The National Park Service (NPS) is seeking public comment on a proposal to modify facilities at Desert View to create an Inter-tribal Cultural Heritage Site. The NPS is preparing an environmental assessment (EA), in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, to develop and evaluate alternatives. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/desert-view-public-input.htm

The National Park Service (NPS) is seeking public comment on the Transcanyon Water Distribution Pipeline (Pipeline) Environmental Assessment (EA). Public comments will be accepted for a 30-day period from today, Wednesday, October 10 through Saturday, November 10, 2018. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/national-park-service-requests-public-review-of-the-transcanyon-water-distribution-pipeline-ea.htm

The National Park Service (NPS) is seeking public review of a site plan/environmental assessment that proposes to modify facilities at Desert View to create an Inter-tribal Cultural Heritage Site. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/desert-view-inter-tribal-cultural-heritage-ea.htm

A Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was signed by Kate Hammond, Acting Regional Director for the Intermountain Region of the National Park Service (NPS), for a site plan to transform Desert View in Grand Canyon National Park into an Inter-tribal Cultural Heritage Site and share a unifying message from the park's traditionally associated tribes: "we are still here". https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/finding-of-no-significant-impact-signed-for-the-desert-view-inter-tribal-cultural-heritage-site.htm

Grand Canyon National Park fire managers anticipate initiating prescribed pile burning this week as weather and fuel moisture conditions allow. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/grca-south-rim-piles-project.htm

Finding of No Significant Impact signed for the Transcanyon Water Distribution Pipeline project in Grand Canyon National Park. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/finding-of-no-significant-impact-for-transcanyon-waterline.htm

Grand Canyon National Park fire managers-working with resources from Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Rocky Mountain National Park, Zion National Park, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, Bryce Canyon National Park, Saguaro National Park and Kaibab National Forest anticipate initiating a prescribed fire treatment as early as tomorrow, as weather and fuel moisture conditions allow. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/fire-managers-at-grand-canyon-plan-prescribed-fire-adjacent-to-grand-canyon-village.htm

Grand Canyon National Park fire managers will initiate a prescribed fire treatment today, as weather and fuel moisture conditions allow. The Long Jim Prescribed Fire is adjacent to the developed area on the South Rim, east of South Entrance Road and south of Highway 64 (Desert View Drive) East. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/fire-managers-at-grand-canyon-initiate-prescribed-fire-adjacent-to-grand-canyon-village.htm

Grand Canyon National Park fire managers continue to treat the Long Jim Prescribed Fire unit, as weather and fuel moisture conditions allow. On Tuesday, June 18, 2019, crews successfully treated 180 acres. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/fire-managers-at-grand-canyon-continue-prescribed-fire-adjacent-to-grand-canyon-village.htm

Grand Canyon National Park fire resources completed ignition operations on the Long Jim Prescribed Fire. Crews will continue to patrol the unit and mop up any areas along the fires perimeter that may threaten the holding line. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/fire-resources-at-grand-canyon-complete-ignition-operations-on-long-jim-rx.htm

In the mid-1990s, forest managers on the Malheur National Forest were concerned about their prescribed fire program. Although they have only a few weeks of acceptable conditions available in the spring and fall, they were worried that spring-season prescribed burning might be exacerbating black stain root disease and having negative effects on understory plants.

A century of fire suppression has resulted in dense fuel loads within the dry pine forests of eastern Oregon . To alleviate the risk of stand-replacing wildfire, forest managers are using prescribed fire and thinning treatments. Until recently, the impact of these fuel treatments on soil productivity has been largely unknown. Such information is essential for making sound management decisions about the successful reintroduction of fire to the ecosystem to retain biodiversity of soil fungi and achieve the desired future condition of large ponderosa pines with low fuel loads. In a recent pair of studies, led by researchers at the PNW Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, novel molecular techniques were utilized to investigate the response of soil ecosystems to prescribed burning and thinning. The research compared impacts of the season of burn and various combinations of fuel-reducing treatments. Results suggest that overly severe fires can damage soil productivity and that less intense fires can be used to gradually reduce accumulations of fuel. The findings are currently being implemented in decisions about forest management and contribute important new information to the science.

Over half (56 percent) of America's forests are privately owned and managed and provide a vast array of public goods and services, such as clean water, timber, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities. These important public benefits are being affected by increased housing density in urban as well as rural areas across the country.

This study's objective was to document and describe the current seedling bank of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis (Bong.) Carr.) and western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.) stands in southeast Alaska that were partially cut between 1900 and 1984.

Scientists have had little information about how prescribed fire and cattle grazing—common practices in many Western ponderosa pine forests—affect plant abundance and reproduction in the forest understory. Pacific Northwest Research Station scientists began to explore how these practices affect vegetation in a five-year study of postfire vegetation in eastern Oregon ponderosa pine forests where cattle have been routinely pastured from late June or early July through early to mid August. For this area of eastern Oregon, they found that excluding cattle grazing during peak growing season increased native plant cover and grass flowering capability in ungrazed areas compared to grazed areas. Because vegetation was measured prior to releasing cattle on the land, the study's results tend to reflect lasting grazing impacts rather than simple consumption.

Within three days, 189 North East schoolchldren responded to an invitation to join a virtual singalong and this is the heartwarming result

Being brought up in Newcastle holds many different memories for all of us and being a Geordie is something to be proud of.

Jackie Pexton, who is part of the Macmillian Toon Angels, has raised over £52,000 to show her support for the charity that has been a lifeline for her

Speaking on the current status of the The Voice’s return Brooke said she’s in constant contact with fellow finalists and production

UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP's UMe has inked a deal with SPIRIT MUSIC GROUP for worldwide distribution of the majority of INGRID MICHAELSON's catalog. SPIRIT acquired the majority of … more

Tribune Media is home to a diverse portfolio of television and digital properties driven by news, entertainment and sports programming.

Information about the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary of England and Wales. Read the latest judgments, news and speeches.

Research Highlights: Black immigrants from Africa and from the Caribbean differ from U.S.-born blacks in rates of high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking and overweight/obesity. The research supports a more detailed look at black populations and the...

Goa Hippy Tribe is an interactive documentary that tells the story of the original Goan hippies, led by the inimitable Eight-Finger Eddie, who first met in the early 70s and re-connected on Facebook to re-unite in 2010. An immersive online trip, the project features interviews shot by director Darius Devas as well as material contributed by Facebook users as part of an initial, groundbreaking social media phase.

Until recently, Amazon Transcribe supported speech recognition in English and Spanish only.
Now they included French, Italian and Portuguese as well - and a few other languages (including German) are in private beta.

Update March 2019:
Now Amazon Transcribe supports German and Korean as well.

The Auphonic Audio Inspector on the status page of a finished Multitrack Production including speech recognition.
Please click on the screenshot to see it in full resolution!

Amazon Transcribe is integrated as speech recognition engine within Auphonic and offers accurate transcriptions (compared to other services) at low costs, including keywords / custom vocabulary support, word confidence, timestamps, and punctuation.
See the following AWS blog post and video for more information about recent Amazon Transcribe developments: Transcribe speech in three new languages: French, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Amazon Transcribe is also a perfect fit if you want to use our Transcript Editor because you will be able to see word timestamps and confidence values to instantly check which section/words should be corrected manually to increase the transcription accuracy:

Screenshot of our Transcript Editor with word confidence highlighting and the edit bar.

These features are also available if you use Speechmatics, but unfortunately not in our other integrated speech recognition services.

About Speech Recognition within Auphonic

Auphonic has built a layer on top of a few external speech recognition services to make audio searchable:
Our classifiers generate metadata during the analysis of an audio signal (music segments, silence, multiple speakers, etc.) to divide the audio file into small and meaningful segments, which are processed by the speech recognition engine. The results from all segments are then combined, and meaningful timestamps, simple punctuation and structuring are added to the resulting text.

To learn more about speech recognition within Auphonic, take a look at our Speech Recognition and Transcript Editor help pages or listen to our Speech Recognition Audio Examples.

A comparison table of our integrated services (price, quality, languages, speed, features, etc.) can be found here: Speech Recognition Services Comparison.

Conclusion

We hope that Amazon and others will continue to add new languages, to get accurate and inexpensive automatic speech recognition in many languages.

Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or feedback about speech recognition or our transcript editor!

It’s that time of year when Spoon Graphics gets a little older, with 2020 marking 13 years of tutorial creating, freebie sharing and article writing on what started as a blog that was attached to my portfolio website in 2007. Every April I take some time to reflect on the past 12 months and talk […]

The post Spoon Graphics Turns 13 Years Old — Traffic Down, Subscribers Up! appeared first on Spoon Graphics.

Email is your post powerful marketing channel when used well. Your visitor’s inbox is a perfect opportunity for you to capture attention, communicate important updates and invite readers back to your site for increased visibility. The stats on email marketing effectiveness say it all – top marketing specialists and service providers tell us that email […]

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This paper considers the distributed nonconvex optimization problem of minimizing a global cost function formed by a sum of local cost functions by using local information exchange. We first propose a distributed first-order primal-dual algorithm. We show that it converges sublinearly to the stationary point if each local cost function is smooth and linearly to the global optimum under an additional condition that the global cost function satisfies the Polyak-{L}ojasiewicz condition. This condition is weaker than strong convexity, which is a standard condition for proving the linear convergence of distributed optimization algorithms, and the global minimizer is not necessarily unique or finite. Motivated by the situations where the gradients are unavailable, we then propose a distributed zeroth-order algorithm, derived from the proposed distributed first-order algorithm by using a deterministic gradient estimator, and show that it has the same convergence properties as the proposed first-order algorithm under the same conditions. The theoretical results are illustrated by numerical simulations.

We derive sufficient conditions for exponential decay of solutions of the delay negative feedback equation with distributed delay. The conditions are written in terms of exponential moments of the distribution. Our method only uses elementary tools of calculus and is robust towards possible extensions to more complex settings, in particular, systems of delay differential equations. We illustrate the applicability of the method to particular distributions - Dirac delta, Gamma distribution, uniform and truncated normal distributions.

In this paper, we present three distributed algorithms to solve a class of generalized Nash equilibrium (GNE) seeking problems in strongly monotone games. The first one (SD-GENO) is based on synchronous updates of the agents, while the second and the third (AD-GEED and AD-GENO) represent asynchronous solutions that are robust to communication delays. AD-GENO can be seen as a refinement of AD-GEED, since it only requires node auxiliary variables, enhancing the scalability of the algorithm. Our main contribution is to prove converge to a variational GNE of the game via an operator-theoretic approach. Finally, we apply the algorithms to network Cournot games and show how different activation sequences and delays affect convergence. We also compare the proposed algorithms to the only other in the literature (ADAGNES), and observe that AD-GENO outperforms the alternative.

Diagnosis of high impedance fault (HIF) is a challenge for nowadays distribution network protections. The fault current of a HIF is much lower than that of a normal load, and fault feature is significantly affected by fault scenarios. A detection and feeder identification algorithm for HIFs is proposed in this paper, based on the high-resolution and synchronous waveform data. In the algorithm, an interval slope is defined to describe the waveform distortions, which guarantees a uniform feature description under various HIF nonlinearities and noise interferences. For three typical types of network neutrals, i.e.,isolated neutral, resonant neutral, and low-resistor-earthed neutral, differences of the distorted components between the zero-sequence currents of healthy and faulty feeders are mathematically deduced, respectively. As a result, the proposed criterion, which is based on the distortion relationships between zero-sequence currents of feeders and the zero-sequence voltage at the substation, is theoretically supported. 28 HIFs grounded to various materials are tested in a 10kV distribution networkwith three neutral types, and are utilized to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Most currently available schemes for performance based ranking of Universities or Research organizations, such as, Quacarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), Shanghai University based All Research of World Universities (ARWU) use a variety of criteria that include productivity, citations, awards, reputation, etc., while Leiden and Scimago use only bibliometric indicators. The research performance evaluation in the aforesaid cases is based on bibliometric data from Web of Science or Scopus, which are commercially available priced databases. The coverage includes peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Google Scholar (GS) on the other hand, provides a free and open alternative to obtaining citations of papers available on the net, (though it is not clear exactly which journals are covered.) Citations are collected automatically from the net and also added to self created individual author profiles under Google Scholar Citations (GSC). This data was used by Webometrics Lab, Spain to create a ranked list of 4000+ institutions in 2016, based on citations from only the top 10 individual GSC profiles in each organization. (GSC excludes the top paper for reasons explained in the text; the simple selection procedure makes the ranked list size-independent as claimed by the Cybermetrics Lab). Using this data (Transparent Ranking TR, 2016), we find the regional and country wise distribution of GS-TR Citations. The size independent ranked list is subdivided into deciles of 400 institutions each and the number of institutions and citations of each country obtained for each decile. We test for correlation between institutional ranks between GS TR and the other ranking schemes for the top 20 institutions.

This work addresses the problem of traffic management at and near an isolated un-signalized intersection for autonomous and networked vehicles through coordinated optimization of their trajectories. We decompose the trajectory of each vehicle into two phases: the provisional phase and the coordinated phase. A vehicle, upon entering the region of interest, initially operates in the provisional phase, in which the vehicle is allowed to optimize its trajectory but is constrained to guarantee in-lane safety and to not enter the intersection. Periodically, all the vehicles in their provisional phase switch to their coordinated phase, which is obtained by coordinated optimization of the schedule of the vehicles' intersection usage as well as their trajectories. For the coordinated phase, we propose a data-driven solution, in which the intersection usage order is obtained through a data-driven online "classification" and the trajectories are computed sequentially. This approach is computationally very efficient and does not compromise much on optimality. Moreover, it also allows for incorporation of "macro" information such as traffic arrival rates into the solution. We also discuss a distributed implementation of this proposed data-driven sequential algorithm. Finally, we compare the proposed algorithm and its two variants against traditional methods of intersection management and against some existing results in the literature by micro-simulations.

By using dissipativity approach, we establish the stability condition for the feedback connection of a deterministic dynamical system $Sigma$ and a stochastic memoryless map $Psi$. After that, we extend the result to the class of large scale systems in which: $Sigma$ consists of many sub-systems; and $Psi$ consists of many "stochastic actuators" and "probability controllers" that control the actuator's output events. We will demonstrate the proposed approach by showing the design procedures to globally stabilize the manufacturing systems while locally balance the stock levels in any production process.

A catastrophic loss in biodiversity, reckless destruction of wildland and warming temperatures have allowed disease to explode. Ignoring the connection between climate change and pandemics would be “dangerous delusion,” one scientist said. The scientists who study how diseases emerge in a changing environment knew this moment was coming.…

Embodiments of the present invention relate to an apparatus, method, and/or sequence for a distributed ECC that may be used in a storage system. In another embodiment of the invention, an apparatus for handling distributed error correction code (ECC) operations, includes: a plurality of ECC engines configured to perform ECC operations in parallel on multiple data parts; the plurality of ECC engines distributed in parallel to receive some of the multiple data parts that are read from storage media devices and to receive some of the other multiple data parts that are to be written to the storage media devices; and the plurality of ECC engines configured to use respective ECC bytes corresponding to respective ones of the multiple data parts.

A method and apparatus for distributing objects. In one embodiment, the method comprises computing a modulus operand based on a number of objects to be distributed and a number of objects pertaining to a first category; computing a modulus operation based on a number of distributed objects and the modulus operand; and distributing a first object or a second object based on a result of computing the modulus operation.

Distributed processing system and method for discrete logarithm calculation. The speed and resource efficiency of discrete logarithm calculation may be improved by allowing a plurality of operation agents to distributively process an operation of generating a modulo multiplication auxiliary table, an operation of generating a pre-calculation table, and an operation of searching for an answer by applying an iterated function for discrete logarithm calculation in a discrete logarithm calculation operation using the pre-calculation table.

A method for efficient dispatch/completion of a work element within a multi-node data processing system. The method comprises: selecting specific processing units from among the processing nodes to complete execution of a work element that has multiple individual work items that may be independently executed by different ones of the processing units; generating an allocated processor unit (APU) bit mask that identifies at least one of the processing units that has been selected; placing the work element in a first entry of a global command queue (GCQ); associating the APU mask with the work element in the GCQ; and responsive to receipt at the GCQ of work requests from each of the multiple processing nodes or the processing units, enabling only the selected specific ones of the processing nodes or the processing units to be able to retrieve work from the work element in the GCQ.

By employing a two-tier load balancing scheme, embodiments of the present invention may reduce the overhead of shared resource management, while increasing the potential aggregate throughput of a thread pool. As a result, the techniques presented herein may lead to increased performance in many computing environments, such as graphics intensive gaming.

In one embodiment of the invention, a method is disclosed for modifying a pre-existing application program for multi-processing and/or distributed parallel processing. The method includes searching an application program for a computational loop; analyzing the computational loop to determine independence of the computational transactions of the computational loop; and replacing the computational loop with master code and slave code to provide master-slave execution of the computational loop in response to analyzing the computational loop to determine independence of the computational transactions of the computational loop. Multiple instances of the modified application program are executed to provide multi-processing and/or distributed parallel processing.

An integrated circuit includes core logic and a plurality of interface blocks disposed about a periphery of the core logic. A plurality of input or output (I/O) circuits is assigned to one of the plurality of interface blocks. The I/O circuits include external I/O circuits coupled to a device other than the integrated circuit and internal I/O circuits coupled to the integrated circuit. Each interface block includes a first plurality of I/O circuits disposed on a first side of the interface block and a second plurality of I/O circuits disposed on a second side of the interface block. Each interface block also includes interface logic for the interface block between the first plurality of I/O circuits and the second plurality of I/O circuits, and a logic hub that includes a clock distribution of minimal length that drives launch logic and capture logic to form the I/O circuits of the interface block.

A service distribution device is provided that, when acquiring services to be used in an information terminal mounted in a vehicle or used in its passenger compartment, recognizes service availability beforehand, thereby improving usability of the services. A service distribution device includes an information correlation unit for correlating information that denotes service utilization conditions in relation to travel condition of the vehicle with the services. The service distribution device distributes to an information terminal the information that denotes the service utilization conditions correlated by the information correlation unit along with contents of the relevant service so that the information and the contents can be visibly displayed on a display unit in the information terminal.

A method and apparatus for using an ad hoc peer-to-peer distributed message bus is provided. The method may include determining, by a local bus node, using a first power level communication protocol, that a remote bus node is available, obtaining, by the local bus node, connection information from the remote bus node using a second power level communication protocol, wherein the connection information comprises connection information for one or more remote endpoints associated with the remote bus node, and generating one or more local virtual endpoints, wherein each of the one or more local virtual endpoints corresponds to each of the one or more remote endpoints, and wherein the remote endpoint is described with reference to a well-known name, unique to the remote endpoint.

Methods and systems for remotely provisioning applications from the cloud in secure environments with robust license control failover options using a hierarchical server topology. Cloud-based servers provide applications and licenses to an organization's local servers, which in turn serve applications and licenses to end user devices. By synchronizing information including license and application provision information among the local and cloud-based servers, an organization's local servers can continue to serve applications and licenses when one or more of the organization's local servers fail.

According to one embodiment, a method comprises evaluating messages between nodes of a distributed computing environment. Based on timing relationships of the messages, probability of causal links between pairs of messages determined. Based on the determined probability, at least one causal path comprising a plurality of causal links is inferred. Further, an overall probability that the inferred causal path is accurate is determined. In certain embodiments, the overall probability is output for the corresponding causal path to provide an indication of the confidence of the accuracy of such inferred causal path.

An example method to monitor media exposure involves receiving, at a first internet domain, a first request from a client computer, the first request indicative of access to the media at the client computer. The example method also involves determining if the client computer is known. If the client computer is not known, a response is sent from the first internet domain to the client computer, the response to instruct the client computer to send a second request to a second internet domain, the second request to be indicative of access to the media at the client computer. If the client computer is known, an impression of the media is logged.

A network is described for providing estimates of the current time. The network includes multiple computer systems each configured to provide an estimate of the current time in response to a received request. The computer systems are logically arranged to form a hierarchical structure, wherein the hierarchical structure includes multiple levels ranked with respect to one another. Each of the computer systems is assigned one of multiple levels of trust, and occupies one of the levels of the hierarchical structure dependent upon the assigned level of trust. The level of trust assigned to a given computer system is dependent upon a timekeeping dependability of the given computer system. The assigned level of trust may also be dependent upon a timekeeping security of the given computer system, where the timekeeping security is dependent upon a tamper resistance of the time clock of the given computer system. Methods for delegating a level of trust to a new computer system (i.e., a computer system not part of the network) and for adding a new computer system to the network are also described.

Various systems and methods are described for configuring a data storage system. In one embodiment, a plurality of actual capacities of a plurality of storage devices of the data storage system are identified and divided into a plurality of capacity slices. The plurality of capacity slices are combined into a plurality of chunks of capacity slices, each having a combination of characteristics of the underlying physical storage devices. The chunks of capacity slices are then mapped to a plurality of logical storage devices. A group of the plurality of logical storage devices is then organized into a redundant array of logical storage devices.