text:
This is the second of a three-part series on the Remote Method Invocation framework, or RMI -- a powerful framework for building distributed applications. RMI, which comes with Java 2, Standard Edition, lets two different applications communicate using method calls that look and feel remarkably like ordinary in-process method calls. Two problems with RMI, however, are that it's easy to repeat the same code in lots of different places, and to write an inefficient application that makes far too many remote calls. In this series, we discuss one way to organize the RMI-specific code of a client application to solve these two problems, by introducing command objects to encapsulate remote method calls. If you're not familiar with RMI, take a look at the author's book, Java RMI. To learn about command objects, consult Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.
In the first article in this series, Command Objects and RMI, I introduced a distributed translation service and showed how the use of a simple command object framework to encapsulate retry logic simultaneously simplified the client application and made it more robust.
In this article, I discuss a common structural problem for client applications: they wind up either making an excessive number of remote method calls to a naming service or implementing some form of local cache for the naming service. After outlining the problem, I'll show you how to extend the command object framework, introduced in the first article, to provide seamless caching of stubs. Using these new extensions will make your RMI code simpler and more robust.
Once again, I'd like to state that these articles require a fair amount of RMI knowledge and experience. If you're not familiar with RMI, my book Java RMI is a pretty good place to start.
The source code for this article can be downloaded by clicking here. This code has been tested using the beta of JDK 1.4 on Windows NT systems, but it should compile and run against JDK 1.3.
Let's start by recalling the client application -- it allowed the user to ask a remote service to translate a word. The GUI part of the client application was very simple as well. It provided ways for the user to enter a word, (manually) choose a translation service, and actually get a word translated. Here's what the GUI looked like:
To use the program, the user fills out all the text fields and then presses the Translate Word Now button. The program then executes the following lines of code (which are contained in a listener attached to the Translate Word Now button):
String resultText = "";
Translator translator = _translatorPanel.getTranslator();
Word word = _wordPanel.getWord();
Language targetLanguage = _translatorPanel.getTargetLanguage();
TranslateWord translateMethod = new TranslateWord(translator, word, targetLanguage);
try {
Word result = (Word) translateMethod.makeCall();
resultText = result.toString();
catch (CouldNotTranslateException CNTE) {
resultText = COULD_NOT_TRANSLATE_STRING;
catch (Exception e) {
resultText = e.toString();
finally {
This code fetches a stub from the appropriate RMI registry (that's what the call to
getTranslator does), builds a command object around the stub, and then executes the remote call.
What happens if the user enters a second word and then clicks the Translate Word Now button? In that case, the code fetches a stub from the appropriate RMI registry, builds a command object around the stub, and then executes the remote call.
The same lines of code are executed evey time the button is pressed. This means that each time the user clicks the button, two remote method calls are being made: one to fetch the stub for the translator from the remote registry and one to actually make the
translate call to the server performing the translation. This happens even if the same server is used to perform the translations.
Also in this series:
Learning Command Objects and RMI -- O'Reilly's Java RMI author William Grosso introduces you to the basic ideas behind command objects by providing a translation service from a remote server and using command objects to structure the RMI made from a client program.
Generics and Method Objects -- O'Reilly's Java RMI author William Grosso introduces you to the new Generics Specification and rebuilds his command object framework using it.
This is horribly inefficient. Remote method calls are slow: most tests indicate that a simple remote method call is at least 1,000 times slower than an ordinary, in-process method call (and this will only get worse -- processor speed is increasing at a faster rate than network speed). And the situation is even worse than it appears because it's not just one application that is being affected. Every remote method call decreases the amount of bandwidth available on the network for all applications. Doubling the number of remote calls made by a client-server application is, hands down, one of the worst design decisions imaginable.
It's also a decision that's made every day.
Fortunately, there's an obvious solution. Instead of fetching the stub each time, simply fetch the stub the first time and store it in a local stub cache (e.g., in a hash table in memory). The second time the translator is used, the stub is already available locally and, hence, only one remote method invocation is necessary.
In this article, I'll show you how to build a local stub cache in a principled way. There are two main goals:
In this article, we'll first build a stub cache, and then integrate the stub cache into the command object framework. The first implementation of a stub cache is fairly simple: it takes instances of
ServerDescription and returns instances of
RemoteStub. That is, the public interface for
RemoteStubCache contains the following two static methods:
public static RemoteStub getStubToRemoteObject(ServerDescription serverDescription) throws ServerUnavailable
public static void removeStubFromCache(ServerDescription serverDescription)
Objects that need to get a stub call
getStubToRemoteObject; objects that have bad stubs (for example, stubs to a server which has crashed) inform the cache by calling
removeStubFromCache. Both of these methods take a single argument, an instance of
ServerDescription is a simple object: it contains enough information to find the registry a server is bound into, along with the name of the server.
RemoteStubCache consists of some static methods to access the cached stubs, based on an instance of
ServerDescription. Here's the code for
public class ServerDescription
private String _serverMachine;
private String _serverName;
private int _registryPort;
private String _hashString;
public ServerDescription(String serverMachine, String serverName, int registryPort) {
_serverMachine = serverMachine;
_serverName = serverName;
_registryPort = registryPort ;
_hashString = _serverMachine + _serverName + String.valueOf(_registryPort);
protected RemoteStub getStub() {
RemoteStub returnValue = null;
try {
Registry registry = LocateRegistry.getRegistry(_serverMachine , _registryPort);
return (RemoteStub) registry.lookup(_serverName);
catch (Exception ignored) {}
return returnValue;
public int hashCode() {
return _hashString.hashCode();
public boolean equals(Object object) {
if (! (object instanceof ServerDescription)) {
return false;
ServerDescription otherServerDescription = (ServerDescription) object;
return _hashString.equals(otherServerDescription.getHashstring());
private String getHashstring() {
return _hashString;
Note that we were very careful to implement
equals and
hashcode in a way that takes advantage of all of the data contained in an instance of
ServerDescription. Doing so makes the implementation of
RemoteStubCache much easier.
Related Reading
Java RMI
ServerDescription (rather than
RemoteStubCache) is also responsible for fetching the stubs. This might seem a little idiosyncratic, but it gives us a lot of flexibility to extend the framework. In particular, putting the stub retrieval logic into
ServerDescription leaves open the possibility of making
ServerDescription into an abstract base class and having more than one concrete subclass. For example, you might want different implementations of
ServerDescription if the stubs are stored used different types of naming services. Extending our framework to include stubs stored in an LDAP server involves creating a new subclass of
ServerDescription but doesn't actually alter existing code.
ServerDescription is in place, implementing
RemoteStubCache is fairly simple. All
RemoteStubCache needs to do is maintain a hash table of stubs using instances of
ServerDescription as keys. Here's the code for
public class RemoteStubCache
private static Hashtable _serverDescriptionsToStubs= new Hashtable();
public static RemoteStub getStubToRemoteObject(ServerDescription serverDescription) throws ServerUnavailable
RemoteStub returnValue = (RemoteStub) _serverDescriptionsToStubs.get(serverDescription);
if (null == returnValue) { returnValue = serverDescription.getStub() ;
if (null!= returnValue) {
_serverDescriptionsToStubs.put(serverDescription, returnValue);
else {
throw new ServerUnavailable();
return returnValue;
public static void removeStubFromCache(ServerDescription serverDescription) {
We are now in a position to extend the framework for command objects to use a
RemoteStubCache. This involves making a slight change to
AbstractRemoteMethodCall by adding a new method,
remoteExceptionOccurred, to be called when a remote method call fails for unknown reasons (e.g., when the RMI runtime throws an instance of
After I've changed
AbstractRemoteMethodCall, I'll introduce a new abstract command object,
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall, which extends
AbstractRemoteMethodCall and uses instances of
ServerDescription to retrieve stubs from
The changes to
AbstractRemoteMethodCall are slight. We need to add the
remoteExceptionOccurred method and call it from within the retry logic whenever a remote exception is thrown. Here is the new implementation of
makeCall, with all of the the new lines highlighted.
public Object makeCall() throws ServerUnavailable, Exception {
RetryStrategy strategy = getRetryStrategy();
while (strategy.shouldRetry()) {
Remote remoteObject = getRemoteObject();
if (null==remoteObject) {
throw new ServerUnavailable();
try {
return performRemoteCall(remoteObject);
catch (RemoteException remoteException) {
try {
catch (RetryException retryException) {
return null;
protected void remoteExceptionOccurred(RemoteException remoteException) {
/* ignored in based class. */
This version of
AbstractRemoteMethodCall will actually work with the framework from the first article; the only difference is that when an instance of
RemoteException is thrown, the empty method
remoteExceptionOccurred might be called (in practice, HotSpot will eventually get rid of the method call).
remoteExceptionOccurred turns out to be a very useful method when you're caching stubs. The reason is simple: the goal of a stub cache is to reuse the same stub to a remote server unless the stub isn't valid any longer. In general, it's very hard to tell if a stub isn't valid, but we do know the following facts:
RemoteException being thrown, then the stub probably isn't valid.
RemoteException will be thrown when our code attempts to use it to make a remote method call.
For these reasons, the new subclass of
AbstractRemoteMethodCall, which has the singularly unlovely name
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall, will flush the stub from the cache if an instance of
RemoteException is thrown (by calling the
RemoteStubCache's static
removeStubFromCache method).
Here's the code for
public abstract class ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall extends AbstractRemoteMethodCall {
protected ServerDescription _serverDescription;
public ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall(ServerDescription serverDescription){
_serverDescription = serverDescription;
protected Remote getRemoteObject() throws ServerUnavailable {
try {
RemoteStub stub = RemoteStubCache.getStubToRemoteObject(_serverDescription);
return stub;
catch (ServerUnavailable serverUnavailable) {
System.out.println("Can't find stub for server " + _serverDescription);
throw serverUnavailable;
protected void remoteExceptionOccured(RemoteException remoteException) {
This simply implements
getRemoteObject as a call on a static method of
RemoteStubCache. If
RemoteStubCache already has the stub, it simply retrieves the stub from the hash table and returns the stub (without any remote method calls being made). Otherwise,
RemoteStubCache fetches a stub from the remote registry. But, whenever an instance of
RemoteException is thrown,
RemoteStubCache will be told to discard the stub. This means that if a stub has gone bad for any reason, it will be thrown away (and a replacement stub will be pulled from the remote registry) the next time any command object attempts to use it.
This will all happen without the programmer of the client code needing to do anything (or even knowing that a local stub cache is being used). It all just fits seamlessly into our framework.
Now that we've built both
RemoteStubCache and
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall, we need to integrate them into the rest of our application. And here, we're in for a pleasant surprise --
RemoteStubCache and
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall aren't just a nice addition to our framework that cuts the number of remote method calls in half; they also actually simplify the rest of our code. Here, for example, are the old and new versions of
The version from the first article:
public class TranslateWord extends AbstractRemoteMethodCall {
private Translator _translator;
private Word _sourceWord;
private Language _targetLanguage;
public TranslateWord(Translator translator, Word sourceWord, Language targetLanguage) {
_translator = translator;
_sourceWord = sourceWord;
_targetLanguage = targetLanguage;
protected Remote getRemoteObject() throws ServerUnavailable {
return (Remote) _translator;
protected Object performRemoteCall(Remote remoteObject) throws RemoteException, Exception {
Translator translator = (Translator) remoteObject;
return translator.translate(_sourceWord, _targetLanguage);
The new version:
public class TranslateWord extends ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall {
private Word _sourceWord;
private Language _targetLanguage;
public TranslateWord(ServerDescription serverDescription, Word sourceWord, Language targetLanguage) {
_sourceWord = sourceWord;
_targetLanguage = targetLanguage;
protected Object performRemoteCall(Remote remoteObject) throws RemoteException, Exception {
Translator translator = (Translator) remoteObject;
return translator.translate(_sourceWord, _targetLanguage);
The second object is actually a little shorter and cleaner. It's not a huge difference -- these two classes are recognizably the same object -- but it's still a pleasant surprise.
We extended the framework by adding three new classes and now, without any additional effort, all the classes that hook into the framework will simultaneously get some extra (and fairly sophisticated) functionality and become simpler. Now that's a good framework!
There are two basic types of servers in the world: servers that are intended to run for very long periods of time without any downtime, and servers that are intended to have a more transient lifetime. I call the second class of servers temporary servers.
Caching stubs to temporary servers is often a bad idea. The reason is that RMI implements a very nice distributed garbage collector. The way it works is simple: any stub which can be accessed by live code maintains a lease on the server. The lease is simply a promise by the RMI runtime that for a certain amount of time (the duration of the lease), the server will not be subject to garbage collecteion -- unless the server application takes extraordinary measures. When the lease is about to expire, the stub renews it.
The net effect is that if there are active stubs to a server, the server will not be picked up in garbage collection. The problem with our stub caching system is this: if an application ever obtained a stub to the server, it will cache the stub inside
RemoteStubCache forever. Which means that using
RemoteStubCache can prevent temporary servers from being collected as garbage.
If you're not familiar with the distributed garbage collector, and would like to learn more, it's fully covered in my book Java RMI.
You might think this isn't actually a problem for our implementation of
ServerDescription. Our implementation of
ServerDescription assumes that the server is bound into a running instance of the RMI registry. Stubs in the RMI registry maintain leases on the servers they reference. That means that the local stub cache is adding extra leases (one for each cached stub), but is not actually pinning the server in memory.
The problem comes when the server is removed from an RMI registry. For example, you might imagine that, at the end of the day, we use the following command object to shut down our server:
import java.rmi.*;
import java.rmi.server.*;
public class ShutdownServer extends ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall {
private String _reason;
public ShutdownServer(ServerDescription serverDescription, String reason) {
_reason = reason;
protected Object performRemoteCall(Remote remoteObject) throws RemoteException, Exception {
ServerWhichCanBeShutDown server = (ServerWhichCanBeShutDown) remoteObject;
return null;
You might think that, as long as the server removed itself from the RMI registry (which the client cannot do; for security reasons, code running on one computer cannot alter the contents of an instance of the RMI registry running on another computer), this would be sufficient.
But you would be wrong. The problem is that local stub caches have stubs that point to the server. Even though the server has been told to shut down, and even though its stub has been removed from the RMI registry, the local stub caches have already-fetched stubs. This is true even for the client that called
shutdown -- after
performRemoteCall is finished executing, the local stub cache still has a stub to the server.
Of course, this problem also has an obvious solution: client programs need to occasionally remove unused stubs from
RemoteStubCache. The only real difficulty is figuring out what strategy should be used to expire stubs which aren't being used. One simple, yet often effective, strategy is to implement the following two precepts:
RemotestubCache has a reference to a stub, the stub is being used for some purpose. Active stubs should not be expired. Otherwise, the stub is considered to be inactive and is a candidate for expiration.
Implementing this is actually a little harder than it looks. The difficult part is contained in the first bullet point: how do you tell if a stub is inactive? The answer (as you probably guessed) is that command objects make this easy -- we simply need to change the code in
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall so that it tells the instance of
RemoteStubCache when the stub is no longer being used.
In order to do this, we're simply going to add a method,
noLongerUsingStubToRemoteObject, to
RemoteStubCache and then override
makeCall in
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall as follows:
public Object makeCall() throws ServerUnavailable, Exception {
Object returnValue = null;
try {
returnValue = super.makeCall();
finally {
return returnValue;
All this does is invoke the superclass method (containing the retry logic) and then, no matter how the superclass method turns out (whether it throws an exception or not), tell
RemoteStubCache that the stub is no longer being used.
After we've done this, we simply need to change
RemoteStubCache to track how long a stub has been inactive, and then expire the old stubs. We're not going to do that in this series (it's out of the scope of these articles), but it's not a difficult thing to do.
The beauty of this new functionality is that the stub expiration logic is completely hidden from your code -- it was entirely implemented inside of the command object framework.
In this article, I extended the command object framework to seamlessly implement a local stub cache behind the scenes. In doing so, I also removed the lookup code from various places in the client, instead putting most of it into a new abstract command object,
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall. If we revisit the previous article's cost-benefit analysis now, we'd see the following:
ClientFrame is easy to read code and all of the details of the remote call have been placed in a separate location.
ServerDescription is logically clean.
We've now put the naming and lookup code in a single place, and replaced calls to the RMI registry with
ServerDescription objects. Remote method invocations now consist of creating a server description and passing it to a command object.
ServerDescriptionBasedRemoteMethodCall is almost trivial -- it's both easy to write and easy to see (at a glance) that it's correct.
Related Reading
Java RMI
On the other hand, we haven't really addressed some of the problems mentioned in the the first article in this series. In particular, we still have the following two problems:
makeCall -- returning instances of
Object and throwing
Exception -- is a violation of good programming practices. We've lost a fair amount of type safety here.
From looking at these lists, it should be clear that command objects make life better. They simplify client code, make the client more robust, make it possible to seamlessly implement things like local stub caches, and allow you to say things like "I optimized performance of our distributed application by implementing a local stub cache using the command pattern" around the water cooler.
In the next, and final, article in this series, I'll address the problem of type safety. After discussing the newly-defined generics extension to the Java programming language, I'll show how it partially addresses this problem by allowing us to return strongly typed values (instead of instances of
Object) and slightly narrow our use of
William Grosso is a coauthor of Java Enterprise Best Practices.
Return to ONJava.com.
Copyright © 2009 O'Reilly Media, Inc.


text:
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Don't have an account with us yet? Please set up an account to place order or obtain customer services.
This peptide is histone H3 (69-89) trimethylated at Lys79 and phosphorylated at Thr80, followed by a C-terminal Lys biotinylated on its epsilon side chain. Lys79 and Thr80 are part of a genomic silencing cluster whose side chains are exposed on the nucleosome surface and interact with silencing proteins. Modification of these residues disrupts telomeric and mating locus silencing. Lys79 methylation is mediated by DOT1 protein and limits transcriptional repression to discrete loci by inhibiting the binding of Sir proteins to other locations. Provided at >95% peptide purity, this peptide was dissolved in distilled water at 1 mg/ml and re-lyophilized to powder form.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Report: Massive fire burns in Kansas City shopping district
AP: Multiple injuries reported
Multiple injuries were reported from a massive fire that burned Tuesday night in an upscale shopping district in Kansas City, The Associated Press reported.
A suspected gas explosion sparked the blaze, which engulfed an entire block at the Country Club Plaza, the wire service reported.
Television video showed dozens of firefighters battling flames through heavy smoke with massive amounts of debris, AP said.
Police spokeswoman Rhonda Flores told the AP that it appeared that a car crashed into a gas main. She said an initial call for three ambulances had been increased to 10, the wire service said.
She told the AP that she had not heard of any reported fatalities.
The shopping area was established in 1922 and includes retail, restaurants, apartments and offices, the AP reported.


text:
For the 2010 model year, Dodge will offer Challenger in up to four unique High Impact colors.
B5 Blue will be extended beyond the 2009 model year and will be offered into the fall of this year on 2010 models. Following B5 Blue, Detonator Yellow will be offered on both R/T Classic and SRT8®. If you are looking for your Challenger in either B5 Blue or Detonator Yellow, get your order in today!
The next color to be introduced is one many of you have…Read More


text:
Home > News, Stories & Videos > News
World Vision provides generators to bring clean water to Filipino communities ravaged by Typhoon Haiyan.
In Tabogon, a municipality in the Philippines' northern Cebu province, the water taps are running again, bringing clean water to Somosa Elementary School.
After Typhoon Haiyan severely damaged the school and knocked out the electric power in November, many children and families had only unsafe, open wells to drink from.
"We were worried where to get drinking water for the children when the classes resumed, and how to clean the classrooms of the mud and debris left by the typhoon," says teacher Armae Curiba. They needed water for hand-washing and toilets as well.
When classes resumed, "we asked the students to bring water every day that they would need while in school," Armae says. "It was very difficult, as they live far from the school, and the deep well is located in another village."
Many children were late for classes and arrived at school weary after walking miles for water.
Now World Vision has provided a generator so Somosa Elementary School and nearby homes have a steady supply of clean water. Though power has been restored, the electric cooperative imposes rotating brownouts. On some days, the generator is being used for 12 hours to keep the water flowing.
After a disaster, "access to clean water is an immediate priority to ensure good health of the community, especially the children," says Ajab Macapagat, World Vision's manager for the Haiyan recovery project on Cebu island.
In Julita town, Leyte province, World Vision and UNICEF provided a generator to restore the water system and decontaminated the water tank. The local government operates and maintains the water system with community participation, says Ronnie Santos, World Vision's water and sanitation coordinator.
"We not only provide materials; we want the community to be part of the project and to own it," Ronnie says. "We mobilize and encourage them to contribute what they have, like diesel for the generator."
Says 55-year-old Fe Heria, a resident of Dita village, "It [the water system] is the best thing we received after the typhoon."
Read about more local recovery accomplishments three months after Typhoon Haiyan slammed the Philippines.
Thank God for the progress toward recovery in the Philippines. Please pray for ongoing rebuilding projects and long-term plans for recovery.
Sponsor a child in the Philippines. When a disaster like Typhoon Haiyan strikes, sponsorship provides a child and entire community with life-saving basics and fosters resiliency in the aftermath.
Make a one-time donation to World Vision's Philippines Disaster Response Fund. Your contribution will help us deliver life-saving assistance, like clean water, in the aftermath of sudden-onset emergencies in the Philippines, including Typhoon Haiyan.


text:
Your Sponsored Child Prays for You
"We hope we can always uphold our sponsors in our prayers. I hope our sponsors also want to tell more about struggles that they face every day. It will help us not just know them better, it will help us to have better relationships with them and Christ through our prayers." And so prays Megawati, one of the sponsored children from Sola Fide.Continue Reading ›


text:
"Thank you for the work that you do. This March will mark my third year back in the Catholic Church. By God's grace, he brought me back using Catholic Answers Live and EWTN. I will be forever grateful."
~ JoAnn
"Approaching, do not come with your palms stretched flat nor with fingers separated. But making your left hand a seat for your right, and hollowing your palm, receive the Body of Christ, responding Amen. And having with care hallowed your eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, take it, vigilant lest you drop any of it."
~ Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, Doctor of the Church, Saint; on the proper technique for receiving Holy Communion in the hand (circa A.D. 347).


text:
Home List of Titles Lifetime distribution of spontaneous emission from emitter(s) in three-dimensional woodpile photonic crystals
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/196321
|Download PDF (Published version) (Adobe Acrobat PDF, 1 MB)
- Title
- Lifetime distribution of spontaneous emission from emitter(s) in three-dimensional woodpile photonic crystals
- Author(s)
- Liu, Jing-Feng; Jiang, Hao-Xiang; Gan, Zong-Song; Jia, Bao-Hua; Jin, Chong-Jun; Wang, Xue-Hua; Gu, Min
- Abstract
- Spontaneous emission lifetime distribution in the basic unit cell or on a plane of the excited emitters embedded in woodpile photonics crystals with low refractive index contrast are investigated. It is found that the spontaneous emission lifetime distribution strongly depends on the position and transition frequency of the emitters, and has the same symmetry as that of the unit cell. The lifetimes of emitters near the upper gap edge are longer than that in the center of the pseudo-gap, which is quite a contrast to the conventional concept. Furthermore, it is revealed that the polarization orientation of the emitters has significant influence on the lifetime distribution, and may result in a high anisotropy factor (defined as the difference between the maximum and minimum values of the lifetime) up to 4.2. These results may be supplied in probing the lifetime distribution or orientation-dependent local density of states in future experiments.
- Publication type
- Journal article
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences. Centre for Micro-Photonics
- Source
- Optics Express, Vol. 19, no. 12 (Jun 2011), pp. 11623-11630
- Publication year
- 2011
- FOR Code(s)
- 0205 Optical Physics; 0903 Biomedical Engineering; 1113 Ophthalmology and Optometry
- Keyword(s)
- Lifetime distribution; Photonic crystals; Spontaneous emission; Woodpile structures
- Publisher
- Optical Society of America
- 1094-4087
- Publisher URL
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2011 OSA. This paper was published in Optics Express and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/oe.19.011623. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.
- Research Projects
- Full text
- Peer reviewed


text: yeah, i can't remember the last game we made a come from behind and won. bet its been a month. The really good teams do that often. How many times have you seen the Spurs, Nets, OKC etc do this...quite a few i bet...we need change. I also don't think Woody is as good as some of you guys think. He never makes adjustments during the games. The way it looks we won't be in the EC Finals this year unless we make an amazing trade and Woody staightens up


text:
FurrBall a roaring success
March 6, 2013 —
HAWLEY, PA — It's been a banner year so far for the Dessin Animal Shelter as it celebrates its 45th anniversary and fifth FurrBall. This annual fundraising event, held on Saturday at the Inn at Woodloch Pines, was attended by 262 supporters—the biggest turnout ever according to organizers.
"We've had more sponsors than we've ever had in the past," said Dessin's executive director Dara Coslett Granza. In all, 45 raffle baskets were donated by 135 contributors, plus approximately $6,000 worth of items, including a kayak and diamond pendent that were given for the a auction.
"I really want to express our gratitude to all our donors and sponsors this year," said Tammy Hardler, president of the board of directors. "I just can't express how important it is to us for all of the people to give like they do…. That is our main lifeline, our donations. If we don't have them, the shelter will not exist.
"You see it every day, different shelters, maybe towards western Pennsylvania, where they're going out of business because they can't sustain…. We're fortunate. We've had tough times in the past, and this population in Wayne County seems to be able to keep us going. And it's just amazing. It's like I said, 'This is a wonderful place to live, because when you have a need, these people just step up,'" Hardler said.
Money raised during the annual event goes to capital expenses, such as renovating the shelter's outdoor kennels, repaving the parking lot, purchasing a new van and helping to offset veterinary bills in animal abuse cases.
Coslett Granza pointed to a number of animal cruelty and hoarding cases reported in the area, including the rescue of 61 beagles in September, an emaciated dog found abandoned in a Pike County home that is now recovering in foster care, and an ongoing case involving a puppy dragged behind a moving vehicle for more than a mile.
It's hard to understand why anyone would harm such a defenseless animal. "They love you unconditionally. They almost sense your mood," Coslett Granza said. She told how the other day, she was playing with a brindle pitbull that's up for adoption. "She was wagging her tail and licking me and giving me her toy. They give so willingly, and I hope they forget, because some have been through so much," she said.
In 2012, Dessin adopted out 700 animals, the most in the shelter's history. "We're a small, rural shelter," Coslett Granza said. "To give 700 animals new, forever homes gives me goose bumps."


text: Transcontinental Railroad (4) tv-pg Play video Select your TV provider to log in to have full access to videos Select your TV provider See all providers Don't see your TV provider? Learn more You can access this video on the free HISTORY® app. *You must verify your TV provider towatch this video on the App Your Parental Control settings do not allow you to view this content. Transcontinental Railroad (4 min) tv-pg Find out how the transcontinental railroad transformed America into one nation.


text:
FinFET devices have added significant complexity to the design flow, and many companies are seeking new solutions for custom design. Custom Compiler's pioneering visually-assisted automation can cut layout tasks from days to hours.
On June 7, 2016, Synopsys hosted a Custom Compiler Luncheon at DAC. At this event, attendees heard users discuss their experiences with custom design challenges and how they have deployed Custom Compiler to improve their custom design productivity for both FinFET and established nodes.
GSI, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys IP
On March 31, 2016, Synopsys hosted a Custom Compiler Lunch 'n' Learn at SNUG Silicon Valley. At this event, attendees heard industry leaders share their experiences using the new Custom Compiler visually-assisted automation to meet the challenges of FinFET custom design, and discuss how it improves their custom design productivity.
AMD, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys IP
Antun Domic, Executive VP and GM of the Design Group unveils Synopsys' next-generation custom design solution.Custom Compiler brings new levels of productivity to FinFET layout by employing visually-assisted automation technologies that speed up common design tasks, reduce iterations, and enable reuse.
Antun Domic, Executive VP and GM of the Design Group, Synopsys
On March 23, 2015, during the 25th annual Synopsys User Group (SNUG) in Silicon Valley, industry leaders shared how 10X faster throughput has transformed the way they think about product development, opening up a world of new opportunities. Watch this video to learn why, just one year after its introduction, IC Compiler II has proven to be a game-changer in physical design. ARM, MediaTek , Renesas, Synopsys, Toshiba
On June 2, 2014, Synopsys hosted the 10th annual IC Compiler customer event during the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco. Attendees heard industry experts share their experiences using IC Compiler at the latest process nodes. Avago Technologies discussed the deployment of IC Compiler II, Synopsys' recently introduced place and route solution with the power of 10X, to address their cutting-edge design challenges.Avago, NVIDIA, Samsung, Synopsys
These highly informative sessions from DAC 2013 cover the latest design trends, challenges and solutions. Hear leading industry experts from LSI, HP and ARM present best practices and their success with Synopsys implementation products. Learn how these customers have accelerated innovation for their Gigascale, GigaHz+, low power and advanced geometry design challenges.
Michael V. Leuzze, Design Center Manager, LSI, Martin Foltin, Master Technologist, HP, Tim Whitfield, Director of Engineering, ARM
This videotaped session was jointly delivered by Synopsys and HiSilicon Technologies at ARM TechCon 2012. Synopsys' Kevin Yip highlighted Synopsys' high-performance core methodology and key technologies in Design Compiler®, IC Compiler™, PrimeTime® and IC Validator. Featured technologies included physical guidance for implementation predictability, multisource clock tree synthesis for an OCV tolerant clock structure, transparent interface optimization for top-level closure and final stage leakage recovery for leakage power optimization. Chunsheng Liu of HiSilicon Technologies shared HiSilicon's experience and results on the successful application of these performance and power enabling techniques in the tapeout of a complex ARM Cortex-A15 based SoC design.Kevin Yip, Senior Applications Consulting (AC) Manager, Synopsys Inc.
Catherine Xiayu, Director of the COT Design Department, HiSilicon Technologies
Chunsheng Liu, Principle Engineer in the COT Design Department, HiSilicon Technologies
This presentation was delivered by Brian Millar of Samsung at ARM TechCon 2012. Mr. Millar describes how the Synopsys Galaxy™ Implementation Platform was used for a high performance, low power implementation of an ARM® Cortex™-A15 processor for mobile applications. The successful application and trade-offs of key technologies and techniques from synthesis to place and route that enabled high performance were described. Technologies highlighted include topographical synthesis, physical datapath, clock mesh, multivoltage design, and multicorner/multimode optimization, all of which were used successfully by the design team to achieve the aggressive performance/power target and an improvement of 20 percent over traditional implementation techniques.Brian Millar, Physical Implementation Lead, Samsung Electronics
This presentation was delivered by Jason Karka and Michael Robinson of Texas Instruments at Austin SNUG 2012. It highlights key strategies used in a Synopsys IC Compiler™ place-and-route flow for a 28nm quad-core ARM® Cortex™-A15 processor with 4MB L2 Cache. Various physical design techniques were used to obtain very high clock frequencies. Many of these tactics will be of use not only to designers implementing quad-core A15 processors, but also to those designing other 28nm high-performance chips. Topics discussed include net patterning and layer assignment to deal with a tapered metal stack, hierarchical partitioning, placement density and clustering, clock gate cloning, useful skew, logic-level balanced CTS and techniques for post-route setup and hold closure.Jason Karka, Texas Instruments Designer
Michael Robinson, Texas Instruments Designer
On June 4, 2012, Synopsys hosted an IC Compiler luncheon during the Design Automation Conference (DAC) where Mr. Philippe Magarshack of STMicroelectronics spoke about enabling 20nm for multimedia convergence. Philippe Magarshack, Corporate Vice President, Design Enablement & Services, STMicroelectronics
Dr. Joerg Winkler is a Fellow at GLOBALFOUNDRIES in Dresden, Germany working within the Design Enablement group. On June 4, 2012, Synopsys hosted an IC Compiler luncheon during the Design Automation Conference (DAC) where Dr. Winkler spoke about designing at 20nm technology and beyond. Dr. Joerg Winkler, Fellow, Design Enablement , GLOBALFOUNDRIES
The 20nm process node poses a number of new, complex design tool challenges. Synopsys' Andy Biddle asks GLOBALFOUNDRIES' Richard Trihy how the company plans to enable its customers for this technology. Richard Trihy, director Design Methodology, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
Andy Biddle, product marketing manager, Synopsys
Samsung Electronics discussed design challenges and solutions for high-performance mobile SoCs during the Synopsys High-Performance Insight Series at DAC 2012.
In this video, Dr. Seomun describes Samsung's success using the Galaxy™ Implementation Platform on its latest cutting-edge designs.
Jun Seomun, Ph.D. Sr. Engineer, Design Technology Team, Infrastructure Design Center, Samsung Electronics, System LSI
During the Synopsys High-Performance Insight Series at DAC 2012, NVIDIA's Vikas Agrawal discusses NVIDIA's success designing for high performance using the Galaxy™ Implementation Platform on its latest designs.Vikas Agrawal
VLSI Design Methodology Manager, NVIDIA
On January 31, 2012, Synopsys hosted an HSPICE SIG Event in Santa Clara, CA. At this event, industry leaders spoke about their experiences using HSPICE in some of their most challenging designs.
Tony Todesco, SMTS Design Engineer, AMD; Johann Nittman, Signal Integrity Engineer, Cavium Networks; Liping Li, Sr. Member of the Technical Staff, Altera; Randy Wolff, Manager, Signal Integrity R&D Group, Micron; Scott Wedge, Sr. Staff Engineer, Synopsys
On January 31, 2011, Synopsys hosted its first HSPICE SIG Event in Santa Clara, CA. At this event, industry leaders spoke about using HSPICE in some of today's most challenging designs.Synopsys, Inc.
Steve Smith, Sr. Director of Marketing for the Galaxy Platform provides an overview of the many advancements made in the last year to Synopsys' comprehensive RTL-to-GDSII implementation solution, including a tighter connection between synthesis and place-and-route with physical guidance, new In-Design physical verification, enhanced signoff for large designs, improved multicore capabilities, the Lynx Design System and 28nm readiness.Synopsys
At DAC in June 2010, industry experts at AMD, LSI Corporation, Renesas Electronics, Samsung, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments presented to over 200 Synopsys guests. The presenters explained how they relied on In-design physical verification with IC Validator for improved productivity and faster design closure.
John Chilton, Moderator, Sr. VP of Marketing & Corporate Development, Synopsys -- Antun Domic, Sr. VP and General Manager of the Implementation Business Unit, Synopsys -- Davide Casalotto, Design Methodologies Project Leader, STMicroelectronics -- Ed Roseboom, Member, Technical Staff, AMD -- Kyle Peavy, Physical Design Engineer, Texas Instruments -- Koki Tsurusaki, Senior Engineer, Back-end Design Technology Development Dept., Platform Integration Division , Renesas Electronics -- Tom Luczejko, Director, Principal Engineer, LSI Corporation -- Harpreet Gill Sr. Engineering Manager, System LSI SoC R&D, Samsung Electronics


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Celebrities with July birthdays
Published On: Jun 25 2011 09:59:47 PM CDT Updated On: Jul 05 2016 01:00:00 AM CDT
If you've got a birthday coming up in July and wonder which famous stars might be celebrating along with you, wonder no more.
The views expressed are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the Terms Of Service and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms.


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This Luxury App Takes You Window Shopping Around the World
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It's not exactly an idea you'd expect from two 20-somethings, dreamed up one night while cramming for final exams.
But that's how brothers Stijn and Jeroen Verrezen came up with their iPhone and iPad app, which allows users to window-shop the flagship storefronts of the world's most expensive and exclusive luxury brands.
Officially launched at the recent conclusion of fashion week in New York City, the Turnhills Window Shopping app literally puts worldwide window-shopping at your fingertips. And this is luxury window-shopping. Think Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Michael Kors and more.
"The most expensive brands -- it's really unbelievable what they do with their windows -- you will see Louis Vuitton has skeletons of dinosaurs on display. It's amazing. Each time they do their window, they try to come up with something totally original. It's almost a form of art," Stijn Verrezen says during a phone interview from Belgium, where the two brothers grew up and still live.
The app is actually the latest incarnation of the brother's computer-based window shopping idea; they launched a website last year.
The idea is to feature regularly updated images of flagship storefronts because flagship stores typically display items available at all the other stores around the country or world for a particular brand, Stijn Verrezen says.
Once window-shoppers identify a must-have item in a storefront via the app, they can head to the designer's local store to try it on and buy it. Or buy the item online.
"The collections are pretty much the same at your local store, but the window of the local shopping mall store is much smaller," Stijn Verrezen says. "So to get ideas about the latest trends, you can peek through brands on our app. This is like window-shopping in the real world."
"Window shopping is an important aspect of real-life shopping," he adds. "And it's also of great value to the virtual shopping experience. It gives someone a first impression of a particular brand without going to the brand website."
Rigorously updated, the app provides real-time content from around the world. Users can swipe through shopping districts on their iPhone or iPad to view the latest arrivals and fashion trends of 23 luxury brands.


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Our Mission
We believe the art of brewing and tasting fine craft beer deserves love and appreciation, and these characteristics are ingrained in every store staff member, so if you possess the same appreciation we are well suited to meet your needs. Whether you are a newly-brewing beer nut or the long-time connoisseur, our extensive selection and knowledgeable staff are perfect for providing you with new tasting experiences and food paring that only accentuates your beer enjoyment.
Our Stores
Come into the shop and meet our experts who can navigate you through our wall-to-wall shelf selection and our ready-to-go cooler section. While you're here, pick up some glassware, t-shirts, hats and other paraphenalia that proudly announces to the world, I am a Brew Connoisseur! Stop in and see us!
Our Website
If you're snowed in or just stuck at the office, stay a while and explore our site. See the current On-Tap selection on our online chalk-board; check it frequently as the beers change! Check out "The Store" under our About section where you can get a sense of our contemporary yet comfortable environment. See our Beeriety (It's what we sell!) to develop a shopping list if you don't have time to enjoy a pint while you browse. View the FAQ and learn a thing or two about us and beer! Check out What's Hoppenin' – the place to go for up-to-date Casual Pint events. Our Blog, Ferment It's Worth… is full of all kinds of interesting distractions for the avid Beer Lover. Or just Give Us a Buzz – we'll be sure to do the same!
Before you leave – make sure to sign up for our Newsletter so you can keep the buzz going at home, at work or wherever you read your email.


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I like this website, how can I support MySlam.net?
Spread the word. Tell your friends and invite them to register as well.
If you have your own website or blog you can link to MySlam.net. You can find link logos here. And you can say "MySlam.net - Living Poets Society" in any microphone.
If you want to donate, you can do so via PayPal:
Notice: This is actually no donation. I can't give you any donation receipt.
Where is all the content?
In case you can't see any content, please check if you have selected the right countries (in the top of the website). You only see content related to countries you selected there. At the moment most content comes from German speaking countries. Help filling in content, by adding locations to the map, events to the calendar or write a post to your country's forum. If there is no forum for your country, please let me know. I can create one for your. Contact
My Account
I uploaded a new profil picture, but I still see the old one.
If you didn't get any error message, chances are that everything is fine. Your browser keeps images in its cache, so it shows you the old image from your browser cache. Refresh the page several times or empty your browser cache. You should then see the new picture.
I forgot my password. What can I do?
You can get a new password here: new password In the field provided, enter the email address you registered with (it can differ from your contact email addresse of your profile)
How can I change my password?
Login, then you can do that here: change password
What does "homeslam" mean?
Your homeslam is the poetry slam location next to you, where you probably perform most of the time. By specifying a homeslam visitors of MySlam.net can see who is "at home" at their favorite location.
How can I add someone to my list of friends?
By clicking the link provided directly below the profile picture.
Why is the travelled distance not shown in my profile?
To calculate the travelled distance, you have to select a homeslam in your profile. The geo-location of your homeslam will be used to calculate the travelled distance. Further you need to participate in at least one event, that is associated with an slam location. Events like workshops, readings or location-independend slams don't have any geo-location, so they can't be included in the calculation of your travelled distance. In the brackets [] the number of location-associated slams is shown. If it is zero, no distance can be calculated.
My forum post doesn't appear on the frontpage. Why?
The frontpage's appearance depends on user settings. You only see forum posts from forum categories you have subscribed to. If you havn't subcribed to any categorie you see posts of all categories. You can change your forum settings here: Forum settings
I don't want any email notification when a new forum post has been posted!
Change your forum settings here: Forum settings
Poetry slam map and locations
I'm set as the slam master/moderator of slam xyz, but that's wrong.
When you submitted the slam location, you are be default set as the slam master/moderator of this location. Another reason can be, that someone handed this location over to you. In both cases you can hand over the location to someone else. If the right slam master/moderator is not yet registered here, invite him/her to do so. How you hand over a location is explained in the following questions.
I am the host/slam master/moderator of a slam location in the map. How can I edit the location details?
To do so you have to be set as the slam master/moderator of this location. If no one is set contact me (here). In case someone else is set as slam master/moderator ask him/her to hand over the location to you.
Can two or more users be set as slam master/moderator?
No. This is not possible at the moment.
I'm no longer slam master/host/moderator of a slam location. What can I do?
You can hand over the location to someone else. To do so, in your user menu click on the location and then edit. Set a new slam master/moderator and save.
I am the slam master/moderator/host of a location in the map, but I'm not set as slam master/moderator. What can I do?
If someone else is set, ask him to hand over the location to you. If no one is set, ask me: contact
How can I submit a new location to the map?
Please note, that only locations with regular poetry slam events should be submitted. Poetry slams that take place only once (e.g. on festivals or faires) should only be submitted to the calendar. After submitting a location, an administrator has to activate it, before it appears on the map.
If you still want to submit a locations, you can do that here: add slam location.
I have submitted a new poetry slam location, but it doesn't appear on the map. Why?
Before a new slam location appears on the map it has to be moderated bei an admin. Further the map only shows slam locations, for which upcoming events have been submitted.
How can I edit events?
Login, then go to the calendar. Every event that you have the right to edit has a small edit-icon below it. Click there. Also in the detailed view of these events you can find a link in the upper right corner.
I submitted an event, but it doesn't appear in the calendar. Why?
Events have to be activated by an administrator before they appear in the calendar. If this takes more than 3 days, we are on holidays. Another reason could be, that you submitted a "solo performance". These events only appear in your personal profile and not in the main calendar.
How can I delete an event?
If you are the submitter of the event or the slam master of the location the event belongs to, you can delete the event as long as it lies in the future. To delete an event, please go to the detail page of that event. You will find a link "delete event" in the upper right.
1.place, 2. place, 3. place
I incidentally set myself as 1.place/2.place/3.place. What can I do?
Ask the slam master/moderator of the associated slam. He/She can change that. If no location was associated with the event and if it is REALLY important, then you can ask one of the administrators to change it.
Countries and languages
I'm confused!?
It's simple:
On top of this website you can set two different things.
1) The language. After you selected a language all menues, buttons etc are in the selected language 2) The countries. Select some of the countries. You will then only see content related to these countries. All other content won't be shown.
Further questions
My question has not been answered here
Write an email: contact


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Ohioans will share cost of uninsured citizens
States now can choose to cover more citizens through Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act creates a new category of Medicaid benefits which would cover adults whose yearly income falls below 138 percent of the federal poverty level (about $15,800 for a single individual). Ohio lawmakers have not yet approved this change for our state, our communities.
Many are concerned about the costs to Ohio if Medicaid is expanded. There are also costs to Ohio if Medicaid is not expanded. For expanded Medicaid, the federal government will pay 100 percent for 2014, 2015, and 2016. After 2016 the federal match decreases on an annual basis to not less than 90 percent by 2020 and in later years. This "enhanced match" for expanded Medicaid exceeds the current rate of 64-65 percent.
If Ohio doesn't expand Medicaid, the state will not get the higher federal match. Just by delaying expansion, Ohio has the potential to lose months of 100 percent federal match money. Instead of getting the projected amount of $23.8 billion in additional federal funds flowing into Ohio's economy through 2019, Ohioans' federal taxes will go to pay for expanded Medicaid in other states.
A recent study by Ohio State University and the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, with others, concluded that Medicaid expansion would have a positive economic impact on every county in Ohio. With more funds paying for more health care coverage locally, employment is projected to increase especially in the areas of ambulatory health services, hospitals, insurance carriers, administrative and support services, construction and retail trade. The increased economic activity generated is expected to result in increased local general sales tax income. In Washington County, the projected new local general sales tax revenues in 2015 due to Medicaid expansion amounts to $120,517; in Monroe County $19,541; in Morgan County $14,232; and in Noble County $12,751.
In addition to these community economic benefits, with Medicaid expansion, every county will see an increase in uninsured residents getting health care coverage. Washington and surrounding counties could see between 55 percent 64 percent decrease in uninsured adults if Ohio expands Medicaid. You or someone you know, lacking health insurance or the money to pay for medical care, may put off going to the doctor, filling a prescription, or delay treatment until a condition becomes a health catastrophe.
As long as there are uninsured in Ohio, every Ohioan will share the cost of their care through higher insurance rates, cost shifting, higher fees, and the cost of emergency, instead of preventative, care.
Robin A. Bozian,
managing attorney
Southeastern Ohio
Legal Services


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One of the most important milestones in your child's life is their first communion. Preparing for this religious ceremony doesn't have to be a strenuous undertaking, and in fact will be quite enjoyable with our collection of first communion invitations. We take the difficulty out of choosing the right invitation and make the process of selection extremely easy down to the very last step.
We have a wide variety of communion invitations sure to fit your specific wants and needs. Each of our invitations can be customized to your liking by simply clicking the Personalize button.


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Crescent Moon Games | 516 MB | $ 6.99
Due to the success of the first iteration of Ravensword, the developers decided to release a new game to the lineup. Ravensword: Shadowlands is the second iteration in the newly blooming Ravensword franchise. It isn't perfect, but does a decent job entertaining you while you wait for something else to come along. (more…)


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June 19, 2013 —
Superintendent Robert Dufour said that beginning in the fall, Eldred Central School District (ECSD) will allow the use of cell phones and other electronic devices, "on a limited and controlled basis."
He made the remarks at the school board meeting on June 13. He said, "In this digital age, it has become necessary to modify our practices and promote the positive use of personal electronic devices rather than spending our time on negative enforcement practices of denial and confiscation."
He said ECSD would be adopting a policy similar to one in place in the Monticello Central School District. He said, "It's based on green areas, which include hallways and the cafeteria where these devices may be used; yellow areas, which constitute classrooms, the library and other instructional areas, where the devices may be used if permitted by the teacher; and red areas, bathrooms and locker rooms, where the devices may not be used at all."
Dufour said the pilot program would apply to the junior and senior high school. Monticello has been using the policy for the past year and it has not interfered with instruction there. He said the change has been requested by parents, students and staff to modify the current policy regarding electronic devices. He said teachers and administrators spend a good amount of time telling students to put their devices away, or confiscating them, and the new policy might change that for the better.
In other news, Dufour said that because the district has been approved for accepting foreign exchange students, the district will be actively seeking such students. He said the cost of tuition for Kindergarten through sixth grade would be $10,438 and for the upper grades the cost would be $14,257.
Also, Dufour invited members of the district's music department, Justin Glodich and Brittany Robinson, to accept a resolution sent by Senator John Bonacic.
Dufour read the letter Bonacic sent. It said, "It's always nice to read about great things happening, congratulations on Eldred's designation as one of the Best Communities for Music Education. It is with great pleasure that I provide you with the attached New York State resolution, which I sponsored and was passed by the entire Senate in recognition of this outstanding achievement."
The designation came from the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation.


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The Pauls Valley facility serves as a resting point for animals arriving from the West and being shipped to adoption locations in the central and eastern United States. With 12 pastures stretching across 400 acres of land, the facility provides wild horses and burros a natural and safe environment until they are placed in new homes. The facility can hold a maximum of 600 animals. A drive-up interpretation center situated near the pastures allows visitors to view the animals as they leisurely roam and graze on the land.
The Pauls Valley facility is located on the west side of Interstate 35, approximately 45 miles south of Oklahoma City. Take Exit 74, Kimberlin Road, and go 1/4 mile west to facility entrance and look for signs.
Adoptions are held on site at the facility the second Tuesday of each month from 8 a.m. to noon.
A mixed group of 30-40 animals is offered at each adoption, often including burros and young horses. Call the facility directly at 405-238-7138 to learn specifics about the selection of animals expected to be available at an upcoming adoption. We're sorry, but the facility cannot accept special requests for specific animals to be made available.
Application approval is required to adopt and can be done on site. Click here for adoption information.
Receive $500 dollars when you adopt an adult horse (4 years old +) from the Pauls Valley facility. Click here for details.


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Existentialism Revisited
RSBS has devoted many pages to an ongoing debate between the great minds that form the RSBS duoverse. No, I'm not referring to our liberal vs. conservative clash over the way the game of baseball is played. And I'm not talking about the unending fount of sophistry springing from my colleague regarding the eternal question, which team is better, the Tigers or the Cardinals.
No, our fundamental debate is much more existential and with its subject back in the news, now seems the right time to revisit the topic.
Erin Andrews.
That she is an attractive woman is not open debate because that goes without saying. But my co-blogger's unhealthy obsession with Ms. Andrews sometimes makes me wonder what goes on inside his head. She's cute but she's not that cute. And she's a Florida Gator which automatically deducts a point from the ten point beauty rating scale we all know so well (a much less harsh deduction than the 2.5 point penalty meted out to any graduate of the University of Notre Dame, a university who's men's basketball team recently went down in delightfully ignominious defeat during the first round of the NCAA tournament I might add).
However, even I have to admit that she's looking very nice on Dancing With the Stars. And that's saying something when you're up against Nicole Scherzinger and a very svelte looking Pam Anderson.
I'm not saying that Jeff has won this debate, not by any stretch. But, since I can admit when another person has a legitimate point, I'm admitting that in this instance Ms. Andrews is looking good. That being said, she's still no Allison Stokke.
11 Comments
Some would venture to say that she looks better through a peephole, but it wouldn't be me.😉
Was that a fake laugh bro?😉 Seriously, and I'm not bragging, BUT I have seen two of the contestants nekkid.
I'm more partial to brunettes, so I'd be voting for your Allison in this debate. To each thier own, though…
I watched the first episode and got bored…guess the dancing thing is only interesting if something bad happens…ya know, like watching a car crash ;o)
HAHA, Sue. Good one. I don't watch the show, but how could anything beat Heather Mills dancing on her fake leg?
I would think Pamela Anderson would be hampered somewhat by that very high center of gravity she's got. Though if she spins out of control, it's like having built in airbags.
Rants, Raves, and Random Thoughts
You are so funny!
I don't have time to watch these shows! I only have time to work,eat,sleep and baseball!
Matt, Jenna would be my wife, Erin my mistress… if I were one to do that sorta thing that is… which I am… not.


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From tight cx courses to wide-open gravel and dirt, this lightweight and super versatile 'cross machine does it all.
FRAME: ALUXX SLR-Grade Aluminium
FORK: Advanced-Grade Composite, Full-Composite OverDrive 2 Steerer
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SHIFTERS: SRAM Rival 1 11 speed
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CASSETTE: SRAM PG1130 11x32
CRANKSET: FSA Gossamer Pro 1x 40T
BOTTOM BRACKET: FSA Mega EXO press fit
RIMS: Giant P-X2 Wheel Set
HUBS: Giant P-X2 Wheel Set, Front/Rear 12mm-Thru Axle
SPOKES: Sapim Race
TYRES: Schwalbe Super Swan, 700x35mm, Folding
EXTRAS: Giant 1X Chain Guide, Prime Aero Race Axles
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What is in this article?:
- Rising food prices: reasons, implications
- Livestock
- Acreage projections
- Ethanol/biofuels
- Crop insurance
- Land prices/dairy
- FAPRI baseline report released.
- Among things covered: food prices, acreage predictions, livestock/dairy sectors, crop insurance.
More About:
The annual agricultural baseline report by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) projects food prices will rise not only from higher prices paid for farm products but due to rising energy costs.
In mid-March, Pat Westhoff, co-director of the Columbia, Mo.-based FAPRI, spoke with Delta Farm Press about FAPRI's expectations for crop prices, costs of production, the livestock and dairy sectors, crop insurance and land prices. Westhoff -- recently returned from meetings with legislators in Washington, D.C. -- spoke just prior to his presentation at the March 14Missouri Agricultural Outlook Conference. Among his comments:
What were some of the main concerns, the things you were asked about in D.C. this week?
"One thing that gets a lot of attention around the country – around the world, actually – is food prices. One of the highlights of the (FAPRI) baseline is we're showing a bit faster food price inflation in 2011 and 2012. In fact, it's faster than the overall rate of inflation in the economy."
For more, see baseline report.
"That gets people's attention and they're worried about what effect that can have on people who spend much of their income on food. And that also leads to questions about the effect on the general rate of inflation in the economy.
"There are different stories for why that's happening with particular commodities. But there are two major drivers for the big picture: we have higher farm commodity prices for a wide variety of products and we also have higher prices for energy, which increase the cost of getting rural farm products processed and transported to the consumers. Combined, those things have contributed to the 4.2 percent food price inflation rate projected for 2012."
On overall farm income…
"Another area where interest was sparked was in overall farm income. We're looking at potential record levels of net farm income – at least on a current dollar basis. This year, adjusted for inflation, we might have net farm income of around $99 billion. That would top previous records by a fair amount. Even correcting for inflation that would be almost as much as 2004, the last time when net farm income levels were very high.
"For most grain farmers – corn, soybeans, wheat – it's been a pretty positive year. There have been high prices for most of those commodities. Even in the case where yields were a bit below normal, they aren't so far below the norm that farmers don't have more revenue than they normally would.
"The costs of production are higher than most would prefer. But they aren't jumping at the rate they were in 2007 and 2008."


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To download this product, you'll need Garmin Express.
Due to changing circumstances, the third party services necessary to support the operations of your GTU 10 tracker terminated Jan. 1, 2016. As a result, your GTU 10 is no longer operational. We apologize for the inconvenience
GTU 10 is a GPS locator that combines a web-based gps tracking service so you can keep watch on children, pets and property. You can track your GTU 10 from our secure website using any computer or with the free Garmin Tracker™ app.
The GTU 10 is small, lightweight and water resistant. It easily attaches to a backpack, pet collar or whatever is important to you.
When you purchase a new GTU 10, it comes with 1 year of Standard GPS Tracking (see the coverage map), so you'll be ready to go once you register and activate it in your Garmin account.
Then, you can view the location of your GTU 10 on a map from the friendly confines of your computer. For an added level of convenience, you can download the free Garmin Tracker app for your mobile device.
Using your computer or mobile device, you can also:
Create up to 10 geofences (virtual boundaries) for your device. When your GTU 10 enters or exits a geofence, we can send you an email or text message.
Attach your GTU 10 to what you want to track.
Your GTU 10 enters or exits a geofence that you set up.
We notify you with an email or text message.
You can also locate your GTU 10 on your computer or mobile device.
The features of the GTU 10 are so flexible, allowing you to use it to fit your lifestyle.
Travelers: Locate luggage and belongings so nothing gets left behind or lost.
*Requires Deluxe GPS Tracking service plan.
Unit dimensions, WxHxD: 1.34" x 3.07" x 0.79" (3.4 x 7.8 x 2.0 cm)
Weight: 1.71 oz (48.5 g)
Battery: rechargeable lithium ion
Battery life: 1 day to 1 month (depending on operation mode chosen)
Waterproof: yes (IPX7)
High-sensitivity receiver: yes
Interface: USB 2.0 full speed
Ability to add maps: no
Accepts data cards: no
Track log: Standard Tracking — 1 day of history; Deluxe Tracking — Up to 20,000 points from past 7 days (depending on operation mode chosen)
Geofences per device: 10 maximum
Notifications: email and/or text
Unit-to-unit transfer (shares data wirelessly with similar units): no
Number of devices per account: unlimited
Supports external power: yes (see accessories)
Supports external GPS antenna: no
The U.S. GTU 10 does not roam outside of the basic coverage area.
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Anybody from here gonna be at Darlington???? If so,lemme know and I'll tell ya where we're gonna be camped. Just got word today that our tickets contained a free ticket to the "Track Walk" due to renewing so early.....lookin' forward to it, never been on one before. Any suggestions for gettin' good pics?
Unless you've experienced the Unconditional Love and Loyalty of a good dog, you have yet to live.
"GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS,ESPECIALLY THE SNIPERS"[/[color=#FF4000]color]
"GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS,ESPECIALLY THE SNIPERS"[/[color=#FF4000]color]


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All Images
Perhaps the most impressive of cloud formations, cumulonimbus (from the Latin for "pile" and "rain cloud") clouds form due to vigorous convection (rising and overturning) of warm, moist and unstable air. Surface air is warmed by the sun-heated ground surface and rises; if sufficient atmospheric moisture is present, water droplets will condense as the air mass encounters cooler air at higher altitudes. The air mass itself also expands and cools as it rises due to decreasing atmospheric pressure, a process known as adiabatic cooling. This type of convection is common in tropical latitudes year-round and during the summer season at higher latitudes.
As water in the rising air mass condenses and changes from a gas to a liquid state, it releases energy to its surroundings, further heating the surrounding air and leading to more convection and rising of the cloud mass to higher altitudes. This leads to the characteristic vertical "towers" associated with cumulonimbus clouds, an excellent example of which is visible in this astronaut photograph. If enough moisture is present to condense and heat the cloud mass through several convective cycles, a tower can rise to altitudes of approximately 10 kilometers at high latitudes and to 20 kilometers in the tropics before encountering a region of the atmosphere known as the tropopause—the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere.
The tropopause is characterized by a strong temperature inversion. Beyond the tropopause, the air no longer gets colder as altitude increases. The tropopause halts further upward motion of the cloud mass. The cloud tops flatten and spread into an anvil shape, as illustrated by this astronaut photograph. The photo was taken from a viewpoint that was at an angle from the vertical, rather than looking straight down towards the Earth's surface. The image, taken while the International Space Station was located over western Africa near the Senegal-Mali border, shows a fully formed anvil cloud with numerous smaller cumulonimbus towers rising near it. The high energy levels of these storm systems typically make them hazardous due to associated heavy precipitation, lightning, high wind speeds and possible tornadoes.
Cumulonimbus cloud over AfricaCumulonimbus cloud over Africa
The Sierra de Velasco Mountains dominate this image in northern Argentina. The Catamarca province is in the northern part of the image, and the La Rioja province is to the south. The streams are fed by runoff from the snow in the Andes Mountains to the north. These intermittent streams can dry up rapidly. The larger urban area near the bottom of the image is La Rioja, the capital of the province of La Rioja.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 5 satellite on February 28, 1985.
This image shows a spinning formation of ice, clouds and low-lying fog off the eastern coast of Greenland.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on May 14, 2001. This is a false-color composite image made using infrared, red and green wavelengths.
Nicknamed "Dragon Lake," this body of water is formed by the Bratskove Reservoir, built along the Angara River in southern Siberia, near the city of Bratsk. This image was acquired in winter, when the lake is frozen.
This image was acquired by the Landsat satellite on December 19, 1999. This is a natural color composite image made using blue, green and red wavelengths.
Dragon Lake, SiberiaDragon Lake, Siberia
These are the Anti-Atlas Mountains, part of the Atlas Mountain range in southern Morocco, Africa. The region contains some of the world's largest and most diverse mineral resources, most of which are still untouched.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on June 22, 2001. This is a false-color composite image made using shortwave infrared, infrared and red wavelengths.
Atlas MountainsAtlas Mountains
On the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, sand dunes are encroaching onto once-fertile lands in the north. Healthy vegetation appears red in this image; in the center, notice the lone red dot. It is the result of a center-pivot irrigation system, evidence that at least one optimistic farmer continues to work the fields despite the approaching sand.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on August 14, 2000. This is a false-color composite image made using near infrared, red and green wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
'The Optimist,' Kalahari Desert, Namibia'The Optimist,' Kalahari Desert, Namibia
These cloud formations were seen over the western Aleutian Islands. Their color variations are probably due to differences in temperature and in the size of water droplets that make up the clouds.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on June 16, 2000.
Aleutian cloudsAleutian clouds
This scar on an arid landscape is the dry riverbed of the Ghadamis River in the Tinrhert Hamada Mountains near Ghadamis, Libya.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on November 6, 2000. This is a false-color composite image made using near-infrared, green, and blue wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
Ghadamis River in LibyaGhadamis River in Libya
Along Greenland's western coast, a small field of glaciers surrounds Baffin Bay.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on September 3, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using near-infrared, red and blue wavelengths.
Baffin Bay, GreenlandBaffin Bay, Greenland
The Ganges River forms an extensive delta where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. The delta, largely covered with a swamp forest, is home to most of Bangladesh, one of the world's most densely populated countries and a nation that is particularly vulnerable to climate change. As the climate changes, low-lying Bangladesh will increasingly face issues such as food insecurity, sea level rise and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. About 120 million people live on the Ganges Delta under the threat of repeated catastrophic floods due to heavy runoff of meltwater from the Himalayas and due to the intense rainfall during the monsoon season.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on February 28, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using green, infrared, and blue wavelengths.
Ganges River DeltaGanges River Delta
A series of rocky outcroppings are a prominent feature of this Sahara Desert landscape near the Terkezi Oasis in the country of Chad.
This image was taken by the Landsat 7 satellite on October 22, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using near infrared, green, and red wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
Terkezi OasisTerkezi Oasis
Ephemeral Lake Carnegie, in Western Australia, fills with water only during periods of significant rainfall. In dry years, it is reduced to a muddy marsh.
This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on May 19, 1999. This is a false-color composite image made using shortwave infrared, infrared and red wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
Lake CarnegieLake Carnegie
The Dasht-e Kevir, or Great Salt Desert, is the largest desert in Iran. It is primarily uninhabited wasteland, composed of mud and salt marshes covered with crusts of salt that protect the meager moisture from completely evaporating.
This image was taken by the Landsat 7 satellite on October 24, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using infrared, green and red wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
Great Salt Desert, IranGreat Salt Desert, Iran
This interesting image shows the world's largest glacier, Lambert Glacier in Antarctica, and icefall that flows into it. Ice flows like water, albeit much more slowly. Cracks can be seen in this icefall as it bends and twists on its slow descent 1300 feet (400 meters) to the glacier below. The image was taken by the Landsat-7 satellite on December 2, 2000 and is a false-color composite made from infrared, red and green wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
This false-color image shows snow-capped peaks and ridges of the eastern Himalayas between major rivers in southwest China. The Himalayas are made up of three parallel mountain ranges that together stretch for more than 1800 miles (2,900 kilometers). This particular image was taken by NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), flying aboard the Terra satellite, on February 27, 2002. The picture is a composite made by combining near-infrared, red and green wavelengths.
The HimalayasThe Himalayas
This photo, taken on January 22, 2001 by the Landsat-7 satellite, shows Akpatok Island, which lies in Ungava Bay in Canada. Accessible only by air, Akpatok Island rises out of the water as sheer cliffs that soar 500 to 800 feet (150 to 243 meters) above the sea surface. The island is an important sanctuary for cliff-nesting seabirds. Numerous ice floes around the island attract walruses and whales, making Akpatok a traditional hunting ground for native Inuit people.
Akpatok IslandAkpatok Island
This image, captured by the Landsat-8 satellite, shows the view over Western Australia on May 12, 2013. The image shows rich sediment and nutrient patterns in a tropical estuary area and complex patterns and conditions in vegetated areas.
The image is enhanced and involved masking, separately enhancing and then reassembling water and land portions of the image. The water patterns are the result of an RGB display of Landsat-8's red, blue, and ultra-blue bands. Land is shown using short-wavelength-infrared, near-infrared and green.
Color explosionColor explosion
This photo from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the Earth as seen from the surface of Mars, shining brighter than any star in the Martian night sky. Earth is the bright point of light a little left of the image's center and our moon can be seen just below Earth. Curiosity, which landed on the red planet on August 6, 2013, is the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to Mars. It studies the geology of its surroundings and has found evidence of a past environment well-suited to support microbial life.
Researchers used the left-eye camera of Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) to capture this scene about 80 minutes after sunset on the 529th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (January 31, 2014). The image has been processed to remove cosmic-ray effects. A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct bright evening 'stars'. When Curiosity took the photo, Earth was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers) from Mars.
This picture adds to our collection of photos of planet Earth from afar, giving a unique perspective to our place in the cosmos.
Earth from MarsEarth from Mars
This beautiful aerial photograph shows a multi-layered lenticular cloud hovering near Mount Discovery in Antarctica, a volcano about 70 kilometers (44 miles) southwest of McMurdo. The shot was taken by scientist Michael Studinger on November 24, 2013 as he was flying over the area as part of NASA's Operation IceBridge campaign. IceBridge is an airplane-based mission to fly over Antarctica and the Arctic, monitoring conditions there until NASA's new ice-watching satellite, ICESat-2, launches in 2016. ICESat-1 was decommissioned in 2009 and IceBridge aircraft have been flying ever since, maintaining NASA's eyes on the ice.
Antarctic wondersAntarctic wonders
The sun sets over NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on October 13, 2010.
Vivid sunsetVivid sunset
This map shows the bright lights of cities and wildfires set against the inky black backdrop of night. The image is actually a composite of satellite data collected over a number of days in April 2012 and October 2012, and is the result of 312 orbits and 2.5 TB of information. The lights seen here are not just from cities; they are also from wildifires, lightning, gas flares and reflected moonlight. Because the image is a composite of several days' worth of data, fires and other points of light may have been picked up by the satellite and integrated into the composite image even though they were temporary, making some rural locations (such as in Australia) seem brighter than they really are on a typical day.
Night lights, big citiesNight lights, big cities
This iconic image speaks volumes. To many it underscores the vastness of space, the loneliness of the cosmos and how fragile our home planet really is. Entitled "Earthrise," it was taken by astronaut William Anders during an orbit of the moon as part of the Apollo 8 mission.
Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to the moon, which entered the Moon's orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. That evening, the astronauts onboard held a live broadcast, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft. Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell said, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth." The astronauts ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis.
Image: EarthriseImage: Earthrise
In this image, it's hard to get a sense of scale or of what we're actually looking at. This picture, taken by the Landsat-5 satellite on 8 April, 1985, shows sand dunes (yellow streaks) that extend from Algeria into Mauritania in northwest Africa. These wind-blown sand ridges make up Erg Iguidi, one of the Sahara's 'sand seas' in which individual dunes are often more than a third of a mile (500 meters) wide and tall.
Sea of sandSea of sand
This image, taken on 10 May 2001, shows one of the islands of New Caledonia, an archipelago 1200 kilometers (750 miles) east of Australia. New Caledonia contains the world's third-largest coral reef structure, and its coral reefs support an unusually large diversity of species, including many predators, big fish, turtles, and the world's third-largest dugong population. (Dugongs are large marine mammals.) In this natural-color image, the islands appear in shades of green and brown — mixtures of vegetation and bare ground. The surrounding waters range from pale aquamarine to deep blue, and the color differences reflect varying water depths. Over coral reef ridges and sand bars, the water is shallowest and palest in color.
Blue lagoonBlue lagoon
This photo, taken on 30 December 2010, shows the aft section of the International Space Station (ISS). It was taken by an Expedition 26 crew member from a window in the ISS Progress 40 supply vehicle docked to the Pirs Docking Compartment.
Aft view of EarthAft view of Earth


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Wood frog whereabouts
April 10, 2013 —
The first time I heard wood frogs "quacking" from a forested vernal pool, I thought I was hearing numerous ducklings. As I approached the tangled brush fringing the water, the sound mysteriously stopped. No matter where I looked, not a feather was to be seen. But here and there, the water rippled with the kerplunk of countless wood frogs diving into the shallow depths.
The characteristic call of the wood frog is indeed a duck like "quack." These two-and-a-half-inch frogs are also characterized by a dark "robber's" mask and brown or reddish body that blends with the leaf cover blanketing our forests.
After reproducing and laying eggs in these ephemeral vernal pools, wood frogs return to woodlands and vegetated wetlands for the remainder of the year. They survive winter by nestling under the forest leaf litter, where they employ freeze-thaw cycles that allow them to adapt to changing conditions. Visit www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/frozen-frogs.html to see a short and fascinating video of this process.
Another frog just beginning to sing in the region is the spring peeper, whose "eeping" can be heard emanating from swampy thickets and wetlands. Although silent, spotted salamanders are also on the move now.
For a local opportunity to learn more about each of these amphibians, visit the Pocono Environmental Education Center (PEEC) in Dingmans Ferry, PA.
This weekend, two programs will be held. "Salamanders, Frogs and More!" is scheduled for Saturday, April 13 from 1 to 3 p.m., followed by the "Spring Peeper Search" from 7 to 9 p.m. Each costs $5.
Visit www.peec.org or call 570/828-2319 for more information.