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What Would Russian Troops Do Once They Cross the Ukrainian Border?
- By Elias GrollElias Groll is an assistant editor at Foreign Policy. A native of Stockholm, Sweden, he received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, where he was the managing editor of The Harvard Crimson.
- elias.groll
- @eliasgroll
If Russia decides to invade eastern Ukraine, extending its grip on its neighbor's territory from the Crimean peninsula to its eastern and southern provinces, how would it do so?
Since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, the prospect of a full-fledged Russian invasion has gained new currency with Ukraine's government locked in a bitter stand-off with separatists in the country's east. Pro-Russian activists and gunmen have seized government buildings there, and while the government in Kiev has pledged to oust them, that ultimatum has so far gone unenforced.
Many observers speculate that the seizure of government buildings have come at the behest of Moscow — senior U.S. officials have claimed as much — in order to stir up a pretext for invasion. Once Moscow's agents have sowed sufficient chaos, the thinking goes, Russian forces will swoop in from their positions just outside Ukraine's borders and restore the peace, selling their invasion as a peacekeeping mission.
But what will Russian forces do once they cross the Ukrainian border? In a little-noticed and increasingly prescient report from earlier this month, analysts at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank, lay out a series of scenarios spelling out possible courses of actions for Russian troops invading the eastern and southern provinces of Ukraine.
While a Russian invasion of Ukraine is far from certain, recent events in Ukraine mirror events in the lead up to the stealth invasion of Crimea. And even if predictions of a Russian invasion do not come true, these scenarios provide a framework for considering Moscow's military options.
According the authors of the report — Igor Sutyagin, a research fellow at RUSI, and Michael Clarke, the institute's director general — Russia has some 50,000 troops lined up against roughly 70,000 Ukrainian troops. While Ukraine possesses a numerical advantage in troops, Kiev's forces are "poorly equipped and would struggle to mobilise fully." "In the event of a military clash," the report notes, "its formations would be locally outnumbered and certainly outgunned by Russian forces and their reserves."
The map below presents a rough guide to the location of Russian troops massed along Ukraine's borders. As the report notes, the Polessya Group and Northern Group are poised to strike quickly at Kiev. While reports on Monday indicate that Ukrainian commanders have shifted their forces east to crack down on separatists in the east, Russian forces along the northern border prevent them from moving east in greater numbers. Moreover, as seen further below on the map tracking Ukrainian troops deployments from early this month, its forces are already heavily clustered in the west.
Under the first scenario laid out by the report, Russian troops have been placed in large numbers along Ukraine's border in order to force Kiev and the West to acquiesce to Moscow's land gains in Crimea. According to this line of thinking, Russian troops won't cross the border and "would be stood down quite quickly once the political process has given Putin the recognition of his fait accompli over the Crimea." Recent unrest in Ukraine points to the unlikelihood of this scenario. Moreover, the report's authors consider this scenario less probable given the placement of Ministry of Interior troops on high alert, whose purpose is typically to pacify local populations.
Under a more aggressive scenario, "Russian forces would covertly support, or even engineer, civil unrest throughout south-east Ukraine and use that as a pretext for opening the secure land corridor to Crimea through Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts." As shown on the map above, the Donbass Group and troops stationed in Crimea would likely move to secure that territory.
Under the third scenario, "unrest and separatist pressures in south and eastern Ukraine, real or manufactured, may present a dangerous, but nevertheless tempting opportunity to split the country in two, south and east of the Dnieper River." As the map indicates, Russian forces are well-positioned to execute such a split.
But Russia could go even further than that and carve out a "western corridor from Transnistria in Moldova into Crimea through Odessa and Mykolaiv Oblasts, which would encompass the historic city of Odessa itself." Such a move would create a southern arc of Russian territory in Ukraine, uniting the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria with newly claimed Russian lands. (As my colleague Christian Caryl reports from Odessa, residents of that city aren't exactly enthused at the prospect of incorporation into Russia.)
So how are Ukrainian troops poised to respond to these threats? In short, not well. Recent reports have Ukrainian troops moving east, but it is unclear whether they are redeploying in large numbers. And even if they effectively shift ahead of a Russian military incursion, they would likely be outmatched by their opponents.
For all this prognosticating, it remains highly unclear which of these scenarios is most likely to play out. For now, we remain somewhere between scenarios one and two, with Russian troops holding along the eastern borders to secure their land gains in Crimea and Russian agents stirring up trouble in the east as a potential justification for a future invasion.
Several geopolitical factors, the authors argue, make some of these scenarios more likely than others. As the report notes, Russia would greatly ease Crimea's isolation by securing a land corridor between Russian territory and the peninsula. Moreover, by securing a land corridor to Crimea, Russia would end a dispute over the Kerch Strait and secure exclusive access for Gazprom to energy deposits in the Sea of Azov. Moreover, key elements of the Russian defense industry — including its missile programs — rely on Ukrainian suppliers in the country's east. Its SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles, for example, are designed and manufactured in Dnepropetrovsk on the Dnieper River.
But whether that indicates Russia will pursue the most aggressive options available to it, is far from certain."It could be argued that since most of the military plants in question are in south and east Ukraine, the temptation to follow the third and fourth scenarios will be all the greater," the report says. "To suggest these scenarios for the sake of capturing the production at these various plants would be a very nineteenth-century way of looking at a twenty-first century relationship. However, even that cannot be ruled out in current circumstances."
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NATO Chief Says "Our Concern Is that Russia Won't Stop"Yochi Dreazen
Yochi Dreazen is a Managing Editor for News at Foreign Policy. He is also writer-in-residence at the Center for a New American Security. His book about military suicide was published by Random House's Crown division in 2014.
Prior to joining Foreign Policy, Dreazen was a contributing editor at the Atlantic and the senior national security correspondent for National Journal. He began his career at the Wall Street Journal and spent 11 years at the newspaper, most recently as its military correspondent. He was born in Chicago, and later attended the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, he edited the award-winning daily campus newspaper and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1999 with degrees in History and English. He was hired by the Wall Street Journal immediately after graduation. Dreazen arrived in Iraq in April 2003 with the Fourth Infantry Division, and spent the next two years living in Baghdad as the Wall Street Journal's main Iraq correspondent.
Dreazen has made more than 12 lengthy trips to Iraq and Afghanistan and has spent a total of nearly four years on the ground in the two countries, mostly doing front-line combat embeds. He has reported from more than 20 countries, including Pakistan, Russia, China, Israel, Japan, Turkey, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia.
In 2010, Dreazen received the Military Reporters & Editors association's top award for domestic military reporting in a large publication for a series of articles about military suicide and the psychological traumas impacting veterans of the two long wars. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Smithsonian, Tablet and the New Republic and he appears regularly on TV and radio programs such as NPR's Diane Rehm Show and PBS' Washington Week with Gwen Ifill. Dreazen gives frequent lectures about journalism, the wars and current events to both civilian and military audiences.
Dreazen lives in Washington with his wife, Annie Rosenzweig Dreazen, and their beloved Golden Retriever, Charlie.| The Cable |


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First, I was amazed at how fast I received my order. I ordered the part on a Friday morning and i received it Saturday morning. Standard shipping. The repair should have been much easier than it was.I removed the oven door by just pulling up and out. then i removed the door underneath the oven. The i reached underneath and disconnected the igniter. From inside the oven, i removed the bottom panel(2 screws). Then i removed the front screw holding the gas tube. I was able to move the tube enough to get at the two screws holding the igniter. one of the screws came out easily using an adjustable wrench. but the other did not come out straight. i had to use tin snips to cut off the igniter so i could acess the screw easier. replacement was in reverse.
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The Return of the Giant NYC Dance Club
By Steve Weinstein
July 4, 1976 Was a Ramones-less Weekend in NYC
By Bryan Bierman
LIVE REVIEW: Karen O at McKittrick Hotel
By Lindsey Rhoades
Remembering Dee Dee Ramone's Rap Album
By Chaz Kangas
Meet Lady Casa, America's Most Famous Raver
By Ben Westhoff and Sarah Purkrabek
Ridiculous Kanye West-isms, In Illustrated Form
By Jena Ardell
Casting Martin Scorsese's New Ramones Movie
By Jesse Sendejas Jr.
A Tour Around Ace Frehley's Bronx
By Katherine Turman
Not that the Recording Industry Association of America is grateful. On March 23, it sued another 532 uploaders, 89 of them college students; a week later, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry took legal action against 247 more swappers in Canada, Denmark, Germany, and Italy. On top of that, the RIAA has abruptly shut down its "Clean Slate" amnesty program, in which file traders could turn themselves in, delete their unauthorized files, agree not to do it again, sign an affidavit, and open themselves up to potential lawsuits from everyone else. No great lossonly 1,108 people had ever signed up for it anyway.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department formed an intellectual-property task force at the end of March. On April 21 and 22, the DOJ and FBI's "Operation Fastlink," in collaboration with law enforcement groups from 10 other countries, seized upwards of 200 computers involved with what John Ashcroft called "the international online piracy world." By that, he didn't mean college students trading String Cheese Incident MP3s, but "warez" groups, who specialize in cracked software, games, and movies.
Music geeks have been moving past old-fashioned peer-to-peer MP3 trading anyway. Audioblogs like Soul Sides and Said the Gramophone have proliferated over the last couple of months. They're just like regular weblogs, except that every day they present a special MP3 or two (often not-yet-released or out-of-print treats), usually with extensive explanatory comments. Most audioblogs only make songs available for a week or so; few, if any, have experienced legal hassles so far, although they occasionally get asked to remove a song.
The music business may have more reason to fear two other developments that have been around for a few years but are reaching critical mass. The first is FLAC, or Free Lossless Audio Codeca way of making sound files smaller without compromising sound quality. (Metallica are selling FLAC as well as MP3 downloads of every show on their current tour; by comparison, Prince's online store, which sells only Windows Media files, seems positively Stone Age.)
The second is Bram Cohen's program BitTorrent. It's a tool for "swarming downloads": a way to quickly mass-distribute very large, popular files without using too much bandwidth from a single host. Initially spread by sites like the jam-band tapers' mecca etree.org it's become the program of choice for trading TV shows, movies, and concerts. Cohen has noted that using BitTorrent for illegal trading is "patently stupid," because users can't hide their IP addresses. (Evidently, there's a lot of stupidity out there.)
Let's say you want to get a copy of the Pixies' first reunion show, the Minneapolis gig from April 13it's in demand right now, and therefore a likely candidate for BitTorrent. Once you've located a "torrent" file for it (which tells the program what it's looking for, and is usually a few dozen kilobytes), the program seeks out a bunch of other users who have the concert on their hard drives and downloads little pieces of it from each of them simultaneously. Before too long, you've got the whole 27-song set as CD-quality FLAC files, and in the meantime you're passing bits of it on to other Pixies buffs.
BitTorrent has legitimate uses for sure: A few weeks ago, Blizzard Entertainment used it to distribute a new 2-gigabyte game. But it also means that full-length, full-quality albums, with graphics, are now almost as easy to replicate over the Internet as MP3s. If the major labels are smart, they'll figure out a way to make money from swarming-download technologybut they don't have long.
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text:
In CELP coding, stochastic (noise-like) excitation is used in exciting a cascade of long-term and short-term all-pole linear synthesis filters. This approach is based on the observation that the ideal excitation, obtained by inverse-filtering the speech signal, can be modeled for simplicity as Gaussian white noise. Although such stochastic excitation resembles the ideal excitation in its global statistical properties, it contains a noisy component that is irrelevant to the synthesis process. This component introduces some roughness and noisiness in the synthesized speech. The present invention reduces this effect by adaptively controlling the level of the stochastic excitation. The proposed control mechanism links the stochastic excitation to the long-term predictor in such a way that the excitation level is inversely related to the efficiency of the predictor. As a result, during voiced sounds, the excitation level is considerably attenuated and the synthesis is mainly accomplished by exciting the short-term filter with the periodic output of the long-term filter. This reduces the noisiness, enhances the pitch structure of the synthesized speech and its perceptual quality.
1. In a communication system, a method for encoding an input signal to form a set of output signals, said method comprising the steps of:
generating one or more predictor parameter signals, including one or more long term predictor parameter signals, for said input signal;
generating a plurality of candidate signals, each of said candidate signals being synthesized by filtering a coded excitation signal in a filter characterized by said predictor parameter signals, each of said coded excitation signals having an associated index signal, and each of said coded excitation signals being amplitude adjusted in accordance with the value of a gain control signal prior to said filtering;
comparing each of said candidate signals with said input signal to determine a degree of similarity therebetween;
jointly selecting a coded excitation signal and a value for said gain signal such that said degree of similarity is maximized, subject to the constraint that said value for said gain signal be chosen such that a predefine first function of the level of the input signal relative to the candidate signal exceeds a predefined threshold function; and
selecting said predictor parameter signals, said index signal corresponding to said selected coded excitation signal and said selected value for said gain signal as said set of output signals which represent said input signal.
2. The method of claim 1 comprising the further step of sending one or more of said predictor parameter signals, said index signal corresponding to said selected coded excitation signal and said selected value for said gain signal to a decoder.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of generating a plurality of candidate signals comprises storing a codeword corresponding to each of said coded excitation signals, and sequentially retrieving said codewords for application to said filter.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein said selecting comprises constraining said value for said gain signal to a range including zero.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein said selecting comprises setting said value for said gain signal substantially to zero when the output of said filter characterized by said one or more long term predictor parameters approximates said input signal according to said predetermined first function.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein said one or more long term predictor parameter signals are pitch predictor parameter signals.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein said input signals are perceptually weighted speech signals having values x(n), n=1, 2, . . . , N, wherein said candidate signals each comprise values e(n), n=1, 2, . . . ,N and said predetermined first function is given by ##EQU13## and said threshold function is given by
Se ≧T(Sp),
where T(Sp) is a monotonic nondecreasing function of a measure, Sp, of how closely the output of said filter, when characterized only by said one or more long term predictor parameters and without the application of said coded excitation signals, approximates x(n).
8. The method of claim 1 wherein said input signal was generated by transducing an acoustic signal.
9. The method of claim 7 wherein said predictor parameters characterize a linear predictive filter and wherein Sp is a measure of the signal-to-noise ratio given by ##EQU14## with yo (n) being the initial response to the filter with no excitation and p(n) being the output of the filter characterized by said long term parameter with no input.
10. Apparatus for encoding an input signal to form a set of output signals, said apparatus comprising:
means for generating one or more predictor parameter signals, including one or more long term predictor parameter signals, for said input signal;
means for generating a plurality of candidate signals, each of said candidate signals being synthesized by filtering a coded excitation signal in a filter characterized by said predictor parameter signals, each of said coded excitation signals having an associated index signal, and each of said coded excitation signals being amplitude adjusted in accordance with the value of a gain control signal prior to said filtering;
means for comparing each of said candidate signals with said input signal to determine a degree of similarity therebetween;
means for jointly selecting a coded excitation signal and a value for said gain signal such that said degree of similarity is maximized, subject to the constraint that said value for said gain signal be chosen such that a predefined first function of the level of the input signal relative to the candidate signal exceeds a predefined threshold function; and
means for selecting said predictor parameter signals, said index signal corresponding to said selected coded excitation signal and said selected value for said gain signal as said set of output signals which represent said input signal.
11. The apparatus of claim 10 further comprising means for sending one or more of said predictor parameter signals, said index signal corresponding to said selected coded excitation signal and said selected value for said gain signal to a decoder.
12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said means for generating a plurality of candidate signals comprises:
means for storing a codeword corresponding to each of said coded excitation signals; and
means for sequentially retrieving said codewords for application to said filter.
13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said means for selecting comprises means for constraining said value for said gain signal to a range including zero.
14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said means for selecting comprises means for setting said value for said gain signal substantially to zero when the output of said filter characterized by said one or more long term predictor parameters approximates said input signal according to said predetermined first function.
15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said one or more long term predictor parameter signals are pitch predictor parameter signals.
16. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said input signals are perceptually weighted speech signals having values x(n), n=1, 2, . . . ,N, wherein said candidate signals each comprise values e(n), n=1, 2, . . . , N and said predetermined first function is given by ##EQU15## and said threshold function is given by
Se ≧T(Sp),
where T(Sp) is a monotonic nondecreasing function of a measure, Sp, of how closely the output of said filter, when characterized only by said one or more long term predictor parameters and without the application of said coded excitation signals, approximates x(n).
17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein said predictor parameters characterize a linear predictive filter and wherein Sp is a measure of the signal-to-noise ratio given by ##EQU16## with yo (n) being the initial response to the filter with no excitation and p(n) being the output of the filter characterized by said long term parameter with no input.
18. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein said input signal was generated by transducing an acoustic signal.
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/488,234, filed on Jun. 7, 1995 abandoned which was a continuation of Ser. No. 08/287,636 filed on Aug. 8, 1994 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,042 which was a continuation of Ser. No. 07/402,006 filed Sept. 1, 1989 abandoned.
This invention relates to coding of information and, more particularly to efficient coding of information, e.g., speech, which can be represented as having a stochastic component under some circumstances.
In the last few years, Code-Excited Predictive (CELP) coding has emerged as a prominent technique for digital speech communication at low rates, e.g., rates of 8 Kb/s and it is now considered a leading candidate for coding in digital mobile telephony and secure speech communication. See, for example, B. S. Atal, M. R. Schroeder, "Stochastic Coding of Speech Signals at Very Low Bit Rates", Proceedings IEEE Int. Conf. Comm., May 1984, page 48.1; M. R. Schroeder, B. S. Atal, "Code-Excited Linear Predictive (CELP): High Quality Speech at Very Low Bit Rates", Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. ASSP., 1985, pp. 9370940; P. Kroon, E. F. Deprettere, "A Class of Analysis-by-Synthesis Predictive Coders for High-Quality Speech Coding at Rate Between 4.8 and 16 Kb/s", IEEE J. on Sel. Area in Comm. SAC-6(2), February 1988, pp. 353-363; P. Kroon, B. S. Atal, "Quantization Procedures for 4.8 Kb/s CELP Coders", Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. ASSP, 1987, pp. 1650-1654; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,517 issued Mar. 17, 1989 to B. Atal et al and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
While the CELP coder is able to provide fairly good-quality speech at 8 Kb/s, its performance at 4.8 Kb/s is yet unsatisfactory to some applications. A feature of the CELP coding concept, namely, the stochastic excitation of a linear filter, also constitutes a potential weakness of this method. That is, the stochastic excitation, in general, contains a noisy component which does not contribute to the speech synthesis process and cannot be completely removed by the filter. It is desirable, therefore, to maintain the low bit rate feature of CELP coding while improving the perceived quality of speech reproduced when the coded speech is decoded.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, it proves advantageous in a speech coding system to adaptively constrain the level of stochastic excitation provided as input to a linear predictives filter (LPF) system by linking such level to a performance index of the long-term (pitch-loop) sub-system. More particularly, a gain factor for the level of excitation signal is adaptively adjusted as a function of the error achieved by the LPF coder with no contribution by the stochastic excitation. Thus, if the pitch-loop and filter parameters would be sufficient to allow a good approximation to the input signal, then the actual level of stochastic excitation specified is low. When the pitch loop and LPF parameters are not sufficient to reduce the error to an acceptable level, the specified level of the stochastic excitation is higher. This operation reduces the noisy effects of the stochastic excitation, enhances the synthesized speech periodicity and hence, the perceptual quality of the coder.
In its more general aspects, the present invention has applicability to other systems and processes which can be represented as a combination of (i) a first set of parameters susceptible of explicit determination (at least approximately) by analysis and measurement, (ii) and a second set of parameters representative of a stochastic process which may have adverse effects (as well as favorable effects) on the overall system or process. The present invention then provides for the adaptive de-emphasis of the component of the combination reflecting the stochastic contribution, thereby to reduce the less favorable effects, even at the price of losing more favorable contributions when such de-emphasis improves the overall system as process performance.
FIG. 1 shows a prior art CELP coder;
FIG. 2 shows a prior art CELP decoder;
FIG. 3 shows a threshold function advantageously used in one embodiment of the present invention; and
FIG. 5 is a summary representation of elements of the present invention.
FIG. 4 shows how an important measure of efficiency of coding by a pitch-loop sub-system varies for a typical input.
Introduction and Prior Art Review
The coding system of the present invention, in illustrative embodiment, is based on the standard Codebook-Excited Linear Predictive (CELP) coder which employs the traditional excitation-filter model. A brief description of such prior art systems will first be presented. The available literature including the above-cited references may profitably be reviewed to gain a more complete understanding of these well-known systems.
Referring to FIG. 1, a speech pattern applied to microphone 101 is converted therein to a speech signal which is band pass filtered and sampled in filter and sampler 105 as is well known in the art. The resulting samples are converted into digital codes by analog-to-digital converter 110 to produce digitally coded speech signal s(n). Signal s(n) is processed in LPC and pitch predictive analyzer 115. This processing includes dividing the coded samples into successive speech frame intervals. Throughout this discussion, we assume that the time axis origin aligns with the beginning of the current frame and all the processing is done in the time window n=0, . . . , N-1! (N being the frame size, i.e., the number of samples in a frame). The processing by analyzer 115 further includes producing a set of parameter signals corresponding to the signal s(n) in each successive frame. Parameter signals shown as a(1), a(2), . . . , a(p) in FIG. 1 represent the short delay correlation or spectral related features of the interval speech pattern, and parameter signals β(1), β(2), β(3), and m represent long delay correlation or pitch related features of the speech pattern. In this type of coder, the speech signal frames or blocks are typically 5 msesc or 40 samples in duration. For such blocks, stochastic code store 120 may contain 1024 random white Gaussian codeword sequences, each sequence comprising a series of 40 random numbers. Each codeword is scaled in scaler 125, prior to filtering, by a factor γ that is constant for the 5 msec block. The speech adaptation is done in recursive filters 135 and 145.
Filter 135 uses a predictor with large memory (2 to 15 msec) to introduce voice periodicity and filter 145 uses a predictor with short memory (less than 2 msesc) to introduce the spectral envelope in the synthetic speech signal. Such filters are described in the article "Predictive Coding of Speech at Low Bit Rates" by B. S. Atal appearing in the IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. COM-30, pp. 600-614, April 1982. The error representing the difference between the original speech signal s(n) applied to differencer 150 and synthetic speech signal s(n) applied from filter 145 is further processed by linear filter 155 to attenuate those frequency components where the error is perceptually less important and amplify those frequency components where the error is perceptually more important. The stochastic code sequence from store 120 which produces the minimum mean-squared subjective error signal E(k) and the corresponding optimum scale factor γ are selected by peak picker 170 only after processing of all 1024 code word sequences in store 120.
These parameters, as well as the LPC analyzer output, are then available for transmission to a decoder for ultimate reproduction. Such a prior art decoder is shown in FIG. 2. As can be seen, the excitation parameters K* and scale factor γ cause an excitation sequence to be applied to the LPC filter whose parameters have been supplied by the encoder on a frame-by-frame basis. The output of this filtering provides the desired reproduced speech.
To permit a better understanding of the context of the improvement gained by using the present invention, the above generalized CELP process will be analyzed in more detail. More particularly, s(n) is filtered by a pole-zero, noise-weighing linear filter to obtain X(z)=S(z) A(z)/A'(z), i.e., X(z) (x(n) in the time domain) is the target signal used in the coding process. A(z) is the standard LPC polynomial corresponding to the current frame, with coefficients ai, i=0, . . . , M, (a0 =1.0). A'(z) is a modified polynomial, obtained from A(z) by shifting the zeroes towards the origin in the z-plane, that is, by using the coefficients a'i =ai γi with 0.<γ<1. (typical value: γ=0.8). This pre-filtering operation reduces the quantization noise in the coded speech spectral valleys and enhances the perceptual performance of the coder. Such pre-filtering is described in B. S. Atal, et al, "Predictive Coding of Speech Signals and Subjective Error Criteria," IEEE Trans. ASSP, Vol. ASSP-2, No. 3, June 1979, pp. 247-254.
The LPC filter A(z) is assumed to be a quantized version of an all-pole filter obtained by the standard autocorrelation-method LPC analysis. The LPC analysis and quantization processes performed in LC Analyzer are independent of the other parts of the CELP algorithm. See the references cited above and Applications of Digital Signal Processing, A. V. Oppenheimer, Ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1978, pp. 147-156.
The coder attempts to synthesize a signal y(n) which is as close to the target signal x(n) as possible, usually, in a mean square error (MSE) sense. The synthesis algorithm is based on the following simple equations ##EQU1## β and P are the so-called pitch tap and pitch lag respectively. g is the excitation gain and c(n) is an excitation signal. The gain symbol g has been changed from the γ symbol used in the above description to reflect the adaptive qualities given to it in accordance with the present invention. These qualifies will be described in detail below. Each of the entities β, P, g, c(n) takes values from a predetermined finite table. In particular, the stable for the excitation sequence c(n) (the excitation codebook) holds a set of N-dimensional codevectors.
The task of the coder is to find a good (if not the best) selection of entries from these tables so as to minimize the distance between the target and the synthesized signals. The sizes of the tables determine the number of bits available to the system for synthesizing the coded signal y(n).
Notice that Eq. (2) and (3) represent a 1st-order pitch-loop (with periodic extension) as described in W. B. Kleijn et at, "Improved Speech Quality and Efficient Vector Quantization in CELP," Proc. IEEE Conf. ASSP, 1988, pp. 155-159. A higher-order pitch loop could also be used, but spreading the limited number of bits for transmitting parameters of more than one pitch loop has not been found to yield higher performance. Use of a first order pitch loop does not significantly affect the application of the present invention; moreover, it permits reduced complexity in the present analysis and in operation and computation. Those skilled in the art will recognize that higher order pitch loops may be used in particular applications.
The actual output signal, denoted by z(n) (Z(z) in the z-domain), is obtained by using the inverse of the noise-weighting filter. This is accomplished simply by computing Z(z)=R(z)(1/A(z) ) where R(z) is the z-domain counterpart of r(n). Note that, in general, minimizing the MSE distance between x(n) and y(n) does not imply the minimization of the MSE between the input s(n) and the output z(n). Nevertheless, the noise-weighing filtering has been found to significantly enhance the perceptual performance the CELP coder.
A key issue in CELP coding is the strategy of selecting a good set of parameters from the various codebooks. A global exhaustive search, although possible, in principle, can be prohibitively complex. Therefore, several sub-optimal procedures are used in practice. A common and sensible strategy is to separate the pitch parameters P and β from the excitation parameters g and c(n) and to select the two groups independently. This is a "natural" way of dealing with the problem since it separates the redundant (periodic) part of the system from the non-redundant (innovative) one. P and β are found first and then, for a fixed such selection, the best g and c(n) are found. The definition of the synthesis rule as in Eq. (1)-(3) allows us to do this separation in a rather simple way. The linearity of the system permits us to combine Eqs. (1) and (2) in the form
y(n)=y0 (n)+βr'(n,P)*h(n)+gc(n)*h(n) (4)
where y0 (n) is the response to the filter initial state without any input and h(n) is the impulse response of 1/A'(z) in the range 0, . . . , N-1!. The notation * denotes the convolution operation. The best P and β are given by ##EQU2## where the search is done over all the entries in the tables for β and P. The notation ∥.∥ indicates the Euclidean norm of the corresponding time-sequence. The values for P are typically in the integer range 20, . . . , 147!(7 bits). The table for β typically contains 8 discrete values (3 bits) in the approximate range 0.4, . . . , 1.5!.
In an even less complex approach, P and β are found independently of each other by first allowing β to obtain an optimal (unquantized) value and finding the best P and, then, quantizing the optimal β corresponding to the best P. In this case, the optimization problem (for the best P) is ##EQU3## where <.,.> denotes an inner-product of the arguments. The optimal β for the best pitch P* is given by ##EQU4## This value is quantized into its nearest neighbor from the 3-bit codebook to obtain β.
Once β and P* are found, the coder attempts to find a best match to the resulting error signal d(n)=x(n)-y0 (n)-βr'(n,P*)*h(n) by finding ##EQU5## where the search is performed over all entries of the gain table and the excitation codebook. As for the pitch loop, the search for g, c(n) can by simplified by first searching for the best excitation with an unconstrained (unquantized) gain and, then, quantizing that gain. In this case we have ##EQU6## and g* is quantized to its nearest neighbor in the gain table.
The system described above is a basic version of a CELP coder. Numerous other versions of the same system have been proposed in the literature with various techniques for reducing the computational complexity, sometimes, at the price of reduced coding quality. Most of these techniques can be incorporated in the present invention as well.
Constrained Stochastic Excitation-Improved CELP
The Constrained Stochastic Excitation Code (CSEC) system of the present invention departs from the standard CELP described above at the stage of selecting g and c(n). In the CSEC system, these parameters are selected in such a way as to constrain the level of the excitation and make it adaptive to the performance of the long-term subsystem. The concept behind this approach is discussed next.
The CELP coding approach is based on a fundamental assumption that the residual signal, resulting from the inverse filtering operation X(z)A'(z)(1-βz-P), is truly random and whatever residual information it has about the underlying source signal is not crucial for resynthesizing a good estimate for X(z). In other words, the residual signal can be replaced by another signal with similar statistical properties (but otherwise totally different) in the synthesis process. This assumption is based on the observation that the residual is essentially white and can be characterized as a Gaussian process.
In accordance with the present invention, we mitigate the penalty paid for our ignorance by placing some constraints on the "dumb" excitation. The idea is to reduce the harsh effect of introducing noise-like foreign signals which are totally unrelated to the speech signal.
Any excitation signal contains "good" and "bad" components in it. The good component contributes towards more acceptable output while the bad one adds noise to the system. Since, as said above, we cannot separate the two components we adopt the pessimistic philosophy that the entire excitation signal is "bad", that is, it is dominated by the undesired noisy component and the use of such an excitation should be restricted.
The two components of y(n) in Eq. (4) which carry new information about the source are the "pitch" signal p(n)=βr'*h(n) and the filtered excitation e(n)=gc(n)*h(n). p(n) is the result of attempting to utilize the periodicity of the source. There is no additive noisy component in it and the new information is introduced by modifying the delay P and the scale factor β. It is therefore expected to be perceptually more appealing than the excitation noisy component e(n). Fortunately, in voiced (periodic) regions, p(n) is the dominant component and this is an important reason for the success of the CELP method.
In R. C. Rose et at, "The Self-Excited Vocoder-an Alternate Approach to Toll Quality at 4800 bps," Proc IEEE ICASSP-86, pp. 453-456 (1986) it was suggested that the stochastic excitation be eliminated completely. Self-Excited Vocoder (SEV), the past portion of r(n) was the only signal used in exciting the LPC synthesis filter (that is, g=0). However, that coder was found to perform poorly especially in transition regions since, after initialization, no innovation excitation was used to account for new information. Realizing that problem, the developers of the SEV added two other components to the "self-excitation": regular stochastic excitation as in basic CELP and impulse excitation as in multi-pulse LPC coding. The "pure" SEV has actually never been used. Each of the three excitation components was optimized by the standard MSE procedure as outlined above without trying to perceptually enhance the overall excitation.
In accordance with the present invention, the noisy excitation is further reduced and a heavier reconstruction burden is imposed on the pitch signal p(n). However, since p(n) is not always efficient in reconstructing the output, particularly in unvoiced and transitional regions, the mount of excitation reduction should depend on the efficiency of p(n). The efficiency of p(n) should reflect its closeness to x(n) and may be defined in various ways. A useful measure of this efficiency is ##EQU7## The quantity Sp is used in controlling the level of the excitation. Recalling that the excitation is perceived as essentially a noisy component, we define the signal-to-noisy-excitation ratio ##EQU8## The basic requirement now is that Se be higher than some monotone-nondecreasing thresholds function T(Sp):
Se ≧T(Sp) (13)
A useful empirical function T(Sp) used by way of illustration in the present discussion is shown in FIG. 3. It consists of a linear slope (in a dB scale) followed by a flat region. When Sp is high, i.e., when p(n) is capable of efficiently reconstructing the output, Se is forced to be high and e(n) contributes very little to the output. As Sp goes down, the constraint on e(n) is relaxed and it gradually takes over, since p(n) becomes inefficient. T(Sp) is controlled by a slope factor α and a saturation level f which determine the knee point of the function. Intuitively, the abscissa of the knee should lie around the middle of the dynamic range of Sp. FIG. 4 shows a typical time evolution of Sp which indicates a dynamic range of about 1.0 to 10.0 dB. When Sp is high, Se is forced to be higher than 24 dB with the intent that such an SNR will make the noisy excitation inaudible. Based on some listening to coded speech, illustrative values for these parameters are α=6.0 and f=24.0 dB.
The procedure for constraining the excitation, whose details are discussed next, is quite simple: the system calculates Sp for the current frame, determines the threshold using T(.) and selects the best excitation c(n) and the best gain g subject to the constraint of Eq. (13).
The objective is to find the best gain and excitation vector from the corresponding codebooks, under the constraint of Eq. (13). It proves convenient to seek to minimize the MSE under the above constraint.
Defining the unscaled excitation response ch (n)=c(n)*h(n), the minimization problem is, therefore, stated (Eq. (8)) as: ##EQU9## subject to: ##EQU10## where the minimization range is the set of all the entries of the gain and excitation codebooks. It is clear from the quadratic form of the problem that for a fixed excitation c(n) the best gain is obtained quantizing the optimal gain as in (10), namely, ##EQU11## Thus, for a given c(n) the best gain is: ##EQU12## subject to Eq. (15).
The search procedure is to obtain the best gain for each excitation vector as in (17), record the resulting distortion and to select the pair g, c(n) corresponding to the lowest distortion.
FIG. 5 summarizes, in schematic form, several important aspects of the processing in accordance with the illustrative speech encoding process described above. The switch 500 has two positions, corresponding to the two phases of processing.
The first position, 1, of switch 500 corresponds to that for the determination, in block 510, of the values for the pitch parameter(s) β and P. For this determination, a value of g=0 is assumed, i.e., the excitation signal is assumed to have zero amplitude. Thus a measure is taken of how well the pitch loop is able to represent the input signal. That is, the contributions of y0 (the "zero memory hangover" or initial state response of the filter 1/A) and βr'(n-P) when convolved with h(n) are used to evaluate a y(n), as in equation (4), with a value of g=0.
In phase 2 of the processing, with switch 500 in position 2, the best values for j and g are determined in block 520, given the constraints derived from phase 1 of the processing. Here, the excitation codes from store 530 are used as well as the phase 1 operands.
The subjective performance of the CSEC coder was measured by the so-called A-B comparison listening test. In this subjective test a set of speech segments is processed by coder A and coder B. The two versions of each sentence are played and the listener votes for the coder that sounds better according to his/her judgement. Results of these tests show a clear overall improvement as compared with the basic CELP coding known in the art.
The complexity of the CSEC coder is essentially the same as that of the CELP since the same type and mount codebook-search arithmetic is needed in both coders. Also, most of the complexity-reducing "tricks" that have been proposed for the CELP algorithm can be combined with the CSEC method. Therefore, the CSEC method is essentially a no-cost improvement of the CELP algorithm.
No changes are needed in the CELP decoder other than the requirement that the excitation gain be responsive to the coded gain parameter supplied by the coder.
The above description of the present invention has largely been in terms of departures from standard CELP coders of well-known design. Accordingly, no additional structure is required beyond those minor hardware design choices and the program implementations of the improved algorithms of the present invention. Likewise, no particular programming language or processor has been indicated. Those skilled in the art of coding of speech and related signals will be familiar with a variety of processors and languages useful in implementing the present invention in accordance with the teachings of this specification.
While the above description of the present invention has been in terms of coding of speech, those skilled in the art of digital signal processing will recognize applicability of these teachings to other specific contexts. Thus, for example, coding of images and other forms of information may be improved by using the present invention.
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- Record Label: Cold Crush
- Release Date: Feb 22, 2005
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The album loses a little of its steam toward the end, when too many songs play up the rap side of the equation over the rock, but on the whole A Gun Called Tension is surprisingly balanced and beholden to no preconceptions of how these two styles should mix.
Short, blunt, and skitless, A Gun Called Tension seethes with everything post-aught genre-fucking needs.
What could have been an awkward marriage of incompatible styles turned into a vibrant, invigorating blast of musical enthusiasm, free of restrictive genre definitions.
While the album fails as a cohesive and sharp sounding endeavor all the way through, it certainly showcases a creative effort that can't be faulted.
AGCT hits its marks without innovating. While cognizant of the times, the album is unable to move beyond its influences.
Songs like "Electric Chair" show the promise of this project, but unfortunately, the rest of the disc is fan-only filler. [Apr 2005, p.130]
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Yesterday an old friend of mine was driving along a busy road when he saw a lady lying in the gutter. So he stopped to help. Turns out it was a good thing he did because this 64 year old lady had been lying in the gutter with a broken hip for 45 MINUTES while car after car drove past.
What kind of nation have we become. :(


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Kate attends first public engagement since illness
More News from Agence France-Presse
LONDON – Prince William's pregnant wife Catherine on Sunday made her first public engagement since being hospitalized for severe morning sickness, presenting cyclist Bradley Wiggins with the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
Kate, 30, presented the main award and a lifetime achievement honor to London Olympic Games organizer Seb Coe at a ceremony in the British capital.
The Duchess of Cambridge was admitted to hospital on December 3, a development which prompted the palace to announce that she was in the very early stages of pregnancy.
She left the London hospital after three nights and had not been seen in public since.
The duchess took to the stage in a full-length green dress to present Coe with his award, sharing a private conversation with the former Olympian.
She was also quiet as superstar footballer David Beckham announced Wiggins as the winner, but handed over the famous trophy to the Tour de France and Olympic time-trial champion.
Stars from the London Olympics dominated the award shortlist, and Kate was understood to be keen to attend to continue her involvement in the summer Games, during which she, her husband and brother-in-law Prince Harry were official ambassadors.
"She will not stay for the whole thing but she really wanted to be there," a royal source told AFP.
The baby is the first for the royal couple, who married in a lavish ceremony in April 2011, and will be heir to Queen Elizabeth II's throne after William's father Prince Charles and William himself.
The news about the royal baby was overshadowed, however, by the apparent suicide of a nurse working at Kate's hospital after she took a hoax call from two Australian radio presenters that led to details of the duchess's condition being made public.
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Financial 411: Forest City Ratner Makes Its Stamp on the City
Monday, April 04, 2011
Oil, Gas Prices Rises on Mid-East Unrest
Fighting in Libya and unrest throughout the Middle East sent the price of a barrel of oil soaring to more than $108. That's a 30-month high. The price of gas continues to rise too. The Energy Department said an average gallon now costs $3.68 cents, up 9 cents from last week. In New York State, it's $3.84.
Toyota to Close North American Factories
A spokesman for Toyota said a shortage of parts in disaster-stricken Japan is likely to force the company to shut down its North American factories. The shutdowns will likely take place later this month, and affect about 25,000 workers. No layoffs are expected, and the length of the shutdowns is still unknown.
The Dow ended with a gain of 23 points to close at 12,400.
The S&P 500 was up slightly, but remained virtually unchanged at 1,333.
The NASDAQ fell slightly, ending at 2,790.
Forest City Ratner and Financial Risks
A basketball arena in Brooklyn. A soaring, sculptural tower in downtown Manhattan. A flashy, new headquarters for a major newspaper. Those are some of the projects in development or recently completed by Forest City Ratner.
The real estate developer is putting its stamp on our city, and taking on some pretty big financial risks to do so.
So writes Eliot Brown in today's Wall Street Journal. He talks about the controversy surrounding the Atlantic Yards basketball arena and residential complex, as well as several other financially risky projects the developer is undertaking.
A Look at the Week Ahead
The big news this week is the battle in Congress over this year's current budget and next year's. There's yet another threat of a government shut down if lawmakers can't ink out a deal. WNYC's Business Editor Charlie Herman said it looks like Democrats and Republicans are finding some common ground on this year's budget — but there are no guarantees. And, he said, House Republicans are set to propose their spending plan for 2012 this week as well, setting the battleground for the 2012 election.
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I heard this story out of the 'corner of my ear,' and was immediately riveted; unfortunately I missed a bit- but the audio and / or transcript, for some reason, was never made available. Are Mr. Ratner's lawyers challenging the story of his possible tottering at some financial brink?
When I see the barren lots, stretching for blocks, of the Atlantic Yards 'development'- which once were perfectly sound industrial buildings or even homes, and may yet become giant parking fields for a Russian oil-financed and environmentally questionable stadium rather than the dangled lure of affordable housing- I can't but help thinking of Joni Mitchell's decade-defining song about the 'parking lot.'
Actually, the terms 'Tahrir Square' or 'People's Park' spring into my mind. If this was the Sixties, or better still, the Thirties, this so-called 'development' would never have seen the light of day. History and memory however, have been- and are daily being- erased. Unfortunately, this is where we're at, and Billionaires (our Mayor included) rule.
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|By Liz McMillan
Article Rating:
|June 6, 2014 08:00 AM EDT
DevOps Summit Early Bird Savings here!
In his session at 2nd DevOps Summit, Vasu Sankhavaram, Chief Strategist of DevOps and Cross Portfolio Architecture Alignment at HP Software, will discuss strategic and tactical challenges for DevOps adoption - how to get buy-in for and implement DevOps.
Explore DevOps Summit Sponsorship & Exhibit Opportunities !
Speaker Bio:
Vasu Sankhavaram is Chief Strategist of DevOps and Cross Portfolio Architecture Alignment within HP Software. He has been working in the area of DevOps and Continuous Delivery since 2009.
Earlier, he provided product management leadership and strategy within HP's Cloud Automation portfolio, with a focus on application release and deployment, and hybrid cloud automation. With extensive experience in all aspects of product and solution development, he brings a unique set of business, technical and people skills to product management and strategy roles.
Vasu has been with HP since 1995 and has worked in all phases of the software lifecycle - R&D, Testing, Support, Consulting, Product and Solution Management and Strategy. He brings technical and business leadership honed as a Practice Principal and Solution Architect within HP Services. During that time, he led several ground breaking projects in the areas of telecommunications and enterprise software management solutions for leading Telecom and Media companies in the Fortune 500.
A Rock Star Faculty, Top Keynotes, Sessions, and Top Delegates!
DevOps Summit at Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
The growth and success of Cloud Computing will be on display at the upcoming Cloud Expo® conference and exhibition in New York City, New York, June 10-12, 2014.
All main layers of the Cloud ecosystem will be represented at the 14th International Cloud Expo® - the infrastructure players, the platform providers, and those offering applications, and they'll all be here to speak, sponsor, exhibit and network.
Sponsorship Opportunities
for 2nd DevOps Summit
Sponsorship, exhibit, and keynote opportunities can be obtained from Carmen Gonzalez by email at events (at) sys-con.com, or by phone 201 802-3021.
Early Bird Registration Options
for 2nd DevOps Summit
DevOps Summit delegates can pre-register for 2nd DevOps Summit with Early Bird Savings here.
About SYS-CON Media & Events
SYS-CON Media (www.sys-con.com) has since 1994 been connecting technology companies and customers through a comprehensive content stream at www.sys-con.com - featuring over forty focused subject areas, from Cloud Computing to Web Security - interwoven with market-leading full-scale conferences produced by SYS-CON Events. The company's internationally recognized brands include among others Cloud Expo® (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), Big Data Expo (http://BigDataExpo.net), Virtualization Conference & Expo (www.VirtualizationConference.com), DevOps Summit (http://DevOpsSummit.sys-con.com), SDDC Expo (www.SDDCExpo.sys-con.com), WebRTC Summit (http://WebRTCSummit.net), Government IT Conference & Expo (www.GovITExpo.com), Cloud Computing Bootcamp (www.CloudComputingBootcamp.com), and UlitzerLive! New Media Conference & Expo (http://events.sys-con.com).
Cloud Expo® is a registered trademark of Cloud Expo, Inc.
SYS-CON Events announced today that EnterpriseDB (EDB), the leading worldwide provider of enterprise-class Postgres products and database compatibility solutions, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. EDB is the largest provider of Postgres software and services that provides enterprise-class performance and scalability and the open source freedom to divert budget from more costly traditional solutions to more strategic data-driven initiatives. EDB's Postgres Plus Cloud Database provides t...
May. 26, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,497
Buzzword alert: Microservices and IoT at a DevOps conference? What could possibly go wrong? In this Power Panel at DevOps Summit, moderated by Jason Bloomberg, the leading expert on architecting agility for the enterprise and president of Intellyx, panelists will peel away the buzz and discuss the important architectural principles behind implementing IoT solutions for the enterprise. As remote IoT devices and sensors become increasingly intelligent, they become part of our distributed cloud environment, and we must architect and code accordingly. At the very least, you'll have no problem fil...
May. 26, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,748
We are all here because we are sold on the transformative promise of The Cloud. But what good is all of this ephemeral, on-demand infrastructure if your usage doesn't actually improve the agility and speed of your business? How must Operations adapt in order to avoid stifling your Cloud initiative? In his session at DevOps Summit, Damon Edwards, co-founder and managing partner of the DTO Solutions, will highlight the successful organizational, process, and tooling patterns of high-performing companies that have reshaped their Operations to enable the business to get full value from their Clo...
May. 26, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 5,295
In a recent research, analyst firm IDC found that the average cost of a critical application failure is $500,000 to $1 million per hour and the average total cost of unplanned application downtime is $1.25 billion to $2.5 billion per year for Fortune 1000 companies. In addition to the findings on the cost of the downtime, the research also highlighted best practices for development, testing, application support, infrastructure, and operations teams.
May. 26, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,014
T-Mobile has been transforming the wireless industry with its "Uncarrier" initiatives. Today as T-Mobile's IT organization works to transform itself in a like manner, technical foundations built over the last couple of years are now key to their drive for more Agile delivery practices. In his session at DevOps Summit, Martin Krienke, Sr Development Manager at T-Mobile, will discuss where they started their Continuous Delivery journey, where they are today, and where they are going in an effort to constantly bring new offerings to market.
May. 26, 2015 09:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,212
You often hear the two titles of "DevOps" and "Immutable Infrastructure" used independently. In his session at DevOps Summit, John Willis, Technical Evangelist for Docker, will cover the union between the two topics and why this is important. He will cover an overview of Immutable Infrastructure then show how an Immutable Continuous Delivery pipeline can be applied as a best practice for "DevOps." He will end the session with some interesting case study examples.
May. 26, 2015 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,608
SYS-CON Media named Andi Mann editor of DevOps Journal. DevOps Journal is focused on this critical enterprise IT topic in the world of cloud computing. DevOps Journal brings valuable information to DevOps professionals who are transforming the way enterprise IT is done. Andi Mann, Vice President, Strategic Solutions, at CA Technologies, is an accomplished digital business executive with extensive global expertise as a strategist, technologist, innovator, marketer, communicator, and thought leader. For over 25 years and across five continents, he has built success with Fortune 500 corporation...
May. 26, 2015 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,292
Enterprises are fast realizing the importance of integrating SaaS/Cloud applications, API and on-premises data and processes, to unleash hidden value. This webinar explores how managers can use a Microservice-centric approach to aggressively tackle the unexpected new integration challenges posed by proliferation of cloud, mobile, social and big data projects. Industry analyst and SOA expert Jason Bloomberg will strip away the hype from microservices, and clearly identify their advantages and disadvantages. He will then discuss the role microservices play in cloud-enabled enterprise integrati...
May. 26, 2015 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,344
The 5th International DevOps Summit, co-located with 17th International Cloud Expo – being held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA – announces that its Call for Papers is open. Born out of proven success in agile development, cloud computing, and process automation, DevOps is a macro trend you cannot afford to miss. From showcase success stories from early adopters and web-scale businesses, DevOps is expanding to organizations of all sizes, including the world's largest enterprises – and delivering real results. Among the proven benefits, DevOps is cor...
May. 26, 2015 08:30 AM EDT Reads: 3,943
In today's application economy, enterprise organizations realize that it's their applications that are the heart and soul of their business. If their application users have a bad experience, their revenue and reputation are at stake. In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Anand Akela, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Application Performance Management at CA Technologies, discussed how a user-centric Application Performance Management solution can help inspire your users with every application transaction.
May. 26, 2015 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 4,684
The recent trends like cloud computing, social, mobile and Internet of Things are forcing enterprises to modernize in order to compete in the competitive globalized markets. However, enterprises are approaching newer technologies with a more silo-ed way, gaining only sub optimal benefits. The Modern Enterprise model is presented as a newer way to think of enterprise IT, which takes a more holistic approach to embracing modern technologies.
May. 25, 2015 11:00 PM EDT Reads: 5,939
For better or worse, DevOps has gone mainstream. All doubt was removed when IBM and HP threw up their respective DevOps microsites. Where are we on the hype cycle? It's hard to say for sure but there's a feeling we're heading for the "Peak of Inflated Expectations." What does this mean for the enterprise? Should they avoid DevOps? Definitely not. Should they be cautious though? Absolutely. The truth is that DevOps and the enterprise are at best strange bedfellows. The movement has its roots in the tech community's elite. Open source projects and methodologies driven by the alumni of companies ...
May. 25, 2015 10:00 PM EDT Reads: 6,225
In a world of ever-accelerating business cycles and fast-changing client expectations, the cloud increasingly serves as a growth engine and a path to new business models. Dynamic clouds enable businesses to continuously reinvent themselves, adapting their business processes, their service and software delivery and their operations to achieve speed-to-market and quick response to customer feedback. As the cloud evolves, the industry has multiple competing cloud technologies, offering on-premises and off-premises cloud platforms for both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Servi...
May. 25, 2015 06:00 PM EDT Reads: 3,959
Over the years, a variety of methodologies have emerged in order to overcome the challenges related to project constraints. The successful use of each methodology seems highly context-dependent. However, communication seems to be the common denominator of the many challenges that project management methodologies intend to resolve. In this respect, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can be viewed as powerful tools for managing projects. Few research papers have focused on the way ICTs are used in software development environments. We posit that the use of ICTs in a plan-driven ...
May. 25, 2015 05:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,681
As the world moves from DevOps to NoOps, application deployment to the cloud ought to become a lot simpler. However, applications have been architected with a much tighter coupling than it needs to be which makes deployment in different environments and migration between them harder. The microservices architecture, which is the basis of many new age distributed systems such as OpenStack, Netflix and so on is at the heart of CloudFoundry – a complete developer-oriented Platform as a Service (PaaS) that is IaaS agnostic and supports vCloud, OpenStack and AWS. In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, ...
May. 25, 2015 05:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,551
In high-production environments where release cycles are measured in hours or minutes — not days or weeks — there's little room for mistakes and no room for confusion. Everyone has to understand what's happening, in real time, and have the means to do whatever is necessary to keep applications up and running optimally. DevOps is a high-stakes world, but done well, it delivers the agility and performance to significantly impact business competitiveness.
May. 25, 2015 05:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,833
With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing IoT strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @ThingsExpo in Silicon Valley. Learn what is going on, contribute to the discussions, and ensure that your enterprise is as "IoT-Ready" as it can be! Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place Nov 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with 17th Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the most profound change in personal an...
May. 25, 2015 04:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,442
The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is no time to wait for long development cycles that produce software that is obsolete at launch. DevOps may be disruptive, but it is essential. The DevOps Summit at Cloud Expo – to be held June 3-5, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City – will expand the DevOps community, enable a wide sharing of knowledge, and educate delegates and technology providers alike. Recent research has sho...
May. 25, 2015 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,811
The 17th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. 17th International Cloud Expo, to be held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, brings together Cloud Computing, APM, APIs, Microservices, Security, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps and WebRTC to one location. With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly important to plant your flag in this fast-expanding business opportunity. Submit your speaking proposal today!
May. 25, 2015 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 4,149
Cloud Expo, Inc. has announced today that Andi Mann returns to DevOps Summit 2015 as Conference Chair. The 4th International DevOps Summit will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City. "DevOps is set to be one of the most profound disruptions to hit IT in decades," said Andi Mann. "It is a natural extension of cloud computing, and I have seen both firsthand and in independent research the fantastic results DevOps delivers. So I am excited to help the great team at Cloud Expo tell the world how they can leverage this emerging disruptive trend."
May. 25, 2015 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,516
Container frameworks, such as Docker, provide a variety of benefits, including density of deployment across infrastructure, convenience for application developers to push updates with low operational hand-holding, and a fairly well-defined deployment workflow that can be orchestrated. Container frameworks also enable a DevOps approach to application development by cleanly separating concerns between operations and development teams. But running multi-container, multi-server apps with containers is very hard. You have to learn five new and different technologies and best practices (libswarm, sy...
May. 25, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,806
Software Development Solution category in The 2015 American Business Awards, and will ultimately be a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie® Award winner in the program. More than 3,300 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration. "We are honored to be recognized as a leader in the software development industry by the Stevie Awards judges," said Steve Brodie, CEO of Electric Cloud. "We introduced ElectricFlow and our Deploy application to bring a truly unified approach to software build, test and deployment. Having these capa...
May. 25, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,614
SYS-CON Events announced today that DragonGlass, an enterprise search platform, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. After eleven years of designing and building custom applications, OpenCrowd has launched DragonGlass, a cloud-based platform that enables the development of search-based applications. These are a new breed of applications that utilize a search index as their backbone for data retrieval. They can easily adapt to new data sets and provide access to both structured and unstruc...
May. 25, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,753
Announced separately, New Relic is joining the Cloud Foundry Foundation to continue the support of customers and partners investing in this leading PaaS. As a member, New Relic is contributing the New Relic tile, service broker and build pack with the goal of easing the development of applications on Cloud Foundry and enabling the success of these applications without dedicated monitoring infrastructure. Supporting Quotes "The proliferation of microservices and new technologies like Docker has transformed how modern software is built and managed today," said Patrick Lightbody, vice presiden...
May. 25, 2015 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,685
"We have developers who are really passionate about getting their code out to customers, no matter what, in the shortest possible time. Operations are very focused on procedures and policies," explained Stan Klimoff, CTO of Qubell, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at DevOps Summit, held Nov 4–6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
May. 25, 2015 06:00 AM EDT Reads: 4,779


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About Blackford Capital
Blackford Capital is a private equity firm based in Grand Rapids, Mich., that acquires, manages and builds middle-market manufacturing, distribution and service companies, with seven portfolio companies employing more than 950 people and with combined revenues of approximately $225 million. Blackford has offices in Grand Rapids (headquarters) and Santa Monica, CA.
Blackford Capital reviewed roughly 3,400 transactions last year with the goal of closing four to six deals per year. Blackford has closed 26 transactions in the past six years. Mopec is Blackford's seventh portfolio company and its second in Michigan. The firm's investment criteria includes mature, profitable businesses with revenues between $20 million and $100 million and with management teams that are either willing to remain with the company or are seeking to retire. For more information, visit www.blackfordcapital.com.
About Mopec, Inc.
Mopec, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of supplies for the pathology, histology, necropsy, autopsy, morgue and mortuary industries. Mopec, based in Oak Park, Mich., has the engineering and manufacturing capabilities to offer customized solutions to its standard capital equipment products to meet the customer's application requirements. For over 20 years, Mopec has been committed to designing and manufacturing innovative research equipment and instruments that meet the needs of the technician while providing a safe, comfortable, ergonomic and efficient work environment. For more information, visit www.mopec.com.
|SOURCE Blackford Capital
Copyright©2012 PR Newswire.
All rights reserved


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Bowie offers first glimpse of 2012-13 budget
No changes in staffing or major equipment planned
BOWIE — Bowie city councilors got their first look at the 2012-13 budget proposal that offers operational costs that are just under $730,000 higher than last year in both the utility and general funds.
City Manager James Cantwell made his annual budget presentation last week, presenting what he called a routine budget that maintains the present level of services with no staffing or major equipment purchases.
The proposal includes expenses of $10.48 million in the utility fund, $428,689 higher than the 2012 adopted budget. In the general fund, $8.09 million is proposed, $300,502 higher than adopted last year.
A budget workshop is tentatively scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday. Mayor Pro Tem Gene Brown said the mayor wants to have the workshop at a different location that will be announced later. Mayor Pat Polk has indicated to the city staff she would like the council to combine a goal-setting discussion at this meeting.
A public hearing on the budget was approved for Aug. 7 at the council chambers. Agendas for both will be posted later.
Cantwell reviewed extensive budget history, which is used to develop the revenue and expense projections. The municipal cost index of 3 percent is used, along with the consumer price index for wage earners at 1.7 percent.
This budget uses a projected property tax increase that falls just under the rollback rate. However, those rates will not be available until certified property values are released around July 25. The historic growth rate for ad valorem tax is 8.12 percent annually and property values are 4.45 percent, reflecting back to 2003.
Ad valorem taxes make up for around $900,000 in revenue for the city, with the majority coming from electricity sales. Driven by increases in property values, the tax rate since 2003 has gone up and down. In 2003 it was .37 cents per $100 in property value. Staying at that level for several years, in 2007 it dropped to .313 cents.
In 2008 it went back up to .324 cents, where it stayed until 2011 when it rose to .368 cents.
Cantwell has projected a rate around .404 cents, but it all depends on the values. Preliminary values for 2012 showed an increase of $8.29 million over the 2011 certified values.
Franchise fees and sales tax estimates are expected to remain level, along with interest rates that continue to be low with a .25 percent yield.
Utility rates also are set at the same level, but the city manager interjected that issue will have to be addressed within the next three years.
The last rate increase for electricity was in 2006, following a volatile few years from 2003 to 2006 when electrical deregulation was under way. Water and sewer rates have not changed in 10 years.
"We can continue to operate without any rate change or tax rate hike above the rollback for the next two years, then the cash balance begins to concern me," Cantwell said. "We have gone as long as we can without increasing rates, but come 2014 we will need to look at increasing it or cutting something that would reduce services."
Electricity revenue is the driving force of city revenue, providing more than $9.3 million in revenue.
Electricity sales have a growth rate of 4.17 percent annually. However, water remains level at .39 percent growth, and sewer loses money at .51 percent. The utility fund also transfers each year approximately $2 million to general fund operations.
The budget proposal uses an overall employee cost increase of 2.99 percent, which includes wages, insurance and retirement.
Texas Municipal League health insurance has a 5 percent increase, and the retirement system shows a .44 percent increase. There are no staff additions in the budget proposal.
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The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that, under Minnesota law, multiple wrongful acts by a financial advisor to four plaintiffs are "interrelated" and "logically connected" within the meaning of the policy's "Interrelated Wrongful Acts" limitation. In Crystal D. Kilcher v. Continental Casualty Co., 2014 WL 1317296 (8th Cir. April 3, 2014), the Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's ruling that the policy's $1 million coverage limit for a single claim did not apply, instead finding that the insured's wrongful acts in selling life insurance policies and unsuitable investment products to the plaintiffs constituted a single claim, reducing Continental's exposure.
The four plaintiffs in Kilcher were clients of financial advisor Helen Dale of Transamerica Financial Advisors, Inc. Continental insured Transamerica and Dale under a claims made, professional liability policy providing $1 million in coverage per claim up to an aggregate amount of $2 million.
Starting in 1999, Dale advised each plaintiff to purchase whole life insurance policies. In addition, she instructed plaintiffs to invest in various annuities, some with surrender charges for early withdrawals. In 2007, plaintiffs learned their investments and portfolios were not suitable for their age, background, and investment goals. Plaintiffs ultimately consolidated their claims and filed a single suit against Dale and Transamerica alleging breach of fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent misrepresentation, fraud, unsuitability, and violation of state securities laws. In January 2012, the parties entered into a settlement wherein Continental agreed to pay $1 million to settle plaintiffs' claims against Dale, and submit to the district court for a ruling on whether plaintiffs' claims constituted a single claim or multiple claims.
The policy provides that multiple claims "involving the same Wrongful Act of Interrelated Wrongful Acts shall be considered as one Claim." The policy defines "Interrelated Wrongful Acts" as "any Wrongful Acts which are logically or causally connected by reason of any common fact, circumstance, situation, transaction or event." The district court did not find Dale's wrongful acts logically or causally connected to one another, holding that plaintiffs submitted at least two different claims because Dale's wrongful acts included not only selling life insurance policies but also unsuitable annuities as well. Continental appealed the district court's ruling.
The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's ruling, holding that plaintiffs' claims are interrelated as they are logically connected to a common set of "fact, circumstance, situation, transaction or event." The court noted that, although Dale may have made different misstatements, omissions, or promises to each plaintiff on different dates, the analysis does not stop there. The court stated that a logical connection exists between all of Dale's wrongful acts, such as her desire to earn commissions by advising plaintiffs to purchase life insurance policies and investments not suitable for them. In addition, the court found that the plaintiffs are all young, unsophisticated investors who presented the same opportunity to Dale: an investor who trusted in Dale to act in his or her best interest. The court refused to engage in "micro-distinguishing" between the different acts involved in selling different types of life insurance policies and annuities, instead finding that they are all logically connected by Dale's instructions that plaintiffs make inappropriate purchases and unsuitable investments.
DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
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The St. Kitts Scenic Railway
It has been called "the most unique and entertaining experience in the Caribbean." And after visiting more than two dozen islands over the past many years, I can't disagree. The St. Kitts Scenic Railway, also known as "The Sugar Train," is definitely the most enjoyable way of touring the island of St. Kitts. A four hour tour will cost you $98, and it's worth every cent. You will have a choice of a seat in a spacious, open-air observation deck, or an air-conditioned lower level seat with expansive windows. There are restrooms on board, and you will be served complimentary drinks with sugar/coconut cookies, and have live music provided by local singers. Also, you will enjoy a colorful narrative history of the island as you look out onto some of the most spectacular scenery in the Caribbean.
The Sugar Train runs on narrow gauge tracks which were originally built between 1912 and 1926 to deliver sugar cane from the fields to the sugar mill in Basseterre. The new specially built rail cars roll across tall steel bridges, past numerous colorful small villages, and along verdant fields that sweep up to cloud shrouded mountain peaks on your left and awesome ocean vistas on the right. Local children and adults alike stop what they are doing and wave as you pass.
If I sound enthusiastic about the St. Kitts Scenic Rail Tour it's because I am. I was with Karen, two of my sisters, a niece, and their spouses when the eight of us rode the Sugar Train together. All of us agreed that it was the highlight of our 8 day cruise through the islands.Related to:
- Trains
Around the island by taxi
An unwritten agreement on Saint Kitts is that the minibusses on the island only cover the northern part of the island. All other routes (to the airport, to Frigate Bay and to the south) are only covered by taxis. Fortunately these taxis are not too expensive.
I took the taxi to get from the airport to the centre of Basseterre. It's only a trip of 15 minutes and I payed about 5 US Dollars for it. To get to Frigate Bay it's an interesting option as well. When you want to get to the south of the island and back, it might be better to consider renting a scooter or a car for a day.
The taxis can be found everywhere in Basseterre. When you are going to a beach or another remote place in the south it might be wise to ask a phonenumber of a taxidriver so you can call when you want to go back.Related to:
- Budget Travel
License plates
I noticed that the license plates were somewhat rudimentary but were different colors - red, blue, black, yellow and green. Later I asked our van driver. He said:
P or PA black plates were private cars.
Other colors are for rental cars (red IIRC).
Taxis are usually mini buses, vans or cars. They are easily identified by their yellow license number plates with a T in front of the numbers.Related to:
- Road Trip
- Cruise
- Arts and Culture
Arrival Via Cruise Ship
My wife and I arrived in Dominica aboard the Celebrity Summmit. We both enjoy taking cruises as a vacation and this was a great one. We had a seven night cruise that sailed out of San Juan hitting the following ports: St. Croix, St. Thomas, Grenada, Dominica and St. Kitts.
St. Kitts had long been an island we both wanted to visit and we were so happy that we finally arrived.
During our visit to St. Kitts we took a local tour of the island in an air conditioned mini bus. The roads are typical small winding island roads. Our driver who lives on the island was very skilled in navigating the tiny areas where two lane of traffic are expected to fit in one small lane and taking on the steep inclines along the way.
Having someone else do the driving is a great way to sit back, relax and take in the sights.
Short Flight
You can get to Nevis from St.Kitts by plane or ferry. We chose to fly. It is a very short flight into Newcastle Airport.
The first time we flew on Liat. The second time we had a charter flight and we came in that little bitty plane.Related to:
- Family Travel
To Saint-Kitts by air
LIAT: congratulations! LIAT Airlines to me is officially the WORST airline I ever flew with! I used it to fly from Saint-Martin to Saint-Kitts and back and it was a true disaster!
The flight from Saint-Martin to Saint-Kitts normally takes 25 minutes, but my flight to Basseterre had a delay of 14 hours and on my way back there were another 5 hours of delay! As I understood the whole schedule of LIAT often is a complete chaos full of delays, and even though they clearly have experience with it, they suck at communicating about it. When you have a question about what's going to happen they react rude and impatient and they only do the absolute necessary. On top of this they lost my luggage too on my way to Saint-Kitts.
If there is a way to prevent flying with LIAT: do it! They might be cheap, but it's better to spend 20 extra dollar and flying on time then to spend a full day at the airport with a lot of problems.Related to:
- Budget Travel
Around the island by bus
The cheapest and the nicest way to travel around the island of Saint Kitts is by the minibusses that you'll find everywhere! These busses have the greatest names: 'Jah Blessing', 'Reggae Doctor' or 'Zion Train', the music is turned on load, and it's always a nice way to make a chat with the other people in the bus.
The busses only cover the northern part of the island: the way south towards Frigate Bay and the Southern Peninsula is covered by taxis. The northern loop is covered clockwise and counterclockwise, so you basically can never take the wrong bus: it's just a matter of patience. Of course it's better to ask the driver which bus to take.
The prices are never a point of discussion: the maximum price is about 5 Eastern Caribbean Dollar: about 2,50 US Dollars. The busses depart every 5 or 10 minutes from the bus station at the Ferry Terminal in Basseterre, but when you stop a bus passing by making a hand signal you basically can jump in wherever you want.Related to:
- Road Trip
- Budget Travel
Rural Roads
Coming in on a cruise ship, we were only there for one day so we didn't rent a car, but there are numerous places where you can do this. The roads outside the main city appeared pretty free of traffic, although it is a small island. We took the little train ride, and we were the first two people to get on bus #6. I asked if I could sit in front next to the driver, and was told it was OK. So the first picture is taken from the front seat of the van. All the rest of them were taken from the top level of the train.Related to:
- Trains
- Road Trip
- Eco-Tourism
Around the island by car
Apart from the experience that you're missing when travelling by bus, a car really is the best way to see the island of Saint Kitts. It makes it possible to make the whole northern loop in a few hours, and the southern loop in only an hour, and adding stops wherever you like.
When renting a car you have to keep in mind that you'll need to buy a local driving license. This is their way of charging road taxes. It will add another 10 US Dollars to the price of renting a car. It is a great way to travel around though: it saves you from a long climb up to Brimstone Hill Fortress, and it offers you great views of the coastlines and the islands around Saint Kitts. When going to the Southern Peninsula it's an easy way to look for desolate beaches and spotting monkeys.
Make sure to fill up the tank in Basseterre because there are no/hardly any gas stations in other parts of the island!Related to:
- Budget Travel
- Road Trip
Bike Around a Small Island
The first officials that greeted us from the pier (photo 2) were riding bicycles. It is also possible to rent a scooter to get around the island. I would think it might be somewhat difficult because of the way the car and taxi and omni bus drivers drive and the narrowness of the roads
There are three places to rent scooters:
Michael B
P.O.Box 1140
Basseterre,, St. Kitts
Tel: 869-466-7938
Mobile: 869-663-5115
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Winston Farrell
Bird Rock
Basseterre, St. Kitts
Tel: (869) 466-3772
Mobile: (869) 664-8755
Email: email@example.com
St. Christopher Club
Frigate Bay, St. Kitts
Tel: (869) 465-5123
Mobile: (869) 664-1921
I have not done that.Related to:
- Motorcycle
- Budget Travel
- Cruise
Island Airport
After breakfast, I went out on the bow. I could see the airport up on the slope behind town, with the planes landing. I was looking at the two ways one can get to an island - by air or on the water. I was traveling by ship. Most people would be going by plane. Later in the day, our train trip terminal was at the airport so I got to see some of it by land (photo 2)
Planes come in from Antigua, St. Maarten, Tortolla, St. Thomas, Trinidad/Grenada/St. Vincent/St. Lucia, St. Eustatia/Puerto Rico, Guyana/Barbados and Dominica.
The airlines that serve the airport include LIAT, Winair, Caribbean Star, Caribbean Sun and American EagleRelated to:
- Cruise
- Eco-Tourism
- Trains
We were taken from the cruise ship terminal to the fartherest end of the train route by a small van, and then after the train trip, we were brought back from the airport to the dock by the same vehicle (photo 2). I don't know if it was a taxi or a tour service.
Taxis may be mini buses, vans or cars. They are easily identified by their yellow license number plates with a T in front of the numbers.
Taxis are usually located at the Robert L.Bradshaw International Airport in St. Kitts for arriving visitors. For persons moving around town taxis are available at The Circus in Basseterre, the Marriott Hotel in Frigate Bay on St. Kitts.
The omnibuses run from 5:00 am - 1:00 am daily. The website says " The wait time to catch any bus is at the longest about 10 minutes, except on Sundays which take a little longer. It takes less than 30 minutes to get to any destination. Buses usually pick up and stop at any point on their route.
There are three bus routes in St. Kitts, the West bus routes which go from Basseterre up to Parson Ground, the east bus route travels from Basseterre to Saddlers and the Monkey Hill bus route which runs from Basseterre to Ogees Village.Related to:
- Arts and Culture
- Eco-Tourism
- Road Trip
Train Ride
The narrow gauge train goes all the way around the island. This is more of a tour than a serious mode of transportation. It was built between 1912 and 1926 to deliver sugar cane from the fields to the sugar mill in the capital city of Basseterre. It has been reconfigured as a tourist attraction. There are multiple daily departures are offered throughout each week from November through April. A more limited schedule is offered between May and October. The "Island Series" railcars are double-decked, with an upper open–air observation platform that, and a lower air-conditioned "parlor".Related to:
- Cruise
- Arts and Culture
- Trains
Buses, Taxis & Rental Cars
There are taxis and buses on Nevis, they look the same (vans) except for their number plates. Taxis have plates that begin with T and buses have plates that begin with H. Taxis are more expensive than buses but you share the bus with whomever else is around and your route will not be direct in most cases. Both are useful if you don't want to hire a vehicle.
You can hire a taxi to take you for a guided tour of the island. The main roads are paved, it's just when you get off them you find tracks like the one in the photo.
Driving is on the left, and many rental vehicles were built for the American market and the wheel is on the left, it puts the driver on the side of the road instead of the middle.
You can go to St. Kitts by ferry, they leave from Charlestown. I think there are two companies that offer service. Schedules are erratic and service is not necessarily offered every day. Be sure to confirm the return schedule before you depart Nevis.Related to:
- Road Trip
Saint Kitts and Nevis Hotels
Ottleys Plantation Inn
Village Po Box 345, BASSETERRE, KN
Satisfaction: Excellent
Good for: Business
Oualie Beach Hotel (Oualie Bay.)
Oualie Bay
Satisfaction: Excellent
Good for: Solo
Nisbet Plantation Beach Club
Some of my best memories of our first trip to the Caribbean are of the time we spent at the Nisbet...more
Top Saint Kitts and Nevis Hotels
- Newcastle Hotels
- 18 Reviews - 34 Photos
- Nevis Hotels
- 22 Reviews - 49 Photos
- Gingerland Hotels
- 1 Hotel
- Charlestown Hotels
- 3 Reviews - 28 Photos
- Basseterre Hotels
- 20 Reviews - 84 Photos
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