text:
My Wife Becomes A Service Animal At A Ranch
Dark Fantasy, Anal, Authoritarian, Bestiality, Body modification, Cruelty, Cuckold, Domination/submission, Exhibitionism, Extreme, Fisting, Group Sex, Hardcore, Humiliation, Prostitution, Voyeurism, Wife
Author's infos
Gender: male Age: N/A Location: N/A
Posted Mon 12th of July 2010
My wife and I take our little game too far and she ends up completely destroying her life, as the filthiest whore and it's kind of my fault!
Disclaimer: This is such an extreme story, I want to warn people before reading it that I set no limitations on how graphic, violent, disgusting or perverse this story would get when writing it. I don't want to read negative comments from the morally superior, I'm not posting this to be judged, so if you're not interested, please don't read any further. These are just stories and not reality and I don't advocate anyone take this story seriously.
Thank you.
We stayed up at a ranch for a week, just me and my wife; Daniella. I guess it was a slow time of year for tourists as we were the only ones staying at the cabins. The ranch was owned by an old couple and they had hired a real life cowboy to take people on horse rides and tend to the guests.
On the first day, Daniella wanted to go horseback riding, but I passed. She went on her own accompanied only by the ranch's cowboy. After they came back, I thought I saw him looking at her ass as she dismounted. Who could blame him? Daniella was a catch! She stayed pretty fit, but left enough fat on her ass, thighs and chest to shape a curvy little wife for me. She was calm and adventurous sexually, making our seven years of marriage very fun. She was curious and eager to please, indulging my every fantasy. Whether she was trying ass-to-mouth despite how humiliated she felt or whether she was on her hands and knees in nothing but a thong, inside a locked public bathroom so I could take pictures to put on the internet, (we blurred her face of course) she was always nervous but willing to try. The perfect wife.
So when we got back to our cabin and we were alone, I told her that he was staring at her ass as she dismounted her steed. She smiled, flattered. She teased me, saying how good looking she thought he was. I always had a fantasy to see my compliant little wife with another man, using her body to satisfy him the same way she would eagerly get me hard and keep me that way. I couldn't go through with it of course, so from time to time I would ask her to flirt with random guys so I could watch her tease them and then go home and fuck her. I think she likes it too. It was safe and if we can get home before she sucked me off in the car, she was usually dripping wet.
I wanted her to go flirt with him at night by the stables and I would watch from the shadows. At first Daniella refused out right. He had told her that his wife had cheated on him last year with his own brother. He was still pretty devastated and he was lonely. She thought it would be cruel, especially after his wife had screwed up his head so badly. But I convince her that he probably WAS lonely and that he'd be flattered she was flirting with him. It would make him feel good about himself.
She's still very reluctant, but agrees to go down and talk to him, even flirt a little, but not too much. She was feeling especially guilty about this.
I found a way to sneak up on them by going around the long way and entering the back of the barn. From here I was able to watch them no less than a foot away from me through big gaps in the wooden wall without them seeing me. He's very forward with her and I don't do anything about it. She giggles nervously and steps away from him, but he's quite persistent. Eventually she tells him that she doesn't think this is such a good idea. He thinks she's being cute and playing hard to get, but when she makes it clear that she wants him to stop, he gets angry and grabs her, forcing her to bend over some piece of farm equipment, tying her hands behind her back.
He starts telling her what a stupid fucking tease she is. That all women are just cock teasing bitches. That she shouldn't play around with people's emotions.
She stares through the cracks in the wood to my hiding place, shocked. I still don't say anything.
She tells him that he's right. She's really sorry and to let her make it up to him. She pushes her ass out, arching her back and spreads her legs. She's stiff and unsure of herself, but guilt has always been incredibly effective on my wife.
He unties her hands and says she can leave if she wants. She doesn't right away, instead she stares at him, horny and wanting him to take her.
Instead, she unbuttons her jeans and unzips the fly, pushing them down her meaty thighs.
"No, I really am sorry. Let me make it up to you."
"Are you sure?" He unzipped his pants and took out the biggest cock I'd ever seen. "A lot of women can't take me. That's why my wife left. It hurt her too much."
"Holy shit!" My pretty, little wife was practically drooling over her shoulder.
You've never seen anything until you watch a super hung stud mount your pretty little wife. Her mixed emotions of fear and exhilaration contained in her bit lip and wasted breath.
And it must be true that a pussy can stretch to twice its depth during sex, because at first he could only get about halfway inside her. Every thrust caused her to wince in pain, grit her teeth or put her hand out to hold him back. I had a perfect spot on my knees behind the wooden wall they were fucking against, to see him bottom out inside her. And each time he would hit her cervix halfway in with a sharp inhale from my horny wife. By the time he was finishing with her however, he was balls deep in her now sloppy pussy, grabbing her hip fat and driving himself home as far as possible. And she no longer winced in pain or tried to stop the invader hammering the walls of her womb. Instead, her hands braced against the wall separating us and helped her to push back against the horsecock he was feeding her. Her head hung down, mouth hanging open, almost or sometimes drooling as if all the life had been fucked out of her during anyone one of her five counted orgasms.
The first happened as he forced himself inside; she bit her lip as he pressed the head against her moist lips, rubbing her clit. Her eyes opened wide when her lips finally stretched around his head. She clearly hadn't thought he'd ever fit that much inside her. She came moments later, her pussy stretched around a cock the size of a coke can.
Within minutes he's pushed half his cock into her and she cums again. After this second orgasm she loosens up and starts pushing back against her barbarian invader as he defiles her once delicate womanhood, raping and pillaged her thoroughly. Now she would buck against her stud, helping him ruin her desperately.
This time she took longer to build her orgasm, allowing him to take his time and enjoy how much she had stretched and perverted herself to make it up to him.
Her arms buckle and she collapses against the wooden wall of the stable, but he still hadn't cum!
"Oh god! It's too sensitive now! Please cum!" He continued to bulldoze her without missing a beat. "Please!" she moaned pathetically, "I'm begging you! You can cum inside me, I don't care, just give me a second to rest."
He silently and mercilessly continues rhythmically to beat on her tender meats for another minute or two, leaving her on the verge of orgasm with her eyes rolling into the back of her head, the only sound; the punching slap of her brutalized ass cheeks as the bone of his pelvis collides with her pleasure centre.
"Just a quick break, then?" He smiled as he slows down and her body is still quivering. "But then you want more, right?"
She nods like woman in shock who's still wondering what's happened. "Anything you want." She was panting and practically collapsed when he had slipped from her, her legs going to jelly as though the hand had just gone out of the puppet.
"Take off those pants." He ordered her like she was a plate of bottomless fries at a Denny's. He had her strip down to her g-string and shoes, which was quite the sight. Her hair was tussled and some of it matted to her face with sweat. She was flush and her ass was red and sticky with sweat and sex juices. She was starting to feel exposed out in the open when he gave her new orders.
"Get down in the mud and roll around like a fuck pig."
"Yeah?" She asked incredulously. Once the hard, confident smile came back at her as a confirmation, she became confused. "You want me to lay down in that filth?"
He advanced on her and the silence enveloped us, the only sound; her terrified and shallow panting. Maybe she thought he would hit her, she didn't know and neither did I, but I was eager to find out.
He reaches out and gently caresses one of her exposed breasts, at first tantalizing the nipple alone between thumb and forefinger and then forcefully clamping onto the entire breast and massaging it thoroughly. She might have said something at this point, but when she opened her mouth, he put his tongue into it.
As they started passionately kissing, I could tell she was aroused. His hands felt her entire body from her swollen ass to her throat and down her front.
Suddenly her mouth gasped in pain. Her cries muffled by his mouth on top of hers. He was twisting her nipple hard and he wasn't letting go! She pulled away, but he gave her a creepily confident smile, snapped his fingers and said, "Get back here and put your tits out."
I thought this would be the end of it, that my proud wife would pit a stop to it or that I would, but we didn't.
Instead, Daniella came back slowly and put her hands behind her head, thrusting her tits out. "Please, be gentle..."
Instead, he reached a hand into her panties to feel how wet she was. "Why? You seem to like it a lot when it hurts." With that he twisted her nipple again and she winced, but this time stayed in place. He smiled as he worked his fingers in and out of her, "You're practically dripping now aren't you?"
When she didn't give him the answer he was looking for, he pulled his fingers from her slippery twat and pushed them into her mouth. She immediately started licking and sucking his fingers enthusiastically.
"Now get in the fucking mud," he said it with such authority, her will buckled at that very moment. She wanted to please him now more than ever. She wanted him again. Whether it had been the kiss that romanced her, the adrenaline rush or even a little fear of displeasing her new master, Daniella slowly dropped to her knees into the soft muck.
"Rub it on your titties." Her hands pulled up dark clumps of mud and rubbed it across her chest. "Put your ass in it." She did as she was told, sitting her bare white ass cheeks down into the farm mud puddle. The cold wetness oozing up between her cheeks and into every fold must have been a relief for her hot and bruised ass.
Once she had sufficiently degraded herself into some kind of obedient animal, following his orders to crawl on hand and knee and to wedge mud into her ass crack to fill the cheeks, only then could she could get up.
She tried valiantly to stand proud with some kind of dignity as clumps of horseshit slid down her body and fell off.
"Well horsey, you are one filthy animal." He walked around her, "Not much to show, are you? Filthy bitch like you, only gonna be good for breeding now." She took all of his taunting with her head hanging down, nodding.
He slapped her on the ass. "Say, yes master!"
"Yes, master."
"Good girl. Now would you like to be bred by my monster cock?"
"Yes please, master!"
"Do you think my cock would fit in your ass without tearing you apart?"
"I don't know, probably not."
"Will you do it anyway? To make me cum inside you?"
"Even if it hurts you?"
"I'll make it fit. I want it."
"Okay, leave your clothes here and walk over to my cottage. I've got to hose you down before you can come inside, but then we're going to get real familiar."
She didn't even look back once. They walked down the road, her covered in cow shit, wearing only her shoes and a practically non-existent black thong, nothing more than a sopping wet string cutting into her hip fat and his two fingers up her ass so she'd walk on her tip toes.
She didn't come back all night and the next day I crept to the cabin and could hear them still fucking. Daniella's voice was horse from moaning and crying. She begged for mercy, but then came hard when she was pushed further. He kicked her out about three in the afternoon, completely nude, forcing her to stumble back to our cabin in front of anyone who could see her. She was dazed or in shock, completely calm as she slowly made her way back to the cabin, every muscle in pain, skin sticky from sweat and cum. Someone must have seen her as my horny slut of a wife walked her big white ass down the road. She practically fell into bed and then slept for about ten hours.
When she woke up, she drank a glass of water to rehydrate and we talked. She let me feel how he had landscaped her from the inside. I pushed four fingers up to the knuckle with like zero resistance! Then her ass. Same thing! My wife had been stretched open voluntarily and she loved it. She said it was painful at first, but after he broke her in, she hurt herself on him again and again like a retarded animal, (her words) until she was loose and then gave him her asshole to wear out.
She wouldn't let me fuck her for very long, she said she couldn't really feel me anymore. She said she still loved me and laid out in front of me on the bed, legs spread. She told me to jerk off onto her while she started playing with herself.
Her hands are much smaller than my own and pretty soon she's up to her wrist with little difficulty. I ask her questions about the last two days. She seemed to enjoy it. She said it was the best sex she'd ever had.
She'd been opened up in more ways than one. She enjoyed being used by men for pleasure and she didn't care whether or not I was okay with that anymore. This had been my idea after all.
She told me she thought she might start fucking other guys too, see what she's missing. I came right there. She didn't. Even with her knuckles massaging her pussy walls, she said it wasn't enough. She seemed so different now, changed literally from the inside out. He had landscaped her physically with his tool, but I could see what mental damage was done here too.
I asked her if she was leaving me. She said she wouldn't unless that was what I wanted. I didn't want to lose her so she said it would be fine as long as I made certain allowances. I could see where this was going, but what could I do? I still wanted her and loved her.
The next day as we checked out there was a bit of an incident. As we approached the front desk, the old man who owned the ranch greeted us with, "You and your whore of a wife leavin' us already?"
I was starting to say something when Daniella cut me off saying, "No, that's okay dear, let me handle this. I think we're about to get free accommodations here for another time as well as having this bill waved."
The old man seemed unlikely to budge but Daniella asked me to meet her outside in a minute. When I walked out I swore she was walking around the front desk and I wondered if I should have left as she suggested.
When she got in the car she was very excited. I asked, "So what happened?"
She said, "I got him to wave the fee. It was pretty cool!"
"What did you say?"
"I don't think it was so much what I said in as much as it was me swallowing his load. But still, it's pretty good because when I come up again, he said I could stay for free as long as I kept him happy. It's crazy to have this kind of power really!"
I was stunned. "You mean to tell me that you just sucked that old man's cock while I waited in the car?"
"And I swallowed him when he finished, yes." She said it plainly.
"You sucked that old man's cock? And you're going to do it again when you come back here to have yourself fucked to a pulp by a horse cock?"
Actually, I told him that I would fuck him next time. I told him he could have any hole he wanted next time but he might want me before I get opened up by the big horse cock." She was amazing.
I was pissed off but she didn't want me to be, so she took one last try to explain it to me.
She looked at me sincerely and said, "You know you're going to have to be cool with sharing me if this is going to work. I'm going to bring men into our bed sometimes. I mean I'll try to go to their house, but that might not always be an option and I don't want to feel like I have to sneak around behind your back about this. I want to fuck a black man, you know? And I'll be driving up to the ranch at least once a month, maybe more, but I'd feel cruel letting him go for longer without release, you know? It's a fucking monster! You've seen it!" She rambled on, but I knew I had fucked up our relationship.
Sooner or later I'm going to get fed up and leave, or she'll leave me because I can't handle this, but right now we fuck maybe once a month while she wears her pussy out on all kinds of random cock. She fucks guys she meets in bars, coworkers, I don't like going out with her anymore with such a high likelihood that she'll fuck a waiter in the coatroom, another customer in the bathroom or simply leave with someone, asking me if I minded! She fucked her boss and has been promoted three times in one year, each time a different boss and she started making way more moeny than I do.
The only time we ever fuck, when she gets back from a trip to the ranch and needs a day or two to recover from how he fucked her sloppy and loose pussy wide open. She was too embarrassed and worn out to go picking up guys so that's one of the few times we ever have together. Of course she doesn't feel me inside her and I've learned to put my fist in her and then fuck my fist for any kind of tightness.
She even cums sometimes, but on those times she usually mutters something along the lines of, "God! He fucking stretches me so much every time! His cock is as big as your fist!" And then she cums on my hand as I try to spread my fingers inside her to make me even bigger.
I don't know what to do. Recently she told me that he'd been filming her visits. She didn't really care, but he had put together a website now and was charging a membership fee to get access to all the pictures and videos of my wife spreading herself open, taking baseball bats up her ass and fisting and she cums loudly every time.
He put the site up a couple weeks before he told her about it. Nothing was censored so you could always see her face twisted in pain and ecstasy as she came spitting out grunts and moans and long strings of filthy language.
I know she was terrified of our friends and family finding out, but she was told that if she didn't voluntarily perform for her new fans, he would stop fucking her and she couldn't have that. So monthly trips became weekly and the site started making enough money that she didn't need to work, which was lucky, because she was fired for missing so much work and while most times she would just spread her legs for her boss and beg to keep her job, this time she was just too loose in her pussy and ass for him to get off.
Eventually she simply stayed at the ranch, making nightly videos of her taking his horse cock or other objects in her stretched out holes for the camera. They kept trying to push themselves further; they tried with no lube (which looked excruciating, but she came instantaneously), costumes, facials, toys but peaked when he convinced her, at the suggestion of one of her online fans, to make a movie involving one of the ranch's ponies.
She was nervous as she stroked the animal hard, the pony's cock was even thicker than his. A few kisses and she was swallowing his first load as it blasted her in the mouth. Throughout, she rubbed herself furiously, trying to cum. In the end, she had to have the big cock inside her.
She looked a little worse for wear now, hundreds of hours of extreme porn having taken their toll on her now haggard body. The pony reared onto her back and mounted her in one hard thrust, ripping her apart for sure. The powerful animal pounded into her rubbery snatch with abandon and she came crying and screaming, "Jesus fucking Christ! He's making me cum! Ow! Thank you! Ugh! Thank you!" The video ended with her curled up on the floor, a gallon of horse cum running steadily out of her and into a puddle on the floor. Coming from behind the camera, he led her face to the puddle and told her not to waste anything. So Tear stained, puffy and red, every vestige of humanity stripped from her, she smiled and slurped at the cum, swallowing what she could.
This video polarized her fan base. Most of her fans were turned off by her bestiality video and turned away. This created a money problem for the site and to get them out of it, her new master invited paying members to come up and fuck her in person. They had to pay more money obviously but she took on every one of them in turn. Sure, they could barely feel the walls of her pussy and ass now, but that's what these freaks wanted. They were sick and twisted, lonely men, unattractive by most standards and she let them cum inside her if they could, cram as many toys in her at one time as they could and paid extra to see her and the pony.
She told me she never refused anyone anything. She'd done 50 men for forty eight hours straight during a self-proclaimed "5 Buck Fuck Night" on her website. She bought her last car with money she made allowing one website member to tattoo his name on her ass. She'd been to the hospital twice after the pony got a little too rough, but she toughened up quickly. She'd drunk the collective loads of groups of men, smearing the cum into her mouth with her fingers, rubbing it into her skin and smiling to the camera for more. She allowed her new master to tie her down and use syringes to inject saline into her breasts dozens of times until they swelled like water balloons and then untied, allowed him to handle the abused melons roughly, squeezing and slapping them until they misshaped to hang like pieces of bruised fruit while she rubbed at her worn out cootchie trying desperately to cum.
One day she woke up at the foot of his bed where she slept and removing her sleep wear (which consisted of leather panties with a vibrating dildo and butt plug on the inside as well as a gag that had a rubber cock on it that went in her mouth), she gently woke up her lover and told him she didn't want to do this anymore. He said that he understood completely but there would be a price to pay before she could go. She smiled and agreed. Of course she wanted one final fuck fiesta before she left this life forever.
She took crazy caffeine supplements and stayed up on drugs to fuck for four days straight. She advertised her retirement on her site and streamed it live as she went from gang bang to horsey to piercings to machines and mutilation. If she passed out, they just continued as if she wasn't. They beat her if they were angry that she was leaving them, (only upon her insistence of course) and she laughed and cried as she taunted each of them to give her their worst. She was an insane service animal and she performed.
When she stumbled out the door and into the cab, she was soft and broken like sex pulp, whipped and beaten and fucked sideways to her contentment. She came home and begged my forgiveness and I accepted her back. I still loved her after all and although it sickened me, I watched every episode on her website and even suggested a few things myself. I was jealous and angry and turned on all at the same time. Her guilt was in overdrive and she was constantly apologizing for fucking up our relationship so badly. Our sex life changed forever as well. She could only cum now if I ram-punched her with my fist into her pussy repeatedly. It was a constant effort to satisfy her and to keep her loose. She didn't want any other man to tempt her to stray, so she wanted to stay so loose that they'd likely be disgusted and then she wouldn't even try. I only fucked her face or her ass now. I don't complain much about that.
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23 comments
Anonymous reader
2016-12-31 20:01:28
While I started reading this with excitement thinking it would cover new territory and expanded ideas, it's the same old rehashed story of a slut and her cuck. We need new and more edgy storylines. Aliens?
Anonymous reader
2016-08-12 15:38:05
This man is a retard! That woman mentally deranged ! However that's their life. Some of it sounds great but like he said it was extreme. Not bad reading maybe go a little further, like have a huge dog fuck her and walk around the yard with the dog still attached to her pussy or asshole. Mm mm what a site! What a bitch!
Anonymous reader
2016-08-10 16:24:36
It sounds like a reasonably good time. Never done a equine, but k9 are lots of fun. They cum lots, and mount fast.
Anonymous reader
2015-07-05 23:43:30
Horse meating woman
Anonymous reader
2015-07-03 08:42:33
Jesus Christ... that guy is an idiot
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text: Swedish Nurses & Doctors Have The Sexiest JobsMargaret Hartmann8/29/11 1:20pmFiled to: SwedesSexSweden nurses doctorsdoctorsNursesJobsshutterstock31EditPromoteShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalinkIf you're a doctor or a nurse, the next time you're looking at a troubling sore or coated in someone else's bodily fluids, you should remember the Swedish people still find you sexy. In an online poll, doctors and nurses were tied for most alluring profession, which may have something to do with Grey's Anatomy airing in Sweden. Women said cooks have the second sexiest job, which makes sense. Being able to produce a delicious baked good is never a bad thing.AdvertisementImage via Evok20/Shutterstock.Reply31 repliesLeave a reply

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Interner Bericht des Fachbereich Informatik
- Bericht (20) (entfernen)
- Englisch (20) (entfernen)
- Dienstgüte (2)
- Formalisierung (2)
- Compiler (1)
- Coq (1)
- Extraction (1)
- Formal Semantics (1)
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- 389
- Statistical RNA Secondary Structure Sampling Based on a Length-Dependent SCFG Model (2012)
- One of the fundamental problems in computational structural biology is the prediction of RNA secondary structures from a single sequence. To solve this problem, mainly two different approaches have been used over the past decades: the free energy minimization (MFE) approach which is still considered the most popular and successful method and the competing stochastic context-free grammar (SCFG) approach. While the accuracy of the MFE based algorithms is limited by the quality of underlying thermodynamic models, the SCFG method abstracts from free energies and instead tries to learn about the structural behavior of the molecules by training the grammars on known real RNA structures, making it highly dependent on the availability of a rich high quality training set. However, due to the respective problems associated with both methods, new statistics based approaches towards RNA structure prediction have become increasingly appreciated. For instance, over the last years, several statistical sampling methods and clustering techniques have been invented that are based on the computation of partition functions (PFs) and base pair probabilities according to thermodynamic models. A corresponding SCFG based statistical sampling algorithm for RNA secondary structures has been studied just recently. Notably, this probabilistic method is capable of producing accurate (prediction) results, where its worst-case time and space requirements are equal to those of common RNA folding algorithms for single sequences. The aim of this work is to present a comprehensive study on how enriching the underlying SCFG by additional information on the lengths of generated substructures (i.e. by incorporating length-dependencies into the SCFG based sampling algorithm, which is actually possible without significant losses in performance) affects the reliability of the induced RNA model and the accuracy of sampled secondary structures. As we will see, significant differences with respect to the overall quality of generated sample sets and the resulting predictive accuracy are typically implied. In principle, when considering the more specialized length-dependent SCFG model as basis for statistical sampling, a higher accuracy of predicted foldings can be reached at the price of a lower diversity of generated candidate structures (compared to the more general traditional SCFG variant or sampling based on PFs that rely on free energies).
- 387
- Translating SHIM to Guarded Actions (2012)
- SHIM is a concurrent deterministic programming language for embedded systems built on rendezvous communication. It abstracts away many details to give the developer a high-level view that includes virtual shared variables, threads as orthogonal statements, and deterministic concurrent exceptions. In this paper, we present a new way to compile a SHIM-like language into a set of asynchronous guarded actions, a well-established intermediate representation for concurrent systems. By doing so, we build a bridge to many other tools, including hardware synthesis and formal verification. We present our translation in detail, illustrate it through examples, and show how the result can be used by various other tools.
- 382
- Separate Translation of Synchronous Programs to Guarded Actions (2011)
- This report gives an overview of the separate translation of synchronous imperative programs to synchronous guarded actions. In particular, we consider problems to be solved for separate compilation that stem from preemption statements and local variable declarations. We explain how we solved these problems and sketch our solutions implemented in the our Averest framework to implement a compiler that allows a separate compilation of imperative synchronous programs with local variables and unrestricted preemption statements. The focus of the report is the big picture of our entire design flow.
- 379
- Non Uniform Generation of Combinatorial Objects (2010)
- In this article we present a method to generate random objects from a large variety of combinatorial classes according to a given distribution. Given a description of the combinatorial class and a set of sample data our method will provide an algorithm that generates objects of size n in worst-case runtime O(n^2) (O(n log(n)) can be achieved at the cost of a higher average-case runtime), with the generated objects following a distribution that closely matches the distribution of the sample data.
- 371
- ChordNet: Protocol Specification and Analysis (2009)
- This work specifies and analyzes the ChordNet protocol. ChordNet is able to connect huge numbers of nodes in an efficient peer-to-peer network.
- 369
- On the Expected Free Energy of RNA Molecules (2008)
- This article focuses on the analytical analysis of the free energy in a realistic model for RNA secondary structures. In fact, the free energy in a stochastic model derived from a database of small and large subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU and LSU rRNA) data is studied. A common thermody-namic model for computing the free energy of a given RNA secondary structure, as well as stochastic context-free grammars and generating functions are used to derive the desired results. These results include asymptotics for the expected free energy and for the corresponding variance of a random RNA secondary structure. The quality of our model is judged by comparing the derived results to the used database of SSU and LSU rRNA data. At the end of this article, it is discussed how our results could be used to help on identifying good predictions of RNA secondary structure.
- 368
- On Abstract Shapes of RNA (2008)
- As any RNA sequence can be folded in many different ways, there are lots of different possible secondary structures for a given sequence. Most computational prediction methods based on free energy minimization compute a number of suboptimal foldings and we have to identify the native structures among all these possible secondary structures. For this reason, much effort has been made to develop approaches for identifying good predictions of RNA secondary structure. Using the abstract shapes approach as introduced by Giegerich et al., each class of similar secondary structures is represented by one shape and the native structures can be found among the top shape representatives. In this article, we derive some interesting results answering enumeration problems for abstract shapes and secondary structures of RNA. We start by computing symptotical representations for the number of shape representations of length n. Our main goal is to find out how much the search space can be reduced by using the concept of abstract shapes. To reach this goal, we analyze the number of secondary structures and shapes compatible with an RNA sequence of length n under the assumption that base pairing is allowed between arbitrary pairs of bases analytically and compare their exponential growths. Additionally, we analyze the number of secondary structures compatible with an RNA sequence of length n under the assumptions that base pairing is allowed only between certain pairs of bases and that the structures meet some appropriate conditions. The exponential growth factors of the resulting asymptotics are compared to the corresponding experimentally obtained value as given by Giegerich et al.
- 366
- On Certifying Code Generation (2007)
- Guaranteeing correctness of compilation is a ma jor precondition for correct software. Code generation can be one of the most error-prone tasks in a compiler. One way to achieve trusted compilation is certifying compilation. A certifying compiler generates for each run a proof that it has performed the compilation run correctly. The proof is checked in a separate theorem prover. If the theorem prover is content with the proof, one can be sure that the compiler produced correct code. This paper presents a certifying code generation phase for a compiler translating an intermediate language into assembler code. The time spent for checking the proofs is the bottleneck of certifying compilation. We exhibit an improved framework for certifying compilation and considerable advances to overcome this bottleneck. We compare our implementation featuring the Coq theorem prover to an older implementation. Our current implementation is feasible for medium to large sized programs.
- 363
- On the Complexity of the Uncapacitated Single Allocation p-Hub Median Problem with Equal Weights (2007)
- The Super-Peer Selection Problem is an optimization problem in network topology construction. It may be cast as a special case of a Hub Location Problem, more exactly an Uncapacitated Single Allocation p-Hub Median Problem with equal weights. We show that this problem is still NP-hard by reduction from Max Clique.
- 361
- On Translation Validation for System Abstractions (2007)
- Abstraction is intensively used in the verification of large, complex or infinite-state systems. With abstractions getting more complex it is often difficult to see whether they are valid. However, for using abstraction in model checking it has to be ensured that properties are preserved. In this paper, we use a translation validation approach to verify property preservation of system abstractions. We formulate a correctness criterion based on simulation between concrete and abstract system for a property to be verified. For each distinct run of the abstraction procedure the correctness is verified in the theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. This technique is applied in the verification of embedded adaptive systems. This paper is an extended version a previously published work.


text:
up close view of the 1728 heads that make up alexaner lervik's light installation 'dimensions'
image © designboom
swedish designer alexander lervik is behind the conceptual development of the light bar at this year's stockholm furniture fair.
detail of the heads changing from blue to red
image © designboom
the bar is an illuminated oasis situated amongst the hustle and bustle within
hall A of the fairgrounds. entitled 'dimensions', lervik's light installation,
created for insurance company skandia, consists of 1728 heads
half male, half female – which are meant to symbolize the employees
of the company.
full view
image © designboom
12 rows x 12 rows of posts, each post containing 12 heads alternating male
and female, are arranged to form a cube-like structure. each of the heads are controlled
with LED lights that form
a three-dimensional screen. the heads constantly change color,
from orange to blue to red to pinks and greens, creating a playful and vibrant space
'good for meetings, reflection and mingling,' as lervik says.
the lighting technology for the
installation has been developed in partnership with
stockholm lighting
detail of the installation in pink
image © designboom
the heads are arranged on poles arranged in 12 rows x 12 rows forming a cube-like structure
image © designboom
transitioning from orange to blue
image © designboom
image © designboom
'dimensions' in its basic white form
image © designboom
image © designboom
detail of the alternating male and female heads
image © designboom
It has been done before at Burningman.
haha hasn't everything been done before at burningman? this is an industry where things have to be prototyped and manufactured… not to say uncreative but there is corporate red tape holding back creative forces every step of the way.
Shush. Everything's been done before.
the sculpture is 3 years old, just borrowed to the fair.
watch the movie at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zne4ZLKHxKQ
oh my god!!!


text:
Urban Tank
http://www.2xu.com/au/p/urban-tank/MR4082a.html?lang=en_NZThe 2XU Urban Tank delivers a great feel with durability and breathability. This top is suited to general training and recovery and a great cross over into casual wear.
Product Actions
Technical specifications
Product Details
Featuring an extra 2cm in length to a standard 2XU top, the 2XU Urban Tank is made for comfort. A looser cut around the neckline and arms allows for unrestricted movement when cross training and comfort for extended wears. Eyelets through the upper back will aid ventilation through all activites.
Delivery & returns
Estimated Shipping Time is 3-7 business days New Zealand wide.
Upon dispatch you will receive an email confirmation containing the Tracking details and estimated time of delivery of your order.
Garments can be returned or exchanged within 30 days of purchase, provided the garment is in sellable condition.
Click here to organise an exchange or return of an online purchase.
Care instructions
To best care for 2XU garments:
- Machine wash in cold water with like colours.
- Do NOT Tumble dry.
- Hang to dry in a cool shady area away from sun.
- Do not use bleach, fabric softeners or dryer sheets.
- Do not iron.
Garment Features
- Combed polyester yarn for lightweight cotton touch feel next to skin and all day comfort
- Longer body length designed for coverage during complete range of movements
- Looser cut around arm opening and neckline to facilitate full range of motion during general cross training
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text:
Located in 10th Arrondissement, Hotel Excelsior Republique is within a mile (2 km) of popular sights such as Picasso Museum and Museum Georges Pompidou. This 34-room hotel welcomes guests with conveniences like free in-room WiFi and a 24-hour front desk. Also close to this Paris hotel are Galeries Lafayette and Notre Dame Cathedral.
For your convenience, a continental breakfast is served for a fee each morning from 7:00 AM to 9:30 AM.
Hotel Excelsior Republique's 34 soundproofed rooms provide ceiling fans. Guests can expect to find free WiFi and TVs.
Property features
Hotel Excelsior Republique offers free WiFi in public areas and a meeting room. For transportation, you can make use of a shuttle from the hotel to the airport (available on request) for EUR 26 per person one-way, as well as an airport shuttle. The front desk has multilingual staff standing by 24 hours a day to assist with luggage storage and tours/tickets.
- Close to Picasso Museum and Museum Georges Pompidou
- Free WiFi in rooms and public areas
- 24-hour front desk
Hotel Excelsior Republique
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Excelsior Republique features tour/ticket assistance, multilingual staff, and an elevator (lift). Public areas are equipped with complimentary high-speed wireless Internet access. For a surcharge, a shuttle from the hotel to the airport (available on request) is offered to guests.
- Free WiFi
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Number of floors - 6
- Number of buildings/towers - 1
- Airport transportation - drop-off (surcharge)
- 24-hour front desk
- Total number of rooms - 34
- Elevator/lift
- Airport transportation
- Tours/ticket assistance
- One meeting room
- Luggage storage
- Multilingual staff
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi
Room Amenities
Hotel Excelsior Republique offers 34 air-conditioned accommodations with ceiling fans. This Paris hotel provides complimentary wireless high-speed Internet access. Bathrooms include showers. Cribs/infant beds (surcharge) are also available.
- Private bathroom
- Soundproofed rooms
- Shower only
- Free WiFi
- Ceiling fan
- Air conditioning
- Television
- In-room climate control (air conditioning)
- Cribs/infant beds (surcharge)
Where to Eat
Continental breakfasts are available for a surcharge and are served each morning between 7:00 AM and 9:30 AM.
Start your morning with a continental breakfast, available each day from 7:00 AM to 9:30 AM for a surcharge.
Hotel Policies
Check-in time starts at 3:00 PM
Check-in time ends at noon
Special check-in instructions:
Check-out time is 11 AM
Payment types
Children and extra beds
- Children are welcome.
- Cribs (infant beds) are available for EUR 15 per night.
- Dogs only
- Up to 10 kg
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
No rollaway/extra beds available
- A tax is imposed by the city: EUR 0.99 per person, per night. This tax does not apply to children under 3 years of age.
- Resort fee: EUR 0.78 per person, per night
Optional extras
- Fee for continental breakfast: EUR 7 for adults and EUR 5 for children (approximately)
- Airport shuttle fee: EUR 26 per person (one-way)
- Airport shuttle fee per child: EUR 26 (from 1 to 13 years old)
- Crib (infant bed) fee: EUR 15 per night
Hotel Name
- Excelsior Republique
- Excelsior Republique Paris
- Hotel Excelsior Republique
- Hotel Excelsior Republique Paris
- Excelsior Republique Hotel
National Rating
This property has received its official star rating from the French Tourism Development Agency, ATOUT France.


text:
Vendetta In New Orleans
The city panicked with fear of the Mafia when the police chief was murdered
June 1973 | Volume 24, Issue 4
"What protection, or assurance of protection, is there left us," he cried, "when the very head of our police department—our chief of police—is assassinated, in our very midst, by the Mafia Society, and his assassins again turned loose on the community? … Will every man here follow me and see the murder of D. C. Hennessy vindicated? Are there men enough here to set aside the verdict of that infamous jury, every one of whom is a perjurer and a scoundrel?"
"Hang the murderers," the crowd shouted back.
By now the crowd had grown so great that the trolley cars circling Clay Statue could not move. Spectators clambered on top of the blocked cars and cheered the speaker on.
Two more speakers followed Parkerson, but the crowd was growing impatient. "We have had enough of words," men shouted, "now for action." The last speaker, a newspaper editor, John Wickliffe, was unable to finish. "Very well, then, gentlemen," he said, "let's go and do our duty. Mr. Parkerson is your leader. Mr. James D. Houston is your first lieutenant. Your second lieutenant is myself." The leaders then walked over to Royal and Bienville streets, where about fifty men armed with pistols and shotguns joined them. The crowd, now swollen to well over six thousand and whipped to a righteous fury, began to march down Rampart Street toward the Parish Prison.
At the prison a swelling mass of onlookers now lined both sides of the street in front of the main gate. The Italian prisoners had learned of the mass meeting and begged Captain Davis to let them out, or else give them arms to defend themselves.
Davis was becoming edgy. Why wasn't his superior on the scene? He phoned Sheriff Villère to tell him of the surging crowd. He kept the night watch on duty when the day watch came to relieve them. He sent a runner out to bring in deputies who lived nearby. The crowd hooted and jeered as the prison gate clanged shut behind these reinforcements.
The prison that Davis was trying to secure was a bleak fortress occupying an entire city block. The main gate on Orleans Street was guarded by iron bars an inch and a half thick. But on Treme Street only a small wooden door gave entry into the prison. Davis ordered his carpenters to barricade this doorway. Each report of the carpenters' hammer blows was echoed by more yells from the crowd.
Davis' strategy to save the nineteen prisoners was first to lock all the other inmates into their cells. He then transferred most of the Italians to the women's side of the prison, where they were released and allowed to fend for themselves within the prison compound. Several of the men bolted for hiding places—in a trash bin, in the wash house, under a mattress. Two even managed to cram themselves into an oversize doghouse that had been made out of an old box for Captain Davis' bull terrier, Queen. But most of the Italians remained upstairs on the women's side of the jail.
By now all four streets surrounding the prison were thick with people. Davis checked the carpenters' work on the Treme Street barricade and decided it would hold. Suddenly a new sound riveted the captain's attention. He could make out in the distance the muffled roar of an approaching mob, the steady tramp of marching feet. As he listened two detectives pulled up to the main gate in a horse-drawn cab and shouted to him that the Vigilance Committee was headed for the prison "to lynch the Dagoes." Davis answered, "Let them come, they won't get in. "
Pasquale Corte, the Italian consul in New Orleans, had also read the Vigilance Committee's call to action that morning in the papers. To Corte this threat was a direct summons to duty. At least three of the men accused of the crime were still Italian citizens and entitled to the Italian government's protection.
When Corte learned that a crowd was indeed gathering at Clay Statue, he raced his carriage to City Hall to find Mayor Shakspeare. There he met Sheriff Villère and the attorney general, Mr. Rogers, who told the consul that they too were looking for the mayor. But in Corte's judgment, "They appeared to me to be very calm and to be anticipating what was about to happen."


text:
By Jennifer Merritt
When Angel Martin signed on last year to get an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, she knew she'd be one of only a dozen minority students in her class of 250. The six African-American and six Hispanic students quickly formed a bond, helping one another along and, says Martin, working to boost the number of minority applicants to the B-school, which plummeted after a 1996 California proposition against affirmative action in higher ed. "We didn't come here to pick up a cause, but you get here and you don't have a choice, because there's nobody else to fight for it but you," says the 26-year-old Martin.
Now Berkeley's minority MBA students will feel even lonelier. In March, Haas Dean Thomas J. Campbell announced that the school would effectively be quitting a consortium that gives scholarships to minority MBAs. Because the move came after Haas had sent out acceptance letters for next fall, the school had to tell about two dozen prospective students that they would not be eligible for scholarships after all -- prompting many to switch to other schools.
Similar stories may soon play out at other top B-schools. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court is to decide two University of Michigan cases that represent the most significant challenge to affirmative action in higher ed in more than two decades. Already, the suits have prompted some colleges and B-schools to reconsider their affirmative-action efforts. Even if the court chooses not to toss out the current approach, the close scrutiny may chill efforts to lift minorities' share of college enrollment. "Not only have the hurdles to entry been increasing, but getting that good job and being connected to the fast track is tough for most people of color," says James H. Johnson, a professor of management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School, who mentors many minority alums.
The result is likely to be a deterioration in B-schools' already lackluster record with minorities. To be sure, B-schools are diverse -- Asian Americans are well represented, women make up about 29% of MBA students, and another 30% hail from outside the U.S. But B-schools have been largely unsuccessful in attracting U.S. blacks and Hispanics.
Indeed, those two groups, plus Native Americans, comprise only 11.9% of the top private schools last year, up from 9.9% in 1990, according to an analysis of BusinessWeek's biennial survey of the Top 30 MBA programs (chart). The top public schools, more vulnerable to attacks on affirmative action, have done worse: Their enrollment of these groups has plunged to just 8.4%, from 14.5% in 1990. Taken together, minority enrollment at BusinessWeek's Top 30 private and public schools actually dropped from 11.3% in 1990 to 10.7% in 2002. By contrast, a globalization push led to a doubling of international students over the same period.
The problem isn't much better outside of the elite B-schools. Among all accredited schools, only about 10% of the 108,000 MBAs enrolled in 2001-02 were minority, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the accrediting body for B-schools. "We're going to have to start doing some very different things because the numbers are nowhere near where they should be," says Ella Bell, an associate professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, whose 460 full-time students are 18% minority.
Of course, Corporate America is part of the problem, too. Despite a handful of high-profile black CEOs like American Express Co.'s Ken Chenault or Merrill Lynch Inc.'s Stanley O'Neal, there aren't many role models or mentors to steer aspiring young minorities into an executive career. Business school enrollments, say experts, simply reflect that reality. Still, B-schools can do plenty more to shore up the pipeline, from extending outreach programs and alumni mentoring to including racial issues in executive education courses. "If corporations demanded more out of B-schools, they would be forced to respond," says Luke Visconti, co-founder of Diversity Inc., which tracks corporate diversity issues.
B-schools' disappointing record is of growing concern to corporations precisely because so many rely on them for tomorrow's executives. Many companies, especially consumer-oriented ones, are well aware that minority households account for some 19% of consumer spending, up from 12% in 1990, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. With minority families projected to swell faster than white ones over the next decade, corporations feel tremendous pressure to hire managers who reflect the growing portion of their customer base.
Last year, for example, the Business-Higher Education Forum, a group of 25 companies including Boeing, State Farm, and KPMG, began encouraging B-schools to circumvent court-imposed restrictions on race in admissions, hoping to tap a larger pool of grads to meet hiring needs. Diversity "drives greater innovation and the best business solutions, which are essential to competing [globally]," says Shirley Harrison, vice-president for diversity management at Altria Group Inc., which ties part of managers' bonuses to diversity goals.
What's particularly disheartening is that minority B-school enrollment has barely budged despite years of efforts by some schools and concerned nonprofits. They have shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars on everything from programs like LEAD (Leadership Education & Development), which brings high schoolers to minicamps for a taste of B-school, to the Consortium for Graduate Management Study, which Haas left. Since its founding in 1996, the Consortium has doled out nearly 5,000 scholarships at 14 B-schools and provided mentoring and career help to minority MBAs.
Despite such programs, the pool of minority MBA wannabes has remained stagnant. The number of minorities taking the Graduate Management Admissions Test, the key entrance exam for MBA programs, has been flat in the past decade, according to GMAC, which administers the exam. While the path into law, medicine, and education requires university credentials, the road to a career in business is murkier, says Karen Johns, director of the Diversity Pipeline Alliance, formed in 2001 to link B-school-related nonprofits.
Why does life in the executive suite have so little allure for minorities? Mostly because it still seems so unattainable, experts say. Blacks and Hispanics have few role models -- in their families, communities, or in media coverage of Corporate America. When successful minorities are portrayed in popular culture, they're often professionals, not executives. "You look up in your organization and see only a couple of people who look like you, and you start to wonder about your career path. It's daunting," says Colbert T. Boyd, a second-year student at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and co-chair of the school's Black Management Assn.
Indeed, minorities who take jobs at large corporations generally encounter few who can relate to their experience. Just 12% of all executives and managers are minorities, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So "very often, minorities aren't benefiting from the same insider information. They don't know all the players, and they don't have the inside track on how to go up in an organization," says Keith A. Caver, a director at the Center for Creative Leadership.
Corporate America can easily be perceived as unfriendly territory. Kellogg's Boyd says that in his pre-B-school consulting career, he sometimes found himself invisible at client meetings, even when he was lead consultant on a project. He considers himself lucky that his bosses were sensitive to racial politics and occasionally raised the issue with clients. But for the majority of blacks who face such slights early on, an MBA can seem too costly an investment in time and money for a future of continued frustration. "Minorities [don't] believe the degree is going to pay off...because they don't see themselves having a place at the table," says Dartmouth's Bell.
B-schools can't solve those problems, of course. But some do succeed in demystifying the business world and building confidence. For two decades, Harvard Business School has brought some 75 college seniors to Boston every year, mostly from historically black colleges, for an all-expenses-paid, weeklong program that highlights careers in business, what B-school is like, and the value of an MBA.
Harvard also hosts informal forums at about 40 campuses nationwide to introduce minority students to the MBA. The payoff: Fully 22% of Harvard Business School's 900 or so students are minority, a number that is a goal of many B-schools. (However, two conservative advocacy groups recently threatened to file suit against the summer program over its policy of admitting only minorities.)
Not every school can afford such programs. But few even do much outreach to undergrads on their own turf, says Derrick Bolton, director of admissions at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. "If just half the schools with MBA programs reached out to their undergraduate populations, the pool of minority applicants would double," he says. Bolton is pushing the idea to nine other schools, including the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where minority enrollments are 6% and 9%, respectively.
Another avenue: historically black colleges. More than 35% of all African Americans with college degrees graduate from these schools each year. "If I were a dean of a business school... I'd be trying to draw out and track top students from these schools," says Bernard J. Milano, executive director of the KPMG Foundation and head of the PhD Project, whose goal is to increase the number of minority professors in B-schools.
Since nearly all MBA candidates enroll after they have spent several years in a corporate job, it's no wonder the minority share of B-school classes is low. Harvard and Stanford University have both recently begun programs to encourage alums to scout out and mentor young minorities in their companies. B-schools also can work diversity into executive education and executive MBA programs that cater to senior-level managers.
By definition, B-schools and Corporate America are partners -- the corporate world supplies students to MBA programs and then hires back grads into its management ranks. Both need to work harder if the easy rhetoric about diversity is ever to become a reality.
Merritt covers management education from New York.


text:
Best Western Clearlake PlazaSpringfield, Illinois, United States |
Photos: |
Experience the wonders of Springfield, IL - the home of Abraham Lincoln - in its most comfortable form at this relaxing, pet-friendly hotel. Located just two miles from historic downtown Springfield, IL, BEST WESTERN Clearlake Plaza is the perfect place to stay to visit the area's many sites dedicated to Abraham Lincoln. Historians and casual visitors alike can visit the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices Historic Site, the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site and the Arbraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Guests travelling to Springfield for business at the Praine Convention Center or the Illinois State Fairgrounds, or those visiting nearby Springfield University, Lincoln Land College or Saint John's Hospital, can also find a range of attractions without traveling far. Nearby Knight Action Amusement Park and Robinson Zoo are popular attractions, while the Bergen Park Golf Course and White Oaks Mall are wonderful for the simple pleasures of relaxation. After a day of sightseeing or working, nothing is more welcoming than a comfortable bed and a room with generous ammenities - and the BEST WESTERN Clearlake Plaza doesn't disappoint. Each charming room comes standard with cable satellite television, high-speed Internet access, a private desk and a coffeemaker - and each guest has access to the well-equipped exercise facility, indoor pool and complimentary continental breakfast serving coffee, juice, bread and sweet rolls daily. Ready for relaxation, an unbeatable value and a memorable stay? Make a reservation at the BEST WESTERN Clearlake Plaza in Springfield, IL, today and save!
PHOTOGALLERYPhotos Of Best Western Clearlake Plaza, Springfield | ||
Earliest check-in at 3:00 |
2 floors |
Car parking (Payable to hotel, if applicable) |
Golf |
Television |
1 lift |
Coach parking |
Connection for laptop |
Direct dial phone |
Gymnasium |
Springfield Hotels Back to top |


text:
If you're like most, shopping for used vans in Huntsville can be a stressful and complicated process. Many dealerships will try to sell you less of a van for more money, while others don't have financing options for individuals with less than perfect credit. At DriveTime, you can kiss all your worries goodbye. Our simple van shopping experience makes your search for Huntsville used vans easy and carefree.
For dealerships selling used vans in Huntsville, financing options are often limited to those with good credit. However, DriveTime recognizes that not all customers have perfect credit and accommodates used van shoppers of all credit types. Whether you expect your transportation needs to change in the near future or you simply want the convenience and storage that a van offers, buying a used van from DriveTime can have its benefits.
Huntsville used vans come in a wide variety of sizes and formats and offer numerous features to meet the needs of any driver. Families carrying large amounts of equipment along with their "precious cargo" often appreciate minivans with stowing features and removable seats. Added extras such as DVD players and satellite radio enhance the driving experience. For professionals, larger used vans with utilitarian features such as shelving and waterproof interiors fit the bill.
At DriveTime, it's never been easier to shop with confidence when looking for Huntsville used vans. We offer a number of benefits and advantages the other guys often don't think about when selling used vans in Huntsville. These include a 30-day/1,500 mile limited warranty, 5-day return policy, and satisfying DriveTime shopping experience. It is the overall experience and peace of mind that keeps customers coming back time and time again.


text:
Al Mahrah T-Shirts are an Idakoos specialtiy! Idakoos has many things to offer. Whether you want to get a Al Mahrah T-Shirt for a special occasion, give a Printed Al Mahrah T-Shirt as a present or need to represent with a funny Al Mahrah Tee during Holidays or Family and Friends get-togethers, Idakoos is sure to have the right Al Mahrah T-Shirt for you! Even if it turns out you can't find the right Al Mahrah Tshirt with the perfect design for your mother, father or children; Idakoos offers all of its men's women's and children's Al Mahrah Tshirts as Custom Al Mahrah T-Shirts. Personalize any Al Mahrah T-Shirt the way you want to ensure the perfect gift.
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text:
HiRISE Radiometric Calibration |
HiRISE Radiometric Calibration |
Jun 11 2010, 03:23 AM
Newbie Group: Members Posts: 6 Joined: 13-October 08 Member No.: 4450 |
Dear HiRISE experts,
I have obtained .tiff files of HiRISE images taken from PDS. They are all 10-bit data. I would just like to obtain the I/F for each of these images. I basically calculate the I/F from equation: I/F = (gain*DN) + offset. I use the gain and offset provided in the .LBL within PDS for each image. Now the question is - can I use the 10-bit data in the I/F calibration equation? Do I need to convert this 10-bit data to 14-bit data? If I do that, can I basically multiply each DN value by 2^4? If this is not possible, how can I obtain the original 14-bit data? If it is 10-bit data, the dynamic range of I/F for my images in the southern polar dunes (PSP_003386_1080) only spans from 0.09 to 0.2. I have read that frost/ice can approach much higher reflectance values. There must be something that I am missing. If it is 14-bit data, the dynamic range would span 0.09 to 1.5. Any advice that you could provide, would signficantly help. This has been a bit confusing for me. Thank you so very much. -manish mehta |
Jun 11 2010, 04:10 PM
Member Group: Members Posts: 713 Joined: 30-March 05 Member No.: 223 |
If this is not possible, how can I obtain the original 14-bit data? If it is 10-bit data, the dynamic range of I/F for my images in the southern polar dunes (PSP_003386_1080) only spans from 0.09 to 0.2. The real dynamic range is actually only 8 bits. This is because of a fixed on-board lookup-table (LUT) reducing the original 14 bit to 8 bit *before* the data is sent to earth, i.e. it is lost forever. On the other hand, the 10 bit range of the JP2 PDS products is a result of the postprocessing like photometric calibration and map projection that involves, among other things, resampling of the data, thereby kind of "smoothing" the dynamic range from 8 to 10 bit again. But still there is no more of 8 bit "real" dynamic range in a HiRISE image. As far as the I/F conversion is concerned: it should be ok to just use the D/N values of the PDS product JP2 with the "factor" and "offset" parameters from the corresponding label file. EDIT: yes, the low I/F value of 0.2 you reported for clear frost/ice does seem rather low ... it should be higher at least for exactly sun facing slopes... maybe it's the dust attenuation. Hope this helps Bernhard |
Jun 11 2010, 04:31 PM
Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5017 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Would the low I/F values you are getting result from the low angle of the Sun? The HiRISE web page for that image says the sun's only 24 degrees above the horizon.
-------------------- |
Jun 11 2010, 04:34 PM
Member Group: Members Posts: 815 Joined: 18-November 08 Member No.: 4489 |
0.09 to 0.2
that is looking like that tiff is a 32bit float .I get those when i import a isis cub into openev well a 16 bit image values in a 32 bit format for PSP_003386_1080 http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_003386_1080 the jp2 remapped should have the correct values |
Jun 11 2010, 07:34 PM
Member Group: Members Posts: 713 Joined: 30-March 05 Member No.: 223 |
Would the low I/F values you are getting result from the low angle of the Sun? The HiRISE web page for that image says the sun's only 24 degrees above the horizon. yes, with 66 degrees incident angle, a slope would have to be as steep as 66 degrees (!) in order to directly facing the sun for maximum reflectance. whereas in reality the slopes on mars in this kind of dune landscapes rarely exceed, say 20-30 degrees so its quite plausible to see far less than maximum reflectance even in high-albedo regions when there are both shallow slopes and low sun incidence angles. |
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MUSC Student Government Association
Meeting Minutes- March 18th, 2009
Library – Dr. Tom Basler, Director of Libraries and Learning Resource Centers
Dr. Roger Poston, Director of Academic & Research Systems
Dr. Poston: Per the request from students; you can now use your own laptops to use the services and networks on campus. You will have to meet the minimum requirements to use our network. You will get a letter listing these requirements. You will also need support; room 426 of the library has people who can give you support with download sites and software that you can use. We can help your colleges put together. Building 25 on Erhardt Street can help you if your computer crashes. If you have questions please email or call me.
Adrian(CGS rep): What if a student has an older system that may not meet the requirements
I asked for the bare minimum and if you have problems they can help you on Erhardt St.
(Exec member to attend Member Advisory Board Meeting Mar. 17th at 6:00pm-Linnea Freeman)
- Reading of February 18th minutes- approved
Old Business - Student Lobby Day – March 25th
Sheldon(SGA Pres): Leaving at 7:30 am at Jonathan Lucas bus stop. Lunch will be provided. We want to extend this to you again, we have 10 people going and Kevin is driving. We will meet at 7:30 in the am
- Officer Elections
Elections March 25th and 26th
Sheldon(SGA Pres): We are trying to set up a polling station in the horseshoe for students to vote on their way to class.
New Business
- One Representative for 2009-2010 Student Wellness Working Group
Friday, April 3rd, 1-2pm
Sheldon(SGA Pres) The purpose of this committee is to promote health and wellness on campus. They did the health survey that we all filled out earlier this year.
- Potential Changes to Perkins Loan Program
Sheldon(SGA Pres): Please refer to your handout, they will be changing the terms of this lean, and possibly the amount of money available. - Student Welfare Committee Meeting
- Reps (2) to clean up after meeting Garrett, Melissa
- MUSC Live- Jake Gillin
Jake: We are hosting the same event as we did last year, and we are asking for $1,300. Our budget was $2,600 last year and SGA gave us $1,500. The date is May 8th, which is after some colleges are out of school for the semester.
Linnea(CGS rep): Is the money is going towards food?
Jake: The sound system and food will be paid for with the money we receive from the SGA.
Program Vice President
Old Business
- Night w/the Charleston Symphony
Andrea(SGA PVP): Please fill out the evaluation and let us know why you didn't go.
- Fat Tuesday
Andrea(SGA PVP): Again, let us know why if you didn't go.
- Winetasting
Rep Evaluations
Worker Evaluations
Andrea(SGA PVP): If you worked at the event beside your name let me know if you had too many people at the station or if it worked well or not.
New Business
- Art/Photo Exhibit
Submission Deadline – March 27, 5pm
Harper Student Center – art available for viewing April 1st-30th
- SGA Shem Creek Kayak Tour
Saturday, April 11th, 10am-2pm
- Alhambra – "Gone Coastal"
Saturday April 18th – 12-5pm @ Windjammer – GET EXCITED!
MANDATORY; Email Melissa if there is a conflict
Andrea(SGA PVP): Programs Committee members are going to be coordinators, so don't sign up for a spot. You have to let us know if you can't come. You can work two spots at Alhambra if you need to. We are giving t-shirts to the first 300 people and koozies.
- Programs Committee Meeting – SPO
Academic Vice President
New Business
- UHC honor code amendments
Tyler(SGA AVP): This is a serious topic which will affect all students on campus. UHC proposed the amendments to each college and 4 out of 6 has approved. We will get their full support by the time we have a second read.
Tyler read the changes aloud, with a five minute question and answer period after each proposed bill.
Bill 09-01- Addition on sanctions for use in guilty verdicts
09-02 To further define membership of the Honor Council
09-03 Addition of publication requirements for verdicts
Robin(SPO): Please state more clearly that the students name will be not be published.
Lauren(CON rep): What will it say when you publicize it?
Tyler(SGA AVO): We will publicize the guilty violation, and the sanctions but not the students name.
09-04- Additions of violations to the university honor code
Jackie(CHP rep) Can you define spreadsheets?
Tyler(SGA AVP) That is something you weren't supposed to use, but did anyway, it was a way of cheating.
09-05 Addition to rights of the accused
Andrea(SGA PVP): Why can't your adviser be a lawyer?
Tyler(SGA AVP): Your adviser can be a lawyer, but this isn't a court of law, they cannot speak on your behalf they can just advise you. They cannot represent you in the hearing
09-06 Revision to the purpose of the university honor code
09-07 Revision to the preamble of the university honor code
Tyler(SGA AVP): We will vote on these changes at the next meeting when we have all six colleges approval.
- NCAA march madness contest
Tyler(SGA AVP): If you want to do this, there is no obligation. Fill out your bracket by tomorrow at 12 noon. We need your name and the total score of the final game. Winners are top 3, will get a cooler from SPO
- Portal implementation committee: We are voting on a portal name, it will be a homepage for all of your student resources like Webct and Webvisor. Look for an email about that.
Old Business
- Expense Reports- Linnea( CGS rep) sitting in for Ahmed, SGA Treasurer
Fat Tuesday $950 over budget
Night at the Symphony- $2285 under budget. 130 people, 9$ per person
Winetasting- $ 3500 over budget, 850 people, 28.85 per person
Linnea(CGS rep) We knew the Winetasting would be over budget but we had extra money from the Symphony.
Garrrett(MSAB rep): Where are we now?
Linnea(CGS rep):We are $1500 under budget right now.
Tres(COP rep): How much money do we have left over in the appropriations fund?
Linnea(CGS rep) We have $1300 left for the year
New Business
- Sea Island Habitat
Saturday, March 21st, 9am-1pm
Trent(CDM rep) We can have up to 15 people, right now we have 8. We don't know what we will be doing yet. We can carpool together and lunch will be served
- Crisis Ministries
Tuesday, March 24th, 6-8pm
Patrick(COM rep): We will meet here at 5:15 and carpool over. We will bring food that is already prepared and help clean up.
- Bridge Run – Kids' Run
April 3rd; 2-6pm
Jessica(CHP rep): We need volunteers from 2-6pm. Monday 3/30 at 5:30 is mandatory meeting for this event.
- Relay for Life
Friday/Saturday April 17th and 18th; 7:00pm
Emily(CHP rep): For this event the minimum requirement is to register online and stay minimum of 4 hours.
Tres(COP rep): The event lasts all night, it goes from 7pm to 7am. You can meet the survivors and it's a great event.
- Service Committee – Review Awards for Service Banquet
Wed. April 8th @ 12pm; SGA Library
Linnea(CGS rep): We need one person from each college to be there and judge the applications from each college. We must have it done by this date because the student leadership banquet is the following week.
New Business
- Website update
Melissa(SGA Sec): Please look at the requirements page and if there is anything missing please let me know.
- Communications Committee meeting
- Winter basketball winners
- Softball updates
Kevin(SPO): No softball next Sunday and it will pick back up the following week.
- Singles tennis tournament date change
College and Organizational Reports
Graduate Studies
Health Professions- ALS run is coming up, I passed out the info sheets.
International Student Association
Medicine- COM charity ball coming up 45$ per ticket, black tie, open bar, and appetizers.
Multicultural Student Advisory Board
Nursing – welcome Jenn Renyolds.
University Wide Committees- parking starts this Friday.
MUSC Gives Back
- Year-end Volunteer Reporting and Service Recognition April 6th deadline date
- Dr. Charles Banof award for a student volunteer, also due April 6th.
Student Programs
- Spring/Summer Roommate Finder Parties- lasts an hour, meet and greet and food.
- Student Leadership Society Nominations (Due March 27th)
Willette(SPO): This is accompanied by a $2,500 scholarship. You can ask them for their CV and talk with them about their qualifications. Women's history month is still going on.


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The time-honored tradition of testing mobile applications by calling up people you know and asking them to look at your app or mobile site on their device works to a certain degree. It's also a good way to stay connected with friends but for a more comprehensive mobile testing solution, Keynote System's DeviceAnywhere looks like a better route.
The cloud-based testing service—which Keynote acquired for about $60 million in 2011—offers remote access to 750 different smartphones, feature phones and tablets, running Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, allowing corporations and developers a chance to work out the kinks before launch. And now Keynote has opened up a new Project Pricing option for the service that offers a $300 flat rate for 10 hours of access to DeviceAnywhere's Test Development Center.
Tim Murphy, senior marketing manager at Keynote, said the move to offer Project Pricing was prompted partially as a gateway to open up cloud-based mobile testing to new customers outside of the traditional development crowd, like marketers.
"With Project Pricing, someone who is not going to be doing testing on a day-to-day basis still has access to the devices they need from time to time," Murphy said. He added that the $300 price point can hopefully expedite the testing process.
"At that price, you can pull the cash out of an ATM. You can usually go ask your boss for forgiveness instead of permission or you wouldn't have to go through finance to sign a contract," Murphy said. "There's a convenience factor that's applicable to everybody but this is now a tool where everybody should be doing testing to some degree."
As Keynote pointed out, a survey conducted by Capgemini found that only 31 percent of organizations use a formal process for mobile application testing. It seems like common sense, but mobile app/website testing can help prevent a muddled launch and preventing a muddled launch can potentially prevent customer dissatisfaction.
"The reality is people won't come back," Murphy insisted. "If I go to a website and buttons aren't working, it doesn't render properly, it crashes, if I use an application and it doesn't deliver to my user needs, I'm probably going find a competitor and do my viewing, shopping, reading or playing on their websites or applications."
To quantify the effect, IT Management News estimates productivity loss stemming from mobile application issues can reach $42,000 per hour for every group involved on both the consumer and corporate side of the equation.
The $300 flat rate becomes an easier pill to swallow stacked up against potential losses like that and DeviceAnywhere promises the 10 hours of testing time can be spread over the course of a year before they expire. And Murphy said that the new self-service feature with the Project Pricing stretches over to some of DeviceAnywhere's existing monthly and annual contract plans.
It's been a little more than two years since Keynote acquired DeviceAnywhere and Murphy said that Project Pricing won't be the first new development to come out of the marriage. He promised some more "fantastic" monitoring tools will be coming out in the next couple of months.
"The benefits have been felt and will continue to be felt in the next couple of months," Murphy said.


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Ottawa's Chris Neil (left) is deeply involved in teammate Jason Spezza's controversial last-minute goal for the Senators that had New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist steaming mad.
André Ringuette, NHLI via Getty Images
The Ottawa Senators could have finished off the New York Rangers on Monday in fairytale fashion, the East's No. 8 seed toppling No. 1.
But the Rangers fought back from a 1-0 deficit to score three second-period goals, two on the power-play, then hung on to defeat their hosts 3-2 and send the quarterfinal to a seventh and deciding game Thursday back at Madison Square Garden.
• In Chicago, Phoenix Coyotes goalie Mike Smith made 39 saves to blank the Blackhawks 4-0 – on Chicago netminding legend Tony Esposito's 69th birthday, no less – and eliminate the Blackhawks in six games.
• TUESDAY NIGHT: Florida can finish off the Devils in New Jersey.


text: World's First HDR Video Makes Me Weep At Its BeautyKat Hannaford9/10/10 12:00pmFiled to: Photographyhdr videosoviet montageHDRHDR PhotographyVideoIphone 4406EditPromoteShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalink We're big fans of HDR photography, and now that the iPhone 4 shoots HDR, we're going to be seeing a lot more vibrant images. Something to look even more forward to is HDR video. This example from Soviet Montage Productions was shot using two Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLRs, chosen because "they're just fantastic cameras that are affordable and within reach of even the most modestly funded filmmaker," according to Michael Safai from the film production company. Advertisement Advertisement While they haven't revealed yet just how they managed to layer two identical images perfectly, we do know that they used a beam splitter and the two DSLRs with varying exposures—one overexposed, and the other underexposed. There was no doubt many post-production processing tools were used here, but until Soviet Montage lets us in on their little secret, we'll just get back to writing begging letters to Canon to include a HDR video setting in its cameras. [Soviet Montage via Planet5D]HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II's from Soviet Montage on Vimeo.Reply406 repliesLeave a reply