team okay? Yeah you don't know yeah sorry in a couple minutes please. Thanks everyone for the patience. We appreciate it. Today we're here to talk about Fedora badges 2.0 and I don't know who's here in the crowd so I will do a short introduction. I am Marie Norden and I have been working on Fedora badges for over 10 years now last month so that's pretty cool. Also involved in some other teams in Fedora and previous Fedora community action and impact coordinator and currently working for the Python software foundation as a community communications manager. So I'm going to pass it to Emma to introduce herself. Thanks Marie. Yes my name's Emma Kidney. I'm on the Fedora design team as well as the community design team that's within Red Hat and I've been part of that since 2021 so I'll pass it over to Akash. Thanks Emma. I've been contributing to Fedora community for a while now. Name's Akash Deepthir and right now I contribute to both Fedora infrastructure as well as I'm a part of that team called the community platform engineering team. All right so over to you again Marie. Cool so I'm just going to do an introduction here about what we're sharing today and what Fedora badges 2.0 is all about so as I mentioned I've been working on Fedora badges for over 10 years so it's that old plus some and it's showing its age. If you've been on badges that Fedora project or you know it's showing its age a little bit and if you've interacted with the system you know that some of the badges don't work as well as they used to because different pieces of the infrastructure behind how badges work have changed both on the Fedora side and the you know how some of the badges was built some of that technology has changed too so a little bit over a year ago we had some folks from CPE and community members say you know if we want to revive this what do we need to do to make that happen um so one of the first things we did was like gather some raw raw support about it and gather some testimonials about why we love badges as community why it's important to us what kind of impact it's had on our lives and our lives in Fedora and you can actually find that discussion thread on discuss discussion.fpo and it's got some really nice stories so definitely check that out so once we're like okay we want to do this we got a group of people together uh to kind of plan and talk about what we needed to do so we realized we needed three things which would be a new back end very importantly a new front end because the front end is looking outdated and Fedora's aesthetic has grown and how we look at websites and interact with them has also grown and also new art there's tons of beautiful art there but some of it was made over 10 years ago so you know the badges aesthetic has grown we wanted to bring that kind of up to speed so currently we're meeting once a month on a call and we have two element chats so I am going to plug right now a request for more volunteers and people to join in because we really do need this to be a community effort to get it back up and running and part of what we're doing to make that happen is modernizing the whole system so that it's more interesting for people to work on you know everything from the back end the front end and the art so you can join us on a monthly call and we have two channels that you can come and introduce yourself and get involved so we have our usual badges channel that's been around for ages we also have a badges development channel so that we can keep that conversation focused and you know folks can go back and forth about the development as much as needed without kind of clogging up that main channel where all of us are working so that's a little bit about who but when where and why we're doing this revamp and I think I'm going to pass it now to Akash to get into the back end thanks Marie right let's move on to the next slide so Tari was the front end as well as the back and then the application structure for the Fedora badges it was basically a web application or well still is because it's still used in the community that interacted both with the database as well as a trend at the front end now the problem with Tari was that you know it was a website and we wanted it to act like a web application and in 2023 I just looked it up real quick 95.8 person people use their websites web applications from their mobile phone so it was time that we optimize our things to be a lot more mobile first responsive so you know with time over the course of multiple years what we investigated and found out that you know APIs are the way forward to talk with services you know instead of sending SPB requests which are a part of a website and let that website refresh every single time you do anything of that kind it's better to use something like an API and that way your website will be like a web application interactivity would increase so that is the simplified access part the next is the faster back end and with time we have gotten a lot many technologies a lot many things that are much better capable of using the system resources that they're provided with on rather mentioned off one of those frameworks fast API which is capable of running asynchronous code thereby responding to multiples like millions of thousands of requests and the same resources that any other synchronous frameworks would be capable of so a faster back end has become a need of the other then of course the better interaction like I said before we need something to be like an application while not working as hard to make one application then put it to some other thing well why not some make something that's based on the technology so that we can create it once and use it everywhere else granted there are problems with that lots of it but we can definitely onboard as many people as we want to irrespective of the platform that they're making use of with using the technologies and finally with the use of efficient databases instead of running while SQL queries by that you know just like that we use things like abstraction like SQL alchemy and there are the libraries that let you write phytonic code while you're interacting with things like a database so that definitely helps to reduce that curve of learning and gets people started really quickly with contributing the next slide please sorry one second oh i'll get i'll get we just got a glimpse of one of your next talks so that's a good thing yeah oh god i couldn't look for that though so attendees if you watch that you should definitely turn up in like an hour from now when Emma's talk is there i think it's an odd 30 from now so be sure to be there it's one of the good ones right yeah so now that we know about the state of the baddest technology stack right now we know it for the fact that the revamping is required and we would love to use something that's already there and try to fix things up but we can't quite and here are the reasons here are the change requirements from the service that would not let us do just that so we're trying to make an open ecosystem so as to make sure that we have both an API as well as a frontend the frontend again being a reference frontend that people can make use of but if they want to well write client application in frameworks like q.gtk that accesses our api that's perfectly fine they totally can't do that so we really want to keep an open ecosystem so as to make sure that people can contribute not in the way they want but also in the tools that they want to create with these things and also the boosted efficiency with the use of asynchronous frameworks with you know abstraction layers so as to make sure that the programmers are spending more times writing solutions and not while creating wheels for the car that they want to drive then the third thing is of course making our websites look more akin to applications and like one of the folks in the common section mentioned making things mobile first but not forgetting desktop users at the same time so definitely that and finally lapping every single thing that I just mentioned in an inclusive process that is welcoming to everyone irrespective of how experienced you are in python or in java script or in frameworks in the frontend side of things we don't care we'll have a documentation that's going to get you started with contributing in no time and there's definitely something for everyone next slide please right so the reason why we don't want to revitalize what's already there so of course it makes use of an aging technology called pyrimid for which documentation is there but the community is not so we really want to use something like fast api that's a lot more current something that people can contribute to and also mention off in the resume so it's a win-win situation for every single one then of course the prolonging activity of the code base which led to a lot of test cases failing the ci workflows topping to work and at this point in time it's better off to start with something new rather than trying to learn an old code base that might not be worth it and then the experience acquired now if you were someone who wrote it back then it would feel like a natural thing to you but for everyone else who is learning it into 2023 a technology that was 1110 years back might not only be heightening up the barrier of entry but it also won't be worth contributing to and finally scarce documentation with repository spread in pager and on github and some on githlab as well at the time of speaking this it's very difficult for a beginner to get started contributing so definitely no revitalizing and more revamping the next slide please and yeah i'm going to get quickly over with this because there's a bunch of other stuff we talked about in a design side of things as well as the front end side of things as well but this is how the skeleton looks like take a screenshot but if you don't want to take a screenshot the next slide would send you the information about the documentation so the next slide please and yeah so this is the documentation where you can find all about the investigations run by the fedora infrastructure as well as the community platform engineering team about this project take a look at that and here's the project repository we accept issues pull requests any contributions for that matter and with that i'm going to pass it over to murray over to me i think oh yeah over to emma sorry yeah my refined yeah so i'll just quickly go over it's the ui ux side of things but i guess um the main question is why revamp like murray said at the start the current look is a bit outdated and it's also old branding and as you can see up the top here you can see the old fedora logo the old door font the old door blue and the accessibility to information is a bit limited and it would also just be nice to align it with other fedora branded websites and applications like fedora docs fedora discussions and and the newly revamped fedora website as well um community feedback so last month i would have sent out a fedora badges front end questionnaire on fedora discussions i would have liked to have a nice little infographic here to explain the information that was that came from that questionnaire but unfortunately i did not get the time to tell that this week so um but i will say there was a satisfactory amount of participation on that questionnaire and what i can do is as soon as i have that ready i'm going to share it up on fedora discussions because there is um some valuable feedback there and some nice insights to things and the user flow so this is a visual representation of how the user moves through a website so this is based on the current fedora badges application at the moment and this is to just kind of help you see all the different paths to kind of get all the different pages you see up the key here you know the boxes page the link then as well and an action so in our case it's mainly login and the admin pages are kind of in this white gray color and not everyone has access to these obviously it's just people with admin rights um but they do have quite a lot of more pages to see um the low fight wireframe so low fight low fidelity and they're just basic wireframes that outline blueprints for web pages so this is just to give everyone kind of a general look and feel of what the fedora badges could look like um yeah there's going to be no major changes to the architecture um from my side anyway um well i would have liked from this was to gather kind of community feedback regarding the current direction i know obviously these are very kind of rough at the minute they're not that refined um but it's to just kind of give you that general kind of gist of where it could go and what i can do is i can just paste in the discussion post here um if people want to give any feedback they can and then onto the high fly wireframes so high fidelity um are just a bit more complete in their visual representation so a bit more refined um kind of closer to what the mock-ups would actually look like they're still in the early stages and what i can do is um once the mock-ups are complete i can post them on discussions um for feedback and i can work with the community until we are satisfied with the outcome and this is kind of a similar approach i took with the fedora website revamp if anyone remembers um or was on fedora discussions then you would have seen i um every time i was done with a particular page i would have posted it up on discussions with my justification for you know why things looked the way they did and then the community could give me feedback on what they liked or didn't like or what they think i should change and so on so it is it is an involved process with community i think as well um next steps so as i said the mock-ups will be posted as they are done um and i will work with community until mostly happy with the new look obviously we cannot please everyone but i will try um to get as close as i can so keep your eyes peeled for that um that being said this will take some time i'm the only one working on the ui ux at the moment um so it will take some time for me to post some hopefully i'll have something before christmas um and if you want to get involved feel free to just reach out to me and we can get you started um so yeah i'm passing over to marie then for the graphic design side of things yeah i think that's a pretty exciting part to contribute get volunteers for as well um putting a new fresh paint uh coat of paint on fedora badges would be really nice for someone's portfolio so i'm going to talk about the graphic design the badge art part of the revamp so you can go to the next slide so you know why update the art right i talked a little bit about it at the beginning but basically graphic design standards have changed over the years since we first kicked off badges fedora's brand has changed and evolved and the people contributing to the project have also changed um i'm still here but there's lots of newcomers who want to do new things try new things so these are all reasons to update the art we've also learned things like about what we want the standard to be um we've also learned that you know really diving into that old template if you're vector artists you might be a little bit sad about some of the choices that were made in there so we've made that now very clean and fresh um and like i said the badge aesthetic has grown over the years we can go to the next slide so last summer i mentored an outreach intern nakita uh hopefully maybe you've met her at last year's flock um and she worked on fedora badges so she took our template and modernized it so on the right you can see the new version of what our fedora badges template looks like so it's more focused on the graphic it's simpler it's also compatible with dark mode um and it's nice and visually balanced we can go to the next slide um she also started nakita also started a new style guide to kind of go with this updated template and all the learnings that we have made over the last 10 years so this is an example page we can go to the next slide and this summer i mentored two interns oh i also co-mentored with smiracle um uh chris and roland who did an amazing job all the interns doing the amazing job but they did so much work on bringing the old artwork into the new templates that nakita created last summer so here's an example of a variety of the badges you're probably familiar with them and how they look now in the new template so we won't be implementing these in the old website because it would kind of uh we've made some changes to the padding around them and it would kind of overtake the space on the current website um so we're waiting to implement these until we get the new website up um but as you can see they're modern and they're gorgeous and i love them let's go to the next so just going to talk very quickly about what's left to do i'd love to have a chance to get some of the q and a so excuse me if i rush through some of this so chris and roland got through about half of the badges we have around 600 badges actually probably a little bit more now so they got through 300 badges in three months which is monumental but there's still about 300 to do so we need badge artists as well to get through this but we're talking about putting together some design sprints to kind of really make it happen um we have some new things to put into the style guide that nakita started last summer because chris and roland learned things while implementing into the new style guide um and there's some small design improvements so myself and smira are working through the changes there and which we hope to have it done in the next month or two next slide please uh once the style guide is finished and the badge art is complete and implemented we will then update all of the documentation updating it right now doesn't make sense because we're still using the old system and all of the documentation we have up is still valid for that old system um and then implementation will work in sync with other folks on the team to make sure that you know the specifications and how we put those templates together will work with the new website next slide and that's it so we have three minutes for questions hopefully we can maybe go like two minutes over um just so we can get through some of these uh I see that we do have some replies in here but just for the video's sake I think we could quickly respond to them so the first one is would the 2.0 system have badge series for example sequentially ordered series of badge earned in an order do you want to take that akash yep so uh in short yes we will we call them collections over here not series because um well some badges are not in series so let's just say if you voted for fidel in x35 and then you were busy so you could not vote for the coming two times and then you come back for fidel in x38 then uh these can be in a collection while series can be like long life to pagore if you're making multiple comments to pagore it's quite likely that you would be able to reach the hundred mark only if you have made the 15th comment so that would be a series but the other thing will be a set so we just call them collections in the newer system over to you Marie cool all right next question would historical data i.e. people's existing badges and who has earned them be preserved yes they will be and we're trying to you know reuse the older data set and kind of transform it to a newer data form where a bunch of things which were specifically for open badges won't be required anymore so of course we'll have them we'll be trying to make these uh databases a lot more optimal so let's make sure that we keep stuff that's necessary and nothing more over awesome i think the last one might be for you too so just stay with me uh is there work going into the back end side to eclipse or solve the currently broken badges right so a bunch of badges are broken right now which has has a lot to do with the fed message compatibility layer that we make use of right now uh badges is one of the last uh applications that makes use of fed uh fed message we are using fedora messaging in most of the tools like at at this point almost all the tools but uh we need to fix badges first not to be able to make it use fedora messaging and while we are not using it right now or while we're not working on it right now but we definitely plan to do that with the consumer project and i have sent a link over there if you take a look at that it's definitely in the pipeline it's just not something that we're working on right now thank you akash so i don't see any more questions in the q&a so i'm going to take this last like 30 seconds to say please come join us please keep this beautiful wonderful nostalgic and hopefully now modern two um project alive for fedora like we don't don't want to lose this every day that goes by the old system breaks down a little bit more we get more tickets opened with people saying i didn't get this badge or didn't get that badge and we want that for people and if we can make this happen we'd love to do even more with it we'd love to like get badges for some of the areas of fedora that don't have them yet um we'd love to be able to you know rework some of the how how the events badges work versus community and there's lots of things that we could do but we really need folks to pitch in and i know people are always asking for contributions but this is a really it's at the heart of fedora and we need folks to join in to make it happen so thanks for listening thanks for being here we really appreciate you and we hope that you enjoyed our presentation bye folks hi everyone


Our next topic tonight is talking on feed costs and some rations for backgrounding calves and There's always a lot to talk about when it comes to developing rations for cattle and How that fits in for backgrounding and there's just a wealth of things to talk about but again We're limited tonight for how far we can go But let's just cover a few things if you look over the past six years You can kind of see feed prices whether it be co-products or pure grain all kind of follow each other and About a year ago things kind of migrated apart quite a bit and if you look recently and this is actually today's price is when it comes to Corn and wheat mids and distillage grains Corns around I think 230 a ton wheat mids around 250 a ton distillers to to six 255 a ton Some pretty expensive feeds that we have out there. It's a whole different world. It's just more expensive But the two kind of go together That's where I come up and say, you know in reality when we're feeding calves you try to get weight on cattle It's all a matter of energy and our leader out there and producing energy for livestock is corn and corn the amount of starch and that it presents provides That price really sets a tone for all the rest of our feeds that are out there quick lesson in nutrition again We need energy to grow a livestock you either come from starch or come from cellulose since cattle are rumored animals And they can digest cellulose so whether it be grain or hay cattle need that for their energy then of course you need enough protein to allow them to digest the energy and Obviously we need vitamins and minerals because we've been sold in that for years And yes, we do need vitamins and minerals and if you're short on those you will suffer your performance Also good quality water is needed too But the main thing is as you increase the energy density of your ration you'll increase the gain in the cattle So I would like to try to highlight again more energy more growth More starch in the ration usually leads to more growth More digestible fiber in the ration will lead to more growth How do you measure energy in a ration really? There's two different ways that we normally go about one is to use the terms called total digestible nutrients It's measured in pounds or the other one is used in that energy system where they talk about any M or any G and that's really referred to in megacals per pound if you're kind of old school like me We still talk TDN because it's easy to understand and go Most feed yards talk about net energy and we'll have a few of those listed here later on too If I can ring throw one thing tonight That's figuring out your energy cost for the feeds and this is how you calculate the cost per pound of TDN for a feed You take the two hundred and thirty five dollars for corn. That's what six something a bushel is For corn right now 235 a ton So you take 235 divided by 2,000 pounds you come up with 1175 cents Divide that by the percent of TDN in the ration and you come up with 13 cents divide that by the dry matter So you're always comparing things in a dry matter basis and you come up with the price of energy for corn at 14 Point it well 14 cents point almost 15 cents do the math to compare things Here's our feed prices that I went through. I guess it was 658 per bushel for corn TDN kind of corn is 88 That's on a dry matter basis those can all change depending upon how you put your hay up or how you got your corn or what type of Corns you have it's really heavyweight corn. It might be up to 90% TDN might be less than that depending upon how things are working There's other can yeah, just grab one of those Let's see grass hay that's all over the board if you're dealing with some CRP hay I've tested some recently that's down around 44 to 46 percent TDN Pretty low quality stuff. If it was cut early in green. It could be quite a bit higher than even 52 and Wheat mids or 83 percent TDN barley mulch sprouts little less corn salvage Pretty high price stuff. It's $70 a ton. Let's figure 72 percent TDN Of course canola meal is a protein source $300 a ton is a current price for that energy wise it doesn't supply a lot of energy But it does provide a substantial amount of protein. Well, let's do some math here when it comes to doing feed costs I just got four values up there one for canola meal one for wheat mids one for corn another for Dried dried distillers grains not wet dry matter crude protein TDN cost per ton You can see what's listed across the top if you kind of study that thing you see the cost per ton for canola meal is $300 a ton cost per pound is 15 cents cost per pound of crude protein is 38 cents But here's my deal cost per pound of energy is 24 cents Look a wheat mids cost per pound of energy for wheat mids a 16 cents Corn is cheaper than wheat mids for cost of energy right now Unless you've got corn wheat mids priced in three months ago at a dollar seven at 170 bucks a ton today's price of 250 Makes corn a cheaper deal If you need to add processing on to the corn add another whatever it cost to add processing 10 20 30 40 Dollars a ton and then I'll change that math. Please do the math at home accordingly Maybe by the time you have to have the corn ground or processed It might be cheaper than wheat mids on the other hand if you do it on farm you don't have transportation cost put in place Corn might be cheaper Distillers grains is something you just can't ignore Ethanol plants produce a great product for cattle and that's distillers grains whether it be wet or dry Let's look at the dry price here at $255 a ton is what the quote is out of blue Flint today cost per pound is Presically the same as corn so here you get a great energy feed But you also get a protein feed to this 26% protein So in reality you're getting the energy for the corn price and you get in protein for free It really works in figure transportation to costs on top of that But you can see why a lot of feed yards have gone to use in distillers grains Matter of fact a one-time distillers grains used to be priced at about 90% the value of corn I see today at priced at about 110% the value of corn So they're asking more for it too since there's a dearth of feed needed out there in the area out there in the nation Here's one for energy for hay cost just energy and hay Round bails around here trying to be priced at $50 for a 1200 pound bale 48% TDN some of this CRP hay that was put out is that's kind of the upper end. I did find one at 50 once You do the math and you come down with 10 cents per pound of TDN. So that is cheaper than corn However, you can't get enough feed in the calves to make them gain We'll talk about that a little later corn stover a lot of that's being put up right now Our seascape our landscape up here looks more like my home back home in Iowa with all the corn They were piling around the area and you can see the cost of energy for corn stover is about five cents Really a low-cost feed when you look at pricing at $30 a ton around bale now There's some issues that comes to how much value there is in Corn stover as a fertilizer left on the field so that needs to be discussed not by me but by a Fertilizer person because there is some value in in the corn stover remaining out in the field lots of different ways to look at that number So when it comes down to corn stover, it's really cheap. It's low-cost feed It's great for bedding, but it does have a cost on the other hand Maybe a guy should look at that as a part of your cow feed ration rather than your calf feed ration just because the way the cost is Now if you're looking at average daily gaining calves Let's try to think through this one as you increase the average daily gain You need to increase the TDM in the ration if you want a half a pound 52 TDN, which is better than that prairie hay that we're looking at As you increase the rate of gain you have to increase the TDN value. It just Increases it substantially next to the TDN is the corresponding NEG net and she for gain value So some feed yard just saying yeah, we're going to feed our calves at a 0.49 NEG. What's that mean? That means around a 72 TDN ration that should give around three pounds a day Do you want a 0.38 TDN? I mean NEG ration? It's around a 64 TDN two pounds a day Okay, that's kind of where you go to from those. That's a sheet you can look at North Dakota produces an immense amount of processed feeds out here. It's just almost amazing how many How much production we have out here? However, if you start if you're in an area close to any of these Stars or locations You need to really think hard about trying to get feed out of them because transportation costs really bite into hauling those across the state The other problem we have this year is availability of feeds Um, I've had mixed signals on whether feeds are available One will say that we've got feed available for you next week others will say, you know in reality We're not getting our supplies that we need so it might be two months out It's a really frustrating time if you think you need distillers grains in about two weeks You should have probably looked at it about two weeks ago to try to make sure you get it Just so you get it schedule it in because a lot of this stuff is going out of state whether it's in Semi or rail car because the rest of the nation needs feed too and we've had a lot of it so The next slide really shows how many different distillers grains that are out there processing plants wheat midplants barley malt sprout We got a wet corn milling plant in the state potato byproducts beat tailings beat pulp my golly You know, that's a great feed Just remember you're hauling a lot of water when you're doing it and even when you figure that in It's still pretty reasonably priced when you're looking at 200 plus dollars a ton corn. It actually does fit in That's another discussion Again distillers grains just got to remind you it has both energy and protein You should limit it to no more than 30 on a dry matter basis when you're kind of feeding these calves up They love the taste and flavor distillers grains. You might end up with some sulfur toxicity, which like which looks like polio problems polin self-malatia problems Um, if it's fed at higher levels if you're feeding a high roughied ration Maybe your intake could be higher than that But you need to just watch out for those issues a word on good management feeding calves teaching them how to eat You can really screw up a group of calves if you don't do that right if you do it right They can respond and gain exceptionally well No matter how you feed them whether you feed them a feed bunk in a bucket or if you use a mixer wagon and go that route um, the next few slides are Are rations and associated average daily gains. This is beef for 575 weight calves The next one is for 660 weight calves And the next one after that I believe is 750 now on all these slides. I went through them rather quick, but if um Basically what they show is that as the calf gets bigger they can consume more feed And if you keep them on the same type of energy ration They'll actually pick up their performance a little bit as they get bigger as animals get cattle get bigger they can Consume more they can utilize poorer quality feeds better So my message there is if you got a young calf you really need to develop a good ration to keep them growing otherwise you will They won't perform as well once you're past that six seven weight Well, that's what we're doing we're trying to feed them up there But if you're below that 600 pound calf you really need a better ration than if you're above a 600 pound calf Getting them on feed the right way goes a long way. Now the next few rations are Slides have some more rations in them that are just a ray of different things I believe this will be held on our website. It's when we get this so you can review this at another time There is a handouts that your county agent might have or we have in the room If you had the opportunity to print those off apologies If you didn't have the access to them right away But they are available and you can look through them Basically as you increase the energy content you increase the average daily gain of the Cattle and I've got another sheet here that I've done and feed costs at a dollar 75 It'd be like 150 dollars a ton using some of the feeds we used if you're doing three and a quarter pounds a day gain It's 195 dollars a ton for that type of feed if you're looking at two and a half pounds a gain It's a hundred and seventy seven dollars a ton. Let me put it this way your feed cost per pound a gain Is from 80 cents to 70 cents and as you Decrease as you increase the gain your cost of putting on the gain decreases as you use more energy The cost of putting on the gain actually decreases So um, there's other things to think about and that is don't forget an ionophore Ionophores and that's spelled incorrectly there work really well. They do improve feed efficiency They're both attack and remence and are two are biggest ionophores There is some coccytosis going to control on those But if you have the opportunity to use it, I encourage you to unless you're doing natural programs implants They also increase average daily gain and if you're uh, not keeping heifers for replacements There's an opportunity there too coccytosis, of course, please manage that and uh feed additives Or be declinate or core red decox or core red Um, certainly, uh can control coccytosis and if you've ever dealt with coccytosis You'll do anything to prevent coccytosis from having happening. So, um feed prices I think they're relative to the corn price Younger animals have better feed efficiency So if you're going to develop a ration and get these calves going spend some extra money for a better Ration to get these calves up and going and as your energy density increases the feed efficiency Increased and when your background in calves the advantage really does go to grain And it still happens even though the price of corn stover is a is five cents and haze cheaper But when you're looking at putting gain on it keeps going to grain feed. So with that, um, I think i'll stop and ask the next person to start up unless there's a question I don't really have a question, but I have a statement We have a statement here at kerrington. Yeah, one thing I've noticed is that the higher the corn prices It forces you to become more efficient Yeah, it does. That's a good point Um, appreciate that the statement was as corn prices get higher It forces you to think about becoming more efficient in what you're doing Our next speaker is going to be john do better how to Yes Uh, we have a question here. Lamar. Yes, I can hear you Yes, what i'm wondering is if you're grinding hay for your ration on Five six eight steers And you're you're you have alfalfa as your crop and also corn stover. I mean That's what i'm doing and I notice. I mean they do well on it, but what's the what's the Ratio of one alfalfa or two alfalfa bales to one or what what's your research saying? Again it comes back to that target that you're looking for for average daily gain And if you're Um, I gotta hit the right number here And if you're looking for If you want better gain, you're gonna have to include more alfalfa If you're adding a lot of grain in the ration one to one would probably be okay It comes back to alfalfa works well because it's a protein source if you're backgrounding heifers becomes another issue If you're just feeding hay, I'd actually do two to one two alfalfas to one corn stover And they're not going to perform. Well, it all depends how good your alfalfa hay works. That's my thumb rule I've got grain in there too. I mean it's oats that's going in there given the price of corn I can buy oats a lot cheaper or raise it a lot cheaper. So that's what i'm doing is Roughly two alfalfa bales to one corn stover plus plus oats Yeah, um, that could work very well. What I'd suggest is let's uh Look at the ration at some point if you want to connect with me or al And uh, we can certainly evaluate that and see if what's going is meeting your Gain expectations for the cattle okay Be more than happy to do that go through a ration Our next speaker is going to be john duvetter on a my knot and uh, john is going to speak to us on Systems and budgets for backgrounding calves. John. I see your slide. I take it. You're ready Carl can we ask one more question? Well, sure Yes, crystal And your question is why don't you use a barley? I mean and and what at what percentage of the corn price would you use to compare barley with? Put it on a ton basis and use 80 to 90 the value of corn Yeah, this is kim We were just looking at that with some producers and barley is about five dollars and So that equates to about 588 corn. So yeah, if you've got barley and confeded that'd be a good alternative I would think right Carl I certainly agree with that tim the challenge I have up here I stopped at the at an elevator nearby and said oh you got any feed barley for sale Absolutely not So if you have access to it, it's it's right on good job Yeah, there really isn't a feed barley price. It's all malting barley, but the molsters got all they have now So you can you know the barley is kind of barley and the numbers I've seen about five dollars a bushel That's to buy it, but you're right Carl. You go in there and want to buy it. Maybe they don't have it It's whatever is available. It all feeds well


Okay, this is epic. DWM, Succes Dynamic Window Manager. Let's read some of the good stuff about it. Because DWM is customized through editing its source code, it's pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps the user base small and elitist.  Now, I don't know how you guys feel about that, but I am sold. Sign me up. And in fact, at the end of this video, you too can be small and elitist because DWM, it's a little different if you're familiar with other window managers, or especially I3. But once you wrap your head around it, it isn't too hard to understand. But once you understand the logic behind it, it all just clicks. People have been trying to meme me into using DWM since I started my YouTube channel. Now I'm using it. I'm probably going to continue to use it because I finally figured it out. It finally makes sense to me. So I'm going to explain it to you. I'm going to get rid of this. I'm going to move that to another workspace. Actually, I should say DWM doesn't actually have workspaces. I shouldn't even say that. It really has tags. We'll talk about the difference between them. But of course, you can move between them in the same way. You move between them in I3. Alt plus a number or something like that. That's the default binding. Of course, I change alt to super. So here's the idea behind DWM.  There's a default layout, a default tiling layout that looks something like this. There are other layouts that you can get on the website if you go to patches. There's a Fibonacci layout. I'll show you that one. There's the centered master layout. I'll show you that one. But behind every layout, there is one kind of logic. And here's the logic. It is a stack. So if you have one window, you have one window in the stack. When you create a new window, that new window goes on top of that other window. It is now the most prominent. When you create a window after that, actually, let me actually put stuff in these windows so you can tell them apart. When you create another window on top of that, it goes on top of the other ones. It is now most prominent. So I can type something else in here. And then as you can keep creating them, and the windows will be on top of the stack. Now, what does that mean? Now, obviously, visually, right now, it is not on top of the other ones. But I'll just say it's an abstract logic behind not just this layout, but all the other layouts. So here's the idea behind it. Here's, I guess, the mindset behind it. Your most recent window is the one that you're probably working in, that you're doing stuff in. And of course, I can promote. I mean, it's not like this is constant. I can go to my webcam and make me the most prominent window. And now it is moved from the bottom to the top, moving everything else down a layer. Or I can move this to the top. But the idea behind the stack, as a kind of abstract reasoning system, is that the window you spawned most recently, or you're most recently dealing with, that is most important. And it should be most prominent. And then windows lower on the stack, they're usually less prominent. And they should be in a less prominent location. You still want to see them. You still want to do stuff with them. But they're less important. Okay. So this is what the default tiling layout looks like. You have one master window on the left, which is the one that's on the top of the stack.  Okay, that's the default layout. But you can install other layouts, as I said, so that, for example, there is, we'll start with centered master. So the idea behind centered master, I have this installed. But when you press the binding for it, it does this. Now the master is in the middle. And if I create, you know, new windows, they will become the new master, right? So I can do whatever I want in here, you know, I can say, you know, new master. Okay. So, and of course, when I, you know, let's say I want to make this the most prominent window when I press the binding to make put it on top of the stack, it is now in the middle of it. Now the thing is, compare this to the tiling layout. They look very differently, but abstractly, they are the same. The windows are in the same order. When you scroll through them, you can scroll through windows with alt k and j. And choose whichever one you want to move up to the front with alt enter. But when you scroll through them on this layout, they are exactly the same in terms of order as they are in this layout. Or, you know, additionally, there for example, is the Fibonacci layout that looks something like this. So let's say, you know, let's say the Fibonacci layout, well, if as you make more windows, basically, your older windows, you can see my face disappearing, but your older windows will get smaller and smaller, right?  But the idea behind all of the layouts is they're all organized in a kind of stack format, where the most prominent window again is the one that's most visible. Okay. Now in addition, there's other stuff you can modify these layouts with. Oh, geez, I have so many of them. So as an example, actually, so this again is the default tiling layout that usually it just has one master on one side and a bunch of slaves. You can actually change this a little bit. Let's say I want two masters. Well, you can press alt and I to create, you know, make it so you have one more master than you did before. So when you spawn more windows, you'll see that of course these newly spawned windows will still be the two master windows and everything else will be demoted. But you still have two master windows, right? That's the point. So now there are two spaces for that. And when we promote an older window, you'll see that they take prominence in these two master positions again, pushing everything else down. So that again is alt I or you can undo that with alt D, I think. Yeah, I changed some of the bindings, but so you can move actually multiple windows back and forth. I mean, if you want to oops, I didn't mean to make all those. But you can move multiple windows into the master position or you know, move everything into the slave position or whatever. But that's the idea behind it. But the order behind the windows is always the same until you specifically tell one to be promoted. Okay, that's hopefully that makes sense. Okay, so let's do a little more. Let's do show you some more layouts just as an example. So I showed you. So there are a couple of other layouts. Again, most of these you have to get patches for. There, for example, is a grid layout, which looks something like oops, I did not mean to start GIMP. I pressed the wrong keyboard shortcut. But they have a grid layout that looks something like this. And keep in mind that all the elements in this grid are still organized as a stack. So it's like, you know, one, two, so this is master second, you know, and you can scroll through these because they're still ordered.  Or additionally, there's a centered master layout that's sort of similar to the one, you know, so there's the one I showed you earlier. And then there's this one. And notice, again, there's still two masters, I can demote one of those by pressing D, or alt D. But anyway, so that's the stack. That is the idea behind spawning windows in DWM. That's the logic behind it. And again, you can get all the layouts you want, you can make them how you want. But that's, that's the idea behind it. Now, that's not, of course, all there is to say about DWM. There's a lot more. This won't be my only video on it. But the other thing that separates DWM from something like I3 is that it does not have workspaces. It has tags. Now for an I3 user using DWM, it looks exactly the same. So you have all these workspaces, things that look like workspaces, they're not workspaces, but you have all these things that look like them up here. So you can press alt plus any of the number keys to go to them. Or you can press alt shift and one of the number keys to move any of your windows to them. So let's say I want to move this to five. Now it's at five, I can go to five and look at it. But tags are a little different, because you can look at multiple tags at the same time. So let me give you an example. Let's say I'm doing some intense development work over here. You know, I have all this important stuff pulled up. Now I could, let's say I needed to go to my browser. I could go over here to this tag and just look at the browser. Another thing you could do is you can look at multiple tags at the same time. So I can press what is it alt, alt control and then you know the number of another tag. And now that browser that is in nine has appeared here. Now you might say, to be clear, we didn't move the browser to the first workspace or tag. We're now looking at the first tag and the ninth tag simultaneously. And as you can see the one that we had our windows on and the nine that we had our browser on, they are both highlighted. Now if I decide to go again to one of them by going to alt one, you'll see that the browser disappears. Of course it's still on alt nine. We can go to see it. It's still there. But you can look at multiple of these tags at the same time. Additionally, let's say I just wanted to move this window. In the same way you can move windows to other tags, you know alt shift and then the number. You can press alt shift and control in the number. Let's say I want to move this to nine. And if I hold down control, it is now tagged for one as it was before. And it is tagged for nine now. So I can go, I press the wrong binding. I'll shift control. Sorry, yeah, my bindings again are different on my machine. But you can now see that it is on nine and it is on one. Great. So you might wonder, so you'll see that there are actually nine tags here that are there by default. There is no zero with tag. There's no like 10th tag or something. In i3 there's a 10th workspace. But there's no 10th tag here. That's because if you press alt zero, what happens is you activate all the tags simultaneously. So now you'll see everything is blue. We're looking at all the tags, all the stuff on all the workspaces, quote unquote workspaces. Again, they're really just tags. And by the same logic, let's say hypothetically, if I go to one of these other, you know, workspace or tags, and see I'm saying it, if I go to one of these other tags, oh, my poor face isn't here. I want my webcam to follow me everywhere. Well, one thing I can do is I can mark that workspace as being tagged for everything. So I can hold down alt and then shift and then press zero to mean all tags. So now that is on every single tag automatically. So I wherever I go that face is going to be on it. Okay. Now, of course, this doesn't mean it's not like it's running nine times or something silly like that. It's just one instance tagged for all of these. And of course, if I get rid of on one of them, it disappears or if I close out of it on one of them, it closes out on all the other ones. Although you can, let's say hypothetically, I could send it to all tags. Okay. So now it's everywhere again. If I wanted to just get rid of it on this tag, you can. So I'm on, I'm on eight right now. So I can hold down alt, control, shift and eight. I think is that it? No, maybe just there's some binding that gets rid of it on only this tag. Oh, I forget what it is. But you know, there's some binding that does that. But closing out the window will just close it everywhere to be clear. Hold on. I'm pressing. I got to figure this out. I'm on five. Okay. Yeah, that's what it is. Alt shift control. Yeah, I was pressing the wrong buttons. Yeah. So now it's on everything except for five. All right. So anyway, this has not been an exhaustive video. So this is the idea behind DWM. Okay, so two things. There's the tag system, and there's the stack system for ordering windows.  But if you want different ways to find out how to display them, go on Suclis's website. Again, there's the center mass centered master one that I had. And the Fibonacci layout, I installed those on the grid one as well. Grid mode, there it is there. So you can get different kind of, you know, different ways of looking at your windows. But behind it all is the logic of the stack. And again, the logic is the thing that you are working on most recently, it should be most prominent. So anyway, that's sort of a whirlwind course. I'll talk more in other videos about modifying DWM as I do more modifications to it.  So I will see you guys next time.


The aim of the present study was to characterize the chemical and mechanical properties of contemporary thermoplastic orthodontic materials. This article was authored by Alexander Pullows-Alexandris, Algebariusfs, Zinli Spiros, and others.


In the military, we embrace the differences between each of the four services. But in the medical world, saving lives is the only service that matters. Enter the Defense Health Agency. So the Defense Health Agency was stood up so that we could find those efficiencies and eliminate some of the redundancy that we were having in delivering our health care with the Army, Air Force and Navy. Vice Admiral Bono, only the second director in the DHA's short two-year history, visited medical facilities around Okinawa and even stopped by AFN's radio studio to spread the word about the DHA's mission. This visit out here is primarily to interface with a lot of the commanders who are running the military treatment facilities here in the Pacific area and particularly to make sure that they know about the support the DHA can give them. Reporting from Camp Foster, Japan, I'm Air Force Staff Sergeant Tori Kuzumano. Thank you.


Thank you all so much and good morning to everyone. My name is Henry Simons. I am the assistant city manager of operations for the city of Columbia. We would like to welcome you and thank you so much for your presence on today as we celebrate the grand opening and ribbon cutting of the Saluda River walk, also known as the Saluda River Greenway. Thank you to our mayor, Steve Benjamin, who sends his regards this morning. He is currently hosting the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Um, Marcia Fudge, who is visiting from Washington D. C. Also Congressman Clyburn, as they highlight the importance of vaccinations and discuss housing related issues here in downtown Columbia. Um, this project, of course, is near and dear to his heart. So don't be surprised if you see him prior to the end of this program. Um, thank you to Councilman Howard DeVall. Thank you to Councilman Will Brennan, who is present with us on today and all of our council members collectively present. I know Councilwoman Divine is on her way. Also want to acknowledge our chair of the Risen County Council Chairman, Paul Lifston, who is with us today and also the Allison to ratio and other council members, county council members that are present with us today. Thank you so much for for being here. I would also also like to acknowledge our special guest today, our Prisma Health executive management team who is with us. Thank you all so much for your presence on today. Also want to acknowledge our city manager, Teresa Wilson, who will be joining us here in just a moment for her continued guidance and leadership on parks and record recreation initiatives. Also want to acknowledge Chief Holbrook and Deputy Chief Monroe Kelly, who are with us today. Thank you all so much for your support and presence on today. Today's today's a great day. It's a great day for the city of Columbia and all the agencies represented collectively. The Salute River Riverwalk is a game changer. The new amenity has already attracted citizens from all over this state and beyond. As most of you are aware, this project has been in the making for several several years. And today marks a day that we celebrate the body of work that you see behind me. The Salute River Riverwalk offers about three miles of paved walkway or boardwalk along the Salute River, offering citizens an experience of some amazing views to include fishing and floating, walking, running, biking, offering just a chance to rest, relax and enjoy the outdoors. This will be one of the premier destinations for the city for years to come. Again, thank you so much for your presence on today. Now this time, I'm going to ask Councilman Howard DeVall to come forth and provide some remarks and we'll follow the program as the agenda is outlined. So we have Councilman DeVall followed by Chairman Paul Livingston, Chairman John McAuliffe, the Riverlines, and I will come back with some specific acknowledgements at that time and we will cut a ribbon. All right, Councilman DeVall. Thank you, Henry. This is a great day for the Midlands of South Carolina. And many of you were here four years and 40 days ago when we stood right down the hill and decided that we were going to build this thing. There was a bald eagle as John McAuliffe was speaking soaring above the river. And I told Henry when he said he wanted me to have some marks, I said I will speak if you will get that bald eagle to come back and be in the background. So I'm sure it's going to appear before I finish my remarks here. I'll try to pinch it a little bit for our good mayor, Steve Benjamin. This is a Midlands project. It is not a city of Columbia project. It is not a Richland County project. It is a Midlands project. We talk all the time about how when the Midlands gets together and wants to do something, if we all cooperate with each other, there's nothing we can't do. And this is one great example of the cooperation of all the people in the Midlands on creating something that will be a game changer for the Midlands as far as outdoor activity is concerned. I'm very excited about how we have put this thing together. I also would like to thank the River Alliance and many of the board members are here today that were here four years ago. Mike Dawson has spent 25, 30 years. Has it been Mike? It seems like 100, but it's been about 25, I believe, putting this this network of great projects together that will be the Riverwalk and the walks through Casey and West Columbian Alls be one of the largest connected walk and bike pathways in the United States and has already gotten recognition and awards for being that. John MacArthur has given us great leadership as chairman of the board. Very few board meetings, which is great, but he gets things done and and we work all together. This has been a county penny project. And I want to thank my council member Allison to ratio. A lot of times we had to tag team because we were working with county officials. We were working municipal municipal officials and Allison was always willing to tag team with me on the county side to push and pull and finally get the results that we needed to move the project along. I also want to thank my city manager. Oh, there she is. I saw a walking up there and she disappeared. Teresa Wilson. She has put up with a lot of emails and pushing and pulling and has has guided us through this project to get this thing done. One of the things I want to make a shout out for was the parking lot. The parking lot that you see right here is the parking lot that came with the penny. The parking lot this over twice the size a little bit further down the road 100 yards down the road is 80 plus parking spots that was done by the city of Columbia and its department. I wanted to mention departments, but when I started trying to think of them, all of them were taking part and getting that parking lot done on the other side. So we have 80 80 more plus parking spot because on the weekends already, these parking spaces are filled up. So a big shout out to Teresa Wilson. Her management team, which I think is the best in the South Carolina and probably best in the United States gets things done when we want to get things done. I also want to give a shout out for the Boyd Foundation. We've got George Bailey with us here this morning. Their interest in and funding of the projects that go along with this. Riverwall has been essential and it's not stopping now. Susan Boyd and George and the Foundation are very interested in in completing this project. The next opening that we will have will be Boyd Island, which if you haven't been there yet is a very special place in the Midlands of South Carolina is a unique place. And thanks to the Boyd Foundation, we have been able to really do it right and to get the amenities on there that will be an attraction for years and years to come. It's a very unique spot where you can stand at the confluence of the Saludra and the Broad and look up and see the capital dome in the state of South Carolina. There's no other site like that that I can think of in the United States. So thank you to the Boyd Foundation. The last part of my remarks is what I think is going to be the linchpin of all of these systems that have been built over the last 25 years. And that's crossing the Broad River and connecting to the Columbia Canal Riverwalk that's already over there three and a half miles of the Canalwalk. Here again, the Boyd Foundation has stepped up, given us a challenge grant. And I think we're going to be able to accept that. I'm sure my cohorts from the county are going to find their part. The city is going to find its part and we're going to get that things done. I've got two and a half years left and I want to be at the grand opening of the bridge that goes across the Broad. Because once you get that bridge in, you will be able to go from any of the nice hotels that are being developed in the vista of the city of Columbia, take a tram across the Broad River, come down to visit Tommy and the Zoo or bring your bicycle and ride it. And you can go all the way up to the Lexington Hospital. And I'm sure that the people in Lexington County are going to soon find the resources to move this trail all the way up to the Lake Murray Highway Six Dam. So that's our challenge. But I think the next part of getting that bridge across the Broad will be the connecting linchpin that puts it all together. And I'm so proud to have been a part of the construction and hopefully the use of this river water. And I'd like to introduce the chairman of Richland County Council, who has been very instrumental in helping us, Mr. Paul Livingston. Thank you. And good morning. I think it's still morning. Yes. What a great day for Richland County, citizens of Columbia, Lexington County and the Midlands in general. And I want to first just thank you for this opportunity for me to bring with me on behalf of Richland County Council. You know, this has made a very involved and long audience challenging reggae journey, getting to this particular point. And I'm clean and aware of what that included having been involved with the River Alliance since its inception. You know, Howard talked about years engaging this. Mike and I can talk about decades. Mike Dawson, you are truly the glue, the gorilla glue. That surely got us to this particular point.  You know, that's not quite appropriate for Mike. Mike is like a bulldoze in a channel shop. You know, he's going to boom until you get until you truly get done. You know, there's several things that are expected of public servants. But most importantly, I think it's those things that directly impact our true quality of life.  And I want to say special thanks to my colleagues, Mr. Rachel is here. He's worked close with the Alliance and he is on to the, to the Alliance. You know, commitment from the set of Columbia, hard work, the painting program and those who work with that particular program, private supporters, the board family, and many, many others who all made this possible, you know, staff members, board members, volunteers, supporters and so forth. This could not have happened without everybody working together. We made this as a county council a high priority without painting program. And that is one of the reasons why we're here today. And what about issues long ago, as we started this process was, you need some funding. And Mike was not going to let us forget that. So he reminded me every day that one of the highest priority for the penny private got to be a must be the river walk. I said, oh, Mike, okay, we'll see what we can do about that. And you know, I thought, you know, I'd be okay for a little while, but that didn't last very long at all. So Mike, I just really want a person to thank you for your effort in making this happen. I mean, I'm not sure many folks are aware of the due diligence and what you've really done to make this possible. Again, thank you very much. Good morning. My name is John MacArthur. I'm a lawyer by trade. But I've spent about the last 15 years on the River Alliance board and many as chair. I want to correct or give you my impression of the ceremony before we started Riverwalk where we broke ground while Howard was looking this way and seeing eagles. I was looking that way in the middle of our remarks a train went by and nobody could hear any of my remarks, which I think they all appreciate it. And between Howard and Paul, they've stolen many of my remarks. So I'll keep my breath. It's basically we need to thank a lot of people. It is my pleasure to represent the River Alliance today. This day has been long hoped for and dreamed about. The Saluta Greenway has been a part of the plan for the Three Rivers Greenway for more than 20 years. And the circumstances finally came together to make it happen. And we're so appreciative that we're here today. A little bit about the Three Rivers Alliance for those who don't know anything about I think most of you do. But we were formed in 1994. And Mike was hired as a original director about 1995 1996 to work for both counties, Richland and Lexington County and three cities, Columbia, Casey and West Columbia to plan the Riverwalks. And so our function, instead of having one person from each of those governments out there trying to figure out what to do that we would do it collectively and and coordinate with each other. So what we've done over that last 25 years is we've identified places where building a Riverwalk was feasible.   But where you can find land that's in the flood plain that's not otherwise developable. And you can find big property owners, instead of a bunch of small parcels and get easements from those folks, you can build a Riverwalk. So we mapped out the locations of the Riverwalks. And then we talked to the owners and many generously gave us easements to build the Riverwalk. And I'll mention a few of them in a second. In addition to that, we worked with land planners and others on the planning of the Riverwalk, the initial permits, you have to get wetlands permits, you're in the Navigal order sometimes you have to get federal permits. When you're in the FERC dominion project lines, you have to get permission from them might coordinate at all of that. Our mission is to have shovel ready projects. So when a government can figure out the method and we will we will try to help them with that in terms of ideas. But when they can find the funding for a project, we're ready to go. And that's what happened with this project. It was ready to go before the penny was passed. And so it made it easy to put it in the penny projects, and it made it the first significant long trail to be created by the penny tax. I want to stop for a second and recognize our board members, the river lights, our past Chairman Jim Smith is here. A number of our current and former board members are here. So y'all just raise your hand just to let everybody know who we have. And that includes Allison and Paul and Howard and Mayor Benjamin, and in the past to Mika and numerous other county and city officials as well as those on the other side of the river. So how do we get here? First, we obtained easements from the look from the owners, then SC and G David Jordan, who owns about a mile of riverfront up here. The Gardner family and the river banks do all donated these easements. We have one small payment one of them, but they all donated these easements so that we would have the right to put the river walk here. But for that, we would not have a river walk. I want to thank Richland County for coordinating with us and the city and getting this in the penny programs that were approved and voted on by the voters. That was essential to this. I want to thank all the all the council members, particularly Paul and Allison. I want to thank the county manager and all those on the county staff who worked on this for four years to get this bill. I want to thank the city. Not only is it a financial commitment to build a river walk, it's a financial commitment to pay to own and operate and secure it. That takes several city staff members full time out here doing that and the city committed on the front end that they would do that. That was essential to the county putting it in the penny program. It was essential to these landowners granting the easements. So thank you to the mayor, to the council members, to the city staff. And I'm one of those people who was emailing and bugging Teresa and I'm sure she got very tired of it. But thank you, Teresa, because this is here because of you and your staff. So, you already mentioned you took my words because my words were Mike is a bulldog. He is a bulldog. And I'm sure while they help pay his salary that the various government sometimes wish they didn't. But that's what it takes to get things done. You know, you've got people who are just pulled in all kind of different directions in the city and county governments. Having one person whose job is to plan the river walks and implement them is why it's gotten done on both sides of the river. None of the river walk on either side of the river would be here, but from Mike Dawson. So let's just stop and give him a hand. Thanks again to the Boyd Foundation. What a wonderful partner you are. George Bailey's here, who's the chair of the Boyd Foundation, the late Donnie Boyd and Mrs. Susan Boyd who's still with us have been and others on their board have been instrumental and very cooperative and their generosity not only has enabled Boyd Sanctuary to be built, but it's also instrumental in our ability to do the next phase, which is to go up the brawl, over the brawl, connect to the canal. When we connect that canal, you can walk from right here to the riverfront part where the waterworks are. And we're also working with the city and others on getting a bridge or some access near the State Museum. John McCabe is on our board. He's a chair of the State Museum Board to get across the canal once it's repaired at the State Museum. That would allow you to walk from Cobal Plaza to where we stand today and beyond. So those are great things in the future and we're working hard on those and those are going to be a reality. And thank you everybody for working on those. I want to thank our design team for the Boyd Island, Charles Howell, who's done a terrific job of planning that. And if you walk through there you'll see these tables and resting areas of the works of art. And Charles coordinated that and worked with a talented sculptor to make those special areas on Boyd Island. I want to thank the design team for the Riverlabs, who has been doing this for probably 20 years. Oz Negler, who's a renowned land planner. Ken Simmons, a land planner. And John Watkins, in addition to Mike, in addition to Mike's assistant, Sheila Starkey, who is here. Thank you for all you've done. So I think I've covered everything. Thank you again for being here. This is such a great day. Thank you. Thank you so much, John. I think you've covered all the mind remarks in terms of acknowledgments. But just just in summary, again, many thanks to our mayor, Steve Benjamin, all of our city council members present and collectively our Riesland County Council president and collectively city of Columbia and Riesland County staff who participated over the years and made this possible. Again, the Realized Board of Directors, of course, led by Mr. John MacArthur, who you just heard from. Again, the Riverline CEO, Mike Dawson, who's been named the Bulldog for the event. Thank you again, Mike, for your leadership. And just just again, a special thanks to the Boyd Foundation, specifically Susan and Donnie Boyd for creating a foundation that has blessed so many people in the community. We are forever grateful for your generosity. And Mike Dawson told me that Susan may be listening. Thank you so much, Susan, for your generosity and your vision. It means a lot to us. It means a lot to our community. So as Councilman DeVall has mentioned, we look forward to another grand opening of the Boyd Island Sanctuary. Isn't that what it's called? Mike Dawson, the Boyd Island Sanctuary. It is a beautiful place. And we look forward to all of our citizens enjoying, enjoying Boyd Island. Again, thank you, George Bailey, president of the Boyd Foundation for your continuous leadership and support of the Boyd Island Project, amongst other amazing projects that you've been a part of, representing the actual foundation. To the real bank zoo for your support and leadership, Tommy Stringfellow, for your support. Thank you so much. Dominion Energy, Department of Transportation, all the contractors that were involved in this process over the years. Thank you so much. Our City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Team for their amazing work. Our park rangers Karen Crucifix, who leads our park rangers. Just just a collective effort and to get us to this place. Again, as I made these comments in the beginning, Miss Councilwoman Devine, who is now with us. Thank you so much for being here. Also, our city manager again for your leadership and and guidance and just giving us direction and keeping things moving. We are we are forever grateful for this moment and also want to acknowledge our county administrator, Leonardo Brown, that's up near the restrooms in the shade there. Thank you so much, sir. I see you. Also, Assistant Administrator John Dr. John Dr. John Thompson was also with us. Thank you so much. I see the City of Columbia Mass. You're wearing. Thank you so much for representing. We appreciate you. That was a gift, I believe, from the mayor. So thank you. Thank you so much.


Antifospholipid syndrome, APS, is a rare autoimmune disorder which can cause multiple organ damage. It is characterized by recurring blood clots, pregnancy loss, and positive tests for antifospholipid antibodies. In this case study, a 31-year-old woman presented with symptoms of motor polyneuropathy and hand muscle weakness. She also had mitral valve regurgitation and renal dysfunction. After being diagnosed with APS, she received glucocorticoid treatment, which improved her renal function but did not improve her cardiac valvular involvement or peripheral neuropathy. This case highlights the wide range of manifestations of APS and emphasizes the importance of recognizing its presence in patients with unexplained thrombotic events and or pregnancy losses. This article was authored by Muhammad Reza Ardalan and Amir Rahidi.