"Thank you, parents, for being the best kind of role models. We are because of you," posted Sonam

"In remembrance of the two that have left us," wrote Amitabh Bachchan

"Rupert Grint and Georgia Groome are delighted to confirm the birth of their baby girl," the couple's representative said in a statement

"Big love with my little love," wrote Mira

"This was a learning experience for me," said Salman Khan

Over 1,50,000 Indians in the UAE, who wish to return home amid the coronavirus lockdown, have applied through the online registration process to the Indian missions in Dubai, according to media...

An Indian-American father and daughter, both doctors in New Jersey, have died due to the COVID-19, with Governor Phil Murphy describing their demise as "particularly tough" and hailed them for...

Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee and former US vice president Joe Biden alleged on Friday that President Donald Trump utterly failed to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic and said...

The Congress on Saturday said there was "confusion" within the central government in its fight against the novel coronavirus and wondered how the country will tackle the pandemic if officials...

An Air India flight carrying 129 Indian nationals from Dhaka, Bangladesh, landed at Delhi airport today as part of Vande Bharat Mission to bring back stranded Indians from different countries.

The West Bengal government on Saturday refuted the allegations of non-cooperation by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and said that it has facilitated the return of around 6,000 migrants stranded outside...

With India exiting its lockdown, where does it stand in its efforts to check coronavirus? In a global townhall with some of the world's biggest experts, NDTV's Dr Prannoy Roy talks to Economist...

Border Roads Organisation has completed the construction of road from Dharchula to Lipulekh on China Border.

The West Bengal government has agreed to allow eight trains to bring migrants home from four states, the Railway Ministry tweeted today. It said Bengal had until now allowed only two "Shramik"...

Delaware One Stop is a convenient, centralized transactional platform created to help business owners work through the necessary steps to begin operation in Delaware.

DOVER (January 3, 2020): As part of a systems-wide upgrade to State of Delaware banking processes, the Office of State Treasurer Colleen C. Davis and the Department of Labor have announced improvements to unemployment benefit payment distribution. By the end of this month, the state will move unemployment debit cards to the U.S. Bank ReliaCard®, […]

Victorien Barbet, Juliette Rouchier, Noé Guiraud and Vincent Laperrière: We present a model showing the evolution of an organization of agents who discuss democratically about good practices. This model feeds on a field study we did for about twelve years in France where we followed NPOs, called AMAP, and observed their construction through time at the regional and national level. Most of the hypothesis we make are here either based on the literature on opinion diffusion or on the results of our field study. By defining dynamics where agents influence each other, make collective decision at the group level, and decide to stay in or leave their respective groups, we analyse the effect of different forms of vertical communication that is meant to spread good practices within the organization. Our main indicators of the good functioning of the democratic dynamics are stability and representativeness. We show that if communication about norms is well designed, it has a positive impact on both stability and representativeness. Interestingly the effect of communication increases with the number of dimensions discussed in the groups. Communication about norms is thus a valuable tool to use in groups that wish to improve their democratic practices without jeopardizing stability.

Bruno Pietzsch, Sebastian Fiedler, Kai G. Mertens, Markus Richter, Cédric Scherer, Kirana Widyastuti, Marie-Christin Wimmler, Liubov Zakharova and Uta Berger: The recent advancement of agent-based modeling is characterized by higher demands on the parameterization, evaluation and documentation of these computationally expensive models. Accordingly, there is also a growing request for "easy to go" applications just mimicking the input-output behavior of such models. Metamodels are being increasingly used for these tasks. In this paper, we provide an overview of common metamodel types and the purposes of their usage in an agent-based modeling context. To guide modelers in the selection and application of metamodels for their own needs, we further assessed their implementation effort and performance. We performed a literature research in January 2019 using four different databases. Five different terms paraphrasing metamodels (approximation, emulator, meta-model, metamodel and surrogate) were used to capture the whole range of relevant literature in all disciplines. All metamodel applications found were then categorized into specific metamodel types and rated by different junior and senior researches from varying disciplines (including forest sciences, landscape ecology, or economics) regarding the implementation effort and performance. Specifically, we captured the metamodel performance according to (i) the consideration of uncertainties, (ii) the suitability assessment provided by the authors for the particular purpose, and (iii) the number of valuation criteria provided for suitability assessment. We selected 40 distinct metamodel applications from studies published in peer-reviewed journals from 2005 to 2019. These were used for the sensitivity analysis, calibration and upscaling of agent-based models, as well to mimic their prediction for different scenarios. This review provides information about the most applicable metamodel types for each purpose and forms a first guidance for the implementation and validation of metamodels for agent-based models.

Katarzyna Growiec, Jakub Growiec and Bogumił Kamiński: We study the impact of endogenous creation and destruction of social ties in an artificial society on aggregate outcomes such as generalized trust, willingness to cooperate, social utility and economic performance. To this end we put forward a computational multi-agent model where agents of overlapping generations interact in a dynamically evolving social network. In the model, four distinct dimensions of individuals’ social capital: degree, centrality, heterophilous and homophilous interactions, determine their generalized trust and willingness to cooperate, altogether helping them achieve certain levels of social utility (i.e., utility from social contacts) and economic performance. We find that the stationary state of the simulated social network exhibits realistic small-world topology. We also observe that societies whose social networks are relatively frequently reconfigured, display relatively higher generalized trust, willingness to cooperate, and economic performance – at the cost of lower social utility. Similar outcomes are found for societies where social tie dissolution is relatively weakly linked to family closeness.

Volker Grimm, Steven F. Railsback, Christian E. Vincenot, Uta Berger, Cara Gallagher, Donald L. DeAngelis, Bruce Edmonds, Jiaqi Ge, Jarl Giske, Jürgen Groeneveld, Alice S.A. Johnston, Alexander Milles, Jacob Nabe-Nielsen, J. Gareth Polhill, Viktoriia Radchuk, Marie-Sophie Rohwäder, Richard A. Stillman, Jan C. Thiele and Daniel Ayllón: The Overview, Design concepts and Details (ODD) protocol for describing Individual- and Agent-Based Models (ABMs) is now widely accepted and used to document such models in journal articles. As a standardized document for providing a consistent, logical and readable account of the structure and dynamics of ABMs, some research groups also find it useful as a workflow for model design. Even so, there are still limitations to ODD that obstruct its more widespread adoption. Such limitations are discussed and addressed in this paper: the limited availability of guidance on how to use ODD; the length of ODD documents; limitations of ODD for highly complex models; lack of sufficient details of many ODDs to enable reimplementation without access to the model code; and the lack of provision for sections in the document structure covering model design rationale, the model’s underlying narrative, and the means by which the model’s fitness for purpose is evaluated. We document the steps we have taken to provide better guidance on: structuring complex ODDs and an ODD summary for inclusion in a journal article (with full details in supplementary material; Table 1); using ODD to point readers to relevant sections of the model code; update the document structure to include sections on model rationale and evaluation. We also further advocate the need for standard descriptions of simulation experiments and argue that ODD can in principle be used for any type of simulation model. Thereby ODD would provide a lingua franca for simulation modelling.

Flaminio Squazzoni, J. Gareth Polhill, Bruce Edmonds, Petra Ahrweiler, Patrycja Antosz, Geeske Scholz, Émile Chappin, Melania Borit, Harko Verhagen, Francesca Giardini and Nigel Gilbert: The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a dramatic loss of lives worldwide, challenging the sustainability of our health care systems, threatening economic meltdown, and putting pressure on the mental health of individuals (due to social distancing and lock-down measures). The pandemic is also posing severe challenges to the scientific community, with scholars under pressure to respond to policymakers’ demands for advice despite the absence of adequate, trusted data. Understanding the pandemic requires fine-grained data representing specific local conditions and the social reactions of individuals. While experts have built simulation models to estimate disease trajectories that may be enough to guide decision-makers to formulate policy measures to limit the epidemic, they do not cover the full behavioural and social complexity of societies under pandemic crisis. Modelling that has such a large potential impact upon people’s lives is a great responsibility. This paper calls on the scientific community to improve the transparency, access, and rigour of their models. It also calls on stakeholders to improve the rapidity with which data from trusted sources are released to the community (in a fully responsible manner). Responding to the pandemic is a stress test of our collaborative capacity and the social/economic value of research.

The Delaware Office of Management and Budget will be holding three public hearings to gather public comment on regulations under Governor Markell’s Executive Order 36, a statewide review by all agencies to identify and remove regulatory hurdles.

Governor Jack Markell unveiled a balanced budget proposal that promotes increased job and educational opportunities, supporting the theme of his State of the State address last week when he focused on ways to unleash the potential of all Delawareans.

State of Delaware offices in Kent and Sussex counties are closed during regular business hours 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Non-essential employees who live or work in Kent or Sussex County are not to report to work for this period. Essential employees are to report as scheduled. State of Delaware offices in New Castle County will open at 10 a.m. Non-essential employees who live or work in New Castle County do not report until 10 a.m. Essential employees are to report as scheduled.

Businesses owned by individuals with disabilities and certain small businesses will now be included in the state’s supplier diversity efforts thanks to an executive order recently signed by Governor Jack Markell.

State of Delaware offices in New Castle County and Kent County will open at 10 a.m. Non-essential employees who live or work in New Castle County or Kent County do not report until 10 a.m. Essential employees are to report as scheduled. More Information

The Delaware Office of State Planning Coordination announces the release of the draft 2015 Strategies for State Policies and Spending Update.

Building on efforts to revitalize downtown areas statewide, Governor Jack Markell announced on Wednesday that the state will accept new applications from local governments interested in being designated as Downtown Development Districts. Residential, commercial and industrial development in designated districts may qualify for a menu of local and state incentives, including grant rebates to offset the cost of private investment. Governor Markell made the announcement Wednesday morning in Wilmington at the 2016 Downtown Delaware “Revitalize!” Conference.

Director Ann Shepard Visalli will conclude her tenure leading Delaware’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) next month following more than seven years leading the Markell Administration’s efforts to balance challenging budgets while making key investments that have strengthened the economy, improved the education system, and enhanced quality of life throughout the state.

Dover, DE – The Office of Management and Budget today released a report commissioned by Governor Jack Markell earlier this year in an ongoing effort to build a welcoming work environment across State government that fully embraces diversity and equal opportunity for all employees. “I have been clear that my administration is committed to ensuring […]

Board presents recommendations across focus areas to improve efficiency and accountability in state government WILMINGTON, Del. – Governor John Carney on Thursday released the second annual report of the Government Efficiency and Accountability Review (GEAR) Board. Governor Carney established GEAR by Executive Order in February 2017 to identify ways for state government to operate more […]

Governor Carney has ordered the U.S. and Delaware flags lowered to half staff beginning the morning of Friday June 7 through Monday morning June 10 in remembrance of former State Representative Robert Powell and former Delaware State University President Dr. William DeLauder. Mr. Powell was first elected to the Delaware General Assembly in November 1972 […]

Today President Trump ordered American flags at all U.S. government buildings and facilities to be flown at half-staff until sunset on August 8, 2019 as a mark of solemn respect for the victims of the terrible acts of violence perpetrated in El Paso, Texas on August 3, 2019 and in Dayton, Ohio on August 4, […]

Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958

Anand Marriage Act 1909

Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council Act 2005

Moratorium under the Insolvency And Bankruptcy Code

Andhra Pradesh and Madras (Alteration of Boundaries) Act 1959

AcSIR-Act-2011 - The Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research Act, 2011

Independent Thought v Union of India and Ors. (2017)

Owners of farm markets, produce stands, garden centers, agritourism businesses, riding stables, farms offering hay sales, and other agricultural retail operations are being sought to be featured in the latest edition of the Delaware Agricultural Directory.

Visitors to the Delaware State Fair can learn how to cook Japanese foods, carve a chicken, eat healthy on a budget and make a watermelon banana split – all in one place, at the Department of Agriculture’s Education Building. Starting Friday, July 19, DDA and its partners will offer a lineup of free food and cooking demonstrations every day of the fair.

Governor Markell signed House Bill 160 to permit shellfish aquaculture in Delaware's Inland Bays, allowing the state to reap the economic benefits of a multimillion dollar industry while improving water quality in the bays.

As part of National Fire Prevention Month in October, Smokey Bear will be visiting classrooms with the Delaware Forest Service's yearly fire prevention education programs targeted to first-grade students in the state's private, public, and charter schools. Ashley Peebles coordinates the successful effort that reaches around 9,000 students annually.

Five marketing and research projects supporting Delaware crops will receive nearly $230,000 in funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Ed Kee announced today.

Delaware’s farming future and long agricultural heritage were both recognized today in a ceremony honoring the newest participants in the state’s Young Farmers Program and the latest inductees into the Century Farm Program, with the announcement that 10 young farmers would be receiving no-interest loans from the First State’s new innovative assistance program, now in its second year.

"Invading Your Forest," a workshop on managing invasive species in Delaware woodlands, will be held on Friday, January 17 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the ACE building-Delaware State Fairgrounds, Harrington.

The 2014 Delaware Arborist and Tree Care Seminar will be held on March 4 and 5 at Baywood Greens in Long Neck, Sussex County. Cost is $80 with lunch included. Register at delawaretrees.com.

DOVER — Delaware farmstand owners are invited to a free marketing workshop next month to learn how to reach more customers and improve profits. “Using the latest marketing techniques can make a real difference for farmers’ profitability,” said Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Ed Kee. “Our farmers are working hard every day to grow the freshest […]

With farm stands opening their doors and farmers' market seasons kicking off this month, it's now easier than ever for Delawareans to buy their farm-fresh items directly from growers.