---
abstract: 'We investigate the magnetic response of meta-atoms that can be fabricated by a bottom-up technique. Usually such meta-atoms consist of a dielectric core surrounded by a large number of solid metallic nanoparticles. In contrast to those meta-atoms considered thus far, we study here for the first time hollow metallic nanoparticles (shells). In doing so we solve one of the most pertinent problems of current self-assembled metamaterials, namely implementing meta-atoms with sufficiently large resonance strength and small absorption. Both conditions have to be met for deep sub-wavelength meta-atoms to obtain effectively homogeneous metamaterials which may be meaningfully described by negative material parameters. Eventually we show that by using these findings self-assembled negative index materials come in reach.'
author:
- 'M. Fruhnert[^1]'
- 'S. Mühlig'
- 'F. Lederer'
- 'C. Rockstuhl'
title: 'Towards negative index self-assembled metamaterials'
---

Introduction
============

A requirement for many applications in the fields of metamaterials (MMs) and transformation optics is the availability of bulk materials that possess a strong response to the magnetic field in the visible and infrared (IR) spectral domain [@Capolino_CRC; @Yannopapas_JP; @Scharf_PRL; @Simovski_PRB]. Whereas quasi-two-dimensional structures [@Liu_Nat; @Reinhardt], i.e. meta-surfaces, are nowadays well-established and sustain such a magnetic response, it still remains a challenge to fabricate such materials as bulk structures with available top-down technologies. Consequently, bottom-up approaches have been suggested [@Capasso_OE; @Scharf_AM; @Barois_L; @Macdonald_AM] that directly provide bulk materials. However, the advancement of this field strongly depends on the identification of meta-atoms that provide a suitable optical response *and* which are amenable for a bottom-up fabrication.

Recently, it has been demonstrated that a highly isotropic magnetic response can be observed while relying on core-shell clusters as the meta-atom. These clusters consist of a dielectric core sphere covered by a huge number of plasmonic nanospheres forming an effective shell. At a particular frequency, an effective current can be excited in the shell flowing around the core sphere. This causes a scattered field identical to that of a magnetic dipole. There are multiple concepts of utilizing these core-shell structures as meta-metamaterials [@Dintinger_OME; @Yannopapas_prb; @Scharf_PRL], which consist of periodically arranged blocks build of meta-atoms, homogeneous core-shell spheres [@Paniagua_NJP; @Paniagua_SR; @Morits_JO] and core-shell clusters [@Alu_OE; @Capolino_OE; @Albani_OE; @Yannopapas_rrl; @Dionne_nl]. The main advantage of these core-shell clusters is their isotropic response when compared to ordinary meta-atoms such as split-rings [@Liu_Nat] or cut-plate pairs [@Wegener_OL]. Furthermore, these core-shell clusters can be fabricated by self-assembly techniques which allow to produce bulk materials at short time, large amounts, and low costs [@Muehlig_ACSN].

The important step from an isolated meta-atom with a magnetic dipole response (e.g. a single core-shell cluster) to a true MM, consisting of many and possibly densely packed meta-atoms, consists in assigning meaningful effective material parameters, e.g. an effective permittivity and permeability. Their unambiguous assignment, however, requires a local response to an external electromagnetic field and thus deep sub-wavelength meta-atoms. For cut-plate pairs it has been only recently shown that this can be achieved by the exploitation of an extreme coupling regime. As a result of this strong coupling the magnetic dipole resonance of cut-plate pairs could be shifted to the near IR while maintaining their small geometrical extensions [@Menzel_OL].

Moreover, a referential benchmark concerning material properties is the availability of a negative permeability. Although not being strictly necessary to obtain a negative index material, it is usually highly beneficial [@veselago]. A negative permeability is only in reach for a sufficiently strong magnetic resonance. Moreover, having such a resonance available the material may be even operated off-resonantly. This entails a reduced absorption whereas the dispersion remains sufficiently strong, such that all anticipated effects for a negative permeability appear much stronger and are less affected by absorption. Thus, the stronger the resonance the better. One solution to this problem is the incorporation of gain material into the unit cells [@Campione_ome]. However, since the experimental problems remain, solutions are highly desirable that only require a modification of the geometry of the meta-atom.

Here, we suggest potential solutions to these challenges. Specifically, we show how it is possible to shift the magnetic dipole resonance of core-shell clusters into the near IR while maintaining their spatial dimensions. To this end we exploit hollow metallic nanospheres as constituents of a novel meta-atom. This is in contrast to ordinary meta-atoms where primarily solid metallic nanospheres have been considered thus far. Our design reveals a magnetic response of a core-shell cluster with deep sub-wavelength dimensions. Moreover, thanks to the smaller radiation losses stipulated by the smaller size as well as the lower intrinsic absorption at near IR frequencies, this approach results in ultra-strong magnetic resonances and eventually in an effectively homogeneous and isotropic material with a negative permeability. By modifying the meta-atoms such that they equally sustain a sufficiently strong electric resonance at the same frequency, a negative index material can be eventually achieved.

With respect to a practical realization of these meta-atoms we also study the effect of disorder of the plasmonic nanospheres forming the shell. It is shown that our design is sufficiently robust against disorder, rendering its fabrication feasible with bottom-up and self-assembly methods.

Methodology
===========

![Silver shell nanoparticle. a) Geometry. b) Resonance frequency as a function of the inner shell radius $r_{\mathrm{i}}$ with a fixed outer radius $r_{\mathrm{o}}=15$ nm.[]{data-label="fig_shell"}](figures1){width="80.00000%"}

All numerical results presented in this work rely on a self-consistent solution to the scattering problem of light at an arbitrary number of spherical particles for a given external illumination. The spheres are allowed to be made form different materials and may have different size. Ultimately, not just bulk spheres are considered but more complicated radial geometries, i.e. spheres consisting of multiple shells of different materials, can easily be accommodated. A multi-scattering algorithm based on [@Xu] has been used for this purpose.

At its core, it solves the Mie scattering problem for an isolated sphere [@Muehlig_PRB]. To this end the total electromagnetic field outside the sphere is decomposed into an incident and a scattered field whereas the field inside the sphere is just the internal field. All these fields are expanded into vector spherical harmonics $\textbf{N}_{nm}(r,\theta,\phi)$ and $\textbf{M}_{nm}(r,\theta,\phi)$. For example the expansion for the scattered electric field reads as:

$$\begin{aligned}
\textbf{E}_{\mathrm{sca}} & (r,\theta,\phi,\omega)=\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\sum_{m=-n}^{n}k^{2}E_{nm}\cdot\\
 & \left[a_{nm}(\omega)\textbf{N}_{nm}(r,\theta,\phi,\omega)+b_{nm}(\omega)\textbf{M}_{nm}(r,\theta,\phi,\omega)\right].\nonumber\end{aligned}$$

Here, $k^{2}=\left(\omega^{2}/c^{2}\right)\E(\omega)\M(\omega)$ is the dispersion relation in the surrounding medium with the propagation constant $k$, the permittivity $\E(\omega)$ and the permeability $\M(\omega)$ .

The exact contribution of all these vector spherical harmonics to the respective field, expressed by the expansion coefficients $a_{nm}$ and $b_{nm}$, can be calculated by enforcing the boundary conditions to the angular components of the electric and magnetic field at the spherical surface. The expansion coefficients are known as the scattering coefficients. Closed form analytical expressions exist for single spheres and an extension towards spherical objects with radially varying material parameters can be easily performed.

Provided that the center of the coordinate system coincides with that of the core object the associated coefficients have an unambiguous physical meaning. The $a_{nm}$ coefficients express how electric multipole moments contribute to the scattered field, whereas the $b_{nm}$ coefficients determine the contribution of the magnetic multipole moments. For an even more intuitive physical interpretation, they can be easily transformed into Cartesian multipole moments [@Muehlig_meta]. Then, it can be seen that the $a_{1m}$ and $b_{1m}$ components with $m=-1,0,1$ emerge in the electric and magnetic dipole moments, respectively. From these dipole moments, the electric and magnetic polarizability $\alpha_{\mathrm{E}}$ and $\alpha_{\mathrm{M}}$ can be easily obtained by normalizing the dipole moments with the amplitude of the incident field. A scalar treatment for the polarizability is fully sufficient since the optical response will be isotropic. This polarizability can be used to calculate effective material parameters, as e.g. the effective permeability by using the Clausius-Mossoti equation \_()=\_ , \[eq\_CM\]

where $\M_{\mathrm{s}}=1$ is the permeability of the environment, $N$ is the filling fraction and $V$ the volume of the unit cell. Technically, our calculations have been performed with a fourth-order multipole expansion. Thus, in the numerical solution we are considering multipole contributions up to a 16-pole, though the dominating contributions to the scattering cross section are the dipole and quadrupole coefficients as we will see in Fig. \[fig\_multipoles\]. The basic building block of the present meta-atoms consist of spherical particles with a metallic shell and a hollow dielectric core. This is in contrast to the usually considered bulk spheres. We used experimentally determined values for the material parameters of silver [@Johnson_Christy] and $\E_\mathrm{s}=1.7$ for the dielectric core of the nanoshells. A bulk sphere made of silver possesses a resonance at about $850$ THz. There, a localized surface plasmon polariton (LSPP) is excited where the density oscillation of the free charges is resonantly coupled to the external electromagnetic field. This resonance at a relatively high frequency constitutes a problem to obtain sub-wavelength resonances for the final meta-atom. Therefore, this resonance has to be shifted to longer wavelengths to achieve a truly sub-wavelength structure. This is possible by using silver nanoshells. These shells exhibit a red-shifted resonance that is stronger the thinner the nanoshell will be [@Yannopapas_oqe; @Halas_S; @Halas_NL]. The red-shift occurs due to a hybridization of the LSPP that is supported at the interface between the metallic shell and the dielectric surrounding and the interface between the metallic shell and the dielectric core. In the following we consider nanoshells with inner and outer radii $r_{\mathrm{i}}$ and $r_{\mathrm{o}}$, respectively, as shown in Fig. \[fig\_shell\]a), in a dielectric environment with $\E_\mathrm{s}=1.7$.

The LSPP resonance frequency of a single nanoshell as a function of the inner shell radius $r_{\mathrm{i}}$ for a fixed outer radius $r_{\mathrm{o}}$ is shown in Fig. \[fig\_shell\]b). It can be clearly seen that the frequency down shift amounts to about $500$ THz while increasing the inner shell radius from $0$ to $14$ nm, thus decreasing the shell thickness. This is possible while retaining the outer dimensions of the particle. Even though it sounds challenging to fabricate such thin silver shells, they are nowadays available with nanochemical methods that are based on the deposition of silver ions on electrostatically charged particles [@liu] or galvanic replacement methods [@prevo].

In the following we exploit such tuneability to design deep sub-wavelength meta-atoms with a huge magnetic dipole response.

Core-Shell Clusters
===================

![a) Sketch of the core-shell cluster where nanoparticles are arranged on the surface of a dodecahedron. b) Real and imaginary part of the effective permeability of a core-shell structure made from solid silver nanospheres.[]{data-label="fig_coreshell"}](figures3){width="80.00000%"}

The referential design is a core-shell cluster with $60$ solid nanospheres because, based on previous experiences of self-assembled metallic spheres on dielectric cores, the number of particles has to be sufficiently large. Moreover, motivated by specific fabrication techniques that exploit electrostatic interaction between the metallic nanospheres (which is repulsive since the nanospheres can be made negatively charged) [@dong_chem], a reasonable assumption for the spatial arrangement of the nanospheres on the surface of the dielectric core is to arrange them in groups of pentamers at the facets of a dodecahedron, as sketched in Fig. \[fig\_coreshell\]a). In passing we note that this is just a referential nominal geometry and, of course, the eventual structure that is fabricated is not necessarily exactly characterized by such a geometry; although it resembles it closely. To take fully into account deviations from such nominal geometry, we consider later the effect of disorder on the design. The radius of the dielectric core sphere is $60$ nm and it has a permittivity of $\E_\mathrm{c}=2.25$. Initially we consider the nanospheres to be solid with a radius of $15$ nm. They consist of silver and the surrounding material is a dielectric with $\E_\mathrm{s}=1.7$.

From Fig. \[fig\_coreshell\]b) it can be seen that the magnetic dipole response of these clusters appears at $540$ THz. The effective permeability was calculated with the Clausius-Mossotti equation (\[eq\_CM\]), assuming a sufficiently large filling fraction of the bcc-lattice to ensure a significant effect. The permeability has a reasonable dispersion but the real part does not attain values less than $0.5$. The values compare to other designs that rely on solid nanospheres. In most cases this is insufficient for a negative index.

![image](figures2){width="80.00000%"}

Now the main idea consists in shifting the resonance of the polarizability to lower frequencies and to enhance its strength by replacing the solid nanospheres by silver nanoshells to form the core-shell cluster. As discussed above, the outer radius $r_{\mathrm{o}}$ of the nanoshells is kept constant while the inner one $r_{\mathrm{i}}$ is increased. This fully preserves the geometrical size of the core-shell cluster. The effect on the magnetic response for different inner radii is shown in Fig. \[fig\_waterfall\]a). Two effects can be recognized. First, and this is the expected one, the magnetic resonance shifts to lower frequencies into the IR. This is obvious, since the LSPP of the nanoshells dictates the resonance frequency of the effective current of the shell that causes the magnetic dipolar response. Second, the resonance features are sharpened upon this shift and additionally the permeability may eventually assume negative values. The stronger dispersion can be explained by the overall smaller relative size of the meta-atom, which lowers the radiative losses, and the reduced amount of metal in the nanospheres, which lowers the absorption. Note that this is only valid to some extend, because the loss can increase again in extremely thin shells due to the smaller mean free path of the electrons in the metal shell.

![image](figures4){width="\textwidth"}

Figure \[fig\_multipoles\] shows the scattering cross section of the core shell cluster with bulk and hollow nanospheres and the contributions of the different multipole moments. It can be recognized that the magnetic dipole resonance of bulk nanospheres is partially superimposed by higher-order resonances where the electric quadrupole contribution is of comparable strength. By contrast for thin silver nanoshells the sharper magnetic dipole resonance is well separated from the quadrupole contributions and the magnetic quadrupole resonance is additionally strongly suppressed. This allows for a stronger magnetic dipole response and a highly dispersive effective permeability of the structure.

Up to this point, we have shown that the magnetic response of core-shell clusters can be shifted to the IR regime in replacing solid nanospheres with nanoshells. The advantage is the reduced relative size of the cluster when compared to the resonance wavelength. In the best case this ratio is about $1/7$ which can be considered as sufficiently sub-wavelength. To motivate the practical realization of these clusters, we discuss in the following the effect of disorder on their response. If the performance is sufficiently tolerant against disorder, their fabrication by self-assembly techniques will be certainly attractive.

![image](figures5){width="\textwidth"}

Generally, the enforced order of the nanoshells promotes the excitation of a magnetic dipole moment. This is verified by investigating the magnetic response for disordered nanoshells. Figure \[fig\_waterfall\]b) shows how disorder affects the resonance. The disorder is enforced while imposing a normally distributed spatial displacement (quantified by $\sigma$) of each nanoshell with respect to its geometrical position on the dodecahedron. The disorder causes the resonance to get slightly weaker and broader, similar to a superposition of many resonances at different frequencies. We conclude from this analysis that if the accuracy is kept approximately below $1$ nm in the fabrication process, the response degrades only marginal and a negative permeability is preserved. This requirement may be achieved with self-assembly techniques exploiting electrostatic interaction.

Negative index material
=======================

As shown in the preceding sections, a negative permeability can be achieved with the present nanoshell configuration. If the negative permeability $\M$ is accompanied by a highly dispersive permittivity a negative refractive index can occur at that frequency. This can be achieved by an extension to the previous design: instead of a dielectric sphere a single gold shell particle serves as the core. This core exhibits a strong electric dipole resonance, thus a dispersive and possibly negative permittivity. With the core-shell cluster made of nanoshell particles and the central gold shell as core, numerous parameters can be varied and both resonances can be almost independently tailored such that they almost coincide. In Fig. \[fig\_nim\] the effective permittivity, permeability and refractive index, calculated with $n=\sqrt{\E\M}$, of the core shell cluster are displayed. Indeed, this optimized structure shows a negative refractive index in a certain frequency domain of about $10$ THz width, with values down to about $n=-0.8$. By changing the radii of the structure, we can shift the region of negative refractive index to different frequencies to a certain extent.

Conclusion
==========

A deep-subwavelength meta-atom that exhibits a strong magnetic dipole response has been designed. By starting from a core-shell cluster with a dodecahedron order for the solid shell nanospheres, this design has been further developed by considering nanoshells. It has been shown that the magnetic resonance can be tuned over a wide spectral domain while maintaining the size of the meta-atom. A further modification of the meta-atom where the dielectric core has been replaced by a gold shell provides additionally a strong electric dipole response. Thus, the combination of the resulting negative permeability and permittivity leads to a material with negative refractive index. Furthermore, the effect of disorder on the design has been investigated. Therewith, accurate design parameters for a possible fabrication of the presented core-shell clusters by self-assembly techniques could be derived. It is very likely that the use of metallic shells instead of solid particles constitutes a viable route to overcome some limitations of current self-assembled metamaterials. We are convinced that not just the structure presented in our work will benefit, but many other meta-atoms fabricated by self-assembly processes will equally turn out to be better in their performance while considering shells instead of solid nanospheres.

Acknowledgement {#acknowledgement .unnumbered}
===============

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research(PhoNa) and by the Thuringian State Government(MeMa).

[10]{}

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[^1]: martin.fruhnert@uni-jena.de


You know what's even more user-friendly?
Just clicking the little update icon in the bottom right corner, entering your root password, and clicking OK.

I know how your type likes to hate on everything Linux without having any clue what you're talking about, but seriously, upgrading your distro isn't rocket science.

In all fairness, fixing a broken update can, however, be close to rocket science:)
I use linux, and will continue to... But in this day and age, with all desktops going towards composite window managers, sucky nvidia drivers is a pain in the ass.
But it's a matter of luck when buying a laptop...

Or just paying attention and buying a laptop with AMD instead of Nvidia. I know it's unacceptable to make people actually look beyond the color of the laptop when they buy it, but it really needs to be done.

Right? People should learn they're better off having their hardware choices severely limited by their OS... Honestly, comments like this highlight why most users will never switch to Linux: the things you consider basic knowledge are things the average user never wants to even consider learning about. People who are primarily concerned with the color of their laptop do not know or care to know about the difference between AMD and nVidia, they want whichever comes in the white laptop and they just want it to work when they turn it on. You say they need to look at more, the thing is they really don't and there's no good reason they should have to.

I recently bought a Windows 7 for my old computer along with an SSD (which alone makes a massive difference). That should tide me over until Windows 9. Not going to bother with any Windows 8 version. I may not be a huge gamer, but until Linux is the default platform for developers, I do need a Windows somewhere.

I wish that were so... unfortunately Windows still has the Desktop userbase majority by a wide margin, and that doesn't seem to be changing despite Microsoft's many steps towards making computer owners' lives more difficult. "Windows Genuine Advantage" that limits your ability to change hardware in a computer running Windows, licensing confusion concerning running Windows in a Virtual Machine, version confusion ("home", "professional", "enterprise", "ultimate", etc), UI confusion with Metro and the Office

Windows 8.x is stable and in many regards is better than Windows 7. It's just that stupid metro front end which scuppers the experience and consequently people hate on it.

8.1 and the SR1 makes it just about tolerable but the most glaring omission is still the lack of a start menu. They could and should have a mini-metro popup that offers functionality analogous to the old start menu. Rumours suggest that one is being worked on but its not in this release.

Yes basically the article is saying that any major patches for Windows 8.1 in future will have a dependency upon prior patches being installed. In other words how it's always been since the beginning of time.

Tell him that M$ have done the same old, same old, attempted to correct their failures in the cheapest way possible by shoving the cost back on consumers. Can't get the upgrade to work, suck it up, format, re-install, repatch, re-upgrade and repatch and the restore you back up data, don't have backups, M$ answer to you, well, that's your fault for trusting their software.

I wonder what I'd prefer... clean crash along with the info that there will never be a patch to it, or a segfault where I will no later than 3 days later have a patch delivered... Decisions, decisions...

At least it fails gracefully with a clean error code. In Linux world it would show up as a dialog with corrupted text and a mysterious "Invalid argument" error message written in some log.;)

Mostly under Linux the error messages are useful to someone technical. Increasingly other OSes (Windows, OS X, iOS, Android) consider useful error mesages to be not user friendly and just give you a generic "something broke" error that is no use to man nor beast - frequently I'm left digging out tcpdump to diagnose customer's problems because the application itself won't give me any information (yes, even in the system log) - I shouldn't need to tcpdump their IMAP traffic to discover that the server is telling them their password is wrong damnit!

Apple doesn't support more than one version of iOS. If you want to fix a problem with 6.1.2, you get to go to whatever version is current (7.1). You don't get to go to 6.1.3, you don't get to go to 7.0.5 or 7.0.6, you go to 7.1. Your choice is "upgrade or don't."

And now we know why cars that have a metal value of a few bucks cost thousands, while operating systems can still be found in the three digit range. Of course they can be engineered to the same level of stability and security as cars, but first of all, nobody will pay 10,000 for an OS unless he is a government and doesn't give a shit about money, and second you wouldn't get it sold since your competitor came out with his OS that looks and feels about the same and is a shoddy piece of junk that kinda-sorta r

Windows Server 2012 Datacenter, which is the server version of Windows 8.1 costs $6,155 basic so what's the excuse now? Your argument also falls down because Linux costs nothing and there has been no mass migration to that.

WIndows 2012 R2 Standard is the server version of Windows 8.1. Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8.

Windows 2012 (and 2012 R2) Datacenter is not a version, it is a licensing option for virtual environments. The Standard version contains all functionality. The price for the Standard version is $882 (list - two physical CPUs).

Windows has for many years now used a multiple-tier support strategy (the Windows Lifecycle policy [microsoft.com]). Microsoft supports an OS for 10 years, and during that period if they issue a service pack then they support the previous sub-version of Windows for 2 years. Windows 8.1 Update is about 30% of a service pack; the update contains a number of feature enhancements and on a code level it becomes a "base" OS that all future updates are built against. So unlike a normal security update, you can't skip Windows 8.1 Update and still get other security updates. This in turn can be interpreted as a violation of the Lifecycle Policy, as it's functionally a service pack and therefore Microsoft should continue providing security updates for Windows 8.1 (sans Update) for 2 years.

iOS on the other hand offers no such policy. You are expected to use the most recent version of the OS and Apple has never said any differently, full stop.

Never mind the huge difference between an OS for a disposable device, and an OS for computers that is expected to last for a decade or more and is interfaced with massive amounts of custom hardware and software. Unsurprisingly, the type of device and the expected use case for it is a big factor in how long an OS is supported and how OS updates are handled.

Yes, apple want you to upgrade to iOS 7, but if you don't want to (or can't because your hardware is too old) they still provide security patches for iOS 6.

The last update was iOS 6.1.6 in Feb:

6.1.6 was only released for devices that cannot run iOS 7. If you have a device that can run iOS 7, you had to upgrade to iOS 7 in order to get the important security fix, even if the device had iOS 6.x at the time. There was never an iOS 6.1.6 released for iPad 2 or 3, for example.

If they had released an iOS 6.1.6 for iPad 2/3, it would've allowed downgrading from iOS 7.x to iOS 6.x then jailbreaking, something Apple hates with a passion.

If I read it right, the problem is that a number of users are having issues with installing Update 1 and have yet to find solutions... While that really is a problem, I feel that the headline here was meant more to get people bashing some more.

They make things so confusing, whoever makes these decisions are the ones that should be fired from Microsoft! Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update 1. Just name the damn thing 8.2 or Service Pack 1 that everyone is familiar with. Then to top it off Windows 8.1 isn't getting any more updates!!!

Then you have a pro version, this version and that version!

Sorry but life is much more simpler in the Mac world! 10.9.0.....10.9.1....10.9.2.......etc. Then you have Delta Updates that are the point releases and Combo updates that will update you from the 10.9.0 to the latest version say 10.9.9 in one download and one install. Then you don't have 200 updates to download and install.

I think the Microsoft way is superior as you can install/uninstall individual updates incase of problems, but its too complicated!

Life is also simpler in the Mac world because there isn't a triple.NET update every couple of weeks. And the.NET updaters seem to take a lot more time than regular patches. How badly do you have to fuck up a language runtime library to make it need monthly updates? And I'm not talking about just adding new features to the latest one, like with Java. This is.NET 1.x 2.x and 4.x all getting constantly patched.

if you have wsus without ssl, it works fine after importing the update from the catalog.

i don't see the need of ssl on an internal small server, anyway even with ssl you can enable tls 1.2 manually and it will work.

this article is also misleading, since the update itself is a regular update and not labeled "update 1" or even a service pack, but on every windows version out there there are updates that depend on other updates, especially service packs, so nothing new here.

The 1980s called and would like their "my firewall stops ALLLL the hackerz!" approach to security back.

On the server providing updates to all your Windows systems? Thank goodness you have no authority over my network. All the guys on my team get regular reminders about the importance of defense in depth.

Of course SSL isn't anywhere close to bulletproof. Just like a firewall isn't bulletproof. Anti-malware/anti-rootkit applications aren't bulletproof. NIDS/IPS and HIDS aren't bulletproof. All those things together, however, raises the bar for an attacker to successfully locate and exploit a vulnerability and remain undetected. The less of those kinds of things you have in place (and appropriately configured/monitored/alarming/etc), the lower that bar.

Can't tell you how many times I've received the "well if they got this far, it's game over anyway" response, and it's been bullshit every single time. SSL isn't a magic cure-all; it's one of many, many different layers, each of which raise the bar of complexity and difficulty of successful, undetected penetration. Is SSL a super powerful security layer? No, but why take away something that's trivial for you to set up and maintain and which creates additional work for an attacker?

Microsoft only support the current service pack level and all those less than 24 months old for Windows Client and Server.That's the agreement they've given to their customers.They will drop support for 8.1 in 24 months time.

Since there's nothing inherently wrong with Windows 8.1 besides the awful UI, I can't figure why you'd downgrade to Windows 7. Or are you telling me that you can't install another UI and go on your way? I now await people to say that's it's worse than vista, when it's not. Especially when it's main negative feature is the UI.

Speak for yourself. I run both Windows 8 and Windows 7 machines, and my Windows 7 machines are demonstrably more stable and less buggy than my Windows 8 one. (Note: I say one because I've had such a piss-poor experience with Windows 8, which rapidly degrades in performance to the point of near-unusability. And even straight out of the box with a fresh install, it likes to do things such as take multiple *minutes* before task manager appears on a core i5 machine with 8GB of RAM and 50% CPU utilization or les

Speak for yourself. I run both Windows 8 and Windows 7 machines, and my Windows 7 machines are demonstrably more stable and less buggy than my Windows 8 one.

So do I. I actually haven't run across an OS quite as stable as this since Win2k, probably my favorite version of windows. My follow up would be XPx64. If it's taking *that* long on a fresh install, you've got something else going on wrong on your system, either ram timings, spread spectrum, or something esoterically weird going on. I've seen exactly that type of issue before in Win7 and XP, and each case it was something different anything between windows itself trying to remotely grab a driver and get

It sounds like a bad driver or hardware enumeration. But, yes, if windows takes more than a few seconds to get to a login on a SSD based machine (so, what 30-40 seconds on a spinner?) then it's a hardware problem. W8, once I restored the start menu, is no less stable or responsive than my W7 machine. Most of my complaints are over install of OEM versions of the OS that aren't auto-authorized by the bios (most of my machines are Dell, and the Dell OEM OS just installs; no games, no keys, no mess).

But there is. They broke the integrity of the core packaging system by marrying it so deeply to.NET that there are multiple people out there who have to reinstall the OS from scratch because the update broke the package registry irreversibly.

Funny, I didn't hear people bitching and moaning over that when they did the same thing with.net 3.5 in windows 7....which did exactly the same thing.

How is this any different than MS stating in the past that updates required a certain Service Pack in order to be installed. It's worded very poorly, since everyone is going to assume the worst when you say 'Windows 8.1'. Mainly because they're not calling them service packs anymore or incrementing the updates. Windows 8.1 Update 1 would make more sense to people if they simply called it Windows 8.2.

Why not go back to the old SP system and stop this mess of a new update system where some stuff is in the windows store and others is in the windows update system.

As for this not working for all does it have any thing to do with 8.0 to 8.1 being more like a full os upgrade then an SP? and why did make the 8.1 iso not take Windows 8 product keys?

MS needs to go back to how it used to be with XP, vista, 7. Where it's not lot's of separate updates it is rolled up on to big install that has it all or least offer that as a choice not only for people who say have 2-4+ pc's and don't want to have re download the same updates on each pc but in some cases that combo updates work better.

Windows 8.0 was installed on this machine, and it sucked immensely. Then a couple of months ago I got an upgrade to Windows 8.1 courtesy of Windows update, and it hardly sucked at all. Then, a couple of days ago I got my old Windows 8.1 upgraded to new Windows 8.1, and I know it is different because now apps have the big red "X" back in the right hand corner of the window and you can terminate them while they are running. Awesome! At this rate Windows 8.1 will turn into Windows XP around Labor Day. Maybe the boys will rediscover POP3 email at some point.

I installed the update at work - it worked. I installed the update on my old PC - it worked. Tried to install it on my current PC - failed, after taking something like 20 minutes. It then took another half-hour to revert the changes. (On those machines where it worked, it took only 5 minutes or so to install).

Digging around online showed that fiddling around on the command line with dism might help. The online image is corrupted but it's repairable... that is, until you try and use/restorehealth, at which point it moans that there are no sources. Of course there aren't, it was upgraded to 8.1 from 8.0 via the online store.

So, after faffing around and grabbing an install.wim from an old 8.1 iso I had saved at work (not the 8.1 update 1 iso currently on the MS website) I find that dism won't use the image, even after mounting it.

I couldn't then even attempt to reinstall the update, as it failed immediately. Dism was called upon again to remove the update package, then at least it would let me try again... only to fail. Another 45 minutes wasted.

It looks as though the only way to "fix" it is to nuke Windows entirely, then go through the painful 8.0 > 8.1 > 8.1 with Media Center route. Except, of course, to get Media Center reinstalled you have to buy it again - there's no option I can see to re-enter your Meda Center key again because, guess what, when you upgrade to Media Center your Windows product key is changed. And a Windows 8.1 with Media Center key isn't accepted by the 8.1 iso (or at least wasn't when I tried earlier)...

You can upgrade by installing Windows Me, then Vista Ultimate, then enable start menu, disable start menu, 8.0 SP1, Windows ME again but holding ALT-F5 until BSOD appears, then quickly insert the 3.5 floppy with 8.1 patch on it (if you didn't keep a floppy drive.. oh you're so screwed!).

8.1 has received a substantial service release that fixes bugs and enhances the UI (slightly). Why should they support the older version any more? That doesn't excuse them from ensuring the upgrade process is smooth and trouble free but I understand why they are doing this.

This whole thread is absurd, as are all the people jumping on the "bash MS" bandwagon.

* Microsoft will continue to support 8.1, and everyone here KNOWS that.
* Everyone knows that because Microsoft has a bigger problem with having to support old platforms than any other vendor out there. Many posters here generally know this, too, but are being obtuse so that they can harp about Microsoft ending support for a new platform (which isnt even remotely believable).
* The author of the blog even knows that! The Microsoft technet entry says almost the opposite of what the blogger does-- that 8.1 WILL recieve updates. All he got right is that you do need to install a prereq to get them, like we've seen with countless other OSes. The venerable XP does this, too.
* Half the people gloating over the "bugginess of Windows" are fans of an OS that is experiencing one of the biggest internet vulnerabilties in about a decade in its SSL stack, but thats OK in their eyes somehow because its not packaged with the OS and therefore theyre allowed to be buggy.
* Some people are taking the time to smirk about the confusing version numbering of Win8-- which is doubly hillarious given how ridiculous Linux's versioning was until about a year ago.
* And if I had to guess, the aforementioned problems could possibly be related to the aforementioned heartbleed bug, as we dont know what all was leaked and Microsoft is almost certainly not going to want to go into it.

The SSL flaw has been fixed and rolled out very quickly, it was not the first and will not be the last. How many known Security flaws for windows, IE and many other Microsoft products are out there, unfixed?

Could you explain why "Microsoft has a bigger problem with having to support old platforms" than anyone else? They seem to have vast resources and should actually be able to react quicker than others.

Arguing that Microsoft is "bad" because theyre not FOSS (which is really what you are driving at) is irrelevant. Everyone knows they ship proprietary software, but that has no relevance either to this story or to the quality of their code. As we've seen, OpenSSL has a bug that has been hemorrhaging private keys and passwords for days while the closed-source Schannel has not seen such a bug.

Ideological spiels about how Windows sucks simply because its proprietary are really getting kind of old. If you don


CBF Statement onAmerican Farm Bureau Federation Lawsuit

(ANNAPOLIS, MD)—The Chesapeake Bay Foundation issued these statements concerning the American Farm Bureau Federation's announcement that they intend to file a lawsuit today against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), also known as the Bay pollution budget.

CBF President Will Baker said:

"The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is extremely disappointed that the Farm Bureau has chosen to sue EPA rather than work together to help address pressing water pollution problems in the Chesapeake Bay, identified by Presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama as a national treasure.

"This action by the Federation is not pro-farming action but anti-clean water. The TMDL process has been underway for years, considered agricultural interests repeatedly, and reflected changes due to their concerns. The choice to sue at this point is but another disappointing example of the Farm Bureau's role as a high-powered lobbying group intent on misrepresenting the facts and frustrating the process of cleaning up the Bay and its rivers, contrary to the wishes of many of its members.

"CBF has repeatedly reached out to the farming community to address areas of mutual interest. Clean water is important to farmers, their families, and their livestock. Litigation will be long and costly for all involved and will likely do nothing but frustrate progress—perhaps the Farm Bureau's real intent, in spite of rhetoric saying they support clean water.

"Many farmers have embraced practices that will address water pollution. They, along with sportsmen and sportswomen, see benefits to local streams and their own well water, as well as the Bay downstream. Furthermore, many of these practices also improve the farm's bottom line.

"Reducing pollution to meet the Bay's pollution diet will require all to do their part. The Farm Bureau argues that the TMDL is inequitable; however their lawsuit is an attempt to evade their responsibility and shift additional obligations to reduce pollution to sewage treatment plant ratepayers and urban and suburban jurisdictions.

"Perhaps the Farm Bureau sees a need to fight government for some internal political reason. Perhaps this has nothing to do with good agronomic practices. If so, that is truly a sad statement about the self appointed leadership of a sector of society which calls itself the original environmentalists.

"CBF will review the pleading and consider intervening in the case."

(RICHMOND, VA)—Ann Jennings, CBF Virginia Executive Director added:

"There is a real disconnect between Farm Bureau leaders and rank-and-file Virginia farmers. Having worked with Virginia farmers for the past decade, we've found so many are more than willing to implement the basic conservation practices necessary to clean up streams, rivers, and the Bay. Such practices not only produce clean water but also improve the health of farm animals, help the farmer's bottom line, create jobs, and boost the local economy. That the Farm Bureau would challenge what's good for farms, good for the economy, and good for the Bay is out of step and counterproductive."

"Many of the agricultural improvements identified in the Pennsylvania Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) involve moving farmers toward compliance with existing state water quality laws. Pennsylvania has approximately 40,000 farms in the Bay watershed, but only about half are fully compliant. The Bay TMDL is a positive step forward for farmers that will bring everyone into compliance, create a level field, and encourage profitability by improved farm management, conservation, and innovation."

(ANNAPOLIS, MD)—Kim Coble, CBF Maryland Executive Director added:

"Maryland is asking of farmers no more than it is asking of municipalities, homeowners and business owners—take steps necessary to restore and protect the Bay. Maryland farmers, for the most part, have been committed to this goal and are willing to do their part. Many of them also realize a sustainable farm can be a more profitable farm. It's counterproductive for the Farm Bureau to challenge what is good for farms, good for the economy, and good for the Bay."

Find out how fencing cattle out of streams can reduce pollution and improve herd health in CBF's publication Herd Health.


How to compare Java Number instances – J048

Transcript – How to compare Java Number instances

We need to know how to compare Java Number instances. It’s different than how you compare number primitives in Java.

In this lesson we’re going to look at comparing Java Number instances. For starters, since Numbers are objects, we can’t use the regular arithmetic operators. When we use the primitive operators with objects, we’re comparing the instances – not the values inside the instance.

Be careful, because sometimes you’ll get tricked into thinking you’re comparing instances. For example if we create two Integers, both with the value of 10, an equality comparison will equal true. Java’s doing some sneaky stuff behind the scenes, and this fails for larger integers. Java just caches the Integer instances from -127 to 128. Lesson learned, the arithmetic operators are comparing instances.

When we want to see if two Integer values are equal, the best option is use the equals() method. This is the same equals() method we saw in earlier class tutorials.

If we’re comparing the values of two Integers, we want to get the value out like this using the intValue() method. This returns the value as a primitive. Then we can use any of the regular arithmetic operators.

Java has a standard way for sorting objects. In order to sort object values, Java needs one method to compare objects.

The first compare method we’ll look at is compareTo(). This method is part of the interface Comparable. A comparable object is capable of comparing itself with another object. The reason to implement the Comparable interface is for sorting lists of objects, in our case lists of the Integer class. The Comparable interface expects a method with the same signature as compareTo(). The parameter is always the same object type.

In the Integer class, compareTo() expects another Integer. The method returns 0 if they are equal, -1 if the Integer is smaller than the Integer provided as a parameter, and 1 if the Integer is greater. This is used in the sort method for most collections. We call sort, and the collection will sort the group of objects using the compareTo() method.

Here’s how we’d sort an array of Integers. Define our array. Then use the Arrays class and call the sort method. Our array is now sorted. The sort method just takes an array of Objects, so how does it know how to sort our Integers? It’s using the compareTo() method.

Finally there is a method to compare two integers as if they were unsigned. When Java was created, for better or worse, they didn’t include unsigned numbers. They thought unsigned numbers were too complicated and not really needed. In Java 8, they changed their minds. It was too late to add a new primitive type, so they kinda smashed a weird solution into the Integer and Long classes using static methods. So we have a compareUnsigned method.

This method compares two Integers as if they were unsigned. That means the sign bit is also used for the magnitude. The catch is we’re still using Integer instances. The numbers are still signed values, they just added methods that pretend the value is unsigned. We’ll need more methods to access the bits of the Integer values. We’ll look at unsigned numbers and bit manipulation using the Integer class in the next tutorial.

If you have any questions about comparing Java number class instances, add them to the comments below. Next we’ll look at bit manipulation in the Java Number classes. If you liked this video, please like it and share. That helps get the video in front of more views. You’ll also want to make sure you sign up for the DeegeU newsletter. I’ll send the newsletter out once a month, and it will contain the month’s videos, plus tips and news not contained in the videos!

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DJ Spiess

Your personal instructor

My name is DJ Spiess and I'm a developer with a Masters degree in Computer Science working in Colorado, USA. I primarily work with Java server applications. I started programming as a kid in the 1980s, and I've programmed professionally since 1996. My main focus are REST APIs, large-scale data, and mobile development. The last six years I've worked on large National Science Foundation projects. You can read more about my development experience on my LinkedIn account.


By Stephen Hadland Observer Publisher Police shot and wounded a man Friday afternoon outside a convenience store in Culver City after he pointed a shotgun at them, authorities said. After receiving a...

A section of Culver Boulevard between Sepulveda Boulevard and Elenda Street is going to get a makeover, with bike path improvements, median landscaping, new lighting, bio-swales, and new turn lanes....

Culver City fire fighters along with Santa Monica and Beverly Hills Fire formed a strike team to assist with the Colby Fire in the San Gabriel Mountains last week. Officials said the strike team was...

Culver City police participated in a sting where 18 illegal contracting suspects were cited in Culver City. Investigators from the Contractors State Licensing Board made the announcement on Thursday....

By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Since 2010 homelessness among veterans has fallen by 24% across the country according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A recent assessment by...

SACRAMENTO – Do you have questions about general driving related requirements like registration, licensing and insurance? Are you unclear about laws and restrictions related to driving? The Californ...

The Culver City High boys basketball fans were treated to an early Ocean League showdown between the Centaurs and visiting Santa Monica High last Friday night in Del Goodyear Gymnasium. But to their...

By Fred Altieri Observer Reporter Home cookin' was all the Culver City High girls basketball team needed to get back on the winning track as they matter-of-factly took down their first two opponents...

Following a comprehensive and deliberative candidate selection process, the Culver City Chamber of Commerce has announced it has endorsed incumbents Jim Clarke and Jeff Cooper in the upcoming Culver...

In order to promote its sport the National Hockey League began having an annual outdoor game a few years ago. Known as the Winter Classic, the Kings and Ducks will play at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 25....

For many of us who grew up in or were familiar with the tri-state area encompassing the Delaware Valley of Philadelphia north into New York/Newark, New Jersey and southeast into Delaware, the 1980's...

January 14th through the 20th. Car Burglary: On January 14at 4:00 pm, a victim came to the station to report that her 2004 Volkswagen was burglarized. The victim said she parked and locked her car in...


Without nurses hospitals would not be able to function properly. Nurses are responsible for a very large portion of what goes on in a hospital which requires a lot of hard work and attention to detail. Not only that, but you are on your feet 8-12 hours a day and are always on the go. [&hellip


Erotomania revisited: clinical course and treatment.
Erotomania is a rare disorder in which an individual has a delusional belief that a person of higher social status falls in love and makes amorous advances towards him/her. Little is known about the background, classification, treatment, or outcome of individuals with this disorder. The purpose of this study was to evaluate current criteria for diagnosing and classifying primary and secondary erotomania in addition to examining course, outcome, and impact on victims of erotomania. Semistructured interviews covering personal and family details in addition to treatment and outcome to date were performed on a series of erotomanic patients identified in a defined area. Evaluation of diagnosis used DSM-IV and other criteria. Fifteen erotomanic subjects (11 female, four male) were identified. Most were isolated, without a partner or full-time occupation. Forty percent had a first-degree relative with a psychiatric history and of those half had a first-degree relative with a mono-delusional disorder. Less than half of the objects of their affection, mainly noncelebrities, were subject to harassment. Subjects with primary erotomania and erotomania secondary to other psychiatric diagnoses were identified using DSM-IV criteria. Ellis and Mellsop's criteria were found to be useful in assessing erotomania but we could not replicate Seeman's fixed and recurrent groups. Treatment and outcome was better than expected particularly for those with primary erotomania and erotomanics with a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder. In this series, erotomanic symptoms largely occurred in the context of other psychiatric disorders, although subjects with pure erotomanic symptoms were seen. Subjects were less dangerous and engaged in less harassment of victims than the literature suggests. Subjects were often isolated, unemployed, and with few social contacts. Strong family psychiatric histories were seen particularly with regard to mono-delusional disorders raising the possibility of genetic inheritance. An adaptation of Ellis and Mellsop's criteria was suggested for the diagnosis of primary and secondary erotomania. Response to treatment and prognosis was good, particularly for primary erotomania and erotomania secondary to bipolar affective disorder.


News of the day from across the globe, Dec. 15

Chronicle News Services

Updated
8:10 pm PST, Sunday, December 14, 2014

1Congo drownings: At least 129 people died after a boat sank on a lake in a remote corner of southeastern Congo, authorities said Sunday. Laurent Kahozi Sumba, the transport minister for Katanga province, said the true toll of the disaster is not known — 129 bodies have been recovered, and there are 232 known survivors. Many boats in Congo carry far more people and cargo than are listed. The sinking of the MV Mutambala is believed to have happened early Friday. The private boat connected towns in Katanga and South Kivu provinces. An investigation is under way.

2Cuba conference: The left-leaning Alba regional economic and diplomatic bloc is marking its 10th anniversary in Havana, where it was founded. Presidents Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Evo Morales of Bolivia joined President Raul Castro of Cuba for festivities Sunday. Foreign ministers from other bloc-member countries are also attending. The meeting comes amid tumbling oil prices that are pressuring cash-hungry petroleum exporters such as Venezuela. The Boliviarian Alliance, known as ALB, tries to counter U.S. influence in the region and was created in 2004 by the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

3Bond script: The producers of James Bond films have acknowledged that an early version of the screenplay for the new movie “Spectre” was among the material stolen in a major online attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. The producers said in a statement that they are concerned that third parties who received the screenplay might seek to publish it — and warned the material is subject to copyright protection around the world. The warning was issued by Eon Productions, the British affiliate of Danjaq LLC, the U.S. company that co-owns, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, the copyright to the Bond films and their merchandising. There’s been speculation that North Korea is behind the online attack.

4Democracy rallies: Hong Kong police pulled down barricades Monday and folded up tents at the third and final pro-democracy demonstration camp, putting an end to rallies that have blocked traffic in the city’s streets for 2½ months. A small group of rally leaders chanted “We will be back” and called on Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive, to step down. The protesters rejected Beijing’s plan to screen all candidates in elections for Hong Kong’s top leader but failed to win significant concessions from the government.

5Norway spying: Police say they have warned politicians about possible eavesdropping of cell phone calls after several listening devices were reportedly found in central Oslo, including near government buildings and Parliament. Siv Alsén from the security police said the National Security Authority has begun an investigation. Her comments Sunday came after media reports that illegal listening and tracking devices were found in fake mobile base stations, which could be used to monitor calls and data.


Koo Bon-moo of LG group chairman arrives during the President political scandal parliament hearing at national assembly in Seoul, South Korea.

The chairman of South Korea's LG Group, Koo Bon-moo, instrumental to transforming the country's fourth-largest conglomerate into a global brand, passed away on Sunday after a year-long battle with brain disease.

LG Group said in a statement Koo, 73, had been ill for a year.

A group official said Koo had been fighting a brain disease and had undergone surgery. The official declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

"Becoming the third chairman of LG at the age of 50 in 1995, Koo established key three businesses - electronics, chemicals and telecommunications - led a global company LG, and contributed to driving (South Korea's) industrial competitiveness and national economic development," LG said.

Under Koo's leadership, the conglomerate changed its corporate brand to LG from Lucky Goldstar and sold LG's semiconductor business to Hyundai, now SK Hynix Inc, under government-led restructuring in the wake of the Asia financial crisis in the late 1990s.

Major affiliates are LG Electronics Inc, display maker LG Display and electric car battery maker LG Chem.

Prior to its chairman's death, LG Group had established a holding company in order to streamline ownership structure and begin the process of succession.

The country's powerful family-run conglomerates are implementing generational succession amid growing calls from the government and public to improve transparency and corporate governance.

LG Corp, a holding company of the electronics-to-chemicals conglomerate, said on Thursday its longtime chairman was unwell and planned to nominate his son to its board of directors in preparation for a leadership succession.

Heir apparent Koo Kwang-mo is from the fourth generation of LG Group's controlling family. He owns 6 percent of LG Corp and works as a senior official at LG Electronics.

The senior Koo's younger brother, the group's vice chairman Koo Bon-joon, who led LG Electronics for many years, effectively managed the conglomerate in his stead.

South Korean prosecutors said this month they raided LG Group's head office as part of a probe into alleged tax evasion by family members controlling the conglomerate.

Analyst do not see a change at the helm being disruptive to the group's business.

"Although Koo passed away at a relatively early age, his son has been already in a senior position and I don't think there will be a big change in governance structure or strategic decisions," said Park Ju-gun, head of corporate analysis firm CEO Score.

The company said Koo's funeral would be held privately at the request of the family.


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/*
 * Copyright Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License").
 * You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * A copy of the License is located at
 *
 *  http://aws.amazon.com/apache2.0
 *
 * or in the "license" file accompanying this file. This file is distributed
 * on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either
 * express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing
 * permissions and limitations under the License.
 */

/*
 * Do not modify this file. This file is generated from the email-2010-12-01.normal.json service model.
 */
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;

using Amazon.Runtime;
using Amazon.Runtime.Internal;

namespace Amazon.SimpleEmail.Model
{
    ///
    /// Container for the parameters to the SendBounce operation.
    /// Generates and sends a bounce message to the sender of an email you received through
    /// Amazon SES. You can only use this API on an email up to 24 hours after you receive
    /// it.
    ///
    ///  <note>
    /// <para>
    /// You cannot use this API to send generic bounces for mail that was not received by
    /// Amazon SES.
    /// </para>
    ///  </note>
    /// <para>
    /// For information about receiving email through Amazon SES, see the Amazon
    /// SES Developer Guide.
    /// </para>
    ///
    /// <para>
    /// You can execute this operation no more than once per second.
    /// </para>
    ///
    public partial class SendBounceRequest : AmazonSimpleEmailServiceRequest
    {
        private List<BouncedRecipientInfo> _bouncedRecipientInfoList = new List<BouncedRecipientInfo>();
        private string _bounceSender;
        private string _bounceSenderArn;
        private string _explanation;
        private MessageDsn _messageDsn;
        private string _originalMessageId;

        ///
        /// Gets and sets the property BouncedRecipientInfoList.
        /// <para>
        /// A list of recipients of the bounced message, including the information required to
        /// create the Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs) for the recipients. You must specify
        /// at least one BouncedRecipientInfo in the list.
        /// </para>
        ///
        [AWSProperty(Required=true)]
        public List<BouncedRecipientInfo> BouncedRecipientInfoList
        {
            get { return this._bouncedRecipientInfoList; }
            set { this._bouncedRecipientInfoList = value; }
        }

        // Check to see if BouncedRecipientInfoList property is set
        internal bool IsSetBouncedRecipientInfoList()
        {
            return this._bouncedRecipientInfoList != null && this._bouncedRecipientInfoList.Count > 0;
        }

        ///
        /// Gets and sets the property BounceSender.
        /// <para>
        /// The address to use in the "From" header of the bounce message. This must be an identity
        /// that you have verified with Amazon SES.
        /// </para>
        ///
        [AWSProperty(Required=true)]
        public string BounceSender
        {
            get { return this._bounceSender; }
            set { this._bounceSender = value; }
        }

        // Check to see if BounceSender property is set
        internal bool IsSetBounceSender()
        {
            return this._bounceSender != null;
        }

        ///
        /// Gets and sets the property BounceSenderArn.
        /// <para>
        /// This parameter is used only for sending authorization. It is the ARN of the identity
        /// that is associated with the sending authorization policy that permits you to use the
        /// address in the "From" header of the bounce. For more information about sending authorization,
        /// see the Amazon
        /// SES Developer Guide.
        /// </para>
        ///
        public string BounceSenderArn
        {
            get { return this._bounceSenderArn; }
            set { this._bounceSenderArn = value; }
        }

        // Check to see if BounceSenderArn property is set
        internal bool IsSetBounceSenderArn()
        {
            return this._bounceSenderArn != null;
        }

        ///
        /// Gets and sets the property Explanation.
        /// <para>
        /// Human-readable text for the bounce message to explain the failure. If not specified,
        /// the text will be auto-generated based on the bounced recipient information.
        /// </para>
        ///
        public string Explanation
        {
            get { return this._explanation; }
            set { this._explanation = value; }
        }

        // Check to see if Explanation property is set
        internal bool IsSetExplanation()
        {
            return this._explanation != null;
        }

        ///
        /// Gets and sets the property MessageDsn.
        /// <para>
        /// Message-related DSN fields. If not specified, Amazon SES will choose the values.
        /// </para>
        ///
        public MessageDsn MessageDsn
        {
            get { return this._messageDsn; }
            set { this._messageDsn = value; }
        }

        // Check to see if MessageDsn property is set
        internal bool IsSetMessageDsn()
        {
            return this._messageDsn != null;
        }

        ///
        /// Gets and sets the property OriginalMessageId.
        /// <para>
        /// The message ID of the message to be bounced.
        /// </para>
        ///
        [AWSProperty(Required=true)]
        public string OriginalMessageId
        {
            get { return this._originalMessageId; }
            set { this._originalMessageId = value; }
        }

        // Check to see if OriginalMessageId property is set
        internal bool IsSetOriginalMessageId()
        {
            return this._originalMessageId != null;
        }

    }
}


Hurtubise: Imagine your life without a proper bathroom

In Canada, it is easy to take your toilet for granted – lock the door, do your business and flush. Yet, more than 2.3 billion people in the world still have nowhere decent to go to the toilet.

Why should we care?

Because the alternative to providing safe, decent toilets is a world where millions of people defecate in the open and get sick. Not only is this a fundamental indignity, it has far-reaching consequences that we often don’t fully understand or seldom talk about.

But stigma and taboos around toilets and sanitation must be challenged.

Out of Order: State of the World’s Toilets 2017, a report released by WaterAid for World Toilet Day, shows that almost one in three women and girls live without access to a decent toilet. Of them, 446 million women around the world have no choice but to defecate in the open, and millions more use toilets that are not hygienic or safe. Picture a rickety latrine hanging over a cliff.

For those women who must defecate in the open, going to the toilet means shame or worse, the possibility of being attacked. Such gender-based violence often goes unreported due to fear and humiliation.

What’s more, taboos regarding women’s sexual and reproductive health mean that these issues are often not discussed by governments, communities, women and men.

Share

Toilets around the world

WORLD-TOILET-DAY-PACKAGE
This photo taken on November 12, 2017 shows the historic public toilet at the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leasure in Moscow. AFP is presenting a worlwide photo theme on public toilets ahead of the United Nations World Toilet Day on November 19, 2017 as some 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste according to the UN. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 by the UN, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. / AFP PHOTO / Mladen ANTONOVMLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images
MLADEN ANTONOV, AFP/Getty ImagesMLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images

WORLD-TOILET-DAY-PACKAGE
This photo taken on November 14, 2017 shows a man walking into a public toilet at Hangang park in Seoul. AFP is presenting a worlwide photo theme on public toilets ahead of the United Nations World Toilet Day on November 19, 2017 as some 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste according to the UN. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 by the UN, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. / AFP PHOTO / JUNG Yeon-JeJUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images
JUNG YEON-JE, AFP/Getty ImagesJUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images

WORLD-TOILET-DAY-PACKAGE
This photo taken on November 10, 2017 shows Indian youths using a mobile toilet facility at a park in Hyderabad on November 10, 2017. AFP is presenting a worlwide photo theme on public toilets ahead of the United Nations World Toilet Day on November 19, 2017 as some 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste according to the UN. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 by the UN, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. / AFP PHOTO / NOAH SEELAMNOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images
NOAH SEELAM, AFP/Getty ImagesNOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images

WORLD-TOILET-DAY-PACKAGE
This photo taken on November 09, 2017 shows an Indian man walk past public urinals in Hyderabad on November 8, 2017. AFP is presenting a worlwide photo theme on public toilets ahead of the United Nations World Toilet Day on November 19, 2017 as some 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste according to the UN. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 by the UN, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. / AFP PHOTO / NOAH SEELAMNOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images
NOAH SEELAM, AFP/Getty ImagesNOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images

WORLD-TOILET-DAY-PACKAGE
This photo taken on November 15, 2017 shows a public toilet in the Kosovo capital of Pristina. AFP is presenting a worlwide photo theme on public toilets ahead of the United Nations World Toilet Day on November 19, 2017 as some 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste according to the UN. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 by the UN, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. / AFP PHOTO / Armend NIMANIARMEND NIMANI/AFP/Getty Images
ARMEND NIMANI, AFP/Getty ImagesARMEND NIMANI/AFP/Getty Images

WORLD-TOILET-DAY-PACKAGE
This photo taken on November 9, 2017 shows a public rest room at Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California, November 7, 2017. AFP is presenting a worlwide photo theme on public toilets ahead of the United Nations World Toilet Day on November 19, 2017 as some 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste according to the UN. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 by the UN, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. / AFP PHOTO / Robyn BeckROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
ROBYN BECK, AFP/Getty ImagesROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

WORLD-TOILET-DAY-PACKAGE
This photo taken on November 12, 2017 shows a public toilet in Berlin. AFP is presenting a worlwide photo theme on public toilets ahead of the United Nations World Toilet Day on November 19, 2017 as some 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste according to the UN. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015 by the UN, include a target to ensure everyone has access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners. / AFP PHOTO / John MACDOUGALLJOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images
JOHN MACDOUGALL, AFP/Getty ImagesJOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images

Living without a toilet also has a negative impact on a child’s ability to get a good education, especially girls. Girls often drop out of school when they don’t have a safe and private toilet to stay clean and manage their periods. It’s also hard to attract and retain teachers in schools where there isn’t any decent sanitation.

A lack of decent toilets also affects pregnant women and their babies. One-fifth of stunting begins in the womb because mothers are malnourished. Hookworms, which can be spread by open defecation, cause diarrhea, anaemia and weight loss in women and are linked to low birth weight and slow child growth.

Not surprisingly, inadequate facilities in the workplace can affect a woman’s ability to earn a livelihood. Imagine not having a toilet at work. A study in Bangladesh showed that women miss up to six days of work per month when they don’t have toilets. By closing the gender gaps in the workforce, which includes a lack of access to toilets, we could add as much as $28 trillion to global annual GDP by 2025.

This is the daily reality for millions of women and girls the world over.

If we consider the incredible liberties we enjoy in this country, this reality is incomprehensible.

Having to find a safe place to relieve oneself in the open is undignified and unsafe. Everyone deserves access to a decent toilet. But access to clean water, decent toilets and basic hygiene empowers women and girls.

Canada’s new Feminist International Assistance Policy is centred on advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. By addressing the most basic of indignities and providing clean, safe toilets, Canada can help transform the lives of the poorest and marginalized, especially women and girls.

Comments

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RE: SORT_AREA_SIZE parameter

10M is enough to completely exhaust the virtual memory on the box. 2M is
enough to completely exhaust the *physical* memory on the box. The key
process is slowing down due to extreme paging I/O. Take a look at "top"
or similar utility and see if there's a huge disparity between the total
process size and the resident size or use iostat to look for heavy I/O to
the swap partitions. There's also vmstat but which statistic to use
varies by OS, OS version, and who wrote the last white paper you read.

If it is a paging/memory problem, here's my quick & dirty suggestions:

If you're using a *NIX and not using raw volumes for datafiles look at
using a mount option that tells the OS to bypass the file buffer cache for
that filesystem. (On Solaris it's "forcedirectio", Veritas has a similar
concept but it's something like mincache or convsync) This prevents
double buffering of file pages in RAM and can help if the machine is close
to paging. Since you're removing what amounts to a secondary cache
behind Oracle's buffer cache, make sure db_block_buffers is adequate
first.

Is your SGA too big? Letting the OS decide what pages need to be in
memory is *WAY* less efficient than letting Oracle decide what blocks need
to be in the SGA.

Shutdown ancillary process on the server and/or get more RAM.

As for the ORA-03232, check out 75183.1 and 125271.1 on Metalink. The
HASH_AREA_SIZE (which is derived from SORT_AREA_SIZE) needs to "fit" the
TEMP extent size.

S-

On Fri, 23 May 2003, Craig Healey wrote:

> Thanks for the replies. I've had to set the parameters back to their> starting positions (SORT_AREA_SIZE=64k, SORT_AREA_RETAINED_SIZE=64k).> I still don't understand why this parameter caused the problem. Guess> I'll have to find time to RTFM. I *think* the temp tablespace next> extent size is 10M. Maybe I need to look at that too. That'll be the> ORA-03232 error I tried to correct. Oh well, Monday is a bank holiday,> so I don't have to think about it for 3 days :-)>> Craig>

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also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


The British government has decided it can mitigate the risks arising from the use of Huawei Technologies in 5G networks, the Financial Times reports, citing two sources familiar with the conclusion of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre.

The conclusion reached by Britain would "carry great weight" with European leaders, the FT reported on Sunday, citing a source.

"Other nations can make the argument that if the British are confident of mitigation against national security threats then they can also reassure their publics and the US administration that they are acting in a prudent manner in continuing to allow their telecommunications service providers to use Chinese components as long as they take the kinds of precautions recommended by the British," the source told the newspaper.

Huawei, along with another Chinese network equipment company ZTE Corp,, has been accused the US of working at the behest of the Chinese government. The US has said their equipment could be used to spy on Americans.

Huawei has repeatedly denied the claims.

Earlier this month, the chief of Britain's foreign intelligence service said Britain should avoid relying on a monopoly provider of equipment in new 5G mobile networks, but that there were no easy answers to concerns about using Huawei.

Separately, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada in December and faces possible extradition to the US. Last month, she was charged with wire fraud that violated US sanctions on Iran.

Huawei and the National Cyber Security Centre did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.


An elderly couple was trapped when a tree fell on their car during a sudden downpour in Brooklyn.

A tree cracked in half and fell on an elderly couple’s car as they tried to park during an afternoon downpour.

The couple was driving down West Street in Gravesend at about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday when the wind and rain snapped the tree, sending it crashing down onto their Hyundai sedan — just steps from their home.

Emergency personnel had to pull the couple from the car.

The wife was taken to Coney Island Hospital for minor injuries, according to the FNDY. The husband was uninjured.


Differences in practice characteristics of capitation and PPO provider dentists.
This article is the last in a series of three articles compiling the results of the 1995 Managed Care Marketplace Information Survey conducted by the ADA Council on Dental Practice. It addresses practice characteristics of dentists participating in capitation and preferred provider organization plans.


Act Now! last week for WAH

September 23, 2011

A minute of your time, hope for a lifetime

Greetings!

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UNHED sTATEs DISTRICT coURr c%iirri§l fill -'izi=iiil§"§ §§"fi‘;',g§]§§§/
FoR THE Dlsrklcr oF coLumBlA ' a

Kevin Fennick, )
Plaintiff, §
v, § Civil Action No.
The State of l\/lassachusetts, §
Defendant. §
MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter is before the Court on review of plaintiff’ s pro se complaint and application
to proceed in forma pauperis The C0urt will grant plaintiff s application and dismiss the
complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Fed. R. Civ. P. l2(h)(3) (requiring the court
to dismiss an action "at any time" it determines that subject matter jurisdiction is wanting).

Plaintiff is a resident of Boston, Massachusetts, suing the State of Massachusetts for $175
million in damages. The Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution immunizes a state from
suit in federal court, unless immunity is waived.' See College Sav. Bank v. Florz`da Prepaid
Postsecondary Ea'uc. Expense Ba’., 527 U.S. 666, 675-76 (1999); Keenan v. Wash. Metro. Area
Trcms. Auth ’y, 643 F. Supp. 324, 327-28 (D.D.C. 1986) (citing cases). A waiver is found "only
where stated ‘by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the test

as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable construction.’ ” Morris v. Wash. Melro. Area

' The amendment provides in pertinent part: "[t]he judicial power of the United States
shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against
one of the United States by Citizens of another State." U.S. Const. amend. XI. lt is established
that this amendment applies equally to suits brought by citizens against their own States. See
Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 662-63 (1974); Hans v. Louz`sz`ana, 134 U.S. l, 13-15 (189()).

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Trans. Auth ’y, 781 F.2d 218, 221 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (intemal citations omitted). Plaintiff has not
a11eged, and the complaint does not reveal, a basis from which the Court may find a waiver of

Massachusetts’ immunity. Therefore, the complaint will be dismissed. A separate Order

Q»ox»%»»/\

TL__ United States Di§ti"lct Judge

__(:, 2012

accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.

July