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Charlotte-area jewelry designers you should know
Producing both custom work and their own lines, these jewelry designers offer very different esthetics. We continue to seek local makers of interesting clothing and accessories. Know someone we should know about? Email email@example.com.
Dawn Vertrees
Online at Etsy, 11 Main and at www.dawnvertrees.com; $69 and up
In a studio in her condo overlooking Lake Norman, a barefoot Dawn Vertrees creates designs inspired by nature: silver, gold and semi-precious and precious gems become organic shapes – leaves, sea fan coral, starfish, orchids. One of her most popular is a sterling silver starfish ring in which the starfish clasps the finger, just as it would in nature.
Vertrees grew up in the Lake Norman area and worked for her family's business for 25 years before moving to Florida and remarrying. That's when she began making jewelry, using clay and later porcelain. She won a three-year apprenticeship – but cut it short after three months when her husband was laid off.
"He came home and said that hobby I was working on was going to have to make us a living," Vertrees said.
They sold everything, she said, and lived out of a motor home for four years as she showed and sold at shows around the country. When they moved back to Lake Norman, to be near children and grandchildren, he found work quickly, then helped design her studio. Now customers find her on Etsy. Online her works range from $69 to $1,200. Her custom pieces are $250 to $4,500, and her sculptures start at $500 and go for up to $20,000.
She's learned to do things her way. Most jewelers who do similar work carve designs in hard wax, she says. Vertrees instead uses soft wax, building layers in a signature style.
Her newest technique reflects her dislike of prongs to hold stones: She envisioned a ring with leaves wrapping around the finger and holding a stone in place. Several jewelers she consulted weren't sure it could be done, but as Vertrees says: "Once I see something in my mind, I'll go for it. I finally have the confidence to do what I want to do."
Just a week ago, the ring – a sterling silver leaf and twig holding an uncut amethyst she found on a trip to Hiddenite – arrived from the Rhode Island foundry that casts her work.
What happened when she opened the box?
"I clapped my hands like a little girl," she said. "I have a grin on my face that will not go away!"
Black Shamrock Design & Jewelry
Jane Black-Limerick and Kevin Loop. At Boris + Natasha in Plaza Midwood and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/blackshamrockjewelry; $28 and up.
From traditionally classic to downright funky, Black Shamrock creates natural pieces using metals that range from platinum to brass, and stones varying from diamonds to turquoise and everything in between.
Eighteen years ago, Jane Black-Limerick took a ring into a jewelry store in South Carolina hoping to have it redesigned. She left after meeting her future husband (Michael), who was the store manager, and future business partner, Kevin Loop, who worked there. (Sidenote: She also got her ring redesigned!)
In 2011, Black-Limerick and Loop created Black Shamrock. Loop is a second-generation jeweler from Baldwinsville, N.Y., while Black-Limerick brings design skills honed while doing home interiors. "I guess you can say it's in my blood," she says. She also handles sales.
"Natural is what we are all about," says Black-Limerick. Most of the stones they use are cut from the rough. "It's amazing that the stones we use come from the ground that we walk on."
Loop studied metalsmithing at SUNY Oswego and began his career as a part-time bench jeweler for his family's business. He learned lapidary (gem) work and stone polishing next. Many of Black Shamrock's offerings are custom, and most are one-of-a-kind.
They hope to expand into different markets in and around Charlotte. Their latest collection is named Black ICE, with statement pieces using black diamonds and black jade.
Asked to name a favorite piece, Jane says: "We did an all-natural white and blue anniversary ring that was to die for. Every part of it sparkled with almost 4 carats in diamonds.
"I am also a sucker for all of the engagement rings and wedding bands we have done. It means a lot that people wear our jewelry as a sign of their love for one another every day of their lives."
Darrell Roach Designs
On Instagram at www.instagram.com/drjeweldesign; 646-982-3323; $25 and up.
In 1999, Darrell Roach launched his jewelry business making simple designs from copper wire. He progressed to working with Lucite, silver, gold, wood and leather. He says he's always experimenting and loves the science behind what he does. His creations start at $25 and go up to $3,000 for custom pieces incorporating diamonds.
He says his big break came in 2010 when he moved to L.A. and a stylist he met at a party asked if he could design jewelry for a photo shoot with a celebrity client. It had to be "phenomenal" – and she needed it in two hours. The celebrity was Prince, says Roach, and he loved the pieces so much he bought them all. "To have a legendary artist appreciate your work is amazing," Roach said.
Rihanna wore his designs in a photo spread in Vogue Italia, Beyonce sported his works in her video for a duet with Lady Gaga, and his jewelry has been mentioned in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He did the jewelry for former Project Runway contestant Korto Momolu's collection at New York Fashion Week in fall 2014, and singer Elle King is a fan.
Now he's back in his native Charlotte working in a space inside The Portal, Metaphysical Gems & Minerals in Elizabeth, right around the corner from where he grew up. And he's back to his "mad scientist" ways of experimentation, he says. He's currently obsessed with giving metal a grain that looks like wood. He mixes different chemicals to get a patina he desires and sometimes adds fabrics to get a specific texture. "I'm using old techniques that have been around, it's just that I'm putting my own spin on it."


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9-Month-Old Play Peek-A-Boo By Themselves. Cutest Babies Ever!
Babies tend to require a lot of attention from parents, especially if instead of one baby, there are two. But these twins just wanted to give mom and dad a rest and decided to play by themselves.
I think every parent would want their baby to be as independent as these are
They play alone!

subset: commoncrawl


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Alabama has a few CAPTE accredited OTA programs to choose from. Once completed, you are then eligible to test for your state OTA license. Below is a list of Alabama's OTA programs, to learn more about each OTA school just click on the name.
More OTA Info for Alabama:
See OTA Schools by state
See Online OTA Schools
Accredited OTA Programs in Alabama
|Accredited OTA Programs in Alabama
|Next Visitation Date
|Wallace State Community College
State University, AL
Status: Accreditation
|Next Visit: Fall 2021
How to Select a OTA School in Alabama
There are a few of things to consider when selecting Occupational therapist assistant schools. Here is a short list of a few of the most important considerations to keep in mind as you search for your Occupational therapist assistant school:
- University size
- Passing-rate of the National licensure test
- Course room and lab facilities
- College costs and potential opportunities for financial aid
- OTA Program admittance criteria
While you bring these Occupational therapy assistant program things into thought, it can be useful to talk with present-day college students as well as recent graduates of the Occupational therapist assistant schools of interest. Also, talking to businesses who have actually hired these students can provide you additional insight to each schools strengths and weaknesses.


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Galvotec Manufactures Zinc Anodes for the following applications.
Zinc Hull Anodes are designed for the protection of various types of vessels such as ships, barges, and tankers. Anodes are available in many configurations including weld-on and bolt-on mounting systems.
Zinc Ballast Tank Anodes are typically used on tankers and large vessels. Several configurations are offered for various types of mounting options that may include welding or bolting onto the structure.
Zinc Anodes for Bulkheads are typically used where Cathodic Protection is required on a wall within the hull of a ship, vehicle, or container.
Zinc Anodes for Piers and Pilings are typically used around docks and harbors.
Zinc Bracelet Anodes for pipelines are used in underground, under mud or under seawater.
Zinc Heat Exchanger and Condenser Anodes are specifically designed for use on heat transfer equipment.
Zinc Soil Anodes are used where soil conditions require the use of Zinc Anodes such as saline mud below 120 F (50 C). These anodes would protect objects underground such a storage tanks, containers, and buried structures.
Zinc Anodes for Other Applications may include anode configurations such as plates, disks or other geometries.
Click here to view our Zinc Anodes catalog in PDF format.


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Stainless Steel Studios, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, today announced their first game. It's an RTS entitled Empire Earth. Stainless Steel is headed by the lead designer of Age of Empires, Rick Goodman. This new game offers a much larger scope than AoE, though, covering as it does over 500,000 years of time. The game begins with the discovery of fire circa 500,000 BC and continues until AD 2500. That's a pretty daunting project. The game will be divided into twelve epochs with huge technology trees and all kinds of cool units.
The game is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2001. We'll have more details on this title as soon as we have some more details. Deal? In the meantime, check out the game's official website here. Oh, and be sure to check out the screenshots below.
-- IGN Staff


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"The definitive guide to all
holidays and anniversaries."
—Wall Street Journal
Chase's Calendar of Events 2016
Find out what's going on every day of the year.
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To order, visit www.chases.com,
or call 1-800-462-6420
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Available September 2015
There's always something to celebrate….
Visit Rowman & Littlefield booth
#1444 at Book Expo America
Click to subscribe to this magazine


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$ 49.95
This station necklace can be doubled. It is 36 inches in length with 13 stations of 5 pedal flowers. 6 of the flowers are a turquoise colored enamel with rhinestone center and seven 5 pedal flowers with rhinestone accents.
Sold out
Mariana Antique Silver Plated Swarovski Crystal Fancy Cross Pendant Necklace
$ 65.00
The Mariana Story -- The artist and jewelry designer, Mariana has been creating unique and original pieces of jewelry since 1997. Her naive colorfulness and her flawless infusion between old and new, fabric and stone, and material and spirit is visible in every one of her jewels. It is the foundation, the heart and core of her creations. Born in Israel, home to some of the world's most exquisite jewelry creations, Mariana was greatly influenced by the work of her grandfather, an accomplished jeweler and silversmith. Mariana's jewelry has a lifetime guarantee, is gold or silver plated (nickel free), made with special hand cut stones, crystals and fabric beads, combined with SWAROVSKI crystals.
$ 62.00
Mariana Antique October Birth Month Swarovski Crystal Necklace
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Mariana Guardian Angel Swarovski Crystals in Aqua and Light Green Necklace
$ 102.00
24k Gold Plated Swarovski Crystal Leaf Pendant Necklace and Earrings Set
24K Yellow Gold plated leaf pendant necklace with Swarovski Crystals in Palace Green, Siam and Red Swarovski Crystals16 inches long with 5 inch extender. Leaf is crystal accented and matching earrings hang 1.5 inches.Lifetime unconditional guarantee!Coordinates with other pieces in our Mariana "Poppy" Collection.Made in Israel by Mariana


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By Colin A. Young.
State House News Service
BOSTON -- The average price of gas in Massachusetts dropped five cents in the last week, AAA reported Monday, even as the national average price for gas inched up for the first time in months.
The average cost of a gallon of self-serve unleaded gasoline is $2.44 in Massachusetts, seven cents below its mark from one year ago but still 19 cents more expensive than the national average price, AAA reported Monday.
AAA said it found an 86-cent range in the price of gas across Massachusetts gas stations, from a low of $2.19 per gallon to a high of $3.05 per gallon.
The national average price climbed by a penny in the last week to $2.25 -- the first time the national average price has increased since October, AAA said.
At the national level, the slight price increase is thought to have been driven by a corresponding increase in the price of crude oil.
"The price of crude oil has been slowly, but steadily increasing since the beginning of the year, which is starting to push up pump prices," AAA spokesperson Jeanette Casselano said. "The price per barrel increased $3 from last Monday to close on Friday to settle at $51 per barrel."
But Massachusetts has not yet seen the effects of the increase in crude oil prices, local AAA officials said, in part because of "a sizeable build in U.S. gasoline stocks" and relatively low demand.
"Unlike some parts of the country the impact has yet to be felt locally by motorists at the pump," said Mary Maguire, AAA Northeast's director of public and legislative affairs.


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Healing Cuisine offers you two models to choose from, a larger below–the–sink model and a smaller countertop model. Both models provide 750 gallons of purified water. Click here for more information.
This unit may be connected to your ice maker. Stainless steel housing features a lifetime warranty. $429.95
This cost-effective unit connects to your existing faucet at your sink. $259.95


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3D Finite Differences on Multi-core Processors
By Leonardo B., published on December 16, 2011
This case study presents different optimization techniques for the implementation of multi dimensional finite difference stencils. In-core optimizations; data layout and approaches to improve data access performance are discussed. Domain decomposition with NUMA-aware data placement is covered. Finally usage examples of a few parallel programming models are presented. Here we explore Intel software tools features that range from hardware vector register programming support up to multiple parallel programming models.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- In-core optimizations
- Data layout & Optimizations for data access
- Problem Decomposition and NUMA-aware Data Placement
- Parallelization in Shared Memory
- Works Cited
- About the Authors
- Notices
1. Introduction
Finite Difference stencils typically arise in iterative finite-difference techniques employed to solve Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). For a given point in a regular grid, the stencil computation is a well-defined weighted contribution from a subset of neighbor points in both time and space. A 3-dimensional space stencil of order O applied to the 3-dimensional array
v[i,j,k] = vi , j, kcan be defined as:
The same stencil is also called a (3*O+1)-point stencil. In the following we discuss optimization techniques using a 3-dimensional 8th-order Finite Difference (FD) stencils with symmetric-constant coefficients
cl = cl, i, j, k for i,j,k=1,…,O/2. We assume single-precision data-types but most of the results can be extended to more generic cases and other stencil formats.
Graphically the (3*8+1)=25-point stencil can be represented as in Figure 1. Computationally it can be summarized as triply nested loops in i,j,k updating array U based on the values in array V and coefficients array C:
Figure 1: 25-point stencil. A new value for the center cell (orange) is obtained by weighted sum of the values in all the neighbor cells (blue).
Typically the data structures (arrays) where the stencils are applied are much larger than the CPU data caches. With naïve implementations data reuse is limited by accessing only immediate neighbors V[i±r, j, k], r<=O/2, in the fast (unit-stride) direction defined by i±r. Then reuse may not happen for elements that are already in the cache but are outside the stencil geometry. Poor data reuse creates unnecessary access requests to main memory which can result in performance degradation.
FD stencil computations can be implemented to take advantage of Intel® Xeon® processor family features like NUMA, memory hierarchy and SIMD instructions.
The Baseline Code: In what follows we consider the simpler case of a generic 8th-order 3D-FD computation from array v to array u of dimension dx*dy*dz, which schematically is:
Figure 2: Our baseline 3D Finite Difference code for 8th order and symmetric constant coefficients.
2. In-core optimizations:
a. Introduction
Intel® Streaming SIMD Extensions (Intel® SSE) enhance the performance of computational intensive applications that execute the same operation on distinct elements in a data set. In our single-precision case, the improvement is obtained by performing single instruction multiple data (SIMD) parallelism with operations applied to four packed single-precision floating-point values in the same clock cycle. In the stencil in Figure 1 the X-direction is the only one where elements are contiguous in memory. Direction Y has array stride dx and direction Z has stride dx*dy as shown in the baseline code in Figure 2. This means that each floating-point v[ix± k*dx] and v[ix±k*dx*dy], k=1,..,4, belongs to distinct cache lines. Without SIMD vectorization, a single stencil computation underutilizes 4*4=16 cache lines by accessing only one floating-point value from each of these cache-lines. Figure 3 is a graphical representation of 19 SSE registers being used to compute 4 stencils simultaneously. At least four floating-point elements are loaded from each cache-line, and twelve floating point elements belong to the cache-line(s) holding the X-direction elements.
Figure 3: Four stencils are computed simultaneously with register blocking in Intel® SSE.
The above estimate for the number of SIMD registers required on a fully vectorized stencil computation leads us to consider code changes. Loop splitting is an optimization that breaks a loop into two or more loops with fewer computations to reduce register pressure in the code: by splitting the stencil computations on independent x, y and z-direction loops, the number of SIMD registers required to fully parallelize each new loop is considerably smaller than in the original loop. Figure 4 is an example of loop splitting. Intel® compilers provide a pragma/directive to disable fusion optmization on a loop-by-loop basis:
#pragma nofusion.
b. Compiler switches
Intel® compilers provide the easiest and fastest way to take advantage of Intel® SSE by supporting automatic vectorization methods (1). The first step is to choose the proper compiler switches for vectorization. In our example we have added the compiler switches
-O3 -xHOST -ip -ansi-alias -fno-alias -openmp -vec-report3
where the group "
-O3 -xHOST" enables code generation for Intel® SSE extensions compatible with the processor model on the system in which the code was compiled. The switch "
-vec-report3" enables compiler diagnostic information on vectorized and non-vectorized loops, including prohibiting data dependence information. This information can be used to identify code changes that enable further vectorization. Intel compilers also support guided auto-parallelization (GAP) tool that offers automated advice on adding compiler options, loop level pragmas, and source code changes to improve code vectorization (2). In our case, switches "
-ansi-alias -fno-alias" indicate that there are no aliased pointers in our particular C/C++ code and vectorization is safe. An alternative would be to use C99 restrict type qualifier in the function definitions. The switch "
-ip" allows inter-procedural optimizations where it is possible. For more compiler optmization options see (3), for example.
Additionally compiler hints can be used to improve automatic intra-register vectorization and memory access behavior, for example, by inserting #pragma ivdep before the computational loops. It will overwrite any conservative data dependences that the compiler optimizer may have assumed. This can potentially enable additional loop vectorization.
Figure 4: Loop split to reduce register pressure in Intel® SSE vectorization.
c. Intel® SSE/AVX Programming
A more aggressive approach is to program vectorized loops directly using Intel® SSE instructions. There are multiple ways to accomplish this. The most labor intensive way is to program directly in assembler. Alternatively, the compiler assembler intrinsic support makes Intel® SSE coding easier and provides a straightforward way to combine hardware level Intel® SSE instructions with high level C/C++ instructions in the same source code (4). Other easier and more portable alternatives are Intel C++ classes for SIMD and the new CEAN extensions. Intel C++ classes for SIMD operate on arrays, or vectors of data, in parallel. Integer vector (Ivec) classes and floating-point vector (Fvec) classes are supported. They are named based on the underlying type of operation: F32vec4 operate on SSE 4-packed 32bit floating-point data, for example. Similarly, F32vec8 operate on AVX 8-packed 32bit floating-point data. Standard operators are +,+=,-,-=,*,*=,/,/=. .
Examples of advanced operators are Square Root, Reciprocal, and Reciprocal Square Root. It is worth noting that in the Nehalem and Westmere processors the penalty of using unaligned SIMD loads and stores is negligible compared to their aligned counterparts. But it is recommended that one enforce 16-byte aligned loads and stores where it is possible. On Sandy Bridge/AVX 32-byte alignment is recommended when possible (5). In our code example we have added preamble loops that allow the main loop to issue Intel® SSE instructions from aligned addresses of arrays v and u. Figure 5 exemplifies the use of the F32vec4 class to implement Intel® SSE vectorization in the y-direction loop. The integer value
align_offset is the array index obtained from a preamble loop that aligns the array pointers to a 16-byte boundary. Consequently,
vec_v and
vec_u are pointers to the aligned memory address
v+align_offset and
u+align_offset, respectively. Advancing one array element in
vec_v is equivalent to advance four elements in array v: the loop trip count
vec_loop_trip and stride
vec_dx are 4 times smaller than counterparts dx-4 and dx in the original scalar version. For each constant coefficient ci the constructor F32vec4 packs four identical copies of ci into
Figure 5: Using C++ classes to implement Intel® SSE vectorized loops. Each arithmetic operation within the Intel® SSE register loop is equivalent to four single precision scalar operations. Similar AVX code with F32vec8 class can compute eight single precision scalar operations.
These classes also provide a path to maintain assembler level code that can be easily transitioned to new hardware language extensions like Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel® AVX) (6). Intel® AVX is a new instruction set extension to Intel® SSE that is part of the upcoming Sandy Bridge processor family. Intel® AVX improves performance due to wider vectors, new extensible syntax, and rich functionality. The new 256 bit instruction set has SIMD registers that are twice wider than the Intel® SSE 128 bit instruction set. In practice it means the registers in Figure 3 are twice wider in Intel® AVX. Current Intel® compilers already support code generation and C++ classes for Intel® AVX SIMD. Programmers still can rely on the Intel® C/C++/Fortran compiler's auto-vectorizers to generate Intel® AVX vector loops. Programmers also have the option to update the 3D-FD code in Figure 5 to operate with 8 packed 32bit floating-point numbers per cycle by simply moving from F32vec4 to F32vec8 classes and enforcing 32-byte alignment. These Intel® AVX classes are also defined in the include files distributed with Intel® compilers.
One additional alternative implementation for the above explicit vectorization is to take advantage of Intel® Cilk™ Plus extensions for array notations (7). These C/C++ extensions provide a direct way to express array sections directly in the source code using the syntax
An explicitly Extension for Array Notation-based vectorized AVX version of the code in Figure 5 can be written as in Figure 6. In this example we also demonstrate how to use
__assume_aligned() and
__assume() declarations to hint the Intel compiler on data alignment information. Declarations
__assume_aligned(u,32) and
__assume_aligned(v,32) indicate that bases addresses of arrays u and v are 32byte aligned. Declarations of the type
__assume( %8 == 0) indicates that the integer scalar is a multiple of 8 and, consequently, if the address of v[ix] is 32byte aligned, then the address of
v[ix+ ] the offset is also 32byte aligned. Note that the use of
__assume_aligned() is not required: they are a resource to minimize compiler code generation by asserting known alignment properties.
Figure 6: Using Cilk Array Notation to implement Intel® AVX vectorized loops. Each arithmetic operation within the Intel® AVX register loop is equivalent to eight single precision scalar operations. Although not required, alignment assumption can be given to the compiler to minimize code generation.
3. Data layout & Optimizations for data access
a. Data Layout
PDEs solved using finite difference schemes typically require many 3-dimensional arrays of data to be accessed to compute each given output value
ui,j,k: at least the original input array
vi,j,kplus its neighbor values
vi±l,j±m,k±nin the stencil combined with the proper coefficients
ci±l,j±m,k±ndefined by the physics of the problem. Data is usually stored in contiguous arrays of floating points. This layout also allows for vectorization. The drawback is that computations dealing with multiple arrays will require coding that improves data locality.
b. Cache Blocking
The active data set in HPC applications is typically orders of magnitudes larger than the total amount of processor caches. Data blocking can be used to increase spatial locality and data reuse: data should be partitioned based on the number of cores/threads available in the systems and on the size of data-caches. Data blocking can be implemented in many ways and at multiple levels. Examples are core blocking and cache blocking. If Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT) is enabled there are two threads to every physical core. In this case, thread blocking and core blocking may be implemented differently.
On Figure 7, cache blocking iss implemented by accessing the original dx × dy × dz data arrays in sub-blocks of size CX × CY × CZ. The goal is to define a cache blocking size small enough to minimize last level cache data misses and large enough to maximize data reuse. Additionally, thread blocking can be adopted to further divide cache blocks into smaller sub-blocks (thread blocks) and schedule threads within the processor core in which the cache block belongs to. In our implementation we treated cache blocking and thread blocking as the same. Register blocking will be addressed later with SIMD data parallelism. A CX × CY × CZ cache blocking scheme is represented in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Outline of a 3 dimensional blocking. CX, CY and CZ are the blocking constants that are based on the cache structure of the hardware.
From a performance perspective, blocking in the unit stride first-dimension x has to be large enough to allow the inner loop to take advantage of vectorization.
Cacheability control allows programmers to apply knowledge of the program data flow (5). In particular, Streaming Non-temporal Stores can potentially increase stores bandwidth by writing around the processor caches, therefore minimizing cache pollution due to data that will not be accessed again in the near future. If the 64 bytes that fit within a cache line are written consecutively, stream stores may be used. By default, Intel® compilers automatically determine whether a streaming store should be used for each array. Programmers can explicitly define
VECTOR NONTEMPORAL pragma/directive that directs the compiler to use non-temporal (streaming) stores as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8: Pragma used to hint the non-temporal (streaming) nature of the store operation for the array u.
For additional information on the architecture and programming environment of the Intel® 64 and IA-32 processors refer to (8)
4. Problem Decomposition and NUMA-aware Data Placement:
Current multiprocessor systems are based in NonUniform Memory Access (NUMA) architecture. A CPU can access its own local memory or remote memory physically located in another CPU socket, that is, physical memory located in another NUMA node. The total shared memory available is the aggregated amount of memory for all NUMA nodes on the system. Locality matters: access latency to remote NUMA node memory is typically higher than latency to local NUMA memory. Conversely, memory bandwidth in local NUMA node can be considerably greater than memory bandwidth to remote NUMA nodes. This makes desirable to have threads accessing memory in the same NUMA node the thread is running.
The way to guarantee data affinity to each CPU depends on the parallelization model in use:
- In process-parallel execution, HPC applications are typically implemented using MPI (Message Passing Interface). MPI implementations that support process affinity pinning will maximize local NUMA memory access by keeping each MPI process bound to a given CPU socket and by allocating its data in physical memory located in the same socket. Intel® MPI provides process affinity controls to pin a particular MPI process to a corresponding CPU and to avoid undesired process migration (9).
- In multiprocessor shared-memory threading, the application consists of a single process that is parallelized using threads. Wherever possible, the programmer should partition data structures to have data placed in the same CPU socket which runs the threads consuming that data. These threads should have their affinity set to the CPU in the same NUMA-node to avoid unwanted OS scheduled thread migration. To ensure that the threads can allocate their required memory on a specific NUMA-node, both Linux* and Windows* provide means to control the allocation behavior. On Linux, malloc simply reserves the memory. The OS actually assigns the physical page only when data is touched for the first time (first touch policy) (10). This default policy works well in many cases, assuming the programmer takes advantage of the policy: the data can be initialized (first touch) with a parallel routine resembling the way data will be accessed by threads in the processing phase. Thus, memory pages are correctly pinned to the CPU socket that contains the threads accessing these pages. For details on Windows* see (11) and (12), for example.
- In a hybrid MPI with shared-memory threading model, one can combine the above approaches. At the highest level MPI processes are used to parallelize the work across the number of CPU sockets available in the system. Each MPI process is then parallelized via shared-memory threading based on the number of cores available in the CPU socket. This can potentially combine advantages of MPI affinity pinning across NUMA nodes with shared memory threading within each NUMA node.
Below we compare two implementations: shared-memory threading only, and hybrid MPI together with shared-memory threading on a system with two NUMA nodes. Both implementations were parallelized by splitting the work defined in the slowest direction Z outer loop. In the pure shared-memory threading implementation each thread performed computations on a contiguous [dx, dy, dz/nt] section of data, where nt is the total number of threads. We ran two variants of this threading example: Threading Baseline is a straightforward OpenMP implementation; and NUMA-aware Threading is a variant of the same code where a parallel data initialization routine was added to replicated the data access pattern of the way the z-loop was parallelized.
In the Hybrid MPI+Threading version data was split into two contiguous [dx, dy, dz/2] sections. Each section of data was assigned to a MPI processes. Each MPI process was then threaded with nt/2 threads. Figure 9 compares performance improvement with relation to the Threading Baseline implementation of this example. This synthetic 480x480x400 example of the 3DFD code ran in a dual socket X5680 Westmere system. The problem size was chosen small enough so that NUMA effects can be easily noticeable. The NUMA-aware Threading version of the code showed a 1.4X performance improvement when thread affinity was properly set using the KMP_AFFINITY runtime affinity interface in the OpenMP library of the Intel Compiler (13). The Hybrid MPI+Threading version guaranteed further data locality by allocating the data structures on their respective NUMA nodes and showed a 1.7X performance improvement.
Figure 9: Effect of NUMA memory affinity on performance. Implementations that are sensitive to local versus remote NUMA memory bandwidth can take advantage of local memory affinity. The bars represent the performance improvement with relation to the non NUMA-aware implementation of this example.
In the following paragraphs we discuss optimizations within a processing node of a cluster.
5. Parallelization in Shared Memory:
This section is a brief overview of multiple approaches supported by the Intel software tools to develop threaded applications. Using a single sample case, this section exemplifies OpenMP, TBB (Threading Building Block) and Cilk Plus based implementations. It will not cover parallelization based on either Posix threads or MPI (Message Passing Interface) – although both techniques are also supported by the Intel tools.
As previously stated, data blocking can be used to increase spatial locality and data reuse. In this example, data is partitioned across cores/threads available in the system by defining thread block sizes TX, TY, and TZ following the notation in (14). This can be accomplished in multiple ways: for example, by either using threading model constructs that support blocking, or by defining a list of threading blocks to be assigned to the threads. To simplify the discussion, we consider no blocking in the unit stride vectorizable first-dimension x in the case that follows. That is, TX=dx.
Assuming vectorization in the unit stride first-dimension x and only thread blocking TY and TZ in the second and third dimensions y-z, respectively, an OpenMP parallel for loop can be used to issue the threading blocks. In fact, both loops in z and y can be collapsed if the number of threading blocks along the third dimension z is not high enough to keep all available threads busy. This case is presented in Figure 10. The advantage of an OpenMP implementation over Posix threads is that there is no need to maintain a user managed thread pool: the Intel OpenMP library automatically maintains a thread pool to avoid thread creation overheads.
Figure 10: OpenMP provides a straightforward way to assign threading blocks to threads. In this case, the two outer loops are collapsed in terms of OpenMP parallelization.
In our reference implementation we adopt the approach of defining a list of threading blocks to be assigned to the threads as shown in Figure 11. First, this allows the programmer to define any the order in which the treading blocks are assigned to threads; second this allow the same example framework to be used in other threading models.
pool: the Intel OpenMP library automatically maintains a thread pool to avoid thread creation overheads.
Figure 11: Defining a list of threading blocks to be assigned to the threads. Obviously the other of the list can be changed by rearranging the loops in red-and-black, reverse-Y-Z, or other ordering schemes.
The OpenMP code excerpts in Figure 12 are examples of two possible implementations based on a list of threading blocks. The first variant uses an OpenMP
parallel for pragma to assign threading blocks to the threads. Note that num_blocks can be larger than the number of threads available in the system: the goal is to improve data locality and achieve data granularity that allows for load balance. The pseudo function
3DFD_BLK computes a vectorized finite difference in the threading block define by [0..dx, iyb..iyb+TY, izb..izb+TZ]. Ellipses "
…" in the function call and in the following examples represent additional parameters that might be required, like the stencil coefficients, for example. The second variant assigns threading blocks via parallel OpenMP
task pragmas.
Figure 12: Two variants of OpenMP implementation that uses a list of threads to be dispatched. The first variant uses an OpenMP parallel for pragma. The second implementation uses OpenMP tasks. The pseudo function 3DFD_BLK computes the vectorized finite difference in the threading block define by
[0..dx, iyb..iyb+TY, izb..izb+TZ].
OS scheduled thread migration can affect performance of OpenMP based implementations. Using the
KMP_AFFINITY runtime affinity interface (13) one can take control of thread placement. In our example, OpenMP dynamic scheduling together with
KMP_LIBRARY set to "
turnaround" can be used to increase load balance on high core count systems.
In similar fashion, parallelization can be implemented using Intel® compilers Cilk™ Plus extensions. Like in OpenMP, a first variant can be implemented using a
cilk_for loop as shown in Figure 13. Analternative implementations could be based on
Figure 13: Two variants of Cilk++ implementation. Similarly to OpenMP, the first variant is implemented with a cilk_for, and the second implementation uses cilk_spawn.
Although Intel TBB (Threading Building Blocks) can also be used to dispatch the threading blocks defined in the list blocking, in Figure 14 we present a variant that takes advantage of TBB's blocked_range2d template class (15). A
parallel_for loop is used as a load-balanced way to apply the function
3DFD_BLK to each element of the loop. The loop partitioning is defined by a two-dimensional interval [ybegin,yend) × [zbegin,zend), with maximum block sizes TY and TZ, respectively.
Figure 14: A TBB parallel_for loop uses a blocked_range2d class to automatically partition the work among threads. On this example, the two-dimensional interval [ybegin,yend) × [zbegin,zend), is split with maximum block sizes TY and TZ, respectively
Refer to (16) for a collection of technical papers to provide software developers with technical information on application threading, synchronization, memory management and programming tools.
6. Works Cited
- A Guide to Auto-vectorization with Intel® C++ Compilers. [Online].
- Guided Auto-Parallel (GAP). [Online].
- Quick-Reference Guide to Optimization with Intel® Compilers version 12. [Online].
- Intel® C++ Intrinsics Reference. [Online]
- Intel® 64 and IA-32Architectures Optimization Reference Manual. [Online]
- Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX). [Online]
- Intel® Cilk™ Plus Support. [Online]
- Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer Manuals. [Online].
- Intel MPI. [Online]
- Optimizing Applications for NUMA. [Online]
- Application Software Considerations for NUMA-Based Systems. [Online] Microsoft
- Windows Development, NUMA Support. [Online] Microsoft
- Setting thread affinity on SMT or HT enabled systems for better performance. [Online]
- Stencil Computation Optimization and Auto-tuning on State-of-the-Art Multicore Architectures. Stencil Computation Optimization and Auto-tuning on State-of-the-Art MulticorK. Datta, M. Murphy, V. Volkov, S. Williams, J. Carter, L. Oliker, D. Patterson, J. Shalf, K. Yelick. s.l. : IEEE Press Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2008, Proceeding SC '08 Proceedings of the 2008 ACM/IEEE conference on Supercomputing.
- Intel Threading Building Blocks. [Online]
- Intel Guide for Developing Multithreaded Applications. [Online]
About the Authors
Leonardo Borges is a Sr. Application Engineer based in Houston, TX, enabling HPC in the Energy vertical. His background is in numerical analysis and parallel computing. Leo received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.
Philippe Thierry is a Sr. Staff Engineer in the Energy Application Engineering Team at Intel in Paris, and specializes in HPC and seismic imaging. Philippe received his Ph.D. in Geophysics from the Paris School of Mines and University of Paris VII.
Intel may make changes to specifications and product descriptions at any time, without notice. Designers must not rely on the absence or characteristics of any features or instructions marked "reserved" or "undefined." Intel reserves these for future definition and shall have no responsibility whatsoever for conflicts or incompatibilities arising from future changes to them. The information here is subject to change without notice. Do not finalize a design with this information.
The products described in this document may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications. Current characterized errata are available on request.
Contact your local Intel sales office or your distributor to obtain the latest specifications and before placing your product order.
Copies of documents which have an order number and are referenced in this document, or other Intel literature, may be obtained by calling 1-800-548-4725, or go to: http://www.intel.com/design/literature.htm
* For more complete information about performance and benchmark results, visit www.intel.com/benchmarks
|Optimization Notice
Intel® compilers, associated libraries and associated development tools may include or utilize options that optimize for instruction sets that are available in both Intel® and non-Intel microprocessors (for example SIMD instruction sets), but do not optimize equally for non-Intel microprocessors. In addition, certain compiler options for Intel compilers, including some that are not specific to Intel micro-architecture, are reserved for Intel microprocessors. For a detailed description of Intel compiler options, including the instruction sets and specific microprocessors they implicate, please refer to the "
Intel® compilers, associated libraries and associated development tools may or may not optimize to the same degree for non-Intel microprocessors for optimizations that are not unique to Intel microprocessors. These optimizations include Intel® Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (Intel® SSE2), Intel® Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (Intel® SSE3), and Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (Intel® SSSE3) instruction sets and other optimizations. Intel does not guarantee the availability, functionality, or effectiveness of any optimization on microprocessors not manufactured by Intel. Microprocessor-dependent optimizations in this product are intended for use with Intel microprocessors.
While Intel believes our compilers and libraries are excellent choices to assist in obtaining the best performance on Intel® and non-Intel microprocessors, Intel recommends that you evaluate other compilers and libraries to determine which best meet your requirements. We hope to win your business by striving to offer the best performance of any compiler or library; please let us know if you find we do not.
Notice revision #20101101


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CSD solve important problems of students with disabilities
The TEMPUS Project "The Establishment of Foundation for the Integration of Disabled People into HEIs of Azerbaijan" (ESFIDIP), delivered by the private Khazar University in cooperation with a number of local and European higher education institutions (HEIs), as well as sectoral ministries and civil society organizations (CSOs) of Azerbaijan, has been completed.
In this respect, we had a conversation with the manager of the Project, Rima Mammmadova, who is also the coordinator of the Centre for Students with Disabilities (CSD) under the Khazar University, developed in the framework of the aforementioned Project.
- What was the special description of the delivered Project?
- It should be noted that the Project was distinctive in that up to this day neither in Azerbaijan nor abroad such a wide-scale activity, with the involvement of so many partners, and with such duration has yet been delivered. The Project was carried out within 3,5 years, December, 2013 – May, 2017. For the implementation of the goals and objectives of the Project five state HEIs of the country were engaged in the Project as partners. One of them is Azerbaijan State University situated in Baku and other 4 state universities that represented Ganja, Nakhchivan, Sumgayit and Lankaran. Besides, we had agreements with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of the Social Protection of the Population, as well as with the Union of Disabled People Organizations (UDPO) of Azerbaijan, which includes more than 45 local public organizations.
Within the framework of our Project for the first time in the country the centers for students with disabilities have been established in 6 indicated HEIs.
On the website http://esfidip.khazar.org/, created specifically for the project, in Azeri and in English you can get acquainted with the goals and objectives of the Project, get information about local and European partners, on current work, read documents drafted during project implementation, and in the "Gallery" section you can see the photos taken during trainings and meetings for the project implementation period.
- What are the goals and objectives of the Project?
- The goal of the Project was to create the framework for the integration of persons with disabilities into the HEIs of Azerbaijan and introduce the European practice into local universities. In the furtherance of these goals, such tasks as the development of policy and relevant regulatory documents for attracting and supporting persons with disabilities into HEIs of Azerbaijan were assigned and successfully accomplished. Within the framework of the Project, activities related to the organization of thematic trainings for students, teachers and other employees of collaborating local universities were delivered. In addition, as previously noted, the centers for students with disabilities were established in all local collaborating HEIs.
Throughout the Project, we often hold meetings not only with specialists, but also with the public. During these meetings, we informed them about the goals and objectives of the Project, and learned their opinions. This helped us in correcting and improving the work on the implementation of activities within the framework of the Project.
- Was the successful practice of other countries used in the implementation of the project?
- Yes, absolutely. Indeed, among the partners of the Project there were not only local universities, ministries and CSOs. We worked closely with the University of Lodz in Poland, the State University of Macedonia in Greece, University of Graz in Austria and Human European Consultancy, which specializes in the development and monitoring of regulatory documents on human rights. We visited these institutions, personally got acquainted with their work in this field and received relevant consultations, which helped us in the development of documents for the establishment of the CSD in Azerbaijan.
- What successes or most important aspects of the Project are most memorable in your opinion?
At starting of the Project students with disabilities had certain distrust in it. This was primarily associated with the fact that they hesitated to talk about their problems and sometimes hid them. But on the other hand, they thought that their peers and teaching staff would not address their problems. However, events proved them misguided. With the help of the CSD a lot of problems of such students, who anyhow are connected with the studying at the university, where the CSD operates were solved. Just, for example, 3 disabled students of Khazar University appealed to us with a request to consider the possibility to reduce the tuition in our university. Their request was satisfied by the governance of the university and per year tuition was reduced threefold. They also receive free college textbooks and use the infrastructures of the CSD. We also help in resolving their social problems.
- The Project is completed. The reasonable question arises - how long will these centers operate?
- As it was supposed at the Project start, upon its completion all these centers, established on the basis of the universities, have been included in the balance of the universities, and began to work on an ongoing basis, having their own technical base and staffing unit. For several months these centers have been operating without financial support of the completed project. Along with that, we are working hard on development of a new project in this direction. The main goal of the new project proposal is to increase the number of such centers in HEIs of Azerbaijan. No doubt that the successful results of the implemented project will provide fertile ground for the implementation of the new Project.


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The Cissé Laboratory
We leverage expertise in Single Molecule and Super-Resolution imaging in live cells to study collective behaviors (e.g. protein clustering) emerging from weak or transient biomolecular interactions in mammalian cells.
We unveil, often for the first time, that these clusters exist in living cells, and we expand both on the imaging approaches and the cellular and molecular biology techniques to discover the biophysical mechanisms of action, and their function in vivo .
MIT Department of Physics
We acknowledge support from the following programs
News updates:


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Cream Cheese Spinach Dip Recipe
The other day my family had a BBQ to celebrate memorial day. I wanted to bring a dish I had never made before, so I made spinach dip made with cream cheese.
The great things about this dip is that it contains spinach! Spinach is an excellent source of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant that's been shown to reduce the risk of developing cataracts. It also fights heart disease and cancer.
Spinach also possesses several important phytochemicals, including lutein, which helps prevent age-related macular degeneration. Spinach also contains lipoic acid, which helps antioxidant vitamins C and E regenerate. it's possible that it also helps regulate blood sugar levels.
And if that's not enough, Spinach also is abundant in potassium which helps promote heart health and keeps muscles from cramping. When you cook spinach it gives it a boost of fiber as well. Are you ready to make this recipe yet?
Cream Cheese Spinach Dip
What You Need:
- 6 oz baby spinach leaves
- 1 TBSP butter
- 3oz cream cheese (slightly softened)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup grated mozzarella
- salt & pepper & your favorite seasonings
- Sauté spinach and garlic in butter until the spinach leaves wilt
- Transfer to a colander
- Press firmly until all the water runs out . (this might take about 10 minutes, but worth it! — unless you want your dish to be soggy)
- Spoon into a 10 oz baking dish
- Mix in the cream cheese
- Season well
- Sprinkle mozzarella over the top
- Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.
- Served with crackers, corn chips, pita chips, or toast
- & Enjoy!
Looking for a different dip to make? Try Cream Cheese Taco Dip! Or 7 Layer Taco Dip is always a good one too! Dips always seem to be a hit family get-togethers and potlucks.
Do you make Cream Cheese Spinach Dip? What is your favorite warm dip to make?


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The realist is the man, who having weighed all the visible factors in a given situation and having found that the odds are against him, decides that fighting is useless. (Quote by - Raoul De Sales)
We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place. (Quote by - Daniel Boorstin)
My greatest enemy is reality. I have fought it successfully for thirty years. (Quote by - Margaret Anderson)
Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it. (Quote by - Gustave Flaubert)
Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property. (Quote by - Ayn Rand)
Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of. (Quote by - Bertolt Brecht)
Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides. (Quote by - Frank Tyger)
But in the end all religions tend to point to the same light. In between the light and us, sometimes there are too many rules. (Quote by - Paulo Coelho)
You get criticized most when you deserve it least. (Quote by - Larry Nyland)
Anything, everything, can be learned if you can just get yourself in a little patch of real ground, real nature, real wood, real anything and just sit still and watch. (Quote by - Lauren Hutton)
How to achieve such anomalies, such alterations and re-fashionings of reality so what comes out of it are lies, if you like, but lies that are more than literal truth. (Quote by - Vincent Van Gogh)
There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. (Quote by - Douglas Everett)
If God is a reality, and the soul is a reality, and you are an immortal being, what are you doing with your Bible shut? (Quote by - Herrick Johnson)
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems -- but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems incredible. (Quote by - Salman Rushdie)
Footnotes are the finer-suckered surfaces that allow testicular paragraphs to hold fast to the wider reality of the library. (Quote by - Nicholson Baker)
The reality is that in much of industrialized societies, we are completely addicted to comfort. We are a society of addicts. (Quote by - Julia Butterfly Hill)
The fantasist in whom the reality barrier has broken down is unreliable, believing things when he should not, and telling things as true when they are not. (Quote by - Simon Blackburn)
Reality is not always probable, or likely. (Quote by - Jorge Luis Borges)
What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable. (Quote by - Louise Nevelson)
The American dream of rags to riches is a dream for a reason - it is hard to achieve; were everyone to do it, it wouldn't be a dream but would rather be reality. (Quote by - Robert Fulton)
The resounding advice is to get on with it in your own life and get your own house in order. (Quote by - KT Tunstall)
In reality, everyone is good in bed. What's there to not be good at? Bed is the one place where laziness is rewarded. (Quote by - John Dobbin)
Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again. (Quote by - Willa Sibert Cather)
Realism ... has no more to do with reality than anything else. (Quote by - Hob Broun)
It has sometimes been said that we find nowhere in nature an analogue of the difference between "happens" and "is,"on the one hand, and "ought," on the other hand. (Quote by - Wolfgang Kohler)


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It's Official – PP&Co Santa Cruz Practice Expansion is Complete
On Tuesday, November 1st, we officially expanded our Santa Cruz office, by combining the Santa Cruz office of Armanino with our existing Santa Cruz operation. Since our philosophies and dedication to service are the same, we are enjoying a smooth transition.
To help staff in both our San Jose and Santa Cruz offices get better acquainted, the Partners hosted a mixer at the Santa Cruz Yacht Club, where we played 'Getting to Know You' Bingo to learn more about each other. The object of the game is to find someone who matches up with one of the descriptors in the squares – descriptors like 'is a twin' and 'likes to scuba dive' and 'cuts their own hair.' The game was a great low pressure way for people to circulate and ask questions, while also having a good time. Prizes were awarded for the first 3 Bingos and for the most squares completed. Natural curiosity, fueled by a touch of healthy competition, made the game a huge success. By the end, more than a few people had discovered kindred spirits.
Those who joined us from the Armanino Santa Cruz tax practice include tax partner Frank Minuti, managers Martita Emde and Cara Fite, supervising senior Jennifer Gandrup, staff accountant Deval Thacker, and bookkeeper Suzy Marini. PP&Co has now combined the two Santa Cruz office locations and will operate from 740 Front Street, Suite 365, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. This is the suite of offices that the Armanino Santa Cruz practice occupied prior to the expansion.
The lights are on, the new computers are connected, and the Wi-Fi is working, all within the first two weeks – we'll count this our first joint victory. The Santa Cruz staff is training on new software and systems, and will be ready to continue to tackle the tax compliance issues facing the seaside city come tax season.
It was a natural progression to seek additional resources to serve our expanding practice and the needs of the community, as PP&Co has received a tremendous reception in the Santa Cruz community and our practice has continued to grow. With the combined knowledge and depth of experience from both teams, clients will benefit from regional firm resources and expertise, while continuing to receive the dedicated attention of a local firm.
We're officially open for business in the new location, so if you're in the area, please feel free to stop by and say "Hello." As David Doolin (the partner who oversees the Santa Cruz office) said, "We look forward to continuing to expand our presence in the community, and to serving both the long standing clients and their families, and emerging businesses with the same level of engagement we have provided our clients for 65 years."
Petrinovich Pugh and Company, LLP was founded in San Jose in 1951. It is a full-service accounting firm that has provided planning, consulting and compliance services to small and medium-sized, privately held companies, multi-generational family-owned businesses, partnerships, organizations, and high net worth individuals for 65 years. The Firm has consistently been named one of the Bay Area's 125 Best Places to Work in the 25-50 employee category, as ranked annually by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times. The firm also has the distinction of being named one of the 100 Best Accounting Firms to Work For in the Nation, by Accounting Today magazine, for multiple years.
PP&Co headquarters is located in downtown San Jose – in the Comerica Bank building, 333 W. Santa Clara Street, Suite 830, San Jose, CA 95113. For more information, please contact Saralyn Winslow, Marketing Coordinator, at firstname.lastname@example.com, or via telephone at (408) 287-7911.


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Prenatal Bonding
While you are pregnant is a vital time to build a foundation for your child, not just when the baby is born. A developing child needs to feel welcomed and not treated as a disease or condition. In some cases a baby growing inside is not accepted as real until he or she is born. Just imagine your baby saying, "Hey! I am a person even if you don't think I am!"
Dr. David Chamberlin, a well-known psychologist who had done research in prenatal development, psychology and bonding has said, "The womb is a classroom and every baby must attend." It is an intense learning period in one's life and a time to establish patterns for a lifetime.
The Institute For Perinatal Education created by Dr. Fred Wirth, a well-know neonatologist, has listed seven keys to a successful pregnancy:
- Connect emotionally with your unborn child
- Release your stress
- Develop a positive flow state
- Be at your personal best for your developing baby
- Use your brain and body to become your unborn child's brain architect
- Communicate effectively to improve your family's health
- Develop a pregnancy mission statement
A baby's emotional tone is set prior to birth. There is a strong connection both in utero and in our everyday lives between mind, body and emotions. Eliminating stress is important to baby's developing brain.
All the baby's senses are developed by the time he or she is 23 weeks gestation. The ear is in place by 3 weeks and functional by the 16th. Active listening occurs by the 24th week. Hearing, of all the baby's senses, is the most highly developed before birth. Emotional involvement and expression reveal themselves as early as 10 weeks, and touch is developed by 16 weeks, as well as taste and smell. Vision develops by 18-20 weeks.
Celebrate your baby while he or she is growing inside you and maintain a calmness about you. Take time out every day to connect with your unborn child, letting him know how happy your are to have him as part of your family.
- Welcoming Baby, by S. Colleen Graham
- Loving Your Unborn Child, by Dr. Fred Wirth
- Prenatal Parenting, by Dr. Fred Wirth


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Laura Bradley
Laura Bradley is Commissioning Editor of AnOther Magazine and Website. Prior to this, she was i-D's Online Editor and Fashion Features Editor at SHOWstudio.com. Bradley graduated from the BA (Hons) Fashion Communication with Promotion course at Central Saint Martins with a First Class Honours. She founded and is Editor in Chief of The Fashion Almanac and the inaugural printed issue for Spring/Summer 2008 featured contributions from an array of industry personalities including Jason Evans, Simon Foxton, Susannah Frankel, Pierre Hardy, Stephen Jones, M/M (Paris) and Peter Saville. Bradley also works as a freelance writer, contributing to a number of international publications such as i-D Magazine and Vogue Hommes Japan and has lectured at institutions including the ICA and the Design Museum.
- Laura Bradley features in a project.
- Laura Bradley creates an interview.
- Laura Bradley creates a blog post.
- Laura Bradley creates a blog post.


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Publisher Blurb:
Post-apocalyptic Los Angeles meets Cimmerian Pulp Adventure with a heavy dose of Gamma World in this new RPG setting.
Welcome to the OMEGAZONE
We call it the World Before. Where all the destruction and mayhem called the Omega Wars originated. Nowadays, fighting to survive is just a way of life.
Jussabout' everything here is touched by some kinda weirdness, msself included. No clue why, but when you grow up with it, you don't notice it so much. It's just the way things are. But they haven't always been. There are leftovers here from the Omega Wars against the Kreen. I read about them in a pamphlet that managed not to get isself burned.
That's how I know everything's changed...
OMEGAZONE is an Instant Setting for the Fate Accelerated roleplaying game. The 54 card deck contains all the ingredients you need for adventure. It's just waiting for you to fill in the details.
Adventure generation is just as easy. Included are pre-built locations with NPC faces and potential allies/antagonists, and a adventure hook generator to jumpstart a plot.
OMEGAZONE is inspired by games like Gamma World and Enslaved: Journey to the West; cartoons like Thundarr the Barbarian; books like Conan the Barbarian, A Canticle for Liebowitz, Remnant Population, and The World Without Us; and movies like Escape from L.A., Mad Max, and Six-String Samurai. What I love about adventures set in these kinds of worlds is that the Monstrous becomes familiar, and you get to be them or unite with them to face some other kind of threat. Whether that's leftover robots in a nature-reclaimed ruin of a city, or just helping defend an outpost of gasoline-makers against The Humungus, there's always new adventure to be had.
user comment
for additional material see OmegaZone Setting Guide


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The symptoms of diarrhea include loose, liquid stools, an urgent need to use the bathroom, and increased frequency of bowel movements. The symptoms may appear within 5 to 48 hours after the intake of the contaminated food and water. It will be more severe during the first 24 hours.
Other symptoms include:
Frequent diarrhea and vomiting may leads to dehydration due excessive loss of water from the body. Signs of dehydration include:


text: An exciting opportunity has arisen for a motivated and experienced Business Partnership Manager to join the Marketing team, on a temporary basis to cover maternity leave (approximately 9-12 months). We are looking for a self-motivated, people-person who can build relationships across the Merseyrail network that result in increased train journeys. A key element of the role is recruiting local businesses to be part of Merseyrail's Corporate Travel Scheme.


text:
- Poster presentation
- Open Access
Internet and the psychiatric patient: our experience
© The Author(s) 2003
- Received: 1 November 2003
- Published: 23 December 2003
- Schizophrenia
- Anxiety Disorder
- Population Base Study
- Medical Service
- Mood Disorder
The provision of medical advice in psychiatric patients, using the advanced services of the internet.
Material and Methods
This is a retrospective, population based study in 261 psychiatric patients from a random sample of 1500 patients that visited our medical site, seeking medical advice using the electronic mail, teleconference or IRC private channels. A team consisting of two general practitioners, two psychiatrists, a neurologist and an internist, was held responsible for the processing of the requests. The following medical data were considered as absolute minimum for the completion of the service: age of the patient, location, marital status, medical and family history, present and past complaints. In case of important data were missing, our team would contact the patient for further information.
198 of the 261 requests were processed. In the remaining requests, either certain important data were missing, or the clinical or imaging examination were absolutely necessary. 47.5% (n = 94) of the patients were seeking advice for close relatives and 72.7% (n = 144) were between 20 and 45 years old. 12.6% (n = 25) of requests were on substance-related disorders and 14.1% (n = 28) were related to schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Another 19.7% (n = 32) were classified as suffering from mood disorders, whereas 20.2 % (n = 40) of cases belonged to anxiety disorders. The remainder 36.9% (n = 73) included among others psychosomatic, eating, somatoform, sleep and personality disorders. After processing the requests, 40.9% (n = 81) of the patients replied by expressing their satisfaction, while 48.5% (n = 96) of patients stated that our service was essential in understanding their problem.
Internet and modern technologies provide a reliable, alternative solution in the provision of medical advice, adjuvant to the conventional medical services.


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This past July, we have been busy working on an advertorial campaign for a great client. Luckily, in between the long but fruitful hours, we were able to sneak in a little test.
Julia will soon be leaving out of the country to work abroad, which is absolutely amazing and very inspiring! I have a deep love for travel and photography so I am really excited to see what this beauty accomplishes while on her stay!
I, however, don't know who I will be shooting with now. I've become quite addicted to this young lady's incredible professionalism and killer moves.
Have a great trip, Julia!
Please keep checking back, as she will be featured in our client's brand new relaunch this Monday.
– Casi


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Email you questions to Ask Eric.
Eric will respond to as many questions as possible each and
Don't Forget... March Madness starts TODAY!! Be sure to enter to win one of our awesome prizes! Entering Pink Lemonade's "March Madness" Sweepstakes couldn't be easier!
Here's how to Enter:
Leave a comment on our Main Page at Pink Lemonade anytime between March 1 and March 31.
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If you are a blogger - pick up one of our Pink Lemonade buttons (on our main site Pink Lemonade) and put up a post about our contest.
(be sure to email email@example.com with your blog address and "blog post" in the subject line)
See, it's so easy to enter! Each email address can receive a possible three entries so don't wait - enter now!
Maximum one entry per email address per method of entry. Duplicate entries will be disqualified. Contest opens at 12:00am pst March 1 and closes at 11:59pm pst March 31. Each prize will be awarded to one qualified winner. Winners will be notified via email and posted on Pink Lemonade. Only one of each prize available. Four winners will be chosen at random from eligible entrants and randomly awarded one of the four available prizes.
Good Luck!


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North Dakota GOP eyes law change allowing parties to avoid bitter primary fights
BISMARCK -- Leaders of the North Dakota Republican Party will consider endorsing a law change next week that would allow the state's political parties to avoid bitter intraparty primary election battles.
The GOP State Committee is scheduled to vote on the resolution Thursday, Dec. 13, a few weeks after its rules committee approved it. John Trandem, chairman of the party's rules committee, said the proposed change would give parties more flexibility on how they nominate their candidates for the general election ballot, allowing them to use a caucus or convention of its members rather than a primary election open to all of the state's voters.
Trandem said current state law compels political parties to "essentially confer voting rights to anyone, regardless of their political affiliation." He argued party nominations should be an organization's private function, unlike a general election open to the public.
"It's become more of an issue in recent years when we see more people employing the primary option when they fail to garner the support of the district or the state party at the state convention," he said. "If you want to build a party, you have to make party exercises consequential and exclusive."
The proposal comes after some successful primary election challenges for the highest offices in the state.
In the 2012 Republican primary for Congress, Sen.-elect Kevin Cramer defeated the party's endorsed candidate, Brian Kalk. Likewise, Doug Burgum beat the GOP-backed candidate for governor, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, during the 2016 primary.
Cramer on Friday called the idea "lousy" and said primaries help test a candidate's "electability." He said a better solution would be for North Dakota to ditch its status as the only state without voter registration.
"I like the primary process. It's inclusive," he said. "Rather than trying to stop this movement of more people wanting to be involved in that process, invite them into the process by having voter registration."
Burgum said he supports open primaries because they help encourage competition.
But Trandem said the contests can harm the parties, citing the 1992 primary for governor that caused divisions among Democrats. More recently, Tom Campbell almost ran against GOP-endorsed Kelly Armstrong for Congress earlier this year but backed down.
"They would have spent millions of dollars fighting with each other, and that doesn't benefit anyone," Trandem said. "Contests are great. But contests should be resolved internally."
Trandem said he was unsure what the proposal's fate would be in the Legislature. Coincidentally, it would require Burgum's signature to become law.
State Republican Party Chairman Rick Berg declined to weigh in on the proposal Friday afternoon.
"It's kind of like the Legislature. People can bring any issue they want up and ... be debated," he said.
North Dakota Democratic-NPL Chairman Warren Larson didn't return a message Friday.


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Active Security Solutions Ltd are always looking to recruit new team members who have experience in the door security industry.
If you feel you have what it takes to be a valued member of our team, please complete and submit your C.V on line. For the latest information, please call the Personnel Department on 01902 429005 or email us at: firstname.lastname@example.com
We take our responsibilities for ensuring equality of opportunity very seriously. In practice this means: Everyone at Active Security Solutions Ltd has a responsibility to respect others and avoid discrimination and harassment. Your own race, gender, ability, sexuality, age and lifestyle will be given respect and treated positively. We are fully aware of our responsibilities. We challenge discrimination, monitor our services and actively promote good relations.
To see the latest opportunities and join the team please visit our vacancies page
The Security Industry Authority is the organisation responsible for regulating the private security industry. They are an independent body reporting to the Home Secretary, under the terms of the Private Security Industry Act 2001.
Stay informed on our latest news!


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Goodbye Bar Code – Toshiba Develops Next-Generation Scanner
Toshiba Develops Next-Generation Scanner: Did you have to wait for the cashier in the supermarket to look for the code of the vegetable or fruit you are buying? Well, a scanner from a Japanese supermarket developed by Toshiba could be solving the delay, since it does not require entering a special product code. Goodbye Bar Code… Read More »


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Women: Sit at the table. Not on side.
February 10, 2012 § Leave a comment
Excellent TED talk with Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.
Sandberg's advice to women:
Sit at the table.
Make your partner a real partner.
Don't leave before you leave.
If you support Prop 8 and/or SB 1070 un-friend me on facebook
August 20, 2010 § Leave a comment
I am incredibly proud of my husband's Facebook status.
Please feel free to repost on your own page:
___________ is fed up. If you support California's Proposition 8 or any of the Arizona anti-immigration laws, un-friend me now. NOW. Don't send me an email or comment on this post. This isn't a political issue, it's about avoiding the complacency-in-the-face-of-hatred that doomed 1930s Germany. How you can live with yourself is your own problem.
Berlin's Eruv Talk
November 2, 2009 § 4 Comments
I will be presenting Berlin's Eruv at KAM Isaiah Israel, as part of their World Jewry Program, this Sunday, November 8th. The lecture is open to the public.
video still from interview with Moshe Or
In 2008 I traveled to Berlin as part of exchange program with my University. Prior to this visit, I had never been to Germany- nor did I have any particular reservations about going or not going, but it seemed everyone else had their own opinion on the matter.
"Germany, how can you go there as a Jew?" "There are Jews in Germany? I thought they were all dead?" "You are so brave to go to Germany…"
Ultimately people's projections as to my intentions for going to Germany became the filter through which I experienced Berlin.
While I was in Berlin I conducted interviews with members of the community concerning the highly visible presence of the monuments and memorials commemorating Jewish life (death) have impacted their individual and communal Jewish identities. Other topics included: the notion of German Jews vs Jews living in Germany and how this differs from an American Jewish identity, their status as diaspora Jews and their relationship to Israel, their thoughts on the European Union, anti-semitism and the widespread use of facebook as a mode of connection.
The title of the piece Berlin's Eruv is a play on the fact that there is not actually an eruv in Berlin. An eruv is a rabbinically sanctioned demarcation of space that transforms public space into private space for the purposes of the Sabbath, allowing Orthodox Jews to carry in public places, a practice which is otherwise prohibited. Modern eruvs are often made of wire strung between utility poles, a gesture towards a "walled courtyard," indicating an enclosed, private space.
Just as the eruv exists in the minds of the people who abide by it, Berlin's Eruv manifests itself through the conversations surrounding the idea of the piece. The interviews I conducted in Berlin relied on the presence of institutionalized markers of Jewish identity, to give weight to the idea non-presence of the living Jewish community.
Berlin's Eruv Talk
11/8/09 @ 10:30 am
KAM Isaiah Israel
1100 E Hyde Park Blvd
Chicago, IL 60615-2810
Nuevos Compañeros: Rio Yañez
September 30, 2009 § Leave a comment
My newest partner in crime is the talented, witty, godzilla and pikapika lovin' Chicano artist and curator Rio Yañez. I first came across his Ghetto Frida two years ago, while working on the project Obsessed With Frida Kahlo. Immediately I felt some sort of cosmic connection-not to Ghetto Frida- but to her creator. And then to make matters worse better, I found out that he is the son of one my biggest heroes- Yolanda Lopez!
There was really no option other than collaboration. It was fate.
Last month we finally initiated our long distance partnership through a tweet. Since then we have been communicating through TwitPic, Facebook, YouTube, phone calls and texts, and of course mutual shouts in interviews on the blogosphere (mine to Rio & Rio's to me.)
Here are a few examples of Rio's recent work:
"I've been twittering for about a week now at http://twitter.com/rioyanez. I signed up as a way to contact Amber Rose after she started writing and posting about the portrait I created of her. I have to say, the most exciting aspect of twitter is the way people distribute images. The short urls for twitpics that often pop up on tweets evoke a sense of curiosity in me; more so than the many thumbnails that can be found on facebook. I think the lack of a thumbnail is more alluring and it forces you to chose to see the image or not, there's no middle ground of a provided preview." (from his blog)
"Artist Curator Rachel-Anne Palacios flanked by Zitlalix and I. I created this portrait to thank Rachel for including me in the recent Frida exhibit she curated and to join the many artists who are on display on the walls of her apartment" (from flickr)
These images represent my first foray into my Raza Zombies series. They were inspired by the single best mainstream comic book of the 21st century: Marvel Zombies. Marvel Zombies re-imagines classic superheroes as flesh eating zombies. After reading it I felt compelled to do some zombie transformations on a few of my own personal heroes. More to come. (from flickr)
Video of Gomez Peña setting the record straight for Rio regarding his Facebook presence.
Rio's Ghetto Frida Mural in the Mission District
stay tuned for more…
ongoing intertextual exchange
April 28, 2009 § Leave a comment
The other day I posted a link on facebook to an article by Kevin Kelly on vizual literacy. Both Eric Repice and Eliyahu Enriquez responded to this post, and Eliyahu wrote a post about this exchange on his blog….
The following is a repost of Eliyahu's post Vizual Literacy
RT/Hat Tip @mayaescobar Tools for Vizuality
Excerpt from Fb Thread Transcript:
In archiving poems in blog format, I find embedding videos with a distinct narrative to the word-piece heightens the sensory experience: simultaneous stimuli, rather than a replacement paradigm with regards to medium. The experimental nature of combining/utilizing moving images with poetry, such as those of Filipino Author, Nick Carbó, hints at what I'm trying to get at, though the idea I'm reaching for may be more a novelty for Literary marketing strategies/accessibility on the web… With an accompanying video in whatever length, the reader is more likely to stay with the poem, rather than a wham-bam!-thank you, sir means of creative dissection. Whereas, to capture the essence of canonization – the written word to a cinematic language, while maintaining their distinction – that's something I'm currently playing with…
What Would Judas Do?
"I visited a sage, Rav Yosef Shalom Eliashuv, who lives in one of the most secluded ultra-Orthodox communities in Jerusalem. He was in poor health but still taking visitors… Speaking in Hebrew, I told him what, at the time, I felt was the truth. 'Master, I am attracted to both men and women. What shall I do?' He responded, 'My dear one, my friend, you have twice the power of love. Use it carefully' – Rabbi Steven Greenberg."
I am attracted to
He loved me.
He loved me not.
I love bringing pleasure too
She loves mi.
She loves mi knot.
The Art of Couch-Hopping
Lark descending.
Lost Ark.
As Queer as A Clockwork Orange
Maya Escobar's YouTube Channel
Nick Carbó's YouTube Channel
Eliyahu Enriquez's YouTube Channel
Appropriating and Recontextualizing Google Image Search Results
March 12, 2009 § 5 Comments
Part 1 of an article I wrote for jewishinstlouis.org
Every art student learns about the fair use principle, granting us permission to use any image in our artwork as long as we transform it so that it conveys new meaning. But beyond that all-encompassing definition, we don't know what transgressions, if any, we are actually committing.
Recently in the news is the preemptive lawsuit artist Shepard Fairey filed against the Associated Press. According to Fairey the AP threatened to sue him unless he pays royalties for the image that he used as source material for his now famous campaign poster of Barack Obama. Fairey argues that he is protected by the fair use principle. He claims that his intention was not to reproduce any particular image, but instead was to capture a specific gaze representative of the ideas of hope and change.
In an interview on NPR, Fairey declared he was going forward with this suit on behalf of all artists, the thousands of artists that created their own campaign images in the same grassroots manner, pulling images from the web in support of the message of hope, change and a new administration in Washington.
screen shot of: first page of google image search results for "Barack Obama"
I am fascinated by Fairey's implication that the process of appropriating and re-contextualizing Google image search results might be considered a grassroots action. As an artist, I frequently use images that that I find on Google. Like Fairey suggested, my motivation for using these images is to highlight the search itself, not the derivative image.
Perhaps then, these cyber Robin Hoodian actions—using and transforming Google image search results—are capable of changing the structures that control the dissemination of information. After all, the order that information appears in Google searches is determined by the amount of people searching any given topic. And as a result of the Fairey's appropriation, his campaign poster may be forever linked to Obama's presidency.
email from President Obama
Obama's popularity can be credited to his skillfully constructed presidential campaign that effortlessly linked his name to hope. I was quick to jump onto Obama's online campaign message of hope. Like many others, I subscribed to his twitter, facebook, and YouTube pages. I now get weekly emails from him and I even have a blog on his site…
A Response to a Response to a Response
February 26, 2009 § Leave a comment
This is the Jack McBrayer Response
To the Internet Response
To the Republican Response
To the President's Address to Congress
[clearspring_widget title="Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – The Jack McBrayer Response To The Internet Response To The Republican Response To The President's Address To Congress" wid="4727a250e66f9723″ pid="49a664282cffce66″ width="384″ height="283″ domain="widgets.nbc.com"]


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Yes there's a tree*… but also some other interesting looking stuff at around 5:30 in the morning recently.
The picture is gratuitous. I wanted to make a post and posts on here look ugly without pictures.
This post is about "art" again. And "rules". All over the internet I see people saying the same thing almost like political correctness. "There are no rules" they say. Often qualified by "you have to know the rules in order to break them". I think this is bunk.
Oh you want an explanation? Okay. Let's see now. Okay I'll be politically correct and say "this is my opinion" and YMMV, etc. but there is a rule and it always applies no matter what kind of work I'm doing. The rule is "say something".
The rule can be broken just as any other one can. But when I break this rule I get bad pictures every time. There is no way to get a good picture when this rule is broken except by complete accident. So it's a rule.
I see lots of discussions where people seem to have a very narrow definition of communication. They think it only applies to commercial work and that "art" is exempt from it. Communication is getting something across to someone else. And that doesn't apply to "art"? Are you kidding me? Well I guess it might not apply to a bunch of what is supposed to pass for art today but maybe that isn't truly art.
Something should be gotten across to the viewer. It could be a feeling or an idea. Whatever is supposed to get across is the "message". And that only means that which is communicated. It is not limited to "buy this" or "believe that" though it might do if that is what you wanted to say. It could mean "I love her" or "Wow look how yellow that flower is".
In the picture above I wanted to show what early morning light does for the view outside my window. I'm not often up and about at that time so it was meant as a reminder to me so I can say "I've seen that. Yeah it looks good".
*Cream "World of Pain" You'd have to be "of a certain age" as they say.


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Jeremy Carroll wrote: > I'll try again Monday. Sometimes I feel resentful when, over the weekend, I find that my mind is turning over the things that I am paid to think about from Monday to Friday ... I suppose I should try and complete work on Friday rather than leave such a dangling unfinished thought! So Friday's message was unsatisfactory in that while I claimed a semantic issue, I ended up with syntactic issues, which were essentially based on my view of the history of section 4 of the OWL 1.0 S&AS. In this message I will try again at item (b) >> Jeremy Carroll wrote: >>> >>> b) In OWL 1.0, the tension between the OWL Full semantics and the direct >>> semantics is resolved in cleverly non-deterministic mapping rules >>> reusing some of my text from my Friday with **** being used to emphasize important new/changed text > In this attempt I will pretend that the resolution of webont issue > 5.3 was iff rather than the actual if-then. > http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#I5.3-Semantic-Layering > > I will use iff* for a pretend iff, that refers back to this point, etc. > > (More on this point in a later message). > > The OWL DL vs OWL Full issue in v 1.0 is resolved in the following way: > > There is an OWL DL syntax and semantics: abstract syntax trees (AST) and > the direct semantics. > > There is an OWL Full syntax and semantics: graphs and the RDFS > compatible semantics. > > For each of these, we can form equivalence classes of ontologies that > have the same meaning: > > i.e. > > ASTs t1 and t2 are equivalent if t1 entails t2 and t2 entails t1 under > the direct semantics > > Graphs g1 and g2 are equivalent if g1 entails g2 and g2 entails g1 under > the RDFS compatible semantics. > ***** A direct interpretation of trees I_t and an RDFS compatible interpretation of graphs I_g may be viewed (informally) as corresponding Such an informal view can be partially formalized by forming a bijection between a subset of the domain of discourse of I_t and a subset of the domain of discourse of I_g. For corresponding interpretations such subsets will include the interpretation of all normal terms, and the obvious identities will hold. ****** > The mapping rules relate ASTs with Graphs in a way that aligns the > semantics. So if > t1 m g1 > and > t3 m g3 > then > t1 direct-entails t3 iff* g1 full-entails g3 ****** Also any interpretation I_t1 of t1 corresponds to some interpretation I_g1 of g1, (and conversely ??? probably not) ****** > > Overall we get a relationship between the equivalence relationships over > ASTs and over graphs, via the mapping rules. > > i.e. If > > g1 m t1 > > g2 m t2 > > then > > { > > t1 ~ t2 > > iff > > g1 ~ g2 > > } > > [I still need to think through the iff* issue here] > > Thus any subset of an equivalence class of trees is mapped to a subset > of equivelance class of graphs, and conversely. > > Some of the equivalent ASTs will be equivalent becasue of syntactic > variation in trees that does not correspond to a syntactic variation of > graphs. > > Some of the equivalent graphs will be equivalent becasue of syntactic > variation in graphs that does not correspond to a syntactic variation of > trees. > > Some of the equivalent graphs will have corresponding equivalent trees > in which the syntactic variations are similar. > ***** The role of the mapping rules is to allow interoperability between OWL DL and OWL Full - this is crucial in avoiding a schism in the semantic web. In my view an acceptable design has the following characteristics: OWL DL is largely a self-motivated design OWL Full is largely a self-motivated design Every AST in OWL DL is mapped into a graph in OWL Full with the 'same meaning'. Given a graph g in OWL Full, which has the same meaning as some AST in OWL DL, it is not too difficult to find a related graph g' for which there is some tree t' which maps to g'. There are some not too complicated rules of thumb that can be used when constructing such a g that ensure that g=g' nearly all of the time. ****** > If the mapping rules are too strict then each graph and each tree will > map to only a small number (e.g. 0, 1 or 2) of trees or graphs. > If the mapping rules are looser (non-deterministic) then much of the > equivalence relationships are built into the mapping rules. > The (informal) topology of the space of graphs is very different from that of the space of trees (with the topologies respecting semantic entailment). This seems to be most easily aligned with a many-to-many mapping. > > With strict (deterministic) rules, the following are likely: > a) large numbers of graphs which have no equivalent trees > b) no easy to articulate rationale for which graphs have trees and which > don't > c) unnecessary algorithmic complexity in determining whether a > particular graph does or does not have a tree representation > > > All three of these issues arose in OWL 1.0 development, and in my > opinion, they all are derivative from the overall problem framework, and > are symptons of trying to align the trees and graphs in too fine grain a > fashion. The non-determinism that was gradually introduced during the > OWL 1.0 development, while being horrible from some point of view, fixed > the underlying granularity problem, because the non-determistic rules > are about aligning equivalence classes of trees with equivalence classes > of graphs, rather than individual trees with individual graphs. > Enough on this for now. JeremyReceived on Monday, 22 October 2007 12:29:50 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.1 : Tuesday, 6 January 2015 21:41:59 UTC


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- Rail Line Acknowledges Solid Safety
- Students Reach Next Round in Cyber FastTrack
- Getting Security Data in Context
- Root Cause Analysis for CA Gas Leak
- Computrols Clears CBAS Web Holes
- Mitsubishi Ethernet Module Firmware Fixed
- Misconfigured System an Emerging Threat
- Manufacturing, Energy Targeted Industries
- Cyber Crime Network Dismantled
- Ex-CIA Officer gets 20 Years
- SHARP Boosts Bottom Line for WV Fabricator
- Fuji Electric Fixes Alpha7 PC Loader
- Schneider Mitigations for Modicon Controllers
- Omron Working on Network Configurator for DeviceNet Fix
- SIMATIC PCS 7, WinCC, TIA Portal Security Updates
- SCALANCE Security Update Available
Chemical Safety Incidents
Coal Plant Fire Forces Shut Down
Monday, August 15, 2016 @ 06:08 PM gHale
After a massive fire, a utility just outside Detroit is reassigning workers because they can't say when the facility will end up reopened.
DTE Energy Co.'s St. Clair Power Plant in East China Township remained shut down Friday, officials said.
Motiva Refinery Fire Forces Evac
Adhesives Spill after SC Plant Fire
Blaze at NH Plastics Plant
Chemical Reaction Forces Evac in MI
"As of 5 p.m. Friday, DTE's access to the plant remains limited, as teams continue to assess the situation," the utility said. "The plant remains closed, and we do not have an estimate as to when the plant will reopen."
Fire crews on Friday extinguished the blaze reported at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and sent smoke into the air that was visible for miles, officials said. The fire started in a coal-fired generating unit. There were no injuries in the incident.
"DTE teams successfully invoked emergency procedures and shut down all generating units at the site while working with first responders to successfully control the situation," DTE Energy said Friday.
Firefighters from across St. Clair County ended up called to the plant about 40 miles northeast of Detroit and along the St. Clair River as thick, billowing black and gray smoke rose from the burning structure. Employees safely evacuated.
Traffic ended up detoured away from the plant.
The St. Clair Fire Department said Friday crews went into the building overnight to look for hot spots and remained at the plant, located along the U.S. border with Canada.
The utility said customers won't see any effects on electrical service. Air quality readings were "well within normal limits outside the facility perimeter," DTE said.
The plant has been in service since 1953 and the utility said the facility has 294 employees overall.
DTE said in June that coal-fired units at the plant are among eight at three of its facilities slated to be shut down within the next seven years.
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text:
One should not try to interpret the "meaning" of MDS dimensions, since any rotation of an MDS solution is a completely equivalent solution. Hence, looking at the vectors components of an MDS solution has no sense unless you find a way to fix some dimensions in a meaningful way. That's why different MDS algorithms can lead to different (valid) solutions given the same initial similarity matrix. If your goal is to find the "intrinsic" dimensions of sound data, my opinion is that it would be preferable to use state-of-the-art dimensionality reduction algorithms (Isomap, LLE, non-local techniques, or even PCA), on a set of points obtained from MDS with no loss in higher dimension.
-- Jean-François Paiement Research Assistant IDIAP Research Institute Martigny, Switzerland paiement@xxxxxxxx