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THE summer that just keeps giving had the swallows all in a flutter last week. On the south coast of the Isle of Wight hundreds streamed past me and my family as we walked over the downs, enchanted by dart-like birds racing over the white cliffs and the green sward. Yet they were flying north-east instead of south towards Africa. Some were even coming in from the sea instead of heading out over the Channel.

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Butler basketball's 2010 run to the final four was magical

Cape Maclear (aka Chembe) is a small fishing village on Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in Malawi. It has one dirt road leading into (and straight out of) town. Along this road, there are a few hostels, some dive shops, a handful of vendors selling curios and fruit and a few bars. The pace of life here is . . . very . . . slow.

The 2012 presidential race is on. Kinda.

At the moment, it feels more like a wade through treacle - so slow is the pace of President Barack Obama's opponents. Mr Obama can be unambiguous that he is going to run because they are all showing varying degrees of hesitancy.

If the president is to get back into the White House he has to leap a number of obstacles: an economy that is so sluggish that there are constant worries it could go backwards and supporters who may be unenthusiastic about sending more troops to Afghanistan, bombing Libya and failing to close Guantanamo Bay prison. There is also huge uncertainly in the country about health care and much more we will be looking at in detail.

But the strength of opposition doesn't seem, at the moment, a particularly high hurdle.  To British eyes, the primary system is one of the most curious parts of American politics.

The elite of British political parties have only grudgingly and slowly given the power of choosing their own leader. The principle of "one member, one vote" has been slow in coming. 

Elections for leaders rarely grip in the same way as American internal elections. While any American can easily register as a Republican or Democrat and have their say about who represents them, in Britain being a party member still seems an effort of will.

Twenty-five pounds ($40) per year may not be much to play your part in conservative politics in Britain, £12 may be a bargain to have a say in the Lib Dems and it's only a penny (for those under 27) to join the Labour Party - but it still costs something.

There's a feeling that being interested in who becomes your PM or MP isn't enough. You have to be willing to sit in draughty village halls on wet Wednesdays listening.  

The biggest difference is perhaps not in just who is involved, but how late in the political cycle the choice is made. This has a real impact. Every party leader, good or bad, has an image, policy likes and dislikes and personal ticks that colour voters approach to the parties as a whole.

The British public has years to get to know Ed Miliband and decide what to think about him leading a Labour government. Here in the US, the opposition is currently either faceless or hydra-headed. There is no obvious front-runner, and any prediction about who will be the Republican candidate in 2012 is nothing more than an informed guess.

Mr Obama v Michele Bachmann would be quite a different contest to Mr Obama v John Huntsman. 

Republicans get to choose, late in the day, exactly what they want their party to stand for.

The influence of the Tea Party suggests any candidate will be economically conservative, but beyond that, it is impossible to predict very much. The candidates are so unenthusiastic about firing the starting gun, the first big debate at the Reagan library in California has been put back from next month to the autumn.

Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump seem almost certain to have a go. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, John Huntsman and Mitch Daniels seem less sure bets. And, of course, there are plenty of other names out there.

Mr Obama is starting the race now to make sure that whoever challenges him, his organisation will be ramped up and ready, with big bucks at its command.

Butler basketball's 2010 run to the final four was magical

Purdue women's basketball coach Sharon Versyp holds remote individual and team meetings on a weekly basis with her players during coronavirus

• Oracle's bid to become a bigger player in the cloud has become more aggressive in the COVID-19 crisis, highlighted by a new partnership with Zoom.
• The tech giant is up against stronger rivals led by Amazon, Microsoft and Google, but the need for more cloud capacity sparked by the sudden pivot to remote work has created opportunities for the Silicon Valley behemoth.
• Here are the 10 Oracle executives who are playing key roles in CEO Safra Catz and founder Larry Ellison bold cloud offensive.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Oracle has been through some jarring changes in the last seven months. 

The tech giant lost a well-regarded and experienced co-CEO when Mark Hurd died in October after taking leave for health reasons, leaving Safra Catz as the solo CEO. Now, like other major tech companies, Oracle is grappling with the impact of the coronavirus crisis.

But Oracle has been through tough times in its 43-year history. In fact, the Silicon Valley giant has been known to seize opportunities during rough spots. It's already seen some success during this crisis, too: Oracle just scored a big win when videoconferencing company Zoom — suddenly facing a surge in demand — chose to expand on Oracle Cloud, instead of other platforms like top cloud provider Amazon. Oracle is generally considered a smaller player in the cloud wars, behind giants Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Alibaba.

Yes, Oracle still has a long way to go to match its rivals' reach, but its strategy of expanding its capacity by building more data centers seems to be paying off, IDC President Crawford Del Prete told Business Insider.

That increased capacity and Oracle's "world class" applications are key in the cloud words, Del Prete said: "Oracle is one of the few companies able to deliver both at scale in order to compete."

While Catz and founder, executive chairman, and chief technology officer Larry Ellison the lead company, they're also relying on key top executives, including cloud veterans from rival Amazon, to advance Oracle's cloud strategy. 

Nearly all are white men, something Oracle has criticized for in the past: Over 30 members of Congress slammed the company late last year about the lack of diversity in its leadership team and on its board.

Meet the 10 top executives playing important roles in Oracle's cloud offensive:

SEE ALSO: Oracle is known for making bold M&A moves in a recession and it's sitting on a fresh $20 billion. Here are the 7 companies experts think it could acquire as the coronavirus crisis drives down valuations

SEE ALSO: Experts lay out five moves that Oracle founder Larry Ellison, one of tech's best tacticians, might take in a coronavirus-driven downturn

Don Johnson left Amazon to focus on Oracle's cloud infrastructure.

Title: Executive vice president, cloud infrastructure

Reports to: Larry Ellison

Johnson  played a key role in Amazon's dramatic expansion in the cloud before joining Oracle in 2014.

He was instrumental in setting up Oracle's cloud engineering development center in Seattle and in the tech giant's expanding data center footprint.  Johnson has also led another major Oracle initiative: forming a cloud partnership with Microsoft.

Oracle's chief corporate architect Edward Screven has been with the company since 1986.

Title: Chief corporate architect

Reports to: Larry Ellison

Screven is an Oracle veteran who helped lead the company through all of the major industry changes of the past 30 years.

He admits that cloud market-leader Amazon had a head start, but says that there are benefits to following it. 

"We definitely started after Amazon: The bad news is they have market share, the good news is we get to learn a lot," he told Business Insider in an interview in May 2019. "Mindshare, that may be their biggest asset. But there is no technology they have that is concerning to me at all."

As one of Oracle's top technologists, he's focused on making Oracle's cloud infrastructure more secure, with more sophisticated and efficient ways to manage data. 

"We have hundreds of thousands of customers that store their most important data in Oracle databases," Screven said. "We could do a far better job for them than any other cloud provider. We are doing a far better job for them."

Clay Magouyrk leads cloud infrastructure engineering and played a key role in forging Oracle's new alliance with Zoom.

Title: Executive vice president, cloud infrastructure engineering

Reports to: Don Johnson

Magouyrk is another veteran of Amazon Web Services who joined the Oracle team in Seattle in 2014. 

He was Oracle's point-man in forging its new partnership with Zoom, which was seen as a major victory for Oracle.

"They needed capacity," Magouyrk told Business Insider last month "They reached out to us and we were like, 'Awesome, we can work with you.' Within a day, we had their application up and running."

Magouyrk was a founding team member of Oracle's cloud engineering development center in Seattle, which is spearheading the company's cloud infrastructure efforts.

Ariel Kelman left Amazon Web Services to become Oracle's chief marketing officer.

Title: Chief Marketing Officer

Reports to: Safra Catz

One of the biggest hurdles for Oracle is the public perception that it's a minor player in the cloud. In other words, it's a marketing problem.

This is where Kelman comes in. Before Oracle brought him on board in January 2020, Kelman led rival Amazon's cloud marketing efforts, and served as a marketing executive at Salesforce for six years before that.

"Ariel is a super smart hire for Oracle," analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research told Business Insider. "He brings the cred in the market and understands how to counter all of Amazon's tactics and long-term strategy. He has the ear of Larry and Safra and is making progress with some great hires on his team."

Juergen Lindner left SAP to lead Oracle's software-as-a-service marketing strategy.

Title: Senior vice president, software-as-a-service marketing

Reports to: Ariel Kelman, chief marketing officer

Lindner spent most of his career helping SAP outsell Oracle in the traditional business software market: both dominated teh market for software installed in private data centers. 

He switched sides and roles four years ago to support Oracle's bid to become a stronger player in cloud software, also referred to as software-as-a-service, where businesses access applications through cloud platforms and pay via a subscription, usually based on the number of users granted access. 

Lindner has said it became clear to him that Oracle had a better strategy for the cloud-software era.

"Oracle has architected a very sustainable cloud infrastructure and applications strategy," he told Business Insider last year.

Steve Daheb left Citrix to lead Oracle's cloud marketing strategy.

Title: Senior vice president, cloud go-to-market

Reports to: Ashley Hart, senior vice president, global marketing cloud platform and database

Daheb joined Oracle in 2015 after serving as the chief marketing officer of Citrix, a cloud pioneer that first let businesses set up computing networks on web-based platforms instead of on-premise data centers, leading to dramatic IT cost savings.

Daheb witnessed the unexpected rise of Amazon in cloud computing, which began in the early : 2000s when the online retail giant realized it could make some extra money by giving businesses access to its massive but underutilized computing infrastructure, hosted from its data centers.

"Amazon had spare computing resources to rent out," he told Business Insider last year. "It's like, 'Hey, man, I got an extra room in the house during the summer when it's not spike retail time. There's nobody in there, so why don't I put this thing on Airbnb and see if anybody wants it?'"

Amazon Web Services has led the industry ever since. 

Like others on the Oracle team, Daheb thinks the software giant's technology and track record of working with major players across industries will eventually propel it to the front of the cloud pack.

"There's a level of understanding we have and a level of empathy we have for enterprise users: We serve the major banks, we serve transportation, we serve healthcare," he said. "We brought this enterprise mentality to it."

Juan Loaiza, who has been with Oracle since 1988, is in charge of mission-critical database technologies.

Title: Executive vice president, mission-critical database technologies

Reports to: Larry Ellison

Loaiza is another Oracle veteran who has been with the company for more than 30 years and is currently focused on its bid to expand the reach of its flagship database product.

The tech giant's cloud-based automated data-management platform Autonomous Database uses machine learning to quickly repair and update itself.Loaiza has compared the status of this fairly new initiative to the development of the self-driving car:

"It took a long time to get to a point where we are now and say, 'The next step is a self-driving car,'" he told Business Insider last year. "It's got to be safe. It has to have seatbelts and airbags and a navigation system. All that stuff was necessary before you take it to the next stage." 

The database is ready for that next stage. 

Jason Williamson left Amazon to lead Oracle's outreach to startups.

Title: Vice president, Oracle for Startups

Reports to: Mamei Sun, Ellison's chief of staff

Startups have played an important role in the growth of cloud computing and Oracle has launched a big push to establish closer ties with these smaller companies, given that they could eventually become the biggest power players. 

Williamson has been the company's point-man in this effort, as he develops ways to make Oracle's products and services more accessible to startups.

Williamson is another veteran of Amazon Web Services where he led the cloud giant's private-equity team before joining Oracle in 2017.

Evan Goldberg cofounded NetSuite, which is now part of Oracle.

Title: Executive vice president, NetSuite

Reports to: Safra Catz

Goldberg is part of the elite club of Oracle alums who went on to launch successful enterprise-software companies. (Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is perhaps the best-known.)

Goldberg left a long career at Oracle in the late 1990s to launch NetSuite, a cloud-based provider of financial- and accounting-management services. He was the chief technology officer alongside CEO Zach Nelson, another Oracle alum, and Ellison was actually one of their early backers.

Oracle acquired the company in 2016 and it now has more than 18,000 customers. 

Steve Miranda has been with Oracle since 1992 and leads cloud-applications development.

Title: Executive vice president, applications product development

Reports to: Ellison

Miranda is an Oracle veteran in charge of different aspects of the company's cloud-software business, including product development and strategy.

This covers applications used for major business operations, like supply-chain management, human resources, and enterprise performance management.

Invitation Only Research Event

Stretching from Sai Kung on the east coast to Tuen Mun in the west, the whopping 100 km-long MacLehose Trail is the longest and first long-distance hiking trail in Hong Kong.

The trail is divided into 10 sections and traverses eight country parks which embrace magnificent natural scenery, interesting historical relics and a wide range of wild fauna and flora, winding past the coastline, rugged mountains, valleys and reservoirs to provide a diverse outdoor experience for hikers.

It was even named as one of the world's 20 dream trails by National Geographic.

A lot of hard work went into building the trail, with Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department workers out in the elements without much shelter, often carrying heavy equipment uphill and downhill over varied terrain.

Building bonds

Wan Keung and Lai Hing joined the department around 40 years ago. They both took part in the MacLehose Trail project which was started in 1979 to promote hiking activities in Hong Kong.

The project was named after the then-Governor Sir Murray MacLehose - who was himself a keen walker - for his significant efforts to conserve Hong Kong’s countryside.

“I have contributed a lot to the trail. I am happy as it is packed with people now,” said Mr Wan.

While Mr Lai added: “We are going to retire, but the trail will be here for a long time.”

Despite working on the same project, the pair - now in their 60s - only met for the first time recently because they were assigned to different work stations back then. However, they became firm friends instantly.

From setting up the many signposts along the way, to hand-building the heavy stone steps, the two men eagerly shared all the skills and techniques they learnt on the project.

Listening to their conversations now it is hard to imagine that when they first started work, both had little practical knowledge about constructing a trail. They acquired welding, plastering and woodwork skills through hands-on experience and with the support of their seniors. But that was not the biggest challenge they encountered.

“Building the trail was really difficult, as there were so many sections. We were either drowned in sweat or drenched by rain while working,” Mr Lai explained.

One poignant memory for Mr Wan was of working during wildfires that raged through the countryside.

“There was only one thing for it: we stayed until the fire was extinguished. That was really hard.”

Lasting legacy

After nine months’ hard work the MacLehose Trail was finally opened on October 26, 1979.

These days Mr Wan and Mr Lai enjoy the trail for leisure instead of work.

Both said receiving compliments from family and friends or witnessing the sheer enjoyment of hikers on the trail made their hard work worthwhile.

They now hope to pass on their skills to the younger workers, so that a new generation of Hong Kong people can take care of the trail and ensure it lasts for decades to come.

When you register an Oracle table to the metadata, it might fail and generate an error similar to the following: "ERROR: An exception has been encountered...ERROR: Read Access Violation METALIB..."

When you run 32-bit SAS on Windows and disconnect from the Oracle database server, you might see the error: "ERROR: ORACLE disconnect error: ORA-03135: connection lost contact."

When you query an Oracle table and use the LIMIT clause using either SAS  Federation Server or FedSQL, a row limit is not passed to the database. In this scenario, a Full Article