Dengue is the most important reemerging mosquito-borne viral disease worldwide. It is caused by any of four Dengue virus types or serotypes (DENV-1 to DENV-4) and is transmitted by mosquitoes from the genus Aedes. Ecological changes have favored the geographic expansion of the vector and, since the dengue pandemic in the Asian and Pacific regions, the infection became widely distributed worldwide, reaching Brazil in 1845. The incidence of dengue in Brazil has been frequently high, and the number of cases in the country has at some point in time represented up to 60% of the dengue reported cases worldwide. This review addresses vector distribution, dengue outbreaks, circulating serotypes and genotypes, and prevention approaches being utilized in Brazil.
Dengue is an arthropod-borne disease caused by the Dengue virus (DENV) [ 1 ]. DENV is an enveloped, single-stranded, positive-strand RNA virus, member of the genus Flavivirus in the Flaviviridae family. It is transmitted from human to human through the bite of mosquitoes of the genus Aedes [ 2 ]. DENV transmission by transfused blood is rare; however it indeed occurs and has been documented in Brazil [ 3 ].
There are four distinct but antigenically related types or serotypes of DENV (DENV-1 to DENV-4). The outcomes of infection by any of the DENV types range from asymptomatic, subclinical to symptomatic infections [ 4 – 7 ]. Symptomatic infections vary from a mild, flu-like illness known as dengue fever (DF) to a life-threatening form called severe dengue (SD) [ 8 ]. Severe dengue was previously known as dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF)/dengue shock syndrome (DSS) [ 8 ].
The onset of DF is sudden, characterized by high fever accompanied by intense frontal headache, fatigue, retroorbital pain, myalgia, arthralgia, and rash. SD is defined by an increase in vascular permeability (“plasma leakage”), hemorrhagic manifestations, and decreased platelet counts near the time of defervescence, which may progress to clinical hypotension and shock [ 6 , 9 – 11 ]. In the absence of supportive care, SD fatalities may occur in approximately 4% of cases [ 1 , 10 ]. Thrombocytopenia is commonly observed in both DF and SD as a result of platelet activation and apoptosis, triggering platelet clearance [ 5 , 12 ].
To date, there is no effective vaccine or specific antiviral therapy for dengue. Early diagnosis and appropriate management of SD, including hospitalization, prevent fatalities [ 13 ]. Laboratory diagnosis of dengue is based on the detection of the virus and antibodies to the virus or combined detection of antigens and antibodies by serology (detection of specific IgM and IgG anti-DENV) [ 14 ], detection of the NS1 antigen of the virus, virus isolation in susceptible mosquitoes or in mosquito or mammalian cell lines, and nucleic acid detection tests (end-point PCR, TaqMan, and other nucleic acid detection assays) [ 15 – 18 ]. The detection of NS1 using ELISA is a sensitive method (>90%) for identification of primary DENV infections. In secondary infections, the sensitivity ranges between 60 and 80% [ 19 , 20 ]. However, the test is not sensitive enough for blood donor screening. Some NS1 ELISA has low sensitivity for DENV-4 and it has contributed to the failure of reporting epidemiological data concerning DENV-4 cases in Brazil [ 21 , 22 ].
While there has been no definitive association of the distinct DENV types with clinical course of disease, there are reports suggesting that DENV-2 and DENV-3 cause severe disease more frequently than the other serotypes and that DENV-4 causes a milder illness [ 23 , 24 ]. DENV-2 was the most prevalent serotype in several outbreaks in the Americas [ 6 ] and was epidemiologically classified as the most relevant serotype worldwide due to its association with the highest number of intense outbreaks, followed in sequence by DENV-3, DENV-1, and DENV-4 [ 25 ].
Knowledge about the pathogenesis of dengue infection is limited, but both viral and immune host factors appear to be associated with severe illness [ 26 ]. Nevertheless, the involved DENV type and the host genetic makeup may explain some differences in clinical manifestations observed, since genetic polymorphisms appear to provide protection or predispose to more severe forms of dengue [ 27 ].
Studies carried out in epidemic regions led to the generation of hypotheses about the development of SD [ 28 ]. They include antibody-mediated pathogenesis [ 4 ], host cytokine storms [ 29 ], host genetic factors [ 24 ], characteristics of virus isolates [ 30 – 32 ], viral load in the acute phase [ 33 , 34 ], and the host nutritional status [ 35 ]. DENV can interact with dendritic cells, monocytes/macrophages, hepatocytes, and endothelial cells leading to the release of immune mediators during SD [ 31 , 36 , 37 ]. However, how the production of these cytokines is induced and their role in dengue pathogenesis are still not clear.
The global dengue pandemic appears to have begun in the Asian and Pacific regions where the first epidemic of dengue was reported, in 1779-1780 [ 38 ]. Ecological changes occurring since that time probably favored the geographic expansion of the vector and its increase in density. The high number of susceptible individuals (local populations, soldiers) and their widespread movement probably created conditions that facilitated the dispersion of the viruses [ 39 , 40 ]. A number of complex factors contributed to the emergence and reemergence of dengue, as, for instance, population growth and unplanned urbanization associated with poverty and health inequality [ 40 , 41 ].
The number of cases of DF and SD has steadily increased worldwide, and dengue infections have spread to new areas of the world, such as North America and Europe [ 42 ]. The disease is endemic in more than 100 countries, and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that over 40% of the world's population is at risk of dengue, with 50–100 million dengue infections reported worldwide every year [ 1 ]. However, Bhatt et al., 2013 [ 43 ], using new modelling approaches, estimated that 390 million dengue infections (apparent and unapparent) occur per year, three times higher than previous WHO estimates.
In the Americas, 1,173,248 suspected dengue cases were reported in 2014, of which 341,192 were confirmed by laboratory tests; 16,008 cases were reported as severe dengue and 684 deaths occurred due to the infection [ 44 ]. As demonstrated in a recent review, Brazil presented the fifth highest incidence of DF among Latin American and Caribbean countries from 1995 to 2009 [ 45 ]. Between the countries of the Southern Cone—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay—Brazil had the highest incidence rate of dengue: 294.02/100,000 inhabitants in 2014 [ 44 ].
Brazil is composed of 5 geographical regions, shown in Figure 1 and Table 1 . In 2014, the Southeast region reported the majority of suspected cases in the country (312,318 cases; 52.8%), followed by the Midwest (114,814 cases; 19.4%), Northeast (90,192 cases; 15.3%), North (49,534 cases; 8.4%), and South (24,222 cases; 4.1%) ( Table 1 ; Figure 1). This geographical trending has been previously observed, with the Southeast region presenting the highest number of cases and the South region the lowest ones ( Figure 2). However, when comparing incidence/100,000 inhabitants, the Midwest region presents the highest numbers ( Figure 2) due to population size ( Table 1 ). Only a few states had an increase in the number of cases in 2014 compared to 2013: Acre, Tocantins, São Paulo, and Distrito Federal. Between the 10 municipalities with higher number of cases reported, 5 are located in the state of São Paulo [ 46 ].
Brazil is considered a tropical country in its entirety because of its hot and humid climate which provides a receptive and highly favorable environment for proliferation of the dengue vector. The different climate zones have differences in the rain dynamics in the areas of the coastal strip, altitude variation, and so forth. DENV activity occurs throughout the year, but the majority of outbreaks and the highest levels of vector infestation show a marked seasonal pattern, occurring during the Brazilian rainy season, from December to May, which are also the hottest months of the year [ 47 ].
The scope of this review includes the epidemiological situation of dengue in Brazil, the temporal-spatial distribution of outbreaks, serotype and genotype distribution, geographical distribution of vector, and an analysis of measures that have been or could be taken to address this problem in the country.
Dengue has been present in Brazil since 1845, when the first epidemic was reported in the state of Rio de Janeiro ( Figure 3) [ 48 ]. Other epidemics were registered during the years 1851–1853 and 1916–1923 [ 49 ]. The mosquito eradication program to prevent urban yellow fever, coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), functioned successfully to keep Brazil free of Aedes aegypti until 1976. After that, the first evidence of a dengue epidemic was in 1981, when dengue cases occurred due to reinfestation of urban areas of Brazil by Ae. aegypti [ 47 , 48 ]. This epidemic took place in the state of Roraima ( Figure 3) and was caused by DENV-1 and DENV-4 ( Table 2 ) [ 50 ]. It was the first laboratory and clinically reported dengue outbreak in Brazil with the presence of both serotypes [ 48 , 50 ]. Nevertheless, the disease only received proper attention in 1986 and 1987, after DENV-1 was introduced into Rio de Janeiro [ 6 , 47 , 51 , 52 ] ( Figure 3). More than a million individuals from Rio de Janeiro were infected with DENV-1 [ 52 ]. DENV-1 was also responsible for epidemics in Ceará and Alagoas states in 1986 and in Pernambuco state in 1987 [ 53 ].
DENV-2 spread across the country after its first identification in 1990 in the state of Rio de Janeiro ( Figure 3), where the first cases of SD were documented [ 26 , 47 , 52 , 54 ] and 8 deaths due to SD were registered [ 46 ]. Both DENV-1 and DENV-2 have been possibly introduced in Brazil from Africa [ 49 ].
During the 1990s, the spread of DENV-1 and DENV-2 intensified and outbreaks affected Southeast and Northeast states [ 55 – 57 ] ( Table 2 ). A total of 1,696 and 7,374 cases of dengue were reported in 1992 and 1993, respectively, but no deaths were attributed to dengue in these years. All cases occurred in the Southeast region with exception of the state of Espírito Santo [ 46 ].
In 1994, 12 states of Brazil documented cases of the disease: Tocantins, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Alagoas, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Distrito Federal, with the highest incidence rate in the Northeast region (112.2 cases/100,000 inhabitants). During the 1990s, the highest incidence rate of dengue (313.8 cases/100,000 inhabitants) occurred in the year 1998 [ 46 ]. In 1999, 50% of Brazilian municipalities had already reported DF cases and Ae. aegypti had been detected in 64% of them and only the states of Acre and Distrito Federal did not document cases of dengue [ 52 ].
DENV-3 first appeared and caused an outbreak in the state of Rio de Janeiro in December 2000 [ 58 ] ( Figure 3), with 3,220 dengue cases reported. In 2002, DENV-3 caused one of the largest outbreaks ever reported in Brazil (696.472 cases/100,000 inhabitants) in the state of Rio de Janeiro, with 288,245 reported cases and 91 deaths [ 47 , 52 , 53 , 59 , 60 ].
Between 1981 and 2006, 4,243,049 dengue cases were reported in Brazil, including 5,817 cases of SD and 338 fatalities. The highest number of reports came from the Northeast and Southeast regions [ 59 ]. One of the states of the Northeast region, Pernambuco, had from 1995 to 2006 approximately 380,000 DF cases, 612 DHF cases, and 33 deaths reported [ 61 ].
From 2002 to 2006, the most prevalent serotype in Brazil was DENV-3. In the following years, between 2007 and 2009, DENV-2 was responsible for the majority of cases [ 62 ]. From 2000 to 2007, Brazil alone accounted for more than 60% of the world reported cases of dengue. Dengue epidemics occurred in different regions of the country and cases of DENV-1, DENV-2, and DENV-3 were reported in all states [ 57 , 63 , 64 ].
Between 2007 and 2008, DENV-2 caused an intense outbreak in the state of Rio de Janeiro with a higher number of severe cases (954 and 15,730, resp.) and fatalities (41 and 263, resp.) than previous outbreaks, primarily among children and adolescents [ 6 , 64 ]. In these 2 years, 851 deaths due to severe dengue were registered in the country [ 46 ]. In 2008, approximately 80% of the cases reported in the country occurred in the Southeast and the Northeast regions [ 62 ]. In 2009-2010, over a million suspected cases of DF and 665 deaths were reported in Brazil, with DENV-1 accounting for most of the cases [ 62 ]. However, in 2009 in the state of Espírito Santo in the Southeast region, DENV-2 was the predominant type between the 53,708 cases notified, followed by DENV-1 [ 65 ].
The 2010 dengue epidemic in Brazil was characterized by several outbreaks in 21 states, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Bahia, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins, Acre, Pará, Roraima, Goiás, Rondônia, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Piauí, and Ceará, and by cocirculation of all serotypes, with DENV-4 reemerging in the northern region of the country after 28 years of absence [ 66 ] ( Figure 3, Table 2 ). Thereafter, DENV-4 was reported in the states of Amazonas, Amapá and Pará [ 67 ], São Paulo [ 68 ], and Rio de Janeiro [ 69 ]. Currently, 100% of dengue cases in the states of Rondônia, Amazonas, Piauí, and Paraíba, all with incidence rate over 100 cases/100,000 inhabitants, are due to DENV-4. Overall, in Brazil the current most prevalent DENV types are DENV-1 (83.3%), followed by DENV-4 (15.1%), DENV-2 (1.3%), and DENV-3 (0.3%) [ 46 ].
Epidemiologic studies performed in Brazil during 2005 and 2008 demonstrated that dengue affected predominantly adults and usually occurred in cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants [ 47 , 60 ]. Nevertheless, the profile of dengue outbreaks in Brazil is changing and current data underscore a different epidemiological pattern, wherein an increased proportion of severe cases occur among children [ 70 , 71 ] and in low population density areas [ 52 ]. During the 2007 epidemic, 40% of dengue cases came from municipalities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants [ 52 ], and more than 50% of cases were in children younger than 15 years of age [ 70 ]. The same pattern occurred in Ceará state: in 2007 the majority of hospitalized cases due to SD were in children <15 years of age; in 2008, DF incidence was highest (599.4 cases/1000,000 inhabitants) among children <10 years of age [ 71 ].
Between the years 2000 and 2006, the ratio of DF/SD cases reported in Brazil was 467.7, considerably higher than that reported during the same period in Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico, becoming the highest ratio in the continent [ 72 ]. However, the lethality ratio of dengue in Brazil was 0.01% and mortality per 100,000 inhabitants was 0.03, both from 1995 to 2009 [ 45 ]. Still, the diagnoses of severe dengue, the number of hospitalized cases, and the number of deaths attributed to dengue have increased during the past 10 years [ 47 ] ( Figure 4).
When compared to 2012, there was a decrease in the number of cases compared with 2011 but in 2013 the incidence increased by 190% [ 73 ]. According to this data, in 2013, 1,468,873 cases were reported in Brazil, of which 6,969 were severe cases, with 545 deaths [ 46 ]. In 2014, the Brazilian Ministry of Health had reported to PAHO 591,080 cases of dengue for an incidence rate of 291.5/100,000 inhabitants and 410 deaths. It represents a decrease of 39% of deaths in relation to the same period in 2013 [ 44 , 46 ]. As of April 2015, the Brazilian Ministry of Health has registered 1,254,907 notified cases of dengue, representing an increase which is more than twofold compared to that of 2014, and it is being considered a new epidemic in the country, with 530 deaths due to SD (53% more compared to the same period of 2014) [ 46 ].
The observed clinical manifestations of dengue may include neurological, hepatic, and cardiac involvement as described in Brazil and other countries of the Americas and in Southeast Asia [ 52 ]. Neurological manifestations of DENV include reduced levels of consciousness, severe headaches, neck stiffness, focal neurological signs, tense fontanels, and convulsions [ 74 ]. The pathophysiology is attributed to factors, such as cerebral edema, cerebral hemorrhage, hyponatremia, and fulminant hepatic failure with encephalopathy, cerebral anoxia, microcapillary hemorrhage, and release of toxic products [ 23 ]. Some authors state that dengue infection should be considered a possible cause of encephalitis in endemic regions [ 74 , 75 ]. During the outbreaks of 1997 and 2002, there were reports of 41 cases with neurological manifestations in the state of Pernambuco. Encephalitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, convulsions, meningoencephalitis, and reduced levels of consciousness were the most common manifestations [ 76 ].
Severe dengue is not necessarily associated with secondary infections. Disease severity appears to be determined by many risk factors, including the strain virulence and host immunity [ 10 , 52 , 60 ]. Concerning the differences of severity between Brazilian individuals, the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene, which mainly encodes the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and class II molecules, has been appointed as a possible marker of susceptibility to dengue disease. A recent study of dengue patients in Recife, Brazil, showed a significant association of MHC I and MHC II molecules encoding the alleles HLA-B ∗ 44, -B ∗ 50, and -DR ∗ 16 with increased susceptibility to SD [ 77 ]. The link between HLA class I alleles and SD was found among patients from Rio de Janeiro with association of SD with the HLA-A ∗ 01 allele and a potential protective role of the HLA-A ∗ allele in SD [ 78 ].
In addition to frequent outbreaks, an increased genetic diversity of DENV may have contributed to severe consequences such as an increase in pathogenicity, transmissibility, and virulence properties [ 79 ]. Genetic diversity allows enhancement of viral replication following heterologous infections due to limited cross-reactive immunity [ 80 ]. The four DENV types are known to be genetically distinct from each other, and each one has genetic variations classified as subtypes or genotypes [ 81 ].
DENV-1 has five distinct genotypes, designated I to V [ 62 , 80 ]. The genotype V of DENV-1 was identified in the years 2009-2010 in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo, in Southeast of Brazil. The circulating strains of genotype V were grouped into a clade (lineage II) that was distinct from the clade represented by earlier Brazilian DENV-1 strains (lineage I). Another distinct clade (lineage III), identified in samples from Rio de Janeiro in 2010 and 2011, showed similarity to strains isolated in 2007 and 2008 in Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico [ 62 ].
DENV-2 comprises six genotypes: Asian I, Asian II, Southeast Asian/American, Cosmopolitan, American, and Sylvatic genotypes [ 62 , 65 , 81 ]. The Sylvatic genotype represents strains from humans, arboreal mosquitoes, and nonhuman primates collected in West Africa and Southeast Asia [ 80 ]. Strains from the Southeast Asian/American genotype were isolated during epidemics periods in 1990 and 1998 in Rio de Janeiro [ 26 , 82 ]. In 2010, DENV-2 isolates circulating in the cities Guarujá and Santos, in the state of São Paulo, clustered within the Southeast Asian/American genotype. This is the same genotype that circulated in Rio de Janeiro in 2007-2008 and in Espírito Santo in 2009 [ 26 , 65 , 82 , 83 ]. These observations suggest that the genetically different viruses detected in Rio de Janeiro could have resulted from local evolution of DENV-2 since its introduction in 1990 [ 82 , 83 ]. Indeed, DENV-2 strains circulating in Brazil belong to separate Southeast Asian/American genotype lineages: lineage I, circulating from 1990 to 2003, and lineage II for strains isolated after 2007 [ 83 ].
DENV-3 has five genotypes designated I to V by phylogenetic analysis based on different viral gene regions [ 80 , 84 ]. The majority of Brazilian samples are grouped with genotype III [ 85 ] but genotype I was isolated between 2002 and 2004 in the state of Minas Gerais and later detected in Ae. aegypti mosquitoes and eggs [ 86 ]. This genotype was associated with a fatal case [ 87 ]. DENV-3 strains isolated during 2006 and 2007 outbreaks in the city of São José do Rio Preto in the state of São Paulo fell within genotype III and grouped with Brazilian isolates from different regions in different years, including samples from Acre in 2004 and Rio de Janeiro in 2002 [ 85 ]. Four distinct lineages of DENV-3 genotype III have been identified in Brazil (I to IV); however only lineages I and II seem to have become effectively established and disseminated in the country [ 88 ].
DENV-4 has four genotypes: I to IV, where genotype IV is the only Sylvatic DENV-4 strain isolated from sentinel monkeys in Malaysia [ 80 , 89 ]. Genotype II predominates in Brazil. It was introduced into the Americas (Caribbean region) around 1978 [ 67 ]. Sequence analyses performed with samples of DENV-4 from São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul revealed that all samples were of genotype II and grouped with samples from the Caribbean and northern South America [ 90 ]. In addition, genomic and envelope protein phylogeographic analyses showed that DENV-4 genotype I was isolated in 2011 in the city of Salvador, in the state of Bahia, and appeared to originate from mainland Southeast Asia [ 67 ]. DENV-4 genotype I infecting Aedes aegypti have been also described in the city of Manaus, in the state of Amazonas [ 91 ].
Introduction of new DENV genotypes may have facilitated the increase in clinical severity of dengue infections observed in more recent dengue epidemics [ 81 ]. Table 3 shows the DENV genotypes known to circulate in Brazil.
Dengue is transmitted mainly by Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus. Both vectors are adapted to the peridomestic environment where they feed on humans and domestic animals and oviposit in a variety of natural and artificial water holding containers [ 86 , 92 – 94 ].
The efficiency of transmission depends on vector competence which is defined as the susceptibility of a mosquito to become infected and subsequently transmit the virus through the bite [ 95 ]. Ae. albopictus is more susceptible than Ae. aegypti to midgut infection by DENV. However, a smaller proportion of Ae. albopictus develops disseminated infection when compared to Ae. aegypti, suggesting that DENV dissemination by Ae. albopictus is less efficient [ 93 ].
Between the 1950s, 1960s, and most of the 1970s, epidemic dengue was rare in Central and South America because Ae. aegypti had been eliminated from most of the countries in the continent. The eradication program organized by PAHO was discontinued in the early 1970s, and the mosquito was reintroduced in countries from which it had been previously eradicated [ 96 ].
In Brazil, Ae. aegypti has been responsible for dengue transmission since the early 1980s. Ae. albopictus was introduced in Brazil in 1986 [ 93 , 94 ] and is present in all Brazilian states [ 97 ]. Ae. albopictus is not considered as a vector of DENV in the country and has not been associated with dengue epidemics [ 93 , 97 , 98 ]. However, the occurrence of vertical transmission of DENV-2 and DENV-3 in Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus has already been observed in Fortaleza [ 94 ] and raises questions about the potential for transmission of DENV by Ae. albopictus in Brazil. Indeed, studies in the state of Rio de Janeiro have shown that Ae. albopictus was the dominant species in discarded tires used as traps [ 99 , 100 ].
The continuous global expansion of Ae. albopictus is a serious concern as it may play a role in the maintenance of DENV in nature [ 95 ] and alter the transmission dynamics of many arboviral diseases increasing the risk of mosquito-borne viral infections among humans [ 101 ].
A major example is Chikungunya fever (CHIK), a disease caused by an arthropod-borne virus, the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), which often cocirculates with DENV in their respective endemic regions. CHIKV reached the Americas in December 2013, causing outbreaks that now affect 44 territories throughout the Americas with more than 1.2 million suspected cases reported to PAHO [ 102 , 103 ]. More than 1,000,000 suspected cases, 24,375 laboratory-confirmed cases, and 178 deaths were reported to PAHO between 2013 and 2014 [ 102 ]. The Brazilian government has reported three imported cases of CHIK in 2010 [ 104 ]. 3,195 CHIK autochthonous cases have been reported in Brazil from which 2,196 were confirmed as of January 2015 [ 46 ].
Dengue epidemics causing mostly dengue fever attributed to transmission by Ae. albopictus have occurred in Asia (Japan, China, Maldives Islands, and northern Taiwan), Africa (Seychelles Islands), Oceania (La Reunion Island), and Hawaii. Major epidemics of severe dengue have only occurred in areas where Ae. aegypti is found [ 93 ].
Many factors support proliferation of Ae. aegypti and consequently the sustained transmission of mosquito-borne diseases in Brazil, including the climate, high human population density in large cities, precarious socioeconomic status, and lack of infrastructure, particularly adequate sanitation [ 52 , 72 ]. Meteorological conditions and seasonal variations may affect the distribution and abundance of the vector [ 72 ]. As an example, rainfall affects mosquito abundance positively through the creation of new breeding sites [ 105 ]. The vector in turn is able to adapt to new environmental situations that affect dengue epidemiology [ 52 ].
An initial report of Ae. aegypti occurrence in Brazil in 2014 shows the following percentage of municipalities at risk, based on the Breteau Index (density of mosquito larvae): 32.7% in the North, 34.3% in the Northeast, 8.4% in the Southeast, 5.8% in the Midwest, and 32.5% in the South region [ 46 ]. It is important to observe that, even with a low percentage of municipalities at risk, the Southeast region presented a dengue incidence rate of 366.9 cases/100,000 inhabitants in 2014 ( Figure 2). The appropriateness of larval indices for population monitoring has been questioned because their relationship with adult Aedes densities heavily depends on larval mortality [ 106 , 107 ], but the Breteau Index continues to be used by the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
No safe and effective vaccine for dengue is currently available. Therefore, the control of DENV infections relies solely on vector control. In this context, some prevention measures have been adopted in Brazil, such as development and implementation of public awareness campaigns to educate the population with the aim of reducing the availability of Ae. aegypti breeding sites. Insecticide application [ 52 ] and monitoring systems of Aedes larvae and eggs, as well as mosquito adults, have also been used [ 108 , 109 ].
Health professionals in the country are being trained to improve early diagnosis and treatment of severe dengue [ 52 ]. Indeed, an effective diagnostic test contributes significantly to the clinical treatment, etiologic investigation, and control of DENV infections [ 42 ]. Since 2002, Brazil has adopted a clinical protocol looking at the clinical progression of disease. It is based on the recognition of clinical and laboratory data and conditions related to severity, with the goal of appropriate treatment and avoidance of deaths. In this context, the Brazilian Ministry of Health recommends virus isolation and serology as the main diagnostic tests [ 110 ].
Currently, a new vector control strategy has been developed, which consists of the introduction of Wolbachia bacteria into target vector populations, which directly inhibits the ability of several pathogens to infect Ae. aegypti [ 111 – 113 ]. Another advanced technique developed by Oxitec is the releasing of transgenic mosquitoes to reduce wild mosquitos numbers [ 114 , 115 ]. In Brazil, the evaluation of Oxitec mosquitoes is called “Project Aedes Transgenico” (PAT) [ 116 ]. Around 11 million male mosquitoes have been released in the country from February 2011 through February 2012 [ 116 , 117 ]. Results of both strategies have been encouraging. However, more studies are needed before considering these approaches safe and effective.
National and international efforts have been applied to the development of a dengue vaccine. The major challenge is to create a safe and effective tetravalent vaccine that generates immunity to all four serotypes. Patients that recover from dengue infection by one serotype are at risk of developing severe dengue when infected subsequently by a different serotype. The concern about a vaccine unable to raise immunity to the four serotypes simultaneously is that it may increase the risk of severe dengue when the immunized individual is infected by a serotype for which the individual is not immune [ 52 , 118 ]. One obstacle that hampers research in this area is the lack of an adequate animal model for SD [ 15 ].
Several vaccine candidates are currently being evaluated in clinical trials and vaccines are likely to be available within the next several years [ 119 – 121 ]. A recent cost-effectiveness study of dengue vaccines in Brazil showed that herd-immunity may be achieved by vaccinating 82% of the population at a vaccine efficacy of 70%. At this efficacy, vaccination would cost up to US$534 per vaccinated individual with cost-savings of up to $204 [ 120 ]. These values indicate that, even at a relatively low efficacy, vaccination would still be cost-effective since the total vaccination cost would be sufficiently low [ 120 ]. Indeed, the vaccination in low- and middle-income countries brings important economic benefits and cost-effectiveness studies suggest that vaccines are an efficient public health investment [ 122 ]. Another detailed economic analysis of the steady-state production of 60 million doses per year at the Instituto Butantan in the state of São Paulo showed that the vaccine, if it proves to be safe and effective, can be available at a price that most ministries of health in developing countries could afford [ 123 ].
Dengue is considered the most important mosquito-borne viral disease in the world by the World Health Organization [ 42 ] and an ongoing threat to the Brazilian population. Because of the lack of vaccines and specific therapies, vector control is currently the only effective measure available to control the spread of the disease. Many studies are being conducted to develop and to improve technologies that are able to reduce or eliminate Ae. aegypti populations on a large scale. However, the constant occurrence of dengue epidemics in Brazil demonstrates that sustained dengue control and surveillance policies at the local level (municipalities) are still needed. It will avoid the constant reestablishment of foci of active mosquito breeding and transmission of the infection giving rise to new cases of the disease.
The tropical climate makes Brazil susceptive to cocirculation of different arboviruses, such as DENV, CHIKV, and the recently introduced Zika virus, already reported in several Brazilian states. Those viral infections are oligosymptomatic and clinically similar, hampering the differential diagnosis. Furthermore, there is still a need of improvement of laboratory diagnosis for dengue, since serologic tests available often take several days to be completed and present high cross-reactivity among DENV serotypes. Beyond the differentiation between the arboviruses cocirculating, efficient diagnosis allows appropriate patient care, generation of accurate epidemiological data, and implementation of effective public health interventions.
Katia P. R. Souza is currently working at Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Brazil, and Germán Añez is currently working at Sanofi Pasteur, USA.
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.
Number of dengue cases reported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health in 2014 distributed by geographical region. Brazil's map is divided according to the regions and number of dengue cases. The numbers were obtained from Brazilian Ministry of Health website, accessed at
Number of cases and incidence/100,000 inhabitants reported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health in the last 5 years (2010–2014). The numbers were obtained from Brazilian Ministry of Health website, accessed at
Timeline of introduction of dengue serotypes in Brazil. The states where dengue serotypes were primarily identified are highlighted in green. The figure was assembled with information collected from literature as described in the paper.
Number of cases (a) and deaths (b) due to confirmed dengue cases in Brazil from 1994 to 2014. The numbers were obtained from Brazilian Ministry of Health website, accessed at
Dengue cases and DENV serotypes reported in Brazil in 2014.
| Geographical regions and states | Number of inhabitants a | Number of cases reported b | Serotypes confirmed b |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southeast region | 85,505,375 | 312,318 | |
| Minas Gerais (MG) | 20,813,172 | 59,222 | DENV-1, DENV-3, and DENV-4 |
| Espírito Santo (ES) | 3,906,648 | 19,223 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| Rio de Janeiro (RJ) | 16,520,687 | 7,823 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| São Paulo (SP) | 44,264,868 | 226,040 | DENV-1, DENV-2, and DENV-4 |
| Midwest region | 15,344,314 | 114,814 | |
| Mato Grosso do Sul (MS) | 2,638,452 | 3,594 | DENV-1, DENV-2, and DENV-4 |
| Mato Grosso (MT) | 3,247,377 | 7,232 | ND |
| Goiás (GO) | 6,574,219 | 92,311 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| Distrito Federal (DF) | 2,884,266 | 11,677 | DENV-1 |
| Northeast region | 41,228,546 | 90,192 | |
| Maranhão (MA) | 6,876,025 | 2,416 | ND |
| Piauí (PI) | 3,200,725 | 7,665 | DENV-1 |
| Ceará (CE) | 8,883,739 | 22,974 | DENV-1, DENV-3, and DENV-4 |
| Rio Grande do Norte (RN) | 3,428,430 | 11,285 | DENV-1, DENV-2, and DENV-4 |
| Paraíba (PB) | 3,957,858 | 5,575 | DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4 |
| Pernambuco (PE) | 9,315,660 | 10,446 | DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4 |
| Alagoas (AL) | 3,332,654 | 13,275 | ND |
| Sergipe (SE) | 2,233,455 | 2,275 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| Bahia (BA) | 15,170,625 | 14,281 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| North region | 17,367,554 | 49,534 | |
| Rondônia (RO) | 1,760,186 | 2,104 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| Acre (AC) | 797,676 | 28,931 | DENV-1 |
| Amazonas (AM) | 3,910,647 | 6,472 | DENV-4 |
| Roraima (RR) | 503,116 | 1,181 | DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4 |
| Pará (PA) | 8,127,744 | 4,833 | DENV-1, DENV-2, and DENV-4 |
| Amapá (AP) | 760,634 | 1,958 | DENV-1 |
| Tocantins (TO) | 1,507,551 | 4,055 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| South region | 29,131,203 | 24,222 | |
| Paraná (PR) | 11,133,587 | 23,924 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
| Santa Catarina (SC) | 6,758,785 | 141 | ND |
| Rio Grande do Sul (RS) | 11,238,831 | 157 | DENV-1, DENV-4 |
Number of dengue cases and DENV serotypes reported in Brazil in 2014 by the Ministry of Health. Data are organized by geographical regions and the states they include. aData obtained in
Dengue activity in Brazil between 1845 and 2010.
| Year (s) | Activity reported | Dengue serotype | Location | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1845 | 1st dengue epidemic was reported | Unknown | Rio de Janeiro | [ 46 ] |
|
|
||||
| 1981 | 1st dengue epidemic in Brazil after Ae. aegypti reinfestation | DENV-1 DENV-4 | Roraima | [ 46 , 50 ] |
|
|
||||
| 1986-1987 | Epidemic | DENV-1 | Rio de Janeiro | [ 6 , 48 , 49 , 51 ] |
|
|
||||
| 1990 | First identification of DENV-2 | DENV-2 | Rio de Janeiro | [ 26 , 48 , 49 , 54 ] |
|
|
||||
| 1990–2000 | DENV spread intensified contributing to several outbreaks | DENV-1 DENV-2 | Southeast and northeast region | [ 47 , 55 , 56 ] |
|
|
||||
| 2000 | 1st appearance of DENV-3 in Brazil | DENV-3 | Rio de Janeiro | [ 48 – 51 , 53 ] |
|
|
||||
| 2002 | One of the largest dengue outbreaks in Brazil since the virus emergence | DENV-3 | Rio de Janeiro | [ 48 – 51 ] |
|
|
||||
| 2000–2007 | Brazil reported >60% of the cases registered in the world | DENV-1 DENV-2 DENV-3 | All Brazilian states | [ 47 , 54 , 55 ] |
|
|
||||
| 2007-2008 | Intense outbreak with high number of severe cases and fatalities | DENV-2 | Rio de Janeiro | [ 6 , 55 ] |
|
|
||||
| 2009 | Large outbreak | DENV-2 | Espírito Santo | [ 56 ] |
|
|
||||
| 2010 | Several outbreaks | DENV-1 DENV-2 DENV-3 DENV-4 | 21 Brazilian states | [ 26 ] |
|
|
||||
| 2010 | Reemergence of DENV-4 | DENV-4 | Roraima, Amazonas, Amapá, Pará, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro | [ 57 , 58 , 65 , 68 ] |
The paper text contains more detailed information about the outbreaks and other epidemics description as well.


To run the javabase64 library you need a Java Runtime Environment J2SE v. 1.2 or later.
Add the javabase64-1.3.jar file to your application classpath, and you'll be automatically enabled to the use of the javabase64 classes.
Here come the javabase64 javadocs.
The javabase64 library consists of two streams and a utility class.
The it.sauronsoftware.base64.Base64 utility class is, in most of cases, has everything you need to encode and decode.
First of all, you should tell apart if you have to encode/decode a string or a binary stream.
If you want to encode a string, you can easily call:
String encoded = Base64.encode("Hello, world!");
The result of this operation is a Base64 encoded string, that you can decode back later by calling:
String decoded = Base64.decode(encoded);
You can force the use of a specific charset during strings encoding and decoding operations:
String encoded = Base64.encode("Hello, world!", "UTF-8"); String decoded = Base64.decode(encoded, "UTF-8");
If you are working with binary data (i.e. images) you can use other forms of the encode() and decode() methods.
If data are not large and you handle them directly in memory, using a byte array:
byte[] source = ...; // load your data here byte[] encoded = Base64.encode(source); byte[] decoded = Base64.decode(encoded);
Larger data are better handled with streams. The next sample code encodes a file to another, using java.io.InputStream and java.io.OutputStream objects:
InputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream("source.jpg"); OutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream("encoded.b64"); Base64.encode(inputStream, outputStream); outputStream.close(); inputStream.close();
In similar manner, a stream can be decoded:
InputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream("encoded.b64"); OutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream("decoded.jpg"); Base64.decode(inputStream, outputStream); outputStream.close(); inputStream.close();
Shortcuts for java.io.File objects are provided. Encoding from a file to another:
File source = new File("source.jpg"); File encoded = new File("encoded.b64"); Base64.encode(source, encoded);
Decoding from a file to another:
File encoded = new File("encoded.b64"); File decoded = new File("decoded.jpg"); Base64.decode(encoded, decoded);
You can gain more control on the encoding process by avoiding the use of the static utilities in the Base64 class and by using directly a it.sauronsoftware.base64.Base64OutputStream instance.
The Base64OutputStream extends java.io.OutputStream and works as many other well know Java streams.
You can create a Base64OutputStream by wrapping another existing OutputStream:
Base64OutputStream encodingStream = new Base64OutputStream(myOutputStream);
I.e. you can send encoded data directly to a file by calling:
Base64OutputStream encodingStream = new Base64OutputStream(new FileOutputStream("encoded.b64"));
Now you can write your bytes in the stream as you would do with a common output stream. Data will be automatically encoded by the Base64OutputStream class.
encodingStream.write(bytes);
Don't forget to close the stream when the writing operation is completed. This is necessary to finalize the encoded data line.
encodingStream.close();
By default, Base64OutputStream wraps to a new line every 76 bytes sent to the underlying output stream. This behavior can be changed by supplying an alternative wrapAt value to the Base64OutputStream constructor:
Base64OutputStream encodingStream = new Base64OutputStream(myOutputStream, 48);
A value less than 1 disables wrapping:
Base64OutputStream encodingStream = new Base64OutputStream(myOutputStream, 0);
You can gain more control on the decoding process by using a it.sauronsoftware.base64.Base64InputStream instance.
The Base64InputStream extends java.io.InputStream and works as many other well know Java streams.
You can create a Base64InputStream by wrapping another existing InputStream:
Base64InputStream decodingStream = new Base64InputStream(myInputStream);
I.e. you can read decoded data directly from an encoded file by calling:
Base64InputStream decodingStream = new Base64InputStream(new FileInputStream("encoded.b64"));
Now you can read your bytes from the stream as you would do with a common input stream. Data will be automatically decoded by the Base64InputStream class.
decodingStream.read(bytes);
Don't forget to close the stream when the reading operation is completed.
decodingStream.close();


Silver Screen cinema
- a network of
cinemas with high-tech equipment, comfortable seating and tasty movie snacks.
In Silver Screen you can watch:
- Films in the original with subtitles;
- Films in Belarusian;
- Sports broadcasts;
- Music concerts in the halls with the Dolby Atmos system;
- Pre-shows before the release of the film in wide distribution;
- Screenings with movie stars;
- Shows of retrospectives and arthouse;
- Broadcasts of operas and theatrical productions of the best theaters in the world;
- Documentary film about the masterpieces of world art.


Android UI library
MUX
12:45 PM
Label
Label
Label
Label
Label
Downloading 11 of 135
Dialog Title
Content is here. Say Hello!
OK
Cancel
Android 480x800
MUX
12:45 PM
TAB ONE
TAB TWO
TAB THREE
TAB ONE
TAB TWO
TAB THREE
TAB ONE
TAB ONE
TAB TWO
TAB THREE
TAB ONE
TAB TWO
TAB THREE
Title
Title
This is a toast
Only use toasts for immediate feedback
Button
Button


| Home | Libraries | People | FAQ | More |
Random numbers are useful in a variety of applications. The Boost Random Number Library (Boost.Random for short) provides a vast variety of generators and distributions to produce random numbers having useful properties, such as uniform distribution.
You should read the concepts documentation for an introduction and the definition of the basic concepts. For a quick start, it may be sufficient to have a look at random_demo.cpp.
For a very quick start, here's an example:
boost::mt19937 rng; // produces randomness out of thin air // see pseudo-random number generators boost::uniform_int<> six(1,6); // distribution that maps to 1..6 // see random number distributions boost::variate_generator<boost::mt19937&, boost::uniform_int<> > die(rng, six); // glues randomness with mapping int x = die(); // simulate rolling a die
The library is separated into several header files, all within the
boost/random/
directory. Additionally, a convenience header
file which includes all other headers in boost/random/
is
available as boost/random.hpp
.
A front-end class template called variate_generator
is
provided; please read the documentation
about it.
boost/random/linear_congruential.hpp
boost/random/additive_combine.hpp
boost/random/inversive_congruential.hpp
boost/random/shuffle_output.hpp
boost/random/mersenne_twister.hpp
boost/random/lagged_fibonacci.hpp
boost/random/uniform_smallint.hpp
boost/random/uniform_int.hpp
boost/random/uniform_01.hpp
boost/random/uniform_real.hpp
boost/random/triangle_distribution.hpp
boost/random/bernoulli_distribution.hpp
boost/random/cauchy_distribution.hpp
boost/random/exponential_distribution.hpp
boost/random/geometric_distribution.hpp
boost/random/normal_distribution.hpp
boost/random/lognormal_distribution.hpp
boost/random/uniform_on_sphere.hpp
<boost/nondet_random.hpp>
.
Documentation is also available.
In order to map the interface of the generators and distribution functions to other concepts, some decorators are available.
An extensive test suite for the pseudo-random number generators and distributions is available as random_test.cpp.
Some performance results obtained using random_speed.cpp are also available.
The methods for generating and evaluating deterministic and non-deterministic random numbers differ radically. Furthermore, due to the inherent deterministic design of present-day computers, it is often difficult to implement non-deterministic random number generation facilities. Thus, the random number library is split into separate header files, mirroring the two different application domains.
In November 1999, Jeet Sukumaran proposed a framework based on virtual
functions, and later sketched a template-based approach. Ed Brey pointed
out that Microsoft Visual C++ does not support in-class member
initializations and suggested the enum
workaround. Dave
Abrahams highlighted quantization issues.
The first public release of this random number library materialized in
March 2000 after extensive discussions on the boost mailing list. Many
thanks to Beman Dawes for his original min_rand
class,
portability fixes, documentation suggestions, and general guidance. Harry
Erwin sent a header file which provided additional insight into the
requirements. Ed Brey and Beman Dawes wanted an iterator-like
interface.
Beman Dawes managed the formal review, during which Matthias Troyer, Csaba Szepesvari, and Thomas Holenstein gave detailed comments. The reviewed version became an official part of boost on 17 June 2000.
Gary Powell contributed suggestions for code cleanliness. Dave Abrahams
and Howard Hinnant suggested to move the basic generator templates from
namespace boost::detail
to boost::random
.
Ed Brey asked to remove superfluous warnings and helped with
uint64_t
handling. Andreas Scherer tested with MSVC. Matthias
Troyer contributed a lagged Fibonacci generator. Michael Stevens found a
bug in the copy semantics of normal_distribution and suggested
documentation improvements.
Revised 05 December, 2006
Copyright © 2000-2005 Jens Maurer
Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)


The goal of the tool is to practice various styles of Web Services. We learn to develop RESTful Web Services. Click the button in the side to continue...


This kind of wild functionality would normally be hidden. Behind a log in system using sessions. Fairly easy to implement via PHP and other sources, but I ran out of time. As of writing this, its 21:26 Tuesday evening. No sleep tonight
But! you know who can sleep? All the programmers this will list below!


 The legal definition of a charitable organization varies
between countries and in some instances regions of the country.


{title:'Custom Call Handlers', created:'8.2.0', flags:'todo'}
The {@del oajr.client2.RestCallHandler} interface provides the ability to provide custom handling of requests.
Note that there are other ways of accomplishing this such as extending the {@del oajr.client2.RestClient} class and overriding the {@del oaj.rest.client2.RestClient#run(HttpHost,HttpRequest,HttpContext)} method or by defining your own {@link org.apache.http.protocol.HttpRequestExecutor}. Using this interface is often simpler though.


India
दीपावली एसएमएस (Happy Divali)
Celebration
Diwali falls between October and November, but the exact date changes each year as it is marked by the Hindu lunar calendar. It lasts five days in total, with the festival of lights falling on the third days of celebrations, which is marked on the 15th day of the Hindu month Kartik.
Also known as Deepavali, a Sanskrit word meaning “rows of lighted lamps”, it is one of the most popular Hindu festivals celebrated across South Asia. The festival of lights that celebrates the victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. It sees millions of earthenware oil lamps, called diyas, light up people’s homes, shops, public spaces and places of worship as part of celebrations which marks the start of the Hindu new year.
For many Hindus, Diwali celebrates the return of the deities Rama and his wife Sita to Ayodhya, an ancient Indian city believed to be the lord’s birthplace, following a 14-year period in exile and a battle fought by Rama and his army against the demon Ravana. The demon had kidnapped Sita and Rama travelled along with Hanuman, the deity in the form of a monkey-man, to rescue her and kill the evil demons - as depicted in the epic "Ramayana". Their victorious return home was celebrated by lighting the kingdom with lamps.
Diwali also celebrates the goddess of wealth and prosperity, Lakshmi. Some believes it falls on her birthday and the day she married Lord Vishnu. Many in India leave their windows and doors open and light lamps to allow Lakshmi to find her way into their homes.
Food
The immediate answer is sweets – and plenty of them. Indian sweetmeats, known as "mithai" are a cross between snack, dessert and confectionery. Chickpea flour, rice flour, semolina, various beans, lentils and grains, squashes, carrots, thickened condensed milk or yoghurt are normally used as base ingredients; to which cashewnuts, almonds, pistachios, chirongi nuts or raisins are added. Fragrant with sweet spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves or nutmeg, they're further blinged up with saffron, rose or kewra (pandan leaf) water, and silver or gold leaf.It's customary to exchange extravagantly decorated boxes of mithai, dried fruit, nuts or silver serving dishes with family and friends.
Around a month before the festival starts, women get together in each other's kitchens in turn to make the all-important Diwali snacks. Snack-making is very much a social activity, with older women turning out a dozen or more items and young people keeping the tradition alive by making at least a few.
Different speciality meals are traditionally cooked on different days of the festival, and these vary further depending on region. Generally speaking puris, traditionally deep-fried in expensive ghee and therefore rich in every sense, replace flatbreads; and are accompanied by a different dal, vegetable curry, fried titbits such as pakoras, collectively known as "namkeen" or "farsan", and a pudding on each day of the festival. Many, though not all, Indians continue to eat vegetarian at this time of year.
Israel
חנוכה שמח (Happy Hanukkah)
Celebration
Chanukah begins on the eve of Kislev 25 and continues for eight days. On the civil calendar, it generally coincides with the month of December. Chanukah is the Jewish eight-day, wintertime “festival of lights,” celebrated with a nightly menorah lighting, special prayers and fried foods. The Hebrew word Chanukah means “dedication,” and is thus named because it celebrates the rededication of the Holy Temple.
The annual Hanukkah Torch Relay marks the beginning of the holiday in Israel. People line the road from the city of Modi’in to the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem’s Old City, passing a burning torch from hand to hand. The torch then lights the giant hanukkiyah (menorah) at the Western Wall.
In the Jewish religion, Hanukkah is one of the few holidays that is not instituted in the Torah. It commemorates a post-biblical event: the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian-Greek rulers of Jerusalem and the subsequent rededication of the Temple in 164 BCE.
It also celebrates a miracle that accompanied this event: When the temple was rededicated, God miraculously made the one day's worth of oil burn brightly for eight days.
The only essential ritual of Hanukkah is the lighting of candles. The Hanukkah candles are held in a chanukkiah, a candelabra that holds nine candles. The candle (shammash) in the middle of the chanukkiah is used to light the others.
Food
Sufganiyot (doughnuts) are by far the most popular Hanukkah food in Israel. Every year, Israelis eat a whopping 24 million of these calorie-heavy-sugar-covered-fried treats made especially for the holiday.
Strawberry-jelly-filled ones are the most ubiquitous, but don’t miss out on the other fillings: halva, dulce de leche, chocolate, pistachio cream and more.
Diets aside, Hanukkah foods are usually fried in oil to remember the Maccabees’ victory over their oppressors and that one flask of oil miraculously burned for eight days in the rededicated Temple in Jerusalem.
Many dishes also contain cheese to celebrate Judith’s victory over the powerful Assyrian army (she gave Holofernes, an invading general of Nebuchadnezzar, salty cheese to make him thirsty, wine to make him drunk, and then beheaded him).
The traditional holiday menu also includes latkes (potato or cheese pancakes fried in oil), svinge (traditional Moroccan Jewish fried fritter), loukoumades or bimuelos (fried honey puffs) and chocolate coins.
Poland
Wesołych Świąt! (Merry Christmas!)
Celebration
Christmas celebrations start in Poland on the night of Christmas Eve (24th December, Wigilia in Polish). Families sit to the Christmas table as soon as they spot the first star on the winter sky.
It’s customary to leave one empty seat with a set of plates and cutlery for an errant wanderer who might knock on your door and need something warm to eat. On Christmas Eve you shouldn’t refuse anything to the ones who might need your help.
The Christmas supper begins with the breaking of the opłatek. Everyone at the table breaks off a piece and eats it as a symbol of their unity with Christ. They then share a piece with each family member.
After dinner it’s the present time!
Christmas Eve ends with Pasterka, the Midnight Mass at the local church. The tradition commemorates the arrival of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem and their paying of respect and bearing witness to the new born Messiah.
Christmas and the following holidays are traditionally occasions in Poland for visiting friends and relatives. In the ensuing holiday season also popular are such family pastimes as nativity plays, nativity puppet shows, seeing elaborate Christmas cribs (nativity scenes) in various churches.
Food
It’s important to serve 12 dishes on your Christmas table which is linked to the number of Apostles. It is believed that you should try all of them; otherwise the next year food will be less abundant.
Among the 12 Christmas dishes you will always find some soup. Its kind depends on the region but the most popular ones are: beetroot soup (barszcz) with “uszka” (a kind of ravioli), forest mushroom soup and fish or almond soup.
In almost every Polish house you are bound to eat fried carp. The fish can be bought alive or already prepared for cooking.There is a superstition that if you put the carp’s scale in your wallet, you will be lucky and rich in the forthcoming year.
Other traditional dishes include: sauerkraut with forest mushrooms, sauerkraut with peas, pierogi (stuffed dumplings) with sauerkraut, jellied fish, kutia (wheatberry, poppy seed honey and nuts), herring in oil, moczka (gingerbread, beer, raisins and nuts) and makówki (poppy seed, honey and nuts).
Japan
あけましておめでとう Akemashite Omedeto! (Happy New Year)
Celebration
New Year (Oshogatsu) is the most important holiday in Japan. Most businesses shut down from New Year’s Eve (Omisoka) until the 3rd of January, and families gather to spend the days together. It is generally a time of feasting, gift giving, and wishing good luck for the new year. While Christmas in Japan is widely accepted as a time for partying with friends and having romantic dates, New Year is very much about family festivities. And food - lots of it!
Homes and entrance gates are decorated with ornaments called “kadomatsu”, made of pine and bamboo.
The first thing to do on New Year’s day is to view the first sunrise (“hatsu-hinode”) for good luck, followed by a family feast. Children look forward to receiving “otoshidama”, which is a tradition where adults give money in small envelopes to the children in their extended family.
It is a tradition to visit a shrine or temple during oshogatsu (“hatsumode”), to throw in coins and wish for good health and happiness for the new year. The most popular temples and shrines, such as Tokyo's Meiji Shrine, attract several million people during the three days. Most impressive are such visits at the actual turn of the year, when large temple bells are rung at midnight, and “omiki” (holy sake) are offered to visitors.
Food
On New Year’s Eve “toshi-koshi-soba”, or buckwheat noodles, symbolizing longevity, are served. Long may be your lives, like the noodles in your bowl… be sure to slurp them in!
The centerpiece of the New Year feast is Osechi-Ryori, easily recognizable by their “jubako” or bento-style boxes with various dishes beautifully and neatly fitted inside. Dating back to the 9th century, it includes various dishes which have a special meaning to celebrate the new year. For example, “ebi”, or prawns symbolizes a wish for a long-life, suggesting long beard and bent waist.
It is traditionally the women in the family who start preparing osechi-ryori from up to a week in advance. Tremendous time and effort is put into each dish. More recently it has become popular to pre-order them from famous restaurants and department stores as well. Modern women are too busy to cook feasts for men (who proportionately consume more) anyway.
Greece
καλά Χριστούγεννα (Merry Christmas!)
Celebration
Although Greeks do decorate Christmas trees, it isn’t nearly as common a practice as decorating boats. Boats are a powerful symbol in Greece of moving towards a new life. However, while they symbolized something positive, they also represented the dangers that the people could experience at sea. In Syntagma Square in Athens, there is always both a Christmas tree and a decorated boat.
Greek families leave a fire burning to keep away the Killantzaroi. The Killantzaroi are goblins that emerge from the center of the earth and slip into people's homes through the fireplace. They are more trouble makers then harmful. They are believed to do things such as extinguish fires, ride on people's backs, braid horse's tails, and sour the milk.
1st January, New Years Day, is St Vasilis's Day who is also known as St Basil the Great. Gifts are exchanged on this day.
People in Greece also celebrate Epiphany on the 6th January. In the Greek Orthodox Church, Epiphany celebrates Jesus's baptism when he was a man. It's also known as 'The Blessing of the Waters'. There are many events throughout the country where young men dive into really cold lakes, rivers and the sea to try to be first to get a cross which has been blessed by a priest and thrown into the water. Whoever gets the cross first is meant to have good luck during the coming year.
Food
After 40 days of fasting (the holiday is preceded by a time of fasting and even though not everybody observes it those who do, abstain from any meat, dairy or eggs) the Christmas feast is looked forward to with great anticipation by adults and children alike.
The Christmas feast consists of pig and christopsomo or "christ bread". This bread is made in large sweet loaves and the crust is engraved to portray the family's profession.
The main Christmas meal is often Lamb or pork, roasted in an oven or over an open spit. It's often served with a spinach and cheese pie and various salads and vegetables. Other Christmas and new year foods include 'Baklava' (a sweet pastry made of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey), Kataifi (a pastry made from a special form of shredded filo dough and flavored with nuts and cinnamon), Theeples (a kind of fried pastry). The pastries are either eaten for breakfast or as starters.
Another popular Christmas dessert are melomakarono, egg or oblong shaped biscuit/cakes made from flour, olive oil, and honey and rolled in chopped walnuts.
China
新年快乐！(Happy New Year!)
Celebration
Fireworks are used to drive away the evil in China. Right after 12:00PM on New Year's Eve, fireworks will be launched to celebrate the coming of the New Year as well as to drive away the evil. It is believed that the person who launched the first firework of the New Year will obtain good luck.
Shou Sui means "after the New Year's Eve dinner" as family members will normally stay awake during the night. Some people just stay up until the midnight after the fireworks. According to tales and legends, there was a mythical beast named the "Year". At the night of New Year's Eve, the "Year" will come out to harm people, animals, and proprieties. Later, people found that the "Year" is afraid of the color red, fire, and loud sounds. Therefore, at the New Year's Eve night, people will launch fireworks, light fires, and stay awake the whole night to fend off the "Year".
The Red packet is a red envelope with money in it, which ranges from one to a few thousand Chinese Yuan. Usually the red racket is given by adults, especially married couples, and elderly to young children in the New Year days. It was believed that the money in the red packet will suppress the evil from the children, keep them healthy, and give them a long life.
Food
The New Year's Eve dinner is the most important dinner for the Chinese. Normally, this is the family reunion dinner, especially for those with family members away from home.
During the dinner, normally fish will be served. Dumplings are the most important dish in Northern China.
Certaindishes are eaten during the Chinese New Year for their symbolic meaning. Lucky food is served during the 16-day festival season, especially New Year’s Eve, which is believed to bring good luck for the coming year. The auspicious symbolism of these foods is based on their pronunciations or appearance.Not only do the dishes themselves matter, but also the preparation, and ways of serving and eating mean a lot.
The majority of Chinese will have New Year's Eve dinner at home instead of a restaurant.


About me
Appointments
- present - 2016: Senior Lecturer - Cardiff University
- 2016 - 2011: Lecturer - Cardiff University
- 2011 - 2009: Post Doctoral Researcher - Cardiff University
Roles
- present - 2015: Phoenix project advisory board
- present - 2016: Deputy director of engagement
- present - 2015: Cardiff Python User Group Meetup Organiser
- present - 2016: Member of the PyCon UK organising committee
- present - 2016: Sustainable Software Institute Fellow
- present - 2015: Mathematical modelling area editor for Health Systems
- present - 2016: Editor for the Cardiff Centre for Education Innovation Learning Hub
- 2017 - 2011: Chair of OR in Schools
Awards
- 2014: Cardiff University Recognising Excellence Rising Star Award
- 2015: Times higher education award for modelling unit
- 2016: School of Mathematics student award for best lecturer
- 2005: Cardiff School of Mathematics - graduated top of my year
Qualification
- 2005 - Cardiff University: B.Sc. (Hons) Mathematics - Graduated top of my class
- 2002 - Lycee du Pre Saint Sauver, St Claude, Jura, France: Baccalaureat Scientifique - Fluent in French
- 2013 - Cardiff University: Postgraduate Certificate in University Teaching and Learning - Obtained with distinction
- 2009 - Cardiff University: Ph.D. in Enumerative Combinatorics - Alternating Sign Matrix Polytopes


{{feedItem.description}}
We’re delighted that you’re here to take the first steps towards your child’s reading readiness with Square Panda’s Playground!
This is your destination to view the footprints of your child’s newly earned badges and discover more skills that they're ready to learn.
It’s easy to follow your child’s progress with a quick glance at their collection of earned badges. These badges symbolize the top skills your child needs to become reading ready from letter identification to rhymes to blended letter sounds! To help your child practice, you can view lists of all the letters and words they’ve learned.
Imagine how thrilled your child will be when she or he discovers the word “Mom” and your photo appears on screen while they’re playing! By adding new words and familiar pictures to your child’s word bank, you'll be able to customize any word imaginable - pets, family members, school logos and even special spelling lists. Just check out the Customize area to create personalized word lists.
Well we have kept you long enough - it's time to jump into the Playground!
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Square Panda Team


|
Elektra
0.8.26
|
We are proud to release Elektra 0.8.24.
Elektra serves as a universal and secure framework to access configuration settings in a global, hierarchical key database. For more information, visit https://libelektra.org.
For a small demo see here:
You can also read the news on our website
The new release of Elektra Web features many UX improvements from the usability test!
Try it out now on: http://webdemo.libelektra.org/
elektra/web
Thanks to Daniel Bugl.
Elektra's notification feature which allows applications to keep persistent configuration settings in sync with the key database and other applications was greatly improved with this release:
More details can be found in this news. Check out the updated notification tutorial and notification examples (polling, async and reload.
At Akademy 2018 we had a successful Config Workshop.
We generally agreed that misconfiguration is important and the situation in FLOSS needs to improve. We discussed how Elektra can be used in KDE and came up with the idea that KConfig could be moved to a Elektra plugin. Then KConfig could be patched to use Elektra instead. This would lead to the situation that KDE users would have the same user experience with the advantages of Elektra, like:
For more information see the Slides
Elektra supports specifying the semantics of keys via metakeys in the spec
namespace. An example is the metakey check/range
which can be used to specify that a key only holds numbers in a given range. Another metakey is check/enum
which only allows specific keywords to be the content of a key. Up to now these semantics are only being checked at runtime. Therefore a type system was developed to be able to check configuration specifications statically. As an example, it would detect when one accidentally adds both a range and an enum check if their possible contents are not compatible with each other.
The type system is available as a plugin that gets mounted along with a configuration specification into the spec namespace. Furthermore we include a set of type definitions for commonly used metakeys such as check/range
, check/enum
, check/validation
, fallback
or override
.
For more details see the typechecker readme
Thanks to Armin Wurzinger.
Next to the Puppet Resource Type we now also prepared a Chef Cookbook which allows us to use Elektra from within Chef.
For example, to set mount a configuration file, you can use:
And to add an hosts entry, you can use:
Note that currently
kdb
is invoked and Elektra needs to be installed for managed systems.
Thanks to Michael Zronek and Vanessa Kos.
, where pluginname
specifies the name of your new plugin. _(René Schwaiger)_
crypto
plugin now uses Elektra's libinvoke
and the base64
plugin in order to encode and decode Base64 strings. This improvement reduces code duplication between the two plugins. _(Peter Nirschl)_fcrypt
plugin will consider the environment variable TMPDIR
in order to detect its temporary directory. See [#1973] _(Peter Nirschl)_fstab
plugin now passes tests on musl builds. _(Lukas Winkler)_BUILD_STATIC
or BUILD_FULL
build variants, since otherwise the plugin breaks the kdb
tool. _(René Schwaiger)_testscr_check_kdb_internal_check
) for the plugin, since it always fails. _(René Schwaiger)_list
plugin now allows us to pass common configuration for all plugins by using keys below the "config/" setting. The updated plugin documentation contains more information and an example. _(Thomas Wahringer)_list
plugin which is responsible for global mounting had a bug which prevented globally mounted plugins from being configurable. _(Thomas Wahringer)_ccode
instead of the “provider” code
. _(René Schwaiger)_check/range
, check/enum
and default
are supported. _(Armin Wurzinger)_tcl
plugin does not fail anymore, if its configuration file does not exist and you try to retrieve the plugin contract. _(René Schwaiger)_printf
statements. _(René Schwaiger)_. _(René Schwaiger)_
YAML CPP now requires at least yaml-cpp 0.6
, since the current https://master.libelektra.org/src/plugins/yamlcpp/README.md "MSR test for the plugin" triggers two bugs:
in earlier versions of the yaml-cpp library. _(René Schwaiger)_
array
meta data for arrays containing arrays. _(René Schwaiger)_KeySet
data structure to a textual representation in the YAML serialization format. The plugin is currently in a very early stage of development. Please be advised, that it is quite likely that the plugin will produce incorrect or even invalid YAML data, especially if your KeySet
contains special characters.KeySet
data structure. If you want to write data in the YAML format please take a look at the YAML Smith plugin. _(René Schwaiger)_ZMQ_PUB
and ZMQ_SUB
sockets to send and receive notifications. The plugins can be used instead or along with the "dbus" and "dbusrecv" transport plugins. Check out the plugin documentation for more information. _(Thomas Wahringer)_simpleini
silently on non-glibc systems but output a message like for other plugins _(Markus Raab)_We updated the infos/status
clause of the following plugins:
boolean
,constants
,csvstorage
,hexnumber
,internalnotification
,ruby
,simpleini
,uname
, andxerces
. _(René Schwaiger)_
strdup
with elektraStrDup
(for C99 compatibility). _(Markus Raab)_key.delBaseName()
. _(René Schwaiger)_elektraArrayGetNextKey
now uses NULL
instead of the empty string as init value for the returned key. _(René Schwaiger)_pluginprocess
that is used to execute plugins run inside own processes has been improved. This is useful as some plugins like haskell-based plugins or python
can only be started once inside a single process, while libelektra may call a plugin several times. The library now uses an improved communication protocol that separates between pluginprocess-related data and keysets passed to plugins. This avoids any possible name clashes between keys used by a plugin and keys used by pluginprocess. The documentation of the plugin has been improved as well, some mistakes were corrected and it should be more clear how to store plugin data besides pluginprocess's data structure. Tests have been added to the library to ensure its correct functionality. _(Armin Wurzinger)_int
, unsigned int
, long
, unsigned long
, long long
, unsinged long long
, float
and double
. It also supports all of Elektra's kdb_*_t
types defined in kdbtypes.h
. Also contexts for callbacks were added and elektraNotificationRegisterCallbackSameOrBelow()
allows for notifications for the registered key or below. _(Thomas Wahringer)_kdb find
lists keys of the database matching a certain regular expression. _(Markus Raab)_5.11
. _(René Schwaiger)_check_formatting.sh
now also checks the formatting of CMake code if you installed sponge
and cmake-format
. _(René Schwaiger)_check_formatting.sh
now no longer writes to stdout if clang-format5.0 can not be found. _(Lukas Winkler)_check_bashisms.sh
should now work correctly again, if the system uses the GNU version find
. _(René Schwaiger)_reformat-cmake
now checks if cmake-format
works before it reformats CMake files. Thank you to Klemens Böswirth for the detailed description of the problem. _(René Schwaiger)_scripts/run_icheck
now no longer leaves the base directory of the project when checking if the ABI changed. _(Lukas Winkler)_info/
meta attributes of the file plugin. _(René Schwaiger)_copy-template
is now location independent. It will always create a new plugin in src/plugins
. _(René Schwaiger)_-p
to create a new plugin based on cpptemplate
.kdb change-resolver-symlink
and kdb change-storage-symlink
referenced the wrong command. _(Lukas Winkler, René Schwaiger)_kdb
and kdb set
now mentions the --
argument that stops processing of command line switches. This is useful for setting negative values among other things. _(Klemens Böswirth)_/tests
(see issue #1887). _(René Schwaiger)_kdb set
commands to ensure we only add tests that store data below /tests
. _(René Schwaiger)_stdout
if you add the check #>
. _(René Schwaiger)_-
in checks as option character any more. _(René Schwaiger)_add_plugin
helper now respects ENABLE_KDB_TESTING
when adding Markdown Shell Recorder tests. _(Lukas Winkler)_bash
compatible shell anymore. _(René Schwaiger)_SHARED_ONLY
no longer get tested in the script check_kdb_internal_check.sh
if executed with kdb-full or kdb-static. _(Armin Wurzinger)_compare_regex_to_line_files
which allows to compare a file made of regex patterns to be compared with a text file line by line. _(Lukas Winkler)_fcrypt
and crypto
unit tests if the gpg
binary is not available. _(Peter Nirschl)_gpg
tests as the gpg-agents
that were spawned did not get cleaned up afterwards. _(Lukas Winkler)_testkdb_allplugins
) for the semlock
plugin, since the test reported memory leaks on the latest version of Debian Unstable. _(René Schwaiger)_compare_keyset
now supports the comparison of two empty key sets. _(René Schwaiger)_exit_if_fail
now really exits the test progamm if the test fails. _(René Schwaiger)_compare_keyset
that checks if two key sets are equal. _(René Schwaiger)_As written in the previous release notes:
Another important change is:
GTEST_ROOT
to the path of you local copy of the Google Test framework. _(René Schwaiger)_GTEST_ROOT
now respects the environment variable GTEST_ROOT
if it is set. _(Lukas Winkler)_BUILD_SHARED
builds, but to be excluded from any BUILD_FULL
or BUILD_STATIC
builds using the new optional argument ONLY_SHARED
for our cmake macro add_plugin
. This way BUILD_SHARED
can be combined with the other options without excluding such plugins. The cmake messages about plugin inclusion have been updated to indicate this behavior. This behavior has been applied for the Haskell plugins- and bindings and JNI plugin as they currently don't support full or static builds. _(Armin Wurzinger)_testlib_notification
on ASAN enabled builds, since Clang reports that the test leaks memory. _(René Schwaiger)_validation.md
for ASAN builds. It leaks memory and thus fails the test during spec mount. _(Lukas Winkler)_BUILD_FULL
or BUILD_STATIC
as this is currently unsupported. Another issue when building Haskell plugins with a cached sandbox is fixed as well. _(Armin Wurzinger)_BUILD_TESTING=OFF
when spec
or list
plugins are not selected.PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR
, resulting in easier readable coverage reports. _(Lukas Winkler)_add_plugintest
and add_plugin
now also support adding a C++ test instead of a C test. _(René Schwaiger)_add_plugintest
now also supports setting environment variables for C/C++ based tests. _(René Schwaiger)_ftw.h
, if the current build use the compiler switch -Werror
. _(René Schwaiger)_We now ignore warnings about
caused by code generated via SWIG in the Ruby binding and plugin. _(René Schwaiger)_
clang-5.0
is now used for clang tests by the build system _(Lukas Winkler)_withDockerEnv
Jenkinsfile helper now no longer provides stages automatically. _(Lukas Winkler)_STATIC
and FULL
linked builds. _(Lukas Winkler)_clang
tests have been ported to the new build system _(Lukas Winkler et al)_icheck
build server job has been ported to our new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-configure-debian-optimizations
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-configure-mingw-w64
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_debian-multiconfig-gcc-stable
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-ini-mergerequests
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-configure-debian-nokdbtest
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-configure-xdg
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-i386
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-configure-debian-musl
to new build system. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-configure-debian-nokdbtest
test. Instead we are now removing write permissions of Elektra's paths to detect if we write to the filesystem even though tests are not tagged as such. _(Lukas Winkler)_elektra-gcc-configure-debian-withspace
test. We now test for compatibility of spaced build paths during normal tests. _(Lukas Winkler)_PLUGINS=NODEP
config. They did not provide any additional coverage. Instead we added a new test checking if PLUGINS=NODEP
builds in an minimal Docker image. _(Lukas Winkler)_master
fails _(Lukas Winkler)_cmake-format
. _(René Schwaiger)_We now specify custom binding, plugin and tool configuration for jobs via the environment variables:
BINDINGS
,PLUGINS
, andTOOLS
. We also added environment variables for the build configuration options BUILD_FULL
, COMMON_FLAGS
, ENABLE_ASAN
and the command used to test the build (TEST_COMMAND
). _(René Schwaiger)_
🍏 Clang ASAN
and 🐧 GCC ASAN
now only build the kdb
tool and the cpp
binding. This update ensures, that we do not hit the job timeout for public repositories that often. _(René Schwaiger)_2.5.1
) to build and test the Ruby binding/plugin. _(René Schwaiger)_As always, the ABI and API of kdb.h is fully compatible, i.e. programs compiled against an older 0.8 version of Elektra will continue to work (ABI) and you will be able to recompile programs without errors (API).
Following changes were made:
delBaseName()
. This does not affect ABI compatibility, also C++ programs compiled against 0.8.24 and using delBaseName()
will work with Elektra 0.8.23 or older.kdbtypes.h
now comes with support for C99 types.kdbnotificationinternal.h
, kdbioplugin.h
. _(Thomas Wahringer)_kdbio
. For example, instead of including elektra/kdbio_ev.h
users of the binding now include elektra/kdbio/ev.h
. _(Thomas Wahringer)_The new plugins are:
The new tool is: kdb-find
The website is generated from the repository, so all information about plugins, bindings and tools are always up to date.
We are currently working on following topics:
ksLookup (...)
is now in preparation. The preparation includes a new KeySet flag KS_FLAG_NAME_CHANGE
, this flag will be used by the hybrid search. The hybrid search combines the best properties of the binary search and the OPMPHM. The hybrid search uses a modified branch predictor to predicts KeySet changes and decides if binary search or OPMPHM would be faster. _(Kurt Micheli)_Following persons made in total 1734 commits:
1 commit by Mihael Pranjic<EMAIL_ADDRESS>2 commits by Thomas Waser<EMAIL_ADDRESS>7 commits by Michael Zronek<EMAIL_ADDRESS>12 commits by Kurt Micheli<EMAIL_ADDRESS>17 commits by Peter Nirschl<EMAIL_ADDRESS>21 commits by Klemens Böswirth<EMAIL_ADDRESS>197 commits by Markus Raab<EMAIL_ADDRESS>102 commits by Thomas Wahringer<EMAIL_ADDRESS>117 commits by Daniel Bugl<EMAIL_ADDRESS>265 commits by Lukas Winkler<EMAIL_ADDRESS>249 commits by Armin Wurzinger<EMAIL_ADDRESS>744 commits by René Schwaiger<EMAIL_ADDRESS>In total there were 792 files changed with 27677 insertions(+) and 39176 deletions(-).
You can download the release from here or GitHub
The hashsums are:
The release tarball is also available signed by Markus Raab using GnuPG from here or on GitHub
Already built API-Docu can be found online or GitHub.
Subscribe to the RSS feed to always get the release notifications.
For any questions and comments, please contact the issue tracker on GitHub or Markus Raab by email using elekt. ra@m arkus -raa b.org
For more information, see https://libelektra.org
Best regards, Elektra Initiative


Design/Garment
I wanted to create something personal, yet fun to use as my design for the tshirt. I used a picture of my favorite NFL player, Gronk, and another picture of my two good friends. I used the 'select and mask' option in photoshop and cut out the bodies of my two friends. I then put them into the picture with Gronk doing his signature spike. I was really pleased with how it turned out, and I am excited to wear this shirt next weekend on SuperBowl Sunday when the Patriots take on the Eagles!
I then put it on a flash drive and printed it on the Brother GT-361 Garment printer. Here is the full result:
UV-Printing
Sublimation printing is taking a design and using heat to press it onto a background material. I chose to make a mini basketball hoop that I could hang in my dorm room at Denison University in the fall. I used the Denison logo and put it on a red/gray background that I designed on photoshop and printed it on sublimation paper. I then pressed it onto backboard of the hoop using heat. This was the result:


Specify measurement frequency
Authorization data for the Internet access
The measured data will be sent here
Password to access the sensor's WIFI
The sensor is rebooting in measuring mode...
If You want to return to the setup, turn the DIP2 switch to ON position and connect to the "AJDOS-SENSOR" WiFi.
Do not forget to disable the mobile internet before opening the http://ajdos.go (or http://<IP_ADDRESS>) site.
The system is reseting...
All stored data are removed and the parameters are reset to default.
If You want to return to the setup, turn the DIP2 switch to ON position and connect to the "AJDOS-SENSOR" WiFi.
Do not forget to disable the mobile internet before opening the http://ajdos.go (or http://<IP_ADDRESS>) site.
The sensor is testing...
The sensor will connect to the configured WiFi and the MQTT Broker server.
The test may take longer. During the test, the setup program loses the connection with the sensor.
Depending on the running time of the test, your mobile phone or laptop may forget the wifi name of the sensor.
The setup program can be resumed once the connection is restored.
The setup program will try to reload the setup page 3 minutes after starting the test. If this does not work automatically, you will need to manually refresh your browser.
Upon test completion this setup program will give you the "test" option, where the testing result can be seen.


--- title: Kaggle-Competition-Favorita keywords: fastai sidebar: home_sidebar nb_path: "nbs/data_datasets__favorita.ipynb" ---
%%html
<style> table {float:left} </style>
The evaluation metric of the Favorita Kaggle competition was the normalized weighted root mean squared logarithmic error (NWRMSLE). Perishable items have a score weight of 1.25; otherwise, the weight is 1.0.
{% raw %} $$ NWRMSLE = \sqrt{\frac{\sum^{n}_{i=1} w_{i}\left(log(\hat{y}_{i}+1) - log(y_{i}+1)\right)^{2}}{\sum^{n}_{i=1} w_{i}}}$$ {% endraw %}
| Kaggle Competition Forecasting Methods | 16D ahead NWRMSLE | |
|---|---|---|
| LGBM [1] | 0.5091 | |
| Seq2Seq WaveNet [2] | 0.5129 |
Given that the test set is unavailable, some papers have chosen a different data partition to work on the dataset. The following table uses the favorita dataset with 90 days for training and predicts 30 days into the future for the logarithm of sales. The evaluation metric used in other papers was the quantile risk for P50 (normalized quantile loss):
{% raw %} $$ QL-risk = \frac{2 \sum_{y_{t} \in \Omega } \sum^{\tau_{max}}_{\tau=t} q (y_{t+\tau}-\hat{y}^{(q)}_{t+\tau})_{+} + (1-q) (\hat{y}^{(q)}_{t+\tau}-y_{t+\tau})_{+} }{\sum_{y_{t} \in \Omega } \sum^{\tau_{max}}_{\tau=1} | y_{t} | }$$ {% endraw %}
| Forecasting Methods | 30D ahead P50 QL-risk | |
|---|---|---|
| MQTransformer [4] | 0.323 | |
| TFT [3] | 0.354 |


Public Member Functions | |
| PollingThread (CommunicationAPI capi) | |
| Character | poll_next (int poll_bot_or_patient) |
Public Attributes | |
| int | poll_id = Bot.bot1 |
| int | number_bots = 0 |
Static Public Attributes | |
| static final int | poll_patient = 0 |
| static final int | poll_bot = 1 |
| static int | bot_or_patient = poll_bot |
| static final Boolean | DEBUG = false |
| static int | BOT_POLLING = 5 |
| static int | PATIENT_POLLING = 128 |
Package Attributes | |
| CommunicationAPI | capi |
This thread cyclically polls all the entities in the system (bots/ patients) asking about their status and returning their current status which the provide over Zigbee encoded in an 8 bit character
Definition at line 37 of file PollingThread.java.
| pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::PollingThread | ( | CommunicationAPI | capi | ) | [inline] |
Constructor
| capi | Communication API |
Definition at line 88 of file PollingThread.java.
| Character pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::poll_next | ( | int | poll_bot_or_patient | ) | [inline] |
Poll the next entity bot or patient
| poll_bot_or_patient |
Definition at line 104 of file PollingThread.java.
int pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::bot_or_patient = poll_bot [static] |
Indicates who (patient or bot) must be polled in the next turn
Definition at line 64 of file PollingThread.java.
int pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::BOT_POLLING = 5 [static] |
8 bit encoding of "POLL" message for a bot
Definition at line 72 of file PollingThread.java.
Communication API Object
Definition at line 43 of file PollingThread.java.
final Boolean pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::DEBUG = false [static] |
Debugging flag
Definition at line 68 of file PollingThread.java.
Number of serving bots
Definition at line 51 of file PollingThread.java.
int pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::PATIENT_POLLING = 128 [static] |
8 bit encoding of "POLL" message for a patient (0x80)
Definition at line 76 of file PollingThread.java.
final int pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::poll_bot = 1 [static] |
Flag indicating that in the next turn bot must be polled
Definition at line 59 of file PollingThread.java.
ID of the bot to be polled in the next loop
Definition at line 47 of file PollingThread.java.
final int pss::server::scheduling::PollingThread::poll_patient = 0 [static] |
Flag indicating that in the next turn patient must be polled
Definition at line 55 of file PollingThread.java.


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{% extends "base.xml" %} {% block content %} Server not available. 500! Sorry. There seems to be a problem with the server. Please try again later. {% endblock %}


Consider the following function:
What value does result(n) return?
(Either write a number, or write "infinite recursion".)
ANS
2 is multiplied by itself n times. In other words the
result is 2^n
.


3 Installing cosNotification
3.1 Installation Process
This chapter describes how to install cosNotificationApp in an Erlang Environment.
Preparation
Before starting the installation process for cosNotification, the application Orber must be running.
Configuration
When using the Notification Service the cosNotification application first must be installed using cosNotificationApp:install() or cosNotificationApp:install(Seconds), followed by cosNotificationApp:start().
Then the Event Channel Factory must be started:
- cosNotificationApp:start_global_factory() - starts and returns a reference to a factory using default configuration parameters. This operation should be used for a multi-node Orber.
- cosNotificationApp:start_global_factory(Options) - starts and returns a reference to a factory using given configuration parameters. This operation should be used for a multi-node Orber.
- cosNotificationApp:start_factory() - starts and returns a reference to a factory using default configuration parameters.
- cosNotificationApp:start_factory(Options) - starts and returns a reference to a factory using given configuration parameters.
The following options exist:
- {pullInterval, Seconds} - determine how often Proxy Pull Consumers will check for new events with the client application. The default value is 20 seconds.
- {filterOp, OperationType} - determine which type of Administrator objects should be started, i.e., 'OR_OP' or 'AND_OP'. The default value is 'OR_OP'.
- {timeService, TimeServiceObj | 'undefined'} - to be able to use Start and/or Stop QoS this option must be used. See the function start_time_service/2 in the cosTime application. The default value is 'undefined'.
- {filterOp, OperationType} - determine which type of Administrator objects should be started, i.e., 'OR_OP' or 'AND_OP'. The default value is 'OR_OP'.
- {gcTime, Seconds} - this option determines how often, for example, proxies will garbage collect expired events. The default value is 60.
- {gcLimit, Amount} - determines how many events will be stored before, for example, proxies will garbage collect expired events. The default value is 50. This option is tightly coupled with the QoS property MaxEventsPerConsumer, i.e., the gcLimit should be less than MaxEventsPerConsumer and greater than 0.
It is possible to define a set of global configuration parameters:
| Key | Range | Default |
| type_check | true | false | true |
| notify | atom() | false | false |
| max_events | integer() > 0 | 50 |
| interval_events | integer() > 0 | 10000 milliseconds |
| timeout_events | integer() > interval_events | 3000000 milliseconds |
Comments on the table 'Global Configuration Parameters':
- type_check
- Determine if supplied IOR:s shall be type checked, i.e. invoking corba_object:is_a/2, or not.
- notify
- The given value shall point to an existing module exporting a function (arity 1) called terminated. This operation is invoked when a proxy terminates and the argument is a list containing {proxy, IOR}, {client, IOR} and {reason, term()}. The return value is ignored.
- max_events
- If a supplier proxy has not been able to push events to a consumer and the queue exceeds this limit, then the proxy will terminate. For this option to have any effect, the EventReliability and ConnectionReliability QoS parameters must be set to Persistent. For more information, see also the QoS chapter.
- interval_events
- The same requirements as for max_events. When a supplier proxy detects problems when trying to push events, this parameter determines how often it should try to call the consumer.
- timeout_events
- The same requirements as for max_events. If the proxy has not been able to contact the consumer and this time-limit is reached, then the proxy will terminate.
The Factory is now ready to use. For a more detailed description see Examples.


--- layout: default title: About ---
Pronounced as metal-why-hen
Hey there. My name is Neil Mathew. I'm primarily an Android Developer but I do dabble in other languages, platforms and frameworks.
Whatever app I build, I make sure that it is useful. I develop software to solve problems and design it for a specific audience. And I've almost always been an active user of my own apps.
I released my first android app to the play store in college. It was an attendance calculator which could determine how many classes you could safely miss to maintain your minimum required attendance percentage. Despite it's rough design and basic functionality, It grew popular because it was useful. So, I worked on it further to build a full-fledged attendance planner with colour-coded timetable, daily attendance alerts, holiday reminders, and strategic bunk information for each course. Within an year, the app had over 3 millions views a month. Students were hooked because it made their lives easy. It certainly made my schedule more convenient to manage.
I learnt a lot through that app. I learnt to monetise using ads which would pay for my backend costs. I started receiving hundreds of emails with feature requests and bug reports which I would filter through and prioritise. With the growing popularity of the app, I started partnering with other college-based initiatives. I learnt to sell and market the app through direct interactions, posters, forums, blogs, social pages and whatever I could get my hands on. And I tracked the growth through a number of analytics tools. It was fun.
It's been a long time since then and I've learnt so much more about design, documentation, planning, delivery, code quality, feature scoping and product management. But the principles I started with haven't changed.
"Vain is the word of the philosopher that does not heal the suffering of man"
- Epicurus
The meaning behind 'metalwihen'? Click here to find out.


The applications section of Protean allows you to add icons, or glyphs, for individual applications to the status bar. These applications will appear when the selected application has a notification. This can be accomplished by selecting an application from the list of installed applications, in the below example we will be selecting the Cydia application.
Selecting an Application
There are two ways you can find an application. The first being that you simply scroll down until you lcoate the application you're wanting to select from the list of installed applications.
The second way you can select an application is through the search bar, which can be found at the top of the Applications page.
Tap Actions & Glyphs
Once you have selected the application, in our case Cyda, you will see the following screen. On this screen you will are able to select the glyph you want to use for the application as well as the application's "Tap Action."
Tap Actions occur when you tap the application's glyph in the status bar. Selecting "Launch Application" will cause the application to launch when you tap the glyph. If you select "Activator Action" you will be taken to a list of activator actions that you can select.
Selecting a Glyph
In order to make picking a glyph easier for you we've added the ability to search through the list of your installed glyphs. You can start searching by typing into the search bar, located at the top of the page. Search results will begin displaying as soon as you've typed the first letter.
Once you've selected you can press Cancel to exit the Search field.
After you have finished choosing the application's glyph and it's Tap Action you can go back to the list of your installed Applications by pressing < Applications in the top left hand corner.
Now you won't see your application in the list of Enabled Applications just yet. In order for your newly enabled application to be shown we'll need to refresh the page. This can be done by simply going be to the main page of Protean and the selecting Applications.
As you can see, we now have Cydia listed as one of our Enabled Applications.


Presenting some core principles involved in the methodology that I
am cultivating for my practice.
Craft your skills
Hone your tools
Sharpen your questions.
Strengthen your perspectives
Broaden your mind
Open your heart
Think, Say, Make, Do
Review, Reflect
Metamorph
/pursuit of knowledge
/systematic planning or action
Practicing Invitation as an approach
- human potential is always there, waiting to
be discovered and invited forth
- to be inviting in a disinviting space is to
change the environment
- challenges, problems and seeming impossibilities
may be invitations in disguise
- the price of any invitation is for the other person’s right to say no
- an invitation is an opportunity to build
trust
- to be inviting, it is necessary to trust
the process
- trust is based on a memory of invitation
sent, received and acted upon
- as trust develops, so does the nature of
invitations
- an invitation is never an accident, it is
a choice made, a choice someone took
- good intentions are not always good
invitations
- when the opportunity is ripe, invite.
there may not be another chance to wait for
* based on Laurie Frank’s Guiding Principles to
Invitational Education


An experienced engineering manager, architect and consultant; pleased to have had the opportunity to develop my skills in the ever-changing mobile and gaming environments.
Proven track record of building and leading teams to construct innovative and scalable products. Adept at solving complex problems and working with internal and external teams to bring successful products to market.


Create a deligation pool
You need to send 1 Gram to activate contract. When it will be activated. We will redirect you to
the final step
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Bedlam Theatre, University of Edinburgh
Fall 2007
In the fall of 2007, I spent a semester at the University of Edinburgh taking classes in artificial intelligence and robotics. While there, I was drawn to the Edinburgh University Theatre Company. Composed entirely of students, the EUTC operates out of Bedlam Theatre: a 90-seat black box theatre inside a converted Gothic church on the former site of a mental asylum. Bedlam is both the company's year-round home and a famous Edinburgh Fringe venue.
Since high school I had had a passion for theatre, and I had acting, stage management and construction credits on a plethora of amateur productions. I had yet to direct a show of my own, so I pitched the idea of adapting one of my favourite science fiction novels: Star Diaries by brilliant Polish author Stanisław Lem.
There were several hurdles. The book is composed of about twenty short journeys, each involving the protagonist Ijon Tichy in an absurd yet thought-provoking parody of a common science fiction trope. Furthermore, I only had access to the text in Bulgarian, and the book had never been adapted for the stage. I had to translate the sections of the book I wanted to use, adapt them into a stage play, and obtain permission to perform them.
The copyright on the Bulgarian translation had reverted to the author. Since Mr. Lem had passed away the previous year, I contacted his estate and was able to obtain permission for a non-commercial performance from his secretary.
I selected three journeys: a time-loop in which multiple copies of Ijon Tichy vie for control of his ship, his role as representative of Earth in its first introduction to the Interplanetary Council, and a journey to a planet where teleportation and perfect bodily replication has been mastered. Each of these required complicated staging and props beyond the 60£ budget a first-year show was allocated.
Fortunately, thanks to a dedicated team and a phenomenal cast, the show came together. Presented as the third and last show of the night, it began at 10:30 pm, but the audience's reaction at the end was extremely positive. The show worked extremely well as a late-night sci-fi parody, and watching it realized is still one of my most cherished memories.
My time with Bedlam Theatre was instructive in another way. It was the first student theatre I'd worked at that had no "grown-up" oversight. The building was maintained entirely by students, which meant incredible freedom of experimentation with the space, but also a true sense of ownership.
Students felt free to propose radical stunts like hanging dragon wings on the face of the building, or painting the entire interior white for a show, but were also responsible enough to only approve projects with value. Furthermore, members of the company descended on the building every Sunday for a weekly cleaning and maintenance session that no one complained about. While we were there, the theatre was ours, and I watched my peers grow and demonstrate responsibility for the space and the institution. This experience has stuck with me and has been an integral part of my teaching philosophy.