text
stringlengths 8
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`mouse.onclick` を使用してクリックを処理し、ネズミを `position:fixed` で移動可能にし、その後 `mouse.onkeydown` で矢印キーを処理します。
唯一の落とし穴は `keydown` はフォーカスのある要素でのみトリガするということです。そのため、要素に `tabindex` を追加する必要があります。HTML を変更することは禁止しているので、そのために `mouse.tebIndex` プロパティを使います。
P.S. `mouse.onclick` を `mouse.onfocus` に置き換えることもできます。
|
Hint: He probably wouldn't agree with Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas
Wikimedia Commons
One of the joys of reading Ron Chernow—one of the joys of reading any great historian—is learning new detail and nuance about long-ago great events. I've known for years what Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams thought of the Constitution. But I never really knew precisely where George Washington stood—apart from the general view that he supported strong federal authority and stayed purposely aloof from the sturm und drang of the 1787 Convention.
So I am slowly (and, yes, belatedly) reading Chernow's masterful Washington—A Life. And I just got to the part (page 539 in case you want to read along) where Chernow is addressing what Washington thought about the Constitution after it was drafted but before it was ratified. Chernow writes:
In correspondence, Washington admitted to imperfections in the new charter but trusted to the amendment process to refine it. The Constitutional Convention was no conclave of sages in Roman togas, handing down eternal truths engraved in marble, and he wondered how long the document would last.... For Washington, the beauty of the document was that it charted a path for its own evolution. Its very brevity and generality—it contained fewer than eight thousand words—meant it would be a constantly changing document, susceptible to shifting interpretations. It would be left to Washington and other founders to convert this succinct, deliberately vague statement into a working reality.
When I read that passage, I thought immediately of Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous dissent in Abrams v. United States, a 1919 Supreme Court case about free speech in a time of war. Holmes wrote:
Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power, and want a certain result with all your heart, you naturally express your wishes in law, and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care wholeheartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system, I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country. [My emphasis.]
Back to Chernow and his Washington. As we all know from history class, our nation's beloved bedrock charter was not a shoo-in for ratification. Chernow writes: "The Constitution cherished by generations of Americans was fiercely controversial at first, producing heated polemics on both sides." It has been 234 years, and some of the remnants of that early debate still resonate throughout America. Indeed, on topics like taxes, immigration and health care, conservatives have made the eternal tension between state and federal power their calling card this election season.
Some debates never die; they just fade in and out. For example, one debate that is now back in vogue is one of both process and substance: how should the Constitution be interpreted? If the choice is between Washington and Holmes on the one hand, each acknowledging the fluidity of the document, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the other hand, arguing that the text must be interpreted today as the founders meant it, you can count me in with the dead icons rather than with the live jurists. And if the choice is a false one, I'd like to hear more from originalists on how Washington's evident view affects their own. |
Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders
Baldwin IV (980 – 30 May 1035), called the Bearded, was Count of Flanders from 987.
Biography
Baldwin IV, born c. 980, was the son of Arnulf II, Count of Flanders (c. 961 — 987) and Rozala of Italy (950/60 – 1003), of the House of Ivrea. He succeeded his father as Count of Flanders in 987, but with his mother Rozala as the regent until his majority.
In contrast to his predecessors Baldwin turned his attention eastward, leaving the southern part of his territory in the hands of his vassals the counts of Guînes, Hesdin, and St. Pol.
To the north of the county Baldwin was given Zeeland as a fief by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II, while on the right bank of the Scheldt river he received Valenciennes (1013) and parts of the Cambresis as well as Saint-Omer and the northern Ternois (1020).
In the French territories of the count of Flanders, the supremacy of the Baldwin remained unchallenged. They organized a great deal of colonization of marshland along the coastline of Flanders and enlarged the harbour and city of Brugge. Baldwin IV died on 30 May 1035.
Marriage and issue
Baldwin first married Ogive of Luxembourg, daughter of Frederick of Luxembourg, by whom he had a son and heir:
Baldwin V, Count of Flanders (1012 – 1067)
He later married Eleanor of Normandy, daughter of Richard II of Normandy, by whom he had a daughter:
Judith (1033 – 1094) who married Tostig Godwinson and secondly Welf I, Duke of Bavaria.
See also
Counts of Flanders family tree
Notes
References
Flanders, Baldwin IV of
Flanders, Baldwin IV of
Category:House of Flanders
Baldwin 4
Category:Margraves of Valenciennes
Category:Medieval child rulers |
HomeAway.co.uk, the home of Holiday-Rentals®, is part of the HomeAway family. As the world leader in holiday rentals, we offer the largest selection of properties for any travel occasion and every budget. We’re committed to helping families and friends find the perfect holiday rental to create unforgettable travel experiences together.
Beach house with garden and orchard with barbecue for people looking for relaxation
Boiro, A Coruña, Spain
House12916 sq. ft.
Bedrooms3
People6
Bathrooms1
Separate WCs0
Min. Stay14 nights
Furnished house on the beach for 6. Garden furniture, garden and barbecue
House for rent to five meters from the beach in Boiro (Rias Baixas), in the heart of the Ria de Arousa. Three bedrooms (one double bed, one with two twin beds and a living room where we have opened two twin beds to increase the capacity of the apartment) plus a bathroom and kitchen
Months June, July, August and September. rent all year leaving the months of July and August free. The alkyl also by Easter. Check availability.
Rates:
Prices include water, electricity and gas.
Everything described in this notice applies to each of the apartments. That is, each has its own kitchen, fridge, your oven, etc. except dishwasher is only available in one of the apartments.
The area and the house allow you to enjoy an experience "glamping"
Glamping is a unique experience where you can choose an extraordinary accommodation in an amazing setting. Get ready for the experience of your life without sacrificing a bit of comfort. Glamping is a way to connect with your surroundings without sacrificing comfort.
Owner
Jose Manuel
Member Since 2013
Response rate:
90%
Response time:
within a few days
Speaks
English, Spanish, Italian
Calendar last updated:
2 Jul 2018
Facilities
Internet
TV
Children Welcome
Parking
Bedrooms
3 Bedrooms, Sleeps 6
dormitorio 1
1 Double Bed
dormitorio 2
2 Single Bed
dormitorio 3
2 Single Bed
Bathrooms
1 Bathroom
baño 1
Toilet, Bath with Shower, Bidet
Location Type
beach
near the sea
rural
village
waterfront
Theme
Away From It All
Budget
Family
Romantic
Meals
Self-catering
General
Garage
Iron & Board
Linens Provided
Parking
Towels Provided
Washing Machine
Wireless Internet
Wood Stove
Kitchen
Coffee Maker
Dishes & Utensils
Kitchen
Microwave
Oven
Refrigerator
Toaster
Dining
Dining
Dining Area
comfy seating for 6 people
Entertainment
Books
Stereo
Television
Video Games
Outside
Garden
Barbecue
Veranda
Suitability
Long-term Renters Welcome
limited accessibility
smoking allowed
Attractions
museums
arboretum
churches
forests
library
live theatre
marina
bay
naturist beach
playground
pond
restaurants
ruins
waterfalls
winery tours
Leisure Activities
beachcombing
bird watching
eco tourism
horse riding
outlet shopping
paddle boating
scenic drives
sight seeing
walking
Local Services & Businesses
ATM/bank
fitness centre
groceries
hospital
laundrette - serviced
massage therapist
medical services
Sports & Adventure Activities
pier fishing
cycling
fishing
golf
hiking
hunting
jet skiing
mountain biking
mountain climbing
mountaineering
equestrian events
rafting
sailing
diving
snorkelling
bay fishing
surf fishing
surfing
swimming
tennis
wind-surfing
House Rules
Check-in: 09:00
Check-out: 21:30
Cancellation Policy
100% refund for cancellations more than 60 days before check-in date. You must contact the owner directly to request cancellation.
Location
Boiro, A Coruña, Spain
Santiago de Compostela was declared in 1985 a World Heritage Site by Unesco, considering that its urban beauty and monumental integrity deep echoes of its spiritual significance as an apostolic sanctuary and destination of the most important religious and cultural movement were added Middle Ages: the pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago.
-
"Riveira, natural jewel from Rias Baixas'
The City of Riveira, located on the southwestern tip of the peninsula of Barbanza and the province of A Coruña, is enviably overlooks both the Ria de Muros and Noya, north, and to the Ria de Arousa, the South, and vastness and bravery of the Atlantic Ocean on its west face. So, Riveira opens from a northern perspective the beautiful coastline that outline the Rias Baixas in Galicia, which has its origin in the divine hand that rested tired in this corner after the effort of creation - according to legend.
Throughout the length and width of your 65'1 km. square extension, Riveira offers citizens and visitors thousand and somewhat natural attractions as debtors of man from the ancient dunes emblematic megalithic monuments as the Dolmen of Ageitos, from the beaches that emphasize Riveira coast to ecclesiastical buildings scattered over the 8 parishes of the municipality, from Sálvora and the other islands that surround to the most recent urban projects that try to recover the title gained by Santa Eugenia de Riveira the middle of s. XX for its beauty: the white city of the Ria de Arousa.
Galicia is a tourist paradise and in Riveira we found a selection of all its excellence: Mount wooded Edenic beaches, cliffs where the sea roars swing furious, landscapes of highest aesthetic and ecological value, and geological vagaries peaks rose for us to enjoy a priceless view of the city council, the region and the estuary.
-
Puebla del Caramiñal is a town well known for the Procession of the Nazarene which is also called the 'Mortaxas' or shrouds held the third Sunday of September; La Fiesta del Carmen is held the third week of August, in which Giants parade concluding with a famous fireworks.
As pilgrimages of the Virgin of molds (second weekend of May) and Curro Barbanza (July)
The Mirador de la Curota from which you can appreciate a beautiful view across the Ria de Arousa, reaching the southern shore sight, where towns like Villagarcía and Cambados are; and the natural pools of river Pedras are gaps in the stone formed by the action of water falling river forming small waterfalls; besides being also known Cabío beach, blue flag almost 20 years ago, the most crowded area during the summer months.
On our visit we recommend seeing the Parque do Castelo, the Plaza Mayor and then the Garden of Valley, forming a beautiful park opposite the port. In the Parque do Castelo, in a wooden house, we find the Sailor House and Tourist Office.
Inside the village, we are very close with Cruzeiro (among its many monuments have 27 cruzeiros in the villa) and the Church of Santiago do Dean (s. XVI), Gothic sailor, in which the live well Plateresque, Renaissance, baroque and neoclassical styles. After church we have two Pazos. The Pazo do Couto, 1717, it has a Baroque façade with portico and gallery, and sports a coat with siren associated with the family of Martino; It surrounded by lush gardens that do not allow to see much of the manor through the bars of the main gate. The other is the Casa Grande de Aguiar, built in the sixteenth century by the Romay and reformed in the XVIII. On the facade, which faces the street, we can see the coat of arms stands a tower roof. As above, it is a private house.
Los Jardines de Valle-Inclan, buildings Fernández Varela College, the Center on Aging and the Market are other buildings that can be visited.
In the Pazo Torre de Bermudez is the Museum of Valley (Valle Inclan Ramon lived in Pobra), the sixteenth century and Heritage Site of National Interest.
-
The visit to the town of Rianxo begins at the Plaza de Castelao, where we have, next to the Alameda, the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who built Don Alonso Fernandez Pole in 1561. Against this temple are two old buildings. Or Barracks hair is the largest of them and named for being the headquarters of the Civil Guard. Previously it was also headquarters of arms and before school. |
Central Otago cemetery might be next for archaeological research
With successful operations in the small Otago towns of Milton and Lawrence complete, the University of Otago’s Otago Historic Cemeteries Bioarchaeology Project is now looking to partner with the historic Drybread Cemetery, deep in the heart of Central Otago.
Trustees of Drybread Cemetery, near the small town of Omakau, contacted the project leaders in 2016, and a formal proposal is now being developed.
Drybread is a historic cemetery managed by the Drybread Cemetery Trust, with records dating back to 1870. It is believed informal burial took place before then, but over time a detailed understanding of how many people are buried in the cemetery has been lost.
“Along with understanding more about the physical layout of the cemetery, joining with the University also does something much more important for us; by recovering our taonga, our treasures, we get to find the missing for once and for all time and mark their resting place,” says spokeswoman for the Drybread Cemetery Trust, Karen Glassford.
“We have areas in our cemetery where we don’t know how many people are buried. With the University’s help we can respectfully give the lost back their age, gender, ethnicity, and, for some, their names,” Mrs Glassford adds.
A public meeting will be held in Omakau to outline the proposed project to the local community and to garner feedback and opinions. This meeting is scheduled for Friday 12 July in the Omakau Hall at 6.30pm.
Both Milton and Lawrence projects required thorough consultation processes, with respect for the dead of utmost importance. An archaeological authority was gained through Heritage NZ, and a disinterment license through the Ministry of Health. Similar processes will be followed if a project is embarked on at Drybread Cemetery.
Aims of the Otago Historic Cemeteries Bioarchaeology Project include creating a detailed picture of what life was like at the time of the Otago Goldrushes (starting in 1861) with remains revealing aspects of people’s health, diet, and overall quality of life. The community-supported projects in Lawrence and Milton, which involves isotopic and DNA analyses of remains and detailed examination of burial sites, has uncovered many clues so far.
In Lawrence last year the researchers examined an old cemetery site which was thought to still have one person buried there. It turned out there were 24 people still buried on what is now privately-owned residential land.
Professor Hallie Buckley.
Professor Hallie Buckley, of Otago’s Department of Anatomy, says that is one of many surprises unearthed in Lawrence.
“This provides a chance to look back through a window in history to see a greater picture of what life was like for those early settlers. For example, we’ve found evidence of poor dental hygiene exacerbated by pipe-smoking. Some of the people even had pipes buried with them.
“These people would probably have been in discomfort due to the state of their teeth, but on the flipside to that, pipe-smoking provided people of the day with some relief from the rigours of life on a goldmining frontier. The evidence we’re uncovering is adding conclusive detail to our knowledge of early-settler New Zealand,” Professor Buckley adds.
Dr Peter Petchey.
Along with the conclusions from the forensic examinations of those buried, co-director of the project, Peter Petchey says the researchers are continuing to learn a great deal from other discoveries.
The graves in the old Lawrence cemetery were widely scattered about, in contrast to the neatly ordered rows in urban graveyards, and the depths of the graves varied greatly: this was a frontier society and the locals were thinking about goldmining, not town planning.
“Several of the Chinese graves contained distinctively Chinese artefacts, including a wooden comb and the remains of a Chinese tunic or jacket. Items such as these demonstrate how Chinese miners maintained their cultural links and identity in the goldfields,” says Dr Petchey.
Members of the public, and media, are welcome to attend the community information meeting in Omakau on Friday July 12 in the Omakau Hall at 6.30pm.
Further insights to the Otago Historic Cemeteries Bioarchaeology Project, can be found at the project blog, https://southernsettlerarchaeology.wordpress.com/about-us/ . The blog includes research updates, an array of information on the state of the art technology being used, osteobiographies of some of the deceased, plus accounts from members of the communities the project has been involved with. |
Show HN: Job Search Sanity - nonrecursive
https://jobsearchsanity.com/
======
sprin
This looks great! From the screenshots, it looks like a nice, clean,
thoughtful design. I would love to use it if I could run it myself. The app
needs some pretty private data, and I would hate to lose it all in the middle
of a job hunt if you decided to shutter it.
Would you consider making it OSS? I would happily donate toward that end. I
can also offer to help package this app for the Sandstorm.io platform (OSS,
[https://sandstorm.io](https://sandstorm.io)). Sandstorm enables one-click
installs of server apps on self-hosted and managed servers, with great
security and privacy out of the box. It will also serve as a marketing
platform and channel for future donations for your app. Since Job Search
Sanity is basically a private single-user cloud app, packaging it for
Sandstorm should be very straightforward.
------
doug1001
really nice work. for a while i have though how odd is it that no job search
engine has implemented something like this--ie the selling point "use our
personal, private cms to help you manage your job search" is a great way to
keep users.
------
sotojuan
This looks great!
EDIT: Is it on GitHub? What's it build with?
~~~
nonrecursive
It's not on github, but I have some build notes at
[http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/penguins/job-search-
sani...](http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/penguins/job-search-sanity/) :)
|
On Friday a federal appeals court blocked key portions of Puerto Rico’s campaign finance law regulating the internal affairs of corporations and unions from taking effect.
Siding with three unions and one non-profit — all affiliated with the SEIU — the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found that Puerto Rico’s Law 222 was likely to place an unconstitutional burden on the unions’ right to engage in political speech.
As a result, it enjoined Law 222 until a future court could hear arguments on its constitutionality.
Puerto Rico enacted Law 222 in 2011 as a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United decision prohibiting government restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations and unions.
One of the Puerto Rico law’s requirements stated that a corporation or union must establish a separate committee with legally mandated membership meetings in order to make indirect contributions.
A “majority plus one” of the organization’s members must not only be present at these committee meetings but also approve any election-related expenditures.
Puerto Rico’s election comptroller issued regulations further defining the conditions of these meetings, covering such minute details as meeting start times and restricting the agenda to election-related spending.
The penalties for violating these provisions could reach as high as $30,000 per day. Furthermore, the highest-ranking financial officer of a corporation or union in violation of the law could be found at fault even if he lacked knowledge of the violation.
The First Circuit stated these constraints were likely to be found unconstitutional and unnecessary regulations of political speech when examined at a future stage of the case.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@ dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. |
Employment Data
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Special Assistant, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Megan Davis Reed (B.S. Wildlife and Fisheries Science, 2012) is helping the Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System and Assistant Director for External Affairs with a variety of administrative tasks and special projects related to wildlife conservation.
Megan Davis Reed
Q: You’ve really just started this job. What do you like about it so far?
A: Yes, I actually just started my new position a few weeks ago, so I’m still learning about the different things I’ll be doing. But I can tell you that I love the variety of my job. I never realized that my degree would let me do so many different things, and that there are so many things that could be tied to having a bachelor’s in Wildlife and Fisheries. And I’m never bored when I go to work. It’s almost as if I’m not going to work. It’s like, “oh, I’m going to do some fun stuff today.”
Q: Can you tell us what you enjoy most about working in your field?
A: I enjoy a variety of things, from managing surveys to looking at landscape conservation projects. I like to look at the bigger picture—so instead of focusing on just one piece of land, I get to see the impact of projects across the country or even globally. In my previous position working at a national wildlife refuge, I was outdoors more, which I enjoyed. But my work now is interesting because I get to see things I might not be able to if I were outside, like policy and how it’s made, and understand bigger management decisions and how decision makers come up with them. And I still get to interact with people regularly, which is wonderful. In my previous job, a lot of the people I met were members of the community and visitors to the national wildlife refuge. People would come out to explore the visitor’s center and hike the trails. I got to meet a lot of diverse people that way, and I got to answer a lot of different types of questions. In my new position, I still deal with a lot of different people—I answer a lot of phone calls from concerned citizens who found an injured bird or people inquiring about wildlife policies, for example. I’m still interacting with the community, just in a different way, and I love it.
Q: How did your background play a part in getting you interested in wildlife and Ag?
A: Well, I was always an outdoorsy kid. I was the one who wanted to catch snakes and put them in my mom’s bathtub because she was terrified of them, which I thought was hilarious. But growing up, I never thought that I could make a living being outside and conserving what I enjoy so much. Realizing that I could transform my passion into a career made it easy to really enjoy my studies and classes. Also, I was in a military family—we moved every two years. So moving around to take the different positions I’ve been offered has been extremely easy for me, because that’s what I grew up doing. If I didn’t move every once in a while, I’d probably get bored!
Q: Once you realized you could work in wildlife, how did you pick Penn State’s program?
A: When I was in high school I worked at a national wildlife refuge, and I was trying to decide whether to pursue wildlife studies or become a doctor and look for a cure for cancer. A coworker told me, “You know, you could actually think about making this your career,” and I decided it was a real possibility for me. So when I started looking at colleges, I looked for some that had wildlife-related programs. I ended up coming to Penn State for a weekend and got to stay with a host student and really experience college life. That’s what made me feel like I wanted to be here. I didn’t know anyone here, and I’d never been here before, but I really felt like this was where I belonged. It sounds cliché, but choosing Penn State just felt like coming home. It was perfect for me.
Q: How were you able to find your place in undergrad?
A: There is that thought, sometimes, “If you come to Penn State, you’re just going to be one in a sea of people.” That’s so far from the truth. If you choose to, you can absolutely make your own community here. The College of Ag Sciences is smaller, at least within the context of the university as a whole, and then within that, you have your own major and programs and activities to make it even less intimidating. I was in The Wildlife Society, and we had a lot of members, with maybe 30 of us being really active, and it was great to have that group. You take program-specific courses with the other members—and those are smaller classes, they’re not the big 700 student ones—so we all got to know each other. And the professors participated in The Wildlife Society as well. They would come to some of our meetings and events, and they were interested in what we were talking about and willing to give us their opinions.
Q: Were there any other organizations or activities that you really enjoyed?
The Ag Advocate program made a huge difference in my Penn State career, especially within the College of Ag Sciences. It helped me network with different people, whether that meant meeting alumni or other people through events where I would represent the college. It taught me a lot about how to be professional and introduced me to the kinds of scenarios I might encounter when I graduated.
Q: Was there a particular moment you knew Penn State College of Ag Sciences was right for you?
On my first visit to Penn State, I was accidentally scheduled to visit the biology program in the Eberly College of Science. Luckily they were able to switch me over to the wildlife program in the College of Ag at the last minute, but no one was expecting me per se. Vickie Clauer, who worked for the Ag administrative office, really connected with me. She didn’t have me on her schedule, and I was a little terrified when I first got here, but she was so helpful to me. I didn’t know where anything was, and she would take me to one location, then tell me to call her when I was done, come meet me, and show me where the next place was. I actually maintained a relationship with her throughout my entire Penn State career—I called her my Penn State mom. If I did great on an exam, I would come into the administrative office the next day, and she would have baked me something. Back home in Virginia, my high school was one hallway, and I had 78 people in my graduating class, so sometimes I felt lonely in the crowd at first. But having Vickie be there for me gave me the confidence to think, “I can step out here at Penn State.”
Q: It sounds like Penn State was the perfect place for you. If you ever have kids, would you advise them to check out Penn State?
I would be proud if my future child decided to go to Penn State. Obviously I wouldn’t force them to pick any particular school, but I would just make sure that they’re aware of everything that it’s possible to do at Penn State. Whether it’s just at Penn State, or within the College of Ag Sciences, the programs here can help you get into any career you might choose. I would definitely encourage any prospective student to find out as much as they can about the different programs that are offered.
Q: What advice do you have for students, and particularly minority students, who are interested in Ag?
It’s no secret that agriculture isn’t the most diverse area of study you could choose, but there are certainly minorities in a lot of different agricultural fields. But more importantly, if it’s something you’re interested in, go for it. Just because there aren’t a ton of people who look like you, sound like you, or dress like you, doesn’t mean it’s something you can’t do. Follow what you want to do—and there will be nothing to hold you back.
Q: What do you think was the key to your success at Penn State?
A: Personally, I’ve had a lot of opportunities and haven’t been afraid to take advantage of them. I graduated from college in 2.5 years because I had a lot of credits already from my high school. But in that time, I was able to join The Wildlife Society and MANNRS (Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences), represent on the College of Ag Sciences and ESM student councils, be an Ag Advocate, and play intramural basketball and football for 2 different teams! And while not every one of those experiences was as great as every other, I didn’t miss out on anything. In the end, I was able to figure out what I did and didn’t like as well as gain some great experience. |
Q:
jquery ui tabs load event does not fire
I have got the following very simple code:
function init() {
var articleTabs = $('#articleTabs');
articleTabs.tabs('add',
admin.pageVars.siteRoot + '/articles/themes/' + admin.pageVars.params.id, 'Temas');
articleTabs.tabs({
load : function(event, ui) {
$('.jsonForm').jsonForm();
}
});
}
This successfully adds a new tab panel to an existing tab control. However upon activation, the load function does never fire.
What is my mistake? (There are no javascript exceptions)
A:
Try this instead, since you're not doing it at the time of the tabs creation:
function init() {
var articleTabs = $('#articleTabs');
articleTabs.bind('tabsload', function() {
$('.jsonForm').jsonForm();
});
articleTabs.tabs('add', admin.pageVars.siteRoot + '/articles/themes/' + admin.pageVars.params.id, 'Temas');
}
This places it first to be safe, but this binds to the tabsload event instead of the load option/handler, which isn't set after initial widget creation.
|
I just switched over my folding rig from Vista Home Premium to XP Pro. I have two 9800GX2's, a Phenom II X4 940, 3GB of RAM. I also changed some of the programs that I now use to fold. I now use VMWare server 1.0.9 instead of 2.0. I'm running 2 instances of notfreds utilizing 2 cores per client, rather than running Ubuntu in the VM's. I am also running the GPU CLI client instead of the version with the nVidia Viewer. I have the same CUDA drivers installed as I did under Vista. I am using WinAFC to spread out the work of the clients across all 4 cores. My CPU is only at 1-3% with all the GPU clients running, and right about 100% with both VM's running.
I don't understand what's happening here. The last two days I was folding under Vista, I hit 25k each day. Now with XP I just hit 8,500 for today!! I really need some help here! Any and all advice is *greatly* appreciated!
Is the PPD down for both the GPU and CPU clients? Have you adjusted the priority for the clients...is anything taking priority over them? Maybe make sure you GPU clients have higher priority than the VMware.
I've had an ongoing issue with my 2 9800GX2's where one GPU usually underperforms by a huge gap, but sometimes it runs fine. I'm not running VM clients on that rig either. My understanding is that XP uses more resources for folding than Vista.
Is the PPD down for both the GPU and CPU clients? Have you adjusted the priority for the clients...is anything taking priority over them? Maybe make sure you GPU clients have higher priority than the VMware.
I've had an ongoing issue with my 2 9800GX2's where one GPU usually underperforms by a huge gap, but sometimes it runs fine. I'm not running VM clients on that rig either. My understanding is that XP uses more resources for folding than Vista.
Well it seems more or less that my GPUs are getting horrible PPD, whereas my CPU clients seem to be about what they were before. My GX2's used to be getting about 5k PPD per core, but now they're down to ~2k. My CPU clients are at 2700PPD each. With all the GPU clients up and running, and nothing else my CPU usage is only 1-3%. When I start up the CPU clients, usage then goes to 100%. Also, I did give the GPU clients a higher priority than the VM's.
I see. You sure you're not getting stuck with the 511's? Also, did you downgrade the priority of Vmware-vmx? I just downgraded the priority of EVERY Vmware process but especially Vmware-vmx. Any change in your setup that might be causing excessive temps and make the GPU's start throttling?
I see. You sure you're not getting stuck with the 511's? Also, did you downgrade the priority of Vmware-vmx? I just downgraded the priority of EVERY Vmware process but especially Vmware-vmx. Any change in your setup that might be causing excessive temps and make the GPU's start throttling?
Oh ya...fresh install of XP...just to confirm.
Yeah, it's a completely fresh install of XP Pro 64. I installed all the latest drivers for everything I could find, and have run all updates for XP.
I have gotten a 511, but I've also gotten many other work units as well. One time under Vista when I happened to notice all clients running 511's I was still getting about 4k PPD per GPU. Well, the VM's have lower priority than the GPU clients, if that's what you mean? There really shouldn't be any temp issues, I think the highest they have gotten is ~80*C. I have an Ultra Kaze fan right in front of the cards blowing cold air right into them, and another Ultra Kaze removing the hot air from the case.
Ok...seems pretty straight up so far. But did you make sure the process Vmware-vmx in particular is downgraded in priority? I think that's the one that sucks up the cycles.
Yes, in WinAFC I set vmware-vmx to have a lower priority than the GPU clients. I also assigned them each to 2 different cores of the CPU. So one VM is on CPU0 and CPU1, and the other is on CPU2 and CPU3. I also split up the GPU clients to spread out the workload. I put two GPU clients on CPU0 and CPU1, and the other two GPU clients on CPU2 and CPU3. Again, with only the GPU clients up and running my total CPU usage is only around 1-3%.
OK try this...Kill one of the Vmclients and see if your GPU PPD goes back up to normal. I have a feeling it might be that you're on XP now and it uses more CPU. I would kill all the folding first, reboot, then start up the 4 GPU clients and only 1 Vmclient. you should know within about 15-20 mins what kind of PPD your GPU's are putting up.
Have you tried checking your GPU clocks? Also just verify that your folding clients aren't trying to fold off the same GPU.
Well in GPU-z it shows my clocks just as I set them in nvidia's control panel. I also run them by using shortcuts on my desktop. Each one has a different "-gpu x -local" flag, so I'm guessing that they're not trying to use the same GPU? Is there a better way to tell how much load is on each GPU? |
Chondroitin Sulfate Tetrasaccharides: Synthesis, Three-Dimensional Structure and Interaction with Midkine.
The biological activity of midkine, a cytokine implicated in neuro- and tumourigenesis, is regulated by its binding to glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), such as heparin and chondroitin sulfate (CS). To better understand the molecular recognition of GAG sequences by this growth factor, the interactions between synthetic chondroitin sulfate-like tetrasaccharides and midkine were studied by using different techniques. Firstly, a synthetic approach for the preparation of CS-like oligosaccharides in the sequence GalNAc-GlcA was developed. A fluorescence polarisation competition assay was then employed to analyse the relative binding affinities of the synthetic compounds and revealed that midkine interacted with CS-like tetrasaccharides in the micromolar range. The 3D structure of these tetramers was studied in detail by a combination of NMR spectroscopy experiments and molecular dynamics simulations. Saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR spectroscopy experiments indicate that the CS tetrasaccharides bind to midkine in an extended conformation, with similar saturation effects along the entire sugar chain. These results are compatible with docking studies that suggest an interaction of the tetrasaccharide with midkine in a folded structure. Overall, this study provides valuable information on the interaction between midkine and well-defined, chemically synthesised CS oligosaccharides and these data can be useful for the design of more active compounds that modulate the biological function of this protein. |
1. Introduction
===============
*Brassica* vegetables such as cauliflower and broccoli are popular and are among the most consumed vegetables in the world. Many epidemiological studies have indicated that a diet rich in these vegetables is associated with reduced risk of a several type of cancers, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases \[[@B1-molecules-20-01228],[@B2-molecules-20-01228],[@B3-molecules-20-01228]\]. Additionally, *Brassicas* are known to possess antioxidant activity \[[@B4-molecules-20-01228],[@B5-molecules-20-01228]\]. Such beneficial health properties of these crops are due to the presence of health-promoting compounds such as vitamins, carotenoids, phenols, flavonoids, minerals, and glucosinolates \[[@B6-molecules-20-01228],[@B7-molecules-20-01228],[@B8-molecules-20-01228],[@B9-molecules-20-01228],[@B10-molecules-20-01228]\]. Among these, glucosinolates are one of the most important phytochemicals in *Brassica* crops, a large group of sulfur-containing compounds possessing anticancer activity that are known to be responsible for the pungent flavor of the plants \[[@B11-molecules-20-01228],[@B12-molecules-20-01228]\]. Vitamin C is another health-promoting water-soluble primary nutrient in broccoli and other *Brassica* crops \[[@B13-molecules-20-01228]\] that protects against cell death, singlet oxygen, and hydroxyl radicals and acts as a lipid peroxidation chain-breaking agent \[[@B14-molecules-20-01228]\]. Likewise, polyphenols are a large group of antioxidant compounds present in considerable amounts in these vegetables \[[@B15-molecules-20-01228]\], often considered the most abundant antioxidants in the human diet \[[@B2-molecules-20-01228]\]. Flavonoids and their derivatives are the largest and most prominent group of polyphenols and are ideal scavengers of peroxyl radicals due to their specific reduction actions relative to alkyl peroxyl radicals, making them effective inhibitors of lipoperoxidation \[[@B16-molecules-20-01228]\]. Likewise, free sugars in *Brassica* crops are responsible for masking the bitter taste of glucosinolates, promoting human consumption \[[@B17-molecules-20-01228]\]. Additionally, the lipophilic portion of these plant extracts may also contain both saturated fatty acids (SFA) and unsaturated fatty acids (monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)), which contribute to human health in many ways \[[@B18-molecules-20-01228],[@B19-molecules-20-01228]\].
The content of these compounds in *Brassica* vegetables varies significantly depending on the genotypes of cultivars, the specific plant tissue, fertilization, growing season, and several other environmental factors \[[@B9-molecules-20-01228],[@B20-molecules-20-01228],[@B21-molecules-20-01228],[@B22-molecules-20-01228],[@B23-molecules-20-01228]\]. For example, significant variation in glucosinolate concentration as well as the content of other compounds has been shown in the same cultivar grown in different seasons \[[@B6-molecules-20-01228],[@B24-molecules-20-01228]\]. There are several reports regarding the glucosinolate, vitamin C, phenolic, and flavonoid content in various *Brassica* crops such as cauliflower and broccoli \[[@B6-molecules-20-01228],[@B9-molecules-20-01228],[@B15-molecules-20-01228],[@B25-molecules-20-01228]\]. However, most of this research has focused only on their floret parts, and information about such compounds in leaf tissue is scarce. Furthermore, information regarding fatty acid profiles is very limited, and most previous research has been related only to the seeds \[[@B26-molecules-20-01228]\]. It is therefore important to establish the compositional ratio of fatty acids in different cauliflower and broccoli cultivars, as fatty acids may play an important role in human health. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the influence of plant parts on the health benefits of some chemical constituents such as glucosinolates, vitamin C, phenolics, flavonoids, and free sugar content, along with the fatty acid composition and antioxidant activity of commercial cauliflower and broccoli cultivars.
2. Results and Discussion
=========================
2.1. Vitamin C, Total Phenol, and Total Flavonoid Content
---------------------------------------------------------
Our results showed variation in antioxidant (vitamin C, total phenol, and total flavonoid) contents with crop type, cultivar, and plant part ([Figure 1](#molecules-20-01228-f001){ref-type="fig"}A--D). In broccoli, the vitamin C content in florets and leaves ranged from 402.8 to 474.7 mg·100 g^−1^ and from 298.6 to 454.3 mg·100 g^−1^, respectively. The cultivar AMaGi exhibited higher vitamin C content in floret and leaf tissues ([Figure 1](#molecules-20-01228-f001){ref-type="fig"}A) than did Baeridom and Cheonjae. The value observed in this study was lower than that found in a previous study by Koh*et al.* \[[@B27-molecules-20-01228]\], who observed 573.5--1313.5 mg·100 g^−1^ of vitamin C in various commercial broccolis. In contrast, total phenol content was lower in AMaGi than in Baeridom and Cheonjae in both the floret (599.6 mg·GAE 100 g^−1^) and leaf (533.6 mg·GAE 100 g^−1^) parts ([Figure 1](#molecules-20-01228-f001){ref-type="fig"}B). Regardless of cultivars and plant tissue, total phenol content ranged from 533.6 mg·GAE 100 g^−1^ in AMaGi leaf tissue to 740.1 mg·GAE 100 g^−1^ in Cheonjae florets, which was higher than previously reported by Zhang and Hamauzu \[[@B28-molecules-20-01228]\] and within the range reported by Koh*et al.* \[[@B27-molecules-20-01228]\]: 481--1577 mg·GAE 100 g^−1^ of total phenol in various broccoli cultivars. All three cultivars showed statistically higher total phenol contents in florets compared with leaf tissue. In contrast, total flavonoid content was statistically higher in leaf tissue in all the cultivars and showed higher variation (more than twofold) between florets and leaves in all the cultivars. Similar to vitamin C, the highest flavonoid content was present in AMaGi in both floret (317.1 mg·CE 100 g^−1^) and leaf (816.8 mg·CE 100 g^−1^). The presence of higher total flavonoid content in leaf suggests higher nutritional value of leaves, as flavonoids possess strong antioxidant activity and inhibit oxidative stress \[[@B29-molecules-20-01228]\].
{#molecules-20-01228-f001}
The vitamin C content in floret tissues of the three cauliflower cultivars was highest in Asia purple (649.7 mg·100 g^−1^), followed by Bridal (410.4 mg·100 g^−1^) and Asia white (396.7 mg·100 g^−1^) ([Figure 1](#molecules-20-01228-f001){ref-type="fig"}A). This result was in agreement with Picchi*et al.* \[[@B30-molecules-20-01228]\], who reported 346--638 mg·100 g^−1^ of vitamin C, though it was higher than the vitamin C content reported by Singh*et al.* \[[@B9-molecules-20-01228]\]. Compared with the florets, the leaf parts showed statistically higher vitamin C content in Asia white (441.7 mg·100 g^−1^) and Bridal (471.9 mg·100 g^−1^). Likewise, total phenol content was highest in Asia purple (1345.2 mg·GAE 100 g^−1^) and lowest in Bridal in the floret part ([Figure 1](#molecules-20-01228-f001){ref-type="fig"}B). In contrast to the vitamin C content, only Bridal (914.1 mg·GAE 100 g^−1^) exhibited statistically higher total phenol content in leaves compared with florets. Similar to the broccoli cultivars, total flavonoid content in cauliflower cultivars was also statistically higher in leaf parts compared with floret parts, and Asia white and Bridal exhibited an approximately fivefold higher flavonoid content in leaf tissue compared with their respective floret parts. The presence of higher total flavonoid content in leaf parts in both broccoli and cauliflower crops suggest that its leaf can be used as an alternative source of total flavonoids, as flavonoids are responsible for various beneficial health effects \[[@B27-molecules-20-01228],[@B29-molecules-20-01228],[@B31-molecules-20-01228]\].
2.2. Glucosinolate Profiles
---------------------------
Total and individual glucosinolate concentrations were significantly affected by crop type, cultivar, and plant part in most cases ([Table 1](#molecules-20-01228-t001){ref-type="table"}). Similar to the previous reports \[[@B25-molecules-20-01228],[@B32-molecules-20-01228]\], glucoraphanin was the major glucosinolate in both parts of broccoli cultivars except in the leaf tissue of AMaGi, where glucobrassicin was the dominant glucosinolate (2.30 µmol·g^−1^) ([Table 1](#molecules-20-01228-t001){ref-type="table"}). Furthermore, glucobrassicin was the second major glucosinolate except in the florets of AMaGi, ranging from 2.03 in AMaGI to 2.44 µmol·g^−1^ in Cheonjae florets and from 0.92 µmol·g^−1^ in Cheonjae to 2.30 µmol·g^−1^ in AMaGi leaves. All of the broccoli cultivars showed statistically higher total glucosinolate concentrations in the floret tissues compared with leaf tissues, and Baeridom (9.66 µmol·g^−1^) showed the highest total glucosinolate concentration compared with AMaGi (8.09 µmol·g^−1^) and Cheonjae (5.59 µmol·g^−1^) ([Table 1](#molecules-20-01228-t001){ref-type="table"}). The glucosinolate levels found in this study were within the range found by Lee*et al.* \[[@B25-molecules-20-01228]\] and lower than the results reported by Rosa and Rodrigues \[[@B32-molecules-20-01228]\]. The composition of glucosinolate concentration in this study was also different than in Aries*et al.* \[[@B6-molecules-20-01228]\], who reported considerable amount of glucoiberin in broccoli. Such differences in glucosinolate concentration and composition in this study might be due to the difference in genotype of the cultivars and other several environmental factors.
Among cauliflower cultivars, Asia purple exhibited the highest total glucosinolate concentration (8.80 µmol·g^−1^), followed by Bridal (7.41 µmol·g^−1^) and Asia white (1.97 µmol·g^−1^) ([Table 1](#molecules-20-01228-t001){ref-type="table"}). With the exception of Asia white, the cultivars exhibited relatively higher total glucosinolates in their floret parts compared with leaf parts. Among the nine glucosinolates analysed in our experiment, five glucosinolates were detected in Asia purple, and Asia white and Bridal showed the presence of gluconapin and other glucosinolates. Similar to the results of Hodges *et al.* \[[@B33-molecules-20-01228]\], glucobrassicin was a major glucosinolate compound in cauliflower, except in florets of Asia white (0.05 µmol·g^−1^), which revealed relatively higher proportions of glucoraphanin and gluconapin. However, the levels of gluconapin and glucoraphanin observed in this study appear to be higher than those in previous reports \[[@B30-molecules-20-01228],[@B33-molecules-20-01228]\].
molecules-20-01228-t001_Table 1
######
Glucosinolate profile (µmol·g^−1^ in dry weight) in various parts of broccoli and cauliflower cultivars.
Crop Cultivar Part Progoitrin Glucoraphanin Sinigrin Gluconapin Glucobrassicanapin Glucobrassicin Total Glucosinolates
------------- ------------- --------- ---------------- --------------- ---------- ------------ -------------------- ---------------- ----------------------
Broccoli AMaGi Floret 2.73 ^x^ a ^y^ 2.77 b N/D ^z^ 0.56 a N/D 2.03 c 8.09 c
Leaf 0.34 e 2.05 d N/D 0.20 c N/D 2.30 c 4.89 fg
Baeridom Floret 1.66 b 5.19 a 0.31 e 0.43 b N/D 2.07 c 9.66 a
Leaf 0.22 f 2.11 d 0.06 f 0.08 de N/D 1.93 c 4.40 g
Cheonjae Floret 0.44 d 2.50 c 0.09 f 0.12 d N/D 2.44 c 5.59 ef
Leaf 0.04 h 1.10 e 0.02 f 0.04 ef N/D 0.92 d 2.12 hi
Cauliflower Asia purple Floret 0.41 d 0.69 fg 1.71 a N/D 0.85 a 5.14 a 8.80 b
Leaf 0.13 g 0.32 h 1.04 c N/D 0.43 b 5.28 a 7.20 d
Asia white Floret 0.51 c 0.65 fg 0.12 f 0.59 a 0.05 c 0.05 e 1.97 h
Leaf 0.07 h 0.73 fg 0.44 d N/D 0.42 b 1.15 d 2.81 h
Bridal Floret 0.31 e 0.76 f 1.17 b 0.09 de N/D 5.08 a 7.41 cd
Leaf 0.16 g 0.49 gh 0.98 c 0.11 d 0.41 b 3.69 b 5.84 e
^x^ Values are the mean of three independent replications; ^y^ Different letters within the column are statistically significant by Duncan's multiple-range test at *p* \< 0.05; ^z^ N/D: Not detected.
2.3. Free Sugar Content
-----------------------
Three free sugars, namely glucose, fructose, and sucrose, were evaluated in this study, and glucose was most abundant in all cultivars and their parts, followed by fructose and then sucrose ([Table 2](#molecules-20-01228-t002){ref-type="table"}). Of all cultivars and plant parts, total free sugar content in broccoli ranged from 153.3 mg·g^−1^ in the florets to 241.6 mg·g^−1^ in the leaves of AMaGi, and total sugar content was statistically higher in leaf parts, except in Cheonjae (237.2 mg·g^−1^). Compared with previous reports by Rosa*et al.* \[[@B24-molecules-20-01228]\], who reported 51--143 mg·g^−1^ of total free sugars in the florets of various broccoli cultivars in different seasons, we observed comparatively higher total free sugar in all cultivars. The highest free sugar content was observed in Cheonjae (237.2 mg·g^−1^), followed by Baeridom (205.8 mg·g^−1^) and AMaGi (153.3 mg·g^−1^). In the case of individual free sugars, Cheonjae exhibited statistically higher glucose and fructose content compared with AMaGi and Baeridom ([Table 2](#molecules-20-01228-t002){ref-type="table"}). However, sucrose, a minor free sugar in broccoli, showed some unusual patterns and exhibited greater difference between florets and leaves. Specfically, AMaGi and Baeridom displayed a greater than 12-fold difference in the sucrose content between florets and leaves, compared with an approximate two fold difference in Cheonjae.
molecules-20-01228-t002_Table 2
######
Free sugar content (mg·g^−1^ in dry weight) in various parts of broccoli and cauliflower cultivars.
Crop Cultivar Part Glucose Fructose Sucrose Total Free Sugar
------------- ------------- ------------ ---------------- ---------- --------- ------------------
Broccoli AMaGi Floret 77.4 ^x^ g ^y^ 75.3 f 0.6 j 153.3 h
Leaf 134.5 b 99.3 d 7.8 g 241.6 d
Baeridom Floret 105.5 f 98.4 d 1.9 i 205.8 f
Leaf 112.8 ef 78.2 f 23.3 d 214.3 ef
Cheonjae Floret 126.3 b--d 110.2 b 0.7 j 237.2 d
Leaf 118.9 de 100.8 cd 4.0 h 223.7 e
Cauliflower Asia purple Floret 133.3 b 104.1 c 32.2 b 269.6c
Leaf 127.8 bc 49.4 h 14.8 e 192.0 g
Asia white Floret 161.8 a 127.0 a 10.5 f 299.3 b
Leaf 120.5 c--e 65.1 g 29.2 c 214.8 ef
Bridal Floret 133.1 b 113.5 b 72.0 a 318.6 a
Leaf 127.3 bc 88.3 e 8.8 g 224.4 e
^x^ Values are mean of two independent replications; ^y^ Different letters within the column are statistically significant by Duncan's multiple-range test at *p* \< 0.05.
In cauliflower cultivars, glucose was present in a statistically higher quantity in florets (161.8 mg·g^−1^) than in leaves (120.5 mg·g^−1^) in the Asia white cultivar, whereas Asia purple and Bridal exhibited statistically similar glucose contents in their plant parts. In contrast, all cultivars displayed statistically higher fructose content in florets compared with leaves. Similarly, sucrose content exhibited cultivar- and plant-part-dependent variation. Among the three cultivars and their parts, florets of Asia white showed higher glucose (161.8 mg·g^−1^) and fructose (127.0 mg·g^−1^) content but lower sucrose content (10.5 mg·g^−1^) compared with the other cultivars. Total free sugar content in the florets was statistically higher in Bridal (318.6 mg·g^−1^) than in Asia white (299.3 mg·g^−1^) or Asia purple (269.6 mg·g^−1^), and in all these cultivars, florets exhibited statistically higher total free sugar content compared with leaves ([Table 2](#molecules-20-01228-t002){ref-type="table"}). The levels observed in this study were lower to those found by Hodges*et al.* \[[@B33-molecules-20-01228]\], who reported approximately 320 mg·g^−1^ of total free sugars in the dry powder of cauliflower florets; however, to the author's knowledge, this is the first report to examine free sugars in the leaf parts of *Brassica* species. Similar to broccoli, the sucrose content of cauliflower also exhibited greater variation (approximately two- to eightfold) between plant parts. Of the two crops, cauliflower exhibited comparatively higher free sugar content than broccoli. All of these results suggest that the free sugar content in *Brassica* crops is dependent not only on the genotype of the crop, but also on the specific plant tissue.
2.4. Fatty Acid Composition
---------------------------
The results of the fatty acid composition analyses are presented in [Table 3](#molecules-20-01228-t003){ref-type="table"}. Among the 37 fatty acids analyzed, only 13 fatty acids were found in the florets of broccoli cultivars, and only 12 in the leaf parts. Three major fatty acids,*i.e.*, palmitic, linoleic, and linolenic acids, comprised more than 85% of total fatty acids in all cultivars and their parts, except in the florets of AMaGi. The cultivar-dependent variation in major fatty acids was statistically significant only in the florets of some cultivars. The SFA content ranged from 31.51% to 47.81%, with a statistically higher value in florets than in leaves in all cultivars. Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) ranged from 3.34% to 4.67% and from 47.90% to 65.89%, respectively. Compared with other cultivars, florets of AMaGi exhibited higher SFA (46.75%) and lower PUFA (47.92%). Similarly, in the case of cauliflower cultivars, 12 fatty acids were found, the major ones being palmitic (27.11%--38.42%), linoleic (13.09%--18.97%) and linolenic acid (26.32%--41.03%), accounting for more than 80% of total fatty acid content ([Table 3](#molecules-20-01228-t003){ref-type="table"}). Similarly enhanced levels of palmitic and linolenic acids were previously reported by Scalzo*et al.* \[[@B23-molecules-20-01228]\]. The other fatty acids were myristic, pentadecanoic, palmitoleic, heptadecanoic, oleic, stearic, arachidic, behenic, and lignoceric acids, and almost all the fatty acids showed statistically significant variation among cultivars and plant parts. Total SFA ranged from 40.08% to 49.70%, with the highest value found in florets of Bridal. MUFA and PUFA ranged from 3.95% to 5.01% and 45.29% to 55.85%, respectively. Compared with leaves, florets exhibited statistically higher SFA values and lower PUFA values in all cultivars. Overall, regardless of crop type and plant part, linolenic acid was the major fatty acid in all cultivars, followed by palmitic and linoleic acids. In both the crop types and cultivars, linolenic acid, which is an important essential fatty acid, was relatively higher in leaves compared to floret parts, thereby suggesting higher nutritional value of leaves because linolenic acid provides various health benefits such as lowering of the plasma lipid level \[[@B34-molecules-20-01228]\]. Altogether, total unsaturated fatty acids were more than 50% of the total fatty acids in all the cases, suggesting the nutritional importance of these crops, as unsaturated fatty acids promote the proper functioning of blood vessels, which in turn reduces the risk of heart attack or stroke \[[@B35-molecules-20-01228]\]. Our results suggest that the fatty acid composition of *Brassica* crops differs depending upon the genotype and plant part, however, further research on *Brassica* fatty acid composition using a large number of germplasms is required.
molecules-20-01228-t003_Table 3
######
Fatty acid composition (%) in various parts of broccoli and cauliflower cultivars.
Fatty acids Broccoli Cauliflower
----------------------- ---------------- ------------- ----------- ---------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Lauric (C12:0) 0.17 ^u^ a ^v^ N/D ^w^ 0.10 b N/D 0.10 b N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D
Myristic (C14:0) 1.04 a 0.39 f 0.51 e 0.28 g 0.39 f 0.29 g 0.87 b 0.91 b 0.87 b 0.68 d 0.77 c 0.67 d
Pentadecanoic (C15:0) 0.40 ab 0.44 a 0.29 e 0.38 bc 0.35 cd 0.36 b--d 0.37 bc 0.30 e 0.36 b--d 0.37 bc 0.32 de 0.44 a
Palmitic (C16:0) 31.74 c 23.55 g 29.75 e 24.05 g 31.03 cd 23.52 g 30.50 de 27.11 f 34.75 b 27.25 f 38.42 a 27.15 f
Palmitoleic (C16:1) 0.66 a 0.21 de 0.44 c 0.21 de 0.37 c 0.13 e 0.73 a 0.22 d 0.53 b 0.17 de 0.40 c 0.20 de
Heptadecanoic (C17:0) 0.61 a 0.40 e 0.30 fg 0.33 f 0.31 fg 0.27 g 0.59 a 0.47 bc 0.51 b 0.45 cd 0.41 de 0.42 de
Stearic (C18:0) 11.90 a 5.53 g 5.98 f 4.70 i 5.59 g 5.07 h 10.37 b 11.72 a 9.97 d 10.11 cd 8.73 e 10.24 bc
Oleic (C18:1n9c) 3.63 d--g 3.13 g 3.82 b--e 3.22 fg 4.30 ab 3.74 c--f 3.56 e--g 3.99 b--e 4.12 a--d 4.23 a--c 4.61 a 3.75 c--f
Linoleic (C18:2n6c) 13.56 ef 14.43 d 18.02 b 14.09 de 18.23 b 14.36 d 16.42 c 14.38 d 16.69 c 14.52 d 18.97 a 13.09 f
Linolenic (C18:3n3) 34.34 f 50.72 a 39.13 de 51.80 a 37.80 e 51.03 a 35.52 f 39.76 cd 30.61 g 41.00 c 26.32 h 42.76 b
Arachidic (C20:0) 0.99 a 0.53 de 0.84 ab 0.42 e 0.74 a--d 0.44 e 0.48 e 0.55 e 0.81 a--c 0.57 c--e 0.61 b--e 0.62 b--e
Behenic (C22:0) 0.30 a 0.21 a--c 0.22 a--c 0.12 c 0.22 a--c 0.28 ab 0.22 a--c 0.23 a--c 0.32 a 0.21 a--c 0.17 b--c 0.23 a--c
Lignoceric (C24:0) 0.66 a 0.46 cd 0.60 ab 0.40 cd 0.57 ab 0.51 bc 0.37 de 0.36 de 0.46 cd 0.44 cd 0.27 e 0.43 cd
SFA ^x^ 47.81 b 31.51 g 38.59 f 30.68 g 39.30 e 30.74 g 43.77 c 41.65 d 48.05 b 40.08 e 49.70 a 40.20 e
MUFA ^y^ 4.29 bc 3.34 e 4.26 bc 3.43 dc 4.67 ab 3.87 cd 4.29 bc 4.21 bc 4.65 ab 4.40 bc 5.01 a 3.95 c
PUFA ^z^ 47.90 f 65.15 a 57.15 b 65.89 a 56.03 c 65.39 a 51.94 e 54.14 d 47.30 f 55.52 c 45.29 g 55.85 c
^u^ Values are the mean of two independent replications; ^v^ Different letters within the raw are statistically significant by Duncan's multiple-range test at *p* \< 0.05; ^w^ N/D: Not detected; ^x^ SFA: saturated fatty acid; ^y^ MUFA: monounsaturated fatty acid; ^z^ PUFA: polyunsaturated fatty acid.
2.5. Antioxidant Activity
-------------------------
In our experiment, we measured antioxidant activity by evaluating the 2,2,-diphenyl-1-picrylhydracyl (DPPH) radical-scavenging activity of different concentrations of methanolic extracts from *Brassica* crops. The IC~50~ (50% of inhibition) value was calculated following a linear regression analysis of the observed inhibition percentage*versus* concentration, where a lower IC~50~ value shows higher antioxidant activity. Antioxidant activity in broccoli cultivars varied significantly in florets, whereas no such variation was observed in leaves ([Figure 1](#molecules-20-01228-f001){ref-type="fig"}D). Both AMaGi and Cheonaje showed relatively higher antioxidant activity in florets compared with leaves, whereas Baeridom showed the opposite result. Of all cultivars and plant parts, the highest antioxidant activity was observed in floret of Cheonjae cultivar (IC~50~ value = 2.27 mg·mL^−1^). In the case of cauliflower, only the Asia purple showed statistically higher antioxidant activity in its floret (IC~50~ value = 1.12 mg·mL^−1^) compared with leaves (IC~50~ value = 2.27 mg·mL^−1^), while other cultivars exhibited higher antioxidant activity in their leaf parts than in floret parts. This might be due to the higher content of total phenols, as phenolics are major contributors to total antioxidant activity \[[@B36-molecules-20-01228]\].
Overall, antioxidant activity differed depending upon the crop type, cultivar, and plant part in most cases. However, of all cultivars and plant parts, florets of Asia purple showed the lowest IC~50~, thus indicating the highest antioxidant activity ([Figure 1](#molecules-20-01228-f001){ref-type="fig"}D) and enhanced potential health benefits of these cultivars.
2.6. Correlations among Phytonutrients
--------------------------------------
To determine the contribution of antioxidants to antioxidant activity and phytonutrients, we performed a correlation analysis on the relationships among vitamin C, phenolics, flavonoids, total glucosinolates, and antioxidant activity ([Table 4](#molecules-20-01228-t004){ref-type="table"}). In our study, regardless of the crop type, cultivar or plant part, vitamin C exhibited the highest positive correlation with total flavonoid (*r* = 0.574 \*\*), followed by the correlation with total phenol (*r* = 0.522 \*\*) and total glucosinolates (*r* = 0.494 \*\*). Likewise, we found a significant positive correlation between antioxidant activity and total phenols (*r* = 0.698 \*\*), vitamin C (*r* = 0.632 \*\*), and total flavonoid (*r* = 0.456 \*\*). These results are consistent with previous reports that described the antioxidant capacity of various *Brassica* vegetables \[[@B6-molecules-20-01228],[@B20-molecules-20-01228],[@B30-molecules-20-01228],[@B37-molecules-20-01228]\]. In contrast, no correlation was found between antioxidant activity and total glucosinolates, perhaps due to the low antioxidant capacity of glucosinolates or the low quantity of glucosinolates in these cultivars. The stronger positive correlation between antioxidant activity and total phenol content found in this study is in agreement with Aires*et al.* \[[@B6-molecules-20-01228]\] and Samec*et al.* \[[@B37-molecules-20-01228]\], possibly due to the greater contribution of phenolic compounds to antioxidant activity.
molecules-20-01228-t004_Table 4
######
Correlation coefficients among phytochemicals and antioxidant activities.
Attributes Total Phenol Total Flavonoid Total Glucosinolate Antioxidant Activity
--------------------- -------------- ----------------- --------------------- ----------------------
Vitamin C 0.522 \*\* 0.574 \*\* 0.494 \*\* 0.632 \*\*
Total phenol 1 0.292 0.169 0.698 \*\*
Total flavonoid 0.292 1 0.014 0.456 \*\*
Total glucosinolate 0.169 0.014 1 0.219
\*\* Correlation is significant at *p* \< 0.01.
3. Experimental Section
=======================
3.1. Plant Materials
--------------------
Six commercial F~1~ hybrid *Brassica* cultivars, including three cauliflower cultivars (Asia purple, Asia white, and Bridal) and three broccoli cultivars (AMaGi, Baeridom, and Cheonjae), were used in this study. All were grown in an experimental field of the National Institute of Horticultural and Herbal Science (NIHHS), Rural Development Administration (RDA), Suwon, South Korea. For both the crop types, seedlings were transplanted to the cultivation field 33 days after sowing. Seedlings were planted in rows with 50 cm between plants and 60 cm in rows. The sowing date was 5 March 2011, and the plant materials were harvested at commercial maturity stage, which occurred between 65 and 75 days after sowing. During the field experiments, water, fertilizers and pesticides were applied according to standard cultural practices of NIHHS and RDA. Ten broccoli/cauliflower heads were used for each sample. After harvesting, florets and leaf parts were separated, cut into small pieces, and then freeze dried. The samples were ground into fine powder and then stored at −20 °C until used for the analysis of glucosinolates, vitamin C, total phenol, total flavonoid and free sugar content, fatty acid composition, and antioxidant activity.
3.2. Authentic Standards and Chemicals
--------------------------------------
The glucosinolate standards, glucoiberin, progoitrin, glucoraphanin, sinigrin, gluconapin, glucobrassicanapin, glucoerucin, glucobrassicin, and gluconasturtiin, were purchased from Cfm Oskar Co. (Marktredwitz, Germany). Authentic standards for DEAE (Diethyl aminoethyl) Sephadex-A25, aryl sulfatase (EC 3.1.6.1, type H-1) from *Helix pomatia*, vitamin C, glucose, sucrose, fructose, gallic acid, DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), and catechin hydrate were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA). A standard for fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) was obtained from Supelco (Bellefonte, PA, USA). Chemicals such as sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate, sodium nitrite, aluminum chloride, Folin−Ciocalteu reagent, and 2,2-dimethoxypropane were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA). Benzene, n-heptanes, and sulfuric acid were acquired from Daejung Chemicals (Seoul, Korea). Other chemicals, including acetonitrile (HPLC grade), methanol (HPLC grade), and formic acid (ACS reagent), were purchased from J. T. Baker (Phillipsburg, NJ, USA).
3.3. Analysis of Vitamin C
--------------------------
Vitamin C content was analyzed according to the methods described by Spinola*et al.* \[[@B38-molecules-20-01228]\] with modifications. Freeze-dried powdered *Brassica* samples (0.5 g) were extracted with 5% metaphosphoric acid solution. Then, after centrifugation and filtration (with a 0.20 μm syringe filter), the aliquot was analyzed using an H-Class UPLC (ultra performance liquid chromatography) (Waters, Milford, MA, USA) equipped with an Acquity UPLC^®^ HSS T3 (2.1 × 100 mm, 1.8 μm, Waters) column and PDA (photo diode array) detector (Waters) at 254 nm in wave length. An isocratic mobile phase composed of aqueous 0.1% (*v*/*v*) formic acid at a flow rate of 0.3 mL·min^−1^ was used for separation of the vitamin C peak. An authentic ascorbic acid standard at various concentrations (5, 10, 25, 50, and 100 ppm) was used for the identification and quantification of the peak and vitamin C content was expressed as milligrams per 100 gram (mg·100 g^−1^) of dry weight.
3.4. Analysis of Total Phenol
-----------------------------
Total phenolic content was estimated by the Folin--Ciocalteu colorimetric method based on the procedure previously described by Singleton and Rossi \[[@B39-molecules-20-01228]\] using gallic acid as a standard phenolic compound. Briefly, 1 g freeze-dried powdered sample was extracted in 80% methanol for 15 h at room temperature on an orbital shaker. Then, the extract was centrifuged and filtered through a Whatman No. 42 filter paper, and 1 mL of supernatant was mixed with 3 mL distilled water in a 15 mL falcon tube. After adding 1 mL of Folin reagent, the solution was incubated in a water bath at 27 °C for 5 min. Then, 1 mL of saturated sodium carbonate was added. After 1 h, absorbance of the extract was measured with an EON^TM^ microplate spectrophotometer (BioTek^®^ Instruments Inc. Highland Park, Winooski, VT, USA) at 640 nm. Gallic acid standards at different concentrations (5, 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100 ppm) were used for the calibration. Total phenol content was expressed as milligrams of gallic acid equivalent per 100 g (mg·GAE 100 g^−1^) dry weight.
3.5. Analysis of Total Flavonoid
--------------------------------
The vegetable extracts obtained for total phenol analysis were also used for total flavonoid analysis using a colorimetric method described by Zhishen*et al.* \[[@B40-molecules-20-01228]\]. Only 1 mL of the extract was kept in a 15 mL Falcon tube containing 4 mL of distilled water, and then 0.3 mL of 5% sodium nitrite was added. After 5 min, 10% of AlCl~3~ was added to the solution. At 6 min, 2 mL of 1 M NaOH was added, and the sample was brought to final volume 10 mL using distilled water. The solution was mixed carefully, and the absorbance was measured at 510 nm using an EON^TM^ microplate spectrophotometer (BioTek^®^ Instruments Inc., Highland Park, Winooski, VT, USA). Catechin hydrates at different concentrations (5, 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100 ppm) were used as the standard compound. Total flavonoid was expressed as milligrams of catechin hydrate equivalent per 100 g (mg·CE 100 g^−1^) of dry weight.
3.6. Analysis of Glucosinolates
-------------------------------
Sample preparation and glucosinolate analysis were performed according to methods described by Lee*et al.* \[[@B41-molecules-20-01228]\]. Briefly, freeze-dried powder samples (0.1 g) were extracted with 2 mL of boiling methanol (70%) for 20 min and centrifuged at 12,000 rpm for 10 min at 4 °C, after which the pellet was re-extracted one more time and the supernatants were combined. The crude glucosinolate extract was then loaded onto a Mini Biospin chromatography column (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, CA, USA) containing 0.5 mL of DEAE-Sephadex A 25, which was preactivated with 0.1 M sodium acetate (pH 4.0), following which desulfation was carried out by the addition of 200 µL of purified aryl sulphatase*.* The column was capped and left for 24 h at room temperature, and the desulfoglucosinolates were eluted with 1.5 mL distilled water, filtered through a 0.2-µm syringe filter, injected into H-Class UPLC (Waters) using an Acquity UPLC^®^ BEH-C18 column (1.7 µm, 2.1 × 100 mm; Waters), and measured at 229 nm with a PDA detector. Solvent A (100% distilled water) and solvent B (20% acetonitrile) were used for the elution of compounds at the flow rate of 0.2 mL·min^−1^. The gradient programs were as follows: a linear step from 1% to 99% of solvent B within 6 min, followed by constant conditions for up to 10 min and then a quick dropdown to 1% of solvent B at 12 min and isocratic conditions with 1% of solvent B up to 15 min. Authentic standards of glucosinolates were used for the identification and quantification of the peaks. Total and individual glucosinolates were expressed as micromole per gram (µmol·g^−1^) of dry weight.
3.7. Analysis of Free Sugar
---------------------------
Free sugars (glucose, fructose, and sucrose) were analyzed according to Bhandari*et al.* \[[@B42-molecules-20-01228]\] with some modifications. Briefly, powdered *Brassica* samples (1.0 g) were extracted with distilled water by shaking for 20 min in a water bath at 80 °C, centrifuged at 3500 rpm for 5 min, filtered through a 0.45 µm syringe filter, and analysed using an HPLC system (Waters) with a Kromasil^®^ 100-NH2 column (250 × 4.6 mm; Eka Chemicals AB, Seperation Products, Bohus, Sweden) and RI (refractive index) detector (Waters) with acetonitrile/distilled water (75/25, *v*/*v*) for the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.5 mL·min^−1^. Authentic standards of free sugars at different concentrations were used for the identification and quantification of the peaks. Total as well individual free sugars were expressed as milligram per gram (mg·g^−1^) of dry weight.
3.8. Analysis of Fatty Acid Composition
---------------------------------------
Samples for fatty acid composition analyses were prepared and analyzed according to Bhandari*et al.* \[[@B42-molecules-20-01228]\]. Briefly, powdered samples (0.1 g) were mixed with 680 µL of methylation mixture (MeOH: benzene: 2,2-dimethoxypropane: H~2~SO~4~ = 39:20:5:2) and 400 µL of heptane. After vigorous mixing and heating for 2 h at 80 °C in a water bath, samples were cooled at room temperature, and then a heptane layer was collected and injected into a gas chromatograph (GC; Varian 3800, Palo Alto, CA, USA) equipped with a flame ionization detector and a capillary column: CP SIL 88 CB FAME (50 m × 0.25 mm, 0.25 µm, Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA). The temperature was set 210 °C for both the injector and FID (flame ionization detection) detector (Varian 3800, Palo Alto, CA, USA). The injection volume was 1 µL with a split ratio of 1:50 on a constant column flow (1 mL·min^−1^) of helium gas. The oven temperature was initially maintained at 100 °C for 5 min, and FID was increased up to 160 °C at a rate of 5 °C min^−1^, maintained for 5 min, and then increased again at a rate of 4 °C min^−1^ up to 180 °C. All the fatty acids were expressed as relative percentage (%) of dry weight.
3.9. Determination of Antioxidant Activity
------------------------------------------
The antioxidant activity of vegetable extracts taken from different plant parts was determined using the 2,2,-diphenyl-1-picrylhydracyl (DPPH) radical scavenging method described in Koleva*et al.* \[[@B43-molecules-20-01228]\], with modifications. The aliquot obtained for total phenol analysis was also used for the measurement of radical scavenging activity. At first, 400 μM of DPPH solution in 80% MeOH was prepared. Then, 100 μL of DPPH solution was added to 100 μL of different concentrations of extracts (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.5, and 5.0 mg·mL^−1^) and 100 μL of methanol in 96-well plates. After 30 min, the absorbance of the resultant solution was measured using an EON^TM^ microplate spectrophotometer (BioTek^®^ Instruments Inc., Highland Park, Winooski, VT, USA) at 517 nm wavelength against a blank, which was 80% methanol without DPPH. Similarly, the absorbance of samples was measured after mixing 100 μL samples with 100 μL of 80% methanol. Free radical-scavenging activity (%) was calculated using the following equation: where A is the absorbance of \[(Sample + DPPH) − (Sample + Methanol)\], and B is the absorbance of \[(Methanol + DPPH) − (Methanol)\].
The IC~50~ value, which is the concentration required to obtain 50% antioxidant capacity, was calculated and used to compare the antioxidant activity of sample extracts.
3.10. Statistical Analyses
--------------------------
For each sample, three independent replicate measurements were used in all statistical analyses. To determine differences among crop types, cultivars, and plant parts, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Duncan's multiple-range test (DMRT) was performed at a significance level of 0.05 using SAS^®^ 9.2 software (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA, 2013).
4. Conclusions
==============
In conclusion, the results of our study showed that the levels of chemical constituents and antioxidant activity are significantly dependent on crop type, cultivar, and plant part. Most of the compounds as well as the antioxidant activity were higher in plant florets; however, phytonutrients, such as flavonoids in both broccoli and cauliflower and free sugar in broccoli cultivars, revealed statistically higher values in leaves, indicating that leaves are a good source of those phytochemicals. Similarly, the highest levels of vitamin C, total phenol, total flavonoids, free sugar, and antioxidant activity were observed in the cauliflower cultivars, whereas the highest total glucosinolate was present in the broccoli cultivars; however, no specific cultivar had significantly higher quantities of all the phytochemicals. All of these results suggest that phytonutrients in *Brassica* are affected in different ways depending on the nature of the compounds. Furthermore, the major fatty acids were palmitic, linoleic, and linolenic acids with a high compositional ratio of unsaturated fatty acids, thereby signifying the nutritional value of these fatty acids that are responsible for the promotion of human health in a number of different ways.
This work was carried out with the support of "Golden Seed Project (Project No. 213003-04-2-SB410)" funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Republic of Korea.
*Sample Availability*: Not available.
J.H. Kwak designed the experiments, analyzed the data and revised the manuscript. S.R. Bhandari performed whole experiments, analyzed the data and wrote manuscript.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
|
Implications of the Eurozone Crisis for Agriculture in the Europe and Central Asia Economies in Transition
Citation: Meyers, W.H., and K. Goychuk. 2013. "Implications of the Eurozone Crisis for Agriculture in the Europe and Central Asia Economies in Transition". Choices. Quarter 2. Available online: http://choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/theme-articles/the-eurozone-crisis-and-its-implications-for-agriculture-in-selected-regions-of-the-world/implications-of-the-eurozone-crisis-for-agriculture-in-the-europe-and-central-asia-economies-in-transition
When compared with the European Union (EU), many of the Europe and Central Asia Economies in Transition (ECAEiT) countries have seen both a larger economic decline and a stronger economic recovery after the global economic crisis that started with the 2008-09 recession. However, many of the ECAEiT are increasingly linked by goods, services, capital, and even labor markets to the economic performance of the EU, so the sustainability of their recovery is influenced by the Eurozone and broader EU economic performances, which has been also confirmed by a number of recent studies. As an example, the headline on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) Regional Economic Prospects report for January 2012 was “Eurozone Crisis Takes the Steam out of Emerging Europe’s Recovery.” The headline in the HSBC Bank’s October 2012 report on macroeconomics of the Central and Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa (CEEMEA) region declared that “weak demand from the Eurozone is dragging down exports while deleveraging pressures are weight on domestic lending.”
It is still too soon to conduct more detailed quantitative analysis to establish cause and effect of the EU crisis on the ECAEiT countries, so we rely heavily on assessments that EBRD and others have already conducted on the Eurozone crisis as it has unfolded, as well on the larger financial crisis of 2008-09. The degree of market integration with the Eurozone, and thus impacts of its crisis, varies greatly across this region since some countries are already in the EU, some are candidates for accession, many have preferential trade agreements, and some are far less linked to the Eurozone economy. An extreme example may be Uzbekistan, which resists globalization and shows very few effects of either positive or negative global economic shocks.
The opening article in this series on the Eurozone provides the background on the focus of this and other contributions to the topic. We will explore the main transmission mechanisms through which Eurozone financial troubles have disrupted or could disrupt economic recovery and agricultural growth in the ECAEiT. The usual transmission mechanisms likely to be relevant are trade, investment, credit flow, and remittances. So these will be explored in terms of their impact on ECAEiT economies, and on their agricultural growth, whether directly or indirectly. For most of these factors, the double-dip recession in many countries of the EU and the persistence of financial instability in the Eurozone has negative consequences for economic performance in the ECAEiT. A more severe shock, such as the collapse of the euro or even the exit of one or more countries from the Eurozone, would have even more stark, contagion effects on the analyzed countries, and the magnitude of these impacts would clearly be greater for those countries closer in geography and in economic integration with the EU. The 2013 outlook for the euro area was revised downward by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (2013) and the uncertainty about its future continues to create large downside risk, especially for neighboring regions. This assessment will conclude with risk factors and issues of concern for the ECAEiT
Overview of Economic Recovery
Data clearly shows that the recovery from the 2009 financial crisis was stronger in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) than in the EU or Eurozone areas, which always lagged slightly behind the total EU average (Figure 1). But when the Eurozone went into a double-dip recession in 2012, which likely continued into 2013, it clearly slowed the recovery in neighboring regions. Generally, the geographically closer and more economically integrated CEE is more affected by this recession than was the CIS.
Figure 1
Annual Growth Rate of Real GDP,
Comparison of January 2013 and April
2011 IMF Projections
Source: IMF macro outlook forecasts (IMF 2011, 2013)
It is helpful to see the disaggregated analysis of the EBRD, which shows the sub-regions are affected differently. Its analysis of GDP growth in 2012, done at different points in time, found that South-Eastern Europe (SEE) and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus (EEC) economies are influenced by the second Eurozone recession more than Russia and Central Europe and the Baltics (CEB) (Figure 2). EBRD found that impacts on the Central Asia (CA) region were relatively small. A similar pattern seems to be emerging for 2013, though the relative size of the impacts of reduced economic activity in the disaggregated regions is expected to be smaller than in 2012 (Figure 3).
In both years the economic performance of the other regions is significantly better than that of the Eurozone. In fact, three of the countries in CEB are actually in the euro area, but two of them—Estonia and Slovakia—are growing well above the regional average and one—Slovenia—has even been below the Eurozone average growth rate both years.
Figure 2
Changes in Projected 2012 GDP Growth
by Region
Source: EBRD (2011, 2012c, 2013), IMF (2011, 2012b,
2013)
This comparison may only show the difficulty of doing economic projections and by itself does not prove causality; but given the sequence of economic events and size of the Eurozone economy relative to others, even including Russia, the case for such significant influence on other economies in the region is strong.
Exploring the Main Transmission Mechanisms
To the extent that neighboring countries in SEE, EEC, Russia, and CA have become more integrated with the Eurozone economy, the impacts of economic and financial developments in the euro area naturally have a greater significance. An assessment of exposure of these economies to the Eurozone via foreign direct investment (FDI), external debt, and exports found, for example, that Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia had a higher exposure than one or more of the EU member states in CEB (EBRD, 2012d). If we consider the main pathways through which the Eurozone economic crisis can affect neighboring regions, the principal linkages are trade, investment, credit flow, and remittances. We explore each of these and consider how they may alter the agriculture sectors in the region.
Figure 3
Projections of 2013 GDP Growth by Region
Source: EBRD (2012b, 2012c, 2013), IMF (2012a, 2012b,
2013)
Trade
One early impact of the euro crisis was its depreciation. In this instance, that was offset by the fact that currencies in the neighboring regions, in general, depreciated relative to the Euro. The main trade impact, therefore, would be through the decline in demand in the Eurozone, which would translate into declining exports from these regions. There are neighboring countries, including all those in SEE, where the share of exports to the Eurozone during 2007-10 was 40% or more, and exceeded even some of the countries inside the EU. In fact, an analysis by the EBRD (2012d) found that from September 2011 to July 2012, when a major economic decline in the Eurozone took place, exports from SEE countries declined from 0.5% to 3.0%, and some countries in the EEC and CA regions were also affected. Of course other factors can be at play here, but there is at least a pattern of greater export declines in countries that had a larger share of exports to the Eurozone in the 2007-10 period.
Capital Flow
As with the financial crisis of 2008-09, capital inflow was also reversed as a consequence of the Eurozone crisis. According to EBRD, capital flow turned negative in the second half of 2011 and FDI dropped by about 50% in the SEE and EEC regions. These coincided with a drop in outward investment from the Eurozone (EBRD, 2012d). Once again, this correlation does not prove cause and effect, but a statistical analysis was conducted on this question with data on bilateral flows from six Eurozone countries to countries in the transition region from 2001 to 2010. The results showed that an increase in the source country’s growth rate by 1.0 percentage point increases its stock of FDI in the receiving country by 5.9% (EBRD, 2012d).
Credit growth
The third quarter of 2011 saw large outflows of funds from transition countries as banks reduced lending in response to the financial crisis in the bank’s home country. The early credit contraction was most severe in CEB countries that are part of the EU. However, the most persistent credit contraction has been in the SEE region where credit growth remains close to zero (EBRD, 2012d). This was even more severe in the 2008-09 financial crisis, but the lending activity began to increase before the onset of the 2011 Eurozone crisis, then decreased again. It is likely more severe in countries with a large share of foreign-owned banks, and for most countries in CEB and SEE, foreign-owned banks have well over half of all bank assets and over 90% in some cases (HSBC, 2011).
Remittances
The impacts of remittances are much more selective than other effects. For example, the decline in remittances is largely affecting SEE countries, especially Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, and Romania where they declined by double-digits in 2012 (World Bank, 2012). Albania and Moldova, in particular, are heavily dependent on remittances from two of the most troubled EU countries—Greece and Italy. The other possible remittance effect would be indirect, as in the case where Russia’s economy is negatively affected and, in turn, there is a decline in remittances from Russia to other countries in the region. That does not seem to be likely except in the case of a contagion effect from a much larger Eurozone crisis. At the present time the growth in remittances from Russia are offsetting the weak remittances from Western Europe (World Bank, 2012).
Implications for Agriculture in the Region
The potential impacts on agriculture can be viewed in terms of effects on supply and demand, and we should consider both positive and negative effects. First of all, it is important to recognize that there is a huge diversity of farm sizes, ownership structures, and degrees of commercialization in these neighboring regions, ranging from subsistence farms to the large-scale, commercial agriholdings in Russia and Ukraine. In part, the current farming structures are a consequence of the methods and speed of transformation and, in part, due to differences in the pre-reform structures and heritage of different countries (Goychuk and Meyers, 2013). The one common feature is that all of them have undergone a massive transition from the forms under which they operated prior to 1989 and the current farming structures and management systems. Thus, generalizations are difficult to make. But the main focus of our comments relate to those farming systems that are commercialized and engaged in the supply and demand marketing chain.
It is important to note that in many countries of this region, especially those not in the EU, agriculture is still a significant share of their economies, ranging from 10% in Ukraine to 34% of GDP in Serbia. As has been emphasized by Petrick and Kloss (2013), the banking crisis, recession, and sovereign debt crisis associated with the Eurozone troubles have different effects depending on the farm structures and degree of commercialization. They already touched on those countries from this region that are already in the EU, so we will tend to focus more on those that are not EU members.
As with the 2008-09 financial crisis, the most direct impacts on agriculture would most likely be reduced credit access, reduced FDI, and reduced market demand (World Bank, 2009). Of course, the size of these effects would have been proportionately bigger during that global financial crisis. In some respects, the current effects are essentially a prolonging of the impacts of the earlier and larger financial crisis. A good example is the reversing of credit flow due to reduction of lending that was very severe after the 2008-09 financial crises. In many countries in these regions it was the EU-based banks that were more engaged in agricultural credit, so their withdrawal contributed to a sharp rise in interest rates and constrained credit access. The July 2011 analysis found hope in the positive capital flow into the region (EBRD, 2011), but this reversed again as the Eurozone went into its second dip.
With regard to FDI, this has been significant in the growth of large-scale farming enterprises that have been especially successful in expanding agricultural production and increasing exports from Russia and Ukraine (Liefert, Liefert, and Luebehusen, 2013). When FDI slows, therefore, it slows these investments and production growth. One could perhaps argue that investors could leave poor performing economies in the Eurozone to invest elsewhere and this may be advantageous to the neighboring regions. However, EBRD (2012d) found that “FDI flows into these countries over the previous decade had been affected by economic conditions in the source country rather than by prevailing or past growth rates in the recipient state.”
On the demand side, exports to the EU from neighboring regions have clearly declined since the onset of the Eurozone crisis, and these are most likely transmitted via reduced demand rather than via exchange rates and apply to agricultural exports as well as to total exports. It is too early in the process to measure or compare the magnitude of different effects, but larger declines may be seen for products more sensitive to income, such as high-value fruit and vegetable exports from the SEE region, for example, than for bulk grain exports from the EED region. The largest demand effects in many countries, however, would be the decline in their internal demand due to slower domestic GDP growth. Finally, budget constraints are leading to a first-ever reduction in funding for agricultural supports in the EU. In addition to cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget, proposed capping of payments and increased production costs associated with greening constraints would both have the effect of reducing production incentives in the EU. This may give advantage to neighboring countries that have far lower levels of support for agriculture. However, these countries also face more budget austerity, so their support for agriculture may also suffer.
More Analysis Needed
It is still premature to carefully measure causality with any degree of confidence. Regardless, the patterns of change observed during the second Eurozone recession suggest that neighboring regions are, indeed, negatively affected and remain vulnerable to Eurozone economic shocks through the normal economic mechanisms. These impacts are much smaller than those of the bigger and broader 2008-09 financial crisis, but clearly have significantly slowed what was a robust recovery from the 2009 recession and have greater effects on those regions that are more closely integrated with Eurozone economies. It is even more difficult to quantify the impacts on agriculture specifically, but capital flow to investment and credit could be more significant than demand effects—except in those countries that have a large share of high-value exports going into EU markets. Finally, it must be said that the crisis is not over, and the January assessment by EBRD concluded that the largest downside risk to this region is a further deterioration of the Eurozone crisis.
World Bank. (2009). Turmoil at Twenty - Recession, Recovery, and Reform in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Washington, D.C.
William H. Meyers ([email protected]) is the Howard Cowden Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics. Kateryna Goychuk ([email protected]) is a Ph.D. candidate, Food and Agricultural Policy Institute, University of Missouri-Columbia. |
This invention relates generally to the field of alert systems and, in its preferred embodiments, to alert systems utilizing cellular, personal communication system, or wireless telecommunication technology to deliver an alert to a person.
In recent decades, the science of meteorology has advanced rapidly, allowing increasingly accurate detection and prediction of severe and hazardous weather. Specifically, Doppler radar systems and high resolution satellites have been developed which allow early detection of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms and accurate tracking of their paths. The National Weather Service (NWS) and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now routinely issue warnings in advance of most severe or tornadic storms, alerting individuals and saving lives. However, in order for these warnings, or xe2x80x9calertsxe2x80x9d to be effective, they must be communicated to and received by their intended recipients.
Some local governments and municipalities utilize civil defense siren systems to provide warnings to persons within the localized range of the siren systems in case of severe weather, natural disaster, war or other emergency conditions. However, weather-related warnings are more commonly provided through the NOAA Weather Radio system which is a nationwide network of radio stations operating twenty-four (24) hours per day to broadcast continuous weather information directly from the local offices of the National Weather Service. The NOAA Weather Radio system also broadcasts alerts for the Emergency Alert System (EAS), maintained by the Federal Communication Commission, in order to provide emergency warnings for all types of hazards, including, but not limited to, earthquakes, volcano erruptions, severe weather and nuclear war. The NOAA Weather Radio system has more than 450 transmitters, covering broad areas in each of the 50 states, adjacent coastal waters, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the U.S. Pacific Territories. Unfortunately, reception of the Emergency Alert System warnings via the NOAA Weather Radio system generally requires a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up its emergency warning signals.
Tone-activated alert receivers are commonly used to monitor NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts, to provide warning of severe weather and to provide emergency and civil defense alerts. A tone-activated alert receiver constantly monitors the local NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts for a specific 1050 Hz emergency alert tone. In response to receiving an emergency alert tone, a tone-activated alert receiver produces an audible and/or visual alarm, and activates a radio tuned to the NOAA Weather Radio broadcast. Since each NOAA Weather Radio station transmits its signals to a relatively large geographical area, older tone-activated alert receivers suffer from the disadvantage of falsely responding to alerts when the condition to which the emergency alert pertains is only relevant to other geographical areas in the broadcast area of the particular NOAA Weather Radio station transmitting the alert tone.
Newer NOAA Weather Radio receivers, known as xe2x80x9cSAME receiversxe2x80x9d, incorporate a feature known as Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) to decrease the frequency of false alerts. A SAME receiver recognizes a specific digital location code, in an emergency broadcast signal, which designates a specific locality for which alerts are relevant. Once programmed by a user to respond only to a specific digital location code for the area of the user, a SAME receiver switches into alarm mode only upon receipt of an emergency broadcast signal which includes a SAME digital location code matching the preprogrammed digital code. Accordingly, SAME receivers are generally deployed in a particular, fixed location such as an individual""s home or office. While these SAME receivers are useful in their fixed locations, they are not particularly useful if moved from the location for which they have been programmed. Additionally, like many individuals who cannot program a video cassette recorder (VCR), some individuals may find it difficult or inconvenient to program the SAME receiver.
As an alternative to SAME receivers, some persons are proposing that cellular or Personal Communication System (PCS) wireless telephone networks be employed to deliver emergency alerts to individuals having cellular or PCS wireless telephones because cellular and PCS telephone networks typically employ short-range, broadcast transceivers (or transmitters) which have coverage areas, or cells, of a reasonably small size, thereby enabling the delivery of emergency alerts to persons in selected areas served by particular broadcast transmitters. As proposed, delivery of emergency alert messages to selected local areas would be achieved by activating only those cellular or PCS broadcast transceivers providing coverage for the specific geographical area to which the emergency alert is relevant, instead of requiring the transmission, preprogramming, and recognition of a specific digital location code corresponding to the geographical area for which the emergency alert is relevant. However, until recently, wireless telephone networks have not had the capability of transmitting alphanumeric messages that would be required to effectively distribute emergency alert messages. In contrast, conventional paging systems have the capability of supporting alphanumeric messaging, but have coverage areas far to large to provide the level of geographical specificity required to deliver location specific, emergency alert messages.
New cellular and PCS telephone networks are currently being deployed, or have been deployed, throughout North America and Europe which are capable of transmitting alphanumeric messages and which have coverage areas providing sufficient geographical specificity to make them ideal vehicles for the delivery of location-specific, emergency alert messages. Using the newer cellular and PCS networks, a network operator can send messages to a cellular or PCS telephone present in any single cell or any group of cells serviced by the transceivers of the network. Accordingly, some persons have recently proposed that these cellular and PCS networks be used to transmit location-specific, emergency alert messages to the cellular or PCS telephone handsets of individual users by dialing the telephone number associated with each handset and, upon answer by the cellular or PCS handset, delivering the emergency alert message to the handset.
While cellular or PCS telecommunications systems may be an effective vehicle for conveying location-specific, emergency alert messages, such systems enable delivery of emergency alert messages to only those individuals who can figure out how get such messages via their wireless telephones. Currently, to get such messages, individuals must find their way through a myriad of icons (which many individuals cannot do) and then review all of their messages in order to identify the emergency alert messages from other messages. Further, the delivery of emergency alert messages via cellular or PCS telecommunications systems requires individuals to have their handsets nearby and turned-on (and not depleted of battery power). Unfortunately, individuals often turn-off their handsets, forget to recharge them, or leave their handsets, for instance, in the car while they are at home or work. As a result, a system that relies upon cellular or PCS handset receivers to receive emergency alert messages may fail to notify a large number of individuals of the existence of an emergency condition.
Other similar difficulties are inherent in the delivery of information or messages that relate to military or other operations (i.e., a different type of xe2x80x9calertxe2x80x9d). For instance, if a branch of the military needs to inform its reservists to report for duty on Sunday instead of Saturday as the reservists were originally notified, it typically contacts each reservist individually by telephone to provide the reservist with such information, thereby requiring a substantial use of labor to perform such a task.
Therefore, there is a need in the industry for an apparatus and method whereby individuals may reliably receive cellular or PCS transmissions of location-specific alert information without requiring the use of a cellular or PCS telephone handset. Furthermore, there is a need for an apparatus and method whereby individuals may reliably receive cellular or PCS transmissions of location-specific alert information without requiring individuals to perform complex retrieval steps or inconvenient receiver programming steps.
Briefly described, the present invention comprises an alert apparatus and method for receiving a location-specific alert (i.e., an alert directed and relevant to a particular geographical area) and for informing a user, who may be visually or hearing impaired, of the existence and severity of the alert. More particularly, the present invention includes an alert apparatus and method which allow a user to receive data corresponding to an alert which has been broadcast via particular transmitters operating within a cellular, PCS, or wireless telephone communications network, thereby allowing receipt of a location-specific alert (and a textual message associated with the alert) without requiring the user to input, to the alert apparatus, data representative of or identifying the location of the apparatus. Further, the present invention includes an alert apparatus and method which produces high-decibel level audible sounds and high-intensity flashing strobe light corresponding to alerts of the most severe level and which produces low-decibel level audible sounds and low-intensity flashing light from a light-emitting diode corresponding to alerts of a less severe level.
In accordance with the preferred embodiment, the apparatus of the present invention comprises an alert device having a microcomputer that directs operation of the alert device according to the instructions of a computer software program stored therein. The alert device also includes a receiver that receives digital PCS transmissions broadcast over a PCS or cellular telecommunication network. The microcomputer has a central processing unit and a monitoring circuit communicatively connected to the central processing unit and receiver. The monitoring circuit is capable of setting the receiver to receive transmissions, if any, on radio channels identified by the central processing unit, of determining the signal strength associated with transmissions received on such radio channels, of identifying the presence of a digital control channel on a radio channel, and of communicating signal strength information, digital control channel information, and broadcast short messages, received by the receiver, to the central processing unit.
According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the alert device further comprises a plurality of peripheral devices and the microcomputer further comprises a peripheral device controller which connects to the plurality of peripheral devices. The plurality of peripheral devices includes a liquid crystal display, a high-level audio speaker, a low-level audio speaker, a high-intensity strobe light, and a low-intensity light-emitting diode. The microcomputer, via the peripheral device controller, controls the operation of the plurality of peripheral devices according to the severity of a condition identified by an alert. For instance, the microcomputer causes the production of audible sound from the high-level audio speaker-at a high-decibel level and flashing of the high-intensity strobe light to warn a user of the existence of a xe2x80x9cLevel Onexe2x80x9d alert (i.e., the most severe or important alert condition). Similarly, the microcomputer causes the production of audible sound from the low-level audio speaker at a low-decibel level and flashing of the low-intensity light-emitting diode to warn a user of the existence of a xe2x80x9cLevel Twoxe2x80x9d alert (i.e., a less severe or less important alert condition). The microprocessor, via the peripheral device controller, also causes the display, on the liquid crystal display, of textual information received as part of an alert message.
The alert device, in accordance with the preferred embodiment, is operable to continuously monitor broadcasts from a cellular, PCS, or wireless telecommunications network. Accordingly, the alert device connects to an electrical outlet to receive electrical power for normal operation, but includes a battery backup and charging circuit to ensure operation of the alert device even in the event of a power failure. Furthermore, in the preferred embodiment, the alert device operates continuously when supplied with electrical power, has no on/off switch, and thus cannot easily be deactivated by a user unlike a cellular or PCS telephone handset. The alert device does, however, include a reset pushbutton that enables a user to temporarily deactivate, or stop, the audible and visual alarms once notified of an alert condition. In the preferred embodiment, the alert device is mountable to an electrical wall socket in a manner substantially similar to that of a conventional smoke detector. In an alternate embodiment, the alert device has an enclosure that enables the device to reside atop a table or other surface in a manner substantially similar to that of a weather radio. In an alternate preferred embodiment, the alert device includes a plurality of peripheral devices that are locatable at sites remote from the alert device.
In accordance with a method of the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the alert device operates according to the instructions of a computer software program residing in the microcomputer and performs a self-test when powered-up to determine whether the alert device is functioning properly. The alert device, through cooperation between the microcomputer, monitoring circuit, and receiver, then scans a factory-set, pre-identified set of radio channels comprising a range of channels used by compatible cellular or PCS telecommunication networks in order to identify the channel associated with the cellular or PCS transmitter which transmits on a digital control channel and which has the strongest signal strength at the location of the alert device. The alert device then locks onto and passively monitors the selected channel for digital alerts in the form of broadcast short messages. Because the alert device passively monitors PCS network broadcasts, use of the alert device should not result in the user incurring periodic service charges from the network provider.
According to the method of the present invention, the alert device, upon detecting and receiving a broadcast short message, identifies whether the broadcast short message comprises an alert message. If so, the alert device then analyzes the alert message and determines the severity level of the alert identified by the alert message. If the alert is a xe2x80x9cLevel Onexe2x80x9d alert, the alert device operates, as described above, the high-level audio speaker to produce a highly obtrusive, high-decibel level sound substantially similar to that of a conventional smoke detector (i.e., a sound that would cause even the hardest of sleepers to awaken) and the high-intensity strobe light to produce flashing, high-intensity, bright light. If the alert is a xe2x80x9cLevel Twoxe2x80x9d alert, the alert device operates, as described above, the low-level audio speaker to produce a less-obtrusive, low-decibel level, xe2x80x9cchirpingxe2x80x9d sound and the low-intensity light-emitting diode to produce less-intense, less-bright, flashing light. Regardless of the severity level of the alert, the alert device extracts textual message information, if any, from the alert message and displays the textual message information on the liquid crystal display to provide a user with a more detailed explanation as to the nature of the alert. Once the user is informed as to the existence and nature of the alert, the production of audible sounds and the generation of flashing light is terminable by the user through depression of the reset pushbutton protruding partially from the alert device.
In accordance with an alternate preferred embodiment of the present invention, the alert device is operable with an alert messaging system of a service provider which provides different levels of service (i.e., service levels or modes) to a user of the alert device in exchange for a subscription fee paid to the service provider by the user. The plurality of service levels or modes enable different classifications of alert messages to be related to and associated with the subscription status of a user (i.e., the service level selected by, subscribed to, and paid for by a user). Based upon the service level selected by the user and stored in a service level data element of the user""s alert device, the user""s alert device will provide that level of service to the user. For example and not limitation, a user may select a service level from any of the following levels: fully enabled; partially enabled; or, fully disabled. The user pays a subscription fee to the service provider in an amount determined by the selected service level, and the service provider causes a service level data element stored at the user""s alert device to be set to a value indicating the service level or mode selected by the user. Once set, the user""s alert device operates at the selected service level. In the fully enabled mode, the alert device reacts to all alert messages and provides the user with any received information pertaining to the corresponding alert. In the partially enabled mode, the alert device only reacts to the most severe alerts (i.e., xe2x80x9cLevel Onexe2x80x9d alerts) to provide subscribers with a minimal level of service and warnings. In the fully disabled mode, the alert device does not react to any alerts. Such operability allows a service provider of alert messages to establish and enforce compliance with a subscription system.
According to another alternate preferred embodiment of the present invention, the alert device is operable with an alert messaging system of a service provider which provides a service level that enables the user""s alert device to receive and react to an advertisement that is present in the body of an alert message. In operation, the service provider causes a service level data element stored at the user""s alert device to be set to a value indicating that the user""s alert device is to display received advertisements on the device""s display. Then, whenever the alert device receives a short message having a service level with that value, the alert device extracts an advertisement from the body of the message and displays it on the alert device""s display.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for receiving location-specific alert information without requiring a user to input data representative of the user""s location.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for receiving location-specific alert information that is not limited to a fixed location.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for receiving location-specific alert information that can be moved from an old location to a new location without requiring reprogramming or the input of data representative of the new location.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for receiving location-specific alert information that self-identifies the strongest source of such alert information.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for receiving location-specific alert information that self-identifies the frequency on which the alert information is transmitted or broadcast.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for receiving location-specific alert information that identifies the different levels of severity associated with alerts.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for receiving location-specific alert information that produces different sensory outputs corresponding to the different levels of severity or importance of alerts.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for receiving location-specific alert information which operates continuously, unless moved by a user, at a particular location.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for receiving location-specific alert information which is continuously operable from an external electrical power source and which has an internal battery backup for use during power failures.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for receiving location-specific alert information which displays a textual message related to the alert for which the alert information pertains. |
Strengthening the Role of Unmarried Fathers: Findings from the Co-Parent Court Project.
While the importance of fathers in unmarried coparent families is a strong area of social and political interest, a dearth of community-based interventions exists for supporting the role of fathers in at-risk families. The Co-Parent Court (CPC) was a 3-year demonstration project evaluating the effectiveness of a collaborative intervention to support unmarried coparents establishing paternity and improving their coparenting relationships and paternal involvement in their child's life. A randomized-control experimental design was employed. The paper will explore father involvement and coparent relationship outcomes. |
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Personal: Born July 29, 1978 … daughter of Ellen and John Buckley … earned Dean's List honors for the spring 1997 semester … sister Ali (28) was a member of the North Carolina swimming and diving team and sister Kristin (25) was a member of the NC State gymnastics team … majoring in family studies. |
...which also talks of virtualenv & pip. There is also 'python install' and 'python framework install'. It's all a bit overwhelming and I can't find a decent resource that talks of what the actual difference is between the official installer and a homebrew one.
I can appreciate the idea of a virtual environment as a closed container as to not interfere with other projects (like I do with gemsets in ruby version manager to use specific versions of ruby gems per project).
However, I'm just a bit confused about all the terminology and what actual methods people use to get projects up and running. If anyone could clear some of this stuff up it would be very helpful or maybe suggest some better learning resources. Perhaps this post is a bit rambling but it represents what's going on in my head right now as I approach getting python up and running in a way other than the official installer.
Homebrew seems like it would be very useful to me as I could get ruby rvm, drush, pip, virtualenv, python, all set up in one fell swoop but I would really appreciate some input before diving in and messing everything up. Thanks in advance.
My experience with OS X was that I had official installations, Homebrew installations, and some thing else on top of that that was purple or a bird or something (Pidgin comes to mind, but it's obviously not that) and none of them played nice with each other, and none of them provided all the third party modules I wanted. Part of why I ditched OS X for Linux, in spite of Spotlight and the multi-touch keyboard, both of which I really miss, was that nothing played nice with each other. Different Python installs only worked with their own locally installed third party modules. It wasn't a feature, like virtualenv, it was just a limitation.
That said, it was about three years ago that I had that experience. Perhaps things have progressed since then. But I would definitely recommend using one thing and sticking to it, and pip and virtualenv both work on Linux too, and I'm a fan of using multi-platform tools where possible instead of something like Homebrew which is Mac specific.
As for actual experience... before I learned about virtualenv, which as you noticed is super awesome, I had everything installed alongside everything else, and everything used the same most recent (Python 2.7.x) version. I luckily never came across any versioning issues. If I was given a production machine for a new project, I would certainly use virtualenv instead of just installing everything to a central site-packages directory, because even though you might get away with it, when you don't really bites you in the ass. (Some co-workers of mine had a project which required a particular version of pygame, and a particular version of sqlalchemy or something of the like, and had issues that were resolved once they used virtualenv properly. Keeping all installs through pip also helped, IIRC.)
Also, anything of importance I've seen deployed has always been in Linux. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use OS X, it just means that my recommendation for using the standard Linux tools should work on OS X but if it doesn't, then I don't know what to say.
Thanks for the response. I've not finished paying for my macbook so I'm not in any rush right now to switch to linux. Besides, I've tried linux on a few different laptops, and each one had the same issues that I posted a number of times on mint/ubuntu forums. This is why I switched from linux to OSX and much happier!
But I would definitely recommend using one thing and sticking to it, and pip and virtualenv both work on Linux too, and I'm a fan of using multi-platform tools where possible instead of something like Homebrew which is Mac specific.
I can't find a way to install these things without homebrew, every guide seems to start "Install homebrew.... then....". It seems the more time I muck about with this means the less time I'm actually learning python, which is probably quite essential! Maybe just using the official installer would be a good idea right now.
Virtualbox looks like a pretty good idea, will give that a try at some point. I used to dual boot win7 and ubuntu and although I really enjoyed ubuntu, it was the issues that made me switch. Maybe a virtual ubuntu would be the answer. |
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Pediacof is a combination medication which is mainly used to treat cough. It is also used to relieve the symptoms associated with the common cold, allergies, hay fever, sinusitis and other respiratory conditions. This medication works by loosening mucous. This medication is also used to treat inflammation of the nose due to a stuffy nose, runny nose, and cough. However, Pediacof may also be used for other conditions as determined by the doctor. Do not use this medication if you are allergic to it or any ingredient in it. Consult the doctor if any of these applies to you. Do not start, stop or change the dosage without consulting the doctor. Use this medication exactly as indicated on the label or as prescribed by the doctor.
Cough
Symptoms of the common cold, allergies, hay fever, sinusitis
Respiratory conditions
Pediacof Dosage
Pediacof dosage is administered in the form of oral syrup. The dosage depends on the condition of the patient. The dosage is also dependent on the patient and the strength of the medicine. Do not start, stop or change the dosage without consulting the doctor. The dosage should be given in accordance with the needs and age of the patient. Note, unnecessary use or overusing the medicine can lead to ineffectiveness of the medicine.Recommended dosageChildren:
under 12 years of age: from 6 months to 1 year, 1/4 teaspoon
1 to 3 years, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon
3 to 6 years, 1 to 2 teaspoons
6 to 12 years, 2 teaspoons
Adult dosage
Consult the doctor for more information
Pediacof Side Effects
Pediacof has a variety of side effects. It has some needed side effects and unwanted side effects inclusive. However, not all the side effects that should be reported since they may go away as your body adjusts to the medicine during treatment. In case you experience any severe side effect, consult the doctor for medication. Do not overuse the medicine to avoid severe allergic reactions. In the event the following side effects occur, seek medical attention immediately.Common side effects of Pediacof include:
Dizziness
drowsiness
headache
loss of appetite
nausea
dry mouth
anxiety
chest pain
rapid pulse
skin rash
high blood pressure
painful or difficult urination
tremors
nervousness
trouble sleeping
mental confusion
lightheadedness;
Pediacof Interactions
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Garth Crooks
Garth Anthony Crooks, (born 10 March 1958) is an English former professional footballer. He played for Stoke City, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, West Bromwich Albion and Charlton Athletic. Throughout his career he was an active member of the Professional Footballers' Association and was elected the first black chairman of the union. He currently works for BBC Sport as the lead pundit on Final Score on BBC One on Saturday afternoons.
Club career
Crooks was born in Bucknall, Stoke-on-Trent, and is of Jamaican descent. He progressed through the youth ranks at Stoke City signing professional contract forms in March 1976. He made his debut in April at home to Coventry City becoming the first black player to play for Stoke since Roy Brown in the 1940s. In the 1976–77 season his first full season he was top-scorer albeit with just six goals as Stoke's financial problems saw them relegated to the Second Division. Many black players at the time suffered racist abuse from the stands. Crooks was no exception, but his "cocky arrogance" meant it did little to affect him. His pace caused problems for Second Division defences as he again top-scored with 19 in 1977–78 as Stoke failed to mount a serious promotion attempt. Manager Alan Durban decided to play Crooks as a winger at the start of the 1978–79 season, a decision which Crooks openly criticised. He was restored to his striker role with the season coming to an end which saw Stoke gain promotion by beating Notts County on the final day of the season. He scored 14 goals in 1979–80 as Stoke safely avoided relegation but tensions between Crooks and Durban resurfaced which led to Crooks handing in a transfer request.
In 1979, he played in a benefit match for West Bromwich Albion player Len Cantello, that saw a team of white players play against a team of black players.
He was sold to Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 1980 for a fee of £650,000, where he formed a successful striking partnership with Steve Archibald. With Crooks leading the line, Spurs won two FA Cups, and the 1984 UEFA Cup against Anderlecht (he was an unused substitute in the final's second leg). Crooks is frequently credited as the first black player to score in an FA Cup final for his equalising goal in a 3–2 win over Manchester City in 1981, though this was pre-dated by Bill Perry in 1953 and Mike Trebilcock in 1966. He later went on loan to Manchester United and had spells at West Bromwich Albion and Charlton Athletic before a knee injury forced his retirement in 1990. His career ended on a low note as Charlton were relegated from the First Division, just as the West Bromwich Albion side he had played in four seasons earlier had been.
International career
Crooks represented England at international level, making four appearances for the England under-21s, for whom he scored three goals.
Media career
In 1988, Crooks became the first black chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association but gave up the role after retiring in 1990. He first worked in the media as a guest presenter on 25 March 1982's Top of the Pops on BBC1 (with Peter Powell), then as a match analyst at the 1982 and 1990 World Cups, he later worked as Match of the Day'''s reporter at the England camp at Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup. In the late 1990s, Crooks became presenter of the political television show Despatch Box''. In 1999, he was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for his services to football punditry, specifically citing his ability to bring passion to football. He currently appears regularly on Final Score as a pundit and on rare occasions still appears on Match of the Day as a replacement for regular pundits Alan Shearer and Danny Murphy. He is occasionally seen interviewing players for Football Focus and also names his Premier League team of the week each week on the BBC website.
Career statistics
Source:
A. The "Other" column constitutes appearances and goals in the FA Charity Shield, Football League play-offs and Full Members Cup.
References
External links
PFA profile of Garth Crooks
PFA profile of Garth Crooks Years:1988–1990
BBC profile
Category:1958 births
Category:English footballers
Category:Association football forwards
Category:England under-21 international footballers
Category:Stoke City F.C. players
Category:Tottenham Hotspur F.C. players
Category:West Bromwich Albion F.C. players
Category:Charlton Athletic F.C. players
Category:Manchester United F.C. players
Category:English Football League players
Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Category:Black English sportspeople
Category:Sportspeople from Stoke-on-Trent
Category:Living people
Category:British association football commentators
Category:UEFA Cup winning players
Category:Alumni of The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London
Category:English people of Jamaican descent
Category:People from Bucknall, Staffordshire |
---
abstract: 'We survey known (and unknown) results about the behavior of Heegaard genus of 3-manifolds constructed via various gluings. The constructions we consider are (1) gluing together two 3-manifolds with incompressible boundary, (2) gluing together the boundary components of surface$\times I$, and (3) gluing a handlebody to the boundary of a 3-manifold. We detail those cases in which it is known when the Heegaard genus is less than what is expected after gluing.'
address:
- |
Mathematics Department\
Pitzer College\
Claremont, CA 91711\
USA
- |
Department of Mathematics\
The American University in Cairo\
113 Kasr El Aini St\
PO Box 2511\
Cairo 11511\
Egypt
author:
- David Bachman
- 'Ryan Derby-Talbot'
bibliography:
- 'link.bib'
title: 'Degeneration of Heegaard genus, a survey'
---
We survey known (and unknown) results about the behavior of Heegaard genus of 3-manifolds constructed via various gluings. The constructions we consider are (1) gluing together two 3-manifolds with incompressible boundary, (2) gluing together the boundary components of surface times I, and (3) gluing a handlebody to the boundary of a 3-manifold. We detail those cases in which it is known when the Heegaard genus is less than what is expected after gluing.
Introduction
============
In this paper we survey known (and unknown) results about the Heegaard genus of 3-manifolds constructed via some gluing map. In particular we will be concerned here with compact orientable 3-manifolds $M$ constructed in one of three ways. For the first construction, let $X$ and $Y$ be compact, orientable, irreducible 3-manifolds each with a single boundary component homeomorphic to a closed orientable surface $F$, and suppose that $\partial X$ and $\partial Y$ are essential in $X$ and $Y$.
[**Construction 1**]{}Glue $\partial X$ to $\partial Y$ via a map $\varphi$. We write $M=X \cup _F\mskip -0.5mu Y$ or $M = X \cup_{\varphi}\mskip -0.5muY$.
For the second construction we begin with $F \times I$.
[**Construction 2**]{}Glue $F \times \{0\}$ to $F \times \{1\}$ via a map $\varphi$. We write $M=F \times_{\varphi} S^1$.
Finally, for the last construction considered here let $\mathcal H (F)$ denote the handlebody whose boundary is homeomorphic to $F$.
[**Construction 3**]{}Glue $\partial \mathcal H(F)$ to $\partial X$ via a map $\varphi$. We write $M=X \cup \mathcal H(F)$ or $M=X \cup_{\varphi} \mathcal H(F)$.
The [*Heegaard genus*]{} of $M$, denoted $g(M)$, is the minimal value $g$ such that $M$ admits a Heegaard splitting of genus $g$. The genus of the surface $F$ is denoted $g(F)$.
The following definition can be made for any compact, orientable 3-manifold $M$. For simplicity, we assume here that $M$ is closed.
For $F$ a separating surface in $M$, let $X$ and $Y$ denote the components of $M$ cut along $F$. Let $V_X \cup_{H_X} W_X$ and $V_Y \cup_{H_Y} W_Y$ denote Heegaard splittings of $X$ and $Y$, respectively, such that $F \subset \partial V_X, \partial W_Y$. Then there exists a product neighborhood $F \times I$ of $F$ such that $V_X$ equals $F \times [0, \frac{1}{2}]$ with 1-handles attached along $F \times \{0\}$ and $W_Y$ equals $F \times [\frac{1}{2}, 1]$ with 1-handles attached along $F \times \{1\}$. Form a homeomorphism of $M$ by deforming $F \times I$ to $F \times \{\frac{1}{2}\}$ so that the disks of attachment of the 1-handles in $V_X$ and in $W_Y$ end up disjoint on $F\times \{\frac{1}{2} \} = F$. This yields compression bodies $V = V_Y \cup \{\mbox{1-handles in $V_X$}\}$, and $W = W_X \cup \{\mbox{1-handles in $W_Y$}\}$, giving a Heegaard splitting $V \cup_H W$. Such a splitting is called an [*amalgamation along $F$*]{}.
$W_X$ at 133 620 $F$ \[r\] at 62 530 $V_X$ at 139 555 $V_Y$ at 172 431 $W_Y$ at 139 503 $W$ at 391 593 $V$ at 391 454 $M$ at 139 386 {width="3.5in"}
By amalgamating minimal genus Heegaard splittings along $F$ (or along two copies of $F$ if $M=F \times_{\varphi} S^1$) one obtains the following inequalities in each of the three constructions:
1. $g(M) \leq g(X) + g(Y) - g(F)$
2. $g(M) \leq 2g(F) + 1$
3. $g(M) \leq g(X)$
Our discussion will be concerned with when each of the inequalities is either strict (“degeneration is possible”) or is in fact an equality (“no degeneration”).
If a Heegaard splitting of a 3-manifold is of minimal genus, then it is unstabilized. One way that degeneration of Heegaard genus can occur in the above situations is that the amalgamation of minimal genus splittings results in a stabilized splitting. This leads to the following natural question:
\[ques:stabilization\] When is the amalgamation of unstabilized Heegaard splittings unstabilized?
The paper is organized as follows. In Sections 2 – 4 we discuss the issue of degeneration of Heegaard genus under the three types of gluing mentioned above, concluding each section with a discussion of . These sections are organized by the genus of $F$ as the results tend to be based more on genus than on which of the three constructions we are considering. The results on Heegaard genus degeneration from these sections are summarized in a table at the end of Section 4. In Section 5 we review known results bounding how much degeneration of Heegaard genus can occur. For basic definitions and notions related to Heegaard splittings, see Scharlemann [@Scharlemann].
An interesting property of Heegaard genus is that it provides an upper bound on the rank of the fundamental group of a 3-manifold $M$, since a genus $g$ Heegaard splitting of $M$ can be used to construct a presentation of $\pi_1(M)$ with $g$ generators. There are several results about the degeneration of rank of the fundamental group of manifolds formed via some gluing map, many analogous to those stated in this paper about Heegaard genus. While the analogy between Heegaard genus and rank is interesting and worth mentioning, we do not attempt to include a detailed discussion of it here.
Sphere gluings
==============
No degeneration
---------------
We begin by showing that Heegaard genus does not degenerate in any of the three constructions when $F$ is a sphere. The case that $M = X \cup_{S^2} Y$ is implied by the following classic result of Haken.
Let [$V \cup_H W$ ]{}be a Heegaard splitting of $M$ and suppose that $M$ contains an essential 2-sphere. Then there is an essential 2-sphere $F$ such that $H \cap F$ is a single simple closed curve essential on $H$.
If the sphere $F$ is separating so that $M$ is the connected sum of two 3-manifolds $X$ and $Y$, then Haken’s Lemma implies that a Heegaard splitting of $M$ is obtained from the “connected sum” of Heegaard splittings of $X$ and $Y$. In particular:
\[Haken\] If $M=X \# Y$, then $g(M) = g(X) + g(Y)$.
Given Heegaard splittings of $X$ and $Y$ let $B_X$ and $B_Y$ be open embedded 3-balls in $X$ and $Y$, respectively, each intersecting the respective Heegaard surface in an open equatorial disk. Form the connected sum of $X$ and $Y$ by gluing $X - B_X$ to $Y - B_Y$ so that the component of the Heegaard surface in $X - B_X$ meets the component of the Heegaard surface in $Y - B_Y$ (note that there are two ways to do this, yielding possibly non-isotopic splittings). This yields a Heegaard splitting of $M$, implying that $g(M) \leq g(X) + g(Y)$.
For the reverse inequality, assume that $X$ and $Y$ are irreducible. Consider a Heegaard splitting [$V \cup_H W$ ]{}of $M$ of minimal genus. Since $M$ contains an essential sphere, by Haken’s Lemma it contains one meeting $H$ in an essential simple closed curve. Since $X$ and $Y$ are irreducible, $M$ contains a unique essential sphere, hence $H$ intersects the connect sum sphere $S^2$ in a simple closed curve. Cutting along this sphere and filling the resulting boundary components with 3-balls containing equatorial disks, we obtain Heegaard splittings of $X$ and $Y$. If one of these splittings is not of minimal genus, then as above it could have been used to form a Heegaard splitting of $M$ of smaller genus, a contradiction. Thus the splittings of $X$ and $Y$ must be of minimal genus. This implies $g(M) = g(X) + g(Y)$.
To remove the assumption that $X$ and $Y$ are irreducible, use Milnor’s result on the uniqueness of prime decomposition for 3-manifolds [@Milnor] and proceed by induction.
If $M=S^2 \times_{\varphi} S^1$ is orientable then there is only one possibility for the map $\varphi$, which implies $M=S^2 \times S^1$. The Heegaard genus of this manifold is one.
Finally, if $M$ has a sphere boundary and we glue a genus zero handle-body (a 3-ball) to it then the Heegaard genus does not change. Thus in all three constructions, Heegaard genus does not degenerate when $F$ is a sphere.
Stabilization and connected sum
-------------------------------
In the case that $F$ is a sphere was originally asked by CMcA Gordon, who conjectured that the connected sum of unstabilized Heegaard splittings is never stabilized [@kirby:97]. A proof of this conjecture has been announced independently by the first author and Qiu.
[[@Bachman; @Qiu]]{}Let $H_X$ and $H_Y$ be unstabilized Heegaard surfaces in $X$ and $Y$, respectively. Then $H_X \# H_Y$ is an unstabilized Heegaard splitting surface in $X \# Y$.
The splitting surface $H_X \# H_Y$ is defined as in the proof of .
Torus Gluing
============
Degeneration is possible
------------------------
Unlike the sphere case, there are examples where Heegaard genus degenerates when $F$ is a torus. The following result of Schultens and Weidmann shows that the amount of degeneration can be arbitrarily large.
[[@SchultensWeidmann]]{}\[SchultensWeidmann\] Let $n$ be a positive integer. Then there exist manifolds $M_n = X_n \cup_{T^2} Y_n$ such that $$g(M_n) \leq g(X_n) + g(Y_n) - n.$$
They in fact construct examples of unstabilized Heegaard splittings of $X_n$ and $Y_n$ such that the resulting amalgamated Heegaard splitting of $M_n$ can be destabilized $n$ times.
If $M = T^2 \times_{\varphi} S^1$ is a torus bundle, degeneration of Heegaard genus is also possible. Taking two genus 2 Heegaard splittings of $T^2 \times I$ and amalgamating gives a Heegaard splitting of genus 3 of $M$, implying that $g(M) \leq 3$. Cooper and Scharlemann have characterized precisely which solvmanifolds have $g(M)=2$.
[[@CooperScharlemann]]{}\[CooperScharlemann\] Let $M = T^2 \times_{\varphi} S^1$ be a solvmanifold, and suppose the monodromy $\varphi$ can be expressed as $$\left( \begin{array}{cc} \pm m & -1 \\ 1 & 0\\ \end{array} \right).$$ If $m \geq 3$, then $g(M) = 2$.
Moreover, they show that there are precisely two genus 2 splittings if $m = 3$, and only one genus 2 splitting if $m \geq 4$. It should be noted that manifolds which are torus bundles but not solvmanifolds, namely flat manifolds and nilmanifolds, have well understood Heegaard splittings as they admit Seifert fibrations. (See for example Moriah and Schultens [@Moriah-Schultens] or Sedgwick [@Sedgwick] for results on Heegaard genus of Seifert fibered spaces.)
Finally, consider a 3-manifold obtained by gluing a solid torus to a manifold $X$ with torus boundary, ie, via Dehn filling. In this case, as in the case of gluing two manifolds along a torus, Heegaard genus can degenerate by an arbitrary amount.
\[ex:tunnelnumber\] Let $X$ be the complement of a tunnel number $n$ knot. Perform trivial Dehn filling on $\partial X$ to obtain $S^3$. As the Heegaard genus of $S^3$ is $0$, it follows that for any $n$ there are manifolds $X$ such that $$g(X \cup \mathcal H(F)) = g(X) - n.$$
Another way Heegaard genus can degenerate under Dehn filling is the following situation.
\[ex:destabilizationlines\] Suppose that $X$ has a single torus boundary component $T$ and let [$V \cup_H W$ ]{}be a Heegaard splitting of $X$. Assume that $T$ is contained in $V$, so $V$ is a compression body. Then there exists an essential disk $D'$ in $V$ such that $V$ cut along $D'$ contains a component $U$ homeomorphic to $T \times I$. Suppose there exists an essential disk $D$ in $W$ such that $\partial D$ meets the boundary of $U$ in a single arc $\delta'$. The endpoints of $\delta'$ lie on $\partial D'$. Let $\beta'$ be a loop on $\partial U$ composed of $\delta'$ and a properly embedded arc in $D'$. Then there is a loop $\beta$ on $T$ and an essential annulus in $U$ whose boundary components are $\beta$ and $\beta'$. Suppose $\alpha$ is a slope on $T$ meeting $\beta$ in a single point (there is an infinite number of such slopes). Attaching a solid torus $\mathcal H (F)$ by gluing a meridian disk to $\alpha$ makes $H$ a stabilized Heegaard surface in the resulting 3-manifold. These slopes correspond to a [*destabilization line*]{} in the Dehn filling space of $X$ (the [*Dehn filling space of $X$*]{} is the set of all 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn filling $X$). Thus in these situations, $$g(X \cup_{\alpha} \mathcal H(F)) \leq g(X) - 1.$$
Sufficiently complicated torus gluings {#sec:torusgluings}
--------------------------------------
Despite the fact that Heegaard genus can degenerate when gluing along a torus, the following results show that degeneration is in fact a special phenomenon. Recall that $X$ and $Y$ are irreducible and each has a single incompressible torus boundary component ($X$ and $Y$ are called [*knot manifolds*]{} in the terminology of Bachman, Schleimer, and Sedgwick [@BSS]).
[[@BSS]]{}\[BSS\]Suppose that $\varphi \colon \partial X \to \partial Y$ is a sufficiently complicated homeomorphism. Then the manifold $M(\varphi) = X \cup_\varphi Y$ has no strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings.
The term [*sufficiently complicated*]{} is given in Definition 4.2 in [@BSS] and is a technical statement about the distance $\varphi$ maps curves on the torus (for example a suitably large power of an Anosov map is sufficiently complicated).
It can be shown using the above theorem that every Heegaard splitting of $M(\varphi)$ is an amalgamation along $\partial X$, implying that $$g(M(\varphi)) = g(X) + g(Y) - 1.$$ If $M = T^2 \times_{\varphi} S^1$ is a solvmanifold, Scharlemann and Cooper’s analysis applies here as well.
[[@CooperScharlemann]]{}\[CooperScharlemann2\]If $M= T^2 \times_{\varphi} S^1$ is a solvmanifold with monodromy $\varphi$ that cannot be expressed in the form given in , then the minimal genus Heegaard splitting of $M$ has genus equal to $3$ and is unique up to isotopy.
Finally, suppose $M = X \cup \mathcal H(F)$ is obtained by Dehn filling. Above we gave examples where $g(X)$ degenerates by an arbitrarily large amount upon Dehn filling, and where $g(X)$ can degenerate by at least one for all fillings along slopes corresponding to a destabilization line in the Dehn filling space of $X$. Following work of Rieck and Rieck–Sedgwick, we see that with mild assumptions on $X$ the above situations are the only possible ways for $g(X)$ to degenerate and are not generic occurrences.
[[@Rieck; @RieckSedgwick]]{}\[Rieck\]Let $X$ be an acylindrical manifold with incompressible torus boundary $T$. Then
1. there are only finitely many slopes on $T$ for which $$g(X \cup \mathcal H(F)) \leq g(X) - 2,$$
2. there are only finitely many destabilization lines in the Dehn filling space of $X$ such that $$g(X\cup \mathcal H(F)) \leq g(X) - 1.$$
In particular, there are an infinite number of manifolds $X \cup \mathcal H(F)$ such that $$g(X \cup \mathcal H(F)) = g(X).$$
Moriah and Rubinstein initially proved a similar theorem for negatively curved manifolds in [@MR]. Rieck and Sedgwick have proven a more general version of the above theorem for small manifolds in [@RieckSedgwick2], restricting greatly the possibilities for discrepancies between Heegaard splittings of $X \cup \mathcal H(F)$ and $X$ of any (not necessarily minimal) genus.
Stabilization and amalgamation along a torus
--------------------------------------------
In considering , the result of Schultens and Weidmann given in shows that for any $n$ there exist examples of unstabilized Heegaard splittings that can be amalgamated to give a splitting that destabilizes $n$ times. It seems, however, that this situation is special.
\[c:GordonTorus\] Let $M = X \cup_{T^2} Y$ where $X$ and $Y$ each have a single incompressible torus boundary component. There is a complexity on maps $\varphi \colon \partial X \to \partial Y$ and an integer $n(X,Y)$ such that if the complexity of $\varphi$ is greater than $n$ then the amalgamation of any unstabilized splittings of $X$ and $Y$ is unstabilized.
Higher genus gluings
====================
Although the results are similar we consider the case when $g(F) \geq 2$ separately because the techniques and the implications of the theorems are different. For example, in the previous section the conclusion of is that when $g(F) = 1$ and the gluing map is “sufficiently complicated”, then $M$ contains [*no*]{} strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings. The results presented in show that when $g(F) \geq 2$ and the gluing map is “sufficiently complicated”, then $M$ contains [*no minimal genus*]{} strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings.
Degeneration is possible
------------------------
As with the case when $F$ is a torus, it is also possible for Heegaard genus to degenerate when $F$ is a surface of genus at least $2$ as shown by the following result of Kobayashi, Qiu, Rieck and Wang.
[[@KQRW]]{}\[KQRW\] There exists a 3-manifold $M$ containing connected, separating incompressible surfaces $F_n$ of arbitrarily large genus such that amalgamating two minimal genus Heegaard splittings of $X_n$ and $Y_n$ along $F_n$ yields a $g(F_n) - 3$ times stabilized Heegaard splitting of $M$.
As a consequence it follows that $$g(M) \leq g(X_n) + g(Y_n) - 2g(F_n) + 3.$$ An interesting aspect of these examples is that this degeneration occurs in the same 3-manifold $M$, ie, $M$ does not depend on $n$.
For manifolds of the form $F \times_{\varphi} S^1$, degeneration is also possible.
\[ex:SFS\] Let $M$ be a Seifert fibered space with base $B$ a sphere and containing three exceptional fibers of multiplicities $n$, $2n$, $2n$, where $n$ is an integer greater than $2$. Assume that the Euler number of $M$ is 0, so that there is some horizontal surface $F$ in $M$ (see for example Hatcher [@Hatcher Proposition 2.2]). By Jaco [@Jaco Theorem VI.34], $M = F \times_{\varphi} S^1$. Moreover, the surface $F$ branch covers $B$ (a sphere) and by an Euler characteristic argument yields the following equation (see [@Hatcher]): $$\chi(F) = m\chi(B) - m\left(\frac{2n-1}{2n} + \frac{2n-1}{2n} + \frac{n-1}{n}\right)$$ $$= 2m - m \frac{6n - 4}{2n}$$ where $m$ is the degree of the cover. As the least common multiple of the multiplicities of the fibers divides $m$, it follows that $2n$ divides $m$. Moreover, the assumption that $n \geq 3$ implies that $2 - (6n-4)/2n$ is negative. Thus $$\chi(F) = 2m - m\frac{6n - 4}{2n}$$ $$\leq 4n - (6n -4)$$ $$=4-2n.$$ Taking $\chi(F) = 2 - 2g(F)$ and solving, we obtain $$g(F)
\geq n-1.$$ Thus, a Heegaard splitting of $M$ which is an amalgamation along $F$ has genus at least $2n -1$. It is well known, however, that $g(M) = 2$ (see for example [@Boileau]). Therefore, given an integer $n \geq 3$ there is a 3-manifold $M$ such that $g(M) \leq
2g(F) + 1 -(2n-3)$, implying Heegaard genus can degenerate by an arbitrary amount.
Finally, for manifolds of the form $X \cup_F \mathcal H(F)$, as before degeneration can occur. This can be seen by modifying Examples \[ex:tunnelnumber\] and \[ex:destabilizationlines\].
\[ex:tunnelnumberhighergenus\] Let $\mathcal H(F)$ be a knotted handlebody in $S^3$ whose complement $X$ has incompressible boundary. Then there is a way of gluing $\mathcal H (F)$ to $X$ such that the resulting manifold is $S^3$. Thus if $g(F) = n$, $$g(X \cup \mathcal H (F)) \leq g(X) - n.$$
\[ex:destabilizationLinesHigherGenus\] Suppose that $X$ has a single boundary component $F$, where $g(F) \ge 2$. Let [$V \cup_H W$ ]{}be a minimal genus Heegaard splitting of $X$. Assume that $F$ is contained in $V$, so $V$ is a compression body. For each loop $\alpha$ on $F$ one can find an essential annulus in $V$ which meets $F$ in $\alpha$ and meets $H$ in a loop $\alpha _H$. Now let $D$ be a compressing disk for $H$ in $W$ and suppose there is a loop $\alpha$ on $F$ such that $\alpha _H$ meets $\partial D$ in a point. Attaching a handlebody $\mathcal H (F)$ in such a way so that $\alpha$ now bounds a disk makes $H$ a stabilized Heegaard surface in the resulting 3-manifold.
Sufficiently complicated higher genus gluings {#sec:highergenus}
---------------------------------------------
A [*simple*]{} 3-manifold is a 3-manifold that is compact, orientable, irreducible, atoroidal, acylindrical and has incompressible boundary. The following result of Lackenby shows that when two simple 3-manifolds are glued along a surface $F$ with $g(F) \geq 2$ via a “sufficiently complicated” map, then as in the torus case there is no degeneration of Heegaard genus.
[[@Lackenby1]]{}\[Lackenby1\]Let $X$ and $Y$ be simple 3-manifolds, and let $h \colon \partial X \to F$ and $h' \colon F \to \partial Y$ be homeomorphisms with some connected surface $F$ of genus at least two. Let $\psi \colon F \to F$ be a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism. Then, provided $|n|$ is sufficiently large, $$g(X \cup_{h'\psi^n h} Y)=g(X)+g(Y)-g(F).$$ Furthermore, any minimal genus Heegaard splitting for $X
\cup_{h'\psi^n h} Y$ is obtained from splittings of $X$ and $Y$ by amalgamation, and hence is weakly reducible.
The intuition behind the proof of Lackenby’s theorem is as follows. When the map $\varphi$ is sufficiently complicated then geometrically $M$ has a “long neck" region homeomorphic to $F \times
(0,1)$. A result of Pitts and Rubinstein [@PittsRubinstein] implies that a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting surface $H$ is isotopic to a minimal surface or to two copies of a double cover of a non-orientable minimal surface attached by a tube. In either case, if such a surface passes through the long neck region then it must have large area. By the Gauss-Bonnet theorem this implies $H$ has large genus. The conclusion is that if the map $\varphi$ is complicated enough then any strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting has genus higher than the genus of an amalgamated splitting. From here it is not difficult to show that any splitting (strongly irreducible or not) which is not an amalgamation of splittings of $X$ and $Y$ is not minimal genus.
Souto has generalized this technique using the notion of distance in the curve complex.
[[@Souto]]{}\[Souto\]Let $X$ and $Y$ be simple 3-manifolds and suppose $\partial X$ and $\partial Y$ are connected and homeomorphic with genus at least two. Fix an essential simple closed curve $\alpha \subset \partial X$ and $\alpha ' \subset \partial Y$. Then there is a constant $n_0$ such that every minimal genus Heegaard splitting of $X \cup _ \psi Y$ is constructed by amalgamating splittings of $X$ and $Y$ and hence $$g(X \cup _\psi Y)=g (X ) + g (Y) - g (F)$$ for every diffeomorphism $\psi: \partial X \to \partial Y$ with $d_{(\partial Y)} (\psi(\alpha), \alpha' ) \ge n_0$, where $d_{(\partial Y)} (\beta , \gamma)$ denotes the distance of essential simple closed curves $\beta$ and $\gamma$ in the curve complex of $\partial Y$.
Like Lackenby, Souto uses geometry to establish the above result. T Li has obtained a combinatorial proof of a similar theorem [@Li].
Next suppose $M = F \times_{\varphi} S^1$. The following theorem of Lackenby indicates that, generically, the minimal genus Heegaard splittings of manifolds of the form $F \times_{\varphi} S^1$ are formed by amalgamating splittings of $F \times I$.
[[@Lackenby2]]{}\[Lackenby2\]Let $M$ be a closed, orientable 3-manifold that fibers over the circle with pseudo-Anosov monodromy. Let $\{M_i \to M\}$ be the cyclic covers dual to the fiber. Then, for all but finitely many $i$, $M_i$ has an irreducible, weakly reducible, minimal genus Heegaard splitting.
This implies that for all but finitely many $i$, $$g(M_i) = 2g(F)
+1.$$ Note that a stronger version of the above theorem has been proved by Rubinstein [@Rubinstein]. Also see a generalization by Brittenham and Rieck [@RieckBrittenham].
Bachman and Schleimer have improved this result using the notion of distance in the curve complex. Suppose that $M = F \times_{\varphi} S^1$ is formed using monodromy $\varphi \colon F \to F$. Define $d (\varphi)$ to be the minimum distance that $\varphi$ moves a vertex in the curve complex of $F$.
[[@BachmanSchleimer]]{}\[BachmanSchleimer\]Any Heegaard surface $H$ in $F \times_{\varphi} S^1$ with $-\chi(H) < d(\varphi)$ is an amalgamation of splittings of $F \times I$.
Finally, consider the case that $M$ is of the form $X \cup_F \mathcal
H(F)$. As a generalization of Thurston’s hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem, Lackenby has shown in [@Lackenby3] that if $X$ is simple and $\varphi \colon \partial X \to \partial \mathcal H(F)$ is “sufficiently complicated” then $X \cup_{\varphi} \mathcal H(F)$ is irreducible, atoroidal, word hyperbolic and not Seifert fibered. Lackenby then asks if the structure of the Heegaard splittings of these manifolds can also be understood.
[@Lackenby3]How does Heegaard genus degenerate under handlebody gluing?
We pose the following conjecture as an answer to Lackenby’s question. This conjecture is similar in nature to .
Suppose that $X$ has a single boundary component $F$, where $g(F) \ge
2$. Let [$V \cup_H W$ ]{}be a minimal genus Heegaard splitting of $X$. Assume that $F$ is contained in $V$, so $V$ is a compression body. Let $\mathcal
W$ denote the set of vertices of the curve complex of $H$ that correspond to the boundaries of disks in $W$. For each loop $\alpha$ on $F$ one can find an essential annulus in $V$ which meets $F$ in $\alpha$ and meets $H$ in a loop $\alpha _H$. Now glue a handlebody $\mathcal H(F)$ to $\partial X$. Let $\mathcal V_F$ denote the vertices of the curve complex of $H$ defined as follows: if $\alpha$ bounds a disk in $\mathcal H(F)$ then $\alpha_H \in \mathcal V_F$. If the distance between $\mathcal W$ and $\mathcal V_F$ is large enough then $H$ is a minimal genus Heegaard splitting of $X \cup _F \mathcal
H(F)$.
Stabilization and amalgamation along a higher genus surface
-----------------------------------------------------------
Again we consider . As with the torus case, we have only a conjecture.
Let $M = X \cup_{\varphi} Y$ where $X$ and $Y$ each have a single incompressible boundary component of genus at least two. Then there is a complexity on maps $\varphi \colon \partial X \to \partial Y$ and an integer $n(X,Y,g)$ such that if the complexity of $\varphi$ is greater than $n$ the amalgamation of any unstabilized splittings of $X$ and $Y$ whose genera are less than $g$ is unstabilized.
Note the subtle difference between this conjecture and . In we posit that if the gluing map is “sufficiently complicated" then the amalgamation of [*any*]{} two unstabilized splittings is unstabilized. Here we conjecture that the same is true only if the splittings have low genus compared with the complexity of the gluing map.
Table of degeneration of Heegaard genus
---------------------------------------
In the following table we summarize the results of Sections 2 – 4. The columns correspond to the genus of $F$ and the rows to the type of gluing used to construct $M$. We take “D” to mean “degeneration is possible”, “ND” to mean “no degeneration”, and “NDSC” to mean “no degeneration if the gluing map $\varphi$ is sufficiently complicated” in the appropriate contexts. In parentheses we provide the number of the theorem, corollary or example associated to the result.
$g(F)=0$ $g(F) = 1$ $g(F) \geq 2$
-------------------------- ---------- ------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------
$X \cup_F Y$ ND D D
NDSC NDSC (\[Lackenby1\], \[Souto\])
$F \times_{\varphi} S^1$ ND D D
NDSC NDSC (\[Lackenby2\], \[BachmanSchleimer\])
$X \cup_F \mathcal H(F)$ ND D (\[ex:tunnelnumber\], \[ex:destabilizationlines\]) D
NDSC NDSC ??
Lower bounds on the degeneration
================================
In the previous sections we discussed several situations in which Heegaard genus can degenerate by an arbitrary amount. In this section we state results that bound the amount by which Heegaard genus can degenerate in terms of the genus of the gluing surface and the Heegaard genera of the pieces. We will focus on the case that $M$ is obtained by gluing $X$ and $Y$ together along a connected, orientable surface $F$, ie, $M = X \cup_F Y$. Whereas some of the results on Heegaard genus degeneration in the previous sections are obtained by amalgamating unstabilized Heegaard splittings and getting stabilized splittings, the results in this section are obtained by finding lower bounds on the genus of the possible Heegaard splittings one can construct in a given manifold.
As more restrictions are placed on the component manifolds $X$ and $Y$, there are better known bounds. The least restrictive class of manifolds was studied by Schultens [@Schultens]. Suppose $X$ and $Y$ are irreducible 3-manifolds, and let $n_X$ and $n_Y$ denote the number of non-parallel essential annuli that can be simultaneously embedded in $X$ and $Y$, respectively. Then Schultens obtains the bound $$g(X \cup_F Y)\ge \frac{1}{5}(g(X)+g(Y)-8g(F)+11 - 4(n_X + n_Y)).$$ If, in addition, the manifolds $X$ and $Y$ are assumed the be atoroidal and acylindrical, then previously Johannson [@Johannson] had obtained the bound $$g(X \cup_F Y)\ge \frac{1}{5}(g(X)+g(Y)-2g(F)).$$ Most recently the first author, in conjunction with Schleimer and Sedgwick [@BSS], added the restriction that the component manifolds $X$ and $Y$ are [*small*]{} (ie, irreducible and every incompressible surface is parallel to a boundary component). This allowed them to obtain the bound $$g(X \cup_F Y)\ge \frac{1}{2}(g(X)+g(Y)-2g(F)).$$
|
Q:
Unable to submit an edit form
I thought it would be a good idea and try to implement an edit form that takes place of the spot in the table with the data you are trying to edit. I have not been able to get my form to submit while the create form works the same and functions properly, here is the code that I need help with.
This is the partial view of the edit form.
@using (Html.BeginForm("", "", FormMethod.Post, new { id = "PublisherEditForm" }))
{
@Html.AntiForgeryToken()
@Html.ValidationSummary(true, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
@Html.HiddenFor(model => model.PublisherID)
@*@Html.LabelFor(model => model.PublisherName, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })*@
<td>
@Html.EditorFor(model => model.PublisherName, new { htmlAttributes = new { @class = "form-control" } })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.PublisherName, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
</td>
@*@Html.LabelFor(model => model.City, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })*@
<td>
@Html.EditorFor(model => model.City, new { htmlAttributes = new { @class = "form-control" } })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.City, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
</td>
@*@Html.LabelFor(model => model.State, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })*@
<td>
@Html.EditorFor(model => model.State, new { htmlAttributes = new { @class = "form-control" } })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.State, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
</td>
<td>
<input id="saveUpdate" type="submit" value="Update Publisher" class="btn btn-primary" />
</td>
}
Here is the Ajax that I am using to try and submit the form:
$('#PublisherEditForm').submit(function (e) {
var formData = $(this).serializeArray();
e.preventDefault();
$('MessageContent').
html("<div class='alert alert-info'>Please Wait...</div>");
$.ajax({
url: "@Url.Action("AjaxEdit", "PublishersEF")",
type: "POST",
data: formData,
dataType: "json",
success: function (data) {
$('#MessageContent').html("<div class='alert alert-success'>Your record was updated!</div>");
$('#PublisherEditForm')[0].reset();
var row =
'<tr><td>' + data.PublisherName +
'</td><td>' + data.City +
'</td><td>' + data.State +
'</td><td> <a href="@Url.Action("Index", "PublishersEF")">Refresh View</a></td></tr>';
$('#Publisher' + data.PublisherID).replaceWith(row);
console.log('success');
$('PublisherEdit').hide();
$('#MessageContent').html('<div class="alert alert-warning">There was an error processing your update, please try again or contact the site administrator</div>');
},
error: function (e) {
console.log('error');
$('#MessageContent').html('<div class="alert alert-warning">There was an error processing your update, please try again or contact the site administrator</div>');
}
});
});
I have tried to put a console.log inside both the success and error and I did not see either of them in the console
EDIT: here is the C# method:
[HttpGet]
public PartialViewResult PublisherEdit(int id)
{
Publisher publisher = UnitOfWork.PublisherRepository.Find(id);
return PartialView(publisher);
}
[HttpPost]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public JsonResult PublisherEdit(Publisher publisher)
{
UnitOfWork.PublisherRepository.Update(publisher);
UnitOfWork.Save();
return Json(publisher);
}
I can confirm the UnitOfWork functions correctly. All this function does is connect to the database and updates/saves the information. This has worked in previous versions
A:
I have gotten it to work. Interestingly I could not keep the script tag in the index view. I had to put it back in the partial view (for some reason it wasn't working before). Here is the updated partial:
@model cStoreMVC.DATA.EF.Publisher
@using (Html.BeginForm("", "", FormMethod.Post, new { id = "PublisherEditForm" }))
{
@Html.AntiForgeryToken()
@Html.ValidationSummary(true, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
@Html.HiddenFor(model => model.PublisherID)
@*@Html.LabelFor(model => model.PublisherName, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })*@
<td>
@Html.EditorFor(model => model.PublisherName, new { htmlAttributes = new { @class = "form-control" } })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.PublisherName, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
</td>
@*@Html.LabelFor(model => model.City, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })*@
<td>
@Html.EditorFor(model => model.City, new { htmlAttributes = new { @class = "form-control" } })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.City, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
</td>
@*@Html.LabelFor(model => model.State, htmlAttributes: new { @class = "control-label col-md-2" })*@
<td>
@Html.EditorFor(model => model.State, new { htmlAttributes = new { @class = "form-control" } })
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.State, "", new { @class = "text-danger" })
</td>
<td>
<input id="saveUpdate" value="Update" type="submit" class="btn btn-primary" />
</td>
}
@section scripts{
@Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")
}
<script>
$('#PublisherEditForm').submit(function (e) {
var formData = $(this).serializeArray();
e.preventDefault();
$('#MessageContent').html("<div class='alert altert-info'>Please Wait...</div>");
$.ajax({
url: "@Url.Action("PublisherEdit", "PublishersEF")",
type: "POST",
data: formData,
dataType: "json",
success: function (data) {
console.log('it worked');
$('#MessageContent').html("<div class='alert alert-success'>Your Item Was Updated!!!</div>");
$('#PublisherEditForm')[0].reset();
var row =
"<tr class='newRow'><td>" + data.PublisherName +
'</td><td>' + data.City +
'</td><td>' + data.State +
'</td><td>Refresh to view options </td></tr>';
$("#Publisher-" + data.PublisherID).replaceWith(row).find('tr.newRow:last');
},
error: function (e) {
console.log(it);
$('#MessageContent').html("<div class='alert alert-warning'>There was an error. Please try again or contact the site administrator.</div>");
}
});
});
</script>
I have found out that forms and table rows do not work together nicely(this might be why the form did not submit) if you want it to be horizontal I was told and I can confirm it works use display: flex; justify-content: space-between;. If you want to display it in a table like I did remove all the table data tags from the form itself and wrap the whole form in a table data tag. It doesn't look the best but it works! For those with future issues like this I hope this helps!
|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital signal transmission systems and particularly, to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) Digital Television (DTV) standard (A/53). The invention describes a method for transmitting a robust bit-stream along with the standard bit-stream using the ATSC standard in a backward compatible manner.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The ATSC standard for high-definition television (HDTV) transmission over terrestrial broadcast channels uses a signal that comprises a sequence of twelve (12) independent time-multiplexed trellis-coded data streams modulated as an eight (8) level vestigial sideband (VSB) symbol stream with a rate of 10.76 MHz. This signal is converted to a six (6) MHz frequency band that corresponds to a standard VHF or UHF terrestrial television channel, over which the signal is broadcast at a data rate of 19.39 million bits per second (Mbps). Details regarding the (ATSC) Digital Television Standard and the latest revision A/53 is available at http://www.atsc.org/.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram generally illustrating an exemplary prior art high definition television (HDTV) transmitter 100. MPEG compatible data packets are first randomized in a data randomizer 105 and each packet is encoded for forward error correction (FEC) by a Reed Solomon (RS) encoder unit 110. The data packets in successive segments of each data field are then interleaved by data interleaver 120, and the interleaved data packets are then further interleaved and encoded by trellis encoder unit 130. Trellis encoder unit 130 produces a stream of data symbols having three (3) bits each. One of the three bits is pre-coded and the other two bits are produced by a four (4) state trellis encoder. The three (3) bits are then mapped to an 8-level symbol.
As known, a prior art trellis encoder unit 130 comprises twelve (12) parallel trellis encoder and pre-coder units to provide twelve interleaved coded data sequences. In multiplexer 140 the symbols of each trellis encoder unit are combined with “segment sync” and “field sync” synchronization bit sequences 150 from a synchronization unit (not shown). A small in-phase pilot signal is then inserted by pilot insertion unit 160 and optionally pre-equalized by filter device 165. The symbol stream is then subjected to vestigial sideband (VSB) suppressed carrier modulation by VSB modulator 170. The symbol stream is then finally up-converted to a radio frequency by radio frequency (RF) converter 180.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary prior art high definition television (HDTV) receiver 200. The received RF signal is down-converted to an intermediate frequency (IF) by tuner 210. The signal is then filtered and converted to digital form by IF filter and detector 220. The detected signal is then in the form of a stream of data symbols that each signify a level in an eight (8) level constellation. The signal is then provided to NTSC rejection filter 230 and to synchronization unit 240. Then the signal is filtered in NTSC rejection filter 230 and subjected to equalization and phase tracking by equalizer and phase tracker 250. The recovered encoded data symbols are then subjected to trellis decoding by trellis decoder unit 260. The decoded data symbols are then further de-interleaved by data de-interleaver 270. The data symbols are then subjected to Reed Solomon decoding by Reed Solomon decoder 280. This recovers the MPEG compatible data packets transmitted by transmitter 100.
While the existing ATSC 8-VSB A/53 digital television standard is sufficiently capable of transmitting signals that overcome numerous channel impairments such as ghosts, noise bursts, signal fades and interferences in a terrestrial setting, there exists a need for flexibility in the ATSC standard so that streams of varying priority and data rates may be accommodated. |
-- DB update 2019_01_25_00 -> 2019_01_26_00
DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS `updateDb`;
DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE updateDb ()
proc:BEGIN DECLARE OK VARCHAR(100) DEFAULT 'FALSE';
SELECT COUNT(*) INTO @COLEXISTS
FROM information_schema.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = DATABASE() AND TABLE_NAME = 'version_db_world' AND COLUMN_NAME = '2019_01_25_00';
IF @COLEXISTS = 0 THEN LEAVE proc; END IF;
START TRANSACTION;
ALTER TABLE version_db_world CHANGE COLUMN 2019_01_25_00 2019_01_26_00 bit;
SELECT sql_rev INTO OK FROM version_db_world WHERE sql_rev = '1548144375618827200'; IF OK <> 'FALSE' THEN LEAVE proc; END IF;
--
-- START UPDATING QUERIES
--
INSERT INTO version_db_world (`sql_rev`) VALUES ('1548144375618827200');
-- Adding train option in gossip menu for Sagorne Creststrider <Shaman Trainer>
UPDATE `gossip_menu_option` SET `OptionText`='Teach me the ways of the spirits.' WHERE `MenuID`=5123 AND `OptionID`=0;
-- [Quest] Mage Summoner
UPDATE `creature_template` SET `faction`=91 WHERE `entry`=3950;
UPDATE `creature_template` SET `flags_extra`=2 WHERE `entry`=3986;
-- Creature Sarilus Foulborne 3986 SAI
SET @ENTRY := 3986;
UPDATE `creature_template` SET `AIName`="SmartAI" WHERE `entry`= @ENTRY;
DELETE FROM `smart_scripts` WHERE `entryorguid`=@ENTRY AND `source_type`=0;
INSERT INTO `smart_scripts` (`entryorguid`, `source_type`, `id`, `link`, `event_type`, `event_phase_mask`, `event_chance`, `event_flags`, `event_param1`, `event_param2`, `event_param3`, `event_param4`, `action_type`, `action_param1`, `action_param2`, `action_param3`, `action_param4`, `action_param5`, `action_param6`, `target_type`, `target_param1`, `target_param2`, `target_param3`, `target_x`, `target_y`, `target_z`, `target_o`, `comment`) VALUES
(@ENTRY, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 100, 0, 4000, 4000, 5000, 8000, 11, 20806, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, "When in combat and timer at the begining between 4000 and 4000 ms (and later repeats every 5000 and 8000 ms) - Self: Cast spell Frostbolt (20806) on Random hostile"),
(@ENTRY, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 100, 1, 0, 1000, 0, 0, 11, 6490, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, "When in combat and timer at the begining between 0 and 1000 ms (and later repeats every 0 and 0 ms) - Self: Cast spell Sarilus's Elementals (6490) on Self"),
(@ENTRY, 0, 2, 0, 7, 0, 100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 41, 1000, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 9, 3950, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, "On evade - Creature Minor Water Guardian (3950) in 0 - 40 yards: Despawn in 1000 ms");
--
-- END UPDATING QUERIES
--
COMMIT;
END //
DELIMITER ;
CALL updateDb();
DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS `updateDb`;
|
Hearing exposes new tactics used by foreclosure scam artistsRep. Maxine Waters brings congressional panel to South L.A., to address a growing problem in area communities.
Leiloni De Gruy
Staff Writer
Rep. Maxine Waters conducted a congressional hearing last Saturday at Southwest Los Angeles College on the foreclosure crisis and schemes that are being used to defraud the public. (Photo by Gary McCarthy)
With an estimated 81,000 foreclosures filed in California for the month of February, homeowners — many of whom are newly unemployed or have experienced steep mortgage rate hikes — are growing desperate to save their homes.
This despair has led many into the path of scam artists who charge exorbitant fees while making empty promises of rescuing distressed homeowners, a practice that was the topic of a congressional hearing convened by Rep. Maxine Waters Saturday.
“Families need stable housing during times of economic downturn,” said Waters during the hearing, held in an auditorium at L.A. Southwest College.
“Many people feel particularly vulnerable and anxious about their housing.”
Foreclosure scammers are specifically seeking those individuals out and gathering information about their histories through public information sites.
“Scammers actively victimize homeowners made vulnerable by the current economic crisis by trolling through free, publicly available databases where they find the names and addresses of people who have received default notices,” said Christian Abasto, managing attorney of the housing and eviction defense units at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “They then contact the homeowners and make them false promises to save their homes.
“These scammers also lure homeowners into contacting them by advertising their ‘foreclosure prevention services’ in the local print, television and radio media,” he added. “With all the coverage of President Obama’s recently announced loan modification program, homeowners are more hopeful than ever that they can save their houses. The scammers manipulate this hope to lure the vulnerable homeowners into the rescue scam by making elaborate promises to contact lenders and to negotiate loan modifications for the homeowners that they promise will save them from foreclosure.”
Victims, Abasto said, are more likely to be scammed this way because their messages are carried by trusted media outlets. “Unknowingly they fall victim to a fraud that will cost them their homes and life savings,” Abasto said. “Once the scammers get the money, they disappear. They do nothing for the homeowner [but] rob them of their last dollars and leave them in a more precarious situation than they were originally in.”
Scammers, he said, have charged homeowners upfront fees of between $1,500 and $2,500.
“No one should ever pay a dollar for consulting,” said Heather Peters, deputy secretary for business regulation for the state Department of Business, Transportation, and Housing. “This is available through the government.”
In addition, California law requires that licensed lawyers or real estate brokers provide the services most scams claim to offer.
Violating the Mortgage Foreclosure Consultants Act is a misdemeanor punishable by a year in prison or a $10,000 fine. Those providing services without a license are also in violation. That, too, is a misdemeanor and is punishable by six months in jail or a $20,000 fine for an individual and a $60,000 fine for a corporation.
Bringing scammers to justice, however, is difficult according to chief investigator Armando Fraga of the District Attorney’s Office of Fraud Division.
Currently there are only six real estate fraud investigators in Los Angeles County who handle thousands of fraud allegations. Often, by the time investigators get to each complaint, homeowners have already been evicted or wiped out their entire life savings trying to get additional help elsewhere.
In addition, mounds of paper work that must be filed separately slow down the process, as does the routine practice of scammers destroying all documents that might tie them to a crime.
“By filing an adversary proceeding in a bankruptcy case,” Abasto said, “LAFLA can bring in claims of truth-in-lending violations, forgery, fraud and other claims, that if successful, can greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the amount that our clients owe on the outstanding mortgage debt.”
Over the past three months, Beyond Shelter, a nonprofit agency dedicated to finding ways to combat homelessness, has seen a significant increase in the number of requests for emergency shelter.
“Caseworkers are seeing applications from many more couples with children, employees of real estate brokerages, and the recently unemployed trying to avoid foreclosures on their homes,” said Tanya Tull, president and CEO of Beyond Shelter. “The agency is currently receiving an average of 50 calls a day requesting eviction prevention funds.”
“In tracking the causes for requesting assistance, the agency noted that 47 percent are due to job losses, 19 percent are due to foreclosure of rental property,” she added. “And 33 percent are due to other reasons such as domestic violence, victims of a crime, exhausted benefits and/or savings, family and friends could no longer help, problems with landlords and unaffordable housing.”
Renters, both in rent-controlled and non-rent controlled units, are also victims.
Instead of being scammed by con artists, they are pressured by banks, landlords, real estate agents and lawyers to move.
Tenants in non-rent controlled units are given a 30- to 60-day notice before they have to move out or are evicted, while those in rent-controlled units cannot be evicted without just cause.
“Some financial institutions, their real estate agents and their attorneys, attempt to coerce tenants in rent controlled units into leaving their units by serving them with illegal notices, refusing to accept their rent, causing the interruption of utilities, and filing improper unlawful detainers,” Abasto said.
He added that families living in Section 8 housing are often the first to be targeted because their rent is subsidized by the government. Without those tenants, rent can be raised substantially.
An ordinance passed in December by the city of Los Angeles extends just cause eviction protections to all rentals, even those where ownership was obtained through foreclosure.
According to the County of Los Angeles Department of Consumer Affairs, “renters in the city of Los Angeles cannot be evicted solely because of a foreclosure, even if their rental unit is not under rent control.”
Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, viewed the coercion as despicable and at the very least “contradictory.”
“Banks are unfairly evicting [tenants] solely by virtue of their misfortune of living in a foreclosed upon rental property,” Gross said. “Yet these same banks had no problem begging Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout funds — a bailout paid for by these same tenants and other taxpayers.” |
Gary Craig
@gcraig1
The fate of the criminal case against Charles Tan does not — for now — hinge on whether he fatally shot his father, but instead on a much more arcane question: Did a judge dismiss the murder charge at a time when it could not again be pursued?
Appellate judges in Rochester heard arguments Wednesday over that very question, with an attorney for Tan maintaining that prosecutors cannot retry Tan for murder, and a lawyer for the District Attorney's Office contending otherwise.
The allegations against Tan have been polarizing from the outset. An accomplished Pittsford Mendon High School student who went to Cornell University, Tan was so popular with friends and their families that they quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars for his defense in 2015. His father was alleged to have been abusive to his wife and children, and the community divided into different factions over the allegations against Charles Tan, who later became the focus of a Dateline NBC episode.
Some supporters saw a young man who may have committed patricide to save the life of his mother. Other supporters questioned whether Tan really committed the homicide.
Meanwhile, others suggested that Tan was treated differently from those without means and accused of murder, especially after then County Court Judge James Piampiano dismissed the criminal charges. In a stunning decision after trial jurors did not reach a verdict, Piampiano, only days after his election to state Supreme Court, ruled that prosecutors had not provided enough evidence to justify the murder charge.
The ruling so incensed District Attorney Sandra Doorley that she said minutes afterward, "This is prejudice within the criminal justice system. This would have never happened to a city kid."
The District Attorney's Office appealed Piampiano's November 2015 decision, and on Wednesday the Fourth Department Appellate Division of state Supreme Court heard the appeal.
At issue is the timing of Piampiano's decision, coming after Tan's trial but without a verdict in the case.
Accused of murdering his father Liang "Jim" Tan with a shotgun in February 2015, Charles Tan was tried later that year. The jury once reported it had deadlocked during deliberations. Piampiano sent the jury back to try again.
While the jury was still deliberating, Piampiano decided to declare a mistrial, saying that a deadlock was likely. Attorneys agreed to the mistrial.
At a November 2015 court session at which attorneys expected Piampiano to schedule a new trial, the judge instead ruled on the defense's request for what is known as a "trial order of dismissal," or TOD in legal shorthand.
During criminal trials, defense lawyers routinely seek a dismissal of the criminal counts. To grant the dismissal, which rarely happens, a judge has to determine that the evidence — when looked at in the "light most favorable to the prosecution" — does not support the criminal charges. A judge typically rules after the prosecution's proof, but can rule after a verdict
At the November 2015 court session, Piampiano granted the request, tossing out the criminal charge against Tan. Prosecutors were stunned, saying at trial they had offered plenty of evidence to justify the criminal charge, including incriminating statements from Tan and his mother and proof of Tan's role in buying the shotgun.
Some see Charles Tan case as unequal justice: Law and Disorder blog
DA seeks new trial in Charles Tan murder case
The law allows prosecutors to appeal a judge's approval of a TOD that is rendered after a jury's verdict. In this appealable situation, a jury would have found a defendant guilty, but a judge then agrees to the TOD, in essence reversing the jury verdict.
But the jury never rendered a verdict in the Tan case, so Piampiano's ruling isn't subject to challenge, said Tan's attorney, Brian DeCarolis.
Charles Tan murder dismissal could be argued soon
DeCarolis said the law is clear, and Piampiano's decision cannot be appealed or reversed.
"The major issue is 'Can they appeal it?' " he said. " ... There are so many things that are gray in the law and so few things that are black and white. And this is one of those things that is black and white."
The District Attorney's Office maintains that the conversation that attorneys had with Piampiano when they consented to a mistrial is crucial to the argument. In that conversation, Piampiano noted that Tan could be tried again. Tan acknowledged that he knew he could be subjected to a second trial.
With the consent to a mistrial, Tan "elected to terminate his first trial prior to the jury reaching a verdict knowing that he would be subjected to a subsequent trial," Assistant District Attorney Kelly Wolford argued in court papers. That decision changes the legal terrain, allowing an appeal, the District Attorney's Office contends.
By agreeing to a mistrial with the jury still deliberating, Tan "chose at that point to not go to verdict with that jury," Wolford said Tuesday.
Once the lawyers agreed to a mistrial and Piampiano dismissed the jury, the judge was precluded from ruling on the TOD, prosecutors say.
That choice to bring deliberations to an end also means that Tan cannot claim a new trial is precluded by the concept of "double jeopardy," Wolford said. "Double jeopardy," one of the law's most historically entrenched fundamentals, prevents an individual from being tried again for a crime once found not guilty of the offense.
DeCarolis says that Tan was found not guilty by Piampiano's ruling. Prosecutors say that the trial process ended with the agreement to a mistrial and the jury's discharge, and Piampiano's subsequent decision is moot.
Court hearings took place Wednesday morning.
[email protected] |
Becky,
I recently requested historical flow information from Questar pipeline. In their response they indicated that they will only provide flows for the one or two locations for which Enron has capacity allocations. Chris Gaskill indicated that you would be able to comment on whether this is consistent with the FERC 637 reporting requirements. We wish to aquire historical flows for all metered points currently reported daily on Questars website (only 30 days history is available on their system) from June 1, 2000 to March 1, 2001. I have attached my original request and Questar's response. Feel free to call with questions (3-0472). Thank you in advance.
Mathew Smith
Gerry,
Per our conversation, I am requesting historical scheduled (final cycle) quantities for Questar Pipeline meter points. Questar previously provided flows up to June of 2000. We are now requesting from June 1, 2000 to March 1, 2001. I would prefer the information be emailed to me. Otherwise the postal address is: Rm#3299E, 1400 Smith St., Houston, TX 77002. Please feel free to contact me with any questions at 713-853-0472. Thank you.
Mathew Smith
-----Original Message-----
From: "Lori Creer" <[email protected]>@ENRON [mailto:IMCEANOTES-+22Lori+20Creer+22+20+3CLoriC+40questar+2Ecom+3E+40ENRON@ENRON.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 5:31 PM
To: Smith, Matt
Subject: RE: Questar Historicals
Matt,
It looks like Enron has only one active contract on QPC. That is a release capacity contract from Chalk Creek to the Wasatch Front. I can provide daily data on that point for the period during which the contract is effective if you would like.
Because we do not offer the other data you have requested to all shippers on the pipeline, I can not respond fully to your request for historical data on all or most points on the pipeline.
Once again I would suggest that you refer to our website (www.questarpipeline.com) to begin gathering the information you need from this point forward. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding data posted on the web site
Lori W. Creer
Supervisor Gas Measurement & Allocations
Questar Regulated Services
[email protected]
ph (801) 324-5349
fax (801) 324-5612 |
---
abstract: 'We show that there is an unexpected relation between free divisors and stability and coincidence thresholds for projective hypersurfaces.'
address: 'Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania'
author:
- Gabriel Sticlaru
title: Free divisors versus stability and coincidence thresholds
---
Introduction
============
Let $S={\mathbb{C}}[x_0,...,x_n]$ be the graded ring of polynomials in $x_0,,...,x_n$ with complex coefficients and denote by $S_r$ the vector space of homogeneous polynomials in $S$ of degree $r$. For any polynomial $f \in S_r$ we define the [*Jacobian ideal*]{} $J_f \subset S$ as the ideal spanned by the partial derivatives $f_0,...,f_n$ of $f$ with respect to $x_0,...,x_n$. For $n=2$ we use $x,y,z$ instead of $x_0, x_1, x_2$ and $f_x, f_y, f_z$ instead of $f_0, f_1, f_2$.
The Hilbert-Poincaré series of a graded $S$-module $M$ of finite type is defined by $$\label{eq2}
HP(M)(t)= \sum_{k\geq 0} \dim M_k\cdot t^k$$ and it is known, to be a rational function of the form $$\label{eq3}
HP(M)(t)=\frac{P(M)(t)}{(1-t)^{n+1}}=\frac{Q(M)(t)}{(1-t)^{d}}.$$
For any polynomial $f \in S_r$ we define the corresponding graded [*Milnor*]{} (or [*Jacobian*]{}) [*algebra*]{} by $$\label{eq1}
M=M(f)=S/J_f.$$
Smooth hypersurfaces of degree $d$ have all the same Hilbert-Poincaré series, namely $$HP(M(f))(t)=\frac{(1-t^{d-1})^{n+1}}{(1-t)^{n+1}}=(1+t+t^2+\ldots + t^{d-2} )^{n+1}.$$ As soon as the hypersurface $V(f)$ acquires some singularities, the series $HP(M(f))$ is an infinite sum.
Let $ \tau(V(f))=\sum_{j=1,p}\tau(V(f),a_j) $ be the global Tjurina number of the hypersurface $V(f)$. In particular, the Hilbert polynomial $H(M(f))$ is constant and this constant is $\tau(V(f))$.
For a hypersurface $D: f=0$ in ${\mathbb{P}}^n$ with isolated singularities we recall the following invariants, introduced in [@DS2].
\[def\]
\(i) The [*coincidence threshold*]{} $ct(D)$ defined as $$ct(D)=\max \{q~~:~~\dim M(f)_k=\dim M(f_s)_k \text{ for all } k \leq q\},$$ with $f_s$ a homogeneous polynomial in $S$ of degree $d=\deg f$ such that $D_s:f_s=0$ is a smooth hypersurface in $ {\mathbb{P}}^n$.
\(ii) The [*stability threshold*]{} $st(D)$ defined as $$st(D)=\min \{q~~:~~\dim M(f)_k=\tau(D) \text{ for all } k \geq q\}$$ where $\tau(D)$ is the total Tjurina number of $D$, i.e. the sum of all the Tjurina numbers of the singularities of $D$.
We refer for the definiton of free divisors and their main properties to [@ST] and the extensive reference list there.
Main result
===========
The main result of this note is the following.
\[thm1\] Let $f \in S_d$ and set as usual $T=(n+1)(d-2)$. Assume that $st(D)<ct(D)$. Then the following hold.
1. The degree $d$ is odd, $ ct(D)=(T+1)/2$ and $st(D)=(T-1)/2$.
2. If in addition $n=2$, then the curve $D:f=0$ is a free divisor.
To prove the first claim is fairly easy. Recall that the coefficients $c_k$ of the Hilbert-Poincaré series of $M(f)$ form a (strict) log-concave sequence by [@St1], symmetric with respect to the middle point $T/2$, i.e. $c_k=c_{T-k}$. It follows that one has strict inequalities $c_{k-1}<c_k$ for all $k \leq T/2$. This implies that $st(D) \geq T/2$ when $d$ is even and $st(D) \geq (T-1)/2$ when $d$ is even.
Suppose we are in the case $d$ is even. Then $st(D) > T/2$ implies $st(D) \geq ct(D)$ as beyond $T/2$ the sequence $c_k$ is strictly decreasing. Hence one should have $st(D) = T/2$, which implies $ct(D)=st(D)$.
Suppose now that we are in the case $d$ is odd. Then again $st(D) > (T-1)/2$ implies $st(D) \geq ct(D)$ as beyond $T/2$ the sequence $c_k$ is strictly decreasing. Hence one should have $st(D) = (T-1)/2$, which implies $ct(D)=st(D)+1= (T+1)/2 $.
The proof of the second claim is much more subtle.
Recall that $D$ is a free divisor if and only if the Jacobian ideal $J_f$ is a perfect ideal, see for instance the bottom of page 1 in [@ST]. Next, the Corollary 1.2 in [@ST] implies the following fact: if the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity $reg(M(f))$ satisfies $$\label{CM}
reg(M(f)) \leq (3d-7)/2,$$ then $J_f$ is perfect and one has $reg(M(f)) \leq (3d-7)/2$ with $d$ odd.
Using [@D3], Corollary 4, we know that $$reg(M(f))=\max(T-ct(D),sat(J_f)-1),$$ where for any homogeneous ideal $I$, we let ${\widehat{I}}$ be the associated saturated ideal and we consider the graded artinian $S$-module $$\label{eqSD}
SD(I)= \frac{{\widehat{I}}}{I},$$ called the [*saturation defect module*]{} of $I$ and the [*saturation threshold*]{} $sat(I)$ defined as $$\label{eqsat}
sat(I)=\min \{q~~:~~\dim I_k= \dim {\widehat{I}}_k \text{ for all } k \geq q\}.$$ Now, it follows from (1) above that $T-ct(D)=(T-1)/2=(3d-7)/2$, so we need to control $sat(J_f)$. Corollary 2 in [@D3] tells us that $$sat(J_f)\leq max(T-ct(D),st(D)).$$ and hence in our situation $sat(J_f)-1\leq (T+1)/2-1=(T-1)/2= (3d-7)/2 $. Hence $D$ is a free divisor. This completes the proof of Theorem \[thm1\].
\[sat\] Note that in fact $D$ is a free divisor if and only if $J_f={\widehat{J}}_f$, see top of page 6 in [@ST], and hence if and only if $sat(J_f)=0$. In particular, for a free divisor one has $$reg(M(f))=T-ct(D).$$
Examples of hypersurfaces
=========================
We show here examples of hypersurfaces with $st(D) \leq ct(D)$
(a triangle and a conic+tangent) \[ex1\] The example $D:f=xyz=0$ has $sat(J_f)=0$, $2=ct(D)>st(D)=1$. The conic plus tangent $D:f=x(xz+y^2)$ has the same invariants and Hilbert-Poincaré series $HP(M(f))(t)=1+3(t+\cdots .$
(two free line arrangements in ${\mathbb{P}}^2$) \[ex1\] Consider the line arrangement $$D({{\mathcal A}}_3): f=(x^2-y^2)(y^2-z^2)(x^2-z^2)=0.$$ The Hilbert-Poincaré series is: $$HP(M(f))(t)=1+3t+6t^{2}+10t^{3}+15t^{4}+18t^{5}+19(t^{6}+\cdots .$$ Then $ct( D({{\mathcal A}}_3))=st(D({{\mathcal A}}_3))=6$ and the curve $D({{\mathcal A}}_3)$ is free, since one can verify by Singular the vanishing $sat(J_f)=0$. Similarly, for the line arrangement $$D: g= xyzf=xyz(x^2-y^2)(y^2-z^2)(x^2-z^2)=0,$$ one has $ct(D)=10 < st(D)=11$ and the Hilbert-Poincaré series is: $1+3t+6t^{2}+10t^{3}+15t^{4}+21t^{5}+28t^{6}+36t^{7}+42t^{8}+46t^{9}+48t^{10}+49(t^{11}+\cdots .$ So this curve is free for the same reason as above.
(a sequence of free divisors constructed in [@ST], Prop. 2.2.) \[ex2\] Consider the sequence of free divisors $D_d: f=y^{d-1}z +x^d+x^2y^{d-2}=0$, for $ d\geq 5$ Then, for $d=5$ we have $st(D)=4<5=ct(D)$, hence we are in the setting of Theorem \[thm1\] (ii). For $d=6$, one has $st(D)=6=ct(D)$, while for $d>6$ one has $st(D)>ct(D)$. So Theorem \[thm1\] (2) has no converse.
(Simis’ free irreducible sextic, see [@Si]) \[ex3\] Consider the sextic $D:f=0$, where $$f=4(x^2+y^2+xz)^3-27(x^2+y^2)^2z^2.$$ Then $D$ has three $E_6$ singularities and one node $A_1$, hence $\tau(D)=19$. Moreover one has $ct(D)=st(D)=6$ since the Hilbert-Poincaré series of $M(f)$ can be computed using for instance Singular and we get $$HP(M(f))(t)=1+3t+6t^{2}+10t^{3}+15t^{4}+18t^{5}+19(t^{6}+\cdots .$$ This is one of the very few irreducible free divisors in ${\mathbb{P}}^2$ known to this day.
(a sequence of curves $C_d$ with $st(C_d)= ct(C_d)$.) \[ex4\] Let $C_d:f_d=0$ with $f_d(x,y,z)=f=x^2y^2z^{d-4}+x^5z^{d-5}+y^5z^{d-5}+x^d+y^d$ for $d\geq 5$. Then, for any $d\geq 5$, the curve $C_d$ has a unique singularity at the point $(0:0:1)$ of type $T_{2,5,5}$ with $\tau=10.$ Then a computation by Singular suggests that $ct(D_d)=st(D_d)=3d-9$ (verified for $5 \leq d \leq 15$). Moreover all these divisors are not free since $sat(J_f)$ is not zero (verified for $5 \leq d \leq 15$).
(a nodal hypersurface with one node) \[ex5\] If $D$ is a nodal hypersurface in ${\mathbb{P}}^n$ having exactly one node, it follows from Example 4.3 (i) in [@DS3] that $st(D)= ct(D)=T$. For nodal curve of degree $5$, $C: f=x^4y+x^3y^2+y^5+xy^2z^2+(x^2+xy+y^2)z^3=0$ our invariants are $ct(C)=st(C)=9$ and the Hilbert-Poincaré series of $M(f)$ is $$HP(M(f))(t)=1+3t+6t^2+10t^3+12t^4+12t^5+10t^6+6t^7+3t^8+(t^9+\cdots .$$
Conclusion
==========
For a hypersurface $D: f=0$ in ${\mathbb{P}}^n$ with isolated singularities, we compare the Hilbert-Poincaré series of the corresponding graded [*Milnor*]{} [*algebra*]{} with the smooth case. The series coincides up to a point $ct(D)$ and Choudary-Dimca Theorem [@CD] ensures that from an index $st(D)$ we have stability.
The main result is Theorem \[thm1\], which establishes a relation between free divisors and stability $st(D)$ and coincidence thresholds $ct(D)$.
In the vast majority of cases one has $ct(D) \leq st(D)$, see for instance the examples given above for the case of equality. The opposite inequality $st(D)<ct(D)$ may occur but it is extremely rare.
Recall that one of the main question in this theory is the construction of irreducible free divisor of arbitrarily high degree. Simis’ celebrated example in degree $d=6$ is discussed in Example \[ex3\]. The main conclusion of the given examples is that Theorem \[thm1\] (2) has no converse, even in the class of free line arrangements. Moreover, the examples show that there are a lot of free and not free divisors satisfying the equality $st(D)=ct(D)$.
All the computations for this paper were made by Singular package, see [@DGP] and [@GP].
**Acknowledgment**\
The author is grateful to A. Dimca for suggesting this problem.\
[00]{}
A. D. R. Choudary, A. Dimca, [*Koszul complexes and hypersurface singularities*]{}, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 121 (1994), 1009-1016.
A. Dimca, [*Syzygies of Jacobian ideals and defects of linear systems*]{}, Bull. Math. Soc. Sci. Math. Roumanie Tome 56(104) No. 2, 2013, 191- 203.
W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister and H. Sch[ö]{}nemann, [*Singular - A computer algebra system for polynomial computations*]{}. Available at [http://www.singular.uni-kl.de]{}.
A. Dimca, G. Sticlaru, [*On the syzygies and Alexander polynomials of nodal hypersurfaces*]{}, Math. Nachr. 285, No.17-18, (2012), 2120-2128.
A. Dimca, G. Sticlaru, [*Koszul complexes and pole order filtrations*]{}, P Edinburgh Math Soc, accepted 2013.
G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister, [*A Singular Introduction to Commutative Algebra*]{} (with contributions by O. Bachmann, C. Lossen, and H. Schönemann). Springer-Verlag 2002 (second edition 2007).
A. Simis: The depth of the jacobian ring of a polynomial in three variables. Proc. AMS 134 (2005), 1591-1598.
A. Simis, S.O. Tohaneanu: Homology of homogeneous divisors. arXiv:1207.5862.
G. Sticlaru, [*Invariants and rigidity of projective hypersurfaces*]{}, arXiv: 1309.7356.
|
Bitcoin price is currently correcting higher and is trading above $9,650 against the US Dollar.
The price is struggling to break the $9,800 and $9,880 resistance levels.
There is a major bearish trend line forming with resistance near $9,900 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
The price could only turn bullish after it captures the $9,900 and $10,000 resistance levels.
Bitcoin price is facing a lot of barriers near $9,900 and $10,000 against the US Dollar. BTC could trim recent gains if it fails to climb above $9,900 or $10,000 in the near term.
Bitcoin Price Analysis
Recently, BTC started a decent upside correction from the $9,316 swing low against the US Dollar. It seems like a decent support base is forming near the $9,350 and $9,400 levels. The price climbed above the $9,500 and $9,520 resistance levels. Moreover, there was a close above the $9,500 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. It opened the doors for more gains above $9,550.
Additionally, bitcoin gained pace above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last key decline from the $10,293 high to $9,316 low. However, the price is now struggling to break the $9,800 resistance area (the previous support). Moreover, it seems like the 50% Fib retracement level of the last key decline from the $10,293 high to $9,316 low is acting as a strong resistance.
On the upside, there is a major bearish trend line forming with resistance near $9,900 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair. Above the trend line, the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last key decline from the $10,293 high to $9,316 low is at $9,920. However, the main resistance is near the $10,000 level, above which the price is likely to move back into a positive zone.
On the downside, an initial support is near the $9,660 level (the recent resistance area). The next key support is near the $9,600 level and the 100 hourly SMA. If there is a downside break below the 100 hourly SMA, the price could revisit the $9,350 support area in the near term.
Looking at the chart, bitcoin price is facing a lot of hurdles near the $9,800, $9,900 and $10,000 levels. It seems like the bulls could attempt to push the price above $10,000. If they fail, the price will most likely start a fresh decline towards $9,500 or $9,350.
Technical indicators:
Hourly MACD – The MACD is slowly losing momentum in the bullish zone.
Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is correcting lower towards the 60 level.
Major Support Levels – $9,660 followed by $9,500.
Major Resistance Levels – $9,800, $9,900 and $10,000. |
Product Information
The double hook allows you to use your Functional Trainer dual weight stacks. By attaching the Double Hook Straight Bar to both weight stacks of the functional trainer, you can use both stacks simultaneously for a smooth, unilateral movement.
With this Double Hook Straight Bar you can get a comfortable, efficient shoulder press, bench press, bicep and tricep exercises, lat pulldown and many other exercises using with any Functional Trainer. |
Recently, organic EL elements have been actively developed. Display devices using organic EL elements need neither backlights nor polarizers, and have a wide dynamic range and a wide viewing angle, which is advantageous for reduction in thickness and cost. Thus, the organic EL elements have been expected to be used in next-generation display devices.
In typical organic EL elements, an organic EL layer that emits light in response to application of a voltage is provided between a thin-film like anode and a thin-film like cathode, and a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, a light emitting layer, a hole blocking layer, an electron transport layer, etc. are stacked in the organic EL layer.
These layers in the organic EL layer are often formed by vacuum deposition (a vacuum deposition method), but in some cases, are formed by coating using spin coating etc. (a coating method).
In order to display a color image on organic EL display devices, three sub-pixels of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) are typically arranged in each pixel, and light emission of the sub-pixels is controlled. This method requires a light emitting layer that emits light of each color to be selectively formed in each sub-pixel (patterning).
However, a patterning technique capable of being used in practical applications has not been established in the field of organic EL display devices. In particular, there has been a problem in a process for increasing the size of the display devices.
Some techniques have been proposed as this type of patterning technique (Patent Document 1 etc.).
(1) Patent Document 1
A metal mask having holes is used. Patterning is performed through the holes of the metal mask by vacuum deposition (a mask deposition method).
(2) Non-Patent Documents 1-3
A transfer substrate is used on which a photothermal conversion layer that converts laser light to thermal energy and a light emitting layer are formed on its entire surface. With the transfer substrate being placed to face a transfer target substrate, a predetermined area of the transfer substrate is irradiated with laser. Thus, only the light emitting layer in the irradiated area is transferred to the transfer target substrate (a laser transfer method).
(3) Patent Document 2
Small droplets are dropped onto predetermined positions to form a thin film (an ink jet method or IJ method).
(4) Patent Document 3
A transfer substrate having light emitting pigments of RGB arranged thereon is used as a substrate that allows laser light to pass therethrough. The transfer substrate is externally irradiated with laser light, thereby transferring the light emitting pigments by using heat generated by the laser light. All the light emitting pigments are simultaneously formed on the transfer substrate. An IJ method or a vacuum deposition method is used to form the light emitting pigments.
(5) Patent Document 4
A first transfer layer containing a first organic material and a second transfer layer containing a second organic material are patterned on a transfer substrate via a photothermal conversion layer by a printing method. The transfer layers are simultaneously transferred to a transfer target substrate by irradiating this transfer substrate with radiation. |
This long-wearing lipstick is tireless, and will unquestionably get you through 6 to 8 hours of normal wear before you require a touch-up. (Why organisations want to overstate their wear claims has neither rhyme nor reason—isn't 12 to 14 hours impressive amazing) While this has a creamier surface than some long-wearing lipsticks, it's not the most agreeable lipstick. It's somewhat tasteless and you can feel the shabbiness on your lips, yet to a specific degree the surface and feel involves inclination, alongside some exchange offs that accompany long-wearing lipsticks. The finish is semi-matte, however the shading is rich and durable. While it smooths on effortlessly, the set time is somewhat longer than normal. About each shade has some level of gleam, whether you can see it in the tube or not; even the most matte-looking Ravishing Rouge has specks of shimmer in it you'll see once connected. |
There is no doubt about the fact that the Indian Premier League (IPL) is one of the most followed cricket league in the world. The following of IPL is increasing exponentially each passing year. In every auction, fans witness a lot of players who get sold for whopping amounts.
Chennai Super Kings’ celebration after winning the IPL 2018 trophy
This year, IPL auction took place on Tuesday (December 18) and it was full of unexpectedness. There were many ups and downs with stars like Brendon McCullum, Dale Steyn getting unsold whereas new entrants like Nicholas Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer were sold to Sunrisers Hyderabad and RCB for ₹4.20 crore respectively.
After the auction, every franchise felt that they had got the best players and in the process, many new faces have hit the jackpot and all the media limelight. Here are the players whose value went up like a rocket and nobody saw it coming :
1. Himmat Singh (RCB)
Himmat Singh
Himmat Singh is a 22-year old right-handed batsman from Delhi who has played only 4 T20 matches so far. With the highest score of 9 runs not out, it came up as a surprise when he was bought for ₹65 lacs by RCB. RCB is a team which is known to score big and his hard-hitting quality might have drawn the interest of the RCB team management. |
Nontraumatic posterior urethral stenosis.
Posterior urethral stenoses and contractures are complications after treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), localised prostate cancer (PCa), and orthotopic neobladder formation, compromising prognosis and functional outcomes. To identify factors related to aetiology, prevention and treatment of non-traumatic posterior urethral stenosis and contractures. Review of the published evidence related to posterior urethral stenosis and contractures after PCa treatment, BPH therapies and orthotopic neobladder formation. PubMed database search with English and Spanish papers considered. Cohort studies, case series, prospective and retrospective studies and review papers were included. Posterior urethral stenoses and contractures are common, leading to significant morbidity. A worsening on voiding quality should rise some concerns. Careful surgical and/or radiotherapic techniques prevent their development. Endoscopic therapies are the initial approach, with complex urethroplasties often required. Subsequent urinary incontinence, the most important sequelae, may need artificial sphincters. Non-traumatic posterior urethral stenoses could be important complications, potentially compromising the outcomes of initial therapy. They could require complex surgeries leading to urinary incontinence. |
In the modern-day broadband access methods for subscriber line units of the subscriber line of the classical telephone system (xDSL services), connected via coaxial cable (CATV), via broadband radio services (WLAN, UMTS) or satellite communication, a star structure is always present. As a result of the associated concentration of subscriber lines or groups of transmission channels with a plurality of subscribers, the latter disadvantageously affect one another due to spectral interference, in particular in the environment of an intelligent network node which connects the subscriber line units to the backbone of the internet.
Owing to the increasing economic importance of the broadband access methods, numerous methods for improving the attainable transmission speed or data rate of all subscribers have been proposed.
The methods can be subdivided as follows: A) Algorithms for multiuser detection: The bit sequences of the mutually influencing message transmissions are detected collectively, with the crosstalk relationships being determined simultaneously; see “Multiuser Detection, S. Verdu, Cambridge University Press, London, New York, 1998”. Algorithms of this kind are considered in the UMTS standardization process. As a precondition these algorithms require the message transmissions of all the subscribers involved to be in strict clock-controlled synchronism. This clock synchronicity is categorically not given for xDSL data transmissions and also cannot be implemented technically without considerable changes to the standardized methods and consequently to the hardware equipment used at the subscriber premises and in the exchange (office). B) MIMO signal processing methods: MIMO systems are understood to mean the mathematical theory for handling systems with vector-value inputs and outputs. MIMO signal processing methods are suitable for improving the aggregate bit rate of a plurality of message transmissions exerting a spectral influence on one another, although a prerequisite is strict clock synchronicity and frame synchronicity of all message transmissions. For the reasons cited in 1.), therefore, the use of MIMO signal processing algorithms such as “MIMO systems in the subscriber-line network, G. Tauböck, W. Henkel in 5th International OFDM Workshop 2000, Hamburg” is not realizable in practice at the present time. C) Vector modulation methods: Closely related to 2.) are what are referred to as vector modulation methods, described in “Vectored Transmission for Digital Subscriber Line Systems”, G. Ginis and J. Cioffi, published in IEEE Journal Selected Areas of Communications Vol. 20, Issue 5, pp. 1085-1104, June 2002. A significant difference is the a posteriori adaptation of the modulation signal of the individual message transmission systems to the crosstalk transmission functions. As with 2.), strict frame synchronicity and hence clock synchronization of all the modems involved is a precondition for the use of vector modulation methods. D) Spectrum management methods: As described in “Dynamic Spectrum Management for Next-Generation DSL Systems”, K.-B. Song, S.-T. Chung, G. Ginis, J. M. Cioffi, the aggregate bit rate of all subscribers of a cable group can be maximized by suitable distribution of the spectral power density of the individual subscribers.
A common feature of all the methods described in the foregoing is that the crosstalk relationships have already been determined at the time of activation of the respective subscriber lines or transmission channels on the subscriber lines. |
Shared File Systems (SFS) is a term applied to IBM's System/390 (S/390) system for sharing data among virtual machines. IBM's DB2 has been adapted for this type of data sharing in a Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS/Enterprise Systems Architectures (ESA) environment by using IBM's coupling facility to create multi-system data sharing.
In such a shared system, when one of the systems fails, the update mode locks (data locks) that were held at the time of the failure are “retained” to prevent the other systems from accessing inconsistent data (data that had not yet reached a point of consistency at the time of the failure). To remove the retained data locks, the failed system's logs must be read in a forward and a backward direction in order to bring the data back to a point of consistency. Once this has been done, the retained locks can be removed, and the data is again accessible from all the systems.
One conventional method generally employed to remove the retained locks when an operating system fails is the restart/recovery method. Utilizing the restart/recovery method, the failed system is restarted (either manually or automatically) on another operating system in the cluster and recovery logic is used to “recover” the data being protected by the retained data locks and bring the data back to consistency. The trouble with this approach is that in order to restart the failed system, a substantial amount of CPU resources could be utilized. Consequently, this use of CPU resources could impose a significant disruption to the work that is already running on the operating system.
Accordingly, what is needed is a more efficient method and system for recovering the retained locks of the failed operating system. The method and system should be simple, cost effective and capable of being easily adapted to existing technology. The present invention addresses such a need. |
The role of innate cells is coupled to a Th1-polarized immune response in pediatric nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.
Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a chronic inflammatory liver disease influenced by risk factors for the metabolic syndrome. In adult patients, NASH is associated with an altered phenotype and functionality of peripheral immune cells, the recruitment of leukocytes and intrahepatic activation, and an exacerbated production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cytokines. It remains unclear if the previously described differences between pediatric and adult nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases also reflect differences in their pathogenesis. We aimed to investigate the phenotype and functionality of circulating immune cells and the potential contribution of liver infiltrating leukocytes to the immunological imbalance in pediatric NASH. By a real-time PCR-based analysis of cytokines and immunohistochemical staining of liver biopsies, we demonstrated that the hepatic microenvironment is dominated by interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) but not interleukin-4 and is infiltrated by a higher number of CD8(+) cells in pediatric NASH. The number of infiltrating neutrophils positively correlated with ROS generation by peripheral polymorphonuclear cells. By a flow cytometric analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes, a distinctive increase in CD8(+) CD45RO and CD8(+) CD45RA subpopulations and an increased production of IFN-γ by CD4(+) and CD8(+) cells were shown. The production of ROS following PMA stimulation was augmented in circulating neutrophils but not in monocytes. In sum, the distinctive phenotype and functionality of infiltrating and circulating cells suggest that the role of innate cells is coupled to a Th1-polarized immune response in pediatric NASH. |
Robots, drones and autonomous things
The developer community consists of pioneers in robotics, drones and open hubs for connected things. Snappy Ubuntu Core offers freedom when it comes to creating apps for new kinds of device, whether it crawls about or controls your home.
The real things
Brains for buildings: Mycroft AI
Mycroft is a revolution: an open source solution for artificial intelligence and language recognition, free for anyone to use in their projects. By using voice input to make services like YouTube, Netflix and Spotify available instantly, it is already bringing Internet of Things integration to homes and offices.
Walking the walk with Erle Spider
Designed to access hard-to-reach places such as pipes and disaster areas, Erle-Spider is the first ROS-powered walking drone running snappy Ubuntu Core. With the Ubuntu Core app store, you can create and sell behaviours and applications for drones just like this.
Home control: Pi-Cubes SDK
The Pi-Cubes SDK provides a modular home automation system supporting up to 24 I/Os and four thermostats. It works with choice of different I/O boards, making it suitable for any Home Automation project.
Get involved with the internet of toys
Snappy speaks your language
Snappy is a platform with practically no learning curve. You can use your language of choice, whether it’s Python, Go, C, C++, Node JS (even .NET), just as you would to write any Linux app. If there’s code you’re looking to re-use, you can go ahead without the extra work of targeting new APIs. And with support for all the Linux libraries you know and love, your app can be up and running even faster.
Get snapping with Snapcraft
Snapcraft, the snappy SDK, enables you to easily create snaps while building on top of existing projects and communities.
It enables the quick packaging of snappy apps written in any language you like. Snapcraft also incorporate components from a wide range of sources including GitHub, Launchpad and npm. Once you’re ready, your snappy apps can be monetised by uploading them to the Snappy Store.
Easily extensible with frameworks
Ubuntu Core’s base is deliberately tiny, making it both more secure and more flexible. Rather than dictate the adoption and use of a particular tool, we offer frameworks that can extend the base system cleanly. These frameworks can be provided by anybody, in collaboration with Canonical — and they can provide services to any applications that depend on them.
Kick-start your next project
If you’re launching a crowdfunding project using snappy technology, talk to us first — and benefit from all the support Canonical can provide. |
Q:
How to Convert TZInfo identifier to Rails TimeZone name/key
How do you convert js values received as TZInfo identifiers to Rails TimeZone name/key?
FROM: "America/New_York" returned from JavaScript TZinfo detection
TO: "Eastern Time (US & Canada)" convention used in Rails TimeZone
or another example:
"Pacific/Honolulu" => converted to => "Hawaii"
Both are available in ActiveSupport::TimeZone < Object mapping but rails uses the key [i.g. "Eastern Time (US & Canada)"] in drop-downs, validation & storing to Time.use_zone().
Based on what I understand of ActiveSupport::TimeZone.us_zones this seems to be important especially incases of DayLights savings time (which rails sounds to handle well) and matching just the offset would not accomplish. If it is not stored to DB with the rails TimeZone name then validation fails and does not match up properly in the user's profile settings page with the dropdown list of ActiveSupport::TimeZone.zones_map
Goal of this is that the user does not have to select their timezone on signup or are required to change it in their settings after signup. The browser detects it and passes it to hidden_field on signup. In the rare occasion they sign up in a place different than their home/work. they can manually override in their account settings later.
Seems to be a common gap when trying to ingest js timezone detection. This might even become a secondary question of how to pass the returned info from js to rails for conversion and then back to js to store back in the hidden_field of the form? Hopefully I framed the question properly & admittedly a bit green with rails so there may be a simple solution to this...
Thanks so much for all the help!
-E
ActiveSupport Time.zone Documentation
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/TimeZone.html#method-i-parse
MAPPING = {"Eastern Time (US & Canada)" => "America/New_York"
Using js packaged gem 'temporal-rails' to detect users timezone:
https://github.com/jejacks0n/temporal
User Time_Zone implement as seen:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/106-time-zones-revised
*Using Devise & Devise-Inevitable
Sign-Up View Script
<script>
$(function() {
var detected_zone = Temporal.detect();
console.log(detected_zone); // returns object
detected_zone = detected_zone.timezone.name;
console.log(detected_zone); // returns "America/New_York"
$('#user_time_zone').val(detected_zone); // ! need to convert this to rails TimeZone name !
});
</script>
User Model
validates_inclusion_of :time_zone, in: ActiveSupport::TimeZone.zones_map(&:name)
User Account Settings Form
<%= f.label :time_zone, label: "Time Zone" %><br />
<%= f.time_zone_select :time_zone, ActiveSupport::TimeZone.us_zones %>
A:
Temporal includes the needed logic, but to answer your question:
Time.zone = ActiveSupport::TimeZone.new("America/New_York")
Edit, I guess my answer is incomplete. You want to get it from "America/New_York" to "Eastern Time (US & Canada)", correct? If that's the case this is the best solution I have -- though someone may be able to provide a better one.
ActiveSupport::TimeZone::MAPPING.select {|k, v| v == "America/New_York" }.keys.first
|
Hyperloop transport: Edinburgh to London in less than 30 minutes?
A team of Scottish students are one of two British universities in Texas pitching their version of a hyperloop - a method of travel that can reach 700mph.
By The Newsroom Wednesday, 27th January 2016, 6:50 pm Updated Thursday, 28th January 2016, 12:32 pm
The proposed interior of the windowless pod
It sounds like space-age transport straight out of a science fiction movie, but the Hyperloop could become a reality.
The futuristic idea was originally the brainchild of SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is in the process of building a demonstration track in the Nevada desert.
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Travelling at speeds equivalent to a hypersonic jet, the Hyperloop would have the capability to travel from Edinburgh to London in roughly 30 minutes, making the capital-to-capital commute quicker than a train journey across the central belt.
How the hyperloop pod might look on the track
Now, an ever-expanding team of around 30 members from the University of Edinburgh have entered a design competition to earn a place in the SpaceX Hyperloop design semi-finals in Texas this week.
Their design for the super-speed transportation contains a small capsule that can hold eight people, with the ability to reduce travel between Edinburgh and London to just 30 minutes.
Adam Anyszewski, one of the student engineers on the project said: “The Hyperloop capsule would be placed into a long tube, that would stretch a regularly commuted distance - such as Edinburgh to London, or Los Angeles to San Francisco.
“All the air is removed from the tube, to eliminate wind resistance. The capsule would then be powered towards London, using electricity, where passengers would arrive in around 35 minutes.
The University of Edinburgh team's unique seating design takes inspiration from smartwatches. Picture: Contributed.
“These capsules would be launched roughly once a minute.”
Using electricity as a power source would make the Hyperloop a clean method of transport, and more green than its two equivalents - plane and train travel.
Fellow student, Gabrielis Cerniauskas said that the Hyperloop is one of the most environmentally friendly methods of travel:
“The capsule is able to travel at tens of miles without needing a boost, so it wouldn’t have to be continually powered.
How the hyperloop pod might look on the track
“The idea would be that you could place solar panels along the outside of the tube so not only would it be self reliant on energy, but you could even sell off excess electricity back to the power grid.
“Once you’ve built it, the emissions from the loop would be zero. Literally no emissions. So it’s very environmentally friendly”
The project is still in the development stage, but after testing was completed, the hyperloop would potentially be ready for the first passenger by 2020.
The University of Edinburgh team's unique seating design takes inspiration from smartwatches. Picture: Contributed.
The innovative engineers will present their own concept - created in collaboration with students from Edinburgh’s College of Art - to a panel at the American competition, who will judge the team on the project’s engineering and design merits.
When dealing with such phenomenal speeds, safety and comfort will be a significant factor for designers to consider.
The logistics of stopping the Hyperloop as it hits speeds of 700mph remains a challenge. The student team put a great deal thought into the interior design and calculated how much space passengers would need to feel comfortable so as reducing the risk of claustrophobia.
Their interior also borrowed concepts found in the links smart watches.
Peter Vaculciak, another engineer student in the team, praised the product designers on the team.
“The designers worked on many things - such as how different classes could have different seating; ways to put in lighting so it looks like there is more room; even down to the colour scheme - it can affect how big the pods look inside.”
“All of the materials needed to build a Hyperloop are actually available now,” said Vaculciak. “It’s just that the cost is so high, no one wants to invest.
And this cuts to one of the fundamental problems limiting Hyperloop progress so far: funding.
The ability to build the high speed tubes around heavily populated areas or even underground makes attractive when compared to high speed rail, in which often people must be displaced for ne lines to be built. Yet costs and return on investment remains a key issue. “I think it’s mostly just a lack of investors,” explains Anyszewski, “It’s not like an app, where there’s a quick development process with no overhead costs.
“When businessmen look to invest they see projects and they hear, ‘If you give me £1 million now, I’ll give you £4 million in two years.’ This project would be more like ‘If you give me £5 billion now, I’ll give you £6 billion in 20 years.’ The time period on returns may make it seem undesirable.”
“No board of director would make a decision on a project that has the potential to outrun their life on the board. They want to see fast results to ensure their position.
“The only way it may work, I think, is if a Government-backed third sector company went into it. Because you can’t look at profits during the development stage.
“You would have to employ hundreds of people, and generate losses for the first 10 years at least, before you start to see a turn around.
However despite the barrier entries the test track being built in Nevada is tangible evidence that progress is being made. |
/*
* Copyright (c) 2011, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
*
* This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
* under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
* published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this
* particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
* by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
*
* This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
* ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
* FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
* version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that
* accompanied this code).
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version
* 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
* Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
*
* Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA
* or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any
* questions.
*/
package com.sun.javafx.geom.transform;
import com.sun.javafx.geom.BaseBounds;
import com.sun.javafx.geom.Path2D;
import com.sun.javafx.geom.Point2D;
import com.sun.javafx.geom.Rectangle;
import com.sun.javafx.geom.Shape;
import com.sun.javafx.geom.Vec3d;
/**
*
*/
public class Translate2D extends BaseTransform {
private double mxt;
private double myt;
public static BaseTransform getInstance(double mxt, double myt) {
if (mxt == 0.0 && myt == 0.0) {
return IDENTITY_TRANSFORM;
} else {
return new Translate2D(mxt, myt);
}
}
public Translate2D(double tx, double ty) {
this.mxt = tx;
this.myt = ty;
}
public Translate2D(BaseTransform tx) {
if (!tx.isTranslateOrIdentity()) {
degreeError(Degree.TRANSLATE_2D);
}
this.mxt = tx.getMxt();
this.myt = tx.getMyt();
}
@Override
public Degree getDegree() {
return Degree.TRANSLATE_2D;
}
@Override
public double getDeterminant() {
return 1.0;
}
@Override
public double getMxt() {
return mxt;
}
@Override
public double getMyt() {
return myt;
}
@Override
public int getType() {
return (mxt == 0.0 && myt == 0.0) ? TYPE_IDENTITY : TYPE_TRANSLATION;
}
@Override
public boolean isIdentity() {
return (mxt == 0.0 && myt == 0.0);
}
@Override
public boolean isTranslateOrIdentity() {
return true;
}
@Override
public boolean is2D() {
return true;
}
@Override
public Point2D transform(Point2D src, Point2D dst) {
if (dst == null) dst = makePoint(src, dst);
dst.setLocation(
(float) (src.x + mxt),
(float) (src.y + myt));
return dst;
}
@Override
public Point2D inverseTransform(Point2D src, Point2D dst) {
if (dst == null) dst = makePoint(src, dst);
dst.setLocation(
(float) (src.x - mxt),
(float) (src.y - myt));
return dst;
}
@Override
public Vec3d transform(Vec3d src, Vec3d dst) {
if (dst == null) {
dst = new Vec3d();
}
dst.x = src.x + mxt;
dst.y = src.y + myt;
dst.z = src.z;
return dst;
}
@Override
public Vec3d deltaTransform(Vec3d src, Vec3d dst) {
if (dst == null) {
dst = new Vec3d();
}
dst.set(src);
return dst;
}
@Override
public Vec3d inverseTransform(Vec3d src, Vec3d dst) {
if (dst == null) {
dst = new Vec3d();
}
dst.x = src.x - mxt;
dst.y = src.y - myt;
dst.z = src.z;
return dst;
}
@Override
public Vec3d inverseDeltaTransform(Vec3d src, Vec3d dst) {
if (dst == null) {
dst = new Vec3d();
}
dst.set(src);
return dst;
}
@Override
public void transform(float[] srcPts, int srcOff,
float[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
float tx = (float) this.mxt;
float ty = (float) this.myt;
if (dstPts == srcPts) {
if (dstOff > srcOff && dstOff < srcOff + numPts * 2) {
// If the arrays overlap partially with the destination higher
// than the source and we transform the coordinates normally
// we would overwrite some of the later source coordinates
// with results of previous transformations.
// To get around this we use arraycopy to copy the points
// to their final destination with correct overwrite
// handling and then transform them in place in the new
// safer location.
System.arraycopy(srcPts, srcOff, dstPts, dstOff, numPts * 2);
// srcPts = dstPts; // They are known to be equal.
srcOff = dstOff;
}
if (dstOff == srcOff && tx == 0.0f && ty == 0.0f) {
return;
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < numPts; i++) {
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] + tx;
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] + ty;
}
}
@Override
public void transform(double[] srcPts, int srcOff,
double[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
double tx = this.mxt;
double ty = this.myt;
if (dstPts == srcPts) {
if (dstOff > srcOff && dstOff < srcOff + numPts * 2) {
// If the arrays overlap partially with the destination higher
// than the source and we transform the coordinates normally
// we would overwrite some of the later source coordinates
// with results of previous transformations.
// To get around this we use arraycopy to copy the points
// to their final destination with correct overwrite
// handling and then transform them in place in the new
// safer location.
System.arraycopy(srcPts, srcOff, dstPts, dstOff, numPts * 2);
// srcPts = dstPts; // They are known to be equal.
srcOff = dstOff;
}
if (dstOff == srcOff && tx == 0.0 && ty == 0.0) {
return;
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < numPts; i++) {
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] + tx;
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] + ty;
}
}
@Override
public void transform(float[] srcPts, int srcOff,
double[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
double tx = this.mxt;
double ty = this.myt;
for (int i = 0; i < numPts; i++) {
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] + tx;
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] + ty;
}
}
@Override
public void transform(double[] srcPts, int srcOff,
float[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
double tx = this.mxt;
double ty = this.myt;
for (int i = 0; i < numPts; i++) {
dstPts[dstOff++] = (float) (srcPts[srcOff++] + tx);
dstPts[dstOff++] = (float) (srcPts[srcOff++] + ty);
}
}
@Override
public void deltaTransform(float[] srcPts, int srcOff,
float[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
if (srcPts != dstPts || srcOff != dstOff) {
System.arraycopy(srcPts, srcOff, dstPts, dstOff, numPts * 2);
}
}
@Override
public void deltaTransform(double[] srcPts, int srcOff,
double[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
if (srcPts != dstPts || srcOff != dstOff) {
System.arraycopy(srcPts, srcOff, dstPts, dstOff, numPts * 2);
}
}
@Override
public void inverseTransform(float[] srcPts, int srcOff,
float[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
float tx = (float) this.mxt;
float ty = (float) this.myt;
if (dstPts == srcPts) {
if (dstOff > srcOff && dstOff < srcOff + numPts * 2) {
// If the arrays overlap partially with the destination higher
// than the source and we transform the coordinates normally
// we would overwrite some of the later source coordinates
// with results of previous transformations.
// To get around this we use arraycopy to copy the points
// to their final destination with correct overwrite
// handling and then transform them in place in the new
// safer location.
System.arraycopy(srcPts, srcOff, dstPts, dstOff, numPts * 2);
// srcPts = dstPts; // They are known to be equal.
srcOff = dstOff;
}
if (dstOff == srcOff && tx == 0.0f && ty == 0.0f) {
return;
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < numPts; i++) {
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] - tx;
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] - ty;
}
}
@Override
public void inverseDeltaTransform(float[] srcPts, int srcOff,
float[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
if (srcPts != dstPts || srcOff != dstOff) {
System.arraycopy(srcPts, srcOff, dstPts, dstOff, numPts * 2);
}
}
@Override
public void inverseTransform(double[] srcPts, int srcOff,
double[] dstPts, int dstOff,
int numPts)
{
double tx = this.mxt;
double ty = this.myt;
if (dstPts == srcPts) {
if (dstOff > srcOff && dstOff < srcOff + numPts * 2) {
// If the arrays overlap partially with the destination higher
// than the source and we transform the coordinates normally
// we would overwrite some of the later source coordinates
// with results of previous transformations.
// To get around this we use arraycopy to copy the points
// to their final destination with correct overwrite
// handling and then transform them in place in the new
// safer location.
System.arraycopy(srcPts, srcOff, dstPts, dstOff, numPts * 2);
// srcPts = dstPts; // They are known to be equal.
srcOff = dstOff;
}
if (dstOff == srcOff && tx == 0f && ty == 0f) {
return;
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < numPts; i++) {
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] - tx;
dstPts[dstOff++] = srcPts[srcOff++] - ty;
}
}
@Override
public BaseBounds transform(BaseBounds bounds, BaseBounds result) {
float minX = (float) (bounds.getMinX() + mxt);
float minY = (float) (bounds.getMinY() + myt);
float minZ = bounds.getMinZ();
float maxX = (float) (bounds.getMaxX() + mxt);
float maxY = (float) (bounds.getMaxY() + myt);
float maxZ = bounds.getMaxZ();
return result.deriveWithNewBounds(minX, minY, minZ, maxX, maxY, maxZ);
}
@Override
public void transform(Rectangle rect, Rectangle result) {
transform(rect, result, mxt, myt);
}
@Override
public BaseBounds inverseTransform(BaseBounds bounds, BaseBounds result) {
float minX = (float) (bounds.getMinX() - mxt);
float minY = (float) (bounds.getMinY() - myt);
float minZ = bounds.getMinZ();
float maxX = (float) (bounds.getMaxX() - mxt);
float maxY = (float) (bounds.getMaxY() - myt);
float maxZ = bounds.getMaxZ();
return result.deriveWithNewBounds(minX, minY, minZ, maxX, maxY, maxZ);
}
@Override
public void inverseTransform(Rectangle rect, Rectangle result) {
transform(rect, result, -mxt, -myt);
}
static void transform(Rectangle rect, Rectangle result,
double mxt, double myt)
{
int imxt = (int) mxt;
int imyt = (int) myt;
if (imxt == mxt && imyt == myt) {
result.setBounds(rect);
result.translate(imxt, imyt);
} else {
double x1 = rect.x + mxt;
double y1 = rect.y + myt;
double x2 = Math.ceil(x1 + rect.width);
double y2 = Math.ceil(y1 + rect.height);
x1 = Math.floor(x1);
y1 = Math.floor(y1);
result.setBounds((int) x1, (int) y1, (int) (x2 - x1), (int) (y2 - y1));
}
}
@Override
public Shape createTransformedShape(Shape s) {
return new Path2D(s, this);
}
@Override
public void setToIdentity() {
this.mxt = this.myt = 0.0;
}
@Override
public void setTransform(BaseTransform xform) {
if (!xform.isTranslateOrIdentity()) {
degreeError(Degree.TRANSLATE_2D);
}
this.mxt = xform.getMxt();
this.myt = xform.getMyt();
}
@Override
public void invert() {
this.mxt = -this.mxt;
this.myt = -this.myt;
}
@Override
public void restoreTransform(double mxx, double myx,
double mxy, double myy,
double mxt, double myt)
{
if (mxx != 1.0 || myx != 0.0 ||
mxy != 0.0 || myy != 1.0)
{
degreeError(Degree.TRANSLATE_2D);
}
this.mxt = mxt;
this.myt = myt;
}
@Override
public void restoreTransform(double mxx, double mxy, double mxz, double mxt,
double myx, double myy, double myz, double myt,
double mzx, double mzy, double mzz, double mzt)
{
if (mxx != 1.0 || mxy != 0.0 || mxz != 0.0 ||
myx != 0.0 || myy != 1.0 || myz != 0.0 ||
mzx != 0.0 || mzy != 0.0 || mzz != 1.0 || mzt != 0.0)
{
degreeError(Degree.TRANSLATE_2D);
}
this.mxt = mxt;
this.myt = myt;
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithTranslation(double mxt, double myt) {
this.mxt += mxt;
this.myt += myt;
return this;
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithTranslation(double mxt, double myt, double mzt) {
if (mzt == 0.0) {
this.mxt += mxt;
this.myt += myt;
return this;
}
Affine3D a = new Affine3D();
a.translate(this.mxt + mxt, this.myt + myt, mzt);
return a;
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithScale(double mxx, double myy, double mzz) {
if (mzz == 1.0) {
if (mxx == 1.0 && myy == 1.0) {
return this;
}
Affine2D a = new Affine2D();
a.translate(this.mxt, this.myt);
a.scale(mxx, myy);
return a;
}
Affine3D a = new Affine3D();
a.translate(this.mxt, this.myt);
a.scale(mxx, myy, mzz);
return a;
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithRotation(double theta,
double axisX, double axisY, double axisZ) {
if (theta == 0.0) {
return this;
}
if (almostZero(axisX) && almostZero(axisY)) {
if (axisZ == 0.0) {
return this;
}
Affine2D a = new Affine2D();
a.translate(this.mxt, this.myt);
if (axisZ > 0) {
a.rotate(theta);
} else if (axisZ < 0) {
a.rotate(-theta);
}
return a;
}
Affine3D a = new Affine3D();
a.translate(this.mxt, this.myt);
a.rotate(theta, axisX, axisY, axisZ);
return a;
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithPreTranslation(double mxt, double myt) {
this.mxt += mxt;
this.myt += myt;
return this;
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithConcatenation(double mxx, double myx,
double mxy, double myy,
double mxt, double myt)
{
if (mxx == 1.0 && myx == 0.0 && mxy == 0.0 && myy == 1.0) {
this.mxt += mxt;
this.myt += myt;
return this;
} else {
return new Affine2D(mxx, myx,
mxy, myy,
this.mxt + mxt, this.myt + myt);
}
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithConcatenation(
double mxx, double mxy, double mxz, double mxt,
double myx, double myy, double myz, double myt,
double mzx, double mzy, double mzz, double mzt) {
if ( mxz == 0.0
&& myz == 0.0
&& mzx == 0.0 && mzy == 0.0 && mzz == 1.0 && mzt == 0.0) {
return deriveWithConcatenation(mxx, myx,
mxy, myy,
mxt, myt);
}
return new Affine3D(mxx, mxy, mxz, mxt + this.mxt,
myx, myy, myz, myt + this.myt,
mzx, mzy, mzz, mzt);
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithConcatenation(BaseTransform tx) {
if (tx.isTranslateOrIdentity()) {
this.mxt += tx.getMxt();
this.myt += tx.getMyt();
return this;
} else if (tx.is2D()) {
return getInstance(tx.getMxx(), tx.getMyx(),
tx.getMxy(), tx.getMyy(),
this.mxt + tx.getMxt(), this.myt + tx.getMyt());
} else {
Affine3D t3d = new Affine3D(tx);
t3d.preTranslate(this.mxt, this.myt, 0.0);
return t3d;
}
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithPreConcatenation(BaseTransform tx) {
if (tx.isTranslateOrIdentity()) {
this.mxt += tx.getMxt();
this.myt += tx.getMyt();
return this;
} else if (tx.is2D()) {
Affine2D t2d = new Affine2D(tx);
t2d.translate(this.mxt, this.myt);
return t2d;
} else {
Affine3D t3d = new Affine3D(tx);
t3d.translate(this.mxt, this.myt, 0.0);
return t3d;
}
}
@Override
public BaseTransform deriveWithNewTransform(BaseTransform tx) {
if (tx.isTranslateOrIdentity()) {
this.mxt = tx.getMxt();
this.myt = tx.getMyt();
return this;
} else {
return getInstance(tx);
}
}
@Override
public BaseTransform createInverse() {
if (isIdentity()) {
return IDENTITY_TRANSFORM;
} else {
return new Translate2D(-this.mxt, -this.myt);
}
}
// Round values to sane precision for printing
// Note that Math.sin(Math.PI) has an error of about 10^-16
private static double _matround(double matval) {
return Math.rint(matval * 1E15) / 1E15;
}
@Override
public String toString() {
return ("Translate2D["
+ _matround(mxt) + ", "
+ _matround(myt) + "]");
}
@Override
public BaseTransform copy() {
return new Translate2D(this.mxt, this.myt);
}
@Override
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
if (obj instanceof BaseTransform) {
BaseTransform tx = (BaseTransform) obj;
return (tx.isTranslateOrIdentity() &&
tx.getMxt() == this.mxt &&
tx.getMyt() == this.myt);
}
return false;
}
private static final long BASE_HASH;
static {
long bits = 0;
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMzz());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMzy());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMzx());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMyz());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMxz());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMyy());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMyx());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMxy());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMxx());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(IDENTITY_TRANSFORM.getMzt());
BASE_HASH = bits;
}
@Override
public int hashCode() {
if (isIdentity()) return 0;
long bits = BASE_HASH;
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(getMyt());
bits = bits * 31 + Double.doubleToLongBits(getMxt());
return (((int) bits) ^ ((int) (bits >> 32)));
}
}
|
To Our Valued Guests:
Due to Governor Ige’s extension of the 14-day quarantine mandate for all arriving travelers, which has substantially impacted our business, we have decided to temporarily close, effective August 1, 2020.
Thank you very much for your understanding and patience, while we strive to overcome this critical time period. We look forward to the time when the governmental restrictions are lifted or eased to enable us to re-open and welcome you back to dine with us again. Until then, please take great care to maintain the well-being and safety for yourself and loved ones.
MAHALO! |
9 P.3d 219 (2000)
STATE of Washington, Respondent,
v.
Jason E. BUSH, Appellant.
Nos. 17557-0-III, 17558-8-III, 17559-6-III.
Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 3, Panel Five.
July 11, 2000.
Publication Ordered September 7, 2000.
*221 N. Smith Hagopian, Fuller & Associates, P.S., Wenatchee, for Appellant.
Kevin L. Forrest, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Wenatchee, for Respondent.
*220 KURTZ, C.J.
When calculating an offender score, out-ofstate convictions are classified according to comparable Washington offenses. RCW 9.94A.360(3). As part of a comprehensive plea agreement, Jason E. Bush pleaded guilty to first degree possession of stolen property, unlawful possession of a firearm, and taking a motor vehicle without permission. The court imposed consecutive sentences. In this consolidated appeal, Mr. Bush contends the court erred in calculating his offender score by counting a Kansas misdemeanor conviction as the felony of third degree assault under RCW 9A.36.031(g). Mr. Bush asserts the court's reclassification of the Kansas misdemeanor conviction violated the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution. We affirm.
FACTS
Jason E. Bush was charged with attempted second degree theft and second degree possession of stolen property. While this matter was pending, Mr. Bush was on conditions of release and failed to appear for a subsequent court hearing. Meanwhile, the State uncovered information indicating that Mr. Bush committed additional crimes while he was on conditions of release. These crimes included: unlawful issuance of bank checks, unlawful possession of a firearm, taking a motor vehicle without permission, and first degree theft.
Pursuant to a comprehensive plea agreement, Mr. Bush agreed to plead guilty to first degree possession of stolen property for activities occurring on August 30, 1997, unlawful possession of a firearm for activities occurring on September 23, 1997, and taking a motor vehicle without permission for activities occurring on November 27, 1997. The State agreed to dismiss charges of second degree attempted theft, and also agreed not to charge Mr. Bush with bail jumping, unlawful issuance of bank checks, false reporting, second degree burglary, and first degree theft. As part of the plea agreement, it was understood Mr. Bush would plead guilty to the three felony offenses knowing that the sentences would run consecutively and that the State would recommend the bottom of the standard range for each offense.
At a sentencing hearing held on April 20, 1998, the trial court continued the sentencing as to the two later crimes, but moved ahead with arguments related to the earlier crime, first degree possession of stolen property. Because Mr. Bush had a misdemeanor conviction for battery against a law enforcement officer in Kansas, the court heard argument as to the procedure for classifying out-ofstate convictions for sentencing purposes. The State submitted the information and the judgment and sentence pertaining to the Kansas misdemeanor conviction. The trial court took the issue under advisement prior to sentencing Mr. Bush on the stolen property charge.
On April 27, the trial court sentenced Mr. Bush for the crime of first degree possession of stolen property and issued oral findings and conclusions classifying the Kansas battery conviction as a comparable class C felony third degree assault or custodial assault for purposes of the offender score calculation and the standard range determination. Based on the offender score of 8 and a seriousness level of II, the court imposed a 33-month standard range sentence for the stolen property conviction.
On May 4, the written findings of fact and conclusions of law determining criminal history were entered as the appendix to the judgment and sentence for the stolen property conviction. Next, Mr. Bush first entered a guilty plea and was sentenced for second degree unlawful possession of a firearm and, second, entered a guilty plea and was sentenced for the conviction for taking a motor vehicle without the owner's permission. For each of these convictions, the court entered similar findings of fact and conclusions of law classifying the Kansas battery conviction as a comparable class C felony for purposes of the offender score calculation and the standard range determination.
*222 Based on the offender score of 9 and a seriousness level of III, the court imposed a 51-month standard range sentence for the second degree unlawful possession of a firearm conviction. The sentence was run consecutive to the sentence for the stolen property conviction. Based on the offender score of 10 and a seriousness level of I, the court imposed a 22-month standard range sentence for the conviction for taking a motor vehicle without permission. This sentence was run consecutive with the sentences for the two other convictions. Mr. Bush appeals asserting the court miscalculated his offender score by counting the Kansas misdemeanor conviction as a felony.
ANALYSIS
Did the trial court err by classifying the Kansas conviction for battery against a law enforcement officer as a felony in Washington for purposes of calculating Mr. Bush's offender score?
Mr. Bush contends the court erred by concluding that his misdemeanor conviction for battery against a law enforcement officer in Kansas constitutes the class C felony of third degree assault in Washington. Mr. Bush points out that under the Washington scheme "assault" encompasses both "assault" and "battery," whereas in Kansas, "assault" and "battery" are two different crimes. Mr. Bush maintains that the Washington statutory scheme and the Kansas statutory scheme are too dissimilar to support the court's determination that Mr. Bush's misdemeanor conviction in Kansas constitutes third degree assault in Washington. Mr. Bush further contends that the court erred by failing to review his conduct as set forth in the Kansas indictment and information. Additionally, Mr. Bush contends the Kansas conviction should not have been included when calculating his offender score because of the operation of RCW 9.94A.360(3).
An appellate court conducts a de novo review of a sentencing court's calculation of an offender score. State v. McCraw, 127 Wash.2d 281, 289, 898 P.2d 838 (1995). RCW 9.94A.360(3) provides that out-of-state convictions are classified according to comparable Washington offenses. The sentencing court does this by comparing the elements of potentially comparable offenses. State v. Ford, 137 Wash.2d 472, 479, 973 P.2d 452 (1999). If there is a comparable offense, the court must determine whether it is a class A, B, or C felony. State v. Weiand, 66 Wash. App. 29, 32, 831 P.2d 749 (1992); see also State v. Morley, 134 Wash.2d 588, 606, 952 P.2d 167 (1998). The critical determination is under what Washington statute could the defendant have been convicted if he or she had committed the same acts in Washington. State v. McCorkle, 88 Wash.App. 485, 495, 945 P.2d 736 (1997), aff'd, 137 Wash.2d 490, 973 P.2d 461 (1999). The purpose of RCW 9.94A.360(3) is to ensure that defendants with equivalent prior convictions are treated the same way regardless of whether those prior convictions were incurred in Washington or elsewhere. Weiand, 66 Wash.App. at 34, 831 P.2d 749.
The Kansas information charging Mr. Bush with battery on a law enforcement officer in violation of K.S.A. § 21-3413 alleged that on March 13, 1994, in Cowley County, Kansas, Mr. Bush:
[D]id then and there unlawfully, willfully and intentionally cause physical contact with another person, to-wit: Sandra J. Caulfield, a uniformed or properly identified county law enforcement officer, while said officer was engaged in the performance of her duty and done in a rude, insulting or angry manner.
K.S.A. § 21-3412 defines "battery" as:
(1) Intentionally or recklessly causing bodily harm to another person; or
(2) [I]ntentionally causing physical contact with another person when done in a rude, insulting or angry manner.
K.S.A. § 21-3413 defines "[b]attery against a law enforcement officer" as follows:
Battery against a law enforcement officer is a battery, as defined in K.S.A. 21-3412 and amendments thereto:
(a)(1) Committed against a uniformed or properly identified state, county or city law enforcement officer ... while such officer is engaged in the performance of such officer's duty;
*223 . . . .
(b) Battery against a law enforcement officer as defined in subsection (a)(1) is a class A person misdemeanor.
"Assault" is not statutorily defined in Washington, but Washington recognizes three common law definitions, including "`an unlawful touching with criminal intent [actual battery]'." State v. Wilson, 125 Wash.2d 212, 217, 218, 883 P.2d 320 (1994) (quoting State v. Bland, 71 Wash.App. 345, 353, 860 P.2d 1046 (1993)). RCW 9A.36.031(1)(g) provides one alternative definition of the class C felony of third degree assault:
(1) A person is guilty of assault in the third degree if he or she, under circumstances not amounting to assault in the first or second degree:
. . . .
(g) Assaults a law enforcement officer or other employee of a law enforcement agency who was performing his or her official duties at the time of the assault.
RCW 9A.36.100(1)(b) states that a person is guilty of the class C felony of custodial assault if the person "[a]ssaults a full or part-time staff member or volunteer, any educational personnel, any personal service provider, or any vendor or agent thereof at any adult corrections institution or local adult detention facilities who was performing official duties at the time of the assault." Under RCW 9A.36.100(1)(c)(i):
(1) A person is guilty of custodial assault if that person is not guilty of assault in the first or second degree and where the person:
. . . .
(c)(i) Assaults a full or part-time community corrections officer while the officer is performing official duties.
The trial court concluded that the Kansas criminal statute for battery against a law enforcement officer was comparable to the Washington statute for assault in the third degree, RCW 9A.36.031(1)(g), and custodial assault under RCW 9A.36.100(1)(b). The State equates the Kansas crime with the definition of custodial assault under RCW 9A.36.100(1)(c)(i). Mr. Bush was convicted in Kansas of unlawful and intentional physical contact with a uniformed or properly identified officer who was engaged in the performance of her duties. Mr. Bush's battery, had it occurred in Washington, would have constituted the felony of third degree assault. The court did not err by concluding that a Kansas conviction of battery against a law enforcement officer was comparable to third degree assault as defined in RCW 9A.36.031(g). Because the offense definitions set forth in K.S.A. § 21-3413 are clearly comparable to the offense definition in RCW 9A.36.031(g), we need not expand our inquiry to include a comparison of the various offense definitions for custodial assault. Additionally, the documents are inconclusive as to whether Officer Caulfield was a law enforcement officer or a community corrections officer and whether the incident occurred inside a correctional facility.
Mr. Bush contends the offense definitions contained in RCW 9A.36.031(g) and K.S.A. § 21-3413 are not similar because the Washington statute requires that the person know that the victim is a police officer and the Kansas statute requires merely that the officer be "properly identified." We disagree. The Kansas statute requires the officer to be "uniformed or properly identified." The Kansas knowledge requirement is comparable to the Washington knowledge requirement.
Mr. Bush urges this court to conduct a comparative analysis of Kansas and Washington law related to assault and battery. Mr. Bush points out that in Washington "assault" is an umbrella term encompassing both "assault" and "battery," whereas in Kansas, "assault" and "battery" are two different crimes. In Mr. Bush's view, RCW 9A.36.031(g) cannot be comparable to K.S.A. § 21-3413 because of this fundamental difference underlying the two statutory schemes. He gives several examples to support this argument. For example, Mr. Bush points out that in Kansas an "assault" requires that the victim be placed in reasonable apprehension of immediate danger, whereas Washington does not have this requirement.
To determine whether a foreign conviction should be included in an offender *224 score, the sentencing court compares the elements of the crime in the out-of-state statute to those of comparable Washington statutes in effect when the crime was committed. State v. Mutch, 87 Wash.App. 433, 436-37, 942 P.2d 1018 (1997), review denied, 134 Wash.2d 1016, 958 P.2d 314 (1998). If the elements are the same, the inquiry is concluded, and the prior conviction is included in the offender score. If the elements are not the same, or if the foreign statute is broader than the Washington statute, the sentencing court may look at the defendant's conduct, as evidenced by the indictment or information, to determine whether the conduct would have violated the comparable Washington statute. Id. However, nothing in the case law supports Mr. Bush's argument that the sentencing court must engage in a detailed comparative analysis of the theoretical underpinnings of each statutory scheme. The sentencing court here did not err in comparing the offense definitions, finding a match, and including the conviction in the offender score. In short, neither the sentencing court nor this court must engage in an analysis of any out-of-state statutes other than the one under which the defendant was convicted.
Relying on State v. Morley, 134 Wash.2d 588, 952 P.2d 167 (1998), and State v. Duke, 77 Wash.App. 532, 892 P.2d 120 (1995), Mr. Bush next argues that the sentencing court erred by failing to review either the indictment or the information filed in connection with the Kansas conviction. Mr. Bush misunderstands Morley and Duke as these cases explain that the sentencing court may look at the defendant's conduct if the court's analysis indicates that the elements of the foreign conviction are not identical or if the foreign statute is broader than the Washington definition of the particular crime. Morley, 134 Wash.2d at 606, 952 P.2d 167; Duke, 77 Wash.App. at 535, 892 P.2d 120. Here, the offense definitions are comparable and the sentencing court need not examine Mr. Bush's conduct.
Last, Mr. Bush contends the Kansas conviction should not have been considered when calculating his offender score because of the operation of RCW 9.94A.360(3). RCW 9.94A.360(3) provides as follows:
Out-of-state convictions for offenses shall be classified according to the comparable offense definitions and sentences provided by Washington law. Federal convictions for offenses shall be classified according to the comparable offense definitions and sentences provided by Washington law. If there is no clearly comparable offense under Washington law or the offense is one that is usually considered subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction, the offense shall be scored as a class C felony equivalent if it was a felony under the relevant federal statute.
Mr. Bush asserts RCW 9.94A.360(3) must be construed to mean that, in the absence of a comparable Washington offense for an outof-state nonfederal conviction, the conviction shall be treated as a class C felony if it would be a felony in the jurisdiction where the conviction was obtained. Because we conclude that Mr. Bush's Kansas conviction for battery against a law enforcement officer is comparable to third degree assault under RCW 9A.36.031(g), we need not address the application of RCW 9.94A.360(3) in situations where there is no comparable offense.
Does RCW 9.94A.360(3) violate the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution by permitting out-of-state misdemeanor convictions to be classified as felonies in Washington?
Mr. Bush contends RCW 9.94A.360(3) violates the full faith and credit clause because the statute directs Washington courts to ignore convictions entered in other states. Specifically, Mr. Bush asserts the sentencing court here violated the full faith and credit clause by reclassifying the Kansas misdemeanor conviction as a felony and failing to recognize the conviction entered by the Kansas court. According to Mr. Bush, the court's reclassification of the Kansas conviction improperly increased his offender score, adding 19 months to his sentence. He asserts the sentencing court erred by failing to give full faith and credit to the Kansas decision classifying his conviction as a misdemeanor.
Under the full faith and credit clause, article IV, section 1 of the United *225 States Constitution, states must recognize a final judgment entered by the court of a sister state if that court had jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter. In re Estate of Tolson, 89 Wash.App. 21, 30, 947 P.2d 1242 (1997). As a result, the full faith and credit clause requires that Washington courts recognize the validity of a sister state's criminal convictions. State v. Johnston, 17 Wash.App. 486, 497, 564 P.2d 1159, review denied, 89 Wash.2d 1007 (1977).[1]
The purpose of RCW 9.94A.360(3) is to ensure that defendants with equivalent prior convictions are treated the same way regardless of whether those prior convictions were incurred in Washington or elsewhere. State v. Weiand, 66 Wash. App. 29, 34, 831 P.2d 749 (1992). The operation of RCW 9.94A.360(3) is consistent with the intent of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981(SRA) to "[e]nsure that the punishment for a criminal offense is proportionate to the seriousness of the offense and the offender's criminal history." RCW 9.94A.010(1). "It would be inconsistent with the stated purpose of the SRA to construe the statute so that a defendant who committed a violent felony out of state avoids the imposition of a greater sentence merely because the other state imposes a shorter prison term than would Washington." State v. Franklin, 46 Wash.App. 84, 88, 729 P.2d 70 (1986), rev'd on other grounds sub nom., State v. Dunaway, 109 Wash.2d 207, 743 P.2d 1237 (1987). The elements of the crime, not its maximum punishment, determine whether a crime is comparable. State v. Wiley, 124 Wash.2d 679, 684, 880 P.2d 983 (1994).
RCW 9.94A.360(3) does not violate the full faith and credit clause because this provision does not operate to invalidate outof-state convictions. Under RCW 9.94A.360(3), the sentencing court is directed to recognize the validity of the out-of-state conviction, but the sentencing court is authorized to reclassify the conviction of a sister state to determine punishment for a current in-state conviction. This reclassification process has no impact on the full faith and credit clause because a sister state has no authority to regulate Washington's sentencing process. See State v. Radan, 98 Wash.App. 652, 660, 990 P.2d 962 (1999).
Affirmed.
SCHULTHEIS, J., and BROWN, J., concur.
NOTES
[1] When discussing the full faith and credit clause, the State relies on City of Yakima v. Aubrey, 85 Wash.App. 199, 203, 931 P.2d 927, review denied, 132 Wash.2d 1011, 940 P.2d 654 (1997), which sets forth the criteria for recognition of foreign judgments. This analysis applies to judgments entered in foreign countries and permits the enforcing court to determine whether the decree contravenes the public policy of the enforcing state. A state must recognize the judgment of a sister state if that court had jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter. A court enforcing the judgment of a sister state does not engage in an inquiry as to whether the judgment of the sister state contravenes the policy of the enforcing state. See Rains v. Department of Social & Health Servs., 98 Wash.App. 127, 132, 989 P.2d 558 (1999).
|
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Texas Standard investigation revealed how a 2003 law passed by Congress conceals how used guns sold by Austin police and other major police departments in the state end up being used in crimes.
The investigation caught the attention of Austin City Council Member Alison Alter, who spoke with KXAN’s John Dabkovich about her objections to the sales.
“I’m interested in us having proper gun control in our city, in our state and in our country,” said Alter, whose District 10 covers most of west Austin. “And to me, the risk of taking guns that are a high enough caliber that our police officers can use them and putting them back into circulation, at potentially a lower cost, is very troubling.”
The council member, when asked what she would like to see the police department do with their retired guns, said there are other agencies that melt them down. “I think if we’re going to approach this problem, we have to understand that there was a fiscal challenge at the root of why they chose to take this step,” she continued.
Alter said, if the decision is made to move away from the buyback program, the Austin City Council needs to come up with a fiscal solution that allows APD to pay for the guns their officers need in order to do their job. “I don’t know whether that’s providing them more money than they already have or finding the money in other ways.”
APD has sold more than a thousand guns to a Houston-based arms distributor, Alter said. The rest went to the public market.
“Weapons get stolen during burglaries of vehicles and burglaries of homes,” said Austin Chief of Police Brian Manley. “So, yes, there’s always the possibility could end up in the wrong hands.”
According to the Texas Standard investigation, the gun sales programs appear to be common in Texas — 21 of the 50 biggest departments in the state sell their used weapons.
In the Austin area, that includes the Department of Public Safety, University of Texas police, Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Across the state, departments like San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Lubbock and Plano sell their officers’ old weapons.
According to the report, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) says even if a used law enforcement weapon is used in a crime, it’s unlikely his agency could release that information, even to a police chief.
While Alter is focusing on APD selling agency-issued weapons, departments across the state have been selling other guns for years. Before 2013, firearms confiscated during seizures were kept to be used by law enforcement or destroyed.
That changed when Texas lawmakers passed House Bill 1421. Now agencies can sell seized weapons to licensed firearms dealers — and keep the profits — if the weapons are part of cases that are never prosecuted or if no one is ever convicted.
The owners of the firearms are given a written notice to claim their guns first and weapons that are part of cases with convictions are kept as evidence in case of an appeal. |
Q:
How to enable a WordPress installation and a Mediawiki installation on the same subdomain?
I have a subdomain that has a WordPress installation on its root (e.g. https://sub.domain.com). This opens the WordPress frontpage.
Then I installed a Mediawiki installation in a directory called w, and renamed it using the ShortURL method specified here in this Mediawiki documentation and added the necessary .htaccess adjustments to make the Mediawiki installation uses this url structure: https://sub.domain.com/wiki.
Then I added another Mediawiki installation in another folder called typ and followed the same steps detailed above.
I wanted to have 2 Mediawiki installations for different purposes. They are not linked to each other.
However, after the Mediawiki installations, the WordPress took over, and when I try to access the /wiki urls, I get a 404 not found from the WordPress.
Here is my .htaccess code:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^/?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^/?typing(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/typ/index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^/?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/typ/index.php [L]
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-d
RewriteRule ^/?w/images/thumb/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2 [L,QSA,B]
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-d
RewriteRule ^/?w/images/thumb/archive/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2&archived=1 [L,QSA,B]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
# php -- BEGIN cPanel-generated handler, do not edit
# NOTE this account's php is controlled via FPM and the vhost, this is a place holder.
# Do not edit. This next line is to support the cPanel php wrapper (php_cli).
# AddType application/x-httpd-ea-php70 .php .phtml
# php -- END cPanel-generated handler, do not edit
The only way to get the Mediawiki installations to show is to comment out the WordPress lines, like this:
#RewriteBase /
#RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
My question is: Is there a way to get all the installations working at the same time? so https://sub.domain.com opens the WordPress installation, and https://sub.domain.com/wiki and https://sub.domain.com/typing open the MEdiawiki installation?
A:
The only solution I found is to move the Mediawiki lines up the .htaccess file, remove the duplicates.
Here is the final code that worked:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^/?typing(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/typ/index.php [L]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^/?w/images/thumb/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2 [L,QSA,B]
RewriteRule ^/?w/images/thumb/archive/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2&archived=1 [L,QSA,B]
RewriteRule ^/?typ/images/thumb/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/typ/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2 [L,QSA,B]
RewriteRule ^/?typ/images/thumb/archive/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/typ/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2&archived=1 [L,QSA,B]
</IfModule>
|
Mobile
PaymentsSecure Your Mobile Payments with VASCO DIGIPASS OTP
Overview:
Mobile payments are an emerging and rapidly-growing
alternative payment method, already quite popular in
Europe and Asia. Rather than pay by cash, check, or
credit card, an individual can opt to use their mobile
phone to pay for an ever-increasing range of (digital)
goods and services. Because of their quick transaction
speed and convenience, mobile payments are gaining popularity
as a method of paying for small-ticket items, such as:
Some mobile payment solutions are also used in developing
countries for micropayments.
Goal:
Mobile payment is quickly becoming the preferred
method of payment upon checkout at e-commerce sites
like online gaming sites. After undergoing a two-factor
authentication process involving both PIN and one-time
password verification, the customer’s mobile account
is charged for the purchase. This particular type of
mobile payment method yields the following benefits:
Fraud Reduction
Because the payment is made using a mobile phone, no
credit card information is stored by the merchant, eliminating
the opportunity for hackers or employees to compromise
card information.
Defense
Using one-time passwords, the transaction can be verified
to have originated from the exact phone registered for
a specific user.
Easy
It is just another payment option available at checkout.
Fast
Most transactions are completed in under 10 seconds.
Proven
70% of all digital content purchased online in some
parts of Asia use the direct mobile billing method with
one-time passwords.
Threats:
Once a method of payment has achieved widespread
use, it will become the target of hackers and thieves.
Consider the security dilemmas associated with one of
the most popular methods of payment: credit cards. With
all the security gaps inherent in credit cards, a mobile
platform is even more vulnerable still. Because a mobile
platform has the added vulnerability of being a “mini-computer”,
it can be targeted using techniques that are much less
obvious than those associated with credit cards. For
example, unlike credit cards, a breach in mobile security
cannot simply be detected within the computer infrastructure
in the form of viruses, malware, and man-in-the-middle
attacks. Mobile security attacks are much more elusive.
Approach:
By combining DIGIPASS authentication with your current
mobile payment application, you can provide your customers
with an easy, convenient and secure payment alternative.
VASCO’s solution can reside seamlessly within your mobile
payments application via direct integration of the DIGIPASS
API.
Benefits
By securing mobile payments with VASCO DIGIPASS,
you will enjoy the uncompromised security that payment
applications demand; not to mention the proven scalability
and reliability that VASCO’s track record exemplifies.
We have supplied the world with security solutions for
more than fifteen years, so you can be confident you
will be able to process payments whenever your customers
want to make them. Our more than 100 million users can
attest to that. |
---
layout: api
title: "v3.1.1 JavaScript Library: L.MultiPolyline"
categories: api
version: v3.1.1
permalink: /api/v3.1.1/l-multipolyline/
---
<h2 id="multipolyline">MultiPolyline</h2>
<p>Extends <a href="/mapbox.js/api/v3.1.1/l-featuregroup">FeatureGroup</a> to allow creating multi-polylines (single layer that consists of several polylines that share styling/popup).</p>
<h3>Creation</h3>
<table data-id='multipolyline'>
<tr>
<th>Factory</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code><b>L.multiPolyline</b>(
<nobr><<a href="/mapbox.js/api/v3.1.1/l-latlng">LatLng</a>[][]> <i>latlngs</i></nobr>,
<nobr><<a href="/mapbox.js/api/v3.1.1/l-polyline">Polyline options</a>> <i>options?</i> )</nobr>
</code></td>
<td>Instantiates a multi-polyline object given an array of arrays of geographical points (one for each individual polyline) and optionally an options object.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Methods</h3>
<p>MultiPolylines accept all <a href="/mapbox.js/api/v3.1.1/l-polyline">Polyline methods</a> but
have different behavior around their coordinate contents since they can contain
multiple line features:</p>
<table data-id='multipolyline'>
<tr>
<th class="width250">Method</th>
<th>Returns</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code><b>setLatLngs</b>(
<nobr><<a href="/mapbox.js/api/v3.1.1/l-latlng">LatLng</a>[][]> <i>latlngs</i> )</nobr>
</code></td>
<td><code><span class="keyword">this</span></code></td>
<td>Replace all lines and their paths with the given array of arrays of
geographical points.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code><b>getLatLngs</b>()</td>
<td><code><nobr><<a href="/mapbox.js/api/v3.1.1/l-latlng">LatLng</a>[][]> <i>latlngs</i></nobr>
</code></td>
<td>Returns an array of arrays of geographical points in each line.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code><b>openPopup</b>()</td>
<td><code>this</code></td>
<td>Opens the popup previously bound by <a href="/mapbox.js/api/v3.1.1/l-path">bindPopup</a>.</td>
</tr>
<tr id="multipolyline-togeojson">
<td><code><b>toGeoJSON</b>()</code></td>
<td><code>Object</code></td>
<td>Returns a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoJSON">GeoJSON</a> representation of the multipolyline (GeoJSON MultiLineString Feature).</td>
</tr>
</table>
|
The rise of social work in public mental health through aftercare of people with serious mental illness.
In the early years of the 20th century, social work's practice boundaries expanded to include direct work with people with the most serious mental illnesses through the function of aftercare. Using complementary and mutually reinforcing efforts to promote social reform in the care of people with mental illness and then to provide that care directly, the young social work profession established its presence in the emerging public mental health field and significantly broadened prevailing standards of acceptable care. This article presents a historical case analysis of the early events contributing to the identification of social work with aftercare and illustrates processes of creating professional "place" while influencing public perception of social needs relevant for the profession's continued growth and influence in the current reconfiguration of human services systems. |
MESSAGE OF JOHN PAUL IITO THE PRESIDENT OF THE PONTIFICAL COMMITTEEFOR HISTORICAL SCIENCES FOR THE 14th CENTENARYOF THE DEATH OF POPE ST GREGORY THE GREAT
To Reverend Mons. Walter BrandmüllerPresident of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences
1. With a view to the 14th centenary of the death of my Predecessor, St Gregory the Great, the "Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei" [the Italian Academy] and the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences intend to commemorate together this eminent figure, a Successor of Peter to whom the title "the Great" has rightly been attributed. In recalling figures and events of the past that made a deep mark on their time, historiography renders a valid service to future generations because it brings into the limelight human models who transmitted values that are universal and, as such, valid for every epoch. This is the case of St Gregory the Great; I would like here to emphasize certain aspects of his personality that I consider particularly important.
2. Gregory was the son of an old Roman family which had long been Christian. The atmosphere of his home and the education he received enabled him to become familiar with the heritage of the different branches of knowledge and of classical literature.
As an attentive researcher of the truth, he realized that the patrimony of classical antiquity, in addition to that of the Christian heritage, was a valuable basis for subsequent scientific and human development. Still today, his insight has retained its full value for the future of humanity and, especially, of Europe. Indeed, it is impossible to build the future by ignoring the past. That is why, on various occasions, I have urged the competent Authorities to appreciate the rich classical and Christian "roots" of European civilization as they deserve, to pass on their sap to the new generations.
Another significant feature of St Gregory the Great was his commitment to shedding light on the primacy of the human person, considered not only in his physical, psychological and social dimensions but also in constant reference to his eternal destiny. This is a truth on which today's world should focus greater attention if it wishes to build a world with deeper respect for the multiple needs of every human being.
3. St Gregory the Great has often been called "the last of the Romans". Indeed, he had deep roots in the city of Rome, its people and its traditions. As Supreme Pontiff, he never lost sight of the Orbis Romanus. Not only did he take care of the part of the Roman Empire, Byzantium, that he knew well due to his long stay in Constantinople, but he extended his pastoral care to Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain, all of which were then part of the Roman Empire.
Motivated by exemplary zeal to spread the Gospel, he encouraged an intense missionary activity which expressed a Roman spirit purified and inspired by the Gospel, no longer concerned with asserting political power but keen to bring the saving message of Christ to all peoples.
The great Pontiff's inner disposition is evident in the directions he carefully imparted to the Abbot Augustine, whom he sent to Britain: he explicitly asked him to respect the customs of those peoples, as long as they did not conflict with the Christian faith. Thus, Gregory the Great, in addition to fostering the missionary concern that was inherent in his ministry, made a crucial contribution to the harmonious integration of the various peoples of Western Christendom.
Consequently, the witness of this distinguished Pontiff lives on as an example for us too, Christians of today who have only recently crossed the threshold of the third millennium and look confidently to the future. To build a future of serenity and solidarity, it is right to turn our gaze to this true disciple of Christ and to follow his teaching, courageously presenting anew to the contemporary world the saving message of the Gospel. Indeed, it is only in Christ and in him alone that human beings of every epoch can find the secret to the total fulfilment of their most essential aspirations.
I warmly hope that you too, eminent Professors, through the fruitful collaboration between the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences and the "Accademia dei Lincei", may make a significant contribution to building a new civilization that is truly worthy of man by acquiring a deeper knowledge of the thought and action of this great Pontiff.
With these sentiments, as I assure you of my remembrance in prayer, I cordially bless you all. |
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I have read, in some of the literature of DSP, that when the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is used as a filter the process of performing a DFT causes an input signal's spectrum to be frequency translated down to zero Hz (DC). I can understand why someone might say that, but I challenge that statement as being incorrect. Here are my thoughts.
Using the DFT as a Filter
It may seem strange to think of the DFT as being used as a filter but there are a number of applications where this is done. For example, we can use the DFT to implement a bank of bandpass filters used in some sort of subband coding application, or use the DFT to implement a bank of bandpass filters for a straightforward spectrum analysis application such as a weighted overlap and add (WOLA) spectrum analyzer [1-5].
The general process of using the DFT as a filter is illustrated in Figure 1. An N-sample x(n) input sequence enters a tapped-delay line, is multiplied by a w(k) window sequence, and the u(n) product sequence is applied to an N-point DFT. Windowing with a w(k) sequence is optional, based on the our DFT filterbank application. For “rectangular windowing” the w(k) window sequence would be all ones and the multiplication by the w(k) sequence in Figure 1 becomes unnecessary.
If the w(k) window sequence is all ones, as each new x(n) sample enters the tapped-delay line we compute a new output sample for each of the DFT's X m (n) output sequences. The subscripted m index in X m (n) represents the mth DFT bin where m is in the range 0 ≤ m ≤ N-1. Looking at the m = 2 DFT bin, inside the oval of Figure 1 shows a hypothetical, complex-valued, X 2 (n) time-domain output sequence.
In viewing the computation of a single DFT bin output as the output of a tapped-delay line finite impulse response (FIR) filter, we can show the Figure 1 u(n) sequence as the input to an N-point DFT, as shown in Figure 2. The dashed rectangle in Figure 2 shows the computations needed to compute a single mth bin output sequence X m (n).
An Easy Mistake to Make
Again, the misconception I referred to at the beginning of this blog, regarding the use of the DFT as a filterbank of bandpass filters as shown in Figure 1 or as a single bandpass filter as shown in Figure 2, is that when used as a filter the DFT translates spectral energy down in frequency such that all of the DFT's mth bin output signals are centered at zero Hz (DC). I believe this is not true, and here's why:
You see, when implementing the standard N-point DFT equation,
we're correlating the e-j2πnm/N twiddle factors with an x(n) input sequence. In an FIR implementation we're convolving the e-j2πnm/N twiddle factors with an x(n) input sequence, and that means from an FIR filter viewpoint the order of the e-j2πnm/N twiddle factor coefficients must be flipped relative to their order in a standard DFT. Figure 2 illustrates what I'm saying here. Notice in Figure 2 how the largest DFT twiddle factor coefficient e-j2π⋅(N-1)⋅m/N is on the left side, and the smallest twiddle factor coefficient e-j2π⋅0⋅m/N is on the right side, of Figure 2's tapped-delay line.
I've seen two Internet DSP tutorial websites, as well as a recently-published DSP textbook, that had the twiddle factors incorrectly reversed in order when the authors were discussing using the DFT as a filter. That is, they mistakenly had the e-j2π⋅0⋅m/N twiddle factor coefficient on the left side of the tapped-delay line, ...and that's a VERY easy mistake to make. (I don't know if the Professor on Gilligan's Island or Sheldon Cooper on THE BIG BANG THEORY would make that mistake, but some people do.)
The critical point here is that the DFT twiddle factors in Eq. (1) comprise a negative-frequency complex exponential, while the twiddle factor coefficients in Figure 2 comprise a positive-frequency complex exponential.
Improper ordering of the DFT twiddle factors, when trying to perform a mathematical analysis of the Figure 2 FIR filter, leads to an incorrect equation for the frequency response of the DFT's mth bin FIR filter.
The Frequency Response of the DFT's mth Bin
As derived in the Appendix A, the frequency response of the mth bin of Figure 2's N-point DFT is:
where frequency variable ω is –π ≤ ω ≤ π measured in radians/sample. The |H DFT (ω)| magnitude response of H DFT (ω) is a sin(x)/x-like bandpass filter response centered at a frequency of:
That ω cntr center frequency is the value of ω where the angle argument of the ratio's denominator equals zero in Eq. (2). The spectral magnitude |H DFT (ω)| for N = 16 and m = 4 is shown in Figure 3(a). There we see that the main lobe of |H DFT (ω)| is located at a frequency of ω cntr = 2π4/16 = 0.5π radians/sample (one fourth of the input signal's sample rate measured in Hz). The linear phase response of this example H DFT (ω)'s passband is given in Figure 3(b).
Figure 3(a) illustrates why we can treat consecutive time-domain output samples of a DFT's mth bin as the output of a complex bandpass filter.
A Simple Example
Figure 4 shows a simple example of how the DFT, used as a filter, does not induce frequency translation as some people claim. Figure 4(a) shows a sinusoidal u(n) input sequence whose frequency is f s /16, where f s is the u(n) sample rate is Hz. (There are 16 samples/cycle in u(n)). A block of N = 128 samples of sequence u(n) contains exactly eight sinusoidal cycles. The complex X 8 (n) output of a 128-point DFT's m = 8 bin is shown in Figure 4(b). Each complex
X 8 (n) = Real[X 8 (n)] + jImag[X 8 (n)]
sample in Figure 4(b) represents the output of the m = 8th bin of consecutive 128-point DFTs.
Notice how the real and imaginary parts of X 8 (n) also contain 16 samples/cycle, as did the u(n) input sequence. NO frequency translation occurs in the DFT's X 8 (n) bin time-domain output sequence!
Here's Where Frequency Translation Can Occur
In some applications of the DFT used as a filterbank, a frequency down-conversion does occur. Because Figure 2's X m (n) output sequence is narrow in bandwidth relative to the bandwidth of the input u(n) sequence, some DFT filterbank practitioners decimate the X m (n) sequence by N as shown in Figure 5. That decimation process frequency translates a DFT bin's X m (n) spectral energy, originally centered at 2πm/N radians/sample, to be centered at zero Hz (DC).
The decimated-by-N X m,dec (r) sequence in Figure 5 is:
and the output index r is r = 0,1,2,3,…. For example, the u(n) input sequence in Figure 4(a) is a sinusoid whose frequency is centered exactly at the m = 8 bin. If that u(n) sequence had been thousands of samples in length, decimating the real and imaginary parts of X 8 (n) by N = 128 produces an all-ones sequence and an all-zeros sequence, respectively. If a lengthy u(n) sequence's frequency had been ±Δ radians/sample above or below the m = 8 bin's center frequency, the decimated complex X8,dec(r) sequence would have a frequency of ±Δ radians/sample.
The interesting thing about the ʹfrequency translation through decimation by Nʹ process, shown in Figure 6, is that the spectral energy in any X m (n) sequence is frequency translated to be centered at zero Hz regardless of the value of m. The top panel of Figure 6 shows the frequency translation if m is a positive integer. The bottom panel of Figure 6 shows the frequency translation if m is a negative integer.
Conclusion
To recap the main points of this blog we can say:
Computing consecutive mth bin output samples of an N-point DFT can be viewed as a tapped-delay line complex-valued FIR filter as shown in Figure 2.
The linear phase frequency response of the DFT's mth bin filter is a sin(x)/x-like passband centered at 2πm/N radians/sample (mf s /N Hz).
/N Hz). When a new mth bin output sample is computed, upon the arrival of each new delay line input sample, the DFT's mth bin output sequence exhibits no frequency translation.
I end this blog by pointing out that what I haven't yet figured out is “How can the Figure 2 FIR bandpass filter have linear phase when its coefficients are not symmetrical?”
Postscript (August 2015)
I have an answer to the above linear phase bandpass filter question at:
https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/808.php
References
[1] Lyons, R. Understanding Digital Signal Processing, 2nd Ed. & 3rd Ed., Prentice Hall Publishing, Hoboken, NJ, 2010, Chap. 13, Section 13.20.
[2] Crochiere, R., and Rabiner, L. Multirate Digital Signal Processing, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983 pp. 315-319.
[3] http://www.rfel.com/download/W05012_Architectures_for_SDR_Channelisation.pdf
[4] http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/AND8382-D.PDF
[5] http://www.onsemi.cn/site/pdf/ICECS2003_ASR.pdf
Appendix A [Derivation of Eq. (2)]
We can determine the frequency response of the mth bin of an N-point DFT by treating the Figure 2 block diagram as a simple tapped-delay line finite impulse response (FIR) filter. Doing so we see that the coefficients of the Figure 2 FIR filter are:
where time index p is 0 ≤ p ≤ N-1. Because e-j2πmN/N = 1, we can simplify Eq. (A-1) as:
Next we use the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT) definition to find the H DFT (ω) frequency response of the h DFT (p) coefficients as:
where frequency variable ω is –π ≤ ω ≤ π measured in radians/sample. The summation in Eq. (A-3) is a geometric series, so we can set Eq. (A-3) equal to:
Because ej2πm =1, we have:
Factoring out the half-angled exponentials e-jNω/2 and ej(πm/N-ω/2), we have:
Using Euler's identity, ejα - e-jα = 2jsin(α), we arrive at
Canceling common factors and rearranging terms, the frequency response of our N-point DFT's mth bin bandpass filter is: |
Type of Planet: Ice Giant (gas surface with an interior composed of ices and rock)
What is Uranus like?
Uranus is the 7th planet from the Sun. It is more than twice as far from the Sun as Saturn. Uranus is an ice giant like its sister planet Neptune. Although it has a gas surface, like the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, much of the interior of the planet is made up of frozen elements. As a result, Uranus has the coldest atmosphere of all the planets in the Solar System.
The surface of Uranus is made up of mostly hydrogen gas with some helium gas as well. The gas atmosphere makes up about 25% of the planet. This atmosphere is stormy, but not nearly as stormy or active as Saturn or Jupiter. As a result, the surface of Uranus is fairly featureless and uniform.
Some of the moons of Uranus. Left to Right: Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon. Source: NASA.
Strange Rotation
One of Uranus' most unique features is that it rotates on its side. If you picture the Sun and the planets of the solar system on a table, the other planets would rotate or spin like tops. Uranus, on the other hand, would roll like a marble. Most scientists agree that Uranus' odd rotation is because another large planetoid object collided with the planet with enough force to change its tilt.
How does Uranus compare to Earth?
Uranus is very different from Earth. It's a gas giant, meaning its surface is gas, so you couldn't even stand on it. Being so much further from the Sun, Uranus is much, much colder than Earth. Also, Uranus' odd rotation in relation to the Sun gives it very different seasons. The Sun would shine on parts of Uranus for as long as 42 years and then it would be dark for 42 years.
Uranus is much larger than Earth. Source: NASA.
How do we know about Uranus?
Uranus was first called a planet by British astronomer William Herschel. Herschel discovered Uranus by using a telescope. Prior to Herschel, Uranus was thought to be a star. Since then the only space probe that has been sent to Uranus was the Voyager 2 in 1986. Voyager 2 brought us some detailed pictures of Uranus and its moons and rings.
Fun Facts about the Planet Uranus
Uranus is the only planet named after a Greek god rather than a Roman god. Uranus was the Greek god of the sky and was married to Mother Earth.
It is a bright bluish-green color which it gets from the methane in its atmosphere.
It is possible to see Uranus with the naked eye.
Uranus has rings like Saturn, but they are thin and dark.
It was the first planet discovered in the modern age by using a telescope. |
A golden haired woman with a fair complexion and striking grey eyes. When working, a cheek may be smudged with oil and her hair tied back into a quick and easy ponytail. She stands at around 5'4 and a half with an athletically built body which might suggest rigorous training and a lifestyle commanded by routine. She bears no noticeable scarring or markings and appears to take good care of herself, or as much as she can when she's elbow deep beneath the hood of a vehicle. She often dresses herself lazily when not at work, opting for loose fitting jeans and hoodies, and perhaps disregarding the latter on a hot day for a sleeveless shirt or likewise. Though heavy boots are a must when traversing her new but familiar surroundings.
She often walks with purpose despite her sometimes laid-back attitude. She was after all quite the workaholic, and repairing vehicles or being taken on for a task that required a little more involvement has shaped her into the woman she is today.
Skills
Primarily a mechanic, Fey knows her way around the specialized vehicles she finds herself around frequently and takes on a methodical approach when working upon them. But she wasn't always just a mechanic. Within the S.W.A.T forces she had to learn to shoot, to approach targets quietly, to remain out of sight and when needed, break down a door and eliminate targets. But Fey specialized in providing support from afar and down a long barrel. She is extremely proficient with a sniper rifle, as well as scouting out areas before finding the perfect vantage point. In lieu with her training she is also athletic, and well-built for physical tasks.
Property/Gear
A bicycle, an apartment room in a large complex, and whatever she might find inside.
Background
Fey was born in Australia and spent much of her childhood there, moving to the big city around the age of 14. There she was much like any child. She was social, popular, and had above-average grade. Plus being an Aussie girl in the US of A earned her some extra friends who just liked the novelty of it. She was always a kind-hearted person and sought to look out for others, and if need be, protect them. As she grew older this only got her into fights, feeling the need to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. This tomboy-ish streak never seemed to leave her as eventually she took an interest in cars. At first simply the concept of them, and eventually the inner-workings. She wanted to know what made them tick, and how she could mess around with that.
Going through college and beyond she studied in mechanics. From small cars to large trucks, but along with that she still had that protective nature about her. It seemed natural to try and enlist in the NYPD, and she did. She quickly found herself rising through the ranks, and was allowed to work on vehicles there at the station, her own and others. She was becoming a valued asset, and sooner rather than later her talents were picked up on and she was put on the fast track to becoming a member of the S.W.A.T division.
She built up good foundations with the rest of the team. Code-named "Cyclops" for her excelling ability with a sniper rifle and later shortened to just "Syke" by her team-members, she built a trust with them that was as strong as family. Though she was often teased for her height.
Strengths
Sharp-eyed, athletic, brilliant with an engine, professionally trained with weapons.
Flaws
Prideful, protective over her complex and the people within, steadily becoming more and more paranoid and selfish when it comes to strangers. |
cp ./njit.lua /usr/lib/lua/luci/model/cbi/njit.lua
cp ./luci_controller_njit.lua /usr/lib/lua/luci/controller/njit.lua
|
---
abstract: 'Projective varieties with ample cotangent bundle satisfy many notions of hyperbolicity, and one goal of this paper is to discuss generalizations to quasi-projective varieties. A major hurdle is that the naive generalization is false – the log cotangent bundle is never ample. Instead, we define a notion called almost ample which roughly asks that it is as positive as possible. We show that all subvarieties of a quasi-projective variety with almost ample log cotangent bundle are of log general type. In addition, if one assumes globally generated then we obtain that such varieties contain finitely many integral points. In another direction, we show that the Lang-Vojta conjecture implies the number of stably integral points on curves of log general type, and surfaces of log general type with almost ample log cotangent sheaf are uniformly bounded.'
author:
- Kenneth Ascher
- Kristin DeVleming
- Amos Turchet
bibliography:
- 'uniformity.bib'
title: Hyperbolicity and uniformity of varieties of log general type
---
Introduction {#sec:intro}
============
One major area of research in algebraic and arithmetic geometry is a conjectural circle of ideas due to e.g. Green, Griffiths, and Lang, asserting that various notions of hyperbolicity coming from algebraic, differential, and arithmetic geometry coincide: Brody hyperbolicity (no entire holomorphic curves), arithmetically hyperbolicity (finiteness of rational points), and an algebraic notion (all subvarieties are of general type). In general, it is quite challenging to find examples of varieties satisfying these hyperbolicity notions. Somewhat classical work shows that varieties with positive cotangent bundle form a large class of examples for which hyperbolicity is known. In particular, if $X$ is a smooth projective variety and the cotangent bundle $\Omega^1_X$ is ample, then $X$ is Brody hyperbolic (and thus Kobayashi hyperbolic), and all subvarieties of $X$ are of general type. If $\Omega^1_X$ is additionally globally generated, then $X$ has finitely rational points.
The first goal of this paper is to generalize these results to quasi-projective varieties. In this case, the aforementioned conjectures predict the equivalence of Brody hyperbolicity, all subvarieties being of log general type, and finiteness of integral points. If we view a quasi-projective variety $V$ as the complement of an snc divisor in a smooth projective variety $V \cong X \setminus D$, then naively one would hope that assuming the log cotangent bundle $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is ample would be the correct condition to guarantee hyperbolicity. It turns out that this is too much to hope for, as the following shows.
If $D$ is not empty, then $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is never ample.
Therefore we see that the extension to the logarithmic setting is in fact much more intricate. In fact, positivity always fails along the divisor $D$. Motivated by this, we instead ask that the log cotangent sheaf is *almost ample*. Roughly speaking, we say $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is *almost ample* if it is as positive as possible (see Definition \[def:dbarample\] for a precise definition; see also [@brotbek]). Essentially we require that $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is *big*, and its non-ample locus is contained in the support of $D$.
Subvarieties and almost ample log cotangent bundles
---------------------------------------------------
We first show that all subvarieties of quasi-projective varieties with almost ample log cotangent bundle are of log general type.
Let $(X,D)$ be a log smooth pair with almost ample $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$. Then all pairs $(Y, E)$, where $E := (Y \cap D)_{red}$, with $Y \subset X$ and $Y$ not contained in $D$ are of log general type.
This result is a consequence of the following result, which shows the result holds for singular pairs whose singularities are those coming from the minimal model program.
\[thm:introample\] Let $(X,D)$ be log canonical pair with almost ample log cotangent $\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)$. Then all pairs $\big(Y, E)$, where $E := (Y \cap D)_{red}$, with $Y \subset X$ such that $Y$ is neither contained in $D$ nor $\textrm{Sing(X)}$ are of log general type.
We note that we can also prove a slightly stronger result for the case of surfaces, since the singular locus of an lc surface consists only of points.
Let $(X,D)$ be log canonical surface pair with almost ample log cotangent $\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)$. Then all pairs $\big(Y, E)$, where $E := (Y \cap D)_{red}$, with $Y \subset X$ irreducible and not contained in $D$ are of log general type.
The main tools used to solve these problems involve the theory of extending reflexive differentials on singular spaces (e.g. [@diff; @GK]) and the work of Campana-Păun [@cp]. Although one often restricts to (log) smooth varieties when studying hyperbolicity questions, we are forced to consider the situation when $(X,D)$ has lc (or more generally slc) singularities to obtain the uniformity results alluded to in the abstract (see Section \[sec:introunif\]). Before proceeding, we make a few remarks concerning almost ample log cotangent sheaves.
1. When $X$ is smooth, our notion does not quite coincide with almost ample as in [@brotbek Definition 2.1]. If the log cotangent sheaf is almost ample in the sense of [@brotbek], then it is almost ample in our sense. However, the assumptions in our definition are a priori weaker.
2. Work of [@brotbek] shows that for any smooth projective $X$, there exists a divisor $D$ so that $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is almost ample.
3. For a log smooth pair $(X,D)$ with almost ample $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$, the complement $X \setminus D$ is Brody hyperbolic.
Positivity and arithmetic hyperbolicity
---------------------------------------
It is also natural to ask whether positivity on the log cotangent sheaf implies finiteness statements for integral points. Indeed, Moriwaki proved that projective varieties $X$ over a number field $K$ with ample and globally generated $\Omega^1_X$ have finitely many $K$ points (see Theorem \[thm:amplecot2\]). We prove the following generalization.
\[thm:moriwaki1\] Let $V$ be a smooth quasi-projective variety with log smooth compatification $(X, D)$ over a number field $K$. If the log cotangent sheaf $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is globally generated and almost ample, then for any finite set of places $S$ the set of $S$-integral points $V({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S})$ is finite.
Alternatively, Theorem \[thm:moriwaki1\] can also be seen as a consequence of the log cotangent being almost ample (using Theorem \[thm:introample\]) and the following.
\[thm:moriwaki2\] Let $V \cong (X \setminus D)$ be a log smooth variety over $K$. If the log cotangent sheaf $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is globally generated, then for any finite set of places $S$, every irreducible component of $\overline{V({{\mathcal O}}_S)}$ is geometrically irreducible and isomorphic to a semi-abelian variety.
The main tools used to prove the above results are the theory of semi-abelian varieties and the quasi-Albanese, as well as Vojta’s generalization [@vojta1] of Faltings’ theorem on subvarities of abelian varieties to semi-abelian varieties.
It is also natural to ask what happens in the function field setting. Indeed, Noguchi [@noguchi] showed that the analogue of Moriwaki’s theorem holds for function fields. We prove the following, the proof of which was suggested to us by Carlo Gasbarri.
Let $(X_F,D)$ be a log smooth non isotrivial pair over $F$. If $\Omega^1_{X_F/F}(\log D)$ is almost ample then there exists a constant $A$ and a proper closed subset $Z \subsetneq X_F$ such that for every $p \in (X_F \setminus Z)(F)$ we have that $$\deg P^*(K_X + D) \leq A \left(2g({{\mathcal C}}) - 2 + \#\operatorname{supp}P^*D \right) + O(1),$$ where $P$ is a model of $p$ over ${{\mathcal C}}$.
Finally, we wish to discuss the following example, which discusses hyperbolicity in families. In particular, positivity of the log cotangent sheaf on the normalization of every fiber is *not* enough to guarantee that hyperbolicity is a closed condition, even for surfaces.
(See Example \[ex:counterexample\]) We show the existence of a stable family $(X,D) \to B$ where $B$ is a curve, the generic fiber $(X_\eta, D_\eta) \subset {{\mathbb P}}^3$ is a normal surface with almost ample log cotangent (and therefore hyperbolic), while the special fiber $(X_0, D_0)$, although having almost ample log cotangent on the normalization, contains a curve in the non-normal locus which is *not* of log general type.
Uniformity {#sec:introunif}
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Recall that (one form of) Lang’s conjecture (see Conjecture \[conj:BL\]) predicts that varieties of general type do not contain a Zariski dense set of rational points. One of the most intriguing consequences of Lang’s Conjecture, proved in [@CHM], is that the number of rational points on curves of genus $g \geq 2$ over a number field $K$ is not only finite, but is also bounded by a constant depending only on $g$ and $K$ (see Theorem \[conj:unif\]). The original ideas of [@CHM] have since been extended and generalized leading to proofs that similar uniformity statements, conditional on the Lang Conjecture, hold in higher dimensions (see Section \[subsec:rat\] for more details).
A natural question addressed in [@Aell] is the following: does the Lang-Vojta Conjecture (Conjecture \[conj:LV\]) imply similar uniformity statements for integral points? Abramovich showed this cannot hold unless one restricts the possible models used to define integral points. This led Abramovich to define the notion of *stably integral points* (see Definition \[def:stab\_c\]) to prove uniformity results, conditional on the Lang-Vojta Conjecture, for integral points on elliptic curves, and together with Matsuki in [@AM] for integral points on principally polarized abelian varieties (PPAVs).
Roughly speaking, stably integral points are integral points which remain integral after stable reduction (see Definition \[def:stab\_c\] for a precise definition).
Thus the final goal of this paper is to generalize uniformity statements for stably integral points to pairs of log general type (see Theorem \[thm:mainthm\]). The first result we obtain is the generalization of the results of [@Aell] to arbitrary stable pointed curves. Unless stated otherwise, $K$ will denote a number field, and $S$ a finite set of places of $K$ containing the Archimedean ones.
\[th:u\_curve\] Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture \[conj:LV\]. If $(C,D)$ is a pointed stable curve over $K$, then the set of stably $S$-integral points on $C$ is uniformly bounded.
To obtain analogous results in higher dimensions one needs to tackle an extra problem: stable models do not exist due to the absence of a semistable reduction theorem over arbitrary Dedekind domains. As a result, there is no canonical choice of model for higher dimensional algebraic varieties.
Instead, using recent results on moduli of stable pairs (see Definition \[def:stab\_pair\]), the higher dimensional analogue of the moduli of stable pointed curves, we define “good” models which play the role of stable models for curves, and actually generalize them (see Section \[sec:models\]). This allows us to define a notion of *moduli-stably-integral points* ($ms$-integral points, see Definition \[def:ms\]), integral points which are integral with respect to a fixed model of the moduli space.
The second result we obtain is that $ms$-integral points on families of stable pairs lie in a subscheme whose degree is uniformly bounded, which generalizes a theorem of Hassett [@Hassett Theorem 6.2].
\[th:deg\] Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture \[conj:LV\]. Suppose that $f:(X,D)\to B$ is a stable family over a smooth variety $B$ with integral, openly canonical (see Definition \[def:olc\]), and log canonical general fiber over $K$. For all $b \in B(K)$, there exists a proper closed subscheme $A_b$ containing all $ms$-integral points of $X_b$ whose irreducible components have uniformly bounded degree.
From here, one wishes to conclude uniformity for higher dimensional varieties. The first obstacle to proving uniformity, which also appears in the case of rational points, is the presence of curves with non-positive Euler characteristic, which contain infinitely many integral points. One natural approach to circumvent this problem, as motivated above, is to ask for positivity of the log cotangent sheaf. From here, the standard way to conclude uniformity from Theorem \[th:deg\], is to run an induction argument once you answer “yes” to the following question, thus overcoming the second obstacle:
Do $ms$-integral points satisfy the *subvariety property* – i.e. are $ms$-integral points for a pair $(X,D)$ lying on a pair $\big(Y,E:= Y \cap D\big)$ with $Y \subset X$ also $ms$-integral points for $(Y,E)$?
E.g., if $(X,D)$ is a quasi-projective surface, it is not apriori clear that an $ms$-integral point of $(X,D)$ which lies on a curve $(Y, E)$, where $E = Y \cap D$ is also an $ms$-integral point for $(Y,E)$!\
The above question was answered affirmatively for abelian surfaces using Néron models [@AM]. Without having an explicit model to work with in higher dimensions, we reduce the question to a sufficient geometric criterion. Since the notion of stably integral points (or more generally $ms$-integral points) requires a compact moduli space, even if we are interested in uniformity for *smooth* varieties, we are forced to consider degenerations of our smooth variety to *singular* ones. If $\dim X > 2$, then a degeneration of $X$ can have a non-normal locus of positive dimension, and it is a highly non-trivial problem to show that there are no non-hyperbolic components contained in this locus.
However, assuming positivity of the log cotangent sheaf, we are able to verify the subvariety property for surfaces (see Section \[sec:descent\]), and thus prove uniformity.
\[thm:mainthm\] \[th:d2\] Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture. Let $(X,D)$ be a log canonical stable surface pair with good model $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ such that
1. $D = \sum D_i$ is an effective ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier divisor with $K_X + D$ ample and
2. each fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ has almost ample log cotangent sheaf (see Definition \[def:dbarample\]),
then there exists a constant $N = N(K,S,v)$ where $v$ is the volume of $(X,D)$, such that the set of $ms$-integral points of $(X,D)$ has cardinality at most $N$, i.e. $$\# (X {\smallsetminus}D)({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{ms}) \leq N = N(K,S,v).$$
One main ingredient in this paper, following the ideas of [@CHM], is a Fibered Power Theorem, proved in [@fpt] (see Theorem \[thm:fpt\]), which gives the analogue for pairs of the main Theorem of [@Afpt].
1. While we make a choice of model, we show that (up to changing the constants involved), the results do not depend on choice of model (see Remark \[remark:models\]).
2. Assuming the Lang-Vojta conjecture, our methods give a proof for uniformity under *any assumption* that guarantees that all subvarieties are of log general type. We argue that asking for *almost ample log cotangent* is natural from a geometric standpoint (see Remark \[rmk:uniformity\]).
Appendices {#appendices .unnumbered}
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In Appendix \[sec:stacks\], we define the stack of stable pairs over ${{\mathbb Q}}$. This is probably known, but we include it for lack of reference. In Appendix \[app:sheaves\] we show there exists an almost ample log cotangent sheaf on the universal family of the moduli stack. Appendix \[app\] gives an alternative definition of $ms$-integral points that does not depend on the choice of models of stacks. In Appendix \[sec:apphyp\] we present Example \[ex:counterexample\].
This paper originally appeared with the title “Uniformity for integral points on surfaces, positivity of log cotangent sheaves and hyperbolicity.”
Acknowledgements {#acknowledgements .unnumbered}
----------------
We thank Brendan Hassett for suggesting this problem and Dan Abramovich for his constant support. This paper has benefited from discussions with Jarod Alper, Dori Bejleri, Damian Brotbek, Ya Deng, Gabriele Di Cerbo, János Kollár, Sándor Kovács, Wenfei Liu, Yuchen Liu, Steven Lu, Zsolt Patakfalvi, Fabien Pazuki, Sönke Rollenske, David Rydh, Karl Schwede, Jason Starr, and Bianca Viray. We thank Carlo Gasbarri for pointing us to Theorem \[th:Carlo\], Ariyan Javanpeykar for discussions leading to the notion of *good models*, Max Lieblich for help verifying Example \[ex:counterexample\], and Erwan Rousseau for pointing us to [@cp]. Research of Turchet supported in part by funds from NSF grant DMS-1553459. Research of Ascher supported in part by funds from NSF grant DMS-1162367/11500528 and an NSF Postdoctoral fellowship.
Previous results {#sec:previous}
================
In this section we discuss previous results on hyperbolicity and uniformity.
Some hyperbolicity results
--------------------------
A motivating conjecture usually associated to Green, Griffiths, and Lang is the following:
Let $X$ be a projective geometrically integral variety over a number field $K$. The following are equivalent:
1. $X$ is arithmetically hyperbolic,
2. $X_{\mathbb{C}}$ is Brody hyperbolic, and
3. every integral subvariety of $X$ is of general type.
As mentioned in the introduction, it is somewhat classical that varieties with positive cotangent bundle enjoy many hyperbolicity properties (see e.g. [@debarre]). In particular, we have the following.
\[thm:amplecot1\] If $X$ is a smooth projective variety with ample $\Omega^1_X$ then
1. all subvarieties of $X$ are of general type (see [@laz2 6.3.28]), and
2. $X$ is Brody (and thus Kobayashi) hyperbolic (see [@demailly 3.1]).
It is expected that the rational points are also finite, and in this direction we have the following.
[@moriwaki Theorem E]\[thm:amplecot2\] If $X$ is a smooth variety defined over a number field $k$ with ample and globally generated $\Omega^1_X$ then the set $X(k)$ is finite.
We do note that Theorem \[thm:amplecot1\] is *not* an if and only if. That is, there exist hyperbolic varieties whose cotangent bundle is not ample. The standard example is a product of high genus curves – this variety is Brody hyperbolic and all subvarieties are of general type, but the cotangent is not ample.
Uniformity for rational points {#subsec:rat}
------------------------------
Faltings proved that for projective curves ${{\mathcal C}}$ over $K$ of genus $g=g({{\mathcal C}})\geq 2$, the set ${{\mathcal C}}(K)$ is finite [@Falt]. In higher dimensions there is a conjectural analogue:
(Bombieri-Lang (surfaces), Lang ($\dim X > 2$), [@Lang] and [@Lang2]) \[conj:BL\] Let $X$ be an algebraic variety defined over $K$. If $X$ is of general type, then the set $X(K)$ is not Zariski-dense.
[@CHM] showed that Conjecture \[conj:BL\] implies that $\#{{\mathcal C}}(K)$ in Faltings’ Theorem is not only finite, but is also uniformly bounded by a constant $N=N(g,K)$ that does *not* depend on the curve ${{\mathcal C}}$.
\[conj:unif\] Let $K$ be a number field and $g \geq 2$ an integer. Assume Lang’s Conjecture. Then there exists a number $B=B(K,g)$ such that for any smooth curve ${{\mathcal C}}$ defined over $K$ of genus $g$ the following holds: $ \# {{\mathcal C}}(K) \leq B(g,K) $
Pacelli [@Pacelli] (see also [@Aquadratic]), proved that $N$ only depends on $g$ and $\deg(K:{{\mathbb Q}})$. More recently, cases of Theorem \[conj:unif\] have been proven unconditionally ([@krz], [@stoll] and [@paz]) depending on the Mordell-Weil rank of the Jacobian of the curve and for [@paz], on an assumption related to the Height Conjecture of Lang-Silverman. It has also been shown that families of curves of high genus with a uniformly bounded number of rational points in each fiber exist [@dnp].
Näive translations fail in higher dimensions as subvarieties can contain infinitely many rational points. However, one can expect that after removing such subvarieties the number of rational points is bounded. Hassett proved that for surfaces of general type this follows from Conjecture \[conj:BL\], and that the set of rational points on surfaces of general type lie in a subscheme of uniformly bounded degree [@Hassett].
The idea behind both proofs is the following: consider a family $f: X \to B$ whose general fibers are general type curves (resp. surfaces) over a base $B$, the proof reduces to showing that the number of rational points in the fibers is uniformly bounded. If the total space of the family is itself a variety of general type, the Lang Conjecture trivially implies the uniformity statement. In general this is not the case, but if the family has maximal variation in moduli, then the dominant irreducible component of a high enough fibered power $X_B^n \to B$ will be of general type. Conjecture \[conj:BL\] and an induction argument will then give uniformity. In general, it is always true that for $n$ big enough $X_B^n$ admits a dominant map to a variety of general type. From this, one can conclude the result in a similar fashion. This can be applied to a “global” family of curves to obtain the result of [@CHM].
The algebro-geometric result alluded to above is known as a *fibered power theorem* and was shown for curves in [@CHM], for surfaces [@Hassett] and in general by Abramovich [@Afpt]. The pairs analogue is Theorem \[thm:fpt\] ([@fpt]). In higher dimensions, similar uniformity statements hold conditionally on Lang’s Conjecture, and follow from the fibered power theorem under some additional hypotheses that take care of the presence of subvarieties that are not of general type ([@AV]).
Uniformity of Integral Points {#subsec:int}
-----------------------------
The analogue of Faltings’ Theorem for quasi-projective curves is Siegel’s Theorem– every affine curve of positive Euler characteristic possesses a finite number of $S$-integral points. There is a conjectural generalization to higher dimensions, that extends Lang’s Conjecture \[conj:BL\] to the quasi-projective case:
(Lang-Vojta)\[conj:LV\] Let $X$ be a quasi-projective variety and let ${{\mathcal X}}\to \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$ be a model over the $S$-integers. If $X$ is of openly log general type (see Definition \[def:loggt\]), then ${{\mathcal X}}({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S})$ is not Zariski dense.
A natural question, is whether Conjecture \[conj:LV\] implies a uniform bound on the set of $S$-integral points for quasi-projective curves of openly log general type (see Definition \[def:loggt\]). Abramovich ([@Aell 0.3]) gave a counterexample: he constructed an elliptic curve, where the number of $S$-integral points in the complement of the origin grow arbitrarily when one changes the model. However, imposing minimality conditions on the model leads to statements similar to [@CHM]. In particular, if one considers *stable* models for the quasi-projective curves $E {\smallsetminus}O_E$ over a number field, then the cardinality of the set of $S$-integral points of this model, called *stably*-integral points, is uniformly bounded, conditional on Conjecture \[conj:LV\]. This was extended to PPAVs of $\dim 2$ [@AM].
Both results rely on the existence of good models for elliptic curves and abelian varieties. While this can be extended to arbitrary stable curves, it is not clear how to define stable models in arbitrary dimensions outside of the abelian case. However, it was observed by Abramovich and Matzuki that stably integral points admit a nice moduli interpretation (see Section \[sec:models\]).
Unconditional results for uniformity of integral points in certain classes of curves, coming from Thue Equations, were proved in [@LT], given some bound on the Mordell-Weil rank of the Jacobian.
As Vojta’s Conjecture implies Lang’s Conjecture, and thus a uniform version of the conjecture, one can ask if Vojta’s conjecture implies a uniformity statement for heights. This was shown by Ih for curves [@ih], and was generalized to certain families of hyperbolic varieties [@ari].
Preliminaries and Notations {#sec:prel}
===========================
The ring of $S$-integers, i.e. the set $\{ x \in K: \| x \|_v \leq 1, \forall v \notin S \}$ will be denoted by ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$.
Given an algebraic variety $X$ defined over $K$, a *model* of $X$ over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$ is a separated scheme ${{\mathcal X}}$ together with a flat map ${{\mathcal X}}\to \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_S$ of finite type such that the generic fiber is isomorphic to $X$, i.e. $X \cong {{\mathcal X}}\times_{\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_S} \operatorname{Spec}K$.
Given a quasi-projective variety we will use the following definition for openly log general type.
(see [@fpt Definition 1.3]) \[def:loggt\] A quasi-projective variety $X$ is *of openly log general type* if there exists a desingularization $\widetilde{X} \to X$ and a projective compactification $\widetilde{X} \subset Y$ with $D = Y {\smallsetminus}\widetilde{X}$ a divisor of normal crossings, such that $\omega_Y(D)$ is big.
The above definition is independent of both the choice of desingularization and of the compactification. From both the viewpoint of birational geometry and of integral points on quasi projective varieties, it has become natural to consider pairs of a variety and a divisor.
A *pair* $(X,D)$ is the datum of a projective variety $X$ and a $\mathbb{Q}$-divisor $D = \sum d_i D_i$ which is a linear combination of distinct prime divisors.
\[rmk:loggt\]We will often say that a pair $(X,D)$, with $X$ a projective variety and $D$ a normal-crossings divisor is *of openly log general type* if the quasi-projective variety $X {\smallsetminus}D$ is. In some applications we will require some conditions on the singularities of the pair.
A pair $(X,D)$ has *log canonical singularities* (or is lc) if $X$ is normal, $K_X +D$ is ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier, and there is a log resolution (see [@kom Notation 0.4(10]) $f: Y \to X$ such that $$K_Y + \sum a_E E = f^*(K_X + D)$$ where all the $a_E \leq 1$ and the sum goes over all irreducible divisors on $Y$. The pair has *canonical singularities* if all $a_E \leq 0$.
\[def:olc\] A log canonical pair $(X,D)$ is *openly canonical* if $X{\smallsetminus}D$ has canonical singularities.
For an lc pair $(X,D)$ that is openly canonical, being of openly log general type is equivalent to the condition that $\omega_X(D)$ is big, in particular this can be checked without referring to a log-resolution of singularities as in Definition \[def:loggt\]. We note that the notion of a model extends naturally to pairs:
Consider a pair $(X,D)$ with $D$ a ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier divisor over $K$. A *model* for $(X,D)$ over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_S$, is a model ${{\mathcal X}}$ of $X$ together with an (effective) ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier divisor ${{\mathcal D}}\to {{\mathcal X}}$ whose restriction to the generic fiber is isomorphic to $D$. In other words, a model for $(X,D)$ is the datum of a model ${{\mathcal X}}$ of $X$ and a compatible model ${{\mathcal D}}$ of $D$.
Models of pairs can be used to define integral points with respect to a divisor.
\[def:integral\] Consider a pair $(X,D)$, with $D$ a Cartier divisor, and a model $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$. An $(S,D)$-*integral point* is a section $P: \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S} \to {{\mathcal X}}$ such that the support of $P^*{{\mathcal D}}$ is contained in $S$. An $S$-integral point of a quasi-projective variety $X{\smallsetminus}D$ is an $(S,D)$-integral point for the pair $(X,D)$.
Stability {#subsec:stab}
---------
As mentioned in Section \[subsec:int\], in order to obtain uniformity results for integral points, it is necessary to restrict the possible models under consideration. We recall here some definitions that will be useful later. First we need a crucial definition.
\[def:slc\] A pair $(X, D = \sum d_i D_i)$ is *semi-log canonical (slc)* if $X$ is reduced and $S_2$, the divisor $K_X + D$ is ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier and the following hold:
1. $X$ is Gorenstein in codimension one, and
2. if $\nu : X^{\nu} \to X$ is the normalization, then the pair $(X^{\nu}, D^\nu + \Delta_{dl}^{\nu})$ is log canonical, where $D^\nu$ denotes the preimage of $D$ and $\Delta_{dl}^{\nu}$ denotes the preimage of the double locus $\Delta_{dl}$ on $X^{\nu}$.
Slc pairs with ample log canonical sheaf generalize stable pointed curves to higher dimension.
\[def:stab\_pair\] A pair is *stable* if the ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier line bundle $\omega_X(D)$ is ample, and the pair is semi-log canonical. A *stable family* is a flat family $(X,D) \to B$ over a normal variety $B$ such that
1. $D$ avoids the generic and codimension one singular points of every fiber,
2. $\omega_f(D)$ is ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier, and
3. $(X_b, D_b)$ is a stable pair for all $b \in B$.
We end this subsection by discussing fiber powers of families of stable pairs.
Given a stable family $\pi: (X,D) \to B$, denote by $(X_B^n,D_n)$ the *$n^{th}$ fibered power* of $X$ over $B$, where $X_B^n$ is the (unique) irreducible component of the fiber power which dominates $B$, and $D_n := \pi_1^* D + \dots + \pi_n^* D,$ where $\pi_i: X_B^n \to X$ is the $i$-th projection.
\[thm:fpt\] Let $(X,D) \to B$ be a stable family such that general fiber is integral, openly canonical (see Definition \[def:olc\]), and log canonical over a smooth projective variety $B$. Then there exists an integer $n > 0$, a positive dimensional pair $(W, \Delta)$ of openly log general type (see Definition \[def:loggt\] and Remark \[rmk:loggt\]), and a morphism $(X^n_B, D_n) \to (W, \Delta)$.
\[rmk:moduli\] The *moduli space of stable pairs* ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$ is constructed and proven to have projective coarse space in [@kp]. It requires a choice of invariants $\Gamma = (n, v, I)$, where $n$ is the dimension of the pairs, $v$ is their volume, and $I$ is a coefficient set satisfying the DCC condition.
Positivity of the log cotangent sheaf – subvarieties {#sec:log_ct}
====================================================
As we saw in Theorem \[thm:amplecot1\], if $X$ is smooth and projective with $\Omega^1_X$ ample, then all subvarieties of $X$ are of general type. The goal of this section is to prove a similar result for quasi-projective varieties, namely finding a positivity condition that guarantees that all subvarieties are of log general type. As noted in the introduction, the immediate generalization fails – the log cotangent sheaf is never ample (see Proposition \[rmk:neverample\]). Nevertheless, one can still obtain some hyperbolicity properties assuming the log cotangent sheaf is, in a sense, as positive as possible (see Theorem \[thm:ampleness\], Corollary \[cor:slcample\], Corollary \[cor:ampleness\], and Remark \[prop:ampleness\]).
In the following subsection we investigate positivity properties of the log cotangent sheaf, its consequences for the geometry of subvarieties, and its extensions to non-normal varieties. We remind the reader that we are forced to consider the singular situation to obtain the uniformity results mentioned in Section \[sec:introunif\].
Definition of the log cotangent sheaf
-------------------------------------
We begin by collecting some facts about the log cotangent sheaf for log canonical pairs. Like the cotangent sheaf, it is not clear how to define the log cotangent sheaf for non-normal varieties which appear naturally when considering families of normal varieties. To this end, we use formalism and ideas from [@diff] and [@GK]. We begin by recalling some facts about *reflexive differentials* following [@diff].
(see [@diff Notation 2.16]) Suppose $(X,D)$ is a log canonical pair. Consider the open set $U \subset X$ whose complement is the singular locus of $X$. Denote by $i: U \to X$ the inclusion. Then the *sheaf of reflexive differentials* is $\Omega_X^{[1]}(\log D) := i_*(\Omega^1_U (\log D))$.
This sheaf is reflexive and torsion free but does not need to be locally free. However, the following theorem asserts that any logarithmic 1-form defined on the smooth locus $U \subset X$ can be extended to a logarithmic 1-form possibly with poles on certain exceptional divisors on any resolution of singularities.
\[thm:gk\] Let $(X,D)$ be a log canonical pair, and let $\pi: \widetilde{X} \to X$ denote a log resolution of $(X,D)$. Then the sheaf $\pi_* \Omega^1_{\widetilde{X}}(\log\widetilde{D})$ is reflexive, where $\widetilde{D}$ is any reduced divisor such that $$\mathrm{Exc}(\pi) \wedge \pi^{-1}(D) \subseteq \operatorname{supp}\left \lfloor{\widetilde{D}}\right \rfloor \subseteq \pi^{-1}(\left \lfloor{D}\right \rfloor ),$$ $\mathrm{Exc}(\pi) \wedge \pi^{-1}(D)$ denotes the largest divisor contained in both $\mathrm{Exc}(\pi)$ and $\pi^{-1}(D)$.
Positivity properties of the log cotangent sheaf
------------------------------------------------
As mentioned above, the sheaf $\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)$ is in general only a coherent reflexive sheaf, therefore we recall here the notion of ampleness in this context borrowing ideas from both [@vie] and [@kp] (see also [@kollarsubadd]).
(See [@kp Definition 3.7]) \[def:ample\] Let ${{\mathcal F}}$ be a coherent sheaf on a normal and reduced quasi-projective variety $X$ and let ${{\mathcal H}}$ be an ample line bundle on $X$.
1. We say that ${{\mathcal F}}$ is *ample* if there exists a positive integer $a > 0$ such that the sheaf\
$\operatorname{Sym}^{[a]} {{\mathcal F}}\otimes {{\mathcal H}}^{-1}$ is globally generated.
2. We say that ${{\mathcal F}}$ is *big* if there exists a positive integer $a > 0$ such that the sheaf\
$ \operatorname{Sym}^{[a]} {{\mathcal F}}\otimes {{\mathcal H}}^{-1}$ is generically globally generated.
These definitions are independent of the choice of ${{\mathcal H}}$ (see [@vie Lemma 2.14.a]).
As mentioned earlier, the log cotangent sheaf is *never ample* (see [@brotbek Section 2.3]).
\[rmk:neverample\] Let $(X,D)$ be a log smooth pair. The sheaf $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is never ample.
Suppose that $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ were ample. Consider the following exact sequence (see [@ev Proposition 2.3]): $$0 \to \Omega^{1}_X \to \Omega^{1}_X(\log D) \to \oplus_{i \in I} {{\mathcal O}}_{D_i} \to 0.$$ Consider the restriction of this sequence to a component $D_i \subseteq D$, and tensor the above sequence with ${{\mathcal O}}_{D_i}$ to obtain a surjection: $$A\to {{\mathcal O}}_{D_i} \oplus Q\to 0,$$ where $A$ is an ample sheaf (the restriction of an ample sheaf), and $Q$ is a torsion sheaf supported at $D_i \cap D_j \neq \emptyset$ for all $j \in I$ such that $i \neq j$. However, since ${{\mathcal O}}_{D_i} \oplus Q$ is not ample, there cannot exist such a surjection from an ample sheaf, and so $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ can never be ample.
In light of the above, we are led to a definition that captures the strongest positivity assumption one can make on ${\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)}$, even for non-normal $X$. Given an slc pair, after normalizing, we arrive at an lc pair $(X^\nu, D^\nu + {\Delta^\nu_{dl}})$. A natural condition is thus to assume positivity of ${\Omega_{X^\nu}^{[1]}(\log(D^\nu + \Delta^{\nu}_{dl}))}$.
\[rmk:uniformity\] The following Definition \[def:dbarample\] is a natural assumption in light of both Proposition \[rmk:neverample\], as well as the aforementioned work of Greb-Kebekus-Kovács-Peternell (esp. [@diff Example 3.2]), to exclude the existence of subvarieties which are not of log general type in a stable pair $(X,D)$. It has the advantage of being geometric in nature and natural when considering stable pairs and their moduli. We note that there are examples of moduli spaces of stable pairs for which each object does not contain subvarieties of log general type, e.g. the moduli space of pointed stable curves, and the moduli space of semiabelic pairs ([@Alexeev2]). In particular, *any positivity condition which guarantees the non-existence of subvarieties of log general type will allow us to prove uniformity* (Theorem \[thm:mainthm\]).
\[def:dbarample\] Let $(X,D)$ be a log canonical pair. We say that the log cotangent sheaf of $(X,D)$ is *almost ample* if:
1. $\Omega^{[1]}_{{X}}(\log D)$ is big, and
2. $\mathbf{B}_+\big(\Omega^{[1]}_{{X}}(\log D)\big) \subseteq \textrm{Supp}(D)$,
where $\mathbf{B}_+({{\mathcal F}})$ denotes the augmented base locus of ${{\mathcal F}}$, i.e. the non-ample locus. If $(X,D)$ is an slc pair, then we say the log cotangent sheaf of $(X,D)$ is almost ample if the log cotangent sheaf of the normalization $(X^\nu, D^\nu + {\Delta^\nu_{dl}})$ is almost ample.
\[rmk:almostample\]
1. When $X$ is smooth, our notion does not quite coincide with almost ample as in [@brotbek Definition 2.1]. If the log cotangent sheaf is almost ample in the sense of [@brotbek], then it is almost ample in our sense. However, the assumptions in our definition are a priori weaker.
2. [@brotbek] shows that for smooth projective $X$, there always exists a $D$ so that $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is almost ample. In particular, one expects many moduli spaces of stable pairs in which (at least) the smooth objects have almost ample log cotangent.
3. For a log smooth pair $(X,D)$ with almost ample $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$, the complement $X \setminus D$ is Brody hyperbolic by Definition \[def:dbarample\] (2) (see e.g. [@demailly Proposition 3.3]).
4. When $D = \emptyset$, “almost ample” (log) cotangent implies that all subvarieties of $X$ are of general type.
We will now show that positivity of the log cotangent on a log smooth pair $(X,D)$ implies that all subvarieties (not contained in $D$) are of log general type.
\[thm:ampleness\] Let $(X,D)$ be log canonical pair with almost ample log cotangent $\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)$. Then all pairs $\big(Y, E)$, where $E := (Y \cap D)_{red}$, with $Y \subset X$ such that $Y$ is neither contained in $D$ nor $\textrm{Sing(X)}$ are of log general type.
Consider a log resolution $(\widetilde{X}, \widetilde{D}) \to (X, D)$ and let $(\widetilde{Y}, \widetilde{E})$ be the strict transform of $Y$ and the pullback of $E$ with reduced structure. Let $(\overline{Y}, \overline{E})$ be a log resolution of $(\tilde{Y}, \tilde{E})$. The composition gives a map $\phi: (\overline{Y}, \overline{E}) \to (X,D)$. Since $Y$ is not contained in $D$, by the definition of almost ample, $Y$ is not contained in the base locus of $\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)$. Using Theorem \[thm:gk\], this gives a map $\phi^*(\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)) \to \Omega_{\overline{Y}}(\log \overline{E})$. The image of this map is a big subsheaf of $\Omega^1_{\overline{Y}}(\log \overline{E})$, being a quotient of a big sheaf, and thus its determinant is also big. By [@cp Theorem 4.1] (see also [@schnell Theorem 1]) $K_{\overline{Y}} + \overline{E}$ is big, and so $(Y,E)$ is of log general type.
This result extends to semi-log canonical pairs by applying Theorem \[thm:ampleness\] to the normalization.
\[cor:slcample\] If $(X,D)$ is an slc pair with almost ample log cotangent, then any irreducible subvariety of $X$ not contained in either $D$ or $\textrm{Sing}(X)$ is of log general type.
Finally, we can state a stronger result if $(X,D)$ is log smooth.
\[cor:ampleness\]Let $(X,D)$ be a log smooth pair with almost ample $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$. Then all pairs $(Y,E)$, where $E := (Y \cap D)_{red}$, with $Y \subset X$ and $Y$ not contained in $D$ are of log general type.
As we saw in the introduction, we can use Corollary \[cor:ampleness\] to prove Theorem \[thm:moriwaki1\] on finiteness of integral points. However, for Theorem \[thm:mainthm\] (uniformity), we will need the result for slc pairs, and also need control over subvarieties contained in the singular locus. We are only able to control such subvarieties for surfaces (see Remark \[prop:ampleness\] and Corollary \[cor:subvarietyprop\]).
\[prop:ampleness\] In the case of surfaces, we can prove Theorem \[thm:ampleness\] directly without using [@cp]. Further, since the only singular points of an lc surface are points, we can prove a slightly stronger statement. Let $(X,D)$ be log canonical surface pair with almost ample log cotangent $\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D)$. Then all pairs $\big(Y, E)$, where $E := (Y \cap D)_{red}$, with $Y \subset X$ irreducible and not contained in $D$ are of log general type. We include the proof below.
Since $\Omega^{[1]}_X (\log D)$ is big with prescribed base locus, its restriction to a curve $Y \subset X$ irreducible and not contained in $D$ is also big. Since $Y$ is a curve, big is equivalent to ample. Consider the normalization $\phi: Y^\nu \to Y$, and denote by $E^\nu = \phi^{-1}(E)$. As $\Omega^{[1]}_X (\log D) \mid_Y$ is ample, its pullback $\phi^*(\Omega^{[1]}_X(\log D) \mid_Y)$ is big. By Theorem \[thm:gk\] (see [@GK Theorem 1.4]), there is a generically surjective map $$\phi^*(\Omega^{[1]}_X (\log D) \mid_Y) \to \Omega^1_{Y^\nu}(\log E^\nu) = {{\mathcal O}}_{Y^\nu}(K_{Y^\nu} + E^\nu)$$ so that $K_{Y^\nu} + E^\nu$ is big, and thus $(Y,E)$ is of log general type.
Generalizations of Moriwaki’s results and finiteness of integral points {#sec:moriwaki}
=======================================================================
In [@moriwaki], Moriwaki proved that for smooth projective varieties over number fields $K$ with globally generated cotangent bundle, every irreducible component of $\overline{X(K)}$ is geometrically irreducible and isomorphic to an abelian variety. Moreover, if in addition the cotangent bundle is ample then there are only finitely many $K$ points. We now show that these results generalize for integral points on log smooth surfaces by replacing “ample cotangent” with “almost ample log cotangent”. We stress that the ideas in the proofs below are the ideas of Moriwaki, and we are simply applying them to our newer framework. Let $V$ denote a smooth quasi-projective surface with log smooth completion $(X,D)$, let ${{\mathcal A}}_V$ denote the *quasi-Albanese* variety, and let $\alpha: V \to {{\mathcal A}}_V$ denote the quasi-Albanese morphism (see [@fujinoalb Section 2.7]).
\[thm:moriwakimain\]Let $V$ be a smooth quasi-projective variety with log smooth compatification $(X, D)$ over a number field $K$. If the log cotangent sheaf $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is globally generated and almost ample, then for any finite set of places $S$ the set of $S$-integral points $V({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S})$ is finite.
Assume that $Y$ is an irreducible component of $\overline{V({{\mathcal O}}_S)}$ with $\dim Y \geq 1$ and completion $(\overline{Y}, \overline{E})$. Since $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is almost ample and globally generated, its restriction to $\overline{Y}$ is as well. As in [@moriwaki Lemma 2.3], we first show $\dim({{\mathcal A}}_Y) \geq 2 \dim Y$. Indeed, the proof of [@moriwaki Lemma 2.3] holds verbatim by defining the sheaf $L = \operatorname{im}\left( \mu^*(\Omega^{1}_{X}(\log D)) \to \Omega^1_{Y'}(\log E') \right)$, where $\mu: Y' \to \overline{Y}$ is an appropriate resolution. The generically surjective map $\mu^*(\Omega^{1}_{X}(\log D)) \to \Omega^1_{Y'}(\log E')$ exists by Theorem \[thm:gk\], and the sheaf $L$ is big, globally generated, and locally free of rank $\dim Y$ by choice of resolution $\mu$, and the proof of [@moriwaki Lemma 2.3] applies directly.
Finally, by [@moriwaki Theorem 1.1], because $\dim({{\mathcal A}}_Y) \geq 2 \dim Y$, we have that $Y({{\mathcal O}}_S)$ is not dense in $Y$, which is a contradiction. Indeed, Moriwaki’s proof of [@moriwaki Theorem 1.1] works by replacing $\alpha$ by the quasi-Albanese morphism (see [@fujinoalb]) and by replacing Faltings’ theorem ([@moriwaki Theorem A]) by Vojta’s theorems ([@vojta1; @vojta3]).
\[thm:moriwakisub\] Let $V \cong (X \setminus D)$ be a log smooth variety over $K$. If the log cotangent sheaf $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is globally generated, then for any finite set of places $S$, every irreducible component of $\overline{V({{\mathcal O}}_S)}$ is geometrically irreducible and isomorphic to a semiabelian variety.
Since $\Omega^1_X(\log D)$ is assumed to be globally generated, its restriction to $V$, namely $\Omega^1_V$ is as well, so that there is a surjection $H^0(V, \Omega^1_V) \otimes {{\mathcal O}}_V \to \Omega^1_V.$ By [@fujinoalb Lemma 3.12], $H^0(V, \Omega^1_V) \otimes {{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathcal A}}_V} \cong \Omega^1_{{{\mathcal A}}_V}$, so pulling back by $\alpha: V \to {{\mathcal A}}_V$ gives a surjection $\alpha^*(\Omega^1_{{{\mathcal A}}_V}) \to \Omega^1_V$. Therefore, similarly to [@moriwaki Theorem B], every irreducible component of $\overline{V({{\mathcal O}}_S)}$ is isomorphic to a semi-abelian variety. Indeed, Vojta’s Theorem ([@vojta1; @vojta3]) implies that every irreducible component of a semi-abelian variety containing infinitely many integral points is a translate of a semi-abelian subvariety. Therefore the same argument as in Moriwaki’s proof applies since smooth étale covers of semi-abelian varieties are semi-abelian varieties by [@fujinoalb Theorem 4.2].
Function fields
---------------
Noguchi proved an analogue of Moriwaki’s Theorem \[thm:amplecot2\] in the function field setting (see [@noguchi]). It is therefore natural to ask if there is a function field analogue of Theorem \[thm:moriwakimain\]. The goal of this section is to prove that theorem, which was suggested to us by Carolo Gasbarri, and essentially appears in unpublished notes from a course Gasbarri led on Diophantine Geometry in Rennes in 2009 [@Gasbarrinotes]. In this subsection $F$ will denote a function field in one variable over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero of a smooth projective curve ${{\mathcal C}}$.
\[th:Carlo\] Let $(X_F,D)$ be a log smooth non isotrivial pair over $F$. If $\Omega^1_{X_F/F}(\log D)$ is almost ample then there exists a constant $A$ and a proper closed subset $Z \subsetneq X_F$ such that for every $p \in (X_F \setminus Z)(F)$ we have that $$\deg P^*(K_X + D) \leq A \left(2g({{\mathcal C}}) - 2 + \#\operatorname{supp}P^*D \right) + O(1),$$ where $P$ is a model of $p$ over ${{\mathcal C}}$.
The proof of the statement holds more generally for *algebraic* points. Moreover, in standard notation for Vojta’s Conjecture over function fields one usually defines the truncated counting function to be $N^{(1)}_D(P) = \# \operatorname{supp}P^*D$.
Let $f: ({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}}) \to {{\mathcal C}}$ be a model of $(X_F, D)$. Let ${{\mathcal E}}:= \Omega^1_{{{\mathcal X}}/{{\mathcal C}}}(\log {{\mathcal D}})$ be a model of $E := \Omega^1_{X_F/F}(\log D)$. We can always choose ${{\mathcal E}}$ such that the following map is surjective: $$H^0({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal E}}) \to H^0(X, E),$$ for if not, one can replace ${{\mathcal E}}$ with ${{\mathcal E}}\otimes f^*{{\mathcal G}}$ where ${{\mathcal G}}$ is a sufficiently ample and globally generated line bundle over ${{\mathcal C}}$.
By functoriality properties of logarithmic differentials, for every point $p \in (X_F \setminus D)(F)$ with model $P: {{\mathcal C}}\to ({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ we obtain a map $$\alpha: P^*({{\mathcal E}}) \to \Omega^1_{{{\mathcal C}}}(\log(P^*{{\mathcal D}})),$$
and a lift $\widetilde{P}: {{\mathcal C}}\to {{\mathbb P}}({{\mathcal E}})$. By construction, if ${{\mathcal L}}$ is the image of $\alpha$, then $\widetilde{P}^*({{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}({{{\mathcal E}}})}(1)) = {{\mathcal L}}$. Therefore, we obtain the inequality $$\deg(\widetilde{P}^*({{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}{({{\mathcal E}})}}(1))) \leq
\left(2g({{\mathcal C}}) - 2 + \#\operatorname{supp}P^*D \right).$$
The result will follow from translating the previous inequality to the level of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$. This is equivalent to showing that the base locus of ${{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}({{{\mathcal E}}})}(1)$ does not dominate ${{\mathcal X}}$, which follows from Proposition \[prop:baselocus\] below.
\[prop:baselocus\]
Let $(X,D)$ be a log smooth pair and let $Q$ be an almost ample vector bundle. Let $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ be a model of $(X,D)$ over ${{\mathcal C}}$, let ${{\mathcal Q}}$ be a model of $Q$ over ${{\mathcal C}}$, and let $N$ be any line bundle on $X$. Assume that all models are not isotrivial. Let $h: {{\mathbb P}}({{\mathcal Q}}) \to X$ and let $B_n$ be the base locus of ${{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}({{\mathcal Q}})}(n) \otimes h^*N$. If $n \gg 0$ the map $h\mid_{B_n}: B_n \to X$ is not dominant.
As in the proof of Theorem \[th:Carlo\], we we may choose the models so that the map $$H^0({{\mathbb P}}({{\mathcal Q}}), {{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}({{\mathcal Q}})}(n) \otimes h^*N) \to H^0({{\mathbb P}}(Q), {{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}(Q)}(n) \otimes h^*N)$$ is surjective, and in particular the base locus of ${{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}({{\mathcal Q}})}(1) \cap {{\mathbb P}}(Q)$ is contained in the base locus of ${{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}(Q)}(1)$. We stress that this can be done since the models are not isotrivial. It follows that the image of the base locus of ${{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}({{\mathcal Q}})}(1) \otimes h^*N$ is contained in the model ${{\mathcal D}}$ plus eventually a finite number of fibers. This concludes the proof.
We now shift gears to consider uniformity, ultimately using these hyperbolicity results to obtain uniformity for surfaces. We begin with the case of curves.
Uniformity for log stable curves {#sec:curves}
================================
Abramovich observed [@Aell] that uniformity statements for integral points on curves cannot hold without any restrictions on the model (see [@AM 0.3] - for an example and discussion), and instead one should consider stable models. Such a choice provides good models (see section \[sec:models\] for a more general framework that extends to higher dimension) which possess “positivity” properties preventing the appearance of non-hyperbolic components in the model. As a result, such positivity does not allow the number of integral points to grow arbitrarily. Abramovich’s notion of stably integral points for the complement of the origin in an elliptic curve can be easily generalized to any stable pointed curve $(C,D)$ as follows.
\[def:stab\_c\] Let $(C,D)$ be a stable pointed curve defined over $K$. A point $P \in (C\setminus D)(K)$ is called a *stably* $(S,D)$-integral point if there exists a finite extension $L \supset K$ and a stable model $({{\mathcal C}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}$ such that $P$ is a $(S_L,{{\mathcal D}})$-integral for ${{\mathcal C}}$. Equivalently $P \in ({{\mathcal C}}\setminus {{\mathcal D}}) ({{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L})$.
Given Definition \[def:stab\_c\] one can ask whether the same uniformity results proved in [@Aell] hold more generally for a pair $(C,D)$ of openly log general type. To prove this we introduce the following:
\[def:correl\] Let $(C,D) \to B$ be a family of pointed stable curves over $K$. Given a subset ${{\mathcal P}}\subset C(K)$, denote by ${{\mathcal P}}^n \subset C^n_B$ the $n^{th}$ fibered power of ${{\mathcal P}}$ over $B$. Then ${{\mathcal P}}$ is *$n$-correlated* if there exists an $n > 0$ such that ${{\mathcal P}}^n$ is contained in a proper closed subset of $C^n_B$.
The importance of $n$-correlated sets for uniformity questions is apparent in the following:
Let $C \to B$ a family of projective irreducible curves and let ${{\mathcal P}}$ be an $n$-correlated subset of $C(K)$. There exists a nonempty open set $U \subset B$ and an $N \in \mathbb{N}_{>0}$ such that for every $b \in U$, ${{\mathcal P}}\cap C_b \leq N$. \[lemma:n-corr\]
See [@CHM Lemma 1.1] , [@Aell Lemma 1], or [@AM Lemma 1.1.2].
In view of Lemma \[lemma:n-corr\], in order to prove uniformity for stably integral points on curves of openly log general type, we need to prove that the set of stably integral points is $n$-correlated. We start by stating the following lemma, which will be important throughout.
\[lemma:spread\] Let $(X,D)$ be a pair defined over $K$ and let $\phi: (X,D) \to (W,E)$ be a dominant morphism. Then, given a proper model $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$, there exists $S' \supset S$ and a model $({{\mathcal W}},{{\mathcal E}})$ over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S'}$ such that $\phi$ extends to a map $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})_{\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S'}} \to ({{\mathcal W}},{{\mathcal E}})$.
The extension property follows from spreading out techniques, noting that the extensions to models of $X$, $W$, $D$ and $E$ are compatible after possibly enlarging $S$.
Recall that a stable pair (Definition \[def:stab\_pair\]) in dimension one is a projective curve with at worst nodal singularities and a reduced divisor disjoint from the singular locus. Therefore we obtain:
\[prop:stably\_curves\_correl\] Let $\pi: (C,D) \to B$ be a family of stable pointed curves with smooth general fiber and let ${{\mathcal P}}$ be the set of stably integral points of the family. Then the Lang-Vojta Conjecture implies that ${{\mathcal P}}$ is $n$-correlated for some $n$ large enough.
We apply Theorem \[thm:fpt\] to obtain a positive dimensional pair $(W,E)$ of openly log general type and a dominant morphism $(C^n,D_n) \to (W,E)$ which restricts to a regular map on the complement $C^n {\smallsetminus}D_n \to W {\smallsetminus}E$. Applying Conjecture \[conj:LV\] to $(W,E)$ implies that there exists a proper closed subset $V \subset W$ containing all the $(S,E)$-integral points. By Lemma \[lemma:spread\] there exists a proper closed subset $F_n \subset C^n$ containing all the $(S,D_n)$-integral points. Thus ${{\mathcal P}}^n \subset F_n$.
Using Noetherian induction on the base we can prove the following:
Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture. For all stable pointed curves $(C,D)$ defined over $K$, the number of stably $S$-integral points on $C$ is uniformly bounded. \[th:curves\]
Following [@CHM], we apply Proposition \[prop:stably\_curves\_correl\] to a “global” family of stable pointed curves as follows: let $g$ be the genus of $C$; by assumption we may assume that $C$ is irreducible. The stability condition implies that $2g -2 + \deg D$ is a positive integer. In particular, there exists $l$, which does not depend on $C$, such that each stable curve $C'$ of genus $g'$ and reduced divisor $D'$ with $g' = g$ and $\deg D' =\deg D$, can be embedded in ${{\mathbb P}}^N$ using the linear system $\lvert l K_{C'}(D') \rvert$. The theory of Hilbert Schemes gives the existence of a family $\pi: X \to B$ with $\deg D$ sections defined over $K$ such that given any pair $(C',D')$ as before, there exists a $K$-rational point $b \in B(K)$ such that $X_b \cong (C',D')$. This family can be constructed by taking the closure of the locus of pluri-log canonical curves and its restriction to the universal family in the corresponding Hilbert scheme. By construction, the general fiber of $X \to B$ is a smooth curve of openly log general type (in particular it is stable). Therefore, Proposition \[prop:stably\_curves\_correl\] applies, so the set of stably $S$-integral points of $\pi: X \to B$ is $n$-correlated for $n$ large enough. By Lemma \[lemma:n-corr\], this implies the existence of an open subset $U \subset B$ such that for every $K$-rational $b \in U$, there exists a non-negative integer $N = N(K,S,g,\deg D)$ such that $$X_b({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{\text{stably}}) \leq N = N(K,S,g,\deg D).$$ Finally one applies Noetherian induction on the dimension of $B {\smallsetminus}U$ to obtain a similar bound for *all* fibers in the family $\pi: X \to B$. More explicitly one defines $B_1$ to be the union of all irreducible components of $B {\smallsetminus}U$ whose generic point is a smooth curve and considers the corresponding restricted family $X_1 \to B_1$. Applying Lemma \[lemma:n-corr\] to this new family gives the existence of on open set $U_2 \subset B_1$ where the stably integral points of the fibers are uniformly bounded, possibly by a different constant $N_1$. This inductively gives a chain of base schemes $B_i$ such that $\dim B_i < \dim B_{i-1}$ and therefore stabilizes after a finite number of steps. For each $B_i$ one has a uniform bound given by a constant $N_i$ outside an open subset $U_{i+1}$. Taking $N$ to be the maximum of all $N_i$ shows that the $ms$-integral points of *any* fiber are at most $N$. Since the family has been chosen to be global, it follows that such a bound holds for all stable curves, and thus this proves the theorem.
Good models {#sec:models}
===========
In this section we extend the notion of stably integral points to higher dimensions. First we need to construct models that play the role of stable models, since the latter are not known to exist for $\dim \geq 2$. The main idea behind our construction is to fix models for the moduli stack of stable pairs and construct the models of the pairs as base changes of the models of the stacks, noting that models for stacks are completely analogous to those of varieties. The starting point is the following observation of Abramovich-Matsuki that gives a nice moduli interpretation of stably integral points.
\[prop:AM\] Let $(A,\Theta)$ be a PPAV defined over $K$ and let $P \in (A {\smallsetminus}\Theta)(K)$. Consider the associated moduli map $
P_m: \operatorname{Spec}K \to (A,\Theta) \to (\overline{{{\mathcal A}}_{g,1}},\mathbf{\Theta}).
$ Then $P$ is stably $S$-integral if and only if $P_m$ is an $S$-integral point in $\overline{{{\mathcal A}}_{g,1}}{\smallsetminus}\mathbf{\Theta}$.
This implies that one way to characterize stably $S$-integral points is to look at their image in an appropriate moduli space and test their integrality with respect to a model of such a moduli stack.
Contrary to the moduli space of PPAVs, the moduli space of stable pairs has not been defined over $\operatorname{Spec}\mathcal{O}_{K,S}$. We remedy this by fixing a model over a Dedekind domain and show that our results are independent of the choice of such a model.
Construction of good models
---------------------------
By Appendix \[sec:stacks\] the moduli stack of stable pairs can be defined over ${{\mathbb Q}}$. We now make a choice of models of such stacks as follows: choose a ring of integers ${{\mathfrak R}}$ of a number field $K_{{\mathfrak R}}$ and models of ${\mathcal M}_\Gamma,{{\mathcal U}}$ and ${{\mathcal D}}$ over ${{\mathfrak R}}$ such that in the following diagram $$\xymatrix{ ({{\mathcal U}},{{\mathcal D}}) \ar[r]^{} \ar[d]_{} & ({{\mathfrak U}},{{\mathfrak D}}) \ar[d]^{} \\
{\mathcal M}_\Gamma \ar[r]^{} \ar[d] & {{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}\ar[d] \\
\operatorname{Spec}K_{{\mathfrak R}}\ar[r]^{} & \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathfrak R}}}$$ ${{\mathfrak U}},{{\mathfrak D}}$ and ${{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}$ are proper stacks over ${{\mathfrak R}}$ that are models for ${{\mathcal U}},{{\mathcal D}}$ and ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$ over ${{\mathfrak R}}$. Note that the existence of the diagram follows from Section \[sec:stacks\] and the definition of models. We can define models for stable pairs with respect to the choices of the models and of ${{\mathfrak R}}$ as follows:
\[def:good\] Given a stable pair $(X,D)$ defined over $K$, let $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ be any model over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$. We say that $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ is a *good model* (with respect to the choices of the moduli stacks, the ring of integers ${{\mathfrak R}}$ and the models of the stacks) if there exists a number field $L \supset K$ such that ${{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}} \supset {{\mathfrak R}}$, where $S_L$ is the set of places lying over $S$, and $$({{\mathcal X}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}}, \hspace{1ex} {{\mathcal D}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}}) {\simeq}(\operatorname{Spec}{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}} \times_{{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}} {{\mathfrak U}}, \hspace{1ex} \operatorname{Spec}{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}} \times_{{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}} {{\mathfrak D}}),$$ where ${{\mathcal X}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}}$ and ${{\mathcal D}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}}$ are the base change through $\operatorname{Spec}{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}} \to \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$. We say $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ is defined over ${{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}$ if there is a number field $L$ such that the above isomorphism holds.
Good models play the role of stable models in dimension one and are the key ingredient in the definition of moduli stably integral points for stable pairs.
\[def:ms\] Let $(X,D)$ be a stable pair over $K$. A rational point $P$ is *moduli stably $S$-integral* ($ms$-integral for short when the reference to $S$ is clear), if there exists a finite extension $L \supset K$ and a good model $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}$ such that the image of the map: $$\xymatrix{ P: \operatorname{Spec}L \ar[r] &(X_L, D_L) \ar[r] \ar[d] & ({{\mathcal X}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}}, \hspace{1ex} {{\mathcal D}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}}) \ar[d] \\ & \operatorname{Spec}L \ar[r] & \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L} }$$ is $(S_L,D_L)$-integral in the good model $({{\mathcal X}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}}, \hspace{1ex} {{\mathcal D}}_{{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L}})$. We will denote the set of all moduli stably $S$-integral points of $(X,D)$ as $X({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{\text{ms}})$.
\[remark:models\]For any two choices of models of the stacks over two different rings ${{\mathfrak R}}$ and ${{\mathfrak R}}'$, we can always find a ring of integers ${{\mathfrak B}}$ containing ${{\mathfrak R}}$ and ${{\mathfrak R}}'$ such that the base change of any of the two models will define a model over ${{\mathfrak B}}$ and any $ms$-integral point with respect to ${{\mathfrak R}}$ and ${{\mathfrak R}}'$ is integral with respect to ${{\mathfrak B}}$. In particular the results of the following sections of this paper do not depend on the choice of the model, up to extending the ring of integers that we consider, and possibly adjusting the constants involved (see e.g. [@Rydh Appendix B]).
The notion of $ms$-integral point extends the notion of stably integral points both for curves and PPAVs. In fact, the following more general observation holds.
\[prop:ms-stacks\] Let ${{\mathfrak X}}$ be a proper Deligne-Mumford stack representing a functor of stable pairs and admitting a universal family ${{\mathfrak U}}$ and universal divisor ${{\mathfrak D}}$ such that ${{\mathfrak X}}$ and $({{\mathfrak U}},{{\mathfrak D}})$ have models over a ring of integers ${{\mathfrak R}}$. Suppose that ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S} \supset {{\mathfrak R}}$, and let $(X,D)$ be a pair defined over $K$ which admits the following diagram $$\xymatrix{ (X,D) \ar[d] \ar[r] & ({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}}) \ar[r] \ar[d] & ({{\mathfrak U}},{{\mathfrak D}}) \ar[d] \\ \operatorname{Spec}K \ar[r] & \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_K \ar[r] & {{\mathfrak X}}}$$ where $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}}) {\simeq}(\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_K \times_{{\mathfrak X}}{{\mathfrak U}}, \hspace{1ex} \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_K \times_{{\mathfrak X}}{{\mathfrak D}})$ is a good model. If $P \in (X{\smallsetminus}D)(K)$ is an $ms$-integral point of $X$, then the image of $P$ in $({{\mathfrak U}},{{\mathfrak D}})$ is $({{\mathfrak D}},{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S})$-integral.
$P$ is $ms$-integral if it is integral in $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$, which is the base change of the universal family to the ring of integers ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$. This implies that the image of $P$ is integral in $({{\mathfrak U}},{{\mathfrak D}})$.
Thus $ms$-integral points agree with the corresponding notion in [@Aell] and [@AM].
We see that moduli stably integral points in dimension one for the moduli functor of stable curves, ${{\mathfrak R}}= {{\mathbb Z}}$ and ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$ the stack $\overline{{\mathcal M}}_{g,n}$, are stably integral points for curves. In fact, given a stable curve ${{\mathcal C}}$ over $K$, if $L \supset K$ is the finite extension where ${{\mathcal C}}$ acquires stable reduction then $$\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{L,S_L} \times_{{\mathcal M}_{g,n}} {{\mathfrak U}}$$ is a stable model for ${{\mathcal C}}$ and a good model according to Definition \[def:good\]. Therefore moduli stably integral points for these choices coincide with stably integral points for curves. The same holds for the moduli functor of principally polarized quasi-abelian schemes (or abelic pairs á la Alexeev) [@Alexeev2] and ${{\mathfrak R}}= {{\mathbb Z}}$. In this case a “good” model is a stable quasi-abelian model and $ms$-integral points are stably integral points of [@AM].
We stress that whenever the existence of a moduli stack of stable pairs over any finitely generated ${{\mathbb Z}}$ algebra with modular interpretation is known, the definitions above (and the consequential results to follow) will, in particular, be valid for this choice of model. Moreover, up to enlarging $S$, the model of the universal family $({{\mathfrak U}},{{\mathfrak D}}) \to {{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}$ will be a stable family for an appropriate definition of singularities for fibers with residue field of characteristic $p>0$.
In Appendix \[app\] we present an alternative approach that, although leading to weaker results, does *not* depend on the existence of such a model used in this section.
Uniform bound for the degree of the subscheme containing $ms$-integral points {#sec:deg_bound}
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Given the definition of $ms$-integral points (Definition \[def:ms\]), one could ask what kind of uniformity statements can follow from the Lang-Vojta Conjecture. In this section, we prove that for a stable family with nice singularities, $ms$-stably integral points lie on a subscheme whose degree is uniformly bounded. The following is inspired by Hassett [@Hassett].
\[th:deg\_bound\] Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture. Let $(X,D)\to B$ be a stable family defined over $K$ with integral, openly canonical, and log canonical generic fiber over a smooth projective variety $B$. There exists an open set $U \subset B$ such that for all rational points $b$ in $U(K)$, there exists a proper subscheme $A_b$ containing all $ms$-integral points of $X_b$ such that, if $N(b)$ is the sum of the degrees of the components of $A_b$, then $N(b)$ is uniformly bounded.
By Theorem \[thm:fpt\] there exists a positive integer $n$ and a positive dimensional pair $(W, \Delta)$ of openly log general type and a dominant morphism $(X_B^n, D_n) \to (W,\Delta)$, which induces a regular map $X_B^n {\smallsetminus}D_n \to W{\smallsetminus}\Delta$. Assuming the Lang-Vojta Conjecture for any model of $(W,\Delta)$, there exists a proper closed subvariety of $W {\smallsetminus}\Delta$ containing all the $(\Delta,S)$-integral points.
Define $Z_n$ to be the preimage of this subvariety, which by definition and by Lemma \[lemma:spread\] contains all $S$-integral points of $X_B^n$ and therefore the $ms$-integral points of the fibered power (note that by Proposition 4.5 of [@fpt], the pair $(X_B^n,D_n)$ is a stable pair and by construction, the definition of $ms$-integral points are compatible with taking fiber powers). Define, by induction, closed subvarieties of $X_B^j$ for each $1\leq j \leq n$ in the following way:
1. For each $j$, denote by $\pi_j : X_B^j \to X_B^{j-1}$ and by $\pi_{ij} : X_B^j \to X_B^i$ the projection morphisms;
2. For each $k=1,\dots,j$, denote by $\pi_{j,1}^k : X_B^j \to X$ the $k$-th projection;
3. For each $j$, denote by $Z_j$ the maximal closed subset of $X_B^j {\smallsetminus}D^j$ such that $$\pi_{nj}^{-1}(Z_j){\smallsetminus}\sum_{k>j} \pi_{n,1}^{k*}D \subset Z_n;$$
4. For each $j$, denote by $U_j$ the complement of $Z_j$ in $X_B^j {\smallsetminus}D_j$. By construction, $U_n$ does not contain any $ms$-integral points. Moreover, by maximality of $Z_j$ for each $j$, the preimage $\pi_j^{-1}(u)$ is not contained in $Z_j$ for every $u \in U_{j-1}$.
Note that by definition, for $k \leq j -1$ we have that $$\pi_{j-1,1}^k \circ \pi_j = \pi_{j,1}^k,$$ and for each $j$ we have that $$D_j = \pi_j^* D_{j-1} + (\pi_{j,1}^{j})^* D.$$
Then one has that $$\pi_j^{-1}(Z_{j-1}) {\smallsetminus}(\pi_{j,1}^{j})^* D \subset Z_j.$$ For every $u \in U_{j-1}$, its inverse image in $X_B^j$ intersects $Z_j$ in a proper subvariety (since $\pi^{-1}_j(u)$ is not contained in $Z_j$). Call $A_j$ this subvariety (which might not be of pure dimension) and let $d_j = \sum \deg(A_j)$. Let $N = \max_j d_j$ and $b$ be a $K$-rational point of $B$, then we claim $X_b({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{\text{ms}})$ lies in a subvariety of degree $\leq N$. To prove the claim we define an index $\hat{\jmath}$ as $$\hat{\jmath} = \min \{ j: U_j \cap X_b^j({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{\text{ms}}) = \emptyset\}.$$ Note that by construction $\hat{\jmath} \leq n-1$. Now pick a rational point $u$ in $U_{\hat{\jmath}}$ which lies in $X_b^{\hat{\jmath}}({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{\text{ms}})$; this in particular implies that $\pi_{\hat{\jmath}}^{-1} (u) = X_b$. By the above discussion $\pi_{\hat{\jmath}}^{-1} (u) ({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{\text{m}}) \subset A_{\hat{\jmath}}=: A_b$, which is a subvariety of degree $d_{\hat{\jmath}} \leq N$. This proves the claim, and thus the theorem.
\[cor:subscheme\] Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture. In the notation above, for every fiber $X_b$ the set of $ms$-integral points $X_b({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{ms})$ is contained in a proper subscheme $A_b$. Moreover, the sum of the degrees of the irreducible components of $A_b$ are uniformly bounded.
For the family $(X,D) \to B$, Theorem \[th:deg\_bound\] gives a uniform bound $N_0$ for the degree of the subscheme $A_b$ in all fibers $X_b$ with $b$ in an open subset of $B$. Consider the restricted family $(X_1,D_1) \to B_1$ where $B_1$ is the union of the irreducible components of $B$ with integral, openly canonical, and log canonical generic fiber. Applying Theorem \[th:deg\_bound\] gives a bound $N_1$ for $A_b$ in all fibers with $b$ in an open subset of $B_1$. Iterating this, we find integers $N_0,\dots,N_m$ (finitely many by being Noetherian), such that for every fiber $X_b$, the sum of the degrees of the irreducible components of the proper subscheme $A_b$ is bounded by the max of the $N_i$.
Given the degree bound obtained in Theorem \[th:deg\_bound\] one would like to conclude, assuming the Lang-Vojta Conjecture, that $ms$-integral points in a stable pair satisfy some uniformity. However, one cannot expect a result as strong as Theorem \[th:curves\], since a stable pair can contain curves with negative Euler characteristic (and thus contain infinitely many $ms$-integral points). Even if we are in a case where the $ms$-integral points are finite, there is still another problem to be tackled, namely the *subvariety property* mentioned in the introduction.
More precisely, given a stable pair $(X,D)$ over $K$ and an $ms$-integral point $P$, let $Y \not\subset D$ be an irreducible subvariety, and let $(Y,D_Y)$ be the pair with $D_Y = Y \cap D$ and $P \in Y \setminus D_Y$.
\[def:subvarietycondition\] We say that $ms$-integral points satisfy the *subvariety property* if $P$ is an $ms$-integral point for $(Y,D_Y)$.
To prove that $P$ is $ms$-integral for $(Y,D_Y)$, we have to exhibit a good model of the pair, possibly after extending $K$. If $(Y,D_Y)$ is stable, we can construct a good model (up to extending $K$) using the moduli map (Definition \[def:good\]), but there is a priori no well defined map between the models of $X$ and $Y$. Since we do not have explicit models for $X$ and $Y$, we instead consider a stronger geometric condition that would imply the subvariety property.
As we saw in Section \[sec:log\_ct\] (e.g. Theorem \[thm:ampleness\]), a natural way to guarantee some sort of hyperbolicity is to assume that the log cotangent sheaf is almost ample. It turns out that there is still work to do – assuming the log cotangent sheaf is almost ample is only enough to guarantee the subvariety property is true *outside the double locus* of an slc pair.
Nevertheless, in the following sections, we will show for surfaces that $ms$-integral points behave well for subvarieties of pairs with almost ample log cotangent sheaf. To obtain uniformity results we need to show that these positivity conditions can be defined at the level of the moduli stack. More precisely, we prove the existence of an almost ample log cotangent sheaf on the universal family over a stratification of the moduli space of stable pairs. This is carried out in Appendix \[app:sheaves\].
$ms$-integral points and subvarieties {#sec:subv}
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In Section \[sec:deg\_bound\] we showed that $ms$-integral points lie in a subscheme whose degree is uniformly bounded (see Theorem \[th:deg\_bound\]). To conclude uniformity, one would hope to use an induction argument, by proving that $ms$-integral points that lie on a curve are stably integral for that curve, and then apply Theorem \[th:curves\]. The purpose of this section is to show that the only obstruction to such an argument holding is the existence of contractible components of curves (see Proposition \[prop:no\_contract\]). We will then use this result in Section \[sec:descent\] to show that the *subvariety property* does hold under a positivity assumption on the log cotangent sheaf.
Let $(X,D)$ be a stable pair of dimension two and let $Y$ be an irreducible subvariety such that $Y \not\subset D$. We begin by studying the behaviour of $ms$-integral points lying on $Y$ when the pair $(Y,D_Y)$ is stable where $D_Y = (D \cap Y)$; in particular $D_Y$ is a reduced divisor. We want to show that an $ms$-integral point $P$ that lies in $Y$ is a stably integral point for $(Y,D_Y)$. This amounts to exhibiting a stable model $({{\mathcal Y}}^s,{{\mathcal D}}_Y^s)$ of $(Y,D)$ where $P$ is integral. Since $P$ is $ms$-integral in $(X,D)$ we are given a natural model of the two dimensional pair – the good model $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ where $P$ is integral. This defines a proper model of $(Y,D)$ as follows:
\[def:inducedmodel\] Let $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ be a good model of a log canonical surface pair $(X,D)$ and let $Y \subset X$ be a proper irreducible curve. If $(Y,D_Y)$ is a stable pair, where $D_Y = (D \cap Y)$, then we call the closure of $(Y,D)$ in $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ the *induced model* of $Y$ inside $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ and we denote it by $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_Y)$.
The induced model $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}})$ has stable generic fiber but in general might not be semi-stable itself! However the stable reduction theorem gives maps $$\xymatrix{({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_Y) & ({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss},{{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss}) \ar[r]^{\phi} \ar[l] & ({{\mathcal Y}}^s,{{\mathcal D}}_Y^s)}$$ where $({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss},{{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss})$ is the semistable reduction of $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_Y)$, and all the maps are defined possibly in some finite extension of the base rings. Since the semistable reduction map is a composition of blow-ups, normalization, and base change under ramified covers we obtain the following.
\[lem:ss\] Let $(X,D)$ be a log canonical stable surface pair defined over $K$, and let $P$ be an $ms$-integral point with respect to a good model $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$. Let $Y$ be an irreducible subvariety not contained in $D$ such that $(Y,D_Y)$ is a stable pointed curve. Then if $P \in Y$, (the image of) $P$ is integral in the semistable model $({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss},{{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss})$ of the induced model $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_Y)$.
The proof follows by observing that the semistable reduction map sends ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss}$ to ${{\mathcal D}}$.
\[prop:no\_contract\] Let $\phi: ({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss},{{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss}) \to ({{\mathcal Y}}^s,{{\mathcal D}}_Y^s)$ be the stable reduction of the semi-stable model. If an $ms$-integral point $P$ of $(X,D)$ lies in $(Y,D_Y)$ and no irreducible component of a fiber of $({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss},{{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss})$ containing the image of $P$ is contracted by $\phi$, then $P$ remains integral in $({{\mathcal Y}}^s,{{\mathcal D}}_Y^s)$.
We will prove that the result holds under the weaker hypothesis that in each fiber of the induced model $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_Y)$, the image of $P$ does not lie in a contractible component in a chain of rational curves containing a marked point. Consider the following diagram $$\xymatrix{({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}) \ar[d] & ({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss},{{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss}) \ar[l]^\sigma \ar[d] \ar[r]^\phi & ({{\mathcal Y}}^s,{{\mathcal D}}_Y^s) \ar[d] \\ \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}\ar@/^2.0pc/[u]^P & \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K^{ss},S^{ss}}\ar@/^-2.0pc/[u]_P \ar[l] \ar[r] & \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K^{ss},S^{ss}}\ar@/^-2.0pc/[u]_P}$$ By Lemma \[lem:ss\], $P$ is integral in the semistable model ${{\mathcal Y}}^{ss}$; we need to prove that the image of the contraction morphism $\phi(P)$ does not reduce to ${{\mathcal D}}^s$ over any prime ${{\mathfrak p}}\notin S^{ss}$. Since this is local, we can fix a prime ${{\mathfrak p}}$ and work over the completion of ${{\mathcal O}}_{K^{ss},S^{ss}}$ at ${{\mathfrak p}}$. The corresponding morphism, which we denote by $\phi_{{\mathfrak p}}$, is an isomorphism over the generic fiber ${{\mathcal Y}}^{ss}_\eta$ and a contraction on the special fiber ${{\mathcal Y}}^{ss}_{{\mathfrak p}}$. We have to prove that $\phi(P)$ does not specialize to a point lying in ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^s$ in the fiber ${{\mathcal Y}}_{{\mathfrak p}}^s$.
We argue by contradiction: assume that $\phi(P)$ intersects ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^s$ in the fiber ${{\mathcal Y}}_{{\mathfrak p}}^s$. Since $\phi_{{\mathfrak p}}$ is the stable reduction of the fiber (see [@acg Chapter X]) we can assume that ${{\mathcal Y}}_{{\mathfrak p}}^{ss}$ was not already stable, otherwise $\phi_{{\mathfrak p}}$ would be an isomorphism, and we are assuming that $P$ is integral in the semistable model. Therefore, the fiber ${{\mathcal Y}}^{ss}_{{\mathfrak p}}$ is semistable but not stable and the map $\phi_{{\mathfrak p}}$ is a contraction of an exceptional chain $\Gamma$, i.e. a chain of rational curves which meets the rest of ${{\mathcal Y}}_{{\mathfrak p}}$ in at most two points (see the proof of [@liu Theorem 10.3.34 (b]).
We are then reduced to the case in which the reduction of $P$ in ${{\mathcal Y}}_{{\mathfrak p}}^s$ lies in $\Gamma$. By assumption, $P$ specializes to a point of ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^s$, so there exists at least one component of $\Gamma$ containing at least one marked point, i.e. a point of ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss}$. We will show that this cannot happen.
Recall that by hypothesis, the image of $P$ in the fiber ${{\mathcal Y}}_{{\mathfrak q}}$ of the model ${{\mathcal Y}}$, where ${{\mathfrak q}}$ is the prime lying under ${{\mathfrak p}}$, was not in any exceptional chain which meets the rest of ${{\mathcal Y}}_{{\mathfrak p}}$ in at most two points and contains a marked point. By Lemma \[lem:ss\], this implies that the same holds true in the semi-stable model. Therefore no component of $\Gamma$ can contain a marked point, exhibiting the contradiction. This proves that $\phi_{{\mathfrak p}}(\Gamma) = \phi_{{\mathfrak p}}(P)$ is disjoint from ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^s$ and thus proves the proposition.
Lemma \[lem:ss\] shows that any integral point $P: \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S} \to ({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_Y)$ remains integral in the semistable model. However, the image of $P$ under $\phi$ might intersect ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^s$ in some fiber, so that $P$ is not integral in the stable model. To ensure that this will not happen, we will assume the log cotangent sheaf is almost ample.
By Corollary \[cor:slcample\] the almost ampleness assumption ensures that all irreducible components of all fibers of $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}})$ are of log general type, as long as they are *not contained in $D$ or the double locus of an slc fiber*. Since the stable reduction morphism contracts only components that are not of log general type, the almost ampleness assumption, combined with Proposition \[prop:no\_contract\], implies that $\phi(P)$ remains integral in $({{\mathcal Y}}^s)$. This shows that $ms$-integral points lying in stable subpairs *outside the double locus* are stably integral in a stable pair of dimension two with almost ample log cotangent.
In particular, applying Proposition \[prop:no\_contract\] with a positivity assumption on the log cotangent of each fiber allows us to state the following Corollary.
\[cor:descent1\] Suppose that $(X,D)$ is a log canonical stable surface pair with good model $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ such that each fiber has almost ample log cotangent. Let $({{\mathcal Y}}, {{\mathcal D}}_{{\mathcal Y}})$ be the induced model of a stable curve $(Y, D_Y)$. If no fiber of $({{\mathcal Y}}, {{\mathcal D}}_{{\mathcal Y}})$ lies in the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$, then $ms$-integral points of $(X,D)$ lying on $(Y, D_Y)$ are stably integral for $Y$, i.e. they satisfy the subvariety property.
Proposition \[prop:no\_contract\] ensures all fibers of $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_{{\mathcal Y}})$ are log general type, as we assumed no fiber lies in the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$. Given any $ms$-integral point $P$ of $(X,D)$ lying on $(Y,D_Y)$, this implies that the image of $P$ in the semistable model $({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss},{{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss})$ either lies in an exceptional curve not containing points of ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^{ss}$, or in a component of log general type. In particular either the component is not contracted by stable reduction, or it is contracted to a point not in ${{\mathcal D}}_Y^s$.
$ms$-integral points in singular curves {#sec:sing}
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Corollary \[cor:descent1\] implies that $ms$-integral points lying on a stable pair $(Y,D_Y)$ satisfy the subvariety property provided that no component of a fiber of its induced model $({{\mathcal Y}}, {{\mathcal D}}_{{\mathcal Y}})$ (see Definition \[def:inducedmodel\]) lie in the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$. However, the $ms$-integral points might lie in non stable curves, (e.g. curves with worse than nodal singularities), in which the generic fiber of the induced model is not semi-stable and therefore we cannot apply stable reduction. Instead, we consider a stable map $Y' \to Y \hookrightarrow X$, and study how the $ms$-integral points on $Y'$ relate to those on $Y \subset X$.
Singular curves
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Given a log canonical stable surface $(X,D)$, let $Y \subset X$ be an irreducible curve not contained in $D$ such that the pair $(Y, D_Y)$ is not stable. Therefore either $Y$ is singular, or $D_Y$ is non-reduced. If $Y$ is singular, but $D_Y$ is reduced, then we take the normalization $Y^\nu \to Y$ to obtain a stable map $Y^\nu \to X$, and proceed with Proposition \[prop:stable\_map\]. However, if $D_Y$ is nonreduced, then we give a construction of a stable map $f: Y' \to X$ where $Y'$ is a pre-stable curve, $f$ is a stable map, and the number of marked points in $Y'$ equals $\deg(D_Y) = \deg(D \cap Y)$. In particular, we *cannot* simply use the normalization as the degree equality will not be satisfied. This last condition will be necessary for studying curves that degenerate into the double locus of a degeneration of $X$ (see Section \[sec:descent\] and Proposition \[prop:rational2\]). We begin by giving an example that clarifies our motivation.
Recall that a *stable map* (see e.g. [@AbGW Section 1.3]) is a map from a marked nodal connected projective curve to a projective variety such that the nodes are disjoint from the markings, and the group of automorphisms fixing the markings for a component contracted by the map is finite.
Let $(X,D)$ be a log smooth stable surface with $D$ smooth and irreducible, and let $Y$ be a non-singular curve in $X$. Suppose that $\mathrm{Supp}(Y \cap D) = \{ P \}$ and that the multiplicity of intersection is 2. In this case $D_Y = D \cap Y = 2 P$. One natural way to construct a stable map $f: Y' \to X$ is to consider $Y' = Y$ where $f$ is the inclusion. However in this case the number of marked points on $Y'$ will be 1, while $\deg D_Y = \deg(D \cap Y) = 2$. On the other hand one can consider the surface pair $(X, D+Y)$ and the map $\pi: \widetilde{X} \to (X, D+Y)$, a compositions of two blow-ups centered at $P$ which gives a log-resolution of the pair. Then $\widetilde{Y} = \pi^*Y = Y_1 + E_1 + 2E_2$ is a non-reduced but nodal curve and $\widetilde{Y} \cap \pi_*^{-1}D$ is transverse; it is a point in $E_2$. We can take finite covers $t:\overline{X} \to \widetilde{X}$ branched along components of $\widetilde{Y}$ and take the (normalization of the) fibered product $\overline{Y} = \overline{X} \times_{\widetilde{X}} \widetilde{Y}$, which also gives a map $h: \overline{Y} \to X$. In this case, we take a single degree 2 cover $\overline{X} \to \widetilde{X}$ branched over $Y \cup E_1$. We then obtain a pre-stable curve $\overline{Y} \subset \overline{X}$ whose markings $D_{\overline{Y}}$ are given by the preimages of $D_{\widetilde{Y}}$, which are 2 points. Finally we can contract the non-stable components of the map $h$ – namely the preimage of $E_1$ in $\overline{Y}$ – and we get a curve $Y'$ which has two irreducible components, one isomorphic to $Y$ and the other a genus 1 component $E_2'$ containing the markings. Since we have contracted only unstable components for the map $h$ we get an induced map $f: Y' \to X$ which is stable and the number of markings of $Y'$ is precisely $\deg D_Y$.
\[sec:construction\]Let $\pi: \widetilde{X} \to (X, D + Y)$ be a log resolution of the pair $(X, D+Y)$ and consider the curve $\widetilde{Y} = \pi^*Y$ (see Remark \[rmk:qfactorial\]). By construction $\widetilde{Y}_{\text{red}}$ is a nodal curve. Consider the divisor $D_{\widetilde{Y}}$ on $\widetilde{Y}$ defined as $D_{\widetilde{Y}} = \widetilde{Y} \cap \pi_*^{-1}D$. Consider a composition of finite covers $t: \overline{X} \to \widetilde{X}$ branched along components of $\widetilde{Y}$ such that the fibered product $\overline{Y} = \overline{X} \times_{\widetilde{X}} \widetilde{Y}$ is a pre-stable curve. It comes with a map $h: \overline{Y} \to X$, and markings $D_{\overline{Y}}$ that are the preimages of $D_{\widetilde{Y}}$ under the cover.
Contracting any unstable components relative to the morphism $h: \overline{Y} \to X$ gives a curve $Y'$ with a map $\mu: \overline{Y} \to Y'$, and a stable map $f: Y' \to X$ whose image is $Y$, with markings given by the images $D_{Y'} = \mu(D_{\overline{Y}})$. By construction $\deg(D_{Y'}) = \deg(D_Y)$.
\[rmk:qfactorial\] Note that in the case in which $Y$ is not a ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier divisor, we can consider a minimal ${{\mathbb Q}}$-factorialization $q: X' \to X$ (see e.g. [@singmmp Corollary 1.36]) and replace $Y$ by its strict transform in $X'$: this will not change the intersection $Y \cap D$ locally around $D$ since $(X,D)$ is log canonical.
We first show that the stable map $f$ allows us to construct a nice semistable model of $Y'$.
\[prop:stable\_map\] The stable map $f$ induces a semistable model ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ of $Y'$ with a map $F: {{\mathcal Y}}' \to ({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$. Moreover, if each fiber of a good model of the log canonical stable surface $(X,D)$ has almost ample log cotangent then every positive dimensional component of every fiber of the stable reduction map ${{\mathcal Y}}' \to {{\mathcal Y}}''$ is mapped to ${{\mathcal D}}$ or the double locus of any fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ by $F$.
Let $g$ and $n$ denote the genus and the number of markings of $Y'$ respectively, and let $\beta$ be the class in $H_2({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathbb Z}})$ of the closure of $Y$ in the good model of $(X,D)$. Then by [@AbOrt], the stack of stable maps ${\mathcal M}_{g,n}({{\mathcal X}},\beta)$ is a proper Artin stack, and so the map $f$ admits a closure $F: {{\mathcal Y}}' \to {{\mathcal X}}$ as a stable map over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$ (after possibly extending $K$ and $S$). The map $F$ can be thought of a family of stable maps whose generic fiber is $f$. By definition, the curves appearing as fibers of ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ are connected, projective, and at worst nodal. Therefore this is a semistable model for $Y'$.
Let $\sigma: {{\mathcal Y}}' \to {{\mathcal Y}}''$ be the stable reduction map. We have to prove that any component contracted by $\sigma$ is sent to ${{\mathcal D}}$ or to the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ through $F$. Assume that there exists a prime ${{\mathfrak p}}$ not in $S$, and a irreducible component $Z$ of ${{\mathcal Y}}'_{{\mathfrak p}}= {{\mathcal Y}}' \times_{\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}} {{\mathbb F}}_{{\mathfrak p}}$ which makes ${{\mathcal Y}}'_{{\mathfrak p}}$ non-stable as a curve. This implies in particular, that $2g(Z) - 2 + n_{{\mathfrak p}}\leq 0$, where $n_{{\mathfrak p}}$ is the number of special points in $Z$. Since the map $F$ is stable, this implies that $F$ is not constant on $Z$, and therefore $F$ restricted to $Z$ gives a finite map $F: Z \to F(Z).$ In particular $F(Z)$ is irreducible. However, by Corollary \[cor:slcample\], every irreducible curve in any fiber of the good model $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ not contained in ${{\mathcal D}}$ or the double locus of any non-normal fiber is of log general type. Since $F(Z)$ is not of log general type, this implies that $F(Z)$ is contained in ${{\mathcal D}}$ or the double locus of a fiber.
The above proposition implies that the study of ms-integral points on singular curves on $X$ can be reduced to the study of integral points on the semistable model of the normalization endowed with the stable map to the good model. In analogy with Definition \[def:inducedmodel\] we give the following:
\[def:induced\_map\] Let $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ be a good model of a log canonical surface pair $(X,D)$ and let $Y \subset X$ be a proper irreducible curve not contained in $D$. We call the model of the map $f: Y' \to X$ of Proposition \[prop:stable\_map\] the *induced model* of $Y$ and denote it by $({{\mathcal Y}}',{{\mathcal D}}_{Y'})$, or ${{\mathcal Y}}'$. It comes endowed with a stable map $F: {{\mathcal Y}}' \to ({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$.
\[lem:ms-sing\] Let $P: \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S} \to ({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ be an ms-integral point of $X$ lying in the smooth locus of a non-stable curve $Y \subset X$. Let $F: {{\mathcal Y}}' \to ({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ be the induced model of $Y$ and assume that no fiber of ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ is mapped to the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$. Then $P$ lifts as an integral point on ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ and remains integral in the stable model ${{\mathcal Y}}''$ of ${{\mathcal Y}}'$. In particular, any ms-integral point lying in $Y$ is stably integral in the normalization $Y'$, i.e. $ms$-integral points satisfy the subvariety property.
Since $P$ is a smooth point of $Y$, the point $P$ automatically lifts to a point of $Y'$. Since the model ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ is semistable, the point $P$ remains integral in the stable model if and only if it does not hit any component of ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ that gets contracted under stable reduction that contains a marked point. By Proposition \[prop:stable\_map\], any such component is mapped either to $D$ or to the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$ by $F$. Since $P$ was $ms$-integral in $X$ the lift of $P$ on ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ cannot intersect any component mapped to $D$. On the other hand, by hypothesis there is no component of ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ mapped to the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$. This implies that the image of $P$ in the stable model of $Y'$ is integral.
By definition of a stable map, in the semistable model of the normalization any lifting of an $ms$-integral cannot hit any vertical component that is mapped to $D$ outside $S$, since this will contradict the fact that the point is integral in the good model $({{\mathcal X}},{{\mathcal D}})$.
Subvariety property for surfaces {#sec:descent}
================================
By the work of Sections \[sec:subv\] and \[sec:sing\], we see that we would be able to conclude uniformity (under a positivity assumption on the log cotangent) if no component of a fiber of the induced model $({{\mathcal Y}},{{\mathcal D}}_{{\mathcal Y}}) \subset ({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ which lies in the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ is contractible, and we will show this in Proposition \[prop:rational\] and \[prop:rational2\]. We first recall a property of the double locus ${\Delta_{dl}}$ of an slc pair.
([@singmmp Sec. 5.2]) \[prop:kollar\] The morphism $\pi: {\Delta^\nu_{dl}}\to {\Delta_{dl}}$ is generically finite of degree two, ramified at the pinch points.
\[prop:involution\] Let $(X,D)$ be an slc surface pair. If $D \cap {\Delta_{dl}}\neq \emptyset$, then the intersection must be a nodal point of $D$.
There is a Galois involution $\tau: \overline{\Delta}^{\nu}_{dl} \to \overline{\Delta}_{dl}$, from the normalization of ${\Delta^\nu_{dl}}$ to the normalization of ${\Delta_{dl}}$ (see [@singmmp Section 5.1]). By [@singmmp Proposition 5.12] the different $(\overline{\Delta}^{\nu}_{dl}, \text{Diff}_{\overline{\Delta}^{\nu}_{dl}} D^\nu)$, where $\overline{\Delta}^{\nu}_{dl}$ is the normalization of ${\Delta^\nu_{dl}}$, is $\tau$-invariant. In particular, $\text{Supp}(\text{Diff}_{\overline{\Delta}^{\nu}_{dl}} D^\nu)= \textrm{Supp}(D^\nu \cap {\Delta^\nu_{dl}})$ by [@singmmp Proposition 4.5]. Since $(X,D)$ is slc, the intersection points $D^\nu \cap {\Delta^\nu_{dl}}$ cannot contain the preimage of a pinch point. Therefore, for any point $p \in D \cap {\Delta_{dl}}$, the set $\{D^\nu \cap {\Delta^\nu_{dl}}\}$ contains the whole fiber $\nu^{-1}(p)$, which consists of two points by Proposition \[prop:kollar\]. Therefore $p \in D$ is a node.
\[prop:rational\] Let $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ be a good model of a log canonical stable surface pair such that every fiber has almost ample log cotangent. Let $(Y,E)$ be a stable curve inside the generic fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$, and let $({{\mathcal Y}}, {{\mathcal D}}_{{\mathcal Y}})$ be its induced model (see Definition \[def:inducedmodel\]). Then every positive dimensional component of every fiber of the stable reduction is not mapped to ${{\mathcal D}}$.
This is true for any component outside the double locus of every fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ by Corollary \[cor:slcample\]. Let $Z$ be a component of a fiber of $({{\mathcal Y}}, {{\mathcal D}}_{{\mathcal Y}})$ which *is* contained in the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$. If $Z \cap D = \emptyset$ the result is clear. Otherwise, by Proposition \[prop:involution\] all of the points $Z \cap D$ are nodes of $D$. The strict transform of $Z$ in $({{\mathcal Y}}^{ss}, {{\mathcal D}}^{ss}_{{\mathcal Y}})$ (obtained by blowing up these nodes) is thus disjoint from $D$, and therefore it is either not contracted, or it is contracted to a point not contained in ${{\mathcal D}}$.
\[prop:rational2\] Let $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ be a good model of a log canonical stable surface pair such that every fiber has almost ample log cotangent. Let $(Y,E)$ be a unstable curve inside the generic fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$, and let $({{\mathcal Y}}', {{\mathcal D}}_{{{\mathcal Y}}'})$ be its induced model (see Definition \[def:induced\_map\]). Then every positive dimensional component of every fiber of the stable reduction map ${{\mathcal Y}}' \to {{\mathcal Y}}''$ does not contain any marked points.
For components of ${{\mathcal Y}}'$ not mapped to the double locus of any fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ the result was proven in Proposition \[prop:stable\_map\]. Suppose $Z$ is a component of a fiber ${{\mathcal Y}}'_b$ contracted by stable reduction which *is* mapped to the double locus of a fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$. Since $F$ is a stable map, the restriction $F|_Z$ is a finite map. Since $Z$ gets contracted by stable reduction, we may assume that $g(Z) = 0$. By flatness we can further assume that ${{\mathcal Y}}'_b$ is not irreducible so that $Z$ has at least one special point (which is not a marked point). By Construction \[sec:construction\], the number of marked points on $Z$ is equal to $\deg\big(D \cap F(Z)\big)$. Since $F(Z)$ is contained in the double locus of ${{\mathcal X}}_b$, by Proposition \[prop:involution\] this number must be even. If $\deg = 0$ we are done, otherwise $\deg \geq 2$ but this will give at least two marked points, in addition to our special point which is not a marked point, finishing the proof.
\[cor:subvarietyprop\] The $ms$-integral points on log canonical stable surface pairs with good model such that every fiber has almost ample log cotangent satisfy the subvariety property.
Combine the results of Corollary \[cor:descent1\] and Lemma \[lem:ms-sing\] with Propositions \[prop:rational\] and \[prop:rational2\].
Uniformity for surfaces {#sec:secmainthm}
=======================
We begin by proving uniformity results for surfaces.
\[prop:unif\_2\] Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture. Let $(X,D) \to B$ be a stable family of surface pairs over $K$ with integral, openly canonical, and log canonical general fiber over a smooth projective variety $B$. If the log cotangent of each fiber is almost ample, then the cardinality of the set of $ms$-integral points of $(X_b,D_b)$ is uniformly bounded for all $b$ in $B(K)$.
By Theorem \[th:deg\_bound\] there exists a closed subset $A_b$ containing all the $ms$-integral points, for every fiber $(X_b,D_b)$ and every rational point $b \in U \subset B$, where $U$ is an open subset of $B$. Moreover $d_b = \deg A_b$ is uniformly bounded by a constant $N$ (depending on the invariants defining the moduli space of stable pairs where the fibers of the family lie). We can write $A_b = A_{0,b} \cup A_{1,b} = A_0 \cup A_1$ where $A_0$ is the part of pure dimension zero and $A_1$ is the part of pure dimension one. Since $\deg A_b = d_b < N$ it follows that $A_0$ contains at most $N$ points.
The dimension one part $A_1$, consists of irreducible curves $\{ {{\mathcal C}}_i \}_{i\in I} \subset A_b$ for a finite set $I$ whose cardinality is uniformly bounded by $N$. We restrict our attention to the subset $J \subset I$ of curves ${{\mathcal C}}_j$ which are not contained in $D_b$; note that the curves ${{\mathcal C}}_i$ with $i \in I \setminus J$ do not contain any $ms$-integral points since they are contained in $D_b$.
For every $j \in J$, we let $E_j = (C_j \cap D_b)$. Then Corollary \[cor:subvarietyprop\] implies that every $ms$-integral point of $(X_b, D_b)$ lying on $(C_j, E_j)$ is a stably-integral point. Moreover, since $N$ is uniformly bounded, there are only finitely many choices for the genus of the ${{\mathcal C}}_j$,the degree of $E_j$, and the number of singular points of $C_j$. Applying Theorem \[th:curves\] to the curves gives a bound on the maximum number of $ms$-integral points in the union of $\{ {{\mathcal C}}_j \}$ for $j \in J$, which does not depend on $b$.
Therefore the total number of $ms$-integral points in $A_b$ is uniformly bounded for every $b \in U$.
To obtain the result for all fibers we apply Noetherian induction on the base: let $N_0$ be the bound obtained above for the cardinality of the set of $ms$-integral points on every fiber $X_b$ with $b$ lying in $U \subset B$. Let $B_1$ be the union of all irreducible components of $B {\smallsetminus}U$ whose generic point is openly log-canonical and consider the restricted family $(X_1,D_1) \to B_1$. Applying the procedure described in this proof to this new family gives a bound $N_1$ for the fiber lying in an open set $U_1 \subset B_1$. This process gives a sequence of $B_i$ which by Noetherian induction, since $\dim B_i > \dim B_{i+1}$, exhausts all points of $B$ corresponding to log-canonical stable pairs in a finite number of steps. Then $N = \max N_i$ is a uniform bound for the cardinality of the set of $ms$-integral points on every fiber.
\[cor:unif\_2\] Assume the Lang-Vojta Conjecture. Let $(X,D)$ be a log canonical stable surface pair with $D$ a ${{\mathbb Q}}$-Cartier divisor and good model $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}}) \to B$. Suppose that each fiber of $({{\mathcal X}}, {{\mathcal D}})$ has almost ample log cotangent. Then there exists a constant $N = N(K,S,v)$ where $v$ is the volume of $(X,D)$, such that the set of $ms$-integral points of $(X,D)$ has cardinality at most $N$, i.e. $$\# (X {\smallsetminus}D)({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{ms}) \leq N = N(K,S,v)$$
\[rmk:higherdim\] Corollary \[cor:unif\_2\] can be extended to higher dimensions considering the set of $ms$-integral points lying on stable subvarieties. However in that case the conclusion is too weak, since on a variety of $\dim > 1$ there is a dense collection of non-stable subvarieties.
It is enough to apply Theorem \[prop:unif\_2\] to the tautological family of the moduli space ${\mathcal M}_\Gamma$ of stable pairs of dimension 2, volume $v$ and coefficient set $I = \{ 1 \}$ (see [@kp]).
Stack of stable pairs over ${{\mathbb Q}}$ {#sec:stacks}
==========================================
Suppose that we fix any moduli functor $\mathfrak{F}$ of stable log varieties of fixed dimension, volume and coefficient set as in [@kp]; Let $
({{\mathcal U}}, {{\mathcal D}}) \to {\mathcal M}_\Gamma
$ be the universal family, universal divisor and moduli stack representing the functor $\mathfrak{F}$. Before dealing with models we first need to prove that ${\mathcal M}_\Gamma$ can be defined over ${{\mathbb Q}}$, and is still a Deligne-Mumford stack with projective coarse moduli space.
The main theorem of [@kp] states that the moduli stack ${\mathcal M}_\Gamma$ exists over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0. Here we show the existence and projectivity of the moduli space over ${{\mathbb Q}}$. Throughout this section, we denote the Deligne-Mumford moduli stack over $\overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}$, by ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma,\overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$.
\[th:Q\] The moduli stack of stable pairs over ${{\mathbb Q}}$ is Deligne-Mumford.
Let $S = \operatorname{Spec}{\overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$ and let $(S_{\alpha}, u_{\alpha \beta})$ be a projective system of schemes so that $S = \varprojlim_{\alpha} S_{\alpha}$ and all $S_{\alpha} = \operatorname{Spec}K_{\alpha}$, where $K_{\alpha}$ is a finite extension of ${{\mathbb Q}}$. By [@kp Proposition 5.11], the stack ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, \overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$ of stable pairs is a Deligne-Mumford stack of finite type over $S$. By [@Olsson Proposition 2.2], there exists a Deligne-Mumford stack of finite type ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\alpha}}$ over some $S_{\alpha}$ and an isomorphism ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, \overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}} \cong {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\alpha}} \times_{S_{\alpha}} \operatorname{Spec}{\overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$ (if necessary, replace $S_{\alpha}$ so that ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\alpha}}$ is a moduli stack).
Since ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\alpha}}$ is Deligne-Mumford, there is a surjective étale morphism $u: U \to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\alpha}}$ where $U$ is a scheme. Define ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$ to be the moduli stack of stable pairs over ${{\mathbb Q}}$. We now wish to prove that ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$ is a Deligne-Mumford stack. To do so, consider the surjective morphism $\psi: U \to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\alpha}} \to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$. By [@stacks-project Tag05UL], ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$ is a Deligne-Mumford stack if the morphism $\psi$ is surjective, smooth, and representable by algebraic spaces.
Then the morphism $\psi$ is smooth and surjective, since the morphism $u$ is smooth and surjective, and the morphism $\phi$ is étale and surjective since the map $S_{\alpha} \to \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathbb Q}}$ is. To show representability of $\psi$, it suffices to check representability of $\phi$ as we know that the map $u$ is representable. Consider the following diagram, where $T$ is an algebraic space, and both squares are fiber product diagrams. $$\xymatrix{ \widetilde{T} \ar[r]^{} \ar[d]_{} & T \ar[d]^{} \\
{\mathcal M}_{S_{\alpha}} \ar[r]^{\phi} \ar[d] & {\mathcal M}_{{{\mathbb Q}}} \ar[d] \\
S_{\alpha} \ar[r]^{} & \operatorname{Spec}{{\mathbb Q}}}$$ To show that $\phi$ is representable, we must show that the fiber product $\widetilde{T}$ is an algebraic space whenever $T$ is. Since both squares are fiber products, $\widetilde{T} \cong S_{\alpha} \times_{\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathbb Q}}} T$ is also a fiber product, and is thus an algebraic space since it is the base change of an algebraic space by a field extension.
For Appendix \[app\], where we give an alternative approach to models of stable pairs, we need to appeal to the projective coarse moduli space over ${{\mathbb Q}}$, so we show its projectivity.
\[th:proj\_coarse\] The coarse moduli space $M_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$ is a projective variety.
By [@kp Corollary 6.3], the coarse moduli space $M_{\Gamma, \overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$ is a projective variety. Let ${{\mathcal L}}$ denote the ample line bundle on ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, \overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$. While ${{\mathcal L}}$ may not be defined over ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\alpha}}$, by [@Olsson Proposition 2.2], we obtain some $S_{\beta}$ so that ${{\mathcal L}}\to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, \overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$ is defined over $S_{\beta}$, where $S_{\beta}$ again corresponds to a finite extension of ${{\mathbb Q}}$. Taking an algebraic extension containing the fields corresponding to both $S_{\alpha}$ and $S_{\beta}$, call the corresponding affine scheme $S_{\gamma}$, we obtain a stack ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma, S_{\gamma}}$ where the ample line bundle ${{\mathcal L}}$ is defined. Now we wish to show that ${{\mathcal L}}$ is an ample line bundle exhibiting the coarse moduli space $M_{\Gamma, S_\gamma}$ as a projective variety. There Serre criterion for ampleness tells us that the higher cohomology vanishes on $M_{\Gamma, S_\gamma}$ for a high enough power of ${{\mathcal L}}$. By [@conrad Proposition 2.1], there is an isomorphism between the higher cohomology groups of $M_{\Gamma, \overline{{{\mathbb Q}}}}$ and $M_{\Gamma, S_\gamma}$, and thus shows that ampleness of the line bundle descends to $M_{\Gamma, S_\gamma}$. As a result, the coarse moduli space $M_{\Gamma, S_{\gamma}}$ is a projective variety. Using Galois descent, we show that projectivity descends to $M_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$.
Suppose $M_{\Gamma, S_{\gamma}}$ is defined over a field $K_{\gamma}$. Let $G$ be the finite Galois group corresponding to the finite extension $K_{\gamma} / {{\mathbb Q}}$. Then $\widetilde{{{\mathcal L}}} = (\displaystyle\otimes_{g \in G} {{\mathcal L}}^g)$ gives a Galois invariant line bundle on $M_{\Gamma, S_{\gamma}}$, where ${{\mathcal L}}^g$ denotes the pullback of the line bundle ${{\mathcal L}}$ through the isomorphisms induced by $g \in G$. Since ${{\mathcal L}}^g$ are ample line bundles for all $g \in G$, we see that the line bundle $\widetilde{{{\mathcal L}}}$ is a Galois invariant ample line bundle. Moreover, by Galois descent, the Galois invariant line bundle $\widetilde{{{\mathcal L}}}$ is pulled back from a line bundle ${{\mathcal L}}'$ on $M_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$. Since the morphism $M_{\Gamma, S_{\gamma}} \to M_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$ is finite, the line bundle ${{\mathcal L}}'$ is ample. This line bundle thus gives the desired projectivity of the coarse moduli space of $M_{\Gamma, {{\mathbb Q}}}$.
Sheaves on the universal family {#app:sheaves}
===============================
The goal of this section is to show that an almost ample log cotangent sheaf can be defined on the level of the universal family over the moduli stack of stable pairs.
Simultaneous normalizations
---------------------------
We begin by finding a sheaf on the normalization of fibers of the universal family, and to do so we use simultaneous normalizations of Chiang-Hsieh and Lipman [@ch] or Kollár [@kolnorm]. We recall the definition of a simultaneous normalization.
\[def:normal\] Let $f : X \to B$ be a morphism. A *simultaneous normalization* of $f$ is a morphism $\overline{\nu}: \overline{X}^\nu \to X$ such that:
1. $\overline{\nu}$ is finite and an isomorphism at the generic points of the fibers of $f$, and
2. $\overline{f} := f \circ \overline{\nu} : \overline{X}^\nu \to b$ is flat with geometrically normal fibers.
[@kolnorm Theorem 12]\[thm:norm\] Let $B$ be semi-normal, and let $f : X \to B$ be a projective morphism with generically reduced fibers of $\dim X_b = n$. The following are equivalent:
1. $X$ has a simultaneous normalization $\nu: \overline{X}^\nu \to X$
2. The Hilbert polynomial of the normalization of the fibers $\chi(X_B, {{\mathcal O}}(tH))$ is locally constant.
\[rmk:normal\] If $B$ is normal, then the total space $\overline{X}^\nu$ provided by the simultaneous normalization (if it exists) coincides with the normalization of the total space ([@ch Theorem 2.3]).
We need a simultaneous normalization as above, but in the pairs setting. The only complication is to determine what divisor to choose on $\overline{X}^\nu$ which corresponds to the double locus on fibers.
\[def:conductor\] Let $X$ be a reduced scheme and let $\nu: X^\nu \to X$ be its normalization. The *conductor ideal sheaf* is the annihilator sheaf $\mathrm{Ann}_{{{\mathcal O}}_X}(\nu_*{{\mathcal O}}_{X^\nu} / {{\mathcal O}}_X),$ is the largest ideal sheaf on $X$ that is also an ideal sheaf on $X^\nu$ .
\[rmk:conductor\] If $X$ is slc, then the conductor ideal sheaf of $X^\nu$ corresponds to a divisor (see [@kss Remark 4.5]). We will denote the divisor corresponding to the conductor by ${{\mathcal C}}$.
\[rmk:extensionnorm\] We now discuss the extension of Theorem \[thm:norm\] for pairs. Given a stable family $(X, D) \to B$ with log canonical general fiber over a semi-normal base $B$, if there exists a simultaneous normalization $\overline{\nu}: \overline{X}^\nu \to X$, then the total space is given by $({\overline{X}^\nu}, \overline{D}^\nu + \overline{\Delta}^{\nu}_{dl})$. Moreover, if the base $S$ is normal, then this total space is the normalization of $(X,D)$. In particular, the divisor $\overline{\Delta}^{\nu}_{dl}$, which cuts out the locus corresponding to the double locus of the normalization, corresponds to the double locus of the the normalization of each fiber.
Universal family construction
-----------------------------
\[strata\] We sketch the approach to stratifying $({{\mathcal U}}, {{\mathcal D}}) \to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$. Let $({{\mathfrak U}}, {{\mathfrak D}}) \to {{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}$ be models of the universal family and modulil space. We stratify so that:
1. Each strata ${{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma,b}}}$ satisfies Theorem \[thm:norm\] (i.e. locally constant Hilbert polynomial), giving a simultaneous normalization $({{\mathfrak U}}_b, {{\mathfrak D}}_b) \to {{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma,b}}$.
2. Each strata is normal, to apply Remark \[rmk:normal\], and then take a flattening stratification to ensure that the conductor divisor (Remark \[rmk:conductor\]) is flat over the base.
First we prove existence of a quasicoherent sheaf on each strata $({{\mathcal U}}_b, {{\mathcal D}}_b) \to {\mathcal M}_b$, and then show it also descends to a quasicoherent sheaf on any model $({{\mathfrak U}}_b, {{\mathfrak D}}_b) \to {{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma,b}}$. Fix a strata $({{\mathcal U}}_b, {{\mathcal D}}_b) \to {\mathcal M}_b$ of the moduli stack of stable pairs with fixed invariants $({{\mathcal U}}, {{\mathcal D}}) \to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$.
\[lem:cot\]There exists a coherent sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ on $({{\mathcal U}}_b, {{\mathcal D}}_b)$, up to finite base change, such that the restriction of ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ to any fiber is isomorphic to the log cotangent sheaf.
By Remark \[strata\] we can assume ${\mathcal M}_b$ is normal. Since ${{\mathcal U}}_B$ and ${\mathcal M}_B$ are Deligne-Mumford stacks, there exist surjective étale maps from schemes making the follow commute:
$$\xymatrixcolsep{5pc}
\xymatrix{ V_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \ar[r] \ar[d] & {{\mathcal U}}_b \ar[d] \\
V_{{\mathcal M}_b} \ar[r] & {\mathcal M}_b }$$
Since ${\mathcal M}_b$ is normal, by Remark \[rmk:normal\] the simultaneous normalization $\nu$ of $V_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \to V_{{\mathcal M}_b}$ is the normalization. Denote the new total space by $\overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b}$. By [@dori Lemma A.4], $\overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b}$ provides an atlas for a normal Deligne-Mumford stack $\overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b$. Furthermore, obtain a universal divisor $\overline{{{\mathcal D}}}_b$, which is ${{\mathcal D}}^\nu_b + {{\mathcal I}}^\nu_b$, where ${{\mathcal I}}^{\nu}_b$ denotes the divisor corresponding to the conductor ideal sheaf.
Since the map $\overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \to \overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b$ is faithfully flat, by [@vistoli 7.18], to define a sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ on $\overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b$ is equivalent to giving a sheaf over $\overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_n}$ with *descent data*. The scheme $\overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b}$ comes equipped with a coherent sheaf, namely the relative log cotangent with respect to the map $\overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \to V_{{\mathcal M}_b}$. Denoting this sheaf by ${{\mathcal G}}_b$, we want to exhibit descent data yielding the the desired sheaf on $(\overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b, \overline{{{\mathcal D}}}_b)$. We have a presentation $$\xymatrix{ V_R \ar@<.5ex>[r]^{p_1} \ar@<-0.5ex>[r]_{p_2} & \overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \ar[r] & \overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b}.$$ This gives two sheaves on $V_R$, namely $p_1^*{{\mathcal G}}_b$ and $p_2^*{{\mathcal G}}_b$. The sheaf ${{\mathcal G}}_b$ satisfies the universal property of the log cotangent sheaf (i.e. it is universal among derivations with simple poles on the divisor), implying the existence of an isomorphism $ \tau: p_1^*{{\mathcal G}}_b\to p_2^*{{\mathcal G}}_b$ In particular $\tau$ is a gluing datum for ${{\mathcal G}}_b$. Note that we have the following diagram. $$\xymatrix{V:= V_R \times_{\overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b}} V_R \ar@<.7ex>[r] \ar[r] \ar@<-.7ex>[r] & V_R \ar@<.5ex>[r]^{p_1} \ar@<-0.5ex>[r]_{p_2} & \overline{V}_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \ar[r] & \overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b}$$ To show that $\tau$ is a descent datum, we need to show that the fiber product of the three pullbacks of $\tau$ through the naturally defined maps $V \to V_R$ satisfy a cocycle relation. This follows from the universal property of the log cotangent ([@vistoli 7.20: (ii]). Thus there is a sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ on $(\overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b, \overline{{{\mathcal D}}}_b)$ that coincides fiberwise with the log cotangent sheaf of the corresponding stable pair. Taking the reflexive hull of ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ gives the desired sheaf on $(\overline{{{\mathcal U}}}_b, \overline{{{\mathcal D}}}_b)$.
The existence of the sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ on the universal family over any fixed strata implies that there is a choice of a finite extension $S' \supset S$ such that the log cotangent sheaf of every fiber of the fixed model of this universal family is almost ample.
\[lem:ample\_stack1\] Suppose that every stable pair of dimension two with fixed invariants $\Gamma$ defined over $K$ has almost ample log cotangent. Then there is a finite set of places $S$ and a sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$, possibly up to finite base change, of $(\mathfrak{U}_b, {{\mathfrak D}}_b) \to \mathfrak{M}_{b,\Gamma}$ with fixed invariants $\Gamma$ over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$ which is relatively almost ample away from $S$.
As above, let ${\mathcal M}_b$ be a (normal) strata of the moduli stack of stable pairs, let $({{\mathcal U}}_b, {{\mathcal D}}_b)$ be the universal family. By Lemma \[lem:cot\], the family $({{\mathcal U}}_b, {{\mathcal D}}_b) \to {\mathcal M}_b$ comes with a coherent sheaf, the log cotangent sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$, which by assumption is almost ample. We need to show that this sheaf extends to an almost ample coherent sheaf on any model. Consider the following presentation, $$\xymatrix{R_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \ar@<.5ex>[d]\ar@<-0.5ex>[d] & R_{{{{\mathfrak U}}}_b} \ar@<.5ex>[d]\ar@<-0.5ex>[d] \\ V_{{{\mathcal U}}_b} \ar[d] & V_{{{{\mathfrak U}}}_b} \ar[d] \\ {{{\mathcal U}}}_b \ar[d] \ar[r]& {{{\mathfrak U}}}_b \ar[d] \\ {\mathcal M}_b \ar[r] & {{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma,b}}}.$$ By construction of ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ in Lemma \[lem:cot\], we have an almost ample coherent sheaf, which we call $F_b$, on the atlas $V_{{{{\mathcal U}}}_b}$ and therefore, by pushing forward, we have a coherent sheaf on $V_{{{{\mathfrak U}}}_b}$. The two pullbacks of this sheaf to the presentation $R_{{{{\mathfrak U}}}_B}$ are compatible since they agree on the generic fiber and therefore give a descent datum for the sheaf. This implies that the sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ extends over an open subset of the base ${{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma,b}}$.
Recall that the sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ is almost ample on every fiber of $({{\mathfrak U}}_b, {{\mathfrak D}}_b)$ (possibly up to finite base change). Hence, after a finite extension $S' \supset S$ if necessary (but noting that this extension *does not* depend on $(X,D)$), we can assume that outside $S'$, the log cotangent sheaf extends to a relatively almost ample sheaf ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ over any model of the universal family.
\[cor:ample\_stack\] If every stable surface pair of fixed invariants $\Gamma$ defined over $K$ has almost ample log cotangent, then there is a finite set $S' \supset S$ such that ${{\mathcal F}}_b$ is relatively almost ample away from $S$.
Take the (finite) union of the $S$ appearing in Lemma \[lem:ample\_stack1\] for each stratum, noting that we can make the base changes of the above Lemma “global”, since the moduli space is of finite type.
Coarse moduli-stably integral points {#app}
====================================
In this appendix we show how to define $ms$-integral points without appealing to good models (see Section \[sec:models\]). The definition we state here is weaker, in the sense that it relies on models of the coarse moduli space of stable pairs instead of models of the stack. However, it has the advantage that such models can be proven to exist unconditionally. We start by recalling the following definition:
[@Deligne] \[def:coarse\] A *coarse moduli space* for a stack ${{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}$ over a base scheme $S$ is an algebraic space $[{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}]$ over $S$ with a $S$-morphism $\phi_{{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}}: {{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}\to [{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}]$ such that:
1. Every morphism ${{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}\to X$, for an algebraic space $X$, factors uniquely through $\phi_{{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}}$;
2. For every geometric point $\bar{s} \in S(\overline{k})$, $\pi$ induces a bijection between isomorphism classes of ${{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}$ over $\bar{s}$ and $[{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}(\bar{s}]$.
Given a stable family $(X, D)\to B$ with fixed volume, dimension and coefficient set (as in [@kp]), any moduli functor $\mathfrak{F}$ for which $(X,D)$ is an object of $\mathfrak{F}(B)$ is proper, and any algebraic space which is a coarse moduli space for the functor is a projective variety ([@kp Theorem 1.1]). In particular, if we fix one of such functor (for example the one described in [@kp Definition 5.6], which in addiction is a Deligne-Mumford-stack of finite type over any algebraic closed field of char 0), then the corresponding moduli stack of stable pairs ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$, for fixed geometric invariants, is projective and possesses a universal family $({{\mathcal U}},{{\mathcal D}})$ with the property that the following diagram commutes: $$\xymatrix{ (X,D) \ar[r]^{} \ar[d]_{} & ({{\mathcal U}},{{\mathcal D}}) \ar[d]^{} \\
B \ar[r]^{} & {\mathcal M}_\Gamma}$$ By Theorems \[th:Q\] and \[th:proj\_coarse\] the above diagram holds over ${{\mathbb Q}}$, and therefore over any number field, and the corresponding coarse moduli spaces are projective over the same ground field. It is not known in general whether the moduli stacks $({{\mathcal U}},{{\mathcal D}}) \to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$ possess models over Dedekind domains which are moduli stacks for stable pairs over such domains (although it is possible to find specific models of the such stacks using limit methods for algebraic stacks, see [@Olsson] or [@Rydh]). This would make the previous diagram hold when the family $(X,D) \to B$ has a model over the ring of integers of a number field. However, allowing finite extensions of $S$, one can identify specific models for the coarse moduli spaces that depend only on the stacks, the number field, and the set of places.
Given a number field $K$ and a finite set of places $S$ there exists $S^m \supset S$ such that the coarse moduli spaces $[{\mathcal M}_\Gamma], [{{\mathcal U}}]$, and $[{{\mathcal D}}]$ admit proper models over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S^m}$. Moreover, the set $S^m$ depends only on the (models of the) underlying projective varieties. \[th:models\]
By definition the stack ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$ has an underlying coarse moduli space which is a projective variety, and therefore it is the locus of the common zeroes of finitely many polynomials $g_1,\dots,g_n$ with coefficients in $K$. It then follows that since the number of overall coefficients are finite, there exists a (minimal) set of places $T$ such that the $g_i$ are polynomials with $T$-integral coefficients. For such $T$, the coarse moduli space $[{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]$ has a model: $[{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]^m$ over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,T}$. Since the model is projective by construction, it is also proper. Applying the same procedure to ${{\mathcal U}}$ and ${{\mathcal D}}$, one finds a (possibly larger) set of places $T$ such that $([{{\mathcal U}}],[{{\mathcal D}}])\to [M_\Gamma]$ have a model $([{{\mathcal U}}]^m,[{{\mathcal D}}]^m)\to [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]^m$ over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,T}$. Define $S^m = S \cup T$; by definition all the coarse moduli spaces have models over ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S^m}$ and, at most after enlarging the set $S^m$, the moduli map $({{\mathcal U}},{{\mathcal D}}) \to {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$ extends to a map on the models.
Given the model defined in Theorem \[th:models\], we can define coarse moduli stably $S$-integral points with respect to the choice of the model we made.
\[def:m-stab\] Let $P$ be a $K$-rational point of a stable pair $(X,D)$ defined over $K$, and let $\overline{P}$ denote the corresponding maps to the moduli space $$\xymatrix{ \overline{P}: \operatorname{Spec}K \ar[r] & (X,D) \ar[r]^{} \ar[d]_{} & ({{\mathcal U}},{{\mathcal D}}) \ar[d]^{} \\
\ & \operatorname{Spec}K \ar[r]^{} & {\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}}$$ We say that $P$ is *coarse moduli-stably $S$-integral over $K$*, or $cms$-integral, if the image is $(S^m,{{\mathcal D}})$ integral in ${{\mathcal U}}$. We denote by $X({{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}^{\text{cms}})$ the set of all $cms$ $S$-integral points over $K$.
Note that the previous definition depends on the choice of models made in Theorem \[th:models\]. This would be canonical if the existence of a moduli stack ${\mathcal M}_\Gamma$ over $\operatorname{Spec}{{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$ was known.
The definition of $cms$-integral points depend on models of the coarse moduli space. As we will use results comparing integral points of fibered powers of families of stable pairs with integral points of the pair itself, we need to ensure that Definition \[def:m-stab\] is compatible with fibered powers. In general fibered powers do not commute with the formation of coarse moduli spaces. However a weaker property of base change holds: for any map of schemes $S' \to S$, the following map:$
\iota: [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma \otimes_S S'] \to [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \otimes_S S'$ is universally injective. Recall that a universally injective morphism is a morphism that is injective on $K$-valued points for every field $K$.
We want to compare the coarse moduli space of the fiber product $[{\mathcal M}_\Gamma \times {\mathcal M}_\Gamma]$ with the fiber product of the coarse moduli space $[{\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \times [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]$ (every product is over the fixed base, $\operatorname{Spec}K$) in the case in which the coarse moduli space $[{{\mathfrak M}_{\Gamma}}]$ is a scheme. There is a map between the fibered product of the stack to the fibered power of the coarse moduli space given by composition as follows: $$\alpha: {\mathcal M}_\Gamma \times {\mathcal M}_\Gamma \to {\mathcal M}_\Gamma \times [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \to [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma \times [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]] \to [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \times [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma].$$ By the first property of coarse moduli spaces, this defines a map: $
\beta_2: [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma \times {\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \to [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \times [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma],
$ which, inductively, defines a map $ \beta_n: [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma^n] \to [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]^n.$
However this map is not injective in general, since the group of automorphisms of the fiber product is, in general, strictly contained in the product of the automorphism group. In particular, if (étale) locally over the coarse moduli space, ${\mathcal M}_\Gamma$ is presented locally as $X/G$, ${\mathcal M}_\Gamma \times {\mathcal M}_\Gamma$ is presented by the quotient of $X \times X$ by a finite group $G'$, which in general will be a subgroup of the $\operatorname{Aut}(X \times X)$. On the other hand, the coarse moduli space $[{\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \times [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]$ will look locally like $X/G \times X/G$. Since $G' \subset G \times G$ this gives locally a finite map $\beta: [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma \times {\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \to [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma] \times [{\mathcal M}_\Gamma]$.
\[def:fp\] Let $(X,D)$ be a stable pair defined over a $K$, let ${{\mathcal O}}_{K,S}$ be the ring of $S$-integers, and let $n$ be a positive integer. A rational point $P \in (X^n,D_n)$ is *coarse moduli stably $(S,D_n)$-integral* if $\beta(P)$ is $(S_m,{{\mathcal D}})$ integral in the model of the coarse moduli space given by the fiber product of the models defined in Theorem \[th:models\].
Explicitly, this happens if the pair over $\operatorname{Spec}K$ comes with a commutative diagram $$\xymatrix{ (X,D) \ar[r]^{} \ar[d]_{} & ({{\mathcal U}}, {{\mathcal D}}) \ar[d]^{} \\
\operatorname{Spec}K \ar[r]^{} & {\mathcal M}_\Gamma }$$ for a specific moduli stack ${\mathcal M}_{\Gamma}$. Let $[{{\mathcal U}}]^m$ be the model of the coarse moduli space $[{{\mathcal U}}]$ over ${{\mathcal O}}_{S^m,K}$: then $([{{\mathcal U}}]^m)^n$ is a model of $[{{\mathcal U}}]^n$. One can prove Theorem \[th:deg\_bound\] using $cms$-integral points instead of $ms$-integral points. However, to prove uniformity, one would need to extend the subvariety property to $cms$-integral points, which a priori is harder to achieve since there is no good model to refer to.
Hyperbolicity {#sec:apphyp}
=============
In this section we give an example that shows that hyperbolicity is not a closed condition, even under the assumption of almost ample log cotangent.
\[smoothing\] Let $C \subset {{\mathbb P}}^3$ be a curve. If there exists a surface $X \subset {{\mathbb P}}^3$ of sufficiently high degree such that $C \subset X$, then there exists a smoothing of $X$ in ${{\mathbb P}}^3$ that contains a smoothing of $C$.
Let $T = \operatorname{Spec}R$ with $R$ a DVR and ${{\mathcal C}}_T$ be a smoothing of $C$ in ${{\mathbb P}}^3$ such that $C \cong {{\mathcal C}}_0$. Consider the sequence of sheaves over $T$ $$0 \to {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T} \to {{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}^3_T} \to {{\mathcal O}}_{C_T} \to 0 .$$ Twisting by ${{\mathcal O}}(d)$, for any $d$, we have $$0 \to {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T}(d) \to {{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}^3_T}(d) \to {{\mathcal O}}_{C_T}(d) \to 0 .$$
Pushing forward along $\pi: {{\mathbb P}}^3_T \to T$, we have $$0 \to \pi_* {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T}(d) \to \pi_* {{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}^3_T}(d) \to \pi_* {{\mathcal O}}_{C_T}(d) \to R^1\pi_* {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T}(d),$$ but for all $d \gg 0$ we have $H^1({{\mathbb P}}^3_t, {{\mathcal I}}_{C_t}(d)) = 0$, hence by Cohomology and Base Change [@hartshorne Theorem 12.11], $R^1\pi_* {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T}(d)= 0$. Therefore we get an exact sequence $$0 \to \pi_* {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T}(d) \to \pi_* {{\mathcal O}}_{{{\mathbb P}}^3_T}(d) \to \pi_* {{\mathcal O}}_{C_T}(d) \to 0,$$ which shows that $\pi_* {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T}(d)$ is a vector bundle over $T$. Let $X$ be a surface with $C \subset X$, considered as an element of $H^0({{\mathbb P}}^3_0, {{\mathcal I}}_{C_0}(d))$. Let $\sigma$ be a general section of $\pi_* {{\mathcal I}}_{C_T}(d)$ such that $\sigma_0 \cong X$. To show that a general $\sigma$ gives a smoothing of $X$, it suffices to show that the general surface $X_t$ containing ${{\mathcal C}}_t$ is smooth. However, ${{\mathcal C}}_t$ is a smooth curve, so there exists a surface $X_t$ containing ${{\mathcal C}}_t$ and the general such $S_t$ is smooth (see e.g. [@smoothing Theorem 1.1, Remarks 1.2(a]).
Now we give an example that shows that in a stably family $(X,D) \to B$ with almost ample log cotangent there might exist families of curves that contain components of a fiber that are not of log general type. This example works whenever the double locus contains at least two components, with at least one being rational.
\[ex:counterexample\] Let $C = C_0 \cup C_g \subset {{\mathbb P}}^3$ be the union of a line $C_0$ and a curve $C_g$ of genus $g$ such that $C_0 \cap C_g$ is a single point $p$. For example, one could take $C_g$ to be a high genus curve in a hyperplane section $H \subset {{\mathbb P}}^3$ and $C_0$ to be a line transverse to $H$.
We can find a semismooth surface $X$ containing $C$ such that $C_0$ is contained in the double locus ${\Delta_{dl}}\subset X$. First, take any smooth surface $X_1$ of sufficiently high degree containing $C_g$ (e.g. see [@smoothing]) and any surface $X_2$ containing $C_0$. If $X_3$ is a sufficiently general surface containing $C_0$, the surface $X = X_1 \cup X_2 \cup X_3$ is semismooth, contains $C$, and has $C_0$ contained in the double locus.
Applying Proposition \[smoothing\], we can find a smoothing ${{\mathcal X}}_T$ of ${{\mathcal X}}_0 \cong X$ in ${{\mathbb P}}^3$ that is simultaneously a smoothing of $C = {{\mathcal C}}_0$ to a genus $g$ curve ${{\mathcal C}}_t$. If $D \subset {{\mathbb P}}^3$ is a general hyperplane section, the family $({{\mathcal X}}_T, D \times T)$ is a family of semismooth pairs such that each fiber $({{\mathcal X}}_{t\ne 0}, D)$ has almost ample log cotangent and the central fiber $({{\mathcal X}}_0, D)$ has almost ample log cotangent. However, the family of curves $\big({{\mathcal C}}_T, ({{\mathcal C}}_T \cap D \times T)\big)$ is not stable. In the central fiber ${{\mathcal C}}_0$, the rational component $C_0$ meets $C_g$ in a single point $p$ and $C_0 \cap D$ is a double point $q$. Therefore, in stable reduction we blowup up $q$ and the strict transform of $C_0$ is contracted.
\[rmk:example\] Example \[ex:counterexample\] shows the existence of a stable family $(X,D) \to B$ over a curve, whose generic fiber $(X_\eta, D_\eta)$ is normal with almost ample log cotangent, and therefore hyperbolic. However, the special fiber $(X_0, D_0)$, although having almost ample log cotangent in the normalization, contains a rational curve in the double locus which only meets $D_0$ at a single (nodal) point. Therefore, the special fiber contains a curve which is *not* of log general type.
|
Quarterback Len Dawson may have been named the game's MVP, but Super Bowl IV was won off the foot of Chiefs kicker Jan Stenerud, whose three first-half field goals helped pace Kansas City to a 16-0 halftime lead.
Quarterback Len Dawson may have been named the game's MVP, but Super Bowl IV was won off the foot of Chiefs kicker Jan Stenerud, whose three first-half field goals helped pace Kansas City to a 16-0 halftime lead.
While recording the most wins in AFL history, Hank Stram led the Dallas Texans and Kansas City Chiefs to AFL titles in 1962 and '66 respectively before guiding the Chiefs to the '69 AFL title and a Super Bowl win a few weeks later.
While recording the most wins in AFL history, Hank Stram led the Dallas Texans and Kansas City Chiefs to AFL titles in 1962 and '66 respectively before guiding the Chiefs to the '69 AFL title and a Super Bowl win a few weeks later.
Get expert analysis, unrivaled access, and the award-winning storytelling only SI can provide - from Peter King, Tom Verducci, Lee Jenkins, Seth Davis, and more - delivered straight to you, along with up-to-the-minute news and live scores. |
A new phenotype linked to SPG27 and refinement of the critical region on chromosome.
Hereditary spastic paraplegias are genetically and clinically heterogeneous. Twenty-six loci have been identified to date. SPG27 was recently mapped to chromosome 10 in a single family with autosomal recessive hereditary spastic paraplegia (AR-HSP) and a pure phenotype. We describe a Tunisian family with a complicated form of AR-HSP also linked to SPG27. The parents are first cousins and 3 out of their 4 children manifest early onset progressive spastic paraparesis associated with sensorimotor polyneuropathy. In addition, the eldest girl had facial dysmorphism and short stature (-3SD). Two of the three patients were mentally retarded, and one of these also had cerebellar signs. Their ages at onset were 2, 5 and 7 years. A genome-wide scan suggested linkage to SPG27 on the long arm of chromosome 10 with a multipoint lod score of 2.54. In addition, a recombination detected in this family by haplotype reconstruction reduced the SPG27 locus from 25 to 19.6 cM. This is the first clinical description of a complicated form of spastic paraplegia, characterized by great phenotypic variability among the sibs, associated with the SPG27 locus. |
The study collected information from visceral leishmaniasis or kala-azar patients, following informed consent, through structured interviews, on their care seeking experiences for the illnesses as well as their socio-economic and demographic characteristics. The study also conducted in-depth interviews with the staff, following informed consent, who were involved in reporting of kala-azar patients in the fields, and asked them about their experience in reporting of the patients. Given the nature of these data and the sensitivities associated with them, making data fully available to public will not be ethical and constitute a violation of the agreements, as stipulated in the \'consent form\'. This is particularly important for the qualitative in-depth interviews, the full disclosure of which may lead to identification of the participating staff. Imposing restrictions to public access to some of the data would thus be warranted. icddr,b (International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh) is the owner of the data. The organization recognizes the public health, social and intellectual value of providing access to and increasing use of its knowledge data, and is pleased to share such data according to its own Data Policy. The icddr,b Data Policy and Data Access Policy can be found at the following web-link: <http://www.icddrb.org/policies>. In order to obtain access to the data sets of this study, interested researchers may contact Dr. Mohammed Abdus Salam, Director, Research & Clinical Administration and Strategy (RCAS), icddr,b. His contact details are provided below: Tel: (+ 8802) 9827081; Mobile phone: +(88) 01711547903; Email: <[email protected]>
Introduction {#sec005}
============
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), caused by protozoan parasites transmitted by sandflies, is a systemic illness characterized by fever and splenomegaly. The disease is endemic in impoverished tropical areas globally \[[@pntd.0003531.ref001]--[@pntd.0003531.ref003]\], and in South Asia is known as kala-azar (black-fever) and only affects humans.
The governments of India, Bangladesh and Nepal in 2005 committed to eliminate kala-azar by 2015. Elimination is defined as annual incidence of less than 1 per 10,000 population at the district or sub-district level \[[@pntd.0003531.ref004]\]. Surveillance is one of the main strategies for kala-azar elimination \[[@pntd.0003531.ref005]\]. In Bangladesh, surveillance provides estimates and trends of the nationwide occurrence of kala-azar \[[@pntd.0003531.ref006]\]. Kala-azar is reported every month starting from the *upazila* or subdistrict level. We have studied surveillance in a highly endemic sub-district of Bangladesh and here we report our findings. We analyse factors influencing case recording and make recommendations to improve surveillance.
Methods {#sec006}
=======
Study setting {#sec007}
-------------
The study was conducted in Gaffargaon sub-district of Mymensingh district in Bangladesh, 80km north-east of Dhaka. Gaffargaon is divided into 15 unions and 214 villages. Around half of the population of Gaffargaon are male, half are literate and most are farmers. The sub-district, 398 sq. km. with a population of 430,000, reported the third highest number of kala-azar cases in 2011\[[@pntd.0003531.ref007],[@pntd.0003531.ref008]\].
Study sample and case detection {#sec008}
-------------------------------
We expected 1.4 kala-azar cases per 100 households (based on an unpublished 2009 survey data). Also, using Epi Info StatCalc, we calculated that we would need a sample of 68 cases (i.e. 4857 households) to detect 50% under-reporting through the national surveillance system with 10% precision and 90% confidence \[[@pntd.0003531.ref009]\]. First, we excluded two of the 15 unions that were part of central administration. Care seeking experience of kala-azar patients from these two unions would be different than that of the patients from the other unions because of the proximity to the Gaffargaon *upazila* health complex (UHC). Then we randomly sampled three unions from the sampling frame of 13 unions. In each of these sampled unions we randomly selected three villages. We then sampled households in each village, aiming for about 600 households per village. If a village had more than 600 households we divided it into different paras or localities and randomly sampled paras until we got 600 households. If a village had less than 600 households, we sampled all the households of that village. This resulted in sampling of less number of households than expected. The resulting sample included a total of 4703 households from nine sampled villages from three sampled unions of Gaffargaon.
Our case definition required diagnosis by a qualified health care provider based on clinical presentation and a positive confirmatory diagnostic test. Most of the study respondents could not mention the name of the confirmatory diagnostic test. But they mentioned that the providers who confirmed kala-azar did so based on positive diagnostic test results for kala-azar. Going from sampled house to house in the period December 2011 to May 2012, we sought cases that had occurred between January 2010 and December 2011. In each household the informant was a case or a senior family member.
Data collection: Interviews, observations and UHC records {#sec009}
---------------------------------------------------------
If there was more than one kala-azar case in a household, we studied the earliest case in order to avoid household clustering. Kala-azar cases and their families were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. For cases less than 18 years of age, a parent or carer was interviewed. Surviving family members of deceased cases were interviewed. We collected demographic and economic data, date of symptom onset, signs and symptoms, care seeking experiences and diagnosis.
We also studied recording and reporting of kala-azar cases making general observations at the Gaffargaon UHC. As well, we interviewed three key health service staff from the Gaffargaon UHC who were involved in the kala-azar reporting system. We asked them to detail their role in kala-azar reporting. We asked about obstacles to reporting and how the reporting system could be improved. These semi-structured interviews were audio-recorded.
We examined Gaffargaon UHC records to determine if cases we detected had been entered in the registers. Inpatient, outpatient and laboratory registers were reviewed. We sought record entries in the 2010--2011 periods for all kala-azar cases we detected in the community. We used the name and address to confirm identification of the patients in the register books.
Data management and analysis {#sec010}
----------------------------
Quantitative data were digitized using Epi Info (version 3.5.3). Information from the patients and families was recorded in MS Excel in a file which also noted whether the patient was recorded in the UHC registers. Qualitative data included extensive notes on general observations. The recordings were transcribed in the Bengali language for the three UHC staff.
Quantitative data were analysed using STATA version 8 \[[@pntd.0003531.ref010]\]. We compared frequencies of patient and health system factors for those found and not found in hospital records. The factors were age, sex, place of diagnosis, treatment location, drug and year. Any difference with p\<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Interview transcripts were contrasted for recurring themes and informative quotations related to the research questions. Quotations used in this publication were translated into English by author KMR. All analyses were supported by the general observations.
Ethics {#sec011}
------
Informed written consent was obtained from participants. For illiterate interviewees, the consent form was read out loud and the participants' fingerprints were obtained on the consent forms. Before conducting the study of the kala-azar reporting system and interviewing staff of Gaffargaon UHC, written permission was obtained from the relevant authority based centrally in Dhaka and at Gaffargaon. Individual consent was also obtained from interviewed staff who were advised that they would not be identified. Ethical approvals were provided by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Australian National University and the Ethical Review Committee of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b). Both the ethics committees specifically approved the use of thumb print procedures.
Results {#sec012}
=======
Study participants {#sec013}
------------------
We screened 4703 households and identified 89 people fulfilling our case definition of kala-azar. Before further analysis, we excluded cases whose circumstances did not represent the typical probability for notification from Gaffargaon UHC. These exclusions included those who migrated out (5 cases) and those who received special clinical care or care from outside Gaffargaon (9 cases). As well, to avoid household clustering, we excluded 15 cases that arose in a family that had already provided a case for our sample. Two other cases refused to participate so 58 remained for analysis in our study of surveillance.
Kala-azar patient flow and monthly reporting {#sec014}
--------------------------------------------
The flow of kala-azar patients and related information is shown in [Fig 1](#pntd.0003531.g001){ref-type="fig"}. We identified three registers (laboratory, kala-azar and admission) where staff recorded the patient name and other details. Each month, using the kala-azar register as the final source of the information, the responsible nurse reports to the UHC statistician the consolidated data on the number of kala-azar cases (by age, sex, treatment status). Then the statistician compiles a monthly kala-azar tally along with the routine 'disease profile' report and sends this to the Civil Surgeon's office responsible for that district.
{#pntd.0003531.g001}
Surveillance of kala-azar and factors influencing reporting {#sec015}
-----------------------------------------------------------
After reviewing the UHC registers in Gaffargaon we concluded that there were no records for 29 of our 58 actively detected cases. Thus, overall, 50% (95% CI: 37%--63%) were recorded by the government surveillance system---44% in 2010 and 59% in 2011. Accordingly we can estimate that no more than 50% (95% CI: 37%--63%) of kala-azar cases were reportable through the government mechanism that depends on UHC recording.
Using the survey data we explored factors associated with recording in the UHC kala-azar register. Patient attributes showed some associations as follows: age 18 years or more and male sex increased the likelihood of being recorded by the UHC, although none of the associations were statistically significant ([Table 1](#pntd.0003531.t001){ref-type="table"}).
10.1371/journal.pntd.0003531.t001
###### Factors influencing UHC recording of kala-azar patients.
{#pntd.0003531.t001g}
Factor Kala-azar cases detected Odds ratio[\*](#t001fn001){ref-type="table-fn"} [\#](#t001fn002){ref-type="table-fn"} (95% CI)
--------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
**Age**
\< 18 years 16 (55) 21 (72) referent
18 years or more 13 (45) 8 (28) 3.3 (0.7--10.0)
**Sex**
Female 8 (28) 12 (41) referent
Male 21 (72) 17 (59) 2.2 (0.6--8.1)
**Facility/ provider confirmed kala-azar for the first time**
Private 18 (62) 15 (52) referent
Public 11 (38) 14 (48) 0.5 (0.1--2.0)
**Location KA drug administered**
Not at UHC 24 (83) 13 (45) referent
At UHC 5 (17) 16 (55) 1.8 (0.3--11.5)
**Year of KA treatment**
2010 16 (55) 20 (69) referent
2011 13 (45) 9 (31) 1.9 (0.6--6.5)
\*Relative odds of being recorded in the UHC registers
\#Odds ratio after adjusting for kala-azar treatment drugs (SAG or miltefosine) because miltefosine is only available through the UHC and thus more likely to associate with recording \[[@pntd.0003531.ref016]\]
We also found certain health system factors associated with recording in the UHC kala-azar register. First, place of diagnosis (public vs. private) was indicative (OR = 0.5; 95% CI = 0.1--2.0). As well, place of drug supply was indicative: among those recorded 100% were supplied their treatment at the UHC as compared to 76% of those who were not recorded (p \<0.01). Actual administration of kala-azar drug at the UHC was associated with 80% higher odds of being recorded (OR = 1.8; 95% CI = 0.3--11.5). We also observed that the probability of being found in the UHC record further improved in 2011 relative to 2010 (OR = 1.9; 95% CI = 0.6--6.5).
Interviews with staff indicated a number of factors influencing reporting. There were issues such as the burden of recording numerous notifiable diseases on the monthly 'disease profile' report.
> "It is not just one report that we need to prepare from the hospital every month ... All diarrhoea, ARI, kala-azar (cases) ...(plus)... reports from the field (administrative level lower than the subdistrict), we send all these consolidated figures."
As well, the reporting system itself has changed, leading to new routines along with a new kala-azar reporting form.
> "We used to send the report on kala-azar with other diseases in the monthly 'disease profile'. In that form there was a row for kala-azar. Later a separate form for kala-azar was introduced. We now send reports on kala-azar both through the 'disease profile' as well as in the separate form."
The informant indicated that reporting channels were sometimes complex. This reflected the need to get the information through quickly but this can be difficult in hard copy due to the need for a signature by the *Upazila* Health and Family Planning Officer (otherwise known as the Thana Health Administrator or THA).
> "We send the reports to the office of Civil Surgeon. We often send them through email. Sometimes we send the numbers over telephone if there is any hurry. Even through mobile phone. ...We send hard copies (later) after getting it signed by the THA."
In addition, different nursing staff recorded the patient data at different times. This may cause the quality or completeness of recording to vary. However, the system used was unlikely to lead to duplicate recording because of the unique registration number.
> "We put a serial number... this serial number is the registration number. ... We show the patient only once."
Discussion {#sec016}
==========
Only half of the kala-azar cases arising in Gaffargaon sub-district, a highly endemic area within Mymensingh district, were recorded in the *upazila* health complex records. Consequently the monthly tallies of kala-azar cases reported to the government of Bangladesh represent only about half of the actual cases that occur. Investigation of socio-demographic factors associated with non-recording was generally uninformative---all factors tested were not significantly associated and effect estimates had wide confidence limits revealing limited statistical power. However, health system factors had more influence. Recording in the UHC kala-azar register significantly associated with supply of drug (UHC) and place of administration of the drug (UHC). We observed improvement of recording in 2011 compared to 2010.
Previous population based studies in Bangladesh have not reported surveillance performance in any way comparable to our study \[[@pntd.0003531.ref002], [@pntd.0003531.ref011]--[@pntd.0003531.ref013]\]. In India, Singh et al (2006) assessed kala-azar surveillance in Bihar in 2003. They searched households for people with fever for over 15 days duration and confirmed kala-azar with microscopic parasite identification in spleen or bone marrow aspirates. Sixty-five cases were detected through their active case search and only 8 (12.3%) were reported \[[@pntd.0003531.ref014]\]. The same group in a later study found that only 17% of the cases were reported \[[@pntd.0003531.ref015]\]. Those over 30 years of age were significantly less likely to be reported, but no other patient, family or health system factor was shown to be indicative.
Our study was done on a two-year sample of kala-azar patients in a geo-demographically defined segment of the Bangladesh population in a highly endemic area. We achieved our principal aim of estimating with reasonable accuracy the proportion of incident kala-azar cases being recorded by the health system (i.e. 50%). But our sample size did not have statistical power to enable conclusive sub-analyses of factors related to surveillance. However, the qualitative data we collected from the staff based at the study UHC were able to provide some perspective on the issue of preparing tallies and reporting to the government. The system in use involves recording in a kala-azar register which is the source for reporting kala-azar to the statistician to enable the monthly tally. The staff we interviewed made comments about the data flow and forms, and the figure we produced showed a rather complex system that could be simplified.
We were not able to determine the actual proportion reported because we could not separate the contribution expected from our sample from the contribution expected from the rest of the population served by the same UHC. If we could have searched for cases in the entire population of Gaffargaon (around 430,000) for a particular month then we would be able to compare the number of cases detected in the community and number of cases reported from the UHC. But this would require substantial resources.
We learnt from our study that around 50% of kala-azar cases in a highly endemic area of Bangladesh are not yet detectable by the government passive surveillance system. Obstacles to reporting were related to the reporting system and the reporting burden for multiple diseases. Future studies involving larger samples and including interviews with health authorities at more central level and surveillance experts at the national level will generate more precise and representative evidence on the performance of kala-azar surveillance in Bangladesh.
Supporting Information {#sec017}
======================
###### STROBE checklist.
(DOC)
######
Click here for additional data file.
We are grateful to Communicable Disease Control, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Government of Bangladesh. We are also thankful to the management and staff of the *Upazila* Health Complex of Gaffargaon for providing all sorts of supports needed for the study. Staff involved in data collection for the study worked to their utmost sincerity, hard-work and honesty. This research work would not be possible without the spontaneous participation of the community members of Gaffargaon.
[^1]: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
[^2]: Conceived and designed the experiments: KMR DH CDB SAS SKB SPL ACS. Performed the experiments: KMR SAS SKB. Analyzed the data: KMR IVMS AO SAS SKB ACS. Wrote the paper: KMR IVMS DH AO CDB SAS SKB SPL ACS.
|
UA Astronomers Discover That Earth's Second Moon Wears Apollo Paint
This image of the Apollo 12 lunar module was taken from the command module during the 1969 mission. Part of an Apollo Saturn IV booster rocket may have just become Earth's 2nd "moon." (NASA photo)
Astronomers have the first direct evidence that a newly discovered object orbiting Earth is debris from one of the Apollo moon launches over 30 years ago.
Carl Hergenrother and Robert Whiteley, astronomers at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, used the Steward Observatory 61-inch telescope near Mount Bigelow in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson for observations of J002E3.
The mysterious object named J002E3 was discovered in orbit around Earth on Sept. 3 by amateur astronomer Bill Yeung, viewing from a site in southern California. The discovery made news headlines as it could be the only satellite, other than the moon, naturally captured by Earth to enter Earth orbit.
After studying the object's past motion, Paul Chodas of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., concluded that the object had been orbiting the sun until April of this year, when it was captured by Earth. Researchers have believed that J002E3's small size and unusual orbit suggest the object is no asteroid or other natural object, but a piece of man-made "space junk," possibly a piece of one of the Saturn V rockets that launched American astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program. The JPL news release is on the web at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov
Hergenrother and Whiteley measured reflected light from the object Sept. 12 and 13. The photometric measurements showed that the object spins once every 63.5 seconds or once every 127 seconds more observations are needed to pin down the exact time, Hergenrother said. "Such a rapid rate of rotation is not unheard of either for an asteroid or a piece of man-made space junk, but is very consistent with each," he added.
The UA astronomers made their definitive observations with various filters to sample the colors, or spectra, that J002E3 reflects.
"Rather than looking like a known asteroid, the colors were consistent with the spectral properties of an object covered with white Titanium oxide (TiO) paint," Hergenrother said. "The Apollo Saturn S-IVB upper stages were painted with TiO paint," he noted.
Hergenrother and Whiteley checked their observations with some professional colleagues, " a kind of informal 'peer review' just in case we were way off on things," Hergenrother said.
Those key colleagues include Richard Binzel and Andy Rivken of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Binzel and Rivken took infrared spectra on the unique object, and those spectra "confirm that J002E3 is a dead ringer for white TiO paint," Hergenrother added.
The object is most likely a S-IVB from either Apollo 8, 10, 11, or 12, with Apollo 12 being most likely, the UA researchers conclude.
"As Bill Yeung said, this is the first recorded observation of any object being captured into a geocentric orbit," Hergenrother said.
"There is also a fairly good chance that J002E3 might crash into the moon at some point. Scientifically, that isn't too important, but it is interesting, " he said. |
Local News
2:30 pm
Wed October 9, 2013
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick responds to a reporter question during an NFL football media availability in Foxborough, Mass., Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013.
Credit (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
On Tuesday night, the WGBH program Frontline premiered League of Denial, an investigation into how the NFL kept secret the deadly dangers caused by concussions for decades.
WGBH News reporter Adam Reilly went to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro on Wednesday for reaction from the New England Patriots. Reilly asked Coach Bill Belichick what he and the Patriots are doing now to make sure players' brains are protected.
Belichick: First of all, I’m not really familiar with whatever it is you’re referring to, whatever this thing is. But it doesn’t make any difference whether there is or isn’t one going on. We have our protocol with all medical situations, including that one and that’s followed by our medical department, which I’m not a doctor and I don’t think we want me treating patients.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady throws a pass during a stretching and drills session before NFL football practice begins in Foxborough, Mass., Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013. The Patriots host the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
Credit (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
What we do in the medical department, that’s medical procedures that honestly I don’t know enough to talk about. But I can say this, there’s nothing more important to a coach than the health of his team. Without a healthy team, you don’t have a team. We try to do everything we can to have our players healthy, to prepare them, to prevent injuries and then to treat injuries and to have them play as close to 100 percent as we can because without them, you have no team.
Reilly also questioned quarterback Tom Brady about how much he worries about concussions on and off the field. |
Oxwall 1.6 is Delayed
Earlier we announced to release it in June, then we changed the target to August, now we are doing it again. Yes. Sorry.
We are very aware about armies of users waiting 1.6 with mobile solutions, and we know that expectations are high. This is the exact reason why we are taking more time to develop and polish every detail.
I’ll remind you that we are not just making “mobile versions” of essential plugins — our task is to also provide a basis for mobile plugins by other developers. Oxwall is a platform. Originally, Oxwall 1.0 also took much longer than it would take to just develop its community site features. And inevitably, also longer than we planned.
Oxwall 1.5 received spectacular feedback and community movement. We are aiming at repeating and exceeding this with 1.6. Having said that, I want to assure you that we are not making this mistake of miscommunication again. Target release date will be announced when we are 100% able to meet it, about the time Oxwall 1.6 enters the internal testing stage.
Oxwall has been known for its quality and support beyond what people expect from open source projects of similar size. We will do our best to keep it this way further. It’s your support and feedback that enables us to do so. |
## Surviving the Applewhites
## Stephanie S. Tolan
## Dedication
For Ronald Francis Tolan
The bright, creative, funny,
playful, rock-solid stubborn,
and frequently maddening
patriarch of the Tolan clan.
We love you!
## Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
My name is not Edie. It's E.D. E period, D...
Chapter Two
So far so good, Jake thought. This girl was bugged...
Chapter Three
E.D. sat in the kitchen pushing a mini-wheat around in...
Chapter Four
When Jake and his grandfather drove in that morning, Lucille...
Chapter Five
When she finished her breakfast, E.D. had gone out to...
Chapter Six
Jake sat on the front porch steps of the main...
Chapter Seven
E.D. had gone to her room to get away from...
Chapter Eight
Jake stared at the serving dishes on the table. Visions...
Chapter Nine
E.D. slammed the door to her room and threw herself...
Chapter Ten
According to the alarm clock on his bedside table, it...
Chapter Eleven
In the schoolroom E.D. was getting ready for the day's...
Chapter Twelve
A week later, Jake stood in the bathroom of Wisteria...
Chapter Thirteen
E.D. was alone in the schoolroom, sitting at the computer...
Chapter Fourteen
What's the matter with the girl? Jake thought. He'd saved...
Chapter Fifteen
Her father hadn't been gone two minutes before Jake started...
Chapter Sixteen
Sitting in the passenger seat of the newly repaired Miata...
Chapter Seventeen
You're kidding!" Sybil had just brought in a tray of...
Chapter Eighteen
Jake had finished gelling his hair. Now he turned his...
Chapter Nineteen
For a week Govindaswami had been teaching them to meditate.
Chapter Twenty
Jake was trying to get ready for rehearsal with Destiny,...
Chapter Twenty-one
E.D. had very little time to revel in being a...
Chapter Twenty-two
While the others were having breakfast at the main house,...
Chapter Twenty-three
By the time everyone was settled at the table for...
Chapter Twenty-four
Jake and Archie each managed to get hold of one...
Chapter Twenty-five
E.D. woke early, dreading her father's call to Mrs. Montrose.
Chapter Twenty-six
Jake had found a crumpled cigarette in the bottom of...
Chapter Twenty-seven
E.D. looked up from the computer screen as one of...
Chapter Twenty-eight
Winston was so unsettled by the change in Jake's appearance...
Chapter Twenty-nine
The day of the opening was going to go down...
Chapter Thirty
Raves, every last one of them!" Randolph said. It wasn't...
Applewhites At Wit's End
Chapter One
It was a dark and stormy night when Randolph Applewhite...
Chapter Two
When Jake had first come to live at Wit's End,...
Back Ads
Other Books by Stephanie S. Tolan
Copyright
About the Publisher
## Chapter One
My name is not Edie. It's E.D. E period, D period."
"What kind of a name is that?"
The boy slouching against the porch railing had scarlet spiked hair, a silver ring through one dark brown eyebrow, and too many earrings to count. He was dressed entirely in black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black high-top running shoes—and the look in his eyes was pure mean.
"My kind," E. D. Applewhite said. She had no intention of telling this creep the story of her name. She could tell by looking at him that he'd never heard of Edith Wharton, her mother's favorite writer. Being probably the only almost-thirteen-year-old girl in the whole country named Edith, she had no intention of giving him even that little bit of ammunition to use against her. E.D., she thought, was at least dignified—like a corporate executive, which one day she just might be. "What kind of a name is Jake Semple?"
Two can play at that game, the boy's face said. "Mine."
Not an original bone in his body, E.D. thought. Just a plain ordinary delinquent.
According to her friend Melissa, though, Jake Semple was famous. He had been kicked out of the public schools in the whole state of Rhode Island. Melissa wasn't sure what all he'd done to achieve that particular distinction, but the word around Traybridge was that one thing he did was burn down his old school. He'd come to North Carolina to live with his grandfather Henry Dugan, a neighbor of the Applewhites, and go to Traybridge Middle School.
The plan had not lasted long. No one in living memory had been thrown out of Traybridge Middle School, but Jake Semple had managed to accomplish that feat in three weeks flat. At least the building was still standing. It was only the middle of September, and he had run out of schools that were willing to risk taking him.
Mr. Dugan was inside at that moment discussing with E.D.'s parents, her Aunt Lucille, Uncle Archie, and Grandpa Zedediah the arrangement the two families and Jake's social worker had worked out for continuing Jake's education.
Jake Semple was the first person E.D. had ever met who had a social worker. She thought that was probably only one step away from having a probation officer, which is what Jake's parents would have when they got out of jail. That was why Jake had a social worker—because his parents were in jail for growing marijuana in their basement and offering some to an off-duty sheriff's deputy. E.D. didn't know how long they were going to be in jail, but at least a year. She figured criminal tendencies ran in families. The kid had burned down his school just after his parents were arrested.
E.D.'s Aunt Lucille was a poet and had been conducting a workshop at Traybridge Middle School when Jake was kicked out. This whole terrible idea had been hers. She'd told Mr. Dugan about the Creative Academy, which was what E.D.'s father had named the Applewhite home school. Only Aunt Lucille, whose view of life was almost pathologically sunny, would get the idea that after an entire state had admitted it couldn't cope with the kid and after Traybridge Middle School had been defeated in less than a month, the Applewhites should take him in. The Creative Academy didn't even have any trained teachers, let alone guidance counselors and armed security guards. There were a whole bunch of buildings the kid could burn down at Wit's End—the main house, all eight cottages, the goat shed, a toolshed, and the barn.
But somehow Aunt Lucille had convinced everybody else. E.D. had been the only family member to vote against letting Jake Semple join them. She'd begged her grandfather, who usually had more sense than all the rest of the family combined, to put a stop to the idea. "You know how Aunt Lucille can't ever believe a bad thing about anybody!" she'd told him. "Her attitude about people is downright dangerous."
He'd only twiddled with his mustache and said that he rather envied Lucille's rose-colored view of things. "More often than not, I've noticed, it turns out to be true." Then he had declared taking Jake Semple in a noble and socially responsible thing to do. Noble and socially responsible! More like suicidal, E.D. thought. She had thought that even before she'd laid eyes on Jake Semple. Now she was sure of it.
Jake pulled a cigarette out of a pack in his T-shirt pocket.
"Better not light that thing," she said, thinking about lighters and matches and very large fires. "Wit's End is a smoke-free environment."
The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow plastic lighter. "You can't have a smoke-free environment outdoors," he said.
"We can have it anywhere we want—this is our property, all sixteen acres of it."
Jake looked her square in the eye and lit the cigarette. He took a long drag and blew the smoke directly into her face so that she had to close her eyes and hold her breath to keep from choking on it. Then he said one of Paulie's favorite phrases. No one had managed to break Grandpa's adopted parrot of swearing. E.D. suspected that they wouldn't have any better luck with Jake Semple.
## Chapter Two
So far so good, Jake thought. This girl was bugged by cursing and smoking. He had news for her. He intended to do a whole lot of both. He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke at her again. She turned away and moved down to the other end of the porch steps. Doesn't bother me, girl—you can bug off completely as far as I'm concerned.
Jake hadn't been any more than two years old when he found out how certain words affected people. It had surprised him considerably, since his parents used those words at home all the time. He'd learned them the same way he learned all the other words he knew. People didn't make a fuss when his parents used them, but once he'd seen how some adults reacted to those words when he said them, it had become a game. He could still remember the old woman with the mean, pinched-up face who told him to take his sticky fingers off the display case when his mother took him to the bakery to get a cake on his third birthday. He had smiled his best little-boy smile and said just two words. The woman had gone all white and slumped right down to the floor. The image was as clear in his mind now as if it had happened yesterday—the way she'd just disappeared all of a sudden from behind the counter. All the fuss and furor afterward had made a permanent impression on him. Nobody could ever tell Jake Semple words didn't have power.
If the rest of the Applewhites were anything like this girl, he thought, he ought to be able to bug them quite a lot for however long he was going to be stuck with them. He leaned back against the support post behind him and watched the smoke float out from his nostrils. He hated adults making decisions for him and expecting him to just go along with whatever they said. His parents had tried that and given up. But because of that big mistake they'd made with the sheriff's deputy, they'd been carted off to their separate minimum-security prisons and he was stuck with a bunch of strangers who didn't get it that he wasn't going to do what he didn't want to do. He would just have to show them! He intended his time here to be even shorter than his time at Traybridge Middle School.
The smoking part was going to be a problem, though. This was his last pack of cigarettes. It was miles to town, and out here in the North Carolina boonies there was no such thing as a bus. He squinted against the smoke that was blowing back at him now. Maybe, since there were tobacco fields along just about every road, he could tear off a few leaves and learn to roll his own.
He was pretty sure this girl had been told to keep an eye on him while his grandfather was inside, to make sure he didn't set fire to the porch or something. She wasn't much to look at. Not much shape yet. Still as much like a boy as a girl, and the chopped-off hair didn't help much. She was sitting there now with her scabby elbows on her scabby knees, staring off down the driveway. Jake couldn't see the main road from here, the way the drive curved around a row of trees and bushes, but out there was a wooden sign with WIT'S END spelled out on it with bark-covered twigs. Quaint and rustic and weird. Jake had never known anyone who named their house before.
His grandfather said the place had had a name ever since he was a kid. It had been a farm till it went bust and somebody bought it, built a bunch of scruffy little cabins up against the woods, and turned it into a motor lodge. They'd named it The Bide-A-Wee, added an office wing, and lived in the big two-story house. Then the Applewhites, all artsy types, his grandfather said, had moved down from New York and bought it. The scruffy little cabins were still there, but now the house was part house and part school.
There were four Applewhite kids, but Jake had only met this one so far—this A.B. or C.D. or whatever her name was. Being home schooled, the Applewhites hadn't been at Traybridge Middle School during what he liked to think of as the Jake Semple Reign of Terror. He wondered what the others were like.
Suddenly there was a scream from somewhere off to the right of the house. A brown-and-white German shepherd–sized animal with huge lopsided horns came tearing around the end of the porch and down toward the road. A long piece of white cloth with flowers on it streamed from its mouth and dragged on the ground, almost tangling in its legs as it ran. Right behind it, shouting at the top of her lungs, came a tall, barefoot girl in a black leotard. Jake nearly choked on the smoke he had just inhaled. This one was easy to recognize as a girl! He thought she might be the most gorgeous girl he'd ever seen. She was running at first, her long, wavy auburn hair streaming out behind her, but she started hopping from one foot to the other when she reached the gravel drive. From then on her shouting kept getting interrupted by little yelps of pain.
The animal she was chasing was a goat. A smelly one. As fast as it had galloped by, it had left its odor very clearly on the air. Goat and girl disappeared around the bend in the drive, but the shouting and yelping went on, getting fainter and fainter.
"Cordelia," the girl on the step said. "And Wolfie."
"What's all the fuss?" Jake's grandfather came out of the house, a fat dog—a basset hound—with ears so long it nearly walked on them with every step, waddling at his heels. The Applewhite adults were right behind.
The oldest of them, a wiry old man with white hair and a droopy white mustache, pushed his way through the others and headed straight for the wooden rocking chair in the corner of the porch. On his way he snatched the cigarette out of Jake's hand so fast Jake didn't know what had happened till it was being ground out on the porch floor under the old man's shoe.
"Smoke-free environment," he said, and sat down on the rocker. "Remember that."
Everybody on the porch, including the basset hound, was looking at Jake, and he felt his face starting to heat up. He looked off the way the goat and the girl had gone, whistling under his breath to let them know that he didn't care. Not at all.
The breathtaking girl in the leotard was picking her way back along the driveway, carrying what was left of the flowered material as if she had a dead baby in her arms. It was smudged with red-brown dirt and dotted with burrs.
"I'm going to murder that goat one of these days!" she said.
Lucille Applewhite, the frizzy-haired blond poet whose idea all this was, ran down the porch steps, one hand over her heart. "You might have murdered him already, yelling and chasing him like that. He's probably lying in a heap under a bush somewhere, drawing his last breath."
"No, he's not. I chased him into the barn."
"Come off it, Lucille," the man with the shaggy dark hair and goatee said. According to the description Jake's grandfather had given him, this had to be Randolph Applewhite, the father of the Applewhite children. "That smelly demon is hostility personified. It would take more than a little chasing to get him down."
"That isn't hostility. Wolfbane is suffering from post-traumatic stress." Lucille turned back to the girl in the leotard. "Whatever were you doing in the goat pen?"
Cordelia stamped her foot and yelped again. She had apparently forgotten she was standing in the gravel. Jake thought she had a particularly musical yelp. "I was not in the goat pen! I was in the meadow. That beastly, smelly, disgusting creature was running loose. Again! He tried to murder me. It was lucky I had a piece of my costume with me to deflect him."
Lucille let out a squeal. "Loose? He was loose? What about Hazel? Where's Hazel?"
Cordelia stormed up the porch steps, pushed her way through the crowd of people, and stepped over the dog, who had flopped down directly in front of the door. "She's halfway to Traybridge for all I know. Ask Destiny!" The screen door banged shut behind her.
"Destiny?" The woman with reading glasses around her neck, who'd been jotting notes on a little notepad, looked up now, as if she was just tuning in. She was famous, Jake knew. He'd even seen her on television once. She wrote best-selling mysteries about a florist who was an amateur detective. She was also the children's mother, but her name wasn't Applewhite; it was Jameson. Sybil Jameson.
"What about Destiny?" she asked now. "He's taking a nap. I sent him to his room half an hour ago, and he promised me he would take a nap." She stuck her notepad into the pocket of her oversized shirt and put her pencil behind her ear. "If he's out by himself somewhere, we'd better find him. No telling what he's getting into."
"He'd better not be in the wood shop again. Last time he drilled holes in a footstool I had nearly finished!" The man who said this had a crew cut and was wearing a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show tattoos on both arms. This would be Archie Applewhite, Randolph's brother and Lucille's husband. He and the old man both made wooden furniture.
"Knowing your work, I can't believe it made much difference," Randolph said. "What are a few drill holes more or less?"
"You're just jealous because I have a gallery show coming up and you're out of work—again."
"Stop arguing and help me find Hazel!" Lucille said. "If she gets out on the road, she'll be killed."
Jake hadn't heard a single car go by the whole time he'd been here. Whoever Hazel was, she didn't seem likely to get run down the minute she set foot on the road.
In a matter of moments, Jake found himself alone on the porch with his grandfather, the old man with the mustache, and the dog. The others had gone off in different directions, Lucille and Archie yelling for Hazel, the others yelling for Destiny.
When the voices faded away, it was quiet on the porch, except for the snoring of the dog. The old man stuck out his hand toward Jake. "Zedediah Applewhite, patriarch of the Applewhite clan," he said. "How do you do?"
Jake looked at the wrinkled, spotted, knobbly old hand. He was not about to shake the hand that had snatched one of his last precious cigarettes.
But he didn't have a choice. The old man grabbed his hand and shook it in both of his, nearly crushing Jake's fingers in an amazingly powerful grip. "Welcome to Wit's End—Furniture Factory, Gallery, Studio, Goat Compound, and Creative Academy," Zedediah Applewhite said.
When the old man let go, Jake shook his hand to make sure the blood could still get to the tips of his fingers. Then he said a few of his favorite words, just loud enough to be sure they were heard.
Zedediah Applewhite didn't so much as blink. "You ought to spend a little time with Cordelia," he said. "She's taught my parrot the French for that. Spanish, Italian, and German, too."
## Chapter Three
E.D. sat in the kitchen pushing a mini-wheat around in the milk at the bottom of her bowl, trying to let the shaft of early sunlight that fell across the table cheer her up. She wasn't crazy about mini-wheats, but it was the only kind of cereal left in the house. She'd put her favorite kind on the list, but it was her father's turn to do the grocery shopping, and he'd forgotten. Again.
A dry leaf detached itself from the dying wildflower arrangement in the middle of the table and drifted into her bowl. She fished it out. Cordelia had just gone through a flower-arranging phase, and of course her arrangements had been beautiful. She was a true Applewhite, after all, which meant that whatever creative activity she put her mind to, she did it really well. But she'd gotten bored with flower arranging, and now the bouquets were blackening all over the house. By the time anybody did anything with them, there'd be nothing left but dry, empty stems and slimy water. By then even Cordelia probably wouldn't remember how they'd gotten there. There was a disturbing lack of focus and follow-up in her family.
E.D. didn't know how she could have been born an Applewhite. She wasn't anything at all like the rest of them. Even her mother and Aunt Lucille, who were only Applewhites by marriage, were more like them than she was. Applewhites were enormously talented. She was not. Applewhites thrived on chaos. E.D. wanted organization and sense. Applewhites loved spontaneity. E.D. wanted a schedule and a plan she could count on. Applewhites craved freedom. E.D. wanted structure.
It was way too early for her to be up, but she'd wakened before dawn from nightmares she couldn't quite remember, except that Jake Semple had been in them. She hadn't been able to get back to sleep. This was the day he would be moving in.
The Applewhites were determined to find the good kid under the bad exterior. It didn't seem to occur to them that the kid might be bad all the way through. His own grandfather, a man who looked a little shell-shocked, seemed all too eager to get rid of him. Hadn't anyone noticed that? E.D. spooned the last mini-wheat into her mouth, put the bowl on the floor for Winston, who was sleeping noisily at her feet, and then sat, elbows on the table, chin resting on her fists, staring into the early sunlight.
Yesterday, after the goats had been rounded up and her four-year-old brother, Destiny, had been found digging for pirate treasure between the circle of carrots and the circle of tomatoes in Lucille's vegetable garden, there had been a family meeting. Everybody had been there except, of course, her older brother, Hal.
Hal was not just a typical introverted artist. Sometime in the last year he had become an actual recluse. He didn't come out of his room except, as far as anyone could tell, in the middle of the night, when he was reasonably certain everyone else would be asleep.
The point of the family meeting had been to outline The Plan for Jake's assimilation into the Creative Academy. It was worse than she'd feared. He was going to be in her class.
This ought to have been an impossibility. The Creative Academy did not have classes. One of the main reasons the Creative Academy had been started in the first place was to avoid what her father called "clumping." Applewhites, he said, shouldn't be required to do what other people did just because other people did it—Applewhites weren't like other people.
It had all started when Cordelia was in the seventh grade at Traybridge Middle School and was told by a teacher that she wasn't allowed to paint a zebra black and purple, because zebras were really black and white. The fact that the zebra in question was part of a science report, not an art project, hadn't made any difference to Randolph Applewhite. "Real science demands creativity and individuality," he had told the principal when he withdrew his three older kids from the school district the very next day. "Without creativity and individuality, there would be no scientific discovery. No Galileo, no Newton, no Einstein."
If her father had been safely off directing a play somewhere when the zebra issue came up, she and Cordelia and even Hal might still be going to school in Traybridge, to a regular school with schedules and organization and a great many normal people. Including Melissa, her best friend, whom she never got to see in person anymore.
But Randolph hadn't been off directing. He had been at home with time on his hands. Worse, a theater company that had hired him to direct a play for them had called only that morning, to tell him they had decided not to do that play, so they didn't need him after all. He had been feeling rejected. Artists were tricky enough to handle when their work was going extremely well. Rejected artists could be downright dangerous.
Within a week the Creative Academy had been registered with the state department of education and was up and running. It had turned out to be quite easy to start a home school in North Carolina. All that was required was a guarantee that the teachers had high school diplomas. That was no problem. The academy teachers were the Applewhite adults, and all of them except Uncle Archie had finished college. Even Uncle Archie, who had dropped out of high school to travel the world on a tramp steamer, had eventually gotten a G.E.D. so that he could enroll in art school for a while.
It hadn't been necessary to file a curriculum with the state, which was a good thing, because the Applewhites didn't believe in telling the children what to study and when. The Creative Academy wasn't so much a home school as an unschool. Its students were supposed to follow their own interests and create their own educational plans. Separately. Individually. Creatively. That meant that, except for E.D., nobody had any sort of educational plan at all. And, of course, nobody was ever doing the same thing as anybody else at the same time.
Until now. Now Jake was to follow E.D.'s plan. She didn't want him to. She had created her plan just for her. She had thought it up for herself and she wanted to accomplish it by herself. She might not have talent, she might not have a creative bone in her body, but she wasn't half bad at learning. She had reminded the family about the academy's philosophy. About individuality. The case against clumping. But she could have saved her breath. She and Jake Semple were to be a class.
Part of the reason was math. Up till yesterday, she'd liked math.
Nobody else in the family did. Two and two added up to four no matter who added them, and they went right on adding up to four month after month and year after year. It's what E.D. had always liked about it. Everybody else found it boring. If home schooled kids didn't have to take standardized tests once a year—tests that included math—E.D. felt sure there wouldn't be any math learned at the academy at all. Since they did have to take those tests, they took math online. E.D. was exactly where Jake Semple's last report card from the school he'd burned down said he was. Seventh grade. Geometric problem solving. Comparing percentiles and fractions.
E.D. pulled another dry leaf from the dying bouquet. She had told them that she was willing to be clumped with Jake for math—just not everything else. But it hadn't done any good. Jake Semple needed to do "cooperative learning" so he could become better socialized, they said, and she was the only genuinely cooperative member of the family. Besides, he wasn't the sort of person—yet—who could be expected to come up with his own structure and organization. "He needs to begin, at least, with yours," Zedediah had said. And that had been that.
E.D. thought of the fat three-ring binder that held her curriculum for the first half of this year. It gave her life order. Stability. Predictability. It had taken her a whole week in August to plan it out. There were sections for each subject, and for each one she had written down her goals and listed every project she planned to do to meet those goals. Then she'd made charts and time lines with squares to check off each step as it was completed. So far, she was right on schedule. If she had to catch Jake Semple up on what she had done in each subject so far, it would throw everything into chaos.
Winston was awake now, lying with his stubby front paws on each side of the cereal bowl, lapping up milk and leaking foamy saliva on E.D.'s sneakers and his own ears. E.D. sighed. She loathed and despised chaos.
## Chapter Four
When Jake and his grandfather drove in that morning, Lucille Applewhite, wearing capri pants and a billowy blue-and-green flowered shirt, her hair clamped on top of her head and spilling curls in every direction, hurried from the end cottage to greet them. She stood by the truck and burbled on and on to his grandfather about how glad they were to have Jake joining them and how sure she was that they could provide him with just the environment he needed. Jake climbed down from the truck scowling his most ferocious scowl, but she only smiled. Even his silver-spiked black leather collar and his Vampire Zombies from the Beyond T-shirt with the skull and fangs that dripped bright red blood didn't faze her. After a while, when she didn't seem to be running down, his grandfather said he'd better be going, told Jake to behave himself, and drove hurriedly away, spitting gravel and leaving Jake standing next to the duffel bag that held everything he'd brought from Rhode Island with him.
This grandfather he'd only met a few weeks ago couldn't wait to be rid of him, Jake thought. The old man was no match for the likes of Jake Semple.
"Let's get you settled in your room," Lucille said. "And then I'll give you the grand tour."
Jake picked up his bag, but she didn't move. She just stood looking at him, her hands on her hips, her head to one side. Jake intensified his scowl. The combination of this particular expression and this T-shirt, even without the spiked leather collar, had totally unnerved the principal at Traybridge Middle School.
Lucille sighed a long, appreciative sigh. "A radiant light being, that's what you are. A radiant light being!"
Jake very nearly dropped his duffel bag. Radiant light being!
"And don't ever let anyone tell you different."
There were plenty of people who'd be happy to tell him different, he thought. He tried to imagine his social worker back in Rhode Island calling him a radiant light being. She had never called him anything, he thought. Not even his name. Mostly whenever she had to deal with him she just sighed a lot and shook her head. This poet woman must be seriously crazy. The sooner he got out of here, the better.
She turned and started back toward the end cottage. "You'll be bunking with Archie and me in our extra bedroom. I hope you won't mind how small your room is. Think of it as cozy. I really think it'll be perfect for you. It was my meditation room till we found out you were joining us. I called it my zen cave. We brought in a bed and a dresser, of course, and it's all been..." Jake had no idea what her next words meant. Fung schwayed, it sounded like. "So the energy flow is excellent. You'll find it wonderfully centering."
The cottage, like all the others spaced out in a semicircle to the left of the big house, was a silvery gray structure backed up against the woods. Its narrow porch was covered with vines, some of them so thick and powerful looking that they seemed to be in the process of pulling it down altogether. "We call this Wisteria Cottage. You can see why. It's breathtaking in April when the wisteria's in bloom."
Inside she led him into a small living room lined with bookshelves. In the middle of one shelf was a large, framed photo of a man with a round, smiling dark face, black hair, and piercing black eyes. An entire row of small, flickering candles in glass containers surrounded the photo, and a sprig of what looked like goldenrod stood in a narrow vase next to it. "My guru," she said. "Govindaswami. A genuine old soul. You're lucky. He's coming for a visit, so you're going to get to meet him in person. You'll love him. Everybody does."
Across the room to Jake's left, forming a divider between the living room and a small kitchen area, was a couch covered with a red-and-orange flowered throw. Where a coffee table might have been, there was a large, dark, highly polished, rounded wooden object that reminded Jake of a short, fat, shiny hippopotamus. He had never seen anything like it before.
"Ah!" she said as he stopped to stare at the object. "Beautiful, isn't it? It's my favorite of Archie's coffee tables. We're going to lose it for a while, though. He has a gallery show coming up next month, and they especially wanted this one to be in it."
"Coffee table?"
"Well, you couldn't put a cup of coffee on it, of course, but then who would want to? It's wonderfully soul filling, don't you think? That's what all of Archie's furniture is meant to be." Lucille went through an arch into a narrow hall with two doors on one side and one on the other. She flung open the second of the two doors and stepped back. "All yours," she said.
Jake started into the room and stopped. It wasn't just very, very small. It was also lavender. Walls, ceiling, even the oval braided rug were all a faintly nauseating shade of lavender. The single window was framed with lavender-and-white striped curtains, and the bed was covered with the same material. There was a strong smell in the room that reminded him suddenly of a great-great-aunt who'd come to visit his mother once. Jake rubbed his nose to keep himself from sneezing.
Lucille sniffed appreciatively and pointed to a bowl full of what looked like crushed, dead, gray weeds on top of the dresser, which was the only thing other than the twin bed that would fit in the room. "Dried lavender. Isn't the aroma wonderful? Calming. Centering. Just like the color. After all you've been through, this space should help you begin to breathe again. Think of it as your personal refuge."
Jake dropped his bag onto the bed. Begin to breathe? Not until he'd opened a window and gotten rid of that stinking bowl of dead weeds!
The other door on his side of the hall was the bathroom that the three of them would share, she told him, and the room across the hall was her and Archie's bedroom. "Now! You want to unpack and get yourself settled, or would you like to go over to the house and check out the schoolroom?"
"Schoolroom," Jake said, rubbing his nose again.
The schoolroom was the wing that had been added on to the side of the house to be the office for the old motor lodge, Lucille told him. It looked pretty much like a schoolroom, except that there was no teacher's desk and no blackboards. There were bookshelves spilling over with books, and there were four school desks, the kind with the top that lifted up and the seat attached. Three of them were piled high with papers and books; the other was empty except for a mug holding pens and pencils. The walls were covered with cork, to which papers were pinned several layers deep. There were hand-drawn maps, poems, and stories written on lined paper, drawings in crayon or paint or colored markers, and lots and lots of finger paintings full of unidentifiable shapes in intense rainbow colors. A huge chart labeled THE BUTTERFLY PROJECT hung at the front of the room. Photographs of butterflies were taped to it, and next to each photograph was a printed paragraph.
All the way across one wall was a banner that read EDUCATION IS AN ADVENTUROUS QUEST FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE, INVOLVING AN ABILITY TO THINK THINGS THROUGH.—Z. APPLEWHITE. Jake didn't think anyone in any school he'd ever been to would have agreed with that definition.
Here and there around the room were vases full of dying wildflowers. Along one wall an old door, complete with doorknob, lay across two bright red filing cabinets to form a long desk. On it, almost lost in a litter of notebooks, file folders, computer disks, CDs, and bits of scribbled-on paper, were a computer, printer, and scanner. "Hal has his own computer in his room, so you'll only have to share this with the other three. E.D. made a sign-up sheet for computer time," Lucille said. "It's around here somewhere."
The sound of a chain saw started up outside. "That'll be Archie. He's a lark—early to bed, early to rise." Lucille checked her watch. "Oh, dear. Randolph is bound to yell. He's an owl, you know. Hates to wake up before ten."
Lucille began clearing things off one of the desks now. "This will be yours. Hal never uses it anyway! I'll see what supplies I can find for you. E.D. will tell you later what she's working on. You and she will be a class."
Jake sighed. If he had to be paired with someone for however long he was going to be here, he'd rather it was Cordelia.
Hammering began somewhere above, followed shortly by heavy pounding that sounded like fists on a door. A voice roared down, "Stop that infernal noise! First Archie, now you. Is everybody mad around here? It's the cracking of the dawn!" A child's voice began singing "Pop Goes the Weasel," loudly and slightly off-key.
"Sounds like everybody's up," Lucille said.
Heavy footsteps came down the stairs, followed in a few moments by others. Voices came from the kitchen, along with considerable clattering and banging of dishes. The hammering, which had stopped briefly, began again. "Pop Goes the Weasel" gave way to "Hickory Dickory Dock." Jake leaned against a bookshelf full of encyclopedia volumes stacked in random order and watched Lucille dig through the mess on the computer desk. Now and again she came up with a legal pad or a spiral notebook or a stick pen. She put these on his desk. After a while the smells of coffee and bacon drifted into the schoolroom, and Jake's mouth began to water.
"Have you had breakfast?"
Jake shook his head. He hadn't felt much like eating at his grandfather's.
"Can't promise what it is—nobody got groceries this week. But whatever, you're welcome to have some. We want you to make yourself at home."
Lucille led Jake to the kitchen. Randolph was standing at the stove, frowning ferociously and poking at a pan of frying bacon with a long fork, a steaming coffee mug in his other hand. He glowered at them as they came in. A towheaded boy who looked about four years old was sitting on a tall stool at the counter, singing about an itsy-bitsy spider at the top of his lungs. The moment he saw Jake, he stopped singing and stared, his mouth open, his blue eyes wide and round.
"Destiny," Lucille said. "The youngest Applewhite."
At the kitchen table behind another vase of dying flowers sat Sybil Jameson, wearing a tattered robe and jotting notes on a yellow pad with a thoroughly chewed pencil. There was a bowl of soggy cereal in front of her. She looked over her reading glasses and nodded somewhat vaguely at Jake before going back to what she was doing.
A voice that Jake recognized instantly came from behind the open refrigerator door. "Where's the cantaloupe? I distinctly remember there was one last piece of cantaloupe in here last night!" Cordelia emerged from behind the door, dressed in a purple leotard, her hair in a long braid down her back. Jake caught his breath. Even first thing in the morning she was beautiful. "Mother! Hal's been stealing food in the middle of the night again." There was no answer. "Mother!"
Sybil Jameson looked up. "What did you say, dear?"
"I said, Hal's been stealing food in the middle of the night."
"I wouldn't call it stealing. He has as much right to eat as the rest of us."
"If he wants to eat, he can come to meals with the rest of us. I had my mouth all set for cantaloupe!"
Her mother didn't answer. She was writing again.
"Our new student's here," Lucille said.
Cordelia nodded at Jake. "Hi." Then she turned back to her mother. "I wish you'd go up and talk to Hal! My morning's completely ruined. I wanted cantaloupe!"
"Bacon's ready," Randolph said, fishing a piece out of the pan and waving it in her direction. "I found a whole package. You can have bacon. And pumper-nickel toast."
"Oh, right! And then everybody can start calling me thunder thighs." Cordelia took a container out of the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of thick, disgusting-looking green liquid. "I'll be out in the dance studio. My whole afternoon was ruined yesterday, so I'd appreciate it if everyone would stay away and let me work." She tapped the little boy on the shoulder. He was still staring, silent and goggle-eyed, at Jake. "That means you, Destiny—and the 'poor little goatses,' too!"
Then she was gone, the glass of green gunk in hand, and Lucille was offering Jake a seat at the kitchen table. The little boy stared at him intensely as he sat, then climbed down from his stool and came to stand at Jake's elbow.
"How did your hair get that color?" he asked. Even if Jake had intended to reply, he couldn't have. The boy went right on, leaving no time for Jake to squeeze in so much as a syllable. "Did it just grow that way? Mine just growed. My hair's blond. Did you know they don't gots a blond crayon even in the sixty-four box? I think they should, don't you? Lots of people gots blond hair. What do you call your color? I bet they gots a crayon for it. I like it! And how do you make your hair all stick up in points like that? When I wake up in the morning, mine sticks up sometimes. But not in points. Mommy always combs it down. Can you comb your points down?" The boy took a breath and kept going. "Does it hurt to have that ring sticking through your eyebrow? It looks like it hurts. How come you gots so many earrings? What does your shirt say? Is that a pirate skull? It doesn't have the crossbones like a pirate flag. I like pirates. I wanna be a pirate when I grow up. And a painter. And a king. If you—"
Lucille put a plate of bacon and toast in front of Jake. "Don't mind Destiny. He can go on like that all day."
"It's better not to get him started," Randolph said, as if it had been Jake's fault. "And will you stop that infernal hammering!" he bellowed up at the ceiling.
## Chapter Five
When she finished her breakfast, E.D. had gone out to the meadow with her butterfly net and camera. Winston had lumbered along with her. She was hoping to finish the collecting part of her butterfly project. It was the project she most hated to think of sharing with Jake Semple. First of all, she wouldn't trust a kid like that with anything as beautiful and fragile as a butterfly. Second, it was her favorite project, and she was very, very nearly finished.
The project plan was to catch, photograph, and catalog every butterfly in the book Butterflies of the Carolinas. She'd started in August and gone out every single day, starting in the meadow where there were usually at least a few, and then covering every square inch of Wit's End. She'd found every one of them, from the tiny gray hairstreak to the big eastern tiger swallowtail, except one. If she could find that last one—the great spangled fritillary—now, today, she could close out the main part of the project and keep from having to let Jake loose on the world with a butterfly net.
She'd been out for two hours now, and the sun was getting hot. Sweat was dripping into her eyes and running down her back under her T-shirt. She'd been around the property once and was back in the meadow. No great spangled fritillaries. The only butterflies she had found were the ordinary little cabbage whites and sulphurs she had already caught millions of times. And two red-spotted purples. She couldn't understand it. If she could find both the monarch and the viceroy, which looked almost exactly alike, and get photographs that showed how to tell them apart, why couldn't she find a fritillary? Winston, his short legs and his chest all muddy from wading into the pond for a drink, was flopped in the shade of the honeysuckle by the fence. She was beginning to feel like flopping with him.
"E.D.! Wait for us." Lucille was waving at her from the other side of the meadow. "We're doing the grand tour." Jake Semple was with her, his scarlet hair flaming in the sun. E.D. sighed. Maybe she could just not mention the butterfly project. Maybe she could say she was studying the life cycle of slugs for natural history.
As Lucille and Jake tramped through the woods, crossed the creek, and skirted the pond, E.D. trailed behind them, with Winston trailing behind her. All the while, she kept her eyes peeled for a great spangled fritillary.
At Lucille's vegetable garden, Winston flopped in the shade again while Lucille explained to Jake that nature spirits had told her to make the garden round instead of rectangular and that they came into her dreams sometimes to give her advice about planting and cultivating. Jake rolled his eyes several times during her explanation, and even groaned once or twice. E.D. was so used to her aunt's weird notions that she'd forgotten how strangers tended to react. Jake was being disgustingly rude, but Lucille didn't seem to notice.
At the goat pen Lucille made E.D. tell the story of the rescue of Wolfbane and Hazel because she said she got too choked up to tell it herself. As E.D. explained how the goats, abused, abandoned, and starving, had turned up in the Applewhites' woods in the middle of the winter, Lucille's eyes brimmed with tears. Jake, unmoved, leaned on the fence, his nose wrinkled against Wolfie's ever-pungent odor. E.D. had read somewhere that future serial killers began by abusing animals. She made a mental note to alert someone if he started hanging around the goat pen.
When Wolfie got that crazed look he sometimes got in his eyes and charged the fence, smacking into the fence post right where he was standing, Jake barely flinched. The kid was not normal, E.D. thought. Grown men had been known to flee in terror from Wolfie when he got that look. Just a week ago one of Hal's UPS deliveries had been dumped on the driveway instead of brought up to the house because Wolfie had gotten out of the pen and terrorized the driver.
On the way to show Jake the wood shop, they passed Zedediah's cottage, where Paulie stood on his t-perch in the shade of the narrow front porch. The parrot looked up from picking at one foot with his beak, raised his green, yellow, and red wings, and swore a long stream of colorful curses. Jake swore back. "Don't encourage him," E.D. said. Jake swore some more. Two of a kind, E.D. thought. Birdbrains, both of them.
In the wood shop Zedediah and Archie were both at work, Zedediah at the lathe turning spindles for one of his trademark rocking chairs and Archie carving a series of complicated lines and squiggles into the legs of a turtle-shaped object. "End table," Archie said when E.D. asked. "One of the pieces for the gallery show."
Zedediah turned off the lathe and took off his safety glasses. "Lucille get you set up with a desk in the schoolroom yet?" he asked Jake.
Jake nodded.
"Good. Don't think that just because there isn't a teacher standing over you every minute, we don't take education seriously. The most important thing you're going to learn while you're here is who you are and what you're made of." E.D. thought they were all likely to learn that about Jake. She was quite sure she didn't want to know.
When they got to the cottage that was the dance and music studio, they didn't go in. The strange, cacophonous music Cordelia had written and recorded for her ballet was blaring from inside. Lucille told Jake just to peek in the window so he could see the studio without disturbing Cordelia while she was rehearsing. He stood there with his nose pressed to the window glass a lot longer than he needed to just to see the floor-to-ceiling mirrors they'd put in, E.D. thought.
When they'd finished the tour, without E.D. seeing even a single butterfly, much less a fritillary, they went back to the schoolroom, where Winston collapsed under the computer desk and began, almost immediately, to snore. It occurred to E.D. that the dog didn't get enough exercise.
"Why don't you show Jake your curriculum notebook?" Lucille said. "He can see what interests him most and get started. I'm going to get rid of these poor bouquets. They're pulling down the energy of the whole room."
E.D. wished she'd written up some bogus projects to send Jake off in completely different directions from her own—something like the history of the pickle industry, or the place of the preposition in English grammar. But it was too late. She got out her notebook and opened it on the top of what used to be Hal's desk. Jake was leaning against the computer desk, his arms folded across his chest.
"Aren't you going to look at it?"
"Why should I?"
"Well, duh! This is a school. We're a class. And this is what we're doing." It occurred to E.D. that she was sounding as if she was in favor of this whole idea. "Suit yourself," she said. She got out the Civil War novel she had started, settled at her desk, and pretended to read.
He began wandering around the room, picking things up and putting them down again. "Where's your TV?" he asked after a while. She pretended to be too engrossed in her reading to hear. "I said where's your TV?"
She sighed. "There's one in Zedediah's cottage."
Jake swore. "You mean there isn't one anywhere else in this whole place?"
"We don't watch much television," E.D. said. Sometimes, especially when her friend Melissa was talking about the cable channels she watched all the time, E.D. wished they were like a normal family, with cable and a TV set in almost every room. But just at this moment, she was glad they weren't. "We have better things to do with our time."
Jake swore again. E.D. made an effort to focus on her book.
After a while she heard Jake slump into the seat at his desk. "I don't see any math in here. Don't you do math?"
She looked up. He had actually opened her curriculum notebook. "We do math online. You've already been signed up for the same course I'm doing, with the same tutor."
"Could've saved themselves the trouble," he said.
E.D. ignored him and went on reading. She'd actually managed to get engrossed in the story.
By the time Lucille had come back from disposing of the wildflowers, Jake had turned on the computer. "No games!" he said when she came in.
She smiled. "No games." She clicked off the power on the power strip the computer was plugged into. "And no using the computer without signing up first." Jake swore. Lucille took no notice. "Now then, you've seen the curriculum—what would you like to start with?"
Jake shrugged. "Who says I want to start?"
Lucille clapped a hand over her mouth. "How thoughtless of me. Giving you an open-ended choice like that on your first day. It's bound to take you a little time to get used to the way we do things." She looked around the room, and her eyes lit on the Butterfly Project chart. "Butterflies!" she said. "Perfect! There's an empty space on E.D.'s chart that needs filling. How about the two of you go out and see if you can find a—what is it?" She peered more closely at the chart. "A great spangled fritillary. That'll get you back outdoors and it won't seem so much like schoolwork."
E.D. groaned. If Lucille was going to start deciding what they were supposed to work on when, why couldn't she decide they should start with the Civil War or A Midsummer Night's Dream?
"Get the net out again," Lucille told E.D. She turned back to Jake. "You'll settle in in no time. You'll see. Human beings are almost infinitely adaptable. This is all going to work out brilliantly!"
A few minutes later E.D. and Jake were headed back out to the meadow with Winston tagging after them, huffing noisily as he waddled along. E.D. kept hold of the net. She caught a fiery skipper to show him, explaining carefully that she didn't kill them and mount them, she only photographed them and let them go again. "This is one I already have," she said as she opened the net and let it fly away. "You can read about them all in the book." As she spoke, a black swallowtail fluttered over the honeysuckle and into the meadow, the sun catching the spots of yellow against its black wings.
Jake snatched the net from her hand and went after it. He swept the net and missed, swept again, and the butterfly wavered up and over the fence, then disappeared into the branches of a sweet gum tree on the other side. Jake swore. "Stupid thing to do, catching butterflies."
"So don't! You can do something else for natural history."
"Yeah, well, I don't intend to be here long anyway." Jake swung the net lightly across the tops of the grass and weeds, sending puffs of thistledown into the air.
Good, E.D. thought. "Where do you intend to go?"
Jake shrugged and swept the butterfly net at a dragonfly that veered sharply, changed course, and sped away. "Back to Rhode Island."
"Yeah? Dad says your social worker told him there aren't any more foster families there who'll take you. If you go back, they're going to send you to Juvenile Hall. They must have some kind of school there. You'd probably like it better than this one. At least the other students would be more your type."
Jake didn't say anything. He just struck at the tall grass as if the net were a scythe—one way, then the other—scattering seed heads and blossoms of Queen Anne's lace.
## Chapter Six
Jake sat on the front porch steps of the main house, earphones in his ears, his Walkman radio clipped to his belt, picking at a bit of loose rubber on the sole of his shoe. He hadn't been able to find the sort of station he wanted, so he'd had to settle for Top One Hundred hits. It was the first time he'd been alone all day. E.D. had gone off somewhere, and Lucille had told him he could do whatever he wanted till dinner.
She hadn't said when dinner would be. Or what. He wondered what sort of food they served where his parents were. Better, he bet! It was just possible, if the meals here were anything like lunch—Archie had fixed tofu burgers that Jake had found so completely inedible he'd fed his in bits to the fat old basset hound under the table—that the question of whether he would stay or not would be irrelevant. He'd starve to death.
He kept replaying in his mind what E.D. had said out there in that field full of weeds and bugs. That if he didn't stay here there was no place to go except Juvenile Hall. That's what his social worker had told him when she called to talk to him about the Creative Academy. "This is your last chance," she'd said. But people had been saying stuff like that to him all his life. They hadn't really meant it. Did they this time? Did he dare take the chance?
It had been easy to blow off Traybridge Middle School. Everybody—kids, teachers, even the principal—had been scared of the bad kid from the city. Bad kid. Living up to that label was what Jake did best. All during the Jake Semple Reign of Terror, he hadn't really thought about what would happen next. Now he knew. This was what. Wit's End and the Applewhites. But what about after this? Would they really send him to Juvie?
"The other students would be more your type," E.D. had said. He thought about the guys at home who'd gone to Juvie. The druggies and the ones who bragged about the guns they could bring to school if they wanted to. It was one thing to be thought of as the bad kid from the city. It was something else again to be locked up with real ones.
The dog was sitting a few feet away from him, staring at him with mournful, heavy-lidded eyes. Every so often it made a low sort of moaning sound he could hear over the music in his ears. "What do you want?" he asked. "I don't have any more tofu burger, if that's what you're after." The dog was as crazy as the rest of them, he thought. No normal carnivore would have gulped down tofu burger the way this one had.
"No food, see? Nothing." He held up his empty hands toward it. "Go away!" But it didn't go. It sighed a long, shuddery sigh and sank to the floor, its chin on its outstretched front paws, still staring at him. It was impossible to ignore the expression on its face—as if it had lost its last friend in the world. Jake patted the dog gingerly on the head. It licked his hand. He rubbed it a little behind one ear, and it flopped to its side and then rolled on its back, its stubby little legs in the air. He scratched its chest and it made such a satisfied sound that Jake had to laugh. It closed its eyes then, and after a moment was snoring peacefully, its legs twitching now and again.
Jake's stomach rumbled as he thought over his alternatives. He thought of the banner in the schoolroom—"the ability to think things through." Applewhites or Juvie. Applewhites or Juvie. It wasn't hard to think things through this time. The choice was clear. One way or another, he was going to have to make this work.
A car went by out on the road, and Jake looked at his watch. A little after five. This must be what passes for rush hour in the boonies. He sighed. There wasn't anything to do here. He wasn't about to go to the old man's cottage and ask to watch TV. He'd gone to the schoolroom to do a little web surfing, but Cordelia had been doing her math on the computer. He'd hung around for a while, looking in the book about butterflies to see what kind he'd missed catching in the meadow, just to be near her, but she was so focused on what she was doing that she didn't even seem to know he was there. And he certainly didn't feel like going back to his lavender room.
Suddenly, a white-blond head popped up out of the bushes to his right. Jake was so startled that he jumped and woke the dog, who barked once before turning over and sinking back to sleep. Big round blue eyes gazed at him with fierce intensity.
He pushed back his earphones. "What do you want?" he asked Destiny.
The little boy whispered something he couldn't hear.
"What?"
Destiny looked around, like a spy scanning for witnesses, and then scrambled up and sat next to Jake, leaning against him to whisper in his ear. "Did you use matches?" He made a gesture like striking a match. "I'm not allowed to have 'em. Not ever. They say I'm too little. Am I too little, you think? I don't think so. I'd be careful. I used to be little." He held his hand an inch from the porch floor, as if to show a tiny person. "When I was this big, I couldn't have matches. But I could have 'em now, don't you think? Don't you think?" the boy asked again. "You're not that much bigger 'n me, are you? How old are you?"
This time he stopped long enough for Jake to answer. "Fifteen."
"Are not. I know 'cuz Grandpa said you're the same as E.D. That means you're only twelve."
"I'm thirteen," Jake said. Destiny looked doubtful. "I am!"
"Well?" Destiny said. "Did you use matches?"
Jake told him he didn't know what he was talking about. It wasn't until Destiny yelped that he realized he'd used the F word.
"Momma says only Paulie's allowed to say that word. It's not a people word; it's a parrot word. Paulie knows lots of parrot words."
"It is too a people word," Jake said.
"Is not!"
"Is too. She just thinks you're too little to say it. Like you're too little for matches. You aren't, though. I used to say it all the time when I was your age." Jake said it three more times.
Destiny sat for a moment and then said it too. Slowly, as if he were tasting the sound as he said it. Then he nodded. And said it again. "I said it!" He giggled and said it again. "Just like Paulie."
Jake nodded.
"Did you burn down your school?"
"That's what they say."
"With matches?"
"Nope. I used a lighter." He pulled his lighter out of his pocket and showed it to the boy. "This one. And gasoline. In a bottle. It's called a Molotov cocktail. The school went up like a torch. Like a bomb!" He was telling the really bad kid story. It wasn't true, but it was no more of an exaggeration, he thought, than the story that everybody else told. Nobody had ever believed that it had all been an accident.
Destiny reached for the lighter, and Jake put it back in his pocket. "Oh no. Lighters aren't for kids."
"You're a kid," Destiny said.
"I'm a teenager," Jake said.
As Destiny opened his mouth to answer, the screen door burst open behind them and Randolph Applewhite came out onto the porch, a portable CD player in one hand and a briefcase in the other. Cordelia, wearing an orange skirt over her purple leotard, was right behind him. "That show is dead boring!" she was saying.
Randolph stopped, and Cordelia collided with the CD player as he swung around to answer her. "It's the most saccharine, sentimental piece of tripe the two of them ever wrote. But it happens to be what the Traybridge Little Theatre has hired me to direct. It's the sign of a great director to be able to raise the level of the material. I intend to find a way to give the piece a new edge. People won't just be humming when they leave this production, they'll be thinking! It's the opportunity of a lifetime. Are you going to be part of a millennial version of a classic musical, or aren't you?"
"Why's this happening so fast? They just called you today. How come auditions are tonight?"
There was a moment of silence. When he spoke again, Randolph Applewhite's voice was tight. "They made the mistake of asking one of their board members to direct it, and he's been sent to Japan on some kind of an international currency crisis. Can you believe it? They had a banker directing a musical! They're lucky I happened to be between gigs."
"But what about my ballet?"
"This is a community theater production, for heaven's sake. They only rehearse in the evenings. And there's hardly any dancing in the show. It won't take you any time at all to work out the choreography, and after that I'll only need you from seven to ten P.M. You'll have all day every day to work on your ballet." He paused for a moment, frowning. "What ballet?"
Cordelia stamped her foot. "Mine! Where have you been? You never listen to anybody. It's my whole fall semester project. The Death of Ophelia. I'm composing, playing, choreographing, dancing—everything!"
"Well, then you'll need dancers. Do this show for me and you'll have a ready-made corps de ballet, people you've already worked with."
"I'm the dancer! It's a one-woman ballet!"
Randolph stepped over Winston and strode down the steps past Jake and Destiny as if they weren't there. Jake had to duck to avoid being clipped in the head by the briefcase. "Just decide, Cordelia, and be quick about it. I need someone at tonight's audition to see whether these people can dance at all. If you aren't going to do it, I'll find someone who understands the importance of this opportunity."
"Oh, sure, you'll find someone by tonight. One of the many choreographers in Traybridge!"
He checked his watch. "We begin at seven, so I'll need you at the theater by six-thirty. You can take Father's car. Or Archie's truck. I'm having dinner first with that Montrose woman—the president of the board—to discuss the budget."
"Budget?" Cordelia let go of the screen door, and it crashed shut behind her. "I'd get paid?"
"I told you, this is community theater. Only the director gets paid," Randolph said as he put his briefcase and CD player into the backseat of the red Miata convertible parked in the drive.
Cordelia was left standing on the porch as the car sped down the drive, spraying gravel on the curve around the line of bushes and trees. She looked down at Jake and Destiny then, as if noticing them for the first time. She stepped over Winston and sat down on the edge of the porch, her ballet slipper–clad feet on the step next to Jake. She put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. "How does he think he's going to get an edge into The Sound of Music?"
Jake was very much aware of how close she was sitting. Sound of Music. He had seen the movie once on television, but he didn't remember much about it. He remembered Julie Andrews singing in a meadow on top of a mountain. Lots of singing. And a bunch of little kids.
Destiny poked him in the ribs. "How'd you get your hair that color? And how do you make it stand up in points that way? I never saw anybody with hair that—"
Cordelia reached across in front of Jake and rapped her little brother on the head. "Don't be rude," she said.
"Ooooowww! I'm not rude. Mommy says if you want to know something you have to ask. So I asked. I don't see why it's rude to just—"
"I dyed it red," Jake said. "Bleached it first—so it looked like yours—then dyed it. But it grows in points all by itself. I can't help it. I just can't make it do anything else."
Cordelia laughed.
Destiny stuck out his lower lip. "Does not. Nobody's hair grows like that."
Before Jake could think of an answer, there was a squeal of tires from the road. The Miata careened back around the line of trees, scattering gravel in all directions. It skidded to a stop in front of the porch, and Randolph leaped out, leaving the engine running and the door open, and stormed up the front steps, forcing both Cordelia and the dog to scramble out of his way. He slammed through the screen door and was back out in less than a minute, holding a CD box over his head. "Forgot the music," he said as he pounded back to the car, got in, and slammed the door.
Meantime Jake had heard the sound of another vehicle out on the road, slowing down and changing gears as it reached the driveway to Wit's End. Randolph threw his car into reverse and backed around in front of the trees. Then he sped forward around the curve. Jake braced himself for the inevitable. There was a squeal of brakes, the sound of vehicles skidding on gravel, and then a sickening crash.
The crash was followed by a stream of curses.
"I told you that word was people talk," Jake said to Destiny.
"Sounds as if there are survivors," Cordelia said.
## Chapter Seven
E.D. had gone to her room to get away from Jake for a while. She must have fallen asleep. She was jolted out of a dream about fires and explosions by the sound of the crash followed by yelling, most of which seemed to be her father. She shook the dream images from her muddled brain and left her room just in time to run into her mother, who was emerging from her office, a pencil behind each ear and her computer glasses still resting on the end of her nose.
"Where's Destiny? Has something happened to Destiny? Somebody call 911!" she yelled.
By the time they reached the scene of the accident, it was clear that Destiny wasn't involved.
Randolph, red-faced and fairly dancing with rage, was shaking his fist at a tall, thin, pale, pimply faced young man with a ponytail, shouting about incompetent drivers and refugees from a demolition derby. The young man, his hands up as if to ward off a blow, was protesting in a high, reedy voice that he wasn't the one who'd been driving like a madman. His words were all but drowned out in a fresh deluge of verbal abuse. He kept glancing down at the thoroughly crumpled front end of an ancient and rusty Civic as if it were the battered body of a beloved family member. He looked, E.D. thought, on the brink of tears.
"Daddy's car won! Daddy's car won!" Destiny said.
It wasn't clear to E.D. that either car could be said to have won, but there was no question that the smashed bumper of the Miata, even caught as it was in the tangle of wreckage, was far less devastating to the car's future than the condition of the Civic's front end. That reminded her of an aluminum can that had been smashed for recycling. Steam was rising from beneath the mangled hood, and greenish-yellow fluid was making a puddle on the gravel. It seemed impossible that one car could be so much more damaged than the other.
Zedediah, Archie, and Lucille were converging on the bend in the driveway from different directions, all asking questions at once. The window of Hal's room was thrown open, and his voice joined the general confusion. Winston began barking in his deepest and most threatening tone from beneath the bush where he had taken refuge.
Randolph was now threatening to bankrupt the young man with a lawsuit charging reckless driving and attempted vehicular homicide. The young man's face drained of what little color it had.
Sybil, having assured herself that Destiny was unhurt, scooped him up in her arms. Zedediah, still wearing his sawdust-covered tool apron, stepped between the two men and rested a hand on each of their shoulders. Randolph stopped shouting, and in the silence the blood gradually seemed to return to the young man's face, though he still looked ready to burst into tears.
Under Zedediah's patient questioning, the young man explained that his name was Jeremy Bernstein, he was a writer sent by a literary journal to interview Sybil Jameson, and he'd had an appointment for that evening. He had, in fact, been invited to dinner.
"No, no!" Sybil said, putting Destiny down. "That's not today! I distinctly remember that's not until the sixteenth. I invited you for the sixteenth."
"This is the sixteenth," Jeremy Bernstein said. Everyone else nodded in agreement.
"Can't anyone in this family keep anything straight?" Randolph said, his voice rising. "You can't just go inviting the media to descend on the household to shatter everyone's privacy. Not without at least warning the rest of us!"
E.D. could see her mother's jaw going rigid. When she spoke, it was between tightly clenched teeth. "I am immersed in what is just possibly the most important, the most difficult and complex literary work of my career. I have left the Petunia Grantham mysteries behind; I am striking out into new and unexplored territory. But do you care? Except for this young man here, I doubt that any of you even knows what I'm embarked on. I get absolutely no support from this family—I can't be expected to keep track of details!"
"Details! You can hardly call today's date a detail! It's the first sign of mental deterioration to lose track of the date." Randolph shook away his father's calming hand and looked at his watch. "This is an unmitigated catastrophe! I am supposed to have dinner with the president of the board of the Traybridge Little Theatre in exactly twenty minutes to talk about my work. These people are none too stable. When I don't show up on time, she's likely to panic and hire some lawyer to direct their show. Some accountant. That's what they'll do, they'll hire an accountant to direct my production of The Sound of Music." He pointed to his car. "Someone will have to take me. My car is ruined. Destroyed!"
"Don't be stupid, Randolph," Archie said. "It's nothing but the bumper and running lights that are smashed. If the headlights still pop up, we'll just rip the bumper off and you can be on your way in three minutes." He got into the car and popped up the headlights. "See? You'll be fine."
"Rip the bumper off my Miata—I have no intention of defacing this car—"
"It's already defaced. Do you want to get to your dinner or not? The way you drive, no sane person would let you borrow their car. I'll get the crowbar." Archie headed for the barn. E.D. thought he seemed particularly pleased with the idea of taking a crowbar to his brother's car.
Zedediah took a cell phone from a pocket of his tool apron, blew off the sawdust, and handed it to Randolph. "Call the restaurant and tell the woman you've been delayed."
"Yes, Randolph dear," Sybil said. "You go keep your precious appointment and leave the rest of us to clean up after you. I'm sure someone will take care of whatever we need to take care of with this young man's insurance company."
"Our lawyer will take care of that!" Randolph roared.
"We don't have a lawyer—remember? He quit after you—"
"We'll get another!"
"Fine, dear. Meantime, after you've made your call, perhaps you'll call a tow truck to take Mr. Bernstein's car to be fixed."
Archie, who was on his way back with the crowbar, shook his head. "No point in that. It's totalled. Dead. Kaput. The condition it was in before the wreck, it's a wonder there's anything left but a handful of rust."
Now Jeremy Bernstein did burst into tears.
"Why is that man crying?" Destiny asked. "Did he get hurt in the crash? Is he going to be all right? Will he have to go to the hospital? Is he going to die? If he dies, what—"
Sybil gestured at Cordelia to take Destiny into the house. Cordelia took him by the back of the shirt, and he went, protesting all the way.
Lucille had meantime hurried to comfort the weeping young man. She patted him on the back and assured him that he could have dinner with them and that someone would take him to his hotel afterward.
"I—I don't—have—a hotel," he said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He took the handkerchief Zedediah offered him and blew his nose. "Thanks. I was going to find a place to stay after I'd finished the interview."
"Then you'll stay in one of the guest cottages," Lucille said. Archie had begun prying the Miata's bumper loose from the car. "E.D., please show Mr. Bernstein to Dogwood Cottage. We can deal with insurance issues in the morning."
E.D. turned and saw Jake leaning against the trunk of a tree. Winston was sitting at his feet, leaning against his legs. The look on Jake's face seemed to suggest he was actually enjoying himself. Car accidents must be right up there with fires for excitement.
## Chapter Eight
Jake stared at the serving dishes on the table. Visions of starvation rose again in his mind. There was a casserole of zucchini and onions, there were sliced tomatoes, cooked carrots, green beans, beets, and a bowl of something dark green and slimy looking that Lucille identified as beet greens. "All from my garden," she told Jeremy Bernstein proudly. She didn't elaborate on nature spirits or dream communication.
When Archie came from the kitchen with a huge platter, Jake's hopes rose. There had been bacon at breakfast. These people did eat meat. But when the platter was set down in front of Zedediah, who was seated at the head of the table, Jake sighed. There were a couple of hot dogs, one bratwurst, a handful of breaded shrimp, a chicken thigh and drumstick, and a couple of indeterminate patties that might have been meat or might have been veggie burgers.
"This was it, eh?" the old man asked Archie. Archie shrugged and nodded.
"I planned a really nice dinner, honestly I did. I just thought you were coming next week," Sybil Jameson said to Bernstein. "I'm terribly sorry."
"Randolph forgot to do the grocery shopping," Archie explained as he sat down. "This was all that was left in the freezer."
Bernstein shook his head. "No problem. Honestly. No problem. I've been thinking of becoming a vegetarian anyway."
"If God had wanted humans to be vegetarians," Zedediah said, "He'd have given them cow's teeth and an extra stomach." He passed the platter down the table. "Get what you want first, young man—no telling what would be left if you waited your turn."
By the time the platter got to Jake, all that was left were the patties. Jake's stomach growled as he put one between the tiny mounds of vegetables on his plate. He wondered what sort of food was served at Juvenile Hall.
As everyone began to eat, Zedediah asked Bernstein about the magazine he wrote for.
Bernstein's eyes lit up, and he looked fully alive for the first time since he'd emerged from his ruined car. "The New World Literary Review. It won the Brohmer East Coast Arts Foundation award for three years in a row for its arts criticism and"—he turned to look at Sybil, who was at the end of the table opposite Zedediah—"in-depth interviews of the literary geniuses of our time. It's that sort of interview that I came to do."
"I wouldn't have thought the Petunia Grantham mysteries could get anyone classified as a literary genius," Zedediah said. "The books sell like potato chips, but—"
Bernstein choked on a bite of carrot. "Haven't you told them?" he asked Sybil. He looked around the table. "It must be difficult for the family of a writer of Ms. Jameson's stature to fully appreciate the jewel they have in their midst. The Petunia Grantham mysteries are splendid examples of their genre, of course. But our readers are getting a sneak preview of her new work. The first two chapters of what will no doubt be heralded as the literary masterpiece of the new century will be printed in the next issue. I've been sent to do the interview that will accompany those chapters. Everyone at the Review is terrifically excited. It's an event of enormous interest to the whole literary community when a writer as popular as Ms. Jameson stakes out new artistic territory. The world is awaiting the coming Great American Novel with bated breath."
"It must be getting blue in the face by this time," Cordelia said. "If it's the book she started when I was in kindergarten, the world's been waiting for this particular Great American Novel for more than ten years."
"And well worth the wait," Bernstein said, "judging from the opening chapters, which I've been privileged to read. One can't rush a work of art."
"Who would have guessed that Debbie Applewhite would turn into a literary genius before our eyes," Zedediah said.
"Debbie Applewhite?"
"Zedediah!" Sybil said, her face flushing red. She turned to Bernstein. "That's off the record! I've been Sybil Jameson for nearly twenty years. My parents named me Debbie. For Debbie Reynolds. I can't imagine what they were thinking of."
"But he said Applewhite?"
"My married name, of course."
Jeremy Bernstein looked from Sybil to Zedediah and back again, his eyes at least twice as big as normal. "Applewhite? Your married name is Applewhite! Then your husband, the man who crashed into me—the man I crashed into—is Randolph Applewhite? The theater director?"
"You've heard of him?"
"I reviewed his off-Broadway revival of Time Remembered for my college newspaper! It was magnificent. Randolph Applewhite. I didn't realize. I didn't—" Bernstein stopped and looked back at Zedediah. His eyes, Jake thought, looked about to pop out of his head. "Applewhite. Zedediah Applewhite? Of Zedediah Applewhite handcrafted wood furniture?"
Zedediah nodded.
"Good heavens! And Lucille—Archie—"
"It's quite a clan," Zedediah said.
"Lucille Applewhite, the poet! This is so amazing. I own both of your chapbooks. And Archie Applewhite—I've visited your website. And I saw your Chair with Ottoman in a gallery just last month. It was stunning. So original and inventive."
"I hope you had the good sense not to try to sit on it," Archie said.
"Applewhite. Jameson. I had no idea. No one at the Review had any idea." Bernstein put his hand over his heart and took a deep breath. His cheeks had gone pink. "I apologize for my ignorance. I'm so embarrassed. I had no idea that all the Applewhites were the same family. Or that Sybil Jameson was—"
"An Applewhite as well—by marriage of course," Zedediah said. "As patriarch of this clan I can't really take credit for her—or Lucille, for that matter. Except that my sons had the good sense to choose them."
"I'm an Applewhite!" Destiny said. "My name's Destiny Applewhite. Destiny is my first name and—"
"But this is too wonderful!" Bernstein said. "An artistic dynasty. Like the painters...ah...um...you know...the Wyeths! Or the writing Brontës. Or the acting Barrymores. Except that you each do such different work." He turned back to Sybil. "You never gave so much as a hint."
Sybil was sitting very still. When she spoke, her voice was chilly. "I was under the impression that you were coming to interview me. It didn't occur to me to mention my family. Any more than it would have occurred to any of them to mention me."
"Ah!" Bernstein said. "Yes, well." He cleared his throat. "But I have to tell you it's exciting to be sitting here at a table in the midst of so much talent. It's like expecting to find a diamond and stumbling into an entire mine. The children? Do they—"
"The children are still exploring their artistic potentials," Sybil said. "Destiny shows signs of talent in the visual arts. He has a real eye for color."
"That's me, Destiny," Destiny said. "I gots lots and lots of finger paintings. You want to see my finger paintings?" He got down from the table and went off toward the schoolroom.
Sybil went on. "Hal, whom you haven't met—"
"Nor are likely to, unless you're planning to put down roots," Archie said. "None of us has laid eyes on him for months."
Sybil frowned at Archie. "Hal is something of an introvert, but I'm sure you understand the sensitive artistic temperament." Bernstein nodded, his face serious and sympathetic. "He was passionately into painting for a while, but judging from the new sign on his door, the materials he's been ordering on the Internet, and the sounds coming from his room, he seems to be expanding his range. We all respect his artistic privacy, of course, so we won't know what he's working on until he's ready to show us."
"I'm composing and choreographing an original ballet," Cordelia said. "I also play the music and will dance it. It's a solo ballet called The Death of Ophelia. From Hamlet, you know."
"Ah. Ophelia. Unrequited love, madness, drowning! Superb material for a ballet. An opera even."
"I don't sing."
"That's the Achilles heel of the whole Applewhite clan," Zedediah said. "If there's a singing gene, we don't have it. Applewhites don't sing."
"I do!" Destiny had come back in, carrying a large sheet of paper covered with red and green smudges. "I sing all the time." He put down his finger painting and launched into "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" at the top of his lungs, walking his fingers up an imaginary water-spout. Destiny proved Zedediah's point, Jake thought.
From then on the conversation went on around Jake so fast and furiously that he wasn't sure he could have followed it if he'd wanted to. It was all about art. Mostly Applewhite art. He did his best, in spite of his total loathing of cooked vegetables, to eat enough to keep body and soul together, slipping bits of zuchini and beet and cooked carrot to the dog at his feet under the table. Though he was apparently willing to eat anything, Winston seemed to enjoy beet greens in particular.
"You're very lucky to be invited to participate in this amazing educational opportunity," Bernstein said to Jake at one point. Jake realized the conversation had come around to the Creative Academy. He nodded dutifully. He hadn't been listening, so he didn't know whether Bernstein understood why he'd been "invited to participate."
"You know," Bernstein went on, addressing the whole family now, "I have a friend who's a producer for a magazine show on one of the television networks. He's always looking for stories with enough of a hook to interest the network executives. I've never had one to give him before, but I think this could be it. The Applewhite artistic dynasty and the home school designed to perpetuate it. If I may borrow a computer, I could e-mail him the idea tonight. I know it would be an invasion of your privacy, but I think those of us who understand the importance of the arts owe it to the rest of America to give them a taste of what it's all about."
Later, while Bernstein and the adults carried the conversation into the living room and Cordelia put Destiny to bed, Jake and E.D. were sent to rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. E.D. said nothing at all as they worked, but she crashed plates and glasses into each other so ferociously, Jake was surprised that nothing broke. What's her problem? Jake wondered, setting the meat platter on the floor for Winston to lick.
## Chapter Nine
E.D. slammed the door to her room and threw herself on the bed. Not one word! she thought. Neither her mother nor Zedediah had said a single word about her to Jeremy Bernstein. Her name hadn't even been mentioned. She might as well have been in Traybridge with her father! Invisible, that's what she was. The invisible Applewhite. It was too much. She wanted out of this family.
She turned over and lay on her back, staring up at the posters of rock stars she had taped to the ceiling. Cordelia and Hal didn't have posters of rock stars. They wouldn't sink so low as to admit they liked what almost every other kid their age in the whole civilized world liked. Oh no. They were much too individual for that. Much too artsy. And that wimpy Jeremy Bernstein probably never had rock stars on his ceiling either. He probably had posters of Shakespeare or Picasso or—or—Edith Wharton!
Well, she had news for her family. She might not have a talent that would get a television producer excited about doing a story on her. But she wouldn't lose track of the date or forget to go to the grocery when they were out of food. Unlike certain other people, she was going to be able to cope with the real world when she got old enough to go out into it on her own.
The way Jeremy Bernstein had talked about the Creative Academy, anybody would have thought the adults had thought it up specifically to educate the next generation of artistic geniuses. The truth was, she was the only one who was doing anything to keep it any sort of school at all, the only one actually getting an education from it, and the only one making sure that Destiny would get an education.
She had read somewhere that the best way to learn something was to teach it, so she had built in a Teaching Opportunities section to every single project in her curriculum. When she'd learned enough about each project, she taught the main ideas to Destiny. That way he was learning a whole bunch of things he might never decide to learn on his own, and he was learning them really early, before he was even supposed to be a student in the academy, so that when he began doing his own thing, whatever that turned out to be, he wouldn't end up as ignorant as Cordelia and Hal were bound to be.
Jeremy Bernstein was worried about a television show invading their family's privacy. That just showed how little he understood them. Every last one of them lived to be the center of attention. Even Hal. Turning himself into a recluse guaranteed that people would talk about him.
She threw her extra pillow across the room. She hated being an Applewhite.
## Chapter Ten
According to the alarm clock on his bedside table, it was 5:03 A.M. when Jake woke to the shrieking clatter of an electric coffee grinder. He buried his head under the pillow and turned over to go back to sleep. But now that he was awake, he had to go to the bathroom. When he opened the door of his bedroom, he saw Archie, dressed in jogging clothes and bustling around the cottage's small kitchen area. Jake nodded in his direction but didn't return Archie's greeting. How could anyone have that much good cheer at that hour of the morning? Lucille had called Archie a lark. True. Nobody but birds was up at this hour.
Or so he thought. He had just gone back to bed and was slipping happily into a dream about a spectacularly beautiful dancer in a purple leotard when something thundered across the room and landed on him like a mortar round, knocking the breath out of him. He felt the covers being pulled off his head.
"You are so too awake! Uncle Archie said you was asleep. He said you didn't even wake up when you went to the bathroom before. You isn't asleep at all. You gots your eyes open and everything!"
Groaning, Jake maneuvered so that Destiny's weight slid off his stomach and onto the edge of the bed. Then he pushed himself up to his elbows. The boy, dressed in pirate pajamas, did not stop talking.
"Your hair points is all messed and flat. I told you! Nobody gots hair that grows in points like you said. You gots to do something to it to make it do that. I wanna watch you do it. Can I watch? Can I? Huh? Can I?"
"No!" Jake said. "Go away. I'm not ready to be awake yet. I'm not awake."
"Are so. You gots your eyes open and you're talking. Jake's awake, Jake's awake, Jake's awake!"
"Go home. Don't you know you're not supposed to barge into somebody's bedroom without knocking?"
Destiny jumped off the bed, ran to the open door, and knocked on it. "I knocked. Now do I gets to watch you make your hair do points? Can I, can I, can I?"
"Destiny! What did I tell you?" Archie appeared in the doorway. He shook his head at Jake. "You might as well get up. I could take him away, but he'll come back. Believe me, you're better off getting up now. And here's somebody who followed him over." Winston came into the room, jumped heavily up onto Jake's bed, and licked him on the nose.
"Okay! Okay! I give up." The prospect of life at Juvenile Hall was beginning to seem tempting.
Jake took a shower, listening to what seemed like two hundred repetitions of "Frère Jacques," which could be heard even over the sound of the water running. He got dressed and then let Destiny sit on the edge of the tub while he gelled and combed his hair into its all-over porcupine points. It was somehow a lot harder to do with somebody watching. Winston lay on the damp bath mat, his nose between his paws, his eyes focused on Jake as if the jar of gel were something to eat.
Archie stuck his head in to tell them he was off to jog and do his morning Tai Chi. "You can have breakfast here if you like—there's cereal. Or go up to the main house and see what's there, if anything. Somebody else is bound to be up in a couple of hours."
Destiny begged Jake to gel and spike his hair, too, but Jake had no intention of becoming a hairdresser for a four-year-old. He told Destiny that, even with the gel, only teenage hair would stay up in points. "Little-kid hair won't do that."
When Jake had finished his hair, Lucille still didn't seem to be up. Jake wasn't used to being up, dressed, and ready for the day at this hour. He told Destiny to go back to the main house and take Winston with him, but that was like telling a tidal wave to turn around and go back out to sea. So he went into the kitchen and looked through the cupboards till he found a box of Cheerios and two bowls. "You can eat with me," he told Destiny, who was singing "Pop Goes the Weasel" now, "but after that, you have to go up to the house and get dressed. You don't want to spend the day in pajamas."
Destiny stopped singing long enough to say that he could spend the day in pajamas if he wanted to and sometimes he did.
Jake sighed. It wouldn't be possible for Destiny to grow up to be a delinquent—there didn't seem to be any rules for him to break.
The only milk in the refrigerator was in a canning jar. He poured it on both bowls of Cheerios. When he put the first spoonful into his mouth, he spit it right back into his spoon. "What's the matter with this milk?" he said.
Destiny, chewing a mouthful perfectly cheerfully, shrugged. "It's from the goatses," he said when he'd swallowed.
Jake's Cheerios went to Winston.
## Chapter Eleven
In the schoolroom E.D. was getting ready for the day's work. She was going to start the Teaching Opportunities part of the Butterfly Project because it would give Jake something to do that didn't involve any interaction with living creatures. If he didn't want to cooperate, it wouldn't be her fault. She'd brought a gallon jug of water, a bucket, a box of wheat paste, and a stack of newspapers to tear. She was going to make a papier-mâché caterpillar and chrysalis to teach Destiny about metamorphosis.
Jake, his earphones pushed back on his head, was slouched at his desk now with Winston at his feet, doing his best to fend off Destiny's eternal questions. "What kinda stuff did you puts on your hair to make it red? Paint? How come you did red? Could you make it green instead? Could you make it blue or purple or silver?" E.D. remembered a nature documentary she'd seen where a male lion was being tormented by a cub who bit his tail and pounced on his back and chewed on his ears. Eventually the lion had swatted the cub with one huge paw and sent it tumbling. She hoped her father, who was the teacher on call today, would get here before Jake got fed up enough with Destiny to do any swatting. Her father was late. It was already almost nine-thirty.
She was just pouring the water into the bucket when Randolph appeared in the schoolroom doorway in pajamas and slippers, his hair disheveled and his eyes screwed up against the daylight. "Awful night," he said. "Didn't get a wink of sleep." He peered at Jake. "We're supposed to be keeping an eye on you till you get adjusted, but you're just going to have to work on your own today. You do have something you can do, right?"
Jake shrugged.
"Good. Good. Excellent." Randolph reached over and grabbed the earphones off Jake's head. Jake swore as Randolph pulled the wire loose from his Walkman, but Randolph paid no attention. "These things'll make you deaf by the time you're twenty."
Randolph put the earphones around his neck and then rubbed his face with both hands as he turned to E.D. "The audition was a disaster. A raging disaster! You'd be amazed at how many stage mothers there are in a town the size of Traybridge. Unfortunately none of their kids has a shred of talent. And the adults! I'm not insisting on a Julie Andrews or a Mary Martin, but it would be nice to have one or two people who can sing and act, preferably at the same time. I'll be on the phone all day, calling everyone who's ever directed a musical in this state, trying to locate some—within driving distance, if possible. Thanks to Cordelia, I have to find a dance person, too. I gave her an opportunity to participate in what could be the best piece of musical theater ever produced in this county, and she turned me down cold. How sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child!"
He started away and then turned back. "Where's that wretched little road menace who destroyed my car? And why hasn't the tow truck come to drag away that piece of junk he was driving? It looks like someone's had a demolition derby in our front yard."
"He's in Dogwood Cottage," E.D. said. "Grandpa said he could deal with his car today."
"He'd better have himself a first-rate lawyer if he wants to get out of this with a penny in his pocket." He left, muttering under his breath about reckless driving. E.D. was starting to stir the wheat paste into the water when he put his head back through the doorway. "If you really need anything this morning, you can come and get me. If you really need it." He blinked at Jake once or twice. "Independence. That's what the Creative Academy is all about. Independence! Remember that." Then he was gone.
"I'll bet you never went to a school before where the teachers were too busy to hang out in the classroom with the students," E.D. said to Jake.
"He stole my earphones!" Jake said. "He can't do that."
"He already did." She turned to Destiny, who was talking about hair colors again. If no adult was going to protect the cub from the lion, she'd have to. "Destiny, you go find today's newspaper and bring it to me, and I'll set you up with your fingerpaints when you get back."
Destiny went off humming to himself, and E.D. handed Jake her curriculum notebook. "I don't see how you're going to catch up with any of this, but if you aren't planning to go to Juvenile Hall, you might as well do something. Butterflies of the Carolinas is over there on the computer desk. And there are a couple of butterfly websites you can check out."
Jake set the notebook on his desk. "I can catch up whenever I feel like it. I never got expelled for being dumb."
"That depends on how smart you think it was to land yourself here." She tossed him some newspapers. "If you don't want to read about butterflies, you can tear strips."
"Tear strips?"
"Newspaper strips." She explained about the papier-mâché caterpillar, about Teaching Opportunities.
"What kind of caterpillar is it supposed to be?" He looked at the chart on the wall. "Better make it a great spangled fritillary, since you haven't caught one."
"The caterpillar I'm making is a monarch," she said stiffly. "It has the prettiest chrysalis. But I will catch a fritillary."
"Pretty sure of yourself."
"I'll catch one!"
When Destiny brought back the paper, E.D. spread it on the floor in the corner of the room and set him up with some huge pieces of shiny white paper, a bowl of water, and a box of fingerpaints. Before she let him start, she buttoned a paint-smeared man's shirt onto him backward so that it hung like a dress from his chin to his ankles. He settled happily and began to work, smearing not only the paper, but the shirt and sometimes his face with color. As he painted, he talked steadily to himself, to the paint, to the paper. When he wasn't talking, he was repeating nonsense syllables over and over again, in a sort of singsong chant. "You get used to it," E.D. told Jake. "After a while you won't notice him anymore—like the sound of a refrigerator turning on and off."
Jake, still slouched, began tearing strips of paper, and E.D. started to work on the caterpillar. By the time she was finished, Jake was reading Butterflies of the Carolinas. She wiped her hands on a rag and told him she would take the caterpillar out in the sun to dry. "Then I'm going to go catch a fritillary." Destiny was earnestly telling himself about the big orange tiger he was about to paint in the green, green jungle. "You can keep an eye on Destiny."
She took Jake's lack of response as agreement, grabbed the butterfly net, and left. There were no fritillaries in the meadow. There were only a couple of summer azures and an orange sulphur. It couldn't be getting too late in the season. It was only past the middle of September. She could feel her stomach getting more and more knotted as she pushed her way through the shoulder-high stalks of goldenrod. What if she didn't find a fritillary? She hated the idea of leaving a space in the Butterfly Project without a check mark. Worse, she'd told Jake she would catch a fritillary. She absolutely had to!
She was just about to give up when an orange-and-beige butterfly of the right size flew out from behind a tulip tree at the edge of the meadow. It landed on a spray of goldenrod, its wings closed so that she couldn't see the markings. She crept closer, the net ready in her hand. As she was about to sweep the net to catch it, the butterfly opened its wings and fluttered away. E.D. bit her lip to keep from crying with disappointment. The markings were soft and brown, not black. It was a fritillary all right, but not a great spangled. Three different times she'd caught a variegated fritillary. She knew the difference by this time. Sweaty and furious, she stayed out awhile longer, but finally had to head back. She didn't want to leave Destiny with Jake for too long.
As she got close to the house, she saw Jake coming from the direction of the dance studio. Winston was waddling along with him. Destiny wasn't with them. Beneath the sound of hammering that came from Hal's room, she could just make out the music for Cordelia's ballet. Jake must have been watching her again.
"You were supposed to be keeping an eye on Destiny," she told him as he joined her.
"Independence," he said. "That's what the Creative Academy is all about!"
"Destiny's only four!"
"A pretty independent four if you ask me. I told him I didn't think he was independent enough to finish the painting he was working on all by himself. He said he could prove he was. So I let him."
"It's never a good idea to leave Destiny alone."
"Didn't get your fritillary, huh?" He was smirking at her.
"I'll get it!" she said.
When they got to the schoolroom, Destiny greeted them at the door. "Look at me! Look at me!" His hair, slathered with wheat paste, stood up in clumps and tufts all over his head. "See, Jake? Little-kid hair does so too stand up in points. When it's all dry, I'm gonna paint it purple! Or green. I like green. Do you like green?"
## Chapter Twelve
A week later, Jake stood in the bathroom of Wisteria Cottage, humming abstractedly to himself as he gelled his hair into points. He frowned into the mirror. He'd taken on this look so long ago that he could hardly remember himself any other way. But the truth was he was getting tired of doing this every day. It was one thing to go to so much trouble when people took notice, when it got him something he wanted. But here it didn't get him anything at all. Nobody cared. The only Applewhite who even noticed his hair anymore was Destiny. And that had gotten to be a major pain.
The day with the wheat paste Destiny had absolutely insisted on letting his hair dry that way, though Jake and E.D. had kept him from painting it. Jake understood, now, why wheat paste was used to do papier-mâché. When it dried, it was like rock. Sybil Jameson had refused to take any motherly responsibility for the situation at all. "You're the one who gave him the idea in the first place," she told Jake. "You wash the stuff out." Jake had never handled a screaming, flailing four-year-old before. It had taken an hour and a half of head soaking and hysteria to get all the wheat paste out, and by that time Jake had been as wet and exhausted as Destiny.
That had been only the beginning. The next day Destiny had painted his hair with green fingerpaint. The day after that he'd used colored markers to give it rainbow stripes. Luckily, they were watercolor ones. Destiny was so prone to coloring things that weren't meant to be colored that permanent markers had been banned from the Applewhite household altogether.
Nobody minded the boy spending the day with vividly colored hair, but Sybil insisted the color be washed out before bed. Jake, of course, had to do it. And Destiny had turned it into a game to see how hard he could make it for Jake to get the job done. Very hard! The kid was incorrigible. What the Applewhites ought to do, Jake thought, was shave Destiny's head!
Jake stared at his own hair. It was getting too long for this. Besides, the dark brown roots were showing now in a way that was starting to look scruffy instead of intentional. Then there was the problem of his clothes. It was hot out. Sunny and hot and humid. Black clothes made it seem even hotter. And black clothes were the only clothes he owned. He'd worn the spiked collar only twice—it had made his neck sweat and then chafed it raw.
Jake was beginning to feel he was disappearing altogether. Nobody except E.D. and Destiny noticed when he swore. Destiny giggled and E.D. just sighed and shook her head. Nothing he'd done before to show people who he was and what he stood for worked here.
He couldn't even chill out the way he used to. No TV to watch. His Walkman was useless without earphones. If he dared to smoke where he could be seen, somebody was sure to snatch away his cigarette. It wasn't only Zedediah who did it. Archie had, and Lucille, too. Archie only snatched and stomped, but Lucille had delivered a ten-minute lecture—not on the dangers of cigarette smoking, which he'd heard about a zillion times before, but on the desecration of tobacco, which she said was sacred to American Indian spirituality. By the end of the lecture she'd worked herself into tears about the "wanton destruction of native culture in the Americas." Lucille Applewhite was such an incredibly cheerful person it was actually painful to see her in tears. It wasn't the sort of feeling Jake was used to.
So he'd taken one of his last cigarettes out into the meadow three days ago to find a place to smoke it in peace. There'd been no place to sit in the meadow. He'd found a log by the edge of the pond and settled himself there. Winston had gone along with him, and Jake had no sooner lit his cigarette and taken a nice, long, relaxing drag than the dog got himself stuck in the mud by the cattails and started howling as if he were being murdered. When Jake went to pull him out, he got stuck, too. It was the smelliest, blackest, most disgusting mud he'd ever encountered, and it snatched one of his sneakers right off his foot. By the time he'd managed to crawl out, drag the dog free, and find his sneaker, he was muck from neck to toe.
Later, he'd found two ticks on the back of his neck, their heads buried in his skin, sucking his blood. Archie had pulled them off with tweezers and assured him that he wasn't likely to get Rocky Mountain spotted fever, since the ticks hadn't been on him long enough, but the ordeal had wrecked the whole idea of sneaking off for a relaxing smoke.
Apart from the pond incident, the dog was getting to be a real nuisance. Where Jake went, Winston went. He had abandoned the main house altogether and taken up residence in Wisteria Cottage. More specifically in Jake's room. Though Jake insisted the dog sleep on the lavender braided rug, when he woke in the morning at the horrible predawn hour when Archie ground his coffee before going out for his morning exercise, Winston was invariably lying alongside him, pinning him beneath the covers, snoring steadily and drooling on his pillow. He had to shove the dog off the bed if he had to get up to go to the bathroom.
Now Jake finished his hair, stepped back, and tripped over Winston, who was lying behind him. The dog yelped and leaped to his feet so that Jake stumbled over him again, cracking his elbow on the sink and his knee on the toilet before he got his balance. He swore. "What's the matter with you, dog? Why can't you just leave me alone?" Winston stared up at him with those sad, droopy eyes and wagged his tail. The overwhelming impulse to boot the dog out into the hall vanished. Jake reached down and rubbed the dog behind his ears. There. That proved it. The Jake he knew, the Jake he had always been, was disappearing. And there was nothing—nobody—to put in his place.
## Chapter Thirteen
E.D. was alone in the schoolroom, sitting at the computer with her hands pressed over her ears. Jake and his canine shadow, Winston, had gone into Traybridge with Archie to get some supplies for the wood shop, and Lucille had taken Destiny along to the library. Jeremy Bernstein was still staying in Dogwood Cottage. He had decided to write a book about what he insisted on calling the Applewhite Artistic Dynasty, and he had been practically monopolizing the schoolroom computer, working on the book and exchanging e-mails with his TV friend, trying to arrange a documentary about them all, or a story on a magazine show at least. But he was out in the wood shop now. It was a chance to get online and do her math. Except that she couldn't concentrate.
E.D. had always thought you could get used to sounds, the way you got used to smells after a while. Sensory fatigue, it was called. You would get so you didn't notice anymore. Like Destiny's nonstop chatter. She'd told Jake it was like getting used to a refrigerator motor. And she'd been right. Everybody got used to Destiny. You couldn't survive in this family otherwise.
But this was different. This was worse. Much, much worse. This was torture. She'd heard somewhere that when the cops or the FBI or somebody had wanted to end a siege with a militant cult, they'd beamed rock and roll music at them from high-powered speakers. She could understand why it would work. Only they shouldn't have used rock and roll. They should have used The Sound of Music. It would have been faster. After twenty-four hours the people in the cult would have laid down their guns and come out on their hands and knees, eyes as crazed as Wolfie's, singing compulsively about female deer and kitten whiskers.
For five days now her father had been playing the CD of The Sound of Music all day, every day. He said he needed to totally immerse himself in the musical ambiance of the show. So everybody was being totally immersed in the musical ambiance of the show. Her mother had begged him to use earphones, but he refused, of course. "They not only destroy your eardrums, they mess up your brain waves!" So the music blared out from the living room speakers, not just through the whole of the main house, but out the open windows and all over Wit's End.
Upstairs Hal had gone almost silent for a while after the UPS man dropped off a roll of chicken wire and two gigantic bags of plaster. The sign on his door that had once read HAL APPLEWHITE, PAINTER now said HAL APPLEWHITE, SCULPTOR. But whatever he was sculpting with chicken wire and plaster, Hal had taken up hammering again. Purely, E.D. thought, in self-defense. Sybil had turned up the volume on the white noise machine in her office and had taken to wearing earmuffs in order to keep writing her Great American Novel.
Cordelia swore the sound carried out to the dance studio. Her ballet, she claimed, was changing from a discordant tragedy to something resembling a polka. Most days Lucille stayed in Wisteria Cottage with all the doors and windows closed and the curtains drawn. She said it was the only way she could write poetry that didn't fall into rhymes like thread and bread, mitten and kitten. E.D. figured it was the music that had sent Jeremy Bernstein out to the wood shop. He could do interviews with Zedediah and Archie out there, where the power tools overwhelmed any other sounds.
It wasn't that E.D. didn't like the music. She did. But the constant repetition had worn grooves in her brain. Even in those few blessed hours when Randolph took the CD and went off to Traybridge for what he called his "eternal, unending, utterly futile auditions," there was no respite. The music kept playing over and over in her mind. She would catch herself humming it. Whistling it. It wasn't just the hills that were alive with this music, it was the trees, the grass, the house, the universe! Even worse, Jake had taken to humming it as well, so that if she did manage to drive it out of her mind briefly, he might bring it rushing back at any moment.
Randolph Applewhite didn't very often direct musicals, and when he did, he usually went somewhere else to do it. Some other city in some other state. If he ever got this show cast and if the family survived the rehearsal period, E.D. was going to suggest they make a family rule against his ever again directing a musical from home.
Partly to get away from the music and partly because it had become an obsession, E.D. had spent a good part of the week in the meadow, by the pond, in the pine grove, anywhere and everywhere on their sixteen acres—looking for a great spangled fritillary. When she came back each day, the unused camera on its strap around her neck, her net empty, Jake's smirk seemed to get bigger and broader. E.D. didn't give up easily, but she was beginning to lose hope. September was the last month they were supposed to be out there, and they were listed as rare during the second half of the month. There were only six more days in September.
It was beginning to look likely that the Butterfly Project would end with a gaping hole in the chart. It drove her nuts. The great spangled fritillary was a common butterfly. The book said so. She should have found one weeks ago. It was just some nasty twist of fate that she hadn't found one. It was like a curse. If Jake Semple hadn't come into her life, she was absolutely certain she would have found one by now. But he had come, and then he'd challenged her. She'd told him that she would find one, and now if she didn't, Jake Semple would win!
Everything else about the project was finished. The papier-mâché caterpillar and chrysalis were sitting on a shelf in the schoolroom, painted according to the pictures in her book, and she'd scheduled the Teaching Opportunity about metamorphosis for the first of next week. She was going to explain to Destiny how the caterpillar turned itself into the chrysalis and then she would cut the chrysalis open and explain how the monarch butterfly that she had a photograph of on the chart had climbed out of it and flown away. The Teaching Opportunity and a paper describing the project and its results were what she called the Culminating Events. Her paper was almost done—it was just waiting for a paragraph on the great spangled fritillary or else the statement that she had had to give up on finding one. A statement of defeat she couldn't bear to think about.
There were no official grades at the Creative Academy, but E.D. always graded herself on her projects. It gave her a sense of where she was, what she had done, and most of the time a comforting feeling of accomplishment. But without the great spangled fritillary, she was going to have to give herself a B in science for the first half of this term. She was not used to getting Bs. She worked and worked until she felt sure she had earned an A. This fritillary thing wasn't something she could do by hard work. It was totally out of her control.
Worse, she'd been so determined to find one that she had fallen behind in every other subject. Including math. Her math tutor had sent her an e-mail asking if she was sick. She was doing her best to catch up now. But the more she tried to concentrate, the more she was aware of the voice singing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain." It filled the house, urging her to climb mountains, ford streams, follow rainbows.
Suddenly a new voice joined the one pouring out of the living room speakers. Jake burst into the schoolroom singing at the top of his lungs that she should keep climbing and fording and following. Mercifully, when the final chord had died away, the CD ended and the house was suddenly silent. Hal's hammering stopped with the music. Jake stood there smirking, his hands behind his back. Winston had come in after him and now flopped at his feet. "The song's right!" Jake said.
"About what?"
"About finding your dream if you look hard enough. Well, I wouldn't call it a dream exactly—not mine anyway—and there weren't any mountains involved. But I found it!" With that he brought out from behind his back a clear plastic box like the kind nuts and bolts come in. Lying in the box, its wings battered, its body shriveled, was a great spangled fritillary.
"You killed it!" she said.
"It was dead when I found it. Guess where!" When she didn't guess, he told her anyway. "Stuck to the front of Archie's truck. Inside the grille. It must have been there for days. Maybe even weeks."
E.D. stared at the battered insect. There was no mistaking what it was.
She wanted to cry. This was almost as bad as ending with a hole on the chart. The Butterfly Project would get an A now. But it wouldn't really be her A. It would belong to both of them.
## Chapter Fourteen
What's the matter with the girl? Jake thought. He'd saved her stupid project for her, hadn't he? So why was she pissed off? She should have been grateful. All the way back from Traybridge he'd imagined her reaction to his finding the lousy butterfly she wanted, and he might just as well have brought her a slug. A toad. A road-killed possum. That's what he got for trying to be nice. Well, he wouldn't let it happen again!
Jake slammed the plastic box down on E.D.'s desk as Randolph Applewhite burst into the schoolroom and stumbled over Winston, who was lying across the doorway. Winston yelped and scrambled out of the way, but Randolph barely seemed to notice. "Who was that singing? Who was that singing?" He looked wildly around the schoolroom. "Jake? That can't have been you. Was it? Was that you?"
Jake shrugged. "Just now? I—I guess so. I was just singing along with—"
"Where did you learn to sing? And where did you get that magnificent voice?"
"I don't know—I just—"
"Never mind. Can you act?"
Jake shrugged again. He had played a pumpkin in a first-grade Thanksgiving play, but it hadn't required any acting. His teacher had given him the part because it didn't have any lines. She had been afraid of what he might say if he was allowed to speak onstage.
"We'll find out tonight. You'll come to auditions, and I'll have you read with Jeannie Ng. She's the only person I've seen or heard yet who could possibly play Liesl." Randolph took hold of Jake's shoulders and looked at him intently, his head cocked to one side. "Possible. Just possible. Luckily, Jeannie's really small. Do you know Rolf's song?"
"Rolf's—?" E.D. said, "Rolf? Jake can't play Rolf! Rolf's seventeen years old."
"I know, I know—going on eighteen. You're—how old, Jake?"
"Thirteen. Last May."
"Well, thank heavens your voice has changed already. And you're tall for your age. Rolf could be small. It doesn't say anywhere Rolf can't be small. All the more reason he would want to join the SS—to make up for being a runt. The psychology of it's perfect." Randolph let go of him then. "It's an excellent part. A wonderful song, a little dancing, a romantic interest. And you'd get to be the source of all the onstage tension at the end."
"But I've never—"
"Doesn't matter. You can sing! You have a strong, powerful voice and you stay on key. Right now I wouldn't care if you couldn't act your way out of a paper bag. You're smart enough. If you can't act, I'll teach you. I'll get you a script right away. In all these interminable auditions I haven't found a single person who could come close to playing Rolf. Not one. And here you were all the time, right under my nose!"
With that Randolph Applewhite left the schoolroom, humming Rolf's song to himself, slightly off-key. A good thing he doesn't have to teach singing, Jake thought.
"Are you going to do it?" E.D. asked.
"What's it to you?" Jake said. It was a question Jake should have been asking himself. But for some reason he wasn't. Randolph Applewhite wanted him to be in The Sound of Music. From the very moment he'd understood that, Jake had known the answer. Of course he was going to do it.
"Because if you do, and if you dare—dare—to sing Rolf's song, or any other one for that matter, even once in this room while I'm trying to work, I'll—I'll—"
Jake wasn't listening, he was thinking. His heart, he noticed suddenly, was actually pounding with excitement. He'd never auditioned for anything. What if he froze up? And what would it be like to sing on a stage in front of a lot of people? He'd never done it before. Then there was the acting. He didn't know for certain that he could act, at least not with a script and lines somebody else made up. But something told him he could. Now that he thought about it, acting was what he'd been doing all his life.
He didn't know the show, really, but he knew the music. By now there wasn't anybody at Wit's End who didn't know every word to every single song. Randolph had asked where Jake had learned to sing. The weird thing was that until this very moment, he hadn't even known he could. Not really. Magnificent, Randolph Applewhite had called his voice. Magnificent.
## Chapter Fifteen
Her father hadn't been gone two minutes before Jake started humming Rolf's song. E.D. shut down the computer and stormed out of the schoolroom, her stomach churning. She had just started up the stairs to her room when the CD began again and the house filled with the opening notes of The Sound of Music's overture. Almost immediately the hammering started up in Hal's room.
E.D. turned and went out through the kitchen, slamming the screen door behind her. Under the big beech tree near the barn, Lucille was reading to Destiny. Paulie, from the porch of her grandfather's cottage, was shrieking with maniacal laughter, and the strains of Ophelia's death ballet drifted up from the dance studio. These sounds, along with the high, vibrant thrum of cicadas, seemed almost to collide inside her skull with the music from the house.
Now that she was out here, she didn't know what she wanted to do. There was no need to get the butterfly net and head out to the meadow. There were no more butterflies to find. And she couldn't do any other work unless she went back to the schoolroom first to get her materials. Right now she didn't care whether she ever went back to the schoolroom again. She didn't know why she was feeling the way she was feeling. For that matter, she didn't know what she was feeling. But she didn't care. Whatever it was, it was awful, and she wanted to make it go away.
She kept walking till she found herself at the goat pen. Wolfie had to be in the shed. Only Hazel was outside. She was in the corner of the pen, her head under the bottom rail, her neck stretched as far as it would go, trying to reach a clump of weeds on the other side. Not so much as a blade of grass was growing inside the pen. The goats had stripped it clean. Their food trough was empty. E.D. pulled up the clump of weeds by the roots and tossed it over the fence. Hazel pulled her head free, picked up the weeds, and began munching. E.D. decided to get a scoop of feed for her and had just put one hand on the gate when Wolfie came thundering out of the shed, eyes blazing, head down. He tore past Hazel and crashed into the gate so hard the impact jolted E.D.'s arm clear to her shoulder.
"Fine!" she said to the goat, who had now snatched the weeds from Hazel and was shaking them from side to side as if killing them. "You can just starve for all I care. Both of you!"
The lathe started up in the wood shop. E.D. followed the sound like a trail of bread crumbs. Maybe hanging out with Zedediah for a while would make her feel better. Zedediah could always make her feel better.
"Whoa, Nellie," her grandfather said over the sound of the lathe as she slipped in through the door, "who skunked your dog?"
"What?"
He turned off the machine. "I haven't seen anything as threatening as the expression on your face since I saw a tornado heading for the highway while I was driving back from the coast in a hurricane."
There were three newly finished rocking chairs in the shop. E.D. threw herself into one of them. "Where's Archie?"
"Is he the one you're mad at?"
"No. I mean I'm not mad at anybody."
Zedediah shook his head. "Could've fooled me. Archie took that reporter kid down to the old highway bridge to do a little fishing."
"Fishing?" E.D. couldn't remember any member of her family ever going fishing.
"He bought a pole while he was in town, and they went out so he can practice. Seems when the television people come they'll want to get some tape of us doing regular old country things. To show that when we aren't making art, we're just plain folk. It's supposed to be good for ratings."
"Oh." E.D. set the rocking chair moving.
"Easy. Easy! You rock that hard, you're going to rock the chair right over on you. What's eating at you?"
E.D. shrugged. "Nothing."
Zedediah brushed sawdust off his work apron and settled himself in another of the rocking chairs. "Right. I can see that."
"Dad's going to give Jake a part in The Sound of Music. A real part. With a song and everything."
"Aaahhh." E.D. frowned at her grandfather. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. Just aaahhh. Anything else?" E.D. wanted to tell him about the great spangled fritillary, but she couldn't. Just thinking about how it would sound stopped her. How could she be angry about getting some help? "And then there's Jeremy Bernstein!" she said. Why had she said that? "How come he's still here?"
"Because he doesn't have a pair of quarters to rub together. He didn't have collision insurance on that old wreck of his. He can't afford to leave!"
"Somebody could buy him a bus ticket or something."
"Are you kidding? He practically worships the ground we walk on. Who among us can resist that? The kid's obsessed with art and artists. Besides, he's got a head full of projects he wants to do about us. First the TV show. That's supposed to spin off into a feature-length documentary. Then he's planning to write separate articles about each of us and sell them to different magazines. Probably an article about the Creative Academy, too. And then there's his book. It's a good deal all the way around. He gets room and board and a place to work, and we get our own personal press agent."
Zedediah rocked for a while in unison with E.D. She realized she could hear, ever so faintly, the music up at the house. She felt her hands clench into fists.
"So Randolph thinks Jake can sing, eh?" Zedediah said.
She nodded.
"I have something to tell you, and I want you to listen. Are you listening?"
E.D. nodded again.
"I said, are you listening?"
"Yes, I'm listening!"
"All right, then. You, Edith Wharton Applewhite, have talent. Very real, very important talent. Just because somebody like Jeremy Bernstein is obsessed with artists doesn't mean that artists are the most valuable people in the world. Or that art's better than everything else human beings do."
E.D. thought of her curriculum notebook. Her project charts. Her goals and Teaching Opportunities and time lines. "I know that!" She did. She knew that. He didn't have to tell her.
But right this minute it didn't make her feel one whit better.
## Chapter Sixteen
Sitting in the passenger seat of the newly repaired Miata as Randolph Applewhite drove back to Wit's End from Traybridge, Jake thought back over the evening. He had gone in to the audition with Randolph. When the Miata had pulled up in front of the theater, Jake had been surprised. He'd expected it to be like a movie house, stuck in among the storefronts on one of Traybridge's main streets. But it was a whole separate brick building, surrounded by a manicured lawn. It looked something like a library, Jake had thought, except for the tall square part at the back of the building that Randolph said was the "stage house."
Columns flanked the double front door, and there was a big red-and-yellow banner over the door that said TRAYBRIDGE LITTLE THEATRE, FIFTY-SIXTH SEASON above a pair of masks, one with its mouth turned up, the other with its mouth turned down. They had walked under the banner into a big lobby with a box office on the left side and three sets of doors ahead, leading into the auditorium, which Randolph called "the house." There were a few people milling around in the lobby when they arrived, and a great many more in the house, scattered in the rows and rows of dark blue plush seats that faced the stage. A kind of tense hush came over them when Randolph walked in.
A woman in a pale blue silk suit with upswept blond hair hurried up to talk to him. "I do hope you're going to be finishing up tonight," she said. "Our people are getting a little restive, I'm afraid."
Jake didn't know what restive meant, but from the way people treated one another and him in particular, he figured it must mean "hostile." From eavesdropping on their conversations, Jake discovered that everybody who had ever been in a Little Theatre show, and lots of people who hadn't, wanted to get cast, or have their children cast, in a show directed by a real, professional, New York director. But auditions had been going on too long, with no sign of when Randolph would announce the cast. There was considerable tension in the air. He heard any number of whispered references to his hair and his eyebrow ring. He wasn't the only target. Thinly veiled insults were whispered about a whole lot of other people, too, as they sang or read scenes.
When it had been Jake's turn to get up onstage, he had sung "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" with Jeannie Ng, learned a few dance steps from the odd little man who was doing the choreography, danced with Jeannie Ng, and then read Rolf's big scene—with Jeannie Ng. Jeannie was small and slim, with long black hair, and dark, almond-shaped eyes in a serenely beautiful face. Her singing voice was sensational. Nervous as he'd been, she had such a calm presence that just being onstage with her somehow made him think he could do it. And he could! He had. Even Jake knew he'd been good.
Another boy, a red-haired and freckled boy who really was seventeen-going-on-eighteen, had also sung and danced and read the part of Rolf, not with Jeannie, but with a blond girl who, when she wasn't auditioning, kept finding ways to mention various other parts she had played in Traybridge Little Theatre productions—the first of which, she said four or five times, had been when she was only five years old. Jake knew absolutely nothing about theater, but he knew that the blond girl, however many parts she had played, and however early she had started playing them, couldn't hold a candle to Jeannie Ng. And the red-haired boy, who seemed to be a pretty good actor, couldn't sing at all.
Jake had just managed to finish reading the play before they left for the audition. He didn't think it was as bad as Randolph had said. It was about a family of Austrians—the von Trapps—at the beginning of the Second World War, when Germany occupied Austria. The Baron von Trapp, an Austrian naval officer whose wife had died, hired a young woman from a nearby convent to be a governess to his seven children. After the governess had taught all the children to sing, the baron fell in love with her. When the Nazis invaded Austria, they demanded that the baron join the German navy. Instead, the whole family, including the governess who had by that time become his wife, used their singing at a music festival as a cover to escape over the mountains into Switzerland.
Rolf, the part Jake had read for, was a messenger boy who was in love with the oldest von Trapp daughter. By the end of the play he had joined the SS, which was the Nazi security force, and was helping the Germans look for the von Trapps to keep them from escaping. It was Rolf who, because of his love for Liesl, let the family get away.
"So," Randolph said now as they turned into the driveway at Wit's End. "It'll be you and Jeannie doing Rolf and Liesl. You're not a bad actor. And you can dance as much as you'll need to. Plus, you're just tall enough and she's just small enough that you'll look okay together onstage. The Ngs are a talented family. I'm going to use her younger brother to play Kurt. What is that ungodly sound?"
A wail that reminded Jake of a tornado siren gave way suddenly to deep barking. As they curved around the trees and shrubs, the Miata's headlights picked up an astonishing sight. Winston, tail waving, ears flapping, barking frantically, came running—galloping—toward them from the house. When Randolph stopped the car, the dog threw himself at it, leaping at the passenger door, whining and barking. "Keep that bloody beast's claws off my car!" Randolph shouted as Jake opened his door. "What do you suppose is the matter with him?"
With an ungainly leap, Winston managed to launch himself from the driveway onto Jake's lap, landing like a ten-ton truck, his back claws digging into Jake's legs, his tongue slathering Jake's face with foamy saliva.
Right behind him came Cordelia and Sybil. "What have you done to that dog, Jake Semple?" Cordelia was asking as she came, her voice accusing. "He's gone completely berserk!"
"I—I—" Jake couldn't have said more even if he'd had anything more to say. He had to close his mouth firmly against the onslaught of basset greeting.
"He started to howl when the two of you drove away," Sybil said, "and he hasn't stopped for fifteen seconds since. It's been hours! He has sat on the front porch and howled as if the world were coming to an end." She waved her reading glasses in the air. Jake had the feeling that she would have preferred to beat him with them. "I can't think, much less work, with that racket going on. If it isn't The Sound of Music, it's the wretched hound. I might as well give up writing altogether."
"You can't go away anymore," Cordelia said to Jake. "That's all there is to it. Not without Winston. Nothing would make him stop. I offered him liver treats, his favorite, and he looked at me as if I was out of my mind. He was inconsolable. Wherever you go, you have to take Winston with you!"
"What are you two going on about? Jake's going to be at rehearsals every night. I can't have a dog at rehearsals," Randolph said. "Under no circumstances will I have a dog at my rehearsals!"
"Then you can't have Jake either," Sybil said. "Your choice. If you want Jake in your show, you're going to have to have Winston. I will not have him here howling like a soul in torment. That's all there is to it."
"But what if he starts howling at rehearsal?"
"He won't." E.D. had joined them. "Not if Jake's there," she said. "He's gotten it into his doggy brain that he's Jake's dog and that's all there is to it." She frowned at Jake. "Alienation of affections it's called, and people can get sued for it."
"Not when it's a dog," Cordelia said.
"Yeah, well, Winston's our dog, and now he thinks he's Jake's dog."
Jake had finally succeeded in dislodging Winston from his lap. The dog was now sitting on the drive, staring up at him and wagging his tail so hard that his whole body wagged with it. "I didn't do anything! I just feed him a little and pet him once in a while. Nobody else seems to take any notice of him at all."
"I do!" E.D. said. "At least I used to, before he turned into your shadow. Now he won't so much as look at me. Or anybody else except you."
"Not even with liver treats!" Cordelia said.
"Enough, enough, enough!" Randolph said. "We will deal with the question of the dog some other time. Let's go inside. I'm calling a family meeting. Right now."
"A family meeting? Everybody?" E.D. said.
"Everybody except Destiny. And Hal. I haven't lost touch with reality."
Sybil checked her watch. "It's nearly eleven o'clock! Lucille and Archie will be asleep by now."
"Well, then, wake them up! Send that howling monster of a dog over to roust them out. We need a family celebration! And someone get that Bernstein fellow up here. This involves him, too, if he really intends to do that documentary he's talking about. I have news. Wonderful news. I have finally succeeded in casting the show!"
## Chapter Seventeen
You're kidding!" Sybil had just brought in a tray of coffee, and she set it down with a bang so that coffee sloshed out of the mugs.
E.D. thought it was unlikely that her father had dragged everybody to a meeting to make a joke. Zedediah hadn't come—he'd told her when she went to get him that unless someone was at death's door at that very moment, he saw no reason why whatever it was couldn't perfectly well wait until morning. But Lucille and Archie were there, even though she'd had to wake them. They were sitting blearily on the couch in their nightclothes. Jeremy Bernstein was there, too, complete with notebook and pen.
"Why would I kid about a thing like this? It's been the most grueling audition process I've ever been through in my life. And the hardest part of it was finding the person to play Maria. Annalouise Mabry sings and acts, and she's young and pretty besides. She is absolutely perfect for the part!"
"Well, it will certainly get the show some attention," Sybil said. "I don't know that anyone has ever cast an African American as Maria before."
"That's because nobody else had to cast the show in Traybridge, North Carolina, before."
"I thought The Sound of Music was a true story," E.D. said. "Wasn't Maria von Trapp a real person?"
"Of course," her father said. "The guiding force behind the von Trapp Family Singers."
"But she wasn't black."
Jeremy Bernstein took a cup of coffee off the tray and blotted its bottom with a napkin. "Technically speaking, the show is only based on a true story. It's literature—a piece of musical theater—not a documentary. Rodgers and Hammerstein probably took some liberties with the truth in creating it. Your father can take a few when casting it. It's called color-blind casting." He turned to Randolph. "That's what makes you such an extraordinary director! That you have the courage, the vision, to make such a choice."
"It was the only possible choice," Randolph said. "Annalouise is incredibly talented. She graduated from Northwestern with a degree in musical theater. She's the lead singer in a gospel choir that's toured the country three times. If I hadn't located this girl, I'd have had to call the whole project off. There wasn't a single other possible Maria for a hundred miles in any direction. She isn't the only color-blind choice, though. It's going to be a rainbow cast. The children playing Louisa and Friedrich are black, and Liesl and Kurt are Vietnamese."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," E.D. said. "I get it that the show isn't a documentary. But won't the audience have trouble understanding it? The von Trapp children all have the same parents. There's biology to think about. You can't have three different races in one family! It doesn't make sense."
"It makes perfect sense! It's musical theater. Singing. Acting. A little dancing. The kids I cast sing and act better than anyone else in town."
"Color-blind casting is the right thing to do," Jeremy said. "Biology or not, your father's morally bound to cast the best people regardless of color or ethnic background."
"Exactly!" Randolph said, stirring a heaping spoonful of sugar into his coffee. "Anyway, appearances don't count. Once the show gets started, I guarantee that the audience won't notice."
Sybil shook her head. "Well, they're likely to notice."
Jeremy waved his coffee mug in the air. "I think it's a philosophically powerful concept. What's The Sound of Music about, after all?"
"Falling in love and escaping the Nazis," Cordelia said.
Jeremy nodded. "Escaping the Nazis. What were the Nazis most infamous for? The Holocaust—the killing of six million Jews. One of the most terrible examples of racial hatred in modern times. What better way to hold a mirror up to our own prejudices than to cast this particular show across racial lines. It's positively inspired!" He began jotting in his notebook. "Think of it. Probably the first time The Sound of Music has ever been done this way. And it's being done in the South. This'll make a great hook for the TV show. The network people will love it. We can have them come for the opening."
Randolph grinned. "That's it, of course. I cast the show the way I did for philosophical reasons."
That was an outrageous lie, E.D. thought, and everyone in the room knew it. But from now on, she knew, that was how her father would think about it. And that's the way Jeremy would write about it.
"I told you I would give the show an edge, Cordelia. Didn't I? Didn't I? I said I would send the audience away both humming and thinking."
"Let's hope the Little Theatre board doesn't pull the plug on you and cancel the whole thing," Sybil said. "Traybridge might not be quite ready for this."
"They wouldn't dare!"
Lucille stifled a yawn. "I think it's wonderful that you finally got your cast, Randolph. I'm sure it will all work out. Never fear, Sybil, there's a shift in consciousness happening these days all over the world. Unity out of diversity. It's surely happening in Traybridge, too. There's nothing to worry about."
In Lucille's view of the world, E.D. thought, there was never anything to worry about. She looked over at Jake, who was sitting at the end of the couch with Winston draped across his feet. He was staring into space as if he hadn't heard a word that was being said. There was an odd look in his eyes. It reminded her, somehow, of the look Cordelia got when she started talking about her ballet.
"We need to be getting back to bed," Lucille said then. She nudged Archie, who had fallen asleep where he sat. "Let's go. Govindaswami will be here bright and early."
"Who?" Randolph asked. "Who'll be here?"
"Ravi Govindaswami. My guru. Don't tell me you've forgotten that, too! He's going to be staying in Sweet Gum Cottage."
"Your guru's coming to stay? Tomorrow?" Sybil asked in a horrified voice. "Why didn't you warn us?"
Lucille stood, pulling at Archie's arm. "I did warn you. Nobody pays attention to anything around here except their own projects."
"But I haven't had time to do the grocery shopping yet this week. We won't have enough food—again!"
"That's all right. Govindaswami is fasting."
As E.D. slipped into sleep later, she was glad she didn't have anything to do with her father's show. She was beginning to have a strong premonition of catastrophe.
## Chapter Eighteen
Jake had finished gelling his hair. Now he turned his face one way and then another so that the light above the mirror picked up the dusting of hair on his upper lip. Darken that down and he could pass for seventeen—couldn't he? Not according to the red-haired kid who'd expected to get cast as Rolf and ended up playing an anonymous soldier instead. "It's ridiculous for you to play that part. No way an audience is going to believe you're old enough to get into the SS." What the red-haired kid thought didn't count, Jake reminded himself. Or what anybody else in the show thought either, for that matter. About anything.
Last night they'd had their first rehearsal, and Randolph had made that very clear at the beginning. The director, he had told the assembled cast, made the decisions, starting with casting, and anybody who didn't like those decisions could go do another show somewhere else for some other director. He had directed in theaters all over the country and had had a smash Off-Broadway hit, and he intended to maintain a professional atmosphere at all times. "I am a professional and I will expect every one of you to behave as if you are, too. I don't put up with lateness, laziness, or sloppy work. You will not be called to every rehearsal, but when you are called, you will arrive on time and you will be prepared. When you are not actually onstage, you will be silent and respectful of the actors who are onstage. There is no place in a Randolph Applewhite production for amateurs who behave like amateurs."
If he hadn't started that way, Jake thought, there might have been open rebellion. There had been so much hostility in the air when they first came in that Winston had gone right underneath a folding chair in the corner and hadn't come out again until it was time to go home.
Nobody except the leads had been happy with the casting. The people who'd expected to get the leads were playing unnamed townspeople or nuns or storm troopers instead. There were so many people in the show that, except for the children, Randolph had had to cast almost everyone who had auditioned. But it hadn't made them happy. "I've been with the Little Theatre since the building was the Masonic fellowship hall," he'd heard one man say, "and I've never played anything but a major role! Now he's brought in all these—these—outsiders and given them the plum parts. It's a travesty!"
"There are no small parts," the woman he was talking to said. "Only small—"
"Easy for you to say. You have lines!"
"Little Priscilla Montrose didn't even get cast," someone else said. "The daughter of the president of the board!"
"And she actually looks the part!"
After Randolph's speech about professionalism, people quit complaining, but the atmosphere hadn't really changed till rehearsal was over and he mentioned the possibility that a TV crew would tape some of their work for national television. "And why, you ask, do they wish to focus on the Traybridge Little Theatre?" Randolph asked. "Because we are doing something different, something important—an edgy, innovative, truly American version of a classic of the musical theater." Jake didn't know whether anyone bought the philosophy part, but the prospect of being on national television had settled them right down.
Now Winston, who had been whining at the bathroom door, began to scratch to come in. Jake sighed. He opened the door and Winston waddled in, his tail wagging furiously. "Hey, old guy—you don't care whether I look thirteen or seventeen, do you?" he asked, rubbing Winston's ears. The dog's long tongue swiped across his hand, leaving a trail of saliva. Jake wiped it off on his pants. "Disgusting," he told the dog as he patted his head. "That's what you are, disgusting."
An hour later, when the family gathered for breakfast at the main house, Lucille's guru joined them. Jake had seen him coming up toward the house from the cottage he was staying in and couldn't get over the idea that the man was a sort of human version of Winston. He was short and round, dressed in voluminous pants and a long tunic, and moved as he walked the way the dog did, almost as much from side to side as straight ahead. He had the same dark, solemn, almost mournful eyes. In Winston these were contradicted by a perpetually wagging tail, in Govindaswami by a perpetually sunny smile. "I am having a cup of tea," he told them, beaming as he settled himself into the chair at the head of the table, "so as to join with you for the fellowship. I hope you will not be offended by my fast."
Far from being offended, Jake thought, the family was thrilled not to have to share their breakfast. Jeremy Bernstein offered, as he stared at the single spoonful of scrambled eggs that was left in the bowl when it had been passed to him, to take the grocery list to Traybridge. Archie agreed to lend him his pickup.
After breakfast Jake slipped into the schoolroom, took an empty coffee can and a printout he'd made from the Internet, and hurried around to Lucille's vegetable garden. Lucille had come in that morning just as he and Winston emerged from the bathroom, complaining loudly that there were caterpillars all over her parsley, eating it down to the stems.
She had asked them kindly to leave, and they hadn't gone, she said. That method had worked with slugs and earwigs and even aphids. But the caterpillars had refused to listen to her. She wouldn't use poison and didn't even like to pick them off, because whatever caterpillars started eating they had to go on eating, or they'd starve. She'd consulted with the nature spirits, and they had had no advice except to relinquish her need for control. "So I guess we'll just have to leave the parsley to the caterpillars and do without. So much for the tabouli I was planning to make."
"You can put parsley on the grocery list and get it from the grocery," Archie had suggested.
"Oh, sure! Covered with pesticides and probably genetically altered besides."
Lucille's complaints had given Jake an idea. In the garden he found exactly what he'd been hoping to find. As Lucille had said, the parsley was covered with green-and-black-striped caterpillars that were busy eating all the leaves. Stem after stem had its caterpillar, some small and newly hatched, others fat and almost ready to pupate. He checked them against the photograph on the printout. Just as he'd thought, they were the larval stage of one of the most beautiful of the Carolina butterflies, the black swallowtail. Black swallowtails had a particular preference for parsley, the printout said. Carefully, he picked the caterpillars off the parsley plants and put them into the coffee can. Then he picked the rest of the leaves off the parsley plants and put them in with the caterpillars. It wasn't enough to feed them for long. He would add parsley to the grocery list before Bernstein went to town. He hoped if he washed it carefully, the store parsley wouldn't hurt the caterpillars. Back in the schoolroom, he found an empty aquarium that would be just perfect for his plan.
Today was Zedediah's day to be teacher on call. Unlike the rest of the family, Zedediah had a habit of actually showing up. He'd even demand to see what they'd been doing and ask them questions about it. Jake hated Zedediah's days. On his first one the old man had asked Jake what gave him joy. Jake hadn't understood the question. "You mean what do I like to do?"
"I mean," Zedediah had said, "exactly what I said. What gives you joy?"
Jake hadn't been able to come up with an answer.
"Once you know that, you will know what you want from an education and you'll be able to set your own program. Meantime, just do what E.D. is doing." Every time Zedediah had been on call since then, when he checked out whatever work Jake had done, he'd given him a look that seemed to say that Jake Semple was a screwup who was never going to amount to anything. E.D., of course, never got such a look.
At least he'd have something to show Zedediah this time. Not something E.D. had thought up. He put the caterpillars and the parsley into the aquarium and added a couple of sticks, propped against the glass and held in place with lumps of modeling clay. Then he tied a piece of cheesecloth over the top of the aquarium to keep the caterpillars in and lettered a sign that said METAMORPHOSIS, A LIVING DEMONSTRATION. He taped the sign to the front of the aquarium. This would be an infinitely better Teaching Opportunity than a papier-mâché caterpillar and chrysalis. Destiny—and all the rest of the family, for that matter—would get to watch the caterpillars pupate and then turn into butterflies.
The Internet website that had had the photo of the black swallowtail caterpillar had advised keeping butterflies inside once they'd emerged from their pupa state rather than releasing them. That way they could be cared for and guarded all the way through the life cycle. More butterflies could be safely raised indoors that way and eventually released to increase their numbers in the wild. Butterflies were in trouble, it said, from pesticides and habitat loss. Raising them for release could help. The website gave a recipe for feeding the butterflies once they hatched. They would get to know you and come land on your hand to feed, it said. You could offer the concoction, made of soy sauce, Gatorade, and milk, and they would unroll their long, strawlike tongues and suck it up. The mixture sounded disgusting, but the website promised that the butterflies would love it. You could also make a plain sugar syrup or just put out a piece of ripe melon where they could get to it, and they would feed themselves.
He draped newspapers over the aquarium so E.D. and Zedediah wouldn't see it the minute they came in, and then sat down at his desk with a book about the Civil War E.D had given him. When E.D. came in and began gathering what she had done during the week to show Zedediah, Jake began humming the title song from The Sound of Music. Before she had a chance to react, Zedediah arrived with Destiny, who was loudly yodeling the song about the lonely goatherd. As usual, he was slightly off-key.
"Zedediah," E.D. said, "make him stop!"
"That's enough now," Zedediah said to Destiny.
"What's a goatherd?" Destiny asked.
"A boy who takes the goats up to the pastures in the mountains to feed. And watches out for them. Protects them."
"And why is he lonely?"
"You'd be lonely, too, if your only friends were goats," E.D. said as she held out her curriculum notebook to Zedediah. "I've checked off everything I've finished. My report on the Battle of Gettysburg is all done—I just haven't had a chance to print it out yet. Jeremy's been on the computer a lot."
"We must let him know that you need your time on it, too. Maybe Hal can let him use his sometimes." Zedediah looked over E.D.'s notebook. "Good. Good. I see you've started reading A Midsummer Night's Dream." He turned to Jake. "Have you begun it yet?"
Jake shook his head. "I'm reading Hamlet instead. Because of Cordelia's ballet." He could tell by the look on her face that E.D. hadn't read Hamlet yet. Good. He'd actually be ahead of her on something then.
"How far have you gotten in it?"
"Not that far. It's slow going. I've been taking it with me to rehearsals, but it's hard to concentrate there."
"I hope you aren't going to let your role in The Sound of Music interfere with your schoolwork. We have an obligation to your grandfather to be sure you do a little learning while you're here, you know."
Zedediah was giving him that look again. Was he warning Jake that the show could get snatched away from him like a cigarette or his headphones? "We only have rehearsals at night," Jake said. "I can read it during the day."
"Good."
"I've finished the Butterfly Project, though," Jake said.
"You can't have!" E.D. protested. "It was already done."
Jake went to the aquarium and whisked away the newspapers. "This is a different way—a better way—to do the Teaching Opportunity. Destiny can see the whole process of metamorphosis—in real life."
E.D. stared into the aquarium. "What are those?" She looked more carefully. "Black swallowtails?"
Jake nodded, humming "The Lonely Goatherd" quietly to himself.
"Are those worm thingies going to gets to be butterflies?" Destiny asked. Jake nodded again. "And do I gets to see them grow their wings?"
"Absolutely."
"Yay, Jake!"
Jake smiled at E.D., who glowered back at him. Score one for the delinquent kid.
## Chapter Nineteen
For a week Govindaswami had been teaching them to meditate. E.D. had put meditation under Healthful Living in her curriculum notebook so that she could count it as an academic accomplishment. She was sitting cross-legged on the schoolroom floor now, concentrating on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. It was supposed to keep her from thinking. Center her. Calm her. Right now it didn't seem to be working. What she wanted to do was scream.
Hal had refused to let Jeremy Bernstein use his computer. When Sybil had broached the subject, speaking to Hal's closed door, he had said that he was creating a website where he could sell his sculpture and he needed his computer every minute. Besides, he couldn't let anyone into his room any more than he could come out of his room himself. "I need my creative privacy," he had shouted through the door. So Jeremy had been allowed to take over the schoolroom computer almost completely.
He was at the keyboard now, tapping away. He'd been there last night when she'd finally given up and gone to bed. This morning he had been there already at eight-thirty. She'd been trying to read A Midsummer Night's Dream while she waited for him to finish whatever it was he was doing now, but the incessant tap of the computer keys had made it impossible to concentrate. She hadn't done her math. She hadn't written the story she was supposed to write for language arts.
She'd gone to her father about it as soon as he got up, to beg him to put his foot down either with Hal or with Jeremy. But he'd told her that things were going badly with the Traybridge Little Theatre. He had a meeting with the technical staff that afternoon to sort things out, and he had no psychic energy left over for trivialities. Trivialities!
She'd taken the problem to her mother then. That had been a mistake. She had stuck her head into her mother's office and her mother had thrown a dictionary at her. Well, maybe not actually at her. It had missed by a foot. Sybil Jameson was having writer's block. E.D. wished her mother had told the family that. She never would have gone near the office if she'd known. They all knew better than to go near Sybil during a block.
That was Jeremy's fault, too, E.D. thought. With him there doing his article about Sybil's Great American Novel, asking her questions about it, begging to be allowed to read the newest bits of it, she didn't dare to admit that the Great American Novel had come to a screeching halt. "Plot!" she had told E.D. after apologizing for throwing the dictionary. "That's the whole trouble. I keep writing plot. I actually killed a character off yesterday morning. I couldn't help myself. My masterpiece is turning inexorably into a Petunia Grantham mystery!" E.D. had ended up going down to the kitchen to make her mother a soothing cup of tea.
She'd tried to find Archie then, but he'd gone fishing. Archie had become unaccountably obsessed with fishing. Lucille, who had been meditating herself when E.D. found her, looked up at her and smiled through a wreath of incense. The smile reminded E.D. of Govindaswami's. "What can possibly be wrong in the present moment?" Lucille had said to her. "Ask yourself that and you'll find the answer." E.D. had no idea what that meant, but she could recognize a dead end when she encountered it.
Even Zedediah had let her down. "Consider it an unexpected blessing," he'd said. "You don't want to sit at a computer now. It's October. The leaves are turning. The air is cooling off. Day after day we have sunshine and blue sky. But it's all too fleeting. The rainy season's on its way. Go out now, while the world is still perfect. Smell it. Listen to it. Take it in before it goes."
"I thought you wanted us to learn!" she'd said.
"There are many ways to learn," her grandfather had said.
E.D. discovered, now, that she had lost track of her breathing altogether. In. Out. It was no good. She opened her eyes—and saw immediately Jake's metamorphosis project. Almost half of the caterpillars were now dark curved shapes hanging by thin threads from the twigs he'd put in. The others were busily munching away on bunches of parsley, growing ever fatter, leaving piles of tiny dark green balls of caterpillar dung on the floor of the aquarium. She hated Jake Semple. Of course this was a better idea than papier-mâché. Why had it never occurred to her to collect caterpillars?
The day Jake had made the aquarium had been the last day he and E.D. had been a class. It had been agreed at dinner that night that there wasn't really any more need for clumping them. Jake had shown initiative. Good sense. Creativity. Even cooperation. So Jake could do his thing, whatever, besides singing, he decided that thing might be, and she could go back to doing hers.
Since then, as far as she could tell, Jake's thing had had almost nothing to do with real work. His thing had been to go hiking with Winston. Most of the time Destiny tagged along. They'd take lunch in a backpack and come back late in the afternoon, sweaty or muddy, singing at the top of their lungs. Then they'd check to see if any butterflies had hatched and unload whatever they'd collected on their rambles. Jake called it all natural history. E.D. called it clutter.
The schoolroom was littered with their mess. There were shoe boxes full of bright leaves, bowls full of hickory and beechnuts, pinecones and acorns; there were bird feathers, stones, and a big jar of slimy green water from the pond that Destiny claimed was full of "teensy buggy things" that they would check on every so often with a big magnifying glass. Jake hadn't even looked for a book that would tell them what the buggy things were! Destiny called everything they brought back, just like the caterpillars, "magics." Her little brother might learn about metamorphosis, but it seemed perfectly clear to E.D. that he was learning nothing else at all.
She disentangled her legs and got up from the floor. If she couldn't write or do her math or do research on the Internet, she'd take her copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream outside and finish reading it before the rainy season.
She had just gotten it out of her desk when she heard a car skid to a stop on the driveway, and a car door slam, followed by footsteps thundering up onto the porch. "Help!" The front door banged open and then slammed shut. "Help!" It was her father's voice, booming so that he could have been heard halfway to Traybridge. "Help, I said. Help! Help! Help! Where is this family when you need them?" There was a pause. Then, "FIRE!"
Jeremy leaped up from his seat at the computer. He and E.D. collided as they tried to get through the schoolroom door at the same time. When they got to the front hall, Sybil was coming down the stairs, her hair disheveled, her computer glasses bouncing on her chest. Cordelia came from the kitchen, a doughnut in her hand.
"They're right," her father said. "Never yell for help these days. Nobody wants to help. But yell 'Fire' and they come like bats out of hell, intent on saving their own skins."
"What is it?" Sybil asked. "What's happened?"
By this time Lucille and Govindaswami and Zedediah had all reached the front porch and were trying unsucessfully to sort out who would hold the door and who would come in through it. "Is someone dying?" Govindaswami asked. "Take me to him. Who is it?"
"Not who—what," Randolph said. "Dying! Dead!"
"There's no need to yell anymore," Sybil said. "We're all here now. At least everybody within a radius of five miles is here. What are you talking about?"
"My show! I'm talking about my show. The Sound of Music. You may have heard of it."
"No need for sarcasm, Randolph," Zedediah said.
"They've all quit!"
"Who's all quit?" Cordelia asked.
"The entire technical staff. Designer, costumer, choreographer, lights, props, even the stage manager! Murder, that's what it is. Cold-blooded murder."
"What happened?"
"What happened? I just told you. They all quit. I called a technical meeting to sort out a few problems, and ten minutes into it they all just got up and walked out. No reason whatsoever!"
"There must have been a reason. People don't just—"
"That wretched Montrose woman put them up to it, that's the reason. Ever since I refused to cast that untalented little brat of hers, she's been looking for a way to get rid of me. But she couldn't just cancel the show, not with the way I cast it. Someone might think it was racism. The theater might lose its funding."
"But what did they say the reason was?" Sybil persisted.
"Oh, well. They said that I was too demanding. They said I was a perfectionist. That I didn't respect them—the stupid, incompetent, clueless ignoramuses. Now I ask you—"
"Sounds about right to me," Zedediah said.
"Don't start, Father."
"Oh," Sybil said. "Oh, I get it now. I understand why you came in hollering 'Help!' at the top of your lungs. You've gone and bullied those poor people—"
"Bullied? Bullied? I'm the director. They're the tech staff—"
"—you've gone and bullied and belittled those poor people until they couldn't take it anymore, and now you expect us to come running to the rescue."
"I expect my talented and creative family to gather around me and support me in my hour of need."
"Nobody asked you to accept that job, Randolph."
"It's my work! I'm a director. I direct. They offered me a show and I took it on. Which of you would have done anything different? This is a crisis. An emergency. A screaming disaster."
"The rest of us have our work, too," Sybil said.
Lucille put her hand on Randolph's arm. "What, exactly, do you need?"
"Costumes. Sets. Props. Choreography. Music. Lights. Everything!"
"I can do costumes," Lucille said. She turned to Sybil. "We could do them together. You could use a little break from the Great American Novel, couldn't you?"
Sybil stood for a moment, her hand on the stair railing. She glanced at Jeremy Bernstein and then looked back at Lucille, carefully avoiding E.D.'s eyes. "Well—it would be a great sacrifice, of course. The book has been going so smoothly. But—all right." She turned to Randolph. "I'll do it on one condition."
Randolph sighed loudly. "What condition is that?"
"That you don't try bullying me. If your family is going to save your skin, you'd better remember that we're all artists in our own right. You may direct. You may not bully!"
"You know me, my dear. I always give respect where respect is due."
The door at the top of the stairs opened a crack. "I'll design the set," Hal's voice called down. The door clicked shut again.
"I suppose Archie and I could build it," Zedediah said.
"All right, all right," Cordelia said. She took a bite of the doughnut. "I'll do the choreography."
"I need someone to play the music," Randolph said. "Could you play the show, too?"
Cordelia shook her head. "I don't read music. You know that. I play by ear."
"I could contribute," Govindaswami said. "I could play the music on my sitar."
"Sitar? That Indian stringed instrument? Ah—ah, well—thank you. It's good of you to offer. But I don't think Rodgers and Hammerstein thought of having the score orchestrated for sitar."
Jeremy Bernstein cleared his throat. "Er...um. Excuse me, but perhaps I could play the show."
"Wonderful!" Randolph said. "The theater has a halfway decent synthesizer. I can arrange for you to—"
"Um. I have never actually played a synthesizer."
"What do you play? A dulcimer, I suppose. Or a didgeridoo."
There was a long silence. Finally Jeremy mumbled something that E.D. couldn't hear. Her father hadn't heard either.
"What? What do you play?"
Bernstein cleared his throat again and said, "The accordion."
"You're kidding."
Bernstein looked up, his mouth tightening. "I am not kidding! I learned during my family's summers in the Poconos when I was a kid. I wore a satin shirt and played in an accordion band!"
"You have your accordion with you?"
He shook his head. "Of course not. Nobody knows. I haven't told a soul about this since I left junior high school. But I could have my mother ship it."
"Accordion. The Sound of Music on the accordion. Well, why not?" Randolph said. "It's better than kazoos."
E.D. turned and headed back toward the schoolroom. As intense and dramatic as all this was, it had nothing to do with her. Her father needed everybody else, not her.
"E.D.!" her father called. "Where are you going?"
"To get my Shakespeare," she said. "You don't need me."
"Don't need you? Didn't you hear me say my stage manager quit? Of course I need you—more than anyone. There's nobody else in this family even remotely organized enough to handle the job! There's no time for Shakespeare now! There's work to be done."
E.D. gave her head a little shake as if to clear her ears. Her father dug into his briefcase and came up with a fat spiral notebook, a yellow legal pad covered with handwritten notes, and a calendar. He held them out to her. "Let's go someplace where we won't be disturbed. I need you all caught up and ready to go before tonight's rehearsal. I'll talk to the rest of you at dinner."
## Chapter Twenty
Jake was trying to get ready for rehearsal with Destiny, yodeling the lonely goatherd song in his wake, when it dawned on him that his life had slipped finally and utterly out of his control.
He'd become impossibly entangled with the Applewhites. First Winston had adopted him and then, by what seemed the same invisible and mysterious process, Destiny had, too. The kid had begun explaining to anyone who would listen that Jake was the "bestest brother in the whole wide world." Jake had told him and told him that just because he had come to live at Wit's End it didn't mean he was Destiny's brother, but Destiny was impervious to minor details of fact.
When the family took over all the technical jobs on The Sound of Music, everybody was too busy working on the show to have time to look after a four-year-old. Jake only had to go to rehearsal. He had more time than anybody. And since Destiny had already adopted him anyway, he had somehow become a kind of full-time baby-sitter. Nobody had actually asked him to look after Destiny, and he hadn't exactly volunteered. It had just happened.
Jake could understand why Hal wasn't enough of a brother for Destiny. The set designs had appeared outside his door as he finished them. Then he'd built a model, which had also been left in the hall during the night, followed by the renderings—the drawings that Zedediah and Archie were using to build the parts of the set they could build in the wood shop. So far none of this had required Hal to come out of his room. Jake had still never met him face-to-face.
Wit's End had become a beehive of theatrical activity. The number of costumes required was vastly greater than Lucille and Sybil could handle alone, so Cordelia, who had quickly finished the choreography and only had to go to a few rehearsals, was immediately drafted into the costume crew. Lucille had a sewing machine, but two more had been rented and bolts and bolts of cloth brought from town. When even the three of them, working steadily and grumbling loudly, could not churn out nuns' habits fast enough, they shanghaied Govindaswami, who was pretty good with a needle, to help.
Jake had no idea what a guru normally did, except for meditating, which didn't seem to be a full-time occupation. But if Govindaswami was any sort of example, gurus had a variety of talents. After Randolph's emergency had been declared, when it became clear that nobody had time to fix meals, Govindaswami had abandoned his fast and taken over the kitchen. His sewing was adequate, but his cooking turned out to be spectacular. Dramatic, intense—hot—but spectacular.
Grocery runs were no longer a haphazard occurrence. Having quickly discovered that Traybridge had no grocery that stocked the ingredients he needed, Govindaswami would borrow Archie's pickup and disappear for hours at a time, coming back with huge bags of rice, bags and boxes of meats and vegetables, and various strange herbs and spices, from which he concocted meals the like of which Jake had never encountered. Once, after Wolfie had gotten loose again and torn open a huge burlap bag full of rice that Govindaswami had set on the ground by the truck while he took the rest of his purchases inside, Jake had seen the man looking speculatively at the goat. But Jake figured that had been only his imagination. Even if Indians ate goat, which Jake didn't think they did, Govindaswami would never go after Lucille's beloved Wolfie.
It was an education in itself to watch Govindaswami in the kitchen. "Passion," he would say to Jake and Destiny as he moved around the room, chopping and stirring and tasting. "Passion is necessary to all of life. All of life. Meditating, working, cooking, eating. Especially eating!"
It took the Applewhites no time at all to adapt to the change in their dietary habits. Cordelia even gave up her green gunk. No matter how busy they were, everybody stopped whatever they were doing at lunch, and again at dinnertime, to gather in the dining room for the feasts Govindaswami prepared. There were curries, chutneys, and wonderful soft flat-breads. As much food as appeared on the table invariably disappeared before the end of the meal. Some of the dishes were so spicy they were almost too painful to eat, but Govindaswami explained that yogurt and sugar both cooled the tongue. He served plenty of yogurt sauces and gallons of Destiny's favorite, grape Kool-Aid.
It was such a dinner they had just finished. Jake's mouth still tingled from the lamb curry. Now he was doing his best to make sure he had everything he would need at rehearsal. It wasn't easy. The other actors only had to take their script, maybe a bottle of water, and something to do while they were waiting to go onstage. Jake had to take Winston's leash, in case the dog needed to go out during rehearsal, his water dish, and a bag of liver treats to distract him from howling along with the accordion. There was something about certain notes on the accordion that sent the dog into long, drawn-out howls that only liver treats could stop. Winston's essential items were already packed in one of the large canvas bags Lucille had provided.
Destiny's needs were considerably more complicated. It wasn't easy to keep the kid busy and occupied and out of mischief for the three or four, sometimes even five hours of rehearsal. Even for a four-year-old, Destiny's boredom threshhold seemed extraordinarily low. Every night Jake filled the bags with as many distractions as he could think of. He took picture books—never the same ones twice in a row. He took a thick pad of paper and watercolor markers. And he always threw in a few toys, though Destiny did not seem particularly interested in toys.
During the last rehearsal, Destiny had found a screwdriver somewhere and spent the whole time Jake was onstage unscrewing seat bottoms in the auditorium. No one had noticed what he was doing until Mrs. Montrose, who had come to observe the rehearsal, sat down in one of the unscrewed seats. It detached and crashed to the floor, taking her with it. She had blamed Randolph. Randolph had blamed Jake.
So now Jake scoured the schoolroom to come up with new ideas. He added a few handfuls of Legos, some brightly colored sticks of modeling clay, and a box full of miniature cars. "Anything else you want to take?" he asked Destiny.
Destiny stopped singing to ponder this question. "The caterpillars," he said.
"Can't take the caterpillars," Jake told him.
"What if they gets to be butterflies while we're gone?"
"They won't all do it at the same time," Jake assured him. "I'll take off the top, and if one does, it'll be here fluttering around the schoolroom when we get back."
Destiny went back to his song. Cordelia hurried in, carrying a pair of dark brown pants and a shirt. She tossed them at Jake. "Your messenger uniform. At least I think it'll do. I don't know what messengers wore in Austria in the thirties. But take it with you and wear it for your scene tonight. See what the Emperor of the World thinks. If he likes it, I can scratch another costume off the list. Except for the hat. We don't have a hat yet."
Destiny stopped singing. "I want a uniform! Make me one too, Delia! With a hat."
"It's a costume. You're not in the show. You don't get a costume." Cordelia's voice was tight.
"But I want one! Like Jake's. With a hat. I wanna—"
"Listen, you little beast, there are forty-six people in this show and most of them have at least four costumes! You do not get a costume!"
"I only have two," Jake said. "This one and the SS uniform. Randolph said those are rented."
"Yeah. But we have to do alterations to make them fit. I am not a costumer. I am a dancer! A choreographer! Never again, I tell you. Never, ever, ever again!" Cordelia turned to go. "Thank heavens for the Mother Abbess," she muttered as she left. "One habit for the whole show. And I've finished it."
Jake folded the uniform and put it into the bag with Destiny's toys. "Okay, guy. Let's go."
Destiny stood with his arms crossed, not moving. "I wanna costume. I wanna be in the show."
"You can't. People in the show have to sing. And act."
"I can sing. What do you gots to do to act?"
"Pretend to be someone you aren't," Jake said.
"I can pretend. I pretend I'm a pirate all the time. I—"
"It's too late. All the parts are already taken. You get to be audience."
"Does audience get a costume?"
"No. Come on. It's time to go."
The trip to rehearsals required two vehicles. The Miata, with Randolph and E.D., left fifteen minutes ahead because they needed to get to the theater in time to set up. Then came Sybil's Volvo station wagon, driven by Cordelia, with Jeremy Bernstein and his accordion, Jake and Destiny and Winston. Usually Destiny sang and talked the whole way to Traybridge. Tonight he sat in the corner of the backseat and sulked. At the time the restful silence seemed like a good thing.
It was only later that Jake realized that a sulky Destiny was never a good thing. Wearing the messenger uniform that Randolph said made him look like a UPS delivery man, Jake had just finished whirling Jeannie around and was getting himself ready for the kiss that ended their dance when he smelled something burning. Over Jeannie's shoulder he saw a billowing plume of white smoke.
"Fire!" he yelled.
In the ensuing panic the youngest of the child actors fell off the stage. Her screams combined with Winston's frenzied barking to nearly drown out the contradictory orders being shouted from all directions.
"Call 911!"
"Get out! Get out! Everybody get outside!"
"Find the fire extinguisher!"
"Call 911!"
It was E.D. who found the extinguisher and put out the fire before any serious damage was done.
It had started in a wastebasket backstage, where Destiny had taken apart the pad of paper, crumpled every sheet into a ball, and set fire to the papers with Jake's lighter. He had found the lighter in the pocket of Jake's pants after Jake had changed into his messenger uniform and gone onstage for his scene.
"I was acting!" Destiny explained when he was found with the incriminating lighter still in his hand. "I was pretending to be Jake, burning down his school. Only I didn't have any gasoline."
Randolph, of course, after decreeing that Destiny was never to have matches, lighters, or even paper in his possession again ever in his entire life, blamed Jake.
## Chapter Twenty-one
E.D. had very little time to revel in being a hero. "The show must go on," her father said once it was clear that it could. "Fire's out. No real damage done. Call the next scene."
"The next scene has all the children," E.D. said. "Gretl fell off the stage. Her mother took her to the emergency room."
"We'll do it without her tonight, then. She can catch up next rehearsal."
"There won't be a next rehearsal for her," said the nurse who was playing the role of the housekeeper. "That was a broken arm."
"We're going to have to find a new Gretl," E.D. told her father.
"That's impossible! No one else who auditioned for that part could possibly play it. That's why I cast her in the first place."
"We'll just have to find someone," E.D. said.
The phone rang early the next morning when E.D. was in the schoolroom, revising the history section of her curriculum. Instead of the Civil War, her fall history project from now on would be World War II, specifically the Nazi occupation of Austria. That way she could count the show as schoolwork. The phone rang again. When nobody had answered it by the third ring, E.D. picked it up. It was Mrs. Montrose, president of the board of the Traybridge Little Theatre. "I want to speak to your father!" the woman said. "I understand there was an arson attempt at the theater last night."
"Not arson," E.D. hastily assured her. "It was purely an accident."
"I have my sources," the woman said, "and they say the fire was deliberately set. Furthermore, a child was injured—"
"It was only a broken arm," E.D. said.
"I wish to speak to Randolph Applewhite immediately."
"I'm sorry, but he's not here," E.D. said. Strictly speaking, this was not a lie. Her father was not in the schoolroom. It was only eight o'clock in the morning. He was upstairs, in bed, sound asleep. "May I take a message?"
"You tell him that I'm canceling the show. From the moment he took over this project, I have had serious doubts about the appropriateness of his choices. But this—this disaster is the final straw. The Traybridge Little Theatre is a historic landmark and we came perilously close to losing it. As for injuries, our liability insurance does not—"
E.D. thought fast. "That will be a shock to the television crew that's coming for the opening. I'm sure you know that The Sound of Music is expected to be the centerpiece of the story they're putting on network TV."
"I don't care about that; I care about the future of—" E.D. hurried on. "I was planning to call you this morning, actually. It was the little girl playing Gretl who broke her arm, and if the show were able to go on, we would need to replace her. I noticed that your daughter auditioned for that role as well as the role of Brigitta originally. I was hoping you could bring her by to let her audition again. Of course, there would be no point if the show's being canceled...."
There was a long silence, broken only by what sounded like fingernails being tapped on a hard surface.
"Would this be an open audition?"
"Oh no. Only your daughter. My father just wants a chance to hear her again. He told me that none of the others could possibly play the role. In fact, he actually refused to hear any of them again."
"Well...well..." The tapping went on again for a moment. "When would he need to see her?"
"Perhaps the two of you could come this evening," E.D. said. "After your daughter auditions, you could stay for dinner. We're having fried chicken. The associate producer will be here for dinner as well." These things were both perfectly true. Govindaswami had promised them fried chicken, and Jeremy had taken to introducing himself as associate producer. "You could talk to him about the television project."
This time the pause was considerably shorter. "Dinner. I think we might be able to manage dinner. What time?"
E.D. grinned. "Rehearsal is due to begin at seven. How about coming here at about four-thirty? You and your daughter can meet the producer, your daughter can sing, and then we'll all have dinner."
"All right, then. Four-thirty. But tell your father that there will have to be much stricter control maintained during rehearsals in the future."
"Of course. He was just saying that very thing last night—after the accident." That, too, was true. "You're not to let Destiny out of your sight for an instant!" he had told Jake. When Jake had reminded him that Destiny had done the deed while Jake was onstage, he had threatened to put Destiny on a leash and tie the leash to a theater seat.
When E.D. put down the phone, she sighed. It had worked. But Mrs. Montrose was only the first part of the problem. The second part was Randolph Applewhite.
"Absolutely not!" he said over breakfast when she told him her plan. "I can't possibly use that child as Gretl. Gretl's the youngest. She has to be little and cute. The Montrose kid has a wretched voice, she's not little, and she's definitely not cute. It's completely impossible."
"I thought appearances didn't count," Sybil said, looking up from the hem she was stitching.
"Not when there's talent. That child has no talent."
"At least listen to her," E.D. argued. "They're due to come at four-thirty and they're staying for dinner. If you don't do this, Mrs. Montrose will cancel the show."
"Let her! Better to cancel than to have a Gretl with a voice like a buzz saw."
"No, no, no!" Jeremy Bernstein said. "If the show is canceled, the television piece will be canceled, too. I'll never get another chance to produce for network television. The multiracial Sound of Music is the hook the TV execs bought! They won't do the story without the hook."
"Don't let the TV people cancel us!" Cordelia said. "I want to get my bit in about The Death of Ophelia."
"And my gallery showing," Archie said. "And Lucille's new volume of poetry."
Sybil held up the black costume she was hemming. "Do you mean to tell me that you would let the seven million nuns' habits we've made go to waste? Do you mean to tell me that I've given up my writing time and let my masterpiece go totally cold for nothing?"
E.D. resumed her attack. "Come on, Dad. Just listen to Priscilla Montrose. Talk to her mother over dinner. Maybe you can convince her to let the show go on even if you don't cast her daughter. You have to at least try!"
"All right. All right! But I will not, under any circumstances, cast that dreadful girl as Gretl!"
## Chapter Twenty-two
While the others were having breakfast at the main house, Jake, desperate for some time away from Destiny, was in the kitchen at Wisteria Cottage, eating dry Cheerios and drinking a cup of Archie's morning coffee. Every so often he threw a Cheerio at Winston, who snapped it out of the air and swallowed it. Jake had just drifted into a reverie about Jeannie Ng, who had taken Cordelia's place as the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, when he heard the yodeling refrain of "The Lonely Goatherd."
Destiny, he thought. Somewhere nearby. And getting nearer. He was just considering the possibility of barricading himself in his room when Destiny's voice began to fade. He waited. Maybe he was safe after all. After a moment, though, the yodeling began to come closer again. Closer, closer. As Jake pushed his chair back from the table, ready to bolt and run, the voice began to recede again. This went on for some time, fading, coming closer, fading, coming closer. Jake resisted the urge to go see what the kid was doing. Once Destiny caught sight of him, his time alone would be gone for the day.
Suddenly Destiny quit singing. There was a loud yelp, followed shortly by pounding footsteps up the steps and across the front porch. Destiny tore open the screen door and hurtled across the living room and into the kitchen. Moments later hoofbeats sounded on the porch and Wolfie smashed into and then through the screen.
Jake looked up in time to see the goat, that crazed look in his yellow eyes, pieces of screen dangling from his horns, collide with the couch. Winston had begun to bark, and his barking apparently infuriated the goat. When the couch didn't move out of his way, Wolfie butted it again and again and then went totally berserk, knocking over a lamp and an end table, upending the hippopotamus coffee table, crashing into the bookcases, and scattering books and candles in every direction. Jake hurried Destiny into his room, closed the door, and then went after the goat. He managed to grab one horn, but the goat twisted away and charged at him.
Jake leaped out of the way. He snatched the tablecloth off the kitchen table, ignoring the crash of his cereal bowl and coffee mug hitting the floor, and flung the cloth over the goat's head. Blinded, Wolfie knocked over a chair, then bounced off the kitchen table. Jake grabbed the ends of the cloth and held on.
When he had wrestled Wolfie out the door and down off the porch, he managed to get the cloth tied around the goat's neck like a leash. Then, partly dragging and partly shoving, with a still barking Winston following at a safe distance, he got the goat back to the pen and in through the gate. A few moments later Destiny showed up, Hazel walking docilely at his side. Hazel came into the pen after Wolfie. "Stay outside the fence," Jake warned Destiny. Gingerly he untied the cloth and managed to get out of the pen and close the gate just as Wolfie's horns crashed resoundingly into it.
"I was herding the goatses!" Destiny said. "Just like in the song."
"It looked more like Wolfie herding you," Jake told him.
"Wolfie doesn't like to be herded."
"Remember that! Don't try to herd him ever again. Hazel's okay, but you stay away from Wolfie."
At four-thirty Jake and Destiny were in the schoolroom watching a butterfly chrysalis that had begun moving slightly on the thread that held it to its twig when a car pulled up in front of the main house. Through the schoolroom window Jake saw Mrs. Montrose and her daughter get out. As always, Mrs. Montrose's hair was elegantly coiffed. She was dressed in a yellow silk suit. Her daughter, a tall, thin girl of seven or eight, with blond hair braided in two pigtails, was wearing a white sailor dress, shiny white strapped shoes, and socks with white ruffles. They went up the porch stairs and disappeared from view.
A short time later a shrill, piercing voice filled the house with an off-key version of "The Lonely Goatherd."
Destiny, his nose pressed to the aquarium, announced that he could sing it better than that. He was right, Jake realized. He and Destiny had been singing together a whole lot lately, and the practice had made a difference. On the other hand, Destiny had never sounded as bad as Priscilla Montrose.
The chrysalis had cracked open, and something that looked nothing at all like a butterfly was pushing its way out. "Doesn't look like much, does it?" Jake asked. Destiny shook his head. E.D. came in to ask Jake to help set the table for dinner.
"Look, E.D.! That yucky thing was in the criss-liss. What happened to the butterfly?"
"That is the butterfly," E.D. said.
"Those black crumply things on its back are its wings," Jake said. "As soon as it pumps them up and they dry out, it'll be able to fly. You'll see."
"I'm not gonna eat dinner then," Destiny said. "I wanna watch it get wings."
Jake felt a little that way himself. He'd actually never seen a butterfly come out of its chrysalis before. On the other hand, he didn't want to miss one of Govindaswami's dinners.
"Don't worry," E.D. said. "We'll be finished eating long before it's ready to fly. It takes ages and ages. You'd get bored waiting."
"Do you promise it's going to be a butterfly?"
"I promise."
Destiny turned to Jake. "Do you promise?"
"I promise."
## Chapter Twenty-three
By the time everyone was settled at the table for dinner, the dining room was so jammed with people and extra chairs that it was difficult to move. Winston, who had insisted on settling under the table by Jake's feet, had been banished to the out of doors. E.D., perched on one of the bar stools from the kitchen, had an excellent vantage point for watching the interaction between her father and Mrs. Montrose. But there was none. Her father, at the foot of the table, was avoiding eye contact with anyone. As the serving dishes of rice and lentils, chutney, flatbread, and yogurt sauce were passed, he stayed resolutely focused on serving himself and passing them on.
Mrs. Montrose, squeezed between her daughter and Jeremy Bernstein across the table from E.D., was just as resolutely focused on Jeremy, alternately asking him questions about the life of a TV producer and dropping offhanded remarks about the many roles her daughter had played in Little Theatre productions.
Govindaswami came in from the kitchen with a huge bowl and offered it to Zedediah at the head of the table. "The main dish," he said as he settled in his place nearest the kitchen. "As promised—fried chicken."
When Zedediah dished himself some, E.D. thought it looked pretty much like most of Govindaswami's main dishes—chunks of meat and vegetables in a thick, red sauce. It certainly wasn't like any fried chicken she'd ever seen.
When the bowl reached Mrs. Montrose, she sat for a moment, looking at it. "You did say fried chicken, didn't you?" she asked.
Govindaswami nodded. "Fried chicken. Yes. An old Govindaswami family recipe. My mother made it often, as did her mother and her mother before her."
"Ah! I see. It isn't quite what I expected." Mrs. Montrose spooned some onto her plate next to her rice.
"You'll want some of the yogurt sauce," Govindaswami said.
"No thank you, I'm not particularly fond of yogurt."
"Suit yourself."
Mrs. Montrose spooned a small amount of the chicken onto her daughter's plate and passed the bowl on.
When everyone was served, Zedediah asked them to join hands. "Let us offer heartfelt thanks to Ravi Govindaswami for his fine, rich, and pungent cooking. Thanks as well to the Traybridge Little Theatre for the opportunity to work together to bring a new artistic vision to the stage. And thanks to all the powers that be for the joining here of family, friends, and colleagues, for this abundance of food, of companionship, of"—here he looked directly at Randolph and raised his voice meaningfully—"tact and good sense."
When they dropped hands, E.D. watched her father dig into the food on his plate. She didn't think he'd been listening. Now that she'd watched Priscilla Montrose's audition, she understood his problem. It wasn't just that the girl was too tall to be the littlest von Trapp. It wasn't just her voice. It was everything about her. The girl had stood like a telephone pole—rigid and totally unmoving, with her hands clasped in front of her like some old-fashioned opera star, and all through the yodeling part had sung every syllable as if it were a separate word. Oh. Ho. Lay. Dee. Odl. Lee. Oh. It didn't sound anything at all like yodeling. The lines she read were even worse. She could see why he thought it would be better to let the show be canceled than to have her in it!
E.D. looked over at Mrs. Montrose. She was just taking her first bite of chicken. She chewed once and her eyes grew very wide. She looked wildly from side to side like a trapped animal, her face going a deep, rich pink. Her eyes watered. She gave a little squeak, put her napkin up to her lips, swallowed, and snatched at her water glass, gulping down its contents without pausing for breath. Beads of sweat had broken out on her forehead. "Very—very—interesting," she said in a strangulated voice. She smiled at Govindaswami. Then she reached for her daughter's water and drank that, too.
"The yogurt sauce is quite cooling," Lucille said.
"If you are finding it a little too spicy for your palate," Govindaswami observed, "you will discover that water does not help. It only dilutes the acid."
"No, no!" Mrs. Montrose said after a moment. "Not too spicy. It's—delicious." She wiped her forehead with her napkin. "I'm just—ah—very thirsty."
Priscilla Montrose had been picking at her rice. Now she raised a forkful of chicken. Her mother reached to stop her, but the girl had already popped the chicken into her mouth. She chewed, and began to shriek. "Hot! Hot! Mommee-ee-ee, hot!" She spit the chicken back onto her plate and grabbed for her water glass. It was empty. She went on shrieking.
"Manners, Prissy dear, manners!" Mrs. Montrose said, patting her daughter's back, her face getting pinker by the moment.
Sybil, sitting on the little girl's other side, reached for the pitcher of grape Kool-Aid in front of Destiny. "Try this," she said, pouring it into the empty water glass. "Sugar cuts the burning."
Priscilla stopped shrieking long enough to gulp down the Kool-Aid. Sybil filled her glass again. Mrs. Montrose held out her own glass. "That looks so good. Perhaps you might pour me a little as well."
Wimps, E.D. thought. The chicken wasn't nearly as hot as some of Govindaswami's dishes. She passed a plate of bread across the table. "She might like the bread. And the rice is good with a little fruit chutney."
"I'm terribly sorry," Mrs. Montrose said. "She's just not used to—ethnic cooking."
After that the meal went fairly smoothly, E.D. thought. Priscilla ate nothing but bread, washed down with grape Kool-Aid. Mrs. Montrose, still a little pink in the face, withdrew from the conversation. Smiling and nodding, she kept moving the chicken around on her plate, but E.D. noticed that she was careful to actually eat only rice that hadn't been contaminated by any of the sauce.
The other adults kept up a constant stream of positive chatter about The Sound of Music. They talked about how well things were going with the sets and costumes, how successful the run was bound to be. Jeremy mentioned several times how interested the TV executives were about the way it had been cast, and how impressed they were that such a ground-breaking production was being done by a theater in Traybridge, North Carolina. Randolph remained absolutely quiet.
Twice Destiny got up from the table and went off to the schoolroom to check on the butterfly. When Jake explained what he was doing, Priscilla Montrose asked if she could go with him next time. Her mother took a bite of bread and nodded vaguely.
Destiny finished his chicken, topped with liberal portions of yogurt sauce, drank the rest of his Kool-Aid, and got up again. "Come on!" he said to Priscilla. "Betcha he can fly now."
It wasn't until Govindaswami announced ginger saffron ice cream for dessert that everyone noticed that Destiny and Priscilla had not returned. Jake was sent to find them. In moments he was back. "They're not in the schoolroom."
"Where do you suppose they went?" Mrs. Montrose asked, her voice carefully polite, but tinged with alarm.
Before anyone could respond, the answer was clear. From outside came the sound of two voices, one of them shrill and off-key, singing "The Lonely Goatherd."
"Uh-oh," Jake said.
Randolph sat up a little straighter, listening.
Jake got up from the table and started toward the front of the house. "I'd just better make sure Destiny hasn't—"
He was interrupted by a blood-curdling shriek. The singing had stopped. Wild barking had started.
"Mommy! Mommy! Help! Mommy!"
Mrs. Montrose rose from her chair and started to push her way around the table toward the sound of her daughter's voice. Zedediah, Archie, and Sybil all leaped up and started for the doorway. As they reached it, Priscilla Montrose, sobbing now, came running in, squeezed her way between them, and dove past E.D. and under the table, headed for her mother. Immediately behind her came Wolfie, and behind Wolfie came Winston, barking steadily. Wolfie butted Archie out of the way, then Sybil, then smashed into the table. The jolt tipped over all the glasses and the pitcher of Kool-Aid.
A black swallowtail butterfly fluttered into the dining room, drifting serenely above the chaos.
## Chapter Twenty-four
Jake and Archie each managed to get hold of one of Wolfie's horns and together dragged the struggling goat out of the house. "We were only herding Hazel, just like you said," Destiny told Jake, as he hurried alongside them toward the goat pen. "But Wolfie got out too."
"I'm getting a padlock for that gate!" Archie said.
By the time they got back to the house, everyone except Randolph stood on the porch as Mrs. Montrose and Priscilla headed for their car. The yellow silk suit, Priscilla's white sailor dress, and her ruffled socks were stained with purple.
"We're terribly sorry," Sybil was saying. "You'll be sure to send us the cleaning bill, won't you?"
"No, no, now it wasn't your fault," Mrs. Montrose said. Jake thought she was maintaining her calm with a supreme effort of will. There was an edge to her voice that bordered on the hysterical. "Besides, nothing will take these stains out. We'll just...we'll just..." Her voice dwindled and stopped.
"My father will call you," E.D. said.
Govindaswami's usually cheerful face was creased with a frown. "You didn't get your ice cream."
"Another time, perhaps," Mrs. Montrose managed to say as she got into her car and closed the door firmly.
The rehearsal that night didn't include any of Jake's scenes, so when the others left for the theater or scattered to work on costumes or sets, he and Destiny helped Govindaswami clean up the mess in the dining room. Afterward, Jake caught the butterfly, which Destiny had named Blackie, and tried to persuade Destiny to turn it loose outdoors.
"What if it rains?" Destiny asked.
"It won't. And even if it did, butterflies stay out in the rain all the time."
Destiny, his lower lip stuck out and his arms folded firmly across his chest, shook his head. "I want him to stay in my room tonight. Winston stays in your room; I want Blackie to stay in mine."
"But he needs to eat! We have to put him outside where he can find flowers."
"It's dark outside. He won't be able to see them."
Jake remembered the website that had given the recipe for feeding butterflies. What had been in it? Soy sauce, he remembered. They had that. And milk. What else? Then he remembered. "Can't feed him," he told Destiny. "We don't have any Gatorade."
"We gots Kool-Aid!" Destiny said.
"It isn't the same. Besides, Wolfie spilled it all."
"There's more. We can make more."
Sugar syrup, Jake remembered then. You could also feed butterflies sugar syrup. "We don't need Kool-Aid."
"What do we need?"
"Sugar and water."
"We gots that!" Destiny said.
So, when Govindaswami had gone off to do his evening meditations, Jake let Blackie loose in the kitchen. Immediately, the butterfly fluttered to the floor. Winston's whole body went rigid, his ears up, his tail straight out behind, his eyes riveted on the butterfly's slowly moving wings. For a long moment he remained that way, so still he might have been carved of stone. Then he launched himself at the butterfly and pounced, his heavy body lurching into the air and coming down where the butterfly had been. Destiny screamed. Luckily the butterfly had fluttered up toward the counter.
There followed a skirmish—the butterfly landing on the floor, Winston charging after it and pouncing just as it flew up. Destiny yelled at Winston to stop, and Jake did his best to catch the dog's collar. But the awkward, ungainly dog, his hunting instincts fully engaged, had suddenly become a canine athlete. He leaped into the air, trying to catch the butterfly on the wing. Jake had just grabbed the net, hoping to catch the butterfly and get it safely away from Winston's snapping jaws, when it fluttered up toward the ceiling and then landed on the philodendron plant that hung by the window. There it stayed, opening and closing its wings gently as if the whole thing had been a game that it had easily won.
Jake put Winston outside, then put some water on to boil.
"Why are you making it hot? It'll burn Blackie's tongue!"
"We won't let Blackie have it till it cools. Hot water will dissolve the sugar faster," Jake said. When the water boiled, Jake put a cup of sugar into a bowl and poured in some water. He stirred awhile, then poured in some more. "I think that should do it," he said.
Destiny frowned. "Blackie won't like that. Butterflies like flowers. That isn't pretty like flowers." Destiny climbed onto a stool and got a packet of grape Kool-Aid out of the cupboard. "We can make it purple. That's pretty."
Jake shrugged. If butterflies could eat soy sauce and Gatorade, grape Kool-Aid probably wouldn't hurt them.
Destiny dumped the package of drink powder into the bowl and Jake stirred it. "That's good!" Destiny said, looking at the deep purple syrup. "Pretty."
Jake nodded. "Blackie will love it."
Jake poured a little into a saucer and set it on the counter. "Now that'll be cool in a minute and he'll come and sit on the edge and drink some. I think."
They waited. And waited. Blackie didn't move off the philodendron. Finally, Jake put his hand out in front of the butterfly, thinking he might shoo it off the plant and down to the counter. To his surprise, it stepped onto his fingers. Gently and carefully, he moved his hand down next to the saucer and the butterfly began uncoiling its long, black tongue. In a moment, the butterfly stepped delicately off Jake's hand and onto the edge of the saucer, then stretched its tongue like a long straw into the purple liquid.
"It's working! It's working!" Destiny said. "He's drinking!"
Jake could hardly believe his eyes. He wished he had E.D.'s camera.
After a while Blackie coiled his tongue back up and fluttered away from the saucer. He flew around the kitchen a couple of times and then landed on Destiny's shoulder. Destiny's eyes got very big and round. "Look, Jake. He likes me!"
"Of course he does. Now, if you are very quiet and walk very carefully, maybe he'll ride up to your room with you." He picked up the butterfly net, just in case, and followed as Destiny took tiny baby steps out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Three hours later Jake was in the schoolroom going over his lines when Randolph, E.D., Jeremy, and Cordelia got home. E.D. came in to see if any of the other butterflies had come out. She didn't believe him about Blackie and the Kool-Aid. "You'll see for yourself tomorrow," he told her.
"Where's the butterfly now?" she asked.
"Somewhere in Destiny's room."
"Is Destiny asleep?"
"He wasn't when I came down a little while ago. He was singing to Blackie. He says Blackie is the bestest pet he's ever had except that he can't pet him. I tried to get him to go to sleep about an hour ago, but it was no good. He's used to being up till rehearsal's over."
"It's a good thing."
"Why?" E.D. sighed. "Dad's decided on the replacement Gretl."
"Not Priscilla Montrose?"
"This is Randolph Applewhite we're talking about here. Of course he's not going to use Priscilla Montrose. He's going to call Mrs. Montrose first thing tomorrow morning and tell her his choice. When she hears it, she'll cancel the show. He'd rather have a musical with good singers canceled than one with lousy singers that actually happens."
"Who's he going to cast?"
"Destiny."
Jake felt his jaw drop. "He can't cast Destiny. Gretl's a girl!"
"He's the director; he can do anything he likes. He's going to turn Gretl into a boy and call him Hans. Destiny's little enough to be cute, which is more than you could say about Priscilla Montrose. There's nothing in the script that can't work that way." E.D. sighed deeply. "It won't matter, though. The whole reason Mrs. Montrose hasn't canceled it already, the whole reason she didn't get up and leave the minute she took a bite of Govindaswami's chicken, was that she thought her daughter was going to get to be on network television. The minute she finds out that isn't going to happen, it'll all be over."
Jake felt his stomach clench. No! It could not all be over. Enough bad things had happened to him this year! He was going to do this. He was going to play Rolf. He and Jeannie Ng were going to sing their duet and dance and he was going to kiss her. He was going to hold a gun on the von Trapps when they were escaping. And to do all this he was going to cut off his scarlet hair and take off his eyebrow ring and all his earrings.
"It's your fault," E.D. told him. "You're the one who taught Destiny to sing. If he hadn't heard Destiny, he would have had to cast Priscilla."
"I didn't teach Destiny; I just sang with him. All it was was practice. Maybe all of you can sing."
"The thing is, it doesn't matter. It's all over."
Jake thought about what had happened ever since Randolph Applewhite had asked his family for help. And then he smiled. Little by little, he felt his stomach unclenching. E.D. was wrong. How could she, an actual member of the Applewhite family, possibly think it could all be over? All of them, even the invisible Hal, had put their whole selves into this show by now. Not just family, either. Bernstein. Govindaswami. It didn't matter anymore that it was Randolph's show, that it was a project nobody else had wanted anything to do with. Everybody was involved in it now.
And the way these people got involved was like nothing he'd ever seen before. They might moan and groan and grouch and complain about how much there was to do, but they put everything else aside and did it. "Passion," Govindaswami had said. That was it. What the Applewhites did they did with passion. They cared about the show now the way some people cared about flying around the world in a balloon or sailing across the ocean alone or climbing Mt. Everest. "She may cancel it, but it'll happen anyway. Some way or another, it'll happen. You'll see. I'll make you a bet."
E.D. was an Applewhite after all, he thought. She knew better than to take the bet.
## Chapter Twenty-five
E.D. woke early, dreading her father's call to Mrs. Montrose. She tried for a while to go back to sleep, but she couldn't. Finally, she decided that she didn't want to face catastrophe on an empty stomach, so she pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and headed downstairs to fix herself something to eat.
Destiny was already up. She could hear him in the kitchen singing "Do-Re-Mi." Dad's right, she thought. Destiny can sing a whole lot better than Priscilla Montrose. She hoped what Jake had said would turn out to be true, that there would be a show for Destiny to sing in. When she got to the kitchen, it was the butterfly she noticed first, standing on a saucer full of purple syrup, its wings moving delicately, its long tube of a tongue arched into the liquid.
Then she noticed a puddle of purple syrup on the counter and a bowl in the middle of the puddle. And then she noticed Destiny. He had a purple-stained towel around his shoulders and purple syrup in his hair and running down over his ears and neck.
He stopped singing and grinned at her. "Isn't he beautiful? His name is Blackie, and he stayed in my room the whole night. He roded down on my shoulder and I fed him. He's the bestest pet I ever had. He—"
"Why did you put syrup in your hair?"
"That lady said Kool-Aid won't wash out. Jake washes all my other colors out. Now my hair gets to stay purple like Jake's gets to stay red."
E.D. had her brother on a stool by the sink with his head under the faucet when her father came in. As much of a mess as the sticky purple syrup had made, it had not turned Destiny's hair purple. Almost all the color had washed out, leaving his white blond hair with just the tiniest tinge of lavender. His hands and his ears were another thing altogether. They were stained a deep, purply gray, and his fingernails were almost black.
Randolph stood in the doorway and looked. E.D. braced herself for his reaction. But her father let out a long, dramatic sigh. "I suppose this is what comes of getting up in the middle of the night," he muttered as he set about making a pot of coffee. The butterfly fluttered up to the philodendron.
"Might as well get it over with," Randolph said when he'd drunk his coffee. He went off to make the phone call to Mrs. Montrose. E.D. scrubbed and scrubbed Destiny's hands and fingernails with soap and a nail-brush until most of the color was gone. But she dared not take a brush to his ears. They were apparently going to have to fade on their own.
When her father came back ten minutes later, he was shaking his head. "It would have been interesting, integrating a purple-eared boy named Hans into the show."
"She canceled it?" E.D. asked.
"She canceled it."
"Did you try to reason with her?"
"Reason with her? She started babbling like a maniac, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She said I had violated her trust and the trust of an innocent and impressionable eight-year-old child. What do you suppose she meant by that? I never promised that wretched little girl would get the part."
E.D. had never fully explained what she'd told the woman on the phone when she invited her to dinner. She decided this was not a good time to do so.
"I tell you, the more that woman talked, the more berserk she got. Something about fried chicken and false pretenses and crazed wild animals endangering her daughter's life. I couldn't get her to stop, so finally I just hung up on her."
As the news of the cancellation spread around Wit's End, it was as if someone had lit a string of firecrackers. One after another came the explosions. Nobody blamed Mrs. Montrose. They blamed Randolph. "You never once think of anyone except yourself!" she heard her mother say. "It's not as if it's a Broadway production. What harm could the little girl have done the show?" All E.D. caught of her father's answer was the phrase "artistic integrity."
Zedediah, who was usually the solid rock under the family's waves, raged about the customers he had put on hold in order to build sets instead of furniture and the cost of the raw materials they had used from the wood shop. He sounded more like Paulie than himself. Archie yelled about not having had time to finish two of the pieces for his gallery show. Cordelia was the most dramatic. She held her hands out to her father. "Look at them. Just look! My fingers have bled and I'm practically going blind from making ruffles for little girls' dresses. Besides all those ruffles—and the choreography, and teaching twenty-five people with two left feet how to waltz—I have hemmed four nuns' habits. Do you know how far it is around the bottom of a nun's habit?"
Jeremy Bernstein shrieked when he was told. Thanks to Randolph Applewhite, he said, his television career was over. "First my car, now my career—totaled. Totaled!" Randolph pointed out that his TV career hadn't actually started yet—and Jeremy burst into tears. Jake just clenched his fists. His face went almost as red as his hair, and he stormed off across the field with Winston following. Lucille, being Lucille, did not explode or shriek or cry. She got a faraway look in her eyes and went off to meditate.
Govindaswami was the only one entirely unmoved by the news. "Aaahhh," he said gravely. "This will be a good thing. Everything works for the highest good. Always this is so. You will see. The Universe works in mysterious ways."
E.D. went to the schoolroom and watched two more butterflies struggle to break free of their gray-brown cases. She couldn't help thinking about what Govindaswami had said. It seemed stupid. Worse, it was mean. Everybody was miserable, and he was telling them that their misery was perfectly okay. How could any good, let alone the highest good, come from wasting all that time and effort? And what could be good about having to call people who had their hearts set on being in the show and telling them it was all off?
Her father was going to call the leads, but as stage manager she was the one who had to call the minor actors. She could hardly bring herself to think about it, much less do it. Govindaswami talked like somebody out of one of those old black-and-white movies, she thought, where everything always turned around just in time for a happy ending.
It was when she thought about those movies that the idea popped into her mind. Her father had rented one of them once about a theater company that lost its theater. They'd put on the show in a barn instead. Wit's End had a barn. A big barn. They parked cars in it sometimes, and the riding mower was there. But when it was empty, it was really quite a lot like a theater, except that it didn't have a stage. Or seats. Or lights. Maybe they could fix that. They'd have to build a stage and find some lights and some sound equipment and some chairs for the audience. They'd have to do publicity. Sell tickets.
Could they?
If they could, Jeremy wouldn't have to give up his television career. The network people might like the story even better this way—art struggling against impossible odds. Today was Friday, October tenth. The original opening had been set for the twenty-fourth. Two weeks away. Fourteen days. E.D. went to find her father.
## Chapter Twenty-six
Jake had found a crumpled cigarette in the bottom of his duffel bag and gone out into the woods to smoke it, Winston tagging loyally along. It hadn't helped. He realized with considerable shock that he didn't really like the taste smoking left in his mouth, that he'd never liked it. After two drags he crushed out the cigarette. He swore. He kicked the trunk of a tree. He imagined a house—Mrs. Montrose's house—going up in flames. The Traybridge Little Theatre blowing up and then settling in a cloud of dust like those buildings they showed being demolished on television. Winston had flopped down a considerable distance away and was eyeing him warily.
"Okay, okay," he said to the dog. "I probably wouldn't do those things even if I could." The dog came no closer. "Let's walk."
When the two of them got back, having wandered the whole of Wit's End, the barn doors were open and the cars had been moved out into the driveway. Zedediah, riding the lawn mower, was coming out, while Archie and someone Jake had never seen before were going in, carrying a stack of two-by-fours. Cordelia and Lucille, both with handkerchiefs tied over their hair, were coming from the main house carrying brooms, mops, and buckets. Jake felt a kind of electricity in the air that was how it must be when an army was getting ready for an all-out assault.
"Go to the schoolroom and get your assignment," Cordelia called to him. "I think you're supposed to help Archie and Hal."
Archie and Hal? That stranger whose back he had seen going into the barn must have been Hal—out of his room and into the daylight. He stood for a moment, watching the barn doors, and soon the two came out again. Hal was just about Jake's size, dressed, as Jake was, in black—black boots, black pants, and a black turtleneck. His long, reddish brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he sported a goatee that was a scragglier replica of Randolph's. Hal Applewhite, fifteen-year-old sculptor, looked like a cross between his father and his older sister, except that he had a really bad case of acne. Whatever was going on, Jake thought, it must be big to bring Hal out. Very, very big.
Over the next ten days it turned out to be bigger than Jake could have imagined. The show would go on, if it took everyone's dying breath to make it happen. Every member of the cast agreed to stay with the show. For most of them what changed was little more than geography. Instead of going to Traybridge for rehearsals, they now came to Wit's End. What changed for the Applewhites was something else again.
Jake had thought that he knew something about the Applewhites and passion. But nothing had prepared him for what happened when all of them, all at the same time, became totally obsessed with the same thing. What had seemed like hard work before now looked like a sort of happy, restful vacation. Gone was any consideration of larks and owls. Work went on day and night. Sleep was relegated to a nap here or there. Jake gave up on his hair altogether; he needed every moment of sleep he could get. He barely had time for showers, let alone for gelling his hair into points.
The whole of Wit's End was transformed. The barn became command central, where the basic work of creating a theater from scratch went on. Trucks delivered rented folding chairs; rented, borrowed, or scavenged lighting and sound equipment; and lumber. Lots and lots of lumber. At one end of the barn a stage was built, and the loft became the light and sound booth. Wisteria Cottage became the costume shop, with Jake's room serving as dressing room and costume storage. Jake was given a cot in Zedediah's cottage, where he and Winston shared the living room with Paulie. The wood shop, of course, was the scene shop. Rehearsals were held in the dance studio. Destiny was moved in with Hal to free up his room, and Govindaswami and Bernstein doubled up in Dogwood Cottage so that Sweet Gum Cottage could be turned into a kind of dormitory to house the people who showed up to lend a hand. It seemed that Randolph knew an almost infinite number of theater people who were between jobs at any given moment. They came in waves, staying for as many days as they could spare and seeming every bit as obsessed while they were there as the Applewhites.
Govindaswami continued to cook, but no longer did work stop for meals. He took the food to the barn, to the wood shop, to Wisteria Cottage, to wherever people were at work, with the help of Destiny and his red wagon. The delivery man from the lumberyard, who happened to arrive one day when shrimp vindaloo was being set out on a plank between two sawhorses, fell instantly in love with Indian cuisine. He ate two plates full and then came back when his delivery shift was over to help, bringing two friends with him. In return for all they could eat of whatever dinner was being served, the three of them came back for four days in a row to build risers to accommodate folding chairs for an audience of one hundred and fifty.
There was something for everyone to do, including Destiny, who became a kind of message and delivery service, scurrying all over Wit's End with his wagon, talking or singing nonstop as he went. Sybil and Jeremy took over marketing and publicity, writing press releases and churning out advertising circulars that labeled the production "The most exciting piece of musical theater ever to appear on a North Carolina stage."
Jake did a little of everything. One moment he would be helping to build the stage, the next he would be hanging lights or running cables. For two days he and Zedediah scoured the countryside for props, and he found himself learning what could have been found in an Austrian household in the 1930s and what could not. It took half a day of going from antiques shop to flea market to used furniture store to find the right sort of telephone for the von Trapp living room. The owner of the shop where they finally found it had read about the production in the newspaper and agreed to let them borrow it in return for a pair of tickets to opening night.
Mrs. Montrose had called the Traybridge paper to announce the cancellation of the show a moment after she'd spoken to Randolph. The reporter had called Randolph to get his side, and the story had been growing ever since. It was picked up by newspapers across the state, and then television news reporters began showing up with camera crews and getting underfoot. Two versions began to emerge, each with its own hero and its own villain. One had Randolph Applewhite as a crusading New York radical attempting to destroy the grand old traditions of the South while Mrs. Montrose staunchly defended them. The other called Randolph a symbol of the broadening culture of the New South and Mrs. Montrose a throw-back to the bad old days.
"They're turning it from an artistic story into a political one!" Randolph complained.
"Publicity is publicity," Bernstein said. "The important thing is to fill the seats!"
One gray and drizzly afternoon Jake was coming out of the barn with a light that had a broken clamp when a reporter stopped him. "You're the kid who burned down a school in Rhode Island, aren't you? Did you have anything to do with the fire at the Traybridge Little Theatre?"
"No comment," Jake said, and ducked back into the barn.
## Chapter Twenty-seven
E.D. looked up from the computer screen as one of the five butterflies currently residing in the schoolroom fluttered past her to land next to another on a slice of overripe cantelope. It sank its long tongue into the soft orange flesh. Two others were drinking from a saucer of sugar syrup on Jake's desk. Since the incident with Destiny's hair, coloring of any kind had been banned from the butterflies' food supply. Destiny's ears had faded to a pale lavender.
The Butterfly Project, and the time when it had been so important to her, seemed very far away. It had been twelve days since the show and the barn (now called Wit's End Playhouse) had completely taken over their lives. She couldn't even remember what her curriculum notebook would have had her doing this week.
She yawned. Tonight was the first dress rehearsal, and she'd been up since five-thirty. It was raining, which would cause trouble if it kept up all day. The way they'd had to build the stage, actors who had to exit on one side and come back onstage from the other had to run around the outside of the barn. No one had thought that would be a problem, because it hadn't rained more than about fifty drops in two and a half months. This part of North Carolina was in the midst of the worst drought in living memory.
But Zedediah had said that one thing he'd learned for certain in seventy years of living was not to trust the weather. On one of his prop runs he had bought two dozen umbrellas and stationed a dozen at each exit so an actor could grab one on the way out, run around, and drop it off on the way in. The stage crew, the prop crew, and the dressers, most of whom had been recruited from Traybridge High School, also had to run around the barn from one side of the stage to the other, but they were not going to be allowed to use the umbrellas. They had no costumes to protect. E.D. was writing a notice to explain the rain plan now.
She ran over her to-do list for the day one more time and smiled. It was actually beginning to look as if this impossible idea would work. If it did, she would have had a whole lot to do with it, not just because it was her idea in the first place, but because from the moment her father agreed to doing the show in the barn, she had focused everything she had on getting things organized and keeping them that way. She had found out from the adults what needed to be done to get both the barn and the show ready for opening night and then made a series of charts and sign-up sheets and schedules. These had taken over the schoolroom where the maps and papers and the butterfly chart used to be. Now one wall was devoted to barn renovation. Another was for the actors, with rehearsal schedules, costume fittings, and lists of each actor's personal props. A third was for tech crews. She had a master list in a notebook she kept with her, and she kept all the charts and schedules updated so anyone could check them anytime.
The fourth wall she had reserved for clippings and Internet printouts from local newspapers. The story kept changing shape. At first it had been about her father and Mrs. Montrose. Then Jake got to be in the middle of it. One local weekly told how working on the show was turning a delinquent around. But the Traybridge paper, under the headline "Can Traybridge Support Two Theaters?," suggested that the theater being built at Wit's End "by northern newcomers" was intended to put the Traybridge Little Theatre out of business. It speculated on the possible connection between the burning of a school in Rhode Island and a "fire of uncertain origin" at the Little Theatre.
Jake said bad press didn't bother him, but Randolph had fumed about the unfairness of the second story and the TV news reporters who picked it up. "We never even thought of making a theater till they canceled us!" Lucille, who was both heading the costume crew and taking ticket orders on the phone, said that right after the story appeared there was a huge increase in the number of ticket orders. Publicity, as Jeremy had said, was publicity. Sybil added that not only were news stories good advertising, they were free. The ads running in the very same papers were costing a lot of "Petunia Grantham" money.
Whether it was the free publicity or the ads, tickets were selling better than anyone had expected. With only three days to go till the opening, they had two sold-out houses and decent-sized audiences for the other performances. Almost half the opening night seats would go to the media and to people who had donated props or costumes or helped with the show, and at least a third of the others were going to families of the actors. It didn't bring in much money to have that many complimentary tickets, but it guaranteed a full house for the most important night of the run, the night the network people would be there.
This was the day the television crew was arriving, and Jeremy had been such a wreck when he came into the kitchen for breakfast that Govindaswami had told him he wasn't going to be allowed to eat till he'd spent at least half an hour meditating. Then Sybil had insisted that everyone take a little time from their other jobs to clean the house. "I won't have the world think that the author of the Petunia Grantham mysteries lives in a pigsty." Now the house was at least moderately presentable. The Applewhites wouldn't look like slobs as long as the cameras stayed away from the closets.
The barn was almost ready. They'd been rehearsing on the newly built stage for three days now. Zedediah was overseeing the last of the construction work. And Hal, with help from Cordelia, was painting the sets.
A butterfly landed on E.D.'s hand, and she waved it gently away. They had no fear of humans at all, these butterflies. Outside she heard a car pull to a stop. After a moment, Winston began barking. That must be the television people, she thought. Hurriedly she printed out the notice about the umbrellas and went to pin it up on the wall. As she did, she heard someone come into the schoolroom behind her. She turned her head to see who it was and was so startled that she stabbed the pushpin into her finger. She yelped.
"That bad, huh?"
Jake was standing there in his usual black T-shirt and black pants. But that was all that was usual about him. Gone was the eyebrow ring, gone were all the earrings. And gone was the scarlet hair. He had a dark brown crew cut now, so short his scalp showed through. Behind him Winston stood, making low growling sounds.
"So what do you think?" Jake said. "Could I make it in the SS?"
## Chapter Twenty-eight
Winston was so unsettled by the change in Jake's appearance that he wouldn't come close enough to be petted. A patch of hair at the back of his neck and another at the base of his tail stood up, and he stayed about two feet away, following Jake as always but growling suspiciously the whole time. An hour later, when the television people arrived in a van bristling with antennae and satellite dishes, the dog was still so edgy that he didn't just bark at the van. When the crew got out, he actually rushed at them, snapping at sneakers and pants legs. Jake had to go find some liver treats and lure him into the schoolroom.
The liver treats helped. In no time Winston was stretched at his feet in his usual way, his nose on his outstretched paws, snoring softly. Jake watched from the window as cameras and lights and cables and sound equipment were unpacked and carted into the house. He was just as glad to be safely away from the action. He'd told everyone he didn't mind bad press, but it wasn't absolutely true. He wanted to be known as an actor now, not the bad kid from the city, and you never knew what the media would say about you.
Jeremy Bernstein had come running the moment he heard the van in the driveway. Jake watched him introduce himself, shaking hands with everyone who got out of the van. It was obvious he didn't know any of these people, and they had no idea who he was or what he was doing there. It wasn't really clear what the title of associate producer meant. It looked to Jake as if Bernstein was mostly in the way, darting around among the crew like an enthusiastic puppy. Destiny arrived, too, and had the good sense to stay back and just watch, though Jake could tell by the way his mouth was working steadily that he was talking the whole time. Asking questions, probably. Nobody seemed to be answering them.
Eventually a limousine arrived and a man with a clipboard got out and called to Bernstein. That had to be Jeremy's friend. The two of them conferred for a while, and then the man with the clipboard opened the limousine door and held it while a short-haired blond woman in a red suit got out. Marcia Manning. Jake had seen her on TV so often it seemed as if he knew her. Except that on TV she always seemed perky and sweet and friendly. Even without being able to hear what anyone was saying, he could see that there was nothing perky or sweet or friendly about her now.
She pointed here, gestured there, and people who were doing one thing when she got out suddenly started doing something else. The man with the clipboard began flipping through his papers, looking more and more harried. She spoke to Bernstein and he rushed into the house and returned a few moments later with a bottle of water, which she snatched from his hand and began drinking as she made her way up the steps and onto the porch.
Jake was in the barn, helping to set up folding chairs, when E.D. came to find Winston. "The wicked witch of the west wants them to get pictures of all the animals," she explained. "Mom says you'd better come, too. The camera guys are all spooked about Winston since he tried to bite them. Is he okay? Has he gotten over your haircut yet?"
"Liver treats," Jake said, and followed E.D. back to the house, Winston in his usual place a few steps behind.
"All the adults have been interviewed already and gone back to work," she told him as they went. "Mom's interview was the longest, and Dad's all grumpy. They aren't going to interview us kids, except Cordelia. I think the wicked witch has us classified with the animals. Sort of like decorations for background shots."
There were enough cables snaked across the floor in the living room to make walking treacherous. Some very large, very bright lights were focused on the couch and the overstuffed chair, where Marcia Manning was sitting looking over some note cards. A blue-jean-clad man was dabbing at her face with a large makeup brush. Paulie's t-perch had been brought in and set up behind the couch. Paulie was busy eating peanuts and dropping their shells on the floor. Jeremy and the man with the clipboard hovered in the background, whispering to each other.
"Where's that girl with the dog?" Marcia Manning asked, batting away the man with the makeup brush. She caught sight of E.D. "Oh, there you are!"
When she saw Winston, she squealed. "He's perfect! Just perfect! Everybody loves basset hounds. Here, dog. Get over here in the light, dog." Winston started toward her. When she reached toward him, he sat, well out of range of her red painted fingernails. She waved toward the corner of the room. "Come over here, little boy—" Jake saw Destiny now, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "What's-your-name—you with the lavender ears." Destiny got up and came toward her with an expression on his face Jake had never seen before. He looked cowed. Almost frightened. "Pat the doggie for us," the woman said, her voice suddenly high and sing-songy. "Nice doggie. Get him to wag his tail."
She pointed to a cameraman. "Get a good angle on that. See if you can get the parrot in the shot, too. All the trouble they'll have bleeping the bloody parrot out of the interviews, we should get him in whenever we can—he's great background color."
Then she noticed Jake. "Who's this?" She waggled a hand at the man with the clipboard. "Chuck? Who's this? Anybody know who this is?"
"Jake," Destiny said. It was the first word he'd said. What had these people done to him?
"The delinquent? No, no. Can't be." She checked her notes and turned to Chuck again. "You said the Semple kid has scarlet hair and body piercings."
Chuck flipped through the papers on his clipboard. "That's true. We got some footage from some local news program when he burned the school."
"Didn't look anything like this, did he?"
"You could ask me," Jake said to her. "I do talk. The answer is yes. It's me. Jake Semple. The actor."
"Well, that'll wreck the visuals," she said. A man with a camera on his shoulder had started toward Jake, and she waved him off. "No point getting him looking like that—and scrap the interview, Chuck. We'll just run the old footage if we need something."
Chuck threw down the clipboard. "I don't suppose you care what I want, Marcia." A cameraman picked up the clipboard and handed it back to him.
"Of course I do, Chuckie dear. I respect every pearl that falls from your mouth. But right now you should go out and get some tape of the goats. Before it starts raining again. I'm going to get some coffee."
She got up and headed toward the kitchen, where Jake could hear Govindaswami clattering dishes and humming cheerily to himself. Chuck swore and Paulie repeated his words and added a few of his own. "Smart bird," the man said, as Jeremy led him and one of the cameramen outside.
"That lady told me to shut up!" Destiny said.
"It's a good thing for her it wasn't during Mom's interview," E.D. said.
"How's it been going?" Jake asked.
E.D. shrugged. "She asked lots of questions about what everybody does—the furniture and the poetry and the books. And the Creative Academy. Dad talked about The Sound of Music, of course. And the barn. But I don't think it's going the way Jeremy and the producer guy planned. It's sort of like she's just getting a whole lot of talk and a whole lot of pictures and somebody'll have to figure out what to do with it all later. Dad says he's going to demand to see the edited tape before they air it, but Jeremy doesn't think that'll happen."
Marcia Manning came back from the kitchen, holding a big mug, which she waved at the few crew members who were still in the room, fussing with equipment. "The kitchen guru says you can all come get coffee." The makeup man started toward her with his brush. "Later, Henry! Can't you see there aren't any cameras?" She sank onto the couch, leaned back into the cushions, and kicked off her shoes, cradling the coffee mug in both hands. She looked at Jake, E.D., and Destiny. "Scram, kids. I need a little private time. And take the mutt with you." She closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh.
E.D. opened her mouth to say something, but Jake shook his head at her. He pointed. One of the butterflies had fluttered in from the schoolroom and was heading toward the couch. It swooped up and then down again, circled the woman's head twice, and then landed delicately on one of the hands that held the mug.
There was a bloodcurdling shriek from Marcia Manning, quickly picked up and repeated by Paulie. The coffee mug leaped upward, sending coffee toward the ceiling and then back down onto woman and couch. There were more shrieks and curses as Winston launched himself onto the couch, landed on Marcia Manning, and put his front feet on her shoulders as he snapped at the butterfly that was circling her head. The butterfly flew off toward the kitchen.
"Get this monster off me!" she yelled.
But Winston had already jumped down and was following the butterfly, making little leaps as he went.
"Chuck! Henry! Get in here! Where the—" Paulie joined Marcia Manning in a stream of high-pitched curses.
Jake grabbed E.D.'s and Destiny's hands, and the three of them bolted for the schoolroom. They slammed the door behind them and sank onto the floor with laughter.
## Chapter Twenty-nine
The day of the opening was going to go down in her personal history as the longest, most exhausting, most difficult day of her entire life, E.D. thought. Maybe someday she'd write about it.
That morning there had been costumes that still needed hemming, stage lights that needed refocusing. The meadow, where the actors had been parking ever since they started rehearsing at Wit's End, needed to be mowed and signs put up to let the audience know it was the parking lot. Hal and Cordelia hadn't finished painting the set. The phone kept ringing with questions and ticket orders. Besides fixing the regular meals, Govindaswami had decided to bake cookies and make punch to sell at intermission, so he needed more help than usual. A number of cast members took the day off work, and the high school kids on the tech crews skipped school to come help. E.D.'s friend Melissa skipped school, too, and came to do whatever she could. E.D. didn't have any time to spend with her, though. She had rushed from one task to another all day, trying to keep track of everything and everybody.
Her father was the only one who wasn't worried about the weather. He claimed that the theater gods were on their side and that the clouds that kept darkening the sky and threatening storms would blow over before the audience was due to arrive. And always, everywhere, Marcia Manning and the television crew were in the way, aiming cameras and shoving microphones in people's faces and tripping people with their electrical cables.
Somehow, though, by the time cars started arriving and Jeremy was sent out to direct them to parking places, almost everything was ready. Even the problem of Destiny's ears had been solved. Lucille had made him a hat, which he wore in every scene, even when he was dressed in pajamas. A line had been added about Hans loving hats.
No one had remembered to give E.D. a count of the opening night tickets that had been given away, so more people were showing up than there were seats. Extra folding chairs had to be squeezed in, and family members of the cast were sent up to the loft with the sound and lighting technicians.
As curtain time approached, E.D. looked out at the barn full of people from the stage manager's station offstage left, and realized that through all the rehearsals and barn renovation, she had never quite believed it would happen, that there would really be a Wit's End Playhouse that real live people would come to. Yet there they were, a hundred and seventy-seven of them, Jake's grandfather next to Marcia Manning and the producer in the front row, and three cameramen stationed in the aisles.
She took a deep breath and gave the signal for the houselights to go down. Jeremy Bernstein began to play the overture on his accordion, miked so that speakers carried the music to the farthest corners of the barn. During the overture, the nuns had to come past E.D. one at a time so that she could light their candles. Randolph had decided to begin the show with a candlelight procession, the candles the nuns carried as they chanted their way around the stage providing the only light. That way they didn't need to build a separate set for the abbey chapel.
E.D.'s hands shook as she held the lighter to the wick of one candle after another. This must be what stage fright feels like, she thought. Her stomach was tied in knots. She didn't think stage managers were supposed to get stage fright. The overture ended, and the note was given for the chant to begin. "Dixit Dominus Domino meo," the soloist sang as she stepped out onto the stage with her candle, and the show began.
There were thirteen scenes in the first act. By the time the fifth scene, where Maria taught the von Trapp children to sing "Do-Re-Mi," was over, E.D.'s stage fright had disappeared. None of the awful things she had imagined, none of the glitches from dress rehearsal, had happened so far. The actors had all remembered their lines and the words to their songs. Jeremy was playing the right songs at the right time. The lights were coming up and going down when she gave the cue. All the children were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. Even Destiny. And the audience was applauding when they were supposed to. Maybe her father was right. Maybe the theater gods were on their side!
And so it seemed, right through the rest of the first act, through intermission (the audience talked and laughed and seemed to be enjoying themselves, and Govindaswami sold out all his cookies and punch), and on into the second act.
Until the next to the last scene—at the Kaltzburg Festival Concert. The scene began with Captain von Trapp playing the guitar and singing the eidelweiss song, with Maria and the seven von Trapp children gathered around him. Distant thunder began to make itself heard beneath the music. Then, during the last two lines of the song, rain began to patter on the barn roof. As the song ended and the audience began to applaud, the sound of the rain on the roof grew in intensity. When the actor came on to announce that the Nazi escort had arrived to take Captain von Trapp to his command in the German navy, rain dripped off his nose as he began to speak.
Throughout his speech the rain drummed harder and he spoke louder, until, by the end, he was shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard introducing the von Trapps' encore song. Thunder drowned out the first notes of the accordion. Captain von Trapp, Maria, and the seven children lined up to sing, all of them looking intently toward where Jeremy was playing the introduction to the song. E.D. couldn't hear the music over the pounding of the rain, and it was clear that none of the actors could, either.
"Bring the musician's sound up!" E.D. whispered into her microphone to the sound technician. "The actors can't hear!"
She had to strain to make out the reply through her headphones. "I did already. It's up full!"
The actors were standing onstage now in position, their hands clasped in front of them as they should be. But they didn't begin to sing. Nine pairs of eyes focused desperately on Jeremy, who was clearly playing music that could not be heard. Thunder crashed again. Suddenly the actor who had announced the song appeared onstage again, holding a large microphone. He spoke directly into it, and the sound rose just slightly above the level of the rain on the roof.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Kaltzburg Festival Concert will continue in a moment, when the storm passes over the mountains. In the meantime, let us all sing together the song the von Trapps sang earlier—'Do-Re-Mi.' I'm sure you all know it! Please join us!"
He sang the first line loudly into the microphone, and the actors onstage joined him. Soon the whole audience was singing along, and E.D. realized the great advantage of doing a show that almost everyone already knew.
After two rousing repetitions of "Do-Re-Mi" sung into and over the rain and thunder, the pounding on the roof began to slack off. As the song reached its conclusion the third time around, Captain von Trapp stepped forward and took the microphone from the other actor, who had stayed onstage, conducting the audience. He held up one hand for silence and began the last notes of the song, his voice going down and down to a deep bass. "Do ti la so fa me re..." He paused, looking out at the audience, and then signaled for the last "do."
The audience shouted "Do!" and then leaped to their feet, cheering and stamping and applauding. Captain von Trapp waited till they had settled down and taken their seats again and then waved to Jeremy to begin their encore song.
E.D. breathed a sigh of relief as the song went perfectly, each pair of children singing their farewell and leaving the stage until only Destiny was left, standing between Maria and Captain von Trapp. When he sang that the sun had gone to bed, with the rain still pattering gently overhead, the audience laughed. "I'll say!" someone called out. Destiny, undaunted, finished his line, sang his good-bye, and exited. The applause when the song ended was as loud and enthusiastic as before. The rest of the scene, as the Germans discover that the von Trapps have fled, went perfectly. E.D. was just about to call for the stage lights to go out when outside there was a blue-white flash so bright that it could be seen through every crack in the barn siding, followed instantly by what sounded like an explosion. The lights went out and E.D.'s earphones went dead.
"Can anybody hear me?" E.D. whispered into her microphone. Nothing. Even the tiny light over her prompt book had gone out, and it was pitch-black backstage. "Electricity's out!" she said in a stage whisper. "Set up for the final scene, and I'll think of something. Somebody tell Jeremy to keep playing until somebody comes to tell him to stop." She hoped he could play without being able to see the music.
E.D. went over the end of the show in her mind. Even with lights, the final scene was fairly dark. It took place outdoors at night in the abbey's garden, with the von Trapps hiding while the Nazis searched the abbey to find them. When Jake's character, Rolf, came onstage, it was his flashlight that allowed him to see Captain von Trapp and Maria. The lights were supposed to come up enough that the audience could see them before Rolf did. Then, when Rolf had already called out to his lieutenant, he had to see Liesl, again in the light from his flashlight, and decide not to turn the family over to the Nazis.
Without any stage lights the audience would be able to see whoever Jake, as Rolf, lit with his flashlight, but they wouldn't be able to see that it was Rolf holding the flashlight. They wouldn't understand that it was Rolf's love for Liesl that kept him from turning them all in, that led him to call out to his lieutenant that there was no one in the garden. Without some light on the stage, so that the audience could see the moment of suspense as Rolf decides what to do, the ending wouldn't make sense. How could they get enough light onstage to make it work?
Nuns! Nuns with candles. The scene was the abbey, and the nuns were supposed to come on at the very end for the final song anyway. There could be as many nuns onstage as they needed. The actors who played the nuns in the first act would already be back in their habits, ready for the end of the show. All E.D. needed to do was gather them up before the scene began and get their candles lit again. They could stand in a semicircle around the abbey garden, and their candles would almost certainly give enough light for the audience to know what was going on. The stage crew was busy setting up for the final scene, working in the light from Jake's flashlight. "Jake!"
"What? What are we going to do?"
"We need all the nuns, right away. With their candles." Quickly, she outlined her plan, and he grunted agreement. "And get another candle or two for Jeremy so he can play the last song." She took the flashlight and kept it trained so that the crew could finish changing the scene, while Jake went to tell the other actors what they needed to do.
This time as the nuns gathered and she lit their candles, her hand was perfectly steady. It would work. She knew it. Already she could see in her mind's eye the scene as the Mother Abbess began singing the final reprise of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," the other nuns joining in and lighting the way for the von Trapps to begin their climb over the Austrian Alps into Switzerland and freedom. She felt almost as excited as if she were helping the real family escape from the Nazis.
## Chapter Thirty
Raves, every last one of them!" Randolph said. It wasn't news anymore, Jake thought. The family—including Hal—had gathered in the living room with pitchers of Govindaswami's now-famous Playhouse Punch and platters of cookies to read the reviews together. Everyone had already read and reread them, probably memorizing, as he had, the parts about them.
Randolph waved the local paper. "The Gazette says Traybridge has never seen such a level of professionalism and talent from a local cast." He read from the page in his hand. "Worthy of Broadway, he calls it. Well—he's probably never actually seen a Broadway production. Still, listen to this: 'The board of the Traybridge Little Theatre needs to ask itself why it canceled such a stellar production. If the new Wit's End Playhouse chooses to mount a whole season, our local theater isn't likely to survive the competition.' Take that, Mrs. Montrose!"
"You are not, of course, considering a whole season," Sybil said. "You wouldn't—"
"Couldn't," Zedediah said. "There's no heat in the barn."
"What about summer?" Hal asked. "We could do shows in the summer!" The reviews had all mentioned the original, ingenious, beautifully painted sets, and Hal had apparently rethought his mission in life. The sign on his bedroom door now read HAL APPLEWHITE, SCULPTOR AND SET DESIGNER.
Archie shook his head. "No air-conditioning either."
"We could do two productions a year," Randolph said. "One in the fall and one in the spring. I'm considering the possibility."
Sybil groaned. "I'll have to start turning out Petunia Grantham mysteries by the dozen to raise the money, then. Do you have any idea how much this production cost?"
Randolph waved his hand dismissively. "You can't count the cost of renovating the barn—a few productions as successful as this one and we're bound to make that up. Besides, you had ground to a halt on the Great American Novel anyway and you know it. No point pretending. Petunia Grantham is in your blood."
"If we do another musical," Cordelia said, "there needs to be a lot more dancing."
"No nuns!" This was Lucille. "I will never make another habit as long as I live."
"You wouldn't need to," Sybil said. "We own twenty of them now."
"Listen to this," Bernstein said, holding up a printout from the Internet. "It's from Charlotte. 'The intriguing choice to use an accordion rather than an orchestra gave the production an air of Tyrolean folk authenticity that was entirely new. The accordion's ability to mimic the sound of an organ was a bonus for the abbey scenes.'"
"My favorite," Lucille said, "is the one from Raleigh. 'Rainbow Cast Antidote to Third Reich's Racism' is the headline. The reviewer says, 'After the initial surprise of seeing an African American playing Maria, the audience lost all awareness of skin color—an important lesson for us all.'"
"What did I tell you!" Randolph said.
"That's the one that talks about the candles, isn't it?" E.D. asked.
Lucille nodded and read on. "'The use of candles to light the last scene set the final rendition of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" apart and provided a powerful metaphor. The von Trapp Family Singers throughout their musical career lit candles rather than cursing the dark.'"
"Good thing I had the foresight to do the candlelight procession at the top of the show," Randolph said. "It isn't in the script, you know."
E.D. bristled. "Don't you dare take credit for my idea! Quick thinking under pressure, that's what that was."
"All right, all right. But I had the good sense to decide to keep it in."
Jake was only half listening. His part was so small he hadn't expected to find himself mentioned in the reviews. But to his astonishment he'd been in almost all of them. He'd made copies to send to his parents. "Mature performance from a promising teen in a small but pivotal role," one of them said. "Convincing both as adolescent suitor and Nazi," another reviewer wrote. "With commanding stage presence, Jake Semple turned in a performance equal to any in this impressive production. We expect to hear more from this young man with the mellifluous singing voice." Jake had looked up "mellifluous." Flowing with honey or sweetness. Never had anyone mentioned sweetness and Jake Semple in the same sentence before. He would send a copy to his social worker in Rhode Island.
"Read the one about me," Destiny said. He was lying on the floor next to Winston, drawing with fluorescent markers.
"The youngest von Trapp, transformed from a girl named Gretl to a hat-obsessed little boy named Hans, was played with uncommon gusto by Destiny Applewhite."
"Uncommon gusto," Sybil repeated. "That's you, all right."
That, Jake thought, was the whole Applewhite clan. Govindaswami and Bernstein, too.
A butterfly fluttered in and landed on Govindaswami's shoulder. Govindaswami raised his glass of punch, and the butterfly stepped delicately onto the edge and unrolled its tongue to drink.
Paulie, who had stayed on in the main house after the television crew left, raised his wings, gave a couple of small hops along his perch, and swore.
"That's a new one," Zedediah said.
"He learned it from Marcia Manning," Cordelia said.
It was the only lasting thing the television people had left behind, Jake thought. The lightning bolt that knocked out the power had struck their satellite dish, and they'd gathered up their roasted equipment and left the morning after the opening. The next day Bernstein had gotten an e-mail message from the network explaining that the producer had gone off to a spa to recuperate from nervous exhaustion and Ms. Manning had taken a job with a competing network. Consequently, the Applewhite spot, originally planned for twelve minutes of prime time, would be cut to two and a half. It might air, they said, on a slow news day as the human interest piece at the end of the evening news.
Bernstein had taken the news pretty well. "Associate producer doesn't mean much of anything anyway." He had managed to sell an article on the way television's mass-market focus cheapened art to the journal that had originally given him the Sybil Jameson assignment.
Now that The Sound of Music was up and running and would be over within another week, Jake thought, the Applewhites would be getting back to normal. Whatever that was. Jeremy was planning to stay on to work on his book about the family. Govindaswami was going to an ashram in Idaho to lecture on cooking as meditation. Randolph had gotten a call from a theater in Pennsylvania to do a "rainbow" Sound of Music as their Christmas show. E.D. was already revising her curriculum plan. She was planning a project on goat husbandry to take the place of the completed butterfly project.
As for Jake, the only thing he knew for certain was that somehow or another he was going to get himself on the stage again. He had an answer now to Zedediah's question about what gave him joy. He wasn't about to waste a mellifluous voice and commanding stage presence.
An adventurous quest for the meaning of life, involving the ability to think things through. The banner was back up in the schoolroom where the barn renovation schedule had been. Jake didn't know any more about the meaning of life than he had the first day he came to Wit's End. But whatever else he could say about the way the Applewhites lived, it certainly was an adventurous quest. And he was beginning to get some idea of the value of thinking things through.
Winston, pointedly ignoring Govindaswami's butterfly, sighed and rolled over, his head coming to rest on Jake's foot. Jake scratched behind his ears. Destiny was humming as he drew. He looked up at Jake. "What color are you going to make your hair when the show is over?" he asked.
"I don't know," Jake said. "What color do you think?"
"Blond," Destiny said. "Like mine."
Jake shrugged. "I think maybe brown. Like mine."
The outrageous Applewhite family returns in Stephanie S. Tolan's new novel
## APPLEWHITES AT WIT'S END
Chapter One
It was a dark and stormy night when Randolph Applewhite arrived home from New York to announce the end of the world. The whole family plus Jake Semple, the extra student at their home school, the Creative Academy, were gathered at the time around the fireplace in the living room of the main house at Wit's End, while a wind howled and snow swirled against the windows.
Like everyone else, E.D. had at first taken her father's announcement to be hyperbole—one of her vocabulary words for that week, which meant "deliberate and obvious exaggeration for effect." A famous theater director, Randolph Applewhite had a habit of making exactly this announcement whenever something—almost anything—went wrong with a project of his and he felt the need for sympathy. So often had they heard it, in fact, that E.D.'s mother, the even more famous Sybil Jameson, author of the bestselling Petunia Grantham mystery novels, actually said, "That's nice, dear," as she struggled to pick up a stitch she had dropped in the scarf she was attempting to knit.
It wasn't until well into his explanation that she put down her needles and began paying attention. "What do you mean gone?"
"Just what I said! Gone! Embezzled!"
"How much of it?"
"All of it! To the last penny. The Applewhite family is destitute. We shall have to sell Wit's End and move to a hovel somewhere."
"What's a hovel?" asked E.D.'s five-year-old brother, Destiny, who was cheerfully and industriously drawing a bright spring-green pig on a large pad of newsprint.
When the whole story had at last been told—not until long after Destiny had been sent to bed and everyone else had finished a couple of mugs of hot cocoa enhanced with comforting marshmallows or alcohol, depending on their ages—it was clear that while the end of the Applewhites' world had not yet arrived, it was looming on the horizon like smoke from a wildfire and heading their way.
E.D. had never really understood—nor felt the need to—the financial structure that formed the foundation of her family's creative compound. She only knew that the whole, extended Applewhite family had left New York when Destiny was a year old and moved to rural North Carolina, where they had bought an abandoned motor lodge called the Bide-A-Wee. They had renamed it Wit's End and had lived here since, the adults following their particular creative passions and the children, except for E.D.'s own absolutely noncreative self, discovering theirs. All of the adults were famous. Her grandfather and her uncle Archie both designed and created furniture—Zedediah Applewhite's handcrafted wood furniture and Archie's "Furniture of the Absurd," which wasn't really so much furniture as sculpture and which was regularly exhibited in galleries around the country. Her aunt Lucille was a poet.
What E.D. learned that stormy winter night was that they had come to Wit's End not just so the family could live together, but so that they could pool their resources in order to continue their work. The vast majority of these resources came from the worldwide sales of the Petunia Grantham mysteries; some came from Zedediah's beautiful, expensive, and entirely practical furniture; and some came from Randolph's work directing plays. Nothing else anyone did brought in much money. All of their resources had been gathered together in a family trust. The manager who had handled that trust, and therefore the future of the entire Applewhite enterprise, had turned out to be a crook.
"He'll go to jail," Randolph said after his second cup of bourbon-laced cocoa. "There's that, at least!"
"And what good will that do us?" Archie asked.
"I, for one, will feel better," Randolph answered. "It will cheer the dark nights in our hovel."
Zedediah, ever practical, pointed out that the Petunia Grantham mysteries would no doubt continue to sell as they always had, to which Sybil responded that she had only that morning killed Petunia Grantham off. The current novel, which was due to be finished within the week, would be the last in the series. "I killed her because I simply can't write another one. It would destroy my very soul."
"Your soul is tougher than that!" Randolph responded. "You can simply resurrect her in the next! They do it all the time in soap operas."
"My books are not soap operas!"
Only Aunt Lucille had taken the news of their sudden poverty in stride. She breathed a series of long, calming breaths, smiled, and announced that they would get along in some unforeseen way, just as they always had. All they needed to do was trust their creative energies, and they would surely come up with a way to solve the problem. "One step at a time," she said. "Out of the darkness, into the light."
"How long do we have?" Sybil asked then.
"If we gather up everything we have in the bank accounts, plus whatever you're owed when you turn in the current novel, plus the fees for the two directing gigs I have contracts for—assuming that Zedediah's furniture continues to sell the way it has—we can probably keep the mortgage paid through June. Maybe July. But after that..."
"We'll think of something," Lucille said. "Remember Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind.' 'O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?'"
As it turned out, the winter was unusually harsh and unusually long, or at least it felt that way. By the time the Wit's End daffodils began blooming in March, the family had become obsessed with saving money in every way possible. The children's allowances had been not just cut, but actually discontinued. E.D.'s older brother, Hal, unable now to order sculpture supplies online for UPS delivery, had taken to going through the trash to find materials for his projects. "If it gets much worse," he complained, "I'll have to go back to painting! At least I have plenty of tubes of paint."
E.D.'s sister, Cordelia, had given up drinking her seaweed-and-protein health drinks. "I can't even afford the gas to get to the store, let alone the cost of the supplements! How am I going to maintain the energy to keep up my dancing?"
Winston, their food-loving basset hound, was now living on kibble instead of canned dog food, and liver treats had become a thing of the past. Zedediah's parrot, Paulie, could no longer count on fresh peanuts, and meat had become an occasional indulgence instead of the centerpiece of most dinners for the humans in the family. Pot roast, everybody's favorite dinner, had not been seen since the end of the world was announced. E.D. thought she had seen Uncle Archie at the goat pen from time to time, staring longingly at Wolfbane and Witch Hazel, Lucille's rescue goats.
E.D. herself had begun using the back sides of papers from the recycling box to write her research papers for school. And Zedediah had sped up production of his furniture, appearing in the kitchen late for dinner, still wearing his sawdust-covered work apron, and going right back to the woodshop afterward. So busy was he that Paulie had begun picking his feathers out from loneliness and perches had to be established for him throughout Wit's End. The last person to leave a room was supposed to take Paulie along so that he wouldn't be left by himself.
It was an evening in early March when Randolph, having just been paid by the theater in Raleigh where he'd directed a production of the musical Oliver! with Jake, his newly discovered star, playing the role of the Artful Dodger, called a family meeting. He waved his check in the air. "This will cover another mortgage payment," he said. The Applewhites couldn't always be counted upon to celebrate one another's successes, but this time they broke into spontaneous cheers and applause. "Even better, I have a plan to save Wit's End!"
The cheers and applause died away. No one entirely trusted Randolph's ideas. "What is it?" E.D.'s mother asked suspiciously. She had steadfastly refused—citing the arrival of her Petunia Grantham royalty check as her fair contribution to the family bank account—to resurrect Petunia or begin another book, as she felt the need to rest her brain. "Your plans have been known to require considerable effort from the rest of us."
"All for one and one for all," Randolph said. "Just listen to me, everyone. You're going to love it!" He turned to Jake, who was sitting on the floor rubbing Winston's ears. "I owe a part of this idea to Jake. I was sitting in the theater, listening to him sing 'Consider Yourself at Home,' when it came to me. The next line of the song invites Oliver Twist into the family, just as we've invited Jake into ours. So there I was, looking at this stage full of singing and dancing kids—Fagin's pickpockets—and it occurred to me that we could create just such a family."
"A family of pickpockets?" Archie said. "I hardly think that's the best way to solve our problem!"
"A family of creative kids! We invited Jake to join the Creative Academy. Why couldn't we take in a whole lot more? Not all year round—just in the summer. We'll start a camp for creative kids. I've even got a name for it. Eureka!" Randolph looked expectantly around the room. "Well? What do you think? People pay big money to send their kids to summer camp. Just regular summer camp. Think what they'd pay to have their kids spend eight weeks with a family of professional artists. Famous professional artists!"
"Kids? Living here with us?" Hal said, his face going pale. "How many?"
"I'm thinking just twelve this first year, a pilot group."
"And what would we do with these twelve kids?" Archie asked.
"Teach them. Encourage them. Share with them our love of art, our own individual creative passions. Set them on the path to becoming creative, productive adults! Eureka! would not only bring in big bucks, it would be a humanitarian endeavor—helping to groom the next generation of American artists. It will be a whole family project. There will be something for everyone to do."
"Me, too?" asked Destiny.
"Of course you, too. You can be the camp mascot!"
E.D. doubted that Destiny knew what a mascot was, but the title was enough to satisfy him.
Randolph turned to his wife. "Now that Petunia Grantham's dead, you're going to need something to do! You can't rest your brain forever!"
"Twelve children? Twelve other people's children?"
"Yes. Think of it. Twelve delightful children into whose meager little lives we will bring the joys of art. We do art—and children—uncommonly well. Just look at our own four, and Jake, too, of course! Who would have thought when Jake first came to us that we could turn him into a musical-theater star in a matter of weeks? We could do that sort of thing with twelve more!"
E.D. suspected that Jake wasn't willing to give the Applewhite family all the credit for his newly discovered talent, but she could see that he was listening carefully as Randolph laid out the details of the camp. Each of them would share with the campers what they liked to do best, Randolph told them—their own creative passion—including Jake. As the only one besides Destiny able to sing at all, he could be the singing coach.
"And what would I share with them?" E.D. asked.
"A play needs a stage manager, a camp needs a—a—an executive assistant, the person who handles the schedule and the details and makes sure everything runs smoothly. You do that wonderfully well, E.D—you know you do!"
No one but Destiny had yet accepted the idea. So Randolph went on, refusing to be daunted by their stony faces. "For heaven's sake, people. We're talking only eight weeks here! Practically no time at all. If we charge twelve families what I expect to charge them, we could save Wit's End, bring meat back to the family table, and restart allowances. Would you really rather sell out, leave here, and move to a hovel in Hoboken?"
## Chapter Two
When Jake had first come to live at Wit's End, he had been determined to get away as soon as possible. Having been kicked out of the entire public school system of the state of Rhode Island, then out of Traybridge Middle School after he was sent to North Carolina to live with his grandfather, he had expected to get himself kicked out of the Applewhites' Creative Academy in a matter of days. The first problem with that had been that the Applewhites weren't the least bit bothered by his multiple piercings, his scarlet spiked hair, his black clothes, or his cursing—all the things that established his identity as the bad kid from the city. The second problem was that he really had no place else to go. His parents were both serving time in minimum-security prisons for having attempted to sell their homegrown marijuana to an off-duty sheriff's deputy, and there were no foster families back home in Providence willing to take him in. E.D. had almost gleefully pointed out that his only alternative was Juvie. So he'd been forced to stay.
It had turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. Becoming a musical-theater star in a matter of weeks had surprised Jake as much as it had surprised the Applewhites. He'd never suspected that he had a talent for singing and acting until Randolph recruited him to play Rolf in The Sound of Music. The show had been a success and Jake had gotten good reviews, but that hadn't been nearly as important as his discovery of what the Applewhites called a "creative passion." Never in his life had Jake been anywhere near as happy as he was onstage, in front of an audience, becoming a person quite different from himself. He loved singing. He loved acting. And later when Randolph cast him as the Artful Dodger in Oliver!, he'd found out that he loved dancing, too. Everything about musical theater, in fact, turned Jake on.
Because the Creative Academy was a home school, he had been able to take off the whole month of February to be in Oliver!; and not only that, he'd been able to get school credit for doing it. He was theoretically in the seventh grade with E.D., but he didn't have to be stuck all the time doing what she did and being shown up by her obsessively organized, determinedly academic, and viciously competitive version of education. This was a girl who drove herself relentlessly toward perfection and couldn't bear the thought of getting (actually, thanks to the way the Applewhites did home schooling, giving herself) less than an A in anything. She and Jake might be very nearly the same age, but they were wildly and impossibly different. Thanks to the Applewhite philosophy of life, which passionately celebrated individuality, that was completely okay.
Randolph's end-of-the-world announcement had scared Jake clear down to his toes, though he'd done his best to hide it. What would suddenly poverty-stricken Applewhites do with him? He himself had no money. His grandfather was providing him with a small allowance so he could pay for clothes and a few incidentals, but otherwise he'd really been taken in as if he were a family member. He wasn't. He was another mouth to feed. Jake couldn't stand to lose his place here—it would mean losing himself. His new self. The only one he'd ever really known or cared about!
The morning after that dark and stormy night he'd worked up the nerve to ask Archie and Lucille—it was their Wisteria Cottage that he lived in—if they thought it was going to be possible for him to finish the school year.
"Don't be silly, Jake!" Lucille had proclaimed, "You're a full-time student. Of course you'll finish the year."
But as time went on and the austerity measures the Applewhites had adopted began to really pinch, Jake had started worrying about what would happen in the summer. Like regular schools, the Creative Academy's year ended in June. There'd be no reason to keep him here after that, so he figured they would probably send him to the grandfather he barely knew, a grandfather who had no clue about creative passion and who had only seen one musical in all his life: The Sound of Music last October at Wit's End Playhouse.
So when Randolph announced his idea for Eureka!, Jake had mostly held his breath until he heard the words he'd been hoping for: that he was to have a job to do at the camp. He didn't care that he didn't have the first clue about how to be a singing coach. He only cared that he wasn't going to be sent off to spend the summer alone on a ramshackle farm outside of Traybridge with his grandfather. Whatever camp turned out to be, it had to be better than that! He figured he was the happiest person in the room when the rest of the family had finally agreed to it.
CHAPTER TWO CONTINUES...
## Other Books by STEPHANIE S. TOLAN
APPLEWHITES AT WIT'S END
THE FACE IN THE MIRROR
FLIGHT OF THE RAVEN
A GOOD COURAGE
LISTEN!
ORDINARY MIRACLES
PLAGUE YEAR
SAVE HALLOWEEN!
WELCOME TO THE ARK
WHO'S THERE?
## Copyright
SURVIVING THE APPLEWHITES. Copyright © 2002 by Stephanie S. Tolan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tolan, Stephanie S.
Surviving the Applewhites; by Stephanie S. Tolan.
p. cm.
Summary: Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is sent for home schooling to the arty and eccentric Applewhite family's Creative Academy, where he discovers talents and interests he never knew he had.
ISBN 978-0-06-441044-1
[1. Eccentrics and eccentricities—Fiction. 2. Theater—Fiction. 3. Family life—North Carolina—Fiction. 4. North Carolina—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.T5735 Su 20022002001474
[Fic]—dc21
CIP
AC
12 13 14 15 16
EPub Edition © EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062213365
Version 11302012
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As we said yesterday there were so many runners. Runners in the marathon than those who had to run away from the blast. And in bravery. Those who ran directly into harm's way to try to help. Here's ABC's Josh Elliott. As a race's finish became. Blood soaked chaos. Responders struggle to triage the wounded. Runners rushed to help severely injured. And among the worst off. 33 year old GP Norton. And it's 31 year old brother Paul the first explosion killed that eight year old boy who was standing right next to them. The Brothers trying to -- their brands also took the brunt a couple of their mother Liz describing to me her son's phone call in and ABC news exclusive this yeah. They both would require amputations of a -- just below the knee. Paul's right leg and JP's left. I was struck by the first question to -- fast they just keep asking about each other. And they -- And then ask again they pride and and it just eighteen cents to know that lake ones to blame Abiola he knows in his -- unjust. They cover breaking. And in those same stands heroes to. Carlos -- Redondo watching the race one moment and in the next rushing to comfort a man whose legs had also been severed -- speaking to him. Trying to UConn for trying to -- -- leading into next Erin -- bill was at the finish line handing out flags to runners. As a tribute to his fallen military sons. The tragic stain of yesterday's events still evident on that flag he clutches today not only help an -- -- -- by you know I order my son the night and I remember my sons and so these two stories told his one. Bear witness to the senselessness. And the strength. Glimpsed in the crucible of Monday's chaos Josh Elliott ABC news Boston.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
Now Playing: Instant Index: Coffee Study Reveals a Cup a Day Could Decrease Risk of Liver Cancer |
Prince Umberto, Count of Salemi
Prince Umberto of Savoy (22 June 1889 – 19 October 1918) was a member of the Aosta branch of the House of Savoy and was styled the Count of Salemi.
Early life
Umberto was born in Turin, the fourth son of Prince Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, the only one by his second wife and niece Princess Maria Letizia Bonaparte (1866–1926) the daughter of Prince Napoléon and Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy. His father, a former king of Spain, died when he was just a year old. He had three older half-brothers: the Duke of Aosta, the Count of Turin and the Duke of the Abruzzi.
In 1908 Umberto began studies at the Naval Academy in Livorno. In May 1911, while still at the academy, he was accused of theft. His cousin King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy wanted him arrested, but his mother took him to Turin and challenged the king to carry out the arrest. In July Victor Emmanuel ordered that he be detained at the Castle of Moncalieri and then spend eighteen months aboard a man-of-war, during which time a Carabinieri colonel would act as his tutor and keeper.
First World War and death
During the First World War Umberto volunteered to serve in the Royal Italian Army. He joined the army as a lieutenant and served in a Catania cavalry regiment. During the war he was awarded a silver medal for bravery displayed while acting as a bombing officer.
Umberto died a month before the end of the war. The official court bulletin recorded that he was killed in action, but in fact he was a victim of the 1918 influenza pandemic. He was buried in the cemetery of Crespano del Grappa. In 1926 his remains were moved to the Sacrario Militare del Monte Grappa.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
22 June 1889 – 1 December 1889: His Royal Highness Prince Umberto of Savoy.
1 December 1889 – 19 October 1918: His Royal Highness The Count of Salemi.
Honours
Knight of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy
Knight of the Civil Order of Savoy
Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
Ancestry
References
Category:1889 births
Category:1918 deaths
Category:House of Savoy
Category:Italian military personnel killed in World War I
Category:Italian princes
Category:Italian Roman Catholics
Category:Deaths from Spanish flu |
Discovery of causal relationships in a gene-regulation pathway from a mixture of experimental and observational DNA microarray data.
This paper reports the methods and results of a computer-based search for causal relationships in the gene-regulation pathway of galactose metabolism in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The search uses recently published data from cDNA microarray experiments. A Bayesian method was applied to learn causal networks from a mixture of observational and experimental gene-expression data. The observational data were gene-expression levels obtained from unmanipulated "wild-type" cells. The experimental data were produced by deleting ("knocking out") genes and observing the expression levels of other genes. Causal relations predicted from the analysis on 36 galactose gene pairs are reported and compared with the known galactose pathway. Additional exploratory analyses are also reported. |
Richard Rathe, MD
Patients who are actively engaged with their health have better outcomes. Good communication is key. I made this Patient Instructions Card about six months ago and have been very pleased with it. I’ve turned it into a generic PDF with custom name, phone and tobacco resource fields. Fill in your particulars and have it printed at 50% on card stock. Enjoy!
This is the first release of quickHPI for general use by students, residents and clinicians. It is based on version 1.1 with persistent client-side data storage added. Once installed, it can be used offline when network connectivity is unavailable or undesired.
QuickHPI is both a tutorial and a practical tool for recording the History of Present Illness. As such it has wide applicability in medical education and patient care. The program instantiates my research into best practices for outpatient documentation aka The Rational History of Present Illness.
The best clinical documentation is that which gives to the reader the greatest amount of information in the shortest time with the fewest pixels.
During April 2014 I gave a talk at an EMR meeting concerning the changes manifest in the everyday clinic note. Most are familiar with various approaches to generating notes that meet all requirements for billing, compliance, and liability. Patient care and physician efficiency frequently suffer. I am particularly concerned about “note bloat” and the tendency of automated systems to add noise and imprecision to medical documentation. I’ve been working with our EMR vendor to create a better approach to the History of Present Illness.
This is sample output from a template driven tool that does NOT attempt to generate english prose. For this hypothetical patient, the structured approach yields a complete HPI in 48 words and 290 characters (60 words if you count the labels). Also note the judicious use of directly typed input (in blue). One of the biggest problems I see with EMR templates is they over specify. Why check a box for a phrase that is sort of what you’re thinking when in a few words you can say precisely what you mean?! Now contemplate how easy it is to visually scan and assimilate the information. As Dr. Tufte would say, “there is very little Pfuff!” Least Ink in action!!
To sum up his talk in two words, both the Intensity and Complexity of care have increased in the past forty years. This is not surprising when you think about it. What aspect of life in the US has not become more intense and complex? He focuses on how the education of physicians lags behind the realities of team-based care. This is a valid point as far as it goes. He does not speculate on why “even primary care physicians” are specialists and no one is charged with understanding the entire spectrum of care for individual patients? (So I will…) In a word, Economics! During the 1990s Medicare and other payers decided to stop paying for coordination of care by primary care physicians. This was exacerbated by division of outpatient and inpatient care in the past ten years (again primarily for economic reasons). The new focus on high-volume, episodic care leaves little time for the big picture. This is not a flaw in medical education and not a choice made by primary care physicians! Merely the predictable consequence of decisions made by insurers and the federal government.
The US Supreme Court is about to hear arguments for and against the recent healthcare insurance reform law enacted by Congress. (aka The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) At issue is the constitutionality of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. It is unclear whether they will set new precedent or rule on a much narrower basis. Their decision could have profound effects on the current law and future legislation. Partisans on both sides of this issue should welcome a broad decision and be ready to accept the consequences!
If the mandate is found to be constitutional, this strengthens the notion that private insurance has a significant role to play in our mixed healthcare system. It bolsters popular components of the law that limit insurance companies’ ability to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, place lifetime caps on benefits, and allow young adult children to remain on their parents’ insurance. The real challenge—reining in the exploding costs of healthcare—is still ahead of us.
If the mandate is found to be unconstitutional, this is the best argument yet for a single payer system in the US. You cannot have a viable healthcare insurance system if a significant number of citizens have the ability to opt out when they’re young and healthy. Beware the law of unintended consequences! If it turns out to be unconstitutional to force broad participation in private insurance, can a public option be far behind? Careful what you wish for!
I recently updated my lecture on cough, given to third-year medical students and residents. It presents an algorithm I developed based on the omnibus supplement published in the journal Chest and other sources. Here is a quick summary of key points that are often missed by primary care physicians…
Acute cough is largely due to viral infections and therefore antibiotics are NOT indicated.
There is growing evidence that first generation antihistamines are the drugs of choice for undifferentiated acute cough.
Post-infectious cough is the most common etiology for cough lasting between 3-8 weeks.
Secondary causes of cough (reactive airways, GERD, post-nasal drip) should be considered based on symptoms and time course.
In areas of high TB prevalence consider testing for active disease in any patient with a cough lasting more than two weeks (WHO recommendation).
It is useful to think of the secondary history as a Focused Review of Systems (ROS). These questions often bring out information that supports a certain diagnosis or helps gauge the severity of the disorder. Unlike the primary history, a certain amount of interpretation (and experience) is necessary.
The tertiary history brings in elements of the Past Medical and Family History that have a bearing on the patient’s condition. By the time you get to the tertiary history you may already have a good idea of what might be going on. Read More…
This is a great documentary from 2008 that explores how other wealthy countries deal with healthcare. The corespondent T.R. Reid visits five capitalist countries that provide affordable, nearly universal coverage for their citizens. How do they do it? He observes that here in the US we have the British model for veterans, the Taiwanese model for seniors, the German model for workers with insurance, but for the rest we are “just another poor country”. His conclusions…
1) Insurance companies must accept everyone, and cannot make a profit on basic care.
2) Everybody is mandated to buy insurance, with the government paying the premiums for the poor.
3) Doctors and hospitals have to accept one standard set of fixed prices.
Being able to handle emotional situations is an important interviewing skill. It is safe to assume that every patient has some form of emotional response to significant illness. There is also growing evidence that an individual’s emotional state can effect or even cause physical disease. The patient will often give you several clues that should be followed up. Read more…
At the most basic level, insurance is all about sharing risk. For example, a group of one thousand homeowners band together to create an insurance pool to protect against fire. If homes are worth $100,000 and there is one fire per year, they would have to chip in $100 each. Fortunately the risky event is rare, so the cost of insurance is low.
Now let’s compare this with insuring health. We have the same thousand people, of which five hundred consume an average of $10,000 in healthcare services each year. Illness unfortunately is not a rare event and the annual premium jumps to $5,000 per person! Many of the younger, healthier people ask why they should be paying for somebody else’s infirmity? They withdraw from the pool and premiums skyrocket. Eventually the pool collapses and those who actually need care loose their coverage, and in many cases financial ruin ensues.
The key difference is that almost everyone will utilize healthcare services at some point in their lives. It’s as if fifty houses burn down every year, not just one. The insurance model breaks down under these circumstances. We are no longer sharing risk but rather sharing the cost of something that is deemed essential by a large number of our peers.
The two obvious solutions are controlling costs and enlarging the pool. Recent mandates to buy health insurance are an attempt to address the latter. Controlling the cost of healthcare continues to be a conundrum.
Richard RatheDr. Rathe joined the University of Florida in 1990 to develop the informatics program for the College of Medicine. Prior to his arrival, he completed a two year informatics fellowship at the Harvard
School of Public Health. More...
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MEMORANDUM DECISION FILED
Oct 24 2017, 8:50 am
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this
Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as CLERK
Indiana Supreme Court
precedent or cited before any court except for the Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
purpose of establishing the defense of res judicata,
collateral estoppel, or the law of the case.
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Jeffrey A. Baldwin Curtis T. Hill, Jr.
Tyler D. Helmond Attorney General of Indiana
Voyles Zahn & Paul
James B. Martin
Indianapolis, Indiana
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
Jamie Cole, October 24, 2017
Appellant-Petitioner, Court of Appeals Case No.
58A01-1612-PC-2797
v. Appeal from the Ohio Circuit Court.
The Honorable James D.
Humphrey, Judge.
State of Indiana, Trial Court Cause No.
Appellee-Respondent. 58C01-1410-PC-2
Barteau, Senior Judge
Statement of the Case
[1] Jamie Cole appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. We
affirm.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 1 of 12
Issue
[2] Cole raises one issue, which we restate as: whether the post-conviction court
erred in denying his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Facts and Procedural History
[3] On May 23, 2012, an officer employed by the Rising Sun Police Department
(RSPD) stopped a Jeep in Ohio County. Katherine Cole (Katherine) was
driving. Her husband, Jamie Cole, and their infant child were in the vehicle.
[4] Other officers arrived at the scene to assist. They arrested Katherine for driving
with a suspended license, driving with an expired license plate, and operating a
vehicle without proof of financial responsibility. Cole also lacked a valid
driver’s license. The officers impounded the Jeep, and an officer conducted an
inventory search of its contents, including Katherine’s purse. The purse
contained fifty (50) grams of marijuana, thirty-three (33) pills that were later
identified as various controlled substances (all opioid painkillers), a pill grinder,
a plastic straw, and a set of digital scales.
[5] The police took Cole into custody after finding the contraband. Detective
Norman Rimstidt of the RSPD questioned Cole and Katherine separately.
Katherine claimed the marijuana and pills belonged to her and that “Jamie had
nothing to do” with those items. Tr. Ex. Vol., Petitioner’s Ex. 1. Similarly,
Cole denied any involvement with the marijuana and controlled substances,
claiming Katherine “had a pill problem” and had “snorted pills and smoked
marijuana in the past.” Id. After questioning Cole and Katherine, the police
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 2 of 12
obtained search warrants for an apartment and a unit at a storage facility, as
well as for Katherine’s phone.
[6] On May 25, 2012, the State charged Cole with dealing in cocaine or a narcotic
drug, a Class B felony; dealing in a schedule I, II, or III controlled substance, a
Class B felony; dealing in a schedule IV controlled substance, a Class C felony;
dealing in marijuana, a Class D felony; possession of cocaine or a narcotic
drug, a Class D felony; possession of a controlled substance, a Class D felony;
possession of marijuana, a Class D felony; possession or use of a legend drug or
precursor, a Class D felony; possession of paraphernalia, a Class A
misdemeanor; maintaining a common nuisance, a Class D felony; and neglect
of a dependent, a Class D felony. The State also filed an habitual offender
sentencing enhancement.
[7] Cole and the State negotiated a plea agreement. Pursuant to the agreement,
Cole pleaded guilty to dealing in a narcotic drug, a Class B felony. Sentencing
would be left to the discretion of the trial court, and the State promised not to
recommend a specific sentence. In turn, Cole agreed to waive his right to
appeal the sentence imposed by the trial court. Finally, the State agreed to
dismiss all other charges and the habitual offender sentencing enhancement.
[8] On April 26, 2013, the court sentenced Cole to twenty (20) years. Per the terms
of his plea agreement, Cole did not appeal his sentence.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 3 of 12
[9] On October 20, 2014, Cole filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief. He
later obtained counsel, who amended the petition for post-conviction relief to
raise a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The post-conviction court held
an evidentiary hearing on October 7, 2016. Cole’s trial counsel did not testify at
the hearing.
[10] After the hearing, the post-conviction court denied Cole’s petition, concluding,
“Petitioner has failed to show that his trial attorney’s performance fell below an
objective standard of reasonableness, and that this deficient performance
prejudiced him.” Appellant’s App. Vol. II, p. 126. This appeal followed.
Discussion and Decision
[11] In post-conviction proceedings, the petitioner bears the burden of establishing
the grounds for relief by a preponderance of the evidence. Helton v. State, 907
N.E.2d 1020, 1023 (Ind. 2009). To prevail on appeal from the denial of post-
conviction relief, the petitioner must show that the evidence as a whole leads
unerringly and unmistakably to a conclusion opposite that reached by the trial
court. Hollowell v. State, 19 N.E.3d 263, 269 (Ind. 2014). We will not reweigh
the evidence or judge the credibility of witnesses. Wine v. State, 637 N.E.2d
1369, 1373 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994), trans. denied. We review the trial court’s
findings for clear error but do not defer to its conclusions of law. Talley v. State,
51 N.E.3d 300, 303 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), trans. denied.
[12] Cole argues his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to file a
motion to suppress all evidence discovered through the seizure of the Jeep and
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 4 of 12
the inventory search, which led to the discovery of contraband in Katherine’s
purse. He claims that the officers acted unconstitutionally in impounding the
Jeep and in conducting the search. Cole further claims that if his counsel had
filed a motion to suppress, it would have been successful, and he would not
have needed to plead guilty. The State responds that Cole had no grounds to
object to the inventory search, and in any event the impoundment of the Jeep
and the inventory search did not infringe upon his rights.
[13] To establish a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must
demonstrate that counsel performed deficiently and the deficiency resulted in
prejudice. Helton, 907 N.E.2d at 1023. Counsel performs deficiently when his
or her work falls below an objective standard of reasonableness based on
prevailing professional norms. Polk v. State, 822 N.E.2d 239, 245 (Ind. Ct. App.
2005), trans. denied. Counsel’s performance is presumed effective, and a
defendant must offer strong and convincing evidence to overcome this
presumption. Talley, 51 N.E.3d at 303. As for the test for prejudice, the
petitioner must show there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s
unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.
Polk, 822 N.E.2d at 245.
[14] To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim based upon counsel’s
failure to file a motion, such as a motion to suppress, the petitioner must
demonstrate that the motion, if filed, would have been successful. Talley, 51
N.E.3d at 303. We must consider whether the seizure of the vehicle and the
search of Katherine’s purse was unconstitutional as to Cole.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 5 of 12
[15] The Fourth Amendment provides in relevant part, “the right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Similarly, article I, section 11 of
the Indiana Constitution provides, in relevant part: “the right of the people to
be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
search or seizure, shall not be violated.”
[16] A key question is whether Cole could have raised a valid objection to the
admission of evidence obtained from the search of Katherine’s purse. For
purposes of the Fourth Amendment, a defendant may not challenge the
constitutionality of a search unless he or she can demonstrate that he or she had
a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place to be searched. Sidener v. State,
55 N.E.3d 380, 384 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016). A defendant aggrieved by an illegal
search and seizure only through the introduction of prejudicial evidence secured
by the search of a third person’s premises has not suffered infringement upon
his or her Fourth Amendment rights. Bradley v. State, 4 N.E.3d 831, 839 (Ind.
Ct. App. 2014), trans. denied.
[17] In this case, when Detective Rimstidt questioned Cole, he “denied any
involvement with the drugs.” Tr. Ex. Vol., Petitioner’s Ex. 1, p. Instead, he
stated “Katherine had a pill problem and that she had snorted pills and smoked
marijuana in the past.” Id. Katherine told Detective Rimstidt that Cole had
nothing to do with the contraband. Detective Rimstidt further testified that he
had asked Cole if anything in the purse belonged to him, and Cole said no. In
addition, the officer stated that aside from a prescription medicine bottle
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 6 of 12
bearing Cole’s name, he did not see anything in the purse that appeared to
belong to Cole.
[18] Cole testified during the post-conviction hearing that he lied when he originally
told the detective that he had no interest in the purse. Cole further testified that
he regularly stored personal items in Katherine’s purse and sometimes carried it
with him when Katherine was not around. The post-conviction court found
Cole’s testimony on this issue to be “unpersuasive.” Appellant’s App. Vol. II,
p. 126. We may not second-guess the court’s credibility determinations. We
conclude that Cole has failed to demonstrate that he had a reasonable
expectation of privacy in Katherine’s purse. See Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S.
98, 105, 100 S. Ct. 2556, 2561, 65 L. Ed. 2d 633 (1980) (defendant failed to
prove he had expectation of privacy in acquaintance’s purse, in which he had
hidden controlled substances).
[19] Turning to the Indiana Constitution, as a general rule a challenge to a search
under article I, section 11 “differs in some respects from standing to assert a
Fourth Amendment claim.” Campos v. State, 885 N.E.2d 590, 598 (Ind. 2008).
The Indiana Constitution provides protections for claimed possessions
regardless of the defendant’s interest in the place where the possession was
found. Id. Nevertheless, it remains true that “if the facts fail to establish that
the alleged illegal search and seizure actually concerned the person, house,
papers or effects of the defendant,” he or she will not have standing to challenge
the alleged illegality. Peterson v. State, 674 N.E.2d 528, 534 (Ind. 1996).
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 7 of 12
[20] In this case, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the judgment, at the
time of the police investigation Cole disclaimed any interest in the purse or its
contents. Later, during the post-conviction hearing he claimed an interest in
the purse and in a prescription bottle bearing his name that was found in the
purse, but the post-conviction court did not find Cole’s testimony to be credible.
We cannot conclude that Cole demonstrated an ownership interest in the purse
for purposes of article I, section 11, and he thus lacked standing to challenge a
search of the purse.
[21] Even if Cole had grounds to raise constitutional challenges to the search and
seizure of the Jeep and its contents, Cole would have had to demonstrate that
the impoundment and the subsequent inventory search was inappropriate. The
Fourth Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth
Amendment, generally requires a warrant for a search to be considered
reasonable. Jackson v. State, 890 N.E.2d 11, 17 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008). One well-
recognized exception to the warrant requirement is a valid inventory search of a
vehicle following a valid impoundment. Id. Impoundment is proper when it is
part of the routine administrative caretaking function of the police or is
otherwise authorized by statute. Id.
[22] Indiana Code section 9-18-2-43 (2005) provides, in relevant part:
a law enforcement officer authorized to enforce motor vehicle
laws who discovers a vehicle required to be registered under this
article that does not have the proper certificate of registration or
license plate:
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 8 of 12
(1) shall take the vehicle into the officer’s custody; and
(2) may cause the vehicle to be taken to and stored in a suitable
place until:
(A) the legal owner of the vehicle can be found; or
(B) the proper certificate of registration and license plates have
been procured.
[23] There is no dispute that Katherine and Cole’s vehicle did not have a proper
license plate. As a result, the officer was required by statute to take the Jeep
into his custody, and he properly arranged to have it towed. Cole
acknowledges he did not have a valid license but argues the officer should have
let him call his roadside assistance program to have the vehicle towed without
being impounded. Allowing Cole to tow the Jeep without impoundment would
not necessarily have fulfilled Indiana Code section 9-18-2-43’s goal of ensuring
the vehicle is not driven again until proper license plates have been procured.
The officers’ decision to impound the vehicle did not violate the Fourth
Amendment.
[24] Next, to be valid under the Fourth Amendment, an inventory search must be
conducted pursuant to and in conformity with standard police procedures.
Whitley v. State, 47 N.E.3d 640, 645 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015), trans. denied.
Inventory searches serve three purposes: (1) protection of private property in
police custody; (2) protection of police against claims of lost or stolen property;
and (3) protection of police from possible danger. Id. An inventory search
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 9 of 12
must not be a ruse for general rummaging to discover incriminating evidence.
Id. (quotation omitted).
[25] In the current case, Cole does not argue that the officers failed to follow
standard inventory procedures. Rather, he claims the officers should have
simply given him Katherine’s purse without searching it. As the petitioner,
Cole bore the burden of proving that the officers failed to comply with
established police department policies in conducting the search. He failed to
submit any evidence to the post-conviction court regarding relevant department
policies on inventory searches and whether the officers complied with them.
The department’s inventory policy reasonably could have required the officers
to search the purse. See, e.g., Moore v. State, 637 N.E.2d 816, 820 (Ind. Ct. App.
1994) (considering a police department’s impoundment policy that required an
“[i]nventory of all items in the vehicle, which are not regular parts or
accessories to the car”), trans. denied. Indeed, in this case the RSPD issued a
receipt for the purse and its contents. Cole has failed to demonstrate that the
inventory search violated the Fourth Amendment.
[26] Turning to article I, section 11 of the Indiana Constitution, as a general rule the
Indiana Supreme Court interprets and applies that provision independently
from the Fourth Amendment. Whitley, 47 N.E.3d at 648. The purpose of
article I, section 11 is to protect from unreasonable police activity those areas of
life that Hoosiers regard as private. Mitchell v. State, 745 N.E.2d 775, 786 (Ind.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 10 of 12
2001). In resolving challenges under section 11, courts must consider whether
the police intrusion was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. Id.
We consider: (1) the degree of concern, suspicion, or knowledge that a
violation has occurred; (2) the degree of intrusion the method of the search or
seizure imposes on the citizen’s ordinary activities; and (3) the extent of law
enforcement needs. Holloway v. State, 69 N.E.3d 924, 931 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017),
trans. denied.
[27] In this case, the officers’ decision to impound the Jeep was authorized by
statute, and they were aware that the driver, Katherine, had committed several
criminal offenses. Furthermore, the seizure was a minimal, reasonable
intrusion on Cole’s right of ownership in the Jeep because he was not licensed
to drive, and without proper license plates the vehicle was not drivable in any
event. Further, impoundment served important law enforcement needs,
namely ensuring the Jeep was not driven again without proper plates,
insurance, and a properly licensed driver.
[28] The inventory search was also reasonable under the totality of the
circumstances. Again, the officers were already aware that Katherine had
committed offenses. Based on the record before us, the intrusion caused by the
search was minimal because there is no indication that the officers permanently
seized anything other than the contraband. Finally, the officers needed to
conduct the search to ensure that the Coles’ personal property would be taken
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 11 of 12
care of during impoundment and to protect themselves from possible claims of
theft. See Whitley, 47 N.E.3d at 649 (impoundment of car in roadway and
inventory search of vehicle, which led to discovery of contraband, did not
violate article I, section 11).
[29] In summary, if Cole’s trial attorney had filed a motion to suppress evidence
obtained from the inventory search on grounds that the search and seizure
violated Cole’s rights under the Fourth Amendment and article I, section 11,
that motion would not have prevailed because Cole did not have an expectation
of privacy in Katherine’s purse or standing to challenge that portion of the
inventory search. Furthermore, the impoundment of the vehicle and the search
of the purse did not infringe upon Cole’s constitutional protections against
unconstitutional search and seizure. As a result, the post-conviction court did
not err in rejecting Cole’s claim of ineffective assistance, because prevailing
professional norms do not require counsel to file a motion that would not have
been granted.
Conclusion
[30] For the reasons stated above, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
[31] Affirmed.
Kirsch, J., and Bailey, J., concur.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 58A01-1612-PC-2797 | October 24, 2017 Page 12 of 12
|
Andriy Sryubko
Andriy Vasilovich Sryubko (; born 21 October 1975), is a Ukrainian retired professional ice hockey player. He played for multiple teams during a career that lasted from 1996 until 2013. He also played internationally for the Ukrainian national team at several World Championships, as well as the 2002 Winter Olympics.
External links
Category:1975 births
Category:Living people
Category:Amur Khabarovsk players
Category:Fort Wayne Komets players
Category:Grand Rapids Griffins players
Category:Ice hockey players at the 2002 Winter Olympics
Category:HC Kuban players
Category:HC MVD players
Category:Kamloops Blazers players
Category:Langley Thunder players
Category:Las Vegas Thunder players
Category:Molot-Prikamye Perm players
Category:Olympic ice hockey players of Ukraine
Category:Port Huron Border Cats players
Category:ShVSM Kyiv players
Category:Sokil Kyiv players
Category:Sportspeople from Kiev
Category:Syracuse Crunch players
Category:Toledo Storm players
Category:Ukrainian expatriate sportspeople in Canada
Category:Ukrainian expatriate sportspeople in the United States
Category:Ukrainian ice hockey coaches
Category:Ukrainian ice hockey defencemen
Category:Utah Grizzlies (IHL) players |
CTBP2
C-terminal-binding protein 2 also known as CtBP2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CTBP2 gene.
Function
The CtBPs - CtBP1 and CtBP2 in mammals - are among the best characterized transcriptional corepressors. They typically turn their target genes off. They do this by binding to sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins that carry a short motif of the general form Proline-Isoleucine-Aspartate-Leucine-Serine (the PIDLS motif). They then recruit histone modifying enzymes, histone deacetylases, histone methylases and histone demethylases. These enzymes are thought to work together to remove activating and add repressive histone marks. For example, histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) and HDAC2 can remove the activating mark histone 3 acetyl lysine 9 (H3K9Ac), then the histone methylase G9a can add methyl groups, while the histone demethylase lysine specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) can remove the activating mark H3K4me.
The CtBPs bind to many different DNA-binding proteins and also bind to co-repressors that are themselves bound to DNA-binding proteins, such as Friend of GATA (Fog). CtBPs can also dimerize and multimerize to bridge larger transcriptional complexes. They appear to be primarily scaffold proteins that allow the assembly of gene repression complexes.
One interesting aspect of CtBPs is their ability to bind to NADH and to a lesser extent NAD+. It has been proposed that this will enable them to sense the metabolic status of the cell and to regulate genes in response to changes in the NADH/NAD+ ratio. Accordingly, CtBPs have been found to be important in fat biology, binding to key proteins such as PRDM16, NRIP, and FOG2.
The full functional roles of CtBP proteins in mammals have been difficult to evaluate because of partial redundancy between CtBP1 and CtBP2. Similarly, the early lethality of the CtBP2 knockout and of double knockout mice has precluded detailed analysis of the cellular effects of deleting these proteins. Important results have emerged from model organisms where there is only a single CtBP gene. In Drosophila CtBP is involved in development and in circadian rhythms. In the worm C. elegans CtBP is involved in life span. Both circadian rhythms and life span appear to be linked to metabolism supporting the role for CtBPs in metabolic sensing.
The mammalian CtBP2 gene produces alternative transcripts encoding two distinct proteins. In addition to the transcriptional repressor (corepressor) discussed above, there is a longer isoform that is a major component of specialized synapses known as synaptic ribbons. Both proteins contain a NAD+ binding domain similar to NAD+-dependent 2-hydroxyacid dehydrogenases. A portion of the 3'-untranslated region was used to map this gene to chromosome 21q21.3; however, it was noted that similar loci elsewhere in the genome are likely. Blast analysis shows that this gene is present on chromosome 10.
Interactions
CTBP2 has been shown to interact with:
FHL3,
KLF3,
KLF8,
Mdm2,
NRIP1,
SOX6, and
ZFPM2.
References
Further reading
External links
Category:Transcription coregulators |
On December 17, Juniper Networks issued an urgent security advisory about "unauthorized code" found within the operating system used by some of the company's NetScreen firewalls and Secure Service Gateway (SSG) appliances. The vulnerability, which may have been in place in some firewalls as far back as 2012 and which shipped with systems to customers until late 2013, allows an attacker to gain remote administrative access to systems with telnet or ssh access enabled. And now researchers have both confirmed that the backdoor exists and developed a tool that can scan for affected systems.
In a post to the Rapid7 community blog site on December 20, Metasploit project founder and Rapid7 researcher H D Moore published an analysis of the affected versions of Juniper's ScreenOS operating system, including the administrative access password that had been hard-coded into the operating system. This backdoor, which was inserted into ScreenOS versions 6.2.0r15 through 6.2.0r18 and 6.3.0r12 through 6.3.0r20, is a change to the code that authorizes administrative access with the password " <<< %s(un='%s') = %u "—a password that Moore notes was crafted to resemble debug code to evade detection during review.
Since this code is in the firmware of the affected Juniper NetScreen and SSG appliances, the only way to remove it is to re-flash the firmware with a new version of ScreenOS. Steve Puluka has written a guide on how to perform the upgrade and avoid some of the potential problems around installation, including dealing with the configuration of a new signing key for the upgrade.
Moore noted that detecting whether vulnerable systems have been accessed using the backdoor may be difficult. The only evidence of an attacker using the backdoor in log files would be entries that Juniper said would look like this:
2015-12-17 09:00:00 system warn 00515 Admin user system has logged on via SSH from… 2015-12-17 09:00:00 system warn 00528 SSH: Password authentication successful for admin user ‘username2’ at host…
Analysis of the backdoor has made it possible now to detect attempts to use the exploit going forward. The Dutch IT security firm Fox IT, which assisted in confirming the backdoor password, has developed a set of rules for the SNORT open source intrusion detection system that can scan for attempts to gain access to vulnerable Juniper systems. The rule watches for attempted logins via telnet or ssh using the backdoor password. |
Babies should share bedroom with parents - but in their own bed
Babies should sleep in the same rooms as their parents for the first year of their lives - but never in the same bed - as it reduces cot death by 50 per cent.
Child health experts warn never to put infants to sleep on sofas, armchairs or soft surfaces to lower the risks of thousands of sleep-related deaths.
Parents are urged to let infants share their bedrooms for at least the first six months, preferably for a year, according to the latest research.
Dr Rachel Moon, lead author into the report announcing the new recommendations, said: “We know that parents may be overwhelmed with a new baby in the home, and we want to provide them with clear and simple guidance on how and where to put their infant to sleep.
“Parents should never place the baby on a sofa, couch, or cushioned chair, either alone or sleeping with another person.
“We know that these surfaces are extremely hazardous.”
While infant cot deaths are at heightened risk between one and four months, new evidence shows that soft bedding continues to pose hazards to babies who are four months and older.
Experts instead suggest placing the baby, on his or her back, on a firm sleep surface such as a crib or bassinet with a tight-fitting sheet.
They also warn against using soft bedding, including crib bumpers, blankets, pillows and soft toys - the crib should be completely bare.
Doctors have renewed the warnings as the number of infant deaths decreased in the 1990s after a national safe sleep campaign, but has plateaued in recent years.
Around 3,500 infants die every year from sleep-related deaths in the United States, including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), ill-defined deaths, and accidental suffocation and strangulation.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), who will present the report, recommend mothers and babies have at least an hour of skin-to-skin contact after birth, and remind mothers that breastfeeding adds protect against SIDs.
After feeding, the AAP encourages parents to move the baby to his or her separate sleeping space, preferably a crib or bassinet in the parents’ bedroom.
Dr Lori Feldman-Winter, member of the Task Force on SIDS and co-author of the report, said: “If you are feeding your baby and think that there’s even the slightest possibility that you may fall asleep, feed your baby on your bed, rather than a sofa or cushioned chair.
“As soon as you wake up, be sure to move the baby to his or her own bed.
“There should be no pillows, sheets, blankets or other items that could obstruct the infant’s breathing or cause overheating.”
The AAP recommends that doctors will open and nonjudgmental conversations with families about their sleep practices.
Dr Moon added: “We want to share this information in a way that doesn’t scare parents but helps to explain the real risks posed by an unsafe sleep environment.
“We know that we can keep a baby safer without spending a lot of money on home monitoring gadgets but through simple precautionary measures.” |
Q:
AngularJS ng-disabled passing more than one expression (using OR)
I need to block the input when selecting the options "Credit Card" or "Debit Card"
It works with just an expression, but when I do so using the OR it does not work
app.controller('simuladorPedidoCtrl', function($scope) {
$rootScope.listaPagto = [{ name: "A vista", id: 1 }, { name: "Boleto", id: 2 }, { name: "Cheque", id: 3 }, { name: "Cartão de Débito", id: 4 }, { name: "Cartão de Crédito", id: 5 }, { name: "Indefinido", id: 6 }];
});
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.23/angular.min.js"></script>
<div ng-controller="simuladorPedidoCtrl">
<label for="FormaPagamento" class="control-label">Forma de Pagamento</label>
<select style="width: 100%" id="FormaPagamento" name="FormaPagamento" ng-model="model1.DadosPagamento.Forma" class="form-control">
<option value="">Selecione...</option>
<option ng-repeat="item in $root.listaPagto | orderBy:'name'" value="{{item.name}}">{{item.name}}</option>
</select>
<label for="CartaoNome" ng-disabled="" class="control-label">Name</label>
<input type="text" ng-disabled="model1.DadosPagamento.Forma != 'Cartão de Crédito' || model1.DadosPagamento.Forma != 'Cartão de Débito'" class="form-control" id="CartaoNome" name="CartaoNome" ng-model="model1.DadosPagamento.CartaoNome">
</div>
A:
This is a logic problem. If it's a debit card, it's not going to be a credit card - If it's a credit card, it's not going to be a debit.
So, (notCredit || notDebit) will always return true.
I think it should be rearranged to the following logic:
ng-disabled="model1.DadosPagamento.Forma != 'Cartão de Crédito' && model1.DadosPagamento.Forma != 'Cartão de Débito'"
|
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Q:
Google Guice: Provider with parameters
I have a constructor that depends on classes A and B. I defined it like this:
@Inject TestClass(A a, B b)
Is there a way in Guice to have one of the constructor parameters injected manually?
Problem is, the object of class A cannot be built as it depends on the user input. I was just wondering if Guice supports a provider that accepts an argument. For example, currently an object can be created by provider.get(), does Guice has one that support provider.get(a)?
A:
I think what you need is Assisted Inject.
|
I Have Got Better April 21, 2020 July 29, 2020
I Have Got Better $1,600.00 Medium of Art Work Choose an option Original Version Choose an option L Clear I Have Got Better quantity Add to cart |
An approach to definition of genetic alterations in prostate cancer.
Growth patterns in prostatic cancer can reduce detectability of genetic alterations. Tumors show histologic grade heterogeneity, multifocality, interdigitation of benign and malignant glands, and varying amounts of stroma. These characteristics introduce sampling errors when one uses traditional methods for genetic analysis that depend on disaggregated cells [metaphase or interphase chromosome studies] or on tissue extracts [Southern blotting or polymerase chain reaction (PCR)] to detect molecular events. To circumvent these problems, we used two approaches to study paraffin-embedded tumors, which permit focused analysis of critical tissue components. Serial 4- to 5-microns sections are applied to slides in groups of three. Every second slide is hematoxylin and eosin stained to visualize areas of carcinoma, dysplasia, hyperplasia, and stroma; tumor-rich areas are circled with ink and used as templates to examine or excise the same areas from adjacent nonstained sections. PCR methods for quantitative and qualitative gene assay are effective in evaluating samples when alteration at a particular locus is suspected. Fluorescence in situ hybridization with chromosome-specific paracentromeric probes for detection of copy number of the relevant chromosome is applied to the adjacent section. Normal chromosome controls for both methods were demonstrated. This protocol enables us to correlate genetic alterations precisely with tumor extent and morphology. |
Systemic hemodynamic and cardiac function changes in patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation.
The objective of this study was to determine the changes in systemic hemodynamics (systemic vascular resistance [SVR], cardiac output [CO], systemic blood pressure [SBP]) and cardiac function (pulmonary artery pressure [PAP] and pulmonary wedge pressure [PWP]) during the 96 hours following orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) and correlate these with changes in hepatic and renal function and patient outcome. The study took place in a 12-bed medical respiratory intensive care unit in a large teaching hospital. Twenty-one patients had OLT performed over a 21.5-month period (January 1988 to October 15, 1989) for end stage liver disease (ESLD) from a variety of causes. A flow-directed right heart catheter and an indwelling arterial cannula were inserted for hemodynamic monitoring over a 96-hour postoperative period. Liver and renal function studies, total serum calcium, serum albumin, and fluid balance were determined daily. The SVR increased significantly to 12.8 +/- 0.6 U at 48 hours compared with immediate (less than 8 hours) postoperative levels (p less than 0.05) and remained elevated for 96 hours. The CO fell progressively and was significantly lower than baseline values from 64 to 96 hours. There was significant inverse correlation between the increase in SVR and the fall in CO (r = .85, p less than 0.01). The SBP was stable except for a small, but significant fall at 16 and 24 hours postoperatively. The PWP increased significantly from a baseline value of 12.5 +/- 0.9 mm Hg to 15 +/- 0.9 mm Hg at 32 hours and remained elevated through 96 hours (p less than 0.05). The serum bilirubin level fell progressively postoperatively and the prothrombin time and partial thromboplastin time (PTT) shortened significantly. Bile flow increased progressively from 107 +/- 120 ml/24 hours at the end of the first 24 hours to 188 +/- 125 ml/24 hours by 96 hours postoperatively. Five patients died from nine to 43 days postoperatively. These patients' hemodynamic parameters were not significantly different from the patients who survived. Successful OLT is associated with a rapid increase in SVR and a fall in CO without changes in SBP. These findings tend to parallel the improvement found in results of liver function tests. However, there is no correlation between the improvement in the hemodynamic state and long-term survival. |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rib of a composite material for a box structure, such as an airfoil, and a method of forming such a rib by molding.
2. Description of the Related Art
A known technical measure for enhancing the buckling strength of a channel-shaped rib for an aircraft structure or the like forms beads, i.e., strengthening protrusions, perpendicularly to the length of the rib.
As shown in FIG. 12, a channel-shaped rib 1 has a web 2, flanges 3 formed so as to extend along the opposite longitudinal side edges of the web 2, and a plurality of ridges or beads 4 formed in the web 2 at intervals. If the beads 4 are formed when forming the rib 1, the arc length L1 (FIG. 13) of the beads 4, i.e., length across the bead along the surface of the web 2, is greater than the chord length L2 of the same along the surface of the flange 3, i.e., width.
When forming the rib 1 shown in FIG. 12 by molding a prepreg plate 5 (FIG. 14) prepared by impregnating carbon fiber fabrics or glass fiber fabrics with a synthetic resin by a molding process, the prepreg plate 5 is unable to absorb the difference between the arc length L.sub.1 and the chord length L2 because the prepreg plate 5 is scarcely stretchable when the beads 4 are formed. Consequently, wrinkles are formed in portions of the web 2 around the corners of the beads 4 of the rib 1 and it is very difficult to smooth the wrinkles in the molding process. A technical measure for preventing the formation of wrinkles in the portions of the prepreg plate 5 around the corners of the beads 4 forms cuts 6 in the portions of the prepreg plate 5 around the corners of the beads 4 as shown in FIG. 14 to absorb the difference between the arc length L.sub.1 and the chord length L.sub.2 when forming the beads 4.
JP 3-83624A and 3-126532A disclose composite material molding methods which form strengthening ridges in the web by disposing a prepreg plate with its fibers extended bias, i.e., substantially at an angle of 45.degree., to the edges along which the web and the flanges intersect and by molding the prepreg plate, using a mold and an auxiliary mold.
If the channel-shaped rib 1 shown in FIG. 12 is to be used as a rib for a box structure, such as an airfoil, in most cases, a recess 7 (FIG. 15) is formed in the web 2, the rib 1 is attached to a skin plate 8, and a longitudinal member 9 is attached to the skin plate 8 so as to extend through the recess 7 formed in the web 2.
The technical measure which forms the cuts in portions of the prepreg plate around the corners of the beads before subjecting the prepreg plate to a molding process needs an additional cutting process, reduces the strength of the portions of the prepreg plate around the corners of the beads because the component fibers in the same portions of the prepreg plate are cut, increases the number of the laminated component prepreg sheets of the prepreg plate to compensate for the reduction of the strength of the portions of the prepreg plate around the corners of the beads due to the formation of the cuts, inevitably needs increased time and labor for fabricating the rib of the composite material, and increases the weight of the rib.
The method of forming a rib of a composite material which forms reinforcing ridges, i.e., beads, in the web of the rib enables smoothing out wrinkles if the prepreg plate is disposed with the reinforcing fibers thereof extended bias, i.e., substantially at an angle of 45.degree., to the edges along which the web and the flanges intersect. However, if the prepreg plate is disposed with its reinforcing fibers extended in parallel or perpendicularly to the edges, large wrinkles are formed because wrinkles cannot be smoothed out and the difference between the arc length of the beads along their surfaces and the chord length, i.e., the width, of the beads along the flange cannot be absorbed. Furthermore, if the recess 7 is formed in the web 2 to use the rib 1 as a member of a box structure, such as an airfoil , the strength of the web 2 is reduced significantly and cracks may develop. |
Invited on air to discuss a gunman’s shooting of three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Sunday, a controversial Wisconsin sheriff spent over ten minutes railing against Black Lives Matter as a “hateful ideology.”
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke repeatedly asserted during the tense Sunday night interview with CNN’s Don Lemon that shooter Gavin Long, who was black, was motivated by the anti-police brutality movement.
“My message has been clear from day one two years ago. This anti-cop sentiment from this hateful ideology called Black Lives Matter has fueled this rage against the American police officer. I predicted this two years ago,” Clarke said.
“Do you know that this was because of that?” Lemon asked.
“Yes, I do,” Clarke replied.
There has been no evidence so far that Long, a former Marine, was affiliated with Black Lives Matter.
Lemon repeatedly urged Clarke to “keep the vibe down” and strike a note of “civility” during the contentious back and forth, but Clarke maintained that the CNN host was siding with those who have condemned racialized violence against black Americans.
Lemon said Clarke’s premise was “wrong” when he asked whether Lemon thought that all American law enforcement officers were racist.
“This whole anti-police rhetoric is based on a lie,” Clarke replied. “There is no data, and you know this, there is no data, there is no research that proves any of that nonsense. None.”
“You have to be more specific about what data and what nonsense you’re talking about,” Lemon said.
“That law enforcement officers treat black males different than white males in policing in these urban centers,” Clarke said.
“There is data that supports that,” Lemon shot back.
“There is not data,” Clark insisted.
Studies commissioned by the National Institute of Justice and Washington Post, among others, have confirmed that drivers of color are stopped more often than white drivers and that black Americans are far more likely than white Americans to be killed by police.
Clarke equated Black Lives Matter with “the KKK” and said that the group taught “vitriol in the name of virtue.”
“This has fueled and fanned the flames of this anger toward the American police officer,” he said. “There’s only one group in America—one, Don—that truly cares about the lives of black people in the urban ghetto, and it’s the American police officer, who goes out there on a daily basis, to put their lives on the line to protect who? Black people.”
Lemon cut the interview off soon after.
Clarke is scheduled to address the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Monday for an evening devoted to the theme “Make America Safe Again.”
He is known for making inflammatory comments about race, such as his assertion that African Americans deal drugs because they are “lazy” and “morally bankrupt.” |
Musa genetic diversity revealed by SRAP and AFLP.
The sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) technique, aimed for the amplification of open reading frames (ORFs), vis-â-vis that of the amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP) were used to analyze the genetic variation and relationships among forty Musa accessions; which include commercial cultivars and wild species of interest for the genetic enhancement of Musa. A total of 403 SRAP and 837 AFLP amplicons were generated by 10 SRAP and 15 AFLP primer combinations, of which 353 and 787 bands were polymorphic, respectively. Both cluster analysis of unweighted pair-grouping method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) and principal coordinate (PCO) analysis separated the forty accessions into their recognized sections (Eumusa, Australimusa, Callimusa and Rhodochlamys) and species. The percentage of polymorphism amongst sections and species and the relationships within Eumusa species and subspecies varied between the two marker systems. In addition to its practical simplicity, SRAP exhibited approximately threefold more specific and unique bands than AFLP, 37 and 13%, respectively. SRAP markers are demonstrated here to be proficient tools for discriminating amongst M. acuminata, M. balbisiana and M. schizocarpa in the Eumusa section, as well as between plantains and cooking bananas within triploid cultivars. |
Originality is key in this dazzling Maison Table Lamp from WOFI lighting. With an array of rounded multi coloured shades the lighting effect of this light is spectacular and not to be missed. Great in an entranceway or living room space for all to see and enjoy. A sophisticated chrome finish adds a touch of elegance to this light. |
Q:
swap two strings (Golang)
I am currently learning Golang, and i decided to write few simple algorithm for learning the syntax. i hope it's not already answers but i didn't found it ..
I have a problem for swapping string
func swap(str1, str2 string) {
/*
* Also possible :
* str1, str2 = str2, str1
*/
// str1, str2 = str2, str1
tmp := str1
str1 = str2
str2 = tmp
}
func main() {
a := "World !"
b := "Hello"
swap(a, b)
fmt.Printf("a=%s\nb=%s\n", a, b)
}
Why this code didn't work ?
A:
Swapping str1 and str2 doesn't change a and b, because they are copies of a and b. Use pointers:
func swap(str1, str2 *string) {
*str1, *str2 = *str2, *str1
}
func main() {
a := "salut"
b := "les gens"
swap(&a, &b)
fmt.Printf("a=%s\nb=%s\n", a, b)
}
http://play.golang.org/p/Qw0t5I-XGT
|
Please donate to support our ‘Plants to Save the Planet’ Project. The Project is directed at enabling designers of ‘carbon farms’ and ‘food forests’: agroecosystems of perennial plants, to choose the most appropriate plants for their requirements and site conditions. We are working on a subset of plants in the PFAF database identified as having the most potential for inclusion in such designs. We are adding search terms and icons to those plants pages, and providing a range of search options aligned to categories of plants and crop yields, with Help facilities including videos. More >>>
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Summary
Bloom Color: White. Form: Rounded.
Physical Characteristics
Agave parryi is an evergreen Perennial growing to 0.5 m (1ft 8in) by 1 m (3ft 3in) at a slow rate. It is hardy to zone (UK) 8 and is not frost tender. It is in leaf all year. The species is hermaphrodite (has both male and female organs) and is pollinated by Moths, bats. Suitable for: light (sandy) and medium (loamy) soils and prefers well-drained soil. Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It cannot grow in the shade. It prefers dry or moist soil and can tolerate drought.
Synonyms
Habitats
Edible Uses
The heart of the plant is very rich in saccharine matter and can be eaten when baked[2, 105]. Sweet and nutritious, but rather fibrous[213]. It is partly below ground[85]. Seed - ground into a flour and used as a thickener in soups or used with cereal flours when making bread[92]. Young flower stalk - raw or cooked[257]. It was generally roasted[177, 183]. Tender young leaves - roasted[161]. Sap from the cut flowering stems is used as a syrup[177]. Nectar from the flowering stems is made into a sweet syrup[183]. The sap can also be tapped by boring a hole into the middle of the plant at the base of the flowering stem[213]. It can be fermented into 'Mescal', a very potent alcoholic drink[213].
Medicinal Uses
Plants For A Future can not take any responsibility for any adverse effects from the use of plants. Always seek advice from a professional before using a plant medicinally.AntisepticDiureticLaxativeMiscellany
Our new book Edible Shrubs is now available.
Edible Shrubs provides detailed information, attractively presented, on over 70 shrub species. They have been selected to provide a mix of different plant sizes and growing conditions. Most provide delicious and nutritious fruit, but many also have edible leaves, seeds, flowers, stems or roots, or they yield edible or useful oil.
Other Uses
The leaves contain saponins and an extract of them can be used as a soap[2]. It is best obtained by chopping up the leaves and then simmering them in water - do not boil for too long or this will start to break down the saponins[K]. A very strong fibre obtained from the leaves is used for making rope, coarse fabrics etc[2, 61, 92]. A paper can also be made from the fibre in the leaves[2]. The thorns on the leaves are used as pins and needles[2]. The dried flowering stems are used as a waterproof thatch[2] and as a razor strop[89].
Special Uses
Cultivation details
Landscape Uses:Border, Container, Foundation, Ground cover, Massing, Rock garden, Specimen. Requires a very well-drained soil and a sunny position[1, 200]. This species is probably the hardiest member of the genus, it survives outdoors grown against a warm wall at Kew[11]. In the wild, plants often experience snow during the winter with temperatures as low as -18°c for short periods[181]. A monocarpic species, the plant lives for a number of years without flowering but dies once it does flower. However, it normally produces plenty of suckers during its life and these take about 10 - 15 years in a warm climate, considerably longer in colder ones, before flowering[11]. This plant is widely used by the native people in its wild habitat, it has a wide range of uses. Members of this genus are rarely if ever troubled by browsing deer[233]. Special Features:Attracts birds, Attractive foliage, North American native, All or parts of this plant are poisonous, Flowers are rare, Attractive flowers or blooms.
Carbon Farming
Historic Crop
These crops were once cultivated but have been abandoned. The reasons for abandonment may include colonization, genocide, market pressures, the arrival of superior crops from elsewhere, and so forth.
Temperature Converter
Type a value in the Celsius field to convert the value to Fahrenheit:
Celsius
Fahrenheit:
The PFAF Bookshop
Plants For A Future have a number of books available in paperback and digital form. Book titles include Edible Plants, Edible Perennials, Edible Trees, and Woodland Gardening. Our new book to be released soon is Edible Shrubs.
Propagation
Seed - surface sow in a light position, April in a warm greenhouse. The seed usually germinates in 1 - 3 months at 20°c[133]. Prick out the seedlings into individual pots of well-drained soil when they are large enough to handle and grow them on in a sunny position in the greenhouse until they are at least 20cm tall. Plant out in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts, and give some protection from the cold for at least their first few winters[K]. Offsets can be potted up at any time they are available. Keep in a warm greenhouse until they are well established[200].
Other Names
If available other names are mentioned here
Found In
Countries where the plant has been found are listed here if the information is available
Weed Potential
Right plant wrong place. We are currently updating this section.
Please note that a plant may be invasive in one area but may not in your area so it’s worth checking.
Expert comment
Author
Botanical References
Links / References
Readers comment
Nov 29 2010 12:00AM
The plant multiply on its root system. Dont plant close to road or driveway will come up and start breaking up the asphalt or concrete.
QR Code
What's this?
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1. Copy and print the QR code to a plant label, poster, book, website, magazines, newspaper etc and even t-shirts.
2. Smartphone users scan the QR Code which automatically takes them to the webpage the QR Code came from.
3. Smartphone users quickly have information on a plant directly for the pfaf.org website on their phone.
Add a comment
If you have important information about this plant that may help other users please add a comment or link below. Only comments or links that are felt to be directly relevant to a plant will be included. If you think a comment/link or information contained on this page is inaccurate or misleading we would welcome your feedback at [email protected]. If you have questions about a plant please use the Forum on this website as we do not have the resources to answer questions ourselves.
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/* ============================================================
*
* This file is a part of digiKam project
* https://www.digikam.org
*
* Date : 2011-02-11
* Description : a tool to export images to WikiMedia web service
*
* Copyright (C) 2011 by Alexandre Mendes <alex dot mendes1988 at gmail dot com>
* Copyright (C) 2011-2019 by Gilles Caulier <caulier dot gilles at gmail dot com>
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it
* and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
* Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
* either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* ============================================================ */
#ifndef DIGIKAM_MEDIAWIKI_TALKER_H
#define DIGIKAM_MEDIAWIKI_TALKER_H
// Qt includes
#include <QString>
#include <QList>
#include <QMap>
#include <QUrl>
// KDE includes
#include <kjob.h>
// Local includes
#include "dinfointerface.h"
using namespace Digikam;
namespace MediaWiki
{
class Iface;
}
using namespace MediaWiki;
namespace DigikamGenericMediaWikiPlugin
{
class MediaWikiTalker : public KJob
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
explicit MediaWikiTalker(DInfoInterface* const iface, Iface* const MediaWiki, QObject* const parent=nullptr);
~MediaWikiTalker();
public:
QString buildWikiText(const QMap<QString, QString>& info) const;
void setImageMap(const QMap <QString, QMap <QString, QString> >& imageDesc);
void start() Q_DECL_OVERRIDE;
Q_SIGNALS:
void signalUploadProgress(int percent);
void signalEndUpload();
public Q_SLOTS:
void slotBegin();
void slotUploadHandle(KJob* j = nullptr);
void slotUploadProgress(KJob* job, unsigned long percent);
private:
class Private;
Private* const d;
};
} // namespace DigikamGenericMediaWikiPlugin
#endif // DIGIKAM_MEDIAWIKI_TALKER_H
|
Hong Kong police retake parliament from anti-government protesters
Hong Kong police retake parliament from anti-government protesters
HONG KONG: Hong Kong police fired tear gas early today (July 2) to regain control of the city’s parliament after thousands of protesters occupied and ransacked the assembly in an unprecedented display of defiance on the anniversary of the territory’s handover to China.
Protesters hung the city’s colonial-era flag in the debating chamber, scrawled messages such as ‘Hong Kong is not China’ and defaced the city’s emblematic seal with spray-paint. Photo: AFP
Hong Kong police retook parliament from protesters early Tuesday (July 2) after firing tear gas to disperse hundreds who ransacked the building in a day of unprecedented chaos and political violence. Photo: AFP
US President Donald Trump said the demonstrators were “looking for democracy”, adding that “unfortunately, some governments don’t want democracy” – tough words for Beijing.
The semi-autonomous financial hub has been rocked by three weeks of huge demonstrations sparked by an unpopular bill that would allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland.
But on Monday, that anger reached levels unseen for years.
Masked protesters – mostly young and many wearing yellow hard hats – broke into the legislature after hours of clashes with police.
They ransacked the building, daubing its walls with anti-government graffiti, in an unparalleled challenge to city authorities and Beijing.
Police had warned of an impending crackdown, and just after midnight, officers moved in from several directions, firing tear gas and wielding batons as they charged – and sending plumes of smoke drifting across the city.
At a press conference in the early hours Tuesday, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam condemned the “extremely violent” storming of the legislature, which she described as “heartbreaking and shocking”. |
Q:
Any downsides to switching "home xbox" setting with my brother?
My brother recently bought an Xbox One.
I have a lot more games on my account than he has on his, but I am wondering if the following setup might give either of us a downside?
I add my account to his Xbox, and set it as my home xbox
If he at some point buys games I haven't bought, we do the same the other way around, add his account to my xbox and set my xbox as his home xbox
Would this give me a disadvantage on my own xbox? Would I have to sign in more often? With the "Home xbox" setting I gather that he will get access to all my games. Can we play my games at the same time? ie. he doesn't have Battlefield 4, but can both he and I both log on to Battlefield 4 using my game and play it together?
Is this illegal in any way? We're both under the same roof if that matters at all.
Basically my question comes down to this: With the above setup, will either of us run into any problems or disadvantages?
Let me try to clarify.
Two xboxes under the same roof
Two accounts, mine, and his
Proposed setup:
I add my account to his Xbox, and set his Xbox as my home Xbox
(Optional for now) He adds his account to my Xbox, and sets my Xbox as his home Xbox
We can then download and install any games from my account onto his Xbox
I understand that I can still play my own games on my own Xbox
I gather that he will also be able to play my games on his Xbox
The questions are:
Can we do it at the same time? Ie. both fire up my accounts Battlefield 4 (he doesn't have BF4 on his account) and play it, together?
Will there be any downsides to this? Such as both xboxes (which are now thus not our "home xbox" any more) require more frequent logins, or other such things?
One of the reasons I ask is that it seems this is some kind of loophole. I mean, with the above setup, if this is both legal and have no downsides (or at least none worth complaining about), wouldn't this effectively mean that we only have to buy 1 copy of a game from now on, and still be able to both play it?
A:
Can we do it at the same time? Ie. both fire up my accounts Battlefield 4 (he doesn't have BF4 on his account) and play it, together?
Yes, this is possible. I did it with Destiny, CoD Ghosts and some other games.
And your brother would also get xbox live gold access if you have it.
Is this illegal in any way?
Will there be any downsides to this? Such as both xboxes (which are now thus not our "home xbox" any more) require more frequent logins, or other such things?
I am using this for about one month and have no problems at all. As far as I know is this intended to used like this.
You just need to login once to setup the home xbox. After the home xbox is set your brother can login as usual.
|
Q:
Can I solve this integral without spherical coordinates?
Def.
$$
f: \; [-r, r]^3 \rightarrow \mathbb{R}, \; (x_1, x_2,x_3) \mapsto \begin{cases}
\sqrt{r^2 - x_1^2 - x_2^2 - x_3^2}, & \text{for } x_1^2 + x_2^2 + x_3^2 \leq r^2, \\
0, & \text{else}.
\end{cases}
$$
with $r > 0$.
I need to prove:
$$
\int_{-r}^r \int_{-r}^r \int_{-r}^r f(x_1, x_2, x_3) \mathrm{d}x_1 \mathrm{d}x_2 \mathrm{d}x_3 = \frac{\pi^2}{4}r^4.
$$
I was able to solve the integral by first transforming $(x_1, x_2, x_3)$ into spherical coordinates $(p, \theta, \varphi)$ but I am still at the point in my studies where I do not know about coordinate transformations of integrals.
My question: Is there a way to calculate the integral without spherical coordinates or is there a simple proof such that I can do it in spherical coordinates?
What I did:
\begin{align}
& \int_{-r}^r \int_{-r}^r \int_{-r}^r f(x_1, x_2, x_3) \mathrm{d}x_1 \mathrm{d}x_2 \mathrm{d}x_3 \\
=& \int_{0}^r \int_{0}^\pi \int_{-\pi}^\pi \sqrt{r^2-p^2} \cdot p^2\sin\theta\; \mathrm{d}\varphi \mathrm{d}\theta \mathrm{d}p \\
=& \dots \\
=& 4\pi \int_0^r \sqrt{r^2-p^2} \cdot p^2 \mathrm{d}p \\
=& \dots \\
=& 4\pi \left[ \frac{1}{8} \arcsin\frac{p}{r} - \frac{1}{8}\sin\left( 4\arcsin\frac{p}{r} \right) \right]_{p=0}^{p=r} \\
=& \frac{\pi^2}{4} r^4
\end{align}
A:
(I'm writing $R$ for your $r$.)
We can use "spherical coordinates in disguise" as follows: Choose a tagged partition
$$0=r_0<r_1<r_2<\ldots<r_N=R$$
of the interval $[0,R]$ with tags $\rho_i\in[r_{i-1},r_i]$. This setup induces a partition of the ball of radius $R$ into shells of thickness $r_i-r_{i-1}$. We then have the Riemann sum approximations
$$J:=\int_{[-R,R]^3} f(x)\>{\rm d}(x)\approx\sum_{i=1}^N\sqrt{R^2-\rho_i^2}\>4\pi \rho_i^2\>(r_i-r_{i-1})\approx4\pi\int_0^Rr^2\>\sqrt{R^2-r^2}\>dr\ ,$$
whereby the errors implied by $\approx$ can be made arbitrarily small. Therefore the two integrals on the LHS and the RHS are in fact equal. In order to compute the latter we substitute $r:=R\sin\theta$ $0\leq\theta\leq{\pi\over2}$ and obtain
$$J=4\pi R^4\int_0^{\pi\over2}\sin^2\theta\cos^2\theta\>d\theta=\pi R^4\int_0^{\pi/2}\sin^2(2\theta)\>d\theta={\pi^2\over4} R^4\ .$$
|
A Republican television executive with no political experience beat his Democratic opponent in a special election Tuesday for the open seat vacated by disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner, becoming the first Republican to represent the district in an election watched around the nation.
Voter frustration over the sour economy and President Obama's policies helped Republican political novice, Bob Turner, score an upset victory over David Weprin, a Democratic assemblyman from a prominent political family.
The White House said Wednesday it does not view the defeat as a referendum on the president.
White House spokesman Jay Carney says special elections are unique and don't reveal much about the outcome of future regularly scheduled votes.
"You can make those predictions and look foolish in 14 months or not," Carney said. "I'm simply saying we do not view them that way."
Democrats have a 3-1 registration edge in the Brooklyn and Queens-area district where voters cast their ballots Tuesday.
In his victory speech, Turner said the results portend a perilous national environment for Obama as he prepares to seek re-election next year.
"This message will resound for a full year. It will resound into 2012," said Turner. "I only hope our voices are heard, and we can start putting things right again."
Weprin conceded defeat Wednesday.
The national mood has darkened since May, when Democrats scored their own unexpected win in another New York special election. Then, Democrat Kathy Hochul won an upset victory in a heavily Republican district by stressing her commitment to protecting Medicare, the government health plan for seniors.
Weprin tried to adopt that strategy, warning that Turner would try to cut programs like Medicare and Social Security. But with unemployment still stubbornly high and voters upset with Washington over the debt ceiling negotiations, the pledge to protect entitlements was less resonant this time.
Weprin, a 56-year-old Orthodox Jew and member of a prominent Queens political family, initially seemed a good fit for the largely white, working-class district, which is nearly 40 percent Jewish.
But voter frustration with Obama put Weprin in the unlikely spot of playing defense.
While Obama won the district by 11 points in 2008 against Republican John McCain, a Siena Poll released Friday found just 43 percent of likely voters approved of the president's job performance, while 54 percent said they disapproved. Among independents, just 29 percent said they approved of Obama's job performance.
Turner, a 70-year-old Catholic, vowed to push back on Obama's policies. He received help from prominent Republicans including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Weprin also became embroiled in disputes over Israel and gay marriage, which cost him some support among Jewish voters.
Orthodox Jews, who tend to be conservative on social issues, expressed anger over Weprin's vote in the Assembly to legalize gay marriage. In July, New York became one of six states to recognize same-sex nuptials.
Former Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, endorsed Turner in July as a way to "send a message" to Obama on his policies toward Israel. And Weprin was challenged on his support of a proposed Islamic center and mosque near the World Trade Center site.
Democratic leaders trying to explain their bad night blamed it on the quirkiness of low-turnout special elections.
"The results in NY-09 are not reflective of what will happen in November 2012 when Democratic challengers run against Republican incumbents who voted to end Medicare and cut Social Security while protecting tax loopholes for big corporations and the ultra wealthy," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel of New York.
Republicans, for their part, seized on Turner's win as reason to push back on Obama's proposed $447 billion jobs program, which he has been promoting at stops across the country.
"Tonight New Yorkers have delivered a strong warning to the Democrats who control the levers of power in our federal government," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "It's time to scrap the failed 'stimulus' agenda."
The House seat opened up when former Weiner was pushed by party leaders to resign after sending sexually provocative tweets and text messages to women he met online. |
2015 Swedish Open – Women's Singles
Mona Barthel was the defending champion, but she lost to Johanna Larsson in the final, 3–6, 6–7(2–7).
Seeds
Draw
Finals
Top Half
Bottom Half
Qualifying
Seeds
Qualifiers
Draw
First Qualifier
Second Qualifier
Third Qualifier
Fourth Qualifier
Fifth Qualifier
Sixth Qualifier
References
Main draw
Qualifying draw
Swedish Open - Singles
2015 Women's Singles
Category:2015 in Swedish women's sport |
ICE consists of three directorates to accomplish the agency’s mission, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Management and Administration (M&A).
ICE executes its mission through the enforcement of more than 400 federal statutes, and focuses on smart immigration enforcement, preventing terrorism and combating the illegal movement of people and trade. (read more)
Learn more about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including facts about investigations, immigration enforcement and removal operations, and management and administration information. (read more)
To ensure openness and transparency and to better serve those seeking more information about ICE and its operations, the agency centralized processing of all ICE-related Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in a single office.
ICE Newsroom
New York man charged with possession of homemade child pornography
Roger Luczkowiak
BUFFALO, N.Y. — An upstate New York man has been charged with possession of child pornography and now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. This case is being investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and other state and local law enforcement agencies.
Roger Luczkowiak, 31, of Dunkirk, N.Y., was arrested last week based on evidence that was found on a computer that the Dunkirk Police Department had seized from his residence in June of this year. A forensic analysis of the computer found multiple images and videos of child pornography, some containing graphic images involving a six-year-old victim.
On Friday, Luczkowiak appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah McCarthy and entered a not guilty plea. He was ordered detained pending the resolution of the case. A status conference is scheduled for Sept. 29, 2011 before Magistrate Judge McCarthy.
"HSI is aggressively targeting individuals who engage in child pornography crimes," said James Spero, special agent in charge of HSI in Buffalo. "Protecting the children in our communities is one of my office's highest priorities. I applaud the Dunkirk Police Department who not only brought this case to the attention of HSI, but is partnering with us in the investigation of these alleged acts by this defendant. With the combined efforts of our law enforcement partners in western New York and throughout the nation, we will utilize all of our resources and efforts to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, our children."
"Protecting our children is one of the greatest responsibilities we as adults have," said U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr., Western District of New York. "Our office will continue to work vigorously with all levels of law enforcement to bring to justice any individual who seeks to harm a child. I would also urge the public to partner with us and watch out for those who are the most vulnerable. If you see something say something, and if you say something, my commitment is that law enforcement will do something."
This investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide HSI initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers.
HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.
Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com.
The arrest was the culmination of an investigation on the part of HSI, the Dunkirk Police Department and the New York State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Additional assistance was provided by the Western New York Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, which conducted the forensic analysis of the defendant's computer. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango is handling the case.
Anyone with additional information about this case should call the U.S. Attorney's Office at 1-800-320-0682 and leave a message with their contact information.
Related Information
Media Inquiries
For media inquiries about ICE activities, operations, or policies, contact the ICE Office of Public Affairs at (202) 732-4242. |
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Last spring, Congress repealed the longstanding SGR policy for the CMS Part B physician fee schedule. The legislation also set in motion what could be a big overhaul of the physician performance metrics like "PQRS." Nearly 200 comments on the topic are already on the regulations.gov website. Meanwhile, until Tuesday, November 17, CMS is requesting additional deep dive comments through a special MIPS "request for information" process.
What Happened in Spring 2015?
Congress repealed the longstanding SGR (sustainable growth rate) principle that applied to the Medicare physician fee schedule. The legislation was called MACRA - the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. (See here or here.)
Besides repealing SGR, another section of the law requires Medicare to consolidate and redesign its complex physician performance metrics, such as the PQRS system and the EHR incentive system. The new system, "to be determined" in detail, will be called MIPS, the Merit Based Incentive Payment System. However, to my eye, CMS could fulfill MIPS by just pasting together today's cumbersome and jerry-rigged sandbox of metrics, or, CMS could take the opportunity to build a new and better system.
Summer Rulemaking Triggered 193 Comments on MIPS
The dockets folder for the summer physician fee schedule rulemaking has 2,288 total public comments available for viewing (if you search here).
If you restrict your search to public documents commenting on the future MIPS system, you get 193 hits (refine your search as here.)
I downloaded almost all of the 193 files, resulting in a 60 MB folder. The MIPS commenters are diverse, from Kaiser to Pfizer, from the American Association of Medical Colleges to the Healthcare Information and Management System Soceity (HIMMS) to the Cancer Leadership Council.
So you don't have to point and click at 190 tabs on Regulations.gov - which is about 190 x 10 seconds or 1900 seconds or a half hour - I've put the comment documents in one consolidated 60 mb zip file, in the cloud here. (Click on the little "down" arrow in the top border of the webpage).
CMS issued a separate and quite detailed (over 200 questions) "Request for Information" about MIPS. The request for information is online here (80 Fed Reg 59102ff, October 1, 2015). CMS extended the comment period from the original closing date, November 2, to the new closing date of November 17, 2015 (extension PDF here, submit comments here).
MEDPAC and MIPS: October 2015
MEDPAC had an extended discussion about MIPRA in its October 8-9 session (agenda here). The online public transcript of the MEDPAC-MIPS discussion is here at page 90 ff.
HEALTH AFFAIRS; AMA; NEJM; ALABAMA
Health Affairs published a blog on the MIPS opportunity, authored by CMS, here and AMA has weighed in, here, and there's been an NEJM opinion piece, here.
The most pungent analysis may be that which the Medical Association of the State of Alabama submitted in an early MIPS RFI comment, dated October 30, 2015, here.
CMS’s duties are often executed in the least helpful manner possible for physicians, rarely improving delivery of care and in most cases further burdening physicians with pointless administrative hoops through which we must jump. Most physicians find “meaningful use” to be meaningless and PQRS to be overly complicated and cumbersome.
In situations like the Physician Open Payments Database, CMS’s “data dump” of raw payment information and lack of context provided gives the public no clear way to intelligently interpret the data, likely causing some patients reviewing it to reach inaccurate conclusions about their physicians and unnecessarily casting a black eye on the noble calling of medicine. .... It seems CMS’s intent is to complicate delivery of medical care across the board. None of this should be the case – CMS should strive to work with, not against, physicians. ...Just because CMS and certain insurers are unable to attract physicians to see more of the patients under their jurisdiction because they offer poor reimbursement and place tremendous administrative burdens on providers does not mean CMS has the liberty to dictate that we must bend to its will...This heavy-handed approach has exacerbated early retirement from the medical field and contributed significantly to physician shortages across the country, especially in poor and mostly rural states like Alabama....While Alabama’s medical community is sincerely interested in helping CMS find ways to responsibly expand access to care, manage vulnerable populations, maintain quality and safety and better coordinate care, dictation to us of how we run and hopefully grow our practices is not the answer. We implore you to abandon this idea and the agency’s current direction for [a new direction] that “meaningfully” – to borrow a phrase CMS is quite fond of – engages physicians and incentivizes them to participate in the programs under the agency’s jurisdiction.
An individual, D.B. of Arkansas, commented similarly:
However, as a regulatory body and society in general, we need to understand that we are punishing medical providers with overreaching programs and regulations that providers are finding it very difficult to keep up with. These well-meaning programs come at a time when we are already experiencing a physician shortage and the projections are for alooming shortage that will greatly affect access to medical providers within the next ten years. I would suggest that as we modify the existing programs we involve more physicians and seasoned medical administrators so that with the additional input, we improvise programs designed to reward physicians for quality care without completely frustrating them in our exuberance for better quality...Patient Centered MedicalHome, MU, PQRS and basically any and all programs that have been developed in theory to improve our care of patients. While the goals were admirable we are finding that our physicians cannot see nearly as many patients due to the inefficiencies involved with complying with these programs..
To find parallels in a different forum, see the September 8, 2015, comment on current physician metrics by the American Board of Internal Medicine:
With respect to specific proposed activities and measures, we cannot recommend strongly enough that CMS take a broad view of eligible practice improvement activities, and we believe this is what Congress intended to signal with its list of “must include” categories. There are as many opportunities to improve patient care and workflow in practice as there are steps in clinical and organizational processes, and dozens of institutions and practices and thousands of physicians who work in them already are working to improve quality based on local needs and priorities.
CMS should not risk stalling those efforts in the course of stimulating more. As we have seen with other well-intentioned federal physician quality initiatives – PQRS and Meaningful Use – a narrowed field of prescribed choices can cement the current state of the art into a fixed status quo, distract clinicians from what might be higher-yield opportunities in order to claim the incentive or avoid the penalty, blunt the meaning of the effort and breed anger and cynicism. Prescription is not the right tool to foster an ecosystem conducive to real physician engagement in practice improvement.
About the Author
Bruce Quinn MD PhD is an expert on health reform, innovation, and Medicare policy. He helps both large and small companies understand and overcome hurdles to commercialization, as well as craft business strategies for a changing environment. CONTACT Dr. Quinn through www.brucequinn.com. BACKGROUND: Dr. Quinn has worked in academic medicine, Accenture business strategies, and for the Medicare program. EDUCATION: Stanford MD/PhD, MIT Postdoc, Kellogg MBA. |
Bertelsmann’s Mohn dies at 88
Patriarch of European media giant
BERLIN — Reinhard Mohn, the patriarch of European media giant Bertelsmann who turned a family run printing and publishing firm into one of the world’s biggest media congloms, died Oct. 3 following a long illness. He was 88.
He represented the fifth generation of the Bertelsmann and Mohn families to have run the company since it was set up in 1835 as a publisher of church hymns.
Mohn took over Bertelsmann following World War II, serving as CEO from 1947-81.
Early on he embraced the mail-order book business, which resulted in the publishing company’s dramatic growth during the 1950s. Mohn expanded the company beyond publishing and distribution into new sectors, building it into an international enterprise that today employees more than 100,000 people in 50 countries and operates Europe’s biggest broadcasting company, RTL.
“Bertelsmann mourns the loss of one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our age,” said Bertelsmann chairman and CEO Hartmut Ostrowski, announcing Mohn’s passing Oct. 4.
Along with his wife, Liz Mohn, Mohn remained closely involved with Bertelsmann after his retirement, serving as a member of the Bertelsmann Management Co. (BVG), which controls all Bertelsmann’s voting rights. He was also honorary chairman of the supervisory board, and sat on the board of trustees of the Bertelsmann Stiftung charitable foundation, which he founded in 1977 and which today controls 76.9% of Bertelsmann. The Mohn family holds the remaining 23.1%.
Mohn oversaw Bertelsmann’s expansion into television and music. In 1964 it acquired TV and film production company Ufa, which it merged with Luxembourg-based CLT in 1997 to create CLT-Ufa, Europe’s leading commercial TV, radio and production conglom, now known as RTL Group.
In the 1950s it moved into music with the creation of Ariola Records and later the acquisitions of Arista and RCA Victor and the creation of BMG.
Mohn’s legacy includes a corporate culture in which companies and divisions are given maximum entrepreneurial autonomy and employees are included in the decision-making process and given a share in the company’s success.
In 2007, in commemoration of the Bertelsmann Stiftung charitable foundation’s 30th anniversary, Mohn wrote: “When rebuilding Bertelsmann after the war, we asked ourselves which structures would be more humane and more successful. … We responded to the issue of capitalism’s questionable ‘justice’ by developing our own unique corporate culture.”
While guaranteeing continuity at Bertelsmann, the foundation also oversees numerous projects, from political studies and educational initiatives to cultural endeavors. In 2008 it opened the foundation’s North American arm in Washington, D.C.
“The fact that this charitable foundation is now the largest shareholder in Bertelsmann is based on Mohn’s belief that great wealth must be subordinate to the social obligations of ownership,” the foundation said. |
Related
Topics
Guests
eading organizer and writer on environmental justice and indigenous rights. He is the “Stop It at the Source” campaigner at 350.org. Thomas-Muller is a member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada—Treaty 6 territory.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the White House Monday for the first time since Donald Trump took office. In a joint news conference, Trump and Trudeau discussed trade, national security and immigration policy. During a White House press conference, neither president talked about oil pipelines, despite their joint support for building new ones. Last month, Trudeau welcomed the decision by Donald Trump to move ahead on the Keystone XL pipeline project. Trudeau has also come under fire by environmental activists for approving two major pipelines: Kinder Morgan’s $5 billion Trans Mountain pipeline and the $7.5 billion Enbridge Line 3 pipeline. We speak to Clayton Thomas-Muller, a leading organizer and writer on environmental justice and indigenous rights. He is a campaigner at 350.org and a member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada.
Related Story
Topics
Guests
eading organizer and writer on environmental justice and indigenous rights. He is the “Stop It at the Source” campaigner at 350.org. Thomas-Muller is a member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada—Treaty 6 territory.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the White House Monday for the first time since Donald Trump took office. In a joint news conference, Trump and Trudeau discussed trade, national security and immigration policy. Trudeau said the two had a, quote, “strong and fruitful” conversation about immigration and security, issues on which they have disagreed.
PRIMEMINISTERJUSTINTRUDEAU: There have been times where we have differed in our approaches, and that’s always been done firmly and respectfully. The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they choose to govern themselves. My role, our responsibility, is to continue to govern in such a way that reflects Canadians’ approach and be a positive example in the world.
PRESIDENTDONALDTRUMP: We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We’ll be tweaking it. We’ll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. It’s a much less severe situation than what’s taken place on the southern border. On the southern border, for many, many years, the transaction was not fair to the United States. It’s an extremely unfair transaction. We’re going to work with Mexico. We’re going to make it a fair deal for both parties. I think that we’re going to get along very well with Mexico. They understand, and we understand.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Trudeau’s visit to the White House comes as he faces several challenges at home. A growing number of asylum seekers are braving freezing temperatures in an attempt to reach Canada through the border between North Dakota and Manitoba. Several refugees have suffered frostbite after trekking for hours in sub-zero weather, and aid organizations are overwhelmed. Many of those seeking refuge in Canada come from one of the seven countries targeted by Donald Trump’s anti-immigration executive order. They say they are worried about being deported if they remain in the United States.
AMYGOODMAN: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also come under fire by environmental activists for approving two major pipelines: the Kinder Morgan $5 billion Trans Mountain pipeline and the $7.5 billion Enbridge Line 3 pipeline. The Trans Mountain pipeline would carry oil from the Alberta tar sands to a port in Vancouver. The Enbridge Line 3 pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Alberta across the U.S.-Canadian border to a terminal in Superior, Wisconsin. Both pipelines face massive resistance from Canadian First Nations.
For more, we’re going to Clayton Thomas-Muller, a leading organizer and writer on environmental justice and indigenous rights. He’s a campaigner at 350.org and a member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada.
We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Clayton. Can you talk about the significance of this meeting of your prime minister, Justin Trudeau, coming down to Washington to meet with and hold a joint news conference with President Donald Trump?
CLAYTONTHOMAS-MULLER: Certainly. I think that, you know, this visit and all the eyes on this visit put incredible pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Many of us representing social movements here in Canada continue to be baffled by the, you know, [inaudible] to the right of Justin Trudeau and his administration—in particular, the departure from their commitments at the Paris climate summit to a 1.5-degree target in line with the call to action from small island states, whose countries are literally disappearing under our rising seas, through approving two massive tar sands projects that you just described and also committing to work with the racist, misogynist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, Native American-hating president, Donald Trump, on the Keystone XL pipeline, a pipeline that the former president rejected in the name of climate due to pressure from social movements.
So, you know, I think that this trip was an opportunity for Justin Trudeau to be a hero, to stand up in the face of all of the, you know, shock doctrine-esque policy announcements that Donald Trump has been making, since he’s become president, through executive order and to take a firm line to be a real climate leader and to not partner with the United States on the Keystone XL pipeline. So, you know, it continues to be a very disturbing thing.
And there’s a number of other issues, as well. When we look at the women’s advocacy program for the 1 percent, you know, Justin Trudeau continues to call himself a feminist, yet, you know, does not call out the United States having just called a sitting member of the Senate “Pocahontas.” Justin Trudeau, you know, in the election trail, said that First Nations were the most important relationship with the federal government of Canada. And for him to not take a stand and call out the president over this obvious and blatant sexism and racism just adds to the pile of disturbingness of the whole visit.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Clayton, you mentioned the XL pipeline. At a news conference last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed the decision by Donald Trump to move ahead on the Keystone XL pipeline project. This is what he said.
PRIMEMINISTERJUSTINTRUDEAU: In both the conversations I’ve had with President Trump now, Keystone XL came up as a topic, and I reiterated my support for the project. I’ve been on the record for many years supporting it, because it leads to economic growth and good jobs for Albertans. … This is about the responsible approach on growing the economy, creating good jobs for Canadians, while we protect the environment for now and for future generations. This is what Canadians expect of us.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What about this comment, especially in view of the fact that many people expected, with his election, that he would bring a much more forward-thinking administration in Canada after years of conservative leadership there?
CLAYTONTHOMAS-MULLER: Look, Canadians expect Justin Trudeau to be a hero. On the election trail, Justin Trudeau committed to ratifying the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He committed to being a champion for the rights of women. He committed to being a champion for the sacredness of Mother Earth through adopting climate change policies this side of the border. All of these promises that Justin Trudeau has made, he has broken. And, you know, for us, one of the things that we will continue to make—draw parallels between, of course, is that this government, the Trudeau government, has prepared itself for a Standing Rock level of resistance to its controversial approval of tar sands pipelines this side of the border. You know, for us, Donald Trump and the role that his administration has played in exacerbating the circumstances in Standing Rock, one can only assume that, you know, that the two are more alike than we would like them to be. And for us, you know, who are involved in social movements resisting the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, whether it’s DAPL, Kinder Morgan on this side of the border, or this transboundary pipeline, Keystone XL, social movements will continue to organize in nonviolent and beautiful ways against both administrations until we get to some kind of climate sanity that takes us off of dirty fossil fuel economy.
AMYGOODMAN: Clayton Thomas-Muller, you’ve been a presence at Standing Rock, at the resistance camps, and Canadian First Nations have been heavily represented there, joining together with Native Americans from Latin America and the United States, as well. What are your thoughts directly on President Trump moving forward, giving the OK for the Dakota Access pipeline? The easement has been granted, and the reports that we have is that Energy Transfer Partners, the Dakota Access pipeline, on which the Department of Energy secretary, Rick Perry, sat on its board after he was governor of Texas—what are your thoughts on the construction crews moving forward to drill under the Missouri River right now?
CLAYTONTHOMAS-MULLER: Well, [inaudible] of solidarity to all the front-line water protectors in Standing Rock, now more than ever. Social movements, the environmental movement, women’s rights movement, the LGBQ movement, Black Lives Matter—you know, this is a call out to all social movements to stand in solidarity with Standing Rock against the obvious conflict of interest that this administration has with Energy Transfers in making this decision to approve the easement. There has been a call to support people on the front line, and there has been a call for citizens to take action all across the lower 48 United States and across Mother Earth, as well. So, certainly, First Nations in Canada will continue to be organizing in solidarity with them, as we mount our own nonviolent offensive against the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, the Line 3 Enbridge pipeline and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline here in Canada.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about another issue that came up in the visit of Justin Trudeau, the issue of trade. During Monday’s appearance at the White House, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau stressed that he planned to work with the U.S. on trade. This is what he said.
PRIMEMINISTERJUSTINTRUDEAU: Canadians are rightly aware of the fact that much of our economy depends on good working relationships with the United States, a good integration with the American economy. And the fact is, millions of good jobs on both sides of the border depend on the smooth and easy flow of goods and services and people back and forth across our border. And both President Trump and I got elected on commitments to support the middle class, to work hard for people who need a real shot at success. And we know that by working together, by ensuring the continued effective integration of our two economies, we are going to be creating greater opportunities for middle-class Canadians and Americans now and well into the future.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And meanwhile, Donald Trump says he’s looking at tweaking portions of the North American Free Trade Agreement that deals with trade between the U.S. and Canada. Now, obviously, during the campaign, he was talking about more than tweaking; he was talking about renegotiating the entire deal. And obviously, for Canada, that means a big issue, because about 70 percent of Canada’s trade is with the United States.
CLAYTONTHOMAS-MULLER: Well, I think that, you know, trade is an excellent example how, much like the United States, Canada’s economy and its economic excess is fundamentally based on the disposition—dispossession of indigenous peoples from their lands to provide open-door access to extractive companies to take the resources from said land and to sell on the international market to the highest bidder. You know, Trudeau reopening NAFTA with Donald Trump, you know, just makes me think of the bilateral free trade agreement that they’re negotiating with China, FIPA, and as well as with the European Union, CETA. These trade agreements put incredible pressure on indigenous communities here in Canada, where the majority of natural resources are being extracted, and done so without consulting with these rights-holding nations within Canada, the settler colonial state. So it’s highly problematic that his conversation is happening in a vacuum from First Nations governments, which is one of the orders of government here in Canada. And, you know, certainly, social movements are watching this discussion around reopening of NAFTA with a heavy lens on indigenous sovereignty.
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Bill Nye is now allowed to take limited claims against The Walt Disney Company to trial. On Wednesday, a Los Angeles Superior Court entered an order that sets up the trial, now scheduled for May 2020.
In Nye's fourth amended complaint, he estimates $28 million in damages from the way that Disney allegedly shortchanged him on profits from his 1990s television show Bill Nye the Science Guy. He's also seeking punitive damages arising from how Disney has "a long and consistent pattern of under-reporting revenue and improperly applying deductions."
Disney moved to get the case down to an accounting spectacle and an interpretation of the contract. In a motion for summary adjudication, the defendant raised the incontestability provision of the deal and argued that Nye had suspicions early on and waited too long to object to participation statements. Nye responded that the quarterly profit statements that he received from a Disney subsidiary lacked detail and that he was unable to decipher whether they were complete and accurate. Nye also contended that Disney induced him to spend time, money and other resources on an audit under the false promise he'd be provided with access to the necessary records.
L.A Superior Court Judge Dalila Lyons has granted summary judgment to Disney with respect to participation statements issued before January 8, 2011.
Although the order lacks detail, that's exactly three years before Nye formally requested an audit. Due to a purported backlog of audits, Disney told Nye he'd have to wait in line for three or four years before the audit began.
Nye will move forward on the more recent participation statements — and the judge also rejects Disney's bid to rule out punitive damages.
Disney does manage to score other wins, however, including escaping the claim that it breached any fiduciary duty toward Nye.
A 10-day trial is currently estimated, though given the latest ruling, that could be adjusted. |
Oktay Derelioğlu
Oktay Derelioğlu (born 17 December 1975) is Turkish former international footballer and currently the manager of Tokatspor. Derelioğlu played as a forward and is notable for his goal against Belgium during the qualifying rounds of the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The goal started at midfield before Derelioğlu jinked past six Belgian defenders, one of them twice, mimicking Diego Maradona's "Goal of the Century".
Derelioğlu holds the record for most goals in European competitions for Beşiktaş with 14.
Club career
Early club career (1990–1993)
Derelioğlu was born in Istanbul and began his club career with local club Fatih Karagümrük. He made his debut at the age of 14, coming on as a substitute in the 66th minute. In two seasons with the club, Derelioğlu netted five times in 20 matches. Trabzonspor transferred him the following season. With Trabzonspor, Derelioğlu didn't find many chances, featuring twice in his first and only season with the club. He scored four times in three matches for the youth team. Beşiktaş transferred him at the start of the 1993–94 season.
Beşiktaş (1993–1998)
Derelioğlu made his debut on 29 August 1993, starting alongside the likes of Feyyaz Uçar, Sergen Yalçın, and Rıza Çalımbay. Derelioğlu scored nine times in 27 matches during his first season. Derelioğlu continued scoring at that rate before breaking out during the 1996–97 season, netting 22 times in the league and four times in cup competitions.
Journeyman years (1999–2008)
Siirtspor transferred him at the start of the 1999–2000 where he scored twice in four matches before being loaned out to Gaziantepspor on 11 November 1999. Derelioğlu spent the rest of the season with the club, scoring 16 times in 20 matches. The following season, Derelioğlu moved abroad to UD Las Palmas for £2 million.
Derelioğlu spent two months with the club before returning to Turkey, making two appearances. Derelioğlu was the subject of controversy with the Spanish club, getting into a physical altercation with then-captain Vinny Samways during a training session. He also complained that his teammates weren't passing the ball to him.
In his first season back with Trabzonspor, Derelioğlu scored 14 times in 13 matches. However, he left the club and signed Fenerbahçe on 25 July 2001, complaining that he hadn't been paid by Trabzonspor. He moved to Samsunspor on the last day of the 2002–03 winter transfer window.
At the end of the season, Derelioğlu moved abroad for a second time, but returned to Turkey during the winter transfer window. With Akçaabat Sebatspor, Derelioğlu netted nine times in 21 matches. Khazar Lankaran transferred him at the start of the 2004–05 season.
Derelioğlu moved back to Turkey during the winter transfer window and made 18 appearances for four different clubs in two-and-a-half seasons. Derelioğlu finished his career with his first club, Fatih Karagümrük, scoring one goal in four matches. He retired before the end of the 2007–08 season.
International career
Derelioğlu started his international career with the Turkey U-16 squad in 1990. He was also capped at U-17, U-18, and U-21 levels, totaling 65 caps and 33 goals at youth level. He earned his first senior call-up in 1995, and scored nine goals in 18 caps from 1995 to 2001.
References
External links
Oktay Derelioğlu at Footballdatabase
Category:1975 births
Category:Living people
Category:Turkish footballers
Category:Turkey international footballers
Category:Turkey under-21 international footballers
Category:UEFA Euro 2000 players
Category:Turkish expatriate footballers
Category:Expatriate footballers in Spain
Category:Turkish expatriate sportspeople in Spain
Category:Expatriate footballers in Germany
Category:Turkish expatriate sportspeople in Germany
Category:Expatriate footballers in Azerbaijan
Category:Turkish expatriate sportspeople in Azerbaijan
Category:Süper Lig players
Category:La Liga players
Category:2. Bundesliga players
Category:Azerbaijan Premier League players
Category:Fatih Karagümrük footballers
Category:Trabzonspor footballers
Category:Beşiktaş J.K. footballers
Category:Siirtspor footballers
Category:Gaziantepspor footballers
Category:Fenerbahçe S.K. footballers
Category:UD Las Palmas players
Category:Samsunspor footballers
Category:1. FC Nürnberg players
Category:Akçaabat Sebatspor footballers
Category:Khazar Lankaran FK players
Category:Sakaryaspor footballers
Category:Diyarbakırspor footballers
Category:İstanbulspor footballers
Category:Yalovaspor footballers
Category:Turkey youth international footballers
Category:Association football forwards |
Szeretne azonnal értesülni a legfontosabb hírekről? Nem kérem Kérem
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Stuttgart Congress
The Stuttgart Congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was held between October 3–October 8, 1898, in Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg (now Germany).
The Stuttgart Congress was the first congress to discuss the question of revisionism in the SPD. A statement sent by Eduard Bernstein, who was exiled, was read to the Congress. In it he exposed and defended his revisionist views, previously exhibited in the series of articles Problems of Socialism published in the magazine Die Neue Zeit ("The New Times").
In the Congress, Karl Kautsky and August Bebel made an initial critique of Bernsteinism. Rosa Luxemburg maintained a more intransigent position against Bernstein's revisionism. The Congress did not adopt a resolution on this matter, but, despite the division in how to treat the question of Bernsteinism, the majority of the party showed its opposition to it.
In the Hanover Congress of 1899, the party approved a resolution that formally condemned Bernsteinist attacks on the party's policy and tactics.
Notes
Category:1898 in Germany
Category:1898 conferences
Category:October 1898 events
Category:Social Democratic Party of Germany |
Q:
Why is ls command slow to interrupt on NFS directory with lots of files?
I noticed in directories with lots of files on NFS if I do
ls *
then hit Ctrl-C it can take a while ( say 20 seconds ) before ls comes back.
Why? Can ls command be fixed to be more responsive?
A:
When you run ls *, the first thing that happens is that the shell obtains a listing of the current directory. If the directory is huge and the server is slow, this could take a while.
Once the shell has obtained the list of names of files in the current directory, it sorts that list (which is very quick compared to any network interaction), then calls ls. The ls command looks up each file in turn and retrieves its metadata (stat call) to check whether it is a directory; if a file is a directory, ls lists its contents rather than the directory itself.
When you press Ctrl+C, this won't interrupt the current NFS operation. You can't interrupt a filesystem operation just anywhere, as this could leave the system in an inconsistent state. Even reading a file might update its access time. Most of the time, an elementary read or write operation on a file is instantaneous by human standards, but NFS is an exception, especially with large amounts of data over a slow network.
Thus pressing Ctrl+C will only take effect:
if the shell is currently generating the list of file names, when that list is fully retrieved;
if ls has been started and is currently obtaining metadata about a file, when the server supplies the metadata;
if ls has been started and is currently listing a directory, when the list is fully retrieved, or at least after a chunk of it.
It's not the fault of the ls command (which may not even have been started yet). It's not even the shell's fault: it's NFS's fault. NFS is pretty slow.
A:
Hypothesis: traversing a directory over NFS is speculatively loading more data than you would expect at once. Way too much IO on the server side, causing a single NFS call to take >20s. mount with intr option might allow Ctrl-C to interrupt the in-flight call.
Google found a list of NFS calls which includes READDIRPLUS. Basically readdir + then stat for each file. Also getacl. In other words there's one NFS call that basically does ls -l (for a certain number of files). Instead of sending individual stat requests for each file.
Googling for nfs readdirplus - this looks quite plausible. First result is a (paywalled) bug report.
RHEL6: NFSv3 READDIRPLUS drastically slows down globbing over a NFS directory leading to performance problems
RHEL 6.2 with a standard mount, a glob in a directory containing over 3000 directories takes 218 seconds (nearly four minutes).
A mount of the same directory using the nordirplus option to disable the use of readdirplus calls, a glob on the same directory takes only 1.7 seconds
so that seems an interesting line of investigation.
EDIT: note that your example ls * is also a use of globbing. ls . would avoid the glob. If that makes a difference to your specific question, it could be because the globbing takes place in the shell, instead of ls, which might affect how the Ctrl-C is processed. I doubt it matters, but it just struck me as an interesting question.
|
Mitochondria-targeted redox probes as tools in the study of oxidative damage and ageing.
Mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative damage are associated with a range of age-related human pathologies. It is also likely that mitochondrial ROS generation is a factor in stress response and signal transduction pathways. However, current methods for measuring and influencing mitochondrial ROS production in vivo often lack the desired specificity. To help elucidate the potential role of mitochondrial ROS production in ageing, we have developed a range of mitochondria-targeted ROS probes that may be useful in vivo. This was achieved by covalently attaching a lipophilic cation to a ROS-reactive moiety causing its membrane potential-dependent accumulation within mitochondria. Mitochondria-targeted molecules developed so far include antioxidants that detoxify mitochondrial ROS, probes that react with mitochondrial ROS, and reagents that specifically label mitochondrial protein thiols. Here, we outline how the formation and consequences of mitochondrial ROS production can be investigated using these probes. |
Inhibition of avian myeloblastosis virus reverse transcriptase by diphosphates of acyclic phosphonylmethyl nucleotide analogues.
Diphosphates of N-(2-phosphonylmethoxyethyl) derivatives of heterocyclic bases were studied in the endogenous oligo(dT)12-18 primed reaction of reverse transcriptase from detergent-disrupted AMV(MAV) retrovirions. These diphosphates (analogues of nucleotide 5'-triphosphates) exhibited an inhibitory activity towards reverse transcriptase. This inhibitory activity was dependent on the character of the heterocyclic base and decreased in the order: 2-aminoadenine greater than adenine greater than guanine much greater than cytosine much greater than thymine greater than uracil. The 2-aminoadenine derivative was more potent than either AZT-TP or ddTTP, while PMEApp had approximately the same potency as the two reference compounds (IC50 approximately 1 microM at 20 microM competing substrate). This finding is consistent with the antiviral activity of the parent nucleotide analogues against retroviruses (including HIV). |
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