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Suborder: Haplorrhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Family: Cebidae
Subfamily: Saimiriinae
Genus: Saimiri
Species: S. boliviensis, S. oerstedti, S. sciureus, S. ustus, S. vanzolinii
Subspecies: S. b. boliviensis, S. b. peruviensis, S. o. citrinellus, S. o. oerstedti, S. s. albigena, S. s. cassiquiarensis, S. s. macrodon, S. s. sciureus
Other names: S. boliviensis: black-headed squirrel
monkey or Bolivian squirrel monkey; macaco de cheiro (Spanish); boliviansk dödskalleapa,
boliviansk ekorrapa, or svarthövdad dödskalleapa (Swedish); S.
oerstedti: S. oerstedtii or S. oerstedii;
black crowned Central American squirrel monkey, Central American squirrel monkey,
or red-backed squirrel monkey; panamavsaimiri (Finnish); saimiri à dos
roux, singe écureuil à dos rouge, or singe écureuil à dos
roux (French); geel doodshoofdaapje (Dutch); gelbes totenkopfäffchen (German);
testina di morto (Italian); barizo dorsirrojo, mono ardilla, mono tití,
or saimiri dorsirrojo (Spanish); nordlig dödskalleapa, rödryggad dödskalleapa,
or rödryggad ekorrapa (Swedish); S. sciureus: common
squirrel monkey or South American squirrel monkey; saimiri ecureuil (French);
macaco de cheiro (Spanish); ekorrapa gråhövdad dödskalleapa,
gråhövdad ekorrapa (Swedish); S. ustus: bare-eared
squirrel monkey or golden-backed squirrel monkey; barörad dödskalleapa,
nakenörad dödskalleapa, or nakenörad ekorrapa (Swedish); S.
black squirrel monkey, black-headed squirrel monkey, or blackish squirrel monkey;
mörk dödskalleapa (Swedish)
Until recently, there were only two species of squirrel monkeys, a South
American species, S. sciureus and a Central American one,
S. oerstedti, but with genetic tools increasingly available,
the genus has been reclassified into five species based on genetic,
physical, and behavioral characteristics (Groves 2001). Squirrel
monkeys are now divided into two groups, the Saimiri sciureus
group, containing S. oerstedti subspecies, S. sciureus
subspecies, and S. ustus and the Saimiri boliviensis
group, containing S. boliviensis subspecies and S.
vanzolinii. Most of the literature and information available on
squirrel monkeys does not make these newer distinctions and focuses on
the traditional taxonomy with only two species (Groves 2001).
Even though there are slight morphological differences among squirrel
monkey species, all have the same general facial and body colorations
and are easily distinguished as part of the genus. Squirrel monkeys
have white masks of fur around their eyes and dark brown or black
coloration around the mouth and chin. Species are separated by the
shape of the arch of white fur over their eyes, and are either
characterized as having a "roman" or "gothic" arch (Rowe 1996; Groves
2001). The species in the Saimiri sciureus group have a
"gothic" arch in which the white fur is dramatically high and the darker
fur on their heads forms a deep "V" shape between their eyes. S.
boliviensis and S. vanzolinii are categorized in the
Saimiri boliviensis group and have a "roman" arch of fur which
is more rounded than the "gothic" type and does not extend as far up
onto the forehead. The gray or black fur on their head makes a very
shallow "V" pattern between their eyes (Groves 2001).
S. oerstedti subspecies are predominantly orange to
golden-orange over their backs, hands, feet, and forearms while the
crown fur is blackish in females or blackish-brown in males. Their hips
and shoulders are grayish-brown and the base of the tail is also this
color but is tipped in black (Rowe 1996). They have tufts of fur on
their ears and their heads appear very round. S. o.
citrinellus are sexually
dichromatic with males having gray crown fur and females exhibiting
black crowns (Groves 2001). The average height for both male and female
S. oerstedti is 270 mm (10.6 in), but males weigh more than
females. Average weights in males range from 750 to 950 g (1.65 to 2.1
lb), depending on the time of year, while females weigh between 600 and
790 g (1.32 to 1.74 lb) (Groves 1996; Boinski et al. 2002). The common
squirrel monkey, S. sciureus subspecies, has brownish-gray
crowns and have less red-orange pelage than S. oerstedti. They
are mainly greenish-gray to auburn but S. s. sciureus and
S. c. macrodon have orange or yellow hands, feet, and forearms.
Differing in the coloration of the forearms and hands from the other
subspecies, S. s. albigena exhibits grayish-brown coloration
with a very pale orange tinge (Groves 2001). Average weights of S.
sciureus range between 554 and 1150 g (1.22 to 2.53 lb) for males
and 651 to 1250 g (1.43 to 2.76 lb) for females, with the males
measuring only slightly longer than the females at 318 mm (12.5 in)
compared to 316 mm (12.4 in) (Rowe 1996). The bare-eared squirrel
monkey, S. ustus, stands apart from the other species because
of its lack of ear tufts. It is also orange or yellowish on its
forearms, hands, and feet with brownish-gray on the head (Groves 2001).
In addition to having a "roman" arch pattern over their eyes, S.
boliviensis and S. vanzolinii have remarkably thin tails
compared to members of the Saimiri sciureus group (Groves
2001). S. boliviensis females have gray bodies while males
have black bodies. Both sexes have yellow fur on the forearms, hands,
and feet (Rowe 1996). Males and females are similar heights, 310 mm
(12.2 in) on average, but males are heavier than females, weighing
between 963 and 1088 g (2.12 to 2.4 lb), depending on the season while
females weigh between 700 and 900 g (1.54 to 1.98) (Rowe 1996). The
black squirrel monkey, S. vanzolinii, gets its name from the
black band from the crown to the tail. The feet, hands, and forearms
are a light yellow (Groves 2001). Height ranges from 275 to 295 mm
(10.8 to 11.6 in) in females and 278 to 320 mm (10.9 to 12.6 in) in
males, while females weigh significantly less than males, 650 g (1.43
lb) and 950 g (2.09 lb), respectively (Rowe 1996).
Male and female squirrel monkeys are seasonally sexually dimorphic. Male squirrel
monkeys have widely fluctuating weights throughout the year and gain
weight during the two months prior to the breeding season, taking on a
"fatted" appearance from water and fat stored between the
muscle and skin on their head, shoulders, upper arms, and ribs. During
this period of growth they can gain up to 20% of their body weight
and the larger they appear, the more attractive they are to females
(Boinski 1987a; Kinzey 1997).
Squirrel monkeys are quadrupedal
and move through the forest preferentially traveling on branches between
one and two centimeters in diameter (.394 and .787 in). They rarely come to the
ground and when they do, it is to forage or play and they are rarely seen
leaping horizontal distances greater than two meters (6.56 ft) (Boinski et al.
19981998; Kauffman pers. comm.).
Squirrel monkeys are found widely throughout Central and South America.
S. boliviensis is distributed throughout Brazil, Bolivia,
Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. S. b. boliviensis is found in
Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia while S. b. peruviensis is found in
only in Amazonian Peru (Groves 2001; Gold 2004). The Central American
squirrel monkey, S. oerstedti, is found in Costa Rica (both
subspecies) and Panama (S. o. oerstedti only) and is completely
geographically separated from the other species of squirrel monkeys
found in South America (Groves 2001). Once long thought to be separated
from the other South American species because of introduction into
Central America by early humans, molecular data prove that S.
oerstedti is, in fact, endemic to this region (Cropp &
Boinski 2000). S. sciureus is distributed across several
countries: Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and
Venezuela. The most restricted in range of the squirrel monkeys is
S. vanzolinii which can be found only on the left bank of Lago
Mamirauá and at the mouth of the Rio Japura in Brazil (Groves
2001). S. ustus ranges in Brazil south of the Amazon (Groves
Since 1981, Sue Boinski has studied squirrel monkeys in the wild,
focusing her long-term research on S. o. oerstedti in Costa
Rica at Corcovado and Manual Antonio National Parks. She has also done
comparative research on S. b. boliviensis at Manu National Park
in Peru (Kinzey 1997). More recently, Boinski has continued working
with squirrel monkeys in a long-term study of S. sciureus in
the Central Suriname Nature Preserve in Raleighvallen, Suriname. Most of
the literature from field work comes from studies done at one of these
four parks, but captive research has supplemented information about wild
squirrel monkeys. Saimiri are the second-most used primates in
captive research after rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and have been
studied widely across a variety of institutions and by a number of
researchers (Kinzey 1997).
Squirrel monkeys are found primarily in tropical lowland rainforest
throughout the Amazon basin from Paraguay to Guyana and in Costa Rica
and Panama. Squirrel monkeys are habitat generalists and have
few restrictive requirements in regard to forest type compared to other
neotropical primate; they can survive in a myriad of habitat types,
including disturbed and edge forests (Kinzey 1997; Kauffman pers. comm.). Across their range,
squirrel monkeys are found in similar habitat types ranging from
undisturbed tropical and evergreen primary forests, selectively logged
tropical forests, secondary growth
tropical forests, and disturbed or edge forests (Boinski 1987b; Rowe
1996; Kinzey 1997; Boinski 1999; Boinski et al. 2002). There is marked
seasonality in most of these ecosystems, with the dry season lasting from
approximately January to March and the rainy season from April to
December with coinciding periods of fruit and flower abundance (Boinski
Though they are geographically widespread, squirrel monkeys exhibit very
little difference in ecological behavior because the habitats in which
they are found are quite similar (Boinski 1999; Boinski et al. 2002).
Squirrel monkeys are insectivores-frugivores, consuming insects and
fruit in their diet, depending on seasonal abundance of each resource,
and supplementing their diets with small vertebrates, nectar, flowers,
buds, seeds, leaves, and gum (Boinski & Timm 1985; Kinzey 1997;
Boinski 1999). Squirrel monkeys rarely go after insects that are in
motion and prefer to capture stationary insects on plant surfaces. They
hunt for insects on the surface of live leaves or by unfolding leaf
curls of dead foliage and prefer caterpillars and grasshoppers over
other insects (Boinski 1988; Janson & Boinski 1992).
Saimiri preferentially ingest small, soft, berry-like fruits
less than one centimeter in diameter found in the lower and middle
canopies of the forest (Janson & Boinski 1992; Kinzey 1997). The
small vertebrates consumed include bats, which they systematically
search for in large stands of trees, small birds, and bird eggs (Janson
& Boinski 1992). During the year, the period of greatest food
abundance is between April and June (Boinski 1988).
Differences in distribution of available resources across study sites
and species leads to different levels of intragroup feeding competition.
In Suriname, very small, dense patches of fruit characterize the
feeding sites of S. sciureus while in Costa Rica, S.
oerstedti forages in fruit patches which are larger but which have
few ripe fruits available in each patch. S. boliviensis in
Peru forages in the largest fruit patches with the highest densities of fruit
in any squirrel monkey study site (Boinski 1999). In Costa Rica, where
each fruit tree is depleted quickly by foraging squirrel monkeys, there
is little within-group competition for resources because individuals
simply move on to another patch after such a short time. In Peru,
though, where there is a higher density of available fruit, within-group
competition at feeding sites is high as group members have incentive to
protect the particular area of the patch in which they are foraging.
Among common squirrel monkeys, S. sciureus, within-group
feeding competition is intense because fruit is found in small, dense
patches easily monopolized by one monkey. The incentive to protect this
patch is high and the result is direct feeding competition between
members of the group. Between-group aggression is also seen in S.
sciureus but not in S. oerstedti or S.
boliviensis (Boinski et al. 2002).
Home range sizes and population densities are available for S.
oerstedti at Corcovado National Park and for S.
boliviensis at Manu National Park in Peru. At Corcovado, squirrel
monkeys have home range sizes of about 2 km² (.77
mi²) and the population density is 36 individuals per
km² (22 per mi²) compared to Manu where they have home range sizes about 2.5 to 5 km² (.97 to 1.93 mi²) and
live in densities of 60 per km² (37 per mi²) (Mitchell et al.
1991). S. sciureus have home ranges between 2.5 and 3
km² (.97 and 1.16 mi²) and live in much lower
densities than other species with only 13 individuals per km² (8
per mi²) (Boinski et al. 2002). Squirrel monkeys exhibit similar daily
activity patterns, regardless of species, and spend more than half of
their day traveling and foraging for insects, while about 11% of
their day is spent feeding on fruit and nectar, another 10% of
their day is spent resting, and the remainder of their day is spent
doing miscellaneous activities such as social behavior and self-grooming
(Mitchell et al. 1991).
Their small body size makes squirrel monkeys susceptible to a variety of
predators across their range including raptors, snakes, and felids (Mitchell et al. 1991).
Raptors are responsible for the highest number of observed predations on
squirrel monkeys (Boinski et al. 2002). One predator avoidance pattern
seen in squirrel monkeys in Peru is prolonged associations with other
primate species. Saimiri and Cebus are seen forming
mixed-species groups and associating for many days. These interactions
are peaceable and squirrel monkeys benefit from the extensive alarm
calling system of Cebus, which serves to alert group members of
potential predators (Sussman 2000). Squirrel monkeys may also benefit
from maintaining proximity to Cebus in terms of gaining access
to previously unexploited resources. Cebus use similar fruit
sources and small ranges and squirrel monkeys can exploit
Cebus' knowledge of these ranges to utilize new fruit patches
(Kinzey 1997; Sussman 2000).
Content last modified: March 16, 2006
Written by Kristina Cawthon Lang. Reviewed by Laurie Kauffman.
Cite this page as:Cawthon Lang KA. 2006 March 16. Primate Factsheets: Squirrel monkey (Saimiri) Taxonomy, Morphology, & Ecology . <http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/squirrel_monkey>. Accessed 2020 July 6.
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Learn how to run
Mastering the skill of running requires great skill, strength and sensory feedback.
Perfecting and practicing dynamic squats and jumps will help master the correct posture and rhythm and stand you in good stead for injury-free, natural movement.
As your skill develops and becomes a more 'subconscious' activity your technique should become increasingly relaxed.
If you've completed the previous stages properly, you shouldn't encounter any problems as you move to barefoot running. However, it is still a new way of moving so do take things slowly; if you're accustomed to running five miles in regular trainers, don't expect to be able to run the same distance straight away with bare feet or in VIVOBAREFOT shoes.
Engage the Great Toe and reconnect your brain with the ground: a simple, static, yet fundamental skill.
An easy transition exercise for building up your strength and 'running equipment' on a daily basis.
Perfect your posture, balance and increase strength & flexibility in your ankles, knees, hips and spine.
Get in tune with your nature rhythm (180bpm) whilst increasing dynamic strength & elasticity.
Your posture is absolutely the most important thing when you run barefoot. As you run, keep your head and chest upright and relax as much as possible; the whole of your upper body should remain stable but un-tensed. Focus on landing on the ball of your foot. You probably won't be landing on your heels (your brain and feet don't like it), but you still need to avoid landing on the sides of your feet or too close to your toes.
If you're struggling, think back to the connection you made with the balls of your feet as you learned to walk, squat and jump barefoot. When your running posture is correct, your feet should feel like they are landing directly underneath your body as opposed to out in front.
- Torso leads and don't look down
- Feet under your body, not in front
- Land on the ball of your foot
To reach the correct cadence for a bouncy rhythm, your feet will probably have to touch the ground more often than you're used to. However, because you don't necessarily want to run faster, this means you'll need to take shorter strides. It might take a few weeks to get to this stage, but you eventually want to run at 180 bpm.
- Short strides
- Elbows match stride rate
- Bouncy rhythm (180 strides per minute)
Most of your body should stay relaxed most of the time when you run. A relaxed body is more rhythmic and uses a lot less energy as it runs. Listen to the sound of your feet as they make contact with the ground. Quiet feet are relaxed feet! If you're finding it difficult to un-tense, focus on specific parts of your body at a time (your hands are a good start). Contract the muscles for five seconds then completely let them go. This contract-relax technique is an excellent way to build awareness of the difference between relaxed and tensed muscles.
- Quiet and relaxed striking
- Relaxed wrists and hands, feet and ankles
- Focus on relaxing specific body parts

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), in a multi-institutional collaboration with Boston Children's Hospital, the Broad Institute, and the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, have identified that a genetic mutation leads to a type of premature puberty, known as central precocious puberty. Central precocious puberty is defined by the development of secondary sexual characteristics before eight years in girls and nine years in boys.
The study appears online June 5, 2013 in The New England Journal of Medicine. The results will also be presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting & Expo in San Francisco on June 17, 2013.
"These findings will open the door for a new understanding of what controls the timing of puberty," said Ursula Kaiser, MD, chief of the BWH Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, co-senior study author. "It also will allow doctors to diagnose the cause of precocious puberty in a subset of patients, or to identify patients at risk for developing precocious puberty, especially if others in their family are affected. By better understanding the role of this gene in the timing of puberty, we may be able to gain insights into how other factors, such as environmental factors, may influence pubertal timing."
The researchers performed whole exome sequencing analysis of forty individuals from fifteen families with central precocious puberty. In five of the fifteen families, the researchers identified four mutations in the MKRN3 gene. The MKRN3 gene is responsible for coding a protein called makorin ring finger protein 3, which is thought to help tag other proteins for degradation. The genetic mutations resulted in truncated MKRN3 proteins and disruption of MKRN3 protein function. A mutation in the MKRN3 gene can lead to premature activation of reproductive hormones in the body, thereby initiating early puberty.
The researchers also found that all affected individuals inherited the mutations from their fathers. Moreover, the MKRN3 gene is located on the same chromosome as genes for Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare condition that results in short stature, incomplete sexual development, cognitive disabilities, insatiable appetite and severe obesity, among other abnormalities; although, despite being on the same chromosome, MKRN3 is not thought to contribute to the clinical features of Prader-Willi syndrome.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (1F05HD072773-01, 1K23HD073351, U54HD28138, R21HD066495), CAPES 3806-11-1, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Brazil), and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo.
Brigham and Women's Hospital


text:
TouchMyApps is giving away copies of Coladia's bestselling and popular point and click adventure games on the iPad. They include Destination: Treasure Island HD, Secrets of Da Vinci HD and Secret of the Lost Cavern HD. Each adventure comes with hours of gameplay, great visuals, a unique storyline and plenty of puzzles to solve. Simply put, if you're a fan of adventure games, especially of the point & click variety, this is one giveaway you don't want to miss. We'll be picking 5 winners in total, and each will receive a copy of all three titles*. Full contest details can be found within.
Coladia, Secrets of Da Vinci HD, 867 MB – $4.99
Coladia, Secret of the Lost Cavern HD, 529 MB – $4.99
Coladia, Destination: Treasure Island HD, 599 MB – $4.99


text: Home > Help Center > Others Others Request Technical Support What is the Parts Question Guide and how do I use it? How can I get additional technical support from you if I still have a question? Are These Genuine? Are these genuine OEM Ford parts and accessories? Why buy OEM parts?


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Why Customers Want Your Infrastructure in the Cloud
Cost-cutting and security concerns traditionally play the big roles in a bank's decision whether or not to move infrastructure to the cloud. But as customer experience increasingly is what differentiates between winners and losers in the industry, it may come to overshadow those other factors in cloud adoption. Customer expectations are changing rapidly with the rise of digital channels, and the agility and speed to market that the cloud enables offer banks a path to keep up with those expectations.
"Your technology infrastructure needs to reflect your company's commitment to agility and responsiveness in the marketplace," TJ Keitt, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, said at the recent Forrester Forum for Customer Experience Professionals in New York.
Forrester's most recent survey of cross-industry IT decision-makers found that operational and market agility was the most popular reason for using SaaS applications, cited by 75% of the survey respondents. Business executives need to understand the relationship between business transformation and the technology that supports it, Keitt advised, noting that transformation just isn't possible with legacy systems and old networks because of the difficulties in integrating them with new technologies.
[For more on IT infrastrucutre and customer experience in banking, check out: Core Systems: The Foundation of Customer Experience.]
As banks look to transform to a customer-centric business model, they are going to have to wrestle with this challenge and will find that their current infrastructures are inadequate for the task, says Paul Schaus, president and founder of CCG Catalyst, a consultancy. To be truly customer-centric and deliver the experiences that customers desire, banks need to "focus first on who their customers are, and then buy the infrastructure they need to serve them," Schaus suggests.
The lower cost of cloud applications and platforms will enable banks to buy that infrastructure, and the agility of those applications and platforms will allow banks to tailor experiences to specific customer segments and offer them differentiated experiences, Schaus says.
"Banks will need to cater to specific segments. Potential clients are doing their research online, and if you're a jack-of-all-trades, then you aren't serving the niche that they're looking for. The cloud will deliver the tools to be highly focused on specific markets."
Agility = Freedom
The cloud's agility creates new freedom for employees and customers -- freedom to access and use data, to interact with more people and to be where they can be most effective, according to Forrester's Keitt. In his presentation he offered several examples from various industries of how these freedoms have helped companies improve their customer experience.
For instance, Whirlpool, the home appliance manufacturer, used cloud-based Google Apps and APIs to stream all customer complaints on social media into one platform where customer service can quickly respond. SafeGuard, a payroll processor, used IBM's cloud-based SmartCloud for Social Business to aid with implementations for new client companies, allowing them to check in on the progress of implementation and ensure a seamless transition to the new payroll system. And Nationwide Insurance leveraged Yammer, a cloud-based enterprise social network, to connect call center staff to senior executives to improve the call center experience. Employees could submit a problem through Yammer, and the company's executives promised to address each issue within a specific time frame by changing a policy or creating a new program.
To fully enable these freedoms is not as easy as simply purchasing new cloud applications and platforms, Keitt reminded the audience. "This is where journey mapping and ecosystem mapping come into play. You need to be able to show the exact point where the customer experience breaks down because information wasn't available or there was some kind of breakdown in delivery."
Building a business case with specific metrics is also a must, according to Keitt. Restaurant chain Red Robin used Yammer in a similar manner to Nationwide Insurance, deploying iPads to servers and managers in restaurant locations so they can communicate problems back to the head office. In an industry where employee turnover is very high, the initiative helped the chain reduce employee attrition by 9%, Keitt told the audience.
Regulatory barriers
Banks face additional challenges to creating these freedoms through the cloud's agility, Keitt said via email after his presentation. Regulatory and security concerns will likely make banks balk at granting such freedom of information throughout their organizations and partner ecosystems, he reasons:
The regulatory environment that banks inhabit puts particular emphasis on the security of client information. So IT organizations and business units are typically run by people who hesitate to relinquish control of client data to third parties... A bank can decide to use a cloud service to expose data, but if the organization still demands information silos, the solution will not live up to its potential.
This risk environment will force banks to do the best they can within the restrictions they have to work with, he adds. "Banking regulations necessarily restrict the freedom [that the cloud enables]. So what a bank must design for is limited freedom -- allowing information to flow more easily and interactions to happen more seamlessly where the law allows."
Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio


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Salvatore Falabella opened the first large tailor shop in Chile in 1889, with incorporation of home products and the evolution as a department store occurring in 1958. Since then, Falabella has become a retail industry leader, gone public on the Chilean stock exchange, purchased Home Depot in Chile and merged with Sodimac. Headquartered in Santiago, Falabella is now diversified within several industries, including retail, home improvement, financial, real estate and travel, with operations in Chile, Peru, Argentina and Colombia.
Pro QC has partnered with Falabella since July of 2008, primarily providing product inspections of hard goods such as furniture (futon beds, leather sofas, metal chairs, tempered glass, etc.). Inspections for Falabella are conducted throughout Malaysia and China.
Mr. Bob Chen, Hard Goods, Merchandise and QC Manager at Falabella's Shanghai office, provided us with some personal insight into the Pro QC partnership. He advised that "as part of the commitment to build up a universal standard of quality control, we decided to partner with Pro QC to apply comprehensive inspections on all shipments from the Asia Pacific region. The goal is to achieve a higher level of customer satisfaction, which is always our mission."
When asked what separates Pro QC from other providers, Mr. Chen added that "Pro QC's inspection reports include more specific details, which makes it easier for us to understand and track the inspection process and results. Through the inspection activities, we see extensive information about the suppliers, such as warehouse management, production scales, manpower, etc. We also acquire advice from Pro QC regarding solutions to improve product quality and delivery schedule."
At Pro QC, we truly enjoy being a part of our client's quality assurance initiatives and get satisfaction in knowing that we play an important role within their supply chain.
For more information regarding Falabella, visit their website at www.falabella.com. For more information regarding Pro QC's suite of third-party quality services, visit www.proqc.com or contact an account manager directly.


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Selling your very first Freeview set-top-box in 2012 is the move of either a company that knows what it's doing, or the move of a company so adept at missing the boat that it has evolved into a fish to avoid further boat-missing agony.
The Pure Avalon 300R is, indeed, Pure's first crack of the Freeview box whip. Before, the company just did digital radios, and it did them well, but now it wants to bring its expertise, the expertise of its parent company and access to its online music services into one box.
None of that affects us, the normal person on the street. What we want is a box that records things, and that doesn't make us scream with rage when it forgets to record Peppa Pig.
You can see the radio influence
The Avalon looks different enough to be a nice change from the usual black box in your living room. It's still a black box mind you, but it's shorter than usual, and it looks great. The Pure logo is massive, but that puts us in mind of the transformation in car badges from a few years ago, sparked by VW and it's HUGE logo on the back of the Golf. It looked daft at the time, but now it's standard. If you don't like it, then chuck the box somewhere behind a screen, but the overall petite dimensions more than make up for it.
Around the back, there are four HDMI sockets, these are used to connect existing hardware you might have, to enable the Pure to act as a sort of "switch". There's a fifth HDMI, which is the output to your TV too.
There are stereo RCA jacks for audio, along with digital audio connectors - both coaxial and optical - which allow you to get audio to an external amp, or surround sound system. The number of connectors here is a great thing to see, and very typical of an audio brand.
One other point of interest is the external power supply. This means the PVR runs from a 12v transformer, which is external. Some might see this as a hassle, but actually, from a heat point of view, it means a lot of the extra warmth is already outside the chassis. If you've read our review of the YouView box, you'll know we had a huge problem with the amount of noise it made. Here, there is a fan, but we couldn't hear it in an environment identical to the one we tested the YouView box in.
Freeview HD
Freeview isn't the most exciting service. It's still too full of dull and annoying shopping channels and the dumping ground for shows that Sky has had its full of showing 900 times a week for a million weeks.
That said, BBC One, BBC HD - soon to be BBC Two HD - ITV1 HD and 4HD all make it worthwhile. We'd love to see more HD on Freeview, and we're pretty sure it's coming, but there will need to be another rearrangement for that to happen. Right now, with money being tight in broadcasting and idiots being happy to keep shopping channels in business, we're sort of stuck with what we've got.
We have to say though, when it comes to picture quality, we have nothing but praise for the Pure. HD channels look terrific, and SD upscaling within the box is pretty decent too, it's certainly not noticeably worse than the scaler in our high-end TV. This means that even older shows, or those on non-HD channels should look pretty good. Although the low-bitrate of Freeview will seek to confound that.
One of the unique selling points of the Avalon is the graphics hardware. There's a story here that comes from Pure's parent company, which owns patents and such on a number of technologies that give Pure access to some pretty powerful hardware. In short, it's Imagination Technologies showing off, but it all looks so lovely we welcome its posturing.
The gloss is visible everywhere. The EPG has semi-transparent effects, and moving around the menus comes with the sort of slick, fluid effects that you'd expect from a PC, rather than a set-top box. But then, this box costs nearly as much as a laptop, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised. Our only complaint here, is that there's not much visible on the EPG at any one time. It's a reasonably small page, with lots of extra clutter. This doesn't bother us, but some people will hate it.
As part of this, you get a lot of picture-in-picture too, which is nice when you're in the EPG or menus. But there's also the option to preview another channel while you're watching something. To do this, you bring up the EPG search and scan bar, press an arrow key, and up pops the preview. It's stunning actually, and while it's of limited use, it's a nice showcase for how well designed the pure is, and how powerful the box is.
As much of the Avalon's skill lies in its internet connectivity, it's good to see that the box includes built-in Wi-Fi. Although to some, the initial cost of the box will be off-putting, it scores over YouView in that it has wireless out of the box. For us, this has more value than a large hard drive to some extent, because it makes the box more portable and more flexible.
And what's more, Pure hasn't just gone for some rancid and cheap wireless card, no, the Avalon has a 5GHz capable MIMO system. Technically, this means that the box can use the far less crowded, shorter range, 5GHz band. Of course, if your router doesn't support it, 2.4GHz is supported too, but it's a much more congested bit of spectrum. In our tests, the wireless was flawless. We even streamed 1080p video from our Plex server through to the Avalon. And it looked stunning.
On demand
One of the few areas where we're not entirely impressed with the Avalon is in catch-up TV. It's not that there's anything at all wrong with what it does offer, but the selection is very limited.
Out of the box you get iPlayer and YouTube, and that's your lot. We've had a chat with Pure about the system, and we're told that it uses the HTML 5 players for both. That could mean that the firm is waiting on similar support from other broadcasters before rolling out their catch-up players on to the service. If so, the wait could be long.
However, iPlayer works well, as it has to be said, it usually does on third-party players. The real star here seems to be the Pure, and how quick it seems to handle network based things. This has impressed us a great deal, as we're using it on Wi-Fi.
Streaming media
Here's where the Pure smacked us in the mouth properly: with it's media playback support via DLNA, and even from USB. Although we knew the machine would have some support for this kind of thing, at the launch event, it wasn't clear what codec support we might expect. As it turns out, the codec support is impressive. There's HD video in MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 transport streams as well as support for the brilliant MKV container - which allows subtitles and chapters to be embedded into the file.
We mostly found ourselves using DLNA though, and there's a good reason for that - DLNA devices are becoming ubiquitous. Your phone is probably a DLNA device, your computer certainly is, and it's possible that your tablet is too. Put simply, if you have media on something, DLNA can help you get it onto another device very easily.
We're big Plex fans anyway. If you haven't used it, Plex is a program that runs on your computer, looks for media files like music, pictures and videos. It scans your libraries, works out what the files are, then builds a database around them. This means movies and TV shows can be presented in a logical manner, with no fussy filenames and can be played as easily as if they were just airing on the TV. Plex is very good, but the Pure seems to help things along with its rather brilliant networking. There are still some minor browsing frustrations, but overall, the way the box works is inspiring.
Consider that a separate DLNA player might cost a few hundred quid, this might not sell you the Pure, but it's another feather in its cap.
Aside from the DLNA aspects, there's also a range of services from Pure Connect. These are a managed set of audio services, including Pure's own subscription music system, live radio from all over the planet, and BBC on-demand radio, and a variety of other podcasts.
Pure sees it's music services as key to what Avalon does. If you're someone who lives in the Pure universe, then this will be true. Its digital radios are already great for this sort of thing, so by buying Avalon you'll be getting into a familiar ecosystem that you'll already be happy with.
HDMI switch
We have some mixed feelings about the HDMI switch. For some, it will be brilliant and very useful, especially if you don't have a surround sound set-up of any kind, or you're using a limited 2.1 system with just a few inputs, and perhaps no HDMI sockets.
For those of us with home cinema systems though, the HDMI switch is less useful. There's some value to it, especially for those with so much equipment they've run out of sockets on their AV receiver, but it's a far less likely scenario.
The implementation is nice though. Simply switch to the HDMI menu, press okay and you'll see the list. You are able to rename them to suit you too, so it's all nice and clear. Arguably more so than it would be on a little home cinema system, and especially the dumb switch that you might be using if your TV was short of HDMI sockets.
The Peppa Pig factor
Here's a real problem that affects mummies and daddies the country over. Peppa Pig. If you've ever tried to record it on Channel 5 for your little one to enjoy when they awake from their graceful slumber then you'll know it's not that easy. Freeview boxes, Sky+HD, freesat+ and freesat freetime boxes all fail dismally, with recordings either starting too early, too late or cutting off too early. SkyHD was usually the best, getting it just about right.
Until now. Because in our test, the box recorded Peppa Pig perfectly, with the start of the recording happening at exactly the start of the programme. This is great news, and should keep the little-linters in our midst very happy.
It's an interesting point in general though, because programme record accuracy is usually governed by something called, predictably, "accurate recording" which is a set of flags which are sent by the broadcaster to keep shows recording without problem. Channel 5 has a long-held reputation for not handling these properly, so we have no idea how the Pure manages to record properly.
Years of disappointment in Freeview boxes is finally over, it seems. The Avalon is arguably a replacement for lots of other equipment in your home cinema. The HDMI switch means it can act as a central piece of hardware to manage things like your PS3 and other HD hardware.
Meanwhile it's also a brilliant Freeview HD recorder, with great menus and potentially unlimited access to internet TV content. This starts with iPlayer, but could build to include other players too, which would be amazing. If Pure got Netflix and Lovefilm on here, then it would go from being really good, to being nearly perfect.
But for now, the lack of 4oD, Demand 5 and ITV Player is a big disappointment. Perhaps not enough to temper our love for a really lovely machine, but certainly one that will make you consider YouView. That's a shame though, because in terms of pure potential, the Pure has it in spades and is the more useful, modern and media savvy box of the two.


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I read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment when I was in the ninth grade, and I loved it. Heaven knows what I understood of it. Generations later, I have tried to read again all those novels that I devoured then – Karamazov, Demons, Idiots – and I could get nowhere. I found Dostoyevsky's style repellant and impenetrable, with the exception of Notes from Underground, which has always been a favorite. Maybe it was the translation.
I am more than half through the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of this novel, and I am amazed at the novelty of the book, its outrageous inventiveness. The phrase I find myself coming back to is avant garde. It seems so, even now, after 140 years – fresh, challenging, bizarre, and direct. Compared to this, Dostoyevksy's contemporary 'realists' such as Dickens (whom he loved), Turgenev (whom he loathed) and Flaubert (I don't know what opinions of each other they entertained, but Flaubert and Turgenev were fast friends) seem almost pedestrian. The point of view shifts, the mood varies wildly, the characters often seem to speak to the reader directly, and there is no sense of a cool, omniscient consciousness directing the action. More like real life?
The novel observes a lot of the conventions of 19th century realism: the place and person names obscured with a hyphen as if to protect the identities of the real people; the fully realized portraits of the city, its classes, and the grit of everyday life – but it seems profoundly stagey, literally as if a play, not a novel, which makes it seem unrealistic at the same time. Characters enter, declaim, moan, howl, rave, and exit. So much of the action takes place in crowded rooms. People are forever making decisions, talking, arguing, and falling into reverie on stairs, going up and going down.
Unusual also is the recounting of dreams: they are utterly credible, in a way that I associate with writing of the 20th century only. Earlier writers tend towards romantic notions of what the dormant mind produces – Raskolnikov's are completely believable, especially the first in which he imagines following a man, a man who knows his crime, a man who stops, turns, and waves to him from across the street, saying nothing.
Finally, Dostoyevsky gets the jump on all the existentialist notions that would become trite in generations to come. Listen to this deliciously funny, dark, exchange as Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov discuss the afterlife and eternity:
"We keep imagining eternity as an idea that cannot be grasped, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, imagine suddenly that there will be one little room there, something like a village bathhouse, covered with soot, with spiders in all the corners, and that's the whole of eternity. I sometimes fancy something of the sort."
"But surely, surely you can imagine something more just and comforting than that!" Raskolnikov cried out with painful feeling.
"More just? Who knows, perhaps that is just- and, you know, if I had my way, it's certainly how I would do it!" Svidrigailov answered, smiling vaguely.
How many episodes of the Twilight Zone, how many adolescent rock lyrics, what pile of scripts and plays start with notions like this?
With the climate of political extremism being what it is these days, I think I just might get myself a copy of The Demons next.


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50 Cent Not Interested In Working With Mase No More! + Says Kanye West Jacked Mase's Style
Gina Torres interview with 50 Cent
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There are 100s of undiscovered gems in the Chicago area. This is one of them. Serving gourmet-style food at affordable, neighborhood prices, LaBella Pasteria is a more than a step above the ubiquitous Italian restaurants that dot the Chicago restaurantscape.
LaBella has been in Oak Park for many years, but new owners Dave and Ann Schultz took over the restaurant in March, and immediately began making improvements, creating an outside patio area and adding fresh pastas, vegetables, and fish to the menu. As Schultz says, "Italy is surrounded by water – fish is an important part of the cuisine!"
Fabulous aromas struck us as we walked through the door. Clearly, the restaurant was a neighborhood favorite; people were stopping and greeting one another on their way to their own tables. We were welcomed immediately and ushered quickly to our table in the intimate dining room, and brought a basket of warm, chewy Italian bread.
As he handed us our menus, Schultz explained that he was a cocktail lover and had spent time perfecting and tweaking the vintage cocktails of the 30s and 40s. I love a good cocktail too so I ordered one of Dave's specialties, a Grapefruit Highball – which turned out to be a great way to start the meal.
Our first course was a Layered Eggplant Salad, one of the specials that our incredibly knowledgeable waiter, Gui, recommended. The salad was a surprising a mix of hot and cold - lightly breaded warm eggplant with fresh tomato, mozzarella and roast red pepper. My dining partner, who is not an eggplant fan was crazy about this dish. We both loved the surprising sweetness of the eggplant and the subtle tang of balsamic on the arugula.
After that, we tucked into the Toasted Ravioli and the LaBella Four Cheese Appetizer Pizza. Served with the tasty house red sauce, the meat and vegetable ravioli were light and flavorful. The pizza was also a hit, its flaky crust topped with quality gouda, romano, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses.
Then we turned to the pastas, which the owners procure from a variety of independent small batch pasta makers. The choices for pastas were overwhelming, including a variety of fresh vegetable raviolis and gnocchis. We finally settled on two. I ordered a Sweet Pea Ravioli that arrived perfectly cooked, bursting with fresh peas and nicely coated with a very light Alfredo sauce, not the cloyingly heavy white sauce that has become ubiquitous in many "Italian-style" restaurants. My dining companion ordered the Eight Finger Cavatelli. Gui told us the story behind the strange name: traditionally, cavatelli is made by rolling the pasta dough into strands with one hand. These cavatelli are so thick that it's said that the only way to make them is to use two hands. These dense and delicious cavatelli arrived coated in an excellent, slightly spicy cheese and vodka sauce.
For our main course, we split the Blackened Pork Chops. The meat itself was excellent, perfectly cooked and coated in a extremely flavorful - not just hot - Cajun spice mix. And it arrived atop the best garlic spinach I have ever put in my mouth.
The entrée also comes with a side dish of broccoli and one of Gnocchi with Gorganzola, served in a wonderful garlicky butter sauce. Both side dishes were so good and so filling that they could have been main courses on their own. (At home the next night, I tossed the left-over broccoli with some pasta – fantastic!)
There is a very nice and affordable selection of beers and wines offered. The wine list tends to lean toward upscale California wines, and the Cline Zinfandel Dave recommended to compliment the Blackened Pork Chop was out of this world.
I usually find it easy to bypass desserts at Italian restaurants but I'm telling you: SAVE ROOM for these desserts!
The Tiramisu, that most ubiquitous of Italian desserts, was wonderful: delicate, delicious with just the right hint of liqueur. There was a Flourless Chocolate Cake that was terrific, creamy and rich. And my dining companion ate all the Spumoni ice cream before I could get near the dish, so I'm assuming that was good too.
But the star of the evening, for me, was the Pinot Grigio Bundt Cake. This light, flavorful cake took my breath away. All the cakes are made and delivered to the restaurant by local baker Wendy Routley Pelletiere. Ms. Pelletiere – please add me to your fan club.
The room is small and cozy and the tables are close to one another but the noise level never became overwhelming. We chatted with our neighbors occasionally, a family of four whose young daughter was clearly enjoying her food and the special nonalcoholic cocktail Dave had made for her, but we didn't feel crowded in any way.
Ann says that Dave's love of cocktailing and food was what led them to the restaurant. Not only do Dave and Ann work at the restaurant, their son Sam, still in high school, is being brought up in the business. Working as a busboy, Sam was all smiles as he went about his work, happily bantering with the customers and waiters.
When they took over in March, the Schultzes brought in the excellent chef Ramon Del Rio to run the kitchen. Keeping a great selection of old recipes from the original La Bella, they added new contemporary Italian dishes to the mix.
Schultz says he feels phenomenally lucky. "There's such amazing talent here," says Schultz, "from the chefs in the kitchen to the local pasta makers and bakers."
Much of the original staff remains, and Dave cannot say enough about how much he values their experience and their support.
"This has been a very special experience," Schultz says, "with an incredibly supportive staff."
"And an incredibly supportive community," he adds. "Oak Park has really embraced us."
WHAT: LaBella Pasteria
WHERE: 1103 South Boulevard Oak Park, IL 60302
DON'T MISS: Cocktails, Layered Eggplant Salad, Fresh Vegetable Gnocchi, Blackened Pork Chop, Pino Grigio Bundt Cake
Some of the information at www.labellapasteria.com is out of date but should be updated shortly.


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EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - DECEMBER 07: Donovan McNabb #5 of the Philadelphia Eagles with Brian Westbrook #36 after Westbrook's second touchdown against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium on December 7, 2008 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – On Wednesday, Philadelphia Magazine posted an interview with Donovan McNabb, who reflected on his career in Philadelphia and had some controversial things to say … for a change.
On the Audio Roadshow app, the WIP Morning Show asked, "How do you feel about Donovan McNabb," with two simple options, like or dislike. A whopping 81-percent said dislike.
The Mike and Ike Show asked, "Do you even care what Donovan McNabb says anymore?" An overwhelming 94-percent of fans said no.
Click here to see the full results and to download the Audio Roadshow app.


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I recently spoke with Theo Schlossnagle, CEO of OmniTI regarding the announcement of Reconnoiter, software that provides web infrastructure management and trending analysis, as well as the management and deployment of software to literally thousands of servers. The goal is for you to achieve zero downtime in terms of your web applications and their infrastructure.
Prior to conceiving Reconnoiter, Schlossnagle worked with other web management tools (Nagios, for instance) where he noted that many of the tools didn't scale well, work well in heterogeneous environments, or offer features such as capacity planning or trend analysis. With this in mind, Reconnoiter was designed and built to work with existing web infrastructure, regardless of deployed hardware, OS platforms, network equipment, and application programming languages. The goal was to make the management appear homogenous in heterogeneous environments. As a result, you can use Reconnoiter in your existing web infrastructure without changing a thing.
Reconnoiter is an open-source project, mostly written in C with Lua used in certain places for ease of extensibility, and the PostgreSQL database for long-term data storage. It also includes a Java portion that uses a JMS provider or enterprise service bus (ESB) such as ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ, as well as Esper for real-time data analysis.
To enable Reconnoiter, you define targets, which may be application servers, web servers, database servers, even network equipment. In fact, all devices on your network are considered targets, each of which have defined metrics that can be collected and recorded by Reconnoiter. For instance, network switches have metrics such as port usage or overall traffic, while servers have metrics such as disk usage, CPU usage, memory usage, and so on. A Reconnoiter Service is defined as a target and its set of metrics. As a result of this architecture, and by decoupling data collection from the analysis and reporting, fault detection, and capacity planning, Reconnoiter scales to hundreds of thousands of services.
To use Reconnoiter, you deploy one monitoring agent per data center, cabinet row, or group of servers, depending upon the number of services defined. Dynamic monitoring is performed over a wide variety of protocols such as SNMP, HTTP, REST, SSH, XProc, and so on. Reconnoiter also runs on a wide array of platforms such as BSD Unix variants, OpenBSD, Solaris/OpenSolaris, Linux, and Mac OS X.
As for commercial deployment, OmniTI currently has six early-adopter customers, each managing around 10,000 different metrics across five data centers.


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Don't worry, 2017 Mitu's are excellent and have heard of 0 breakage till now. 2018 are supposed to be stronger and lighter. Avoid 2016 and especially 2015.
Definetly 5'10''baxterbradford wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2017 1:27 pmThanks again for this information. Very helpful indeed & makes perfect sense that Mitu is of most use to the majority. I'm doing neither of the things the Slice & Signature offer, so seems that Mitu is the way ahead. Given I have a 5'8" Axis New Wave which eats up the chop where I sail, I'm wondering if going up to the 5'10" might make sense given I'm 125kg. That said, the Axis is fine except if <12kts. Hopefully a go on my friend's board will clear this one up. A niggle I have with 2018 Mitu is regarding aesthetics, the colour of the yellow is causing me some confusion; on the F-One website it looks a rather nasty greeny/mustardy yellow (standard construction), yet photos of the board and some video show it being rather cleaner looking, like that canary yellow in the photos of the Slice.


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Unveiled: Porsche Panamera Platinum Edition V-6 Starts at $81,475
To make sure Porsche Panamera V-6 buyers know they are not forgotten, the automaker has shown off a new Platinum Edition package full of equipment and aesthetic accoutrements for the Panamera and Panamera 4 hatchbacks.
Wish your 2013 Porsche Panamera was more distinctive but don't want to pony up the mounds of cash needed for the various Porsche Exclusive options? The German automaker may have the solution for you - the new Platinum Edition package available for 2013 Panamera and Panamera 4 models.
The Platinum Edition is purely a cosmetic and equipment upgrade for the Panamera - the same 300-hp, 295-lb-ft, 3.6-liter V-6 and seven-speed PDK dual clutch gearbox are found under the hood. Lucky for customers in the snow belt, the new special edition will be available in both rear-drive Panamera and all-wheel-drive Panamera 4 variants.
Outside, there are five unique color choices for the Platinum Edition: black, white, basalt black metallic, carbon grey metallic, and mahogany metallic (pictured here); no matter the color, all Platinum Edition models gain high-gloss black trim around the greenhouse and front air intakes, side air outlets, mirror base covers, and rear diffuser all painted in platinum silver. The cabin comes in just one color combination - black and luxor beige - with a full-leather interior an optional extra. (A partial-leather cabin is standard.)
Porsche has also equipped the Panamera Platinum Edition with a raft of goodies as standard. Visible to onlookers are the 19-inch Panamera Turbo alloy wheels with full-color Porsche crests on the center caps, and dynamic bi-xenon headlights. Passengers are treated to the Porsche Communication Management system with a seven-inch TFT touch screen and navigation, heated front and rear seats, and a 585-watt Bose audio system. Drivers enjoy speed-sensitive Power Steering Plus, which is also standard on the Platinum Edition.
Sales of the 2013 Panamera Platinum Edition begin on January 5, 2013 with pricing starting at $81,475 for the Panamera Platinum Edition and $85,575 for the Panamera 4 Platinum Edition. That represents an increase of $4700 and $4150 over the regular Panamera and Panamera 4, respectively. (All prices include destination.)
Source: Porsche


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As noted by MacRumors, Apple has filed a form 8-K with the SEC to announce this week's changes to Apple's executive board. Notably, Apple has awarded 1,000,000 stock shares to new CEO Tim Cook.
In connection with Mr. Cook's appointment as Chief Executive Officer, the Board awarded Mr. Cook 1,000,000 restricted stock units. Fifty percent of the restricted stock units are scheduled to vest on each of August 24, 2016 and August 24, 2021, subject to Mr. Cook's continued employment with Apple through each such date.
That comes out to around $383M at the current stock price.
*thanks 9to5mac*
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Mixing Managed and Unmanaged Code in Your Windows Mobile Applications
What Is This Article All About?
The Compact Framework has become rich and powerful enough to be used in a wide range of programming tasks on the Windows Mobile platform. You can achieve most things you normally implemented in C++ before. Besides, there is a lot of legacy code you might have to interface with. In either case, you need to use unmanaged code at some point. This article illustrates some common recipes that help you make this process easier. You can find lots of samples on the web.
A few common tasks you usually want to perform are:
- Declare an unmanaged function or data type (you can add here COM interfaces too) in managed code
- Pass parameters from managed code to a declared function
- Retrieve data back from unmanaged code
Simple Data Types and Method Declarations
The very first thing you will write is a declaration of a function from the unmanaged DLL you want to call in your own program. CF.NET has PInvoke mechanism and provides a System.Runtime.InteropServices namespace that contains of a number of classes to help you make such declarations easier. Depending on the programming language you work with, you might write something like this:
' VB.NET Private Declare Function GetModuleFileName Lib "coredll" _ Alias "GetModuleFileNameW" _ (ByVal hModule As IntPtr, _ <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)> _ ByVal lpFileName As String, ByVal nSize As UInteger) As UInteger
// C# [DllImport("coredll.dll", EntryPoint = "GetModuleFileNameW", _ SetLastError = true)] private static extern uint GetModuleFileName(IntPtr hModule, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string lpFileName, uint nSize);
Each declaration is used to call a Win32 API:
DWORD GetModuleFileName(HANDLE hModule, LPTSTR lpszFileName, _ DWORD dwSize);
So, in this simple case you call it, for example in C#, as:
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { string path = new string((char)0x20,255); GetModuleFileName((IntPtr)null, path, (uint)path.Length); int slash = path.LastIndexOf('\'); if (slash > -1) path = path.Remove(slash, path.Length - slash); textBox1.Text = path; }
The VB sample is a carbon copy of the snippet above:
Private Sub button1_Click_1(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles button1.Click Dim path As String = New String(Chr(&H20), 255) GetModuleFileName(0, path, path.Length) Dim slash As Integer = path.LastIndexOf("") If slash > -1 Then path = path.Remove(slash, path.Length - slash) End If textBox1.Text = path End Sub
This is pretty simple, isn't it? All you need to keep in mind is to match unmanaged function signature. In case you were mistaken, you will get a 'NotSupported' exception. The same is true when you declare function parameters or return code that is not supported by the CF.NET framework; for example, trying to pass a string by reference (which might be something like LPWSTR* in unmanaged code). Usually MSDN provides much more information about data types and how to bounce parameters back and forth, so I don't dwell on this too long.
Manual Parameters Marshalling
Although CF.NET takes care about suitable marshalling automatically when you pass simple types or even structures without reference types, there are cases where it is just not enough. For more complex cases, you will be required to do it manually. As you may guess, the Marshall class provides all the means for effective interactions between managed and unmanaged memory. Prior to CF.NET 2.0, with the lack of COM Interop support and many other things, Marshall had about a dozen methods for reading from and writing to unmanaged memory space as well as few informational functions. CF.NET 2.0 and 3.X extend it towards its desktop counterpart. Now, you have a powerful mechanism to utilize.
The obvious practical task you might face is when an unmanaged component has to allocate memory and return it to a managed party. Consider a slightly out-of-date example; nevertheless, it is quite a good illustration for the technique I'm going to discuss here. Until version 2.0, the Compact Framework had no support for the Pocket Outlook Object Model (POOM). Thus, if you needed, for instance, to enumerate an email account on a PDA with VS2003, C# or VB.NET code had to call to native C++ wrappers to implement a functionality that takes only a dozen lines of code in the recent CF.NET 2.0. Anyway, take a look at one possible solution. I will base it on the code from one of my previous articles; it deals with CEMAPI. What you are trying to achieve is really simple: Query all defined email accounts on a Pocket PC device and show them in a ListBox control. Your C++ wrapper will do the job for the C# component and return requested data in the buffer it allocates in unmanaged space. You will use IntPtr as a parameter type; iy is suitable for many other cases as well. Your steps might be as follows:
- Pass the IntPtr parameter by reference; in other words, it will be pointer to pointer in C++.
- Do all required steps in unmanaged C++ DLL, allocate the appropriate memory, and fill it in.
- In managed C# code, iterate through returned data.
- Release previously allocated memory.
Start with the C++ part. You define your method as the following:
EXTERN_C int __stdcall GetEMailAccounts(int* nCount, TCHAR** ppAccounts) { CMAPISession session; HRESULT hr = 0; // Log on to PocketOutlook if ( !session.Logon() ) { *nCount = 0; return 0; } CStringArray saAccounts; if ( SUCCEEDED(hr = session.EnumStores(saAccounts)) ) { *nCount = saAccounts.GetSize(); if ( *nCount ) { *ppAccounts = (TCHAR*)CoTaskMemAlloc((*nCount)*sizeof_ (TCHAR)*MAX_PATH); memset(*ppAccounts,0,(*nCount)*sizeof(TCHAR)*MAX_PATH); TCHAR *pStr = *ppAccounts; int nStrLen = 0; ULONG ulMemSize = 0; for (int i = 0; i < *nCount; i++) { _tcscpy(pStr,saAccounts[i]); nStrLen = saAccounts[i].GetLength() + 1; pStr += nStrLen; ulMemSize += nStrLen * sizeof(TCHAR); } *ppAccounts = (TCHAR*)CoTaskMemRealloc(*ppAccounts,ulMemSize); return *nCount; } else { return 0; } } else { return 0; } }In this code snippet, you enumerate existing accounts, allocate memory for maximum capacity, and fill in the information. At the end, the code reallocates the buffer to its real size. Now, see how this function is called from C#:
[DllImport("Sample.dll", EntryPoint = "GetEMailAccounts", _ SetLastError = true)] private static extern int GetEMailAccounts(ref int cCount, _ ref IntPtr accounts); ... IntPtr ptr = IntPtr.Zero; int nCount = 0; int rc = GetEMailAccounts(ref nCount, ref ptr); IntPtr ptrAccounts = ptr; int i = 0; do { string str = Marshal.PtrToStringUni(ptrAccounts); ptrAccounts = (IntPtr)((int)ptrAccounts + 2 * (str.Length + 1)); listBoxAccounts.Items.Add(str); } while (++i < nCount); Marshal.FreeCoTaskMem(ptr);
Call the function, get the next string, use pointer arithmetic to loop through returned buffer—bingo! Just as simple as that. The same technique is applicable for more complex data such as arrays of structures. Well, in the worst case you always can launch the Read/Write functions of Marshall class to manipulate the memory.
Page 1 of 2
This article was originally published on June 20, 2007
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Kerrang! – Maiden Heaven: A Tribute To Iron Maiden
- Prowler (Black Tide)
- Remember Tomorrow (Metallica)
- Flash Of The Blade (Avenged Sevenfold)
- 2 Minutes To Midnight (Glamour Of The Kill)
- The Trooper (Coheed And Cambria)
- Waysted Years (Devildriver)
- Run To The Hills (Sign)
- To Tame A Land (Dream Theater)
- Caught Somewhere In Time (Madina Lake)
- Wrathchild (Gallows)
- Fear Of The Dark (Fightstar)
- Hallowed Be Thy Name (Machine Head)
- Iron Maiden (Trivium)
- Running Free (Year Long Disaster)
- Brave New World (Ghostlines)
Total Time = 1:14:02
I have explained my disdain for cover songs many times in the almost three years I have had this website but I'll do it again so all the new readers understand my position. It's not that I don't want to hear a band's interpretation of a classic song, I just don't think that a cover song should be included on a proper album in place of original material. It could be the greatest rendition of the greatest song ever but, if it takes the place of an original song on a studio album, it bothers me. Now that this is clear, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for tribute albums and I own a lot of them! Makes no sense does it? I agree.
MAIDEN HEAVEN was released as a bonus CD to the July 16, 2008 issue (#1219) of Kerrang!, the legendary Rock magazine from the U.K. Now I haven't read an issue of Kerrang! in years, and the price for an imported copy is around $10 here in the U.S., but for some reason this tribute album intrigued me. I wasn't sure I would be able to score a copy at my local Barnes & Noble bookstore (the only one that stocks the weekly Rock mag) so I went online and ordered it from the Kerrang! webstore. Exactly a month later, it arrived! I thumbed through the magazine and realized why I stopped reading it years ago but the CD is pretty good.
Starting things off are newcomers Black Tide with their version of 'Prowler' that is spot on to the original and legends Metallica who also stay true to the original on 'Remember Tomorrow'. It's always good to hear the Paul Di'Anno era of the band, an era that sometimes gets overlooked. Both bands start the album on major high notes with solid performances. Fast forward to the POWERSLAVE era for the next two tracks, Avenged Sevenfold (who I can't stand BTW) do a decent job with my personal favorite from that Maiden record 'Flash Of The Blade' while Glamour Of The Kill perform '2 Minutes To Midnight'. The vocals just kill this classic song, there is no aggression to the singing and the singer whines through the chorus. Musically, it's good but the singing ruins it for me. I have the same problem listening to Coheed And Cambria's version of 'The Trooper', the vocals kill it. Much like Glamour Of The Kill's Davey Death, I can't get by the whiney style that Claudio Sanchez brings to the table on this song. I'll be honest, having never heard Coheed And Cambria before this song, I thought it was a woman singing! The backing tracks are dead to rights so I am impressed by the band getting the music down.
Devildriver is the band that features former Coal Chamber frontman Dez Fafara and they take on 'Wasted Years'. While I'm not a fan of Devildriver and the screaming vocals, I'll give the band credit for mimicking the guitar parts very well. 'Run To The Hills' is absolutely butchered by Iceland's Sign with a danceable version of this galloping classic. At least it sounds like you could dance to it, the arrangement is awful and I have a hard time getting through it a second time for this review. By this time, I'm ready for something good. After 5 newer bands, Progressive Metal legends Dream Theater make things better with 'To Tame A Land', a song not often heard but definitely a welcome surprise! My favorite album from Maiden is PIECE OF MIND so right away I'm psyched and I know that Dream Theater can put together a seriously good version of the song because they have done full Maiden albums live in concert.
Like Avenged Sevenfold, Devildriver, and Fightstar, Madina Lake is one of those newer bands that Kerrang! drools over. Maybe it's just me but this down-tuned, programmed, hardcore and Nine Inch Nails cloning is not my cup of tea and 'Caught Somewhere In Time' suffers for it. Same goes for Gallows and there rendition of 'Wrathchild', I'm not digging the Punk/Hardcore/Garage performance but I give the band credit for taking a Di'Anno song (from KILLERS). Even though Fightstar is another of these hybrid Hardcore bands I kind of like their version of 'Fear Of The Dark'. I'm a little surprised by this because 'Fear Of The Dark' is in my Top 3 Iron Maiden songs of all-time and I was prepared to hate it but it's turned out to be the surprise of the album for me. It's kept to the original as much as possible but there are some guitar flourishes that stray a little. 'Hallowed Be Thy Name' from Machine Head is pretty good also and stays true to the original.
I never get tired of the Di'Anno era of Iron Maiden, both IRON MAIDEN and KILLERS are superb records and they get overlooked all too often. Trivium is a band I haven't gotten into yet but the buzz from their last album, 2006's THE CRUSADE, has them poised for greatness. That remains to be seen and heard but the band does handle Iron Maiden's signature song very well. It's mostly spot on musically with aggressive growling and clean vocals and a few added guitar enhancements added in. It seems that Iron Maiden's debut has stood the test of time because Los Angeles hard rockers Year Long Disaster do a great job with the punk filled 'Running Free'. 'Running Free' is the song I hear in my head when I think of Paul Di'Anno and the band stays true to the original, I'm not sure you could stray from it anyway because it's such a straight forward Rock song. If you want something totally different then Ghostlines' version of 'Brave New World' will do the trick. Ghostlines describes their sound as acoustic/electronica/alternative and that's what their interpretation of 'Brave New World' is. I didn't like it on first listen because it's so different but, after giving it a few spins, it's grown on me.
Bottom Line:
Overall…..MAIDEN HEAVEN is a decent tribute album, especially when it's free from a magazine! There are enough classic Iron Maiden tracks representing all eras and most are done very well from older and newer bands alike. I would have preferred a few more deep tracks to some of the more obvious classics but that's not too big of a deal. I also would have preferred a couple more older bands like Metallica, Dream Theater, and Machine Head but I understand that the trendy new blood is what Kerrang! focuses on these days. I already like Black Tide but the performances by Trivium and Fightstar were good enough for me to get a little interested about their original music.
Favorite Songs:
For my money, the best tracks are the ones that stay true to the original versions like the Black Tide, Dream Theater & Metallica songs but a couple of different interpretations did impress, like 'Brave New World' from Year Long Disaster. I also really enjoyed Fightstar's 'Fear Of The Dark' and Trivium's 'Iron Maiden'.


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Home > Academics > Academic Resources > Student Success Program > Eligibility Requirements
Eligibility Requirements
While all Saint Xavier University students are welcome to apply to join SSP, priority is given to the following students:
- Low-income student and first-generation students
- Low-income students with disabilities
All SSP members must also:
- Be citizens or permanent residents of the United States; and
- Demonstrate a need for support
Program space is limited. Applicants who meet the priorities and demonstrate a commitment to the program will be selected first.
Please contact a SSP staff member for more information on how to apply.


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"An LOL Instagram about love in a wired world."—People
"Vibrant, au courant, and hilarious . . . brilliant!"—Adriana Trigiani
"This modern-day, mixed-media comedy of manners is as up-to-the-minute as your favorite Twitter feed."—The Washington Post
"A skillful blend of pop-culture references, acidic humor, and emotional moments. It will take its rightful place . . . alongside Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary, Anna Maxted's Getting Over It, and Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It."—Library Journal (starred review)
"Channels the playful but incisive vibe of Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail."—NPR
"Fresh and funny . . . a delightful, thoroughly modern, guilty pleasure of a read."—San Francisco Chronicle


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Gearbox Type
Would You Like Manual Or Automatic Lessons
Driving Instructor Preferance
Would You Prefer A Male or Female Instructor?
Let's Help You Pass 1st Time
|Discount :
|Total :
Our Refresher courses are ideal for those who want to brush up on their driving skills.
They will give you the edge in various scenarios, such as overcoming nervousness after an accident or supervising your kids when they are learning to drive themselves.
If you've moved from a different area, which perhaps has a different driving style from what you are used to, this course will also greatly benefit you. We have flexible hours for Refresher courses and we'll tailor a deal to meet your requirements.
The number of lessons you will require is entirely based on your current driving skills and for how long you haven't driven for. We will never put you under any pressure at any stage of a course: you decide if you feel confident enough or feel the need to continue after your initial course.
We'll gladly collect you from your home, work or college in the Chingford area for your convenience.
Don't hesitate to call us for more info and to book your driving lessons.


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This Brasstech 123/10B Oil Rubbed Bronze Basket Strainer is a genuine Newport Brass manufactured accessory, which is perfect for residential and commercial applications. This strainer is constructed out of a solid brass material to ensure that this product will last. This Brasstech 123/10B Oil Rubbed Bronze Basket Strainer comes with an illustrious oil rubbed bronze finish. This fixture has a beautiful lasting hue that helps to coordinate with nearly any bathroom decor; this stunning finish not only looks fantastic, but also protects this fixture's exposed metal parts from corrosion and any other water damage that may occur during use. This basket strainer is designed to go with Newport kitchen and bathroom collections. This strainer is one of the many products made by Newport Brass that can be found on Plumbersstock.com. The perfect place to shop if youre looking to complete any kitchen or bathroom. Newport brass is company that has been around since 1989 and has made it their goal to bring their customers the highest quality products. This Brasstech 123/10B Oil Rubbed Bronze Basket Strainer comes with a Limited ten year Newport Brass Warranty against tarnish and manufacturer defects.
|Basket Strainer
|Oil Rubbed Bronze
|Mpn #
|Shipping Dimensions
|7.0" x 6.0" x 5.0"
|0.85 lbs.
|Shipping Dimensional Weight
|1.19 lbs.


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WTO Case on export restrictions of raw materials in China - guide31 January 2012
by eub2 -- last modified 31 January 2012
The Appellate Body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 30 January confirmed the findings made by a Panel in July 2011 that China's export restrictions on several industrial raw materials are in breach of WTO rules. The WTO found that China's export restrictions are not justified for reasons of environmental protection or conservation policy. Today's final ruling was welcomed by Europe's trade chief.
Which raw materials are at issue in this case?
Various forms of: bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorus and zinc.
Does China maintain further export restrictions on other raw materials? How does this case relate to Rare earth?
China is imposing export restrictions on many more raw materials; many of which are critical for EU industry. Rare earth is the recently most prominent example of an important raw material on which China applies significant restrictions.
China currently applies export duties on 363 tariff lines, despite the fact that it committed to refraining from such export duties apart from 84 tariff lines listed in its Accession Protocol to the WTO. In addition, China imposes export quota and licensing regimes on many products.
What does this outcome mean for export restrictions on raw materials not covered by this dispute, like Rare earth?
The outcome of this case obliges China to bring the challenged measures into compliance with the rulings. However, the EU continues to be deeply troubled by China's use of export restrictions not only on the specific products at issue in this dispute, but also on rare earth and many other industrial raw materials.
In the light of the clear findings of the WTO Panel and Appellate Body we expect China to remove the export restrictions not only with regard to the raw materials covered by the dispute but also with regard to rare earth and other raw materials.
Which industries are most concerned by the current case?
The chemical, steel and non-ferrous metal industries, as well as their downstream clients are the main sectors concerned. This includes a range of industries including producers of beverage cans, CDs, electronics, automotives, ceramics, refrigerators, batteries, medicines to name just a few.
What is the economic impact of this case?
EU imports reach 1 billion EUR a year from China in terms of raw materials covered by the WTO case. The economic importance is well beyond this figure as those represent inputs for the production of a large range of products. Let's take the example of the steel industry which uses inter alia fluorspar, manganese and zinc: the EU turnover of the steel sector is approximately €150 billion and 410 000 people, representing 1.25% of the total employment in EU manufacturing, are employed by the steel industry.
For more than half of the 9 products subject of the WTO case, EU general dependence (reliance on imports vs consumption) is more than 60% (with more than 90% for bauxite, manganese, and magnesium).For 5 out of the 9 materials, China is a leading producing country with share of the world production share over 50% (> 80% for phosphorus, magnesium, manganese and refractory grade bauxite).
The impact of such distortive measures is twofold. First, restrictions lead to different price levels of inputs for Chinese and EU operators (in the case of many of products concerned, export prices were between 50-100% higher than Chinese domestic prices). As the cost share of these raw materials in further products' manufacturing can be considerable (often 50% or even more), such price differential can carry a decisive competitive disadvantage.
Second, restrictions affect the availability of raw materials outside China. The industries in the EU that are potentially affected represent about 4 % of EU industrial activity and around 500,000 jobs. They serve a multitude of sectors such as automotive, construction and fire retardants.
Bearing in mind some of these resources cannot be found elsewhere also means that EU companies that are dependent on such resources as inputs for further processing risk having to close down business, with implications for downstream industries. And even if substitutes do sometimes exist, their usage can very often entail looking for new, more technically-demanding or costly production processes, which in turn seriously disrupts EU business activities.
How did the exports from China of the raw materials subject to the dispute evolve in the last years?
From 2005 to 2011, EU imports from China of the products covered by the WTO case have decreased in value whereas global EU imports of the same products increased by approximately 35%. For these products, China's share in EU supply of these products has decreased from 26% to 17% of total EU imports from 2005 to 2011.
What are the next steps? When will China remove the export restrictions?
Upon request by the EU (and the co-complainants) the WTO Dispute Settlement Body will adopt the reports within 30 days. China will then have to bring its measures in compliance with the rulings. In order to do so, China may ask for a reasonable period of time (RPT).
Report of the WTO Appellate Body
Source: European Commission


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Hello all you android users
I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind.
1) What version of android do you use (and what phone, if you want to add that) ?
2) IF you know, what screen size do you have (and is it landscape capable) ?
3) Do you use LAN WIFI with the mobile ?
As an example
I have a Samsung Galaxy S running 2.3.3 with landscape capabilities (don't know screen size spec)
I have had my android for a little over a year now and have been bitten by the bug. Meaning I am playing with android app creation. The ideas I have in mind are for the FREESCOsoft site, the FREESCO site, and if all goes well at that point, an app for the FREESCO control Panel.
This thread is to see if there would be enough interest in these apps that it would be worth the time to create them. I am not an Iphone, I??? (apple) user so do not have any way to create one for them (at this point in time, but do not want to be one sided so am looking into finding an SDK virtual machine for them).
Please let me know what you think.


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Hi there! Me again… Remember how I was telling you in my last post that I had been working on a cute apron with mittens! Well… drumroll please!! Here you have it!
100% handmade for my friend and boss Ana, who likes to spend time cooking (not like me, that use every occasion to escape entering this weird place called "kitchen"; I must admit that I do cook now and then, basically because we need to eat in this house, but NOT because it relaxes me, like many of my friends say. Nope, what relaxes me is shopping, sewing, traveling, reading, but NOT cooking. But that's a good subject for another post).
As I was saying, I decided to craft this apron for her because it was her B-day last week and I thought this would be a perfect gift. It turns out she loved it! But you know what, this is not really the story I was going to tell you…
The real story behind this is that in spite of working on this project the ENTIRE day on Saturday, AND half of Sunday, it didn't feel at all like I was "obliged" to do it, or that I was "working". Actually, the days passed by so quickly and I didn't need to eat (which is good, I need to lose weight. AGAIN), did not need to drink (I ended up dehydrated by the end of the week-end…) and totally ignored my husband the entire time (he used this alone time to watch some football games. Go figure!)
I guess what I am trying to say is that when you do what you love, no matter how much work/hours/effort you put into it, it doesn't really feel like "work". It feels good, fulfilling, meaningful… It feels like you leave something behind, like what you do actually matters… There is something tangible that other people can see, touch, feel, use, and THAT my friends is what I call BLISS. It's LIFE, in it's truest form and it's healthy, and useful to others, and as I said before… MEANINGFUL.
I really believe we should all find that SOMETHING that we love to do and try to do it as much as possible. Our happiness depends on it, our health (physical and mental) as well. And when we find that something that really makes us happy, we need to figure out how to monetize it (if we can…). Because being able to find the THING that makes you happy doing every day and actually making it to pay the bills is the real essence of what life should be like. No obligations, just doing it because you love it. What can be more fulfilling?
What do YOU love to do? Did you find that something already? I hope you did.


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"The Comedy" is premiering in San Francisco at the Mission's very own Roxie theater this Friday, November 23rd, and you're in for a treat: Tim Heidecker will be hosting a Q&A after the screenings on both Friday and Saturday. It is playing at the Roxie until the end of the month.
You probably know Tim Heidecker as one-half of the comedy duo Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Well, if you're expecting that kind of thing with his new movie, "The Comedy", be prepared for a lot of brutal darkness.
The film is about Swanson, an aging, Williamsburg-living, PBR-swigging hipster-type on the cusp of inheriting his wealthy father's estate. In his boredom, disconnection with the real world, and subliminal grief, he and his buddies engage in some truly awful behavior at the expense of a world presenting him with endless options. Hmm entitled, trust-funded, society leeches hiding behind a cloud of irony? We wouldn't know anything about that around these parts, now would we?
I recently got an opportunity to chat with writer/director Rick Alverson and actor Tim Heidecker about the film's mixed reception, how scripted dialogue is so passé, experiencing the end of comedy (9/11-unrelated), and about PBR as a cost-cutting production technique.
Read on:
Mission Mission: I understand some other SF publications declined the interview after seeing the film and that it had the most walk-outs at Sundance. Were you expecting such a polarized reaction?
Rick Alverson: I suppose we knew it was possible. It's sort of designed in some way and we kind of embraced it. It's a little confusing from the get-go and maybe provocative because of some of that confusion. But you know, it's definitely uh… hell, I don't know.
Tim Heidecker: Yeah, first of all I think the notion of "the most walk outs in Sundance" is a bit of an exaggeration. I don't know if anyone was standing out the door with a clicker. We had tremendous screenings at Sundance and SXSW and the reaction for the film certainly isn't unanimously positive, but amongst a certain demographic it's very positive. It's a film that appeals to a generation that can dial in to not only the humor that's in the film, but the underlying subliminal quality that the film has. And frankly, there's an older establishment out there that's incapable of embracing some of the themes in the film. But I've had plenty of conversations with people that I respect and come to watching films from an open-minded place and nobody that I know has a problem with it and considers it a successful film. So if you're somehow angered by this film or offended or anything… you're probably gonna be a person that I don't want to know.
MM: Yeah, I think it's very similar to the Tim and Eric show in that there's a sort of person that will get this and someone who would probably walk out after getting the eyeful on the opening scene. It certainly wasn't what I expected. I think I was expecting something more Tim and Eric-y but instead I got something that was funny but also incredibly dark.
RA: Yeah.
TH: Yeah, it's dark.


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Interim President Michel Temer, who was loudly booed by Brazilians at the Olympics' opening ceremony, won't have to face the same jeering crowds when the games come to an end.
His press office said Tuesday that he won't attend the closing ceremony, ending days of speculation after he told journalists last week that he should go. A presidential spokesperson told The Associated Press that it's not protocol for a head of state to attend the games' farewell.
Some Brazilian media are taking Temer's absence as a diplomatic snub after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would attend the closing ceremony to represent Tokyo, which is hosting the 2020 Summer Games.
U.S. & World
Temer has kept a low profile since taking over from the suspended President Dilma Rousseff in May. The closing ceremony Aug. 21 comes just a few days before the Brazilian senate is schedule to vote whether to impeach Rousseff.
While Brazilians blame Rousseff for widespread corruption in her Workers' Party and for steering the economy into its deepest recession in decades, they haven't warmed to her replacement. From day one, the games have been marked by Brazilians bringing signs to venues reading "Fora Temer," a call for the removal of the politician who many accuse of trying to gain power he could never have obtained at the ballot box.


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Meet the Coors Field "Rockpile Rantics"
Here are the "Rockpile Rantics" and a little bit about themselves.
Dan Sauvageau
I became a Rockies fan in 1996 when my wife and I moved here from Montana, and (don't tell Emily this), but I was a Cubs fan before that. I am an insurance and retirement specialist for New York Life. I have caught 77 game home runs since 1998. I caught 10 home runs on the fly in one season in 2000, and caught 2 home runs in the same inning (Mike Lansing and Jeff Cirillo on June 28, 2000).
I was featured on Fox's "You Gotta See This" in January of 2001. My favorite Rockies moment was Game 163 in 07′, after we went down 2 runs in the top of the inning, I was packing my stuff up pissed to no end ready to leave. After Holiday slid into home plate, you would have thought I'd just won the $400 million Powerball. My favorite pic ever taken of me at a Rockies game was at Game 4 of the World Series, bottom of the 9th, 1 out and Jamey Carroll up at the plate. He hits a long fly ball caught "RIGHT" in front of me. If the ball flies just 5 feet further, it's in my glove, and Game 4 is tied at 1. As far as how many games I've been to, I've been to over 1,000 Rockies games since 1996.
I've never really kept track of how many batting practice balls I've caught, but we figure it is pretty close to about 2,500. My favorite all time Rockies player is Larry Walker.
Here's the story and video of Dan getting interviewed prior to the 2007 World Series…..Denver Gripped with Rockies Fever
Emily Sauvageau
Geri Schmid aka "QUEEN GERI"
I'm an automobile accountant during the day, and work in all 3 stadiums at night.
I was a season ticket holder in section 331 (RIGHT behind home plate) for 8 years until my baseball dad got too old to go with me anymore.
One supervisor had been asking me for years to come work with them, so I decided to try it out at that point. I was a Coors Field usher for 2 seasons in the 140's (third base to the LF foul pole), and now work in the wardrobe department for the Rockies.
I love hanging out with all of the Rantics on warm summer nights watching my favorite team playing my favorite sport.
Favorite player: That's always such a tough one because they are all a favorite for different reasons….guess at this point it would either be Cargo or Joe Beimel.


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With more than 20 years of data in most locations, Important Farmland Maps are beginning to provide trend and context information to better inform land use decisions in California. This section of the website will grow along with the archive of biennial information, so please check back regularly!
FMMP is legislatively mandated to update maps of its survey area, now nearly 50 million acres in size, every two years. Long-term studies are of high interest but must take a lower priority to the biennial production mandate. Basic statistical summaries are available (XLS format) for county and statewide data:
Graphical representation of change is available:


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| 15.8°C Dublin
Christina Aguilera is rumoured to be expecting a baby with her new fiance.
The Beautiful singer and Matthew Rutler will welcome their new arrival later this year, according to reports.
A source apparently confirmed the news to Us Weekly, just a week after Christina announced that the couple had got engaged on Valentine's Day.
Christina, 33, is already mum to son Max, six, from her previous marriage to music executive Jordan Bratman.
Last week Christina announced that production assistant Matt had popped the question.
She posted a picture on Twitter of the couple holding hands in front of a beautiful beach view, with an enormous ring on her engagement finger. She captioned the photo: "He asked and I said yes..."
The couple have been dating for three years.
PA Media


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A Masterpiece on the Rise of Christianity
Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 AD
Over the last fifty years there has been an explosion of interest in and study of late antiquity—that previously neglected half-millennium or so between ancient history and the High Middle Ages. In archaeology, old sites have been given deeper scrutiny; new sites have been found and developed. Art historians have been surprised by the quality of the period's mosaic floors, sarcophagi, and pious objects. Eating vessels have been treated as if in a crime lab. Even bones from mass burials and catacombs have established the dietary conditions of different regions and periods. Generalizing terms like "barbarians" have been articulated into many-layered entities, refining and reversing historical judgments.
Why was this vast field neglected for so long? There were effects lingering from interlinked though discredited myths. One myth was that the Roman Empire (but only in the West) "fell" overnight when barbarians invaded and brought it down. The light of classical times blinked out and we stumbled straightway into the Dark Ages. Myth two (without a neat chronological fit) was that Constantine in the fourth century took Christianity out of the martyrs' arena into the seats of power, making the persecuted become persecutors. Myth three (again only approximately synchronous with the others) was that a primitive Christianity lost its purity and became rich in its own right. Thin apostles could get through a needle's eye, but fat bishops (like camels) could not. Those beliefs, previously dislodged, have by now evaporated.
Developments in this field are so recent that some of its pioneers are still exploring and expanding it—Glen Bowersock, Brent Shaw, Alan Cameron, and Averil Cameron among others. Of these, none has been more influential than Peter Brown. His Augustine of Hippo, published forty-five years ago, broke that figure out of his theological and hagiographical encrustations, making him live in a newly believable landscape. Since then Brown has ridden the tidal wave of new information from many disciplines, across the Eastern as well as Western parts of the Roman Empire, publishing study after stunning study of developments as they were happening. There was an apparent paradox in the importance of his Augustine for this movement. Biographies of famous men are normally considered an elite form of history "from the top down," and much of the work on late antiquity has been social history, assembled "from the bottom up," from traces of the people who were not the writers or subjects of ancient books.
Brown's new work, long as it is, may seem to be a shrinking back to smaller compass and returning to his first biographical emphasis. It concentrates on how Christian attitudes toward poverty and wealth changed during just one span of time, the years 370–430, within a penumbra of the years 350–550. It also confines itself to the Western Empire, to Italy, Africa, and Gaul,…
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