Why Are Easy Decisions So Hard?
One of the problems with writing a book on decision-making is that people assume I'm not terrible at making decisions. As a result, they act surprised when it takes me 10 minutes to pick a sandwich or when I confess that I still get mild panic attacks when choosing floss at the drugstore. They believe that, just because I wrote about the prefrontal cortex, I'm somehow better able to wield mine. But that's not necessarily the case: there's an indefatigable gap between theory and life. While it's true that I'm no longer quite so indecisive – I don't spend 30 minutes debating breakfast cereals in the supermarket anymore – I still suffer from the occasional bout of "paralysis-by-analysis." If you see a guy looking distraught while comparing the active ingredients of various toothpastes, look again. That might be me.
In essence, my basic decision-making flaw is that I tend to treat easy consumer decisions (toothpaste, floss, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc.) as if they were really difficult. Although I know that every floss will work well enough, I still can't help but contemplate the pros and cons of waxed versus unwaxed, spearmint versus wintermint. It's an embarrassing waste of time, and yet it happens to me all the time.
The problem, of course, is that the modern marketplace is a conspiracy to confuse, to trick the mind into believing that our most banal choices are actually extremely significant. Companies spend a fortune trying to convince us that only their toothpaste will clean our teeth, or that only their detergent will remove the stains from our clothes, or that every other cereal tastes like cardboard. And then there is the surreal abundance of the store shelf. Do we really need 13 different varieties of Cheerios? Why does the average drug store contain 55 floss alternatives and more than 350 kinds of toothpaste? While all these products are designed to cater to particular consumer niches, they end up duping the brain into believing that picking a floss is a high-stakes game, since it's so damn hard. And so we get mired in decision-making quicksand.
Some manufacturers are putting the brakes on new-product introductions. Last year, 69 new toothpastes hit store shelves, down from 102 in 2007, according to market-research firm Mintel International Group. Procter & Gamble Co., maker of Crest, says it has "significantly" reduced the number of oral-care products it makes world wide in the past two years. "We've come to realize that fewer is better," says Matt Doyle, director of global oral-care research and development at P&G.
Stores are trying to simplify, too. Last month, 352 distinct types or sizes of toothpaste were sold at retail, down from 412 in March 2008, according to Spire LLC, which tracks shopping data from more than 30 million U.S. households.
Supervalu Inc., the supermarket giant, has capped the number of package sizes and flavor versions in its stores. "The palate might not be able to discern that sixth variant of mint," says John Mullaney, Supervalu's director of personal care.
In the meantime, I'm going to continue my quest for self-improvement, reminding myself to be less of a maximizer and more of a satisficer. If I keep on telling myself that my selection of floss doesn't really matter – that the importance of the decision is a cognitive illusion – then I'm bound to one day realize it's true. I can finally spend my time worrying about more important things, like what to eat for lunch.


The Olympics may be over, but the scandal over Ryan Lochte lying about being robbed at gunpoint lives on, with Speedo announcing Monday that it would drop its sponsorship of the swimmer. But though Lochte's name dominated the headlines about the incident, he was not the only one to act inappropriately, and many are wondering about the repercussions for the three other swimmers involved. For example, will Jimmy Feigen be allowed to compete again in future Olympics? Though Feigen has already faced some consequences, with more still likely to come, it doesn't seem that he will be banned from future games.
Feigen, Lochte, and their other two teammates, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger, celebrated their dominance in their Olympic events by, allegedly, getting very drunk at a party, stopping at a gas station on their way back to the Olympic Village, and then vandalizing that gas station's bathroom (reports differ on the level of vandalization but it seems, at least, that Lochte ripped down an advertisement). Allegedly, armed guards then demanded the swimmers pay for the damage, displaying their weapons as they did so.
When Lochte originally reported the events, he claimed the four had been pulled over by thieves posing as police, and that the thieves had allegedly held a gun to his head. Feigen backed Lochte up, lying to Rio police because he allegedly wanted to, as his lawyer said, "protect" Lochte. Now, Feigen is paying a price for the lie, and that price is $11,000.
According to The Guardian, after being detained in Brazil and meeting with a judge, Feigen agreed to pay $11,000 to a Brazilian charity, with the understanding that afterwards, he would be given his passport back and allowed to return home.
We all understand they let down our athletes and they let down Americans, and they really let down our hosts in Rio. We feel very badly about that. We will have further action on that when we get back to the United States.
Still, there's no word on what those consequences will be yet. It seems likely, in the wake of the news about Speedo dropping Lochte, that Feigen will face similar consequences with any endorsements he may have. And certainly, big brands will be hesitant about having someone with any sort of tarnished reputation represent them in the future.
But a full-on ban on competing in a future Olympics for Feigen seems unlikely. Such bans are not particularly common, and usually arise after doping or other such cheating. Feigen isn't seen as the ringleader of the gas station scandal, and may not have committed any vandalism himself. In fact, new reports imply that the Rio police may have also exaggerated when talking about the extent of the damage, and that because of both the language barrier and the level of intoxication, the athletes may have felt that they were being robbed when men with guns demanded that they pay them money for damages.
Whether or not Feigen will be able to make a Michael Phelps-like comeback at future games is still unknown, but most likely, he'll be given the chance.


I help adults learn skills and tools create joyful lives, nurturing and caring relationships as they let go of other people’s expectations.
You have been feeling sad, hurt and lonely.? I help you learn to get energized and more joyful You are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, I help you learn how to be calmer and more collected. You've been fearful of leaving home but you want to meet people? I help you with strategies to leave the house and have a life! Relationships are draining and making you miserable. Create relationships that make you sparkle now! You've allowed things to go on and on. Let's get you moving.
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I received a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I have a health services background spanning over 30 years. This has included work in medical hospitals, child protective services and inpatient psychiatric hospital. My approach is one of inclusion, collaboration and belief that every client is doing their best but can learn to do better. I am interactive and will work with clients to provide them with practice exercises tools, and long lasting skills.
I am a Christian. I believe everyone regardless of their faith and/or belief system deserve to be on this earth. I do believe race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age and however the world is being divided to exclude some and celebrate others is not acceptable. I support diverse clients and assist them recognize their own worth, move towards resolving challenges so they can create a life they love.


The spaceship Covenant carries 2,000 colonists who have left Earth for a new life on a distant planet on the other side of the solar system. There are 16 crew members who have joined them in hypersleep, the vessel a gigantic ark that will allow humanity to take root in a new corner of the universe. The only one walking the passageways is the synthetic Walter (Michael Fassbender), his task to ensure the trip goes smoothly and all remains peaceful until it is time to awaken the crew to pilot the ship to its final destination.
But things do not go as planned, a massive energy burst playing havoc with the Covenant's systems. Walter makes the decision to engage emergency protocols, pulling the crew out of hibernation to take command, assess the damage, make necessary repairs and determine the best course of action to ensure the survival of the colonists. Before all can be awakened, a fire takes the life of the ship's Captain, his devastated wife Daniels (Katherine Waterston) immediately elevated to second-in-command while the inexperienced Oram (Billy Crudup) is forced to take command. With the crew's eyes looking to him for guidance, this devout man of faith must make the most important of decisions, his actions likely to determine whether or not the ship and its passengers make it to their destination alive.
Picking up just a few short years after the events depicted in 2012's Prometheus, Alien: Covenant is director Ridley Scott's latest foray into a horrifying interstellar galaxy filled with monsters. To connect the two films Oram and his crew make the decision to investigate a strange signal emanating from a mysterious Earth-like planet instead of continuing to proceed to their original destination. Big mistake. While all initially seems peaceful it doesn't take long for some of the landing party to become infected by an offshoot of the bioengineered black goo introduced in the prior motion picture. This in turn allows for the return of David (also Michael Fassbender), the damaged robot repaired by fellow Prometheus survivor Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace). The two had made the decision to head to the home world of the beings they nicknamed 'Engineers' in the last film, both eager to get answers to a wide range of questions, many of which led to the deaths of all who joined them on that ill-fated expedition.
Did they make it? What is the secret behind this bio-weapon? Did the Engineers facilitate the creation of human life on Earth? Why did they now seemingly want to see it destroyed? These are just a small handful of the pair's questions, whether or not they were given answers, and why David is now seemingly all alone on the planet just a few of the discoveries Scott and his screenwriters John Logan (Spectre) and Dante Harper, working from a story conceived by Jack Paglen (Transcendence) and Michael Green (Logan), subtly explore in this sequel-slash-prequel's breathlessly paced 122 minutes. It all continues to feed slowly but surely into 1979's Alien, dropping a number of hints as to how Ripley and her doomed Nostromo crew could have been led to planet LV-426 in the year 2122.
Anyone thinking Scott and his team would adjust course after the bewildered responses to Prometheus and deliver a more horror-centric scenario here, that is simply not the case. While the blood and guts quotient is significantly higher (although, for all the nastiness nothing here approaches the insanely nauseating emergency Caesarean section scene in the previous film), the director doubles down on the ideas and themes he presented in that science fiction opus, he and his team once again going out of their way to continue to tackle concepts of identity, humanity and religion in the service of a science fiction suspense tale where the unknown is the most fearsome adversary of them all. There is an epic scale to the madness that's as intimate as it is emotional, the Covenant's crew seeing their numbers dwindle one by one the closer they come to learning the truth about the planet they're gamely trying to explore.
As solid as the cast is (Waterston, Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez, Amy Seimetz and Jussie Smollett all making an impression at one point or another) this is Fassbender's show. The movie opens with David discussing the meaning of life with his maker Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), then bursts into its second act with intense dialogue exchanges between David and his slightly more advanced doppelganger Walter and accelerates even faster into the climax as his reasons for being stranded on this planet are shockingly revealed. He is front and center throughout, crafting two distinct characters who are born from the same concept of artificial robotic life but who in reality couldn't be more different. They are Cain and Abel for the digitized cybernetic world, Fassbender brilliantly modulating his dueling performance as the two beings engage in a dexterous interpersonal tête-à-tête as they attempt to figure one another out.
Do not misunderstand. This isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey and Scott, for all his skill, talent and imagination, is not Stanley Kubrick. As heady as some of this might be the director is still more than happy to figure out new ways for his creatures to burst forth into the world, the appearance of the well-known Xenomorph during the climactic stretch well worth the wait. In regards to the new creatures, the way they infect the body is seriously unsettling, as is their way of escaping out from underneath the skin of their human incubators, the difference between this new Neomorph and its bigger, more ferocious sibling a genetic nightmare of flesh, blood and carnage that's positively startling.
Still, these sequences are arguably the least interesting aspects of Alien: Covenant. Between Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, we've seen almost all of this before. The creatures hunt down their surviving human prey as if they were reenacting Agatha Christie's 10 Little Indians, cutting them down one-by-one until only a scant handful remain to fight them off. While Scott stages these attacks with dreadful precision and cutthroat dynamism, their over-familiarity does grow tiresome, and even one of the more disgusting shower scenes in cinematic history (which is saying something) isn't enough to make any of these portions of the film feel original, unique or outside of the series' norm. I also felt that Jed Kurzel's (The Babadook) music pays too much direct homage to Jerry Goldsmith's original Alien score, many of the themes telegraphing future events to the point I knew what was about to happen next based solely on the musical cues.
Which is why Scott's obsession with the themes and ideas, hatched in Prometheus, fleshed out even more here, is so important. This is a horror-thriller for the intelligent viewer, a science fiction game of cat and mouse where the chase isn't nearly as interesting or as exciting as the reasons behind it turn out to be. This latest extravaganza set inside this particular universe might just be the most nihilistic and disturbing entry in the series yet (even more so than the sacrificial funereal hopelessness of Alien 3), Scott refusing to pull his punches, ending things on a series of final images that are far from heartwarming.
I'm still not sure a series of prequels leading into Alien was ever a good idea. I know for certain it also wasn't a necessary one. Yet I still love that Scott has refused to play things safe, that he's tasked his writers to come up with ideas that challenge his audience, that give the story a breadth and a scope that's majestic in its mythological and theological resonance. Even if some of the horror beats are all too familiar, that doesn't make the overarching narrative any less fascinating, Alien: Covenant continuing to prove that big things can indeed be born of small beginnings, and I for one am decidedly curious to discover where this story is going to go next.


b: Specific foods contributing at least 2% of carbohydrates for persons 2-18 years old in descending order are listed. Specific foods contributing at least 2% of carbohydrates for any given subgroup are then also listed in italics.
c: Specific foods contributing at least 1% of carbohydrates for persons 2-18 years old in descending order: rice and rice mixed dishes, 100% orange/grapefruit juice, pancakes/waffles/French toast, crackers, syrups/toppings, apples and pears, bananas, quickbreads.


Is restaurant tipping about to meet its end in New York?
The battle over tipping may soon erupt into a full-fledged food fight in New York.
The state is considering raising its hourly tipped wage to $7.50 per hour starting December 2015, a proposal that would increase the hourly rates of waiters and waitresses by 50 percent. Tipped wages have been "too low" for New York workers, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in January, expressing support for the measure.
The idea isn't being swallowed easily by restaurants, especially those in New York City, home to a $33.6 billion restaurant industry. Adding to the pain of the Big Apple's eateries is a second provision that would boost the tipped wage to $8.50 per hour in the city, given its higher cost of living. The proposal comes at a time when the tipped wage is in the spotlight, with labor advocates saying it keeps women and minorities, who tend to dominate tipped industries, in poverty.
Of course, there's no guarantee the proposal will make its way into law. Critics have until today, Feb. 20, to file their objections to the measure. Already, one big industry group has marked its displeasure: The New York State Restaurant Association, which called the recommendation "a major blow to New York restaurants." It said a higher tipped wage will lead to fewer hours for tipped workers and hamper restaurants' ability to create jobs. Some restaurants could end up shifting to a no-tipping policy, if the higher wage is enacted.
While New York is considering how to handle wages for tipped workers, the debate is also ongoing at the national level, where tipped workers earn even less than those in New York.
That's because the tipped wage in New York is currently $5 an hour, or about 43 percent lower than the state's minimum wage for all workers, which is $8.75 per hour. The federal tipped wage, however, is even lower, at $2.13 per hour.
One restaurant told NPR that the higher tipped wage will mean he'll have to cut back on servers, potentially hurting service. "I wouldn't be able to have as many waiters as I have here because if I'm overstaffed, the cost is so enormous that it's going to hit me financially," ilili executive chef Philippe Massoud told NPR. "So by default, all of a sudden, I'm going to be understaffed, and the quality of my service is going to go down."
Yet it's not clear that restaurants or patrons actually suffer when the tipped wage disappears. There are 148 restaurants nationwide that pay their workers more than the regular or tipped wage and offer benefits such as paid sick days, or triple the number in 2012, according to the advocacy group Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.
Some restaurants have even banished tips, such as one eatery in Philadelphia that pays its staff about $13 an hour and tells customers that tips aren't necessary. Then, of course, there are the legions of countries that don't have customary tipping and manage to produce good food and good service, such as Japan.


In brief: The recent news that Google is working on a custom censored search engine for the Chinese market has, unsurprisingly, proved controversial, drawing widespread condemnation. Now, the most high-profile critic of the company’s plans has made his thoughts known: Vice President Mike Pence.
The Wall Street Journal reports that in Thursday’s speech given to the Hudson Institute, Pence warned that the search engine, codenamed Project Dragonfly, would “strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers.” The VP called on Google to immediately end development on the project.
While Google CEO Sundar Pichai has reportedly said Dragonfly is still in its early stages, it has caused internal problems for the company. The Intercept reports that at least five employees have quit in protest, and 1400 workers have signed a letter demanding more information.
As if blocking social media sites, western news sources, and certain search terms weren’t bad enough, it's been reported that a Dragonfly prototype linked users’ searches to their personal phone numbers, which would allow China’s government to monitor its citizens’ queries. It’s also claimed that officials could use the search engine to provide false data on the country’s air pollution problem, something it’s been known to do in the past.
Google left China in 2010 after it was hit with a massive cyberattack and due to increasing tensions over the Chinese government's strict censorship laws, but the country is home to the largest number of internet users in the world—almost one billion—which is likely why Google has spent the last few years hinting at its desire to return.


How do I get my young child to develop healthy sleep habits? | Checkup | Kids VT - small people, big ideas!
How do I get my young child to develop healthy sleep habits?
No subject generates more discussion — or causes more anguish — among new parents than the roller-coaster sleep patterns of their children. Lewis First, chief of pediatrics at Vermont Children's Hospital and editor-in-chief of Pediatrics, shares some bedtime tips.
KIDS VT: When's the right time to start an infant on a regular sleep schedule?
LEWIS FIRST: For the first month or so, most newborns sleep 16 to 20 hours per day. Babies have to feed every three to four hours, so for the first two months, it's very difficult to even think about a routine. By three to four months, a baby will cut down to about 12 to 13 hours of sleep, of which eight to nine hours are at night. So it's not a bad time to start thinking about developing a sleep routine.
KVT: How do parents do that?
LF: One way to start is to take care of necessities as quickly and quietly as possible. Your baby may wake up hungry, wet, cold or not feeling well. Doing things quickly and quietly will allow your baby to get back to sleep without a lot of fanfare. Ideally, place baby in the crib before he or she actually falls asleep. Then he or she will figure out how to fall asleep again without calling for a parent.
LF: Most toddlers sleep about 10 to 12 hours per day. Having a consistent bedtime routine allows kids to relax and get ready for sleep. It starts with slowing down the activities, what I call "clean up, suit up, stack up, brush up and read up," then saying goodnight. The best thing is to be consistent and get quieter and quieter — a story, a bath, listening to soft music. Saying goodnight while your child is still slightly awake will allow him or her to realize there's no more activity in the day.
KVT: What are your thoughts on bed sharing?
LF: There have been articles that say a baby who sleeps in the same bed with a parent is more likely to sleep through the night and become more secure and confident, and has the convenience of having a parent there to breast-feed.
KVT: Are there risks involved?
LF: Yes. The Consumer Products Safety Commission and numerous studies have found that when you bring a baby to bed with you and you fall asleep, there's a substantive increase in the likelihood of a baby suffocating, being wedged between the mattress and wall, getting caught in the bed frame, being rolled onto by a parent, or having his or her head get lost in a pillow. This has occurred in Vermont. There are now additional data to suggest that a parent who bed shares increases the risk of that baby experiencing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). That's especially true for parents who smoke. I do not recommend bed sharing. If a parent wants to co-sleep, I recommend bringing a crib, bassinet or a sidecar cradle into the bedroom.
KVT: What if parents still choose to bed share?
LF: Parents who still want to bed share should not be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. They should use a single-piece mattress, tight-fitting sheets, and no loose pillows or soft blankets. Certainly, never bring babies onto a waterbed, where their face can sink down and not be raised. That's a formula for disaster.
KVT: How important are daytime naps?
LF: Naps are good because they focus a child's energy away from constant, active play and channel it toward growth. They also give parents and caregivers a break. By the time kids reach 2 or 3, some don't need naps, while others need naps through age 5. If kids aren't showing irritability or grumpiness without a nap, it's time to say goodbye to the nap, much to the parents' chagrin.
KVT: What's the difference between nightmares and night terrors?
LF: Nightmares are really scary dreams. They occur in about 25 percent of kids, usually beginning in toddlerhood and running throughout their lives. They're quite common and occur in the dream phase of sleep, which is usually the second half of the night. Nightmares will result in children waking up and screaming and seeking comfort ... they are frightened about something they dreamed about, and they can tell you about it. Night terrors occur in about 3 percent of kids. They usually happen an hour or two after a child goes to sleep. A night terror results in a child bolting upright in bed, screaming, crying, or thrashing around with his or her eyes open. A child may even sleepwalk. And, the following morning, he or she has no recall of the event.
KVT: Anything to worry about with either one?
LF: The good news is, neither nightmares nor night terrors correlate with anything troubling from a developmental or neurological standpoint, except that a child can get hurt sleepwalking. Make sure that if kids get out of their rooms during a night terror, that you've gated any staircases. Night terrors tend to run in families and usually occur between the ages of 4 and 12. Most kids outgrow night terrors. Interestingly, both nightmares and night terrors are associated with kids who potentially have been exposed to something stressful, or are just overtired — another reason for developing a good sleep routine.


Some deaths have to be reported to a coroner before the death can be registered at the registration office and before the document allowing the funeral to go ahead can be issued.
What happens in these circumstances?
Once a death has been reported to the coroner, the registrar cannot go ahead with the registration until the coroner has decided whether any further investigation is needed. In the vast majority of cases no further investigation is necessary and the registration can be completed. In some cases an inquest is carried out.
You can view the list of upcoming inquests at coroner's inquests.
Once the coroner has passed their verdict as to cause of death they will notify the registrar who will then register the death and contact the next of kin to offer to issue them any death certificates they might require.


Newsbrief: Just one week ago, social game developer CrowdStar revealed that it has ceased development on Facebook to focus its efforts on mobile platforms. The company recently gained quite a bit of capital to fuel that transition, as it has just secured $11.5 million in funding.
AllThingsD reports that CrowdStar plans to use this money to develop new mobile titles targeting female audiences. The company has already seen success on mobile with games like Social Girl and Top Girl, and these new games will help the company bolster its lineup of fashion and shopping-focused titles.
While the company is no longer developing games for Facebook on the web, CrowdStar plans to integrate Facebook's social graph into all of its upcoming mobile releases. With this most recent funding round, CrowdStar has secured roughly $35 million in capital.


In brief: Find and film protagonists whose values echo those of InterContinental Hotels.
Making a short story long: InterContinental were opening a new hotel in Ljubljana, Slovenia with a new restaurant on the top floor alongside a new restaurant in London’s Park Lane. We were asked to come up with a theme which not only united all three of these things, it would reflect the rarefied lifestyle of InterContinental’s guests. This was ‘vision.’ By focusing on the two chefs and then finding an interesting Slovenian in Ivo Boscarol, we brought this theme to life by exposing their vision for the future.


Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama has promised that the United States will admit 10,000 Syrian refugees for resettlement over the next 12 months, after criticism that America is not doing enough.
But this would represent a huge increase in the number of families arriving on US soil. In the more that four years since fighting erupted barely 1,800 Syrians have been welcomed here.
Meanwhile, obstacles have stretched the approval process for those already registered and vetted by the UN's refugee agency to almost two years per case.
So how will Obama's promise be delivered and what hurdles are keeping the refugees from arriving sooner?
More than four million people have fled the fighting in Syria since 2011 and most are living in camps in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq, where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees registers them.
Some 18,000 of these people -- chosen because they are the most vulnerable whether through family circumstances, injury or disability -- have been referred to the United States for resettlement.
Once the US State Department receives their case files it employs NGO contractors to pre-screen them for eligibility for refugee status, then they are subjected to health and security checks.
Officers from the Department of Homeland Security fly from Washington to the camps and conduct interviews with candidates, seeking to weed out what a US official called "liars, criminals and terrorists."
Each case file is reviewed by the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI's terrorist screening center, the DHS, the Department of Defense and "other agencies" -- US intelligence.
"Refugees are subject to the highest level of security checks of any category of traveler to the United States," another State Department official told reporters.
Meanwhile they receive medical tests and those with communicable diseases, most commonly tuberculosis, are given treatment before they can travel to the United States, often delaying the process.
Currently the procedure takes between 18 and 24 months from the time UNHCR recommends a refugee for resettlement and that person's flight to America.
It is not clear how much the screening process for Syrians costs, but the US government spent $1.1 billion last year resettling 70,000 people from around the world, or almost $16,000 per head.
Critics note that if the United States takes two years to screen each of the 10,000 refugees Obama has promised to welcome none will have arrived before he leaves office.
But, according to a US official, thousands of cases are already in the pipeline and will hopefully now be processed faster.
"We have been resettling Syrian refugees in small numbers since 2011 and it was only in June of 2014 that UNHCR started submitting large numbers of referrals, between 500 and 1,000 per month," she said.
"Those referrals have come pretty steadily since last June to the point where we now have a critical mass. We at the State Department have already prepared the cases for more than 10,000 people."
Once refugees are approved, the State Department pays the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to fly them to the United States.
Refugees sign a promissory note to repay their airfare once they are established, and they are met at the airport by members of one of nine non-government resettlement agencies contracted by the State Department.
There are around 180 resettlement centers dispersed across the United States, where NGO workers help the new arrivals settle in and find work and accommodation in their first 30 to 90 days.
Those who have relatives in the United States will sometimes be assigned to live near them, and most go to cities like Atlanta, San Diego or Dallas where rents are more affordable than in New York or San Francisco.
Others end up in smaller cities like Boise, Idaho or Erie, Pennsylvania, but regardless of where they are taken they are free to move once they find their footing.
After 90 days new arrivals are no longer eligible for the State Department-funded support through the resettlement agencies, but some join support programs run by the Department of Health and Human Services.


Make a turkey burger by swapping chicken mince for turkey.
Preheat oven to 150 degC. Mix chicken mince, onion, 1 egg, sage, salt, pepper and breadcrumbs together in a bowl.
Form mixture into 4 patties and dust with flour.
Whisk remaining egg in a shallow bowl and place panko crumbs in another shallow bowl.
Dip patties into egg, then into panko crumbs.
Heat oil in a frying pan and cook patties until golden on each side.
Place a slice of brie on each pattie and place in a baking dish, transfer to the oven.
Wipe out frying pan and cook bacon until starting to crisp. At the same time, slice bagels in half and toast until golden.
Assemble bagel bases on plates, top with a few leaves, a little bacon and a dollop of sauce. Top with chicken pattie, bacon, leaves and the bagel lid.


What is a quota is why does it matter? A quota restricts the number of requests an application can make to the Microgateway. For example, you could create a quota to allow one application to make 100 requests per month, and then create a second quota to allow another application to make 200 requests per month. Quotas are setup when you create an Edge product and that quota is enforced locally on the Microgateway with the quota plugin.
In this article I will explain how the Edge Microgateway quota plugin works. The quota plugin is actually distributed across Microgateway instances (parent processes), because the quota is created in Edge and updated asynchronously for every request to the Microgateway. The best explanation for the distributed counter is found in our documentation for the quota policy.
To understand how the Quota policy works, then you need to understand what an Edge Message Processor (MP) is. The MP is the process that executes all the policies in Edge. Typically you have 2 or more within your Edge organization. Assume for now that you only have two message processors. The Edge Quota policy has a distributed setting that can be set as true or false. If the value is set to false, then the quota counter is NOT distributed, meaning that each MP has its own counter. So if you set your quota limit to 10 requests, then the developer will be able to make 20 requests in total, 10 requests on one MP and 10 requests on the other.
However, if the distributed flag is set to true, then there is only one counter shared across both MPs. Each developer should receive about 10 requests. I say "should" and "about" because there is some latency between counter updates. It is not an exact counter. The quota policy for Edge Microgateway has the distributed flag set to true.
If you are a Google managed cloud customer, then you cannot change distributed flag. If you manage Edge in your private/public cloud, then you can change this value. However, I do not recommend it as this would further complicate the quota plugin operation. If you were to set the distributed flag to false, then each MP would get its own quota counter; each Microgateway child process also has a quota counter. Ultimately, this would lead to significantly exceeding your quota limit.
Now I'll discuss how the Edge Microgateway works. Microgateway starts in cluster mode by default, so that means that each parent process will start two or more child processes depending on the number of cores on your system. Every time you start the Microgateway, each child process effectively has its own quota counter. This is the reason the quota counter is stored in Edge; to "gently" enforce the quota across all Microgateway child processes. It is not quite exact, so there is some leeway between the actual quota set in Edge and how that quota is applied to each request locally on the Microgateway.
Imagine that you are running the Microgateway in Pivotal Cloud Foundry or Cloud Foundry, its open source counter part. Cloud Foundry is a microservices platform that enables companies to quickly build and scale applications. It works by loading your app into a container, which can be scaled independently of other Cloud Foundry apps. You can run the Microgateway within each container of the target service or as a Cloud Foundry app via the Apigee Service Broker. Depending on the scenario, you could have dozens of Microgateway instances (parent processes) running within Cloud Foundry. Remember, each parent process spawns two or more child processes.
then the quota would be consistently enforced across all requests to Microgateway, regardless of how many instances are running. That's what you would expect! But that is not the case!
What is a "flexi" Quota?
Edge Microgateway's quota uses the flexi type. This type of quota starts a counter when the first request is received and resets the counter based on the interval specified. For example, if you setup a product quota for 10 requests per minute, then a quota of type flexi will start counting when the first request is received and reset the counter every 10 minutes. Quotas also require an identifier, to track the number of requests; typically this is the client ID. However, the Microgateway uses the Edge application ID.
If you are a Google managed cloud customer, then you cannot change the quota type. If you manage Edge in your private/public cloud, then you can change the quota type. If you decide to change the type, then I would strongly encourage you to load test it to ensure it behaves according to your expectations.
While preparing this article, I performed a few tests on the Microgateway - the first one running two Microgateway instances on my local machine, the second running Microgateway within PCF Dev.
I sent one request to port 8000 and one request to port 8001 and both requests returned 200 response codes. When I sent the second request to 8000 and 8001 respectively, both requests succeeded, but the third request to both instances failed.
What this shows is that each child process has its own counter even though there is a global counter stored in Edge. This is true when I execute my test one at a time in a very controlled environment. What happens if I use Gatling to generate my requests and run the Microgateway in Cloud Foundry? Well, that was my second test.
Each application in Cloud Foundry runs is a separate container and we have an edgemicro-decorator that will start the Microgateway in the same container as the target application. Each Microgateway still has two child processes running.
I used gatling to generate 1 request every second, for 60 seconds. All the requests use the same application ID, so the Edge quota counter should be applied across all Microgateway instances. The results are below. This shows that out of the 60 requests sent to the Greeting resource, 48 of them failed due to a quota violation. So this would imply that even though each child process has its own counter, they all rely on the quota response from Edge. It also demonstrates the imprecise nature of the quota plugin.
Here are the results from the second time I ran it. This time 17 requests were allowed through the Microgateway and 31 were rejected by the quota. The reason for the 502s and 404s is because my CF application crashed and was restarted during the process.
Next, I scaled EM to 2 instances in Cloud Foundry and sent 1 request every second for 60 seconds. This time only 4 requests were allowed through both instances of the Microgateway.
Next, I doubled the amount of traffic to Microgateway - 2 requests every second for 60 seconds. This time thirteen requests were allowed through the Microgateways. Majority of the other requests were rejected with quota violation (403); the 502 response codes occurred because one of my Cloud Foundry containers failed and was restarted.
See our docs for more specific instructions on how to install and configure the Microgateway. This section provides a high-level summary of the quota plugin request to Edge and its subsequent response.
For the quota plugin to work correctly, the oauth plugin must be enabled and the quota plugin must be placed after the oauth plugin.
You have to obtain a JWT from Edge first.
The quota is based on the Edge application identifier, which is stored in the JWT. After you add the quota plugin to the sequence, then you need to restart the Microgateway so that it loads the quota plugin and executes it as part of the request flow. Alternatively, you could wait 10 minutes for the Microgateway to automatically reload the config file.
When the Microgateway receives the first request, it creates a new quota in Edge. The Microgateway sends a POST request to the Edge resource below to update and return the quota counter. This request is sent asynchronously to Edge and the Microgateway child process counter is updated out-of-band.
The response is shown below. You can see that it contains the total number of requests allowed and what has been used so far.
Since the quota plugin is dependent on Edge to store the quota, it is important that the connection between Edge and the Microgateway is fairly stable. What happens if the internet connection is down? Microgateway will rely on its cached configuration so it will continue to operate; however, the quota will not be applied because it will not receive a response from the POST request. This means that all requests to Edge Microgateway will be allowed.


Examples of techniques for pre-allocating save areas of memory of a computer processing system are disclosed. In one example implementation according to aspects of the present disclosure, a computer-implemented method may include initiating, by a host processing device, a control program. The method may further include, responsive to initiating the control program, pre-allocating, by the host processing device, a plurality of save areas for each of a plurality of processors, wherein the plurality of save areas are anchored in a fixed area of the memory for each of the plurality of processors.
1. A computer-implemented method for pre-allocating save areas of a memory of a computer processing system, the method comprising: initiating, by a host processing device, a control program; and responsive to initiating the control program, pre-allocating, by the host processing device, a plurality of save areas for each of a plurality of processors, wherein the plurality of save areas are anchored in a fixed area of the memory for each of the plurality of processors, wherein each of the plurality of save areas has a size that is equal, wherein the plurality of processors comprises 256 processors, and wherein each of the plurality of processors comprises 256 save areas pre-allocated thereto.
3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a size of each of the plurality of save areas is a size in bytes that is a power of two.
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a size of each of the plurality of save areas is 256 bytes.
5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a size of each of the plurality of save areas is a size equal to a multiple of a cache line of a cache memory of the plurality of processors.
7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of processors comprises m processors and wherein each of the m processors comprises n save areas, where m and n are greater than zero.
8. A computer processing system for pre-allocating save areas of a memory of the computer processing system, the system comprising: a host processing device for executing computer readable instructions stored on the memory, the computer readable instructions executable to perform a method comprising: initiating, by the host processing device, a control program; and responsive to initiating the control program, pre-allocating, by the host processing device, a plurality of save areas for each of a plurality of processors, wherein the plurality of save areas are anchored in a fixed area of the memory for each of the plurality of processors, wherein each of the plurality of save areas has a size that is equal, wherein the plurality of processors comprises 256 processors, and wherein each of the plurality of processors comprises 256 save areas pre-allocated thereto.
10. The computer processing system of claim 8, wherein a size of each of the plurality of save areas is a size in bytes that is a power of two.
11. The computer processing system of claim 8, wherein a size of each of the plurality of save areas is 256 bytes.
12. The computer processing system of claim 8, wherein a size of each of the plurality of save areas is a size equal to a multiple of a cache line of a cache memory of the plurality of processors.
14. The computer processing system of claim 8, wherein the plurality of processors comprises m processors and wherein each of the m processors comprises n save areas, where m and n are greater than zero.
15. A computer program product for pre-allocating save areas of memory of a computer processing system, the computer program product comprising: a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a host processing device to cause the processing device to perform a method comprising: initiating, by the host processing device, a control program; and responsive to initiating the control program, pre-allocating, by the host processing device, a plurality of save areas for each of a plurality of processors, wherein the plurality of save areas are anchored in a fixed area of the memory for each of the plurality of processors, wherein each of the plurality of save areas has a size that is equal, wherein the plurality of processors comprises 256 processors, and wherein each of the plurality of processors comprises 256 save areas pre-allocated thereto.
17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the plurality of processors comprises m processors and wherein each of the m processors comprises n save areas, where m and n are greater than zero.
 This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/274,521, entitled "PRE-ALLOCATING SAVE AREAS OF A MEMORY," filed Sep. 23, 2016, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
 The present disclosure generally relates to computer processing systems and, more particularly, relates to pre-allocating save areas of memory of a computer processing system.
 Save areas are used in legacy programming languages like Assembler and the PLX programming language provided by IBM.RTM., to save register contents as control flows from one function to another. On entry to a function, a save area is allocated and register contents of the caller are saved in the save area. On exit from the function, the register contents are restored to the registers, the save area is freed, and control is returned back to the caller.
 According to examples of the present disclosure, techniques including methods, systems, and/or computer program products for pre-allocating save areas of memory of a computer processing system are provided. An example method may include initiating, by a host processing device, a control program. The method may further include, responsive to initiating the control program, pre-allocating, by the host processing device, a plurality of save areas for each of a plurality of processors, wherein the plurality of save areas are anchored in a fixed area of the memory for each of the plurality of processors.
 Additional features and advantages are realized through the techniques of the present disclosure. Other aspects are described in detail herein and are considered a part of the disclosure. For a better understanding of the present disclosure with the advantages and the features, refer to the following description and to the drawings.
 FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of a processing system for implementing the techniques described herein according to examples of the present disclosure.
 A control program (i.e., a program written to run on the bare metal to control system resources) written in a legacy programming language can strain internal memory allocation infrastructure. As control flows from one routine to another on a physical processor, a save area is allocated using the internal memory allocation routine and the save area is released as control exits out of the function.
 The control program has another use case for the save area: In case one physical processor wants to schedule work on another physical processor, a save area is allocated, formatted with required data, and queued into the work queue of the other processor. Once the second processor finishes the work, it frees the save area. For example, if a processor A wants to schedule work to a processor B, processor A allocates a save area, places the input in the save area, and attaches this save area to the work queue of the processor B. Once processor B completes the work, processor B frees the save area.
 Two primary issues arise with using save areas for the above two cases: memory fragmentation and performance degradation. When the control program wants to schedule a message to the rest of the processors on the system (which could be in 100s of processors), the control program allocates a save area for each of the processor, formats the message, and queues it to the respective processor's work queue. This causes a sudden burst of allocating 100s of save areas in a short time and causes performance bottlenecks. A save area size of 200 bytes, which is not a power of 2, also contributes to memory fragmentation. Many similar scenarios cause a sudden burst of save area allocation and deallocations, which causes the memory allocation infrastructure to be the bottleneck.
 Various implementations are described below by referring to several examples of pre-allocating save areas. In particular, the present technique utilizes a plurality (e.g., 256) of pre-allocated save areas for each physical processor in a multi-processor processing system when the control program initiates. The plurality of save areas is anchored in a fixed area of memory for each processor. The fixed area is cache aligned and so is the save area.
 Example embodiments of the disclosure include or yield various technical features, technical effects, and/or improvements to technology. Example embodiments of the disclosure provide techniques for pre-allocating save areas of a memory of a computer processing system. In particular, a control program is initiated and, responsive thereto, a plurality of save areas of each of a plurality of processors is pre-allocated. The plurality of save areas is anchored in a fixed area of the memory for each of the plurality of processors. These aspects of the disclosure constitute technical features that yield the technical effect of optimizing the usage of save areas by the control program for performance. By removing the performance bottleneck, the control program has a consistent performance, which was not true of previous approaches to save area allocation. Additionally, the host processor may never need to invoke the memory allocation infrastructure for allocation of save areas. In other words, the save areas, once allocated, are persistent until the control program is shut down and do not need to be reallocated. As a result of these technical features and technical effects, the present techniques for pre-allocating save areas described in the example embodiments of the present disclosure represents an improvement to existing save area allocation techniques. It should be appreciated that the above examples of technical features, technical effects, and improvements to the technology of example embodiments of the disclosure are merely illustrative and not exhaustive.
 FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a processing system 100 for pre-allocating save areas of a memory 104 the processing system 100 according to examples of the present disclosure. The various components, modules, engines, etc. described regarding FIG. 1 may be implemented as instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium, as hardware modules, as special-purpose hardware (e.g., application specific hardware, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), as embedded controllers, hardwired circuitry, etc.), or as some combination or combinations of these. In examples, the engine(s) described herein may be a combination of hardware and programming. The programming may be processor executable instructions stored on a tangible memory, and the hardware may include processing devices 102 for executing those instructions. Thus a system memory 104 can store program instructions that when executed by the processors 102 implement the engines described herein. Other engines may also be utilized to include other features and functionality described in other examples herein.
 Processing system 100 may include the processors 102, the memory 104, a control program 106, and a save area allocation engine 108. Alternatively or additionally, the processing system 100 may include dedicated hardware, such as one or more integrated circuits, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Application Specific Special Processors (ASSPs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), or any combination of the foregoing examples of dedicated hardware, for performing the techniques described herein.
 It should be appreciated that the processors 102 may include a plurality of processors. In some examples, the processors 102 include 256 physical processors, although other numbers of physical processors may also be implemented. The save area allocation engine 108 pre-allocates save areas for each of the processors 102 when the control program 106 initiates. That is, upon initiation of the control program, the save area allocation engine 108 pre-allocates save areas for each of the processors 102.
 The save area allocation engine 108 pre-allocates the plurality of save areas such that the plurality of save areas are anchored in a fixed area of the memory 104 for each of the processors 102. The fixed area of the memory 104 is cache aligned to a cache for each of the processor 102 and so are the save areas.
 FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of a memory 200 for a processing system having a plurality of pre-allocated save areas according to aspects of the present disclosure. In particular, the memory 200 includes prefix areas for each of a plurality of processors (e.g., the processors 102 of FIG. 1). In the example of FIG. 2, the processing system includes 256 processors, although another suitable number of processors may be used. Each of the 256 processors includes a prefix area reserved in the memory. For example, prefix area 0 corresponds to processor 0. It should be appreciated that the processors are indicated "CP" in FIG. 2. Prefix area 1 corresponds to processor 1, prefix area 2 corresponds to processor 2, and prefix area 255 corresponds to processor 255, with other prefix areas corresponding to their respective processors. In other examples, the plurality of processors includes m processors and each of the m processors includes n save areas, where m and n are integers.
 Each of the processors includes a plurality of save areas, designated save area 0, save area 1, and save area 255. In an example implementation of the present techniques, approximately 256 save areas of size 256 bytes are pre-allocated when the control program (e.g., the control program 106 of FIG. 1) initiates. The save areas are anchored in the prefix area for each processor. The host processor may never need to invoke the memory allocation infrastructure for allocation of save areas. In other words, the save areas, once allocated, are always present and do not need to be reallocated.
 FIG. 3 illustrates a flow diagram of a method 300 for pre-allocating save areas of a memory of a processing system according to examples of the present disclosure. It should be appreciated that the method 300 may be performed by a processing system, such as the processing system 100 of FIG. 1, the processing system 20 of FIG. 5, or another suitable processing system.
 At block 302, the method 300 comprises initiating, by a host processor, a control program. At block 304, the method 300 comprises, responsive to initiating the control program, pre-allocating, by the host processor, a plurality of save areas for each of a plurality of processors, wherein the plurality of save areas are anchored in a fixed area of the memory for each of the plurality of processors.
 It should be appreciated that a memory allocation infrastructure for allocation of save areas need not be invoked by the host processor after the pre-allocating. This increases the efficiency and speed of the processing system and reduces fragmentation of the memory.
 In some examples, each of the plurality of save areas for one of the plurality of processors is the same size. A size of each of the plurality of save areas may be a size in bytes that is a power of two (e.g., 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.). In some examples, the size of each of the plurality of save areas is 256 bytes. In some examples, the size of each of the plurality of save areas is equal to a cache line of a cache memory of the plurality of processors. According to aspects of the present disclosure, the plurality of processors may comprise 256 processors and each of the processors may comprise 256 save areas pre-allocated thereto.
 Additional processes also may be included, and it should be understood that the processes depicted in FIG. 3 represent illustrations, and that other processes may be added or existing processes may be removed, modified, or rearranged without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure.
 FIG. 4 illustrates a flow diagram of a method 400 for pre-allocating save areas of a memory of a processing system according to examples of the present disclosure. It should be appreciated that the method 400 may be performed by a processing system, such as the processing system 100 of FIG. 1, the processing system 20 of FIG. 5, or another suitable processing system.
 At block 402, the method 400 comprises allocating to a processor 256 save areas of memory of size 256 bytes during initialization of a control program. For example, a single buffer is allocated during initialization of the control program of size 256*256*256 bytes i.e. 256 save areas, each of size 256 bytes for each of the 256 processors. Once the buffer is allocated, it is broken into 256*256 save areas, metadata is added, and a linked list (illustrated in FIG. 2) is generated. At block 404, the method 400 comprises anchoring each of the 256 save areas of size 256 bytes in a prefix area of the memory for the processor. The method 400 may be repeated for each of a plurality of processors in the processing system.
 Although the method 400 describes 256 save areas of size 256 bytes, other numbers of save areas and other sizes of save areas are possible as discussed herein.
 Additional processes also may be included, and it should be understood that the processes depicted in FIG. 4 represent illustrations, and that other processes may be added or existing processes may be removed, modified, or rearranged without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure.
 It is understood in advance that the present disclosure is capable of being implemented in conjunction with any other type of computing environment now known or later developed. For example, FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of a processing system 20 for implementing the techniques described herein. In examples, processing system 20 has one or more central processing units (processors) 21a, 21b, 21c, etc. (collectively or generically referred to as processor(s) 21 and/or as processing device(s)). In aspects of the present disclosure, each processor 21 may include a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessor. Processors 21 are coupled to system memory (e.g., random access memory (RAM) 24) and various other components via a system bus 33. Read only memory (ROM) 22 is coupled to system bus 33 and may include a basic input/output system (BIOS), which controls certain basic functions of processing system 20.
 Further illustrated are an input/output (I/O) adapter 27 and a communications adapter 26 coupled to system bus 33. I/O adapter 27 may be a small computer system interface (SCSI) adapter that communicates with a hard disk 23 and/or a tape storage drive 25 or any other similar component. I/O adapter 27, hard disk 23, and tape storage device 25 are collectively referred to herein as mass storage 34. Operating system 40 for execution on processing system 20 may be stored in mass storage 34. A network adapter 26 interconnects system bus 33 with an outside network 36 enabling processing system 20 to communicate with other such systems.
 A display (e.g., a display monitor) 35 is connected to system bus 33 by display adaptor 32, which may include a graphics adapter to improve the performance of graphics intensive applications and a video controller. In one aspect of the present disclosure, adapters 26, 27, and/or 32 may be connected to one or more I/O busses that are connected to system bus 33 via an intermediate bus bridge (not shown). Suitable I/O buses for connecting peripheral devices such as hard disk controllers, network adapters, and graphics adapters typically include common protocols, such as the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI). Additional input/output devices are shown as connected to system bus 33 via user interface adapter 28 and display adapter 32. A keyboard 29, mouse 30, and speaker 31 may be interconnected to system bus 33 via user interface adapter 28, which may include, for example, a Super I/O chip integrating multiple device adapters into a single integrated circuit.
 In some aspects of the present disclosure, processing system 20 includes a graphics processing unit 37. Graphics processing unit 37 is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. In general, graphics processing unit 37 is very efficient at manipulating computer graphics and image processing, and has a highly parallel structure that makes it more effective than general-purpose CPUs for algorithms where processing of large blocks of data is done in parallel.
 Thus, as configured herein, processing system 20 includes processing capability in the form of processors 21, storage capability including system memory (e.g., RAM 24), and mass storage 34, input means such as keyboard 29 and mouse 30, and output capability including speaker 31 and display 35. In some aspects of the present disclosure, a portion of system memory (e.g., RAM 24) and mass storage 34 collectively store an operating system such as the AIX.RTM. operating system from IBM Corporation to coordinate the functions of the various components shown in processing system 20.
 The present techniques may be implemented as a system, a method, and/or a computer program product. The computer program product may include a computer readable storage medium (or media) having computer readable program instructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of the present disclosure.
 Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations of the present disclosure may be assembler instructions, instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions, machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions, state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The computer readable program instructions may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider). In some examples, electronic circuitry including, for example, programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), or programmable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readable program instructions by utilizing state information of the computer readable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry, in order to perform aspects of the present disclosure.
 Aspects of the present disclosure are described herein with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to aspects of the present disclosure. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer readable program instructions.
 The flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods, and computer program products according to various aspects of the present disclosure. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
 The descriptions of the various examples of the present disclosure have been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the described techniques. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain the principles of the present techniques, the practical application or technical improvement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the techniques disclosed herein.