But the economy can’t rev up too quickly, not as long as the virus is still loose.

“I have been trying for the last two years to pursue the scrappage policy. I have asked the Secretary (ministry of road transport and highways) to expedite the scrappage policy. Because this will help reduce production cost,” Gadkari said in an interaction with SIAM Institute on Thursday.

The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a settlement with the Richmond County (GA) Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) that resolves allegations that the RCSO violated the employment rights of Private First Class (PFC) Auben Kendall under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

Prior to the existence of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Forest Service district rangers had considerable latitude to make resource management decisions and execute management plans with relatively little encumbrance by documentation and process requirements.

The importance to society of environmental services, provided by forest ecosystems, has significantly increased during the last few decades. A growing global concern with the deterioration of forests, beginning perhaps most noticeably in the 1980s, has led to an increasing public awareness of the environmental, cultural, economic, and social values that forests provide. Around the world, ideas of sustainable, close-to-nature, and multi-functional forestry have progressively replaced the older perception of forests as only a source for timber. The international impetus to protect and sustainably manage forests has come from global initiatives at management, conservation, and sustainable development related to all types of forests and forestry. A few of the more notable initiatives include: the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED); regional follow-ups to the Earth Summit such as the Montreal Process and Helsinki Accords; the forest elements of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC).

This report synthesizes the literature on the role of informal economic activity in the United States postindustrial economy. Informal economic activity is expanding in the United States and is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. The formal and informal economic sectors are inextricably intertwined, with individuals and households combining elements of both sectors to construct their livelihoods. Although the informal economy is often thought of as the domain of economically marginal individuals and households, virtually everyone participates in the informal economy to some extent. However, the literature highlights how factors such as social status and household position in the formal economy affect whether participation in informal economic activity is exploitative or empowering. The nontimber forest products sector serves as a case study of why it is important to consider informal economic activity when developing natural resource and economic development policy. We recommend steps policymakers can take to identify and encourage positive aspects of the informal economic activity. We also highlight several areas of research to improve understandings of the role of informal economic activity in postindustrial societies.

The ecosystem services concept describes the many benefits people receive from nature. It highlights the importance of managing public and private lands sustainably to ensure these benefits continue into the future, and it closely aligns with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) mission to "sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.".

Welcome to the EU Policy Blog, Microsoft Brussels’ platform for providing insights on the issues that impact Europe’s future in the digital age. This is a forum to discuss the latest trends, research and regulatory developments which are shaping how European citizens, businesses,...

The new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union will be implemented on May 25th, 2018. We used this opportunity to rework many of our internal data processing structures, removed unnecessary trackers and apply this strict and transparent regulation also to all our customers worldwide.

Image from pixapay.com.

At Auphonic we store as few personal information as possible about your usage and production data.
Here are a few human-readable excerpts from our privacy policy about which information we collect, how we process it, how long and where we store it - for more details please see our full Privacy Policy.

Information that we collect

• Your email address when you create an account.
• Your files, content, configuration parameters and other information, including your photos, audio or video files, production settings, metadata and emails.
• Your tokens or authentication information if you choose to connect to any External services.
• Your subscription plan, credits purchases and production billing history associated with your account, where applicable.
• Your interactions with us, whether by email, on our blog or on our social media platforms.

We do not process any special categories of data (also commonly referred to as “sensitive personal data”).

How we use and process your Data

• To authenticate you when you log on to your account.
• To run your Productions, such that Auphonic can create new media files from your Content according to your instructions.
• To improve our audio processing algorithms. For this purpose, you agree that your Content may be viewed and/or listened to by an Auphonic employee or any person contracted by Auphonic to work on our audio processing algorithms.
• To connect your Auphonic account to an External service according to your instructions.
• To develop, improve and optimize the contents, screen layouts and features of our Services.
• To follow up on any question and request for assistance or information.

When using our Service, you fully retain any rights that you have with regards to your Content, including copyright.

How long we store your Information

Your Productions and any associated audio or video files will be permanently deleted from our servers including all its metadata and possible data from external services after 21 days (7 days for video productions).
We will, however, keep billing metadata associated with your Productions in an internal database (how many hours of audio you processed).

Also, we might store selected audio and/or video files (or excerpts thereof) from your Content in an internal storage space for the purpose of improving our audio processing algorithms.

Other information like Presets, connected External services, Account settings etc. will be stored until you delete them or when your account is deleted.

Where we store your Data

All data that we collect from you is stored on secure servers in the European Economic Area (in Germany).

More Information and Contact

For more information please read our full Privacy Policy.

Please do not hesitate to contact us regarding any matter relating to our privacy policy and GDPR compliance!

For safety-critical black-box optimization tasks, observations of the constraints and the objective are often noisy and available only for the feasible points. We propose an approach based on log barriers to find a local solution of a non-convex non-smooth black-box optimization problem $min f^0(x)$ subject to $f^i(x)leq 0,~ i = 1,ldots, m$, at the same time, guaranteeing constraint satisfaction while learning an optimal solution with high probability. Our proposed algorithm exploits noisy observations to iteratively improve on an initial safe point until convergence. We derive the convergence rate and prove safety of our algorithm. We demonstrate its performance in an application to an iterative control design problem.

Reinforcement learning methods have been used to compute dialog policies from language-based interaction experiences. Efficiency is of particular importance in dialog policy learning, because of the considerable cost of interacting with people, and the very poor user experience from low-quality conversations. Aiming at improving the efficiency of dialog policy learning, we develop algorithm LHUA (Learning with Hindsight, User modeling, and Adaptation) that, for the first time, enables dialog agents to adaptively learn with hindsight from both simulated and real users. Simulation and hindsight provide the dialog agent with more experience and more (positive) reinforcements respectively. Experimental results suggest that, in success rate and policy quality, LHUA outperforms competitive baselines from the literature, including its no-simulation, no-adaptation, and no-hindsight counterparts.

In this paper, we continue our prior work on using imitation learning (IL) and model free reinforcement learning (RL) to learn driving policies for autonomous driving in urban scenarios, by introducing a model based RL method to drive the autonomous vehicle in the Carla urban driving simulator. Although IL and model free RL methods have been proved to be capable of solving lots of challenging tasks, including playing video games, robots, and, in our prior work, urban driving, the low sample efficiency of such methods greatly limits their applications on actual autonomous driving. In this work, we developed a model based RL algorithm of guided policy search (GPS) for urban driving tasks. The algorithm iteratively learns a parameterized dynamic model to approximate the complex and interactive driving task, and optimizes the driving policy under the nonlinear approximate dynamic model. As a model based RL approach, when applied in urban autonomous driving, the GPS has the advantages of higher sample efficiency, better interpretability, and greater stability. We provide extensive experiments validating the effectiveness of the proposed method to learn robust driving policy for urban driving in Carla. We also compare the proposed method with other policy search and model free RL baselines, showing 100x better sample efficiency of the GPS based RL method, and also that the GPS based method can learn policies for harder tasks that the baseline methods can hardly learn.

Policy enforcement in an environment that includes virtualized systems is disclosed. Virtual machine information associated with a first virtual machine instance executing on a host machine is received. The information can be received from a variety of sources, including an agent, a log server, and a management infrastructure associated with the host machine. A policy is applied based at least in part on the received virtual machine information.

A multi-threaded in-order superscalar processor 2 includes an issue stage 12 including issue circuitry 22, 24 for selecting instructions to be issued to execution units 14, 16 in dependence upon a currently selected issue policy. A plurality of different issue policies are provided by associated different policy circuitry 28, 30, 32 and a selection between which of these instances of the policy circuitry 28, 30, 32 is active is made by policy selecting circuitry 34 in dependence upon detected dynamic behavior of the processor 2.

Improved techniques for managing enterprise applications on mobile devices are described herein. Each enterprise mobile application running on the mobile device has an associated policy through which it interacts with its environment. The policy selectively blocks or allows activities involving the enterprise application in accordance with rules established by the enterprise. Together, the enterprise applications running on the mobile device form a set of managed applications. Managed applications are typically allowed to exchange data with other managed applications, but are blocked from exchanging data with other applications, such as the user's own personal applications. Policies may be defined to manage data sharing, mobile resource management, application specific information, networking and data access solutions, device cloud and transfer, dual mode application software, enterprise app store access, and virtualized application and resources, among other things.

Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate communicating encapsulation information for a related mobility protocol type utilized in communicating over a data flow with reduced specific implementation on the policy server to support different mobility protocol types. In this regard, encapsulation information can be transmitted to the policy server from a network gateway such that the policy server can forward the encapsulation information to a serving gateway along with policy rules related to a data flow type. The serving gateway can utilize the encapsulation information to detect and interpret the encapsulated data flow according to the policy rules. In this regard, the serving gateway can provide support (e.g., quality of service support) for the flow. The encapsulation information can relate to a mobility protocol type, an encapsulation header, an indication that encapsulation is required, parameters regarding locating an encapsulation header in a message, and/or the like.

A method, a system and a computer program product for enhancing a cache back invalidation policy by utilizing least recently used (LRU) bits and presence bits in selecting cache-lines for eviction. A cache back invalidation (CBI) utility evicts cache-lines by using presence bits to avoid replacing a cache-line in a lower level cache that is also present in a higher level cache. Furthermore, the CBI utility selects the cache-line for eviction from an LRU group. The CBI utility ensures that dormant cache-lines in the higher level caches do not retain corresponding presence bits set in the lower level caches by unsetting the presence bits in the lower level cache when a line is replaced in the higher level cache. Additionally, when a processor core becomes idle, the CBI utility invalidates the corresponding higher level cache by unsetting the corresponding presence bits in the lower level cache.

Promoters back way forward to help Birmingham nightlife.

Experts says India needs to avoid ‘vice versus virtue’ dichotomy with regard to alcohol.

Sarah Stillman joins Dorothy Wickenden to talk about how the deterrence policies of Republican and Democratic Presidents have failed, and what the Democratic candidates should be saying about how to deal with asylum seekers.

Nanfu Wang grew up under China’s one-child policy and never questioned it. “You don’t know that it’s something initiated and implemented by the authority,” she tells The New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan. “It’s a normal part of everything. Just like water exists, or air.” But when Wang became pregnant she started to understand the magnitude of the law—and the suffering that it caused. Wang’s documentary, “One Child Nation,” explores the effects of one of the largest social experiments in history. She uncovers stories of confusion and trauma, in Chinese society at large and within her own family. After Wang’s uncle had a daughter, his family forced him to abandon her at a local market so that he and his wife could try for a son. “He stood there, across the street, watching to see if somebody would come and take the baby,” Wang tells Fan. “He wanted to bring her home, but his mom threatened to commit suicide. . . . He felt so torn. There was no right decision.” 

On average most policies are put in place to help people, protect people, or regulate dangerous behavior, so why don’t these policies work? In the most recent episode of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke talk about the unintended consequences of policy, and how psychology can help us discover...

Karen and Bradley play and discuss Mike Linksvayer's FOSDEM 2012 talk, Creative Commons 4.0 licenses and other opportunities for FLOSS/free culture legal/policy intersections from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:38)

Bradley and Karen suggest that you use the slides below when listening to Mike's talk.

Segment 1 (05:51)

Mike Linksvayer's slides for this talk are available in PDF format and in ODP format.

Segment 2 (33:43)

Segment 3 (34:25)

A special licensing message from Mike Linksvayer.

Segment 4 (35:09)

• Karen mentioned Bradley's favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life.
• Bradley mentioned Asheesh Laroia, who appears to never blogged about his CC/credit-card-thief freenode confusion story. (48:00)
• Bradley mentioned Fontana's Copyleft.next project . (50:00)
• Bradley mentioned the ST:TNG episode, Unification, Part II, although he kept calling it Reunification during the episode. Please don't write in to complain; he realized the error after recording. (54:39)

Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

From The New Deal until the present moment the architecture of The United States formed around some basic principles of public policy; principles that will no longer apply under a Trump administration. With all the questions that are on the table when it comes to this transition, Dr. James K. Galbraith asks: “Is the study...

Starbucks says “catastrophe pay” will be available to employees, regardless of whether they are showing symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

European Central Bank Vice-President Luis de Guindos and Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf said separately on Thursday that the central bank was more determined to support the euro area economy during crisis periods and the bank stands ready to adjust all tools at its disposal, just days after the top German court ruled that the bank's government debt purchases were in violation of its mandate.

With the substantial growth in data volume, velocity, and variety comes a corresponding need to govern and manage the risk, quality, and cost of that data and provide higher confidence for its use. This is the domain of information governance, but it is a domain that many people struggle with in how to get started. This article provides a starting framework for information governance built around IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog.

A police car may have reached speeds of up to 154 kilometres per hour during a pursuit that ended in the death of Raymond Noel Thomas in Melbourne's inner north, a court hears.

Shooting to kill, commandeering trucks and spike strips are just some powers of intervention police officers have been told they must use if necessary to stop a hostile vehicle attack.

Labor's Home Affairs spokesperson Kristina Keneally has sparked controversy after declaring the COVID-19 crisis should force a revamp of the temporary migration program.

St George Illawarra player Jack de Belin has withdrawn his legal challenge to the NRL's no-fault stand down policy, with his lawyers telling a Federal Court in Sydney there was "no utility" in proceeding.

Book-loving Tasmanians are bucking the trend and turning to libraries in their thousands, less than a year after the state became the first in Australia to abolish fines and processing fees for overdue books.

WA Liberal MPs distance themselves from their new leader's policy direction, including contentious moves to abandon the Western Power sale and steer away from supporting deregulated trading hours, after strong criticism from the business lobby.

Public transport policies are discouraging patronage in Adelaide, lobbyists say, after Freedom of Information figures uncover a significant decline in bus patronage in the first six months of the year.

The Opposition has announced a Labor government would raise $154bn over ten years.

Relatives visiting the gravestones of their family in a NSW town, who found the gravestones razed, thought it was the work of vandals.

As Tasmania lures more tourists with its wilderness charms, there are fears the method of holding tour operators accountable for licence breaches in precious wilderness areas is not up to the task.

One of the nation's most powerful trade unions lashes the Northern Territory Government for its "unacceptable" lack of a policy platform in the lead up to the 2020 Territory election.

Live export ships on most short voyages to South-East Asia will no longer be required to carry independent observers in a Government policy change applauded by the industry.

There had been hopes of recovery at the site of Australia's worst recorded mangrove dieback in the Gulf of Carpentaria. But during a recent visit to the area, traditional owner Patsy Evans said she was devastated by the scene.

If Morrison had a message for farmers, announcing it on a Friday afternoon amid football finals, school holidays and long weekends is not how you'd typically deliver it, writes Kath Sullivan.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communications Technologies (G3ict) unwrapped a first-of-a-kind toolkit that addresses the needs of policymakers and regulators across a broad range of government agencies and ministries in countries that are implementing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The Rockies have already lost 28 home games scheduled for April and May, and it remains to be seen if fans will be able to view any games at Coors this season.

The 2020 presidential candidates wants your vote.

What you want to know about the U.S.'s friends and enemies.

The 2020 presidential candidates wants your vote.

Major technological and security changes in the aviation industry over the past 20 years have forced airport leaders and aviation stakeholders to think of new research ideas that will improve the planning and development of policies and new models that foster growth of air service, incorporate new airport and customer technology, revise airport business models, and better interact with neighboring communities. ACRP (Airport Cooperative Research Program) Web-Only Document 39: Policy and Planning Issues Ro...

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein would not continue to expand our military budget and presence in the world but would curtail both, saving American taxpayers trillions of dollars and saving the world millions, if not billions, of lives. Listen to her present a rational, humane foreign policy in this interview on The Young Turks Town Hall meeting held October 21, 2016. Continue reading →

In an interview with Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks TYT show on October, 21, 2016, Jill Stein was asked what would she do to ensure the protection of Estonia from an invasion from Russia. I found her response to … Continue reading →