Study objectives were to evaluate yearly fluctuations in herbage canopy cover and production to aid in defining characteristics of range condition guides. Sites are located in the forested Blue Mountains of central Oregon. They were selected from those used to develop range condition guides where soil, topographic, and vegetation parameters were measured as a characterization of best range condition. Plant community dominants were ponderosa pine/pinegrass, ponderosa pine/bitterbrush/Idaho fescue savanna, low sagebrush/bluebunch wheatgrass, and rigid sagebrush scabland. None of the sites were grazed during the previous 30 years or during the 27-year study. Each location was permanently marked by fence posts, and a meter board was placed 10 m down an established transect line. Photographs (color slides) were taken down the transect with closeups left and right of the meter board. Sampling was limited to August 1-4 each year when canopy cover and herbage production were determined. Both total canopy cover and herbage production varied by about a 2.4-fold difference on each site over the 27 years. Apparently "good range condition" may be something of a "running target" and lacks a well-defined set of parameters. Canopy cover is a poor parameter for characterizing range condition. Three of the four plant communities were dominated by bunchgrasses. Abundance of seedheads is commonly used to indicate good range health. But on these sites, seedheads were not produced about half the time. Because these sites were in "good range condition," lack of seedhead production may indicate maximum competition in the community. Maximum competition and maximum vigor do not seem to be synonymous. These bunchgrass communities varied in their greenness on the first of August each year from cured brown to rather vibrant green suggesting important annual differences in phenology. The pinegrass community, being dominated by rhizomatous species, showed surprising variance in seedhead production. Pinegrass did not flower, but Wheeler's bluegrass, lupine, and Scouler's woolyweed were quite variable, averaging inflorescences only 75 percent of the time.

In dry, open coniferous forests of the montane West, stand-replacing wildfires and land use activities alter the composition and abundance of native grasses and forbs by degrading the habitat and accelerating the invasion of exotic annuals. On these lands, native forbs and grasses delayed or prevented from recovery by natural processes may require intervention through supplementary seeding. However, effective seeding of native plants requires that their seed traits and the potential outcome of the seeding be better understood.

Garden lovers are welcoming new contactless delivery service from Southdene Nursery in Low Fell

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Newcastle United goalkeeper Rob Elliot has opened up about team-mate Isaac Hayden and what makes him such an important player

SANDHILL MEDIA Top 40 KAOX (NOW 107.9)/SHELLEY-IDAHO FALLS, ID will flip to News-Talk as "NEWSTALK 107.9" with former RICH BROADCASTING News-Talk KID-A-KIDG-KIDJ/IDAHO FALLS morning … more

NIELSEN HOLDINGS has filed an initial Form 10 Registration Statement with the U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION in connection with the Company's proposed separation of the NIELSEN … more

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There is a lot of debate going on right now in the WordPress world about the WordPress Foundation barring all ThemeForest/CodeCanyon (Envato really) authors from speaking at WordCamp events. I don't want to rehash the argument here; the best place to get it is in the original post, and the comments on it. Instead, I want to make a different point: Regardless of whether he is right or not, it's good for WordPress that Matt makes these bold choices.

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Dubuque woman who helped her boyfriend and another person buy heroin that later led to a fatal overdose was convicted Thursday in federal court. Jacqueline M. Birch, 23,...

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Dubuque woman who helped her boyfriend and another person buy heroin that later led to a fatal overdose was convicted Thursday in federal court.

Jacqueline M. Birch, 23, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of aiding and abetting the distribution of a controlled substance.

During the plea hearing, Birch admitted she knew that another person was going to illegally distribute a drug last May, and she aided in that distribution.

Evidence at a previous hearing showed that Birch drove her boyfriend, Mateusz Syryjczyk, 29, of Rockford, Ill., and another person, not identified in court documents, to a residence in Dubuque on May 27. Birch and the other person went into the residence and bought heroin from a dealer. The three drove to a hotel in Dubuque and all used the heroin.

The other person began to overdose in the room, but Birch and Syryjczyk didn’t immediately call 911, according to evidence. Over many hours, Birch occasionally would perform CPR on the person to restore some breathing function, though the person never regained consciousness.

Eventually, Birch and Syryjczyk decided to call 911, and Syryjczyk took the remaining drug paraphernalia from the room to prevent law enforcement from finding it, according to court documents. Birch and Syryjczyk also made false statements to police about the cause of the person’s condition.

Court documents showed the overdose victim died at the scene. An autopsy later determined the cause of death was use of heroin, fentanyl and valeryl fentanyl.

Syryjczyk previously pleaded to misprision of a felony and remains free on bond pending sentencing.

Birch faces up to 20 years in federal prison, a $1 million fine and supervised release for life following her prison term.

Sentencing will be set after a presentencing report is prepared.

The case was investigated by the Dubuque Drug Task Force and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Chatham.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

I’ve gone subway hopping for photos in every city I’ve been to except the one I live in. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

Today's processors contain billions of heat-generating transistors in an ever shrinking space. The power budget might go from:

• 1000 watts on a specialized server
• 100 watts on desktops
• 30 watts on laptops
• 5 watts on tablets
• 1 or 2 watts on a phone
• 100 milliwatts on an embedded system

That's

Earlier this week I met up for coffee with a client of mine. The two of us originally met when his employeer was my client and after leaving that job he hired me to customize his personal blog and we formed our own client/designer relationship. I was excited when he emailed me last week with the […]

The pandemic has changed the daily lives of everyone. How we work, how we shop, and how we interact with each other are all shifting. Comparing life as it is now with how it used to be can lead to sadness or despair and what's called "ambiguous loss."

Web designers: we’ve got fabulous news for you. With the global market expanding without limits, clients are more demanding than ever before. They understand that the highly competitive business realm requires creative websites. That’s good news: as competition increases, web development projects become more challenging. That’s good news for Be Theme too as it is […]

The post Tips on developing creative websites that will wow your clients appeared first on WebAppers.

Welcome back to another Illustrator based tutorial, in which we’re going to learn how to create a location pin icon, using nothing more than a couple of basic shapes that we’re going to adjust here and there. So, assuming you already have the software running in the background, bring it up and let’s jump straight […]

The post How to – Create a Location Pin Icon appeared first on Vectips.

WordPress makes upgrading very easy . You simply click “Update now”, wait for a minute or two and your system […]

The pandemic has changed the daily lives of everyone. How we work, how we shop, and how we interact with each other are all shifting. Comparing life as it is now with how it used to be can lead to sadness or despair and what's called "ambiguous loss."

Dan Pink is a bestselling author and was the host & co-executive producer of “Crowd Control”, a television series about human behavior on National Geographic. He’s appeared frequently on NPR, PBS, ABC, CNN, and other TV/radio networks worldwide. His provocative books include Drive, A Whole New Mind, To Sell is Human, and his latest book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. I love Dan’s books. He’s a ruthlessly practical thinker and in this episode he doesn’t hold back. We get into: How to see trends or unlikely connections across by absorbing and learning from a wide variety of sources, whether that’s audio programs, books, documentaries, or episodes of Silicon Valley. Using lists to track influences, sources, and even random ideas or curiosities to spark new ideas Selling isn’t a dirty word, it’s required to get our ideas out there. If we believe in our work, we have a moral obligation to share it. and so much more… Enjoy! FOLLOW DAN: instagram | twitter | website Listen to the Podcast Subscribe   This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make […]

The post Dan Pink: If You Believe In It. Share It. appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.

It feels like forever since Nikon announced their newest flagship DSLR; the Nikon D6. It’s actually only been three months, but that hasn’t stopped some people getting anxious. Recently, customers were being told that the D6 would start shipping right about now, but now Nikon has officially come out to announce that the Nikon D6 […]

The post Nikon has confirmed that their flagship D6 DSLR will start shipping on May 21st appeared first on DIY Photography.

Let $H$ be an infinite dimensional, reflexive, separable Hilbert space and $NA(H)$ the class of all norm-attainble operators on $H.$ In this note, we study an implicit scheme for a canonical representation of nonexpansive contractions in norm-attainable classes.

Funding the production of quality online content is a pressing problem for content producers. The most common funding method, online advertising, is rife with well-known performance and privacy harms, and an intractable subject-agent conflict: many users do not want to see advertisements, depriving the site of needed funding.

Because of these negative aspects of advertisement-based funding, paywalls are an increasingly popular alternative for websites. This shift to a "pay-for-access" web is one that has potentially huge implications for the web and society. Instead of a system where information (nominally) flows freely, paywalls create a web where high quality information is available to fewer and fewer people, leaving the rest of the web users with less information, that might be also less accurate and of lower quality. Despite the potential significance of a move from an "advertising-but-open" web to a "paywalled" web, we find this issue understudied.

This work addresses this gap in our understanding by measuring how widely paywalls have been adopted, what kinds of sites use paywalls, and the distribution of policies enforced by paywalls. A partial list of our findings include that (i) paywall use is accelerating (2x more paywalls every 6 months), (ii) paywall adoption differs by country (e.g. 18.75% in US, 12.69% in Australia), (iii) paywalls change how users interact with sites (e.g. higher bounce rates, less incoming links), (iv) the median cost of an annual paywall access is $108 per site, and (v) paywalls are in general trivial to circumvent.

Finally, we present the design of a novel, automated system for detecting whether a site uses a paywall, through the combination of runtime browser instrumentation and repeated programmatic interactions with the site. We intend this classifier to augment future, longitudinal measurements of paywall use and behavior.

With the rapidly worldwide spread of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), it is of great importance to conduct early diagnosis of COVID-19 and predict the time that patients might convert to the severe stage, for designing effective treatment plan and reducing the clinicians' workloads. In this study, we propose a joint classification and regression method to determine whether the patient would develop severe symptoms in the later time, and if yes, predict the possible conversion time that the patient would spend to convert to the severe stage. To do this, the proposed method takes into account 1) the weight for each sample to reduce the outliers' influence and explore the problem of imbalance classification, and 2) the weight for each feature via a sparsity regularization term to remove the redundant features of high-dimensional data and learn the shared information across the classification task and the regression task. To our knowledge, this study is the first work to predict the disease progression and the conversion time, which could help clinicians to deal with the potential severe cases in time or even save the patients' lives. Experimental analysis was conducted on a real data set from two hospitals with 422 chest computed tomography (CT) scans, where 52 cases were converted to severe on average 5.64 days and 34 cases were severe at admission. Results show that our method achieves the best classification (e.g., 85.91% of accuracy) and regression (e.g., 0.462 of the correlation coefficient) performance, compared to all comparison methods. Moreover, our proposed method yields 76.97% of accuracy for predicting the severe cases, 0.524 of the correlation coefficient, and 0.55 days difference for the converted time.

Pandemic measures such as social distancing and contact tracing can be enhanced by rapidly integrating dynamic location data and demographic data. Projecting billions of longitude and latitude locations onto hundreds of thousands of highly irregular demographic census block polygons is computationally challenging in both research and deployment contexts. This paper describes two approaches labeled "simple" and "fast". The simple approach can be implemented in any scripting language (Matlab/Octave, Python, Julia, R) and is easily integrated and customized to a variety of research goals. This simple approach uses a novel combination of hierarchy, sparse bounding boxes, polygon crossing-number, vectorization, and parallel processing to achieve 100,000,000+ projections per second on 100 servers. The simple approach is compact, does not increase data storage requirements, and is applicable to any country or region. The fast approach exploits the thread, vector, and memory optimizations that are possible using a low-level language (C++) and achieves similar performance on a single server. This paper details these approaches with the goal of enabling the broader community to quickly integrate location and demographic data.

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A method for performing relational analysis of parsed input is employed to create a visual map of knowledge information. A title, header or subject line for an input item of information is parsed into syntactical components of at least a subject component and any predicate component(s) relationally linked as topic and subtopics. A search of topics and subtopics is carried out for each parsed component. If a match is found, then the parsed component is taken as a chosen topic/subtopic label. If no match is found, then the parsed component is formatted as a new entry in the knowledge map. A translation function for translating topics and subtopics from an original language into one or more target languages is enabled by user request or indicated user preference for display on a generated visual map of knowledge information.

Carbohydrate substituted dibenzo[d,f][1,3,2]dioxaphosphepin compounds of formula I ##STR1## where A is a carbohydrate residue are effective stabilizers for polymers processed at elevated temperatures and subject to thermal or oxidative degradation.

A perpendicular spin-transfer torque magnetic random access memory (STTMRAM) element includes a fixed layer having a magnetization that is substantially fixed in one direction and a barrier layer formed on top of the fixed layer and a free layer. The free layer has a number of alternating laminates, each laminate being made of a magnetic layer and an insulating layer. The magnetic layer is switchable and formed on top of the barrier layer. The free layer is capable of switching its magnetization to a parallel or an anti-parallel state relative to the magnetization of the fixed layer during a write operation when bidirectional electric current is applied across the STTMRAM element. Magnetic layers of the laminates are ferromagnetically coupled to switch together as a single domain during the write operation and the magnetization of the fixed and free layers and the magnetic layers of the laminates have perpendicular anisotropy.

In one exemplary embodiment, a computer-implemented method includes receiving, at a remote direct memory access (RDMA) device, a plurality of RDMA requests referencing a plurality of virtual pages. Data transfers are scheduled for the plurality of virtual pages, wherein the scheduling occurs at the RDMA device. The number of the virtual pages that are currently pinned is limited for the RDMA requests based on a predetermined pinned page limit.

A memory system includes a CPU that communicates commands and addresses to a main-memory module. The module includes a buffer circuit that relays commands and data between the CPU and the main memory. The memory module additionally includes an embedded processor that shares access to main memory in support of peripheral functionality, such as graphics processing, for improved overall system performance. The buffer circuit facilitates the communication of instructions and data between CPU and the peripheral processor in a manner that minimizes or eliminates the need to modify CPU, and consequently reduces practical barriers to the adoption of main-memory modules with integrated processing power.

A system for protecting an electronic device against malware includes a memory, an operating system configured to execute on the electronic device, and a below-operating-system security agent. The below-operating-system security agent is configured to trap an attempted access of a resource of the electronic device, access one or more security rules to determine whether the attempted access is indicative of malware, and operate at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the memory. The attempted access includes attempting to write instructions to the memory and attempting to execute the instructions.

An apparatus and method for determining an Absolute Location of an indoor stationary object, the method comprising: receiving a distance between an indoor stationary object and one or more predetermined spots; determining a location of stationary object relative to one of the predetermined spots; receiving an Absolute Location of one of the predetermined spots; determining an Absolute Location of the stationary object; and storing the Absolute Location of the stationary object with description information of the stationary object.

The present invention is based on the finding that parameters including: a first set of parameters of a representation of a first portion of an original signal and a second set of parameters of a representation of a second portion of the original signal can be efficiently encoded when the parameters are arranged in a first sequence of tuples and a second sequence of tuples. The first sequence of tuples includes tuples of parameters having two parameters from a single portion of the original signal and the second sequence of tuples includes tuples of parameters having one parameter from the first portion and one parameter from the second portion of the original signal. A bit estimator estimates the number of necessary bits to encode the first and the second sequence of tuples. Only the sequence of tuples, which results in the lower number of bits, is encoded.

Various embodiments present a combined visual entity that represents overlapping visual entities. The combined visual entity can include a primary visualization that represents one of the overlapping visual entities and annotations that represent others of the overlapping visual entities. For example, a map view can include multiple geographical entities that overlap. A primary visualization can be rendered that represents one of the multiple geographical entities. The primary visualization can be visually annotated (e.g., with symbols, letters, or other visual indicators) to indicate others of the multiple geographical entities. In some embodiments, a zoom operation can cause visual entities to be added and/or removed from the combined visual entity.

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.

A sequence of storage devices of a data store may include one or more stripesets for storing data stripes of different lengths and of different types. Each data stripe may be stored in a prefix or other portion of a stripeset. Each data stripe may be identified by an array of addresses that identify each page of the data stripe on each included storage device. When a first storage device of a stripeset becomes full, the stripeset may be shifted by removing the full storage device from the stripeset, and adding a next storage device of the data store to the stripeset. A class variable may be associated with storage devices of a stripeset to identify the type of data that the stripeset can store. The class variable may be increased (or otherwise modified) when a computer stores data of a different class in the stripeset.

An antisense molecule capable of binding to a selected target site to induce exon skipping in the dystrophin gene, as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 1 to 202.

A procedure and system for determining and placing spinal implants or prostheses includes measuring a change in position of vertebrae at an affected level of a patient's spine from a first position where the patient reports greatest pain at the affected level, to a second position where the patient reports least pain at the affected level. Spinal implants or prostheses are selected so as to urge the affected level of the spine toward the second position and away from the first position when the implants are placed at the affected level. In one embodiment, an implant device is formed by one or more inflatable balloons that are placed at determined locations inside a disc space at the affected level. When the balloons are inflated, vertebrae above and below the balloons are urged toward the second position and away from the first position at the affected level.

The present invention relates to a compound of formula (I) including any stereochemically isomeric form thereof, wherein the substituents are as defined in the specification and the claims; a N-oxide thereof, a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof or a solvate thereof; provided that the compound is other than or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof. The claimed compounds are useful for the treatment of a disease, the treatment of which is affected, mediated or facilitated by activating the GHS1A-r receptor. The invention also relates to pharmaceutical compositions thereof and processes for the preparation thereof.

The spinning disc centrifuge rotor includes a sample holder formed from a cylindrical disc body and a cover plate that are made from a transparent material, such as polycarbonate. The disc-shaped body has two concentric or coaxial recesses defined therein. The first recess forms a cylindrical well or sample chamber for receiving a generally cylindrical rock sample. The second recess has a larger diameter than the first recess, and is shallower, forming a fluid collection area above the sample well, the second recess forming an annular ring extending around the top edge or rim of the sample well. An O-ring snugly within the outer wall of the second recess and forms a seal between the cover plate and the floor of the second recess, preventing fluid leakage. A rotor shaft extends from the bottom face of the cylindrical disc.