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SINISTER 2 Shooting This Month in Chicago
August 4, 2014 by Mike McNamara
The sequel to the 2012 Ethan Hawke sleeper hit SINISTER begins shooting in Chicago later this month. Pre-production is in full swing and shooting is scheduled to take place around town between August 18 and September 17. No official word as to whether or not Mr. Hawke will return (though I'm hearing it's unlikely) but the co-writers are back at the table, with Scott Derrickson penning this horror feature alongside C. Robert Cargill. Derrickson, who directed the first SINISTER, will hand over the reins to Ciaran Foy (CITADEL) for this one.
Why the sequel? Probably an easy decision. Made for just $3 million, SINISTER grossed almost $80 million worldwide for producer Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions, so it shouldn't be too surprising that a follow-up would move forward.
And actually, SINISTER will mark the third small-budget franchise from Blumhouse, which is also behind PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, currently in production for round five, and INSIDIOUS, which is now filming "Chapter 3."
eOne is financing the film, while Blum's producing partners include Derrickson. Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Charles Layton. eOne's Xavier Marchand and Patrice Theroux are executive producing.
The release date for SINISTER 2 is August 21, 2015. But first things first, I'll keep you posted with cast announcements, production details and whatever else you need to know about this one!
Mike McNamara is the Co-Founder of The Midwest Independent Film Festival, www.midwestfilm.org. Mike pays his rent as an actor in Chicago in theatre, commercials, television and film. More from Mac at www.findmac.com.


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Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Volume 2018, Article ID 1539298, 9 pages
Uniform Local Binary Pattern for Fingerprint Liveness Detection in the Gaussian Pyramid
College of Architecture and Artistic Design, Hunan Institute of Technology, Hengyang 421001, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Yujia Jiang; moc.361@daacaijuygnaij
Received 11 July 2017; Revised 2 October 2017; Accepted 15 November 2017; Published 9 January 2018
Academic Editor: William Sandham
Copyright © 2018 Yujia Jiang and Xin Liu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Fingerprint recognition schemas are widely used in our daily life, such as Door Security, Identification, and Phone Verification. However, the existing problem is that fingerprint recognition systems are easily tricked by fake fingerprints for collaboration. Therefore, designing a fingerprint liveness detection module in fingerprint recognition systems is necessary. To solve the above problem and discriminate true fingerprint from fake ones, a novel software-based liveness detection approach using uniform local binary pattern (ULBP) in spatial pyramid is applied to recognize fingerprint liveness in this paper. Firstly, preprocessing operation for each fingerprint is necessary. Then, to solve image rotation and scale invariance, three-layer spatial pyramids of fingerprints are introduced in this paper. Next, texture information for three layers spatial pyramids is described by using uniform local binary pattern to extract features of given fingerprints. The accuracy of our proposed method has been compared with several state-of-the-art methods in fingerprint liveness detection. Experiments based on standard databases, taken from Liveness Detection Competition 2013 composed of four different fingerprint sensors, have been carried out. Finally, classifier model based on extracted features is trained using SVM classifier. Experimental results present that our proposed method can achieve high recognition accuracy compared with other methods.
1. Introduction
With the widespread use of smart applications and phones, it brings convenience to our life. However, the security of identity authentication is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently. Traditional identity authentication method can deal with the security issue, but current problem is that tokens or passwords are easy to be forgotten for a long time and bank cards or identity cards, and so on, are easily stolen or lost. Therefore, recognition systems based on biometric traits gradually replace traditional authentication methods nowadays. For example, smart phone fingerprint recognition device: the personal fingerprint information is stored on the phone, so only the user can access and turn on the smart phone. Biometrics system refers to the identification of human beings based on their physiological and behavioral characteristics. The ease of use and low error rates which promote their widespread use are superior to others methods. Of course, biometric systems have their own weakness. For example, biometric systems contain vulnerabilities and are also susceptible to various kinds of sophisticated forms of spoofing. Among these, the fingerprint recognition, the ease of use, and high recognition rate are the main factors that contribute to their widespread use, accounting for the vast majority part [1]. Indeed, early identification systems can be easily spoofed by fake fingerprints, which can be reproduced from common materials. Popular fake fingertip materials such as silicon, wood glue and latex [2, 3] consist of large organic molecules which tend to agglomerate during processing. For example, threats to fingerprint systems are spoof finger attack at the sensor, attack on software modules, and so on [4].
Fingerprint liveness detection refers to whether the fingerprints presented are really from a live fingertip or spoofed ones. In order to solve the spoofing, various methods are proposed [5–8] in recent years. The goal of current fingerprint liveness detection research is concerned about how to design a method to discriminate real and fake fingerprints. Because the features of image can be described using textures information, many features based on texture extraction methods spring out according to human vision. In this paper, a novel fingerprint liveness detection method based on uniform local binary pattern in Gaussian pyramid has been proposed. Multiscale analysis using two layers Gaussian pyramid filter has been proved to be more efficient for solving image scale invariance. On the whole, fingerprint liveness detection is regarded as a binary classification problem, in which the given fingerprint image is either a real fingerprint or a spoof one. Feature extraction is a key step for solving the above problem. In our method, Gaussian pyramid filter is introduced to deal with the problem of scale invariance, and feature vectors are constructed using uniform local binary pattern to reduce the number of dimensionality of features. After these, feature vectors of each layer of spatial pyramid image are extracted through using uniform local binary pattern (ULBP). Once the feature vector is generated, the samples classifier model is learnt by using support vector machine. Experimental results based on the LivDet 2013 show that our method exhibits a strong edge.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, a summary of the related work to the present research is given. Our proposed method about the feature vector extraction is introduced in Section 3. The result and comparison are given in Section 4. Conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
2. Related Work
Fingerprint authentication systems are easily cheated by these fake fingerprints, which fake fingerprints that mimic real users' fingerprints. Therefore, fingerprint liveness detection methods are proposed to prevent fingerprint authentication systems from being fake fingerprints. Because of the alternation of the ridges and valleys on them, fingertips surfaces are intrinsically coarse at certain scale. Furthermore, considering the advantage of software-based detection compared with the hardware-based method, software-based fingerprint liveness detection method is proposed in this paper. Because of moisture of sweat glands, the real fingerprint taken using fingerprint sensor devices will change slightly in a short time span. However, it will not happen in spoof ones. Therefore, researchers detect the fingerprint vitality through the analysis perspiration of fingerprint in different time, and the perspiration pattern changes at different time interval were observed (2 seconds in [6] and 5 seconds in [7]). In [7], they can find that the intervals are longer and the wavy nature is more complex based on the spreading of moisture for the real fingerprint. In order to improve the accuracy of Derakhshani's proposed method, Schuckers et al. [8, 9] proposed a novel liveness detection method by using wavelet analysis. In their method, multiresolution analyses are used to extract the low frequency content and wavelet packet analyses are used to extract the high frequency content. Other features related to spectral energy distribution have been used by using different transformation. Thin-plate model has been used by analysing fingertip distortion in [10]. In their method, the tester press his fingertip on the surface of fingerprint sensor and rotate their fingers in four directions (0 degree, 90 degree, 180 degree and 270 degree) to capture a sequence of frames. Then, relevant features based on the skin deformation based on capturing finger distortion images are constructed. In [11], a liveness detection method using one-way analysis of variance ANOVA and Multiple-Comparison Method to do the statistical tests on the dataset of real fingers and spoof ones was proposed. Because fake fingerprint image quality is not as good as the real fingerprint image, it is difficult to forge a real fingerprint image with the same or better quality fingerprint images. Based on this consideration, [12] uses the coarseness of the fingerprint to discriminate features. Nikam and Agarwal detected the fingerprint liveness based on ridgelet transform to extract texture features using only single fingerprint image [13]. The same method is researched in [14], where 25 quality parameters are used as the measure of performance detection. These methods are such as in [15, 16], in which the features used in the classifier are based on the specific fingerprint measurements, such as ridge strength, continuity, and clarity. Ghiani et al. [16] proposed a fingerprint liveness detection method based on wavelet analysis. In 2013, Ghiani et al. [17] detected the vitality of fingerprint images based on residual Gaussian and the noise of the fingerprint images to estimate the coarseness of fingerprint image. There are many small pores of circular structures in real fingertips, and the attackers observed that we cannot accurately imitate sweat pores in spoofed ones. Reference [18] proposed a new detection method by comparing pore quantity between recorded fingerprints and the query ones. After that, Gragnaniello et al. [19] proposed a novel detection method based on the optimum threshold from correlations peaks to detect which peaks are active pores. Many methods based on texture features have been proposed for liveness detection, such as statistical, signal processing approaches and model based and structural ones [20]. Rao and Jain [21] proposed a fingerprint liveness detection method based on minimizing the energy associated with phase and orientation maps. Multiresolution texture feature analysis in their method and cross ridge frequency analysis techniques are used. Ratha et al. [22] texture features based on the spatial gray level dependence method are extracted by using spatial gray level dependence method (SGLDM) for personal verification and discrimination. In latest literatures, much attention has been also focused on the wavelet transform domain. Jain et al. proposed many fingerprint liveness detection methods, such as the curvelet transform [23, 24], the Gabor filters [12], and the gray level cooccurrence matrices which are combined with the wavelet transform [7, 14, 25].
3. Feature Extraction
The problem of fingerprint liveness detection is seen as two-class classification problem where a given fingerprint image is either real or fake, so the feature extraction is the key step. A general diagram showing different phases of our method is shown in Figure 1, which mainly includes two phases: image training process and image testing process. Next we will give a detailed description on feature extraction of a given image.
3.1. Gaussian Pyramid Filter (GPF)
Image pyramid is the major description of image multiscale, and it is an effective but simple structure that interprets image in multiple resolutions. An image pyramid is image set, which comes from the same original image and the resolutions of the image gradually decreases in the form of pyramid. It is sampled by a cascade downsampling until a certain termination condition is researched. We compare a layer of images to a pyramid; the higher the hierarchy, the smaller the image and the lower the resolution. An image pyramid is a series of images sets that are progressively reduced in the shape of a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid is the high-resolution, and the top pyramid is low resolution approximation. When moving to the top of the pyramid, the resolutions of images decrease gradually. Because of the size of the base J is or , where ; Thus, the size of intermediate j is , and the range of j is . The complete pyramid is composed of resolutions, so the range of size of different resolutions is to . However, most pyramids only have layers, where . In this paper, Gaussian pyramid is introduced to deal with scale invariance. Two steps are included: (a) the convolution of original Image and Gaussian kernel K are conducted; (b) removing the even rows and columns using downsampling operation. Then the images shrunk to a quarter of the original image. Finally, We can obtain the entire pyramid by iterating over the steps above. The Gaussian kernel K is as follows:
After downsampling operation, the image is scaled to half of the original image. Figure 2(a) shows the original fingerprint image, and Figure 2(b) is an image after one-layer Gaussian kernel operation, and Figure 2(c) is an image after two-layer Gaussian kernel operation.
3.2. Uniform Local Binary Pattern
Local Binary Pattern (LBP), which has scale invariance and gray invariance, is used to describe the image local texture information, and the process of texture features extraction of given image is as follows. Firstly, the pixel values of eight neighbors in window are compared with the center pixel of the window, respectively, and binary relations are computed by using (2). In (2), denotes the comparative results between the center pixel and eight adjacent pixels, respectively. Then, the LBP code is weighted by using binary relationship of power of two and summed to obtain the LBP code of the current selected center pixel. Eq. (3) can calculate the LBP code. In (3), I represents the center pixel values of the window, and the eight adjacent pixels are :
An example of LBP operation is shown in Figure 3. Firstly, Figure 3(a) is the part of image, whose size is . In the window, the pixel value of center pixel is 45. Then, binary relationships are constructed using (2), in which eight adjacent pixel values are compared with the center pixel, respectively. The so-threshold binary values in Figure 3(b) responding to Figure 3(a) using (2) are obtained. Figure 3(c) is a binary relationship of power of two. Next we can calculate, converting the binary number into a decimal number in a clockwise direction by (3), the pixel value of center pixel using LBP. Finally, the local texture feature of image can be shown by counting the histogram of pixel value after LBP operation. Figure 3(c), LBP code of the center pixel: .
Therefore, features of image can be described by counting histogram which is formed by 256 LBP codes. However, the current problem is that the binary models after LBP operation are too many. Thus, to solve the problem and improve statistics, uniform local binary pattern is proposed. It finds that the majority transformation of LBP modes only contains two jumps from one to zero or from zero to one, for example, 00000000 (zero jump), 00000111 (only one jump from zero to one), and 10001111 (two jumps are included, one is from one to zero, and another is from zero to one). The above three examples are all uniform local binary pattern. Besides these, others are called mixed model. Based on this finding, uniform local binary pattern is proposed. And for eight adjacent pixel sampling point in the window, the number of original binary model is reduced from to after introducing uniform local binary pattern operation. On one hand, uniform local binary pattern can reduce the dimensionality of feature vectors, on the other hand, it can solve the effects of high frequency noise.
3.3. Support Vector Machine (SVM)
Support Vector Machines (SVM) is a general two-class classifier, which is widely used in the research field of computer vision, pattern recognition, and deep learning. The goal of SVM is to find the hyperplane of the classification requirement, which can divide two classification samples correctly; at the same time, the classification interval is the largest. Figure 4 shows the optimal line of classification in linear separable cases. H denotes the optimal line, which can be achieved by maximizing the distance between H1 and H2. LIBSVM software package [7, 25, 26] is a most commonly used classification tool. Two key issues need to be considered when using SVM.
One problem is how to select an appropriate kernel function of SVM. The goal of kernel function is that the two classification samples are linearly separable by an appropriate transformation in high-dimensional space; however, the two classification samples are linearly nonseparable in low dimensional space. According to the problem of linear separable and linear inseparable, different kernel functions are chosen. It is noted that the classification labels and features are all nonlinear. In our method, RBF kernel function is selected, which can make nonlinearly mapping to a high-dimensional space.
Another problem is how to select parameters. Two parameters are included in the RBF kernel function: C and . To train a better classifier, parameter optimization operation is used. In LIBSVM, gnuplot.exe is an executable tool, which is used to find the optimal parameters pairs and , while the goal of the parameter optimization operation is to classify the unknown data. Finally, we can search the results of the optimal parameters by using the "Grid-search and Cross-validation".
4. Experiment
The performance of our method is evaluated by using one official dataset: LivDet 2013 [27], which are the publicly available datasets provided in the 2013 Fingerprint Liveness Detection Competition. Firstly, a brief introduction about the official databases is given in this section. Secondly, feature vectors are constructed by using our method. Then, the validation criterion is defined which is used to evaluate the performance of our method. Finally, experiments results based on the official dataset LivDet 2013 are obtained, which shows that our proposed method is superior to others' methods.
4.1. Databases Introduction
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Clarkson University (USA) and the Department of Electronic Engineering of the University of Cagliari (Italy) held the first LivDet competition [5, 27] to help researchers study fingerprints liveness and compare the performance of the proposed state-of-the-art detection methods in 2009. Currently, four publicly official fingerprints datasets are published. And the LivDet 2013 Fingerprint dataset was divided into two parts: one is training part, which is used to learn a trained model classifier, and another set is testing samples, which are used to estimate the performance of the proposed method.
LivDet 2013 fingerprints are obtained through using four different optical fingerprint sensors (such as (a) Italdata ET10 (500 dpi), (b) CrossMatch Verifier 300LC (500 dpi), (c) Biometrika FX2000 (569 dpi), and (d) Swipe (96 dpi)). In this fingerprint set, 8874 real fingerprints and 7979 spoof fingerprints are included, and five different materials, such as Gelatin, Ecoflex, Latex, Modasil, and wood glue, are made fake fingerprints. A part of the fingerprints is used to train the SVM classifiers with the RBF kernel and the rest are used to evaluate the performance of classifier.
The dataset of each fingerprint sensor is divided into two parts: (1) a testing set and (2) a training set. As shown in Table 1, the fingerprint testing set is used to assess the performance of proposed method and the latter is used to learn a classifier model. More detailed parameters about LivDet 2013 are listed in Table 1. In Addition, some fingerprint images of real and spoof are presented in Figure 5. The material used is specified for the generation of the fake fingers, such as Playdoh, Latex, BodyDouble, and Ecoflex. It is hard for our eyes to distinguish the real fingerprints from the spoof ones. Therefore, our task is designing a method to distinguish the fingerprint liveness.
4.2. Gaussian Multiscale Transformation and Feature Extraction
In this experiment, to solve scale invariance of fingerprint image, Gaussian pyramid structure is used in the fingerprint liveness detection. After Gaussian pyramid operation, features based on uniform local binary pattern are extracted. For example, in Figure 2, the size of the original image Figure 2(a) is . First of all, preprocessing operation is necessary for the given fingerprint images, such as image gray processing. Then, two-layer Gaussian pyramid transformation has been done to solve the image scale invariance by calculating the convolution operation of original fingerprint image and Gaussian filter. After every one-layer Gaussian pyramid transformation, the size of the current image is a quarter of the previous level. Figure 2(b) and Figure 2(c) show the images after Gaussian filter operation. The two images are represented by the symbol GP1 and GP2, respectively, whose sizes are and . To make scale invariance of the extracted texture feature, characteristics of rotation invariance are used based on uniform local binary pattern. Next, features are constructed in original fingerprint image and two-layer pyramids. Since the LBP code can describe local micromode information of the original image, the local features of the fingerprint image can be represented by counting the histogram of pixel values after LBP operation. However, uniform local binary pattern only considers the eight-bit binary of pixel values, which contain two jumps from one to zero or from zero to one in the eight-bit binary. Due to fingerprint images being transformed to two-layer pyramid, feature vectors are extracted based on ULBP in original fingerprint image and two-pyramid image. After constructing the feature vector with uniform local binary pattern, normalization is necessary to unify the data scales. Finally, features are extracted. These features of training sets are trained a classifier model by using SVM, and features of testing sets evaluated the performance of classifier.
4.3. Performance Metrics and Classification Results
The LivDet 2013 Datasets derive from 2013 Fingerprint Liveness Detection Competition, and these fingerprints are downloaded from the website. The performance of method is validated by using the Average Classification Error (ACE), which is considered as standard metric for evaluation of the fingerprint liveness. It is defined aswhere, in (4),
In (4), FAR (False Accept Rate) accounts for the percentage of fake fingerprints being misclassified as real one, and FRR (False Reject Rate) shows the percentage of real fingerprints being assigned to the spoofed ones. As shown in Figure 1, two successive processes are included: training process and testing processes.
Process 1 (training process). In this process, feature extraction is the key step to achieve fingerprint liveness detection. To solve the scale invariance and reduce the dimensionality of features, Gaussian pyramid in introduced to solve the problem of scale invariance and the uniform local binary pattern is used to reduce the dimensionality of feature. About the construction of feature vectors under different scale image having been talked in Section 4.2. Next, feature vector of original image and each pyramid image is extracted by using our proposed method. Finally, classifier is built by using executable file svm-train.exe to train the obtained feature vectors in SVM. In order to obtain optimal classifier, parameters optimization operation is necessary in this process. During the process, parameter pair is learnt. Figure 6 shows optimal parameters pair values for the four different fingerprint sensors. For example, the same color denotes the same value at the same . In Figure 6(a), the green line denotes the optimal parameters pairs when the value of parameter pair is . And the classification accuracy is 95.5% in the current parameter pair . That is to say, we can obtain the best classifier model when parameter pair value is set as (32768, 8) in testing process. Similarly, the optimal parameter pairs corresponding Figures 5(b), 5(c), and 5(d) can be found. If not operation, various of different parameter pairs are needed to try to gain a better classifier model. Finally, the classifier has been trained.
Process 2 (testing process). To distinguish real fingerprint from the spoof ones, fingerprint liveness detection based on uniform local binary pattern in Gaussian pyramid is proposed in this paper. Before constructing feature vectors, image preprocessing operation is necessary. To address the scale invariance of images and reduce the dimensionality of features vectors, Gaussian pyramid filter operation is introduced. Both the Testing process and training processes are conducted based on MATLAB R2014a platform. As mentioned before, the executable file svm-train.exe tool are used to obtain the optimal parameter pair in this paper. In our experiment, the ACE detection accuracy and its comparison with the current methods for detecting fingerprint vitality are listed in Table 2. The accuracy of best designed methods from LivDet 2013 and the others' results are shown in Table 2. It shows that our method achieves detection accuracy superior to other methods proposed in the LivDet 2013. In order to facilitate the comparison of the results, the best obtained results in Table 2 are highlighted in bold. We can clearly notice that the ACE (Average Classification Rate) of our method achieved is obviously superior to other ones in LivDet 2013.
5. Conclusions and Future Work
To solve fingerprint liveness and improve the security of authentication systems, a novel fingerprint liveness detection method based on uniform local binary pattern is proposed in this paper. The advantages of ULBP are that the dimensionality of feature vectors reduced compared with LBP. For the model of window, the models of original eight bits binary reduce from 256 to 58. The constructed feature vectors have been evaluated on publicly available databases LivDet 2013, which is a database released in the 2013 LivDet competition [27]. After the obtained features are trained by the SVM classifier, we can get a classifier model. With the help of the trained model, we can predict the classifier accuracy of testing dataset. Furthermore, the our method is part of the software-based solutions and it distinguishes real fingerprint images from the spoof ones; only one fingerprint without extra special hardware devices is added to the sensor. Liveness detection methods such as the one presented in this paper are of great importance in the biometric recognition field as they help to prevent direct attacks from the fake fingerprints (those carried out with synthetic traits and very difficult to detect).
The classifier performance of fingerprints datasets is extremely affected by the noise during the training process and testing process. When noise of fingerprint image is considered, the predicting results are unsatisfactory. Yet, we can get rid of the influence of noise by introducing noise filters with idea from Jin et al. [29]. Besides, more layers Gaussian pyramids are generated to further solve the scale invariance. These will be done in our future works.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
This work was supported by the 12th Five-Year Programming of Scientific Research in Education of Hunan Province (Research on Paperless Test System of Art Design Course, no. XJK011CTM015) and Design and Study of Constructing Flipped Class Model Teaching Based On the Instructed Learning Plan + Microlecture (no. XJK015BGD018).
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- R. Frassetto Nogueira, R. De Alencar Lotufo, and R. Campos Machado, "Evaluating software-based fingerprint liveness detection using Convolutional Networks and Local Binary Patterns," in Proceedings of the 2014 5th IEEE Workshop on Biometric Measurements and Systems for Security and Medical Applications, BIOMS 2014, pp. 22–29, Italy, 2014. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- Q. Jin, I. Grama, and Q. Liu, "Optimal Weights Mixed Filter for removing mixture of Gaussian and impulse noises," PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 7, p. e0179051, 2017. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar


text:
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A La Carte Menu, All Day Degustation Menu, Valentines Day Menu (13-15 Feb), Sunday Recovery Brunch, Wine List, Wine by the Glass Menu, BYOB Promo, Sunday Wine Promotion (Every 3rd Sunday of the Month)
Mon-Sun: 11:30am-2:30pm, 6-10:30pm
$$$ (<$60)
Telok Ayer
30 Stanley Street
Singapore (068739) Map
Business Meetings, Kid Friendly, Private Functions, Quiet Dinner, Romantic Dates
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text:
the current version of power store only support American currencies.
there will be an update to power store made shortly that will offer support for the Great British Pound and the Euro.
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text:
Healing architecture: Health care architects use design to improve the hospital experience
GRAND FORKS, N.D. – When you're talking about hospital architecture, there are a few words you don't expect to hear.
One of them is "Disney."
But when Prairie Business separately interviewed three architects who work for three different firms and are designing three different hospitals in our region, that word came up all three times. Interestingly, so did several other key words. For in the interviews, common themes emerged; and in this story, our hope is that by describing those themes, we can help residents understand what to look for as their new hospitals take shape.
We'll get to the word "Disney" in a minute. But first, let's focus on a word that helps explain why so many hospitals are being planned or built at the same time: competition.
No, competition isn't the only reason why the metro areas of Grand Forks, Fargo, Minot, Sioux Falls, Rapid City and Duluth, as well as smaller communities such as Grafton, N.D., and Cooperstown, N.D., all will see or recently have seen multi-million dollar hospital projects. (The projects range from a proposed $26.2 million Cooperstown Medical Building to Essentia Health's $800 million plan to revamp its medical campus in Duluth, one of the biggest medical expansion projects in Minnesota history.)
Coincidence helps explain the timing, too. In most of these communities, the hospitals date back decades, and the changes in modern medicine simply mean that many buildings are near the end of their useful life.
In Minot, for example, "the hospital operates out of two primary buildings, and one of them is approaching 100 years old," said Kyle Wilson, partner at TEG Architects in Jeffersonville, Ind. TEG is the architect of record for Trinity Health's plan to build a new, $275 million hospital in Minot.
"So for example, the floor-to-floor heights are very low, and the rooms are semi-private, which means you have two beds in every room. And the size of those rooms is probably smaller than what you'd want in a private room today."
In the new Trinity Health hospital, all of the rooms will be private – including the rooms for infants in neonatal intensive care. (Twins, triplets and quadruplets will be cared for with their siblings in rooms with multiple bassinets.)
But competition does help explain why single rooms and other amenities have become the standard, Wilson said.
"On the patient side, you have choices on where your health care is delivered," he said.
"Trinity Health wants to be the provider of choice. They want to be at the forefront of your mind, so there's definitely a focus on patient satisfaction and staff satisfaction."
Jason Nordling, a principal at BWBR Architects in St. Paul, Minn. agreed. And don't miss the fact that "staff satisfaction" is listed right alongside "patient satisfaction" as a competitive force, Nordling said.
BWBR is the architect of record for Avera on Louise, Avera Health's 82-acre, $174 million campus that'll be the largest building project in Sioux Falls' history. And throughout the campus, Avera will be taking care to make the staff areas attractive as well as functional, with an eye to boosting recruiting and retention.
"Fifty years ago, staff made a space work," Nordling said.
"Today, we're making workable spaces for the staff. We have people who do workplace design, and they're designing collaborative and flexible staff spaces that include artwork, views of nature and other elements that are as important to staff as they are to patients."
On stage, off stage
Speaking of staff, that brings us back to the Disney influence. Because one of the biggest differences between older and newer hospitals is the lesson of Disney World: the careful separation in new hospitals of the customers and staffers' worlds.
"It's called the 'on stage' and 'off stage' model," said Todd Medd, healthcare practice studio leader at JLG Architects of Grand Forks, N.D., the company that's the architect of record on Altru Health System's $305 million hospital project in Grand Forks.
"On stage is where the patient is, and it starts from when the patients and visitors arrive on site. They'll encounter a very calming, hospitality-based environment, and that will continue into the elevators and up to their rooms."
Meanwhile, physicians, nurses and other providers will use hallways, elevators and even entrances to patients' rooms of their own.
"All of those back-of-house functions," said Wilson of TEG, "such as your maintenance, your kitchen, your biomedical department, your materials management – those functions that are so essential for a hospital – the patient won't see.
"Again, it's the Disney concept where you're just trying to hide some of the support functions so you can focus on the hospitality side."
Understand, there are evidence-based health reasons for this change, said BWBR's Nordling. By keeping the hustle-and-bustle "off stage" and the patient areas serene, patients will sleep better and be much less stressed. In any recovery process, that helps.
And consider: Once staff step into their own area, they'll be much freer to collaborate and converse. For example, no longer will staff have to stop talking about a case when a patient enters an elevator, because the staff will be traveling on elevators of their own.
Three zones
Let's take a closer look at a patient's room – the one that may have separate entrances for patients and staff.
That room is likely to have three zones, the architects agreed.
Near a door will be the caregivers' zone, where nurses and other employees may find a workstation and supplies.
The patient's zone will be in and around the bed. The smart bed, that is, the Star Trek-like wonder that will be monitoring the patient. But that's another story.
Then there'll be the family zone, which may be equipped with not only chairs, but also a sleeper sofa where family members can stay.
Comfort and hospitality are the keys.
Infection control
So is infection control, the architects said. "All of the finishes are being designed with that in mind," Nordling said.
"So, they're coming up with newer, better and quieter flooring that's easier to clean, for example. And scrubbable ceilings that still have a high noise-reduction coefficient – things like that."
Other infection-control elements will include anti-microbial coatings, seamless (and therefore easier to clean) sinks, automated bedpan washers and hands-free controls.
But does hospital architecture routinely specify that level of detail?
"I would describe it as excruciating detail, right down to the type of handle that's on the door and the color of lighting that's in the space," Nordling said.
"We're a firm that provides both architecture and interior design. So if you can see it, it was probably planned intentionally by the design team."
Community wellness
One other big theme that emerged from the interviews is wellness. And not just patient wellness.
Brad Wehe is Altru Health System's COO and will become CEO in January. When Altru envisions its remade campus in Grand Forks, "we've talked about this whole new era, because it's so much more than a building," he said.
It's also the surrounding property. "Our decision to stay on that campus was really to create a 'hospital in a park,'" he said.
"We want to be proactive with prevention and healing, not only inside the facility but also outside."
So, if you as a visitor turn into the new Altru campus in years to come, "you'll see trees and water and greenspace, and the building will incorporate sunlight and glass, so that you can be inside getting healed from the outside, and outside looking in and getting healed from the inside.
"Here's what you won't see: a huge facility that's intimidating and is surrounded by parking lots," he said.
In other words, hospital architecture these days includes landscape architecture, and that means trees, bike trails, gardens and walking paths that meander along nearby creeks.
As Nordling of BWBR explained, "the Avera on Louise campus will go beyond the idea that it's there for sick people. It's there for community wellness.
"And as a result, everything you'll see will be built around the idea of being well rather than treating an illness."
The goal is for people to use the campus not only when they need medical care, but also when they're healthy – and are biking and walking to stay that way.
Tom Dennis
Editor, Prairie Business


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Sensex, Nifty close at lifetime highs on global cues, better growth prospects
The BSE Sensex rose 195 points, or 0.6%, to touch 31332.56business Updated: Jun 02, 2017 16:07 IST
Indian shares closed at record levels on Friday on positive global cues and as foreign funds continue to bet on Asia's third largest economy after the government asserted that growth rate will bounce back from 6.1% recorded in March quarter.
A raft of reform such as Goods and Services Tax (GST) scheduled from July, scrapping of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB and allowing strategic partnership between Indian companies and foreign players have improved the investment output, while forecast of a normal monsoon and a brighter corporate earnings outlook is luring foreign investors to pump in more money.
The BSE Sensex, which had lost 21.81 points in the past two sessions, rose bounced back by 195 points, or 0.6%, to touch 31332.56, breaking the previous record high of 31,255.28 touched on May 31. The 50-share NSE Nifty was up 0.6%, to hit lifetime high of 9,673.50.
The Sensex closed 136 points higher, or 0.44%, at 31,273.29, while Nifty was up 0.4% at 9,653.50.
Asian markets were up with the Japan's Nikkei closing 1.6% higher to cross the landmark 20,000, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.44% to near the 26,000-mark and South Korea's Kospi was up 1.16%.
On Thursday, finance minister Arun Jaitley played down the impact of demonetisation on growth saying that a 7-8% growth was very reasonable, and that global factors were responsible for a slowdown in GDP growth to 6.1% in the quarter to March.
Although India lost the fastest growing tag to China, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya said on Thursday India will regain the crown as early as the first quarter of 2017-18.
Hero MotoCorp and Tata Motors were in demand and rose by up to 3% on the back of strong May sales data.
Brokers said a firming trend at other Asian markets, which tracked a record close at all three main indices in New York in yesterday's trade following strong private jobs report, kept sentiment upbeat.
The US Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.65 per cent higher in yesterday's trade.
(With inputs from PTI)
First Published: Jun 02, 2017 11:48 IST


text: I finished the Leadville 100 in 8 hours and 21 minutes! 103 miles with close to 12,000' of total climbing. I've been training for a sub-nine hour race and beat my expectations by a long shot. I felt great all day and thought I could go under 8 hours, but got cooked with 20 miles left to go. I managed to ride the entire Columbine climb as well as Powerline coming back. I finished 120th overall out 1,700 finisher (a bunch more still out on course), 37th out of 350 in my age category alone. I had the best crew support with me and had a great day overall. Stay tuned for a full race recap. Time for a celebratory beer!


text:
The Winds series will consist of three books, set in different times. The series will describe the lives of a group of families living in the extreme remoteness of southern Argentina.
Chronologically speaking, the trilogy will encompass the years 1899, 1943 and 1976. But I am writing the second book first. If all goes well I will write the first book (set in 1899) afterwards, and the third book (set between 1976 and 1982) last.
Readers who have read the first book (set in 1943) will encounter the protagonist's parents and grandparents in the second book, and get a glimpse on how the first book's characters actually became what they are.
The third and last book will be more of a hidden autobiography, with one single family moving to the village, one of their sons being me.
The first book, "Where Winds are Born" will be set in 1899 and it is the tale of five families who decide to settle in a land that has recently been taken away from Indian tribes, during the Conquista del Desierto.
"Where Winds Learn to Fly", the second book of the trilogy, is currently in its first draft. I am toying with timelines, characters and events, and playing god with the lives of some twenty families, together with their ancestors and descendants.
It is fun for now; it surely will become the mother of all challenges.
The third book, "On the other side of the Winds" tells the story of one single family that moved to the same region from 1976 to 1982. This timeline is particularly interesting as it covers the Dirty War years.
Thousands of citizen (and some foreigners too) were brutally silenced during those years, even dumped in lakes at times.
The story goes all the way up to the Falkland War with the UK. The government's desperate attempt to remain in power, by using nationalist feelings of the masses against the UK and by trying to recover sovereignty over what they call the Islas Malvinas, creates an entire generation of displaced, disoriented and disenfranchised souls who -for the first time in the country's history, find nothing worth staying for in their own vast land.
Where Winds Learn to Fly


text:
....The Roster. Yes. I know. It's a tragic day.
But the reality is nothing was happening with those dudes and as much as I love GH, for now, it's done. So we'll see.
It's a new school year starting soon and, the way I see it, the possibilities are endless.
It might be time to settle down though.
I'm not making any promises however.


text:
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text:
The Cossacks - A Tale of 1852
Olenin starts living like a Cossack. Falls in love too.
Leo Tolstoy • Jun 24th, 2017
Olenin starts living like a Cossack. Falls in love too.
About 4 hours.
|Price: FREE
All devices, all viewports, all operating systems and all modern browsers.
See support page for more information.
This book is "iPad first" and is supported on all iPads Gen 2+, iPhones 4+ (Safari, Chrome or Firefox), Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 (Silk) and above, Google Nexus & Android 5+ (Chrome, Firefox or UC Browser) and all versions of modern desktop browsers on windows, mac or linux.
Some books may contain webgl or shaders that could limit support or experience on older devices or browsers.
The young idealist Dmitriy Olenin leaves Moscow, hoping to start a new life in the Caucasus. In the stanitsa, he slowly becomes enamored by the surroundings and despises his previous existence. He befriends the old Cossack Eroshka, who goes hunting with him and finds him a good fellow because of his propensity to drinking. During this time, young Cossack Luka kills a Chechen who is trying to come across the river towards the village to scout the Cossacks and in this way gains much respect. Olenin falls in love with the maid Maryanka, who is to be wed to Luka later in the story. He tries to stop this emotion and eventually convinces himself that he loves both Luka and Maryanka for their simplicity and decides that happiness can only come to a man who constantly gives to others with no thought of self-gratification.
He first gives an extra horse to Luka, who accepts the present yet doesn't trust Olenin on his motives. As time goes on, however, though he gains the respect of the local villagers, another Russian named Beletsky, who is still attached to the ways of Moscow, comes and partially corrupts Olenin's ideals and convinces him through his actions to attempt to win Maryanka's love. Olenin approaches her several times and Luka hears about this from a Cossack, and thus does not invite Olenin to the betrothal party. Olenin spends the night with Eroshka but soon decides that he will not give up on the girl and attempts to win her heart again. He eventually, in a moment of passion, asks her to marry him, which she says she will answer soon.
Luka, however, is severely wounded when he and a group of Cossacks go to confront a group of Chechens who are trying to attack the village, including the brother of the man he killed earlier. Though the Chechens lose after the Cossacks take a cart to block their bullets, the brother of the slain Chechen manages to shoot Luka in the belly when he is close by. As Luka seems to be dying and is being cared for by village people, Olenin approaches Maryanka to ask her to marry him; she angrily refuses. He realizes that "his first impression of this woman's inaccessibility had been perfectly correct." He asks his company commander to leave and join the staff. He says goodbye to Eroshka, who is the only villager who sees him off. Eroshka is emotional towards Olenin but after Olenin takes off and looks back, he sees that Eroshka has apparently already forgotten about him and has gotten back to normal life.
Table of Contents
- Chapter I 8
- Chapter II 21
- Chapter III 40
- Chapter IV 48
- Chapter V 60
- Chapter VI 73
- Chapter VII 88
- Chapter VIII 99
- Chapter IX 117
- Chapter X 133
- Chapter XI 146
- Chapter XII 159
- Chapter XIII 169
- Chapter XIV 192
- Chapter XV 199
- Chapter XVI 209
- Chapter XVII 226
- Chapter XVIII 237
- Chapter XIX 257
- Chapter XX 267
- Chapter XXI 280
- Chapter XXII 294
- Chapter XXIII 312
- Chapter XXIV 322
- Chapter XXV 344
- Chapter XXVI 354
- Chapter XXVII 363
- Chapter XXVIII 374
- Chapter XXIX 387
- Chapter XXX 398
- Chapter XXXI 407
- Chapter XXXII 416
- Chapter XXXIII 423
- Chapter XXXIV 437
- Chapter XXXV 448
- Chapter XXXVI 459
- Chapter XXXVII 469
- Chapter XXXVIII 476
- Chapter XXXIX 491
- Chapter XL 497
- Chapter XLI 509
- Chapter XLII 519
About the Author
Leo Tolstoy
One of the greatest authors of all time, 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910, Yasnaya Polyana, Russia.


text:
The Stoogeum's three-story, 10,000 square-foot space houses thousands of Three Stooges memorabilia pieces, attracting thousands of Philadelphia-area visitors annually since its opening in 2004.
The world's only museum dedicated to the Three Stooges — The Stoogeum — is just a short drive away.
When you walk in the front door of the three-story suburban office building in Lower Gwynedd, you're greeted by an intersection of classic arcade sound effects, interspersed with Stooges' catchphrases, such as Curly's signature "nyuk, nyuk" and "woo, woo, woo!"
The Stoogeum's main level (its second floor) is akin to a miniature arcade. A Dolly Parton pinball machine has been converted into the only known Three Stooges pinball. An old-fashioned arcade game with large joysticks and one-button controls can accommodate up to three players at once. Visitors can join the Stooges' slapstick by smacking all three comedians in their own version of Whack-a-Mole. There's even a Stooges trivia game, alongside a digital wall of fun facts called "Stoogeology 101."
The collision of dings, beeps, 8-bit retro music and playful Stooge shouts can be heard from almost anywhere in The Stoogeum (with the exception of its 85-seat theater that plays the Stooges' films all day), and the soundtrack sets the stage for exhibits that strive, above all else, to make you crack a smile. This is a museum about the Three Stooges, after all.
The Three Stooges' comedy career, which included 200 short films between 1934 and 1958, left an indelible mark on entertainment history. While the Stooges trio included a variation of six men throughout its long-term popularity, its most widely recognized three members were Moe Howard (born Moses Horwitz), Larry Fine (born Louis Feinburg) and Curly Howard (born Jerome Horwitz), who was eventually succeeded by Shemp Howard (born Samuel Horwitz) after he suffered a severe stroke in 1946. The threesome experienced widespread fame over several decades for their particular brand of cartoon-ish slapstick and comic timing.
The Stoogeum, which opened in 2004, is the brainchild of Gary Lassin, 63, of Lower Gwynedd.
Lassin has been the executive director of the Three Stooges fan club, which boasts over 2,000 members, for over 40 years. His appreciation of the famed comedy trio grew in 1978 when he met his wife, Robin, the niece of Larry Fine. Lassin's existing passion for the Stooges suddenly intersected with his own extended family, and as his basement collection of so-called "Stoogeabilia" grew, the museum was born out of seeming necessity.
Lassin chose to open the museum close to his home, which also happens to be close to the birthplace of Larry Fine.
"He jokes that if he didn't marry into this and collected baseball cards instead, he'd have a baseball card museum," said Michelle Squiccimara, the museum registrar. "We joke that Gary's policy is — if he was the Three Stooges' mom, would he want to put it on their fridge? Anything Stoogey comes here."
There are, apparently, quite a lot of Stoogey things. According to Squiccimara, the museum obtains new memorabilia on a weekly basis — mostly photography, 98 percent of which is subsequently digitized. Once upon a time, Stooges fans mostly interacted at trade shows and conventions, but in an increasingly digital world, countless pieces of Stoogeabilia are available to the museum on eBay.
Most of the Stoogeum's reputation has developed by word-of-mouth. "Our best advertisers are past visitors," Squiccimara said.
The museum professionally displays over 100,000 pieces of so-called "Stoogeabilia," including Stooges cartoons, statues, life-size standees, beer bottles, original film posters, a wooden totem pole, a gumball machine, shot glasses, a snow globe, costumes, masks, props and even a ceramic cat painted and signed by Moe. The museum also boasts a meticulously preserved collection of photos, spanning over 50 years of Stooges history.
The Stoogeum created some of its most eye-catching displays from scratch, including a mural of the Three Stooges and a lifelike, wax, life-size reconstruction of the trio in their bellhop costumes, which originally appeared in their 1944 short film, "Idle Roomers."
According to Squiccimara, among the most unique items is Shemp Howard's discharge papers from the army in 1919, when he was drafted into World War I. Many people don't realize that even the Stooges were drafted, and only two copies of these papers exist, the other residing with the government.
The Stoogeum isn't only for hardcore fans, however. "I think it's almost better if you don't know a lot about the Stooges," said Erin Smith, the museum's archivist. "There's more here than just slapstick."
Most of The Stoogeum's more than 2,000 visitors are men over 50, bus tours and senior groups, but its appeal is not limited to the elderly. Often, Squiccimara said, children whose only prior exposure to the Three Stooges was at a grandparent's house nevertheless find themselves engaged and excited by the assorted games or the theater.
In many ways, Squiccimara said, the museum is a study of old Hollywood and the evolution of the entertainment industry. "There's something for everybody, even if people insist that they don't like the Three Stooges."


text:
Create your own list to share your favorite apps with friends
Port of the 2048 game by Gabriele Cirulli. It's playable without network connection.
Created by UberSpot (Paul Sarbinowski)
I heard that this is a rip off of "three". At least, it has a cleaner look. The game play is addictive.


text:
A 100 Year Old Party
By: Katie Rispoli
Today It occurred to me that the 1915 Colombian Exposition at the World's Fair in San Francisco will be celebrating its 100th anniversary next year. Today I was in San Francisco, with my nephew and niece who are two and four years old. Today we visited the Palace of Fine Arts, a remnant of the World's Fair.
The Palace is still in use today, and serves the public primarily as a tourist attraction attached to a body of water and parkland near the Golden Gate Bridge. Though it hasn't been reused, it has adapted to a world without 'World's Fairs' as we once knew them, an opportunity for industrial forces around the world to erect feats of art and architecture in one place at one time as a demonstration of their achievements.
When walking through the remnants of the Palace of Fine Arts with my niece, I asked her if she knew what the place was, and she reflexively shook her head no. How could she have? I told her that a hundred years ago, people all around the world used to throw parties in one city at a time, sharing their ideas with one another. I told her that the place we were standing was what was left of one of those parties.
My family told me not to bother, that she couldn't understand. And sure, maybe my niece doesn't know much (or anything at all) about architecture, but that four year old girl heard every word. I asked her if she thought it would be fun to have a party like they did, and she replied with a resounding, "yes!" I asked her if she wanted the remnants from her party to be around in a hundred years, and she yelled, "yes!" and then promptly found a giant leaf and ran off through those we were already inside.
Everyone deserves to feel a sense of place. Whether that place is the Palace of Fine Arts, a library, a park, or somewhere else. It doesn't require a lot of education, and it definitely doesn't require expertise. But it does require awareness. By opening a child's eyes to a place they're already in, you can create a sense of belonging they didn't know existed, building connections to others, both past and present. These connections can change the way they approach the places they visit next, and allow them to influence their peers to do the same.


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Automatic Pool Cleaners Perth
Perth, WA residents really know the meaning of hot sunny weather with high temperatures and very little rain in summer to bring some cool relief. That's okay because Perth is right on the coast with lovely beaches to enjoy and besides, many people have swimming pools in their backyard so they can enjoy a dip at any time. Luckily for all pool owners, automatic pool cleaners take all the hard work out of pool maintenance. What used to be a difficult and time-consuming task has now been made a great deal easier.
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If you don't have a Kreepy Krauly pool cleaner, consider investing in one of these modern marvels. They not only skim the top of the water to get those pesky leaves, they can scrub or sweep the bottom and sides daily so that algae doesn't form. Some can also scrub it clean of the calcium build-up that happens slowly over time. If you see a white cloud around your pool cleaner when you first start to use it, this is the calcium it is scrubbing off your pool surface. Don't worry, the cleaner will suck it all out of the water as well. That is one thing you can't do with elbow grease.
All pool owners should invest in a Kreepy Krauly so they can have more time to enjoy the benefits of owning a pool rather than working hard to make sure it is clean. Who wants yet another thing to clean, after all? If you are looking for local dealer, we have them across the Perth Metro area and beyond , so whether you are in Joondalup or Mandurah we can help you with a local pool shop close to you.
This will allow you the added advantage of chatting to a pool professional to get all their advice about how to install your pool cleaner. Not that it is difficult; in fact these cleaners are some of the easiest to use. You only have to set them up to work automatically and they'll go on doing that day and night while you relax.
Your local dealer can help you with advice about which model is right for you or request professional installation online or instore so you'll be able to see for yourself just how great owning a pool cleaner is. They offer ongoing maintenance and pool care too, for those who are just too busy to see to it all.


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This is just to be used like a normal toothpaste - twice a day brushing. And so it seemed the perfect hassle-free method of tooth whitening to try as a first off. I've only been using it for a few days (since last Sunday) and I can honestly say that I'm already seeing results, and my teeth were quite white before - I promise!! So so far I am agreeing with their claims. It also has a lovely minty taste which I prefer, I personally am not a fan of any flavours other than mint when it comes to toothpaste.
I'm thinking of trying also the whitening strips that you apply to your teeth and leave to dissolve. I'll most likely try these out once I've finished my Pearl Drops!
Do you use any teeth whitening products? What are your favourites??
Pearl Drops are available at Boots and Superdrug - £4.85


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One of the resources that Welcome Baby offers is a Home Visitation program. As a family in our program, you will have the opportunity to have one of our volunteers come to your home once per month to give you important information about your child's physical, emotional, cognitive, and social development. Because a baby changes so much in a short amount of time, having a visitor come each month will help you know what you should be looking for in your child during the month to come.
A home visit usually lasts between 30-45 minutes. We will begin by asking how things have been going through the transition to parenthood. This includes addressing any concerns you have, questions that may come up, or resources you want to know about. Then, we have a lesson prepared that discusses the changes your child may go through in the next month and an activity you can do with your child to encourage proper development.
Parents have expressed how wonderful it is to have a home visitor. In a short amount of time, the visitor and the parents can become close friends. Some of our families have been with us for a number of years with the same visitor. For more information about our home visitor program, and to sign up to have a home visitor come to your home, please visit our website.


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Friday, 1 November 2013
Poor Trees
9 comments:
always making the best of it :)ReplyDeleteReplies
My second name is Pollyanna. xxDelete
It's devastating when a major storm blows through. I hope you and your friends and family are all safe and that you didn't suffer any property damage.ReplyDelete
Cindy, Gracie, and MeaghanReplies
Thank you Cindy, Gracie and Meaghan. It wasn't so bad around here - at least not as bad as we expected but we did feel sorry for the trees that looked so miserable with their arms broken and some of them ripped out of the ground altogether.Delete
Love Plum
Dear Plum,ReplyDelete
What a nimble thing you are. James says we could use a few more storms like that to get me to walk quicker. Charming. He also says, for the benefit of all correspondents to this column and in the absence of a promotional photoshoot by you, that Emma's new book 'Pinnochio' is a stunning work of art and an ideal Christmas gift for the young-at-heart of all ages. Is that you on the cover, by any chance? love, KatieReplies
Dear KatieDelete
It's NOT me! It should be but it isn't. I wish it was but I don't think Mr Morpingo would think I was relevant. (What does he know?)
Thank you for mentioning the book. I am a bit fed up with it now.
Love Plum
If there was a dog Olympics Plum would be a heptathlon gold medalist!ReplyDeleteReplies
I WISH there was one. Do you think the medals are chocolate?Delete
Esther and Plum were not terribly upset about the trees that went down during the storm because it created more stick opportunities and hurdles to launch themselves over. In fact it made their Wednesday Loop extra loopy. x TrishaDelete


text: There is no easy response to the concern, what's the best bed bug therapy? Remedies can vary in line with the amount of infestation discovered. The ultimate goal must be complete reduction however while numerous techniques may be used to control the bed bugs. These procedures can be performed typically to eliminate them. Sometimes they not all may be required. First thing to do is to ensure that there is a bed insect invasion. There's nothing to distinguish bite scars left by bed bugs from bite marks left by other pests like mosquitoes. Consequently so that you can make sure that there is a pest infestation that was beg the following techniques can be used. View whether you'll find distinctive crimson scars and fecal locations left from the bedbugs on clothes including mattresses or sleep cloths. Also search for skins or eggs shed along the way molting, in other sites along with crevices. For correct recognition caught bed bugs can be weighed against reference photographs online from various sources. https://memoryfoammattress222.yolasite.com/ Every one of the needless debris in the house should be eliminated so that of hiding spots open to bed bugs, the amount is reduced. Items removed in this approach must be inspected, washed, and when needed used with pesticide. Bed towels and other clothes that display signs of infestation or could have been ravaged, and if they're reusable, should be washed using warm water. When they can not be washed for some reason, they must be put in a textile dryer in a warm. They can also be placed in sunlight for a number of times. Furniture too could be put into sunlight for all days after carefully cleaning them. Similar results could be acquired by setting the same things outside for around two weeks during winter. So on products and carpets may be steam cleaned to clear them of bed bugs. Beg pest treatment may start, when the infestation is determined. This may incorporate independently or many functions performed one after another. Among the first actions should be to keep birds and bats away from the home. These creatures' nests like properties that are human and host perform to bed bugs and that may have been the strategy where they were presented to the house.


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Turning garden and kitchen waste into compost is one of the best things you can do for the environment.
It is easy and costs very little in time or effort. It cuts down on landfill.
Your plants will grow healthier and it will save you money on fertilisers too.
Green Bits has reviewed a number of books, magazines and web sites in an effort to give some composting advice.
Some give detailed methods for hot composting, where a careful mix of "activator" and "bulker" ingredients are used and the composting processes heats the heap to some 70?C in a few days, helping to kill weed seeds and producing useable compost within a few weeks.
Others recommend a slow approach, with a different compost recipe built up in layers and with a careful amount of watering.
The problem with these is they assume that you have a collection of waste items to hand and that you will want to spend you precious time first mixing ingredients as if you were baking some sort of smelly cake and later sorting and turning the mess until the compost is ready.
And if you don't put this effort in you will end up with a disheartening sloppy mess that makes you wish you had never bothered with composting.
A refreshing, and frankly more realistic approach can be found in Allan Shepherd's book,"The Organic Garden".
He reports on the feed-and-forget method of composting, developed by the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales.
This recognises that most homes are busy and chaotic where waste accumulates not as an organised mass but in dribs and drabs.
It accepts that in nature when waste falls to the ground it is not in any way organised and yet composting just happens - it is nature's way of keeping our planet clean.
CAT's feed-and-forget system allows you to dispose of your kitchen scraps, grass cuttings, dead flowers and weeds as they arise.
On their own these would be to rich to produce any more than a slimy gloop, so CAT advises that you balance these out with scrunched up balls of cardboard from old egg boxes and cereal packets.
This approach does not produce rapid results, but it seems to fit in with normal lifestyles and gives us all the chance to produce fine, rich crumbly compost from materials that would otherwise have to be carted off to landfill.
Locking up carbon in the form of humus in the soil acts in the way a tree does by taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
When soil is disturbed by digging or ploughing, the carbon in organic matter is oxidised releasing carbon dioxide into the air.
Regular addition of compost keeps the carbon locked in for longer and allows less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Adding compost to the soil prevents it from heating up or cooling down rapidly.
Darker soils absorb more light than the humusfree lighter coloured soils.
When it is hot they prevent the suns rays from reflecting up and scorching plant stems.
Compost helps the soil to absorb and retain moisture.
Unlike soil particles, compost soaks up water like a sponge.
Roots can absorb this moisture even when the ground is dry in summer.
In heavy downpours, compost will soak up the moisture and protect the soil from erosion.


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Named to Amazon's
"Top 100 Books of 2013"
Have you ever really looked at a flower?
In Seeing Flowers, Chace and Llewellyn's collaboration offers a tour of an engrossing world. It's a heady mix of beautiful images, fascinating information, and sumptuous appreciation. Flower lovers and gardeners will not be able to set it down, lovers of photography and literature will be awed and captivated. It makes a great gift for any nature-lover, photography fan, gardener, or flower devotee.
Click here to TAKE A CLOSER LOOK.
If your group would like to book the talk based on Seeing Flowers, please go to the SPEAKER tab.
Featured in the Wall Street Journal, "In Full Bloom," May 23, 2013.
Named to Top Books of the Year 2013, Financial Times (London), Gardening. Judge Jane Owen remarked: "Flower porn. I defy anyone not to be seduced by these portraits – even hydrangeas look like works of art. Accompanied by neat text explaining familial characteristics from Amaryllis to Viola."
"343 blooms in such extraordinary detail that you feel you're glimpsing the garden from an insect's perspective." Sunset Magazine, "Best of the West," September 2013.
"For anyone who wants to know more about flowering plant families and see some stunning photographs of flowers…the author writes about 28 different flowering plant families. Reading about each one is like talking to a family member who knows all about the rest of the family–who belongs in the family, who belonged once before but has been cast out, their quirks, their foibles, all kinds of interesting tidbits. The pictures are amazing, showing lots of details that we often miss, even when we are holding the flower in our hand. Even the captions for the photos contain great info and should not be skipped over. I think that gardeners of all levels of experience will find this book to be readable, enjoyable, and useful. Plant addicts should be warned that this book will definitely feed your addiction and you'll read about more plants that you want to have in your garden." Carol J. Michel on amazon.com
"…a feast for the eyes and soul – an elegant blend of photos and text that kept me turning pages." Gregory Horne on amazon.com
"This is one of those books which you can pick up and put down after enjoying the pictures then pick it up again to read the text of one family then another family. I really enjoyed this book. I like the scientific correctness of this book, since I am a Horticulture PhD." Gail S. Lee on amazon.com
"The images maintain the same heartbreaking clarity you'd find in a 19th century botanical illustration…" Chantal Aida Gordon. Read the full review @ The Horticult.com


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Drama and performance is arguably the most important skill we can develop, as it forms the basis for our whole personality, being able to express yourself is vital for your own emotional well being.
Artz Academy are drama specialists with years of experience in this complex subject. Our workshops cover a wide range of drama skills and techniques that combined with our unique teaching style creates a fun and informative experience for young people.
These workshops can be adapted for children as young as 4 years old as well as providing a challenge for those studying at degree level and beyond. Our intention is always to make students feel relaxed and comfortable about the challenges they undertake but to move them quickly into a more positive state of mind.
- Drama SessionsBe who you want to be
- £4.00Juniors & Seniors
- Infantz – £3.00
- Enquire Today
Looking to get involved? Call Artz Centre today on (01695) 733 080
Our friendly team are on hand to discuss future projects and opportunities.Contact us
Our characterisation workshops develop these skills, allowing students to transform into someone or something else often with amusing results.
Our students are taught to think outside the box and understand that everything is possible on stage through improvisation. These workshops encourage creativity and expression and develop a students ability to adapt to what ever situation they find themselves in.
Performing is also great for a students self esteem and confidence, seeing a project through to the end gives them a great sense of achievement and creates great memories for them to look back on in time.
Being part of a production cast presents students with a feeling of unity but should not be taken lightly. The productions are 'hard work' and achieving the standards that are expected requires a lot of effort and dedication which some students are not quite ready for.
Students are always encouraged to be expressive and open with their movement, use their arms and hands to aid their performance and consider the things they do that indicate shyness or weakness. This type of actors training is another very helpful tool that students will use in all areas of their life as well as their performance.
- Voice Projection
- Accent and Language
- Diction and Clarity
- Speed and Delivery
These workshops are designed to improve theatrical performance but naturally have a positive impact on a students ability to communicate.


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Interview in 1978 with Frederick Converse, professor of soil mechanics emeritus, covers his family background in upper New York State, his undergraduate education in engineering at the University of Rochester, and his professional life at Caltech. At Rochester, his mentor was Frederic W. Hinrichs, who later became dean of students at Caltech in its early years. Converse was hired as an instructor in Caltech's engineering division in 1920, by the division's first chairman, Franklin Thomas. A pioneer in civil engineering and an adviser to builders, architects, and contractors, Converse taught one of the earliest courses in the country on soil mechanics and conducted research on the vibration compaction of sands and cohesive soils. He was a leader in professional organizations in his field and consulted for various firms and government agencies, including the United States Navy, the California Division of Architecture, the Kaiser Steel Mill, and Permanente Metals Corp.
Nov. 16, 1978 through Nov. 21, 1978
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RFG stands for reformulated gasoline. It is actually a set of standards devised by the EPA that gasoline in certain high-pollution areas must conform to. Its exclusive sale is mandatory in massive metropolises (metropoli?) such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and others. There are a number of urban areas which "opt-in" to the RFG program-- some local governments choose to mandate the sale of reformulated gasoline in their particular jurisdictions. Although it does reduce air pollution and the resulting public health concerns, refineries make less RFG than they do conventional gasoline, which results in higher gas prices (especially in some areas of the Midwest) due to supply and demand economics.
The differences between RFG and conventional gasoline include:
-A reduction in the Reid Vapor Pressure
-Reduced levels of benzene, a known carcinogen
-An increased amount of oxygenates such as MTBE, ETBE, ethanol and methanol
-Decreased sulfur content
-Fewer olefins
-Lower aromatic content
-Fewer VOCs (volatile organic compounds)
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Ok, "Big Data" is going the way of "Information Superhighway" and "Web 2.0". How do I know? I know this because I've seen a number of posts by people both attacking and defending it as a "thing" that could be considered real. There's a piece in the NYT attacking it, a bunch of people are now talking about "Data Skepticism." Don't mistake the meme for reality. Big Data is just a name invented to refer to nothing, and the marketing department has ruined it.
Here's some short fictional dialogue that illustrates the way in which Big Data evaporates during the budget process at a large corporation:
CIO: When you say Big Data you mean Hadoop, right? I was looking at the budget and I don't see Big Data anywhere, but I do see this huge line item for Hadoop. Jack wants a promotion, and he tells me everything you say BTW, he said you called me a "greyhair that doesn't get Big Data"… I get it: Big Data is Hadoop.
Manager: Big Data isn't just Hadoop, it's a whole concept. It's bigger than just a single technology. Big Data is a new approach to data at scale, and I'm sorry about what Jack told you I thought making fun of the boss was essential mid-level management team building. I apologize, I said that during the offsite meeting I thought he'd keep that to himself.
CIO: Forget about it, Jack's not getting the promotion because I think he's an idiot. Back to this Big Data thing… ok, so it's analytics, but we've had analytics from quite some time. Is this just another name for Business Intelligence.
Manager: Dear God. Don't call it that! You'll scare away all the kids we just hired. We need them. They are the only ones who understand Map/Reduce. Big Data can also cover analytics, yes, but it is a different thing.
CIO: Wait, so the idea that businesses collect data that needs to be processed into reports that then drive the decision making process, that's a new thing? I thought we were…
Manager: …It isn't that it is new it's different. Big Data is a different way of thinking about old problems in a new light.
CIO: Ok, so we're talking about a analytics at a different scale, right?
Manager: Right, and different tools. Big data is more than just working with data at scale it is about asking different questions. It is about realizing the the value is the data and making sure you are taking advantage of it.
CIO: Paul, if you keep on talking like that, maybe Jack will get the promotion. You realize that you just said nothing to me. You said it very eloquently, but if I wanted bullshit I'd go read eWeek. Back to the budget… so Big Data is stuff like Hadoop and Map/Reduce?
Manager: No, stop it. That's too limited. Big Data is transformational, it covers not only offline reporting but any systems that need to operate at internet scale: Google is Big Data, Facebook is Big Data, but the government is also starting to adopt Big Data.
CIO: Internet scale… our technology budget is a lot less than Google or Facebook, and we're not indexing the web. On another note, this Big Data thing sounds like a religion. Are there churches?
Manager: Why aren't you taking this seriously? There's a lot of money being spent on Big Data. I'm not the only one saying this stuff.
CIO: There's a lot of money being spent on religion as well and there are many people that believe the world sits atop an infinite stack of turtles, that doesn't mean I should take it seriously. I'm asking because you are proposing that we spend a lot of money on it.
Manager: You know what, Big Data is Big Data you'll know it when you see it. Haven't you ever worked with a Data Scientist.
CIO: Hold on, a Data Scientist, you mean a Statistician? Years ago, we hired people that knew SAS – that software has been around since the 1970s. Did you put money in the budget for a Data Scientist? And, if so, do I need to install Bunsen burners and fume hoods in that office?
Manager: No. Maybe you should come with me to this conference. A Data Scientist is someone who knows how to work with Big Data.
CIO: You know what? This is fascinating, maybe we should schedule a meeting to talk more about this, but I've got to go talk to our analytics guy about the report he just sent me. We're having a problem with the budget because we spent all this money on machines to support this Hadoop initiative, and it doesn't look like we've found something to use them for yet.
Manager: Right, I wanted to talk to you about that. Our Hadoop initiative isn't paying off just yet because we need more data to analyze.
CIO: Thanks Paul. A quick tip from upper-management for future reference. When I end a conversation telling you that "we should schedule a meeting to talk more", that's just a creative way of saying, "You are full of it, and I'm walking away now."