literature in this field.
For a comprehensive survey, please refer to the work in~\cite{Baker2011,li2014robust}.

The original work from~\cite{HS} often leads to inaccurate estimation of large pixel displacements.
To improve the accuracy of such challenging cases, the patch match method~\cite{barnes2009patchmatch}, initially introduced for nearest neighbor field estimation, has been adapted to the optical flow problem.
Patch match provides sparse pixel correspondence, and the final optical flow estimation is then considered as a labeling problem leveraging the coherent information of natural images.
To further obtain a dense flow map, Revaud~et al.~\cite{revaud2015epicflow} propose an edge-preserving interpolation scheme applied on top of sparse matching correspondences.
In this context, Hu~et al.~\cite{hu2016efficient} propose a coarse-to-fine extension of the basic patch match method, which is proven efficient in finding reliable correspondences on large pixel displacements.

In addition to the spatial accuracy, the optical flow temporal consistency has been an important and challenging research topic.
In their early work, Murray~et al.~\cite{murray1987scene}, proposed to add a temporal smoothness term to improve the temporal consistency.
Sliding windows~\cite{volz2011modeling} and Kalman filtering~\cite{hoeffken2011temporal} based methods have been proposed later, focusing on temporal stability, although their performances highly rely on the selection of the window size.
Feature flow~\cite{lang2012practical} proposed a novel local edge-aware filtering to replace the expensive global optimization used in previous work, which significantly reduced the computation cost while performing an accurate estimation.
However, this method relies on a sparse correspondence initialization, which has a significant impact on the final result.

\section{Depth estimation from light fields using optical flow}
\label{sec:approach}

\subsection{System overview}

In this paper, we propose a novel scheme for efficient and accurate estimation of depth maps from the 4D structure of light fields using optical flow.
Our approach consists of three main steps, as illustrated in Figure~\ref{fig:pipeline}.
First, a 3D spatio-angular volume is extracted from the light field by taking views along a given angular dimension.
Second, an optical flow estimation is performed over this spatio-angular volume.
The displacements measured by the optical flow thus correspond to disparity estimates between consecutive views of the light field.
The optical flow itself consists of two steps:
an initialization with a sparse matching correspondence technique~\cite{hu2016efficient} is first performed, then a spatio-angular edge-aware filter is applied on the sparse estimates to obtain a dense flow estimation.
For this volumetric filtering we choose the feature flow method~\cite{lang2012practical}.
Finally, an aggregation step is performed to obtain the depth map from the multiple disparity map estimates.
A common process used in most state-of-the-art methods performs sophisticated weighted median or image guided filtering combined with costly global energy minimization on the disparity map estimates to obtain a single accurate disparity map. Thanks to the the edge-aware filtering along the angular dimension of the optical flow, which enforces the consistency between the different disparity map estimates, we can reduce this step to a simple median filtering followed by a one-step variational energy minimization.
For the same reason, we can propose in this paper a novel process where several depth maps are created from each disparity map estimate, and then fused in the 3D space to create a single extra dense point cloud, which enables interesting application scenarios.

\begin{figure}[t]
	\begin{center}
	\includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth,trim={0cm 5.5cm 0cm 0cm},clip]{pipeline_illustrated.pdf}
	\end{center}
	\vspace{-0.5cm}
	\caption{Overview of the proposed approach. The method can be apply on any number of rows or columns of the matrix of views in order to obtain more disparity map estimates.}
\label{fig:pipeline}
\vspace{-0.2cm}
\end{figure}

\subsection{3D spatio-angular volume extraction}
\label{sec:3DVol}

To obtain a 3D spatio-angular volume, we fix one of the angular dimensions and extract $N$ views over the remaining dimension.
This volume thus consists in a sequence of sub-aperture images, noted $V = \{I_n\}, n = 1 \dots N$.
Here and for the rest of this paper, we assume without loss of generality that we fix $t^*$ and take the  sub-aperture images over $s$ (see Figure~\ref{fig:pipeline}).

\subsection{Optical flow}

The optical flow method used in this paper was selected for its temporal consistency property~\cite{lang2012practical}.
In our context, this ensures that the different disparity estimates are consistent over the angular dimension.
In addition, we propose to modify the initialization method, as described in the next section.

\subsubsection{Initialization: Coarse-to-fine Patch Matching}
\label{subsec:pm}

In this paper, we propose to use a recent extension of the patch match (PM) method~\cite{barnes2009patchmatch}, the so-called Coarse-to-fine Patch Matching (CPM) technique as initialization~\cite{hu2016efficient}, as it is both more efficient and accurate than the SIFT flow used in~\cite{lang2012practical}.

The well known PM method provides an efficient way to compute sparse matchings between a pair of images.
Given two images $I_1, I_2$, the goal is to find for each patch $p_{1,m}$ in $I_1$ a corresponding patch $p_{2,m} = \mathrm{M}(p_{1,m})$ in $I_2$, with $m=1 \dots M$ where $M$ is the total number of patches in the image.
Note that as we only look for sparse matches, $M$ is much lower than the total number of pixels.
The core idea of PM is to use random search and propagation between neighbors to speed up the matching search.
The matching search itself is conducted as a cost function minimization:

\begin{equation}
\mathrm{M}(p_{1,m}) = \textup{arg}\underset{p_{2,i}}{\textup{min}}~C(p_{1,m}, p_{2,i}), p_{2,i} \in N_{m}
\label{eq:PM}
\end{equation}

\noindent where the cost function $C(\cdot)$ corresponds to the sum of absolute difference (SAD) of the SIFT descriptors, and $N_m$ is a set comprising all patches contained in a search window centered on $p_{1,m}$.
Note that in our context, the sub-aperture images of a light field are rectified, and we can further reduce the complexity of the matching search by limiting the search window to an epipolar line.

The CPM method then consists in applying PM on a hierarchical architecture.
A pyramid with $k$ levels is first constructed from the original images with a downsampling factor $\eta$.
This pyramidal decomposition is noted $I_i^l$ with $i=1,2$ and $l = 1 \dots k$.
The PM method is first applied on the $I_1^k$ and $I_2^k$ with a random initialization, and then iteratively on $I_1^l$ and $I_2^l$ with $l = k-1 \dots 1$ using the output of the previous level $l+1$ as initialization.

To initialize our optical flow, we apply the CPM method on consecutive pairs of views $I_n, I_{n+1}$ with $n = 1 \dots N-1$ taken from the volume $V$ built previously, and we note $f_n^{init}$ the flow between these views.

\subsubsection{Efficient spatio-angular filtering: Feature flow}
\label{subsec:tc}
Once sparse matches are obtained as described in previous section, we performed edge-aware filtering on the spatio-angular volume in order to obtain dense consistent correspondences.
We introduce in this section the feature flow method~\cite{lang2012practical}, an efficient edge-aware filter, used to diffuse sparse matches with coherent information.
One of the main advantage of the feature flow is that the global energy minimization operation used in many optical flow approaches is replaced with a local volumetric edge-aware filtering operation.
To properly detect object edges in sub-aperture images and their disparity variations, a domain transform filter~\cite{gastal2011domain} is applied iteratively on the 3 spatio-angular dimensions with a fixed width Gaussian kernel.
The flow $f_{n}$ between views $I_{n}, I_{n+1}$ is obtained from the flow from previous views as $f_{n} = G * f_{n-1}$ where $G$ is the domain transform filter mentioned above and $*$ is a convolution operator. Note that the filtering along the angular dimension follows "disparity paths" provided by the initial sparse flow estimations $f_n^{init}$, with $n = 1 \dots N-1$.

To improve the accuracy of the flow estimation, the input sparse flow is weighted with a confidence map, whose weights are computed as the absolute difference between the matching correspondence vectors, thus increasing the contribution of reliable matches.

\subsection{From disparity to depth map}
\label{sec:depthmap}
\subsubsection{Single accurate disparity map}

The first approach to obtain the final depth map is to first compute a single disparity map from all estimates, which is then converted into a depth map $Z_{init}$ using the equation from Section~\ref{DPfromLF}.
This technique is used in many state-of-the-art methods, e.g. based on weighted median or image guided filtering, which efficiently removes outliers, and is often followed by a costly global energy minimization technique.

However, thanks to the angular filtering which enforce the consistency between the different disparity map estimates, we can apply a much simpler and faster aggregation step, using median filtering and a one-step variational energy minimization.
Here, the one-step variational energy minimization from the Epicflow~\cite{revaud2015epicflow} method is used to obtain the final depth map $Z_{f}$ from $Z_{init}$:

\begin{equation}
Z_{f} = \textup{arg} \underset{Z_{i}}{\textup{min}}(E_{data}(Z_{i}) + \lambda \alpha E_{smooth}(Z_{i}))
\end{equation}

\noindent where $E_{data}$ corresponds to a classical color-constancy data term while $E_{smooth}$ corresponds to a gradient-constancy function with a local smoothness term weight $\alpha = exp(-\kappa \left \| \nabla_{2}Z  \right \|)$~\cite{xu2012motion}, where $\kappa = 5$.

\subsubsection{Extra dense Point Cloud}

Thanks to the consistency of the different disparity estimates, we can use a novel process to create the point cloud, where multiple point clouds are created from each disparity map, and then aggregated in the 3D space to obtain the final extra dense point cloud.

\section{Evaluation}
\label{sec:eva}

\begin{figure}[t!]
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.75\linewidth]{./Initials.png}
\vspace{-0.2cm}
}
\caption{Comparison of optical flow obtained with state-of-the-art methods.
\textbf{Top row} consists of  initialization results with different optical flow methods.
\textbf{Bottom row} is the results of these initializations + feature flow filter.
(a) SIFT Flow~\cite{liu2008sift} (4.9s); (b) EPPM~\cite{bao2014fast} (GPU-based,0.7s); (c) EpicFlow~\cite{revaud2015epicflow} (15s); (d) CPM-Flow~\cite{hu2016efficient} (5.3s) \textbf{(Best viewed in color)}}
\label{fig:initials}
\end{figure}

In this section, we analyze the results of the proposed approach.
All our experiments were run on an Intel Core i7-6700k 4.0GHz CPU.
We use the feature flow implementation from~\cite{roo2014temporally} and the same parameter setting for all our experiments.
For the CPM method, the level of pyramids $k$ is set to 5, the downsampling factor $\eta$ is set to the 0.5 and the patch size is set to 3x3.

\textbf{Evaluation of the optical flow.}
We evaluate here the performance of the proposed optical flow approach against state-of-the art methods.
In Figure~\ref{fig:initials}, we show the results of several optical flow initializations in the top row and the results after feature flow filtering in the bottom row.
The volumetric filtering using feature flow along the angular dimension of the light field clearly improves the accuracy of the optical flow from any initialization method, significantly improving consistency and continuity of brightness.
The proposed method using CPM as initialization achieves the best performance in terms of balance between speed and accuracy.

The importance of the volumetric filtering is also illustrated in Figure~\ref{fig:depth_map_results}, where we show the final depth map results for several light fields obtained with our method with and without feature flow.
The quality of the depth maps is clearly improved with feature flow for all sequences.

\textbf{HCI benchmark performance.}
We evaluate here the accuracy and efficiency of our proposed method against state-of-the-art light field depth map estimation methods~\cite{Wanner2012a, Johannsen, Zhang2016a, Wang2015a, Jeon2015, Si2017, Neri2015} using the recent HCI 4D light field dataset~\cite{honauer2016benchmark}~\footnote{\url{http://hci-lightfield.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/}}.
The accuracy of the depth estimation is evaluated using the Mean Square Error (MSE) * 100 and the computational complexity using the running time in seconds.
The results are summed up in the graph of Figure~\ref{fig:speed_vs_accuracy}, showing the average performances over the HCI dataset.
More detailed results will be made available on our web page\footnote{\url{https://v-sense.scss.tcd.ie/?p=842}}.
Our method achieves comparable perfomance with the best method of the state-of-the-art in terms of balance between accuracy and speed.

\begin{wrapfigure}{r}{0.5\textwidth}
  \vspace{-20pt}
  \begin{center}
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{./ComparisonMatrix.png}
  \end{center}
\vspace{-20pt}
  \caption{Comparison of our method (red stars) performances against state-of-the-art (blue stars), averaged over all HCI light fields. The results show that we achieve comparable performances to the best state-of-the-art method in terms of balance between speed and accuracy.}
\label{fig:speed_vs_accuracy}
  \vspace{-10pt}
\end{wrapfigure}

In addition to these objective metrics, we show the depth maps obtained from several light fields in Figure~\ref{fig:depth_map_results} and compare against state-of-the-art methods.
The final comparison shows better performance for edge preservation of objects (see Cotton column) and also smoother results for noisy scenes (see Backgammon and Dino columns).
However, we notice that the proposed local filtering method, which allows considerable speed up, sometime produces less smooth results than a global solution (see background of Dino and Boxes column).
The feature flow filter also heavily depends on the quality of the optical flow initialization.
If the optical flow method is unable to provide accurate correspondence, it can not be corrected by the filter (see for example the Boxes column).

Note that at the time of writing, some recent results were added in the HCI benchmark without any attached publications. As we can not fully understand and exploit comparisons with methods which are not described, we choose in this paper to compare our results only against published work.

\textbf{Extra dense 3D Point Cloud.}
As mentioned in Section~\ref{sec:depthmap}, a unique feature of our method compared to the state-of-the-art approaches is that we can produce several consistent depth maps which can then be integrated in the 3D space in order to produce extra dense point clouds.
Examples of such results are shown in Figure~\ref{fig:multi_single} in comparison with point clouds obtained with a single depth map.

\section{Conclusion}
\label{sec:conclusion}

\begin{wrapfigure}{r}{0.5\textwidth}
  \vspace{-20pt}
  \begin{center}
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{./MultiSingle2.png}
  \end{center}
\vspace{-20pt}
  \caption{(a) Single point clouds (about 260k points) v.s. (b) Extra dense point clouds (more than 21 million points). \textbf{(Best viewed in color)}}
\label{fig:multi_single}
\end{wrapfigure}

In this paper, we introduced a novel optical flow-based method to estimate depth maps from light fields.
We showed that by extracting a 3D volume consisting of a sequence of views from the 4D light field, and applying a temporally consistent optical flow on this spatio-angular volume, we were able to obtain high-quality depth maps with a reduced complexity.
Comparison with state-of-the-art methods on the HCI benchmark showed that we are competitive with the best method in terms of balance between accuracy and speed.
Furthermore, thanks to the enforced consistency of the disparity map estimates along the angular dimension, we are able to produce point clouds with a much higher density than in any state-of-the-art method.
However, we note that our local filtering sometimes yield inferior results compared to global optimizations.
In future work, we plan to investigate different spatio-angular filtering methods in order to improve the accuracy while keeping a faster running time.
Furthermore, we intend to apply our method on dense light fields captured with lenslet cameras such as Lytro~\cite{Lytro} to perform 3D reconstruction of real world scenes.

\begin{figure}[t!]
\centerline{
\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{./DpResults3.png}
}
\caption{Depth map comparison on HCI dataset}
\label{fig:depth_map_results}
\end{figure}

\bibliographystyle{plain}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Follow me on Instagram at @solaadelowo for updates on where I'm go and what I'm up to!
Learn to use your style to stand out and exude confidence. Identify conversation topics that give you instant credibility. And, discover how to direct onlookers attention for maximum engagement.
Giving professional presence, personal appearance or executive image feedback can feel uncomfortable and demoralizing for the giver and receiver. With our expertise we turn what is often a negative experience into positive outcomes. Give your employees the tools to make fashion and style choices that support your company's success. Schedule a discovery call NOW.
Many years ago Lori Fouche gave Sola two advice: 'Always be your best self. Don't dim your light to make others feel secure or happy.' Those words gave rise to the establishment of ImageCube. Follow this link to the BET.com feature Sola's Best Advice.


text:
Eryngium pinnatifidum es una especie de hierba perteneciente a la familia Apiaceae la cual es un endemismo del sudoeste de Australia Occidental.<ref name =florabase>{{FloraBase|name= Eryngium pinnatifidum|id=6219 }}</ref>
 Descripción
Crece hasta un tamaño de 50 cm de altura y produce flores de color azul o blanco entre agosto y noviembre (finales del invierno hasta finales de primavera) en su área de distribución natural. También es comúnmente visto en Victoria.
 Taxonomía Eryngium pinnatifidum fue descrita por Alexander G. von Bunge y publicado en Plantae Preissianae 1: 293. 1845.Eryngium pinnatifidum en PlantList
EtimologíaEryngium: nombre genérico que probablemente hace referencia a la palabra que recuerda el erizo: "Erinaceus" (especialmente desde el griego "erungion" = "ción"), sino que también podría derivar de "eruma" (= protección), en referencia a la espinosa hojas de las plantas de este tipo.pinnatifidum'': epíteto

Referencias

pinnatifidum

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


TIP! Apply Vaseline to your cuticles weekly. Since this feeds your nails, they should grow more quickly.
So, you decided that you want to get more involved with beauty. This is a good thing to do. Many methods and procedures are available, and it is important to acquire a certain degree of skill. Are you up on the current techniques for applying beauty products? If you do not, read through the excellent tips that follow.
TIP! The scientific definition of beauty is symmetry. Taking steps to improve the symmetry of your face can make you appear more attractive.
Put your favorite lotion into a small sample jar or an empty lip gloss pot. Containers of this size can be easily carried wherever you go. Reach for the moisturizer whenever your skin is feeling a bit dry.
TIP! You can let your lips look larger with an application of shimmery white eyeshadow right above your top lip's center cupid's bow. Brightening this spot makes it catch light and look lusciously full.
If you allow your hair to air dry as much as you can, your hair will not suffer from heat damage. All the heat from styling tools can do major damage to your scalp and hair. Use your hair dryer at the lowest setting if is neccesary to use it to dry your hair. By looking after your hair in this way, it will reward you with soft and silky locks for the years ahead.
TIP! To play up the color of your beautiful hazel or gorgeous green eyes, choose darker neutrals that create contrast against lighter eyes, shades that have a red base to bring out the green, or other complementary shades. These could include deep wines, shimmery purples, frosty gunmetal gray, or lighter golden brown tones.
No matter what kind of skin you have, you should wash your skin with a mild soap a few times a day. Before you start your cleaning routine, be sure all the makeup is removed first. If you don't, it can cause acne or clogged pores.
TIP! If your facial appearance is more square-shaped, use a coral or creamy rose blush which make your face look softer and appear less angular. Try applying your blush on the apples of your cheeks and fanning it out towards temples.
Place on a light moisturizer prior to using makeup. Using moisturizer will cause your makeup to be more evenly spread. It will prevent your makeup from looking blotchy. This is a wonderful method to keep your makeup looking fresh longer.
TIP! Curl your eyelashes before putting on your mascara. Curling helps your eyelashes appear greater than their actual length, and this also contributes to a younger and livelier look to your eyes themselves.
Lightly dust powder onto your skin to freshen up your makeup midday. You can make your cheekbones have some emphasis with a gentle application of shimmery powder on your cheek temples.
TIP! Get in some exercise every day. Staying active will greatly help you combat aging and the issues that come with it.
TIP! Boar bristle brushes can help you with frizzy hair. Frizzy hair is a problem for many individuals, especially in the dry winter months.
To conclude, your interest in this article means that you are looking to create or improve your beauty routine. You should now feel that you know more about beauty. Isn't that wonderful!? Use the tips as needed and review them if you forget anything. Do your best to enjoy all that beauty has to offer.


My name is Tamara Zadai, but I typically go by Tammy. I am a wife and mother of 2 boys. I am a born and raised "Florida Girl". I have been a St. Johns County resident for 36 years. I've only been practicing Real Estate for a few years but the more I do it, the more I love it! Mostly I am a customer service expert, as my first job was at Publix. Customer service is the golden rule there and it is something that has stuck with me always. I love the exciting world of real estate. It is an ever changing, exciting business. My commitment as your Realtor® is to be there for you, helping you every step of the way, as we work together to accomplish your real estate goals.


Dinokeng meand "the place of rivers"
Only fifteen minutes from the centre of Pretoria, Kameeldrift lies on the south western corner of the Dinokeng area, a culturally and naturally rich section of Gauteng. Over the years, a small enclave of residential properties and luxury lodges and estates, including conference venues and an award-winning spa, has grown on what was once scarcely populated farmland. The Moreletta Spruit wends through the village of Kameeldrift, and Roodeplaat Dam Nature Reserve is just a stone's throw away.
Dinokeng - meaning "the place of rivers" – has begun to establish itself as an important and exciting tourist destination where cultural, historical and safari activities abound. An important catchment area for both the Olifants and Limpopo Rivers, it is no surprise that Dinokeng boasts some beautiful rivers and dams, including Roodeplaat Dam and Rust de Winter Dam. Attractions of this area include Cullinan Diamond Mine, Sammy Marks Museum, and Willem Prinsloo Agricultural Museum in the southern half, and to the north, the Rust de Winter Nature Reserve and Hammanskraal. A plethora of game reserves can be found throughout the area.
Kameeldrift can be reached via the N1 Pietersberg, taking the Zambesi Drive/Cullinan exit.


text:
A Line from Spain to Deep Space
March 17, 2021JPEG
NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) is the giant planetary switchboard that helps dozens of distant spacecraft communicate with teams of engineers and scientists on Earth.
The network of antennas and dishes relays messages from missions such as Voyager 1 and the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). Voyager 1 launched in 1977 and is still sending signals back from interstellar space, some 22 billion kilometers (14 billion miles) away. DSCOVR takes full-disc images of Earth from 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) away.
On March 17, 2021, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired this natural-color image of one of the communications hubs in Robledo de Chavela, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Madrid, Spain. The complex has several large radio antennas with parabolic dishes that appear as white circles in the Landsat image. The location was chosen because it was equidistant to DSN stations in Goldstone, California and Canberra, Australia. The strategic placement allows for continuous communication with spacecraft as Earth rotates.
NASA first established a DSN facility in Spain in 1964 as it was starting the Gemini and Mercury programs. The Madrid facility, like the other two DSN facilities, has at least six antennas.
The most powerful antenna at the Madrid facility is Deep Space Station 63. With a diameter of 70 meters (230 feet), it receives signals from missions as far away as interstellar space. In January 2021, engineers completed the installation of Deep Space Station 56, a versatile 34-meter (112-foot) antenna that is capable of communicating at multiple frequencies and with multiple spacecraft. Existing antennas are limited in the frequency bands they can receive and transmit, often restricting them to communicating only with specific spacecraft.
In addition to tracking and communicating with distant spacecraft, scientists make use of data from the DSN to study Earth's shape and gravity field, a discipline known as very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) to track small changes in Earth's crust such as the movement of tectonic plates.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.
Radio antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex help scientists on Earth keep in touch with distant satellites.
Image of the Day for March 30, 2021
Landsat 8 — OLI
Image of the Day Remote Sensing
Deep Space Network (2019) Wideband Very-Long Baseline Interferometry Accessed March 26, 2021.
Mudgway, D. (2001) Uplink-Downlink: A History of the Deep Space Network1957-1997. Accessed March 26, 2021.
NASA Earthdata (2018) Beacons in the sky help monitor Earth's orientation in space. Accessed March 26, 2021.
NASA Deep Space Network. Accessed March 26, 2021.
NASA (2021, January 22) NASA's Deep Space Network Welcomes a New Dish to the Family. Accessed March 26, 2021.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory DSN Now. Accessed March 26, 2021.
NASA MDSCC Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex. Accessed March 26, 2021.
NASA MDSCC Gallery. Accessed March 26, 2021.
Space.com (2018, February 2) NASA's Deep Space Network: How Spacecraft Phone Home. Accessed March 26, 2021.
A Space Communications Hub in Australia
The Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex plays a key role in keeping engineers and scientists connected to distant spacecraft.
Image of the Day Human Presence Remote Sensing
A Deep Space Communications Hub in the Desert
A collection of radio antennas in the Mojave Desert has a long history of helping NASA keep in touch with distant spacecraft.
Image of the Day Human Presence
The Very Large Array, New Mexico
The Cibola National Forest surrounds the Plains of San Augustine in a remote and sparsely populated region of New Mexico. the plains are home to one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories, the Very Large Array (VLA).
Image of the Day Land Human Presence
Up, Up, and Away for DSCOVR
After arriving in its final orbit, DSCOVR will monitor the solar wind and send back epic views of Earth's full sunlit disk.


Janet Smith reviews the November 6, 2014 performance of "No. 29" for the Georgia Straight.
Cathy Browne reviews "No. 29" for the VanCity Buzz.
Artistic director Emily Molnar has been appointed sessional artistic director of dance for the Banff Centre. Janet Smith reports for the Georgia Straight.
Ballet B.C. will perform at Montreal's Theatre Maisonneuve at the Place des Arts, January 22-24, 2015. The program includes works by Medhi Walerski, Johan Inger and Jacopo Godani. Victor Swoboda previews the program for the Montreal Gazette.
In the Georgia Straight, Janet Smith reports on the Montreal press reactions to Ballet B.C.'s program.
In the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Elissa Bernard previews Ballet B.C.'s performance on February 11, 2015 in the Rebecca Crohn Auditorium in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Ballet B.C.'s March 26-28, 2015 program is titled "Trace" and includes William Forsythe's "workwithinwork," Medhi Walerski's "Petite Ceremonie" and a premiere by Walter Matteini. Janet Smith interviews Emily Molnar for the Georgia Straight.
Alice Kaderlan previews the March 26-28, 2015 "Trace" program for the Seattle P-I.
Erin McPhee previews the "Trace" program for the Vancouver Courier.
Jennifer Van Evra previews "Trace" for The Globe and Mail.
Ballet British Columbia announces its 2015-16 season. Cayetano Soto has been named resident choreographer for the next three years. Janet Smith reports on the season announcement for the Georgia Straight.
Janet Smith reviews the Thursday, March 26, 2015 performance of the "Trace" program for the Georgia Straight.
Andrea Rabinovich reviews the "Trace" program for the Vancouver Observer.
Previews of RITE, May 7-9, 2015 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, B.C.
Janet Smith for the Georgia Straight.
Deborah Meyers for the Vancouver Sun.
Deborah Meyers previews the 2015-16 season for the Vancouver Sun.


Red Balloon founder and Shark Tank judge Naomi Simson has seen plenty of pitches both in and out of the tank, but as entrepreneurs get more sophisticated in their approach to selling their ideas, there's one thing that sets alarm bells ringing.
"If they only come on [Shark Tank] to get the PR without any intention of getting an investment – we can call it and we can smell it," Simson tells StartupSmart.
If you're approaching investors for money, you'd best be sincere about the potential funds and where you're going to spend it, and Simson says the best pitches don't take that lightly.
While many entrepreneurs on this season of Shark Tank were ready to show in a concrete way how their business ideas were scalable, this season revealed assumptions were often made about investors before getting to know them.
"Another big no-no is about assum[ing] what we'll invest in. People would assume [on Shark Tank] if a food comes on, it's for [Boost Juice founder] Janine Allis. Well it isn't always," Simson says, reflecting that both entrepreneurs and the audience can pigeon-hole the sharks instead of keeping an open mind about what they'd be interested in.
Three seasons in, it's clear the sharks each have different approaches to investing and different views on the business world, but Simson says there's a lot to be learned from that very fact.
Sibling rivalries will spill onto the screen this season, but Simson says this is because the sharks engage in discussions about their differing points of view, which is a good thing.
"Steve [Baxter] and I get out the fisticuffs regularly, but we see the world differently. For example, he believes any tech company needs a tech founder, and I just don't," she says.
Part of the fun of the dynamic between the sharks is learning from each other and getting a fresh perspective on how investment can be done, instead of just sticking to one mindset, Simson says.


Member of P Unit , Frasha is sure that it is time for the younger generation to run music affairs in the country.
"So far the outgoing MCSK office bearers have played their role and we appreciate. But now it is time for new leadership ideas and that can only come with younger leadership,"Frasha told Pulse Magazine.
"I am thankful to the almighty for giving me this opportunity to fight for the industry and I am asking my fellow artistes to come out in large numbers on D-day," he said.


Did you know Indigo is the oldest dye used to color fabrics? The blue hue has been dyeing fabric for centuries in India, China, and Africa. A popular pattern seen often today is from a Japanese fabric folding technique called Shibori. Fabric is folded into a square and then tied off with wooden blocks and twine or rubber bands. With Rit, you can achieve that perfect shade of Indigo using one of our color formulas below!
The following are four different custom recipes we use to achieve Indigo blue.
Here are our easy-to-use instructions on how to mix colors.


text:
Twins Lose To Brewers, Draft SS
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Carlos Gomez hit a three-run homer against his former team to spark Milwaukee's comeback, and the Brewers hung on to beat the Minnesota Twins 8-5 on Thursday.
Khris Davis hit a two-run homer off Kevin Correia for the lead in the sixth inning to pull Brewers starter Wily Peralta out of an early deficit built by Oswaldo Arcia's grand slam. Jonathan Lucroy tacked on a two-run shot in the ninth, and Francisco Rodriguez finished up for his 18th save in 20 attempts.
Peralta was in trouble every other inning, but Arcia was the only one who actually made him pay for it — and in a big way.
It may be a costly loss, Arcia sprained his right ankle.
He was hurt after leading off the sixth inning with a double. When Trevor Plouffe whiffed on his bunt attempt, the Brewers caught Arcia with too big a lead off second base. Arcia rolled his right ankle when he tried to plant his foot and retreat and was picked off as he dived back into the bag.
Twins take shortstop Nick Gordon with No. 5 pick
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Twins have selected shortstop Nick Gordon with their first-round draft pick, adding a player with big-league bloodlines.
The 6-foot-2, 170-pound Gordon was taken Thursday with the fifth overall selection. He's the son of Tom Gordon, who spent 21 years in the majors as a pitcher for eight teams, and the brother of Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Dee Gordon, baseball's leader in steals.
Gordon played for Olympia High School in Orlando, Florida, batting .494 with 10 doubles, two triples, five home runs, 27 RBIs and 13 stolen bases in 99 plate appearances as a senior. Gordon says he wants to pattern his game after New York Yankees stalwart Derek Jeter.
Baseball America magazine ranked Gordon's arm as the best among all infield prospects this year.
New York Yankees 2, Oakland 1
Toronto 7, Detroit 3
Houston 8, Angels of Anaheim 5
Texas 8, Baltimore 6
San Francisco 6, Cincinnati 1
Chicago Cubs 7, New York Mets 4
Arizona 12, Colorado 7
Washington 4, Philadelphia 2
Miami 11, Tampa Bay 6
Kansas City 3, St. Louis 2


Jack is scheduled to begin Kindergarten this week (he was actually supposed to begin today, but the teachers in Seattle have voted to strike regarding some wage disagreements, so the exact start date is unknown). But. KINDERGARTEN. REAL school. Yesterday, we had orientation. We met his teacher and his classmates and explored in his classroom.
In some sense, it seems perfectly fitting. He's ready for this. Yet, in another, I cannot actually believe we are exiting the early childhood chapter of his life and moving on to the next. It would be exhausting, of course, to remain in the baby stage, or the toddler stage, or any stage at all for that matter, but to be entering the school days stage with Jack is hard to wrap my mind around. How have we already arrived at this?
A few days ago, I found myself watching a video of him taken on the day after we moved to Seattle, he was 19 months old. I had to turn it off. My eyes burned from trying not to cry. My heart was swirling with so many emotions. Last week we received an email introduction from his Kindergarten teacher and I read it aloud to him. This time, my tears couldn't be stopped. As they were slowing welling up and trickling down my cheeks and I was stuttering on the words, Jack just sort of stared and then asked me if I was crying. I told him how much I love him and how sometimes watching him grow so big makes me cry. He gave me a kiss and a cuddle and told me "it's okay" and I know, somewhere deep down, that it really is.
I also know how lucky I am. How blessed my life is. I am so grateful that I hold so many things so dearly that time has become something of an enemy. It sure is hard to let go and to move on, but I can only imagine the joy and laughter and memories that the school days will bring to our lives. It is time for our next chapter to begin. And, maybe I am ready.


text:
First day of spring practice 'beautiful' for Brooks | Lexington Herald Leader
First day of spring practice 'beautiful' for Brooks
Kentucky football coach Rich Brooks began the "fun part" of his job when the Wildcats opened spring practice on a sun-splashed Wednesday morning at the Nutter Training Facility.
Brooks said he was happy about being on the field with his Cats again and trying to improve his players' skills and techniques.
"I think there's great enthusiasm amongst our team," he said. "Now we just have to polish things off and get better. It was a pretty good day for the start of spring ball. Beautiful weather. Outstanding."
Brooks said most Wildcats knew what they were doing in regard to their assignments.
Brooks seemed pleased with his team's athleticism even in jerseys and shorts.
"It's a long way from what it was when we got here (in 2003)," Brooks said. "We don't have very many guys who can't run, and that includes our linemen. Overall, the preparation and conditioning are pretty good for this team."
Brooks announced that junior cornerback Paul Warford, from Richmond, will miss spring practice with a broken foot bone. He is expected to participate in summer workouts. Warford was a starter in 2007 but sat out last season because of academics.
Kentucky is coming off its third consecutive bowl victory and returns 50 lettermen and 12 starters.
Practice concludes with the Blue/White Game on April 25.
Tournament director advises fans on the best way to watch the PGA Barbasol Championship
Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs are once again aiming to unseat Alabama in the Southeastern Conference.
Los Angeles takes 4-game win streak into matchup with Houston
Rangers open 2-game series at home against Arizona
Velasquez expected to start for the Phillies against the Dodgers
Lambert scheduled to start as Colorado hosts San Francisco
Flaherty expected to start as Cardinals host the Pirates
Cashner expected to start for Boston against Toronto


text:
Home » TV & Movies » Joy-Anna Duggar defies dad's rules with short dress as she and husband Austin Forsyth arrive to her brother Josh's trial
Joy-Anna Duggar defies dad's rules with short dress as she and husband Austin Forsyth arrive to her brother Josh's trial
JOY-ANNA Duggar defied her father Jim Bob's strict dress code by wearing a short dress to her brother Josh's child pornography trial.
The Counting On alum, 24, flashed her legs in a dress that ended above the knee and boots as she arrived in court with her husband Austin Forsyth on Monday.
Joy-Anna – who was seen looking "distressed" in court last week – looked somber as she walked along with Austin.
The TLC star appeared to have no makeup on and wore black square-frame glasses, while Austin wrapped up in a black peacoat and wore jeans.
The couple were followed by Josh, 33, and his wife Anna, who wore a bright red dress and heels.
Anna – who has been slammed for supporting Josh throughout the trial – held hands with him and they both obscured their features with black face masks.
Joy-Anna's attendance in court comes one day after she posted a message about "suffering" and "enduring" on Instagram.
Set to the song, Cast My Cares by the Christian band Finding Favour, Joy-Anna shared a photo of trees in a fog as snippets from the prayer appeared in the caption.
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She captioned it: "Yes, Jesus. I will trust you. I am studying in Job.
"Job went though so much suffering and yet he received the strength that God extended to him to endure.
Follow our Josh Duggar trial live blog for the very latest news and updates…
The TV star's older sibling Jill, 30, commented on the post: "Thanks for sharing. Love you sis."
It's been a difficult week for the Duggar family as oldest sibling Josh's trial began this week for his child pornography charges.
FAMILY IN ATTENDANCE
Several members of the family attended the court hearing including Joy-Anna, 24, and her husband, Austin Forsyth.
On Friday, Josh's wife Anna was once again sitting in the front row with Jill's husband, Derick Dillard.
This time, though, Austin decided to join them, which he had never done previously.
Austin and Joy-Anna usually watch the hearing from the back of the room instead, putting some distance between them and the rest of the family.
They have also been going on breaks alone instead of with their family members.
THERE FOR ANNA
But following a lunch break, a Sun reporter present in court revealed Joy-Anna appeared to be offering more support to Anna.
Joy-Anna gave her sister-in-law a long hug and handed her a coffee before heading to the back of the courtroom.
On Thursday, our reporter in the courtroom said Joy-Anna looked distressed, and Austin spent time comforting her with his arm around her.
Josh's trial began last Tuesday for child pornography charges stemming from his April 2021 arrest.
The 33-year-old, who has pleaded not guilty, has been accused of possessing sick images of child pornography, which have been described as some of "the worst of the worst" that authorities had ever seen.
It was revealed during Thursday's hearing that one found on his computer is a video of a "three-month-old being sexually abused and tortured."
He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
His father Jim Bob was forced to take the stand on behalf of the prosecution last week.
The 56-year-old repeatedly claimed he couldn't remember the details of Josh's past admissions that he had touched the victims, who were called Jane Does 1 to 4, People reported.
JIM BOB'S CLAIMS
Back in 2015, Jim Bob told police that Josh had confessed to touching underage girls, including Jill and his sister Jessa, in the family home between 2002 and 2003.
According to a 2006 police report, which Arkansas police later destroyed, the Duggar patriarch first told cops in 2002 that he had molested young victims while they were asleep in the Duggar family home.
"This was something for a young man to come forward," he said, calling it a "juvenile record" and a "sealed case."
Jim Bob reportedly said to judge Timothy L. Brooks: "I'm not going to allow it, are you going to allow for that?"
"If there is [an] objection to be made, someone will make it but it won't be you," the judge replied.
Josh admitted the molestation in a statement at the time on his Facebook page, though he never faced charges.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network) at 800-656-HOPE (4673).
Email us at [email protected] or call 212 416 4552.
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