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|Oracle® Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition)
11g Release 1 (11.1.1)
Part Number E20836-01
|PDF · Mobi · ePub
After you have created the repository file, the Physical layer, Business Model and Mapping layer, and Presentation layer, you need to perform several tasks to complete the initial repository setup. These tasks include saving the repository and checking consistency, adding an entry in NQSConfig.INI, and creating data source connections to the Oracle BI Server for client applications. This chapter provides information about these final setup tasks.
This chapter contains the following topics:
Configuring the Repository for Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management
Creating Data Source Connections to the Oracle BI Server for Client Applications
If your organization licensed Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management and if you have the appropriate privileges, then you can use this functionality as part of a default installation with no additional configuration. Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management also provides the capability to add comments (that is, annotations) or to override the status that is associated with specific dimension values for KPIs, Objectives, and Initiatives. KPI Watchlists offer the capability to add comments or to override statuses for KPIs. To enable these features, you must configure the repository to include a database object for storing the comment and status override information.
The database that you installed for use with Oracle Business Intelligence contains the Business Intelligence Platform schema, which includes required Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management schema tables. For more information about installing a database for Oracle Business Intelligence and running the Repository Creation Assistant (RCU) to create the required schemas, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence.
To configure Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management for comments and status overrides:
In the Administration Tool, open the repository in online mode.
Online mode is strongly recommended for performing data access security tasks, such as the task described in Step 12 of this procedure.
In the Physical layer, right-click and select New Database. The Database dialog is displayed.
For Name, enter BSC.
For Database, select the type of database that you have installed for use with Oracle Business Intelligence (typically Oracle 11g).
Select the Connection Pool tab and click the Add button. The Connection Pool dialog is displayed.
For Name, enter BSC.
Select the Call interface appropriate for the database (for example, OCI 10g/11g for Oracle Database).
For Data source name, provide the information that is appropriate for the database that you have installed and configured for use with Oracle Business Intelligence. For example, for Oracle Database, enter a connection string similar to the following:
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=192.168.1.100)(PORT=1521))(CONNECT_ DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME=KPIOracle)(SID=KPIOracl)))
When connecting to an Oracle Database data source, you can include the entire connect string, or you can use the net service name defined in the tnsnames.ora file. If you choose to enter only the net service name, then you must set up a tnsnames.ora file in the following location within the Oracle Business Intelligence environment, so that the Oracle BI Server can locate the entry:
Select Shared logon and enter values for User name and Password. In this step, you provide the user/schema name and password that you created when you used the Repository Creation Utility (RCU) to populate the Business Intelligence Platform schema in the Oracle Business Intelligence database.
Ensure that the user that you provide has read/write privileges for the ANNOTATIONS and ASSESSMENT_OVERRIDES tables in the Business Intelligence Platform schema.
Click OK in the Connection Pool dialog.
Click OK in the Database dialog.
Use the Identity Manager in the Administration Tool to allow the BISystem application role to execute direct database requests by default for the BSC database object. See "Allowing or Disallowing Direct Database Requests" for more information.
Save and close the repository.
Restart the Oracle BI Server.
In offline editing, remember to save your repository from time to time. You can save a repository in offline mode even though the business models may be inconsistent.
To determine if business models are consistent, use the Check Consistency command to check for compilation errors. You can check for errors in the whole repository by choosing File > Check Global Consistency, or in a particular logical business model by selecting a business model and then selecting Check Consistency from the right-click menu.
The consistency check analyzes the repository for certain kinds of errors and inconsistencies. For example, the consistency check finds any logical tables that do not have logical sources configured or any logical columns that are not mapped to physical sources, checks for undefined logical join conditions, determines whether any physical tables referenced in a business model are not joined to the other tables referenced in the business model, and checks for existence of a subject area for each business model.
Note:Passing a consistency check does not guarantee that a business model is constructed correctly, but it does rule out many common problems.
When you check for consistency, any errors or warnings that occur are displayed in a dialog. Correct any errors and check for consistency again, repeating this process until there are no more errors. An error message indicates a problem that must be corrected. A warning message identifies a possible problem. Refer to "Checking the Consistency of a Repository or a Business Model" for more information.
After upgrading from a previous software version and checking the consistency of your repository, you might observe messages that you had not received in previous consistency checks. This typically indicates inconsistencies that had been undetected before the upgrade, not new errors.
When your repository is complete, you can run sample queries against it to test that it is created properly. Correct any problems you find and test again, repeating this process until you are satisfied with the results.
You can use the Oracle BI Server utility nqcmd to run test queries against the repository. The utility connects using an Oracle BI Server ODBC DSN. The Oracle BI Server must be running to use nqcmd.
The nqcmd utility is available on both Windows and UNIX systems.
This utility is intended for sanity testing. For heavier load testing, use Answers or another client. Queries with many thousands of rows will not work with nqcmd.
Although you can use nqcmd to run queries against other ODBC data sources, this section only describes how to use this utility to query the Oracle BI Server.
Before running nqcmd, you must first run bi-init.cmd (or bi-init.sh on UNIX) to launch a command prompt or shell window that is initialized to your Oracle instance. You can find this utility in:
Then, run nqcmd from the resulting shell window with the desired options. For example:
nqcmd -dmy_dsn -umy_username [-pmy_password] -ssql_input_file -omy_result_file
You can pass a text file with SQL statements to the utility (script mode), or you can enter SQL at the command line (interactive mode). Queries are run against the default subject area, unless the object names used in the query are fully qualified.
Table 14-1 lists the command-line arguments for nqcmd.
Table 14-1 Command-line Arguments for nqcmd
Lists the available command-line arguments.
The ODBC data source name for the Oracle BI Server to which you want to connect.
If you omit this parameter, you are prompted at the command line to enter the DSN.
Tip: On Windows, you can see the available local ODBC data source names by going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Data Sources (ODBC). Click the System DSN tab to see a list of the available DSNs (for example, AnalyticsWeb_coreapplication).
A valid Oracle Business Intelligence user name.
The corresponding Oracle Business Intelligence user password.
The password argument is optional. If you do not provide a password argument, you are prompted to enter a password when you run the command. To minimize the risk of security breaches, Oracle recommends that you do not provide a password argument either on the command line or in scripts. Note that the password argument is supported for backward compatibility only, and will be removed in a future release.
The name and path of a text file that includes your test SQL queries.
The name and path of a file to which the utility will write the query results. This option is only used with -s.
The delimiter used in the SQL input file (for example, semicolon (;) or colon (:)). This option is only used with -s.
Enables asynchronous processing.
This option is typically used with -s, when you are passing a SQL input file with multiple SQL statements.
Enables UTF8 output instead of ACP in the output result file.
You might need to include this option to display international characters in query results.
Enables UTF16 instead of ACP for communication between nqcmd and the Oracle BI ODBC driver.
You might need to include this option to display international characters in query results.
Disables the ODBC forward only cursor.
Including this argument overrides the setting specified in the ODBC DSN.
Displays the version of the nqcmd utility.
-SessionVar session_variable_name=session_variable_value
Includes the specified session variable and sets it to the specified value.
Although -C, -R, -f, -H, -q, and -NoFetch are listed by the utility as available arguments, these options are not typically used.
If you run nqcmd in interactive mode rather than script mode (or in other words, if you do not pass a SQL input file), nqcmd shows a menu of options after you provide the data source name and user credentials. Although many options are shown, you typically only use Q, T, and C against the Oracle BI Server.
Enter Q to type a query at the command line. You must enter the query on a single line, and you cannot use a semicolon as a delimiter. Pressing Enter sends the SQL to the Oracle BI Server.
Enter T to browse presentation tables, or C to browse presentation columns. The utility prompts you for catalog pattern, user pattern, table pattern, and table type pattern before returning results.
For catalog pattern, enter the subject area that contains the tables you want to see. For table pattern, enter the specific table. You can enter percent (%) to see all subject areas or all tables, use % with other characters to replace a set of characters, or use underscore (_) with other characters to replace a single character.
User pattern and table type pattern are not used in queries against the Oracle BI Server, so enter % for these options.
You can also enter D to view a static list of data types supported by the Oracle BI Server.
After you build a repository and it is consistent, you need to upload the repository using Fusion Middleware Control so that all Oracle BI Server instances can access it. Uploading the repository allows the Oracle BI Server to load the repository into memory upon startup and makes the repository available for queries.
See "Configuring Repositories" in Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for information about how to perform this task.
When the repository is uploaded and you can connect to it, run sample queries against it to test that it is created properly. Correct any problems you find and test again, repeating this process until you are satisfied with the results.
If you want to enable end user client applications to connect to the new repository, you must define an ODBC data source connection to the Oracle BI Server for each application. Note that Oracle BI Presentation Services has the same relationship to the Oracle BI Server as any other client application.
See "Integrating Other Clients with Oracle Business Intelligence" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Integrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for information about creating ODBC data source connections for the Oracle BI Server.
After testing is complete, notify the user community that the data sources are available for querying. Presentation Services users only need to know the URL to type in their browser. Client/server users (for example, users accessing the Oracle BI Server with a query tool or report writer client application) need to know the subject area names, the computer on which the server is running, and their user IDs and passwords. They also need to have the ODBC DSN for the Oracle BI Server installed on their computers, and they may need to know the logical names of repositories if multiple repositories are used and the data source name (DSN) being created does not point to the default repository.


text: Days after Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton were delivered the news of their joint Golden Globe nominations for the new film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, they returned the favor—with a wee baby. Late Saturday night, People reports, the weird and wacky duo added a new member to their family, which already includes four-year-old Billy. "They are absolutely delighted they have a daughter. It's a lovely Christmas present for the family," said Karen Maskill, a rep. for Ms. Bonham Carter, 41. According to the actress, the lovers were discussing inducing the birthing process in a doctor's office when Mr. Burton, 49, got a call telling him about the nominations. "I do look like a globe, so it's kind of funny. I am very round," she said, adding with a laugh: "Maybe the baby's going to come out with his hands on his ears, [saying,] 'Shut up!'" As long as the infants hands were made of pink flesh—instead of, say, scissors—they're sure to be a happy pair.

subset: commoncrawl


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Cloud-based app features and services now can quickly be included in mobile apps, with an improved toolset from Appcelerator.
The vendor's Titanium 2.0 release offers to mobile developers a range of cloud services like push notification or photo sharing without having to write server-based code. Instead, the new release lets them set up connections to Appcelerator's hosted services for their apps, from any of several popular development language or tools, including Objective-C, HTML5 and tool kits from PhoneGap and Sencha.
MORE: Inside Apple iPad's worldwide ubiquity
Developers can choose from about a dozen key services to start with including access, authentication and cross-platform controls for user management; storing and sharing photo albums from within the mobile app; location data; integrating with social networks via login and authentication via a user's Facebook or Twitter accounts; creating and analyzing data pulled from search fields in the app, such as location or user interactions, to optimize an app's features; pushing messages to end users on any device; and embedding instant messaging in the app to support several user and user group threads.
Titanium consists of a development toolkit, Titanium Studio, which is based on the open-source Eclipse integrated development environment, and Appcelerator Mobile SDK, specifically for creating a single code base that can be deployed as native iOS or Android, or mobile Web, apps. Also part of the package: Appcelerator Analytics, which is an application that gives developers a wide-range of data about the app's performance and use; and Market0place, which is an enterprise-based app store, with device management features and support for commerce features, security and access controls.
The new Appcelerator Cloud Services are intended to extend Titanium with an array of desirable, ready-to-use "connected features" that can be quickly rolled into mobile apps without requiring developers to code or maintain a back-end infrastructure, according to Jo Ann Buckner, vice president of product management for Mountain View, Calif.-based Appcelerator. Appcelerator hosts the infrastructure via Amazon Web Services.
"In Titanium 2.0, you're able to, for example, add a photo service to your app, which lets the user capture photos from their mobile device, and access them across multiple devices," Buckner says.
The 2.0 release with Appcelerator Cloud Services (ACS) is available now. Titanium Studio is free to download and use; the vendor offers subscription-based support, "premium integration," and other services for developers. ACS is free to start, but Appcelerator will charge for storage, API calls and push notifications.
Buckner acknowledges that estimating what these charges will be for a new customer can be a challenge, as the number of app users, and the way they use the app, change over time. Appcelerator is developing a set of metrics to guide developers in various vertical segments, such as retail or insurance or media/entertainment.
John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World. Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnww Email: email@example.com Blog RSS feed: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/2989/feed
Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.


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Heartfelt with speaker and author Brenda Wood offers meditations on the spiritual implications of everyday life. Brenda's unique perspective on life and quirky sense of humour has made her a popular speaker.
You can find out more about Brenda and her work at heartfeltdevotionals.com
To hear archived programs, please click Heartfelt: 2015-2018


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"Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane will host the 2013 Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles.
First-time Academy Awards producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron made the announcement Monday.
Zadan and Meron said they're "thrilled" about their choice.
U.S. & World
"His performing skills blend perfectly with our ideas for making the show entertaining and fresh," the producers said in a statement.
MacFarlane is best known for his envelope-pushing animated TV shows "Family Guy" and "American Dad." He made his big-screen directorial debut earlier this year with "Ted," which took in more than $420 million at the box office. The 38-year-old entertainer also hosted the season opener of "Saturday Night Live" last month and released an album of big-band tunes from the 1940s and '50s last year.
This is his first time hosting the Academy Awards.
MacFarlane called the opportunity "an overwhelming privilege."
"My thoughts upon hearing the news were, one, I will do my utmost to live up to the high standards set forth by my predecessors; and two, I hope they don't find out I hosted the Charlie Sheen Roast," he said Monday.
He also released a video on You Tube in which he reveals his "big news" to his father. In the minute-long clip, MacFarlane says he's been asked to host the Oscars, and his dad responds by offering him some "barely used" bathing suits.
"I've invited you here today to tell you I'm hosting the Oscars," MacFarlane says. "This should be huge news to you."
"Of course, it's wonderful news," his dad replies. "But also the fact that you're getting almost brand-new bathing suits is also good news."
When MacFarlane seems unappreciative, dad snatches back the swimsuits and says, "I'm going to give these to Billy Crystal."
Crystal returned last year to host the show for the ninth time as a last minute replacement for Eddie Murphy.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Murphy left the show when his collaborator Brett Ratner stepped aside as Oscars producer in the wake of an uproar over Ratner's comments about women on "The Howard Stern Show" and over the use of a gay slur.
Two years ago, Anne Hathaway and James Franco teamed up to host Hollywood's biggest night. Their selection was supposed to bring in younger viewers to the award show's telecast but failed to make inroads, according to reports.
Nominations for the 85th annual Oscars will be announced on Jan. 10 — nearly a week earlier than typically revealed and coming ahead of the Golden Globe Awards. The Oscars will be presented Feb. 24 at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles.


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SNOW: 686 New Website Launched; Design Comp Included!
August 13, 2009
686 New Website Launched; Design Comp Included!
Counting the days until winter? Your upcoming snowboarding season just got a whole lot closer, because you can now drool over the new 686 winter collection online at 686.com.
The newly revamped and refreshed website not only contains the line-up of the season's hottest outerwear for men, women and children but also loads of technical information and limited releases, videos, athlete bios, photos and updates from the 686 family around the world.
The blog-like format of the website is easy-to-navigate; go back and forth from reading an entry about your favorite 686 rider to finding out what jacket they are rocking in one click. Updated daily with new content; the site also has interactive sections where the user can design their own 686 jacket, enter weekly drawings for all types of gear, and read about 686 lovers from around the world sharing their stories in a new section entitled, What's Your Gig?
We know winter is right around the corner, but getting an early taste in August never hurts.


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If the number of samples are less, you can go high on the extraction cost..but when you have too many samples, say a hundred or more, the savings from this can account to the cost of a couple of arrays itself !!
Edited by gogreen, 19 November 2009 - 07:21 AM.


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Instant Breaks.com when selling travel arrangements is a trading name of The Midcounties Co-operative Ltd. Instant Breaks.com is a Member of Midcounties Co-operative Travel Consortium. (ABTA P6938). Book with Confidence. We are a Member of ABTA which means you have the benefit of ABTA's assistance and Code of Conduct.
YourHolidayBooking.com Limited is part of the Midcounties Co-operative Travel Consortium.
Your Financial ProtectionMany of the flights and flight-inclusive holidays on this website are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. But ATOL protection does not apply to all holiday and travel services listed on this website. Please ask us to confirm what protection may apply to your booking. If you do not receive an ATOL Certificate then the booking will not be ATOL protected. If you do receive an ATOL Certificate but all the parts of your trip are not listed on it, those parts will not be ATOL protected. Please see our booking conditions for information, or for more information about financial protection and the ATOL Certificate go to: www.atol.org.uk/ATOLCertificate
www.instantbreaks.com, Address: 14 Hemmells, Basildon SS15 6ED, United Kingdom. ABTA P6938. Est. 1986© 1986 - 2020 Yourholidaybooking.com Limited.


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Eastern Kingsnake
Scientific name: Lampropeltis getula getula (LINNAEUS 1766)
* Currently accepted name
* scientific names used through time
- Coluber getulus – LINNAEUS 1766
- Ophibolus getulus – BAIRD & GIRARD 1853
- Coronella getulus – DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854
- Lampropeltis getulus – COPE 1860
- Triaeniopholis arenarius – WERNER 1924
- Lampropeltis getulus sticticeps – BARBOUR & ENGELS 1942 in BLANEY 1977
- Lampropeltis getulus goini – NEILL & ALLEN 1949 in BLANEY 1977
- Lampropeltis getula – FROST & COLLINS 1988
- Lampropeltis getula getula – KRYSKO & JUDD 2006
- Lampropeltis getula goini – KRYSKO & JUDD 2006
- Lampropeltis getula sticticeps – KRYSKO & JUDD 2006
Description Average adult size is 36-48 inches (91.4-121.9 cm), record is 82 inches (208.2 cm). Adults are solid black to chocolate brown, with 19-32 white to yellowish and narrow (1.5-2.5 dorsal scale rows) dorsal crossbands and a lateral chain-like pattern. The belly may have a checkerboard or solid black pattern. The scales are smooth, and there are usually 21 dorsal scale rows at midbody (some individuals have 23). The pupil is round. Juvenile coloration is like that of adults. However, in areas where it breeds with other Kingsnakes (see below), adults might have lightened interbands.
A. Top of the head (notice the large plate-like scales on the top of the head)
B. Smooth scales
C. Elongated scales below the tail (subcaudal scales) are typically divided
D. Front (face view) of the head
E. Side of the head
Range: In Florida, it is found in the northern peninsula from Alachua Co. north and west into the panhandle, excluding the Eastern Apalachicola Lowlands south of Telogia Creek. It interbreeds with the Florida Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula floridana) from Nassau Co. in the northern peninsula south to Pinellas Co. in the central peninsula, as well as with the with the Eastern Apalachicola Lowlands Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula meansi) from surrounding Apalachicola region from southern Gulf and Franklin counties to the west, north to Calhoun County, and east into northern Liberty (north of Telogia Creek), Gadsden, Leon, Wakulla, and Jefferson counties. Outside of Florida, it is found from southern Alabama to southern New Jersey.
Habitat: Uncommon, it is found in pinelands, hardwood hammocks, cypress strands, prairies, marshes, and estuaries. Like other Kingsnakes in Florida, its populations have declined drastically the last few decades.
Comments: HARMLESS (Non-Venomous), and seldom bites. The Eastern kingsnake is mainly terrestrial and active during the day, yet in the summer months individuals may be found moving at night.
It feeds on other snakes, lizards, frogs, rodents, turtle eggs, and birds and their eggs. It eats venomous snakes such as rattlesnakes, and is immune to their venom. It is even known to be cannibalistic, eating its own kind.
It lays eggs. It is primarily active from March-May, when breeding takes place. In the early summer, 3-29 eggs are laid. Newborns from 5-8 inches (12.7-20.3 cm) hatch in late summer.
Comparison with other species: The Eastern Apalachicola Lowlands Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula meansi) has either fewer than 26 wide crossbands with considerably lightened interbands, or is non-banded (striped or patternless), and 21 dorsal scale rows at midbody. The Florida Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula floridana) has > 34 light crossbands on the body, lightening of the black interband scales, a degenerate lateral chain-like pattern, and usually 23 dorsal scale rows at midbody.


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Currently chat system in some areas is a bit disconnected from being a real-time communication asset, for example I am doing arenas someone gets online and post a msg in clan chat, Let's raid. Unless I am done with arenas and other areas and I don't forget to go through the hoops currently in place to reach clan chat, I will miss that msg and a chance to get a raid team going and that player goes offline
Reason is we need to be able to see that message pop up with a sound notifier at the top of the screen in real-time and stay for a few secs.Same goes for global chat so that you feel the game living currently chat and game n players are pretty disconnected.
One more tweak imo is to move all the notifications to the top of the screen, often times the quest and friends notification get in the way of pressing buttons.


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Unlocking IRV in Aspen
Aspen Times Weekly
Aspen, CO Colorado
ASPEN – The mood in Aspen City Hall on May 5, 2009 seemed optimistic as the ballots for what many called that day's "historic" city election rolled through the electronic scanners. The machines were meant to protect the electoral decisions of the entire community based on the pictures they took of the seemingly innocent sheets of paper – a very important task.
City Councilman Steve Skadron sat at a corner of the roundtable setup of the room being interviewed by former Mayor Helen Klanderud and former Aspen finance director Paul Menter about how Skadron felt the election had been conducted. Their conversation spanned a number of topics, from the conduct of the mayoral and City Council candidates – very professional, Skadron said – to the viability of the new "instant runoff voting," or IRV, system the city was using to select its new officials.
But nobody discussed how, as city officials implemented IRV, they discovered that the vote-counting technology is actually a lot more complicated than it appeared at first glance, that they were deploying a system that few really understood – or seem to understand now.
There was no talk in that meeting about the previous night, when three private election engineers, hired by the city to count the ballots, reconfigured the tabulation software for the election computers after they discovered an egregious flaw. It had tallied test sample ballots incorrectly, causing the test candidate with the fewest votes to win.
The software was part of a system the company, True Ballot, Inc., or TBI, brings to elections – mostly for private institutions like labor unions, but also for cities and Indian tribal governments – to tabulate them. It was a system able to perform complex election tabulations. But it was not certified, or even reviewed, by any governmental agency that normally does so.
It was essentially a privatization of the May 2009 election. The ballots were "spit out of a black box," as Councilman Dwayne Romero put it in an interview last month. That phrase is common parlance among election enthusiasts, who like to call themselves "wonks," to describe a machine that hides the mechanics of the count from the voters.
Officials from TBI said the private model became Aspen's vote-counting paradigm because only TBI had the ability to tabulate an instant runoff election. And that was true, with the exception of a handcount by the city clerk's office. The city of Aspen didn't have the expertise to administer the system it had chosen.
Few Aspenites knew the intricacies of the system the city was about to use. On the surface, everything was peachy.
Since then, however, the confusion inherent to Aspen's spring election has been illustrated by statements from people who have derided the system and its implementation in Aspen. Recently, Mayor Mick Ireland asked Rob Ittner, who is now a candidate for Pitkin County commissioner, and Marilyn Marks, who ran for mayor in the May election, if they thought the ballots were confusing. Yes, they both said. Some of the critics – whether they're candidates in the November election or simply individuals interested in election integrity – say they hope city voters will endorse a new voting system in the November election. They also hope an investigation by the city's election oversight board will put to rest allegations by four local election-watchers that the city engaged in widespread unethical and illegal conduct.
The allegations have been part of the almost year-and-a-half-long road of controversy that has ultimately led the City Council to weigh new voting procedures and has put Aspen on the national map as what Bev Harris, an investigative journalist who specializes in elections, called the "poster child" of what can go wrong with IRV.
In the first half of the decade, after he'd run successfully for Aspen City Council, Jack Johnson had a vision. Having survived a May election and then a June runoff, he had discovered that only a small percentage of Aspen's electorate showed up at the polls the second time around. He felt that more voters would participate if Aspen were to streamline its voting process, use fewer city resources and not require the voters to return to the polls a month after the first round of voting. (The city's old system called for a runoff election if no candidate won a majority of votes.)
So in 2004, Johnson and City Clerk Kathryn Koch traveled to San Francisco to observe the hot new "instant runoff voting" method. What they came back with eventually became a proposal asking voters for permission to implement IRV.
It seemed like a good idea. IRV is supposed to work like this: On the ballot, voters rank by number the candidates of their choice. In the case of the 2009 election, it was from one to four for the mayoral candidates, and one to nine for the City Council candidates. If the top vote-getter didn't receive more than 50 percent of the total, then the candidate in last place would be eliminated, and each of the ballots that put the loser first would go to the person ranked second on that ballot. That process, known as sequential elimination, would be repeated until one candidate achieved a majority.
This system, proponents said, would eliminate the expensive runoff, save the city thousands of dollars and boost confidence in the voting process. Voters approved the concept in 2007.
In September 2008, the City Council appointed a number of community members to a group charged with choosing the actual method to tabulate the new ballots. But the group, called the IRV task force, quickly discovered a problem: The City Council race involved two open seats, instead of just one.
Rob Richie, the executive director of FairVote, a Maryland non-profit that advocates on a national level for IRV, said at the time that a two-seat race does not lend itself to IRV because of a wide range of logistical complications. And the task force meetings became confusing, to the point that the board lost three members and brought in city staff members to replace them, without approval from the City Council. City attorney John Worcester, special counsel Jim True, Koch and Mayor Ireland now sat on the board.
"People who were going to be subject to the election system were designing it," said Menter, who quit working for the city in December 2008 and, after the 2009 election, became an outspoken critic of the election.
And the more fundamental, mathematical problem of using IRV to choose two candidates remained. The group would either have to commission two counts of the ballots because, on an IRV ballot, a voter can't rank two people in the same place. Or the task force members would have to come up with a creative counting method. And that's what they did.
The method chosen in February 2009 by half the members of the task force – Worcester, True, then-Councilman Johnson, Ireland, Koch, Assistant City Manager Barry Crook and Pitkin County Clerk Janice Vos-Caudill, each of them local government employees – was a sequential elimination system that would count the ballots a second time after the winner of the first seat was established.
The rest of the task force, all private citizens, did not vote. Su Lum, a member of the task force (Lum is also a columnist and advertising account manager for The Aspen Times) had expressed confusion in a Feb. 25 e-mail message to Worcester about which task force members could vote. Were city officials planning the method that might keep some of them in office, or was it citizens?
Called out by election enthusiasts and an editorial in The Aspen Times that asked the government officials on the board to recuse themselves, the task force reformed, eliminating the government employees on the board and bringing in several independent citizens. And then the balance of opinion changed. The task force finally chose a counting procedure called the "True Method," named after True, who created it.
The True Method uses a "batch elimination" process to select winning candidates. In the event that no candidate receives a majority, the True Method would automatically eliminate five of the nine City Council candidates who received the fewest first-place votes. After that batch elimination, the normal IRV process would kick in with the remaining candidates.
But some warned that this method had dangerous implications.
Richie, of FairVote, said at the time that the True Method wouldn't work. "While the proposal is a creative effort to apply [IRV] for a multi-seat race, it violates one of the key principles of an [IRV] election – ranking a lesser choice should not help defeat your higher choice," he wrote in a letter dated Feb. 4 to Johnson. Colorado law explicitly prohibits a system that allows a person with less support to gain the advantage.
"They knowingly violated that statute," said Millard Zimet, an Aspen lawyer who has complained about the conduct of the election.
Even Caleb Kleppner, an analyst with TBI, said in an e-mail message to Koch on Dec. 8, 2008 that a two-seat count in an IRV race was unprecedented. "In terms of what system to use, there is no standard two-seat IRV system, so whatever you come up with is going to be somewhat homegrown," Kleppner wrote.
Richie has shifted his position since, saying the True Method is "defensible" because it was the most familiar way to bring IRV to Aspen voters: "I think they're right. I think that Jim True's system more approximates what Aspen had in the past."
But Ittner, a restaurateur and 2010 county commissioner candidate, asks himself, did the True Method do what an election system is supposed to do? In his mind, the answer is a resounding no.
Ittner, who calls himself a "math guy," feels the method could actually alter the vote count. According to his analysis, which he presented to the task force before the election, it would be possible for a person in the True Method's automatic throwaway pile to have received more votes than a winning candidate.
"It was more about a quick election than about finding out what [voters] wanted," said Harvie Branscomb, an El Jebel resident who has been an active critic of the May 2009 election.
With all the controversy flying around about the complexity of the proposed methods, the city knew it had to find a very accurate way to count the ballots.
Months before the election, Aspen hired Kleppner, Nick Koumoutseas and John Seibel of True Ballot, Inc., a private, election-tallying enterprise from Maryland. TBI was the one of the only outfits in the country with the ability to do an instant runoff for Aspen's two-seat election.
TBI's system is a unique vote-counting program that relies on Microsoft software, a completely different system than the vote-counting machines commonly used by cities and counties around the country. TBI scans the ballots into its computers, and the company's special software counts it, relying on rules specific to each election.
Koumoutseas hailed the system as one that can conform to any election, no matter the type of ballot. It was the best fit for the True Method, to which it conformed. And while he said IRV has its problems – most importantly a reported propensity for complex mathematical anomalies that can allow lower rankings to count against higher rankings – the TBI count essentially eliminates them, he said. Also, it allows for an easy audit of the election, Koumoutseas said.
Sometimes on a ballot, voters will indicate their preferred candidate with a check mark instead of filling in the entire box next to that candidate's name. If some voters are in a hurry, they might mark completely outside of the box. Or, if there is space for a write-in candidate, voters might write the name of the person they prefer and not fill in the checkbox at all. Or, as Koumoutseas pointed out, a voter might write in large letters across the boxes indicating the person they want in office: "I ONLY WANT MICK IRELAND" is a possibility. The lines that person makes on the ballot would inevitably cross the boxes of some of the candidates they didn't want and the computerized scanner would count that vote for another person, even though the intent of the voter was clear on the ballot. The list of similar problems, which are not unique to IRV, and are reminiscent of the "hanging chads" in the 2000 presidential election in Florida, goes on and on.
The TBI scanners create an electronic image that allows the analysts to electronically manipulate the ballot to reflect the voter's intent. The analyst simply clicks on the name of the candidate the voter clearly wanted in office, and the system highlights it.
"Hopefully the system picks it up and we have ways to correct the system to pick those up," Koumoutseas said.
The information on the ballots is then transferred into a Microsoft spreadsheet in lines that are called "ballot strings," each of which represents one voter in an election. In the case of IRV, the ranked choices are indicated in lines across the page.
Branscomb said the system is one of the best out there.
But it remains a mystery to many observers, who have referred to the TBI system as a "black box." And the city's contract with the company allowed TBI to do whatever it wanted with the election data, including the images of the scanned ballots. There was no clause saying, for example, that TBI could not sell the information.
Elizabeth Milias, who became a vehement critic of city politics after she was "disappeared" (as she puts it) from the Election Commission after a tense dispute last fall with the city, says the system was not fully vetted by public officials. In essence the system circumvented the normal public election process, she claims. Normally, vote counting technology, like the Accuvote machines used in most city elections and all county elections in Colorado, is certified by the Secretary of State's office. But that process is constantly in flux and can take up to three years to get a new technology approved, Branscomb said, which poses a number of logistical problems to vote-counting innovators.
TBI's system endured two process tests for the Aspen election and has been tested in private elections, but it went without a comprehensive analysis in Aspen by pretty much everyone but TBI.
Two tests of the system, called logic and accuracy tests, or LATs, were conducted by TBI and city officials leading up to the election. These tests are performed before every election, to ensure the counting technology is working properly. City residents, candidates and election followers gathered in the basement of City Hall on April 21 to fill out mock-ups of the ballots that had been approved for the election. Koch randomly handed 86 of them to the people in the room, they filled them out and handed them right back to Koch, sources said. The testers didn't tally their votes, and the pile was counted by city officials and sent via Federal Express to TBI by Milias. This test found no problems.
Normally, Koch would have handed out 100 of the test ballots and the attendees would have tallied them, per state rules for LATs. But True and Worcester said in a recent statement that the meeting attendees got bored with the process and didn't want to continue. "Unfortunately, the audience lost patience and only prepared 76. … No one objected to proceeding with the 76 ballots," the statement says. And none of the public counters could tell for sure if the count was right because the attendees did not record the tally. In the same statement, True and Worcester said Koch offered to have audience members count the ballots, but they declined.
The second LAT, conducted on the eve of the election, found that the company's system was counting the results backward. "It reminded me of the Bible," Milias said recently. "The last shall be first, and the first shall be last." But Kleppner reconfigured the software on the spot – one of the great things the TBI system allows, Koumoutseas said.
After the polls closed at 7 p.m. on May 5, ballots started flowing in from polling locations to City Council chambers, where they entered TBI's machines. Skadron, Klanderud and Menter talked about the election, and observers sat in the chairs across the room watching the ballots flash across the plasma screens that line the walls. The display was meant to let Aspen voters watch the public process of ballot tabulation. Throughout the count, Kleppner's computer kept making a strange sound – "Uh-oh, Uh-oh, Uh-oh" – an indication that ballots were being rejected from the system.
True and Worcester say only a small portion of the ballots were shown that night. And they say most of the ones that appeared only did so partially. But they issued sworn court statements saying that every ballot was shown on the screen. Kleppner also printed a guest opinion in The Aspen Times, saying the same: "… in plain view of the public and cable viewers, True Ballot, Inc. scanned every ballot using commercial imaging scanners, processed the data on the images, and publicly reviewed every ballot twice to make sure the computer interpretation of the ballots matched human interpretation of voter intent."
But even if all ballots were shown, the 99 ovals that sit next to the 13 names, three write-ins and one policy question are difficult to count in the one or two seconds that they appeared on the screens. And the Grassroots TV broadcast that showed on some of Aspen's television sets was not long enough to show all the ballots.
"IRV tallies were conducted and announced well after the end of the public TV show and during a process which few were able to observe or understand," Branscomb said in a written response to Kleppner's opinion piece.
All this came after city officials made promises during the vetting and approval of IRV that all the ballots would be shown, and the public would be able to verify the count.
The ballots were fed through the machines, and TBI counted the vote. Final numbers for the mayor's race showed Mick Ireland had won with 1,273 of the 2,544 votes cast – or exactly one more than half. In the City Council race, Derek Johnson won the first seat, and Torre won the second, both with the same number of votes as Ireland.
"In comes Caleb Kleppner, and out comes the winner," Milias said of the process earlier this year.
And all those numbers remain as the final tally on the city website, despite a publicly disclosed discovery of a counting error in the mayor's race and several data analyses showing the count in the City Council race was also wrong.
No one had asked any questions about the "Uh-ohs" coming from Kleppner's laptop. But TBI conducted a review of the mayor's race that showed the count was off by 37 votes because of the last-minute changes that were made between the second LAT and the election. TBI had set its system to stop counting votes for the winning candidate after that person reached a 50 percent or more majority. Ireland had really received 1,310 compared with Marilyn Marks' 1,124 votes.
TBI notified the city of the error on May 19, three days before the May 22 deadline for candidates to formally contest the election. But the city waited until May 28 to tell the public about the error; a press release touted the fact the city was committed to disclosing such errors. Worcester and True said the nine days passed because Koch, who they said normally handles such matters, was on vacation. City spokeswoman Sally Spaulding, True and Worcester worked with TBI on official wording for the release – the attorneys didn't think TBI's original wording "anomaly" accurately portrayed the mistake, for example – in e-mail messages on May 27 and 28.
The mistake didn't change the results of the election; in fact, it reinforced them. But the audit was done privately by TBI, without any oversight by Aspen government officials or its residents. And, to the dismay of Marks and a group of election activists who want proof the count was correct, the city has adamantly refused to release any of the election records outside of the complex ballot string.
But what Rob Ittner finds more interesting than the TBI mistake was the True Method's results in the City Council race. In the first round of tabulation, the batch elimination, the method eliminated Adam Frisch, who had the highest number of votes among the batch-eliminated group of candidates. But, had the batch elimination only taken four people out of the election, and Frisch had stayed in the race, then Torre would not have beaten Frisch. According to Ittner's in-depth analyses of the ballot strings, Frisch would have outpolled Torre. The battle would have continued with Jack Johnson, Derek Johnson and Frisch, with Derek Johnson coming out on top, and Frisch in second place.
The city has never agreed that Frisch would be in Torre's place if sequential elimination had been used but, asked in an interview if a different counting method would have resulted in a different tally, True said, "Absolutely."
While the likelihood of some vast, fraudulent voting scheme to keep Frisch out of office and get Torre on the City Council is almost non-existent because of the extreme difficulty of intentionally gaming IRV, Ittner says the system did an injustice to the election.
"There were a lot more people that voted that preferred Adam before Torre," Ittner said. "Did the system work? No, in my opinion."
"It was a Rashomon election," Zimet said, referencing the acclaimed 1950 Japanese film in which a convicted rapist's fate depends on four conflicting testimonies by witnesses.
When Kleppner, Koumoutseas and Seibel returned to their TBI headquarters in Maryland the day after the election, they didn't leave empty-handed. Koumoutseas took at least one copy of the ballot images on a CD with him.
Worcester and True said they were unaware that Koumoutseas had taken the copy; TBI was supposed to hand all of its election records over to the city, they said.
TBI was under no obligation to keep them from the public.
About a month after he returned to Maryland, Koumoutseas said, he destroyed the images, although the city charter requires all ballots to be kept intact until at least six months after the election. He said the city issued an order to TBI to destroy the images. Worcester and True said they were unaware of any communication by the city with TBI asking them to do so.
Elizabeth Milias and Chris Bryan, along with Clerk Kathryn Koch, became Aspen's Election Commission, the body normally charged with certifying election counts and finding solutions to any potential problems, on March 23 – several weeks before the election and outside the normal timeline for the group to be appointed. Normally, the commission serves a two-year term, from July to July, and oversees one municipal election. True and Worcester, asked why the commission was not in place at the time, said they didn't know, that it may have been an oversight. The city might have simply forgotten to appoint one after the 2007 city election.
Mayor Ireland said in a recent interview: "It just never came up."
So Milias and Bryan came into their positions with no predecessors, not sure about their exact responsibilities. Worcester told the commission just before its dismissal that the group is traditionally "ceremonial."
But this time around the commission was special because of the unique circumstances. Milias and Bryan expected to serve the regular two-year term, with four extra months at the beginning, Milias said. (Bryan, an attorney, did not respond to requests for an interview.)
And although Bryan said he would certify the election, it's clear that both he and Milias took issue with the way the election was conducted. When they began asking questions about IRV and requested taxpayer cash for independent legal counsel because they felt Worcester and True were inherently conflicted as city employees, Milias and Bryan were quickly hushed, investigated and dismissed from the commission at the beginning of November.
The city told them, "Not only are we not going to give you the money, but you are out of line," Branscomb said.
Former councilman Johnson found evidence through records requests that the Election Commission had been receiving e-mails from Marks, lobbying them to gain independent counsel. He also found that Milias and Bryan had met in private – which violates Colorado open meeting rules – over a hamburger the day before the election to discuss commission business.
Johnson said Marks had deliberately infiltrated the Election Commission and convinced the members to take action to cause a recount of the election, hoping that the recount would find that she had won the mayor's seat.
Marks never requested a recount. But she did file a lawsuit against the city, saying it had violated the Colorado Open Records Act when city officials denied her access to the images of the ballots that were shown on the screen the night of the election – the same ballot images TBI took to Maryland the day after the election and the city had shown publicly in a May 7, 2009 test of the tabulation software. The commission agreed with Marks on most of her allegations.
City officials have claimed that Marks brought the allegations to the commission and the members followed her lead. And although Marks has partnered with Milias in a project called the "RedANT," an online publication that is very critical of Aspen City Hall, Milias denied those claims. Marks is no longer a part of the "RedANT." What happened since the initial heated debate indicates that at least Milias was on board with the allegations before Marks became the face of the argument. Milias was the one who pointed out the mistake in the way TBI's system was counting the test ballots on election eve.
"I have a mind of my own," she said in a recent interview.
True and Worcester maintain that the reason the City Council dismissed Milias and Bryan from the commission was that their term was over. It had nothing to do, they said, with the investigation. When asked why the city waited until four months after the regular June end of the term, they said it was another oversight, that the terms should have ended much earlier.
But Branscomb thinks the commission's dismissal hinged on Johnson's investigation.
"That is a blowback intended to chill the proper functioning of democracy," he said.
It's clear, the critics say, that the election system for May 5, 2009 was flawed. Even True and Worcester admit that things went wrong, although they maintain the city handled them in the best way possible.
So what can be done to fix the system?
The current Election Commission is taking a much more active role than any has in the past.
It is fully reviewing the large number of complaints from Marks, Branscomb and Milias. The complaints are, in effect, a compilation of the Marks lawsuit against the city, a complaint she filed with the district attorney's office (which eventually decided not to pursue charges) and the result of thousands of hours the three have spent investigating what happened. They include alleged breaches of normal election protocol described in this story, violation of Secretary of State rules the city adopted before the election and, perhaps the biggest concern for Marks, the city's refusal to release the ballot images.
The City Council has placed a measure on the Nov. 2 ballot, asking voters if they want to repeal IRV and return to the traditional runoff election Aspen used before it adopted IRV. If IRV is retained, the City Council may keep the True Method or switch to a different system.
So now, it's the voters who have a choice to make.
Does Aspen retain IRV and potentially repeat what has happened over the last 15 months? Or does the electorate want to bring in the traditional runoff process that, while costly and cumbersome, never presented the counting-related problems of IRV?
The current commission is trying to figure that out. Members Bob Leatherman and Ward Hauenstein are trying to find a balance between answering the ire of the critics – Marks, Milias, Branscomb and Zimet – and educating the voters about the pros and cons of IRV and traditional runoff. It's just a matter of finding that balance, Leatherman said.
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Self-styled rapscallion David Lesh: Maroon Lake is my toilet
A part-time Colorado resident with a history of disrespecting the state's public lands appeared to defecate in Maroon Lake in social media post on Wednesday.


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The Institutional Graduate Medical Education Committee's purpose is to advise upon and monitor all aspects of residency education at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Institutional Graduate Medical Education Committee (IGMEC) monitors institutional compliance with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), general requirements for the institution and the special requirements for individual accredited residency training programs. The IGMEC has the authority and responsibility for the oversight and administration of all ACGME-accredited residency training programs and responsibility for assuring compliance with ACGME Common, specialty/subspecialty-Specific Program, and Institutional Requirements. To this end, Greater Baltimore Medical Center is responsible for appointing a Designated Institutional Official (DIO), who in collaboration with the IGMEC, must oversee all aspects of residency training education.
At the minimum, voting membership on the IGMEC must include the Designated Institutional Official (DIO), residents nominated by their peers, representative program directors and administrators. It may also include other members of the faculty or other members as determined. A Chairperson of the IGMEC will be appointed by the DIO.
The IGMEC shall advise the institution and establish and monitor institutional policies for graduate medical education that assure compliance with all ACGME requirements to assure quality resident education and a conducive work environment for the residents in all training programs at GBMC Health Care Inc. These policies and procedures must include:
- Annual review and recommendations to the Sponsoring Institution regarding resident salaries, benefits, and stipends to assure equitable and fair allocation.
- Communication with all residency program directors, including those within the institution as well as those directors of other institutions participating in residency programs at GBMC, including but not limited to Integrated and Combined residency programs. The IGMEC will ensure that program directors maintain effective communication with the site directors at each participating institution for their respective programs at all clinical sites.
- The development and implementation of written policies and procedures regarding resident duty hours to ensure compliance with all ACGME mandates.
- Monitor programs' supervision of residents and ensure that such supervision is consistent with:
- Providing safe and effective patient care
- Educational needs and well being of residents
- The progressive assumption of responsibility commensurate with a resident's level of training, competence and experience.
- Communicate with leadership of GBMC's Medical Staff with regard to safety and quality of patient care, specifically as it is related to GME training, including but not limited to informing the Medical Staff of the accreditation status of residency training programs and any citations regarding patient care issues or resident well-being.
- Oversee resident curriculum and evaluation to ensure resident achievement of ACGME general competencies as defined in the Common and specialty/subspecialty-specific Program Requirements.
- Oversee resident status, including: evaluation, promotion, transfer, discipline, and/or dismissal of residents in compliance with Institutional and Common Program Requirements.
- Establish and implement institutional policies and procedures for discipline and the adjudication of complaints and grievances relevant to GME programs.
- Review all ACGME residency program accreditation letters of notification, including citations and areas of noncompliance, and monitor all action plans for remediation and correction.
- Manage all institutional accreditation and monitor all action plans for correction of citations and areas of noncompliance.
- Review and oversee all requests for program changes prior to submission to the ACGME by program directors including but not limited to:
- All applications for ACGME accreditation of new programs
- Changes in resident complement
- Major changes in program structure or length of training
- Appointments of new program directors
- Progress reports requested by any Review Committee
- Responses to all proposed adverse actions
- Requests for exceptions of resident work hours
- Voluntary withdrawals of programs accreditation
- Requests for an appeal of an adverse action
- Appeal presentations to a Board of Appeal or the ACGME
- Oversight of all phases of educational experiments and/or innovations that may deviate from Institutional, Common, and specialty/subspecialty-specific Program Requirements.
- Oversee and conduct regularly scheduled Internal Reviews of all GBMC residency programs according to ACGME guidelines. The Internal Review must result in a written document of review findings and recommendations, if any, for residency program improvement(s).
- Track recommendations made by Internal Review Committees and ACGME accreditation site visits to ensure that recommendations for improvement in the residency training program are implemented and maintained.
- Oversee all processes related to reductions and/or closures of individual programs, major participating institutions and/or GBMC Health Care Inc.
- Govern and stipulate GBMC's Institutional Policy regarding interactions between resident physicians and vendor representatives.
The Institutional Graduate Medical Education Committee (IGMEC) will meet quarterly at a minimum. The Chairman of the IGMEC will be a member of the IGMEC and will be selected by the GBMC Health Care Inc.'s Designated Institutional Official or DIO.
The IGMEC will provide written minutes of their quarterly meetings as well as any other IGMEC business to the Medical Board, Chief of Staff and CEO of GBMC Health Care Inc.
IMPORTANT Visitor Policy Changes


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How a 'Snowy Day' broke down racial barriers
PHILADELPHIA -- During the height of the civil rights movement, a gentle book about a black boy in a red snowsuit crunch-crunch-crunching through the snow broke down racial barriers and now is the subject of an upcoming exhibit.
Ezra Jack Keats' beloved 1962 book, "The Snowy Day," is credited as the first mass-market children's storybook to feature a black protagonist -- a preschooler named Peter joyfully exploring the snow-covered sidewalks in his New York City neighborhood.
The National Museum of American Jewish History is presenting a retrospective, "The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats," from July 19 to Oct. 20. The exhibit includes more than 70 original works, ranging from preliminary sketches to final paintings and collages.
"We wanted to marry the strength of the show as an art exhibition with the significance of the book in children's literature," museum curator Josh Perelman said. "We really wanted the exhibit spaces to feel alive ... to feel like being in a children's book."
The son of white Jewish immigrants from Poland, Keats was born Jacob Ezra Katz in New York City's Brooklyn borough in 1916 and grew up in poverty. Artistically gifted but unable to attend art school, he started out working as a sign painter, comic book background illustrator and Works Progress Administration muralist before creating children's books.
"Keats drew a considerable amount on the fact that he experienced prejudice in his own life and he had a sensitivity to what it felt like to be marginalized," Perelman said. "He also had a worldview that embraced extending that sensitivity toward other people who may feel marginalized as well."
Peter's world was also a reflection of Keats' own environment, Perelman said, "the city streets where he felt comfortable, where he called home and that happened to be inhabited by working-class and poor folks and by African-American folks."
"That's who he felt should be in his books. This isn't 'Eloise,'" he said, referring to the children's book character who lives in Manhattan's posh Plaza Hotel with her nanny. "It's a very different New York City."
Awarded the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 1963, "The Snowy Day" is published in at least 10 languages. It is on the Library of Congress' list of "Books That Shaped America" and is rated by teacher and librarian groups as one of the all-time top children's books.
"If you look at children's literature previous to 'The Snowy Day,' there are very few positive examples of publications for African-American children," Perelman said, "and there's a whole lot of very derogatory, stereotypical and outright racist material."
Keats, who died in 1983, illustrated more than 85 books. In six more books after "The Snowy Day," readers followed Peter growing up from a kindergarten-age boy to an adolescent. His race was never mentioned
Online: nmajh.org/SpecialExhibitions


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Marcum gets back on the mound
GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Shaun Marcum arrived at the Indians' spring complex in January to continue his comeback from a neck and shoulder issue that hindered him last season. After the introductions, Cleveland's medical staff immediately asked the pitcher to take his foot off the gas.
"They kind of slowed my throwing program down," Marcum said on Tuesday morning. "That was probably a good thing, because I was champing at the bit to get on the mound."
Marcum was finally cleared to step back on a mound on Monday, when the right-hander worked through a 25-pitch bullpen session consisting of only fastballs and changeups. The veteran signed a Minor League contract in December and is in camp as a non-roster invitee, but he is well aware that the Indians have a vacancy at the back end of the rotation.
The Indians are giving Carlos Carrasco, Josh Tomlin, Aaron Harang, Trevor Bauer and Marcum a chance at competing for that starting role. In Marcum's case, though, Indians manager Terry Francona has emphasized that Opening Day is not an etched-in-stone deadline for the pitcher's return to the big leagues
Marcum is returning from a July procedure to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome and Cleveland is taking a precautionary approach. The surgery, which was performed by Dr. Robert Thompson, involved removing Marcum's first rib, as well as two scalene muscles in his neck and some scar tissue.
"He's worked too hard," Francona said. "It never fails, you come to Spring Training, everybody's all geared up, the volume of throwing increases and then you have looming Opening Day. But I think that's an artificial deadline. We tried to beat that home with a lot of guys, that that is not the end all. Keep the big picture in mind."
Across the 2007-12 seasons with the Blue Jays and Brewers, Marcum went a combined 54-32 with a 3.67 ERA in 148 games, but he sat out all of 2009 after Tommy John surgery on his elbow. Marcum had bouts with elbow and biceps problems in 2012 with Milwaukee and he now believes the thoracic issue was behind those injuries.
Last year with the Mets, Marcum went 1-10 with a 5.29 ERA in 14 starts before shutting things down. He experienced stinging and burning in his neck, weakness in his throwing shoulder and his hand would go cold and numb in the middle of outings. Following his surgery, Marcum is hoping the array of issues are firmly in the rear-view mirror.
"This is a playoff-caliber team," Marcum said of the Indians. "It's definitely a team that can go deep in the postseason. I got stuff from the training staff and the front office about how they were able to bring players back from injuries. That played a big factor in [signing]. Seeing there was possibly a spot open in the rotation, that also was a factor. It was a lot of different things.
"It'd be nice to be on that team [for Opening Day], but we just have to take it slow."


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Lobster and Asparagus Soft Cooked Eggs with Oyster Cava Cream (Revuelto de Langosta)2013-06-11
- Course: Main Dish
- Skill Level: Easy
- Add to favorites
- Yield : 4 servings
- Prep Time : 20m
- Cook Time : 15m
- Ready In : 35m
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- 2 tablespoons kosher salted butter
- 1 shallot, minced
- 8 ounces lobster meat (tail, knuckles and claws), poached and roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup green asparagus, blanched and sliced on a bias
- 4 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- 2 tablespoons minced chives
- Kosher salt
- Black pepper
- 8 ounces Oyster Cava cream, recipe follows
- 8 French baguette slices, toasted
- 5 shallots, minced
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 3 cups Cava
- 1 quart heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons minced chives
- Kosher salt
- 4 Raspberry Point oysters, shucked with liquor saved
Step 1
Heat a nonstick saute pan over medium-low heat. Add butter and heat until it no longer bubbles. Add shallot, lobster and green asparagus and gently warm through. Meanwhile, crack eggs into a small mixing bowl and whisk until frothy. Incorporate parsley and chives, and season, to taste, with kosher salt and black pepper. Add eggs to saute pan and gently scramble eggs until just barely cooked.
Step 2
On a 10-inch plate, pour eggs into a 5-inch diameter ring mold and fold the lobster mixture in. Mixture should be very soft. Garnish with toast and oyster cava cream.
Step 3
In a medium saucepot sweat the shallots and garlic until translucent. Add Cava and reduce to 1 cup. Add the heavy cream, and bring to a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer cream until nap stage (thick enough to coat the back of a spoon). Cool for about 5 minutes. Puree cream in a blender and pass through a chinois. Season with kosher salt, to taste. Store cream refrigerated in a sealed plastic container for up to 3 days.
Step 4
Just before serving, reheat cream in a small sauce pot, adding additional heavy cream to return sauce to nap stage. Add shucked oysters, including oyster liquor, and gently poach oysters in cream. Add chives and reseason with kosher salt, to taste.


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Skip to 0 minutes and 8 seconds Hello, my name's Carwyn Rhys Hooper. I'm a senior lecturer in medical ethics and law here at St. George's University of London, and I've long had an interest in responsibility for health, and public health policies, and a certain amount of interest in genomics, too. So, traditionally, people have been regarded as being responsible for behaviours like smoking, and maybe drinking too much alcohol, and that kind of thing. And genetic diseases have always being seen as, if you like, the quintessential example of diseases that people are not responsible for in any way.
Skip to 0 minutes and 42 seconds So the comparison has always been between, say, smoking, on the one hand, a disease or a behaviour that lots of people regard as, to an extent, something that people are responsible for. And, on the other hand, genetic diseases, which are things which you are definitively not responsible for. But this change in genomic technologies that's occurring might well move what we might call the responsibility cut. And what I mean by that is that the genetic information that we're going to get– that we're already getting– is going to impact on the kinds of things we do and don't regard people as being partially responsible for.
Skip to 1 minute and 21 seconds So, to give one example, we might discover, for example, that some people have a genetic tendency, if you like, to addictive behaviour. Or they might have a genetic tendency to get more out of smoking tobacco so that they might find the experience more pleasurable than others for genetic reasons. Now, that may well be the case. And if we discover these kinds of predispositions– and if more and more people get to know about them– then our understanding of whether or not somebody is responsible for smoking or drinking is going to change.
Skip to 2 minutes and 0 seconds So you might end up in the situation where we actually think some people are less responsible for their behaviours in part because of what we found out through genomic analysis. It might also, of course, work in the other direction. So there might be situations where we have previously felt that a set of diseases is entirely genetic and something that is way beyond any individual's control. But you can imagine a scenario where an 18-year-old has their genome and exome sequenced and learns about various predispositions to conditions that have been traditionally associated with lifestyle choices. So just an example, perhaps, you might find an individual who may be predisposed to hypertension, high blood pressure.
Skip to 2 minutes and 51 seconds Now, if they find that out at the age of 18, it is possible– perhaps– for them to modify their lifestyles because they're aware now of the particularly high risk of hypertension. So, arguably, potentially, one could hold such an individual more responsible if they didn't amend their behaviour on the basis of this genetic information. So if I am told that I have a higher risk of, let's say, cardiovascular disease or hypertension at an early age because of my genetic predispositions, then– arguably– I might have more responsibility to amend my behaviour to try and avoid the future impact.
Skip to 3 minutes and 32 seconds So another particularly controversial area that I can envisage the revolution in genomics having an impact on responsibility is in relation to the decisions that parents make for their children, or, indeed, prospective parents make around reproductive choices. So, again, if people have more information as adults about their various genetic predispositions and have a better understanding of how those might be inherited by children they may have, then this question of responsibility across generations it's going to get discussed and raised.
Skip to 4 minutes and 12 seconds So if two individuals who are in a relationship and want to have children have genomic sequencing and find out the both of them have variances of genes that mean that they are particular predisposed to a variety of different conditions– and there's an understanding that they might pass some of these genes down to their offspring– then there's going to be lots of questions being raised here. One, about how they will feel about that, and also about the responsibility they may or may not have to have children. Whether or not there would be an expectation for them to use something like pre-implantation, genetic diagnosis, to try and avoid these kinds of conditions.
Skip to 4 minutes and 58 seconds Now, this sort of thing already gets discussed and already occurs in relation to conditions like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia. But what the genomic revolution might do is increase, substantially, the numbers of predispositions to a variety of diseases that we can test for. In a very radical situation one could imagine the state expecting parents who make the decision to have a child who might have that kind of risk to somehow pay a premium in terms of health care for that child in the future. That's unlikely to occur, but one could imagine that kind of ethical question being raised, at least.
Skip to 5 minutes and 39 seconds If a mother finds out that the baby that she's carrying has a number of genetic variants, which means that the child is at a high risk of a whole range of different conditions, does that mean that there's an expectation for the mother to consider termination of pregnancy? Will the mother feel a greater obligation to do that? So those kinds of very controversial issues are going to get raised. And, again, they are already being raised. It's just the scale upon which we're talking is going to be different.
Responsibility in the genomic era
The concept of responsibility for health is highly controversial, but it is ever-present in the modern discourse about public health.
No one can deny that individuals sometimes act in ways that increase their likelihood of developing a disease or an injury.
Smoking on a regular basis increases the risk of developing lung cancer. Skiing on a regular basis increases the risk of breaking a leg.
Of course, there are many social and environmental factors that impact on health and few people are fully causally or morally responsible for their ill-health. However, many conditions are linked to human behaviour and a number of ethicists have argued that this fact has relevance for the fair distribution of healthcare resources.
The genomic revolution may well have a significant impact on the responsibility for health debate. Genome wide sequencing might uncover genetic variants that explain why some people can consume a great deal of alcohol without developing liver cirrhosis.
Genome wide sequencing might also provide information that will enable people who have a greater genetic risk of a certain condition (e.g. type 2 diabetes) to amend their lifestyle in an attempt to reduce the probability of getting the disease.
In other words, the way in which we apportion responsibility is likely to be radically affected by the genomic revolution. Reproductive choices may also be affected by more widespread genetic testing and difficult questions about reproductive responsibility will inevitably follow.
© St George's, University of London


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Latest Nutrition, Food & Recipes News
(HealthDay News) -- The office can be full of temptations that can derail your healthy eating plan, but if you're prepared you don't have to give in to those temptations.
The American Council on Exercise lists these suggestions to help you stick to a healthy eating plan at the office:
- Create a meal plan for your meals at work, and decide what you'll eat for each meal and snack each day at the office; pay attention to your office cafeteria's menu so you know to bring something healthy on days when their offerings might tempt you.
- Prepare your meals and snacks for the next day the night before so you're not rushed and tempted to skip it.
- Eat a nutritious, balanced breakfast each morning; include a combination of fruits, vegetables, lean protein and whole grains.
- Avoid high-fat, processed foods for lunch and try to eat freshly prepared foods whenever you can.
- Indulge in healthy treats or small portions of your favorite desserts; try satisfying your craving with berries or a single-size portion of candy or dessert.
-- Diana Kohnle
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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I have a 7GB GeoJson file that I would like to load into a PostGIS database. I have tried using ogr2ogr but it fails because the file is too big for ogr2ogr to load into memory and then process.
Are there any other alternatives for loading this geojson file into PostGIS?
The ogr2ogr error I get is:
ERROR 2: CPLMalloc(): Out of memory allocating -611145182 bytes. This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information.


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Gio writes in to tell us about his latest vacuum tube-based audio amplifier design, the
5751 SRPP / EL84 (6BQ5) Push-Pull Tube Amp. If you've been itching to try your hand at building such a thing, this looks like it could be a good place to start. The circuit has been designed to have high enough gain to connect directly to an MP3 player, and they are using simpler parts to keep the cost of the project down.
Curious about what all those things in the name mean? Well, 5751 and EL84 are the model numbers for the vacuum tubes used in the project, and push-pull refers to the type of audio amplifier circuit that the project is based around.
Circuit schematics are included, however you need to be careful when working with this and any other vacuum tube projects, as the high voltage required to run them can be deadly.


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* Emanuel Bronshtein - $1000 (collection of security issues)
* Emanuel Bronshtein - $1000 (collection of security issues)
* Sergey Markov - $1000 (collection of security issues)
* Sergey Markov - $1000 (collection of security issues)
= Thanks! =
= Thanks! =
The Gallery team is very excited to announce a new bounty program, where we pay you for helping us out by finding security problems or contributing code. (Note: this only applies to the most recent version of our currently shipping software: Gallery 3) Additionally, you can pitch in to the fund to reward people that fix bugs or write features you want to see fixed or implemented! We're pledging $5000 to get this started, and you can start contributing right now! Read on for the details of this program.
Gallery 3 has undergone several security reviews and as a result of each review, potential security issues have been resolved. We are interested in all types of potential security issues in Gallery 3.
Since the initial release of Gallery 2, all releases of Gallery 2 undergo a paid professional security view before release. They've caught things each time, but we're fairly confident in the security of Gallery 2, and Gallery 2 is no longer under active development. Realistically, we are only likely to reward and fix 'Critical' security issues.
Gallery 1 has undergone a paid security review by a professional security firm, and has been effectively end-of-lifed. We will not reward or fix any issues with Gallery 1.
While we appreciate security reports about this site, our website, etc, we will only pay out substantially reduced bounties for any issues reported about anything not related to issues in shipping versions of Gallery 3 or 2.
We're offering a substantial amount of money for responsibly reporting security issues in the current development version of our currently shipping software: Gallery 3. To get the bounty, the security issue must be reported to email@example.com and must not be made public until a fix is available from us on the official Gallery website. Critical problems that require an immediate fix will be worth $1000 and smaller amounts will be paid out for moderate ($400), uncritical ($200), and trivial problems ($100). If we are already aware of an issue, you won't receive the full bounty but will still be credited with finding it independently (and may, at our discretion, receive some of the bounty amount). Understandably, known security issues aren't listed publicly until they are fixed and not all security issues are serious enough to require an immediate fix. We have a long history of collaborating with security researchers and are convinced that trust will not be an issue.
You can also make money fixing bugs or writing code! This one is a little more complicated, but the outcome is similar. We'll pay you to write features or fix bugs that have been voted into the "top feature requests" list. The #1 open item is worth $500, #2 $400, #3 $300, and the rest of the top 10 are worth $250. However, this isn't as easy as it sounds, there are a few requirements:
E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com to sign up for a bounty. Let us know which one you're interested in and we'll work with you to get things started. Recipients of a bounty don't have to accept any or all of it! You are welcome to privately (only known to the person on our team that manages our finances) or publicly (news announcement!) accept or refuse all or part of the bounty. Once our initial $5000 commitment is gone, we will likely put more money into the program and make an announcement indicating this. (Before emailing us, you should check this page to make sure someone hasn't signed up to work on that item yet. See the list below.)
NOTE: This means that once we have spent over our initial $5000 commitment, we may not be able to pay out further bounties. Gallery is not a commercial entity and is entirely funded by donations, so our pockets are not as deep as larger organizations. As of the Gallery 3.0.4 release on 2012-06-12, we have officially spent $6800 on bounties, and are investigating how much more money we can put forward for this program. Please contact us before you submit a security issue if you're counting on a particular payout!
Donating money towards a specific cause is easy! Initially, 50% of your donation will go to the winner of the bounty and 50% will be treated as a regular donation. Once the total amount of donations received matches our initial contribution to that particular item, 25% of your donation will go to the winner of the bounty and 75% will go to the general fund. But you don't need to worry about figuring that out, just follow the steps below:
Below are lists of donations made and people signed up to work on things.
These are donations that have been applied to open RFEs and bugs. Feel free to donate more towards them!
You can't sign up for these because someone is already working on them!
People that have cashed in on bounties so far:
Several people have reported issues where Gallery administrators can include malicious content. We don't pay out bounties for these because we assume that Gallery Administrators have full control over their site and could add malicious content without using an un-sanitized input field in an administrator only view.
Several people have reported issues to us with our website which include Drupal, Mediawiki, and a few other things. We don't pay out bounties for these but appreciate responsible disclosure on these.


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This review is based in part on CNET's Windows 8 and Surface RT reviews.
Windows RT wants to take a big leap into the future for Windows, but its shoelaces seem to have tangled on the jump forward. You wouldn't be wrong to call Windows RT the "lite" version of Windows 8, but since Microsoft insists on the confusing "RT" moniker, which it has never explained, "restricted" is the better adjective.
RT aims more squarely for the tablet market than anything else Microsoft has ever done, emphasizing the best of Windows 8, but it lacks a clean break with the past. In some ways it's a more impressive achievement than Windows 8 itself. That doesn't mean that it's a better operating system, and in fact it has quite a few limitations.
Microsoft's vision for the future of computers builds a new world for Windows. It works well with a mouse and keyboard, and it's great with touch screens. It lusts for apps, lives for sync, and loves real-time updates. But that's all available in Windows 8.
Windows RT (FAQ) is a different beast from Windows 8. It only comes preinstalled on certain tablets, such as the Microsoft Surface RT, which are most easily identified by the "RT" designation that's often at the end of their names. To be blunt, Windows RT is a thinner version of Windows 8. It lacks third-party access to the Desktop mode, so you will only be able to use programs like the New Microsoft Office 2013 (review) and Internet Explorer 10 there. No legacy Windows software will work on it, a big strike against, and the Windows Store offers an anemic app catalog at the moment. RT also won't suffer the same malware concerns that full Windows 8 will because of its different chip architecture.
Since Windows RT is only available preinstalled, you only have to log in with a Microsoft account to get started. You can also create one when you start your device for the first time, or use a locally stored account.
If you've been using a Microsoft account with another Windows 8 or Windows RT device, your personal settings will sync over. Apps must be downloaded manually, although you can download them in batch. Internet Explorer 10 bookmarks and pinned sites will sync, too.
Account syncing can take some time, depending on the speed of your connection and your specific RT device. Overall, though, getting started on a Windows RT device is quite simple.
Windows RT's interface is identical to the Windows 8 interface, and that's both a strength and a weakness. To that end, here I only discuss the impact of the new Windows interface as it pertains to Windows RT. To read our full analysis of the Windows 8 interface, please check out CNET's Windows 8 review.
The challenges of the Windows 8 interface are more pronounced in Windows RT because Microsoft wants you to live entirely in the "Metro" mode's tiled interface -- except when it doesn't. Certain Microsoft-built programs, such as the new Office, open into Desktop mode, and there's a version of Internet Explorer 10 in Desktop mode, too. Most jarring of all is that some settings open in Metro, while others open in Desktop.
The best of the Windows 8 interface is here, though. You get live tiles instead of icons, convenient tile grouping, the useful if oddly named Charms bar, and slick swipe gestures to run two apps at once or view a sidebar of recently used apps.
Jumping between Metro and Desktop is an acceptable evil in Windows 8 because you get the benefit of running your old software in the new Windows 8 world. On Windows RT, it's awkward and potentially confusing. I wish Microsoft had solved this problem before releasing Windows RT, because at the end of the day it just makes it harder to use.
Features and support
While Windows RT does offer the best of Windows 8, its lack of support for legacy Windows programs hinders its usefulness. But it also doesn't support third-party browsers like Firefox or Chrome, at least not yet. Nor can you run replacement media player apps yet, either. It's not clear that you'll ever be able to swap in third-party programs for core apps. This is a Windows that emulates the worst of iOS.
On the other hand, the best things in Windows 8 shine here. First up is the peculiarly named Charms bar. It apparently resembles a charms bracelet. We'll leave the connection between that and Windows up to you.
Search is global, and includes data from all your apps that have activated the search hooks. Start typing from the Start screen and you instantly open the search utility. It can flip at a touch among apps, settings, and files. However, mildly obnoxious is the fact that it takes a swipe and three taps to pull up the onscreen keyboard. If you've got a keyboard connected, search is instant from the Start screen. From the onscreen one, though, the procedure is unnecessarily tedious.
The Share charm lets you share content in between apps. It's as much a benefit for developers as it is for the rest of us. Developers only have to code their app to connect to the Share charm, instead of having to code to have their app "talk" to another specific app. The end result is that apps share content effortlessly -- much like Android's Share mechanism.
The Devices charm places secondary devices only a touch away. This may seem odd to many people, but it's a nod to the fact that Windows 8 must serve both PCs and tablets. No matter the Windows 8 device, managing a second monitor will be as simple as managing an external drive. Because of our limited review period, we were not able to see how Devices worked with more than a second monitor, and we'll update this section soon.
One notable frustration is that it's not immediately apparent which settings controls are available from the Settings sidebar's More PC Settings, and which must be accessed through the traditional Control Panel. A good rule of thumb would be that if you're looking for a configuration related to Metro, start with the Metro settings, but unfortunately that doesn't always pan out. Here, though, it's compounded by the fact that some settings open in Metro and others in Desktop. These core inconsistencies are here to stay.