text:
Q: How to use java Lucence library in android project? Although I integrated libraries in build.gradle but when I run it on device the following error occurs.
11-16 12:59:10.097 14630-14630/sadboy.antix E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
  Process: sadboy.antix, PID: 14630
  java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org.apache.lucene.util.AttributeSource$2
      at org.apache.lucene.util.AttributeSource.<clinit>(AttributeSource.java:150)
      at sadboy.antix.text_processing.KeywordsExtractor.getKeywordsList(KeywordsExtractor.java:34)
      at sadboy.antix.activities.NewsArticle.onCreate(NewsArticle.java:51)
      at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:6010)
      at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1129)
      at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2292)
      at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2413)
      at android.app.ActivityThread.access$800(ActivityThread.java:155)
      at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1317)
      at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
      at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:135)
      at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5343)
      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:905)
      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:700)
11-16 13:04:10.197 14630-14630/sadboy.antix I/Process: Sending signal. PID: 14630 SIG: 9

My code looks like this,
buidl.gradle
apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 25
    buildToolsVersion "25.0.0"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "sadboy.antix"
        minSdkVersion 16
        targetSdkVersion 25
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }

}

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    androidTestCompile('com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:2.2.2', {
        exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'support-annotations'
    })
    testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'

    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:25.0.0'

    //Library for web scraping
    compile 'org.jsoup:jsoup:1.10.1'

    //Library for HTTP request
    compile 'com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:3.4.2'

    //Savage UX/UI libraries
    compile 'com.mikhaellopez:circularfillableloaders:1.2.0'
    compile 'com.squareup.picasso:picasso:2.5.2'
    compile 'com.balysv:material-ripple:1.0.2'
    compile('com.mikepenz:materialdrawer:5.7.0@aar') {
        transitive = true
    }

    //Lucence libraries for text processing
    compile group: 'org.apache.lucene', name: 'lucene-core', version: '5.5.0'
    compile group: 'org.apache.lucene', name: 'lucene-analyzers-common', version: '5.5.0'

    //Essential google libraries
    compile 'com.android.support:cardview-v7:25.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:25.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:25.0.0'
}

Classes where I am using Lucence
package sadboy.antix.text_processing;

/**
 * Created by Varun Kumar on 11/15/2016.
 */

import org.apache.lucene.analysis.TokenStream;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.core.LowerCaseFilter;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.core.StopFilter;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.en.EnglishAnalyzer;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.en.PorterStemFilter;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.miscellaneous.ASCIIFoldingFilter;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.standard.ClassicFilter;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.standard.StandardTokenizer;
import org.apache.lucene.analysis.tokenattributes.CharTermAttribute;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringReader;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;

public class KeywordsExtractor {

    public static List<CardKeyword> getKeywordsList(String fullText) throws IOException {

        TokenStream tokenStream = null;

        try {

            fullText = fullText.replaceAll("-+", "-0");
            fullText = fullText.replaceAll("[\\p{Punct}&&[^'-]]+", " ");
            fullText = fullText.replaceAll("(?:'(?:[tdsm]|[vr]e|ll))+\\b", "");

            StandardTokenizer stdToken = new StandardTokenizer();
            stdToken.setReader(new StringReader(fullText));

            tokenStream = new StopFilter(new ASCIIFoldingFilter(new ClassicFilter(new LowerCaseFilter(stdToken))), EnglishAnalyzer.getDefaultStopSet());
            tokenStream.reset();

            List<CardKeyword> cardKeywords = new LinkedList<>();

            CharTermAttribute token = tokenStream.getAttribute(CharTermAttribute.class);

            while (tokenStream.incrementToken()) {

                String term = token.toString();
                String stem = getStemForm(term);

                if (stem != null) {
                    CardKeyword cardKeyword = find(cardKeywords, new CardKeyword(stem.replaceAll("-0", "-")));
                    cardKeyword.add(term.replaceAll("-0", "-"));
                }
            }

            Collections.sort(cardKeywords);

            return cardKeywords;
        } finally {
            if (tokenStream != null) {
                try {
                    tokenStream.close();
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        }
    }

    private static String getStemForm(String term) throws IOException {

        TokenStream tokenStream = null;

        try {
            StandardTokenizer stdToken = new StandardTokenizer();
            stdToken.setReader(new StringReader(term));

            tokenStream = new PorterStemFilter(stdToken);
            tokenStream.reset();

            Set<String> stems = new HashSet<>();

            CharTermAttribute token = tokenStream.getAttribute(CharTermAttribute.class);

            while (tokenStream.incrementToken()) {
                stems.add(token.toString());
            }

            if (stems.size() != 1) {
                return null;
            }

            String stem = stems.iterator().next();

            if (!stem.matches("[a-zA-Z0-9-]+")) {
                return null;
            }

            return stem;
        } finally {
            if (tokenStream != null) {
                try {
                    tokenStream.close();
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        }
    }

    private static <T> T find(Collection<T> collection, T sample) {

        for (T element : collection) {
            if (element.equals(sample)) {
                return element;
            }
        }

        collection.add(sample);

        return sample;
    }
}

Model Class
package sadboy.antix.text_processing;

/**
 * Created by Varun Kumar on 11/15/2016.
 */

import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

public class CardKeyword implements Comparable<CardKeyword> {

    private final String stem;
    private final Set<String> terms = new HashSet<>();
    private int frequency;

    public CardKeyword(String stem) {
        this.stem = stem;
    }

    public void add(String term) {
        this.terms.add(term);
        this.frequency++;
    }

    @Override
    public int compareTo(CardKeyword keyword) {
        return Integer.valueOf(keyword.frequency).compareTo(this.frequency);
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return this.getStem().hashCode();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object o) {

        if (this == o) return true;

        if (!(o instanceof CardKeyword)) return false;

        CardKeyword that = (CardKeyword) o;

        return this.getStem().equals(that.getStem());
    }

    public String getStem() {
        return this.stem;
    }

    public Set<String> getTerms() {
        return this.terms;
    }

    public int getFrequency() {
        return this.frequency;
    }
}

Activity where all this begins
package sadboy.antix.activities;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.util.Log;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;

import sadboy.antix.R;
import sadboy.antix.text_processing.CardKeyword;
import sadboy.antix.text_processing.KeywordsExtractor;

public class NewsArticle extends AppCompatActivity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_news_article);

    String input = "Pick Flick is your ultimate app to find information about Movies, TV shows and Celebrities fast and easily on the go\n" +
            "\n" +
            "• Quick access of popular, top rated, now playing, highest grossing and upcoming movies\n" +
            "• Quick access of popular, top rated, airing today and on air TV shows\n" +
            "• View the cast of movies and TV shows\n" +
            "• Similar Movies and TV shows to watch to explore more on the basis of your search\n" +
            "• Find the movies or TV shows done by a celebrity\n" +
            "• Set reminders and bookmarks so you never forget or miss anything you like\n" +
            "• Share everything with your friends and family to plan movies or just watch a TV show maybe\n" +
            "• List of trending celebrities\n" +
            "• All the information and rating of Movies, TV shows and Celebrities on the go\n" +
            "• Fast and easy search with keywords and suggestions\n" +
            "• Fluid and easy to use UI enabling for glitch free experience\n" +
            "\n" +
            "• Like Pick Flick on Facebook\n" +
            "• https://www.facebook.com/pickflickapp\n" +
            "\n" +
            "• Follow Pick Flick on Instagram\n" +
            "• https://www.instagram.com/pickflickapp/\n" +
            "\n" +
            "• Pick Flick uses data and images by TMDb licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0\n" +
            "• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/\n" +
            "\n" +
            "• Pick Flick uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb\n" +
            "• https://www.themoviedb.org/documentation/api/terms-of-use";

    List<CardKeyword> keywordsList = null;
    try {
        keywordsList = KeywordsExtractor.getKeywordsList(input);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    int i;

    for(i = 0;i<keywordsList.size();i++)
    {
        Log.d("Keyword",i+" "+keywordsList.get(i).getStem());
    }
}

}

A: Pls check with adding this:
// https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.lucene/lucene-backward-codecs
compile group: 'org.apache.lucene', name: 'lucene-backward-codecs', version: '5.5.0'


text:
All WritingsAnalysis
By Farea Al-Muslimi21 January، 2016July 24th, 2019No Comments
Few things are more damaging and futile than a war without clear goals or clear enemies. This is one reason why the war in Yemen still continues, and why the recent United Nations-sponsored talks in Switzerland failed.
Over the past few years, Yemen has gradually sunk into a civil and regional conflict – the symptom, and not the cause, of which was the Houthi rebels' takeover of Sanaa in September 2014, followed by military intervention in March 2015 by a Saudi-led Arab coalition
The recent fighting has destroyed Yemen, killing thousands of people and displacing more than two million from their homes. It has created a devastating humanitarian crisis, with more than half of the country's population classified as food insecure.
The crisis in Yemen is arguably more straightforward and less internationally divisive than other regional conflicts, including the war in Syria. So why did the recent peace talks fail to generate a solution?
The main reason is that when all sides, both inside Yemen and externally, opted to go to war, they really did not have to. Historically, Saudi Arabia's influence in Yemen has been more powerful than that of the country's own rulers, and although a number of Gulf countries are at odds with former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, most of his family members live in the United Arab Emirates.
The Arab coalition did not try diplomacy before going to war in Yemen – a war that has less to do with Yemen than with regional geopolitical rivalries.
The latest round of peace talks failed because many of those involved do not know what they want out of the UN-mediated process, and because they do not believe it is in their immediate interests to have peace. After nearly a year of war in Yemen, the cycle of business, economy and power now revolves around one main thing: war. Should the fighting suddenly end, many players from both sides would stand to lose.
Understanding these possible winners and losers is key to future negotiations. The end of the war would result in four clear losers: the Houthis, armed groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Saleh and incumbent President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Each of these parties has a motive to impede the peace process.
The most obvious motive is attached to groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL, which have thrived off the current chaos and instability, making huge strategic and territorial gains.
For the Houthis, a state of war is arguably where they are most comfortable. If the conflict were to end, they would have to face serious questions over power-sharing that they currently do not want to answer. The Houthis, who have displayed a capability to sign a truce with one hand while holding AK-47s with the other, may be able to be guided back towards the peace process through pressure from Iran or Oman.
Saleh, meanwhile, took a gamble by initiating the current conflict to improve his political position – but he did not foresee that it would escalate to this point. His strength now lies in his ability to manipulate those around him into seeing his support as indispensable.
A key to the success of peace negotiations with Saleh and the Houthis is recognising them as separate entities with differing agendas. Saleh and his family are more vulnerable than the Houthis to pressure outside of the country. The UAE still acts as host to his family and some of his closest aides, a situation that could be used to exert pressure.
Lastly, Hadi's mismanagement of the country was a key reason behind the current conflict – and the president surely realises that his allies, even more than his enemies, want him to step aside for any peace framework to succeed.
Consequently, he has taken every possible step to drag out the conflict. Empowering his cabinet and his vice president at his expense will be key to the success of any lasting peace deal. The international community must make it clear that it will only deal with those who want to invest in peace in Yemen.
In addition, for Yemen to achieve peace, the Arab coalition must understand that it cannot win militarily, despite the billions of dollars in expenses already poured into the war. Any possible gains made by the coalition at the start of the conflict are being lost through its continuation.
What Yemen needs now is a dealer who can "redistribute the cards" and convince the various players to invest in peace.
The UN tried this, but its approach has been weak and too easily mired in technicalities. In a recent meeting at UN headquarters in New York, just before the latest round of negotiations, a high-level UN official was asked privately whether the organisation had seriously attempted to assess the lessons learned from the past four years. The response was a flat no.
Regionally, the West can play a role in ending the conflict in Yemen by pushing for reconciliation between Saudi and Iran, and by halting their arms deals in the region. They cannot believably call for peace in Yemen while turning a blind eye to the destruction being wrought with their weapons, now in the hands of their regional clients.
This article was published on Al-Jazeera
Previous PostWhy does no one care about Yemen?
Next PostCollapse of a peace presidency: Obama's speech highlights foreign policy failures
All WritingsYemen & Gulf
Master of the Middle
Farea Al-Muslimi7 August، 2017
All WritingsAnalysisFeatured
Farea Al-Muslimi19 May، 2017
AnalysisCo-authoredReporting
Farea Al-Muslimi3 November، 2016

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We are also prescribed fire practitioners who provide consultations and hazard reduction burning to private landowners. I work with various entities across our state and have applied for additional funding for mitigation activities statewide in cooperation with some partner organizations.


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Our latest instalment of the Practical Democracy Project took place on 7 March in the vibrant city of Leeds. It may have been our rainiest host city so far (compared with previous events we've held around the UK, in Dublin & in Hamilton, New Zealand) but thankfully the weather didn't dampen the enthusiasm of our speakers & attendees. It helped that the venue, kindly provided by the good folk of ODI Leeds, was a bright, open space with sunny yellow daffodils on each table and plenty of tea & coffee to boost energy levels.
The event took place over a weekday lunchtime in the hopes of tempting busy public sector folks away from their desks for a quick injection of inspiring discussion & chat around the theme of involving citizens in decision-making, and you bet we threw in a free lunch to sweeten the deal. We were pleased to be joined by attendees from a range of public sector organisations including DWP, MoJ, NHS Digital, NHS England, Derby City Council and Leeds City Council, as well as some other smaller organisations.
Ben Fowkes from Delib kicked off the event and introduced our first speaker, Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira from the University of Leeds' School of Politics and International Studies. Cristina has studied parliaments for over 20 years, with a particular focus on the relationship between institution and citizens. She told us that parliaments around the world are working hard to engage citizens (see the 2004 report Connecting Parliament with the Public produced by the House of Commons). However trust in parliaments remains low – notably in the UK since the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal – and the situation isn't helped by the word "Parliament" often being used as a catch-all term for politics or government. As a result the important role of scrutiny that these institutions provide is often overlooked.
She presented some recent examples of good and not-so-good engagement activity by UK Parliament, including a Select Committee Inquiry into Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment & Support Allowance (ESA) assessments in late 2017, which she described as a successful experiment in reaching out to the public & asking them to share their stories. Over 3000 submissions to the inquiry were received via a web forum, providing a variety of evidence & personal stories. From this information two reports were produced & published in early 2018, one of them focusing on all the stories sourced from the public engagement activity and integrating that information into ordinary parliamentary business.
She also shared the example of television personality Katie Price giving evidence about her son Harvey at a Petitions Committee inquiry into online abuse and the experience of disabled people in summer 2018, after a petition started by Katie achieved more than 220,000 signatures. This was a valuable opportunity for Parliament to gain awareness with a wider audience, especially as Katie talked about the inquiry on daytime television and even explained the difference between parliament and government; "a small thing but a powerful form of communication".
At the less successful end of the scale Cristina talked about the risks of Parliament inviting input from the public when a decision has already been made & there is no real opportunity to influence a bill. She described an instance when the engagement process was not integrated but happened in parallel with the standard parliamentary process, and people weren't told about the outcome (one of Delib's own consultation bugbears!) She summed up her talk by concluding that parliamentary engagement needs to focus on being more issues-led than process-led, and that the key is for parliaments to be in broadcast mode less & a deliberative, listening mode more.
The next speaker on the agenda was Huw Spencer, a local government official by trade as well as co-founder of the Northern Policy Forum (NPF), a network for young people across the north interested in discussing key policy issues that shapes the places they live. Huw recommended three guiding principles for the art of public engagement: "make it relevant", "make it accessible", and "make it yourselves".
To illustrate his point around making things relevant, he mentioned a recent NPF event where an NHS worker talked about her work to make policies around accessing services in the north-west of England more inclusive towards women of colour, and how she'd used her own experience to help improve policy. Huw described this as a really concrete example of how you can draw on your own experiences but also your own listening capabilities in order to understand policy issues, & told us how a young maths teacher who was just starting out in her career and had never thought about policy before had said she was fired up by listening to the speakers at the event and now wanted to go out and campaign to improve education policy across the north.
Huw talked about the importance of making spaces as inclusive as possible and considering factors such as accessibility for people with physical disabilities, choosing venues that are appropriate for people from different religious backgrounds (e.g. perhaps not meeting in a pub), and trying to keep events free to cater towards a millennial generation with less disposable income. He commented that there have been several northern policy or "Northern Powerhouse" themed conferences advertised lately with tickets upwards of £250 to attend, which sends a message to young people that this event is not for them.
He also emphasised that to engage more young people, you need to hire young people. There aren't many opportunities for young people to speak, but the only way to get better at public speaking is to do it, so NPF is trying to provide that platform for younger folks to gain experience & connect with one another. The Forum is still early on in its journey and Huw anticipates more hurdles ahead, but said that their ambitions include reaching out beyond university towns and into communities that are more excluded from traditional political discourse.
Last but by no means least we heard from Emily Redmond, a Service Designer with the Good Things Foundation (GTF) which works to engage people who feel excluded from the digital world. She set the context of the Foundation's work by sharing the damning statistic that only 26% of people in the UK feel they're able to influence decisions in their local area. Thanks to the Women's Vote Centenary Grant Scheme, provided by the Government Equalities Office, the GTF was awarded funding to distribute to its online centres network in order to "educate, participate & celebrate" – the primary objectives of the scheme were to educate people about democracy, increase participation, and celebrate the centenary which many people were unaware of or its significance.
The GTF invested the grant in its #VoiceboxCafes project, which involved 34 online centres supporting 1,283 people to educate them & try to increase their democratic participation through a combination of digital & in-person learning. They tried to bust myths around voting and explain the difference between national and local politics, between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and showed people how to carry out their own research online. What went down particularly well, she said, was showing people how to look up their local MP or councillor online and find out what decisions they had made in the past.
Emily also reported back on some research she conducted among the learners to try to better understand what the main barriers were that had prevented them from participating in the past. The common themes that emerged included feeling excluded by jargon they didn't understand; a lack of confidence & experience to talk openly about how they feel; not knowing how they could have a say beyond voting; not being interested, or seeing how it was relevant to their lives; having a negative experience of democracy in another country (e.g. witnessing corruption) which had led to a lack of trust in democratic systems; and believing their voice didn't matter or that no-one was interested in what they had to say. Emily found the #VoiceboxCafes project had been vitally important in showing how things have changed for women in the UK over the last 100 years, which gave people in attendance hope for the future and inspired them to have their say.
After the project the GTF found there was a 65% increase in the number of learners who said they feel like they understand democratic processes in the UK. Emily highlighted that 70% of the people supported through the project were from BAME communities, which the GTF is particularly proud of. She rounded up by sharing some key learnings from their work, which included simplifying the language we use ("Digital democracy sounds good but people don't know what it means") and echoed some of Huw's advice about carefully selecting venues – she recommended social, informal environments where people go anyway (such as a church hall). She finished by showing a video giving a taste of one of the #VoiceboxCafes sessions, showing women having fun naming their own political parties & reading their manifestos to one another.
After a short break to refill our mugs, Ben was back at the lectern to give a potted history of Delib. He talked about the political games we designed in our early years, and how we evolved into a provider of digital tools that make it easier to involve citizens in decision making. He also explained where we picked up our unofficial motto, "Beware of the leopard", and how it applies to our work (in case you didn't recognise it, it's a Douglas Adams reference).
We finished up the session with a panel discussion giving one last opportunity for us to pick our speakers' brains. One member of the audience observed that the noticeable thread running through all three talks was about the need to make information accessible & relevant to a diverse audience, and Cristina commented that she found it optimistic how most of the discussion had focused on working with & involving people in existing structures rather than trying to break everything up & start again.
Thanks again to ODI Leeds for hosting us, to our expert speakers for sharing insights their important work, and to everyone else who made time in their day to come along. We always enjoy making new friends (including the chappie in the bandana below, who we met in the foyer at ODI Leeds!) and we hope to see you again at a future event – keep an eye on our Twitter feed for news of where we'll be heading next.
Can people have constructive conversations online?
Or will digital discussions always inevitably descend into a punch-up?
We're all familiar with the dilemma: the internet potentially opens up a huge audience for public participation, making it easy for anyone to have their say. But too often it also seems to bring with it a polarising, tribal toxicity, with comment threads reduced to thoughtless shouting matches. Is that just an unavoidable downside of digital interaction – or is there another way?
The National Assembly for Wales have been using Dialogue to open up public discussions online – on everything from the future of agriculture to Welsh Baccalaureate Qualifications. Some of the topics (such as giving prisoners the vote) have been pretty contentious but that hasn't deterred the Assembly from running the Dialogues. In fact, they've found the process to be consistently constructive, with participants giving considered and relevant feedback.
"I found Dialogue to be an essential tool in the debate. It helped to focus discussion around self-selecting themes in one inquiry, and opened out the debate beyond the two main arguments in another, helping the committee to understand the entire spectrum of debate.
The platform encourages thoughtful, considered debate – more than a standard online survey or poll – and I have found it to also elicit respectful discussions, even when opinions are in conflict.
Dialogue is also incredibly easy to understand (for users) and to extract and summarise the contributions (for officials).
This is consistent with our experience: a well-designed exercise (from the framing of the question to the structure of the response process) makes a huge difference to whether you get productive discussion or overrun with trolls. But, in short, YES it is absolutely possible to have constructive conversations online.
tl:dr Citizen Space is now twice as fast and can cope with double the amount of things at once.
In the past year, approximately 1,080,000 responses were submitted to exercises run via Citizen Space, and currently around 15,000 people working in public service around the world are registered as administrators on Citizen Space sites across 124 different organisations.
Performance underpins all of this and has been the focus of the last few months.
Our product development regularly focuses on incremental improvements multiple times a year, mostly through visible product features and updates which are largely suggested by our users.
There's a lot of other stuff which competes for our time and it's a balancing act of keeping the products moving forward while meeting regularly-changing security obligations, complying with (and proving compliance with) changes to data protection and other global legislation, answering support questions from users, internal governance and so on and so on. There are only about twenty of us across the UK, Australia and New Zealand, so we have to very carefully prioritise our work to keep on top of these competing demands.
Consistent performance is hard. Our customers are in control of how much content goes into their platform and we don't apply artificial limits to number of consultations, users, responses or documents customers add to their sites, this results in varying requirements on our production infrastructure .
Administrative tasks in particular often consume a disproportionate amount of capacity as they can involve searching, annotating and exporting thousands of consultation responses and their supporting documents. If you have lots of people doing those things at once — and it's the nature of this kind of tool that you do — that's a big load for a server. Combining that with multiple active consultations and a constant stream of people visiting and submitting their views – a moving target which can peak at hundreds, and occasionally thousands, of requests a second – results in a constantly shifting workload where even small performance gains can have a big effect on overall throughput and time spent waiting.
What did we want for version 4?
Alongside our standard ongoing development work , we'd been working on preparing a large infrastructure update to Citizen Space for most of 2018 and this formed the backbone of the performance updates. Toward the end of 2018 we turned our technical attention to take a specific run at performance in our regular milestones, too, with the particular focus on delivering those concurrency, speed and availability improvements.
The updates were delivered over a series of smaller milestones released with no downtime for sites, plus one large overnight update in January 2019 with a few minutes of downtime, which comprised the main infrastructure release.
How do we know what difference these updates made?
The results for the public side of sites are similar across all of them, so there is only one chart for those. This is because, in order to prevent those chunkier admin requests from impacting on people responding, Citizen Space is technically structured so that it broadly separates out the public from the admin side.
It's worth stating that some admin-side requests we would expect to take a number of seconds to serve because they require large multi-megabyte files to be exported, but for public side transactions we're ultimately aiming for under two seconds on all types of request, which would make Citizen Space faster than about 70% of the world wide web. Either way, we still want both the chunky requests and the already-pretty-fast ones to improve and continue improving.
In short: it can do more at once, and it can do it quicker.
The following charts show the average time in seconds each request took to deliver, so the shorter the bar, the less time it has taken. If you hover over the bars it'll tell you the mean response time for each type of request in 2018 (blue – first bar) and 2019 (orange – second bar). Sadly – as these are charts – they're not great if you're reading this on a smartphone, but I've put the links below each one to view them individually, or you can view the whole set together on Tableau Public (link opens in new tab).
Citizen Space can now serve over twice as many requests per second i.e. it can deliver pages to double the number of respondents clicking on things at once.
If we use the total number of requests made over the course of 2018 across all sites (approximately 2 million requests) and forecast out how long those same requests would now take in 2019 after the most recent upgrades, it's a saving of approximately 420 hours (or approximately 56 full working days) in total across all organisations using Citizen Space, and that's a lot of time which can be spent elsewhere.
This group comprises the largest number of our customers. If we use the total number of requests made over the course of 2018 for this group (over 870,000 requests) and forecast out how long those same number of requests would now take in 2019 after the most recent upgrades, it's a saving of almost 123 hours (or over 15 full working days).
We have just under fifty organisations in this group. If we use the total number of requests made over the course of 2018 for this group (over 709,000 requests) and forecast out how long those same number of requests would now take in 2019 after the most recent upgrades, it's a saving of almost 150 hours (or just under 19 full working days) for these organisations collectively.
This is the smallest group of organisations (currently ten), but they are highly active. If we use the total number of requests made over the course of 2018 for this group (just under 470,000 requests) and forecast out how long those same number of requests would now take in 2019 after the most recent upgrades, it's a saving of almost 150 hours (or just under 19 full working days) for these organisations collectively.
In terms of the Availability goal, with Citizen Space able to do more and quicker, we expect to see fewer instances of sites struggling under very heavy load. Luckily, this isn't a very regular occurrence, though we do track this via our site monitoring and tagged support tickets, so we'll be looking at that data in the next few months to see if this too has seen an improvement.
We have a further release going out this week which will deliver improvements to the export of all consultations, so we should see the request times for that go down, too. This release includes other changes which we hope will add to the performance of Citizen Space, so we'll take another look at these stats in a few months to see how we're getting on.
As mentioned earlier, availability is a harder one to measure as it requires sites to have alerted our monitoring that there have been errors or issues, so we need more data to see what difference has been made as – thankfully – we don't have regular instances of this. We have taken a look at the small amount of monitoring data since the upgrades and the indication is that this too has seen an improvement, but the numbers are so small that we'd rather have fuller information over a number of months to compare with 2018 to be sure.
Coming up, we're working on meeting the new WCAG 2.1 standards. Citizen Space is currently designed to meet W3C WAI WCAG 1.0 & 2.0 Level AA.
There is much to do, let's crack on shall we?
 We run a subscription model matching type of organisation and expected capacity requirements with computing provision, so that customers can have unlimited use up to the capacity of their machine.
As an example, local regional councils with lower staff numbers and a smaller likely audience for their consultations do not require the same capacity as, say, a central government department, which runs national consultations and needs more administrators across a much larger organisation. We believe this approach saves organisations from needing to limit their ability to consult, or to take a risk with sharing log-ins as might happen with a model which charges per exercise or per user. We don't want to restrict organisations from seeking the views of citizens, nor to encourage practices which might lower security. We prefer joined-up, improved processes across an organisation where people can work together effectively. The 'limited only by hardware' model helps to deliver that, as the organisation is free to structure their work as they need without being concerned about an increased cost for doing so. Most organisations never need to increase the capacity they need (and therefore subscription level), if they do then we'll purchase and provide more capacity, or they can choose to manage their content accordingly. A bit like when you run out of space on your smartphone and you can either increase your memory size or, if you don't want to do that, then you delete some photos.
As taxpayers and citizens, we care about the public sector being ripped off by suppliers, so we work in as lean a way as we possibly can and charge just enough for each subscription band to: be able to reinvest in continually updating the software, to meet any statutory and market obligations, to pay our taxes and fair wages for hard-working people, and to keep the lights on in our offices.
 In 2018 our other commitments as a company tended to relate to updates and additional measures around information security, and GDPR.
 A request means a request to the server, such as selecting to continue on a page, clicking a button, loading a page, requesting an export — things like that.
 We have more people using Citizen Space now, so the number of times these pages will be requested in 2019 is likely to be higher than 2018, and therefore the speed improvements will likely be cumulatively even more significant.
 There was a lot of data so it's worth noting that when calculating the mean there were some outliers: sites with large databases which took longer to serve certain requests (like the export of all consultations), and newer customers with very small databases which were quicker. To account for that, in the charts in 'The Results' section, we've included both the mean across all customers, but also set out charts for the average response times of the three groups of different site demands, from smaller organisations on sites set up for small-medium sized demand, to the largest with sites set up to cope with high-very high demand.
 For the handful of the very largest customers, the data shows what we'd expect, which is that requests – especially delivering exports – take quite a bit longer as this reflects the huge amount of data on their platform. These customers typically: get tens of thousands of responses to consultations, run hundreds of exercises a year, have huge peaks in traffic, and hundreds of administrators (devolved governments, very large national bodies, certain central/federal government departments). By contrast, those who are small to medium sized organisations and therefore smaller demand sites, which is the majority of our customer-base, have quicker times for those exports as the data being served is smaller. These customers tend to have regional or interest-based audience groups (the customers may be local councils, specialist regulatory bodies, etc.) lower staff numbers, and are less likely to run consultations of national interest. In the middle, we have around fifty medium to large organisations who tend to be other central/federal government departments, large local government entities, larger regulatory / health / infrastructure bodies, again with quite a bit of data to manage with most requests.
Nice use of routing/skip logic helps smooth the path through the questions, though, and the introduction does a good job of showing participants that their contribution is both valuable and valued.
As ever, that's barely a drop in the ocean of the thousands of live examples you can check out on the Aggregator. And if you'd like to chat through some forthcoming online consultations of your own, you can always drop us a line.
With almost 17,000 digital consultations on Citizen Space at present, there's no shortage of stuff worth looking at at any one time. Here's four public sector consultations that are currently open – all covering important topics, and all making for potentially useful examples to emulate if you've got surveys of your own coming up.
This survey makes good use of Fact Banks – adding expandable dropdowns under certain questions so that the top-line question itself can remain simple and easy-to-read but making it easy for people to get loads more background info should they want it without even having to leave the page.
As we said, that's just a tiny sample of the thousands of live examples on the Aggregator. And if you'd like to chat through some forthcoming online consultations of your own, you can always drop us a line.


Poor installation can lead to loose cabinets.
1 What Are the Causes of Cabinets Falling?
Usually, when a cabinet begins to sag or come off the wall, it's because of a poor installation job. Typically, cabinets are hung on the wall by screwing into studs behind the wall. If the installer misses the stud or only hits the edge, the cabinet's integrity is compromised. When weight is placed in the cabinet, it begins to come apart or pull away from the wall. If this happens, it should be attended to before that baby comes crashing down, cradle and all.
Insert the tip of a putty knife between any cracks, loose joints or separations. Scrape out any residual dried glue, debris, loose knots or chips of wood.
Place your hands against the cabinet and force it back as hard as possible to get it up against the wall. Hold it there with one hand and measure the distance between the bottom of the cabinet and the top of the countertop. If there is no countertop, measure to the floor. Add 1/2 inch to the measurement and cut two studs to that length on a miter saw.
Inject glue into any loose joints, cracks or separations. Place the studs slanted vertically under the front of the cabinet. Tap the bottom of the studs forward with a hammer so that they pry the cabinet up in the front, tightening the cabinet back against the wall.
Insert a 3/16-inch drill bit into a cordless drill. Drill through the front of the cabinet wherever you placed glue in a loose joint, separation or crack. Drill through the sides, into shelves, wherever possible to reinforce the joints. Place a 1/2-inch Forstner bit in the drill and drill down again into each hole to a depth of 1/4 inch for a countersink.
Place 1 1/2-inch screws in the holes and drive them down tight with the cordless gun. Inject a drop of glue into each countersink hole and tap a 1/2-inch wood plug into it with a hammer until it bottoms out.
Lean into the cabinet and locate where the installation screws are. There should be a wooden rail across the top of the cabinet in back. There will be two or three screws in the rail. Using the cordless gun, drive one screw on both sides of the existing screws. When you hit a stud, it will be obvious. The screw will be hard to drive. When you have located the studs by driving screws into them, the cabinet will stay in place. Allow 24 hours for the glue to dry.
Remove the props. Use a chisel to cut off the tops of the wood plugs. Sand the end of the plug lightly with 120-grit sandpaper and color it with a matching stain marker.
If you find any loose nails or screws, pull them out. Don't try to drive them back in. They are part of the problem.
If you're working on a base cabinet, skip the prop installation and continue on with the gluing and placement of screws.
Shaddy, Wade. "Repairing a Cabinet That Is Coming Apart From the Wall." Home Guides | SF Gate, http://homeguides.sfgate.com/repairing-cabinet-coming-apart-wall-31915.html. Accessed 21 April 2019.


Spring is here! Now we have the lighter nights and milder temperatures there are no excuses: it's time to get your house in order.
When you think about it, the concept of spring cleaning is rather illogical. Many of us don't really feel like going anywhere much over winter. We go to work in the dark and come home in the dark and then can't face going out again. You would think that those long dark months are the ideal opportunity to get things done around the house but most of us just feel like hibernating.
So now as the sun begins to shine it highlights all the dust and clutter and streaky windows: everything that we have rather neglected during the winter months. So it's time to spring forward into action and get things sorted.
But of course you want to get out and about as well. Yes things need doing at home, but the milder weather is beckoning and you want to get out in the fresh air for days out or exercising or pub lunches with family and friends. Just living!
So here is our quick guide to spring cleaning in a weekend. Devote just one weekend to sorting your house out then you are free to enjoy the rest of spring without feeling guilty!
Here's the trick: don't spend more time on this than you need to. For every pile of "stuff" and every overfilled cupboard or drawer there are three main categories: keep / throw away / pass on. Act fast: only put back the stuff you are definitely going to keep. The store them neatly where they can be easily accessed when needed.
Get rid of the "throw away" items immediately – into the bin or off to the tip – and take the "pass on" items to a charity shop unless there is a home collection next week.
If there are any items you are really unsure about then put them into a black bag to be reviewed in a month or so – but put a reminder in your phone to do this otherwise you will forget!
Now there is clear space do a one stop dust, polish and vacuum Every surface of every room from the top of the house downwards. Start by vacuuming the ceiling, light fittings, walls, doors, curtains and blinds. Then dust and polish all horizontal surfaces. End by hoovering the skirting boards then every inch of floor space. Wooden floors can then be cleaned with a specialist cleaner or steam cleaner.
Get your house sparkling by cleaning all windows, glass and mirrors with either a bespoke cleaner or the old-fashioned method that many swear by – a combination of white vinegar and water applied with either newspaper or a cloth. Gleaming glass really brightens up your home.
For most of us, the kitchen is the heart of the home. Which also means it's the place that tends to look the most lived-in – not always in a very good way! So now is the chance to bring it back to life.
Again, start top down with the tops of units and appliances, then clean the doors of all your high kitchen cabinets. Take a break to clean each appliance, including descaling where necessary. Then completely clear every surface and give it a thorough clean. Move onto lower kitchen cabinets and end up with your sink and floor.
If during this process you realise that your kitchen is beginning to look rather tired, then perhaps 2019 is the time to start thinking about a new kitchen? In which case you'll be delighted to hear that Stone and Chrome are now offering kitchen design, supply and installation. See the image below for an example of what to expect!
Last but by no means least, clean all bathrooms from top to bottom. Remove everything from the bathroom then vacuum all walls and the floor then clean all surfaces and bathroom fittings thoroughly. Your bathroom will soon be looking its best again.
But if you realise that, despite your best efforts, your bathroom is letting the side then why not take a browse through our gallery of bathroom images to see how beautiful a Stone and Chrome bathroom could look in your home?
So if you devote a weekend to the above five steps then your home will soon be back in shape, ready for spring. But if your thoughts are heading towards a new kitchen or bathroom this year then why not come and see us at Stone and Chrome. A visit to our Camberley showroom will help you visualise how a new kitchen or bathroom from Stone and Chrome could transform your home in 2019 – not just for spring but all year through.


Around 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. Yet, we hear a number of cases where life insurance providers still discriminate against people with a disorder. With numbers rising, it's about time we start tackling the issue to improve cover options for those suffering from mental health.
Why is mental health a risk for insurance providers?
People with mental health disorders are considered 'high risk' by insurance providers. This is due to several reasons.
People with severe mental health disorders have a lower life expectancy than those without. In fact, research has shown that it can reduce your life expectancy by up to 25 years.
Those suffering from a mental health condition are more likely to smoke which increases your premiums regardless of a health condition.
Obesity rates are higher in people suffering from mental health, which increases the risk of heart disease. In fact, those suffering from a mental health disorder are almost twice as likely to pass away from coronary heart disease than the general population.
Physical activity rates are lower in general for people who suffer from mental health.
Alcohol and drug misuse levels increase amongst those with mental health issues.
The side effects of long-term psychiatric medication can increase the risk.
Levels of self-harm and suicidal thoughts are increasing each year. Around 6.7 in every 100 people were reported to attempt suicide in 2015.
Obtaining life insurance could be difficult for people suffering from a mental illness and not just in the sense that the provider may decline them for cover.
Coping in this economy with money, jobs and benefits can make it harder for people to cope with a mental illness. These factors have increased levels of self-harm and suicidal thoughts over the years affecting life insurance premiums.
A lack of life insurance policy could lead to further money worries, stress and self-esteem issues. All of which can exacerbate a condition and make it even harder for people to cope. With these factors in mind, it can add a future fear of trying to obtain life insurance. If they are turned away you may feel singled out. Particularly for people who are otherwise fit and healthy.
When you apply for a life insurance policy, you need to declare any medical conditions that you have suffered from in the last 5 years. Talking about mental health can be difficult for some people, which could lead to non-disclosure. As a result, the insurance provider wouldn't pay out on a claim.
1 in 10 children from the ages of 5 to 16 are reported as having a clinically diagnosed mental health disorder. And by 2030 it is estimated that there will be approximately 2 million more adults with mental health problems than there were in 2013.
Waiting times for psychological therapy on the NHS varies, but some can wait for around 6 months before being initially seen for treatment. Younger people, especially those living in deprived areas are less likely to recover from their condition which could mean they are never able to receive affordable life insurance.
Therefore, customers could be penalised and pay higher premiums the same as someone suffering from major chronic depression. Whilst each case is treated individually, the reasons behind the condition aren't always a factor during the underwriting process.
If you receive life insurance from your employer, you may find yourself discussing health issues that you may not want to declare. Whilst not all employers discriminate against mental illness, there are still many employers who aren't always supportive.
It's not often that people feel comfortable recalling dark moments and feelings to your employer. This could lead to non-disclosure and mean that people aren't sufficiently covered.
It's true that many individuals suffer discrimination against the hands of life insurance providers, but it's not always bad news.
Normally insurance providers are more lenient if your condition is under control or in your medical history. In fact, they don't need to know any condition that you suffered more than 5 years ago. Sometimes, they will consider cases after 2 years as well.
Other factors such as smoking, alcohol and drug intake, weight and lifestyle can affect the cost of your life insurance premiums. It may be that a combination of these and your mental health could be the reason behind your increased risk and, therefore, higher premiums. However, if you are otherwise fit and healthy you're unlikely to have problems obtaining life insurance.
Although it's not required, if you declare the reason behind mental illness such as a bereavement or divorce, then your insurance provider may view you as less of a risk. Your GP report will not contain the circumstances surrounding your condition, so it may be up to you to let you insurance provider know. You may then be able to avoid higher premiums.
Although it may seem that mental health conditions are discriminated against in general, insurance providers are actually quite good at taking each case as it comes. Every individual is assessed on their own accord and so loadings on premiums aren't always the same. In some cases, you may be declined, but others you may get offered standard rates. Alternatively, you could be offered exclusions for any conditions related to your mental health or exclusions for just 1 to 2 years.
The Equality Act 2010 states that it is unlawful for insurers to discriminate against those with a disability UNLESS your disability increases your risk. More common conditions such as minor or moderate depression and anxiety may no increase your risk levels. Particularly, if you are otherwise fit and healthy.
Mental illnesses aren't always considered to be a disability, so it can depend on the severity of the condition. But your insurance provider needs to demonstrate that your condition increases the risk of you dying before they can charge higher premiums or decline someone for cover.
What do insurance providers need to know?
Although it can be difficult to discuss your medical conditions, it is important that you disclose the correct information. Any non-disclosure of conditions could result in a claim not being paid out.
What counts as a mental health disorder?
Mental illness refers to a wide range of conditions, including any disorders that affect your mood and behaviour. Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are the most common illnesses in the UK. In addition to this, smaller conditions may impact your life insurance. This includes stress, post-natal depression, ADHD, eating disorders, persistent tiredness, ME and addictions.
Whilst milder conditions may still get standard rates, it is important that you declare any condition no matter how severe.
Insurance providers are getting better at offering life insurance to those suffering with mental health. And, just because you get turned down by one provider, doesn't mean you will be turned away from them all.
Every insurance provider has their own criteria when it comes to assessing the risk, so it's important not to give up. 1 in 6 adults report a common mental health problem such as anxiety and depression in any given week, so discrimination could remove a huge customer base from insurance providers.
Insurance providers do assess each case individually and some insurance providers are better than others at covering mental health. The industry has shown increased understanding of conditions and the pressures facing an individual with a mental health condition. So, fighting to get a life insurance policy in the first place shouldn't need to add to those pressures.
Some providers go the extra mile when providing cover for their customers. Insurance providers such as Vitality, Royal London and Aegon partner with other health providers to offer specialist services such as counselling and treatment for any condition including mental illness.
What's more, some even offer emergency GP appointments and cover the cost of private prescriptions. Some insurance providers even provide bereavement counselling too. These services can be tailored to your needs and offer support and advice for those that need it, free of charge.
If you suffer from a mental health condition you can speak to an independent protection advisor who can help to compare providers and advise you on your options based on your circumstances.
At Business Cover Expert, our partnered advisors provide advice free of charge and can compare a panel of some of the best insurance providers in the UK to find you the best rates on not just life insurance, but critical illness cover and private health insurance too.
What's more, if you've been symptom-free for a few years and already have cover, it might be worth renewing your cover to see if you can get cheaper premiums. Especially, if you are otherwise fit and healthy. Additionally, if you've stopped smoking, obtained a healthy BMI and increase your health you may be able to get better rates on your life insurance.


text:
Apple sticks to vintage strategy for selling iPhones in India
By: Bloomberg |
Published: July 11, 2018 10:50:56 AM
Sometimes, it seems like Apple Inc.'s strategy in India is stuck exactly three years in the past.
Apple's second "Designed in California, assembled in India" models are hitting store shelves in the world's fastest-growing smartphone market.
Sometimes, it seems like Apple Inc.'s strategy in India is stuck exactly three years in the past. Apple's second "Designed in California, assembled in India" models are hitting store shelves in the world's fastest-growing smartphone market. It's the vintage iPhone 6S, a model introduced back in 2015.
India has been steadily increasing taxes on smartphone imports to encourage local manufacturing, pushing global brands to make products in the South Asian country. As a result, Apple began assembling the iPhone SE at a Wistron facility in Bangalore last year. While the older-model iPhones are listed for $375, that's still beyond the reach of the majority of Indian buyers. Still, such vintage models serve as an entry point for aspiring Apple customers, offering a way for the Cupertino, California-based company to build some early loyalty.
A representative for Apple in India didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. This week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a small victory for his "Make in India" program when Samsung Electronics Co. opened the doors to the world's largest smartphone factory near New Delhi. The facility will make inexpensive models as well as its flagship S9. Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo and Vivo have all set up assembly and research & development facilities in India, attracted by a market that's projected to have 810 million smartphones by 2021, according to Ericsson.
"Apple is not taking India seriously, it certainly doesn't look like a priority market," said Neil Shah, a Mumbai-based research director at Counterpoint Research, who said the phonemaker still has about 2 percent market share. "Sales volumes are some 200,000 iPhones per quarter," Shah said. "Unless this ramps to at least a million iPhones, Apple will pay cursory attention to the market."


text:
Trump's immigration reversal creates complications for GOP candidates
Republican Senate candidates are dealing with the fallout from the president's policy — and his subsequent reversal.
By Leigh Ann Caldwell
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's policy of separating migrant children from their families at the southern border — and his subsequent reversal — has begun affecting congressional campaigns throughout the country and complicating the efforts of many GOP candidates to find their footing on the issue.
Republicans have struggled for years with internal splits on immigration, a dynamic that played out publicly once again this week as party leaders struggled to to pass a comprehensive overhaul that could satisfy both sides.
Where does the GOP immigration bill stand after Trump's tweets?
As that drama persists, with an expected vote on a twice-delayed bill next week, it's still too early to gauge how the past week's events might affect the fall elections, but the issue is already showing up in many campaigns, especially in Senate races.
Some GOP candidates supported the initial policy of separating families, calling it necessary and "unavoidable" in enforcing the law. Now those candidates are trying to follow the president's reversal.
In Pennsylvania, for example, where Republican Rep. Lou Barletta is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, the two candidates have taken different positions.
Barletta, a longtime hard-liner on immigration, initially applauded the policy. But after Trump backtracked, Barletta followed suit. "I supported the president enforcing the laws and policies that we had and that's what he was doing," he told NBC News. "The president changed the laws and policies, so he's been consistent."
Casey called it a policy "from the pit of hell," making it clear in an interview that he "disagrees completely" with Barletta.
In Virginia, Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart supported the policy as well. "You have to enforce the law. Otherwise you're going to have many more people coming across the border," Stewart said last week in an MSNBC interview.
Stewart had to revise his stance, too, after Trump did. "The president has found a way to enforce our immigration laws while keeping families together, and I applaud him for it," Stewart said through a spokesperson.
Corey Stewart: Immigration policy
Trump, who ran and won in large part because of his tough-on-immigration positions, is unlikely to suffer a backlash from supporters for reversing his position, said GOP strategist Rick Tyler. But his actions are hurting Republican candidates who may now have to adjust their positions.
"Trump doesn't have supporters. He has fans," Tyler said. "And if you're a regular old politician, you can't behave in that way because your political supporters will hold you to account."
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., echoed that concern, saying the risk for Republican candidates is that Trump is unpredictable.
"The problem is, when the president says he supports something, you don't know how fleeting that is," Flake said. "We've been through this. We've seen this movie before. That's frustrating and it makes it extremely difficult."
House Republicans face their own challenges on the issue when it comes to the November election. Moderate members, who are the most vulnerable and whose constituents are looking for solutions to DACA and immigration, forced leadership to take up immigration legislation. The separation of families at the border only hurts their re-election chances as it deepens the impression that Republicans are anti-immigrant.
Rep. Jeff Denham, a Republican who is facing a difficult re-election race in the farming-rich central California valley, said he is making sure that his constituents "can see that I'm addressing the issue."
GOP congressman disagrees with Trump, wants bipartisan fix
GOP voters in general say immigration is the third most important issue to them, compared with fifth most for Democrats, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll this month.
The current debate has played out in some familiar patterns so far. In states where the border issue isn't a constant concern, like Virginia and Pennsylvania, GOP candidates haven't strayed far from Trump, with some fully embracing the family separation policy.
In other states, it's Democrats who are finding it difficult to fully oppose the president.
In Missouri's Senate race, Republican candidate Josh Hawley is fundraising off the issue. While he doesn't say he supports family separation, he says his opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, is helping to keep the border insecure by opposing the policy.
"Secure our border, protect our citizens, allow ordered immigration to those who wish to become productive members of American society. These are common-sense principles," Hawley wrote to supporters in his fundraising plea. "So why is Senator McCaskill fighting to allow illegal immigrants to pour across our border by using children as human shields?"
For her part, McCaskill's reaction has been more nuanced than many of her fellow Democrats. She says she is opposed to the separation of families but tells NBC News that she supports expedited deportation.
"I'm hoping they will go back to an administrative expedited removal of people who cross the border illegally," McCaskill said.
In North Dakota, Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and supports similar positions to Trump on immigration and border security, said families should be kept together but there's "nothing inhumane" about a chain-linked cage. "If it is, every ball park in America is inhumane," he said.
Heitkamp has also said that border security is a priority, but she splits with Cramer on her tone. She said that voters are "very, very concerned for the kids."
For Republican candidates running in states close to the southern border and with large Latino populations, coming out on the side of separating families was politically risky, as evidenced by the positions Republican candidates have taken in states like Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Texas.
In Nevada, Sen. Dean Heller was an early opponent of family separation, coming out against in on Memorial Day, well before the issue escalated.
"Senator Heller doesn't support separating children from their families, and he believes that this issue highlights just how broken our immigration system is and why Congress must act to fix it," his spokeswoman Megan Taylor told NBC News.
While Heller separated from Trump on this issue, he's not distancing himself too much. Heller will be with the president this weekend at the Nevada Republican convention in Las Vegas.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is running for the Senate, was opposed to the policy and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican who is in a closer-than-expected race with Democrat Rep. Beto O'Rourke in Texas, has taken the lead in trying to legislate an end to the practice.
After coming out in favor of family separation several weeks ago — and being opposed to permanent legal status for Dreamers — Cruz quickly changed course when O'Rourke announced he was visiting a border detention center. Now, Cruz and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are working on combining their respective legislative fixes to come up with a bipartisan solution.
Calling family separation "one of the real tragedies of illegal immigration," one in which "kids are often the greatest victims," Cruz said the legislation he was filing this week "would prohibit separating families, would mandate that kids stay with their families."
In the end, geography may play a larger role than ideology when it comes to the issue of immigration on the campaign trail this fall. "It will play differently in different states," Tyler said.
Beth Fouhy and Mark Murray contributed.


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Press conference at ESO on groundbreaking new Milky Way results from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
You can watch the press conference live on ESO page, or on ESO's YouTube channel.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) will host a press conference on groundbreaking new Milky Way results from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHT).
Researchers Tuomas Savolainen, senior scientist at the Aalto University Metsähovi Radio Observatory, Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering, Venkatessh Ramakrishnan from Aalto University Metsähovi Radio Observatory and Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO and Kaj Wiik, Senior Research Fellow at Tuorla Observatory and University of Turku were part of the international research group.
You can watch the press conference live on this site:
https://www.eso.org/public/live/
Appointments, Research & Art Published: 1.2.2023
Professor Ranja Hautamäki: 'Diverse urban nature is key to increasing well-being and carbon sinks'
Professor of Landscape Architecture is tackling the issues of climate change mitigation and urban carbon sinks.
Research & Art Published: 30.1.2023
Laureen Mahler uses origami folding to create bio-based packaging that is also pleasant to look at
Many products of the packaging industry are made of plastic and other fossil-based materials. The Aalto University Bioinnovation Center is developing ecological packaging solutions based on origami folding which also have value as beautiful objects.


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Survey: advisors can't get enough of active ETFs
Evolve ETFs poll offers insight into investor sentiment
By James Burton
Advisors' appetite for ETFs and active management is set to increase, according to a survey conducted by Evolve ETFs.
More than 150 Canadian advisors gave their thoughts about sentiment across thematic categories like Cannabis, Blockchain and AI, as well as active versus passive and portfolio allocation to ETFs.
The results revealed that advisors expect a 50% increase to their allocation to ETFs over the next two years, meaning an additional $32 billion of assets being funnelled into the space. The survey also revealed that fees, the ability to capitalize on a specific theme and liquidity are the top three criteria for respondents when selecting an ETF.
Raj Lala, Evolve ETFs CEO and president, said: "To me that's quite a bit and obviously as an ETF issuer I'm happy to hear that you're going to see greater and greater adoption. You have the dealers, the fee pressure … so many forces in play that are pointing towards ETFs. I think you will continue to see growth there."
The feedback also indicated that more advisors are using active ETFs versus passive, even though only 20% of Canadian ETF assets are in active. Evolve believes this suggests greater growth potential in active as well as a strong institutional preference for passive.
The other standout finding from Lala's point of view was the opinion that AI will be the number one investment trend to have a major impact on the markets over the next two years – more so than Blockchain, cryptocurrencies and marijuana.
That surprised the ETF firm's founder, who believes it's a good "rear view mirror" tool to see how things performed but that the human element remains vital in assessing companies' go-to-market plans and management teams.
Lala said: "Most of the survey reaffirmed what I already felt, which is nice because it's a validation that advisors are going to increase their allocations to ETFs, which I think most people already knew.
"The thing I found personally beneficial is that there was a big affirmation for the need for active management in ETFs and the appetite for them. That's nice to see because when we enter into a choppy market or potential decline market, I think a lot of people will realize the importance of active management again, and because we've been in the longest bull run in history, it's sometimes easy to forget."
CEO reflects on career rise, launches new blockchain ETF
Why ETFs are the investment world's 'Spotify'


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The Duchess of Malfi Makes The Blood Run Cold At Almeida Theatre
The Duchess of Malfi, Almeida Theatre ★★★☆☆
By Neil Dowden
Neil Dowden The Duchess of Malfi Makes The Blood Run Cold At Almeida Theatre The Duchess of Malfi, Almeida Theatre 3
Photo: Marc Brenner
John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, like most Jacobean revenge tragedies, ends with a heap of dead bodies. Before, we witness all kinds of horrific goings-on including strangling, stabbing and poisoning, an amputated hand and madness. With its macabre depiction of moral decay, it's a horror show. Yet despite some powerful moments, there is something curiously cold-blooded about this new Almeida production.
At the heart of the tragedy is the young widowed Duchess of Malfi, who defies her two brothers' strictures by secretly marrying again, and even worse, to a man beneath her social status, her steward Antonio. When their spy Bosola finds out she is with child, the brothers order a terrible punishment, but discover that retribution is a two-edged sword. The play is not just about men trying to control women, but female sexuality itself.
Rebecca Frecknall's modern-dress version removes the play from its courtly and religious context. It also plays down the melodramatic and grotesque elements of the play in favour of a cool dissection of class and gender power structures, though ultimately it fails to stir the emotions deeply.
The idea of having the murdered women continue to move on stage like ghosts haunting their male assailants works well. But although inventive, the production is over-stylised, with scene titles, slow-motion sequences, black blood, continual background music and use of microphones.
Chloe Lamford's museum-like design of glass cases within which props are stored emphasises the way women are regarded as display exhibits, but the use of a large glass-walled box that looks strangely like a changing room cum prison cell has a distancing effect, sealing off the action.
Lydia Wilson gives a strong performance as the free-spirited, barefoot Duchess who refuses to be boxed up, and her scenes with Khalid Abdalla's gentle Antonio have an intimate tenderness. Jack Riddiford plays the Duchess's incestuous twin Ferdinand who cannot control his feelings as his guilt slides into lycanthropy, contrasted with his ruthlessly calculating brother the Cardinal (Michael Marcus). And Leo Bill is the hired assassin Bosola, an ambivalent malcontent who becomes a scourge in a corrupt society.
The Duchess of Malfi, Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, N1 1TA. Tickets £10-£42.50, until 25 January 2020.


We brought back our Tee Pee Bookshelf for 2019. You can now choose your wood color and frame color. Ideal for storing your books, magazines and records in the living room. You can also utilize this shelf system in your home office, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.


Yesterday Aldi in Australia became the first supermarket chain to sell a 3D printer. Having done a little research in the days prior, it seems to be a rebranded Duplicator I3. This has pretty good reviews, so I splurged out $499 for one, plus a couple of rolls of PLA for $39 each. The filament is standard 1.75mm (PLA or ABS).
Opened it and set it up last night, really a piece of cake, and generally quite sturdy. Levelled the bed and did quick print (m3 thumbscrew) off the included SD card. For desktop software, it uses Cura, which is open source and used by some other printers also.
Yes, it just works. And I'm really impressed with the print quality, the speed and resolution seems to even rival prints off the $2000+ TAZ5 we have at work. All in the 1h I had to spare last night.
The bed adhesion is great - comparable force is needed to remove the print as on the taz5 (and it comes with a spare sheet). Though I havent printed anything with more than about 2x2cm area yet.
The only issue i came across is that leaving PLA in the extruder too long discolours it slightly, but thats solvable by heating only immediately prior to printing. It seems that the extruder still had a little of the orange filament left in it from factory testing. No thermal discolouration!


Duane is going to open a gift from her boyfriend.
I couldn't sleep because of the noise.
The details of the agreement were worked out behind the scenes.
She's working out on the stairmaster.
Four months later, Graham emerged from his self imposed hibernation.
Duplicates of this sentence have been deleted.
Lars works on an oil rig.
It's high time we made a decision!
I've been trying all week to get in touch with Connie.
Did Stevan say anything else?
You wouldn't accept candy from a stranger.
All right, Meeks, try it now.
Fried food usually doesn't agree with me.
Winnie hasn't paid this month's rent yet.
The town is supplied with water from a reservoir in the hills.
Write down Wilson's address for Metin.
I'm anxious about her health.
They asked a medical expert to do more research.
He likes to work in the garden.
Let's give Lori another round of applause.
I found the workman very good.
Celia said he'd be busy until 2:30.
Ramneek isn't as tough as everyone says he is.
You're such a cute boy.
This is the only thing that Edgar ever bought me.
Did Marika teach you Swedish as well?
What you did took courage.
That house cried for a coat of paint.
She'll only come to my birthday party if you'll come, too.
You could see the look of scorn on Philip's face.
She talked him into going to the concert.
Why couldn't you be nice to Barbara?
Jerome is afraid that I'll get lost.
Kimmo asked Bradley to help him organize the party.
Ping says he has no idea what to do.
Even a little boy knows this.
There seems to be evidence suggesting Kimberly was the one who stole Naim's bracelet.
I just want to do the right thing.
Do you want to bet on that?
Something can't get out of hand.
It is easy for me to read this book.
He wanted to be a great military leader.
He became more obstinate as he grew older.
Don't mention the matter to him.
I think I hurt his feelings.
Let's have a party for Dirk before he goes.
I didn't think it'd happen this quickly.
Bob told me he felt bad about that.
The man went off at last.
Nathaniel ordered a new sofa from the catalog.
Toby and I roomed together in college.
Can I borrow something to write with?
Nici gave his dog a bone.
I suppose we could walk.
Jack is learning how to drive a car.
I've been impressed with Stagger's work.
Vaughn sat by the pool drinking red wine and eating expensive cheese.
Is there anyone here who can speak French?
Silence is worth gold, but not when you're trying to learn a foreign language.
Kris always wears too much perfume.