Last week a former vice-president and now presidential candidate said on the campaign trail, "We choose science over fiction; we choose truth over facts.” Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon reflects upon truth vs. facts, and the role memory plays in this.

Holiness is concrete, corporate participation in Christ's life.

Sometimes we talk about "giving up" something for Lent. Is the Church asking us to give up what we want or inviting us to build the discipline we need to make the right choices?

We're called to be holy as God is holy. And we do this by participating in God’s efforts to redeem the world and bring it into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity. St Maximos the Confessor identifies 5 Divisions we need to overcome along the way. But what if the internet has created a 6th Division we need to overcome? What if the internet is alienating us from ourselves and reality?

Alarming statistics are reported on the decline of Christianity (-8% in seven years) across all denominations in the U.S.; as well as significant data on the Orthodox Church in the U.S. Be the Bee's Steven Christoforou, Director of the GOA Youth and Adult Ministries Department, and the Office of Camping Ministries; also Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff, the director of the Orthodox Natural Church Development program, join Kevin Allen to discuss.

We hear from a former moderator in Kenya who was left traumatised by his previous job.

Today, I talk to Darrell Vesterfelt, who is a longtime friend who helped grow ConvertKit in our craziest growth times (from $100,000/mo when he joined to $500,000/mo in just over a year). Darrell is one of the best marketers I know. He is the Founder and former CEO of Good People Digital, the Co-Founder of […]

There are few segments more exciting right now than alternative payment systems. Earth's collective contempt for the entrenched payment tech industry is ardent. This industry has abused users, built regulatory walls to competition, made things insufferable for customers, and as...

Mark Allen suffers a shock second-round 4-3 defeat by Oliver Lines at the Northern Ireland Open at the Waterfront Hall.

Scotland v England, day 1 of 1. England beat Scotland by 7 wickets

Experts used underwater cameras to work out how the whale was trapped, before untangling it in Loch Fyne.

How four healthcare students joined 40,000 others in volunteering to join the NHS's fight against the pandemic.

The former Scottish first minister was a politician who rarely missed a media opportunity.

A signed summary of BBC Newsline.

Players were subjected to online abuse after their shock cup final defeat on Sunday.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority could invest £585,000 in the Salt & Tar venue in Bootle.

UK Border Force find 25kg of cocaine in a Darlington man's suitcase after he flies in from Mexico.

MPs for Dartford and Bexleyheath and Crayford want the route extended from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet.

The band will perform at the castle on 25 July, the day before Olly Murs.

UK Power Networks says it is aware of the incident and is looking to install bird diverters.

Wolves compare Jason Forrest recalls the grounds reaction to Liam's first half time gig.

I’ve ditched the usual blurb about “not being a movies person, but anyway…” because since I started going to the cinema regularly in 2022 I’ve turned into the kind of guy who downloads the London Film Festival brochure and meticulously...

This monthly series is probably more for my benefit than yours, but maybe your interest will be piqued by one of the reviews. Maybe you’ll scroll straight past. Maybe you’ll unsubscribe thinking what did I see in this blog in...

I have been working with Across for several years, but I never got rid of impression that this CAT tools is very user-unfriendly and bugged. A great limitation is a lack of means for an easy transfer of projects between … Continue reading →

As some of you already know, the TR?ICTIO Invoicing System is a simple invoicing platform focusing on freelance translators. I have been developing the system for about 12 months and after extensive personal testing and actual use in my business, as … Continue reading →

El Diccionario de uso del español de María Moliner es una obra monumental. Son dos volúmenes que la autora iba elaborando pacientemente en el salón […]

Origen

In this paper a line detection and segmentation technique is presented. The proposed technique is an improved version of an older one. The experiments have been performed on the training dataset of the ICDAR 2009 handwriting segmentation contest in order to be able to compare, objectively, the performance of the two techniques. The improvement between the older and newer version is more than 24% while the average extra CPU time cost is less than 200 ms per page.

This paper proposes a new approach to water flow algorithm for the text line segmentation. Original method assumes hypothetical water flows under a few specified angles to the document image frame from left to right and vice versa. As a result, unwetted image frames are extracted. These areas are of major importance for text line segmentation. Method modifications mean extension values of water flow angle and unwetted image frames function enlargement. Results are encouraging due to text line segmentation improvement which is the most challenging process stage in document image processing.

This work describes an online handwritten character recognition system working in combination with an offline recognition system. The online input data is also converted into an offline image, and in parallel recognized by both online and offline strategies. Features are proposed for offline recognition and a disambiguation step is employed in the offline system for the samples for which the confidence level of the classier is low. The outputs are then combined probabilistically resulting in a classier out-performing both individual systems. Experiments are performed for Kannada, a South Indian Language, over a database of 295 classes. The accuracy of the online recognizer improves by 11% when the combination with offline system is used.

In this paper, we propose a novel dexterous technique for fast and accurate recognition of online handwritten Kannada and Tamil characters. Based on the primary classifier output and prior knowledge, the best classifier is chosen from set of three classifiers for second stage classification. Prior knowledge is obtained through analysis of the confusion matrix of primary classifier which helped in identifying the multiple sets of confused characters. Further, studies were carried out to check the performance of secondary classifiers in disambiguating among the confusion sets. Using this technique we have achieved an average accuracy of 92.6% for Kannada characters on the MILE lab dataset and 90.2% for Tamil characters on the HP Labs dataset.

One of the challenges in Dynamic Software Product Line (DSPL) is how to support the coordination of multiple instances of a service feature. In particular, there is a need for a decentralized decision-making capability that will be able to seamlessly integrate new instances of a service feature without an omniscient central controller. Because of the need for decentralization, we are investigating principles from self-organization in biological organisms. As an initial proof of concept, we have applied three bio-inspired techniques to a simple smart home scenario: quorum sensing based service activation, a firefly algorithm for synchronization, and a gossiping (epidemic) protocol for information dissemination. In this paper, we first explain why we selected those techniques using a set of motivating scenarios of a smart home and then describe our experiences in adopting them.

Feature modeling is an approach to represent commonalities and variabilities among products of a product line. Context-aware applications use context information to provide relevant services and information for their users. One of the challenges to build a context-aware product line is to develop mechanisms to incorporate context information and adaptation knowledge in a feature model. This paper presents UbiFEX, an approach to support feature analysis for context-aware software product lines, which incorporates a modeling notation and a mechanism to verify the consistency of product configuration regarding context variations. Moreover, an experimental study was performed as a preliminary evaluation, and a prototype was developed to enable the application of the proposed approach.

No Comment : des slackliners se balancent entre des montgolfières à 2 500 mètres d'altitude

1. Management of opioid use disorder: 2024 update to the national clinical practice guideline  CMAJ
2. New set of guidelines set to combat opioid usage  CTV News Toronto

1. Last supermoon of 2024 to shine over Central Alberta this week  Central Alberta Online
2. 4 of 4: Last supermoon of the year to light up Canadian skies  Global News Toronto
3. Beaver Moon 2024: See the final 'supermoon' of the year rise next to the 'Seven Sisters'  Livescience.com
4. See 2024’s Final ‘Supermoon’ And ‘Fireballs’: The Night Sky This Week  Forbes
5. How and when to catch the last supermoon of 2024  National Post

1. First Oppo Reno13 image appears online - GSMArena.com news  GSMArena.com
2. First look at Oppo Reno 13 shows an iPhone-like design  Notebookcheck.net
3. Oppo Reno13 series to arrive on November 25 - GSMArena.com news  GSMArena.com

1. Israel has missed US deadline to boost Gaza aid, UN agency says  BBC.com
2. US says Israel hasn't breached its law against blocking aid in Gaza  BBC.com
3. Israel misses deadline to let more aid into Gaza, but U.S. maintains support  CBC News
4. Antony Blinken decides against changing U.S. military assistance to Israel: report  The Globe and Mail
5. U.S. says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza  CTV News

Online journal dedicated to nursing informatics

by Dr Kim Barker (University of Stirling) & Dr Olga Jurasz (Open University) The UK Government has recently published an Online Harms White Paper: initial consultation response. It is the cornerstone of the Government’s ongoing reform package which aims to

To improve the effectiveness of online training for music education, it was investigated how to improve the pulse-coupled neural network in image processing for spectral image segmentation. The study proposes a two-scale descent method to achieve oblique spectral correction. Subsequently, a convolutional neural network was optimised using a two-channel feature fusion recognition network for music theory notation recognition. The results showed that this image segmentation method had the highest accuracy, close to 98%, and the accuracy of spectral tilt correction was also as high as 98.4%, which provided good image pre-processing results. When combined with the improved convolutional neural network, the average accuracy of music theory symbol recognition was about 97% and the highest score of music majors was improved by 16 points. This shows that the method can effectively improve the teaching effect of online training in music education and has certain practical value.

Software start-ups generally use development practices that are adapted to their agile and innovative environment. However, these practices, although consolidated, may not be the best ones for a specific context. This paper aims to present a set of guidelines for software development in start-ups. It also aims to show the results of three studies to validate and refine the proposed guidelines: a confirmatory survey, a focus group, and an expert panel. The participants were actors from both the industry and the academia. The results revealed that the guidelines obtained a positive perception from the participants of both contexts. Based on their approval, we can infer that those guidelines can increase the quality of products generated by start-ups and the chances of success for these organisations. Besides, the need for some improvements has been identified, and they will be implemented in the next version of the guidelines.

An online Moodle Workshop was evaluated for peer assessment effectiveness. A quasi-experiment was designed using a Seminar in Professionalism course taught in face-to-face mode to undergraduate students across two campuses. The first goal was to determine if Moodle Workshop awarded a fair peer grader grade. The second objective was to estimate if students were consistent and reliable in performing their peer assessments. Statistical techniques were used to answer the research hypotheses. Although Workshop Moodle did not have a built-in measure for peer assessment validity, t-tests and reliability estimates were calculated to demonstrate that the grades were consistent with what faculty expected. Implications were asserted to improve teaching and recommendations were provided to enhance Moodle.

The nexus between paid work and study is important. Developing opportunities to facilitate this link is a key part of good course design especially in postgraduate programs. Strong communities of practice can also assist with improving links between research and practice. The online study environment affords some challenges to achieving these goals. The current study proposes that offering formalised interaction points— synchronous or asynchronous— during online study, is critical to facilitating the link between work and study. Twenty-five graduates of a postgraduate program were interviewed to explore their experiences of an online program of study. Three key themes emerged and are described in this paper: engaging with study, building a new framework for my practice, and implementing changes to my practice. Online learning programs need to embed opportunities for interaction that are meaningful and allow for development of ideas and discussion, aiming to take learning beyond the program of study.