text:
- Final01
42 - Final1
59 - Final24OSU
34 - Final35STAN
20 - Final47LOU
13 - Final5
45 - Final6
62 - Final7
28 - Final8
59 - Final9
35 - Final10
51 - Final1116
21 - Final12
38 - Final1319WASH
24 - Final1420WIS
32 - Final1521ND
24 - Final1625MISS
23 - Final1724TCU
Coverage: ESPN2
12:00 PM ET, September 14, 2013
Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, NORMAN, OK
Top Performers
Passing: B. Bell (OKLA) - 413 YDS, 4 TD
Rushing: T. Watts (TLSA) - 14 CAR, 60 YDS, 1 TD
Receiving: S. Shepard (OKLA) - 8 REC, 123 YDS, 2 TD
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops might have a quarterback controversy on his hands.
Stoops said Monday that No. 14 Oklahoma will start junior Blake Bell on Saturday against Tulsa. He replaces Trevor Knight, who beat out Bell during the preseason.
Stoops said Knight suffered a bruised knee late in the first half of Oklahoma's 16-7 win over West Virginia last Saturday and will miss up to two weeks. After suffering the injury, Knight continued to play in the third quarter before Bell finished the game for the Sooners.
While Oklahoma (2-0) has beaten Louisiana-Monroe and West Virginia to start the season, the Sooners' passing game -- a strength with Sam Bradford, then Landry Jones, playing quarterback the past six seasons -- has looked shaky. Knight has completed 43.8 percent of his passes for 205 yards, with four touchdowns and three interceptions, although he has rushed for 145 yards.
He threw two interceptions and lost a fumble against West Virginia, though Stoops conceded that the injury probably bothered Knight.
Bell, used mostly as a short-yardage rushing specialist the past two seasons, is 3-for-6 passing this season for 38 yards. He attempted only one pass in the fourth quarter against the Mountaineers, as the Sooners leaned on a strong rushing game -- which rolled up 316 yards -- to run out the clock.
Stoops said he thought Bell "looked comfortable" and "was doing everything like you'd want him to do."
"When we made the switch, regardless of what reasonings, things just weren't going as well as we felt they should have," Stoops said. "So we wanted to give Blake an opportunity. With Trevor now being out a week or two . we're starting Blake here this week."
Stoops wouldn't commit to giving the job back to Knight after he returns from injury. To complicate matters further, the coach said sophomore quarterback Kendal Thompson, who suffered a fractured foot on the first day of preseason practice, has been cleared to return to practice and will back up Bell against Tulsa (1-1).
If Thompson's injury flares up, then fourth-stringer Cody Thomas would be Bell's backup against the Golden Hurricane.
The situation has all the makings of an in-season quarterback derby, something the Sooners haven't faced since 2005, when Paul Thompson started the opener -- a shocking home loss to TCU -- before giving way to Rhett Bomar, who started the rest of the season.
Stoops has said many times that the preseason competition was close between Knight, Bell and Thompson, and he waited until nine days before the season opener to choose Knight over Bell as the Sooners' starter. Before Thompson's injury, Stoops said Thompson "was right in the middle" of the competition with Bell and Knight.
Stoops said he expects it will take Thompson about a week "to get back in the groove. He was doing fantastic before he got hurt. He's been in the room and at practice mentally. He should pick it up fairly quickly."
So how do Oklahoma coaches decide between Knight, Bell and Thompson? Stoops wouldn't give any indication.
"I've said it for a year," Stoops said. "They're all pretty much the same. They all can run. They all can throw. They're all athletic. There's not a lot of difference in their skill set as far as what they can do."
Stoops said he doesn't have a policy -- as do some football coaches -- about players potentially losing starting jobs due to injury.
"I'm sure, though my years, some have and some have not," he said. "A lot of what determines that is if it's a guy that's played for three years and has already earned it and we know what he can do, when he gets injured, it's pretty likely I'm going to put him back in there when he gets back. If a guy hasn't been playing for two or three years, then maybe not. So, I don't know."
Tulsa's offense has turned it over five times in two games, and now faces an Oklahoma defense that has allowed just seven points -- the fewest of any FBS team to play twice.
The Golden Hurricane at least made some significant improvements from their opener last weekend against Colorado State. After being held to 273 total yards and 51 on the ground in a 34-7 loss to Bowling Green, Tulsa ran for 215 yards and threw for 212 while coming from 10 down in the fourth quarter to beat the Rams 30-27.
The news wasn't all good, though. Tulsa lost star receiver Keyarris Garrett, who had 845 yards and nine touchdowns in 2012, to a broken leg on the final drive against Colorado State, and the junior will miss the rest of the season.
Oklahoma has outscored Tulsa 280-50 in winning all six meetings since Stoops took over in 1999.
Top 25 Overview
The story of this game will be Sooners quarterback Blake Bell. The junior gets the opportunity to prove he should have been named OU's starting quarterback, not Trevor Knight, against the Sooners' in-state foe. Injury has knocked Knight out of this game but, if Bell excels against the Golden Hurricane, Knight could face a long road to regaining his starting spot. OU will be looking to find some type of rhythm on offense with their highly anticipated matchup with Notre Dame at the end of the month on the horizon.
Avg Points | 19.0 | 33.7 |
Avg Points Allowed | 37.3 | 9.0 |
Home Record | 1-0 | 3-0 |
Road Record | 0-2 | 0-0 |
Division Record | 0-0 | 1-0 |
Conference Record | 0-0 | 1-0 |
Complete Standings |
Passing Leaders
Rushing Leaders
Tulsa | CAR | YDS | AVG | TD | |
T. Watts | 268 | 1329 | 5.0 | 11 | |
J. Douglas | 113 | 379 | 3.4 | 2 | |
Oklahoma | CAR | YDS | AVG | TD | |
B. Clay | 175 | 957 | 5.5 | 6 | |
D. Williams | 114 | 553 | 4.9 | 7 |
Receiving Leaders
Tulsa | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | |
J. James | 39 | 471 | 12.1 | 2 | |
K. Lucas | 32 | 442 | 13.8 | 1 | |
Oklahoma | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | |
J. Saunders | 61 | 729 | 12.0 | 8 | |
S. Shepard | 51 | 603 | 11.8 | 7 |
Research Notes
Before Saturday, Oklahoma QB Blake Bell (the "Bell-dozer") was known for his short-yardage rushing prowess, but not so much for his passing ability. In 22 previous career games, he had completed just over 50% of his passes and never thrown for a score, amassing a Total QBR below 2 as a passer (pass attempts and sacks). But Bell proved he can throw the ball on Saturday vs Tulsa, averaging over 11 yards per attempt (including 6 completions of more than 20 yards) and taking only 1 sack, finishing with a QBR near 99 on passing plays. [+]Blake Bell on Passing Plays - NCAA Career
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ESPN Stats & Information |


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Home » Posts tagged 'Tools'
Tag Archives: Tools
Google Analytics using #Rstats – Updated
Due to changes in Google APIs my earlier post on using Google Analytics in R is deprecated. Unfortunately it is still on top 10 results for Google results for Using Google Analytics with R.
That post is here http://decisionstats.com/2012/03/20/using-google-analytics-with-r/
A more updated R package on Google Analytics and R is here . https://github.com/skardhamar/rga
A better updated post on an easy to use tutorial on using Google Analytics with R using OAuth 2 playground is here.
- Set the Google analytics query parameters for preparing the request URI
- Get the access token from Oauth 2.0 Playground
- Retrieve and select the Profile
- Retrieving GA data
Note it is excellent for learning to use RJSON method as well. You can see the details on the Tatvic blog above.
Hat tip- Vignesh Prajapati
Related articles
- (not provided): Using R and the Google Analytics API (r-bloggers.com)
Data Visualization for R packages at Github #rstats
I noticed this article sometime back by the most excellent hacker, John Myles White ( author Machine learning for Hackers)
Professor John Fox, whom we have interviewed here as the creator of R Commander, talked on this at User 2008 http://www.statistik.uni-dortmund.de/useR-2008/slides/Fox.pdf
I also noticed that R Project is stuck on SVN ( yes or no??, comment please) while some part of the rest of the World has moved on to Git. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29
Is Git really that good compared to SVN http://stackoverflow.com/questions/871/why-is-git-better-than-subversion
Maybe, I think with 5000 packages and more , R -project needs to have more presence on Github and atleast consider Git for the distributed and international project R is becoming.
WordPress.com changes Analytics
WP.com made a cool change to WP- Stats , its default analytics program, It now counts visitors as well as visits. This is especially useful to writers like me who like to customize content based on analytics ( GA Analytics does not work on WordPress.com hosted sites) and who dont want to bother with hosting /hacking (WP.com is much more hassle free than self-hosted , or even Rackspace hosted in my experience).
Of course the guy DOS-ing my poetry blog (via Yahoo Image Service) needs to use Tor to hide. Unless they dont want to hide and just want to click on my Roses poem 200 times (passing a subliminal message?) . Of course GA Analytics loves line charts and WP Stats loves Bar Charts, but we wont get into that.
Data Frame in Python
Exploring some Python Packages and R packages to move /work with both Python and R without melting your brain or exceeding your project deadline
If you liked the data.frame structure in R, you have some way to work with them at a faster processing speed in Python.
Here are three packages that enable you to do so-
(1) pydataframe http://code.google.com/p/pydataframe/
An implemention of an almost R like DataFrame object. (install via Pypi/Pip: "pip install pydataframe")
u = DataFrame( { "Field1": [1, 2, 3], "Field2": ['abc', 'def', 'hgi']}, optional: ['Field1', 'Field2'] ["rowOne", "rowTwo", "thirdRow"])
A DataFrame is basically a table with rows and columns.
Columns are named, rows are numbered (but can be named) and can be easily selected and calculated upon. Internally, columns are stored as 1d numpy arrays. If you set row names, they're converted into a dictionary for fast access. There is a rich subselection/slicing API, see help(DataFrame.get_item) (it also works for setting values). Please note that any slice get's you another DataFrame, to access individual entries use get_row(), get_column(), get_value().
DataFrames also understand basic arithmetic and you can either add (multiply,…) a constant value, or another DataFrame of the same size / with the same column names, like this:
#multiply every value in ColumnA that is smaller than 5 by 6. my_df[my_df[:,'ColumnA'] < 5, 'ColumnA'] *= 6 #you always need to specify both row and column selectors, use : to mean everything my_df[:, 'ColumnB'] = my_df[:,'ColumnA'] + my_df[:, 'ColumnC'] #let's take every row that starts with Shu in ColumnA and replace it with a new list (comprehension) select = my_df.where(lambda row: row['ColumnA'].startswith('Shu')) my_df[select, 'ColumnA'] = [row['ColumnA'].replace('Shu', 'Sha') for row in my_df[select,:].iter_rows()]
Dataframes talk directly to R via rpy2 (rpy2 is not a prerequiste for the library!)
(2) pandas http://pandas.pydata.org/
Library Highlights
- A fast and efficient DataFrame object for data manipulation with integrated indexing;
- Tools for reading and writing data between in-memory data structures and different formats: CSV and text files, Microsoft Excel, SQL databases, and the fast HDF5 format;
- Intelligent data alignment and integrated handling of missing data: gain automatic label-based alignment in computations and easily manipulate messy data into an orderly form;
- Flexible reshaping and pivoting of data sets;
- Intelligent label-based slicing, fancy indexing, and subsetting of large data sets;
- Columns can be inserted and deleted from data structures for size mutability;
- Aggregating or transforming data with a powerful group by engine allowing split-apply-combine operations on data sets;
- High performance merging and joining of data sets;
- Hierarchical axis indexing provides an intuitive way of working with high-dimensional data in a lower-dimensional data structure;
- Time series-functionality: date range generation and frequency conversion, moving window statistics, moving window linear regressions, date shifting and lagging. Even create domain-specific time offsets and join time series without losing data;
- The library has been ruthlessly optimized for performance, with critical code paths compiled to C;
- Python with pandas is in use in a wide variety of academic and commercial domains, including Finance, Neuroscience, Economics, Statistics, Advertising, Web Analytics, and more.
Why not R?
First of all, we love open source R! It is the most widely-used open source environment for statistical modeling and graphics, and it provided some early inspiration for pandas features. R users will be pleased to find this library adopts some of the best concepts of R, like the foundational DataFrame (one user familiar with R has described pandas as "R data.frame on steroids"). But pandas also seeks to solve some frustrations common to R users:
- R has barebones data alignment and indexing functionality, leaving much work to the user. pandas makes it easy and intuitive to work with messy, irregularly indexed data, like time series data. pandas also provides rich tools, like hierarchical indexing, not found in R;
- R is not well-suited to general purpose programming and system development. pandas enables you to do large-scale data processing seamlessly when developing your production applications;
- Hybrid systems connecting R to a low-productivity systems language like Java, C++, or C# suffer from significantly reduced agility and maintainability, and you're still stuck developing the system components in a low-productivity language;
- The "copyleft" GPL license of R can create concerns for commercial software vendors who want to distribute R with their software under another license. Python and pandas use more permissive licenses.
(3) datamatrix http://pypi.python.org/pypi/datamatrix/0.8
datamatrix 0.8
A Pythonic implementation of R's data.frame structure.
Latest Version: 0.9
This module allows access to comma- or other delimiter separated files as if they were tables, using a dictionary-like syntax. DataMatrix objects can be manipulated, rows and columns added and removed, or even transposed
Modeling in Python
Using Rapid Miner and R for Sports Analytics #rstats
Ajay- Why did you choose Rapid Miner and R? What were the other software alternatives you considered and discarded?
Analyst- We considered most of the other major players in statistics/data mining or enterprise BI. However, we found that the value proposition for an open source solution was too compelling to justify the premium pricing that the commercial solutions would have required. The widespread adoption of R and the variety of packages and algorithms available for it, made it an easy choice. We liked RapidMiner as a way to design structured, repeatable processes, and the ability to optimize learner parameters in a systematic way. It also handled large data sets better than R on 32-bit Windows did. The GUI, particularly when 5.0 was released, made it more usable than R for analysts who weren't experienced programmers.
Ajay- What analytics do you do think Rapid Miner and R are best suited for?
Analyst- We use RM+R mainly for sports analysis so far, rather than for more traditional business applications. It has been quite suitable for that, and I can easily see how it would be used for other types of applications.
Ajay- Any experiences as an enterprise customer? How was the installation process? How good is the enterprise level support?
Analyst- Rapid-I has been one of the most responsive tech companies I've dealt with, either in my current role or with previous employers. They are small enough to be able to respond quickly to requests, and in more than one case, have fixed a problem, or added a small feature we needed within a matter of days. In other cases, we have contracted with them to add larger pieces of specific functionality we needed at reasonable consulting rates. Those features are added to the mainline product, and become fully supported through regular channels. The longer consulting projects have typically had a turnaround of just a few weeks.
Ajay- What challenges if any did you face in executing a pure open source analytics bundle ?
Analyst- As Rapid-I is a smaller company based in Europe, the availability of training and consulting in the USA isn't as extensive as for the major enterprise software players, and the time zone differences sometimes slow down the communications cycle. There were times where we were the first customer to attempt a specific integration point in our technical environment, and with no prior experiences to fall back on, we had to work with Rapid-I to figure out how to do it. Compared to the what traditional software vendors provide, both R and RM tend to have sparse, terse, occasionally incomplete documentation. The situation is getting better, but still lags behind what the traditional enterprise software vendors provide.
Ajay- What are the things you can do in R ,and what are the things you prefer to do in Rapid Miner (comparison for technical synergies)
Analyst- Our experience has been that RM is superior to R at writing and maintaining structured processes, better at handling larger amounts of data, and more flexible at fine-tuning model parameters automatically. The biggest limitation we've had with RM compared to R is that R has a larger library of user-contributed packages for additional data mining algorithms. Sometimes we opted to use R because RM hadn't yet implemented a specific algorithm. The introduction the R extension has allowed us to combine the strengths of both tools in a very logical and productive way.
In particular, extending RapidMiner with R helped address RM's weakness in the breadth of algorithms, because it brings the entire R ecosystem into RM (similar to how Rapid-I implemented much of the Weka library early on in RM's development). Further, because the R user community releases packages that implement new techniques faster than the enterprise vendors can, this helps turn a potential weakness into a potential strength. However, R packages tend to be of varying quality, and are more prone to go stale due to lack of support/bug fixes. This depends heavily on the package's maintainer and its prevalence of use in the R community. So when RapidMiner has a learner with a native implementation, it's usually better to use it than the R equivalent.
Interview John Myles White , Machine Learning for Hackers
Here is an interview with one of the younger researchers and rock stars of the R Project, John Myles White, co-author of Machine Learning for Hackers.
Ajay- What inspired you guys to write Machine Learning for Hackers. What has been the public response to the book. Are you planning to write a second edition or a next book?
John-We decided to write Machine Learning for Hackers because there were so many people interested in learning more about Machine Learning who found the standard textbooks a little difficult to understand, either because they lacked the mathematical background expected of readers or because it wasn't clear how to translate the mathematical definitions in those books into usable programs. Most Machine Learning books are written for audiences who will not only be using Machine Learning techniques in their applied work, but also actively inventing new Machine Learning algorithms. The amount of information needed to do both can be daunting, because, as one friend pointed out, it's similar to insisting that everyone learn how to build a compiler before they can start to program. For most people, it's better to let them try out programming and get a taste for it before you teach them about the nuts and bolts of compiler design. If they like programming, they can delve into the details later.
Ajay- What are the key things that a potential reader can learn from this book?
John- We cover most of the nuts and bolts of introductory statistics in our book: summary statistics, regression and classification using linear and logistic regression, PCA and k-Nearest Neighbors. We also cover topics that are less well known, but are as important: density plots vs. histograms, regularization, cross-validation, MDS, social network analysis and SVM's. I hope a reader walks away from the book having a feel for what different basic algorithms do and why they work for some problems and not others. I also hope we do just a little to shift a future generation of modeling culture towards regularization and cross-validation.
Ajay- Describe your journey as a science student up till your Phd. What are you current research interests and what initiatives have you done with them?
John-As an undergraduate I studied math and neuroscience. I then took some time off and came back to do a Ph.D. in psychology, focusing on mathematical modeling of both the brain and behavior. There's a rich tradition of machine learning and statistics in psychology, so I got increasingly interested in ML methods during my years as a grad student. I'm about to finish my Ph.D. this year. My research interests all fall under one heading: decision theory. I want to understand both how people make decisions (which is what psychology teaches us) and how they should make decisions (which is what statistics and ML teach us). My thesis is focused on how people make decisions when there are both short-term and long-term consequences to be considered. For non-psychologists, the classic example is probably the explore-exploit dilemma. I've been working to import more of the main ideas from stats and ML into psychology for modeling how real people handle that trade-off. For psychologists, the classic example is the Marshmallow experiment. Most of my research work has focused on the latter: what makes us patient and how can we measure patience?
Ajay- How can academia and private sector solve the shortage of trained data scientists (assuming there is one)?
John- There's definitely a shortage of trained data scientists: most companies are finding it difficult to hire someone with the real chops needed to do useful work with Big Data. The skill set required to be useful at a company like Facebook or Twitter is much more advanced than many people realize, so I think it will be some time until there are undergraduates coming out with the right stuff. But there's huge demand, so I'm sure the market will clear sooner or later.
(TIL he has played in several rock bands!)
Interview James G Kobielus IBM Big Data
Here is an interview with James G Kobielus, who is the Senior Program Director, Product Marketing, Big Data Analytics Solutions at IBM. Special thanks to Payal Patel Cudia of IBM's communication team,for helping with the logistics for this.
Ajay -What are the specific parts of the IBM Platform that deal with the three layers of Big Data -variety, velocity and volume
James-Well first of all, let's talk about the IBM Information Management portfolio. Our big data platform addresses the three layers of big data to varying degrees either together in a product , or two out of the three or even one of the three aspects. We don't have separate products for the variety, velocity and volume separately.
Let us define these three layers-Volume refers to the hundreds of terabytes and petabytes of stored data inside organizations today. Velocity refers to the whole continuum from batch to real time continuous and streaming data.
Variety refers to multi-structure data from structured to unstructured files, managed and stored in a common platform analyzed through common tooling.
For Volume-IBM has a highly scalable Big Data platform. This includes Netezza and Infosphere groups of products, and Watson-like technologies that can support petabytes volume of data for analytics. But really the support of volume ranges across IBM's Information Management portfolio both on the database side and the advanced analytics side.
For real time Velocity, we have real time data acquisition. We have a product called IBM Infosphere, part of our Big Data platform, that is specifically built for streaming real time data acquisition and delivery through complex event processing. We have a very rich range of offerings that help clients build a Hadoop environment that can scale.
Our Hadoop platform is the most real time capable of all in the industry. We are differentiated by our sheer breadth, sophistication and functional depth and tooling integrated in our Hadoop platform. We are differentiated by our streaming offering integrated into the Hadoop platform. We also offer a great range of modeling and analysis tools, pretty much more than any other offering in the Big Data space.
Attached- Jim's slides from Hadoop World
Ajay- Any plans for Mahout for Hadoop
Jim- I cant speak about product plans. We have plans but I cant tell you anything more. We do have a feature in Big Insights called System ML, a library for machine learning.
Ajay- How integral are acquisitions for IBM in the Big Data space (Netezza,Cognos,SPSS etc). Is it true that everything that you have in Big Data is acquired or is the famous IBM R and D contributing here . (see a partial list of IBM acquisitions at at http://www.ibm.com/investor/strategy/acquisitions.wss )
Jim- We have developed a lot on our own. We have the deepest R and D of anybody in the industry in all things Big Data.
For example – Watson has Big Insights Hadoop at its core. Apache Hadoop is the heart and soul of Big Data (see http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/infosphere/hadoop/ ). A great deal that makes Big Insights so differentiated is that not everything that has been built has been built by the Hadoop community.
We have built additions out of the necessity for security, modeling, monitoring, and governance capabilities into BigInsights to make it truly enterprise ready. That is one example of where we have leveraged open source and we have built our own tools and technologies and layered them on top of the open source code.
Yes of course we have done many strategic acquisitions over the last several years related to Big Data Management and we continue to do so. This quarter we have done 3 acquisitions with strong relevance to Big Data. One of them is Vivisimo (http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/37491.wss ).
Vivisimo provides federated Big Data discovery, search and profiling capabilities to help you figure out what data is out there,what is relevance of that data to your data science project- to help you answer the question which data should you bring in your Hadoop Cluster.
We also did Varicent , which is more performance management and we did TeaLeaf , which is a customer experience solution provider where customer experience management and optimization is one of the hot killer apps for Hadoop in the cloud. We have done great many acquisitions that have a clear relevance to Big Data.
Netezza already had a massively parallel analytics database product with an embedded library of models called Netezza Analytics, and in-database capabilties to massively parallelize Map Reduce and other analytics management functions inside the database. In many ways, Netezza provided capabilities similar to that IBM had provided for many years under the Smart Analytics Platform (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/infosphere/what-is-advanced-analytics/ ) .
There is a differential between Netezza and ISAS.
ISAS was built predominantly in-house over several years . If you go back a decade ago IBM acquired Ascential Software , a product portfolio that was the heart and soul of IBM InfoSphere Information Manager that is core to our big Data platform. In addition to Netezza, IBM bought SPSS two years back. We already had data mining tools and predictive modeling in the InfoSphere portfolio, but we realized we needed to have the best of breed, SPSS provided that and so IBM acquired them.
Cognos- We had some BI reporting capabilities in the InfoSphere portfolio that we had built ourselves and also acquired for various degrees from prior acquisitions. But clearly Cognos was one of the best BI vendors , and we were lacking such a rich tool set in our product in visualization and cubing and so for that reason we acquired Cognos.
There is also Unica – which is a marketing campaign optimization which in many ways is a killer app for Hadoop. Projects like that are driving many enterprises.
Ajay- How would you rank order these acquisitions in terms of strategic importance rather than data of acquisition or price paid.
Jim-Think of Big Data as an ecosystem that has components that are fitted to particular functions for data analytics and data management. Is the database the core, or the modeling tool the core, or the governance tools the core, or is the hardware platform the core. Everything is critically important. We would love to hear from you what you think have been most important. Each acquisition has helped play a critical role to build the deepest and broadest solution offering in Big Data. We offer the hardware, software, professional services, the hosting service. I don't think there is any validity to a rank order system.
Ajay-What are the initiatives regarding open source that Big Data group have done or are planning?
Jim- What we are doing now- We are very much involved with the Apache Hadoop community. We continue to evolve the open source code that everyone leverages.. We have built BigInsights on Apache Hadoop. We have the closest, most up to date in terms of version number to Apache Hadoop ( Hbase,HDFS, Pig etc) of all commercial distributions with our BigInsights 1.4 .
We have an R library integrated with BigInsights . We have a R library integrated with Netezza Analytics. There is support for R Models within the SPSS portfolio. We already have a fair amount of support for R across the portfolio.
Ajay- What are some of the concerns (privacy,security,regulation) that you think can dampen the promise of Big Data.
Jim- There are no showstoppers, there is really a strong momentum. Some of the concerns within the Hadoop space are immaturity of the technology, the immaturity of some of the commercial offerings out there that implement Hadoop, the lack of standardization for formal sense for Hadoop.
There is no Open Standards Body that declares, ratifies the latest version of Mahout, Map Reduce, HDFS etc. There is no industry consensus reference framework for layering these different sub projects. There are no open APIs. There are no certifications or interoperability standards or organizations to certify different vendors interoperability around a common API or framework.
The lack of standardization is troubling in this whole market. That creates risks for users because users are adopting multiple Hadoop products. There are lots of Hadoop deployments in the corporate world built around Apache Hadoop (purely open source). There may be no assurance that these multiple platforms will interoperate seamlessly. That's a huge issue in terms of just magnifying the risk. And it increases the need for the end user to develop their own custom integrated code if they want to move data between platforms, or move map-reduce jobs between multiple distributions.
Also governance is a consideration. Right now Hadoop is used for high volume ETL on multi structured and unstructured data sources, or Hadoop is used for exploratory sand boxes for data scientists. These are important applications that are a majority of the Hadoop deployments . Some Hadoop deployments are stand alone unstructured data marts for specific applications like sentiment analysis like.
Hadoop is not yet ready for data warehousing. We don't see a lot of Hadoop being used as an alternative to data warehouses for managing the single version of truth of system or record data. That day will come but there needs to be out there in the marketplace a broader range of data governance mechanisms , master data management, data profiling products that are mature that enterprises can use to make sure their data inside their Hadoop clusters is clean and is the single version of truth. That day has not arrived yet.
One of the great things about IBM's acquisition of Vivisimo is that a piece of that overall governance picture is discovery and profiling for unstructured data , and that is done very well by Vivisimo for several years.
What we will see is vendors such as IBM will continue to evolve security features inside of our Hadoop platform. We will beef up our data governance capabilities for this new world of Hadoop as the core of Big Data, and we will continue to build up our ability to integrate multiple databases in our Hadoop platform so that customers can use data from a bit of Hadoop,some data from a bit of traditional relational data warehouse, maybe some noSQL technology for different roles within a very complex Big Data environment.
That latter hybrid deployment model is becoming standard across many enterprises for Big Data. A cause for concern is when your Big Data deployment has a bit of Hadoop, bit of noSQL, bit of EDW, bit of in-memory , there are no open standards or frameworks for putting it all together for a unified framework not just for interoperability but also for deployment.
There needs to be a virtualization or abstraction layer for unified access to all these different Big Data platforms by the users/developers writing the queries, by administrators so they can manage data and resources and jobs across all these disparate platforms in a seamless unified way with visual tooling. That grand scenario, the virtualization layer is not there yet in any standard way across the big data market. It will evolve, it may take 5-10 years to evolve but it will evolve.
So, that's the concern that can dampen some of the enthusiasm for Big Data Analytics.
You can read more about Jim at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/james-kobielus/6/ab2/8b0 or
follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jameskobielus
You can read more about IBM Big Data at http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/

subset: commoncrawl


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Day 1
The group flight usually arrives in the evening. Land Only clients should make their own way to the start hotel.
Day 2
Calgary has historically been famous for its Wild West roots but in recent years it has become a dynamic city with a booming economy. This morning we leave the big city behind and transfer to the Canadian Rockies town of Banff, Canada's first national park and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Banff town can easily be explored on foot and with loads of optional activities there is enough to fill your time. Visit the iconic Banff Springs Hotel where tourism in the Rockies first began, take a short trail to the tumbling Bow Falls, or visit some of the many souvenir shops in town. You can also take a gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain for the rewarding panoramic views of the Rockies or simply relax in the heated, natural pools of the Banff Hot Springs. We stay overnight in nearby Canmore.
Day 3
Banff National Park in Alberta is one of the highlights of any visit to western Canada, with its magnificent mountains, lakes and forests. Today we drive to Moraine Lake located in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, the highest of which is Deltaform Mountain (3424m). You may then take a walk on one of the many trails at nearby Lake Louise. Both of these lakes are famous for their striking blue glacial colour, caused by rock flour carried into the lakes by melt-water from the surrounding glaciers. Today we travel along Highway 1A, a different route to the norm but with increased chances of spotting wildlife.
Day 4
Brace yourself as this morning we hit one of the most famous, and beautiful drives in the world; the Icefields Parkway where this spectacular road traverses the Rockies, running parallel to the Continental Divide. Mountain passes, glaciers and high peaks are some of the many scenic highlights and there are opportunities to see elk, caribou, bears, bighorn sheep and goats, which often graze on the vegetation found in roadside verges. We can stop at all of the 'must see' sights, including Bow Summit and Bow Lake, Peyto Lake and the Crowfoot Glacier. There is also the option of a guided glacier ice-walk along the way. Our overnight location will be in Jasper National Park, around 40 minutes out of town.
Day 5
Jasper is much quieter and less developed than Banff, which means it is easy to escape the crowds here and we spend the day getting to know Jasper National Park and its surroundings. One option is to take the Jasper Tram and walk to the summit, which provides fantastic views over the Canadian Rockies. Alternatively there are various hikes at Mt Edith Cavell, including a short trek in the alpine meadows which will provide us with spectacular views of the Angel Wing Hanging Glacier and chances to view caribou. Included is a visit to Miette Hot Springs as this road offers regular sightings of big horned sheep and elk. Maligne Lake Rd is rife with wildlife (primarily big horned sheep, bears and elk) and we stop at the picnic area next to the river to see a colony of golden mantle ground squirrels.
Day 6
Today we leave the province of Alberta and enter British Columbia as we travel west. En route we visit Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies; at 3954m this is one of the most impressive sights in western Canada and its peak usually capped with snow. There is an optional hike at Kinney Lake, located in the Mount Robson Provincial Park, or, depending on the groups wishes, it is possible to join a wildlife river safari instead, with the chance of seeing bear, moose, eagle and osprey from Blue River. We drive to the historic gold rush city of Williams Lake, with a journey time of around 6.5 hours in total.
Day 7
We drive for about 4 hours through authentic Canadian wilderness as we head completely off the beaten track towards Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. With fewer visitors here your chances to see wildlife are increased as is the refreshing remoteness. Our overnight location is close to the shore of Anahim Lake, a popular lake for fly fishing that supports plenty of wildlife who come to drink. There's an optional canoeing excursion on the lake this afternoon, in the evening we recommend relaxing by the fireplace! Please note this area has very basic facilities but is extremely beautiful and off the tourist trail.
Day 8
Tweedsmuir Provincial Park is completely off the radar of most tour groups, despite it being named as British Columbia's most beautiful. Our visit to this total wilderness area requires some advanced planning as our group should be completely self-sufficient. We'll spend time in the southern area of the park this morning, joining a hiking trail through an area of the thick forest. A healthy population of Grizzly and Black bears exists throughout the park, as well as elk, deer, moose and coyote; it is possible to see any of these whilst visiting Tweedsmuir. Wildlife aside, the colours of the mountains, combined with the solitude and flora will ensure that Tweedsmuir is a park that you'll remember. After our hike we drive over 'the Hill' with views towards Bella Coola, a journey time of approximately 2 hours.
Day 9
Bella Coola is located at the point where the Bella Coola River joins with the salt water of the Pacific Ocean. Here amongst the lush valley bottoms and snow-capped peaks reside some of the largest Grizzly bears in the world and this little community is gaining a reputation as one of the best places to spot them in BC. The best time of year to view Grizzly bears is from the middle of August to the end of September as this is when they descend from the mountains to catch salmon in the rivers. In season, it's possible to join an optional excursion in search of Grizzly bears. Outside of the bear season there is a selection of excellent hikes on offer and plenty of optional activities.
Day 10
Today we board a ferry at Bella Coola that takes us to Vancouver Island along the Inside Passage. This journey of approx. 12-14 hours is likely to be a real highlight of the trip as the scenery is simply spectacular: towering, forest-clad peaks surround the deep fjords. Those with keen eyes can often spot Bald eagles and bears. The Inside Passage also supports one of the world's richest marine environments and it may be possible to see Grey, Orca and occasionally Humpback whales. The remoteness of the Inside Passage is its most stunning feature; this area is largely inaccessible by road and the tiny communities spread along it rely on boats for transportation. With a late evening arrival we overnight in Port Hardy and overnight in a hotel.
Day 11
We drive from northern Vancouver Island to the area of Tofino today through some beautiful scenic areas. We'll stop at Cathedral Grove, one of the most accessible stands of giant Douglas fir trees in the province. There are many trails which meander through the Douglas-fir, Western Hemlock, Grand fir and Western Red Cedar trees.
Day 12
Tofino is one of British Columbia's most popular destinations. Located on the border of Clayquot Sound, the region surrounding Tofino retains one of the largest areas of temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island. This morning we have an included bear viewing boat tour where on previous trips whales have also been spotted. The afternoon is free for optional activities such as hiking, whale watching, sea kayaking and relaxing in the hot springs.
Day 13
We travel to Victoria, Vancouver Island's main town and the capital of British Columbia. It's a remarkable mix of English Edwardian, First Nations and even some Chinese building styles and was home to the first Chinatown in Canada. After around a 4 hour journey to reach Victoria, we will take a tour of the city's highlights. The rest of the day is free to relax. You may want to visit the Provincial Museum, which gives an introduction to the First Nations people and the natural history of the region. Alternatively there are plenty of optional excursions that you can organise locally.
Day 14
In the morning we board a ferry across the Strait of Georgia, admiring the small islands and breath-taking panorama of the city of Vancouver as it comes into view. This cosmopolitan and diverse metropolis is in stark contrast to the rest of British Columbia, but always proves to be a highlight. Upon arrival we enjoy a scenic drive through Stanley Park, a 4,000-hectare green wonderland. See the authentic totem poles erected in the 1920s and buy some moreish maple sugar candies. Stop by Prospect Point, a scenic lookout where you gaze out at spectacular views of Lion's Gate Bridge, North Vancouver and West Vancouver.
The tour finishes back at the hotel at 17:00 where your tour ends upon arrival. If you wish to extend your stay please reserve additional accommodation at the time of booking. If you are flying tonight please do not book a flight before 21:00.
Day 15
Arrive London.


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Tune in and watch this week's Chocolate Clip from First Church Hershey outlining this week's Sermon Message from Pastor Brown. There is a fun twist to this week's clip . . . have fun watching it! We had fun making it! May God bless you . . .
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I really want to do this, but I'm a complete hacking noob. Anybody done it? Tips?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1271118 - 02-12-2012, 10:31 AM #2
I want to do it as well, and I'm a complete WP7 hacking noob. I've rooted Android, so that's some experience there with this sort of thing. I did the Preware thing on webOS, which takes no effort at all. But man, this stuff looks tough. I don't even know where to start.
I do recall a post on the front page of WP Central regarding some users who updated to 8107 before the carrier/handset maker released the update. I think some of those people ran into trouble with the radio. I don't recall.Rob
Lumia 620 on T-Mobile USA - 02-12-2012, 10:34 AM #3
Found it. It was the HTC Trophy on Verizon: http://www.wpcentral.com/verizon-tro...g-radio-update
More from the forums here: http://forums.wpcentral.com/trophy/186160.htmRob
Lumia 620 on T-Mobile USA - 02-12-2012, 11:43 AM #4
Wow! How did you get 8107?
Lumia 620 on T-Mobile USA - 02-12-2012, 01:14 PM #6
Bell pushed it out a while back... Despite lack of intent to carry devices, they have been Johnny-on-the-spot with the updates. I was nervous in this regard when they termed the hd7 EOL 2 months after I got it... Also: 8107 combines the accuracy of Nodo with the predictive/corrective speed and fluidity of mango! And, for me at least, solved the disappearing keyboard!
- 02-12-2012, 02:13 PM #7Rob
Lumia 620 on T-Mobile USA - 03-05-2012, 11:37 AM #8
Did you ever do this?
Lumia 620 on T-Mobile USA - 04-18-2012, 09:39 AM #9
Its not that diffucult.
First if you need to downgrade because of the updates to your phone.
[NoDo ROM]HD7_TMOUS_2.20.841.02_Radio_5.65.09.11a_22.214.171.124 5_NoDo, by ansar - xda-developers
Then RSPL/HSPL:
[DFT][Updated!#3] HSPL / RSPL for HTC WP7 First Generation - xda-developers
[SROM] ☆ ★ ☆ 6Apr ● Deepshining v7.6 ● Tango 8773 | Supertool | DS Marketplace ☆ ★ ☆ - xda-developersThanked by: - 07-14-2012, 11:24 PM #10
I haven't as of yet. However I'm right on top of my warranty expiration... If the wife will live peaceably with me buying a WP8 in the fall I will keep the HD7 as a backup/workphone and do it then. I just can't justify potentially bricking my lifeline. (I am on the highway daily)
I found someone on XDA wanting to do this very thing here:
[Q] HTC HD7 Unlock and Install Custom ROMS help?! - xda-developers
I went through and just completed the update last night on my T-MO US HD7. I ended up using the Y cable method. If you end up making your own cable make sure you get the connections tight. I just wrapped the connections around each other without soldering or electric tape and thought I half bricked my device when doing the goldcard install. I then tightened up one of the connections and it worked like a charm.


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BOOKS: | Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Mystery/Thriller | Literature | Romance | Biography |
MOVIES: | Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Comedy & Personal Dramas | Action Dramas |
Author Byrd's Book
Reviews |
Message Board |
If You Dare |
Harper Torch, Aug 2004, 6.99, 384 pp. ISBN: 0060565373 In Atlanta, Sean La Fonte wants art thief Damien Black to steal the Degas collection from Atlanta's High Museum of Art. Though retired, Damien visits the High Museum to case the joint when a rainstorm sends Angel racing inside the building. Damien and Angel talk but she refuses to give him her number. Without her knowledge, Damien switches cell phones with Angel so that she will have to ca... Unforgettable Millionaire music executive Marcel Taylor is handsome, well built, rich and successful, Marcel could have his pick of any woman in Atlanta. Dubbed Casanova Brown by his childhood friends Solomon and Ophelia, Marcel has spent most of his adult life living up to his romeo image. Finally, after years of playing the field, Marcel is bored by his endless skirt chasing. Diana Guy is Marcel's plain Jane secretary at T & B Entertainment. Diana is a woman who...
Adrianne Byrd Message Board 1/27/2005 7:19:38 PM |
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Byrd has written! |


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Posted November 19, 2012 on
AP on Fox
A person familiar with Rob Gronkowski's injury says the New England Patriots tight end has undergone surgery for a broken forearm.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement, and did not say which arm was injured. The team could not confirm that Gronkowski had an operation, Patriots spokesman Stacey James said.
Gronkowski went to the locker room with team physician Dr. Thomas Gill with 3:55 left in the fourth quarter after blocking on an extra point following the final touchdown in the Patriots 59-24 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.
He caught seven passes for 137 yards and two touchdowns in the game, becoming the first tight end in NFL history with at least 10 touchdowns in three consecutive seasons.
Original Story:
Report: Gronk has broken forearm
Rob Gronkowski reportedly suffered a broken forearm during the Patriots' win over the Colts. Find out how long the injury could keep him out.
AP Source: Rob Gronkowski Undergoes Surgery for Broken Forearm
Rob Gronkowski reportedly out 4-6 weeks
Gronk Will Attempt To Return As Early as Week 14?
Reports: Gronkowski has broken arm
Are we making too much of Gronkowski's injury?
Rob Gronkowski To Miss 4-6 Weeks
Tom Brady Says 'It Sucks' Rob Gronkowski Is Hurt, Calls On Everyone to Step Up in His Absence
Patriots Injury Report: Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Wes Welker
Patriot's Offense Will Survive Without Gronk
In The Red Zone – November 20
Patriots-Jets Preview
Rotowire Injury Analysis: Fantasy Football Week 11
Ten Observations from Week 11 in the NFL
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Seabourn Spirit in Korcula, Croatia
Thursday, July 1st, 2010Seabourn Spirit is anchored off the Dalmatian island of Korcula, Croatia, the largest in an archipelago of 48 islands. The medieval walled city of Korcula is rich in centuries-old history, and today the island produces some of the country's best wines and olive oil. Croatia's distinctive and famous orange and red tile rooftops dot the landscape and are a stark contrast against the bright blue Mediterranean sky. It makes for a picture-perfect shot, and Seabourn's Personnel and Training Manager Paul Charsley delivered this stunning photo of Seabourn Spirit.


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pygame is
pygame.org is
Ball Fight
Ball Fight - 0.9Davide Zagami (zahami)Tags:DescriptionIn this game you have to destroy as much balls as possible colliding with them using yours, or using special powers.
Each ball raises its resistance and its attack when it speeds up. So the faster you go, the more you are protected against enemies attacks and the more you inflict damage colliding with other balls! This is valid for your enemies too! Links
Pygame.org account CommentsIf you wish to leave a comment with your pygame.org account, please sign in first.


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Even in the rapidly expanding U.S. economy, the rising GDP tide has not been able to lift all boats. Some industries continue to contract as aggregate production bounds ahead. Other businesses are trimming their payrolls, but their production levels are picking up. The latter describes the banking industry, where employment has dropped considerably in the last decade, yet the industry as a whole has experienced strong growth.Is the loss of banking jobs a bad thing? Like so many "normative" questions in economics, the answer depends on how we respond to an accompanying series of "positive" questions. 1 Why did so many banking jobs disappear? Which occupations were most affected? And what alternatives were available to those who had to leave a potentially successful career?
This article describes the employment picture in the banking industry over the last decade and examines the nature ofand reasons forthe industrys shrinking payrolls. It also looks at the fate of those who lost their jobs or decided to leave. Did they remain unemployed? Did they find work in other industries? Or did they leave the labor force altogether? The answers may help other workers caught in an industrywide structural change reduce their costs of adjustment.
For many years, banking was a haven for those seeking safe employment. In some economic textbooks, a bank tellers job was the archetype of a position with great security, although the prospects for wage growth were dim. Banking employment in the postWorld War II period expanded steadily and was relatively insulated from the effects of economic downturns. During the recessions of the 1970s and 1980s, for example, banks continued to add to their payrolls, whereas employment in the steel industry fell more than 25 percent. Bankings enviable position was mirrored in the unemployment numbers, with the industry posting rates nearly 40 percent below the national average during the 198082 recession (see figures 1 and 2).
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The 1990 recession was a different story. After decades of solid growth, banking employment peaked at 1½ million in 1989. While the U.S. employment rate fell 1 percent between 1990 and 1991, the decline in banking jobs was much greater in percentage terms. More important, banking positions continued to vanish, while employment nationwide grew an average of 2.5 percent per year between 1992 and 1996. By 1996, banking employment had contracted more than 6 percent from its peak year, and some analysts are predicting another 20 percent cut by the end of the next decade.
Three reasons are usually given for an industrywide drop in employment. First, the demand for an industrys output may fall, reducing the profitability of maintaining a large workforce. This causes firms to cut their staff until their existing labor force becomes more profitable. The decline in the number of workers employed in the West Virginia coal fields in the middle of this century is an excellent example of such a response. Second, the relative price of substitutes for labor can decrease, making labor comparatively more expensive. A substitute can become cheaper than labor because of technological advances or the discovery of new supplies. Labor can also become more expensive (and thus its substitute relatively less expensive) because of new institutions, such as labor unions, or because the demand for workers in the rest of the economy picks up.3 The third reason for an industrywide drop in employment is a change in industry structure. For instance, when the airlines were deregulated, they became more competitive and scaled back their workforces. In addition, consolidation may have eliminated duplicate jobs within the industry. In the next section, I examine the contribution of each of these factors to bankings dwindling payrolls.
The first explanation cited abovea drop in the demand for an industrys productsdoes not appear to explain the layoffs in the banking community. Although an increasing number of services that were once provided solely by banks are now offered by other financial institutions, the demand for banking services continues to grow. Bank assets have risen steadily in the last decade, from less than $2.4 trillion in 1988 to more than $3.5 trillion in 1995 (an increase of 15 percent in real terms).4 Whats more, the enhanced competition from outside the industry should induce banks to boost their payrolls. For example, major corporate clients now seek alternatives to large bank loans, including new equity or bond issues. Banks have responded to this trend by making more loans to smaller businesses. Thus, the same value in total loans means that more loans have been extendedand these require more labor to service. Clearly, then, banks have not reduced their staffs because of a diminished demand for their products.By contrast, there have been numerous changes in the use of substitutes for banking labor. The most dramatic example is the explosive growth in automatic teller machine (ATM) usage. In 1975, fewer than 10 million ATM transactions were initiated for a total of $1 billion. A decade later, it had become clear that ATMs were here to stay. In 1985, 3.5 billion transactions were completed for a total of more than $200 billion. By 1995, those figures had ballooned to 10 billion transactions covering $650 billion.
The result has been a sparsely staffed modern bank branch that looks much different from the institutions of 20 years ago. While some people bemoan the loss of their weekly visits to a friendly teller who greets them by name, most are unwilling to pay for this service with higher fees and a greater time commitment.5 Instead, they opt for the convenience and cheapness of the ATM.
Although the substitution of automatic tellers for human ones is the most visible shift in the way banking is done, it is by no means the only change. Some of the new technologies have allowed machines to perform the laborious, repetitive tasks once done by low-skilled (and often low-paid) workers. Electronic scanners can now quickly and accurately record a binary check entry that previously had to be logged in by hand. And improved bookkeeping programs allow one person to do the work of many individuals, both skilled (as in the case of programmers at the nations larger banks) and unskilled (operators of mechanical calculators at smaller institutions).
New machinery is not the only way a technological change can help a firm cut its labor expenses. In the past, loan applications were evaluated by highly skilled loan officers using a combination of data, personal knowledge, and instinct to reduce the probability of making a bad loan. Now, most mortgage banks make "cookie cutter" loans based on the same formula and bundled together for resale to the financial markets. Many banks are also experimenting with new formulas for evaluating loans.6 Recent studies indicate that this approach is generally better at lowering the number of bad loans than are the experience and instinct of most loan officers, meaning that the trend toward substituting less expensive, low-skilled workers for highly skilled professionals will probably continue.
Industrywide structural changes have also played a role in the disappearance of banking jobs. Mergers and acquisitions have dramatically reduced the number of banks, even as their total assets have skyrocketed. Between 1988 and 1995, total nominal assets (a common measure of bank size) held by U.S. commercial banks swelled by 49 percent.7 During the same period, the number of banks plummeted more than 20 percent.
Obviously, consolidation should have an effect on employment. When duplicate departments and offices are shut down, duplicate tasks are eliminated. Some mergers also involve the purging of many middle-management positions. On the other hand, consolidation could offer new opportunities for employment. Two small banks might not have the resources to support a research department, whereas it may make sense for the merged institution to do so.
The net effect of consolidation on employment can be seen in the experience of some bank acquisitions that occurred between 1984 and 1994. As shown in table 1, acquisitions are often associated with employment gains. A positive number represents the average percentage increase over a banks employment in the quarter just prior to acquisition. Interestingly, employment in both types of institutionsthe acquirer and the target bankrose an average of 6 percent in the three years following takeover.
(Percent change from quarter before acquisition) |
Number of Quarters after Acquisition |
Acquiring Bank |
Target Bank |
1 | 1.7 | 1.5 |
2 | 2.5 | 3.4 |
3 | 2.9 | 4.7 |
4 | 2.9 | 4.7 |
6 | 4.4 | 6.0 |
8 | 4.8 | 6.8 |
12 | 5.3 | 6.7 |
16 | 5.8 | 4.9 |
NOTE:ĀNumbers in black are significant at the 15 percent level.
SOURCE:ĀAuthor's calculations.
This is not to suggest that acquisitions necessarily boost employment. Typically, both acquirers and targets are growing banks. When all of the other variables are held constant (bank size, loan composition, prices, and so forth), it appears that acquisition reduces employment in both types of institutions.8 However, the decline is minimalon the order of 1 to 2 percent. These numbers tend to refute the image of a bank takeover resulting in massive layoffs.
The decline in banking employment can thus be attributed to one factora substitution of capital equipment for labor, spurred by technological advances (mostly by larger banks). The net effect of this shrinkage has been to alter the skill composition of the banking industrys labor force. In 1975, professional occupations (those requiring post-secondary education) made up less than 10 percent of bankings payrolls; by 1995, that figure had nearly doubled. Furthermore, the educational level of bankers has undergone a dramatic increase in the last decade.9
A broader historical perspective may help us assess the impact of the decline in banking jobs. Since 1900, many occupations have become less prominent in the U.S. employment picture. Some, like blacksmithing, have been forced into the background because the demand for the service has fallen off. Others, such as farming, play less of a role because technological progress has made it possible for the same output to be generated by fewer workers. Still others, like corner grocers, have been casualties of consolidation. As supermarkets have emerged and expanded, local grocery stores have been forced to close their doors and lay off their workers.Few people would argue for a long-term policy of maintaining employment in these industries just to preserve the status quo. Ultimately, jobs represent a resource use. In a dynamic economy, it is always better to use scarce labor where it gives the most value in the long run. However, in the short term, a decline in employment imposes costs, particularly on those who are forced to look elsewhere for work. The magnitude of these costs can be seen by examining where the unemployed end up.
While little is known about the general fate of job losers, some evidence can be gleaned from the Bureau of Labor Statistics March Current Population Survey (CPS), which queries about 60,000 households on their labor market activities.10 Our interest lies in the fate of those persons who answered "banking" when asked, "In what kind of business or industry did you work the longest last year?" If the respondent is no longer working, or if he/she has changed industries, we get some idea of the "gross flows" of labor out of banking.
Note that gross flows differ from other possibly useful (but unavailable) numbers. Gross changes do not provide us with the net movement of labor out of banking, since we do not know how many people who either were not working or were working in another industry moved into banking. One further note of caution regarding the gross flow concept: The survey did not ask, "What kind of business or industry were you working in on March 15 of last year?" which might have given the difference between "snapshots" taken one year apart. Instead, if a banker became unemployed in May of the previous year and then became a lawyer in July, he would not show up in our sample as having left the banking industry (because he would not answer "banking" as the area in which he worked the longest last year). Still, gross employment flows tell an interesting tale, as evidenced in table 2.
(Percent of total) |
Destination | 198896 | 1991 | 1996 |
Currently employed in banking | 78.1 | 76.3 | 78.0 |
Currently employed outside banking (total): | 13.5 | 14.9 | 13.5 |
Nonbanking FIREa | 3.2 | 3.1 | 4.0 |
Misc. services | 3.5 | 3.6 | 3.2 |
Other nonmanufacturing | 5.5 | 6.9 | 4.7 |
Manufacturing | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 |
Unemployed | |||
Looking for work in banking | 1.7 | 2.5 | 1.2 |
Looking for work outside banking | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.4 |
Out of labor force | 6.1 | 5.9 | 5.0 |
a.ĀFinance, insurance, and real estate.
NOTE:ĀSample size is 11,560.
SOURCE:ĀAuthors calculations.
First, between 1988 and 1996, the number of people moving out of banking in a given year was hugebetween a fifth and a quarter of the entire workforce. This is much larger than the roughly 1 percent annual jobs reduction experienced by the industry in the past decade. Small net flows of employment out of banking in a normal year mask the incredible ability of the American economy to accommodate industry changes by large numbers of workers in the same year.
Second, only a sixth of those represented in the gross flows are currently unemployed. Of these individuals, more than 15 percent have been jobless for less than a week, while more than half have been without work for 26 weeks or more. Clearly, few bankers join the unemployed ranks. But if they do, they are likely to stay unemployed for a long time. If we think of the decline in banking employment as imposing economywide adjustment costs, then a few workers are bearing large costs in the form of long unemployment spells. Interestingly, most of the displaced bankers are still seeking work within the industry.
Third, far more bankers exited the labor force than became unemployed. This may represent an increase in discouraged workersthose who stopped looking for a job rather than face the frustration of not finding one. On the other hand, 5 or 6 percent seems well within the magnitude we might expect for retirements plus temporary exits from the workforce (to care for young children, aging parents, and so on).
Finally, most employees who left banking found work in a spectrum of other industries. The largest employer of ex-bankers was "miscellaneous services," a catch-all for a wide variety of occupations ranging from house cleaning to skilled financial accounting (fast-food jobs are not included).11
The major difference between a recession year (1991) and an expansion year (1996) in the placement of ex-bankers was that they tended to find work in a broader number of industries during the recession. Not surprisingly, more former bankers were also unemployed when the economy headed down.
Although gross flows tell us something about the cost of the decline in banking employment, they do not reveal the entire story. We do not know how much bankers displaced by consolidation earned in their next job, or whether their new position was in banking or another industry. Gross flows also leave us guessing about how many middle-aged managers took early retirement from a career that may have had many productive years left.
What the available banking employment numbers do tell us is something about the competitive labor markets ability to adapt to an extremely dynamic environment. This is of great relevance in determining an appropriate employment policy. The U.S. labor market has accommodated a period of tremendous technological and structural changes in the banking industry by enabling bankers to become more skilled and professional. The share of bankers who find jobs outside the industry each year now stands at about 15 percent of the entire banking workforce.The proper question, then, is not "How do we keep from losing jobs in the banking industry," but "How is banking so able to adapt to its changing environment?" The answer could help policymakers alleviate the adjustment costs that fall unequally on individuals (in the form of extended unemployment spells or reduced earnings) without destroying this extraordinary flexibility.
2. With apologies to Pete Seeger.
Back to commentary
3. One example of a technological change making labor relatively expensive is the spinning jenny, which reduced the cost of using machinery instead of labor to produce the same output and ultimately resulted in fewer spinners. An example of new supplies making labor more expensive is the discovery of the Arabian oil fields, which lessened the need for coal shovelers on ships. Increased union activity may help explain the growing use of labor-saving machinery in auto assembly plants.
Back to commentary
4. See Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Federal Reserve Bulletin, August 1997, table 1.26, p. A15. (Seasonally adjusted bank credit for December, various years.)
Back to commentary
5. See Alan Ehrenholt, The Lost City, New York: Basic Books, 1995.
Back to commentary
6. See John Gruenstein, "Credit and Mortgage Scoring: Implications for Mortgage Markets," PMI Mortgage Company, Chicago, unpublished manuscript, 1997.
Back to commentary
7. See Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (footnote 4).
Back to commentary
8. See Ben Craig, "The Long-Run Demand for Labor in Banking," Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Review, 1997 (forthcoming).
Back to commentary
9. See Rebecca Demsitz, "The Evolving Business of Banking: Banks Changing Human Capital Needs," Federal Reserve Bank of New York, unpublished manuscript, 1997.
Back to commentary
10. I am grateful to Mark Schweitzer for providing me with these data. Further interesting facts about gross employment flows are available in his article, "Workforce Composition and Earnings Inequality," Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Review, vol. 33, no. 2 (Quarter 2 1997), pp. 1324.
Back to commentary
11. Some of those finding work in "miscellaneous services" may have been bankers who were contracted to work for a bank in a nonbank firm. Thus, the data are not detailed enough to distinguish a person doing the same consulting job that before would have been handled by an in-house banker.
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ĀĀThe views stated herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.


text: Many government officials have come under fire in recent years for special detention and torture practices. In September the Council of Europe [official website] Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg urged [JURIST report] Lithuania, Poland and Romania to investigate the roles their governments played in the US CIA's program of "secret detention and torture" of terrorism suspects. In June of that year, US Attorney General Eric Holder [official website] announced that he would continue investigating the deaths of two detainees [JURIST report] who died during interrogations by the CIA. In February, human rights advocacy groups urged the signatory states of the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) [text] to pursue criminal charges [JURIST report] against former US president George W. Bush [JURIST news archive] in connection with allegations of enhanced interrogation techniques [JURIST news archive]. In January, a federal judge told the CIA that it must investigate the destruction of the interrogation tapes [JURIST report] related to individuals detained after 9/11 [JURIST news archive] and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. Advocacy groups have also called for investigations into Bush-era torture practices by the Spanish government [JURIST report].


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Flat, ankle-boots are a hot fashion trend and these boots are no exception! These shoes are made even more stylish with buckle accents. 12" circumference at boot opening. All man made materials.
Comments should be restricted to size, fit and other useful information for future customer purchases. Other comments can be expressed through testimonials and emails to our customer care. Comments may be edited if they contain vulgar language or are derogatory in nature.
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Newegg.com - A great place to buy computers, computer parts, electronics, software, accessories, and DVDs online. With great prices, fast shipping, and top-rated customer service - once you know, you Newegg.
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Slow transfer rates but reliableThis review is from: SanDisk Cruzer 64GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model SDCZ36-064G-A11 Pros: No data corruption even with heavy use and various file sizes Cons: SLOW write speeds Other Thoughts: SLOW write speeds......like a frozen snail trying to cross the street. Win7 64bit says I get between 1.3-3mb write speeds on any size file from comic book CBR's to mpeg4 movie files. 1 file at a time or 20, slow write speeds. 1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? |


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While I have friends who insist on commenting on my Facebook wall that, "it's just a bunch of guys and a ball," or on telling me that there are people in the world who are starving and maybe I should be upset about them instead of a fumble, to them I say: Football's my thing.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers made a bet the Packers would beat the 49ers in Week One. And then they didn't. TIME TO PAY UP, DUDE.


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We are so excited to announce our first virtual book club, hosted […]
by Jane Roberts
Hello, I'm an eBook! ATTENTION: This item is an eBook. It can be read on iOS, Android, MAC and PC's with a supported eReader. It is not a physical book. eBooks are available via download immediately after you've checked out.
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The forthcoming international Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II will be a historic event in every sense. Marking the sixtieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, the Diamond Jubilee places Queen Elizabeth II in the company of very few other monarchs--among them Queen Victoria--to have achieved such a long reign.Published to commemorate the momentous event, this official souvenir album charts the Queen's life from childhood to the present and provides an invaluable companion to the history behind the Diamond Jubilee as well as a biography in photographs of the truly remarkable woman it celebrates. Making extensive use of materials drawn from the Royal Archives, the book features three hundred full-color illustrations--many never before seen--including personal documents and photographs portraying the formal and family life of Queen Elizabeth II both before and during her successful sixty-year reign.A magnificent souvenir of a rare event in royal history, this charming book also provides an intimate portrait of the life of Queen Elizabeth II.
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In India Udupi is known as Temple city and synonymous for southern Indian style vegetarin cooking. There are several thousands restaurants of varying degree of ambiance called Udupi. Udupi has its roots in Udupi a town in karnataka, famous for its food, culture and aromas that are filled in the air.
Madras now called Chennai also has its unique taste in vegetarian cooking. Udupi food can be enjoyed with mild sweetish flavor, while Madras cooking is lightly spicy and embedded with more spices.
The typical southern Indian food is made with rice and lentils and sometimes wheat. When mashed and ground together with spices and herbs and cooked on a huge griddle different types of crepes like Dosas and Uthapams can be made!
To ensure the same high quality of food that UDUPI and MADRAS is famous for UDUPI MADRAS CAFE brought specialized cooks from Udupi and Madras has years of expereince and also inherited family tradition from many generations. Also cooks from Singapore and Chicago joined us with Asian and North American and Asian expertise.
Every single dish here is prepared with authentic Indian herbs and spices and using imported equipments from India to give you the authentic home style taste.


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Tips for Choosing Tools
To find tools and equipment that are ergonomically correct for you – and therefore safest, most comfortable and easiest to use -- look for products that:
Allow your joints to remain in a neutral (non-twisted) position– for example, "pistol grips" at the end of hoes that allow your wrist to remain straight |
Have grips or handles that comfortably fit your hands- without requiring too much constriction of the fingers (grip too small) or stretching (grip too big) |
Allow your back to remain as straight as possible– for example, wheel hoes, extra-long-handled hoes that allow you to hoe without bending over, long-handled versions of hand tools like the Korean hand plow or Cobrahead weeder, or auxiliary handles for shovels, rakes etc. that provide added lifting leverage and minimize bending |
Adjustability– for example, wheel hoes whose handle height can be easily adjusted between users. |
Come in various sizes– for example, the shovel-spade hybrid HERS™ that we recently introduced at Green Heron Tools. Everything about HERS™, from the shape and diameter of the handle to the angle and enlarged step on the blade, was scientifically designed based on women's bodies and how women shovel. It comes in three sizes, determined by height. |
Are custom-made- such as scythes offered by Scythe Supply or Marugg. |
Are as light as possible without compromising function- for example, the ARS folding saw available through Green Heron Tools weighs only 6 ounces but is tough enough to easily cut through thick tree limbs, and our shovel, HERS™, weighs less than 4½ pounds, making it possibly the lightest tough shovel on the market. |


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This page contains Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Hints for PSP called "Get the light" and has been posted or updated on Sep 25, 2012 by PatiraLngAte. Let us know what you think of this Hint by thumbs voting.
- Developer: Capcom
- Publisher: Capcom
- Genre: Role-Playing Action RPG
- Release Date: Jun 22, 2009
- ESRB: Teen
Get the light
Everytime that you will hit a monster to its head and it will faint for about 3 - 4 seconds. There this chance that it will drop a small blinking light.(white color) You can get this light by pressing O to it. Its a rare item you can use in your armor or field.
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To be accesed from windows, I have a samba cIFs called \data\cnd\video it points to this path of the server: 10.50.2.80/vol/conten_delivery_network/videos is the any way to view this path from windows??
thanks in advide!!
No, there is no way to see from a client which is the local path of a shared folder on the server. If the server shares out |


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Posted: 6:00 a.m. Monday, Aug. 19, 2013
By Clark Howard
It seems like every week there's a new price point being set in the telecommunications world. There's an all-out war going on between the traditional Big 4 wireless carriers -- AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile -- and smaller Tier 2 operators such as Metro PCS, Cricket, Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Straight Talk and others.
The Big 4 have historically pushed expensive "bucket of minutes" business models with 24-month contracts. That's allowed the Tier 2 operators to carve out a market niche by offering cheaper unlimited calling plans with no contracts.
Which would you rather have?
The success of the smaller players is now actually forcing the Big 4 to come around with better deals for customers. That's the point of this guide. I want to keep you updated with the best deals out there so you can have the cheapest possible cell phone bill in your life with the fewest strings attached.
T-Mobile offers customers basic unlimited calling starting at $49/month with no annual contract. Customers in select areas of the country may also be eligible for a more traditional plan that offers 1,000 minutes and unlimited nights/weekends for $39/month
AT&T is competing with the Tier 2 providers by introducing its "A List with Rollover" plan. "A List" allows you unlimited free calling to the 5 numbers you call most -- regardless of whether they're AT&T customers or not. You'll need a minimum $59/month calling plan to be eligible to do "A List."
The ink wasn't dry on the AT&T plan when Sprint came out with its "Any Mobile, Anytime" plan. It offers unlimited calling to any cell phone on any network for $69/month. No need to designate "favorite" numbers or worry about which carrier your friends and family have.
Verizon does not have any particularly good unlimited deals at this time. However, there is a sneaky back-door way to use their infrastructure through Straight Talk (see below).
The basic Metro PCS unlimited calling plan starts at $40/month. Additional fees apply for unlimited texting and data.
Unlimited calling with Cricket starts at $30/month. Additional fees apply for unlimited texting and data.
The basic Page Plus Cellular unlimited calling plan starts at $30/month with 20 MB of data. However, the better deal may be the "Talk n Text 1200" plan, which offers 1,200 minutes of talk time, 3,000 text messages and 50 MB of data.
Virgin Mobile offers $35/month unlimited messaging, e-mail, web and data, plus a scant 300 minutes of actual talk time.
Boost Mobile offers an unlimited calling/texting/web plan with no contracts for $50/month. There are, however, some downsides. The cell phones available through Boost are antiquated. And they're not subsidized, so be sure to look on eBay or Craigslist for a deal on a used one.
Straight Talk offers two flavors of no-contract plans. The first comes with 1,000 minutes and 1,000 text messages and 30 MB for $30/month. The second is an unlimited calling/texting/web plan for $45/month. Straight Talk uses AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon towers, depending on which area you live in and which phone or plan you purchase.
This unique service routes calls over wifi and uses Sprint when you're not near wifi. Pricing starts at $19 a month for unlimited talk, text, and web.
This smaller player mentioned above also offers an attractive plan called "The 12" with 250 Minutes, 250 Text/Picture Messages, and 10 MB Data per month for light cell phone users. The cost? You guessed it -- $12!
This is a T-Mobile sub-brand offering a $45 a month unlimited talk/text/high-speed web (5GBs a month) plan for smartphones. Unlimited plans start at $30.


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A member of the carrot family, Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a native of Italy and one of the most ancient of cultivated plants. The Roman colonization of Italy spread the early use of the plant, especially for culinary purposes. Used as a flavoring for salt-water fish, it was also used to whiten, tenderize, and deodorize the meat. The odor of Fennel seed is fragrant and the taste is warm, sweet and agreeable. Similar in taste to Dill and Anise, Fennel may be substituted for them in recipes for interesting effects. The shoots and stalks can also be eaten raw like celery. In addition to Fennel�s culinary uses, it adds a sharp scent to potpourris, sachets, perfumes and soaps. Fennel is often used with other herbs for it soothing effects.
In addition to Fennel's culinary uses, it adds a sharp scent to potpourris, sachets, perfumes and soaps. Fennel is often used with other herbs for its soothing effect.
Fennel Seed.
The best way to make a good cup of tea is by the infusion method. Place one tea bag in a cup and add no more than 6 oz. of boiling water. Let steep for 3 minutes. Press the bag before removing to enhance the flavor. Add honey to sweeten.
STORE FEATURES: We stock and ship Genuine, new and manufacturer direct products. We don't sell used, expired, knock offs or copies.


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There are various workouts out there (circuit) that may be difficult to understand. Sometimes you have to go to one side of a gym, workout there, then go to the next. Fortunately enough, Tabata is a basic form of workout and can be easy to follow. I'll list the steps to take in using Tabata training.
If you do not know what Tabata is, I'll explain a little bit about it. Tabata was founded in Japan by Izumi Tabata. He conducted tests on two groups of athletes; comparing moderate high intensity training with high intensity interval training.
The results were that the athletes training in high intensity interval training improved their aerobic systems as well as their anaerobic system. The athletes who did the moderate high intensity training only improved their aerobic system and had little to no increase in their anaerobic system.
Read "What is Tabata Training" to find out more.
Basic Tools To have
First, make sure you have some sort of journal or list saying what exercises you used for your Tabata and how heavy the weight was that you used (if you're doing exercises that require weights). It is recommended to have a journal so that you can see if you are getting stronger.
Second, make sure to have a timer with you. If you are exercising in doors and are near a computer, you can use this timer. If you are outside, you can download a Tabata app or a mp3 Tabata. Also be sure to have proper attire as well and have a water bottle and towel with you to refresh you between rounds.
Designing Your Tabata
Next, you want to begin to ask yourself what you want to achieve. Do you want to lose fat? Do you want to improve your endurance? Do you want to improve your muscle endurance? Do you want to gain size and strength at the same time improving your cardio? All these can help formulate what exercises to include. This is a sample of a simple Tabata session:
- Pushups for intervals 1 and 3
- Body weight Squats for intervals 2 and 4
- Medicine ball slams for intervals 5 and 7
- Sprinting or jumping rope for intervals 6 and 8
Here are some videos showing different exercises for a Tabata Session:
Using The Tabata
Now that you designed your own Tabata and know what exercises to use, you are ready to begin. Make sure everything is ready and that you have all the necessary tools. Make sure to warm up properly before and stretch or else you'll pull a muscle during the session.
If you feel that you are getting tired and cannot go all out during 1 of the intervals, you can either rest for that session and go all out in the next; or you can go at a moderate intensity. However, if you find that you are doing this too often, redesign the exercises in your Tabata so that you can go through all the intervals at your max.
Finally, after you're done the Tabata training, do a cool down (this can be a light jog around the track or light skipping and biking) and stretch. Make sure that your body gets proper rest and nutrition if you want to see the results you want.


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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Secretary of State Natalie Tennant is expected to announce her candidacy Tuesday for the Democratic nomination to become West Virginia's next U.S. senator.
Emails sent to supporters confirmed two events for an announcement.
Long rumored to have interest in running, Tennant began calling Democrats across the state Friday to let them know her plans, said an unnamed Democrat.
State Democratic Party Chairman Larry Puccio said Sunday afternoon he hadn't spoken with Tennant yet this weekend, but he expects her to enter the race Tuesday morning.
All citing anonymous Democratic sources, local talk show host Hoppy Kercheval, the Washington Post, websites Politico.com and RollCall.com and others reported Friday that Tennant is preparing to announce her candidacy.
U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., announced earlier this year he would not seek re-election. A few weeks before his announcement Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said she planned to run for the Senate seat.
There were signs last week Tennant was ready to start her campaign.
Lou Ann Johnson spent more than 20 years working as Rockefeller's state director before retiring in 2008. In 2011, Johnson helped spearhead Tennant's unsuccessful gubernatorial bid.
Sometime this spring Tennant's office hired Johnson as its "policy director." When a Daily Mail reporter asked to speak with Johnson Wednesday, Tennant spokesman Jake Glance said she no longer worked for the office. He declined to say when or why she left, and did not return several phone messages left later in the week.
Johnson, who also did not return phone messages, was still listed Sunday afternoon on the secretary of state's website as an office employee.
A media release Friday by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee concerning Tennant piqued the attention of the national media.
Friday morning the DSCC, a national organization committed to keeping the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, distributed a copy of an article featuring Tennant from the Charleston Gazette. Tennant's office plans to return $3 million to the state; the bulk of the money comes from lawsuits settled for considerably less money than expected and about $100,000 in cuts to administrative costs, according to the article.
A DSCC spokesman declined comment Sunday.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee also sent out a statement Friday, in response to the reports of a potential Tennant candidacy.
"Natalie Tennant is a cookie-cutter liberal more in the mold of Harry Reid than Joe Manchin on issues like coal, energy, the EPA, Obamacare, abortion and protecting the 2nd Amendment," said spokesman Brook Hougesen in an emailed statement.
"Strategically, Tennant is great for Republicans in that she's enough of a mirage to keep National Democrats and donors walking through the desert without offering the ability to ever drink. Tennant is far too liberal for West Virginia Senate."
The two-time secretary of state was one of many potential Democratic suitors mentioned when Rockefeller announced his retirement.
One by one, those Democrats publicly declined interest. Prominent Democrats to pass on the chance include Rep. Nick Rahall, former Sen. Carte Goodwin, former Govs. Gaston Caperton and Bob Wise, state Supreme Court Justice Robin Davis, former state National Guard Major Gen. Allen Tackett and attorneys Nick Preservati and Ralph Baxter.
Each left the race by early summer, leaving some to speculate Tennant was the last hope for a "big-name" Democratic candidate.