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Viola Davis will play Michelle Obama in Showtime anthology series ‘First Ladies’
The acclaimed actress and her husband, Julius Tennon, will also serve as executive producers.
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Perhaps Sanders and Warren are the ones being politically expedient
It’s been frustrating to watch more moderate positions be characterized as solely driven by political calculations.
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News24.com | International Covid-19 wrap: Pakistan expats test positive, boy, 5, dies from 'disease caused by Covid-19'
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Channel24.co.za | 'Little Women: Atlanta' star Ms Minnie, 34, dies
'Little Women: Atlanta' star, Ashley Ross, has died after sustaining injuries in a car accident.
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Channel24.co.za | Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan, 53, dies
Bollywood star, Irrfan Khan, has died after being admitted to the intensive care unit at Mumbai's Kokilaben hospital.
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Channel24.co.za | Veteran Bollywood actor Rishi Kapoor, 67, dies
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Channel24.co.za | SA's film and TV industry back to work amid Covid-19 – without extras or studio audiences
South Africa's film and TV industry got the green-light to reopen but as cameras start rolling and lights flicker back on it won't be business as usual.
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Channel24.co.za | Famous magician Roy Horn, 75, dies of coronavirus complications
Roy Horn, half of Las Vegas illusionist duo Siegfried and Roy, has died of complications from the coronavirus.
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Channel24.co.za | Rock 'n' roll legend Little Richard, 87, dies
Little Richard, whose outrageous showmanship and lightning-fast rhythms intoxicated crowds in the 1950s with hits like 'Tutti Frutti' and 'Long Tall Sally', has died.
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AT#494 - Travel to San Diego, California
Hear about travel to San Diego as the Amateur Traveler talks to Mike from MikesRoadTrip.com about this beautiful city in Southern California.
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"Leopards ate my face" subreddit bans posts about coronavirus scoffers who later die of it
The Leopards Ate My Face subreddit is dedicated to mocking people who thought the Republican party would hurt their enemies only to be surprised to find that it hurts them, too. Inspired by a tweet by Adrian Bott—'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party—it has now banned posts about people who claimed Covid-19 was bullshit only to die of Covid-19. There are simply too many, and it's getting depressing.
"We've seen a billion of them in the past two weeks and the vast majority of them don't fit the subreddit," writes moderator u/ROBOT_OF_WORLD. "People dying from their decisions isn't justice, karmic, or funny." Read the rest
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Roy Horn, of Siegfried and Roy, dies at 75 of Covid
Magician Roy Horn, 75, died Thursday after developing symptoms of Covid-19 several days ago. Horn and partner Siegfried Fischbacher ran the most popular stage show in Vegas throughout the 1990s, featuring hundreds of performers, pyrotechnics and a coterie of white tigers at the Mirage hotel. Horn was forced to retire after suffering a stroke before or as a tiger dragged him from the stage by the neck.
TMZ received a statement from Fischbacher:
"Today, the world has lost one of the greats of magic, but I have lost my best friend. From the moment we met, I knew Roy and I, together, would change the world. There could be no Siegfried without Roy, and no Roy without Siegfried."
Siegfried goes on ... "Roy was a fighter his whole life, including during these final days. I give my heartfelt appreciation to the team of doctors, nurses and staff at Mountain View Hospital who worked heroically against this insidious virus that ultimately took Roy's life."
My first visit to the U.S. was a trip to Vegas in 1999. The first thing I remember seeing of America, stepping blearily out of the taxi at the Mirage Hotel after 15 hours in the air, was a colossal fiberglass statue of Siegfried and Roy. God bless America.
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Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy dies from coronavirus at 75
Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy, the duo whose extraordinary magic tricks astonished millions until Horn was critically injured in 2003 by one of the act's famed white tigers, has died. He was 75.
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3 N.Y. children die from syndrome possibly linked to COVID-19
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says three children in the state have now died from a possible complication from the coronavirus involving swollen blood vessels and heart problems.
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Article: What's Behind the Rapid Progress of Advanced Audience Targets in Linear TV
Joshua Summers, CEO of linear television supply-side platform clypd, discusses the major advanced targeting trends expected to infiltrate traditional TV ad buying within the next year.
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Nerdiest Interview Ever: MPU Workflows Part II
MPU 046: Workflows with Merlin Mann II « Mac Power Users
I have the life that I have because I've made a lot of weird decisions, and they've worked out well.
Not gonna lie to you. I'm a huge nerd. Surprised?
Yep. I can recite big chunks of The Big Lebowski from memory. I can argue for an hour on the merits of Dick York over Dick Sargent. And, I can—and frequently do—catch myself thinking Catwoman, Batgirl, Princess Leia, and Emma Peel should have a light-hearted pillow fight that ends with an hour of genial french-kissing.
Pretty much like you, probably. I dunno, maybe your version includes Kitty Pryde. Po-tay-to/Po-taht-o, right?
Perhaps most saliently, by virtue of having spent a solid 2,399 days as a Fake Productivity Guru, I have been provided with an unquestionably Janusian monkey's paw of a gift; I now know a lot about workflows. Nerdy, nerdy workflows.
I can tell you a few things that almost always work, I can tell you a handful of things that almost never work, and—best or worst of all—I can tell you thousands of things that might work. Sometimes. Maybe. Kinda. For some people. For now.
And, at the risk of gay-marrying my arrogance to my hypocrisy, I can tell you that I also know enough about the unholy diarrhea of potential options for Theoretical Productivity to share two big patterns:
- Getting your workflow right matters.
- Getting your workflow right to the exclusion of the actual work is a fool's game.
But. Managing to get the most useful and most elegant and least fiddly mix of 1 and 2 right is super-hard. Especially for nerds. Especially for me.
So, as I type this today, I believe there can be no greater testament to these claims—or, at least, no greater place to test the veracity of these claims for yourself—than in this TWO AND A HALF HOUR-long interview for Mac Power Users.
It is reeeeeeeeally nerdy. Almost intolerably nerdy. Just…overwhelmingly nerdy.
But, man, is it ever really good, and really fat with the most insanely granular details of How I Work.
Lo, even these 928.5 days after officially retiring from productivity pr0n, my desire to not "vend stroke material for your joyless addiction to puns about procrastination and systems for generating more taxonomically satisfying meta-work" is tempered by a (widely under-reported) practical streak.
Yes: I continue to despise empty advice about rearranging deck chairs on The Titanic. But, yes: I do also still very much enjoy talking about how all the tips and tricks can or can't work in the context of work you care about. That matters. It really does.
So. Here goes. A one hundred and forty six minute-long, Joyce-ian amble through the Big Stuff and the Little Stuff. David and Katie were very patient.
How I name text files. Why I break iOS apps. Why I love the letter "x." Why I won't row out to islands any more. How a 115,000 word book manuscript is "like a house full of confederate money." How "The Cloud" broke in New Zealand. How I use MultiMarkdown, Scrivener, TextExpander, OmniFocus, TextMate, Notational Velocity, Dropbox, and an explosive combination of Elements, Notesy, Nebulous, Simplenote, CF Outliner, iThoughts, Instacast, Good Reader, and wow wow wow.
How I try not to fiddle—how I sometimes succeed and often don't. But, how I try.
Anyhow. There you go. A perfectly nerdy bookend to last year's first Magnum Opus MPU interview on these same topics, Mac Power Users Episode 46 is just insanely nerdy. And, what have you.
I hope you like it. I hope it's useful. I hope you don't use it to replace real work.
And, as ever, I really hope Batgirl starts having more sexy pillow fights.
Enjoy. And, God save you.
MPU 046: Workflows with Merlin Mann II « Mac Power Users
”Nerdiest Interview Ever: MPU Workflows Part II” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 27, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
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High Resolution Clear Native Electrophoresis for In-gel Functional Assays and Fluorescence Studies of Membrane Protein Complexes
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A Versatile Nanotrap for Biochemical and Functional Studies with Fluorescent Fusion Proteins
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The Great War: The Soldier, the League, the Imagination
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The role of short-chain fatty acids in the interplay between diet, gut microbiota, and host energy metabolism
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Procedure for determination of free and total cholesterol in micro- or nanogram amounts suitable for studies with cultured cells
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Subsidies and Sustainable Agriculture: Mapping the Policy Landscape
11 December 2019
Agricultural subsidies shape production and consumption patterns, with potentially significant effects on poverty, nutrition and other sustainability concerns. This paper maps the different types of support provided by governments to the agricultural sector, and highlights some of the complex political economy dynamics that underpin the relevant policies.
2019-12-06-Wheat-Field-China.jpg
Aerial view of a wheat field on 24 May 2019 in Linyi, Shandong Province of China. Photo: Getty Images.
Summary
- Agricultural subsidies, a mainstay of government policy, have a large part in shaping production and consumption patterns, with potentially significant effects as regards poverty, food security, nutrition, and other sustainability concerns such as climate change, land use practices and biodiversity.
- There are multiple types of direct and indirect support provided by governments to various actors in the agricultural sector; and in terms of political economy, there are complex dynamics underpinning the policies that sustain these subsidies.
- Overall, subsidies targeting producers have the most significant effect on production, and the greater trade-distorting effect. These subsidies promote domestic production and discourage imports, leading to overproduction that is largely disposed of on the international market, with the help of export subsidies. This can tend to intensify negative environmental agricultural practices, such as cultivating marginal land, unsustainable types of intensification, or incentivizing excessive pesticide and fertilizer use.
- On the other hand, producer subsidies that are not tied to output of a specific commodity (i.e. delinked) have far fewer distorting impacts and could help to deliver sustainable outcomes. For example, this type of subsidies can require crop diversification or be linked to conservation of permanent grassland.
- Subsidies that enable transfers to consumers, for example through food stamp programmes, also serve to delink production from consumption, can foster healthier diets, can play an important role in delivering food accessibility and security among low-income groups, and can represent one of the less trade-distorting subsidies.
- If subsidies are to be reformed to help promote healthier diets and encourage more sustainable production, it is essential to understand not only the type and amount of support that key countries provide, but also the domestic dynamics that can shape such policies.
- While price support, input subsidies or investment aids remain the central pillars of programmes in large developing countries such as Brazil, China or India, other economies – notably including the EU and Japan – focus on direct payments, support for general services and set-aside schemes, as well as significant border protection. The US, for its part, has tended to focus on subsidized insurance schemes and food programmes for poorer consumers.
- If subsidies are to deliver policy objectives, their design and implementation should delink production from consumption. For example, consumer subsidies designed to deliver nutrition and food security, or payments for environmental services to enable more environmentally friendly production systems, could prove to be the most effective, least trade-distorting means of achieving more sustainable and equitable agricultural production.
- The political economy of food means that the removal of subsidies is often highly sensitive, and tends to be met with significant resistance. However, reform that delinks support from production through a gradual transition process could ultimately prove successful in delivering effective subsidy schemes.
- Effective subsidy schemes must by design be truly result- and performance-based, supported by robust and objective indicators. At the same time, engaging multiple actors along key commodity value chains – including leading importing and exporting countries, traders and transporters – could lead to the development of international, commodity-specific arrangements that are able to deliver effective nutrition and sustainability goals.
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Episode 23: Warm Bodies
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- Warm Bodies review
- The History of Zombie Movies That Rudy Likes
- What We Watched: Bob's Burgers, Some Bob Marley documentary, Movie 43 and The Innkeepers
Listen to or download the episode here. (right click to save)
Next episode: A Good Day to Die Hard
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Vitamin E does not prevent Western diet-induced NASH progression and increases metabolic flux dysregulation in mice [Research Articles]
Fatty liver involves ectopic lipid accumulation and dysregulated hepatic oxidative metabolism, which can progress to a state of elevated inflammation and fibrosis referred to as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The factors that control progression from simple steatosis to NASH are not fully known. Here, we tested the hypothesis that dietary vitamin E (VitE) supplementation would prevent NASH progression and associated metabolic alterations induced by a Western diet (WD). Hyperphagic melanocortin-4 receptor-deficient (MC4R–/–) mice were fed chow, chow+VitE, WD, or WD+VitE starting at 8 or 20 weeks of age. All groups exhibited extensive hepatic steatosis by the end of the study (28 weeks of age). WD feeding exacerbated liver disease severity without inducing proportional changes in liver triglycerides. Eight weeks of WD accelerated liver pyruvate cycling, and 20 weeks of WD extensively upregulated liver glucose and oxidative metabolism assessed by 2H/13C flux analysis. VitE supplementation failed to reduce the histological features of NASH. Rather, WD+VitE increased the abundance and saturation of liver ceramides and accelerated metabolic flux dysregulation compared with 8 weeks of WD alone. In summary, VitE did not limit NASH pathogenesis in genetically obese mice, but instead increased some indicators of metabolic dysfunction.
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Secrecy, spies and the global South: intelligence studies beyond the 'Five Eyes' alliance
6 November 2019 , Volume 95, Number 6
The study of secrecy and spies remain subjects dominated by Anglo-American experiences. In recent years there has been some effort to refocus the lens of research upon ‘intelligence elsewhere’, including the global South. This is partly because of intense interest in the Arab Spring and ‘managed democracy’, placing a wider range of secret services under the spotlight. However, the approach to research is still dominated by concepts and methods derived from studying the English-speaking states of the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance and their European outriders. This article calls for a re-examination of research strategies for Intelligence Studies and for those theorizing surveillance, suggesting that both fields have much to learn from area studies and development studies, especially in the realm of research practice and ethics. If the growing number of academics specializing in intelligence genuinely wish to move forward and examine the global South they will need to rethink their tool-kit and learn from other disciplines. We suggest there is a rich tradition to draw upon.
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CBD News: Statement by Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary, at the G8 Dialogue Series convened by the Institute of Advanced Studies of the United Nations University (UNU-IAS): "Climate Change and Biodiversity or the Unprecedented Planetary Environmen
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CBD News: Peer review of the draft "Guide to integrating protected areas within wider landscapes, seascapes and sectoral plans and strategies" is now open. The guide provides practical approaches, case studies, and examples of integrating prote
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CBD News: The CBD, through the generous support of the Government of the Netherlands, is pleased to announce the release of the brochure: "Case Studies Illustrating the Socio-economic Benefits of Ecological Networks". Ecological networks provide
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CBD News: Biodiversity underpins dietary diversity and access to sufficient food is a cornerstone of food security and a fundamental determinant of health.
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CBD News: Chairperson, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure to address you at the 51st International Tropical Timber Council with good news late on a day you have spent in difficult negotiations.
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CBD News: One of the main bodies under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) is set to meet next week to discuss issues that will accelerate progress in implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and achieving its Aichi Biodiversity
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CBD News: It is my great pleasure to open this important meeting, the Sustainable Ocean Initiative Global Dialogue with Regional Seas Organizations and Regional Fisheries Bodies on Accelerating Progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
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CBD News: Over the next two weeks, the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) bodies on science and implementation will meet to provide further guidance on accelerated efforts to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets by the end of the year 2020,
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CBD News: This year, World Food Day calls for action across sectors to make healthy and sustainable diets affordable and accessible to everyone. It is a reminder that without healthy nature and biodiversity, we cannot have quality nutrition, and without q
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CBD News: Two meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) permanent subsidiary bodies originally scheduled for May 2020 and then rescheduled for August/September 2020 will now take place in August 2020.
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Sharp estimates for the gradient of solutions to the heat equation
G. Kresin and V. Maz'ya
St. Petersburg Math. J. 31 (2020), 495-507.
Abstract, references and article information
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Survey on gradient estimates for nonlinear elliptic equations in various function spaces
S.-S. Byun, D. K. Palagachev and L. G. Softova
St. Petersburg Math. J. 31 (2020), 401-419.
Abstract, references and article information
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On Kalton’s theorem for regular compact operators and Grothendieck property for positive projective tensor products
Qingying Bu
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 148 (2020), 2459-2467.
Abstract, references and article information
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Truck, minibus subsidies open
Applications for the $1.3 billion in subsidies earmarked for registered owners of goods vehicles and green minibus operators under the Anti-epidemic Fund opened today, the Transport Department announced.
A one-off non-accountable subsidy of $10,000 will be provided to each registered goods vehicle owner for each goods vehicle.
From today until September 30, registered owners of goods vehicles who have received the department's letters must use the registration PIN provided in the letters for submission of registrations through GovHK.
After successful completion of registration, the subsidy will be disbursed to the designated local bank account provided in the registration through autopay in about two to three weeks.
Cross-boundary goods vehicle drivers who conduct nucleic acid tests in Hong Kong can apply for the subsidy on an accountable basis, with the maximum amount being $350 per test.
A one-off non-accountable subsidy of $30,000 per green minibus will be provided to each holder of a Passenger Service Licence-Public Light Bus (Scheduled) Service who has been approved to operate a relevant green minibus route package.
The department briefed the green minibus trade today on the subsidy arrangement and application details with the distribution of the application forms.
Green minibus operators are required to send the completed application forms to the department by post on or before September 30.
After the department has verified their submissions, the subsidy will be disbursed through autopay in about one month.
To assist the transport trades to cope with operational demands in the prevailing economic environment, the Government has rolled out the fuel subsidy and one-off subsidy measures under the first round of the Anti-epidemic Fund progressively.
As of mid-April, the department has received applications for subsidies from three franchised bus companies, 10 franchised and licensed ferry operators, Hong Kong Tramways Limited, registrations from 1,700 registered owners of non-franchised public buses, school private light buses and hire cars. Over $100 million of the subsidies have been disbursed.
Click here for details.
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Rationale for the Use of a Mediterranean Diet in Diabetes Management
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Preparing to Prescribe Plant-Based Diets for Diabetes Prevention and Treatment
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Mask production subsidies reassigned
The Commerce & Economic Development Bureau today announced that the subsidy quota for three mask production lines have been reassigned.
Three production lines, previously approved under the Local Mask Production Subsidy Scheme, have withdrawn from the scheme, the Government said.
The subsidy quota concerned has been allocated to SDL Skin (Asia), Safeguard HK and SwissTech.
SDL Skin (Asia) has been approved for obtaining a subsidy for a second production line and is expected to supply an average of 1.6 million masks every month to the Government. The production line may receive a subsidy of up to $1 million.
Safeguard HK has been approved for obtaining a subsidy for one production line and is expected to supply an average of 500,000 masks to the Government every month. The production line may receive up to $2 million.
SwissTech has been approved for obtaining a subsidy for one production line and is expected to supply an average of 2 million masks every month to the Government and produce a further 1 million masks on average monthly for the local market.
The production line may receive up to $3 million.
It is estimated that when all 20 subsidised lines under the scheme are in full production, they will collectively supply 33.85 million masks to the Government and a further 7.15 million to the local market monthly.
The companies which withdrew from the scheme were CareHK and Shang Manufactory.
The Government did not sign agreements with or make disbursements to these firms.
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Policy studies funding announced
About $31 million in funding has been given to support 79 projects under the special round of the Public Policy Research (PPR) Funding Scheme, the Government announced today.
A total of 210 applications were received for the special round, which was launched last November to fund local research institutions and think tanks to research topics relating to the underlying causes of the social incidents that took place in the second half of 2019.
The research may also cover important political, economic, cultural and societal issues relating to deep-seated problems of society.
Assessment of the applications received under the special round was conducted by the independent assessment panel chaired by and comprising experienced academics.
The research quality of the proposal and relevance to the themes of the special round were the principal assessment criteria, with consideration given to factors such as whether the research proposal was solution-oriented, feasible and practical, whether the methodology was reasonable and sound, the applicant’s capability and whether the proposed budget was cost-effective.
The assessment panel took a holistic view on each research proposal, reached a collective decision and made recommendations, the Policy Innovation & Co-ordination Office said, adding that a declaration of interest system was in place to ensure the assessments were fair and impartial.
In general, a sum of up to $500,000 has been granted to each approved project under the special round.
The approved projects have commenced progressively and are expected to be completed by the end of the year, with the first batch to be completed in late September to early October.
Click here for details of the funded projects.
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Geometry of Isotropic Convex Bodies
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