We rely on our washing machine to wash our dirty laundry, but what if it's the cause of dirty clothes? Is there any recourse when our washing machine leaves stains on our clothes?

[Economy] :
South Koreans appear to hold more favorable views of marriage and childrearing than they did two years ago. According to Statistics Korea on Tuesday, 52-point-five percent of some 36-thousand people aged 13 and older polled in May said people should get married, up two-point-five percentage points from ...

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Trailblazing seismologist named new editor-in-chief of GJI  The Royal Astronomical Society

Five multicomponent solid forms of an antifungal drug flucytosine are reported with a hygroscopic stability study. A detailed CSD search on the cocrystal/salts of flucytosine is evaluated and correlated the structures based on bond angles and bond distances.

The synthesis of a chiral isothiourea, namely, (4aR,8aR)-3-phenyl-4a,5,6,7,8,8a-hexahydrobenzo[4,5]imidazo[2,1-b]thiazol-9-ium bromide, C15H17N2S+·Br−, with potential organocatalytic and anti-inflammatory activity is reported. The preparation of the heterocycle of interest was carried out in two high-yielding steps. The hydrobromide salt of the isothiourea of interest provided suitable crystals for X-ray diffraction analysis, the results of which are reported. Salient observations from this analysis are the near perpendicular arrangement of the phenyl ring and the mean plane of the heterocycle. This conformational characteristic may be relevant with regard the stereoselectivity induced by the chiral isothiourea in asymmetric reactions. Furthermore, evidence was found for the existence of an S...Br− halogen bond.

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is widely used to analyze the shape and size of nanoparticles in solution. A multitude of models, describing the SAXS intensity resulting from nanoparticles of various shapes, have been developed by the scientific community and are used for data analysis. Choosing the optimal model is a crucial step in data analysis, which can be difficult and time-consuming, especially for non-expert users. An algorithm is proposed, based on machine learning, representation learning and SAXS-specific preprocessing methods, which instantly selects the nanoparticle model best suited to describe SAXS data. The different algorithms compared are trained and evaluated on a simulated database. This database includes 75 000 scattering spectra from nine nanoparticle models, and realistically simulates two distinct device configurations. It will be made freely available to serve as a basis of comparison for future work. Deploying a universal solution for automatic nanoparticle model selection is a challenge made more difficult by the diversity of SAXS instruments and their flexible settings. The poor transferability of classification rules learned on one device configuration to another is highlighted. It is shown that training on several device configurations enables the algorithm to be generalized, without degrading performance compared with configuration-specific training. Finally, the classification algorithm is evaluated on a real data set obtained by performing SAXS experiments on nanoparticles for each of the instrumental configurations, which have been characterized by transmission electron microscopy. This data set, although very limited, allows estimation of the transferability of the classification rules learned on simulated data to real data.

Animations, videos and 3D models have been designed to visualize the effects of symmetry operators on selected cases of crystal structures, pointing out the relationship with the diagrams published in International Tables for Crystallography, Vol. A.

New software capabilities in RMCProfile allow researchers to study the structure of materials by combining machine learning interatomic potentials and reverse Monte Carlo.

This paper describes real-time statistical analysis of liquid jet images for SFX experiments at the European XFEL. This analysis forms one part of the automated jet re-alignment system for SFX experiments at the SPB/SFX instrument of European XFEL.

A series of animations, videos and 3D models that were developed, filmed or built to teach the symmetry properties of crystals are described. At first, these resources were designed for graduate students taking a basic crystallography course, coming from different careers, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. However, the COVID-19 pandemic had the effect of accelerating the generation of didactic material. Besides our experience with postgraduate students, we have noted that 3D models attract the attention of children, and therefore we believe that these models are particularly useful for teaching children about the assembled arrangements of crystal structures.

Structure refinement with reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) is a powerful tool for interpreting experimental diffraction data. To ensure that the under-constrained RMC algorithm yields reasonable results, the hybrid RMC approach applies interatomic potentials to obtain solutions that are both physically sensible and in agreement with experiment. To expand the range of materials that can be studied with hybrid RMC, we have implemented a new interatomic potential constraint in RMCProfile that grants flexibility to apply potentials supported by the Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) molecular dynamics code. This includes machine learning interatomic potentials, which provide a pathway to applying hybrid RMC to materials without currently available interatomic potentials. To this end, we present a methodology to use RMC to train machine learning interatomic potentials for hybrid RMC applications.

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is a widely used method for nanoparticle characterization. A common approach to analysing nanoparticles in solution by SAXS involves fitting the curve using a parametric model that relates real-space parameters, such as nanoparticle size and electron density, to intensity values in reciprocal space. Selecting the optimal model is a crucial step in terms of analysis quality and can be time-consuming and complex. Several studies have proposed effective methods, based on machine learning, to automate the model selection step. Deploying these methods in software intended for both researchers and industry raises several issues. The diversity of SAXS instrumentation requires assessment of the robustness of these methods on data from various machine configurations, involving significant variations in the q-space ranges and highly variable signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) from one data set to another. In the case of laboratory instrumentation, data acquisition can be time-consuming and there is no universal criterion for defining an optimal acquisition time. This paper presents an approach that revisits the nanoparticle model selection method proposed by Monge et al. [Acta Cryst. (2024), A80, 202–212], evaluating and enhancing its robustness on data from device configurations not seen during training, by expanding the data set used for training. The influence of SNR on predictor robustness is then assessed, improved, and used to propose a stopping criterion for optimizing the trade-off between exposure time and data quality.

The ForMAX beamline at the MAX IV Laboratory provides multiscale and multimodal structural characterization of hierarchical materials in the nanometre to millimetre range by combining small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering with full-field microtomography. The modular design of the beamline is optimized for easy switching between different experimental modalities. The beamline has a special focus on the development of novel fibrous materials from forest resources, but it is also well suited for studies within, for example, food science and biomedical research.

The users of synchrotron light are now tens of thousands throughout the world. Paradoxically, many of them do not know much about the early history of their domain. This is regrettable, since education about the initial developments makes it easier to fully understand synchrotron radiation and effectively use its amazing features. Scarcely known, in particular, is the key role of scientists working in Frascati, Italy. Partly based on his personal experiences, the author reports here relevant aspects of this story, including a pioneering French–Italian experiment that started in the early 1960s, and the Frascati contributions in the 1970s and 1980s to the birth of synchrotron light research. Finally, the unwise strategic decisions that prevented Italy from achieving absolute leadership in this domain – in spite of its unique initial advantages – are analyzed.

During beam time at a research facility, alignment and optimization of instrumentation, such as spectrometers, is a time-intensive task and often needs to be performed multiple times throughout the operation of an experiment. Despite the motorization of individual components, automated alignment solutions are not always available. In this study, a novel approach that combines optimisers with neural network surrogate models to significantly reduce the alignment overhead for a mobile soft X-ray spectrometer is proposed. Neural networks were trained exclusively using simulated ray-tracing data, and the disparity between experiment and simulation was obtained through parameter optimization. Real-time validation of this process was performed using experimental data collected at the beamline. The results demonstrate the ability to reduce alignment time from one hour to approximately five minutes. This method can also be generalized beyond spectrometers, for example, towards the alignment of optical elements at beamlines, making it applicable to a broad spectrum of research facilities.

Transition-metal nitro­gen-doped carbons (TM-N-C) are emerging as a highly promising catalyst class for several important electrocatalytic processes, including the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). The unique local environment around the singly dispersed metal site in TM-N-C catalysts is likely to be responsible for their catalytic properties, which differ significantly from those of bulk or nanostructured catalysts. However, the identification of the actual working structure of the main active units in TM-N-C remains a challenging task due to the fluctional, dynamic nature of these catalysts, and scarcity of experimental techniques that could probe the structure of these materials under realistic working conditions. This issue is addressed in this work and the local atomistic and electronic structure of the metal site in a Co–N–C catalyst for CO2RR is investigated by employing time-resolved operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) combined with advanced data analysis techniques. This multi-step approach, based on principal component analysis, spectral decomposition and supervised machine learning methods, allows the contributions of several co-existing species in the working Co–N–C catalysts to be decoupled, and their XAS spectra deciphered, paving the way for understanding the CO2RR mechanisms in the Co–N–C catalysts, and further optimization of this class of electrocatalytic systems.

Advances in physics have been significantly driven by state-of-the-art technology, and in photonics and X-ray science this calls for the ability to manipulate the characteristics of optical beams. Orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams hold substantial promise in various domains such as ultra-high-capacity optical communication, rotating body detection, optical tweezers, laser processing, super-resolution imaging etc. Hence, the advancement of OAM beam-generation technology and the enhancement of its technical proficiency and characterization capabilities are of paramount importance. These endeavours will not only facilitate the use of OAM beams in the aforementioned sectors but also extend the scope of applications in diverse fields related to OAM beams. At the FERMI Free-Electron Laser (Trieste, Italy), OAM beams are generated either by tailoring the emission process on the undulator side or, in most cases, by coupling a spiral zone plate (SZP) in tandem with the refocusing Kirkpatrick–Baez active optic system (KAOS). To provide a robust and reproducible workflow to users, a Hartmann wavefront sensor (WFS) is used for both optics tuning and beam characterization. KAOS is capable of delivering both tightly focused and broad spots, with independent control over vertical and horizontal magnification. This study explores a novel non-conventional `near collimation' operational mode aimed at generating beams with OAM that employs the use of a lithographically manufactured SZP to achieve this goal. The article evaluates the mirror's performance through Hartmann wavefront sensing, offers a discussion of data analysis methodologies, and provides a quantitative analysis of these results with ptychographic reconstructions.

This report presents a comprehensive investigation into the synthesis and characterization of Schiff base com­pounds derived from benzene­sul­fon­amide. The synthesis process, involved the reaction between N-cyclo­amino-2-sulf­anil­amide and various substituted o-salicyl­aldehydes, resulted in a set of com­pounds that were subjected to rigorous characterization using advanced spectral techniques, including 1H NMR, 13C NMR and FT–IR spectroscopy, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Furthermore, an in-depth assessment of the synthesized com­pounds was conducted through Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicity (ADMET) analysis, in conjunction with docking studies, to elucidate their pharmacokinetic profiles and potential. Impressively, the ADMET analysis showcased encouraging drug-likeness properties of the newly synthesized Schiff bases. These computational findings were substanti­ated by mol­ecular properties derived from density functional theory (DFT) calculations using the B3LYP/6-31G* method within the Jaguar Module of Schrödinger 2023-2 from Maestro (Schrodinger LLC, New York, USA). The ex­plor­ation of frontier mol­ecular orbitals (HOMO and LUMO) enabled the computation of global reactivity descriptors (GRDs), encompassing charge separation (Egap) and global softness (S). Notably, within this analysis, one Schiff base, namely, 4-bromo-2-{N-[2-(pyr­rol­idine-1-sul­fonyl)phenyl]car­box­imid­oyl}phenol, 20, em­erged with the smallest charge separation (ΔEgap = 3.5780 eV), signifying heightened potential for biological properties. Conversely, 4-bromo-2-{N-[2-(piper­idine-1-sul­fonyl)phenyl]car­box­imid­oyl}phenol, 17, exhibited the largest charge separation (ΔEgap = 4.9242 eV), implying a relatively lower propensity for biological activity. Moreover, the synthesized Schiff bases displayed re­marke­able inhibition of tankyrase poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase enzymes, integral in colon cancer, surpassing the efficacy of a standard drug used for the same purpose. Additionally, their bioavailability scores aligned closely with established medications such as trifluridine and 5-fluoro­uracil. The ex­plor­ation of mol­ecular electrostatic potential through colour mapping delved into the electronic behaviour and reactivity tendencies intrinsic to this diverse range of mol­ecules.

The synthesis and structural characterization of four novel supra­molecular hy­dro­gen-bonded arrangements based on self-assembly from mol­ecular `[Cu(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)]' modules and malonate anions are pre­sent­ed, namely, tetra­kis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)di-μ-chlorido-dimal­on­atotricopper(II) penta­hydrate, [Cu3(C3H2O4)2Cl2(C6H6N4)4]·5H2O or [Cu(H2biim)2(μ-Cl)Cu0.5(mal)]2·5H2O, aqua­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)­mal­on­atocopper(II) dihydrate, [Cu(C3H2O4)(C6H6N4)(H2O)]·2H2O or [Cu(H2biim)(mal)(H2O)]·2H2O, bis­[aqua­bis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)­cop­per(II)] di­mal­on­atodi­perchloratocopper(II) 2.2-hydrate, [Cu(C6H6N4)2(H2O)]2[Cu(C3H2O4)(ClO4)2]·2.2H2O or [Cu(H2biim)2(H2O)]2[Cu(mal)2(ClO4)2]·2.2H2O, and bis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)­copper(II) bis­[bis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)(2-carb­oxy­acetato)mal­on­atocopper(II)] tridecahydrate, [Cu(C6H6N4)2][Cu(C3H2O4)(C3H3O4)(C6H6N4)2]·13H2O or [Cu(H2biim)2][Cu(H2biim)2(Hmal)(mal)]2·13H2O. These as­sem­blies are characterized by self-com­plementary donor–acceptor mol­ecular inter­actions, demonstrating a recurrent and distinctive pattern of hy­dro­gen-bonding preferences among the carboxyl­ate, carb­oxy­lic acid and N—H groups of the coordinated 2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole and malonate ligands. Additionally, co­or­din­ation of the carboxyl­ate group with the metallic centre helps sustain re­mark­able supra­molecular assemblies, such as layers, helices, double helix columns or 3D channeled architectures, including mixed-metal com­plexes, into a single structure.

Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) enables molecular-resolution 3D imaging of complex biological specimens such as viral particles, cellular sections and, in some cases, whole cells. This enables the structural characterization of molecules in their near-native environments, without the need for purification or separation, thereby preserving biological information such as conformational states and spatial relationships between different molecular species. Subtomogram averaging is an image-processing workflow that allows users to leverage cryo-ET data to identify and localize target molecules, determine high-resolution structures of repeating molecular species and classify different conformational states. Here, STOPGAP, an open-source package for subtomogram averaging that is designed to provide users with fine control over each of these steps, is described. In providing detailed descriptions of the image-processing algorithms that STOPGAP uses, this manuscript is also intended to serve as a technical resource to users as well as for further community-driven software development.

The detection of specific biological macromolecules in cryogenic electron tomography data is frequently approached by applying cross-correlation-based 3D template matching. To reduce computational cost and noise, high binning is used to aggregate voxels before template matching. This remains a prevalent practice in both practical applications and methods development. Here, the relation between template size, shape and angular sampling is systematically evaluated to identify ribosomes in a ground-truth annotated data set. It is shown that at the commonly used binning, a detailed subtomogram average, a sphere and a heart emoji result in near-identical performance. These findings indicate that with current template-matching practices macromolecules can only be detected with high precision if their shape and size are sufficiently different from the background. Using theoretical considerations, the experimental results are rationalized and it is discussed why primarily low-frequency information remains at high binning and that template matching fails to be accurate because similarly shaped and sized macromolecules have similar low-frequency spectra. These challenges are discussed and potential enhancements for future template-matching methodologies are proposed.

The interpretation of cryo-EM maps often includes the docking of known or predicted structures of the components, which is particularly useful when the map resolution is worse than 4 Å. Although it can be effective to search the entire map to find the best placement of a component, the process can be slow when the maps are large. However, frequently there is a well-founded hypothesis about where particular components are located. In such cases, a local search using a map subvolume will be much faster because the search volume is smaller, and more sensitive because optimizing the search volume for the rotation-search step enhances the signal to noise. A Fourier-space likelihood-based local search approach, based on the previously published em_placement software, has been implemented in the new emplace_local program. Tests confirm that the local search approach enhances the speed and sensitivity of the computations. An interactive graphical interface in the ChimeraX molecular-graphics program provides a convenient way to set up and evaluate docking calculations, particularly in defining the part of the map into which the components should be placed.

A group of three deep-learning tools, referred to collectively as CHiMP (Crystal Hits in My Plate), were created for analysis of micrographs of protein crystallization experiments at the Diamond Light Source (DLS) synchrotron, UK. The first tool, a classification network, assigns images into categories relating to experimental outcomes. The other two tools are networks that perform both object detection and instance segmentation, resulting in masks of individual crystals in the first case and masks of crystallization droplets in addition to crystals in the second case, allowing the positions and sizes of these entities to be recorded. The creation of these tools used transfer learning, where weights from a pre-trained deep-learning network were used as a starting point and repurposed by further training on a relatively small set of data. Two of the tools are now integrated at the VMXi macromolecular crystallography beamline at DLS, where they have the potential to absolve the need for any user input, both for monitoring crystallization experiments and for triggering in situ data collections. The third is being integrated into the XChem fragment-based drug-discovery screening platform, also at DLS, to allow the automatic targeting of acoustic compound dispensing into crystallization droplets.

Serial electron diffraction (SerialED), which applies a snapshot data acquisition strategy for each crystal, was introduced to tackle the problem of radiation damage in the structure determination of beam-sensitive materials by three-dimensional electron diffraction (3DED). The snapshot data acquisition in SerialED can be realized using both transmission and scanning transmission electron microscopes (TEM/STEM). However, the current SerialED workflow based on STEM setups requires special external devices and software, which limits broader adoption. Here, we present a simplified experimental implementation of STEM-based SerialED on Thermo Fisher Scientific STEMs using common proprietary software interfaced through Python scripts to automate data collection. Specifically, we utilize TEM Imaging and Analysis (TIA) scripting and TEM scripting to access the STEM functionalities of the microscope, and DigitalMicrograph scripting to control the camera for snapshot data acquisition. Data analysis adapts the existing workflow using the software CrystFEL, which was developed for serial X-ray crystallography. Our workflow for STEM SerialED can be used on any Gatan or Thermo Fisher Scientific camera. We apply this workflow to collect high-resolution STEM SerialED data from two aluminosilicate zeolites, zeolite Y and ZSM-25. We demonstrate, for the first time, ab initio structure determination through direct methods using STEM SerialED data. Zeolite Y is relatively stable under the electron beam, and STEM SerialED data extend to 0.60 Å. We show that the structural model obtained using STEM SerialED data merged from 358 crystals is nearly identical to that using continuous rotation electron diffraction data from one crystal. This demonstrates that accurate structures can be obtained from STEM SerialED. Zeolite ZSM-25 is very beam-sensitive and has a complex structure. We show that STEM SerialED greatly improves the data resolution of ZSM-25, compared with serial rotation electron diffraction (SerialRED), from 1.50 to 0.90 Å. This allows, for the first time, the use of standard phasing methods, such as direct methods, for the ab initio structure determination of ZSM-25.

In January 2020, a workshop was held at EMBL-EBI (Hinxton, UK) to discuss data requirements for the deposition and validation of cryoEM structures, with a focus on single-particle analysis. The meeting was attended by 47 experts in data processing, model building and refinement, validation, and archiving of such structures. This report describes the workshop's motivation and history, the topics discussed, and the resulting consensus recommendations. Some challenges for future methods-development efforts in this area are also highlighted, as is the implementation to date of some of the recommendations.

The hardware for data archiving has expanded capacities for digital storage enormously in the past decade or more. The IUCr evaluated the costs and benefits of this within an official working group which advised that raw data archiving would allow ground truth reproducibility in published studies. Consultations of the IUCr's Commissions ensued via a newly constituted standing advisory committee, the Committee on Data. At all stages, the IUCr financed workshops to facilitate community discussions and possible methods of raw data archiving implementation. The recent launch of the IUCrData journal's Raw Data Letters is a milestone in the implementation of raw data archiving beyond the currently published studies: it includes diffraction patterns that have not been fully interpreted, if at all. The IUCr 75th Congress in Melbourne included a workshop on raw data reuse, discussing the successes and ongoing challenges of raw data reuse. This article charts the efforts of the IUCr to facilitate discussions and plans relating to raw data archiving and reuse within the various communities of crystallography, diffraction and scattering.

The structures of three multicomponent crystals formed with imidazole-based drugs, namely metronidazole, ketoconazole and miconazole, in conjunction with tri­thio­cyanuric acid are characterized. Each of the obtained adducts represents a different category of crystalline molecular forms: a cocrystal, a salt and a cocrystal of salt. The structural analysis revealed that in all cases, the N—H⋯N hydrogen bond is responsible for the formation of acid–base pairs, regardless of whether proton transfer occurs or not, and these molecular pairs are combined to form unique supramolecular motifs by centrosymmetric N—H⋯S interactions between acid molecules. The complex intermolecular forces acting in characteristic patterns are discussed from the geometric and energetic perspectives, involving Hirshfeld surface analysis, pairwise energy estimation, and natural bond orbital calculations.

In recent years, there is a significant interest from the crystallographic and materials science communities to have access to raw diffraction data. The effort in archiving raw data for access by the user community is spearheaded by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) Committee on Data. In materials science, where powder diffraction is extensively used, the challenge in archiving raw data is different to that from single crystal data, owing to the very nature of the contributions involved. Powder diffraction (X-ray or neutron) data consist of contributions from the material under study as well as instrument specific parameters. Having raw powder diffraction data can be essential in cases of analysing materials with poor crystallinity, disorder, micro structure (size/strain) etc. Here, the initiative and progress made by the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDDR) in archiving powder X-ray diffraction raw data in the Powder Diffraction FileTM (PDFR) database is outlined. The upcoming 2025 release of the PDF-5+ database will have more than 20 800 raw powder diffraction patterns that are available for reference.

The crystal structures of 4-benzyl-1H-pyrazole (C10H10N2, 1) and 3,5-di­amino-4-benzyl-1H-pyrazole (C10H12N4, 2) were measured at 150 K. Although its different conformers and atropenanti­omers easily inter­convert in solution by annular tautomerism and/or rotation of the benzyl substituent around the C(pyrazole)—C(CH2) single bond (as revealed by 1H NMR spectroscopy), 1 crystallizes in the non-centrosymmetric space group P21. Within its crystal structure, the pyrazole and phenyl aromatic moieties are organized into alternating bilayers. Both pyrazole and phenyl layers consist of aromatic rings stacked into columns in two orthogonal directions. Within the pyrazole layer, the pyrazole rings form parallel catemers by N—H⋯N hydrogen bonding. Compound 2 adopts a similar bilayer structure, albeit in the centrosymmetric space group P21/c, with pyrazole N—H protons as donors in N—H⋯π hydrogen bonds with neighboring pyrazole rings, and NH2 protons as donors in N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds with adjacent pyrazoles and other NH2 moieties. The crystal structures and supra­molecular features of 1 and 2 are contrasted with the two known structures of their analogs, 3,5-dimethyl-4-benzyl-1H-pyrazole and 3,5-diphenyl-4-benzyl-1H-pyrazole.

Characterization of a material structure with pair distribution function (PDF) analysis typically involves refining a structure model against an experimental data set, but finding or constructing a suitable atomic model for PDF modelling can be an extremely labour-intensive task, requiring carefully browsing through large numbers of possible models. Presented here is POMFinder, a machine learning (ML) classifier that rapidly screens a database of structures, here polyoxometallate (POM) clusters, to identify candidate structures for PDF data modelling. The approach is shown to identify suitable POMs from experimental data, including in situ data collected with fast acquisition times. This automated approach has significant potential for identifying suitable models for structure refinement to extract quantitative structural parameters in materials chemistry research. POMFinder is open source and user friendly, making it accessible to those without prior ML knowledge. It is also demonstrated that POMFinder offers a promising modelling framework for combined modelling of multiple scattering techniques.

Data collection at X-ray free electron lasers has particular experimental challenges, such as continuous sample delivery or the use of novel ultrafast high-dynamic-range gain-switching X-ray detectors. This can result in a multitude of data artefacts, which can be detrimental to accurately determining structure-factor amplitudes for serial crystallography or single-particle imaging experiments. Here, a new data-classification tool is reported that offers a variety of machine-learning algorithms to sort data trained either on manual data sorting by the user or by profile fitting the intensity distribution on the detector based on the experiment. This is integrated into an easy-to-use graphical user interface, specifically designed to support the detectors, file formats and software available at most X-ray free electron laser facilities. The highly modular design makes the tool easily expandable to comply with other X-ray sources and detectors, and the supervised learning approach enables even the novice user to sort data containing unwanted artefacts or perform routine data-analysis tasks such as hit finding during an experiment, without needing to write code.

A multi-slit very small angle neutron scattering (MS-VSANS) instrument has been finally accepted at the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). It is the first spallation neutron source based VSANS instrument. MS-VSANS has a good signal-to-noise ratio and can cover a wide scattering vector magnitude range from 0.00028 to 1.4 Å−1. In its primary flight path, a combined curved multichannel beam bender and sections of rotary exchange drums are installed to minimize the background downstream of the instrument. An exchangeable multi-slit beam focusing system is integrated into the primary flight path, enabling access to a minimum scattering vector magnitude of 0.00028 Å−1. MS-VSANS has three modes, namely conventional SANS, polarizing SANS and VSANS modes. In the SANS mode, three motorized high-efficiency 3He tube detectors inside the detector tank cover scattering angles from 0.12 to 35° simultaneously. In the polarizing SANS mode, a double-V cavity provides highly polarized neutrons and a high-efficiency 3He polarization analyser allows full polarization analysis. In the VSANS mode, an innovative high-resolution gas electron multiplier detector covers scattering angles from 0.016 to 0.447°. The absolute scattering intensities of a selection of standard samples are obtained using the direct-beam technique; the effectiveness of this method is verified by testing the standard samples and comparing the results with those from a benchmark instrument. The MS-VSANS instrument is designed to be flexible and versatile and all the design goals have been achieved.

Serial crystallography experiments at synchrotron and X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) sources are producing crystallographic data sets of ever-increasing volume. While these experiments have large data sets and high-frame-rate detectors (around 3520 frames per second), only a small percentage of the data are useful for downstream analysis. Thus, an efficient and real-time data classification pipeline is essential to differentiate reliably between useful and non-useful images, typically known as `hit' and `miss', respectively, and keep only hit images on disk for further analysis such as peak finding and indexing. While feature-point extraction is a key component of modern approaches to image classification, existing approaches require computationally expensive patch preprocessing to handle perspective distortion. This paper proposes a pipeline to categorize the data, consisting of a real-time feature extraction algorithm called modified and parallelized FAST (MP-FAST), an image descriptor and a machine learning classifier. For parallelizing the primary operations of the proposed pipeline, central processing units, graphics processing units and field-programmable gate arrays are implemented and their performances compared. Finally, MP-FAST-based image classification is evaluated using a multi-layer perceptron on various data sets, including both synthetic and experimental data. This approach demonstrates superior performance compared with other feature extractors and classifiers.

X-ray Laue microdiffraction aims to characterize microstructural and mechanical fields in polycrystalline specimens at the sub-micrometre scale with a strain resolution of ∼10−4. Here, a new and unique Laue microdiffraction setup and alignment procedure is presented, allowing measurements at temperatures as high as 1500 K, with the objective to extend the technique for the study of crystalline phase transitions and associated strain-field evolution that occur at high temperatures. A method is provided to measure the real temperature encountered by the specimen, which can be critical for precise phase-transition studies, as well as a strategy to calibrate the setup geometry to account for the sample and furnace dilation using a standard α-alumina single crystal. A first application to phase transitions in a polycrystalline specimen of pure zirconia is provided as an illustrative example.

Macromolecular crystallography contributes significantly to understanding diseases and, more importantly, how to treat them by providing atomic resolution 3D structures of proteins. This is achieved by collecting X-ray diffraction images of protein crystals from important biological pathways. Spotfinders are used to detect the presence of crystals with usable data, and the spots from such crystals are the primary data used to solve the relevant structures. Having fast and accurate spot finding is essential, but recent advances in synchrotron beamlines used to generate X-ray diffraction images have brought us to the limits of what the best existing spotfinders can do. This bottleneck must be removed so spotfinder software can keep pace with the X-ray beamline hardware improvements and be able to see the weak or diffuse spots required to solve the most challenging problems encountered when working with diffraction images. In this paper, we first present Bragg Spot Detection (BSD), a large benchmark Bragg spot image dataset that contains 304 images with more than 66 000 spots. We then discuss the open source extensible U-Net-based spotfinder Bragg Spot Finder (BSF), with image pre-processing, a U-Net segmentation backbone, and post-processing that includes artifact removal and watershed segmentation. Finally, we perform experiments on the BSD benchmark and obtain results that are (in terms of accuracy) comparable to or better than those obtained with two popular spotfinder software packages (Dozor and DIALS), demonstrating that this is an appropriate framework to support future extensions and improvements.

A deep-learning algorithm is proposed for the inpainting of Bragg coherent diffraction imaging (BCDI) patterns affected by detector gaps. These regions of missing intensity can compromise the accuracy of reconstruction algorithms, inducing artefacts in the final result. It is thus desirable to restore the intensity in these regions in order to ensure more reliable reconstructions. The key aspect of the method lies in the choice of training the neural network with cropped sections of diffraction data and subsequently patching the predictions generated by the model along the gap, thus completing the full diffraction peak. This approach enables access to a greater amount of experimental data for training and offers the ability to average overlapping sections during patching. As a result, it produces robust and dependable predictions for experimental data arrays of any size. It is shown that the method is able to remove gap-induced artefacts on the reconstructed objects for both simulated and experimental data, which becomes essential in the case of high-resolution BCDI experiments.

High-energy X-ray diffraction methods can non-destructively map the 3D microstructure and associated attributes of metallic polycrystalline engineering materials in their bulk form. These methods are often combined with external stimuli such as thermo-mechanical loading to take snapshots of the evolving microstructure and attributes over time. However, the extreme data volumes and the high costs of traditional data acquisition and reduction approaches pose a barrier to quickly extracting actionable insights and improving the temporal resolution of these snapshots. This article presents a fully automated technique capable of rapidly detecting the onset of plasticity in high-energy X-ray microscopy data. The technique is computationally faster by at least 50 times than the traditional approaches and works for data sets that are up to nine times sparser than a full data set. This new technique leverages self-supervised image representation learning and clustering to transform massive data sets into compact, semantic-rich representations of visually salient characteristics (e.g. peak shapes). These characteristics can rapidly indicate anomalous events, such as changes in diffraction peak shapes. It is anticipated that this technique will provide just-in-time actionable information to drive smarter experiments that effectively deploy multi-modal X-ray diffraction methods spanning many decades of length scales.

The lineup from the "Justice League" animated series.; Credit: Warner Bros.

Bruce Timm's DC Comics animated universe, beginning with "Batman: The Animated Series" and continuing with "Superman," "Batman Beyond," "Justice League," "Justice League Unlimited" and more, remains one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed animated runs in existence. The run was so idenified with the producer that it was sometimes called the Timmverse, but the last show in that continuity ended in 2006 and Timm officially stepped down from working with DC animation in 2013.

Now Timm is back. He's providing a darker take than the optimistic world he became known for in "Justice League: Gods and Monsters," a three-part digital series launching spring 2015 that will be tied in with a full-length animated film that comes out later that year, according to a press release.

Timm's also re-teaming with Alan Burnett, who worked with Timm on "Batman: The Animated Series." It's part of DC Comics' efforts to set up their new film "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," which hits in 2016, with the full Justice League film set for 2018.

DC Comics as a whole has been moving in a darker direction with Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, the "Man of Steel" reboot of Superman and a more serious direction in many of its comic books. The company has followed in its tradition of epic storytelling, passing on the quips Marvel has popularized in films from "Iron Man" to "Guardians of the Galaxy."

It's yet to be seen if Timm can recapture any of the magic from his classic cartoons, but there's reason to be optimistic for the creator of the series that introduced fan favorite Joker sidekick Harley Quinn, created a new origin for Mr. Freeze that cemented the character in the Batman mythos and led the team reimagining numerous characters in an iconic, broadly appealing way.

If you want to catch up on Timm's legacy, his previous two Justice League series are available on Netflix and Amazon Prime, along with "Batman Beyond," while the Batman and Superman animated series are available on Amazon Prime.

Timm also recently produced a short for the 75th anniversary of Batman called "Strange Days," setting the character in the retro world of the serialized pulp storytelling from the time Batman was originally created. You can watch that below:

Batman anniversary short

Watch the classic opening to "Batman: The Animated Series":

Batman: The Animated Series opening

And, a personal favorite joke from when Lex Luthor and the Flash trade bodies on "Justice League Unlimited":

Flash/Luthor body swap

File: Stephen Yan dresses as Deadpool at Comic-Con on July 19, 2013 in San Diego.; Credit: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

Hey, you! Yeah, you reading this! They're finally making a Deadpool movie!

If you like fourth-wall breaking, second-person addresses like the above, you may be in the target audience for the long-in-development "Deadpool," which Twentieth Century Fox announced Thursday that it was finally moving ahead with, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The studio announced a Feb. 12, 2016 release date for the film with Tim Miller set to direct the character who's served as both friend and foe to the X-Men.

The so-called "Merc with a Mouth" is a mercenary character created in the early '90s by artist Rob Liefeld, with Liefeld being an outspoken champion for the character. The character was part of the same Weapon X program that created Wolverine, with a similar healing factor power, but with a horribly scarred face he covers with a mask. He's also been played as crazy, which manifests itself as the character often knowing he's in a comic book and talking directly to the reader.

Ryan Reynolds has long been tied to the project, including playing a version of the character in the much-hated "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," but no deal has been made yet, according to the Reporter.

This follows footage leaking over the summer of a "Deadpool" test with Reynolds voicing the character in a CGI clip. Reynolds said in an interview in the Niagara Falls Review earlier this month that that it's unfortunate the footage leaked, "but who cares," because the positive response to the clip had helped push the film forward after being stuck in development hell.

"The movie has been in a state of limbo for a while. There was such an overpowering reaction to the footage, you sort of feel like, 'Oh, so we weren't crazy for our reasons for loving this character, for loving this role.' It's interesting to see the power of the Internet. It's awe-inspiring, actually," Reynolds told the Review. "And it's neat that Twitter and Facebook and Instagram can move mountains when used in the right way."

Watch the "Deadpool" test footage below (Warning: Contains some adult language):

Deadpool test footage

There'd also been debate about whether a movie would stay true to the character's outrageous attitude mixed with violence and go for an R rating, or whether it would go for a wider audience by staying at PG-13. Deadpool creator Liefeld has argued that the film would work just fine without restricting its audience with an R.

Liefeld tweet 1

Liefeld tweet 2

Liefeld told the Daily Superhero in a previous interview that the footage for the test was filmed three years ago, using motion capture over footage of Reynolds. He also talked up Miller as a director, noting that he directed the pre-credits scene for "Thor: The Dark World."

"Fox had released a relatively small budget for Tim to present his vision of the script written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick," Liefeld said. "The digital costume over Ryan Reynold's motion capture (Mo-Cap) performance was an approach they wanted to explore and they had a relatively small window to create this short so they opted to 'test' the look of a digital Deadpool costume over Ryan. I'm quite pleased at how it turned out, especially considering Baraka-Deadpool from Wolverine Origins."

Liefeld was referring to the transformation of Deadpool in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" to a mouthless, pointy-limbed character in the film, which many fans argued took away what they loved most about Deadpool: His sense of humor. Liefeld also said he'd seen even more impressive sequences than the one that made its way online.

It's unclear whether this will tie in with the other X-Men films, but with the studio's recent attempt to tie together the "First Class" franchise with the older X-Men films in "Days of Future Past" and the character's long history of involvement with the X-Men and other related teams, it seems like a likely move.

The back cover photo splash from Ruth Batchelor's album "Songs for Women's Liberation: Reviving a Dream"; Credit:

I’ve been a member of the LA Film Critics Association since 1999. LAFCA is a good group - collegial and filled with real movie lovers. But it has a problem.

It's a professional organization, meaning a baseline for membership is you have to have a job, and film criticism is overwhelmingly white and male. 78 percent of the top critics listed on RottenTomatoes are male, and women write only 18 percent of the major reviews. So LAFCA is like the profession itself: overwhelmingly a platform for white men.

It's trying to diversify. It has been for years. But how do you do that when the pool you draw from has a huge institutional bias? According to film critic Claudia Puig, "Criticism has been a white male dominated field for very long. And it continues to be. And not just white males, but middle aged."

Claudia is the current LAFCA president - and a legendary critic, who wrote lead reviews for 14 years at USA Today, and now appears regularly on KPCC’s Film Week.

"Very few movies pass the Bechdel Test. Women are often just girlfriends, wives, mothers. They don't get to have a story arc of their own. But if you had more women reviewing these movies, they would point out certain things that people might not notice as potentially offensive. Because we have been harassed, or we have experienced any number of things. It's something I've grappled with through my entire career." - Claudia Puig

I'm on a committee with Claudia for the LA Film Critics. The concept is to mentor young writers - to generate diversity, from the ground up. One idea is to have a scholarship for aspiring female film critics. We thought it would be good to name it after a prominent woman from the group's past.

So I went to Myron Meisel, who joined LAFCA in 1979, just four years after it formed, and I asked him, "Is there a woman you can think of who played an especially prominent role in the history of the LA Film Critics Association?" "Oh!," Myron said. "Ruth Batchelor was the founder and driving force..." "Wait, what?" I asked. "LAFCA was founded by a woman?"

"We weren't shocked. You had Ruth, who was very much concerned with creating a Los Angeles equivalent to the New York Film Critics Association. Which she largely pulled together by force of will. While Ruth was the moving force, you really can't discount her ability to martial the enthusiastic support of Charles Champlin as a co-founder, and the imprimatur of the Los Angeles Times behind him. Ruth had an enviable ability to make everything she undertook seem inevitable." - Myron Meisel

It's poignant, isn't it? And a little creepy. A prestigious group commits to gender diversity, and somehow, it doesn't have the institutional memory to know that the pivotal figure in its history was a woman.

How could we forget Ruth? Batchelor was nothing if not memorable. Before she became a pundit, she was a successful pop songwriter in the style of Neil Sedaka, or Goffin and King. She wrote dozens of songs, recorded by everybody from Phil Spector to the Partridge Family. She wrote Elvis Presley numbers, including "Cotton Candy Land," which might be the most hated track in the Presley catalogue.

But Batchelor also wrote "Where Do You Come From?", which is beautiful.

Elvis Presley performing Ruth Batchelor's "Where do you come from?"

Where do you come from, Ruth?

It wasn't easy to find out.

Batchelor's New York Times obituary was full of false leads. It said she was a critic for National Public Radio. She wasn't, but when NPR searched their archives, they unearthed a lead: a Film Comment article from 1982, where Batchelor is described as "Ruth Batchelor of National Public Radio's 'As it Happens.'" "As It Happens" airs on Canada's CBC.

So I placed a call. And I waited.

Meanwhile, I found a blog post about Batchelor as a songwriter on an excellent site called "Zero to 180 - 3 Minute Magic." The title of the post was riveting: "First 'Women's Liberation LP.'"

It turns out in 1971, Ruth Batchelor self-produced and financed a concept album called "Songs for Women's Liberation: Reviving a Dream." 

Myron Meisel told me about Ruth's earthy sense of humor, and it's right there in the first write-up's, where her working title is "A Quarter for the Ladies Room." A Billboard article from August 1971 quotes Batchelor about the album: "Right now I have an album of dirty Women's Liberation poems recorded, and I'm trying to sell the master." Then she laughs. "The last record company I recorded for folded."

Batchelor shopped her record. There were no takers.

But Batchelor proved unstoppable. She created her own record company and called it Femme Records. Then she put out what the leftist journal Broadside called "the first feminist record album," all by herself. "Reviving a Dream" is forgotten, bordering on lost. It's never been available for streaming, or released on CD.

Batchelor's record is a pastiche of radio styles from her era. There's Joan Baez folk, two drawling country laments, even some call and response stuff Batchelor probably learned from Phil Spector and his girl groups.

Are Batchelor's songs any good? They're amazing. Amazing just because they exist.

She fits into the churning sea of anonymous faces so seamlessly it takes awhile to realize: She's Ruth Batchelor. The woman who founded the LA Film Critics. A group currently struggling with gender diversity.

LAFCA prez Claudia Puig agreed to an interview knowing it had to do with LAFCA, but not what it was about. I played her Batchelor's song "Drop the Mop." Batchelor intended it as an anthem, scored to a tempo of marching feet.

The listen was awkward - like force feeding a roommate your iTunes playlist. Claudia took notes the whole time, to occupy her critical mind, but I could see when it ended that she was moved.

 "Yeah, it's a really interesting song," Claudia said. "My reaction is sort of...ummm..."

Claudia hesitated, looking for words.

"And this was the origin of the group. Yeah. It really kind of... It is really interesting. I'd never heard of her. She was right there, fighting that fight." 

"And here, we were looking for an avatar," I said.

"Right. Right. It means something. This is a really important discovery that you made."

A piece of the portrait was missing - an essential one. It came courtesy of Kevin Robertson, a producer for "As It Happens" at the CBC. Batchelor had been the show's "Hollywood Correspondent" in the early 1980s. There was audio in the archives. Kevin provided me with five MP3s.

Batchelor's CBC brand was gender traditional. She was the tinseltown gadfly, a niche created by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons in the 1930s. There was gossip about Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson. Richard Burton's widow. Marvin Hamlisch. TV's "Gomer Pyle."

It was kitsch heaven, so I wasn't disappointed. Not exactly. But it was still a bit like listening to Wonder Woman try to be ordinary, because hey, we all gotta eat.

Ruth Batchelor's "Mr. Principal"

The LA Film Critics get a cameo in Batchelor's Oscar season broadcast, when she mentions her LAFCA Awards vote. For awhile, I thought that would be the only audio connecting the "As It Happens" Ruth Batchelor to the feminist fireball she wanted to be.

Then Batchelor starts riffing on "Partners," a buddy cop farce about a straight cop who goes undercover as a gay man. The film had sparked protests from the gay community. Batchelor is unsympathetic, which is surprising in a civil rights pioneer. Her reasoning is devastating.

"You know if women got angry every time there was a movie against women," Batchelor says, "there wouldn't be any movies."

Batchelor died of cancer early - she was just 58. 25 years later, men still direct most mainstream movies - 93 percent as of 2015. They have 70 percent of the speaking parts, and play 88 percent of the leads.

While women get to be naked twice as often in American movies.

Men review almost all movies too. Maybe that's why Ruth Batchelor founded the LA Film Critics. Because she lived in that world. She covered it. Spoke to it. Fought hard against it.

And then left behind a hidden legacy.

"She is our avatar," Claudia says, as our interview time runs out. "It sort of makes me want to redouble our efforts to honor her spirit."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Full Text:

How do galaxies such as our Milky Way come into existence? How do they grow and change over time? The science behind galaxy formation has long been a puzzle, but a University of Arizona-led team of scientists is one step closer to finding answers, thanks to supercomputer simulations. Observing real galaxies in space can only provide snapshots in time, so researchers who study how galaxies evolve over billions of years need to use computer simulations. Traditionally, astronomers have used simulations to invent theories of galaxy formation and test them, but they have had to proceed one galaxy at a time. Peter Behroozi of the university's Steward Observatory and colleagues overcame this hurdle by generating millions of different universes on a supercomputer, each according to different physical theories for how galaxies form. The findings challenge fundamental ideas about the role dark matter plays in galaxy formation, the evolution of galaxies over time and the birth of stars. The study is the first to create self-consistent universes that are exact replicas of the real ones -- computer simulations that each represent a sizeable chunk of the actual cosmos, containing 12 million galaxies and spanning the time from 400 million years after the Big Bang to the present day. The results from the "UniverseMachine," as the authors call their approach, have helped resolve the long-standing paradox of why galaxies cease to form new stars even when they retain plenty of hydrogen gas, the raw material from which stars are forged. The research is partially funded by NSF's Division of Physics through grants to UC Santa Barbara's Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Aspen Center for Physics.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/J. Lotz and the HFF Team/STScI

SEB Embedded has selected Thought Machine’s cloud-native core banking system, Vault Core, as the foundation for its latest service offering.

Source: Peter Bell 11/04/2024

Liberty Gold Corp. (LGD:TSX; LGDTF:OTCQX) released the results of the first study, a prefeasibility study (PFS), of its flagship Black Pine project in Idaho, reported Canaccord Genuity analyst Peter Bell in an Oct. 10 research note.

"The completion of the prefeasibility study is a key step in advancing the project through permitting, bringing a Black Pine mine much closer to reality," Bell wrote. "This is positive."

885% Gain Possible

Canaccord Genuity has a CA$3.25 per share price target on the Canadian Idaho-based exploration and development company, trading at the time of the report at about CA$0.33 per share, noted Bell. These figures imply a potential return on investment of 885%.

Liberty is rated Speculative Buy.

Specifics of the PFS

Bell presented the details of the Black Pine operation as outlined in the PFS, based on reserves of 3,110,000 ounces (3.11 Moz) of 0.32 grams per ton (0.32 g/t) gold.

Average production is 183,000 ounces per year (183 Koz/year) gold for the first five years, peaking at about 231 Koz. The average annual production, based on a 50,000 ton per day throughput, over a 17-year life of mine (LOM) is 135 Koz.

The PFS has the head grade during years one through five at 0.45 g/t gold. Over the LOM, the head grade is 0.32 g/t gold and gold recoveries, 70.4%.

As for costs, operating costs are low at US$9.10 per ton processed. The all-in-sustaining cost (AISC) is US$1,205 per ounce (US$1,205/oz) of gold for years one through five and US$1,380/oz of gold for the LOM.

"We believe the study highlights a simple, lower-risk and long-lived operation with an attractive cost profile," Bell wrote. "We model Liberty achieving initial production at Black Pine in 2029, based on company disclosure around the permitting process."

Attractive Economics

Bell reported the economics outlined in the PFS for the base case using a US$2,000/oz gold price. The after-tax net present value discounted at 5% (NPV5%) is US$552 million, the internal rate of return (IRR) is 32%, and the payback period is 3.3 years. The strip ratio is low at 1.3.

"Of note is the study's leverage to higher gold prices with an NPV5% of US$1,296M (62% IRR at US$2,600/oz)," Bell wrote. At the same gold price, Canaccord Genuity's estimated NPV5% is higher, at US$1,569.

Bell noted that Liberty could enhance the value of Black Pine in any of four ways, by optimizing the resource and mine planning; delineating additional ounces or feed sources; using electric, maybe even autonomous, mining equipment; and defining options for using renewable energy like solar to potentially lower operating costs more.

How Results Stack Up

The analysts pointed out the similarities and differences between Liberty Gold's PFS and Canaccord Genuity's estimates on Black Pine. Between the two, the capex, AISC, mined throughput, and NPV are consistent, "which we view as positive," Bell wrote.

Among the parameters that differ are unit costs per ton processed, strip ratio, head grade, recovery, and total recovered ounces, all lower in the PFS. Mine life, though, is longer.

"The longer mine life and lower total ounce total equate to a lower number of ounces of annual production," Bell explained.

Process and general and administrative costs are lower in the PFS, which decreases the cutoff and the overall grade when compared to Canaccord Genuity's version. Bell indicated that the lower operating cost per ton, however, is positive.

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Important Disclosures:

1. Liberty Gold Corp. is a billboard sponsor of Streetwise Reports.
2. Doresa Banning wrote this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an independent contractor.
3. This article does not constitute investment advice and is not a solicitation for any investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her personal financial adviser and perform their own comprehensive investment research. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company.

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Disclosures for Canaccord Genuity, Liberty Gold Corp., October 10, 2024

Analyst Certification Each authoring analyst of Canaccord Genuity whose name appears on the front page of this research hereby certifies that (i) the recommendations and opinions expressed in this research accurately reflect the authoring analyst’s personal, independent and objective views about any and all of the designated investments or relevant issuers discussed herein that are within such authoring analyst’s coverage universe and (ii) no part of the authoring analyst’s compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific recommendations or views expressed by the authoring analyst in the research, and (iii) to the best of the authoring analyst’s knowledge, she/he is not in receipt of material non-public information about the issuer. Analysts employed outside the US are not registered as research analysts with FINRA. These analysts may not be associated persons of Canaccord Genuity LLC and therefore may not be subject to the FINRA Rule 2241 and NYSE Rule 472 restrictions on communications with a subject company, public appearances, and trading securities held by a research analyst account.

Sector Coverage Individuals identified as “Sector Coverage” cover a subject company’s industry in the identified jurisdiction, but are not authoring analysts of the report. Investment Recommendation Date and time of first dissemination: October 10, 2024, 09:56 ET Date and time of production: October 10, 2024, 09:56 ET Target Price / Valuation Methodology: Liberty Gold Corp. - LGD Our target price is based on a 0.85x multiple applied to our forward curve derived operating NAV less net debt and other corporate adjustments. Risks to achieving Target Price / Valuation: Liberty Gold Corp. - LGD In addition to the usual risks to target prices associated with commodity pricing, exchange rates, and mineral exploration/ development, we highlight the following: Commodity price risk: As a precious metals development company, LGD’s future revenue is dependent on the price of gold. Water rights: The Goldstrike Project does not currently have sufficient water rights to operate the proposed mine and heap leach. They announced June 1 that they have retained consultants to attempt to obtain water. Geo-political risk: Liberty is currently focussed on the western United States but retains exposure to Turkey through the TV-Tower project. Accordingly, Liberty’s operations could be adversely impacted by political or economic instability or changes in government policy that impact the ownership of assets, mining activities, exchange rates, taxation, or royalties in Turkey. We note that Liberty’s Turkish asset, TV-Tower, accounts for less than 3% of NAV in our valuation. Mining risk: LGD faces the typical risks inherent to mining companies relating to operating and capital costs, availability of capital, permitting requirements and timelines, technical and operating parameters, reserve and resource models, social license and community relations, taxation and royalty regimes, and regulatory and political risks. Black Pine does not currently have a published economic study so the estimates in our model are based on our own interpretation of how the operation may be designed. As such, our valuation of the Black Pine project may be impacted by differences in strip ratio, CapEx, mining throughput, recovery assumptions, and gold grade. Development risk: LGD is planning to develop the Black Pine and Goldstrike projects in Idaho and Utah respectively. The company faces risks associated with developing the project including capital and operating cost risk, financing, project permitting and timelines, and technical risks to achieve the planned operating rates. Permitting risk: Permitting is still underway at the Black Pine project. As such, the company may not be able to proceed with the project as it is currently envisaged if the required permits are not received in a timely manner. Financing risk: As a pre-cash-flow development company, LGD is reliant on the capital markets to remain a going concern. At present, the company has an estimated cash position of ~US$13.1M (Q2/24), which positions the company well in the near term to continue to advance its portfolio of exploration/development projects, in our view. We note that there is no guarantee that LGD will be able to access capital markets in the future as the result of potential changes in market sentiment/pricing and/or concerns involving project feasibility. As such, there is no guarantee that LGD will be able to secure the required funds to advance the Black Pine project, including but not limited to debt/equity financing and/or a strategic investment.

Required Company-Specific Disclosures (as of date of this publication) Canaccord Genuity or one or more of its affiliated companies intend to seek or expect to receive compensation for Investment Banking services from Liberty Gold Corp. in the next three months.

Past performance In line with Article 44(4)(b), MiFID II Delegated Regulation, we disclose price performance for the preceding five years or the whole period for which the financial instrument has been offered or investment service provided where less than five years. Please note price history refers to actual past performance, and that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future price and/or performance. Online Disclosures Up-to-date disclosures may be obtained at the following website (provided as a hyperlink if this report is being read electronically) http://disclosures.canaccordgenuity.com/EN/Pages/default.aspx; or by sending a request to Canaccord Genuity Corp. Research, Attn: Disclosures, P.O. Box 10337 Pacific Centre, 2200-609 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V7Y 1H2; or by sending a request by email to disclosures@cgf.com. The reader may also obtain a copy of Canaccord Genuity’s policies and procedures regarding the dissemination of research by following the steps outlined above.

dissemination of research by following the steps outlined above. General Disclaimers See “Required Company-Specific Disclosures” above for any of the following disclosures required as to companies referred to in this report: manager or co-manager roles; 1% or other ownership; compensation for certain services; types of client relationships; research analyst conflicts; managed/co-managed public offerings in prior periods; directorships; market making in equity securities and related derivatives. For reports identified above as compendium reports, the foregoing required company-specific disclosures can be found in a hyperlink located in the section labeled, “Compendium Reports.” “Canaccord Genuity” is the business name used by certain wholly owned subsidiaries of Canaccord Genuity Group Inc., including Canaccord Genuity LLC, Canaccord Genuity Limited, Canaccord Genuity Corp., and Canaccord Genuity (Australia) Limited, an affiliated company that is 80%-owned by Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. The authoring analysts who are responsible for the preparation of this research are employed by Canaccord Genuity Corp. a Canadian broker-dealer with principal offices located in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, or Canaccord Genuity LLC, a US broker-dealer with principal offices located in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Houston, or Canaccord Genuity Limited., a UK broker-dealer with principal offices located in London (UK) and Dublin (Ireland), or Canaccord Genuity (Australia) Limited, an Australian broker-dealer with principal offices located in Sydney and Melbourne. The authoring analysts who are responsible for the preparation of this research have received (or will receive) compensation based upon (among other factors) the Investment Banking revenues and general profits of Canaccord Genuity. However, such authoring analysts have not received, and will not receive, compensation that is directly based upon or linked to one or more specific Investment Banking activities, or to recommendations contained in the research. Some regulators require that a firm must establish, implement and make available a policy for managing conflicts of interest arising as a result of publication or distribution of research. This research has been prepared in accordance with Canaccord Genuity’s policy on managing conflicts of interest, and information barriers or firewalls have been used where appropriate. Canaccord Genuity’s policy is available upon request. The information contained in this research has been compiled by Canaccord Genuity from sources believed to be reliable, but (with the exception of the information about Canaccord Genuity) no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made by Canaccord Genuity, its affiliated companies or any other person as to its fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness. Canaccord Genuity has not independently verified the facts, assumptions, and estimates contained herein. All estimates, opinions and other information contained in this research constitute Canaccord Genuity’s judgement as of the date of this research, are subject to change without notice and are provided in good faith but without legal responsibility or liability. From time to time, Canaccord Genuity salespeople, traders, and other professionals provide oral or written market commentary or trading strategies to our clients and our principal trading desk that reflect opinions that are contrary to the opinions expressed in this research. Canaccord Genuity’s affiliates, principal trading desk, and investing businesses also from time to time make investment decisions that are inconsistent with the recommendations or views expressed in this research. This research is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any designated investments discussed herein in any jurisdiction where such offer or solicitation would be prohibited. As a result, the designated investments discussed in this research may not be eligible for sale in some jurisdictions. This research is not, and under no circumstances should be construed as, a solicitation to act as a securities broker or dealer in any jurisdiction by any person or company that is not legally permitted to carry on the business of a securities broker or dealer in that jurisdiction. This material is prepared for general circulation to clients and does not have regard to the investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any particular person. Investors should obtain advice based on their own individual circumstances before making an investment decision. To the fullest extent permitted by law, none of Canaccord Genuity, its affiliated companies or any other person accepts any liability whatsoever for any direct or consequential loss arising from or relating to any use of the information contained in this research.

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Adult Chinook salmon in Alaska and Canada are in trouble, and USGS WFRC scientists are in a race against the clock to find the cause behind their disappearance and a viable solution. A staple in many diets, this salmon species is considered a lifeblood of the region.

Screenshot of the event "FilmWeek & Chill: ‘Airplane!’" broadcasted on June 3, 2021.

The iconic 1980 film “Airplane!” from the ZAZ directing team, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker parodies the plot and characters from the 1957 disaster flick “Zero Hour!” It broke out as a leading example of comedy done right and one of the funniest films of the 80s. It was the ZAZ team’s feature directorial debut. I talked with the directors during our virtual film series, FilmWeek and Chill, along with the film’s stars Robert Hays and Lorna Patterson Lembeck, casting director Joel Thurm and KPCC’s own Tim Cogshell and Christy Lemire. Today on FilmWeek, we bring you a portion of the conversation.

You can watch the entire FilmWeek and Chill event here.

Guests:

Jim Abrahams, co-director of “Airplane!” and member of the directing team Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (ZAZ)

Tim Cogshell, film critic for KPCC, Alt-Film Guide and CineGods.com; he tweets @CinemaInMind

Robert Hays, actor who played Ted Striker in "Airplane!"

Lorna Lembeck, actress who played Randy the singing stewardess in “Airplane!”

Christy Lemire, film critic for KPCC, RogerEbert.com, and co-host of the “Breakfast All Day” podcast; she tweets @christylemire

Joel Thurm, casting director for "Airplane!"

David Zucker, co-director of “Airplane!” and member of the directing team Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (ZAZ)

Jerry Zucker, co-director of “Airplane!” and member of the directing team Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (ZAZ)

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Full Text:

Machine learning algorithms can sometimes do a great job with a little help from human expertise, at least in the field of materials science. In many specialized areas of science, engineering and medicine, researchers are turning to machine learning algorithms to analyze data sets that have grown too large for humans to understand. In materials science, success with this effort could accelerate the design of next-generation advanced functional materials, where development now usually depends on old-fashioned trial and error. By themselves, however, data analytics techniques borrowed from other research areas often fail to provide the insights needed to help materials scientists and engineers choose which of many variables to adjust -- and the techniques can't account for dramatic changes such as the introduction of a new chemical compound into the process. In a new study, researchers explain a technique known as dimensional stacking, which shows that human experience still has a role to play in the age of machine intelligence. The machines gain an edge at solving a challenge when the data to be analyzed are intelligently organized based on human knowledge of what factors are likely to be important and related. "When your machine accepts strings of data, it really does matter how you are putting those strings together," said Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, the paper's corresponding author and a scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We must be mindful that the organization of data before it goes to the algorithm makes a difference. If you don't plug the information in correctly, you will get a result that isn't necessarily correlated with the reality of the physics and chemistry that govern the materials."

Image credit: Rob Felt/Georgia Tech

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States and China, the world's two biggest carbon polluters, agreed to cooperate to curb climate change with urgency, just days before President Joe Biden hosts a virtual summit of world leaders to discuss the issue.

The agreement was reached by U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua during two days of talks in Shanghai last week, according to a joint statement.

The two countries "are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands," the statement said.

China is the world's biggest carbon emitter, followed by the United States. The two countries pump out nearly half of the fossil fuel fumes that are warming the planet's atmosphere. Their cooperation is key to a success of global efforts to curb climate change, but frayed ties over human rights, trade and China's territorial claims to Taiwan and the South China Sea have been threatening to undermine such efforts.

Meeting with reporters in Seoul on Sunday, Kerry said the language in the statement is "strong" and that the two countries agreed on "critical elements on where we have to go." But the former secretary of state said, "I learned in diplomacy that you don't put your back on the words, you put on actions. We all need to see what happens."

Noting that China is the world's biggest coal user, Kerry said he and Chinese officials had a lot of discussions on how to accelerate a global energy transition. "I have never shied away from expressing our views shared by many, many people that it is imperative to reduce coal, everywhere," he said.

Biden has invited 40 world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, to the April 22-23 summit. The U.S. and other countries are expected to announce more ambitious national targets for cutting carbon emissions ahead of or at the meeting, along with pledging financial help for climate efforts by less wealthy nations.

It's unclear how much Kerry's China visit would promote U.S.-China cooperation on climate issues.

While Kerry was still in Shanghai, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng signaled Friday that China is unlikely to make any new pledges at next week's summit.

"For a big country with 1.4 billion people, these goals are not easily delivered," Le said during an interview with The Associated Press in Beijing. "Some countries are asking China to achieve the goals earlier. I am afraid this is not very realistic."

During a video meeting with German and French leaders Friday, Xi said that climate change "should not become a geopolitical chip, a target for attacking other countries or an excuse for trade barriers," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

On whether Xi would join the summit, Le said "the Chinese side is actively studying the matter."

The joint statement said the two countries "look forward to" next week's summit. Kerry said Sunday that "we very much hope that (Xi) will take part" in the summit but it's up to China to make that decision.

Biden, who has said that fighting global warming is among his highest priorities, had the United States rejoin the historic 2015 Paris climate accord in the first hours of his presidency, undoing the U.S. withdrawal ordered by predecessor Donald Trump.

Major emitters of greenhouse gases are preparing for the next U.N. climate summit taking place in Glasgow, U.K., in November. The summit aims to relaunch global efforts to keep rising global temperatures to below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) as agreed in the Paris accord.

According to the U.S.-China statement, the two countries would enhance "their respective actions and cooperating in multilateral processes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement."

It said both countries also intend to develop their respective long-term strategies before the Glasgow conference and take "appropriate actions to maximize international investment and finance in support of" the energy transition in developing countries.

Xi announced last year that China would be carbon-neutral by 2060 and aims to reach a peak in its emissions by 2030. In March, China's Communist Party pledged to reduce carbon emissions per unit of economic output by 18% over the next five years, in line with its goal for the previous five-year period. But environmentalists say China needs to do more.

Biden has pledged the U.S. will switch to an emissions-free power sector within 14 years, and have an entirely emissions-free economy by 2050. Kerry is also pushing other nations to commit to carbon neutrality by then.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

• Provide the utmost Child Support Services by always providing excellent customer service to internal and external customers.

• Advocating for children to receive the financial stability that they deserve and providing the best customer service to all that we serve.

• Building relationships with all parties involved as well as stakeholders to obtain an order of support or to enforce an order support, so that children can receive the financial support they need and deserve.

• Striving for excellence in meeting all mandated standards in a fast – paced rewarding environment that ultimately seeks to provide financial stability for children, parents and caretakers.

To help keep weak swimmers safe, stay "touch-close" and don't rely on a busy lifeguard to be the only eyes on a crowded pool or beach. It's best, say experts working to prevent drownings, to designate a nondrinking adult to scan the water at any pool party or beach outing, and to rotate that "watching" shift every 30 minutes to keep fresh eyes on the kids.; Credit: Imgorthand/Getty Images

I'm going to let you in on one of the most important lessons I learned early on, in my years of training to become a doctor: Absolutely anyone can drown, or lose a loved one to a drowning.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 3,900 people die from unintentional drowning in the US each year — with one in five under 14-years-old. And for each pediatric fatality, another five children require emergency care for nonfatal drownings that can cause irreversible organ damage.

Every patient or family I've cared for after a drowning accident has said they didn't think it could happen to them. And yet, it happens, along with the cruel "if onlys" that haunt cautious and well-intentioned people in the aftermath: "If only I'd done something different, or known what to look for." I hear this again and again, especially from those who've lost a child.

Unfortunately, research shows that in the majority of drowning cases, the child was being supervised by an adult when the accident happened. So, as our summer of post-vaccination reunions and vacations heats up, remember just how vulnerable kids are in water. The rate of admissions for nonfatal drownings at the Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando, for example, was already double in May what it was in the last three years at that same time.

Among basic water supervision precautions, a few potentially life-saving details are often overlooked. Here are some essentials to help keep our young swimmers safe this summer:

Follow the 'arm's length' rule

It may sound commonsensical to stay close by when kids are in or near a pool or other body of water, but it's important to know what safety experts consider close enough supervision to avoid a drowning event.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that adults who are supervising a child of any age who isn't a strong swimmer should be within one arm's length at all times when kids are in the water, offering "touch supervision" this way.

Dr. Andrew Schmidt, a lifeguard-turned-ER doctor at University of Florida Health-Jacksonville and an expert in water safety, notes the definition of a "strong swimmer" is subjective — and overestimating a child's independence in the water has led to tragic accidents.

Schmidt falls back on the way the American Red Cross, a longtime leader in teaching water safety, defines a "water competent" swimmer. According to the Red Cross guidelines , someone is water-competent if they find themselves in water over their head and are able to:

• Swim to the surface after being submerged, then float or tread water for at least one minute.
• Swim in a full circle and find an exit, then swim about 25 yards to that exit.
• Get out of the water on their own, which means exiting the water without a ladder if they're in a pool.

That's a good starting point for judging kids' vulnerability in the water, but adults still need to stay vigilant. "Even a strong swimmer can get into trouble," warns Dr. Terri McFadden, a professor in the department of pediatrics at Emory University's School of Medicine and medical director of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids in Atlanta.

Treat water safety supervision like a job

Calling appropriate water supervision an "intense job," McFadden is quick to remind the parents of her patients to stay alert even if the child is a proficient swimmer.

Having older kids or young teens — or adults that are weak swimmers — acting as chaperones isn't safe, she says. And if you're the adult in charge, doing anything that draws your eyes away from the water for just a moment is risky. Reading, using your phone in any capacity, socializing, fiddling with the bluetooth speaker or doing household chores – all such lapses are dangerous when children are swimming or playing in water. Drowning accidents have happened in the time it takes for a caretaker to run inside just long enough to put wet clothes in the dryer, or while they were looking on from a kitchen window and doing dishes. No distraction is quick enough to be safe when it comes to kids in or around water – not seconds, not minutes.

Mcfadden is among many leaders in child safety who recommend assigning an adult "watcher" at the pool or waterfront who can agree to be totally attentive for a brief period of time (15 to 30 minutes or so), then switching to another watcher in intervals; short spurts of duty making it easier to stay focused. It doesn't matter at a pool party that there are a dozen responsible adults nearby; if there isn't one pair of mature eyes devoted to watching the young swimmers 100% of the time, the risk of a deadly accident goes up.

Similarly, it's never safe to simply rely on lifeguards. Though trained to scan for emergencies and quickly respond, they can also get distracted, especially when there are lots of people bobbing along or jumping in and out of the water.

Stay sober when you're the adult in charge

There's also been a well-documented spike in alcohol use during the pandemic, and coupling that increase with an uptick in warm weather and waterside celebrations with friends and family can be a drowning accident waiting to happen.

Not only does alcohol lower our level of alertness and slow the reflexes needed to act quickly when we spot danger, it will also make swimming and helping someone to safety slower and more difficult as well.

And I'm not just talking about avoiding being drunk; cognitive processes and reflexes can slow after just a drink or two. Should something bad happen, it's not worth the heartbreak of wondering if the outcome could have been different without alcohol — something I've witnessed first-hand among some families of drowning victims.

The safest bet is to designate one fully sober adult as the watcher for 15 to 30 minutes at a time when kids are in or near the water. "Sober" means those adults agree to not use any mind-altering substances in that time — not alcohol, marijuana or even some allergy medicines or other prescription drugs that can cause drowsiness.

Use the safest life jacket, but don't rely on it alone

Life jackets do provide an added layer of protection against drowning, and most states require kids to wear them at all times when on a boat — regardless of their swimming strength.

Water safety and drowning experts recommend kids only wear life vests or jackets that are US Coast Guard-approved, which includes many different brands and will be noted clearly on the tag or printed onto the life jacket itself, along with a number that tells you what federal regulation it's approved under.

Pay close attention to what's printed there; the labels will tell you if it's not meant for weak or non-swimmers. You'll also find the weight range the vest is designed to fit. It should be nice and snug; wearing a loose life vest is like not wearing one at all.

Schmidt also cautions parents against relying on any unregulated flotation devices — including arm floaties, swimsuits with built-in floats or blow up neck rings. They may be cute, but can provide a false sense of safety that supports distracted supervision, he says.

Don't let shallow water deceive you

The risk to kids isn't equal to the depth of the water when we're talking about drowning. Small children can drown in baby pools, bathtubs or even household water buckets or tide pools — anything with enough water in it to cover their mouth and nose if they can't lift themselves out easily. They need adult supervision in these places, too.

And be forewarned — though child gates, locks and other safety measures are additional safety layers, if you've ever seen a kid use an iPhone you know that they're smart, and craftier than we realize. Most can still problem-solve their way around those barriers and into the water no matter the physical precautions.

Be ready to recognize what drowning or distress looks like

Parents and caretakers are often surprised to hear that drowning can look like nothing you'd notice, hear, or even expect — which is why it takes 100% visual and/or touch supervision to pick up the signs. The splashing, yelling and commotion you've seen in movies could certainly be a signal a child is in trouble, but it doesn't always happen that way.

Instead, be on the lookout for subtle and quick: a child motionless or face down in water or swimming upright but not making any progress forward; a lowered head, or a head tilted way back or with hair covering the eyes or face; a look of fear or doom in a child's eyes; or perhaps just a constant gaze toward shore or an exit/ladder. And a child that jumps or dives into the water but doesn't come up quickly could be missed without sharp visual supervision.

A swimmer of any skill level might need your help, and it can often take all of our senses on full-alert to identify a drowning in progress.

Swim classes are available for even very young kids. Enroll your child ASAP

Many 1-year-old babies can benefit from swim classes taught by a skilled instructor, according to the AAP. Children develop along different timelines, so check with your doctor to see if your child's ready to start.

And swim classes aren't just for beginners or kids — people of any age or ability can benefit. Even if you already know the fundamentals, swim instruction will help you expand your skills and be even safer in the water. Many instructors nowadays teach safety tactics like safer ways to jump into the water, how to safely escape an ocean's riptide or undertow, and how to save others from drowning without putting yourself in danger.

You can find classes through community pools, health departments or regional chapters of the American Red Cross or YMCA; some local nonprofits offer scholarships, so cost shouldn't be a barrier. Plus, the same groups can help you find CPR classes, which is a must for all chaperones and other adults — whether or not water is involved.

It's impossible to fully control environments where water and kids mix, but what we know about drowning is this: Sharp-eyed, adult supervision is key to prevention. And parents can't do it alone — if we all share the responsibility whenever we're near the water, we can save lives.

Dr. Kristen Kendrick is a board-certified family physician in Washington, D.C., and a health and media fellow at NPR and Georgetown University School of Medicine.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.