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Many tracts are free while others can be purchased for a few cents apiece. Do you know a less expensive method of spreading the gospel of Christ? Anyone may spread the good news of Christ by tract distribution. A christian who does not habitually use sound, scriptural tracts is constantly missing wonderful opportunities of increasing his usefulness toward man and his faithfulness toward God.
Tracts can be tactfully given to fellow workers or travelers,enclosed in letters and bills and left on counters, seats and windshields. They can be displayed on bulletin boards, inserted in newspapers, magazine and books. Tracts can be distributed at parades, fairs, posting, and by others events where permitted.
I remembered some years back when I used to distribute tracts on the way and by posting. I found my addresses in the telephone directory. I will list so many names in the directory, names of people I don't know, many of my friends think this guy is not serious but I continue doing it. I invested on envelopes and stamps for posting. I go to post office every week to post. I posted hundred of tracts and give some out to people on the way.
Listen to the testimony of a man of the great God: The Lord graciously saved a man named Tom Olson shortly after he entered his teens. He prayed for the privilege of handing out a million tracts in his life time. By distributing 1000 tracts each week, he could reach one million in 20 years! After giving himself to the Lord for "full-time service," he began working many towns from door to door, placing up to 500 tracts per day. His yearning to distribute a million tracts was soon realized. Praise the Lord!
There are those who object to tract work because they have been discarded tracts on the sidewalks. Some tracts may be wasted but the work is abundantly worthwhile, even if some are thrown away (Luke 8: 5-8).
A tract on the ground is not necessarily wasted, it belong to someone. Beloved, let us not forget the enormous power of prayer in tract distribution. Above all, don't forget that God is glorified by every tract you give out. It remains a fact, whether the offer is received or rejected, he can never say he was not told of God's loving offer. God bless you.
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July 1, 2016
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subset: commoncrawl


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I am going to blog on my forthcoming book in chapter order but given the recent debates I thought it was worth giving a brief overview of conversion. The approaches I use are therefore based on sociological approaches that can explain social/historical change rather than the more typological models. The latter are interesting for various reasons but are not so useful for explaining change. As I said, I will blog on these features another date but I just wanted to justify briefly the reasons why I chose certain approaches to conversion over others.
The most significant work done on conversion and Christian origins in terms of socio-historical is that of Rodney Stark who, building on his own work as a sociologist of modern religious movements, showed how Christianity spread rapidly, not unlike modern day Mormonism. This work has been developed by several NT scholars. It is crucial to note just how important this approach has been in the sociology of religion. The classic approach to conversion developed by Stark and Lofland in the 1960s has been vigorously critiqued but the one aspect that has only been enhanced right up to the present day has been conversion through pre-existing social networks and affective ties (friendship, work place etc.). Statistically, results of conversion are consistently over (frequently well over) 50% for conversion through a pre-existing social tie. Consequently, it is actually very, very difficult to convert people through conventional proselytising (even though the 'missionary' may express themselves in such a way) as people tend to be immersed in their social settings (family, friends, political groups and so on). Proselytising is hard, hard work and members require much encouragement. Anyhow, here's a nice quotation from Lewis Rambo:
Kinship and friendship networks are fundamental to most conversions, just as they are influential in resistance and rejection…I would argue that relationships are important to most but not all conversions…Virtually every social scientific study of conversion stresses the importance of relationships
A famous example is Mormonism. Conversion to Mormonism was not successful when knocking on doors where pre-existing social ties were lacking. If I remember correctly the success rate of conversion was 1 convert for 1000 doors knocked. Yet when a Mormon friend or relative provided a home for contact the success rate was about 50%. Moreover, Mormon missionary literature knows exactly how to convert and it involves careful establishment of friendships. Another famous example is that of the study of the Buddhist movement Nichiren Shoshu by David Snow and Cynthia Phillips where this pattern was also clear. 82% of their sample was recruited though a pre-existing social tie. Even among the remaining 18% conversions required the development on social ties with a member or members. They even argue that conversion is unlikely without an affective bond.
These are well known examples often repeated in secondary literature but there are countless studies done supporting such claims (and not based just on religious groups), with conversion through social networks even going as high as 100% in some cases. Incidentally, some people have said to me that the results are always from the US and Europe. This is not true. There have various other studies done e.g. the spread of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, political systems in agrarian contexts of SE Asia, and so on. These results are all echoed in social network theory which is also a useful approach for Christian origins and has been used (e.g. Duling).
Most significantly for the purposes of Christian origins, there are various examples from the ancient world, including Christianity and Judaism. Wayne Meeks famously highlighted the various social networks underlying the Pauline mission (families, household, work place etc.) and showed how contacts could easily be made in an urban centre (cf. Acts 16.13; 18.2-3). Philip Harland has also provided numerous examples of ancient social networks among households, workplaces, marketplaces, neighbourhoods and so on and how networks overlapped and how people could (and did) belong to different networks. Importantly for Christian origins there were gentiles attracted to Judaism in varying degrees (cf. Shaye Cohen) and I am not convinced Acts made up the idea of gentiles attracted to synagogues, irrespective of the historicity of the individual passages. There are also stories of conversion in early Jewish literature (e.g. Josephus) where there are pre-existing social networks paving the way for the convert to Judaism.
That is all pretty conventional (although people will endlessly debate specifics), even in NT studies, or at least among NT scholars who study such things. The above reasons are why I think the approach to conversion through pre-existing social networks is important. But that isn't saying much new. I thought there needed to be several crucial points added in order to explain various other social and historical changes but that can wait for now…


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His Dark Materials: Gift edition including all three novels(2011)
(A book in the His Dark Materials series)
An omnibus of novels by Philip Pullman
"Northern Lights" introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Lyra's search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. In "The Subtle Knife" she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in "The Amber Spyglass". The epic story Pullman tells is not only a spellbinding adventure featuring armoured polar bears, magical devices, witches and daemons, it is also an audacious and profound re-imagining of Milton's "Paradise Lost". An utterly entrancing blend of metaphysical speculation and bravura storytelling, "His Dark Materials" is a monumental and enduring achievement.
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Similar Books by other authors...
The Chronicles of Narnia
(Chronicles of Narnia)
C S Lewis
Howl's Moving Castle
(Howl's Castle, book 1)
Diana Wynne Jones
Norse Mythology
Neil Gaiman
The Magicians
(Magician, book 1)
Lev Grossman
Used availability for Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials: Gift edition including all three novels
See all available used copies of this book at Abebooks UK or Abebooks US
Hardback Editions
October 2011 : UK Hardback
|Title: His Dark Materials: Gift Edition including all three novels: Northern Light, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass
Author(s): Philip Pullman
ISBN: 1-84159-342-7 / 978-1-84159-342-5 (UK edition)
Publisher: Everyman
Availability: Amazon Amazon UK
Genre Pages


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RC Showdown
Daniel Burke and David Gibson, at RNS, have a great article on tonight's first-ever debate between two Catholic candidates for national office. They also link to Melinda Henneberger's wonderful piece in yesterday's Washington Post.
Daniel Burke and David Gibson, at RNS, have a great article on tonight's first-ever debate between two Catholic candidates for national office. They also link to Melinda Henneberger's wonderful piece in yesterday's Washington Post.
Distinctly Catholic: I was only 8 months old on the day the Second Vatican Council opened. Yet in a very real way, my adult life has been spent within the council's bosom.
Democrats for Life of America has up a list of pro-life Democrats it is supporting. You can find their list here.
Over at Religion & Politics, Tiffany Stanley, who edits the online journal from the Danforth Center, has a report on "Pulpit Freedom Sunday." This is the day that a variety of pastors explicitly break the law which prohibits all 501 (c) 3s, including churches, from engaging in partisan endorsements. Full disclosure: I am on the advisory board at R &P.
There are few things better than driving through the New England countryside in the summertime with the windows open, the fresh air coming through the trees, the smells of the forests inland and the sea along the shore. But, this summer, round a bend in the road near my home, just before the state forest, a skunk had been killed and the windows had to go up as the putrid aromas filled the car.
A diverse groups of theologians and academics have penned a statement in advance of tomorrow night's vice presidential debate that squarely, coherently, and, I think, decisively makes the case that Congressman Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand, libertarian sensibilities, and the policies that flow from them, are incompatible with Catholic social teaching. You can find the full statement "On All of Our Shoulders" by clicking here.
I was thrilled to be able to speak to a group of interested Catholics here at the University of Colorado at Boulder. My hosts, the Thomas Aquinas Institute, could not have been more gracious. And, as you drive toward this city, at one point, you cross a hill and see the town with the Rockies looming behind and you wonder why anyone would live anywhere else. Then you start to notice that virtually every car has a bike rack, and all the pedestrians seem unnaturally healthy and fit. In any event, here is the text of the talk I gave.
Tonight, at the St. Thomas Aquinas Institute affiliated with campus ministry at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I will be giving a talk on the Catholic Church and the 2012 election. For more info, click here. This means no more posts this morning and I am not sure about tomorrow morning because I need to get back to the airport out there and, given the time difference, I am not sure how that will work. But, if you are in the Boulder area, please come and say hello tonight.
Over at The New Republic, Nate Cohn looks at the fascinating ways the different campaigns are spending on ads, and how certain aspects of the two campaigns' strategies, and the nature of campaign finance laws, continue to help the Obama campaign despite the huge influx of cash to GOP-leaning SuperPACs.
Here is a truth that neither candidate will cop to: There are many factors that will affect the rate of growth of the economy over the next four years – and ten years – and the name of the person sitting in the Oval Office is not the principal factor, maybe not even one of the top three factors.


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Went for a dinner last month with my friend. The place is just like any other and nothing great about their Chinese or Mughlai. Its just an average Indian food. Not going back for sure. If you are looking for a place for a group...More
Getting you more information on this room
Getting you more information on this room
"please contact manager mr annappa he is the best..................."


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Ai gasit mai ieftin? Suna pentru cea mai buna oferta!
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The Third Man (50th Anniversary Edition)
An out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, and where a shortage of supplies has lead to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime's friends and associates Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent, and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime. A classic movie starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard.
Uber stylish bottle holder in the shape of a bunch of grapes. Holds up to 6 bottles.Tags: home, wine, wall, decor, lime, grape, winerack, bottle holders, present timeAdded 8 Years Ago from Amazon UK


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The songwriters, brothers Edward and Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, wrote classic soul songs such as the Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love" and the Four Tops' "Baby I Need Your Loving". They have now cashed in their future earnings from the use of their back catalogue in the kind of deal pioneered by David Bowie last year.
Bowie made himself pounds 33m by selling bonds on Wall Street that gave the bearers a share of his future earnings from songs like "Jean Jeanie" and "Space Odyssey".
Many ageing rockers with large back catalogues are known to have looked at making the same kind of move with the securities company who invented the bonds, Fahenstock & Co. Rod Stewart, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and others have all been linked to such deals, but the Motown trio is the first to sign a deal.
Despite the attractiveness of "Bowie Bonds", they actually provide quite a low-return, low risk-investment for buyers and there is thought to a fairly limited market for them.
The value of the Holland/Dozier/Holland deal is thought to be based on the fact that EMI Music last year bought into Jobete Music, the company owned by Motown founder Berry Gordy, and will be more aggressively exploiting its back catalogue by getting songs used in films and adverts.
The trio also wrote for Barbra Streisand and Steve Winwood, but they became famous at Motown for being able to turn out a tune over breakfast, then two more at lunch for the Detroit-based hit-machine.
- More about:
- Barbra Streisand
- Motown
- Rod Stewart
- Singers


text: Simplicity 7654; ©1986; Child's Robe and Pajamas: Pajama pants and shorts have elastic waistline casing. Views 1, 2 and 3 tops have patch pocket, collar, set-in sleeves, sleeve bands. Views 1 and 2: long sleeves. View 3: short sleeves. Top may be fastened with buttons or decorative snap fasteners. Views 1 and 2 robe has notched collar, patch pockets, long set-in sleeves, topstitching and tie belt thru self fabric carriers, optional purchased appliques and optional front button closing. View 1: long length. View 2: regular length.


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5 photos
$89,900 2.4 acres 1 Bed | 1 Bath | 700 sqft 730 Scutt Mountain Road, Bloomville, NY 13739 - Delaware County
2.4 acres Bloomville, NY
Perfect little getaway hideaway! But yet less than 8 miles to Delhi for shopping, dinner and local little pubs. This little beauty is big bang for your buck. It is on 2.4 acres but is next to hundreds of acres of watershed property for your hiking, hunting and just plain enjoyment needs. It is beautifully done inside with tongue and groove cathedral ceilings throughout. What better way to spend a fall or winter evening than sitting next to your wood stove in the great room. Gorgeous stone wall behind the wood stove. And summers are even better sitting on your own front deck listening to the water of the stream just a few feet away and roasting marshmallows in your fire pit. This beauty won't last long so make your appointment today t


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PHYSICAL EDUCATION HISTORY OF IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS Diocletian (Dio) Lewis early 1800's 1820's schools start
integrating P.E.
into curriculum Post Civil War
start requiring P.E. OLD P.E. Large groups, limited equipment
Athletes are leaders
Skill related
Teacher directed
Emphasis on competition
Grades based on attendance, dress,
skill, level, fitness scores NEW P.E. Small groups, more equipment
All students can succeed
Health related
Teacher as coach
Grades based on self-improvement,
self-evaluation REFERENCES
http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/1267456431689Edited%20FINAL%20Learning%20for%20Life%20-%20PE%20Fact%20sheet.pdf TITLE IX GOALS physcial fitness
sex-education WHY?
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History of Physical Education in American Schools
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Once again the mighty hunter (me) has returned to his home abode with no elk skin to hang on the wall or meat for the larder for the winter.
I knew that this year was going to be a tough one since I put in for a area that is known to be a rough hunt unless there is 2' of snow up high and it didn't surprise me. I left the opening weekend for all the nimrods that couldn't get out during the week and set sail on Monday morning. With no snow on the ground I figured that I was on a futile search for the whiley wapiti. I did manage to find a couple of nice bucks but no tag so on I went. Then came the snow, not a lot of it just enough to entice me into thinking that I just might be successful but still doubtful. I did see where a couple of elk had crossed the road in the thick cedars but knew better than even trying to follow since the snow never made it to the ground in the trees.
Thursday found me glassing up onto the private property up the hill when I spotted a small herd of elk sticking their tongs out at me in defiance, I could just hear them talking about me. Then that after noon I spotted two hunters up on the same hill and the more that I looked I could swear that they were cutting up a elk. I had seen their truck earlier in the day but never even thought that there would be a hunter up on the private in this area. On my way out I was stopped by a employee of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife who has a county Sheriff as a passenger headed to the area that the truck was parked at. They just checked me out and asked a lot of questions pertaining to the private property and then left me in a hurry as they headed towards where the truck was parked. I am still wondering if someone had reported the two hunters and that is why the long arm of the law was headed that way. I'll have to use my connections in a few days and see just what was going on.
Well, back to my story. Friday and Saturday found me still watching some elk up on the private property so I headed up a hill that a friend of mine and me call the "Death Hill" The road up it was steep and slick and for the first time I wished that my 4 wheeler had a set of chains for it but I got to the top of the hill. The private property was only about 200 yards to the south of me but I started to hike that way. Just as I came out of a group of trees where I could see the fence I also saw about 20 elk jumping the fence in front of me, I was too late. For some reason they ran a little ways into a clearing and turned around and stuck their tongs out at me and gave me the raspberry, or at least I think that is what they did. So back to my wheeler and down the slickest road that I have been on for a while, to my truck and home.
Now for the sort of part of the story. This morning it was so nice that I grabbed my fishing pole, called a friend and headed to the pond for a fish dinner, not as good as elk tenderloins but it will do


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Kelly Teasdale Founder of Market My Product & Head Coach
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How Far Inadvance Can I Dirty Ice My Cake?
Decorating By ashby1983 Updated 23 Feb 2010 , 6:26pm by Mug-a-Bug
I am doing a cake this week for my nephews birthday. I'm wondering how far inadvance can I dirty ice my cake before I put the fondant on?
I just answered this same question in another post: http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-670020.html
Welcome to CC!
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"Taxation Without Representation" was the rallying cry of American patriots during World War 0. Americans fought and died for it, and now Eleanor Holmes Norton wants to overturn it to give the liberal hippies in Washington D.C. a vote in Congress.
Origin & HistoryEdit
Why It's BadEdit
Who's With It; Who's Against ItEdit
Modern ExamplesEdit
Representation without Taxation: When people who do not pay taxes are allowed to participate in selecting representatives that raise taxes on the productive citizens, tyranny is the result. If Taxation without Representation is bad, the inverse must also be true.


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Rated 3.5 / 5 stars
it not as inspired like everyday is the same dream, the meaning in those interaction with the world is not that clear. The music is good but still the demon boss at the last is not really what i though the end will be.
Deep thought games are very hard to make cause it hard to grap the creator idea, though i like your effort :)


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We are a Minnesota-based manufacturer and marketer of personal insect repellents - products you spray on your skin or clothing. Personal insect repellents are designed to repel, rather than kill, mosquitoes, biting flies (gnats, deer flies, sand flies, stable flies, black flies, horse flies), small flying insects, biting midges, chiggers, fleas, no-see-ums, and ticks.
We have been in this business since 1994 and studied bugs, repellents and killers for a couple years before that. Being in Minnesota with our 10,000 lakes, we have been given the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors all our lives while fishing, camping, playing golf and other outdoor sports. The problem with all this is BUGS!
Having invented a great gnat and mosquito repellent, Buggspray, in 1998 we pursued another formula and had that registered in 2004 - Buggspray Insect Repellent for Biting Flies.
While working various Fairs and shows over the years, consumers told us of a need for something to control Asian lady beetles and box elder bugs. With friends in the pest control industry, we used their knowledge and my chemical engineering background to come up with a great product for use by consumers. It will take care of these hard to control bugs plus a wide variety of other insects.


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University of Rennes 1, IETR, TSI2M, Enssat - 6, rue de Kerampont, 22300 Lannion, France
Affinity propagation (AP) is now among the most used methods for unsupervised classification. However, it has two major drawbacks: (1) the number of classes (NCs) is over-estimated when the preference parameter value is initialized as the median value of the similarity matrix; and (2) the partitioning of large-size hyperspectral images is hampered by its quadratic computational complexity. To overcome these two drawbacks, we propose an approach which consists of reducing the number of pixels to be classified before the application of AP. To reduce the number of pixels, the hyperspectral image is divided into blocks, and the reduction step is then independently applied within each block. This step requires less memory storage, since the calculation of the full similarity matrix is no longer required. AP is applied on the new set of pixels, which is then set up from the representatives of each previously formed cluster and nonaggregated pixels. To correctly estimate the NCs, we introduced a bisection method which aims to assess intermediate classification results using a criterion based on pixel interclass variance. The application of this approach on hyperspectral images shows that our results are efficient and independent of the block size.
The interest in hyperspectral image data has been constantly increasing during the last years. Indeed, hyperspectral images provide more detailed information about the spectral properties of a scene and allow a more precise discrimination of objects than traditional RGB images or even multispectral images. High spatial and spectral resolutions of hyperspectral images enable one to precisely characterize the information pixel content. Though the potentialities of hyperspectral technology appear to be relatively wide, the analysis and the treatment of these data remain complex. In fact, exploiting such large datasets presents a great challenge and most methods of image analysis and interpretation require further development to tackle this situation. To be able to exploit hyperspectral data, classification is an essential step. This step can be done in a supervised or unsupervised manner. Unsupervised classification presents many advantages with respect to supervised classification: (1) the user does not need to state the classes to be discriminated nor any training samples. The classification algorithm automatically detects the distinct classes in an objective way, thus considerably reducing the risk of classification error; and (2) the access to training samples for some applications is very difficult. Consequently, supervised methods are not appropriate in this case.
Thus, in this paper, we are mainly interested in the unsupervised classification approach for the images' partitioning. The methods belonging to this type of approach can be divided into two groups: parametric and nonparametric methods. Parametric methods present many disadvantages compared with the latter. Among the disadvantages, we include the difficulty of accurate estimation of class-conditional parameters, which can highly distort the classification, especially in the case of large-size data as hyperspectral images. Nonparametric classification methods are based on some direct measure of similarity (or dissimilarity) between data points. The most well-known semi-supervised methods are K-means,1 fuzzy C-means (FCM),2 and ISODATA.3 We consider that these three methods are semi-supervised since they require, at least, the number of classes (NCs) as a prior knowledge. In 2007, Frey and Dueck4 proposed a new clustering algorithm named affinity propagation (AP), which can be used either in a semisupervised mode or a completely unsupervised mode. Its objective is to detect exemplars among data points and to form clusters of data points around these exemplars.
The AP algorithm has received much attention due to its three main advantages: (1) it is efficient, (2) it can be used in two modes: unsupervised or semi-supervised, and (3) it is insensitive to initialization. With these advantages, it has become widely used in many application areas such as remote sensing,5–13 multimedia data management and pattern recognition, image categorization,14,15 handwritten digits recognition,16 extraction of key sentences,17 visual query suggestion,18 similarities of protein sets,19 and gene data analysis.20
In the remote sensing domain, the AP clustering algorithm is used for feature selection or pixels clustering. It is mainly used to reduce the number of spectral bands or attributes in remote sensing and, more specifically, hyperspectral imaging. This is motivated by the fact that the number of spectral bands in hyperspectral imagery is limited to a few hundreds, which AP can easily handle despite its quadratic complexity. The first application of the standard AP to hyperspectral images for band selection was suggested in 13. In 5, Yao and Qian introduced a band selection method based on Gaussian processes. This method combines the standard AP (for band selection only) with a Gaussian processes classifier, which is a class of supervised probabilistic kernel-based learning algorithms. In 6, Qian et al. proposed an improvement of the method described in 13, by introducing the Kullback–Leibler divergence as the similarity between any two different bands as well as the kurtosis for the preference parameter (similarity between two identical bands or objects). In 7, Jia et al. introduced a feature extraction step using discrete wavelet transform before the feature selection step by AP. They also developed an unsupervised band selection method for hyperspectral imagery classification without manual band removal.8 This method first uses wavelet shrinkage to remove the spatial noise in hyperspectral data, then applies AP in order to choose representative bands, and finally uses a classification algorithm (k-nearest neighbors or support vector machine) to assess the relevance of the selected bands. In 9, a semi-supervised method introducing a feature metric into AP as the criterion for spectral band selection was proposed.
In all these publications, AP is shown to provide the best results in band selection on a set of various hyperspectral images (from AVIRIS, HYDICE, and HYPERION sensors) with respect to several other approaches including maximum-variance principal component analysis, information divergence, and mutual information.
However, AP has been less used for pixel clustering in the remote sensing domain. This is due to the complexity of the algorithm, which cannot handle the huge amount of pixels provided by remote sensing sensors. AP has been used for the detection of regions of interest and the selection of representative landscapes using remote sensing, but only on small spatial size images. In 10, it is proposed to replace the conventional Euclidean distance by a fuzzy statistical (FS) similarity as the input to the AP algorithm (FS-AP). The method has been compared versus K-means, FCM, and the standard AP (with Euclidean distance metric) on three types of multispectral remote sensing images with a small size. The method FS-AP provides better results, improving the quality of classification with the standard AP, and with a lower computational load. In 11, Yang et al. proposed a semi-supervised AP clustering approach based on Incremental Decremental learning. It is applied on three different types of multispectral images for land cover classification and successfully compared with semi-supervised clustering algorithms: constrained K-means, incremental AP, but also maximum likelihood and Mahalanobis distance.
In Refs. 10 and 11, the proposed extensions of the AP algorithm are applied on the same set of multispectral images. It is worth mentioning that these images are of very small sizes (less than 100×100 pixels), which do not meet the requirements of the very large size images encountered with modern remote sensing sensors.
AP was also successfully used recently with another application related to the identification of representative landscapes of forest ecosystems in 10 forest areas of Canada from Landsat satellite imagery.12
Besides its application in remote sensing, the introduction of the AP concept in classification methods still has the potential to lead to better performances. In 16, an extension of the single-exemplar model of AP to a multiexemplar has been recently developed named ME-AP. This ME-AP determines the number of exemplars in each cluster associated with a super exemplar to approximate the subclasses in the category. It has been applied to three image databases for image categorization and two databases for handwritten digits. The results outperform exemplar-based clustering, kernel-based clustering, spectral clustering, multiprototype clustering, and hierarchical AP clustering. The results of this last algorithm are close to those of ME-AP. AP has also been combined with semi-supervised learning through Seeds AP (SAP).21 This method is a semi-supervised version of the AP using an asymmetric similarity measurement that captures the structural information of texts and introduces a semi-supervised learning approach, where the knowledge from a few labelled objects versus a large number of unlabelled ones is exploited. SAP has been compared with K-means and AP on text data (with adapted similarity definitions) and has shown to perform better in terms of classification accuracy.
All studies cited in this section show the superiority of the AP concept compared with conventional methods, either for reducing attributes (or spectral bands) or for the classification of pixels. The superiority of the AP compared with other conventional clustering methods has already been shown in a comparative study on face recognition,4 where AP has provided better classification rates than K-means, Kcenters, and hierarchical ascending classification. This superiority has also been confirmed, thanks to a comparative study which we have carried out with K-means, FCM, and ISODATA methods for the partitioning of synthetic images of data constructed by Rosenberger and Chehdi22 from the Brodatz album23 [average correct classification rate (ACCR): sum of correct classification rates per-class divided by the NCs: 95%].
Despite its high-correct classification rate, the application of AP on real, large-size image data like aerial images issued from a multispectral or hyperspectral imager remains intractable. For instance, under a regular PC (MATLAB environment), the number of data points which can be clustered by the AP algorithm is generally limited to less than 3000 pixels or objects. Furthermore, the full unsupervised version gives an over-estimation of the NCs.
That is why we suggest the solution to allow its application to the partitioning of large-size images, along with the estimation of the NCs. Our unsupervised method, namely a large spatial size-AP (LSS-AP), is composed of two steps: pixels' reduction to enable the use of AP in the case of LSS images and estimation of the correct NCs via optimization of the preference parameter of AP.
The remainder of the paper is divided into three sections. In Sec. 2, we will describe the unsupervised classification approach developed after an overview of the main steps of the AP algorithm. In Sec. 3, we show the experimental results obtained by our proposed method on two hyperspectral datasets. The first one is a synthetic image, and the second one illustrates a real application for the identification of invasive and noninvasive vegetation species from aerial hyperspectral images. The last section concludes this work and gives some perspectives.
In this section, we first present the AP classification method and highlight its two main disadvantages. Then, we describe the approach developed in order to overcome these drawbacks.
Recently, Frey and Dueck4 have suggested a new approach for classification called AP. This method has shown great success in different fields as we mentioned in Sec. 1. Its exploitation in different application fields is justified by the fact that it is totally unsupervised. In addition, it is deterministic and can use similarities that are not symmetric or do not satisfy the triangular inequality.24
The classification via AP first requires the calculation of a similarity matrix S. The element S(i,k) of this matrix indicates the similarity between pixels or objects (data points) i and k to be classified. Note that the diagonal elements S(k,k) of matrix S are not computed in the same way as elements S(i,k) for i≠k. More precisely, S(k,k)=p for all k (preference parameter) is initialized to the median value of the elements of S for i≠k. Then, AP calculates for each pixel its degrees of availability and responsibility to the other pixels in an iterative way. Any type of similarities can be used, e.g., the opposite of the squared Euclidean distance4 or the Manhattan distance [see Eq. 9] or other distances selected according to the application domain.
Initially, all pixels are considered as potential exemplars, though for each one, a preference parameter p value is allocated so that it can be chosen as an exemplar. Two procedures of message transmission called responsibility and availability are used to exchange messages between pixel i and a candidate exemplar k. The responsibility R(i,k) [Eq. (2)] is the message sent from pixel i to candidate exemplar k, indicating how well-suited pixel k would be as the exemplar for pixel i. Alternatively, the availability A(i,k) [Eq. (4)] is the message sent from candidate exemplar k to pixel i, indicating how likely pixel i would choose candidate k as its exemplar. This procedure identifies for each pixel the exemplar that maximizes the sum of responsibility and availability denoted by E*(i) [see Eq. (6)]. For pixel i, the value of k that maximizes [R(i,k)+A(i,k)] either identifies i as an exemplar if k=i or identifies the pixel that is the exemplar for pixel i. The message-passing procedure may be terminated either after a fixed number of iterations, after the changes in the messages fall below some threshold value, or when local decisions remain constant during some number of iterations. The updated messages [Eqs. (7) and (8)]) are damped by a constant factor λ, to avoid numerical oscillations that may arise under some circumstances. The value of this damping factor is defined in the interval [0,1].
Each iteration of AP consists of (1) updating all responsibilities given the availabilities, (2) updating all availabilities given the responsibilities, and (3) combining availabilities and responsibilities to monitor the exemplar decisions and to terminate the classification process.
The main steps of the algorithm are:
Updated messages are sent iteratively after regularization of responsibilities Ȓl and availabilities Ȃl as follows: Display Formula
Despite the success of AP and its application to different fields as we mentioned in Sec. 1, it does present two major disadvantages which seriously hamper its usage.
The approach that we suggest in the following section allows the usage of AP in the case of large-size data and allows one to correctly estimate the NCs.
The proposed image partitioning approach using AP (namely LSS-AP) is composed of two steps:
To be able to apply the AP method on images with large spatial dimensions, we have introduced a preliminary step prior to the classification in order to reduce the size of the similarity matrix. It consists of automatically grouping data points that are highly similar so as to not affect the data to be classified by AP and replacing each homogeneous group formed by a single representative. The criterion of aggregation used is the Manhattan (l1) distance [see Eq. (9)] between each pair of pixels. To reduce the calculation time, the image is divided into blocks of size NB×NB pixels, and the search for most similar pixels is achieved in a parallel way on each block. This approach does not require the construction of the similarity matrix between all pixels of an image, contrary to the original AP. The procedure of reduction in each block is carried out in an iterative way. More precisely, the pixels which are spectrally identical are grouped during the first iteration. At this level, each subgroup of pixels formed is represented by a single pixel chosen randomly among them, since the spectral signatures are identical; then, from the second iteration, the pixel having the smallest distance from the center of gravity of its subclass is selected. Then at each iteration, matching is achieved for the set of pixels kept from the previous iteration by releasing the constraint made for the similarity criterion. For N pixels to be classified, this step groups a pixel i with a pixel k, presenting a minimum distance with respect to the set of remaining pixels. Then, if going through the remaining data, there exists some pixel j at a distance to pixel k smaller than the distance to pixel i, so that the link between i and k is broken (i remains alone), and k is eventually grouped with j.
The reduction procedure is automated, since at the end of each reduction level the algorithm checks the maximum distance of aggregation that should not be exceeded. The value of the adaptive aggregation threshold δB for each block is estimated as follows:
Let NB be the number of data points to be classified in a block B, and SimB be a set of size (NB2−NB)/2 representing the similarity values Sm between each pair of pixels within this block.
The similarity index between the pair of pixels i and k is given by Display Formula
At the end of this step, in each block only one representative pixel for a group of pixels having a very high similarity with this representative and the pixels that have not yet been grouped are preserved. The clustering of the remaining pixels of all blocks by AP gives a global classification result for the full image, which is independent of the blocks' size, and more particularly, for the estimation of NCs. This is confirmed by the results shown later in Sec. 3.2.2.
As stated above, the NCs determined by AP are generally over-estimated. The estimated value is implicitly controlled by the preference parameter p (diagonal elements of the similarity matrix), which corresponds to the "self-attractive force" of an object. The smaller the preference value, the more the object loses its priority to be selected as an exemplar, whereas the higher its value (close to 0), the more likely it is to become an exemplar. In the original algorithm,4 this parameter is set to the median value of the off-diagonal elements of the similarity matrix S. Under this setting, AP generates high NCs and consequently the correct classification rate on the data is decreased.
To correctly estimate the NCs, we introduced an evaluation criterion (EC) for the partitions obtained by AP (named AP-modified). This step involves the estimation of the preference parameter p. The best partition is the one which maximizes the EC based on the interclass variance defined by Levine and Nazif.26
To summarize, the sequential steps of AP-modified for partitioning are
In this section, we first assess the effectiveness of each step of the proposed LSS-AP method (reduction process and classification by AP-modified) on a synthetic hyperspectral image constructed from the ground truth of a real-hyperspectral image. Afterward, we show the performance of the proposed method on a real application concerning the detection of invasive and noninvasive plant species. The data images used are first presented.
A first evaluation is performed on a hyperspectral test image constructed from regions of interest of a real image for which the ground truth (spectral measurements and observations) is available. The original aerial image has a spatial size of 8075×9748 pixels and 62 spectral bands covering the visible–near infrared spectrum ([400,970] nm). It was acquired in the region of Murcia, Spain, on October 1, 2010, by means of the hyperspectral imager AISA Eagle available in our laboratory. The spatial ground resolution of this image is 0.5 m.
The size chosen for the test image is limited to only 64×64 pixels for two reasons: the first reason is the possibility of applying AP directly without any reduction step with the aim of analyzing the impact of reduction on the quality of the classification results. The second reason is the availability of ground truth data. Therefore, we selected five classes to build a patchwork image using the ground truth, as shown in Fig. 1. According to the ground truth class labels (masks) defined in Fig. 1(b), the data used for the construction of the test image [Fig. 1(c)] were randomly taken from areas 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the original image [Fig. 1(a)]. These areas correspond, respectively, to the classes: river, Pinus halepensis, peach trees, Arundo donax, and buildings.
Original image and constructed image test. (a) Original hyperspectral image (62 bands) displayed in RGB (650, 550, 450) nm, 400×400 pixels. (b) Image of ground truth class labels, 64×64 pixels. (c) Hyperspectral test image displayed in RGB (650, 550, 450) nm, 64×64 pixels.
To assess our approach on a real application, we selected regions of interest from the image of Murcia, Spain (8075×9748 pixels) for which the ground truth was available in six classes, among which three classes are invasive vegetation species (Phragmites australis, Tamarix and A. donax) as shown in Fig. 2. The objective of this application is to detect invasive plant species at an early stage in order to undertake appropriate subsequent management actions to limit their further development.
Hyperspectral image (region of Murcia, Spain) acquired by the AISA Eagle sensor and mask of ground truth classes. (a) Original hyperspectral image (62 bands) displayed in RGB (650, 550, 450) nm (1000×1000 pixels). (b) Mask of ground truth classes. (c) Areas of the original image corresponding to the mask. Image displayed in RGB (650, 550, 450) nm.
We selected a test area that contains the maximum of ground truth data to allow validation of our method. The size of the area is 1000×1000 pixels.
It must be noticed that, in all experiments, the value of the damping parameter λ is set by default to 0.9 to avoid oscillations in the AP algorithm. When standard AP is used, the value of the preference parameter p is set to the median similarity value. The metric used in AP is the opposite of the Manhattan distance.
The application of the proposed reduction step, associated with standard AP in the supervised mode (by setting the NCs to five), on the synthetic image, divided into four nonoverlapping blocks (32×32 pixels), gives an ACCR of 97.51%. This rate is superior to that obtained by the direct application of AP (without reduction) to the whole image (ACCR: 90.72%). In fact, in the reduction step, substituting a single representative to each group of strictly similar pixels disturbs the calculation of weights assigned to pixels by the AP less and, therefore, distorts the partitioning results less.
We compared our reduction process with the neuronal algorithm self-organizing maps (SOM),27 which are often used as a reduction step prior to classification. Figure 3 shows the classification results of AP, without the preliminary reduction step [Fig. 3(a)], with the reduction by our approach [Fig. 3(b)], and with the reduction by SOM [Fig. 3(c)]. This experiment shows that our reduction approach provides a better ACCR (97.51% versus 95.36% with a reduction by SOM). The SOM algorithm is used here in the supervised mode, where the number of pixels is set the same as the one given by our reduction step. The result is even worse if SOM is used in an unsupervised mode (74.32%).
Results of classification via standard affinity propagation (AP) by fixing the number of classes (NCs) to five. (a) Result without reduction (ACCR: 90.72%). (b) Result with reduction by the proposed approach (ACCR: 97.51%). (c) Result with reduction by SOM (ACCR: 95.36%).
Before applying our method of estimation of the NCs via AP, in this section we analyze the consequences of the choice of the preference parameter p value on the quality of the estimate of the NCs and, of course, on the quality of the classification result.
Figure 4 shows the results of AP classification (unsupervised mode) with and without the preliminary reduction stage on the synthetic image. By fixing p to the median similarity value, the estimated NCs by the unsupervised AP is 19 without reduction, whereas it is reduced to 9 after application of the proposed reduction step on four blocks. After this step, the NCs were reduced, but are still biased.
Classification results via standard AP. (a) Result without data reduction (p = median value of S). NC estimated by AP: 19. (b) Result with data reduction (p = median value of S). NC estimated by AP: 9.
When applying our approach of class number estimation after the reduction step, the correct number of five classes has been identified. Figure 5 shows the intermediate results of the estimation of the NCs, according to the evolution of the EC (search of the optimal value of p). Table 1 shows the confusion matrix of the optimal partitioning result, where the NCs were correctly estimated (five classes). Referring to the ground truth data, four classes (P. halepensis, A. donax, river, and buildings) were identified at a 100% rate and only one class (peach trees) was identified at an 87.55% rate.
Partitioning of the hyperspectral image of Fig. 1(c) via LSS-AP method: estimation of the NC depending on the value of the parameter p and corresponding value of the EC. (a) p=−6066 300 (minimum value of Rf matrix). NC estimated by AP: 3. EC=0.59. (b) p=−4563 400 (intermediate value). NC estimated by AP: 4. EC=0.65. (c) p=−1557 700 (intermediate value). NC estimated by AP: 5. EC=0.69. (d) p=−54 806 (median value of Rf matrix). NC estimated by AP: 23. EC=0.29.
These first tests show the relevance of the proposed approach (LSS-AP): a low classification rate error and an estimation of the NCs independent of block sizes. For example, the results obtained on the synthetic image, following three configurations (16 blocks of 16×16 pixels, 4 blocks of 32×32 pixels, and full image), confirms the exact NCs with a very small variation of ACCR (0.07% in average) every time. We also note that the number of pixels retained after the reduction step for the full image varies by the same order.
This section presents the validation of our approach on the detection of three invasive plant species (P. australis, Tamarix, and A. donax). The test image of Fig. 2(a) (size 1000×1000 pixels, 62 spectral bands) has been divided into 400 blocks of size 50×50 pixels. Figure 6 shows the intermediate results of the estimation of the NCs, according to the evolution of the EC (search for the optimal value of p) and the corresponding partitioning results. The first column gives the partitioning result of the entire image, whereas for easier readability, the second column shows the result corresponding to the areas of interest only.
Partitioning the hyperspectral image of Fig. 2(a) based on the parameter p.
The optimal result which maximizes the EC is given for eight classes. Table 2 gives the corresponding confusion matrix. The results of the application of the proposed approach in areas of interest provided an ACCR of 97.66%. These results show that two of the invasive vegetation species (Tamarix and A. donax) have an ACCR of 100%, which confirms the result of Table 1. The ACCR for P. australis is 86.69%.
We also compared the performances of the proposed reduction step with the SOM approach on the same real hyperspectral image with an LSS. The selected pixels were classified by AP-modified. Table 3 shows that the results of the reduction by SOM, either in supervised or in unsupervised mode, are not satisfactory. Indeed, in both cases, the results of classification by AP-modified give, respectively, an ACCR of 47.20% and 45.60%, against 97.66% with the LSS-AP. These results confirm those obtained on the synthetic image and show that the reduction with SOM gives very bad results when the image has an LSS.
Finally, we compared the classification results of the unsupervised AP-modified with classical methods often used in remote sensing: namely ISODATA and K-means. To be able to use these semi-supervised methods, a prior knowledge of the three following data is required: the NCs, a threshold value, and an iteration number. We specify that these two methods were applied on the data after the reduction step in the same conditions as the AP-modified. We first estimated the NCs with our approach, and then introduced it as a priori knowledge for the other two. The best correct classification rate for each method was obtained with threshold values fixed to 5% and three iterations. The performances (ACCR) of LSS-AP, K-means, and ISODATA are 97.66, 65.03, and 62.81% respectively.
This last experiment confirms the efficiency of our approach compared with the others for both the reduction step (with respect to SOM) and classification step (with respect to K-means and ISODATA).
In the present work, we have addressed the two main problems of AP, i.e., (1) the difficulty in handling datasets (or images) with a high number of points (or pixels), and (2) the difficulty in linking the preference parameter to the final NCs provided by AP. A preliminary step of the number of pixels reduced was proposed to answer the first problem. For the second problem, we have proposed using an automatic search of the optimal preference parameter to estimate the correct NCs present in an image. More precisely, the proposed nonparametric and unsupervised classification approach (LSS-AP) consists of first reducing the number of pixels to be classified on a metric-based procedure and second applying AP with a bisection method based on pixel interclass variance EC.
Our method was successfully applied to various hyperspectral images. The results show the robustness of our approach, which exploits the spectral signatures in a rather direct manner.
Experiments conducted on a synthetic hyperspectral image, and on a real application to identify invasive and noninvasive plant species from an LSS hyperspectral image, showed the effectiveness of our approach.
The proposed unsupervised reduction step compared with SOM in a supervised mode or unsupervised mode, both associated with AP-modified, showed its superiority. In addition, it is completely unsupervised. Also, compared with the traditional clustering ISODATA and K-means algorithms, which were applied on the data after our reduction step, experimental results show that the ACCR related to AP-modified is always more effective. These results confirm that the LSS-AP is effective for pixel classification of large-size hyperspectral remote sensing images.
The contribution of our approach is twofold: the possibility of applying AP on an LSS hyperspectral image and performance improvement with respect to classical AP in terms of the ACCR. Yet, in the case of strongly textured images, the exploitation of spectral and spatial information remains to be investigated.
Authors wish to thank Dr. Claudio Reyes Hurtado from Infraestructura y Ecologia S.A. Aretech Group, Chile, for providing the hyperspectral images and the ground truth dataset to assess our classification approach on a real application related to the detection of invasive and noninvasive vegetation species.
Kacem Chehdi received his PhD and the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches degrees in signal processing and telecommunications from the University of Rennes 1, France, in 1986 and 1992, respectively. Since 1993, he has been a professor at the same institution. He is currently the head of the Signal and Multicomponent/Multimodal Image Processing Laboratory. His research activities concern adaptive processing (blind restoration and blind filtering) and pattern recognition. He is a member of SPIE.
Mariem Soltani is a PhD student at the University of Rennes 1, Lannion, France. She received her engineering and master's degrees in computer sciences and image processing from the National School of Computer Sciences, Tunisia, in 2009 and 2010, respectively.
Claude Cariou received his PhD degree in electronics from the University of Brest, France, in 1991. Since 1992, he has been assistant professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences Appliquées et de Technologie (ENSSAT)—University of Rennes 1, Lannion, France. His research interests include image analysis, pattern recognition, unsupervised classification, texture modeling and segmentation, image registration, and feature selection, especially with application to multi- and hyperspectral remote sensing imageries.
Kacem Chehdi ; Mariem Soltani and Claude Cariou"Pixel classification of large-size hyperspectral images by affinity propagation", J. Appl. Remote Sens. 8(1), 083567 (Aug 15, 2014). ; http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.8.083567
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With soft textile uppers that stretch and flex with your every step, this leisure sneaker offers day-long comfort. Smart leather detailing enhances the look, whilst the slim line shaping and feminine profile keep it more dainty than your average sneaker. A textile lining and inlay sole allow your feet to breathe for fresh comfort day after day.
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All your need to measure your feet from heel to toe is a piece of paper, a pencil and a ruler.
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阳江市江城得利刀剪厂位于阳江市江城那格五金工业区内。该厂成立于 1983年,厂房占地面积15000平方米,生产工人600多。是一间实力雄厚的民营企业。 本厂引进一流的生产技术和先进的机械设备,专业生产剪刀及餐具。同时,我们不 断创新,开发新的品种。产品造型美观,质量保证,畅销西欧和美国,取得良好声誉, 并多次获得"重合同,守信用"、"质量信得过"企业,"先进民营企业"等荣誉。 我们以质量为本,坚持优质的服务,遵守平等互利的原则,竭诚与客户友好合作, 共同繁荣和发展。
Jiang cheng Deli Knife & Scissor Factory of yangjiang, Located in Noge Metals Industrial Town in Gangle Town, Jiangcheng District. Yangjiang City, established in 1983, occupies 15000 square metres of factory land and 600 workers. Now it has developed into a private enterprise with rich strength. Having imported first-class productive technology and advanced equipments, we professionally produce scissors and tableware. Meanwhile, we constantly bring forth new ideas in production and new kinds of broducts are being opened up. With beautiful shape and guaranteed quality, our products are now well sold in west Europe and America, so that have enjoyed good prestige from customers. These years the factory has been entitled "Value Contract, Keep Credit", "Trustworthy Quality "and "Advanced Private Enterprise". With the principle of good quality and service, equality and mutual benefit, we sincerely hope to cooperate friendlily with customers, both enjoying prosperity and development.


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The Imposter Project D is a pair of characters in Initial D: 5th Stage and a minor villain of said series.
Posing as Takumi Fujiwara and Keisuke Takahashi, the Imposter Project D talks down to people that ask them questions, gloats about their "skills" and tries to pick up women. They are somehow arrogant and proud of themselves because of this.
Posing at Takumi Fujiwara and Keisuke Takahashi, the Imposter Project D resemble their real counterparts only with fatter cheeks and spots on their faces. The imposter Takumi has brown straight hair with half-parted bangs like his real counterpart, whereas the imposter Keisuke has spiked blonde hair with his forehead exposed like his real counterpart. The imposter Takumi drives a white-black two-tone AE86 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex, whereas the imposter Keisuke drives a yellow FD Mazda RX-7, much like their real counterparts albeit with different license plates. They both wear a white t-shirt with a writing that says "PROJECT D", with a black "PROJECT" and a red "D" written on it; and a pair of blue denim jeans with white sports sneakers.
5th Stage
They go around Saitama living off Project D's success, right down to having Mika slap the real Takumi's face for having harassed her, despite having nothing to do with it. Their antics are quickly put to an end when they are confronted by the real members of Project D and were humiliated.


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These are edited excerpts from Ron Bradley's presentation at the ITFMA World of IT Financial Management Conference June 2011
What is a rolling forecast?
What is driver-based forecasting?
Copyright © 2011 by the IT Financial Management Association.
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8/7/2017 » 8/11/20172017 World of IT Financial Management, New Orleans, LA


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Definition - What does Competent mean?
In a legal context, competent means that a person is suitable to stand trial or to give testimony in the sense that they have all of their mental faculties and are knowledgeable on the subject being reviewed. If a person is not legally competent, they would be found unfit to stand trial or to give testimony. Any testimony that a non-competent person gives has to be weighed against the other available testimony. If it is not in line with other testimony or cannot be backed up by a competent individual, it would be discarded.
Justipedia explains Competent
In a court of law, it is important for all testimony being given to come from a source that is truthful and believable. If a person is found to be incompetent, they would not be able to have the benefit of the doubt given to them. Criminals that are found to have committed a crime and are also deemed to not be competent will be assessed psychologically and can be given terms in mental health facilities in lieu of incarceration.


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Walk 19 – Long Pond Bridge and Fox Trail Loop
This short and easy walk weaves its way through beautifully wooded sections of Presque Isle State Park. About 40% of the walk is on woodland trails with a few sand dune hills and surface tree roots. The rest of the walk is on paved sections of the Karl Boyes Multi-Purpose Trail.
This walk begins at the small bridge spanning the western end of Long Pond, and follows the Multi-Purpose Trail about one hundred yards back in the direction you came from to an intersection in the trail. Turn right onto this paved branch, and walk twenty yards to the entrance of Fox Trail on your left. Follow this short section of the Fox Trail until it rejoins the Multi-Purpose Trail at the Presque Isle maintenance road. Turn right, following the curve in the trail back to your car.
Special Features:
- Birding
- Oak/maple forest
.8 miles
Type Walk:
Approximate time:
45 minutes
Surface conditions:
Concrete path plus rough and grassy woodland


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|Property type
|Minimum Stay
Enjoy this clean, adorable, lakefront home. Just walk out the back door to experience the crystal clear, 250 acre Lake. The 100 foot Pier can be used for all your boat-docking needs, or spend the day fishing on the extended fish platform. The gradually-sloping sandy beach is great for all ages to swim, snorkel or just lay in the sun. All You need is already their-Beach Chairs,Grill, Picnic bench even a paddle boat and row boat are provided.
The home has a large kitchen and living room that make inside gatherings even more enjoyable.
This home is conveniently located near restaurants, shopping, ski lodge and many year round attractions.
Please ask about reduced winter rates
Keywords: Lake house, cottage,cabin, beach house,lakefront,sandy beach,fishing cabin,clean lake,cottage on a lake, vacation lake property,
My family & I just got back from 4 fabulous, fun & relaxing days here. Next year we will definitely book for a whole week. My sons are 5 & 2.5 years & the water was perfect for them, shallow & clear with a sandy bottom. The water is absolutely still & calm unless a speed boat or jet ski goes by & makes a few small waves. I could let them walk all the way down the pier while just watching from the shore because the water is pretty shallow for the entire length of it. They were able to jump from the pier & play without us holding on to them. The large deck, grill & firepit (great for smores) were awesome perks. The kids were so tired out from all-day play that they had no problem going to bed early & they loved the bunk beds. One of the nicest things was that my husband & I were able to relax & spend alone time in front of the fire & under the stars every night while the kids were asleep because it was close enough to the house in case they woke up or needed something. Everything you need is there as far as pots & pans, plates & utensils, coffee pot & microwave. All you need is food, condiments, spices/seasonigs etc (which I forgot to pack) & make sure to bring a ton of towels because there are only a few bath towels supplied. I also recommend bringing bikes & riding around the lake & farm/wood areas. We enjoyed our time & were definitely not ready to go back home to chicago. Till next year we will think of this time & place fondly.
Fire Pit on the Beach,extra sleeping area on the lake side. Also Near Swiss valley ski lodge, Near Notre Dame Football and Near public Hunting


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: Rumor:
Trade and Proposals Thread XXXVII: Is MacT mostly done?
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 62,163
vCash: 500
Originally Posted by
scrums take place after the whistle. Its not a part of playing hockey because the play has stopped. When the team asked him to play more physical, he stepped up his game to a top40 bodychecker from a top50 body checker the previous season. He is a leader in blocked shots as well.. He has stepped up his physicality and the stats prove that.
Speaking of fights...the oilers only had one guy with more than 1 fight last year.. Brown, and he barely won half his fights 3 wins 2 draws 2 losses... Petry was not the only one who did not win his fight last season but at least he was one of the only 7 oilers who actually tried to have an NHL fight.
You cant say what type of person someone is when they are in front of a video camera either.. so you cant say what he is like by nature..
all of your factoids thusfar have been based merely on speculation therefore i cannot comment any further. Have a good night.
And you are basing everything on hits. If hits are the best sign of aggression then Clutterbuck is the most aggressive bad ass in all the land. Petry dishes out sometimes hard but clean hits and that's great, I like that part of his game and I'd like to see even more of it. I am a Petry fan, a big one in fact. That said he is not aggressive by nature, no one has ever mistaken him for a guy like Fistric for example. Does this look like an aggressive guy to you?
THIS is aggressive.
Originally Posted by
Do you remember Petry's fight? IIRC, he looked like a frightened child and wouldn't even drop his gloves, even after beginning to get pummeled. His physical play basically ends with throwing a couple of really nice hipchecks. He is nothing like Smid or Ference.
And I like Petry. But he's cut from the same cloth as Paajarvi and Gilbert were, ie: not a confrontational or physical player in the least.
I agree except he's more physical that either of those guys (Maggie and Tammy) but he's closer to their mentality than Ference that's for damn sure. IMO he'd do well playing alongside a guy like Coburn knowing that someone had his back and could dish out a beat down if there was a scrum in the crease.
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September 2010
Our house is one full of tummy troubles. My husband has had stomach issues for many years and is petrified of catching a stomach virus on top of that. I have my own issues that are a bit too delicate to talk about openly. Since neither of us are big yogurt eaters, probiotics seem to be a good way to keep our digestive systems working well.
Vidazorb Chewable Probiotics are a bit different than the usual probiotic – they are chewable and shelf-stable, meaning that they don't need to be refrigerated. So right away, you can see that Vidazorb is different.
Vidazorb offers a complete line of probiotics to make it easy to get these into your diet, all of them shelf stable. You can see the full range here.
What exactly do probiotics do for us? Well, I'm sure most of you know that they help with keeping our intestines healthy. But there is so much more that they impact positively – like allergies, eczema, even urogenital health in women. You can read more about that the benefits of probiotics here.
I was able to try the Vidazorb Daily Probiotics. My husband and I actually split the bottle and I did see a difference. My stomach seemed less "upset", as did my husband's. It wasn't a mega-change, but a subtle difference in just feeling better. I can only imagine how much better prolonged use would make me feel.


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Listen to free music played by mattonrails
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Royksopp – Space Invaders| play
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4 Min Read
* Euro falls on lacklustre German PMI data
* Worries about Cyprus to weigh down on euro
* BoJ Kuroda offers no clues on an emergency meeting
By Anirban Nag
LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) - The euro fell on Thursday, after surveys showed the euro zone economy was struggling with weaker-than-expected German business activity data casting fresh doubts about a recovery in Europe's largest economy.
Worries about a banking collapse and uncertainty in Cyprus also loomed. But even before the situation in Cyprus blew up, the latest evidence showed euro zone economy in the midst of a deep slowdown and little signs of a recovery. All of which is likely to keep demand for the euro sluggish.
The euro dropped to a session low of $1.2879, nearing the four-month low of $1.28435 hit on Tuesday, before recovering to $1.2915, still down on the day. It also hit a five-week low against the British pound and at one point shed more than 1 percent against the yen.
Business surveys on Thursday showed that the euro zone's economic downturn deepened in March, contrary to expectations of a modest improvement, with most investors worried about slowing growth in Germany.
Germany's composite PMI fell in March, although it held above the 50 line that separates growth from contraction. But in France, the bloc's second-biggest economy, it sank to a four-year low.
"Today's data adds to the argument that loose policy will be needed to stay in place," said Chris Walker, currency strategist at Barclays. "We expect the euro to head lower."
Analysts said near term support lay around the 200-day moving average around $1.28775 with most investors looking to sell into any bounce towards the $1.30 level.
The most immediate fears of financial meltdown in Cyprus have eased for now, but the small island state is still scrambling to secure financial aid. It extended a bank lockdown to next week to prevent a run on banks and has turned to Russia for a lifeline.
The yen fell briefly after new Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda vowed to take all possible measures available to achieve its 2 percent inflation goal in about two years.
"Kuroda's comments are relatively constructive and don't really disappoint expectations of further aggressive easing by the Bank of Japan," said George Saravelos, G10 FX strategist at Deutsche Bank. "Dollar/yen uptrend is very much intact and by this time next year, we forecast it to rise to 105 yen."
Still, the yen recovered and was up on the day as Kuroda offered little insight on whether he will call for an early policy board meeting ahead of the BOJ's next scheduled meeting on April 3-4.
The dollar was down 0.8 percent to 95.25 yen with Asian central banks looking to buy the dollar at dips.
Market expectations for aggressive monetary easing by the BOJ were still intact, traders said. That would keep the dollar near a peak of 96.71 yen last week, the greenback's strongest level versus the Japanese currency since August 2009.
The dollar's rise have been partly due to improved data from the United States, though on Wednesday the Federal Reserve reiterated its ultra-loose policy bias.
The Fed will continue to buy $85 billion in mortgage and Treasury bonds per month and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank would only slow the pace of its bond buying after the labour market shows sustained improvement.


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November 3, 2011 by staff
Bornthiswayfoundation.org, When Lady Gaga speaks (or tweets) about something, people tend to listen. So the pop star has decided to put that power to good use with the launch of birth Way Foundation, which aims to inspire more young people and stop the spread of intimidation.
Monster breast is even enlist the help of her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, who helped launch the project. In a statement about the foundation, Gaga said: "My mother and I have started a project of passion. We call that the baby Way Foundation. Together we hope to establish a level of courage and kindness, as well as a global community that protects and nurtures others from intimidation and neglect. "
According to the statement, the Foundation works with a number of partners and focus on "youth empowerment and equality, addressing topics such as self-welfare, anti-bullying, mentoring and professional development and use digital mobilization as one of the means to create positive change. "The amount of bullying appears to be growing to epidemic proportions, it really has struck a chord in the heart of Lady Gaga from requesting 14 years of age, Jamey Rodemeyer suicide last September. He even met with President Obama to discuss the issue face to face, but now has decided to take matters into their own hands. With an audience like yours, Her can almost guarantee that millions of little monsters and Twitter fans have her back. Go Gaga!
For more information about the foundation, and how to spread the word, do not miss http://www.bornthiswayfoundation.org.
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