text: WASHINGTON -- Much like their counterparts in the private sector, federal CIOs are feeling a budget squeeze as they are expected to deliver a higher level of service and press ahead with ambitious cloud and data-center-consolidation initiatives with flat or even declining resources at their disposal.\n\nIn a keynote address here at the annual FOSE government IT conference, U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel explained that after a decade of roughly 7 percent growth, the federal IT budget leveled off in 2009, forcing CIOs to reassess their approach to new technology deployments.\n\n"We're at this amazing inflection point," said VanRoekel, a Microsoft veteran who joined the federal government in 2009, holding positions at U.S. Agency for International Development and the Federal Communications Commission before being tapped to serve as the country's second CIO last August.\n\nCIOs in both the public and private sectors have a common responsibility for operations and maintenance and delivering new products and features, VanRoekel noted, but in business, the usual pattern is to wind down old projects to make room for new ones, a budget-sensitive model that reapportions scarce resources without necessarily increasing overall expenditures.\n\n"In government we don't have depreciation. We don't have a culture of take from the old and give to the new," he said. That has meant that rather than retiring or refurbishing old deployments, agencies have tended to rely on steady upticks in their IT budgets.\n\n"That's how we've grown," VanRoekel added. "Suddenly the pie stops growing and the growth slows down."\n\nNow, VanRoekel is presiding over a government-wide overhaul of federal IT that is being driven by a confluence of factors, ranging from the consumerization of the enterprise and increased consumer expectations to the rise of cloud computing and cybersecurity concerns, all with the understanding that budgets will remain tight as lawmakers pursue measures to reduce the deficit.\n\nVanRoekel described the escalating degree of service that citizens and government workers expect from federal IT systems. In part, that expectation comes from the proliferation of user-friendly online applications and services. After all, in the era of Amazon and Expedia, why would a person be satisfied with an agency that allows users to download a form but then requires them to submit it in-person at an office?\n\n"Citizens across the board expect more," he said. "We're at an inflection point where the consumerization of technology and technology generally is just going to roll over us from the standpoint of government."\n\nData is at the center of that mission. With some 1,700 dot-gov websites, the federal government is awash in data that the public can access, but unless that information is machine readable and easily searchable, it is of little practical benefit for the average citizen.\n\n"No one can find it. Data's just sort of lost in the mire of government," VanRoekel said. "Data is the core of everything we do and deliver."\n\nClearly, VanRoekel is looking to harness technology to achieve a more service-driven government operation, but he is doing so while also pressing agencies to eliminate duplicative systems and consolidate data centers.\n\nJust last week, the Office of Management and Budget launched a tool, called PortfolioStat, that agencies will use to comb through their IT portfolios for wasteful or duplicative operations in a mandatory review process.\n\n"We need to drive just maniacally inside these agencies to streamline this stuff," VanRoekel said.\n\nVanRoekel is also leading efforts to consolidate federal data centers, with the ambitious goal of a 40 percent facility reduction as departments and agencies migrate to cloud-based systems.\n\nAmid those endeavors, VanRoekel is also seeking to enhance the profile of the federal CIO. Just as he is encouraging federal IT workers to break down silos between disparate legacy systems within various government organizations, he is urging CIOs to align their work with the broader aims of their agencies, echoing the movement underway in the private sector that seeks to achieve closer coordination between IT and business groups.\n\n"Our mission needs to be the mission. We tend to spend a lot of time talking about technology." VanRoekel said "At the end of the day, our mission is really about service delivery -- how is the function of the CIO kind of bridging the gap between the technical capabilities and the business requirements of the organization to really provide better service to Americans, more efficient employees, cybersecurity and other things?"\n\nTo that end, very shortly after VanRoekel took office, OMB issued a directive granting CIOs new authorities to implement the reforms needed to eliminate outdated or redundant systems as the federal government continues to refashion its approach IT after the private sector.\n\n"The role of the CIO often in agencies is one that actually doesn't have authority over most of the agency or all of the agency," VanRoekel said, noting that the reforms are an ongoing process. In some cases, CIOs who rose to the agency level, perversely found themselves with less budget and decision-making authority than when they served as leaders at the bureau level, resulting in a balkanizing effect that has produced dramatic inconsistencies throughout the government's IT operations. "That's just wrong," VanRoekel said. "We need a holistic view across these agencies."\nKenneth Corbin is a Washington, D.C.-based writer who covers government and regulatory issues for CIO.com.


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Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Many Municipalities do not respect Alcohol Laws
Posted by Bad News Blogger at 2:23 PM
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This project sets out to demonstrate that media coverage can degrade a country's image by using selective news without context. It uses the Netherlands as an example. It is a reaction to the frequent misrepresentations of Israel in many ways in major media, including those of the Netherlands.

subset: commoncrawl


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Paul Manafort added to his burgeoning record of alleged crimes and falsehoods this week with a decision from U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson that he had broken his cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller by making false statements and withholding information. The result could be devastating for Manafort who will now face sentencing without the benefit of the plea deal that he struck with Mueller. That could mean that, absent a pardon from President Donald Trump, Manafort could die in prison since he is looking at decades of potential jail time.
Jackson ruled that Manafort intentionally misled investigators on at least three matters. This included lying about his communications with Russian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, a figure closely tied to Russian intelligence who was indicted by Mueller. He also allegedly lied about payments to a law firm and another unspecified matter.
While the ruling found that the Manafort did not lie on other subjects, including his communications with the White House, it leaves him in the worst possible position. He was previously convicted in Virginia on various counts and then pleaded guilty to other crimes in Washington. Those admissions will now be used against him without the benefit of a plea arrangement.
Manafort elected to divide the cases rather than face a single, unified trial. The reason may be that he believed the Virginia jury pool was better for him and he would succeed in defeating some of those counts or even secure a hung jury in his home state.
The problem for Manafort is these trials made it increasingly difficult to portray him as a victim. Indeed, the second trial involved allegations of money laundering and foreign lobbying as well as false statements to the FBI. The government is preparing almost three times the number of documents detailing his transactions and associations with an array of sleazy characters around the world.
Manafort's dealings in the indictment include his involvement working on behalf of a pro-Russian faction in Ukraine. The prosecutors notably held back much of the evidence of Manafort's Ukrainian dealings in the Virginia trial. Manafort was working for the interests of one of the most bloodsoaked and sinister figures in Eastern Europe — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych — widely viewed as a Russian stooge who took over the government with the help of Moscow and ultimately did Moscow's bidding. Yanukovych was accused of not only massive corruption, but also the murder of protesters and the arrest of political opponents. He accumulated an estimated net worth of $12 billion through alleged pilfering of Ukrainian funds. He ultimately fled to Russia.
When he fled into Russian exile, Yanokovych took away not only Manafort's most important client but also the source of his wealth. Manafort's opulent lifestyle now faced a serious downgrade. It was then, the government claims, that he began to lie to banks, the IRS and ultimately investigators.
In other words, Manafort is one of the least redeeming characters facing a sentencing and the last defendant who would want to do so without a prior sentencing agreement.
Manafort has been trying to play two-hands in this controversy: preserving a plea bargain will seeking a presidential pardon. He is now left with only a pardon as an escape from what could be a terminal sentence.


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Another massive Chinese-owned resource project is before Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet.
Some time in the new year, four federal ministers are to decide how to conduct an environmental review for the Izok Corridor proposal. It could bring many billions of dollars into the Arctic but would also see development of open-pit mines, roads, ports and other facilities in the centre of calving grounds for the fragile Bathurst caribou herd.
"This is going to be the biggest issue," said Sally Fox, a spokeswoman for proponent MMG Ltd., a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned China Minmetals Corp., formerly called Minmetals Resources Ltd.
It would be hard to exaggerate the proposal's scope. Centred at Izok Lake, about 260 kilometres southeast of Kugluktuk, the project would stretch throughout a vast swath of western Nunavut.
Izok Lake would have five underground and open-pit mines producing lead, zinc and copper. Another site at High Lake, 300 kilometres to the northeast, would have another three mines.
MMG also wants a processing plant that could handle 6,000 tonnes of ore a day, tank farms for 35 million litres of diesel, two permanent camps totalling 1,000 beds, airstrips and a 350-kilometre all-weather road with 70 bridges that would stretch from Izok Lake to Grays Bay on the central Arctic coast.
MMG plans a port there that could accommodate ships of up to 50,000 tonnes that would make 16 round trips a year – both east and west – through the Northwest Passage.
Izok Lake would be drained, the water dammed and diverted to a nearby lake. Three smaller lakes at High Lake would also be drained. Grays Bay would be substantially filled in.
The result would be a project producing 180,000 tonnes of zinc and another 50,000 tonnes of copper a year.
"That's not insignificant," Ms. Fox deadpanned.
The deposits are an old story. Izok was discovered in the late 1970s and High Lake dates back to the 1950s. They'd been owned by a half-dozen different companies before they were acquired by Minmetals in 2009.
Their time has come, said Ms. Fox.
"They're very much about our future confidence in zinc," she said from Melbourne, Australia, where MMG is headquartered. "We see in the next few years a number of major zinc mines will be coming off-line."
One of those is MMG's own Century mine, which produces 500,000 tonnes of zinc annually.
"Between the Izok Corridor project in Canada and our other project in Australia, we would be hoping that they would replace the zinc production of our Century mine," Ms. Fox said.
MMG estimates the Izok project would create about 1,100 jobs during construction and 710 permanent jobs. The mine life is estimated at 12 years, but Ms. Fox said exploration is likely to expand that.
But more than 400 individuals, organizations, aboriginal groups and governments registered concerns about the project with the Nunavut Impact Review Board.
"Both the Izok Lake mine site and the High Lake mine site, as well as the route of the Izok corridor all-weather road, occur either near to or on the Bathurst calving ground," wrote the government of the Northwest Territories.
"The proposed project may cause significant adverse effects on the ecosystem and wildlife habitat," wrote Environment Canada.
"We are concerned that our hunting and harvesting rights will be in jeopardy if the project is allowed to proceed as is," added the Lutsel K'e Dene.
Many pointed out that the Bathurst herd has only recently stabilized after a 90-per-cent drop in the 1980s to today's 32,000 animals. That drop was steep and sustained enough for aboriginal groups to stop hunting the herd and many are leery of anything that could impede its recovery.
"The project may also cause some adverse socio-economic effects such as possible reductions and disruptions in harvesting opportunities," wrote the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, despite acknowledging its members are most likely to benefit from mining jobs.
The board also expressed concern about the growing industrial footprint in western Nunavut. There are now nine mines either operating or under review in the Kitikmeot region.
On Dec. 14, the board recommended Northern Development Minister John Duncan call full public hearings on the project.
Mr. Duncan and the three other ministries involved – Transport, Natural Resources and Fisheries and Oceans – have three choices. They can send the project back to MMG and ask for changes, they can choose to let the board run hearings itself or they can decide the project's effects would be broad enough to require the involvement of other governments in hearings.
There's no difference in length, who is able to appear or in intervener funding between the two types of hearings, said board chairman Ryan Barry.
Ms. Fox said MMG is aware of the centrality of caribou to residents in the area.
"They're absolutely essential to the local Inuit."
MMG has designed the road to make it as easy as possible for caribou to cross, she said, and the company is conducting field studies on how to further reduce the project's potential impact.
Ms. Fox said MMG is also aware of other potential stumbling blocks, such as Canadian sensitivity to major resource projects being owned by foreign governments. She said Minmet has left its Australian subsidiary alone to operate as it sees fit, despite the fact half of MMG's board is from Minmet.
"We're a bit of a different model for Chinese investment," said Ms. Fox. "We really run day-to-day quite separately."
MMG doesn't expect the Harper government's recent policy changes on investment by state-owned enterprises to affect Izok. The prime minister announced those changes at the same time Ottawa approved the takeovers of Nexen Inc. by China National Offshore Oil Corp. and Progress Energy Resources Corp. by Malaysia's Petronas.
"We're not acquiring and operating assets that are producing," she said. "We're in there as a long-term investor in a project that has been seen as quite marginal by others.
"The Harper government has noted the importance of mineral investment in this region and the importance of that to unlock benefits for the local communities. We certainly see that we're very aligned in our strategy with that."
However Ottawa decides to tackle the questions over Izok, mine production is a long way off.
MMG plans to ask for permission to start preliminary work on site before the regulatory process is over, but even that wouldn't be until late 2014. The earliest the mines could be producing would be 2018.
Mr. Duncan has no deadline to respond to the board's request for a review. But, as the board notes in its letter to him, the ball is now in his court.
"The (board) looks forward to receiving your decision and will respond in a timely and efficient manner to your direction once received."


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Taking place at the Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute (SPSI), from July 25 to August 25, the 'Foster + Partners: the Art of Architecture' exhibition is the first major survey of the studio's work to be held in China. It reveals details of a number of new projects underway in the region, including headquarters for Citic Bank in Hangzhou, a new tower in Nanjing and the Vantone development in Shanghai. It is also an opportunity to see the original models and sketches for high-profile completed buildings, such as Beijing International Airport, the Millau Viaduct in France, Hearst Tower in New York and the Swiss Re headquarters in London. More architects' description after the break.
Arranged around the themes of infrastructure, sustainability, high-rise, urban planning, history and culture, the works on display highlight the diversity of the practice's work and showcase a growing portfolio of projects in China.
They also illustrate into the changing nature of architectural practice over the past forty years – a timeline will illustrate the 227 projects in 20 countries completed by the practice since its inception in 1967 as Foster Associates. Allowing visitors a unique insight into the workings of the studio, a special exhibit created for the exhibition explores the design process from first client meeting to completed building and post-occupancy studies.
'Foster + Partners: the Art of Architecture' is also timed to celebrate the recent opening of the studio's Shanghai office, which is based in the Jiushi building on Zhong Shan Nan Road – a tower designed by the practice and the first project to be completed a British firm of architects in China. Sponsors include RJ Models, Walter Knoll, and ERCO.


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SUPERNATURAL Season 7 Episode 22 : There Will Be Blood
Latest SUPERNATURAL Episodes
In order to defeat Dick Roman and the Leviathans, Sam and Dean must locate three key items. Castiel helps with one but for the last objects, the Winchesters must face two of their strongest opponents - an Alpha and Crowley. Meanwhile, Bobby tries out a new ghost trick that ends up being very dangerous.
Episode Guide
Season 01
Season 02
Season 03
Season 04
Season 05
Season 06
Season 07
Season 08
Season 09
Season 10
Season 11
Season 12
Season 13
Season 14
Season 15


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3-09-40 to 12-20-09
The moment that you died, My heart split in two;
The one side filled with memories, The other died with you.
I often lie awake at night, When the world is fast asleep;
I take a walk down memory lane, With tears upon my cheeks.
Remembering you is easy, I do it every day,
But missing you is a heartache, That never goes away.
I hold you tight within my heart, And there you will remain;
Life has gone on without you, But it will never be the same.
Dorothy and Family


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|Oven Baked Crispy Spiced Beans
The main downside of the oven baked version is that they take a lot longer to cook compared with deep frying.
I used chickpeas and white beans. You can use pretty much any kind of bean.
Cooked beans (chickpeas, white beans etc)
Enough oil to coat (about 1 tablespoon per cup)
Spices (paprika, curry powder, garlic powder etc)
1. Preheat oven to 230 degrees
2. Mix the beans with oil until coated
3. Bake until they are brown and crispy, around 30-40 minutes. Stir occasionally
4. Season the beans and bake for a further few minutes. Over season the beans, you will be surprised how much salt they take
5. Let it cool completely. These snacks go well with a cold beer


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FRIDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) — Some HIV-positive women who want to have children feel stigmatized by their doctors, new research has found.
In the study, Canadian researchers surveyed 159 HIV-positive women in the province of Ontario. Forty-five percent of the women were born in Canada, while 55 percent were born elsewhere, mainly in HIV-endemic areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.
The study participants were asked about their personal background, HIV treatments, mental health and whether they felt they were being negatively judged by health-care providers, family and friends for their desire to have children.
"We do have strong evidence that women are feeling they are being judged negatively by health-care providers for wanting to have babies," study co-author Trevor Hart, director of the HIV Prevention Lab in the psychology department at Ryerson University in Toronto, said in a university news release.
Family and friends didn't play a major role in perceived stigmatization, the study authors found.
The study findings, scheduled for presentation this week at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria, were also published in the June issue of the journal Archives of Women's Mental Health.
New antiretroviral drugs mean that HIV-positive women can conceive without transmitting HIV to their newborns, and health-care providers should know this and be informing patients, Hart explained in the news release.
"There needs to be more efforts to make physicians aware of the practically nil chance of HIV-positive women transmitting HIV to their newborns as long as the women are continuing to receive appropriate medical treatment," he stated.
"There also needs to be continuing medical education to reduce the stigma perceived by HIV-positive women, which will improve their mental health and well-being," Hart added.
More information
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has more about HIV and pregnancy.
SOURCE: Ryerson University, news release, July 21, 2010
Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
This is a story from HealthDay, a service of ScoutNews, LLC.


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We need you to indicate the specific dates of your trip to be able to show you the prices for this journey.
We have a suggestion for you: combine a hotel with your flights and enjoy our best packages prices.
Just a stone's throw away from Europe, Morocco is a magnificent port of entry to the Arab world. Cities such as Marrakech, Fez and Essaouira will immerse you in a fascinating…
Just a stone's throw away from Europe, Morocco is a magnificent port of entry to the Arab world. Cities such as Marrakech, Fez and Essaouira will immerse you in a fascinating world of tradition and beauty. Forget about the constant haggling and overly-insistent merchants, which can be overwhelming to first-time visitors, as Morocco ticks all the boxes for a wonderful getaway.
If you're looking for lively cities filled with history and impressive monuments, don't miss Marrakech (home to one of the largest Souks in Morocco and one of the largest and busiest squares in Africa and the world, namely the beautiful Djemaa el Fna), and Fez (one of the four Imperial Cities, along with Marrakech, Mequinez and Rabat, which boasts the largest pedestrian zone in the world, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, namely the Fez el-Bali Medina).
For a relaxing time surrounded by nature, Essaouira and Chaouen are the places to be. The former is a tranquil, beautiful coastal fishing town, which boasts a beach and a pleasant climate with a cooling sea breeze. Like that of Fez, its Medina was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. The latter is a peaceful, picturesque village, surrounded by mountains.
Check the flight offer Spain and book your plane ticket online. Iberia guarantees the best last-minute prices for our cheap flight offer Spain.
Prices shown are for flights that customers have recently searched at Spain. They are subject to change depending on seat availability, possible fare variations, charges and other supplements at the time you make the check. Prices per journey are applicable for return-flight tickets


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Gasket Maker
Gasket Maker for two and four-cycle engines. Solvent-based bond fully seals within 20 minutes. Forms a tough flexible bond that is highly effective on irregular and uneven joint surfaces. Resists gasoline and other damaging fluids. Withstands temperatures 350°F (177°C) continuous, 400°F (204°C) intermittent.
Showing 1 to 1 of 1 (1 Pages)


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Locked in frozen vaults in Antarctica and Greenland, a lost world of ancient creatures awaits another chance at life. Once thought to be too harsh and inhospitable to support any living thing, the polar ice sheets are now known to be a gigantic reservoir of microbial life, trapped longer than modern humans have walked the planet.
With that ice melting at an alarming rate, the earth could soon see masses of bacteria and other microbes the likes of which it has not seen since the Middle Pleistocene, a previous period of major climate change, some 750,000 years ago.
John Priscu, a microbial ecologist at Montana State University, has spent the past 28 austral summers in Antarctica, studying what he calls "the bugs in the ice sheet." He has found living bacteria in cores of 420,000-year-old ice that are still able to grow and divide.
Do they pose a threat to human health? Not likely, scientists say, because most of what has been identified appears related to common soil and marine bacteria. Still, with heat-trapping greenhouse gases warming the polar regions much faster than the rest of the planet today, investigators have many other questions about these organisms.
Researchers are trying to determine how they can sit in a state of suspended animation for millennia. The findings could point the way for the discovery of life in other extreme climates, such as frozen planets and moons.
But the more immediate concerns sit here on earth. Cells and carbon dumped out of melting glaciers could turn into huge piles of decomposing organic matter that generate carbon dioxide and methane as they decay, a potentially significant source of greenhouse gas emissions that climate researchers have yet to consider. And scientists see evidence that the microbes are evolving inside the ice sheets, exchanging DNA and gaining new traits that could let them take over ecological niches.
Although these cold-loving organisms do not appear to endanger the existence of warm-blooded creatures, they could force out existing microbial populations, with unknown consequences.


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With very little argument, the beginning is the most difficult period in a project's life to do successful free software project management. Laying a firm foundation will determine whether your project flourishes or withers away and dies. It is also the subject that is of most immediate interest to anyone reading this document as a tutorial.
Starting a project involves a dilemma that you as a developer must try and deal with: no potential user for your program is interested in a program that doesn't work, while the development process that you want to employ holds involvement of users as imperative.
It is in these dangerous initial moments that anyone working to start a free software project must try and strike a balance along these lines. One of the most important ways that someone trying to start a project can work toward this balance is by establishing a solid framework for the development process through some of the suggestions mentioned in this section.
If you are reading this document, there's a good chance you already have an idea for a project in mind. Chances are also pretty good that it fills a perceived gap by doing something that no other free software project does or by doing something in a way that is unique enough to necessitate a brand new piece of software.
Eric S. Raymond writes about how free software projects start in his essay, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," which comes as required reading for any free software developer. It is available online .
In "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," Raymond tells us that: "every good work of software starts by scratching a developers itch." Raymond's now widely accepted hypothesis is that new free software programs are written, first and foremost, to solve a specific problem facing the developer.
If you have an idea for a program in mind, chances are good that it targets a specific problem or "itch" you want to see scratched. This idea is the project. Articulate it clearly. Write it out. Describe the problem you will attack in detail. The success of your project in tackling a particular problem will be tied to your ability to identify that problem clearly early on. Find out exactly what it is that you want your project to do.
Monty Manley articulates the importance of this initial step in an essay, "Managing Projects the Open Source Way." As the next section will show, there is a lot of work that needs to be done before software is even ready to be coded. Manley says, "Beginning an OSS project properly means that a developer must, first and foremost, avoid writing code too soon!"
In evaluating your idea, you need to first ask yourself a few questions. This should happen before you move any further through this HOWTO. Ask yourself: Is the free software development model really the right one for your project?
Obviously, since the program scratches your itch, you are definitely interested in seeing it implemented in code. But, because one hacker coding in solitude fails to qualify as a free software development effort, you need to ask yourself a second question: Is anybody else interested?
Sometimes the answer is a simple "no." If you want to write a set of scripts to sort your MP3 collection on your machine, maybe the free software development model is not the best one to choose. However, if you want to write a set of scripts to sort anyone's MP3s, a free software project might fill a useful gap.
Luckily, the Internet is a place so big and so diverse that, chances are, there is someone, somewhere, who shares your interests and who feels the same "itch." It is the fact that there are so many people with so many similar needs and desires that introduces the third major question: Has somebody already had your idea or a reasonably similar one?
There are places you can go on the web to try and answer the question above. If you have experience with the free software community, you are probably already familiar with many of these sites. All of the resources listed below offer searching of their databases:
freshmeat.net describes itself as, "the Web's largest index of Linux and Open Source software" and its reputation along these lines is totally unparalleled and unquestioned. If you can't find it on freshmeat, its doubtful that you (or anyone else) will find it at all.
Slashdot provides "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters," which usually includes discussion of free software, open source, technology, and geek culture news and events. It is not unusual for a particularly sexy development effort to be announced here, so it is definitely worth checking.
SourceForge houses and facilitates a growing number of open source and free software projects. It is also quickly becoming a nexus and a necessary stop for free software developers. SourceForge's software map and new release pages should be necessary stops before embarking on a new free software project. SourceForge also provides a Code Snippet Library which contains useful reusable chunks of code in an array of languages which can come in useful in any project.
Google and Google's Linux Search, provides powerful web searches that may reveal people working on similar projects. It is not a catalog of software or news like freshmeat or Slashdot, but it is worth checking to make sure you aren't pouring your effort into a redundant project.
Once you have successfully charted the terrain and have an idea about what kinds of similar free software projects exist, every developer needs to decide whether to proceed with their own project. It is rare that a new project seeks to accomplish a goal that is not at all similar or related to the goal of another project. Anyone starting a new project needs to ask themselves: "Will the new project be duplicating work done by another project? Will the new project be competing for developers with an existing project? Can the goals of the new project be accomplished by adding functionality to an existing project?"
If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," try to contact the developer of the existing project(s) in question and see if he or she might be willing to collaborate with you.
For many developers this may be the single most difficult aspect of free software project management, but it is an essential one. It is easy to become fired up by an idea and get caught up in the momentum and excitement of a new project. It is often extremely difficult to do, but it is important that any free software developer remembers that the best interests of the free software community and the quickest way to accomplish your own project's goals and the goals of similar projects can often be accomplished by not starting a new development effort.
While there are plenty of projects that fail with descriptive names and plenty that succeed without them, I think naming your project is worth giving a bit of thought. Leslie Orchard tackles this issue in an Advogato article. His article is short and definitely worth looking over quickly.
The synopsis is that Orchard recommends you pick a name where, after hearing the name, many users or developers will both:
Know what the project does.
Remember it tomorrow.
Humorously, Orchard's project, "Iajitsu," does neither. It is probably unrelated that development has effectively frozen since the article was written.
He makes a good point though. There are companies whose only job is to make names for pieces of software. They make ridiculous amount of money doing it and are supposedly worth it. While you probably can't afford a company like this, you can afford to learn from their existence and think a little bit about the name you are giving your project because it does matter.
If there is a name you really want but it doesn't fit Orchard's criteria, you can still go ahead. I thought "gnubile" was one of the best I'd heard for a free software project ever and I still talk about it long after I've stopped using the program. However, if you can be flexible on the subject, listen to Orchard's advice. It might help you.
On one (somewhat simplistic) level, the difference between a piece of free software and a piece of propriety software is the license. A license helps you as the developer by protecting your legal rights to have your software distributed under your terms and helps demonstrate to those who wish to help you or your project that they are encouraged to join.
Any discussion of licenses is also sure to generate at least a small flame war as there are strong feelings that some free software licenses are better than others. This discussion also brings up the question of "Open Source Software" and the debate over the terms "Open Source Software" and "Free Software". However, because I've written the Free Software Project Management HOWTO and not the Open Source Software Project Management HOWTO, my own allegiances in this argument are in the open.
In attempting to reach a middle ground through diplomacy without sacrificing my own philosophy, I will recommend picking any license that conforms to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Originally compiled by the Debian project under Bruce Perens, the DFSG forms the first version of the Open Source Definition. Examples of free licenses given by the DFSG are the GPL, the BSD, and the Artistic License. As ESR mentions in his his HOWTO[ESRHOWTO], don't write your own license if at all possible. The three licenses I mention all have long interpretive traditions. They are also definitely free software (and can therefore be distributed as part of Debian and in other places that permit the transfer of free software).
Conforming to the definition of free software offered by Richard Stallman in "The Free Software Definition", any of these licenses will uphold, "users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software." There are plenty of other licenses that also conform to the DFSG but sticking with a more well-known license will offer the advantage of immediate recognition and understanding.
In attempting a more in-depth analysis, I agree with Karl Fogel's description of licenses as falling into two groups: those that are the GPL and those that are not the GPL.
Personally, I license all my software under the GPL. Created and protected by the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project, the GPL is the license for the Linux kernel, GNOME, Emacs, and the vast majority of GNU/Linux software. It's the obvious choice but I also believe it is a good one. Any BSD fanatic will urge you to remember that there is a viral aspect to the GPL that prevents the mixture of GPL'ed code with non-GPL'ed code. To many people (myself included), this is a benefit, but to some, it is a major drawback.
Many people write three or four sentences in a COPYING file and assume that they have written a free software license--as my long experience with the debian-legal mailing professes, this is very often not the case. It may not protect you, it may not protect your software, and it may make things very difficult for people that want to use your software but who pay a lot of attention to the subtle legal points of licenses. If you are passionate about a home-brewed license, run it by either people at OSI or the debian-legal mailing list first protect yourself from unanticipated side-effects of your license.
The three major licenses can be found at the following locations:
In any case, please read through any license before your release your software under it. As the primary developer, you can't afford any license surprises.
The text of the GPL offers a good description of the mechanics of applying a license to a piece of software. My quick checklist for applying a license includes:
Make yourself or the FSF the copyright holder for the work. In a few rare cases, you might want to make a sponsoring organization (if it's big and powerful enough) the copyright holder instead. Doing this is as simple as putting the name in the blank when you modify the notice of copyright below. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to file with any organization. The notice alone is enough to copyright your work.
If at all possible, attach and distribute a full copy of the license with the source and binary by including a separate file.
At the top of each source file in your program, attach a notice of copyright and include information on where the full license can be found. The GPL recommends that each file begin with:
one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
The GPL goes on to recommend attaching information on methods for contacting you (the author) via email or physical mail.
The GPL continues and suggests that if your program runs in an interactive mode, you should write the program to output a notice each time it enters interactive mode that includes a message like this one that points to full information about the programs license:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
Finally, it might be helpful to include a "copyright disclaimer" from an employer or a school if you work as a programmer or if it seems like your employer or school might be able to make an argument for ownership of your code later on. These aren't often needed but there are plenty of free software developers who have gotten into trouble and wish they'd asked for one.
Please, please, please, place your software under some license. It may not seem important, and to you it may not be, but licenses are important. For a piece of software to be included in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, it must have a license that fits the Debian Free Software Guidelines. If your software has no license, it can not be distributed as a package in Debian until you re-release it under a free license. Please save yourself and others trouble by releasing the first version of your software with a clear license.
The most important thing about a system of version numbering is that there is one. It may seem pedantic to emphasize this point but you'd be surprised at the number of scripts and small programs that pop up without any version number at all.
The second most important thing about a system of numbering is that the numbers always go up. Automatic version tracking systems and people's sense of order in the universe will fall apart if version numbers don't rise. It doesn't really matter if 2.1 is a big jump and 2.0.005 is a small jump but it does matter that 2.1 is more recent than 2.0.005.
Follow these two simple rules and you will not go (too) wrong. Beyond this, the most common technique seems to be the "major level," "minor level," "patch level" version numbering scheme. Whether you are familiar with the name or not, you interact with it all the time. The first number is the major number and it signifies major changes or rewrites. The second number is the minor number and it represents added or tweaked functionality on top of a largely coherent structure. The third number is the patch number and it usually will only refer to releases fixing bugs.
The widespread use of this scheme is why I know the nature and relative degree in the differences between a 2.4.12 release of the Linux kernel and a 2.4.11, 2.2.12, and 1.2.12 without knowing anything about any of the releases.
You can bend or break these rules, and people do. But beware, if you choose to, someone will get annoyed, assume you don't know, and try and educate you, probably not nicely. I always follow this method and I implore you to do so as well.
There are several version numbering systems that are well known, useful, and that might be worth looking into before you release your first version.
The Linux kernel uses a versioning system where any odd minor version number refers to an development or testing release and any even minor version number refers to a stable version. Think about it for a second. Under this system, 2.1 and 2.3 kernels were and always will be development or testing kernels and 2.0, 2.2. and 2.4 kernels are all production code with a higher degree of stability and more testing.
Whether you plan on having a split development model (as described in the Section called Stable and Development Branches) or only one version released at a time, my experience with several free software projects and with the Debian project has taught me that use of Linux's version numbering system is worth taking into consideration. In Debian, all minor versions are stable distributions (2.0, 2.1, etc). However, many people assume that 2.1 is an unstable or development version and continue to use an older version until they get so frustrated with the lack of development progress that they complain and figure the system out. If you never release an odd minor version but only release even ones, nobody is hurt, and less people are confused. It's an idea worth taking into consideration.
Because of the unusual nature of wine's development where the not-emulator is constantly improving but not working toward any immediately achievable goal, wine is released every three weeks. Wine does this by labeling their releases in "Year Month Day" format where each release might be labeled "wine-XXXXXXXX" where the version from January 04, 2000 would be "wine-20000104". For certain projects, "Year Month Day" format can make a lot of sense.
When one considers Netscape 6 and vendor versions, the mozilla's project development structure is one of the most complex free software models available. The project's version numbering has reflected the unique situation in which it is developed.
Mozilla's version numbering structure has historically been made up of milestones. From the beginning of the mozilla project, the goals of the project in the order and degree to which they were to be achieved were charted out on a series of road maps. Major points and achievements along these road-maps were marked as milestones. Therefore, although Mozilla was built and distributed nightly as "nightly builds," on a day when the goals of a milestone on the road-map had been reached, that particular build was marked as a "milestone release."
While I haven't seen this method employed in any other projects to date, I like the idea and think that it might have value in any testing or development branch of a large application under heavy development.
A huge number of otherwise fantastic free software applications have withered and died because their author was the only person who knew how to use them fully. Even if your program is written primarily for a techno-savvy group of users, documentation is helpful and even necessary for the survival of your project. You will learn later in the Section called Releasing Your Program that you should always release something that is usable. A piece of software without documentation is not usable.
There are lots of different people you should document for and there are lots of ways to document your project. The importance of documentation in source code to help facilitate development by a large community is vital but it falls outside the scope of this HOWTO. This being the case, this section deals with useful tactics for user-directed documentation.
A combination of tradition and necessity has resulted in a semi-regular system of documentation in most free software projects that is worth following. Both users and developers expect to be able to get documentation in several ways and it's essential that you provide the information they are seeking in a form they can read if your project is ever going to get off the ground. People have come to expect:
Your users will want to be able to type "man yourprojectname" end up with a nicely formatted man page highlighting the basic use of your application. Make sure that before you release your program, you've planned for this.
Man pages are not difficult to write. There is excellent documentation on the man page writing process available through the "The Linux Man-Page-HOWTO" which is available through the Linux Documentation project (LDP) and is written by Jens Schweikhardt. It is available from Schweikhardt's site.
It is also possible to write man pages using DocBook SGML. Because man pages are so simple and the DocBook method relatively new, I have not been able to follow this up but would love help from anyone who can give me more information on how exactly how this is done.
Most users will expect some basic amount of documentation to be easily available from the command line. For few programs should this type of documentation extend for more than one screen (24 or 25 lines) but it should cover the basic usage, a brief (one or two sentence) description of the program, a list of the commands with explanations, as well as all the major options (also with explanations), plus a pointer to more in-depth documentation for those who need it. The command line documentation for Debian's apt-get serves as an excellent example and a useful model:
apt 0.3.19 for i386 compiled on May 12 2000 21:17:27 Usage: apt-get [options] command apt-get [options] install pkg1 [pkg2 ...] apt-get is a simple command line interface for downloading and installing packages. The most frequently used commands are update and install. Commands: update - Retrieve new lists of packages upgrade - Perform an upgrade install - Install new packages (pkg is libc6 not libc6.deb) remove - Remove packages source - Download source archives dist-upgrade - Distribution upgrade, see apt-get(8) dselect-upgrade - Follow dselect selections clean - Erase downloaded archive files autoclean - Erase old downloaded archive files check - Verify that there are no broken dependencies Options: -h This help text. -q Loggable output - no progress indicator -qq No output except for errors -d Download only - do NOT install or unpack archives -s No-act. Perform ordering simulation -y Assume Yes to all queries and do not prompt -f Attempt to continue if the integrity check fails -m Attempt to continue if archives are unlocatable -u Show a list of upgraded packages as well -b Build the source package after fetching it -c=? Read this configuration file -o=? Set an arbitary configuration option, eg -o dir::cache=/tmp See the apt-get(8), sources.list(5) and apt.conf(5) manual pages for more information and options.
It has become a GNU convention to make this type of information accessible with the "-h" and the "--help" options. Most GNU/Linux users will expect to be able to retrieve basic documentation these ways so if you choose to use different methods, be prepared for the flames and fallout that may result.
In addition to man pages and command-line help, there are certain files where people will look for documentation, especially in any package containing source code. In a source distribution, most of these files can be stored in the root directory of the source distribution or in a subdirectory of the root called "doc" or "Documentation." Common files in these places include:
A document containing all the basic installation, compilation, and even basic use instructions that make up the bare minimum information needed to get the program up and running. A README is not your chance to be verbose but should be concise and effective. An ideal README is at least 30 lines long and more no more than 250.
The INSTALL file should be much shorter than the README file and should quickly and concisely describe how to build and install the program. Usually an INSTALL file simply instructs the user to run "./configure; make; make install" and touches on any unusual options or actions that may be necessary. For most relatively standard install procedures and for most programs, INSTALL files are as short as possible and are rarely over 100 lines.
A CHANGELOG is a simple file that every well-managed free software project should include. A CHANGELOG is simple the file that, as its name implies, logs or documents the changes you make to your program. The most simple way to maintain a CHANGELOG is to simply keep a file with the source code for your program and add a section to the top of the CHANGELOG with each release describing what has been changed, fixed, or added to the program. It's a good idea to post the CHANGELOG onto the website as well because it can help people decide whether they want or need to upgrade to a newer version or wait for a more significant improvement.
A NEWS file and a ChangeLog are similar. Unlike a CHANGELOG, a NEWS file is not typically updated with new versions. Whenever new features are added, the developer responsible will make a note in the NEWS file. NEWS files should not have to be changed before a release (they should be kept up to date all along) but it's usually a good idea to check first anyway because often developers just forget to keep them as current as they should.
For those of you that don't already know, FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions and a FAQ is a collection of exactly that. FAQs are not difficult to make. Simply make a policy that if you are asked a question or see a question on a mailing list two or more times, add the question (and its answer) to your FAQ. FAQs are more optional than the files listed above but they can save your time, increase usability, and decrease headaches on all sides.
It's only indirectly an issue of documentation but a good website is quickly becoming an essential part of any free software project. Your website should provide access to your documentation (in HTML if possible). It should also include a section for news and events around your program and a section that details the process of getting involved with development or testing and make an open invitation. It should also supply links to any mailing lists, similar websites, and provide a direct link to all the available ways of downloading your software.
All your documentation should be in plaintext, or, in cases where it is on your website primarily, in HTML. Everyone can cat a file, everyone has a pager, (almost) everyone can render HTML. You are welcome to distribute information in PDF, PostScript, RTF, or any number of other widely used formats but this information must also be available in plaintext or HTML or people will be very angry at you. In my opinion, info falls into this category as well. There is plenty of great GNU documentation that people simply don't read because it only in info. And this does make people angry. It's not a question of superior formats; it is a question of accessability and the status quo plays a huge role in this determination.
It doesn't hurt to distribute any documentation for your program from your website (FAQs etc) with your program. Don't hesitate to throw any of this in the program's tarball. If people don't need it, they will delete it. I can repeat it over and over: Too much documentation is not a sin.
Unless your software is particular to a non-English language (a Japanese language editor for example), please distribute it with English language documentation. If you don't speak English or not not confident in your skills, ask a friend for help. Like it or not, fair or unfair, English is the language of free software. However, this does not mean you should limit your documentation to only English. If you speak another language, distribute translations of documentation with your software if you have the time and energy to do so. They will invariably be useful to someone.
Finally, please spell-check your documentation. Misspellings in documentation are bugs. I'm very guilty of committing this error and it's extremely easy to do. If English is not your first language, have a native speaker look over or edit your documentation or web pages. Poor spelling or grammar goes a long way to making your code look unprofessional. In code comments, this type of thing is less important but in man pages and web pages these mistakes are not acceptable.
Many of the remaining issues surrounding the creation of a new free software program fall under what most people describe as common sense issues. Its often said that software engineering is 90 percent common sense combined with 10 percent specialized knowledge. Still, they are worth noting briefly in hopes that they may remind a developer of something they may have forgotten.
I agree with ESR when he says that: " It's helpful to everybody if your archive files all have GNU-like names -- all-lower-case alphanumeric stem prefix, followed by a dash, followed by a version number, extension, and other suffixes." There is more info (including lots of examples of what not to do in his Software Release Practices HOWTO which is included in this HOWTO's bibliography and can be found through the LDP.
Package formats may differ depending on the system you are developing for. For windows based software, Zip archives (.zip) usually serve as the package format of choice. If you are developing for GNU/Linux, *BSD, or any UN*X, make sure that your source code is always available in tar'ed and gzip'ed format (.tar.gz). UNIX compress (.Z) has gone out of style and usefulness and faster computers have brought bzip2 (.bz2) into the spot-light as a more effective compression medium. I now make all my releases available in both gzip'ed and bzip2'ed tarballs.
Binary packages should always be distribution specific. If you can build binary packages against a current version of a major distribution, you will only make your users happy. Try to foster relationships with users or developers of large distributions to develop a system for the consistent creation of binary packages. It's often a good idea to provide RedHat RPM's (.rpm), Debian deb's (.deb) and source RPM's SRPM's if possible. Remember: While these binaries packages are nice, getting the source packaged and released should always be your priority. Your users or fellow developers can and will do the the binary packages for you.
A version control system can make a lot of these problems of packaging (and a lot of other problems mentioned in this HOWTO) less problematic. If you are using *NIX, CVS is your best bet. I recommend Karl Fogel's book on the subject (and the posted HTML version) wholeheartedly.
CVS or not, you should probably invest some time into learning about a version control system because it provides an automated way of solving many of the problems described by this HOWTO. I am not aware of any free version control systems for Windows or Mac OS but I know that CVS clients exist for both platforms. Websites like SourceForge do a great job as well with a nice, easy-to-use web interface to CVS.
I'd love to devote more space in this HOWTO to CVS because I love it (I even use CVS to keep versions straight on this HOWTO!) but I think it falls outside the scope of this document and already has its own HOWTOs. Most notably is the CVS Best Practices HOWTO[CVSBESTPRACTICES] which I've included in the attached bibliography.
Other useful hints include:
Make sure that your program can always be found in a single location. Often this means that you have a single directory accessible via FTP or the web where the newest version can be quickly recognized. One effective technique is a provide a symlink called "yourprojectname-latest" that is always pointing to the most recent released or development version of your free software application. Keep in mind that this location will receive many requests for downloads around releases so make sure that the server you choose has adequate bandwidth.
Make sure that there is a consistent email address for bug reports. It's usually a good idea to make this something that is NOT your primary email address like yourprojectname@host or yourprojectname-bugs@host. This way, if you ever decide to hand over maintainership or if your email address changes, you simply need to change where this email address forwards. It also will allow for more than one person to deal with the influx of mail that is created if your project becomes as huge as you hope it will.


text:
We're welcoming back Melissa Sue Sorrells Galley with a fabulous review of a FREE wine seminar that's been taking place Mondays and Thursdays this Summer at Tutto Gusto in Epcot's Italy pavilion. Let's take a look!
As big fans of Mexico's La Cava del Tequila in Epcot, my husband and I were anxious to try Disney's newest not-quite-counter-service wine bar, Tutto Gusto.
Located near the back of the Italy Pavilion in Epcot, just behind Tutto Italia, Tutto Gusto wine cellar offers light meals, meats, cheese, and of course, wine!
They also, as we found out during our recent visit to Disney World, offered complimentary wine tastings in the dimly-lit, cozy little wine cellar Monday and Thursday throughout August and September.
Upon entering, we felt like we'd been transported to a family-owned winery with a modern twist. Classic, old-world style details mingled with fun, contemporary features — like the unique wine bottle light fixture above the bar.
Glass cases lined with fresh meats, sandwiches, and delectable desserts drew us in deeper, and the [Read more…]


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Texas Rubes Almost Finished Rewriting American History
Someday you are going to find that your monster children have learned a completely different and fantastical version of American history than you did. Thanks to Texas!
The insane Republican activists on the Board of Education have approved the social studies curriculum that will determine the content of school textbooks nationwide for the next ten years (if your child's school can afford books, anyway). No brown people, but plenty of Phyllis Schalfly.
There were some surprising changes:
In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word "capitalism" throughout their texts with the "free-enterprise system."
Why does the Texas Board of Education hate capitalism?


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I'm going off topic here today and want to recommend a book. Adults can read it, older kids can read it, parents can read it to their kids---this was a book that I read and continue to ponder weeks later! In the middle I cried, the ending was life-affirming and wonderful. The title is The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate and my words can't do it justice.
If you want to read a good review, go here to the NY Times.
Here's a synopsis from the book's website:
Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.
That fact that this author won the coveted Newberry Medal says it all---I wasn't the only person who loved it. Personally, I think our school needs multiple copies so the kids can read it together in a book club.
It's all there and more. It's a must read.
Cool Things:
--There was in fact, a real Ivan. Although this is a fantasy book (similar to Charlotte's web, where the animals talk to each other and have distinct personalities), the real Ivan did exist in a cage for 27 years in a shopping mall. You can read about him here and here.
--The second cool thing is that the author, Katherine Applegate, volunteered for a while several years ago at my school in our EC classroom. She is a wonderful person, and a great author. Little did I know that she would become so famous!
Happy Reading!!!!!


text:
Baan said that as soon as be began conceptualizing the shoot of the half-dark city, and knew that he would need a helicopter. "I began calling on all of the heli-pilots I could think of in the Manhattan area, but each of them were either without fuel, on recovery efforts, or without power themselves," he wrote to us. "To my relief, after nearly exhausting all efforts, I managed to get a hold of a pilot who I had met just a week prior, and he said yes, he was able to fly."
But in order to get to the helipad, he needed a car first and unfortunately, the rental company gave away the reservation he'd made in advance. A bit of finagling scored him a rental car all the way at JFK and after 4 hours of traffic, closed bridges and $2,000, he was sitting in the driver's seat on his way to the heliport.
Despite freezing his lenses off on the hour-long helicopter ride over Manhattan, Baan was able to finally capture the photo that wowed us all when it appeared on the cover of New York Magazine this week. And afterwards, he was even able to analogize: "Illuminating the bottom left of the photograph is the glowing Goldman Sachs building. Just next is the construction site for the World Trade Centre, which is top-to-bottom, lit with power (despite the rest of lower Manhattan being completely powerless.) I think perhaps, this 'division of power' is an allegory for the country's declining infrastructure, telling us also about who is truly prepared for when sobering events like Sandy's strike."
All photos: Iwan Baan


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Welcome to KMR#
This is KMR, a high-performance map-reduce library. KMR-1.0 is available on K computer since 2013-04-26. KMR works on ordinary clusters as well.
Latest release is KMR-1.8.1 (2016-04-25).
KMR is a set of high-performance map-reduce operations in the MPI (Message Passing Interface) environment. It makes programming for data-processing much easier by hiding low-level details of message passing. Its main targets are large-scale supercomputers with thousands of compute nodes, such as K and Fujitsu FX10. On these platforms, KMR provides utilities other than the map-reduce operations which address issues such as accessing very large file-systems.
KMR is designed to work in-memory and exploit large amount of memory available on supercomputers, whereas most map-reduce implementations are designed to work with external (disk-based) operations. So, data exchanges in KMR occur as message passing instead of remote file operations. The KMR routines work in bulk-synchronous and the most part of the code is sequential, but the code inside the mapper and reducer are multi-threaded.
Project Site#
- Project Overview and other Activities of the Team at RIKEN:
- Overview and API Document
- It is a Doxgen generated document, included in the installation.
- Source Code Download:
- Download
- KMR source is available with BSD license.
Issue Reporting#
- KMR Issue Tracker:
- Tutorial (in Japanese)
- cluster2013.pdf: K MapReduce: A Scalable Tool for Data-Processing and Search/Ensemble Applications on Large-Scale Supercomputers. Motohiko Matsuda, Naoya Maruyama, and Shinichiro Takizawa. IEEE Cluster Computing (CLUSTER) 2013. (C) Copyright IEEE. IEEE Explore
It describes an overview and optimizations used in KMR.
- hpcs2014.pdf: Supporting Workflow Management of Scientific Applications by MapReduce Programming Model. Shinichiro Takizawa, Motohiko Matsuda, and Naoya Maruyama. IPSJ HPCS 2014. (Japanese)
It describes some scientific applications workflow implemented in MapReduce using KMR.
- bigdata2014.pdf: Evaluation of Asynchronous MPI Communication in Map-Reduce System on the K Computer. Motohiko Matsuda, Naoya Maruyama, and Shinichiro Takizawa. EuroMPI Workshop 2014. (C) Copyright ACM. ACM Digital Library
It compares all-to-all collective communication versus asynchronous communication in shuffling communication, to qualify believed effectiveness of overlapping of communication and computation.
KMR comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This wiki also comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. Contents are liable to change.
KMR is a product of RIKEN AICS. Part of the results is obtained by using the K computer at RIKEN AICS.


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My old Beetle's sure been through a lot this year, but this past weekend, for the first time since it was recovered, I drove it again. And while it still looks a bit battered, it's going to be better than ever.
Like all big projects, there's lots of unplanned things that happen to keep you from hitting your ideal result. In my case, there was an emergency dog surgery that probably will mean I'll have to wait on much of the bodywork, but despite that I think the mechanical resuscitation of the Beetle is turning out great. The drooling crap-satchels that stole the car abused it in all manner of ways, and I'm still sorting through all of that, and likely will be for quite a while.
Still, the biggest issue, the lack of any oily spinning bits to make the car go, is now solved. I settled on a twin-carb 1600cc engine with headers and electronic ignition from Kaddie Shack in Pasadena, CA, and the engine they built for me was a beauty. It should be good for about 20% more power than before and I was very excited to finally get it back in the car. Here's how I (with the help of friends) did it.
Beetle engine installation isn't exactly rocket brain surgery science, but there's still a bit of trickiness involved, and much of that trickiness is probably common to any engine installation. So hopefully there'll be something in my experience here that'll at least help your own projects in some small way.
Step 1: Get the engine bay ready
After spending a nice chunk of cash of a shiny new engine, it just doesn't feel right to cram it in the same filthy old engine bay. So I cleaned it up, scrubbing and degreaser-ing away road grime and worn-out insulation that probably still has opinons about the Carter administration.
More importantly, I needed to replace two key rubber seals in the engine compartment. Since a Beetle engine, like a Porsche 356 or 911 or Tatra engine, is cooled by air, the way that air flows in and around the engine is very important. On a Beetle (and air-cooled Porsche) the big division of air is between the upper part of the engine bay, where the air is sucked in, and the lower part, where the air blown over the hot, finned cylinders is blown out the bottom of the car.
The key is to keep these two chambers of air, upper cool and lower hot, separate. And that's the job of the two big rubber seals. The ones in my car were old, brittle, and carbonized into something like black, sticky diamonds. Getting all of this old rubber out was in some ways the hardest part of the whole installation, requiring me to get in the filthy engine bay (I did this before cleaning it) and chiseling and chipping and poking and swearing the miserable stuff out of the retaining channels. It was hot, slow, and brutal.
But, eventually, we did it. Getting the new rubber in the little slots was no picnic either, as the rubber had to be cut into manageable sections and inched through the channel at a glacial pace. Still, it had to be done, so it was. And I now know why the old stuff had never been changed out.
Step 2: Prep the engine
There's actually not too much that really had to be done to the engine, save for removing the twin carbs and taping up the intake manifold holes to prevent anything falling in there and making me want to swallow a barbell. Luckily, the engine's a pretty compact unit (and only weighs about 250 lbs or so), and we ended up using a skateboard to wheel it around. The skateboard proved very nimble and stable as an engine dolly. I'm not sure I'd suggest it for really big engines, but it worked great for us.
Step 3: Lift the car
Most cars get their engines installed by staying on the ground and having the engine dropped into them from above. Not the Beetle. To put an engine in a Beetle, the engine sits low on the ground, and the car is lifted over the engine. We were installing the engine in my friend Tom's backyard, and while he didn't have a lift, he did have a nice engine hoist he uses for his many interesting Rambler projects. So, we gave the engine hoist a bit of variety in its life, and had it lift the car instead of the engine.
We lifted by the rear bumper brackets, and it worked just fine; without an engine, the rear of a Volkswagen just isn't that heavy. Once we got the car high enough to clear the engine safely, we stacked some of the many, many wheels and tires that were in Tom's driveway and used those to brace the car from underneath. It doesn't sound like it, but it was really quite stable and safe.
Step 4: Get the everything in position
With the car's ass up in the air, now's the time to get the engine into position under the open engine bay and make sure everything's lined up nicely and get a feel of where the connecting hardware goes.
On a Beetle, there's four main mounting bolts to connect the engine to the transaxle, and, of course, there's the splined shaft coming from the transaxle and going into the engine. This is where you really want to take your time. Make sure everything is in rough alignment, make sure the inside of the tranny is nice and clean, make sure the clutch pressure plate is on right, and get any wires or hoses or any other obstructions out of the way. Because that engine's going in.
Step 5: Lift the engine into place
There's two main ways to accomplish this: lift from below or pull from above. our floor jack wasn't really up to the task, so we decided to put that engine hoist back to work, this time in its natural habitat: lifting an engine. We looped the strap around the cylinder heads at the sides and below the skateboard under the engine (to protect and stabilize the engine while on the strap, and used the hoist to lift the engine into place.
By getting other helpers (like Jack and Sam, who showed up to help and stand around looking like they're helping) we were able to carefully maneuver the engine into position to get the transmission and engine to meet and mate perfectly, and get the engine mounting bolts lined up. The lower two engine mounting nuts and bolts were easy to access and tighten. The upper passenger's side one could be tightened from inside the engine bay while Tom put tension on the bolt head with a wrench from below, and the fourth bolt, on the upper driver's side, must have been put in place with a specially liquified arm, or maybe some sort of trained python. Because I could not get to that stupid bolt. We got it in, barely, but couldn't tighten it.
Eventually, I learned that this bolt is often ignored by many VW engine installers, which isn't great, but is totally understandable. I had it tightened by the Kaddy Shack guys after I got the car mobile again, and they used a crazy-looking combination of extensions on a socket. Get help for this part.
Step 6: Realize something's wrong
I'm pretty sure any major project has this step in it somewhere. In my case, it was the realization that the personifications of anal leakage that stole my car in the first place didn't know what they were doing, and removed two crucial bolts that hold the entire drivetrain to the frame fork. These bolts don't need to be removed to get the engine out — this was just ignorance.
The lack of the bolts also explained why the engine was hanging about an inch and a half too low in the engine bay.
So, I had to pause everything to order the special fat, stubby bolts. That's okay, I can fake patience for a little while when I have to.
Step 7: Button it all up!
Once we got the transaxle bolts in place (by jacking the engine up from below), the mechanical side of things was about done. The carbs went back on (with a bit of profanity, since one of the bolts is in a pretty tight spot), and then it came time to do the wiring.
The wiring harness to the engine was just hacked off, which, in turn, hacked me off, since I wasn't really sure what wire went where. Would it kill engine thieves to label the damn wires?
Luckily, there were only four wires needed to get the engine going, so it wasn't too difficult to find the proper wires to the alternator and coil. I did have to get some help to get the warning lights working again, but that proved pretty minor. I replaced the old battery ground strap, put in a new battery, and cleaned out the under-seat battery tray. Because may as well.
Pretty soon, it was ready to start up, and, happily, it did, right on the first try. Gotta love electronic ignition! It died soon after that, again thanks to the thieves, who siphoned almost all the gas out of the tank, apparently. I got some gas back in the car and was rewarded with the beautiful sound of a clattery flat-four.
The drive home was wildly satisfying — the culmination of so many different events. It felt so good to have the car back on the road, and that extra little bit of power feels great so far, even while I'm keeping easy on the engine while it breaks in. There's still an awful lot to do — headlights, ignition switch, body damage repair, new radio, some form of security system— but my Beetle's back on the road, and, while still a little more battered-looking than before, is mechanically better than ever.
Welcome home.


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Posted by Editoress on 03/8/10
On Day 2 of the Paralympic Torch Relay, last Thursday (March 4th) in Quebec City, trike rider Shelley Gauthier was given a once in a lifetime experience as a torch bearer in the Paralympic Torch Relay.
A few years ago, Gauthier suffered a head injury while riding her mountain bike and, at the time, she had aspired to join the Olympic movement as a physiotherapist. She is now training towards becoming the first Canadian female tricycle rider to compete at a Paralympic Games. (Note: Para-trike cyclist Paul Jalbert participated at the 2004 Paralympic Games.).
"Excitement has been within me since I found out that I was a torch bearer. Being in the Paralympic torch relay shows that I have a goal of being part of Paralympics in my home country. By doing my part, I hope to help make it a great experience for everyone," commented Gauthier.
"Being a Paralympic torch bearer is a dream come true,"concluded Gauthier.
On March 11th and 12th, Brian Cowie, Brayden McDougall and his father will have the same privilege as the torch finishes its journey in Vancouver, BC.
Courtesy CCA
|Return to Cycling 4 Women homepage | Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top


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Data Management
The purpose of the Clinical Trials Office (CTO) is to provide support to clinical investigators in initiating and conducting clinical trials, as well as collecting and preparing clinical trial data for the reporting of results from clinical trials. Clinical trials and data monitoring plans are required to be registered with the CTO. The CTO is responsible for: the initiation and maintenance of regulatory files, identification and extraction of source documentation for entry into centralized clinical databases and/or corresponding case report forms, assistance with the processing of protocol specimen collection and shipping, collaboration with the research team to maintain and coordinate the efficient and accurate collection of data and regulatory documentation, regular communication with the research team regarding study-related data collection and reporting issues, assistance in the preparation and submission of regulatory applications, including any ongoing amendments, annual renewals, data safety reports as determined by the Yale Cancer Center Data and Safety Monitoring Committee (DSMC) and submission of all other related protocol documents, maintenance of individual research subject records by obtaining medical records, lab reports, treatment schedules, and other vital protocol-related information and assistance in HIC submissions, protocol revisions, and renewal processes as required.
Quick Links
- Specimen Handling and Processing
- Trial DB
- Protocol Review and Monitoring including DSMC and Data Safety and Monitoring Plans
- Human Investigations Committee Policies and Procedures
- HIC Protocol Deviation Form
- HIC Annual Renewal Form 5
- HIC SAE Reporting (6A) Form: Yale Subject
HIC SAE Reporting (6B) Form: Non Yale Subject
- International Conference on Harmonization (ICH)
- WHO: Standard Operating Procedures for Investigators
- Good Clinical Practices
- National Cancer Institute
- Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program


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A will to change is in the air, but it's against a backdrop of the same-old. At the New Museum, Karen Finley's live sext paintings challenge an institutional denial of boundary-pushing work, while the Whitney has more shows of Hopper and Hockney. Klaus Biensenbach and The Jogging talk about rising waters (in their own ways), at Hyperallergic and Still House respectively. Plus, a group show of some of art's most vocal activists addresses failure.
Posts tagged as:


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Valentine's Day
Gift Ideas
Is there a spark you want to kindle or a flame you would like to celebrate on this Valentine's Day? Our cute Valentines gifts for couples give you a chance to spice up the bedroom and express your love. Perfect for husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend, our Valentine's Day romantic gifts for couples are affordable and kill dullness, making love exciting again. Need something to start the passion back up? One of our unique Valentine's Day gifts for couples can be the spark you are looking for. Our cute Valentine's Day gift ideas for couples and married couples include a great selection of Valentines pillowcases, his and hers coffee mugs, couple t-shirts, and matching drinking glasses.


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Submission Requirements
The Journal for Social Era Knowledge
The Journal covers a broad range of topics related to social era topics. It strives to present clear thinking by knowledgeable observers on important issues, written in English that can be read with ease and pleasure by both professionals and a broad general audience. At the same time The Journal encourages new writers. Please feel free to contact the editor, Meg Tufano, with questions or concerns:
We publish several categories of material. Papers are 2,000-3,000-words that make a single, provocative point. Essays are more extensive 4,000 - 5,000-word pieces of analysis, observation or fiction that comprise the body of the magazine. Reviews of Books are 2,000 - 3,000-word discussions of new books. Responses offer 1,000-1,500-word commentaries on material that has been published in previous issues. Letters to the Editor should be no more than 500 words and may be edited for space and style if selected.
Discussions are continued on our Google Plus Page to bring experts together to hash out major issues in free-flowing discussions.
We welcome pitches and unsolicited manuscripts, considering them on a rolling basis rather than according to a fixed editorial calendar. All submissions should be accompanied by full contact information and a brief note describing the author's current and past positions, recent publications, and relevant experience. We do not have fact checkers and rely on authors to ensure the veracity of their statements. We try to avoid using footnotes and require APA Style, contributors should be able to provide appropriate citations for any facts or quotations their pieces contain. Unless otherwise informed, we assume any piece submitted to us is being offered exclusively and that no piece accepted for publication will be published elsewhere simultaneously in any form without our knowledge.
Link for APA Style (it's the easiest to understand and this is the style all academic Business Journals require):


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I skipped the last MemShrink report due to Christmas, so we have four weeks' worth of bug fixes today.
Joe Walker fixed a bad leak found by Jesse Ruderman: if you closed a browser window with the developer toolbar open it would leak "everything". This was a MemShrink P1 bug.
Anton Kovalyov fixed a leak involving scratchpad. This bug was also found by Jesse Ruderman.
Randell Jesup fixed some WebRTC leaks.
John Schoenick fixed a leak involving plugins.
Josh Aas fixed a leak in some networking code.
I wrote a more detailed blog post about DMD. Here is the take-away message.
about:memory is MemShrink's not-so-secret weapon when it comes to understanding Firefox's memory consumption… and DMD is how we make about:memory better.
Lots of under-the-hood improvements have been made to DMD since I wrote that. Users on Mac, Linux and B2G who aren't afraid of doing their own builds should try it out. Also, Ehsan Akhgari got it to build on Windows, though it's not yet clear how well it works on that platform. If anyone wants to try it out, please let me know how it goes.
Memory Reporters
Ben Turner made the workers memory reporter be able to handle workers that use ctypes. This was important, especially on B2G, because each process can have one or two or more such workers — this is for Firefox chrome stuff, not web content — and we weren't measuring them at all, and they can take multiple MiB each.
I fixed the orphan DOM node memory reporter. The introduction of WebIDL had changed the layout of some paired JS/DOM objects, and such objects weren't being reported. (DMD discovered the unreported memory, and Boris Zbarsky helped me interpret what it meant.) I see this accounting for multiple MiB of orphan nodes when using Gmail.
I added a memory reporter for the event listenener manager's hash table. It starts off small, but I've seen it go as high as 1.5 MiB after lots of browsing. (DMD helped me identify this too.)
Kartikaya Gupta added a memory reporter for graphics textures on Android.
I added a memory reporter for any ctypes data that is hanging off JS objects. I added it because one DMD profile on B2G showed non-trivial amounts of ctypes data, but that seems to have been a fluke and it rarely shows much memory now. Oh well.
Andrew McCreight improved CC shutdown logging, which will make it easier to identify shutdown leaks.
Rail Aliiev and Kartikaya Gupta enabled a new NDK for Fennec builds on releng machines. This might result in smaller binary sizes, which saves memory.
Bug Counts
Here are the current bug counts.
- Unprioritized: 18 (-0/+18)
The number of unprioritized bugs is high because we didn't have a MemShrink meeting this week. This was because Justin Lebar and Kyle Huey are in Berlin for the B2G work week. We'll have our next meeting two weeks from today.


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What's new?
8th June, 2016
The small boat building article series that was planned a long time ago is back on the fore front! I had started working on a series of articles "Small boat, more pleasure!" and a hard drive crash, personal problems, the usual list of excuses..., didn't get done. But lots of tides have ebbed and flowed and the smell of plywood sawdust is near at hand! Stay tuned.
We kicked off 2016, our 11th year (!), with a plan from Italy, the IDEA 21. This is our first plan presentation in quite a while I hope you enjoy it.
We follow up with the third part of our series on boat wiring - protecting your wiring with fuses and circuit breakers.
Please submit your own content for free publication on this site. Designers: if despite current economic gray clouds you are still drawing plans for amateur builders this is the place to make them known. Kit makers we need details about your kits too! Despite my long spell of abandon the site still draws over 4,000 readers a month (an increase of 1,000 since Dec 2014) who are reading more than 3 pages per session. This is not the 10,000 readers we had once upon a time but it is still three thousand builders or potential builders. Your call...
FAQ: No this site does not sell plans. Some designers have affiliate programs which means that the site gets a percentage on plans sold if you click on the "buy plans" links or advertising banners.
No this site is not a business. Please stop SEO people, I am sure I can handle site promotion on my own...
kiwi - editor in chief amateurboatbuilding.com
We have a private (no spam...) Google+ Community which has replaced the old forum. To join you need a free Google+ account.
AmateurBoatBuilding.com is an international web site. We publish boat building articles in the language spoken by the author and its translation into English. This unique feature means we have content from all over the world.
Index of articles in other languages
Tous les articles publiés en français
Acesso a todas as notícias publicadas em Português
Todos los artículos publicados en Castillano
Tillgång till alla berättelser publicerade på svenska


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|All Education, Humanities, & the Arts votes
|—Funding for National Endowments of the Arts and/or Humanities (12 votes)
|—Funding for Vouchers for Private Schools (12 votes)
|—General Education Funding (140 votes)
Click below to see the votes under the issue subcategories. Or to the right, find your local member of Congress' votes.
Education, Humanities, & the Arts SUBCATEGORIES
Find your Member of
Congress' votes
Find Your Official


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According to the latest report published by Credence Research, Inc. "Hospital Acquired Disease Testing Market Growth, Future Prospects and Competitive Analysis, 2016-2022," the hospital acquired disease testing market was valued at USD 523.0 Mn in 2015, and is expected to reach USD 1,630.0 Mn by 2022, expanding at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2016 to 2022.
Browse the full report Hospital Acquired Disease Testing: Market Growth, Future Prospects and Competitive Analysis, 2016-2022 at
Market Insights
Hospital acquired infections/diseases (HAIs) or nosocomial infections are defined to the infection acquired by patients during their stay in healthcare settings. Approximately 9.2 out of 100 patients in the U.S. acquire HAI. The most common types of HAIs include pneumonia, urinary tract infection, bloodstream infection, surgical site infection and others. HAIs are caused by pathogens among patients with compromised immune system, and negligence by hospital staff. The significant morbidity and mortality, the associated management costs and growing pressure from governing bodies have urged care-givers to devise accurate diagnosis of HAIs for efficient healthcare provision.
The global hospital acquired disease testing market is categorized into tests for hospital acquired pneumonia, urinary tract infection, surgical site infection, bloodstream infection, MRSA and others. Hospital acquired pneumonia and urinary tract infection together occupy more over 50% market share in 2015 with a larger set of revenue coming from urinary tract infection. The prevalence and morbidity associated with urinary tract infection is the highest among the other infection types and its diagnosis is the swiftest. It is anticipated that the dominance of this segment will continue through the forecast period 2016-2022. Other testing tools for surgical site infections and bloodstream infection are anticipated to undergo faster growth during the forecast period attributed by their alarming incidence in the emerging markets.
Geographically, North America is the largest regional market for hospital acquired disease testing, high number of hospital stays and the corresponding risk of contracting HAIs majorly determine the market size of this region. On the other hand, greater awareness and reducing the incidence of hospital readmission, along with the growing urgency to control hospital and healthcare costs contribute to the faster market growth rate of Asia-Pacific and Latin America hospital acquired disease testing markets.
In view of the market competition, this market is fragmented with a multitude of companies offering HAI testing tools. Some of the notable players in the hospital acquired disease testing market include Diatherix Corp, Roche, Cantel Medical Corporation, Qiagen, Cephid, bioMeriux and others.
Request free sample – http://www.credenceresearch.com/sample-request/57814
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Credence Research is a worldwide market research and counseling firm that serves driving organizations, governments, non-legislative associations, and not-for-benefits. We offer our customers some assistance with making enduring enhancements to their execution and understand their most imperative objectives. Over almost a century, we've manufactured a firm extraordinarily prepared to this task.
Who we are
Credence Research is a worldwide firm, containing more than 15 research consultants and almost 100 research and information professionals.
Our customers mirror our worldwide nature. Around 45% are in Europe, 30% in the Americas, 13% in Asia Pacific and 12% in the Middle East and Africa.
Our firm is intended to work as one. We are a solitary global research organization united by a solid arrangement of qualities, concentrated on customer effect.
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We serve customers at each level of their organization, in whatever limit we can be most helpful, whether as a trusted counsel to top management or as a hands-on mentor for forefront representatives. For each engagement, we collect a group with the most suitable experience and ability.
No matter the challenge, we concentrate on delivering functional and persevering results, and preparing our customers to develop and lead. We join forces with customers to place suggestions into practice. Our research specialist work straightforwardly with customers over long stretches to create workforce aptitudes, drive operational change, and apply new working strategies.
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Hospital Acquired Disease Testing Market - Industry Analysis, size, share, Growth, Demand, and Forec
Company: CredenceResearch
Contact Name: Chris Smith
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Contact Name: Chris Smith
Contact Email: email@example.com
Contact Phone: +1-800-361-8290


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DROPSHIPPING Distribution Service
DROPSHIPPING Distribution Service
Dropshipping is to send orders directly to your end customer anonymously.
Last Level offer ship orders from retailers to the address you specify, for example for those stores that donât want to store products or want to send directly their customers by courier from our warehouse, with rates inexpensive and excellent service by NACEX 24 hours.
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Your customer will receive the packet without any delivery note or sheet inside, completely anonymously.
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To create a store with automatic synchronization with our database and fully operational in a few days, please click this link for more information.