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Signup begins for U of M Master Gardener classes to be offered in 2013
Signup has begun for HORT 1003 Master Gardener Core Course / Horticulture for the Home Garden. This is a series of University of Minnesota classes beginning in January 2013 on horticultural and environmental topics such as; soils, plant pathology and culture, entomology, herbaceous ornamentals, fruits and vegetables, trees & shrubs, and other related horticultural classes. Course content is research-based, taught by University experts and geared toward use in the home landscape.
Classes are open to Master Gardener interns. Face-to-face classes will be held at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen. Start date is Jan. 11 and continues through Feb. 2, 2013.
The classes are on Fridays and Saturdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is $275 with a registration date by Dec. 1, 2012. All registration is done online.
The course is also available online. Online classes begin January 7, 2013 and continue thru May 2, 2013. Class topics and instructors change weekly.
A Master Gardener should exhibit an interest in or have knowledge of gardening and horticulture related area. A Master Gardener should be able to work with adults and youth and have a willingness to share horticulture knowledge with others.
First year interns are required to complete the "core courses" offered and complete a minimum of 50 hours of volunteer work. In the subsequent years a minimum of 25 hours of volunteer hours are needed with a minimum of 5 hours of continuous education. Certified Master Gardener volunteers provide educational programs, interpret Extension recommendations for consumers and give advice and answers to questions on a broad range of gardening and landscape topics.
To obtain more information about the U MN Extension Master Gardener Program contact Sally Shearer, Hubbard County Extension Coordinator at 732-3391 or email firstname.lastname@example.org.

domain: agronomy


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Welcome to Poems, Stories, and OCs!
We welcome all members to our amino! This is a large growing community! Join us, and you will meet creative people all around the world just like you! Make posts of your latest art, poems, new ocs, old art, and more!
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domain: artistic


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PENARTH Water Ski Club are celebrating their 50th anniversary.
The club marked the occasion with members past and present at a dinner and dance at the Legacy International Hotel in Cardiff.
Founded by members including Jack Silver, Ray Mandell, Jim Savory and Arther Dawe, the club grew to more than 100 members at one time.
It hosted its first national race in 1968, starting from Penarth slipway, across to Weston Super Mare and back to Barry, before finishing back at Penarth. The race was won by local skier Brendon Bowles.
The club thrived and over the years had many talented skiers who went on to be British, European and even World Champions. Members also won the British Team Trophy many times.
Ski racing has declined over the last decade owing to the economic climate and the cost of fuel, but even so Penarth Ski Club manages to field a competitive team and still compete at world level.
Nationals were suspended at Penarth front from 1998, due to the lack of parking for cars or trailers. But in 2002 the Cardiff Bay Barrage was completed and presented a wonderful opportunity to have skiing in the bay once again - and thanks to hard work by Dave Silver, permission was given on allocated days to ski.
The club currently has an allocated stretch of water on which to teach water skiing and wakeboarding with professional teachers, while nationals are running again and have been every year since 2004, including two European Championships, with great success.
The club also has a strong jet bike membership and can often be seen off the foreshore at Penarth.
For further details see www.penarthwaterski.co.uk

domain: sports


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Students whose school use Google Apps for Education will soon be able to store as many files in their Google Drive folders as they like.
Earlier this year, Google launched Drive for Work, its premium $10/month version of Google Drive with unlimited storage and a couple of additional enterprise features. Today, the company announced that is bringing unlimited storage to Google Apps for Education soon, too, with the launch of Drive for Education.
Individual files can measure up to 5TB, which should be more than enough for most legitimate use cases.
Just like the rest of the Google Apps for Education suite, Drive for Education is available free of charge for all non-profit educational institutions (and there are no ads either). As a Google spokesperson told me, Drive for Education will automatically become available to all Google Apps for Education users over the coming weeks. This is a slow rollout, however, and it will be a few weeks before it reaches all users.
Before the end of the year, Google will also bring free access to Google Apps Vault, its compliance solution for businesses that need to be able to archive emails and chats, for example, to educational users. Enhanced Auditing support, too, is on the road map for educational institutions, but the company didn’t say when exactly that will become available.
Until now, Google Apps for Education users “only” got 30GB of free space for their accounts. That, too, was probably enough for most students, but the price of storage is quickly trending to zero anyway, so Google likely believes that the potential cost of offering unlimited storage — students will likely find some creative uses for all of this storage space, after all — outweighs the benefits of getting these students hooked into the Google ecosystem and cloud storage services early on. Today’s Google Drive for Education users, after all, will likely want to use Drive for Work once they graduate and that starts at $10/month.


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Consensus is one of the most fundamental problems in distributed computing. It is important because of it’s role in State Machine Replication (SMR), a generic approach for replicating services that can be modeled as a deterministic state machine [1, 2]. The key idea of this approach is that service replicas start in the same initial state, and then execute requests (also called transactions) in the same order; thereby guaranteeing that replicas stay in sync with each other. The role of consensus in the SMR approach is ensuring that all replicas receive transactions in the same order. Traditionally, deployments of SMR based systems are in data-center settings (local area network), have a small number of replicas (three to seven) and are typically part of a single administration domain (e.g., Chubby
); therefore they handle benign (crash) failures only, as more general forms of failure (in particular, malicious or Byzantine faults) are considered to occur with only negligible probability.
The success of cryptocurrencies or blockchain systems in recent years (e.g., [4, 5]) pose a whole new set of challenges on the design and deployment of SMR based systems: reaching agreement over wide area network, among large number of nodes (hundreds or thousands) that are not part of the same administration domain, and where a subset of nodes can behave maliciously (Byzantine faults). Furthermore, contrary to the previous data-center deployments where nodes are fully connected to each other, in blockchain systems, a node is only connected to a subset of other nodes, so communication is achieved by gossip-based peer-to-peer protocols. The new requirements demand designs and algorithms that are not necessarily present in the classical academic literature on Byzantine fault tolerant consensus (or SMR) systems (e.g., [6, 7]) as the primary focus was different setup.
In this paper we describe a novel Byzantine-fault tolerant consensus algorithm that is the core of the BFT SMR platform called Tendermint111The Tendermint platform is available open source at https://github.com/tendermint/tendermint.. The Tendermint platform consists of a high-performance BFT SMR implementation written in Go, a flexible interface for building arbitrary deterministic applications above the consensus, and a suite of tools for deployment and management.
The Tendermint consensus algorithm is inspired by the PBFT SMR algorithm  and the DLS algorithm for authenticated faults (the Algorithm 2 from ). Similar to DLS algorithm, Tendermint proceeds in rounds222Tendermint is not presented in the basic round model of . Furthermore, we use the term round differently than in ; in Tendermint a round denotes a sequence of communication steps instead of a single communication step in ., where each round has a dedicated proposer (also called coordinator or leader) and a process proceeds to a new round as part of normal processing (not only in case the proposer is faulty or suspected as being faulty by enough processes as in PBFT). The communication pattern of each round is very similar to the ”normal” case of PBFT. Therefore, in preferable conditions (correct proposer, timely and reliable communication between correct processes), Tendermint decides in three communication steps (the same as PBFT).
The major novelty and contribution of the Tendermint consensus algorithm is a new termination mechanism. As explained in [9, 10], the existing BFT consensus (and SMR) algorithms for the partially synchronous system model (for example PBFT , , ) typically relies on the communication pattern illustrated in Figure 1 for termination. The Figure 1 illustrates messages exchanged during the proposer change when processes start a new round333There is no consistent terminology in the distributed computing terminology on naming sequence of communication steps that corresponds to a logical unit. It is sometimes called a round, phase or a view.. It guarantees that eventually (ie. after some Global Stabilization Time, GST), there exists a round with a correct proposer that will bring the system into a univalent configuration. Intuitively, in a round in which the proposed value is accepted by all correct processes, and communication between correct processes is timely and reliable, all correct processes decide.
To ensure that a proposed value is accepted by all correct processes444The proposed value is not blindly accepted by correct processes in BFT algorithms. A correct process always verifies if the proposed value is safe to be accepted so that safety properties of consensus are not violated. a proposer will 1) build the global state by receiving messages from other processes, 2) select the safe value to propose and 3) send the selected value together with the signed messages received in the first step to support it. The value that a correct process sends to the next proposer normally corresponds to a value the process considers as acceptable for a decision:
in Fast Byzantine Paxos  the value itself is being sent.
In both cases, using this mechanism in our system model (ie. high number of nodes over gossip based network) would have high communication complexity that increases with the number of processes: in the first case as the message sent depends on the total number of processes, and in the second case as the value (block of transactions) is sent by each process. The set of messages received in the first step are normally piggybacked on the proposal message (in the Figure 1 denoted with ) to justify the choice of the selected value . Note that sending this message also does not scale with the number of processes in the system.
We designed a novel termination mechanism for Tendermint that better suits the system model we consider. It does not require additional communication (neither sending new messages nor piggybacking information on the existing messages) and it is fully based on the communication pattern that is very similar to the normal case in PBFT . Therefore, there is only a single mode of execution in Tendermint, i.e., there is no separation between the normal and the recovery mode, which is the case in other PBFT-like protocols (e.g., ,  or ). We believe this makes Tendermint simpler to understand and implement correctly.
Note that the orthogonal approach for reducing message complexity in order to improve scalability and decentralization (number of processes) of BFT consensus algorithms is using advanced cryptography (for example Boneh-Lynn-Shacham (BLS) signatures ) as done for example in SBFT .
We consider a system of processes that communicate by exchanging messages. Processes can be correct or faulty, where a faulty process can behave in an arbitrary way, i.e., we consider Byzantine faults. We assume that each process has some amount of voting power (voting power of a process can be ). Processes in our model are not part of a single administration domain; therefore we cannot enforce a direct network connectivity between all processes. Instead, we assume that each process is connected to a subset of processes called peers, such that there is an indirect communication channel between all correct processes. Communication between processes is established using a gossip protocol .
Formally, we model the network communication using the partially synchronous system model : in all executions of the system there is a bound and an instant GST (Global Stabilization Time) such that all communication among correct processes after GST is reliable and -timely, i.e., if a correct process sends message at time to correct process , then will receive before 555Note that as we do not assume direct communication channels among all correct processes, this implies that before the message reaches , it might pass through a number of correct processes that will forward the message using gossip protocol towards .. Messages among correct processes can be delayed, dropped or duplicated before GST. Spoofing/impersonation attacks are assumed to be impossible at all times due to the use of public-key cryptography. The bound and GST are system parameters whose values are not required to be known for the safety of our algorithm. Termination of the algorithm is guaranteed within a bounded duration after GST. In practice, the algorithm will work correctly in the slightly weaker variant of the model where the system alternates between (long enough) good periods (corresponds to the after GST period where system is reliable and -timely) and bad periods (corresponds to the period before GST during which the system is asynchronous and messages can be lost), but considering the GST model simplifies the discussion.
We assume that process steps (which might include sending and receiving messages) take zero time. Processes are equipped with clocks so they can measure local timeouts. All protocol messages are signed, i.e., when a correct process receives a signed message from its peer, the process can verify who was the original sender of the message .
The details of the Tendermint gossip protocol will be discussed in a separate technical report. For the sake of this report it is sufficient to assume that messages are being gossiped between processes and the following property holds (in addition to the partial synchrony network assumptions):
Gossip communication: If a correct process receives some message at time , all correct processes will receive before .
Ii-B State Machine Replication
State machine replication (SMR) is a general approach for replicating services modeled as a deterministic state machine [1, 2]. The key idea of this approach is to guarantee that all replicas start in the same state and then apply requests from clients in the same order, thereby guaranteeing that the replicas’ states will not diverge. Following Schneider , we note that the following is key for implementing a replicated state machine tolerant to (Byzantine) faults:
Replica Coordination. All [non-faulty] replicas receive and process the same sequence of requests.
Moreover, as Schneider also notes, this property can be decomposed into two parts, Agreement and Order: Agreement requires all (non-faulty) replicas to receive all requests, and Order requires that the order of received requests is the same at all replicas.
There is an additional requirement that needs to be ensured by Byzantine tolerant state machine replication: only requests (called transactions in the Tendermint terminology) proposed by clients are executed. In Tendermint, transaction verification is the responsibility of the service that is being replicated; upon receiving a transaction from the client, the Tendermint process will ask the service if the request is valid, and only valid requests will be processed.
Tendermint solves state machine replication by sequentially executing consensus instances to agree on each block of transactions that are then executed by the service being replicated. We consider a variant of the Byzantine consensus problem called Validity Predicate-based Byzantine consensus that is motivated by blockchain systems . The problem is defined by an agreement, a termination, and a validity property.
Agreement: No two correct processes decide on different values.
Termination: All correct processes eventually decide on a value.
Validity: A decided value is valid, i.e., it satisfies the predefined predicate denoted valid().
This variant of the Byzantine consensus problem has an application-specific valid() predicate to indicate whether a value is valid. In the context of blockchain systems, for example, a value is not valid if it does not contain an appropriate hash of the last value (block) added to the blockchain.
Iii Tendermint consensus algorithm
In this section we present the Tendermint Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithm. The algorithm is specified by the pseudo-code listing in Algorithm 1. We present the algorithm as a set of upon rules that are executed atomically666In case several rules are active at the same time, the first rule to be executed is picked randomly. The correctness of the algorithm does not depend on the order in which rules are executed.. We assume that processes exchange protocol messages using a gossip protocol and that both received and sent messages are stored in a local message log for every process. An upon rule is triggered once the message log contains messages such that the corresponding condition evaluates to . The condition that assumes reception of messages of a particular type and content denotes reception of messages whose senders have aggregate voting power at least equal to . For example, the condition , evaluates to true upon reception of messages for height , a round and with value equal to whose senders have aggregate voting power at least equal to . Some of the rules ends with ”for the first time” constraint to denote that it is triggered only the first time a corresponding condition evaluates to . This is because those rules do not always change the state of algorithm variables so without this constraint, the algorithm could keep executing those rules forever. The variables with index are process local state variables, while variables without index are value placeholders. The sign denotes any value.
We denote with the total voting power of processes in the system, and we assume that the total voting power of faulty processes in the system is bounded with a system parameter . The algorithm assumes that , i.e., it requires that the total voting power of faulty processes is smaller than one third of the total voting power. For simplicity we present the algorithm for the case .
The algorithm proceeds in rounds, where each round has a dedicated proposer. The mapping of rounds to proposers is known to all processes and is given as a function , returning the proposer for the round in the consensus instance . We assume that the proposer selection function is weighted round-robin, where processes are rotated proportional to their voting power777A validator with more voting power is selected more frequently, proportional to its power. More precisely, during a sequence of rounds of size , every process is proposer in a number of rounds equal to its voting power.. The internal protocol state transitions are triggered by message reception and by expiration of timeouts. There are three timeouts in Algorithm 1: , and . The timeouts prevent the algorithm from blocking and waiting forever for some condition to be true, ensure that processes continuously transition between rounds, and guarantee that eventually (after GST) communication between correct processes is timely and reliable so they can decide. The last role is achieved by increasing the timeouts with every new round , i.e, ; they are reset for every new height (consensus instance).
Processes exchange the following messages in Tendermint: , and . The message is used by the proposer of the current round to suggest a potential decision value, while and are votes for a proposed value. According to the classification of consensus algorithms from , Tendermint, like PBFT  and DLS , belongs to class 3, so it requires two voting steps (three communication exchanges in total) to decide a value. The Tendermint consensus algorithm is designed for the blockchain context where the value to decide is a block of transactions (ie. it is potentially quite large, consisting of many transactions). Therefore, in the Algorithm 1 (similar as in ) we are explicit about sending a value (block of transactions) and a small, constant size value id (a unique value identifier, normally a hash of the value, i.e., if , then ). The message is the only one carrying the value; and messages carry the value id. A correct process decides on a value in Tendermint upon receiving the for and voting-power equivalent messages for in some round . In order to send message for in a round , a correct process waits to receive the and of the corresponding messages in the round . Otherwise, it sends message with a special value. This ensures that correct processes can only a single value (or ) in a round. As proposers may be faulty, the proposed value is treated by correct processes as a suggestion (it is not blindly accepted), and a correct process tells others if it accepted the for value by sending message for ; otherwise it sends message with the special value.
Every process maintains the following variables in the Algorithm 1: , , , and . The denotes the current state of the internal Tendermint state machine, i.e., it reflects the stage of the algorithm execution in the current round. The stores the most recent value (with respect to a round number) for which a message has been sent. The is the last round in which the process sent a message that is not . We also say that a correct process locks a value in a round by setting and before sending message for . As a correct process can decide a value only if messages for are received, this implies that a possible decision value is a value that is locked by at least voting power equivalent of correct processes. Therefore, any value for which and of the corresponding messages are received in some round is a possible decision value. The role of the variable is to store the most recent possible decision value; the is the last round in which is updated. Apart from those variables, a process also stores the current consensus instance (, called height in Tendermint), and the current round number () and attaches them to every message. Finally, a process also stores an array of decisions, (Tendermint assumes a sequence of consensus instances, one for each height).
Every round starts by a proposer suggesting a value with the message (see line 1). In the initial round of each height, the proposer is free to chose the value to suggest. In the Algorithm 1, a correct process obtains a value to propose using an external function that returns a valid value to propose. In the following rounds, a correct proposer will suggest a new value only if ; otherwise is proposed (see lines 1-1). In addition to the value proposed, the message also contains the so other processes are informed about the last round in which the proposer observed as a possible decision value. Note that if a correct proposer sends with the in the , this implies that the process received and the corresponding messages for in the round . If a correct process sends message with () at time , by the Gossip communication property, the corresponding and the messages will be received by all correct processes before time . Therefore, all correct processes will be able to verify the correctness of the suggested value as it is supported by the and the corresponding voting power equivalent messages.
A correct process accepts the proposal for a value (send for ) if an external valid function returns for the value , and if hasn’t locked any value () or has locked the value (); see the line 1. In case the proposed pair is and a correct process has locked some value, it will accept if it is a more recent possible decision value888As explained above, the possible decision value in a round is the one for which and the corresponding messages are received for the round ., , or if (see line 1). Otherwise, a correct process will reject the proposal by sending message with value. A correct process will send message with value also in case expired (it is triggered when a correct process starts a new round) and a process has not sent message in the current round yet (see the line 1).
If a correct process receives message for some value and messages for , then it sends message with . Otherwise, it sends . A correct process will send message with value also in case expired (it is started when a correct process sent message and received any messages) and a process has not sent message in the current round yet (see the line 1). A correct process decides on some value if it receives in some round message for and messages with (see the line 1). To prevent the algorithm from blocking and waiting forever for this condition to be true, the Algorithm 1 relies on . It is triggered after a process receives any set of messages for the current round. If the expires and a process has not decided yet, the process starts the next round (see the line 1). When a correct process decides, it starts the next consensus instance (for the next height). The Gossip communication property ensures that and messages that led to decide are eventually received by all correct processes, so they will also decide.
Iii-a Termination mechanism
Tendermint ensures termination by a novel mechanism that benefits from the gossip based nature of communication (see Gossip communication property). It requires managing two additional variables, and that are then used by the proposer during the propose step as explained above. The and are updated to and by a correct process in a round when the process receives valid message for the value and the corresponding messages for in the round (see the rule at line 1).
We now give briefly the intuition how managing and proposing and ensures termination. Formal treatment is left for Section IV.
The first thing to note is that during good period, because of the Gossip communication property, if a correct process locks a value in some round , all correct processes will update to and to before the end of the round (we prove this formally in the Section IV). The intuition is that messages that led to locking a value in the round will be gossiped to all correct processes before the end of the round , so it will update and (the line 1). Therefore, if a correct process locks some value during good period, and are updated by all correct processes so that the value proposed in the following rounds will be acceptable by all correct processes. Note that it could happen that during good period, no correct process locks a value, but some correct process updates and during some round. As no correct process locks a value in this case, and will also be acceptable by all correct processes as for every correct process and as the Gossip communication property ensures that the corresponding messages that received in the round are received by all correct processes time later.
Finally, it could happen that after GST, there is a long sequence of rounds in which no correct process neither locks a value nor update and . In this case, during this sequence of rounds, the proposed value suggested by correct processes was not accepted by all correct processes. Note that this sequence of rounds is always finite as at the beginning of every round there is at least a single correct process such that and are acceptable by every correct process. This is true as there exists a correct process such that for every other correct process , or . This is true as is the process that has locked a value in the most recent round among all correct processes (or no correct process locked any value). Therefore, eventually will be the proper in some round and the proposed value will be accepted by all correct processes, terminating therefore this sequence of rounds.
Therefore, updating and variables, and the Gossip communication property, together ensures that eventually, during the good period, there exists a round with a correct proposer whose proposed value will be accepted by all correct processes, and all correct processes will terminate in that round. Note that this mechanism, contrary to the common termination mechanism illustrated in the Figure 1, does not require exchanging any additional information in addition to messages already sent as part of what is normally being called ”normal” case.
Iv Proof of Tendermint consensus algorithm
For all , any two sets of processes with voting power at least equal to have at least one correct process in common.
As the total voting power is equal to , we have . This means that the intersection of two sets with the voting power equal to contains at least voting power in common, , at least one correct process (as the total voting power of faulty processes is ). The result follows directly from this. ∎
If correct processes lock value in round ( and ), then in all rounds , they send for or .
We prove the result by induction on .
Base step Let’s denote with the set of correct processes with voting power equal to . By the rules at line 1 and line 1, the processes from the set can’t accept for any value different from in round , and therefore can’t send a message, if . Therefore, the Lemma holds for the base step.
Induction step from to : We assume that no process from the set has sent for values different than or until round . We now prove that the Lemma also holds for round . As processes from the set send for or in rounds , by Lemma IV there is no value for which it is possible to receive messages in those rounds (i). Therefore, we have for all processes from the set , and . Let’s assume by a contradiction that a process from the set sends in round for value , where . This is possible only by line 1. Note that this implies that received messages, where and (see line 1). A contradiction with (i) and Lemma IV. ∎
Algorithm 1 satisfies Agreement.
Let round be the first round of height such that some correct process decides . We now prove that if some correct process decides in some round , then .
In case , has received at least messages at line 1, while has received at least messages. By Lemma IV two sets of messages of voting power intersect in at least one correct process. As a correct process sends a single message in a round, then .
We prove the case by contradiction. By the rule 1, has received at least voting-power equivalent of messages, i.e., at least voting-power equivalent correct processes have locked value in round and have sent those messages (i). Let denote this set of messages with . On the other side, has received at least voting power equivalent of messages. As the voting power of all faulty processes is at most , some correct process has sent one of those messages. By the rule at line 1, has locked value in round before sending . Therefore has received messages for in round (see line 1). By Lemma IV, a process from the set has sent message for in round . A contradiction with (i) and Lemma IV. ∎
Algorithm 1 satisfies Validity.
Trivially follows from the rule at line 1 which ensures that only valid values can be decided. ∎
If we assume that:
a correct process is the first correct process to enter a round at time (for every correct process , at time )
the proposer of round is a correct process
for every correct process , at time
, and ,
then all correct processes decide in round before .
As is the first correct process to enter round , it executed the line 1 after expired. Therefore, received messages in the round before time . By the Gossip communication property, all correct processes will receive those messages the latest at time . Correct processes that are in rounds at time will enter round (see the rule at line 1) and trigger (see rule 1) by time . Therefore, all correct processes will start round by time (i).
In the worst case, the process is the last correct process to enter round , so starts round and sends message for some value at time . Therefore, all correct processes receive the message from the latest by time . Therefore, if , all correct processes will receive message before expires.
By (3) and the rules at line 1 and 1, all correct processes will accept the message for value and will send a message for by time . Note that by the Gossip communication property, the messages needed to trigger the rule at line 1 are received before time .
By time , all correct processes will receive for and corresponding messages for . By the rule at line 1, all correct processes will send a message (see line 1) for by time . Therefore, by time , all correct processes will have received the for and messages for , so they decide at line 1 on .
This scenario holds if every correct process sends a message before expires, and if does not expire before . Let’s assume that a correct process is the first correct process to trigger (see the rule at line 1) at time . This implies that before time , received a ( must be by the rule at line 1) and a set of messages. By time , all correct processes will receive those messages. Note that even if some correct process was in the smaller round before time , at time it will start round after receiving those messages (see the rule at line 1). Therefore, all correct processes will send their message for by time , and all correct processes will receive those messages the by time . Therefore, as , this ensures that all correct processes receive messages from all correct processes before their respective local expire.
On the other hand, is triggered in a correct process after it receives any set of messages for the first time. Let’s denote with the earliest point in time is triggered in some correct process . This implies that has received at least messages for from correct processes, i.e., those processes have received for and messages for before time . By the Gossip communication property, all correct processes will receive those messages by time , and will send messages for . Note that even if some correct processes were at time in a round smaller than , by the rule at line 1 they will enter round by time . Therefore, by time , all correct processes will receive for and messages for . So if , all correct processes will decide before the timeout expires. ∎
If a correct process locks a value at time in some round ( and ) and , then all correct processes set to and to before starting round .
In order to prove this Lemma, we need to prove that if the process locks a value at time , then no correct process will leave round before time (unless it has already set to and to ). It is sufficient to prove this, since by the Gossip communication property the messages that received at time and that triggered rule at line 1 will be received by time by all correct processes, so all correct processes that are still in round will set to and to (by the rule at line 1). To prove this, we need to compute the earliest point in time a correct process could leave round without updating to and to (we denote this time with ). The Lemma is correct if .
If the process locks a value at time , this implies that received the valid message for and at time . At least of those messages are sent by correct processes. Let’s denote this set of correct processes as . By Lemma IV any set of messages in round contains at least a single message from the set .
Let’s denote as time the earliest point in time a correct process, , triggered . This implies that received messages (see the rule at line 1), where at least one of those messages was sent by a process from the set . Therefore, process had received message before time . By the Gossip communication property, all correct processes will receive and messages for round by time . The latest point in time will trigger is 999Note that even if was in smaller round at time it will start round by time .. So the latest point in time can lock the value in round is (as at this point expires, so a process sends and updates to , see line 1).
Note that according to the Algorithm 1, a correct process can not send a


New England Patriots tight end, Rob Gronkowski announced that he will retire from the NFL Sunday afternoon.
The Patriots' tight end announced his retirement on Instagram.
"I will be retiring from the game of football today. I am so grateful for the opportunity that Mr. Kraft and Coach Belichick gave to me when drafting my silliness in 2010," he wrote.
The tight end is leaving his mark on the NFL: he had over 10 touchdown receptions in five seasons, which is the most by a tight end in NFL history.
In his nine seasons with the Patriots, Gronkowski had 79 touchdowns and netted 7,861 receiving yards.


text:
Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in the University of Southern California’s Public Diplomacy Magazine.
The rain began to fall at dawn.
First in small drops, one after the other, pooling in the boat’s hull and filling the thirsty refugees’ cups. Some sipped slowly, cherishing each drop. Others drank as fast as the rain fell.
Then morning broke. The clouds began to darken. Rain came down in sheets, soaking their tattered clothes and sunburnt skin.
The afternoon brought wind. First an initial gust, chilling their tired bodies. Then a gale, sending rain sideways and churning the angry sea. The small boat rose and fell with the swell. Waves as big as buildings. Clouds that blackened the sky.
Together, the refugees huddled together for warmth in their boat. When night came, they could not see the stars, or the moon.
In despair, they began to pray.
Facing persecution for their spiritual beliefs by Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the refugees had narrowly escaped their native home. They were among a great flood of refugees to flee the war-ravaged country in search of freedom. It was 1979.
Now they were in a boat without food in the middle of a tropical storm swirling across the South China Sea. The rain did not stop for 10 days.
They prayed their Rosary each morning and night, asking Mary, the mother of Jesus, to safely guide them to a new home.
Among the refugees was Thanh Thai Nguyen. The young man prayed with the others, and went further. He made a personal vow:
Save us, Blessed Mother, and I will dedicate my life to working in your service.
The refugees – 26 members of the Nguyen family – survived the storm in their 28-foot boat. On their 18th day at sea, they spotted land. Despite their hunger, they rowed, safely reaching the Philippines. After 10 months in a refugee camp, they arrived in Texas. Their new life in the U.S. had begun.
Thanh Thai Nguyen kept good on his word. He became a Catholic priest.
Today, he is the highest-ranking Vietnamese Catholic prelate in the U.S., serving as Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, one of the largest and most diverse faith communities in the U.S. Many refugees who fled their homeland during the Vietnam War settled in Orange County, and today the region is home to the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.
Among Bishop Thanh Nguyen’s priorities is strengthening ties between Catholics in Orange County and Vietnam, a country with a long and bloody history of religious persecution. Although Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party has appeared to make strides in creating a spiritually-open society, religious persecution – especially against Christians – remains high, according to Open Doors USA, an Orange County-based non-profit tracking religious freedom across the globe. Outspoken Catholics are targeted, arrested and sentenced, and Catholic congregations have had their land taken by the government for development and financial gain, according to the non-profit.
Traveling in the country can be challenging for clerics, who often face questioning and see their passports scrutinized by Customs officials at Vietnamese ports of entry.
This type of persecution does not stop the faithful from attending church, and there are about 4 million Catholics in Vietnam. In December, Hanoi’s new Archbishop, Joseph Vũ Văn Thiên, was formally installed at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in the capital city’s Old Quarter, the celebration attracting high-ranking Catholics and officials from the secular government.
Among the attendees were Bishop Thanh Nguyen and Bishop Kevin Vann, who leads the Diocese of Orange. Their attendance at the ceremony marked a renewed commitment for a historic relationship with their counterparts in Vietnam. The two Orange County bishops are leading an effort to create a “sister diocese” partnership between the Diocese of Orange and the Archdiocese of Hanoi centering on clergy training and opportunities for charitable work among lay Catholics. Priests will have opportunities to gain pastoral experience working in Vietnamese parishes, while Orange County Catholics can participate in outreach with the poor, teach English to students and support schools in northern Vietnam.
The partnership is expected to be officially ratified this summer.
“We may be separated by an ocean, but our Catholic communities share a strong bond,” Bishop Thanh Nguyen said. “We’re excited for this historic opportunity to work together toward common goals – education and spiritual growth. Our sister diocese partnership will create new opportunities to strengthen our communities and further the important work being done globally by the Catholic Church.”
The partnership will build on work already happening in Vietnam by Catholics in California. New schools with curriculum based on Western-style teaching methods are sprouting in rural regions. Among them: a preschool in northern Vietnam’s Thái Bình Province. The newly-built school rises next to a Catholic convent, enrolls about 130 students from mostly low-income households and is supported with funding by an Orange County Catholic nonprofit called Companions in Grace.
Binh Minh Preschool exposes students to Western-style education methods in a Communist-run country experiencing rapid population growth.
About 23 percent of the country’s 97 million inhabitants are under the age of 14, according to United Nations data. Vietnam’s economy is also growing rapidly, but residents often struggle to pay tuition to send their children to good schools. Many families with students at Binh Minh receive financial aid directly through the preschool and Companions in Grace. Students’ parents work as farmers, mechanics and in the nearby factories.
At the school, students learn to read and write in English, are exposed to basic science concepts and encouraged to express themselves through art. Run by the Dominican Sisters of Thái Bình, the school uses curriculum based on Montessori teaching methods and is modeled on St. Columban Catholic School in Garden Grove. The school’s goal is to give Vietnamese students the tools they’ll need to compete in the global marketplace.
“This is a new method of teaching in Vietnam,” Sr. Maria Mai Diep told me as we walked through the school’s hallways, visiting classrooms that were bright, organized and clean. Bookshelves were lined with titles in Vietnamese and English.
“Students are being introduced to English and given opportunities to focus on problem solving – which requires them to pay attention,” Diep added. “We see that students are more focused through the day.”
For Bishop Thanh Nguyen, the trip to Vietnam in December was his third trip back to his native country since he originally fled nearly four decades ago, and his first traveling in the country openly as a priest. Among the stops on his journey was the Shrine of Our Lady of La Vang in rural central Vietnam.
The shrine, considered the country’s holiest site, represents an apparition of the Virgin Mary shared by a group of Vietnamese Catholics in the late 18th century fleeing religious persecution. A shrine dedicated to the apparition is being constructed at the Christ Cathedral Campus in Garden Grove, the seat of the Diocese of Orange.
At a small outdoor chapel next to the shrine in Vietnam, Bishop Thanh Nguyen celebrated Mass – one of the most important and solemn responsibilities of a Catholic priest. His homily focused on suffering and grace.
“Human suffering and divine grace is at the center and the essence of the story of Our Lady of La Vang,” he said. “It’s a story that continues today and why so many people flock here – to seek divine grace so they can rise above their suffering.”
After Mass, Bishop Thanh Nguyen prayed at the base of the shrine and met with pilgrims, many of whom had traveled many miles. Then he reflected on his own journey.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to travel Vietnam,” he said, “it feels like I have returned home.”

domain: sociology


text:
Wacky Art Wednesdays
Wednesdays 2pm (Not including vacation weeks!)
in the Muse Studio
Join us for a drop-in celebration of all things art and all things messy! We will explore a variety of art materials and mediums and make masterpieces to take home. Although smocks are available, please come to this program ready to get messy. Wacky Art Wednesday is included with admission and free for members.
Wednesday, November 6 at 2pm
Unusual Art - Try painting with marbles or string!
Wednesday, November 13 at 2pm
Mini Clay Mosaics
Wednesday, November 20 at 2pm
Wire & Bead Sculptures
Wednesday, November 27: NO WACKY ART today
Wednesday, December 4 at 2pm Decorate Mini Felt Mittens
Wednesday, December 11 at 2pm Paper Bag Gingerbread Houses
Wednesday, December 18 at 2pm Make Shrink Paper Ornaments
Wednesday, December 25: NO WACKY ART today


Cross Hairs: Who gives and who receives?
Humanity will be at the receiving end of all its actions
Maratha silent protests make noise for economic security, social justice
Reservation in government jobs and relief to drought-hit farmers are among the major demands of the Marathas
Why Zambia halts culling of hippos but South Africa goes for the kill?
While Zambia adopts a wait-and-watch policy on animal culling, South Africa plans to kill at least 100 hippos later this year
Study highlights dismal condition of women farmers
Women farmers, whose contribution to agriculture is equal or sometimes even more than their husbands, are often ignored
Marathwada floods: at least 12 killed; crops worth Rs 500 crore damaged
Floods affected 1,700 villages and also claimed lives of 183 animals
Assamese villagers become trailblazers in adaptive agriculture
From seed banks to rainwater harvesting, one village on the Brahmaputra has spread innovative agriculture through the region – as farmers …
On the edge
By 2050, India will experience a temperature rise of 1-4°C and rainfall will increase by 9-16 per cent. This will have a detrimental effect …
African Drought Conference: leaders focus on risk mitigation measures
African countries were urged to move away from crisis management approach to risk management
El Niño has caused massive crop failure, reduced livestock and pushed millions of people in Ethiopia into food insecurity
Dehydrated state of America
As California enters the fourth year of the worst drought it has seen in over 1,200 years, Venkat Srinivasan travels through America's most …
Over a million people affected by drought in Sri Lanka
With rain not expected for another two to three months, the government has warned that the situation may worsen
Is government manipulating agriculture data?
Government’s policy decisions and ground reports are in conflict with official data on sowing, production and agriculture insurance
Africa has witnessed massive population displacements
Africa has more countries affected by displacement than any other continent or region, and was home to more than 15 million internally displaced …
The rural weather department
Folklore guides farmers about droughts and rains
Factsheet: Extreme Weather Events
There has been evidence since 1950 of changes in climate extremes. Observed changes in climate extremes reflect the influence of anthropogenic …
Govt to launch climate vulnerability map of India soon
A common set of indicators will be used for vulnerability-profiling and ranking of 650 districts all over the country
Zimbabwe baobab trees dying due to mysterious disease
This could cause a potential food crisis in the country which is in the throes of drought
Jharkhand’s children deprived of mid-day meal despite Supreme Court order, say activists
Jharkhand is the one of the worst-affected states in the country with its 22 out of 24 districts facing drought
'River regulation responsible for decline in water bird population in Australia'
Kate Brandis, joint research fellow at the Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW and Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation
EL NINO WATCH
Why are monsoons difficult to predict? (Part-II)
B N Goswami, Director of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology explains why rains in the tropics are difficult to predict.
Why are monsoons difficult to predict? (Part-I)


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text:
First added by @jeniferhaas
The American Hiking Trails You Must Do Before You Die
To-die-for scenery, a challenging trek, and crossing off a bucket list item: These U.S. hiking trails check it all off the list.
Mixed by 104 people • In 119 collections
Added to Places, Faces, And Wide Open Spaces
Added to Travel
Added to Outdoors

domain: travel


text: Don’t wait to begin your recovery process. If you’ve been personally injured, whether in a bus accident, a work-related accident, or another type of incident, you need experienced legal representation to help you work through your case. Our Rosedale personal injury attorneys want to be that representation. Call Alex Yadgarov & Associates at 866-995-9035 or fill out the form below for your free consultation in English, Spanish, or Russian. We’ll come to you at your own convenience.

domain: law


CGPSC State Service Main Exam Result 2017: CGPSC has declared the State Service Mains Examination Results which was held from May 18 to 21, 2017. Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission has made the result announcement and uploaded the same on the official website – psc.cg.gov.in. Candidates can check CGPSC Main Exam Result 2017 on the web portal psc.cg.gov.in to check their marks. CGPSC Mains Examination was attempted by all those candidates who had already cleared the Preliminary Examination. In this article, you will get the complete details about CGPSC Mains Exam Result and Cutoff Marks along with the easy steps to download it.
Chhattisgarh GPSC had earlier published a recruitment notification in which it was inviting applications from suitable and eligible candidates for the 293 vacant posts its department had. A Huge number of candidates applied for this post. Now, The Commission has published the recruitment examination result in PDF format. Candidates can check the CGPSC State Service Mains Exam Results 2017 by visiting the official portal – psc.cg.gov.in. On the official they can find the link to check and download the result PDF.
CGPSC Main Exam Result 2017 Overview
|Organizing Committee||Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission(CGPSC)|
|Official Web Portal||psc.cg.gov.in|
|Exam Name||CGPSC State Service Mains Exam|
|Exam Date||May 18 to 21, 2017|
Download Chattisgarh CGPSC State Service Mains Exam Result, Cutoff Marks 2017 at psc.cg.gov.in
Chattisgarh PSC State Service Mains Exam Result has been declared today. Candidates can download Chattisgarh PSC State Service Mains Exam Result, Cutoff Marks 2017 at psc.cg.gov.in. We would like to advise all the exam applicants to take a printout of the result after checking the result online and keep it with care with them for future use. Candidates must manage to score the cutoff marks in order to get his/her name shortlisted for the Interview. Chhattisgarh PSC State Service Mains Cutoff Marks 2017 are available on the same result website psc.cg.gov.in. Just check your roll number in the CGPSC State Service Mains Examination Merit List 2017 by pressing Ctrl + F and just entering your roll number in the search box. Shortlisted Candidates can begin with their preparation for their last Selection Round.
Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission, commonly known as CGPSC, was set up on May 23, 2001. CGPSC annually publishes recruitment notification and organizes recruitment examination to select interested and eligible candidates for various posts in government department. CGPSC has recently organized the prelims and mains State Services Exam for which it has declared the result now.
How to download CGPSC State Service Main Result 2017
- Initially, go to the official web portal – psc.cg.gov.in
- On the front page, you can see the link as “CGPSC State Service Mains Results 2017”. Press it.
- On the newly appeared page, enter your roll number and Date of Birth.
- After that, Tap the “Search” Button.
- Check your marks.
- Download your CGPSC Result 2017 and take a printout of the same for future use
CGPSC Main Exam Result 2017 – Check Here


text:
BY PLANE: Helsinki's International Airport is just a 30 minute train ride away from the city centre, providing frequent shuttle services into the city.
BY TRAIN: With Helsinki being the Finnish capital, it has excellent national rail links with the rest of the country.
The festival area has been planned with easy wheelchair access to all performance venues and restaurant areas. There is a wheelchair podium at the Main Stage, the Lapin Kulta Red Arena and the Zalando Black Tent. The assistant to a disabled person can enter the event free of charge.
There are eleven portable bathrooms with wheelchair access on the site, plus one accessible indoor bathroom at restaurant Lämpö.
All tickets will be exchanged for a wristband. Festival guests with the Flow wristband can enter and exit the festival area during the Flow weekend as they wish.
Flow Festival is 18+ and valid ID may be required upon entry.


text:
As part of the regular Theodosia Hadley Memorial Lecture Series at WMU, Dr. Lynn Martin, Department of Integrative Biology of the University of South Florida, will be presenting on “The Physiology and Behavior of Avian Range Expansions.” This presentation will be at 6:30 pm on Thursday, November 14, in the Putney Lecture Hall, Fetzer Center. For more information, contact firstname.lastname@example.org.
Add to Calendar
- Monthly Meeting: Birds in the Far North
- CANCELED “Is it Wrong to Hunt Wolves?” Presentation

domain: news


There is only one topic here: Energy!
Aktiv-Stadthaus Frankfurt: the building that is an energy supplier
Plus-energy houses have mostly been built as individual houses up to now. The Aktiv-Stadthaus in Frankfurt, probably one of the largest plus-energy houses in Europe, shows that positive energy balances are also achievable in multi-storey residential buildings. The concept: a highly efficient photovoltaic system on the roof and façades generates electricity which is stored in batteries in the basement of the building. A heat pump also makes heat from the waste water channel usable for heating and hot water. In this way the building generates all the energy required by the occupants itself.
The effectiveness of this innovative concept will be studied intensively over the next few years. Therefore development partners are on board with the monitoring and evaluation of results – the Steinbeis-Transfer Centre for Energy, Buildings and Solar Technology as well as the Technical University of Darmstadt.
For this purpose the usage patterns of the occupants are also observed. Individual energy consumption is visible on a display in each apartment and the amount of energy the building is currently producing can also be seen. The target is to match supply with demand. The consumer should not be limited by these measures – rather, the assumption is that the information will encourage a more conscious consumption of energy.
"Solar construction with its current possibilities does not limit architecture; it sets new challenges – and new levels of freedom", said German Federal Minister Barbara Hendricks at the opening of the Frankfurt Aktiv-Stadthaus. The Aktiv-Stadthaus demonstrates that these challenges can be met.


text:
After a couple of days in this part of rural Alabama, it is hard to complain about a dropped iPhone call or a Cee Lo video that takes a few seconds too long to load, the New York Times reports. The county administrator cannot get broadband at her house. Neither can the sportswriter at The Thomasville Times. Here in Coffeeville, the only computer many students ever touch is at the high school. “I’m missing a whole lot,” said Justin Bell, 17. “I know that.” As the world embraces its digital age — two billion people now use the internet regularly...
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text:
Really happy with the service Emily and the doctors provided. I had a simple UTI, which I've had before years ago and was familiar with the symptoms. The doctors were thorough and made sure they understood my symptoms, but everything was handled in a timely manner. I was able to get my prescription filled the next day. Can't recommend enough.
Pros and Cons:
Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend


text:
Narrow your search
Looking for phones? CNET's reviews of the best phones include photos, video, and user reviews.
Apple is looking at screen sizes between 4.8 and 6 inches for its next-but-one iPhone, according to a report.
Microsoft has spent a fortune snatching up other companies, and just dropped a cool $7.2 billion on Nokia's phone unit. Here's a look back on the company's biggest hits and misses in the risky acquisition game.
The long-awaited Windows Phone 8 software development kit is out today. And that's not all Microsoft delivered at its Build developer conference on Day 1.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer cites the strong debut as a selling point to convince developers to create more apps for the company's platforms, primarily Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
The iPhone maker has snagged the No. 2 spot in Interbrand's Best Global Brands for 2012, a 129 percent leap from last year.
In what could be a major blow to Oracle's case against Google, former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz defends the openness of Java language and APIs at court.
Nokia has filed a patent suggesting it may be ready to build a 3D-capable mobile device. The gadget is reminiscent of the Nintendo 3DS, but with a novel eye-tracking system.
Upstart punks fly rings around established company CEOs at exclusive tech confab.
Two tech giants are forming a new company to help manufacturers combat counterfeit products via a combination of SAP's supply chain technology and Nokia's authentication software.
Tech companies account for six of the top 10 most valuable brands, according to a new report, with Google in the top slot for the fourth year running.


The Floyd County Board of Supervisors met for regular session at on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 in the Board Room of the Floyd County Courthouse with the following in attendance:Chairman Staudt, Supv. Dunkel and Supv. Enabnit.
Dunkel/Enabnit moved to approve the agenda as presented.Motion carried 3-0.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to approve the August 7, 8 and 14, 2006 minutes. Motion carried 3-0.
The Board noted the closing of the Fiduciary Grant Fund, fund #21000, that is no longer utilized and issued a warrant in the amount of $11.47 paid to the General Fund.The Board also noted the closing of the Scholarship Fund-Home Health, fund #23000, that was utilized for Adult Day Care purposes and issued a warrant in the amount of $1,274.98 paid to the Public Health.Dunkel/Enabnit moved to approve the following claims:County #431-563, Secondary Roads #18463-18496, and MH-DD #56718-56734.Motion carried 3-0.
David Bradley, representing the CharlesCityCommunitySchool District, attended the meeting regarding the Southwest Bypass Tax Increment Financing District Amendment.No representatives from NIACC attended the meeting.The purpose for inviting CCCSD and NIACC is to discuss the process of expanding the urban renewal area pursuant to section 403.5 of the Iowa Code.Tracy Meise, City of Charles City representative, explained the Urban Renewal Plan Amendment and the boundaries of the TIF district.Meise also explained the purpose of the Urban Renewal Joint Agreement between the City of Charles City, the City of Floyd and FloydCounty.Enabnit/Dunkel moved to approve the Urban Renewal Joint Agreement and authorize the chairperson to sign the document.Motion carried 3-0.Meise will provide the document to the County after representatives of the City of Charles City have signed the document.
Dunkel/Enabnit moved to approve resolution #22-06 with setting the hearing on the Expanded Urban Renewal Area Designation/Southwest Bypass Tax Increment Finance District and Urban Renewal Plan Amendment for September 12, 2006 at Motion carried 3-0.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to approve resolution #23-06 with setting the hearing on September 12, 2006 at regarding entering into a lease-purchase agreement in a principal amount not to exceed $2,272,500 payable from incremental property tax revenues to be derived from the Southwest Bypass Tax Increment Financing District.Motion carried 3-0.
Dunkel/Enabnit moved to set a hearing for on September 12, 2006 for the construction project described as VeraSun Water Main Extension-Contract 1.Motion carried 3-0.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to set a hearing at on September 12, 2006 for the proposed UR-1 Urban Revitalization Plan.Motion carried 3-0.
Dunkel/Enabnit moved to send a letter to the City of Charles City noting that the County is willing to consider the terms of the Lease Agreement with Option to Purchase the 2nd Street property with the exception of the duration of a 30-year lease and counter that the County may consider a 5-year lease.Motion carried 3-0.
Enabnit/Staudt moved to appoint Supervisor Dunkel to the Family Resource Committee.Motion carried 3-0.
Dunkel/Enabnit moved to make an offer of $50,000, with $10,000 payable in FY07 and $40,000 payable in FY08, to the Teen Center Board for the 1202 S. Main Street property. Motion carried 3-0.
Chairman Staudt dismissed himself from the meeting to attend to other business.Supervisor Dunkel continued the meeting as Chairman pro-tem.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to appoint Doug Schroeder as Floyd County Weed Commissioner, taking over the remainder of the $3,500 salary budgeted for this position, effective August 22, 2006.Motion carried 2-0.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to release the lien for Timothy Joe Blong for fulfillment of the terms of the lien dated August 23, 1996.Motion carried 2-0.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to approve the Floyd County Security Information Policy.Motion carried 2-0.
The Board noted the hiring of Katherine Baldwin as a part-time RN for PH/HHC Department starting at $18.00 per hour working 24 hours per week effective August 23, 2006.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to approve the FY07 IDPH Local Public Health Services Request to Modify the following activities:Nursing (Health Promotion), Nursing (Health Maintenance), Home Care Aide (Protective).Motion carried 2-0.
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to not release, acquit and forever discharge North Iowa Regional Housing Authority from the responsibilities for the FY03 PILOT payment and not release, acquit and forever discharge the Authority from future PILOT payments.Motion carried 2-0.
Dusten Rolando, CountyEngineer, received two bids for the RISE/PCC paving project on B35 and T44.Enabnit/Dunkel moved to approve the bid from Allied Construction for $1,97841.47 for the PCC paving project as recommended by the CountyEngineer and authorize the Chairman to sign contracts.Motion carried 2-0.
Rolando expressed that he would like to support the litigation fees for WashingtonCountyís suit against IC&E Railroad.Enabnit/Dunkel moved to rescind the motion made on May 23, 2006 to not provide financial support to ISAC on behalf of the WashingtonCounty lawsuit and moved to allow Rolando to send $2,000 from the Secondary Roads Fund for this effort.Motion carried 2-0.
Rolando provided Formanís minutes and hours.Rolando updated the Board on the Traffic Safety Improvement Application process for the intersection at Echo Avenue and the Avenue of the Saints.Secondary Roads crew put up riprap along the Little Cedar.Rolando updated the Board on bridge work being done throughout the County.There will be a preconstruction meeting for the RISE project on August 24 at Rolando is working with Allied and VeraSun on roads being traveled during construction of the ethanol plant and dust control issues.Preliminary letting for the viaduct will be on May 15, 2007.They are working on right of way issues now.Rolando received an unofficial notice from Calhoun-Burnes regarding the 110th Street bridge suggesting that they would not have a problem with pedestrians being allowed on the bridge but no vehicles without the installation of advanced barricades.Calhoun recommends a feasibility study for new bridge structure.
Supv Dunkel announced and opened the hearing for the final plat review for Russel Strawn property, known as Lake View Estates at The Auditor received no written or oral comments.Alan McGregor, Zoning Commission chairman, commented that concerns discussed at their hearing at today were addressed and the Commission unanimously approved the final plat.The hearing closed at
Enabnit/Dunkel moved to approve and certify the plat of Lake View Estates at the recommendation of the Zoning Commission.Motion carried 2-0.
A motion was made by Supervisor Enabnit and seconded by Supervisor Dunkel to adjourn.Motion carried 2-0.


text:
Check this site out:
<B>"In the summer of 1978 I undertook a 3-month 11,500-mile (18,660 km) journey by moped from Toronto (Ontario, Canada) to Yukon, Alaska, and up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, NWT"</B>
This is so cool. He went all the way across Canada on a motobecane and took over 1000 pictures. He posted a bunch of them on his site and each one was postcard quality!

domain: geography


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W3FF Portable Dipole
- This is the antenna w3ff designed for his walking portable station. It is a dipole constructed out of the plastic plumbing pipe CPVC. There are telescoping whips at the ends of each side of the dipole, and these whips are adjusted to bring the antenna into resonance on each of five HF Bands 10, 12, 15, 17, and 20 Meters
G5RV multi-band antenna
- Multi-band centre-fed antenna capable of very efficient operation on all HF bands, specifically designed with dimensions which allow it to be installed in gardens and other open spaces which accommodate a reasonably-straight run of 31.1m (102 ft) for the flat-top standard model.
Home Brew VHF UHF dual band antennapop
- Contructing precedure and tune up of a dual band mobile antenna. This antenna is just a 1/4 wavelength resonator for both UHF and VHF band. It provides no GAIN as compared to other multi-section design.
A Portable Multi-Band Magnetic Loop Antennapop
- Described here is a simple multi-band magnetic loop antenna designed for 20, 30 and 40 metres, but by changing the overall length of the wire coverage of other bands is feasible
DF3CB BV QSL Management and printing
- DF3CB site, contesting, and software
BV is a professional freeware software for the QSL Management and Label/QSL Printing under Windows developed and distributed by Bernd Koch, DF3CB, since 1989.
It is mainly designed for the contester and QSL manager with high QSL quantities but useful for all other QSL'ing purposes as well. Includes logging features
Amsat DSP Satellite Transceiver Project
- The DSP Satellite Transceiver is a conceptual transceiver designed as a dedicated unit for amateur satellite operators. The initial concept was brought about by the lack of satellite functionality on modern amateur radio transceivers, and the specialized requirements of the ham radio operator who utilizes OSCAR amateur satellites.
ON5UR QSL print service
- We are hams who design high quality full colour QSL cards. Now we print also full colour backsides on our QSL cards. 1000 cards costs only 82 Euro. For more details write firstname.lastname@example.org``Remember: The QSO is short, our QSL cards are forever !
[ Hits: 1297 | Votes: 9 | Rating: 8.89 ]
- Very high quality QSLs with prices that fit any budget. Large selection of cards style, free design.
[ Hits: 840 | Votes: 6 | Rating: 6.00 ]
Qsl factory - qsl cards
- Qsl card printer and designer offering truly original styles of quality single and double sided color qsl cards, both ready-made and custom.
- A smarter version of the Smith Chart program. It allows you to dynamically generate impedance point plots as you configure each design element of an impedance matching network. Has an extensive Help file with a Wizard that tells you what steps to take in designing a matching network for a given load impedance. Complete Windows installation kit by w9dmk
- MorseGen is a simple program the purpose of which is to generate Morse Code at whatever speed you feel comfortable reading, for practice purposes. It wasn't designed to be a tutor for those who know no Morse at all, although you might find it useful for that purpose. It doesn't have a feature for sending small character groups over and over, although this can easily be achieved by creating text files containing the character groups you want to practice.

domain: hobby


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After years of working to extend the popular Chief Ladiga Trail, the city of Anniston has officially finalized the purchase of the last 1.4 miles needed from Norfolk Southern Railway. As of Feb. 1st, 2022, Anniston now has ownership of all the land necessary for the trail. Keep reading for more details.
What is the Chief Ladiga Trail?
If you’re a fan of walking, biking and everything in between, the Chief Ladiga Trail is a fantastic paved pedestrian trail that spans 33 miles from Anniston to the Alabama-Georgia state line.
The Chief Ladiga Trail got its start back in 1996 with 8.9 miles of trail in Piedmont. A couple of years later, in 1999, Anniston finished its first section of the trail that now leads to Mike Tucker Park.
Chief Ladiga Trail is a rail to trail project, meaning old unused railways were transformed into walking and biking trails. It also connects to the Silver Comet Trail in Georgia, making it the longest paved pedestrian path in the country at around 100 miles in length.
Since the Trail is paved, it’s ideal terrain for biking and has grown especially popular within the cycling community. The scenic Alabama countryside makes for beautiful views while you’re traveling on the Trail.
Finalizing the trail
With the recent acquisition of the final 1.4 miles, the Trail will finally be complete in the heart of Anniston.
“This is a tremendous deal and opportunity for the City of Anniston, and our whole region. Cycling is such an important component of our ecotourism here and it’s been a long time coming, but I am so excited about this. This is a big deal for us—we should all be excited about this.”Jack Draper, Mayor, City of Anniston
According to a study performed by Jacksonville State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research in 2021, the construction of the trail will result in:
- 35 new jobs
- $1,448,309 in labor income for workers
- $1,958,396 added to Anniston’s regional gross state product
- and a total $4,500,000 of economic output for the City of Anniston
With the exciting recent addition of Coldwater Mountain Brewpub along the trail in Anniston, The Chief Ladiga Trail just keeps getting better.
“This is a dream over 30 years in the making, and this achievement should not be taken lightly,”Steven Folks, City Manager, City of Anniston
There is currently not a timeline set for the completion of the trail, but we’ll keep you updated with the latest.
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April 29, 2011
By Dan Namowitz
The FAA has issued its final rule amending the airways affected by the relocation of the Anchorage VOR in Anchorage, Alaska.
The VOR was recently upgraded to a Doppler VOR to enhance its capabilities, and relocated onto the Ted Stevens Anchorage Airport. The VOR’s re-designation includes changing its identifier to TED.
AOPA reported on March 10 on the FAA’s proposal to relocate the VOR because of the construction of wind turbines on Fire Island, the navaid’s former site.
In the final rule published April 28, the FAA noted “that the agency has not been involved in the decision process related to the wind farm’s location or funding. The responsibility of the FAA is to provide navigation aids to assure safe flight of aircraft, and this requires relocating the VOR.”
Fifteen low-altitude Victor airways and T-routes, and 14 jet routes and Q routes were affected by the action, which takes effect June 30, the FAA said.
Dan Namowitz is an aviation writer and flight instructor. He has been a pilot since 1985 and an instructor since 1990.
AOPA expressed concern in a meeting with town officials from East Hampton, New York, that restrictions proposed to curb airport noise “overwhelmingly” generated by transient commercial flights would unfairly burden traditional airport users.
February 27, 2015 ePilot Training Tip: Awake to a hazard
February 27, 2015 Medical reform bills add IFR; Hawaii from above
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Tuesday, July 3, 2012
As of December 31, 2012, there were 12 Caltrain Killtrain deaths by accident or suicide, and many injuries resulting in hospitalization. Since 1/1/2011, 28 Caltrain Killtrain deaths occurred. Since 1995, 188 Caltrain Killtrain human kills.
Does anyone in Bay Area and especially Peninsula leadership roles care? How about for an alternative?
How many more must die before Caltrain is finally replaced by BART Around The Bay (BAB), up the last 28 miles in the Peninsula from BART's currently planned terminus at Santa Clara University?
According to Caltrain, Bay Area news services from Bay Area News Group, Redwood City (and other) Patches, KGO, KCBS, KLIV, and others, Thursday, June 21, 2012 around 5pm a wheelchair bound male was hit and killed by the Caltrain in San Mateo--again. I've labeled this outdated, noisy, dangerous, deficit-laden train, for more accuracy in my view, as the Peninsula "Killtrain".
According to the news sources this is the 10th death by Caltrain this year. There have been others hit and injured, but without news followup to know their current status.
This death is the 26th since Jan. 2011 and 186th since 1/1/ 1995. I don't know the Caltrain killings on this outdated, outmoded train, especially the appropriately named (Baby) Bullet Express Trains that fly through stations at 50+mph within inches of people on the train loading pads. How many more must die before this train is phased out and replaced by the ONE Bay Area modern, high-capacity, electrified, clean, quieter, One Seat, budget surplus -- BART? How long? What will it take to replace the politicians, most all part of the Democrat "Body Snatched" Bay Area monopoly of stultified, arrogant, complacent politicians who cannot see or understand the huge benefits of BART, not Caltrain, not HSR who only serve their narrow special interests, but cost us dearly.
Accidents norh of BART Millbrae are so unnecessary because Caltrain is just a waste of scarce transit money that is duplicative of the more expansive, electrified, safer BART in the same 15 mile corridor. Officials and politicians just need to start a study of the final 28 mile BART gap from Millbrae down to Santa Clara where planning is underway to extend it. Caltrain can be replaced, station by station by BART over the next few years to both save our tax dollars while connecting the whole Bay Area with the "one seat" BART solution around the Bay. BART moves more people with a budget surplus, single administration and operations, cleaner, more frequently, and quieter--and freeing up the track ROW for a 60 mile SJ-SF safe, interconnected pedestrian/bike trail adjacent to BART (and a single Freight track again)--while providing thousands of jobs for the next 10-15 years!. HSR can stop in SJ, if not stopped entirely. In addition, when BART has problems with the TransBay tube, BART can simply run longer, more frequent trains south--around the Bay to SF easily enough--when BART is around the Bay and replaces Caltrain. This would have helped last week, when BART equipment was damaged in the TOD Senior Housing construction fire adjacent to the tracks.
This would also save about $2Bil in Transbay terminal costs since BART will already go through it and no Caltrain will exist any longer.
For south of Millbrae, such as Burlingame, San Mateo, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, all of which have suffered fatal accidents in the past year (and before, of course: 186 dead since 1995, 26 dead since 1/1/12, and as Casandra reports, 10 this year already) extending BART to join the whole Bay Area is fundable ~$8Bil, half from the 4 "improvements" (only a "faster horse", per Jobs/Ford quotes) to Caltrain (SF Extension, Dumbarton Rail Bridge $ diversion to BART--return the SoBay/Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge to its pre-DR Bridge 1910 natural state, Electrification, Grade Crossings), and the other half from diverted HSR and other Calif bonds, 2006 1B, 2008 1A, Regional Measure 1. Recall that in the past few years, both San Mateo and Santa Clara voters have voted to tax themselves for better transit--including BART. The decades ago votes against BART are history only opponents choose to raise this non-issue. Lives and our quality of life are at stake. It is time to focus on THE Bay Area modern transit backbone, safe, clean, rail solution--and free-up/sell resources including the SOMA Caltrain station and ROW to better uses that fit SOMA's revitalization, from Warriors to Giants venues to offices (jobs), homes, and shopping (tax income).
Politicians like Jerry Hill (well over 200 dead since he has been in public office), Anna Eshoo, Jackie Speier (who built her public ethos on so many deaths around and in her career--and has a Caltrain Locomotive emblazoned with her name, appropriately enough), Rich Gordon, etc.
Omar. A BARTaroundtheBay supporter.


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Alexander Rich, an MIT biophysicist best known for his work on the structural biology of RNA and DNA, died Monday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was 90.
Rich, the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor in MIT’s Department of Biology, continued coming in to his office until two months ago, when he was admitted to the hospital.
A pre-eminent researcher in structural molecular biology — a field that seeks to understand the molecular architecture of living organisms — Rich made major contributions to understanding the relationships between the structures and functions of RNA and DNA molecules.
James Watson and Francis Crick first described the right-handed, double helical structure of DNA in 1953. In 1979, Rich led a team of MIT researchers who startled the world of structural biology with the announcement that they had found a “left-handed” form of DNA. The new form, coiled in the shape of a left-handed screw, was called Z-DNA because of its zigzag backbone, but its significance remained a mystery for many years.
“After the initial discovery, many labs set out to understand the biology of Z-DNA, which turned out to be a much more difficult endeavor than discovering the structure in the first place,” says Thomas Schwartz, an associate professor of biology at MIT who was a PhD student of Rich’s and helped decipher the function of Z-DNA. “While we still do not fully understand its biological role, the work on Z-DNA emphasized perhaps more than any other single piece of data how important the three-dimensional conformation of DNA in the context of the cell is.”
In 1995, researchers led by Rich reported the first biological role for left-handed Z-DNA and detailed the identification of a protein that binds tightly to Z-DNA. The protein has long been recognized as an “editor” that can change the genetic message of RNA. Its affinity for Z-DNA may help it find genes that are producing the messenger RNA that it edits.
Deciphering biological structures
Rich’s pioneering work started in 1955 when, together with a colleague, he deduced the three-dimensional, triple helical structure of collagen, the major fibrous protein of skin and connective tissue.
One year later, as a section chief in physical chemistry at the National Institutes of Health, he and a colleague discovered that two single-stranded nucleic acid molecules could spontaneously and specifically combine to form a double helix. This was the first hybridization reaction, a reaction that in various forms became a major technique in the development of molecular biology. In 1957, his group discovered that nucleic acids could form triple helices, a finding widely used in biotechnology today.
At MIT in 1960, Rich discovered that an RNA strand and a DNA strand could form a double helix, which helped explain how cells copy DNA into messenger RNA.
He led student researchers in 1962 to the discovery of polysomes, the clusters of protein synthesis machinery held together by a messenger RNA molecule. These are the functional units used by cells to translate genetic information into proteins.
Born in Hartford, Conn., in 1924, Rich served with the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946. He received a bachelor’s in biochemical sciences from Harvard University in 1947, and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1949.
From 1949 to 1954 he was a research fellow in chemistry with Linus Pauling at Gates and Crellin Laboratories at Caltech. He served as chief of the section on physical chemistry at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1954 to 1958, and was a visiting scientist at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, from 1955 to 1956. From 1969 to 1980, Rich was an investigator in NASA’s Viking mission to Mars, working on experiments designed to look for life on that planet.
He joined the MIT faculty in 1958, and mentored generations of students.
“Alex was a bright beacon and a good mentor,” says Shuguang Zhang, a principal research scientist at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms who worked closely with Rich. “The most important thing Alex taught us is open-mindedness. Open-mindedness opened a new world for each one of us.”
“Alex was an inspirational scientist,” Schwartz adds. “Always keen on solving the next scientific puzzle, always keen on figuring out the latest technology to move forward. His curiosity was second to none.”
In 1995, Rich received the National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor bestowed by the U.S. government. His many other awards and honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences, the Philosophical Society, the French Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Rich was also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and, in 1976, was appointed by President Gerald Ford to a six-year term on the U.S. National Science Board.
In 1980, Rich was presented with MIT’s James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, given for extraordinary professional accomplishments by faculty members. He won the $250,000 Bower Award for Achievement in Science in 2000, was presented with Sigma Xi’s William Procter Prize for Academic Achievement in 2001, and was awarded the Lomonosov Large Gold Medal from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2002. In 2008 he was named the 38th recipient of the $300,000 Welch Award in Chemistry.
He received several honorary degrees, as well as the Rosenstiel Award in Basic Biomedical Research and the Presidential Award of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Rich is survived by his wife, Jane; two sons, Josiah and Benjamin; two daughters, Jessica and Rebecca; and seven grandchildren: Abigail, Rachel, Abraham, Nola, Nicholas, Cyrus, and Zachary.
A memorial gathering will be held on Sunday, May 3, at the Norton Woods Conference Center, 200 Beacon St., Somerville, Mass., from 1-5 p.m.

domain: chemistry


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