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instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hello doctor,I am trying to conceive but my husband and I did cocaine a week ago. How long should my husband and I wait to safely continue to try to get pregnant? How long until it is out of our system? How long does cocaine stay in sperm? Thanks in advance.
How long should my husband and I wait to try for a baby if we did cocaine? output: Hello, Wellcome to iclinq.com. There are few researches/studies on cocaine use by males and its effect on pregnancy. Few suggest that cocaine by itself has limited effects as most of the time it is taken along with other drugs or as a cocktail of alcohol and cigarette (tobacco). So, most of the people take not just cocaine but a combination of drugs. Cocaine narrows blood vessels (vasoconstriction). It can lead to erectile dysfunction. Few studies suggest that it has receptors on testicles and sperm. So, it can degenerate testicular tissues/or sperm quality, transfer from sperm to female egg and can lead to early miscarriage. Cocaine is a very fast acting drug which affects the nervous system and produces short-lived euphoric attitude for 15 minutes to an hour, but causes long-term damage to the body and brain like anxiety, depression, aggression, impairment of logic and critical thinking, heart problem, hypertension and decrease in bone density. Its half-life is an hour. So, it takes about an hour for half of the cocaine consumed to leave the body. But, with long-term use, the drug starts to accumulate in the blood and body tissues allowing certain tests to detect it in the system for an extended period of time. After a single use of cocaine, agents created by its metabolism can be detected in the urine for two to four days, and in chronic users, cocaine can be detected up to 12 days and highly concentrated cocaine can be detected in the urine up to three weeks. It can be detected in the saliva and blood for an average 12-48 hours. In hairs and sweat for an extended period of time, it can be detected. So, after all the above description, I do not know how your husband had cocaine, as a cocktail along with other drugs, or just cocaine? Secondly, how long he has been taking it? For you, have you been on alcohol, cocaine or smoking? If you had taken in the past, better to quit completely. My advice is, try to avoid drugs like cocaine, alcohol, ketamine, and MDMA completely for a couple of months before trying for pregnancy. Because, if the mother has an addiction, it has psychosocial effects on the fetus in addition to the drugs' side effects itself. Best of luck.. |
IJERPH
Eliminating Health Disparities to Achieve Health Equity
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Special Issue "Eliminating Health Disparities to Achieve Health Equity"
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2015).
Prof. Dr. Stephen B. Thomas
Department of Health Services Administration, School of Public Health and Maryland Center for Health Equity, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Interests: race, ethnicity and health disparities research
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Globalization of Western Food Culture: Impact on Obesity and Food Insecurity
Special Issue in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: The Colors of COVID-19: Confronting Health Disparities During a Global Pandemic
Dr. Devon C. Payne-Sturges
Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Interests: environmental health policy; health disparities; environmental health equity; children's environmental health; environmental health of minority populations; social determinants of health; cumulative risk assessment; biomonitoring; health impact assessment; exposure assessment; risk assessment; environmental regulatory decision making; population vulnerability and susceptibility; pesticides; air pollution; toxic chemicals in consumer products; indoor air; community-based participatory research; environmental public health indicators
Special Issue in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: What Works for Addressing Multiple Environmental Health Burdens, Cumulative Environmental Health Risks and Impacts?
Dr. Christiane Bunge
Unit "General Aspects of Environment and Health" Federal Environment Agency Corrensplatz 1 14195 Berlin, Germany
Interests: environmental justice; social inequality in environmental health; health promotion and migration; sustainable urban development and health
Dr. Kenneth Olden
Office of Research and Development National Center for Environmental Assessment 1200 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20460, USA
The purpose of this special issue is to highlight the latest interdisciplinary and innovative research, tools, methods and approaches to assess, reduce and prevent environmentally driven social, racial and ethnic health disparities. We welcome manuscripts that link environmental, health and these factors including, but not limited to, spatial dimensions of health disparities, community capacity building for environmental justice and community based participatory research. Additionally, .we also encourage submissions on policy analysis/policy decision making that address social determinants of environmental health, and on analytical approaches that inform decision making for policy and program development/implementation to reduce/prevent environmental health disparities. Our aim is to advance health disparity research into the arena of environmental health and help accelerate efforts designed to improve access to healthy environments for vulnerable populations.
Dr. Stephen B. Thomas
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Published Papers (19 papers)
Jump to: Review, Other
State-Issued Identification Cards Reveal Patterns in Adult Weight Status
Daniel S. Morris
Eric C. Main
Jenine K. Harris
Abraham Moland
Curtis Cude
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2015, 12(6), 6388-6402; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606388 - 08 Jun 2015
Viewed by 2965
Background: State-issued identification cards are a promising data source for neighborhood-level obesity estimates. Methods: We used information from three million Oregon state-issued identification cards to compute age-adjusted estimates of average adult body mass index (BMI) for each census tract in the state. We [...] Read more.
Background: State-issued identification cards are a promising data source for neighborhood-level obesity estimates. Methods: We used information from three million Oregon state-issued identification cards to compute age-adjusted estimates of average adult body mass index (BMI) for each census tract in the state. We used multivariate linear regression to identify associations between weight status and population characteristics, food access, commuting behavior, and geography. Results: Together, home values, education, race, ethnicity, car commuting, and rural-urban commuting area (RUCA) explained 86% of the variation in BMI among tracts. BMI was lower in areas with higher home values and greater educational attainment, and higher in areas with more workers commuting by car. Discussion: Our findings are consistent with other research on socioeconomic disparities in obesity. This demonstrates state-issued identification cards are a promising data source for BMI surveillance and may offer new insight into the association between weight status and economic and environmental factors. Public health agencies should explore options for developing their own obesity estimates from identification card data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Eliminating Health Disparities to Achieve Health Equity)
Figure 2 Cont.
Disparities in Children’s Blood Lead and Mercury Levels According to Community and Individual Socioeconomic Positions
Sinye Lim
Mina Ha
Seung-Sik Hwang
Mia Son
Ho-Jang Kwon
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2015, 12(6), 6232-6248; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606232 - 29 May 2015
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2934
We aimed to examine the associations between blood lead and mercury levels and individual and community level socioeconomic positions (SEPs) in school-aged children. A longitudinal cohort study was performed in 33 elementary schools in 10 cities in Korea. Among a total of 6094 [...] Read more.
We aimed to examine the associations between blood lead and mercury levels and individual and community level socioeconomic positions (SEPs) in school-aged children. A longitudinal cohort study was performed in 33 elementary schools in 10 cities in Korea. Among a total of 6094 children included at baseline, the final study population, 2281 children followed-up biennially, were analyzed. The geometric mean (GM) levels of blood lead were 1.73 μg/dL (range 0.02–9.26) and 1.56 μg/dL (range 0.02–6.83) for male and female children, respectively. The blood lead levels were significantly higher in males, children living in rural areas, and those with lower individual SEP. The GM levels of blood mercury were 2.07 μg/L (range 0.09–12.67) and 2.06 μg/L (range 0.03–11.74) for males and females, respectively. Increased blood mercury levels were significantly associated with urban areas, higher individual SEP, and more deprived communities. The risk of high blood lead level was significantly higher for the lower individual SEP (odds ratio (OR) 2.18, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.36–3.50 in the lowest educational attainment of the father), with a significant dose-response relationship observed after adjusting for the community SEP. The association between high blood lead levels and lower individual SEP was much stronger in the more deprived communities (OR 2.88, 95% CI 1.27–6.53) than in the less deprived communities (OR 1.40, 95% CI 0.76–2.59), and showed a significant decreasing trend during the follow-up only in the less deprived communities. The risk of high blood mercury levels was higher in higher individual SEP (OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.40–1.03 in the lowest educational attainment of the father), with a significant dose-response relationship noted. Significant decreasing trends were observed during the follow-up both in the less and more deprived communities. From a public health point-of-view, community level intervention with different approaches for different metals is warranted to protect children from environmental exposure. Full article
Community, State, and Federal Approaches to Cumulative Risk Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities for Integration
Timothy M. Barzyk
Sacoby Wilson
Anthony Wilson
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2015, 12(5), 4546-4571; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120504546 - 24 Apr 2015
Community, state, and federal approaches to conventional and cumulative risk assessment (CRA) were described and compared to assess similarities and differences, and develop recommendations for a consistent CRA approach, acceptable across each level as a rigorous scientific methodology, including partnership formation and solution [...] Read more.
Community, state, and federal approaches to conventional and cumulative risk assessment (CRA) were described and compared to assess similarities and differences, and develop recommendations for a consistent CRA approach, acceptable across each level as a rigorous scientific methodology, including partnership formation and solution development as necessary practices. Community, state, and federal examples were described and then summarized based on their adherence to CRA principles of: (1) planning, scoping, and problem formulation; (2) risk analysis and ranking, and (3) risk characterization, interpretation, and management. While each application shared the common goal of protecting human health and the environment, they adopted different approaches to achieve this. For a specific project-level analysis of a particular place or instance, this may be acceptable, but to ensure long-term applicability and transferability to other projects, recommendations for developing a consistent approach to CRA are provided. This approach would draw from best practices, risk assessment and decision analysis sciences, and historical lessons learned to provide results in an understandable and accepted manner by all entities. This approach is intended to provide a common ground around which to develop CRA methods and approaches that can be followed at all levels. Full article
Community-Based Research as a Mechanism to Reduce Environmental Health Disparities in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities
Cynthia Agumanu McOliver
Anne K. Camper
John T. Doyle
Margaret J. Eggers
Tim E. Ford
Mary Ann Lila
James Berner
Jamie Donatuto
Racial and ethnic minority communities, including American Indian and Alaska Natives, have been disproportionately impacted by environmental pollution and contamination. This includes siting and location of point sources of pollution, legacies of contamination of drinking and recreational water, and mining, military and agricultural [...] Read more.
Racial and ethnic minority communities, including American Indian and Alaska Natives, have been disproportionately impacted by environmental pollution and contamination. This includes siting and location of point sources of pollution, legacies of contamination of drinking and recreational water, and mining, military and agricultural impacts. As a result, both quantity and quality of culturally important subsistence resources are diminished, contributing to poor nutrition and obesity, and overall reductions in quality of life and life expectancy. Climate change is adding to these impacts on Native American communities, variably causing drought, increased flooding and forced relocation affecting tribal water resources, traditional foods, forests and forest resources, and tribal health. This article will highlight several extramural research projects supported by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Science to Achieve Results (STAR) tribal environmental research grants as a mechanism to address the environmental health inequities and disparities faced by tribal communities. The tribal research portfolio has focused on addressing tribal environmental health risks through community based participatory research. Specifically, the STAR research program was developed under the premise that tribal populations may be at an increased risk for environmentally-induced diseases as a result of unique subsistence and traditional practices of the tribes and Alaska Native villages, community activities, occupations and customs, and/or environmental releases that significantly and disproportionately impact tribal lands. Through a series of case studies, this article will demonstrate how grantees—tribal community leaders and members and academic collaborators—have been addressing these complex environmental concerns by developing capacity, expertise and tools through community-engaged research. Full article
Ensuring Healthy American Indian Generations for Tomorrow through Safe and Healthy Indoor Environments
Joseph A. Pacheco
Christina M. Pacheco
Charley Lewis
Chandler Williams
Charles Barnes
Lanny Rosenwasser
Won S. Choi
Christine M. Daley
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2015, 12(3), 2810-2822; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120302810 - 04 Mar 2015
American Indians (AI) have the highest rate of severe physical housing problems in the U.S. (3.9%). Little information exists about the environmental hazards in AI homes. The purposes of this paper are to discuss challenges that were encountered when recruiting AI for a [...] Read more.
American Indians (AI) have the highest rate of severe physical housing problems in the U.S. (3.9%). Little information exists about the environmental hazards in AI homes. The purposes of this paper are to discuss challenges that were encountered when recruiting AI for a home-and employment-based environmental health assessments, highlight major successes, and propose recommendations for future indoor environmental health studies. The Center for American Indian Community Health (CAICH) and Children’s Mercy Hospital’s Center for Environmental Health and Allergy and Immunology Research Lab collaborated to provide educational sessions and healthy home assessments for AI. Through educational trainings, more than 240 AI were trained on the primary causes of health problems in homes. A total of 72 homes and places of employment were assessed by AI environmental health specialists. The top three categories with the most concerns observed in the homes/places of employment were allergens/dust (98%), safety/injury (89%) and chemical exposure (82%). While some information on smoking inside the home was collected, these numbers may have been underreported due to stigma. This was CAICH’s first endeavor in environmental health and although challenges arose, many more successes were achieved. Full article
School Locations and Traffic Emissions — Environmental (In)Justice Findings Using a New Screening Method
Philine Gaffron
Deb Niemeier
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2015, 12(2), 2009-2025; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120202009 - 11 Feb 2015
It has been shown that the location of schools near heavily trafficked roads can have detrimental effects on the health of children attending those schools. It is therefore desirable to screen both existing school locations and potential new school sites to assess either [...] Read more.
It has been shown that the location of schools near heavily trafficked roads can have detrimental effects on the health of children attending those schools. It is therefore desirable to screen both existing school locations and potential new school sites to assess either the need for remedial measures or suitability for the intended use. Current screening tools and public guidance on school siting are either too coarse in their spatial resolution for assessing individual sites or are highly resource intensive in their execution (e.g., through dispersion modeling). We propose a new method to help bridge the gap between these two approaches. Using this method, we also examine the public K-12 schools in the Sacramento Area Council of Governments Region, California (USA) from an environmental justice perspective. We find that PM2.5 emissions from road traffic affecting a school site are significantly positively correlated with the following metrics: percent share of Black, Hispanic and multi-ethnic students, percent share of students eligible for subsidized meals. The emissions metric correlates negatively with the schools’ Academic Performance Index, the share of White students and average parental education levels. Our PM2.5 metric also correlates with the traffic related, census tract level screening indicators from the California Communities Environmental Health Screening Tool and the tool’s tract level rate of asthma related emergency department visits. Full article
Approaching Environmental Health Disparities and Green Spaces: An Ecosystem Services Perspective
Viniece Jennings
Cassandra Johnson Gaither
Health disparities occur when adverse health conditions are unequal across populations due in part to gaps in wealth. These disparities continue to plague global health. Decades of research suggests that the natural environment can play a key role in sustaining the health of [...] Read more.
Health disparities occur when adverse health conditions are unequal across populations due in part to gaps in wealth. These disparities continue to plague global health. Decades of research suggests that the natural environment can play a key role in sustaining the health of the public. However, the influence of the natural environment on health disparities is not well-articulated. Green spaces provide ecosystem services that are vital to public health. This paper discusses the link between green spaces and some of the nation’s leading health issues such as obesity, cardiovascular health, heat-related illness, and psychological health. These associations are discussed in terms of key demographic variables—race, ethnicity, and income. The authors also identify research gaps and recommendations for future research. Full article
Difference in Health Inequity between Two Population Groups due to a Social Determinant of Health
Ramal Moonesinghe
Karen Bouye
Ana Penman-Aguilar
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11(12), 13074-13083; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph111213074 - 16 Dec 2014
The World Health Organization defines social determinants of health as “complex, integrated, and overlapping social structures and economic systems” that are responsible for most health inequities. Similar to the individual-level risk factors such as behavioral and biological risk factors that influence disease, we [...] Read more.
The World Health Organization defines social determinants of health as “complex, integrated, and overlapping social structures and economic systems” that are responsible for most health inequities. Similar to the individual-level risk factors such as behavioral and biological risk factors that influence disease, we consider social determinants of health such as the distribution of income, wealth, influence and power as risk factors for risk of disease. We operationally define health inequity in a disease within a population due to a risk factor that is unfair and avoidable as the difference between the disease outcome with and without the risk factor in the population. We derive expressions for difference in health inequity between two populations due to a risk factor that is unfair and avoidable for a given disease. The difference in heath inequity between two population groups due to a risk factor increases with increasing difference in relative risks and the difference in prevalence of the risk factor in the two populations. The difference in health inequity could be larger than the difference in health outcomes between the two populations in some situations. Compared to health disparities which are typically measured and monitored using absolute or relative disparities of health outcomes, the methods presented in this manuscript provide a different, yet complementary, picture because they parse out the contributions of unfair and avoidable risk factors. Full article
Disparities in Rates of Inpatient Mortality and Adverse Events: Race/Ethnicity and Language as Independent Contributors
Anika L. Hines
Roxanne M. Andrews
Ernest Moy
Marguerite L. Barrett
Rosanna M. Coffey
Patients with limited English proficiency have known limitations accessing health care, but differences in hospital outcomes once access is obtained are unknown. We investigate inpatient mortality rates and obstetric trauma for self-reported speakers of English, Spanish, and languages of Asia and the Pacific [...] Read more.
Patients with limited English proficiency have known limitations accessing health care, but differences in hospital outcomes once access is obtained are unknown. We investigate inpatient mortality rates and obstetric trauma for self-reported speakers of English, Spanish, and languages of Asia and the Pacific Islands (API) and compare quality of care by language with patterns by race/ethnicity. Data were from the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, 2009 State Inpatient Databases for California. There were 3,757,218 records. Speaking a non-English principal language and having a non-White race/ethnicity did not place patients at higher risk for inpatient mortality; the exception was significantly higher stroke mortality for Japanese-speaking patients. Patients who spoke API languages or had API race/ethnicity had higher risk for obstetric trauma than English-speaking White patients. Spanish-speaking Hispanic patients had more obstetric trauma than English-speaking Hispanic patients. The influence of language on obstetric trauma and the potential effects of interpretation services on inpatient care are discussed. The broader context of policy implications for collection and reporting of language data is also presented. Results from other countries with and without English as a primary language are needed for the broadest interpretation and generalization of outcomes. Full article
Exploration of Preterm Birth Rates Using the Public Health Exposome Database and Computational Analysis Methods
Anne D. Kershenbaum
Michael A. Langston
Robert S. Levine
Arnold M. Saxton
Tonny J. Oyana
Barbara J. Kilbourne
Gary L. Rogers
Lisaann S. Gittner
Suzanne H. Baktash
Patricia Matthews-Juarez
Paul D. Juarez
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11(12), 12346-12366; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph111212346 - 28 Nov 2014
Recent advances in informatics technology has made it possible to integrate, manipulate, and analyze variables from a wide range of scientific disciplines allowing for the examination of complex social problems such as health disparities. This study used 589 county-level variables to identify and [...] Read more.
Recent advances in informatics technology has made it possible to integrate, manipulate, and analyze variables from a wide range of scientific disciplines allowing for the examination of complex social problems such as health disparities. This study used 589 county-level variables to identify and compare geographical variation of high and low preterm birth rates. Data were collected from a number of publically available sources, bringing together natality outcomes with attributes of the natural, built, social, and policy environments. Singleton early premature county birth rate, in counties with population size over 100,000 persons provided the dependent variable. Graph theoretical techniques were used to identify a wide range of predictor variables from various domains, including black proportion, obesity and diabetes, sexually transmitted infection rates, mother’s age, income, marriage rates, pollution and temperature among others. Dense subgraphs (paracliques) representing groups of highly correlated variables were resolved into latent factors, which were then used to build a regression model explaining prematurity (R-squared = 76.7%). Two lists of counties with large positive and large negative residuals, indicating unusual prematurity rates given their circumstances, may serve as a starting point for ways to intervene and reduce health disparities for preterm births. Full article
A Novel Socioeconomic Measure Using Individual Housing Data in Cardiovascular Outcome Research
Duk Won Bang
Sheila M. Manemann
Yariv Gerber
Veronique L. Roger
Christine M. Lohse
Jennifer Rand-Weaver
Elizabeth Krusemark
Barbara P. Yawn
Young J. Juhn
Background: To assess whether the individual housing-based socioeconomic status (SES) measure termed HOUSES was associated with post-myocardial infarction (MI) mortality. Methods: The study was designed as a population-based cohort study, which compared post-MI mortality among Olmsted County, Minnesota, USA, residents with [...] Read more.
Background: To assess whether the individual housing-based socioeconomic status (SES) measure termed HOUSES was associated with post-myocardial infarction (MI) mortality. Methods: The study was designed as a population-based cohort study, which compared post-MI mortality among Olmsted County, Minnesota, USA, residents with different SES as measured by HOUSES using Cox proportional hazards models. Subjects’ addresses at index date of MI were geocoded to real property data to formulate HOUSES (a z-score for housing value, square footage, and numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms). Educational levels were used as a comparison for the HOUSES index. Results: 637 of the 696 eligible patients with MI (92%) were successfully geocoded to real property data. Post-MI survival rates were 60% (50–72), 78% (71–85), 72% (60–87), and 87% (81–93) at 2 years for patients in the first (the lowest SES), second, third, and fourth quartiles of HOUSES, respectively (p < 0.001). HOUSES was associated with post-MI all-cause mortality, controlling for all variables except age and comorbidity (p = 0.036) but was not significant after adjusting for age and comorbidity (p = 0.24). Conclusions: Although HOUSES is associated with post-MI mortality, the differential mortality rates by HOUSES were primarily accounted for by age and comorbid conditions. HOUSES may be useful for health disparities research concerning cardiovascular outcomes, especially in overcoming the paucity of conventional SES measures in commonly used datasets. Full article
Beginning a Partnership with PhotoVoice to Explore Environmental Health and Health Inequities in Minority Communities
Melinda Butsch Kovacic
Sara Stigler
Alexis Kidd
Lisa M. Vaughn
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11(11), 11132-11151; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph111111132 - 27 Oct 2014
Research informs action, but the challenge is its translation into practice. The 2012–2017 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Strategic Plan emphasizes partnership with community stakeholders to capture critical missing information about the effects of environment on health and to improve translation of [...] Read more.
Research informs action, but the challenge is its translation into practice. The 2012–2017 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Strategic Plan emphasizes partnership with community stakeholders to capture critical missing information about the effects of environment on health and to improve translation of study results, a daunting task for many traditionally-trained researchers. To better understand economic and neighborhood context consistent with these goals as well as existing inequities, we needed access to a highly affected community to inform and participate in our research. Our team therefore undertook a PhotoVoice project as a first step in establishing a participatory partnership and to appreciate the lived experiences of and build trust with youth visiting an urban community center in a high-risk, low-income, African American neighborhood located along a busy, polluted interstate. Ten 8–13 years-olds represented their community’s perspectives through photographs over 14-weeks using structured questioning. Five themes emerged: poor eating habits/inadequate nutrition; safety/violence; family/friends/community support; future hopes/dreams; and garbage/environment. Public viewings of the photos/captions facilitated engagement of other community agencies and multidisciplinary academic faculties to work together to build a sustainable “community collaboratory” that will promote health at the center by providing families knowledge/skills to prevent/minimize environmental exposures via diet/lifestyle changes using community-engaged, citizen scientist and systems thinking approaches. Full article
Scalable Combinatorial Tools for Health Disparities Research
Gary L. Rogers, Jr.
Steven S. Coughlin
Vincent K. Agboto
Darryl B. Hood
Maureen Y. Litchveld
Despite staggering investments made in unraveling the human genome, current estimates suggest that as much as 90% of the variance in cancer and chronic diseases can be attributed to factors outside an individual’s genetic endowment, particularly to environmental exposures experienced across his or [...] Read more.
Despite staggering investments made in unraveling the human genome, current estimates suggest that as much as 90% of the variance in cancer and chronic diseases can be attributed to factors outside an individual’s genetic endowment, particularly to environmental exposures experienced across his or her life course. New analytical approaches are clearly required as investigators turn to complicated systems theory and ecological, place-based and life-history perspectives in order to understand more clearly the relationships between social determinants, environmental exposures and health disparities. While traditional data analysis techniques remain foundational to health disparities research, they are easily overwhelmed by the ever-increasing size and heterogeneity of available data needed to illuminate latent gene x environment interactions. This has prompted the adaptation and application of scalable combinatorial methods, many from genome science research, to the study of population health. Most of these powerful tools are algorithmically sophisticated, highly automated and mathematically abstract. Their utility motivates the main theme of this paper, which is to describe real applications of innovative transdisciplinary models and analyses in an effort to help move the research community closer toward identifying the causal mechanisms and associated environmental contexts underlying health disparities. The public health exposome is used as a contemporary focus for addressing the complex nature of this subject. Full article
Concurrent Fetal Exposure to Multiple Environmental Chemicals along the U.S.—Mexico Border: An Exploratory Study in Brownsville, Texas
Ken Sexton
Jennifer J. Salinas
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11(10), 10165-10181; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph111010165 - 29 Sep 2014
There is mounting concern that cumulative exposure to diverse chemicals in the environment may contribute to observed adverse health outcomes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. To investigate this situation, biomarker concentrations of organochlorine (OC) pesticides/metabolites, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic [...] Read more.
There is mounting concern that cumulative exposure to diverse chemicals in the environment may contribute to observed adverse health outcomes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. To investigate this situation, biomarker concentrations of organochlorine (OC) pesticides/metabolites, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were measured in maternal and umbilical cord blood from pregnant Hispanic women in Brownsville, TX. Results show that both mothers and fetuses were exposed concurrently to a variety of relatively low-level, hazardous environmental chemicals. Approximately 10% of the blood specimens had comparatively high concentrations of specific OC pesticides, PCBs and PAHs. Because many pregnant women in Brownsville live in socioeconomically-disadvantaged and environmentally-challenging circumstances, there is appropriate concern that exposure to these exogenous substances, either individually or in combination, may contribute to endemic health problems in this population, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. The challenge is to identify individuals at highest comparative risk and then implement effective programs to either prevent or reduce cumulative exposures that pose significant health-related threats. Full article
Relationship of Racial Composition and Cancer Risks from Air Toxics Exposure in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.
Chunrong Jia
Wesley James
Satish Kedia
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11(8), 7713-7724; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110807713 - 31 Jul 2014
African Americans in the U.S. often live in poverty and segregated urban neighborhoods, many of which have dense industrial facilities resulting in high exposure to harmful air toxics. This study aims to explore the relationship between racial composition and cancer risks from air [...] Read more.
African Americans in the U.S. often live in poverty and segregated urban neighborhoods, many of which have dense industrial facilities resulting in high exposure to harmful air toxics. This study aims to explore the relationship between racial composition and cancer risks from air toxics exposure in Memphis/Shelby County, Tennessee, U.S.A. Air toxics data were obtained from 2005 National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA), and the demographic data, including racial composition, were extracted from the 2000 United States Census. The association was examined using multivariable geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis. The risk difference between African American and White concentrated areas was defined as the absolute disparity, and the percent difference as the relative disparity. GWR analyses show that cancer risks increase with respect to increasing percent of African Americans at the census tract level. Individuals in African American concentrated tracts bear 6% more cancer risk burden than in White concentrated tracts. The distribution of major roads causes the largest absolute disparity and the distribution of industrial facilities causes the largest relative disparity. Effective strategies for reduction in environmental disparity should especially target sources of large absolute disparities. Full article
Use of Segregation Indices, Townsend Index, and Air Toxics Data to Assess Lifetime Cancer Risk Disparities in Metropolitan Charleston, South Carolina, USA
LaShanta J. Rice
Chengsheng Jiang
Sacoby M. Wilson
Kristen Burwell-Naney
Ashok Samantapudi
Hongmei Zhang
Background: Studies have demonstrated a relationship between segregation and level of education, occupational opportunities, and risk behaviors, yet a paucity of research has elucidated the association between racial residential segregation, socioeconomic deprivation, and lifetime cancer risk. Objectives: We examined estimated lifetime [...] Read more.
Background: Studies have demonstrated a relationship between segregation and level of education, occupational opportunities, and risk behaviors, yet a paucity of research has elucidated the association between racial residential segregation, socioeconomic deprivation, and lifetime cancer risk. Objectives: We examined estimated lifetime cancer risk from air toxics by racial composition, segregation, and deprivation in census tracts in Metropolitan Charleston. Methods: Segregation indices were used to measure the distribution of groups of people from different races within neighborhoods. The Townsend Index was used to measure economic deprivation in the study area. Poisson multivariate regressions were applied to assess the association of lifetime cancer risk with segregation indices and Townsend Index along with several sociodemographic measures. Results: Lifetime cancer risk from all pollution sources was 28 persons/million for half of the census tracts in Metropolitan Charleston. Isolation Index and Townsend Index both showed significant correlation with lifetime cancer risk from different sources. This significance still holds after adjusting for other sociodemographic measures in a Poisson regression, and these two indices have stronger effect on lifetime cancer risk compared to the effects of sociodemographic measures. Conclusions: We found that material deprivation, measured by the Townsend Index and segregation measured by the Isolation index, introduced high impact on lifetime cancer risk by air toxics at the census tract level. Full article
Social Disparities in Children’s Respiratory Health in El Paso, Texas
Sara E. Grineski
Timothy W. Collins
Paola Chavez-Payan
Anthony M. Jimenez
Stephanie Clark-Reyna
Marie Gaines
Young-an Kim
The objectives of this study were to assess prevalence of children’s respiratory health conditions and to measure and describe social disparities in children’s respiratory problems and access to health resources for asthma/wheezing management. Data were collected through a cross-sectional, observational mail survey of [...] Read more.
The objectives of this study were to assess prevalence of children’s respiratory health conditions and to measure and describe social disparities in children’s respiratory problems and access to health resources for asthma/wheezing management. Data were collected through a cross-sectional, observational mail survey of all primary caretakers of 4th and 5th grade children in El Paso Independent School District (El Paso, TX, USA). 6295 primary caretakers received surveys at their home address and 1904 surveys were completed and returned for a 30% response rate. El Paso children have high rates of asthma (17%) and allergies (51%). In terms of social disparities, children that are male, not poor, obese, Hispanic, born in El Paso, have a US-born caretaker, and have a caretaker who has lower levels Spanish proficiency have increased odds of respiratory problems. Among children with asthma and wheezing, disparities exist in access to care; those that are poor, with a Spanish-speaking caretaker, or with a foreign-born caretaker had increased odds of seeking care in urgent care center, emergency rooms and hospitals. Results have scholarly and practical implications for broader trends in terms of increasing prevalence of respiratory health problems across multiple scales (from El Paso to the US context to worldwide) and health disparities experienced within the rapidly growing US Hispanic population. Full article
Jump to: Research, Other
A Critical Review of an Authentic and Transformative Environmental Justice and Health Community — University Partnership
Dayna Campbell
Laura Dalemarre
Herb Fraser-Rahim
Edith Williams
Distressed neighborhoods in North Charleston (SC, USA) are impacted by the cumulative effects of multiple environmental hazards and expansion of the Port of Charleston. The Low Country Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC) built an environmental justice partnership to address local concerns. This case [...] Read more.
Distressed neighborhoods in North Charleston (SC, USA) are impacted by the cumulative effects of multiple environmental hazards and expansion of the Port of Charleston. The Low Country Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC) built an environmental justice partnership to address local concerns. This case study examines the process of building and sustaining a successful transformative and authentic community-university partnership. We apply the framework established by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH), focusing on four of the nine principles of Good Practice of Community Campus Partnerships. Full article
Jump to: Research, Review
Open AccessConcept Paper
The Public Health Exposome: A Population-Based, Exposure Science Approach to Health Disparities Research
Wansoo Im
Mohammad Z. Al-Hamdan
William L. Crosson
Maurice G. Estes
Sue M. Estes
Paul Robinson
Maureen Y. Lichtveld
The lack of progress in reducing health disparities suggests that new approaches are needed if we are to achieve meaningful, equitable, and lasting reductions. Current scientific paradigms do not adequately capture the complexity of the relationships between environment, personal health and population level [...] Read more.
The lack of progress in reducing health disparities suggests that new approaches are needed if we are to achieve meaningful, equitable, and lasting reductions. Current scientific paradigms do not adequately capture the complexity of the relationships between environment, personal health and population level disparities. The public health exposome is presented as a universal exposure tracking framework for integrating complex relationships between exogenous and endogenous exposures across the lifespan from conception to death. It uses a social-ecological framework that builds on the exposome paradigm for conceptualizing how exogenous exposures “get under the skin”. The public health exposome approach has led our team to develop a taxonomy and bioinformatics infrastructure to integrate health outcomes data with thousands of sources of exogenous exposure, organized in four broad domains: natural, built, social, and policy environments. With the input of a transdisciplinary team, we have borrowed and applied the methods, tools and terms from various disciplines to measure the effects of environmental exposures on personal and population health outcomes and disparities, many of which may not manifest until many years later. As is customary with a paradigm shift, this approach has far reaching implications for research methods and design, analytics, community engagement strategies, and research training. Full article
Displaying articles 1-19
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, EISSN 1660-4601, Published by MDPI Disclaimer
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https://www.mdpi.com/si/3100 |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: 25 yrs old male 57 260lb. i have been having some pain and discomfort in my upper and lower left side of my abdomen and it irritates my colon at times. I do not have a bloody stool or tarry stool. What could it be?....also for the past couple of nights my right leg has been feeling a little numb in the middle i wake up because of it. my feet look a little swollen and a little bruised but when i feel it i have no pain what could it be??? output: you may need colonoscopy and rheumatoid factor level. Detail...since large colon symptoms with swelling of joints (ankle or knee) could be because of rheumatoid disease. My opinion would be got colonoscopy done and discuss with gastroenterologist and rheumatologist for evaluation of your symptoms. You may further ask regarding reports without any hesitation.. |
PMR #169: All About Beef Jerky and Starting Your Own Business With The New Primal's Jason Burke 0
On today’s show we're talking to the founder of The New Primal, Jason Burke. Jason started making his own jerky because he needed a healthy option and it went well, and the rest is history. Now he’s offering that healthy option to all of us, at more than 6,000 locations around the US as well as online. This company makes grass fed, grass finished beef jerky as well as marinades, meat sticks and even cute, perfectly proportioned snack mates for the kiddie’s lunch boxes.
This company has helped change the public’s perception of jerky from an aggressive salted and sugared trucker treat that you pick up at the gas station to a healthful, nourishing snack that really anyone can enjoy. In today’s episode, we talk about his product, the growing pains of running a company as well as having a life and a lot more.
Jason's background and how he came to be where he is now.
How he continues to differentiate and set himself apart from new jerky companies.
What Jason’s jerky recipe consists of.
The kid specific products that are available at The New Primal.
How Jason has entered new market segments with his healthy jerky.
How the packaging is inclusive and not classic meathead kind style.
What product is the most popular product from The New Primal.
How Jason found and developed a relationship with his suppliers.
How the local market is starting to make steps into the direction of grass fed cows.
The challenges of sourcing poultry.
How he and his family maintain a healthy lifestyle and find a balance.
The new products that The New Primal has and what to look out for..
“Paleo or not, we’re among the cleanest that you’ll get and we don’t skimp on animal welfare practices at all.” — @thenewprimal [0:08:38.1]
Check out Jason's website, TheNewPrimal.com
Connect with him on, Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
PMR# 168: Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece Talk Relationships, Taking Risks, and The Importance of Being Uncomfortable 0
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This week we’re talking with Laird Hamilton and Gabriel Reece, two of the most high functioning, successful and driven people we have ever met, about their lives together and how they work to establish a lifestyle, routine and community centered around happiness and health. They’re professional athletes. Laird is basically the king of surfing and Gabby is a former professional volleyball player, they’re both business owners and between them, they have their own documentaries, podcasts, books and more.
They run and host a fitness, wellness and recovery program called XPT where they travel to different locales and spend three days eating, surfing, meditating and working out with other likeminded folks. We had a chance to attend one of these experiences last summer—it was an absolutely singular inspiring experience that still informs the choices we make every day. In this interview, we talk about XPT, we talk about their super food company, a new documentary about Laird’s life and we talk about the way they eat, work out and their relationship with each other and with other people in their community.
What exploration and performance training (XPT) is all about.
How Laird and Gabby find the balance between establishing a healthy routine while being able to adapt.
How life may seem effortless but it takes a lot of effort.
How values, priorities, meditation and having a hovering perspective helps Laird and Gabby maintain perspective on life.
Why it’s important to be appreciative in life.
How they incorporate family into XPT.
Future plans for XPT to evolve and grow.
Gabby’s Podcast, The Truth Barrel.
Their public life and the sometimes negative publicity that comes with that.
What is meant by one partner taking the masculine and the other the feminine.
Superfoods and products which are based on whole foods.
The Peruvian coffee bean that Laird also offers.
Laird and Gabby’s healthy eating habits.
The importance of not to putting a lot of stress around your diet.
Gabby’s NBC show called Strong.
How some people can be born with drive for life.
“Some of the most profound things happen to be some of the simplest.” — @LairdLife [0:18:33.1]
“The more we can become connected to our intuitions and our instincts the better guided we’ll be.” — @LairdLife [0:36:12.1]
“Well you can’t voyeuristically get in shape. That’s the problem.” — @LairdLife [1:00:30.1]
Check out Gabrielle Reece's website, GabrielleReece.com
Check out Laird Hamilton's website, LairdHamilton.com
Connect with him on, Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Check out the XPT website, XPTLife.com
Check out the Laird Superfood website, LairdSuperfood.com
Check out Darin Olien's website, SuperLife.com
Listen to Gabby's podcast, The Truth Barrel Podcast
Check out Neil Strauss's website, NeilStrauss.com
Check out Light Watkins' website, BeginMeditating.com
Check out Randall Wallace's website, WallaceEntertainment.com
Check out John Salley's website, TheVeganVine.com
Check out Patrick McKeown's website, OxygenAdvantage.com
Check out Christopher Ryan's website, ChrisRyanPHD.com
Check out Gabby's NBC show, Strong
Check out Laird's documentary, Take Every Wave
Check out Rory Kennedy's website, MoxieFireCracker.com
Check out Jason Burke's website, TheNewPrimal.com
PMR 167: Paleo f(x) 0
Today’s episode is a special around the show where we basically stalked people and asked them to talk to us. We’ve got Mark Sisson, Sarah Ballantyne, The Paleo Mom, we’ve got the folks from Four Sigmatic, Natural Force, Picnik restaurant in Austin, The Kitchun and Beekeepers Natural. We think this podcast will give you a sense of how bustling and full of energy this show was and just how much there was to learn and see and do.
Spanning over three days, Paleo f(x) features multiple stages and a massive vendor fair. It has an array of keynote presentations, mastermind panels, cooking demos, and workshops, all led by cutting edge health practitioners, scientists in a variety of fields, coaches and gym owners, New York Times bestselling authors, popular bloggers, community and sustainability activists, biohackers, chefs, and so much more. Paleo f(x) is a true holistic lifestyle immersion event, encompassing health and wellness, nutrition, fitness, sustainability, self-improvement, and everything in between.
Mark Sisson’s new products.
Mark Sisson’s new book, Primal Kitchen Cookbook.
Where The Kitchun Restaurant franchises are going up across the country.
The Primal Health Coach app.
Why Paleo f(x) will be known as Health f(x) next year.
Sarah Ballantyne’s new product called Collagen Veggie Blend.
Sarah’s new book, Paleo Principles coming out this September.
Naomi Seifter’s (of Picnic in Austin) new restaurant.
The new product, bottled butter coffee.
Diana Pappas’ (of this Pie is Nuts) thoughts on winning the award for best guilt free dessert of the year.
Mushrooms with Four Stigmatic’s Taro.
New products from the founders of Kitchen.
Some past Paleo f(x) experiences with Tony Federico of Natural Force.
The new emulsified MCT oil and marine collagen.
Carly Stein’s company, Beekeepers Natural.
Carly Stein’s products and what they do.
“We’re trying to change the world with what we do.” — @Mark_Sisson [0:07:06.1]
“All these different elements of the paleo lifestyle that used to be seen as extreme are now being brought into popular culture.” — @mynaturalforce [0:26:37.1]
Mark Sisson's blog, MarksDailyApple.com
Mark Sisson's website, PrimalHealthCoach.com
Mark Sisson's, Primal Kitchen
Mark Sisson's Book, The Primal Kitchen Cookbook: Eat Like Your Life Depends On It!
Mark Sisson on, Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Paleo f(x) website, PaleoFx.com
Thrive Market website, ThriveMarket.com
Sarah Ballantyne's website, ThePaleoMom.com
Sarah Ballantyne on, Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Vital Proteins website, VitalProteins.com
Naomi Seifter's restaurant, PicnikAustin.com
Snap Kitchen's website, SnapKitchen.com
This Pie is Nuts website, ThisPieIsNuts.com
Four Sigmatic website, FourSigmatic.com
Follow Four Sigmatic on Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
The Kitchun website, TheKitchun.com
The Kitchun on, Twitter | Instagram
Natural Force website, NaturalForce.com
Natural Force on, Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Beekeepers Naturals website, BeeKeepersNaturals.com
Beekeepers Naturals on, Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Dr. Josh Axe's website, DrAxe.com
Laird Hamilton's website, LairdHamilton.com
Gabrielle Reece's website, GabrielleReece.com
PMR 166: Probiotic beer and gut health (and other fun things) with Jared's Probiotics 0
On today’s show we welcome Jared Toay, owner of Jared’s Probiotics. Jared is an expert on probiotics and gut health and he’s as passionate about teaching people as he is about experimenting with new and tasty fermented products. He likes to come up with new ways to give you both, by making probiotic drinks and snacks like granola, kombucha, probiotic soda, and even probiotic beer.
In today’s interview, we talk about gut bacteria, probiotics, prebiotics, what kefir is, how it’s possible to make a soda that’s actually pretty healthy and a lot more. Jared is a digestion expert, an authority on fermented foods and he owns a company offering this delicious fermented drinks and food.
Jared’s health journey and what sparked his interest in fermented foods.
What probiotics are and why they are so important.
Probiotics in food versus probiotic pills and supplements.
The foods probiotics eat, called prebiotics.
How probiotics work for paleo diets that are low in sugar and starch.
The steps to help heal a problem gut.
Whether you can overdo it on probiotics.
Things to look out for that are good quality and naturally probiotic.
The difference between water kefir and kombucha.
How probiotic granola and other foods are made.
New upcoming products you can look forward to.
“It’s very important to have a very strong working, healthy gut.” — @jaredsprobiotic [0:07:31.1]
“Not all probiotic foods are created equal.” — @jaredsprobiotic [0:27:42.9]
“The key to better health is really focusing on better digestion.” — @jaredsprobiotic [0:47:05.1]
Check out Jared's website, JaredsProPops.com
Connect with him on, Twitter | Facebook
Episode 165: All about the future of beef buying with Crowd Cow 0
DESERT FARMS
Crowd Cow is a pretty cool new company that is changing the way we purchase our meat by providing high quality beef in a convenient new format. They use an online system where you can put money on a cow, basically becoming a “steak-holder”, get it? You can purchase as much as you want without having to split a cow with someone else and then find a place to store it all. The grass fed beef comes from small, sustainable, and independent ranches and we can tell you personally that the quality is awesome. It’s delivered frozen straight to your door, in individual sous vide-ready vacuum packs.
The whole process makes getting the best quality beef, the exact cuts you want and the quantities, easier than ever. So we figured this company is something that Paleo listeners or anyone who appreciates a good steak would be interested in. Today we’re talking to Joe Heitzeberg, the CEO of the company, about how he came to the idea and we learn a bit more about the process, about the beef, and about some of the interesting challenges involved in running a company like this.
Crowd Cow and how the company works.
The niche market that Crowd Cow serves.
The types of beef cuts they provide and where they are sourced from.
The different seasonalities of beef cuts that are available.
The challenges that they encountered as they brought Crowd Cow to the public.
The importance of getting in front of the right customer base.
The relationship that Crowd Cow builds with its ranchers.
How the team at Crowd Cow built an online community to offer information and resources.
“Any cow standing in a field could be called grass fed.” — @jheitzeb @crowdcowusa [0:14:19.1]
Check out Joe's website, CrowdCow.com
Connect with them on, Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Connect with Joe on Twitter
PMR #164: Going off the Grid with Gary Collins of Primal Power Method 0
You’ve heard of the term “going off the grid”, but how many of us have actually contemplated doing it? An even fewer number made the necessary steps, truly living off the grid, even temporarily. Gary Collins is one of those rare folks, and he joins us on the podcast today. Gary is the creator of the Primal Power Method, a way to help people make better decisions to improve their health and importantly, simplify their life. The idea of simplifying your life is a topic we touch on a lot in this interview.
Gary is a college professor, health and wellness consultant and public speaker. He has worked in Military Intelligence, the US State Department, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the US Food and Drug Administration as a special agent. Gary has written books on his own unique take on being healthy, including his latest book, Going Off the Grid. This is a fun podcast and one we know you're going to learn a lot from.
Gary’s company, Primal Power Method.
How Gary is teaching others to make life more enjoyable, easier and simpler.
How to value your time and be strategic with how much you give away fro free.
Gary’s definition of “deflected failure” and how it affects your success rate.
Gary’s book Going Off the Grid, and what it really means to live off the grid.
Why taking your time is essential for starting on the project of moving off the grid.
How Gary adventures around the country, and why he travels “by feel”.
Gary’s food and exercise regimen when he is traveling or at home.
Progressive steps you can take today to live more “off the grid.”
Why Gary believes that the only place to grow is when you are uncomfortable.
Why Gary’s purpose with his work is to attract people who are like-minded.
“There comes a point though where you only have so much time in the day.” — Gary Collins @PrimalMethod [0:10:34.1]
“You must take responsibility for yourself first.” — Gary Collins @PrimalMethod [0:11:21.1]
“Two things are eating at American’s fabric of intelligence; it’s social media and it’s stupid TV and their phones.” — Gary Collins @PrimalMethod [0:13:37.1]
“Rushing into an off the grid project is probably the worst possible thing you can do.” — Gary Collins @PrimalMethod [0:27:01.1]
Check out Gary's website, PrimalPowerMethod.com
Tune in to Gary's podcast, OldDudesNewTricks.com
Connect with him on, Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Check out Gary's Blog, PrimalPowerMethod.com/#blog
Check out Gary's Off The Grid Resources
Grab a copy of Gary's book, Going Off Grid
PMR 162: Talking Keto and Fasting with Dr. Anthony Gustin, Founder of Equip 0
"PALEOMAG"
for 15% off your purchase at
If you are a little bit of a health nut and a little bit of a meat head like we are, then you have probably already heard about pureWOD, a supplement company offering protein powders, pre-workouts, post workouts, and greens that are made with only a few high quality ingredients. pureWOD has recently undergone a rebranding and is now called Equip, which we will get into a bit in our talk today with Dr. Anthony Gustin, who developed the company because he could not find what he was looking for in the market and wanted supplements that were the next best thing to food when food just is not convenient or available.
The company has taken off and he has since started a new one called Perfect Keto, offering exogenous ketone powders for those high-flying, bio-hacking keto folks who need help getting into or staying in ketosis. That’s kind of just the tip of the iceberg for Anthony. He is an authority in health and wellness and does a lot of self-experimentation with fasting, keto, and other stuff for his website and blog. He is very fun to follow on social media for that reason, and he is one of those guys that talking to him makes you feel a little bit lazy, but in a good way because he inspires you to do a little more experimenting and learning on your own.
What Dr. Anthony does, and why he started his companies.
Why our bodies need different sources of protein and macronutrients.
The specific products provided by Dr. Anthony’s companies.
The biggest hole in the American diet as it pertains to micronutrients.
Dr. Anthony’s results of experimenting with fasting.
The challenges with a ketogenic diet and how it is very individualized.
Why you need to cut your protein intake significantly when doing a keto diet.
How exogenous ketones work and how they differentiate from endogenous ketones.
His typical day of eating and his preferred workouts on a ketogenic diet.
“Just getting people on the base level of eating real food is a really good place to start.” — @dranthonygustin [0:41:39.1]
Check out Dr. Anthony Gustin's website, DrAnthonyGustin.com
Check out the PureWOD website, PureWOD.com
Check out the Perfect Keto website, PerfectKeto.com
My Four Day Fasting Results, by Dr. Anthony Gustin
Low Carb Vs. Keto, by Dr. Anthony Gustin
Primal Fat Burner, by Nora Gedgaudas
PMR #163: On Our Way to Paleo f(x) 2017 0
This is a special quick edition of the podcast because this week, we are heading to Paleo f(x), a health, nutrition, fitness, and wellness event that focuses on the Paleo lifestyle. It’s a three day event in Austin Texas May 19th to the 21st and it features hundreds of vendors with food, supplements, fitness gear and more, thousands of attendees from all over the place, all kinds of special events, workout opportunities, workshops and educational sessions and it’s a literal who’s who of world class experts in the Paleo community.
To learn a bit more about what we can expect with this year’s show, we managed to get the very busy founders of Paleo f(x), Michelle and Keith Norris to join us today. Keith is one of those few lucky souls who escaped corporate America and and was able to transition full-time into his passion for bettering lives by teaching the art and science of physical culture. Michelle is a former corporate warrior, trained chef, and multi-potentialite. Her personal health issues and struggles with the traditional medical system inspired her to take a new approach in how the world tackles health, wellness, and prosperity.
The new sessions, presentations, and events lined up for Paleo f(x) 2017.
The vendor space and the delicious foods that will be available.
The schedule changes and feedback that has been implemented.
How Paleo f(x) has grown over the years as more people believed in the movement.
The speakers to expect at Paleo f(x) 2017.
The one thing that attendees shouldn’t miss about the show at Paleo f(x)
The one panel that Keith says is a must-attend event at Paleo f(x).
“One of our missions is to expose people who are just getting started or have new information to put out.” — @KeithNorris [0:13:01.1]
“One of the big things that we have noticed with Paleo f(x) is the social aspect of it.” — Michelle Noris @PaleoFX [0:16:51.1]
Check out the Paleo f(x) website, PaleoFX.com
Connect with them on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
See what's happening on the Paleo f(x) Livestream or Paleo f(x) TV
PMR #161: Girl Talk with Stefani Ruper of Paleo for Women 0
It’s girl talk time, or women talk we should say, because today we are talking to Stefani Ruper, the founder of Paleo for Women and the cohost of the Paleo Women Podcast. Stefani has been a main stay in the Paleo world since she started her website talking about her struggles with PCOS and other hormonal issues. She tends to focus less on prescriptive rules and more on ways to love yourself and have a healthy mind and body.
Stefani’s open, she’ll talk about real stuff, even if it’s uncomfortable, like acne, PMS, sexual health, and all the good stuff we really want to hear about, which is why we’re so glad she is on the show today. Stefani is also the author of a book called Sexy by Nature, acknowledging what most of us women already know, that our health and physiology is a bit more complicated than men’s. As such, we need to pay some extra attention to it rather than just following some blanket weight loss plan and hoping that will fix everything.
Today we are going to get into all of that and more and although there is plenty of girl power, anyone can enjoy this podcast because Stefani is just so fun to talk to and makes it easy for everyone to learn something.
How Stefani was motivated to pursue philosophy studies.
The Paleo Women Podcast, and the topics they discuss.
Stefani’s tips on how to combat the ever present bodies image issues in our society.
The main topics Stefani covers on her blog and how she helps bring women issues to the forefront.
Why Stefani has adopted more of a balanced Paleo diet, and her thoughts on legumes and plant estrogens.
The ketogenic diet, and why it can be helpful for some, but unnecessary for others.
How Stefani prioritizes her sleep and keeps her self-care at the top of her list.
What Stefani has to say about what we can all do today to improve our lives.
“I realized that paleo was not going to make me live forever, and nothing will” — @PaleoforWomen [0:27:26.1]
“The future of health is going to be 80% psychological.” — @PaleoforWomen [0:33:03.1]
Check out the Stefani's website, PaleoForWomen.com
Check out the Paleo Women Podcast
Grab a copy of Stefani's book, Sexy by Nature
Episode 160: Talking Collagen with Vital Proteins founder Kurt Seidensticker 0
It turns out that going from working at NASA to launching a very popular collagen company may not be as big a step as you think. Today’s guest is Kurt Seidensticker, the founder of Vital Proteins, one of the biggest companies offering collagen products on the market today and we might be their biggest fans. Their grass fed whey and marine collagen products can make a huge difference in the health of your skin and nails and digestion, even your joints, which is great for those of us who work out a lot.
Collagen seems like a miracle product until you really learn more about it and then it makes a lot of sense why it does all of the great things that it does. But in any case, we’re a little bit obsessed with them. We are talking to Kurt today about the company, why collagen is so great, and he teases us with a bunch of new products that he will be showing at Paleo f(x) this year.
Kurt’s background and how Vital Proteins was started.
How Kurt went from being an aerospace engineer for NASA to starting a protein company.
The importance of collagen in our diet, and why we may not be getting enough.
How collagen is processed, what it is, and the major health benefits it brings.
The differences between the Vital Proteins products.
What sets Vital Proteins apart from other protein companies in the marketplace.
What a day in Kurt’s life looks like.
The new products that Vital Proteins will be showcasing at Paleo f(x).
“When you talk about collagen, you talk about a healthy lifestyle.” — Kurt Seidensticker [0:21:31.1]
Check out the Vital Proteins website, VitalProteins.com
Connect with them on Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Episode 159: How to outsmart your brain for optimal health with Stephan Guyenet 0
The Hungry Brain is a new book from Stephan Guyenet, an obesity and neuroscience researcher. In his book, Stephan explains all about the complicated processes of the brain and body that leads us to behave the way we do with regards to eating and food, and how this can be problematic when taken into context with our modern world and our modern diet, which is a situation that’s very different from the world our ancestors lived in and the world in which our brains developed.
This book really resonates, we think, because so many of us feel out of control with our eating and don’t understand why we make the food choices we do or why we act the way we do or look the way we do when we so desperately want things to be different. This book is so important because it helps explain in very specific and scientific, yet clear terms, why our brain does what it does and the ways we can work to combat the very intelligent biological processes that in today’s world can make us fat, sick, and keep us caught in a negative cycle with our eating.
We’re really excited about our talk today with Stephan and think it will make us all feel more informed, more empowered, and more able to tackle what, on the surface, seems like a very simple task — eat well and be healthy — but is actually so much more complicated than we think. We really hope you get as much out of this episode as we did.
The main goal and learning points of Stephan’s book, The Hungry Brain.
What is meant by the terms “sensory specific satiety” and “habituation”.
The progressive ratio test and it is used to test your motivational drive.
How the hypothalamus regulates body fat and how your set point can change with time.
How to transition to a diet that contains less hyper palatable foods.
Stephan’s typical diet on a day-to-day basis.
How sensory queues trigger the motivational circuits in our brains towards certain foods.
His thoughts on the whole abstainer versus moderator debate.
The effect that eating at all times of day has on your ability to lose weight.
How uncontrolled stress can effect our food intake behaviors.
Stephan’s top tips and strategies for tricking the brain to feel fuller on fewer calories.
“There are a lot of brain functions that we are not aware of and not in control of.” — @whsource [0:14:43.1]
“There is no other diet that is better at fattening rodents than palatable human foods.” — @whsource [0:24:30.1]
Check out Stephan's website, stephanguyenet.com
Connect with him on Twitter | Facebook
Grab a copy of his new book, The Hungry Brain
Episode #158: Is Camel milk Paleo? Talking with Desert Farms 0
Is Milk Paleo? Does it matter? Is milk good for you? For those of us willing to eat the flesh and guts of many animals, is it really that much of a stretch to consume dairy products too? These are questions that may be a source of a lot of debate. However, considering a pretty big theme in nutrition these days, even in our ancestral health and nutrition, is about personalizing your diet with foods that make you feel and perform your best, some of you may still be into milk or at least willing to explore your options.
On the podcast today we are talking with Walid from Desert Farms, a company that sells pasture raised grass fed camel products in the US such as milk, meat, and even skin care. He gives us the low down on why camel milk is different and in his opinion, superior to cow’s milk. He talks about how his camels are raised and we also get into the different ways that camel products can be used like in chocolate and beauty products. We also talk about hump fat, so definitely tune to learn all about it.
How Walid first had the idea to introduce Camel products to the US.
What makes camel milk different from cow’s milk and how they are inter-linked.
The difference between pasteurized and raw milk, and the fears that consumers face.
How hump fat will be their first meat line product.
The properties in camel milk that are helping people heal themselves.
What is to come for Desert Farms in the near future.
“For everyone that basically has missed their dairy, their real milk, this is a perfect alternative for them.” — @WalidAbdulWahb [0:14:43.1]
“Supplementing camel’s milk on a Paleo or elimination diet helps significantly with people with autoimmunity..” — @WalidAbdulWahb [0:18:02.1]
Check out the Desert Farms website, DesertFarms.com
Episode #157: How to Master a Fat-Based Diet with Nora Gedgaudas and Her New Book, Primal Fat Burner. 0
We’re talking to Nora Gedgaudas on the podcast today. Many of you are probably already familiar with her name. She is a Paleo expert with a number of bestselling books like Primal Body, Primal Mind and Rethinking Fatigue. Nora is a board certified nutritional consultant and clinical neuro feedback specialist with the practice in Portland, Oregon. She is a speaker and educator with her own podcast as well as being a regular at Paleo f(x). Nora has a new book out called Primal Fat Burner that talks about a fat based ancestral diet that helps you live longer and be leaner and healthier.
Now, while the term ketogenic diet is probably familiar to many of you, this book covers topics that even we did not know. In today’s episode, we get into the biological basis for this type of eating and how it can benefit everyone from high level athletes to those dealing with a whole host of health issues, and everyone in between. Nora schools us on things like how much protein you should actually be eating. Spoiler alert, it’s probably pretty different than you think. So let’s get right into it, and learn more about Nora.
CLICK HERE for the full transcript
How Nora discovered a fat rich diet while observing wolves in the tundra.
What sparked her to question our modern day diets from observing others.
Why some people may need to approach the ketogenic lifestyle differently than others.
Why being in a fat based ketogenic diet requires a protein sparing approach.
If the ketegenic diet has different implications for women.
Why a dependence on glucose is the truly unnatural form of metabolism.
Why our inability to eat meat is an indication of how far removed we are from our natural environment.
Why there are some vital components that cannot be substituted by a plant-base diet.
The strategies that can help you transition gradually into a ketogenic diet.
“The fact of the matter is that a fat based ketogenic approach is extremely protein sparing.” — @NoraGedgaudas [0:16:40.1]
“Ultimately what you want to do, the name of the game is making your own ketones by eliminating carbs.” — @NoraGedgaudas [0:48:29.1]
Check out Nora's website, PrimalBody-PrimalMind.com
Grab a copy of Nora's new book, Primal Fat Burner
Episode #156: Talking Healthy Skincare with Primally Pure Founder Bethany McDaniel 0
INNOVATIVE FORMULAS
based on research-proven ingredients and formulated with the latest nutritional science to ensure the optimal potency and combinations for absorption and effectiveness.
RestorativeBlends.com
We all know that health starts on the inside. What you’re putting into your body is crucially important. What you put on your body is pretty important too and, like your food, it's important to make smart, educated decisions about the products you choose to help support your skin health. Skin care is an important, and often overlooked part of health and wellness for men and women, young and old. That’s why we’re chatting with Primally Pure founder Bethany McDaniel today.
Bethany makes an extensive line of natural skin care products including body oils, lotions, and even a baby care line. She uses free-trade ingredients and even Tallow from grass fed cows from her own farm, so it is a pretty cool story. On today’s show we are going to talk about what it’s like to start a farm with with no experience, and start your own natural skin care company, also with no experience. Finally, we talk about some of Bethany’s Paleo practices, foods, and other healthy products that she’s in to. So stay tuned to learn more about what to put on your skin for better health and wellness.
How Bethany started a farm with her extended family.
What it takes to run a farm, and how the jobs are divided between family members.
The biggest challenges they faced and the learning curve they had to overcome.
What lead Bethany to start her own skincare company, without any experience.
How Bethany makes her products with grass-fed tallow beef.
Bethany’s favorite products and tips for staying moisturized.
What it means to produce and market a skincare brand towards men.
How Bethany practices health and wellness outside of skincare.
How she first adopted the Paleo lifestyle and how it continues today.
What’s next for Bethany in her business ventures and collaborations.
“I just was so fascinated by the idea that these simple ingredients can actually do so much for your skin.” — Bethany McDaniel [0:10:52.1]
“I was just using coconut oil and baking soda on my armpits, and that worked great for me.” — Bethany McDaniel [0:20:56.4]
Check out the Primally Pure website, PrimallyPure.com
Connect with them on Facebook | Instagram
Episode #155: Talking Medicinal Mushrooms and Cancer Treatment with Four Sigmatic. 0
Everyone’s talking about Four Sigmatic; Time Magazine, Vogue, Forbes, even the New York Times. This super food company’s goal is to popularize medicinal mushrooms by incorporating them in popular products like coffee and hot coco. Basically, they’re nicely tricking us into eating what’s good for us already. Their products launched in the US market in 2015 and are now sold in more than 25 countries.
Today’s interview is with the founder Tero Isokauppila, president of Four Sigmatic. Tero grew up in a farm in Finland where he foraged for mushrooms and learned about natural foods from an early age and he later got a degree in chemistry and a certificate in plant based nutrition from Cornel University. He’s an authority on super foods and natural health and he was chosen as one of the world’s top 50 food activists by the Academy of Culinary Nutrition. So if you’re into food and bio hacking, definitely stay tuned. You’ll never look at mushrooms the same way again.
The products Four Sigmatic offers and what they do for people.
The unique properties of each type of mushroom used in Four Stigmatic’s products.
The origins of medicinal mushrooms and their ideal growing environments.
Why it is important to understand where your food comes from, even with mushrooms/fungi.
What mycotoxins and aflatoxins are and why mushroom companies need to be aware of them.
Mushroom allergies, and how you may not be allergic to these medicinal mushrooms.
How the way mushrooms are grown can affect how they impact your gut health.
Why it is not recommended to take medicinal mushrooms while on antibiotics.
What needs to be done in the industry to educate people on the benefits of medical mushrooms.
The possible benefits medicinal mushrooms have for treating cancer in patients.
The recommended dose for the average person or general cross-fitter.
Tero’s suggestion for what product to try first if you are just starting out with mushrooms.
“Medicinal mushrooms are extremophiles so they grow in extreme climates.” — Tero Isokauppila [0:13:34.8]
“The promise of some compounds in mushrooms having antiviral and anti-tumor properties is very fascinating.” — Tero Isokauppila [0:35:24.0]
Check out the Four Sigmatic website, FourSigmatic.com
Connect with him on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
Additional Links & Resources:
The Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
Mushroom Academy
Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Find My Shroom
Episode #154: Wired to Eat with Robb Wolf 0
Real Talk, Functional Education
and No-bull Workout Plans
BirthFit.com
I think many of us Paleo folks have already learned that one of the biggest challenges in being healthy is that our modern world seems stacked against us and at odds with our biological wiring. Our world, which we are very lucky to inhabit, encourages us to eat processed unhealthy food, encourages us to sit and watch TV rather than walk and play, and to scroll on our phone all night rather than sleep.
The knowledge of this modern world with all its amazing technology and comfort is also the source of much of our current physical and mental challenges, but that isn’t an excuse to let go and be as sedentary and unhealthy as possible. Instead, this information can help to empower us to be mindful of our choices and educate ourselves about better ways to live. Ways that more closely aligned with what makes each of us feel good and healthy. Today on the podcast, Robb Wolf is here to discuss his new book, Wired to Eat. Robb is one of the original leaders of the Paleo movement, he is a former research biochemist, a health expert, and bestselling author of The Paleo Solution.
In today’s episode, we talk about why most diets fail and why another diet is not the answer. We dive into rewiring our bodies, a lot about carbs, and we also get into the ketogenic diet. I also bug him about his own personal training and eating routines. Robb is a ridiculously smart human being and he is also super down to earth and friendly. So I really hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.
Robb’s inspiration to write his new book, and how he planned to change lives.
How to reframe and change your mindset of guilt-based thinking about food.
Why it is important that our human tendencies are rewarded for movement towards favorable outcomes.
The carb test and how it can help determine which carbs are best suited for you.
The ketogenic diet, the caveats, and who it is best suited for.
The use of exogenous ketones and Robb’s thoughts on their use overall.
How to seamlessly cater for a family with different eating requirements.
His eating and exercise routines, and what they typically look like.
“Continually eating poor food choices could get us sick; it could stick us in an early grave.” — @robbwolf [0:16:50.0]
“You can get buried under data that gives you no actionable insights.” — @robbwolf [0:59:06.0]
Check out Robb's website, RobbWolf.com
Grab a copy of Robb's new book: Wired to Eat
Restorative Blends
The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf
PMR #153: Talking technology addiction and wireless radiation with Alison Main 2
The internet is often seen as the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. Wi-Fi is basically everywhere these days and it is pretty convenient. Most people think it's a good thing, but wireless radiation can also be harmful, especially to young people and those who are sensitive to it. Educating ourselves about the pros and cons of our increasingly wireless world is critical, and today’s guest is going to help us with that. Alison Main is a freelance writer who focuses on environmental health and illness, wireless radiation, electromagnetic safety, chemical safety, and technology addiction. She’s also a regular contributor to Paleo Magazine. In our chat today, Alison explains exactly what EMF and wireless radiation is and why it can be harmful. She talks about the sneaky ways it can show up in our lives and most importantly, she provides easy ways we can reduce our exposure to wireless radiation right away, while also easing off on that pesky technology addiction that many of us are guilty of. So it’s time to sit back, relax, power down, and listen to our chat with Alison Main.
How Alison came to study the issues around wireless tech.
What EMF is and how to know whether or not you are hyper sensitive to it.
Alison's message in her article featured in Paleo Magazine.
Why children are more vulnerable to EMF sensitivities.
Simple tips to reduce wireless radiation in your home.
Why having Wi-Fi everywhere may not be such a good thing.
The baby steps you can take to reduce your overall EMF exposure.
The “safe” distance to stay from your phone.
Tips on how to find a balance between being paranoid or not being aware at all.
“No matter what device we’re talking about, distance is your friend.” — @amaindesign [0:23:13.0]
“Taking steps towards safe technology is the best thing that you can do to protect yourself.” —@amaindesign [0:27:57.0]
Check out Alison's website, AlisonMain.me
Connect with her on Twitter
Air Tube Head Set
The American Academy of Pediatrics
The National Association for Children and Safe Technology
Show The Fine Print
The Baby Safe Project
PMR # 152 - How to eat meat sustainably, ethically, and healthily with Diana Rodgers 0
Healthy Human
Healthy Human is more than just a hydration company, we are a lifestyle firmly planted in the healthy living space.
HealthyHumanLife.com
Maybe you've struggled with the ethical implications of eating meat. Maybe you found yourself at a loss trying to explain how a Paleo diet complete with animal protein can be healthy and good for the world. Or maybe you’ve just daydreamed about what it would be like to live on a farm with your family, surrounded by delicious fresh food. If you’re nodding your head at any of this, today’s episode is for you. Diana Rodgers is on the podcast today. She is a real food licensed registered dietician and nutritional therapy practitioner living on a working organic farm in the Boston area. She runs an active nutrition practice where she helps people get on track with diet and lifestyle. She’s also an author of a number of books, hosts The Sustainable Dish Podcast, and she’s a wife and mother of two. Diana is consulting dietician to several gyms and has worked with pretty much everyone in the Paleo world including Robb Wolf, the folks at Whole 30, and Dr. Kirk Parsley. Last but not least, she’s a staff writer for your fave, Paleo Magazine.
Diana's trip to Costa Rica and the food she ate there.
How Diana and her family “re-entered real life” after a vacation.
A day in her family's life on an organic farm.
How to combat misinformation about adopting a healthy diet.
Why Diana does not portray herself as a Paleo evangelist.
Why it is important to start out simple, not with gourmet meals.
What it means to identify your trigger foods and how to avoid overeating.
The ethical and environmental issues behind bananas.
“The dark side of chocolate” and how child slavery is involved.
Diana's new book with Robb Wolf.
“Sweet potatoes don’t have a big Paleo sticker on them in the produce department.” — @SustainableDish [0:15:18.0]
“Everything eats and is eaten.” — @SustainableDish [0:20:18.0]
“Trying to steer the Titanic in a slightly different direction, gets me up in the morning every day.” — @SustainableDish [0:38:44.0]
Check out Diana's website, SustainableDish.com
Connect with her on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Check out Diana's podcast, Sustainable Dish
Finca Luna Nueva
The Savory Institute
Whole30 Program
The Dark Side of Chocolate
Sebastian Junger's book, Tribe
Robb Wolf's book, Wired to Eat
Gretchen Rubin's Book, Better Than Before
Sustainable Dish Episode. #31 - with Joe Salatin
Episode #151: Passing the Mic with special guest, and Natural Force's new VP of Marketing, Tony Federico! 0
All right Paleo Nation, we've got a new host, Ashleigh VanHouten, on the mic and today's guest is none other than former PMR host, Tony Federico. He has now transitioned into the role of VP of Marketing for Natural Force, an all-natural supplement company. We're going to talk about his new job, the importance of prioritizing, what he has learned during his time talking to so many of the Paleo industry’s best and brightest, and what’s cooking over at Natural Force, the vision they have for the company, as well as some new things that are coming up. Tony also gives some great advice like why falling off your bike, both literally and figuratively, could be a good thing and passes the “podcast torch,” reflecting on some of his best moments and leaving Ashleigh with his final words of wisdom.
How Paleo Magazine was like a beacon of light in Tony’s transition to the Paleo lifestyle.
How Tony got the opportunity to be VP of Marketing for Natural Force.
Why Natural Force supplements are different and really stand apart.
Tony's perspective on whether to supplement or not.
What a day in his new work life looks like at Natural Force.
Some new developments at Natural Force (and a sneak peak at product launches!)
Tony’s opinion on whether the term “Paleo” has hit its peak.
Tony's best moments as host of Paleo Magazine Radio.
Tony’s final parting words to Ashleigh, as the new host of Paleo Magazine Radio.
“It’s a real joyful thing when you get outside of your normal box, as far as movement is concerned, and you start to play again.” — @TonyFedFitness [0:37:57.0]
“You have to honor the seasons in your life and listen to what you’re being called to do at any given time.” — @TonyFedFitness [0:44:50.0]
Check out Tony's website FitnessInAnEvolutionaryDirection.com
Connect with him on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Check out the Natural Force website, NaturalForce.com
Dr. Loren Cordain's book, The Paleo Diet
Robb Wolf's book, Paleo Solution
Mark Sisson's book, Primal Blueprint
Arthur De Vany's book, The New Evolution Diet
Richard Wrangham's book, Catching Fire
Calendly.com
Paleo Radio Bites 65 - Steve Sashen: The Barefoot Maestro of Xero Shoes 0
Steve Sashen has always been an energetic, athletic, and entrepreneurial guy. In high school he was an all-american sprinter, and while studying film in college, he did stand up comedy on the side. After graduating with his masters in film, he went on to develop word processing software for script-writers that became industry standard.
Steve stayed active throughout his life, trying things like circus acrobatics and competitive jump roping, but nothing really scratched his itch until he rediscovered his passion for running, and specifically sprinting. A friend introduced him to the world of Masters Track and Field, and for a time, he was having the time of his life.
Eventually, a string of devastating injuries forced Steve to pump the brakes, and while searching for a solution he found himself going on a completely bare foot run with the Boulder Colorado barefoot running club. As the miles ticked by, Steve explored the information his shoe-free feet provided, and in doing so, altered his gait and mechanics such that he didn't even realize that he had run farther than he ever had in his life.
That very first barefoot run lit a spark that changed the course of Steve's life forever and on today's Paleo Radio Bite, we discuss how.
Check out Tony's new Gig
as part of
Team Natural Force!
Check out Steve's website, XeroShoes.com
Connect with Steve on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Check out Tony's 2010 interview with Steve, Here
Check out the Boulder Barefoot Running Club website, RunBare.com
PMR #150 - Achieving Electrical Health with EMF Expert Jeromy Johnson 0
It's in your pocket, in your ears, and it's even in the very air you breathe, but we're not talking about a chemical or biological organism, we're talking about EMF.
EMF is an acronym for Electric and Magnetic Fields. Naturally occurring EMF fields are generated by the earth and the sun, and as such, humans have been exposed to these fields since before we were humans. As with many things however, human ingenuity and innovation has led to the development of technologies that are changing the natural EMF environment.
Power lines, cell phones, computers, wifi routers, microwave ovens, and numerous other electronic devices generate evolutionarily novel EMF fields, and the question we must ask is whether or not these new sources of EMF cause long term harm and contribute to disease.
According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, "the few studies that have been conducted on adults show no evidence of a link between EMF exposure and adult cancers, such as leukemia, brain cancer, and breast cancer." They assert that the frequency of EMF emitted by household appliances is "non ionizing" and therefore relatively benign as opposed to the "ionizing" radiation of x-rays and gamma rays that have well documented harmful effects. Despite these assertions however, there are many anecdotal accounts of health issues related to low frequency EMF exposure.
On today's show, we talk to a former Silicon Valley engineer named Jeromy Johnson who experienced a health crisis after wireless "smart" electrical meters were installed below his San Francisco home. Jeromy's "wireless wake up call" has led him to become an electrical health advocate and he believes that managing our exposure to EMF will become an increasingly essential ancestral health strategy.
The unforeseen consequences of "the internet of things".
The symptoms of EMF exposure.
The potential long term effects on reproductive health and cancer risk that EMF presents.
Tips for reducing your exposure to EMF.
Digital detoxes.
How to use technology safely.
Why he decided to speak up about his experiences with an EMF related illness.
What it was like to tell 2000 technology enthusiasts at TEDx that there might be a downside to inundating our environment and our bodies with EMF.
Get the full transcript HERE
Get Our Feb/Mar 2017 Issue
Check out Jeromy's website EMFanalysis.com
Check out the NIEHS information page on EMF, HERE
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instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hello doctor,Could you please check my blood test result? Does it confirm that I am pregnant? Could I know how many weeks? Do all the results look normal? Is there anything should I pay attention to? Do I need to do any additional blood tests or checks, such as for human chorionic gonadotropin and progesterone? output: 09/23/2016 at 4:55 pmHi, Thanks for writing in. However, it takes several days for the level of beta-DIMITRY to increase enough to be detectable in the blood. So if you have missed the period and had unprotected sex around the time you think you could have become pregnant, it is possible that you may not yet have a positive blood test. It would be best to repeat the test after another week. Also, different laboratories use slightly different cut-off levels for interpreting the test results so it will be useful to get the report from your lab. Hope this helpsRegards. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: My father is 89 has been diagnosed with moderate severe dementia and suffers sun downing, he just doesn t sleep and its not unusal for him to have 21 hour days. I am my dads 24/7 caregiver. He is now on Trazadone 50 mgs. Last night it did not work for him or me so well and he was up again after 4 hours sleep. My dad likes a bottle of beer at night and I am wondering if this somehow interfered with the way the drug worked Thank you
s severe dementia cause sleeping problems? output: Hello, I must say that your father proves one of the reasons I am not a fan of Trazodone. It does not work well at all in states of dementia and in fact, may cause behaviors and sleep hygiene to get worse. Trazodone can also increase the chance of seizure disorders and cause severe headaches. Unfortunately, your father's condition of sundowning makes it very difficult to prescribe a medication to control since there is nothing specific for brains that are experiencing atrophy and loss of cortical to subcortical connections. The use of alcohol of any type and prescription medications is always a questionable combination since alcohol can and does inactivate many medications by ramping up liver metabolism. But nonetheless, I do not believe trazodone in any dose will be his best option. Has he tried melatonin which I believe has the least chance of severe side effects, withdrawal symptoms, or drug to drug interactions? Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further.. |
DOD experts explain: The science behind the COVID-19 vaccines
Letzibeth Mendez-Rivera, a lab manager with The Emerging Infectious Disease Branch at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, studies coronavirus protein samples this summer. (Photo by Mike Walters, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.)
2/1/2021 By: Military Health System Communications Office
Coronavirus & the MHS Response | COVID-19 Vaccine Efforts
Almost six weeks after the Food and Drug Administration issued emergency use authorization for the first two COVID-19 vaccines, many questions have arisen concerning their efficacy in attacking the SARS-CoV-2 virus and deadly COVID-19 disease.
To better understand how COVID-19 vaccines work, MHS Communications spoke to two medical experts who have been intimately involved in the Department of Defense’s effort to develop and roll out vaccines for Americans: Dr. Margaret Ryan, medical director of the Defense Health Agency’s Immunization Healthcare Division at the Pacific Region Vaccine Safety Hub in San Diego, California; and Air Force Col. (Dr.) Jessica Cowden, chief medical officer of the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense and the Infectious Disease Programs at the Defense Institute for Medical Operations at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
The virus and the disease
SARS-CoV-2 virus, like other viruses, is an infectious agent that consists of genetic coding material called RNA [usually a single-stranded ribose sugar phosphate] or DNA [usually a double-stranded deoxyribose sugar phosphate] that is contained in a protein coat, Ryan stated. Viruses cannot reproduce themselves until they infect a living cell, she explained, so viral RNA or DNA cause an infected cell to make copies of the virus, thus infecting other living cells and potentially making people very sick in the process.
“In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the virus tends to infect cells in the human respiratory tract,” said Ryan. “The body responds to infection with inflammation, and people may experience fever, cough, and trouble breathing. The SARS-CoV-2 virus can also use its surface ‘spike protein’ to infect other cells in the body.”
The spectrum of illnesses the SARS-CoV-2 causes is called COVID-19 — or coronavirus disease from a pathogen first identified in 2019, she said. “People with COVID-19 can spread virus to nearby people from respiratory secretions after coughing, sneezing, or even talking.”
However, asymptomatic people infected with COVID-19 may still spread virus, she explained. And “respiratory secretions on surfaces may also be picked up by people who handle these surfaces, although this may be a less common way that COVID-19 is spread,” she said. That’s why it is so important for all people to heed medical guidance and wear facemasks, wash hands frequently, and practice physical distancing.
As we have learned, some people react differently to the virus than others: Some get sick with COVID-19 while others remain asymptomatic. This is because the COVID-19 virus, as many others, can infect some people who never develop any symptoms, she said.
The Puerto Rico National Guard began to vaccinate residents and personnel of the island's aegis against COVID-19 on January 27. The PRNG expects to complete the first and second doses by the middle of March. (Photo by Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Alexis Velez.)
“These asymptomatic people may mount an immune response to infection before experiencing symptoms, or they may tolerate infection without symptoms,” explained Ryan. “While it is not entirely clear why some people do not develop symptoms and some people develop only mild symptoms, we know some factors that increase risk of serious infection.”
For example, she said older age is an important risk factor for serious COVID-19 infection. “There is no absolute age when risk increases, but 80% of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in people older than age 65.”
Many underlying medical conditions can increase the risk of serious COVID-19, including but not limited to chronic lung, heart, and kidney disease; diabetes; cancer; and immune-compromising conditions, such as obesity and pregnancy. Smoking can also increase the risk for illness, she said.
Over the last weeks of 2020 and first weeks of 2021, new variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been identified across the globe, alarming the public and raising concerns about the efficacy of the vaccines.
“Coronaviruses are part of a large family of viruses that are capable of genetically evolving or changing over time,” explained Ryan. “In fact, SARS-CoV-2 likely arose from a major genetic change in a coronavirus that was first identified in 2019.”
According to Cowden, “genetic substitutions in the virus genome will lead to the emergence of new strains as SARS-CoV-2 continues to circulate in the human population throughout the world.” Some of these new strains, or mutations, may lead to increased or decreased “fitness” of the virus, that is, “the changes in how easily it transmits or in virulence — how sick it makes people.
However, although some of these variants appear to be easily transmitted, they cause the same spectrum of symptoms, Ryan explained. “Spike-protein-based immune responses seem to be similar in new variants, which means current vaccines should be effective against these variants.”
Nonetheless, she said, scientists are examining the evolution of virus variants very carefully. Recent news reports from the United Kingdom say the new variant they identified among their population may not only be more contagious but could be more deadly as well.
How vaccines work
Pharmaceutical companies, universities, and government organizations around the world have been working against and around the clock since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to develop a safe and effective vaccine to counter the rates of contagion. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna received the FDA’s emergency use authorization in the United States in mid-December 2020 for people ages 16 and older and 18 and older, respectively, but other promising candidates are in development by additional professional teams, including Janssen, AstraZeneca, and Novavax.
“The different vaccine candidates are all targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein,” said Cowden. They work by presenting an antigen — a substance that the body does not recognize — to the body, she said.
The experts explained that antigens are introduced as a small piece of coding material, called messenger RNA (mRNA), into a few immune cells. It is encased in a lipid coat that allows it to enter only the outer part of the cells. It does not integrate into the person’s DNA or replicate, and it breaks down quickly, so it’s only present in the cell briefly.
“That mRNA then tells the cells to express ‘spike protein,’ resulting in the immune system making antibodies to destroy the spike protein,” said Ryan, adding that mRNA vaccines must be handled very carefully and often maintained at very cold temperatures to work properly.
Vaccines use different platforms to introduce the spike protein to the body to elicit the immune system’s response of blocking or killing the virus if a person becomes infected after vaccination, added Cowden. “Those antibodies then continue to be made by the body and can bind and/or neutralize the virus if an individual becomes infected after vaccination.”
Said Ryan: “The immune system also develops memory immune cells, so that any newly introduced spike protein would also be destroyed. Spike protein is similar to a protein on the coat of coronaviruses, so an immune response to spike protein can equate to immunity from coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).”
Pfizer partnered with BioNTech to develop an mRNA vaccine that is administered in two injections given at least 21 days apart. Moderna developed a similar mRNA vaccine that also requires administration as two injections given at least 28 days apart. The mRNA technology in these does not include any virus.
Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, developed a viral-vector vaccine to be administered in one injection. And AstraZeneca, in partnership with the University of Oxford, also developed a viral-vector vaccine that is to be administered in two injections at least 28 days apart. Both pharmaceuticals are likely to submit their products to FDA for emergency use authorization in the coming weeks.
“The Janssen and AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines are both replication-deficient adenovirus-vectored vaccines,” said Cowden.
This means they use a different virus, such as measles or adenovirus, which is genetically engineered so that it can produce coronavirus proteins in the body and trigger the immune system to make antibodies against those proteins.
“After spike protein is expressed, the immune response is similar to that of mRNA vaccines: The immune system makes antibodies and memory immune cells that target spike protein. This response equates to immunity from SARS-CoV-2,” said Ryan.
The viruses used in viral-vector vaccines are weakened or inactivated, so they cannot cause disease or harm humans, said the experts. Viral-vector vaccines are also relatively fragile and must be maintained at temperatures that allow them to remain intact to work optimally.
Novavax developed an adjuvanted protein subunit vaccine to be administered in two injections at least 21 days apart. The experts explained this type of vaccine usually works by introducing a component of the virus — the antigen — into the body along with an adjuvant, a molecule composed of a cholesterol-like substance that stimulates the immune system, prompting the immune system to make antibodies against the protein antigen, resulting in immunity from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
“Vaccines that use adjuvanted protein subunits introduce the spike protein directly,” said Ryan.
Unlike the others, this type of vaccine remains stable in refrigerated temperatures. When data from ongoing clinical trials is complete, Novavax will likely submit an application to FDA for emergency use authorization.
Why must some vaccines be kept in such cold temperatures?
Each vaccine is made differently. And each company is in different stages of testing the stability of its vaccine at different temperatures over time. However, the storage temperature requirements of each depend on the stability of the materials used to make the vaccine and conformation of the antigen, which in this case, is the spike protein, said Cowden.
She explained the SARS-CoV-2 virus requires a certain configuration of the spike protein so it can bind to ACE2 receptors, a type of enzyme, on human cells. “If the protein in the vaccine changes conformation so that that the [binding domain] RBD is not exposed, then the antibodies the body makes against the vaccine antigen won’t be targeted against it,” said Cowden. This may result in them not blocking the virus as well.
Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Joseph Martin, command master chief of Marine Forces, Special Operations Command, receives the COVID-19 vaccine at Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, North Carolina on Jan. 15. (Photo by Marine Corps Cpl. Jesula Jeanlouis.)
Why are we required to get two doses of some vaccines?
While single doses of vaccines prompt an immune response, Ryan explained that some vaccines must be taken in two doses to ensure a stronger and more long-lasting response in more people. In other words, while a primary shot will provide immunity, the second shot will boost it and build on the immunity from the first dose to generate a more durable response.
“When scientists begin to develop a vaccine, they look for immune responses in laboratory studies and initial small studies in humans,” said Ryan. “The scientists then select vaccine doses and timing that are most promising, and these vaccine schedules are used in large clinical trials.”
In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, she said there is only strong information available on the doses and timing used in the large trials, for which most products required two-dose schedules.
According to Ryan, new medications and vaccines undergo rigorous safety reviews before they are approved for use in the United States. In fact, she said, initial studies must demonstrate safety before they demonstrate effectiveness.
“Safety continues to be evaluated closely in all phases of study and even after a new vaccine is approved for general use,” she said. “The manufacturers and federal authorities, including the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention, FDA, and DOD, are evaluating the experiences of vaccine recipients very closely.”
Another factor to consider is the commitment from regulatory groups like FDA, said Cowden. “They have strict standards and regulations that must be followed to approve a vaccine or an antibody.”
In fact, she added, the FDA made its standards tougher for COVID vaccines by setting minimum requirements for the effectiveness of products submitted for approval. “By doing this, the FDA has confirmed their strong commitment to only approving a vaccine that could offer immunity to the majority of the population.”
In the case of COVID-19 vaccines that were recently authorized for use, more than 10,000 people received these products in studies, and more than 22 million doses had been administered in the United States under emergency use authorization as of Jan. 24, said Ryan. And although they are known to be reactogenic, or capable of causing a reaction, the side effects they cause — sore arms, headaches, fever — generally last no more than 1-3 days and can be treated with over-the-counter medicines, like ibuprofen or acetaminophen.
“All immediate allergic reactions have been successfully treated at the vaccination clinic sites,” she added. “No safety concerns have substantially changed the recommendation for the general public to receive these vaccines.”
Serious adverse reactions are much rarer but tend to get much more media coverage, said Ryan. “Serious allergic reactions have occurred in about 1 in 100,000 people immediately after vaccine administration.”
Still, “COVID-19 vaccines are among the most effective vaccines ever produced,” assured Ryan. “The safety of these vaccines will continue to be followed very closely, but people should feel confident in receiving these products.”
Secretary of Defense Video to the Force on COVID-19 Vaccinations
The Secretary of Defense addressed the entire workforce to encourage informed decision-making with regards to coronavirus-19 vaccination.
MHS Minute: A Path Forward in 2021
Want to know more about what MHS organizations and partners did in 2020? For a full look at the MHS Minute series, click here: https://shorturl.at/eDL14
COVID-19 Vaccine PSA #5
A Department of Defense Public Service Announcement communicating the importance of maintaining COVID-19 public health safety procedures while the vaccine is distributed, to prevent complacency in COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Widespread vaccination against COVID-19 aligns with the Department of Defense’s priorities of protecting service members, DoD civilians, and families; safeguarding national security capabilities; and supporting the whole-of-nation response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Video by Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher Duckworth)
COVID-19 Vaccine Efforts | Coronavirus and the COVID-19 Vaccine
A Department of Defense Public Service Announcement communicating the Department’s confidence in the safety of the vaccine, confidence in the efficacy of vaccines and transparency in the latest vaccine information. Widespread vaccination against COVID-19 aligns with the Department of Defense’s priorities of protecting service members, DoD civilians, and families; safeguarding national security capabilities; and supporting the whole-of-nation response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Video by Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher Duckworth)
A Department of Defense Public Service Announcement communicating the Department’s confidence in the vaccine distribution plan and understanding the need for flexibility. Widespread vaccination against COVID-19 aligns with the Department of Defense’s priorities of protecting service members, DoD civilians, and families; safeguarding national security capabilities; and supporting the whole-of-nation response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Video by Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher Duckworth)
A Department of Defense Public Service Announcement communicating that receiving the COVID-19 vaccine protects yourself, your community, and our nation. Widespread vaccination against COVID-19 aligns with the Department of Defense’s priorities of protecting service members, DoD civilians, and families; safeguarding national security capabilities; and supporting the whole-of-nation response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Video by Air Force Staff Sgt. Brycen Guerrero)
A Department of Defense Public Service Announcement communicating that receiving the COVID-19 vaccine provides a quicker return to life. Widespread vaccination against COVID-19 aligns with the Department of Defense’s priorities of protecting service members, DoD civilians, and families; safeguarding national security capabilities; and supporting the whole-of-nation response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Video by Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher Duckworth)
MHS Minute: December 2020
See how MHS is leading a phased approach to offer 11.1 million Department of Defense personnel the first COVID-19 vaccines. To learn more about the safety and efficacy behind COVID-19 vaccines, go to: https://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Combat-Support/Public-Health/Coronavirus/COVID-19-Vaccine-Efforts.
COVID-19 Vaccine Efforts | Coronavirus & the MHS Response
MHS COVID Response
The men and women of the Military Health System spent 2020 working to protect beneficiaries' health during the coronavirus pandemic. Here are just a few of our accomplishments.
Coronavirus & the MHS Response | Coronavirus and the COVID-19 Vaccine | Coronavirus and the COVID-19 Vaccine | COVID-19 Vaccine Efforts
Heroes Behind the Mask
A tribute to those across the Military Health System who deserve recognition and thanks for their hard work during this pandemic.
Coronavirus & the MHS Response | Coronavirus & the MHS Response | Coronavirus and the COVID-19 Vaccine
USPHS Lt. Courtney Labitzky, assigned to the Javits New York Medical Station (JNYMS), talks about their position at JNYMS in support of the Department of Defense COVID-19 response, April 29, 2020. U.S. Northern Command, through U.S. Army North, is providing military support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help communities in need. (U.S. Army Video by Cpl. Rachel Thicklin)
Coronavirus & the MHS Response | Coronavirus and the COVID-19 Vaccine
MHS Minute: November 2020
During Warrior Care Month, we reflect on the strength and resilience of our nation's wounded, ill, and injured service members, and recognize the caregivers who support their recovery and rehabilitation.
Warrior Care | Coronavirus & the MHS Response | Warrior Care
COVID-19 Response2
Army Spc. Sean Colangelo, assigned to the Javits New York Medical Station (JNYMS), talks about their position at JNYMS in support of the Department of Defense COVID-19 response, April 23, 2020. U.S. Northern Command, through U.S. Army North, is providing military support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help communities in need. (U.S. Army Video by Cpl. Rachel Thicklin)
Army Pfc. David Alvarado, assigned to the Javits New York Medical Station (JNYMS), talks about their position at JNYMS in support of the Department of Defense COVID-19 response, April 24, 2020. U.S. Northern Command, through U.S. Army North, is providing military support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help communities in need. (U.S. Army Video by Cpl. Rachel Thicklin.)
MHS Minute: Heroes Behind the Mask
In the face of a global threat, healthcare heroes across the MHS have donned their mask, and served on the front line of the battle against COVID-19. Tune in to this month's "MHS Minute" to learn more!
Coronavirus & the MHS Response | Coronavirus and the COVID-19 Vaccine | Coronavirus & the MHS Response |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Which imaging techniques are most effective in monitoring the progression of glaucoma? output: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is the most effective imaging technique for monitoring the progression of glaucoma. OCT provides high-resolution, cross-sectional images of the retina, allowing for precise measurement of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), optic nerve head (ONH), and macula. These measurements are crucial for detecting structural changes associated with glaucoma progression.
Spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT), in particular, has become the standard due to its improved scan speed and resolution compared to earlier time-domain OCT. SD-OCT facilitates the visualization of RNFL defects and their progression patterns, offering higher sensitivity for detecting glaucoma progression. Additionally, the Bruch's membrane opening-minimum rim width (BMO-MRW) and ganglion cell complex (GCC) measurements are valuable parameters for assessing glaucomatous damage.[1-4]
Confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (CSLO) and scanning laser polarimetry (SLP) are also used, but they are less commonly employed compared to OCT. CSLO measures the optic disc rim area, while SLP assesses RNFL birefringence. Both techniques provide quantifiable and reproducible measurements, but OCT remains superior in terms of sensitivity and specificity for detecting progression.[5-6]
In summary, OCT, particularly SD-OCT, is the most effective imaging technique for monitoring glaucoma progression due to its high resolution, reproducibility, and ability to detect early structural changes.[1-3] |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I had a pic line improperly inserted into my artery for 10 days .I was given 40k and 2 bolis of k packs to boost my levels until during and line flushing was given a lt sided stroke .My question is what damage was caused by the long term and direct infusion of the high concentrations of potassium and other drugs ie dilaudid fortran gravol ect. to my brain output: The fact that you were able to type this question into this forum, find this website by navigating through the internet, and comprehend sufficiently to pose the question suggests that the "thinking" part of your brain is intact. If you feel there are physical changes that have reduced or inhibited neurological function to your body, limbs, etc. then, you would require a neurological examination to assess for that side of the equation. Bottom line is you would need to be examined and have tests done in order to confirm the presence of any "damage.". |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: My boyfriends mom is coughing up blood..she has been on antibiotics for a while and nothing helps..shes not a smoker but her husband used to smoke in the house years ago..she went to the hospital and they found a black mass in her lungs the MD said it could be a tumor..is that really bad? Shes going for a biopsy soon? output: She is having hemoptysis (blood in sputum). Common causes for hemoptysis are 1. Lung infection (pneumonia) 2. Tuberculosis 3. Lung cancer Since she is not improving with antibiotics, pneumonia is unlikely, and she is also having mass like lesion on chest x-ray, so possibility of tuberculosis or lung cancer is more. To confirmation this, Biopsy from the mass is needed. If it is cancer then it is bad for her. Hope I have solved your query. I will be happy to help you further. Wishing her good health. Thanks.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hello doctor,My dad is suffering from low hemoglobin and weight loss with weakness and severe cold. Hemoglobin level is 5.2. We have consulted a doctor but what all further steps we have to take? He is currently taking iron supplements Absolute 3g omega.
What can be done for low Hb, weight loss, weakness and severe cold? output: Hi. The weakness and feeling cold are because of severe anemia. He needs a blood transfusion. Iron supplements are not enough. After that, we have to evaluate the cause of anemia. At his age, we need to get some investigations done to determine if there is any occult blood loss. If he has other symptoms of altered bowel habit or blood in stool we need to get a colonoscopy done. If he has dyspepsia or epigastric pain, then we need to see if he has a bleeding peptic ulcer or anything else. Also, we need to get a complete blood count done to see if there is any parasite infection. Please get the following investigations done after immediate blood transfusion. 1.Malena. 2.Hematuria. 3.Parasites. 1.Colonoscopy if altered bowel habit or Malena. 2.Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. 3.Complete blood count. 4.Serum creatinine. 5.Liver enzymes. 6.Hb (hemoglobin) electrophoresis. Immediate blood transfusion. For more information consult a family physician online.--->.. |
Thrash Metal • United States
Testament was one of the first thrash metal bands to emerge from the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s. Originally formed as 'Legacy' in 1983 by founding members Eric Peterson (rhythm guitar), Derrick Ramirez (guitar) and Louie Clemente (drums), the line-up included vocalist Steve Souza and Greg Christian (bass). Ramirez was later replaced by wunderkind Alex Skolnick (lead guitar). Souza soon departed to join Exodus and suggested that the towering Chuck Billy take over as frontman(and was later run over by a bus). The band became known as 'Testament' 3 years later, while recording their debut album in Ithaca, New York.
"The Legacy" was a brutal intro in 1987, putting Testament at the forefront of the flourishing thrash metal scene. Following "Live At Eindhoven", an EP recorded at Holland's Dynamo Festival, "The New Order" in 1988 was well received producing one of the band's most memorable classics "Disciples Of read more...
Thanks to Stooge, UMUR, tupan, Unitron for the updates
TESTAMENT Online Videos
TESTAMENT - WWIII (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
TESTAMENT - Curse of Osiris (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
TESTAMENT - Children Of The Next Level (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
TESTAMENT - Night of the Witch (OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO)
TESTAMENT - Low (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
See all TESTAMENT videos
Buy TESTAMENT music
More places to buy metal & TESTAMENT music
TESTAMENT Discography
TESTAMENT albums / top albums
Thrash Metal 1987
The New Order
Souls of Black
The Formation Of Damnation
Dark Roots Of Earth
Brotherhood of the Snake
Titans Of Creation
TESTAMENT EPs & splits
Live at Eindhoven
Trial by Fire
Return to the Apocalyptic City
Nuclear Blast Presents Thrash Metal
TESTAMENT live albums
Live at The Fillmore
Live in London
Live at Eindhoven '87
Dark Roots of Thrash
TESTAMENT demos, promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs)
Electric Crown
TESTAMENT re-issues & compilations
The Best of Testament
Signs of Chaos: The Best of Testament
The Very Best of Testament
First Strike Still Deadly
Days of Darkness
The Spitfire Collection
TESTAMENT singles (4)
Kerrang! Plastic Explosive
True American Hate
Native Blood
TESTAMENT movies (DVD, Blu-Ray or VHS)
Seen Between the Lines
Live At The Omni 1988
Live in Tilburg, The Netherlands
Santa Monica Civic 1989
Live in Osaka Japan 1999
TESTAMENT Reviews
TESTAMENT Demonic
Album · 1997 · Thrash Metal
"Demonic" is the 7th full-length studio album by US, California based thrash metal act Testament. The album was released through Burnt Offerings in June 1997. It´s the successor to "Low" from 1994. The album was recorded as a four-piece. The usual suspects and the only remaining founding members are Chuck Billy on vocals and Eric Peterson on guitars while Gene Hoglan on drums and Derrick Ramirez on bass are new in the lineup (replacing Chris Kontos and Greg Christian respectively). Gene Hoglan had just finished his stint with Death and was about to start his time with Strapping Young Lad and was asked to help out, while bassist Derrick Ramirez played guitar in The Legacy which was the band that later changed their name to Testament (by then Derrick Ramirez was no longer a member), so there is some credibility to the lineup.
Compared to the groove oriented and melodic thrash metal style of "Low (1994)", the music on Demonic is generally quite different in style and sound. The departure of lead guitarist James Murphy had a big impact on how Testament approached the songwriting for "Demonic". This was arguably the most raw and heavy release by Testament up until that point (and probably still is), who on occassion even venture into death metal territory. Chuck Billy spice up his trademark vocal delivery with some semi-death grunts and the riffing could at times also be mistaken for death metal riffing albeit of the thrashier kind. When that is said "Demonic" is still a thrash metal album and Testament are still Testament. There is also a good portion of groove featured on the album, and at times I´m reminded of an artist like Lamb of God. If anything the inspiration flowed the other way, so it´s just a reference made to describe the style of music on "Demonic".
"Demonic" features a powerful, raw, and heavy sounding production, which suits the rawness and heavy nature of the material perfectly. Hoglan always deserves praise for his outstanding drumming skills and playing style and this time is no exception. Anything that man plays on is instantly made better by his contributions. Peterson is rock solid delivering loads and loads of heavy thrashy riffs and while Billy´s semi-growling vocal style isn´t always pretty and his more regular raw shouting vocal parts are a nice variation from the grunting, the vocals overall work pretty well too. As there aren´t many guitar solos to be found ("Jun-Jun" is one of the few tracks featuring prominent lead guitar work), "Demonic" is quite different from the albums preceding it, as guitar solos and lead guitar themes were always a major part of Testament´s sound. Just not on this album...
...so upon conclusion "Demonic" is one of the odd one out albums in the band´s discography, but that doesn´t mean it´s a bad quality release by any means. In fact it´s a strong groove oriented thrash metal release, featuring high level musicianship, a well sounding production job, and relatively memorable songwriting. I do miss the lead guitars, and sometimes it does feel like Testament sacrifice memorability and melody over brutality, but overall it´s a quality release. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.
TESTAMENT Low
"Low" is the 6th full-length studio album by US, California based thrash/heavy metal act Testament. The album was released through Atlantic Records in September 1994. It´s the successor to "The Ritual" from 1992 and features a couple of lineup changes compared to the lineup who recorded the predecessor. Drummer Louise Clemente was replaced by John Tempesta and guitarist Alex Skolnick was replaced by James Murphy. Tempesta was known for his work with Exodus while Murphy had played on albums by Death, Obituary, Cancer, and Disincarnate. Both are skilled and worthy replacements (although I personally prefer Skolnick over Murphy).
"The Ritual (1992)" introduced a new and more accessible heavy metal sound with only occasional thrash metal leanings, but with "Low", Testament are back in thrash metal mode. This time around with more focus on groove, which is audible already from the opening title track. It´s not as such groove metal, but there certainly is a strong emphasis on groove throughout the album. The music features hard edged and sharp thrash metal riffs, powerful rhythms, well played leads, and Chuck Billy´s powerful vocals in front. His singing on the album is relatively varied, and he sings both semi-clean, raw, and even occasionally brutal growling vocals.
The material on the 12 track, 47:19 minutes long album are generally well written, although not all tracks are equally remarkable. Some of the highlights include the title track and "Hail Mary", while a track like the fusion influenced instrumental "Urotsukidôji" may be a standout track, but not in a positive sense. It´s the kind of track which disrupts the album flow, and overall sounds more like the band had fun in the studio playing something different, than a track which was written specifically for the album.
"Low" features a powerful and detailed sound production and strong musical performances, but it´s not the strongest Testament album in their discography. So while it signals a (for many) welcome return to a more thrash metal oriented sound after the "softer" "The Ritual (1992)", I dare say it´s a slightly less interesting release compared to the predecessor. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.
TESTAMENT Live in London
Live album · 2005 · Thrash Metal
"Live in London" is a live album release by US, California based thrash metal act Testament. The album was released through Spitfire Records in November 2005. The album features a recording of one full show from May 2005 in London. The show was also released on DVD. It marks the first time since 1992 that the "classic" lineup of Chuck Billy (Vocals), Alex Skolnick (Lead Guitar), Eric Peterson (Rhythm Guitar), Greg Christian (Bass), and Louie Clemente (Drums) played together. The latter only performs on about half of the 14 tracks on the 71:13 minutes long album though. John Tempesta, who originally replaced Clemente when the latter left Testament in 1992, plays on the remaining tracks. The show in London was a one-off and while both Skolnick and Christian stayed with the band for a number of years after the reunion show (Christian left Testament again in early 2014), Clemente has not played with Testament since.
Not surprisingly all tracks on the tracklist are culled from the first five albums by Testament. Predominantly (8 out of 14 tracks) from the first two albums "The Legacy (1987)" and "The New Order (1988)", while the remaining three albums are represented by two tracks each. There really aren´t that many surprises on the tracklist and we´re pretty much treated to the "hit-parade" of the early years of Testament. "Over the Wall", "Disciples of the Watch", "Practice What You Preach", and other classic Testament tracks.
The band are well playing and deliver the tracks with great passion and conviction. The audience sound a bit restrained, but it´s probably a matter of where they are placed in the mix. Other than that the sound production is of a good quality considering that this is a live album. So upon conclusion "Live in London" is a quality live release by Testament documenting a very special event in the band´s career. For fans of the band´s early material this is more or less a mandatory listen and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.
TESTAMENT The Ritual
"The Ritual" is the 5th full-length studio album by US, California based thrash/heavy metal act Testament. The album was released through Atlantic/Megaforce Records in May 1992. It´s the successor to "Souls of Black" from 1990 and it´s the last Testament release to feature the "classic" lineup of Chuck Billy (Vocals), Alex Skolnick (Lead Guitar), Eric Peterson (Rhythm Guitar), Greg Christian (Bass), and Louie Clemente (Drums).
"The Ritual" is Testament´s most commercially successful album. The musical changes that the band made resulted in a more mainstream oriented and accessible heavy metal effort, although they haven´t completely left their thrash metal roots behind. Other contemporary artists like Metallica, Overkill, and Anthrax were also toying with more accessible musical directions, so it wasn´t unusual for the time for thrash metal artists to evolve and try something new. So the change in musical direction was definitely a conscious decision. If it was a desire for commercial success or it just felt like the right time to try something new I don´t know, but my guess is probably a bit of both.
The change in musical style is audible right from opening of the album. After the short intro track "Signs of Chaos", we´re treated to "Electric Crown", which pretty much sets the tone and pace for the rest of the 11 track, 54:34 minutes long album. Melodic (though still relatively hard-edged) mid-paced heavy metal with the occasional more thrashy riff thrown in. While the four preceding album releases all have a different sound there is still a clear stylistic red thread throughout that period of Testament´s career, so listening to "The Ritual" was probably a bit of a shock to a part of the band´s regular fanbase. The power ballad "Return to Serenity" earned Testament a charting single though, so it would appear that new fans were added to the ranks. Fans who either embraced the stylistic change or didn´t know Testament´s back catalogue enough to care.
It wasn´t just the musical style which was changed between "Souls of Black (1990)" and "The Ritual". The latter features a much less heavy and hard edged sound production to its predecessor, and although there are several thrashy riffs on the album, even those parts don´t really sound much like thrash metal, because the sound production just isn´t heavy enough to bring out the thrashy aggression (examples are otherwise pretty thrashy tracks like "Let Go of My World" and "The Sermon"). "The Ritual" has other things that are interesting though, and especially the lead guitar work by Alex Skolnick is stunning. He has always been an incredible guitarist and his contributions to the preceding releases by the band are considerable, but it´s like he is more at ease with the material on "The Ritual". There is a natural tone to his performance that oozes enjoyment with what he is playing. The rest of the band are also well playing, although Louie Clemente´s drumming sounds a bit "stiff". The restraint he has to put on his playing isn´t doing anything good for the final output.
So upon conclusion "The Ritual" is a bit of the "odd one out" in Testament´s discography, and they would soon return to more thrash metal oriented material on "Low (1994)". Despite the mixed reception among fans of the band, the band did enjoy some commercial success, and in that regard "The Ritual" must be regarded as a success. To my ears the material could have been more varied and hook laden, because not enough tracks stand out and the mid-paced rhythms and lack of aggression also quickly become a bit tedious (tracks like "Deadline" and "Agony" are downright unremarkable). It is an album which wins with repeated spins though, and if you leave behind your preconceived notions of what a Testament album should sound like, "The Ritual" is actually a relatively good quality heavy metal album and a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is deserved.
TESTAMENT Titans Of Creation
The boys are back, four years after ‘Brotherhood of the Snake’, with their thirteenth studio album. I was a latecomer to the band, with ‘Dark Roots of Earth’ being the first time I really paid a great deal of attention to them. That got me hooked, and the resulting live album ‘Dark Roots of Thrash’ is something I still play a great deal. Chuck Billy is a big man with a big voice, and alongside guitarists Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson was there in time for their debut album, ‘The Legacy’ back in 1987. Both drummer Gene Hoglan and bassist Steve DiGiorgio had previously served time with the band, returning in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Since their return to recording in 2008 with ‘The Formation of Damnation’ they have released a new album every four years, but amazingly this is the first time there have been two with the same line-up.
To my ears there is something very special indeed about this band in full flight. Hoglan is one of the finest metal drummers there is (and he makes it look so easy), making it terrifying for most bassists to stick with him yet DiGiorgio manages to do just that. Although Skolnick took quite a few years away from the band to work on other projects, his relationship with Peterson goes all the way back to the formation of the band, and they both appeared on their very first four-track demo when they were still known as Legacy. The understanding they have of each other only comes with countless hours playing music, on stage and in the studio, knowing what each one brings to the party. Then you have Chuck Billy. He may not have been the very original singer, but he joined Legacy in time for their last show under that name and has been on every Testament album. Here is a band who have been producing the goods for more than 30 years and they show no sign whatsoever of slowing down.
This is bottom-driven thrash with a real groove to it, strong commercial hooks with wonderful vocals. They have changed and grown over the years, and Testament in 2020 is simply superb. They continue to deliver the goods – now please can you tour down here?
TESTAMENT Movies Reviews
Movie · 2005 · Thrash Metal
Kingcrimsonprog
Testament’s excellent 2005 Live In London DVD is simply one of the best live DVDs that a metal band has ever put out, and even now both sounds and looks terrific.
In terms of visuals the digital camera look presents a great true to life image which makes the footage seem higher definition than it actually is. Elsewhere, the camera work and editing is all top notch and the whole concert is just fantastic to watch.
This combined with the audio mix, which suits the material and the gig perfectly results in a all round great viewer experience.
As for the concert itself, it simply couldn’t be better. The band reunite the classic 1980s line up of Chuck Billy on vocals, Greg Christian on bass, Eric Peterson and Alex Skolnick on guitar with Louie Clemente on drums (for half the set, with the first half being handled by Low-era drummer John Tempesta)
The band play a set list devoted entirely to their classic thrash-era material, with all the songs coming from the band’s first five albums. The band play many of their best songs like ‘Disciples Of The Watch,’ ‘Practice What You Preach,’ and ‘The Legacy.’
Even with all the fan service that the line up and set list represents, a concert is only as strong as the band’s performance and could still be terrible if the band are sloppy or their hearts aren’t in it. Luckily, the band are absolutely on fire and deliver one of the most energetic performances I’ve ever seen in a live DVD.
They seem so pleased to on stage and genuinely in to what they are doing and it subsequently comes across in the music, what you get is the electrifying sound of a band genuinely playing the absolute hell out of their instruments, with Chuck Billy engaging with the crowd at every opportunity, commanding the stage like an absolute master, so into the performance that he is playing air guitar (in a cynicism free way) and headbanging like a fan. This is the sort of performance that will win over non fans.
To conclude, Live In London is one of the best metal DVDs on the market, and I say that without hyperbole, even after all this time has passed since its release. Superb Audio Visual quality, Superb idea in the first place and finally a beyond-superb performance.
TESTAMENT Shouts
jose carlos wrote:
The fifth of the Big Four?
NorseGangsta wrote:
Surprising but Demonic is actually a death metal album.
TESTAMENT Index |
What's the difference between the Light side and the Dark side of the Force?
We know that Dark side is linked to emotion like fear and anger, but the interesting point here is the between line the two side of the force.
As an example, what make Mind tricks a "acceptable" force power for a Jedi? How could you hurt someone, like Obi-Wan does in the Mos Eisley Cantina when he slashed a alien's arm off with his lightsaber, and still be a Jedi?
star-wars powers good-against-evil morality
PearsonArtPhoto
DavRob60DavRob60
Good question, Knights of the Old Republic defined the force choke as a dark side power, yet Luke uses it twice in ROTJ. There's a lot of contradiction in the movies and the Expanded Universe. – Ryan Jun 10 '11 at 13:23
@Ryan, remember Luke was struggling with his own issues with the Dark Side, he wasn't 100% "good" – Doug T. Jun 10 '11 at 15:14
It's also worth noting that a mind trick is very easy to see as a light side power - if you can't distract the guards with a mind trick, you'll have to use your lightsaber...which one is more 'good'? – Jeff Jun 10 '11 at 15:54
Also, since the Force is like Duct tape, the light side is stickier. – Jeff Jun 10 '11 at 16:02
@Doug T. Good call, I hadn't thought about that. – Ryan Jun 10 '11 at 17:39
In the Star Wars Universe, the difference between the light side and dark side is...a gray area.
Essentially, if you are using the Force out of anger, lust, greed, vengeance, or fear, you likely channel the dark side. If you are using the Force to defend you are using the light side.
There are very few techniques which are unambiguously light or dark. The ability to stimulate cellular regeneration ('Force Heal') is generally considered light, but a malicious individual could use it to restore health to a torture victim, for instance, to prepare them for more.
The only truly unique powers to either side are, I believe, Force Choke and Force Lightning. These are unambiguous mainly because they use the Force explicitly to kill. No other power seen uses the force for that purpose, and it can even be seen as mildly damaging to the Force itself to do so (since the Force is generated by life, using it to bring death is abominable).
For the most part, Force powers are tools, neither good nor bad on their own. Their USER is light or dark.
JeffJeff
force lightning could be used for good -- to jump start a stranded motorist's landspeeder. – Doug T. Jun 10 '11 at 15:14
@Doug: That would be hilarious to see. Especially if the Jedi had poor aim. – Jeff Jun 10 '11 at 15:16
@Jeff Actually, healing with the Force is considered Dark, if I recall correctly. Cade Skywalker used this ability to bring back his Master. In terms of Dark/Light, I think this power is considered Dark because it essentially cheats death. – Steam Mar 22 '13 at 12:57
@Yawus ...'Cade' Skywalker? Must be from the distant future EU books. Healing has never been considered dark. Even back to the Jedi Academy trilogy (and potentially before) healing has been considered light. But it can't reverse death. Ergo, Cade didn't use the typical Jedi Healing to resurrect someone. It must have been a different technique, perhaps even the one Palpatine references in Revenge of the Sith. – Jeff Mar 22 '13 at 13:08
@Jeff - You mean jump starting Jar-Jar's tongue? :) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Mar 19 '14 at 11:51
The Force is different things to different cultures:
The Old Jedi Council considered any Force use that requires emotion to be of the dark side, and the light side to be that which requires knowledge and control with the absence of emotion.
Several cultures believe that the Force is magic and that any attempt to use it is evil.
The Sith believe the Force is nothing more than a tool to be used for the wielder's ends.
In New Jedi Order and beyond there has been a lot of experimentation with techniques that would have been banned under the Jedi Council.
The current Jedi Order seems to have taken an approach akin to the Shao-Lin seeking Discipline and Control over Emotion, allowing for slips and mistakes and having the belief that the fallen can be redeemed if brought back early enough. It is not uncommon to see the different Jedi straying towards the dark side (including Leia) only to be brought back by the masters.
Dave DuPlantis
ChadChad
How did Leia stray towards the dark side? – user1320 Jun 10 '11 at 21:48
It happens on Correllia while they are working with Fett to Hunt Han's cousin (Thrackan Sal-Solo). And again while dealing with Jacen's spiral out of control. The first time Han reins her in the second her Barabel master does. Granted her slips are nothing like those of Jaina or Takiri but she loses control and uses powers the books have traditionally attributed to dark side forces. – Chad Jun 13 '11 at 14:10
Drawing a line between the light and dark side is a very subjective decision.
For example, we know that Mace Windu used a fighting technique he called Vaapad, which channeled raw ferocity from the opponent back at them. This is described as stepping over the line into tapping into the dark side of the force, but is an acceptable Jedi technique (although dangerous).
So light versus dark is really a personal if not organizational designation determined by subjective ethics.
AdamAdam
The Force is ambiguous (do Midichlorians really pick sides?). It is the desire of the person using the Force that can be considered "Light" or "Dark". The reason why some powers are associated with Sith (or Dark) vs Jedi (or Light) is likely because some are easier to enact using one method over another (raw emotion versus mental discipline).
XantecXantec
Also that some lend themselves more towards being helpful or harmful... though they could still theoretically be used either way under the right circumstances. – eidylon Jun 10 '11 at 20:32
A power like lightning is considered dark side because use of the dark side is required to conjure it. – Ras Morthil Jul 6 '15 at 23:11
A gun is neither good nor evil, nor is any 'thing' (and with this I would include a "power" as a thing). It is all about HOW it is used and perhaps more importantly WHY it is used. Several examples have been provided already about how a power can be used for good or evil, I would challenge anyone to suggest a power of the Force that could NOT be used "for good".
Leaving us with "the difference" being in the heart or mind of the person using the Force, and in 'the Force' itself.
I hate bring feminism down on the crew here, but the overwhelming gist of the Force seems to me to be very Old Testament. I mean, where are the chicks in positions of power? Princess Leia never gets to fly in battle, and Padme just wrecks everything. Oh, yeah, and she dies in childbirth yawn.
I guess the force is just to keep me in my place. There's some hope though. Since the rights of black men generally precede the rights of women, there is a Black man jedi.
A. The dark side gets laid.
Ele MunjeliEle Munjeli
"Where are the chicks in positions of power?" I would say Mon Mothma. And as a Jedi there is Mara Jade, Bastila Shan, Ahsoka or Jaina Solo – DavRob60 Jun 11 '11 at 19:29
What does any of that have to do with the Force? The Star Wars universe/writing, sure, but not the force. – Sean McMillan Oct 17 '11 at 17:55
Well, Ele has a good point at the movie level here, but that's basically because Lucas sucked at writing female characters. (Comments on his personal life left out for taste.) In the EU where some better writers can step in, the gap is closed. – Tynam Nov 30 '11 at 17:03
The difference between the light and the dark side of the force is life itself. The force may appear neutral but since the dark side is usually used to kill or do harm to other beings while the light side respects and protects life as much as possible, then those who used the light side in the long run will probably be in a stronger and better position to triumph because of the more numerous allies they are able to make and instruct, over time compared to the Sith Lords who only live to dominate and do harm to others, Sith included. They are always fighting each other for survival or power. Why do you think the Jedi are able to establish an order and high council while the Sith regularly stepped on one another and have to abide by the famous "rule of two" of Darth Banes?
That means, while a Jedi, no matter how strong he can become is no threat to another one, and are allowed to freely multiply themselves by the thousands and become a very strong force, the Sith can only be allowed to be two of them at the same time: One Sith lord and his apprentice. Thus, no matter how strong the dark side, on any given day, a dark lord, no matter how powerful will have to confront thousands of Jedi at the same time. Then, because of their strength in numbers, the Jedi can only be defeated by the Sith lords only through extraordinary means of treachery, surprise or treason. The servant of the light side would win 9 battles out of ten. Ultimately, eventhough the dark side of the force may appear more appealing and more powerfull on a personal point of view, it is nonetheless self destructive and doomed to be defeated by too many enemies(the Jedi).
Is any of this actually supported by canon? – DVK-on-Ahch-To Feb 17 '14 at 1:45
To understand my answer you must understand what the Star Wars Galaxy truly is.
The Star Wars galaxy at its core is a galaxy governed, ruled, and enslaved by an extremely active, omnipresent, and malevolent Fate - both Light and Dark are the intrinsically flawed creations...of Fate itself.
The Force/Destiny/Fate creates a light side and a dark side picks its champions for both sides and pits them against one another with everyone else in the galaxy - all those normal men, women, and children born without Destiny's yoke pressing down on their souls - getting caught in the crossfire.
I will start by shocking you. The Light Side has a very clear, very deep, very persistent hypocrisy to it. Yes, it claims to value personal 'life' and personal 'freedom' but it subordinates both to 'listening to the Will of the force' and fulfilling the purpose of Destiny - an external force that lesser beings are told to trust and worship without question.
Fate is a collectivist argument that promotes servitude to the rule of Destiny's chosen champions - the light side or the Jedi. It creates and channels a dependence on the Jedi to solve their problems giving rise to indolence, corruption, and moral decay...setting the stage for the Dark Side to rise again. Destiny wants only its champions to have intrinsic worth since those are the people it directly controls...everyone else is its meat and drink...its bloody spectacle...its entertainment...
In other words, the Jedi are the ones Fate acts through directly and it uses them to reinforce its grip on the rest of humanity. No Jedi ever earns their high place in the galaxy. Destiny makes its picks, fills those champions up with free power, and charts their actions from cradle to grave making their arrogance, pride, angst, and whining all the more infuriating, childish, and insultingly stupid to those born outside the loins of the chosen few royalist families Destiny loves to play with...
Bottom Line, thee Jedi do not earn their power through merit or personal achievement but from 'royal birth' into the right families or the puckish whims of a galaxy spanning Fate that plays mortals like puppets for the sake of its own amusement. Think of Light Side as Destiny's favored side in a very bloody game of football and the Dark side as everybody that may oppose Fate's control over them. Fearing the Dark Side, Fate stacks the deck by supplying the dark side with force-sensitives who are twisted into corrupt mockeries of themselves that don't hesitate to grind them up with the end result of all Sith philosophies.
All Force-sensitives are enslaved by Destiny's yoke on their soul from birth and gain Fate's incredible superhero powers to act in its interests. Dark side force-sensitives are Fate's way of culling all those who value personal liberty and personal merit and personal value from the galactic population pool of souls while simultaneously discrediting an individualistic value system and worldview that threatens its stranglehold over creation and its very existence.
So yes, Fate uses the light side as a proxy for its own side (and point of view). Destiny twists the other side the Dark Side into a hateful mockery of its own ideals so that a Destiny centric position is "proven" correct as a result of whatever its most recent force-sensitive controlled war of annihilation and conversion happened to be.
Its viewpoints are reinforced among normal human beings (who as a rule don't want to die) along with every other non-force wielding sentient while culling the herd of the rest.
The truest ideal of the Dark Side is to overcome Fate in the hopes of creating a utopia where Fate falls to the personal liberty of the individual who earns his or her successes in life instead of having those successes handed to him or her by Fate...Fate deliberately warped this ideal by twisting some of the children whose yoke of Destiny is stronger than any other into malevolent mockeries of this ideal. This is shown by those force sensitives who are the worst sort of death seeking blood knighted power hungry tyrants who routinely try to crush the liberty and personal value of those 'beneath them' until it utterly takes their lives allowing Destiny to collect their souls and torture them.
Thus the deepest truth in Star Wars is that most of humanity and every other sentient is mere grist for the mill of the bloody whetstone of Destiny...any personal accomplishment or determination is rendered meaningless by those Fated to succeed over them...and an individualistic point of view is discredited by the Destiny's dark-sided children.
In summary, all wars in Star Wars are tools of Fate to preserve itself from all those who have Free Will. The Light side and Dark side are false artificial sides controlled by Destiny so that Fate may reinforce its Will and trample on the will of the vast multitudes who exist outside its direct control using a relative handful of people that it can control directly to serve its interests as well as provide it with its chosen form of entertainment.
Imperial KnightImperial Knight
Ummmm...where did all of this come from? Sounds like opinion – The Fallen Feb 17 '14 at 4:23
@SSumner: More than that, it sounds like he's trying to convert us to some sort of anti-Force religion. I'm not a Yuuzhan Vong, thank you very much. – James Sheridan Feb 17 '14 at 7:22
@Imperial Knight: I hate to say this, and I've never been so blunt on this site before, but this is a very bad answer. It does not answer the question, is based not on research but on personal opinion. It has no sources to support the claims made in the body. As I stated to SSumner (somewhat jokingly) above, it comes across as an anti-religion rant, which just coincidentally is about a fictional religion, rather than an honest attempt to answer the question. It's also an answer to a two-year old question that already has an accepted answer, and I would downvote it for that reason alone. – James Sheridan Feb 17 '14 at 7:25
@JamesSheridan - posting answers to old questions is encouraged (in general) - even if there's an accepted answer, provided the new answer doesn't simply repeat existing ones. Posting a poor answer is a bad thing independently of the question age. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Mar 19 '14 at 11:51
Darth Traya, is that you? – jliv902 Sep 30 '14 at 22:11
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged star-wars powers good-against-evil morality or ask your own question.
How is the Jedi mind trick not a dark side technique?
Dark Side without the emotions that typically go with it
When Can the Dark Side Be Sensed?
Why did Obi Wan use his lightsaber in the Mos Eisley Cantina?
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Did Kenobi use the dark side against Maul in Episode I (Phantom Menace)?
Why did Obi-Wan lop off Ponda Baba's arm?
On whom do Jedi practice mind tricks?
Is Force lightning part of “Jedi powers”?
Why didn't Obi-Wan incapacitate Darth Maul?
Blaster policy in the Mos Eisley Cantina? |
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<a href="http://archive.today/ryxw4"> <img style="width:300px;height:200px;background-color:white" src="https://archive.is/ryxw4/045462a186765d982ba45dbb083bf4f606bc3990/scr.png"><br> Ethnic group - Wikipedia<br> archived 15 Jul 2019 20:41:06 UTC </a>
{{cite web | title = Ethnic group - Wikipedia | url = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group | date = 2019-07-15 | archiveurl = http://archive.today/ryxw4 | archivedate = 2019-07-15 }}
Socially defined category of people who identify with each other
"Ethnicity" redirects here. For other uses, see Ethnicity (disambiguation).
"Ethnicities" redirects here. It is not to be confused with the academic journal.
Before the 1970s, the Korowai people of
Papua were an uncontacted people. Their population numbers no more than 3,000.
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An ethnic group, a people group, a people, or an ethnicity, is a category of people who identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry or on similarities such as common language, history, society, culture or nation.[1][2] Ethnicity is often used synonymously with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism, and is separate from but related to the concept of races.
Ethnicity is usually an inherited status based on the society in which one lives. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art or physical appearance. Ethnic groups often continue to speak related languages and share a similar gene pool. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is sometimes possible for individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group and become part of another (except for ethnic groups emphasizing homogeneity or racial purity as a key membership criterion).
The largest ethnic groups in modern times comprise hundreds of millions of individuals (Han Chinese being the largest), while the smallest are limited to a few dozen individuals (numerous indigenous peoples worldwide). Larger ethnic groups may be subdivided into smaller sub-groups known variously as tribes or clans, which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from the parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity (such as Han Chinese) and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity. Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis.
1 Terminology
2 Definitions and conceptual history
2.1 Approaches to understanding ethnicity
2.2 Ethnicity theory
3 Ethnicity and nationality
4 Ethnicity and race
5 Ethno-national conflict
6 Ethnic groups by continent
6.6 Oceania
6.6.1.1 Australia
Terminology[edit]
Ethnic sari dress in Kerala
The term ethnic is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos (more precisely, from the adjective ἐθνικός ethnikos,[3] which was loaned into Latin as ethnicus). The inherited English language term for this concept is folk, used alongside the latinate people since the late Middle English period.
In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian oikumene), as the Septuagint used ta ethne ("the nations") to translate the Hebrew goyim "the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews".[4] The Greek term in early antiquity (Homeric Greek) could refer to any large group, a host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Classical Greek, the term took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as "nation, people"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or "barbarous" nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan").[5]
In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "racial, cultural or national minority group" arises in the 1930s to 1940s,[6] serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism. The abstract ethnicity had been used for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972.[7] Depending on the context that is used, the term nationality may either be used synonymously with ethnicity, or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something exotic (cf. "ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established.
Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership, the following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified:
Ethno-linguistic, emphasizing shared language, dialect (and possibly script) – example: French Canadians
Ethno-national, emphasizing a shared polity or sense of national identity – example: Austrians
Ethno-racial, emphasizing shared physical appearance based on genetic origins – example: African Americans
Ethno-regional, emphasizing a distinct local sense of belonging stemming from relative geographic isolation – example: South Islanders of New Zealand
Ethno-religious, emphasizing shared affiliation with a particular religion, denomination or sect – example: Jews
In many cases more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, Armenian ethnicity can be defined by citizenship of Armenia, native use of the Armenian language, or membership of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Definitions and conceptual history[edit]
Ethnography begins in classical antiquity; after early authors like Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus in c. 480 BC laid the foundation of both historiography and ethnography of the ancient world. The Greeks at this time did not describe foreign nations but had also developed a concept of their own "ethnicity", which they grouped under the name of Hellenes. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating
shared descent (ὅμαιμον - homaimon, "of the same blood"),[8]
shared language (ὁμόγλωσσον - homoglōsson, "speaking the same language")[9]
shared sanctuaries and sacrifices (Greek: θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι - theōn hidrumata te koina kai thusiai)[10]
shared customs (Greek: ἤθεα ὁμότροπα - ēthea homotropa, "customs of like fashion").[11][12][13]
Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. According to "Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World: Science, politics, and reality", in Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World: Science, Politics and Reality : Proceedings of the Joint Canada-United States Conference on the Measurement of Ethnicity, April 1–3, 1992, Joint Canada-United States Conference on the Measurement of Ethnicity, Department of Commerce, Statistics Canada, 1993,[14] a conference organised by Statistics Canada and the United States Census Bureau (April 1–3, 1992).[15] Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf, do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.[16][irrelevant citation]
According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently.
One is between "primordialism" and "instrumentalism". In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as an externally given, even coercive, social bond.[17] The instrumentalist approach, on the other hand, treats ethnicity primarily as an ad-hoc element of a political strategy, used as a resource for interest groups for achieving secondary goals such as, for instance, an increase in wealth, power, or status.[18][19] This debate is still an important point of reference in Political science, although most scholars' approaches fall between the two poles.[20]
The second debate is between "constructivism" and "essentialism". Constructivists view national and ethnic identities as the product of historical forces, often recent, even when the identities are presented as old.[21][22] Essentialists view such identities as ontological categories defining social actors, and not the result of social action.[23][24]
According to Eriksen, these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology, by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicised forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in the Caribbean and South Asia.[25]
Max Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolise power and status. This was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race".[26]
Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth, whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of the term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s.[27] Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates, or logical a prioris to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with a focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "... categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories."
In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities:
... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed.[27]
In this way, he pointed to the fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had the added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states.[27]
According to Paul James, formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing:
[C]ategorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive.[28]
Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have a mercurial character.[29] Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness".[27] He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization.[27] This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation.
Approaches to understanding ethnicity[edit]
Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As Jonathan M. Hall observes, World War II was a turning point in the ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than as biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship, a common place of origin, language, religion, customs and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in the genes.[30]
Examples of various approaches are: primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism and instrumentalism.
"Primordialism", holds that ethnicity has existed at all times of human history and that modern ethnic groups have historical continuity into the far past. For them, the idea of ethnicity is closely linked to the idea of nations and is rooted in the pre-Weber understanding of humanity as being divided into primordially existing groups rooted by kinship and biological heritage.
"Essentialist primordialism" further holds that ethnicity is an a priori fact of human existence, that ethnicity precedes any human social interaction and that it is basically unchanged by it. This theory sees ethnic groups as natural, not just as historical. It also has problems dealing with the consequences of intermarriage, migration and colonization for the composition of modern day multi-ethnic societies.[31]
"Kinship primordialism" holds that ethnic communities are extensions of kinship units, basically being derived by kinship or clan ties where the choices of cultural signs (language, religion, traditions) are made exactly to show this biological affinity. In this way, the myths of common biological ancestry that are a defining feature of ethnic communities are to be understood as representing actual biological history. A problem with this view on ethnicity is that it is more often than not the case that mythic origins of specific ethnic groups directly contradict the known biological history of an ethnic community.[31]
"Geertz's primordialism", notably espoused by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, argues that humans in general attribute an overwhelming power to primordial human "givens" such as blood ties, language, territory, and cultural differences. In Geertz' opinion, ethnicity is not in itself primordial but humans perceive it as such because it is embedded in their experience of the world.[31]
"Perennialism", an approach that is primarily concerned with nationhood but tends to see nations and ethnic communities as basically the same phenomenon, holds that the nation, as a type of social and political organisation, is of an immemorial or "perennial" character.[32] Smith (1999) distinguishes two variants: "continuous perennialism", which claims that particular nations have existed for very long spans of time, and "recurrent perennialism", which focuses on the emergence, dissolution and reappearance of nations as a recurring aspect of human history.[33]
"Perpetual perennialism" holds that specific ethnic groups have existed continuously throughout history.
"Situational perennialism" holds that nations and ethnic groups emerge, change and vanish through the course of history. This view holds that the concept of ethnicity is basically a tool used by political groups to manipulate resources such as wealth, power, territory or status in their particular groups' interests. Accordingly, ethnicity emerges when it is relevant as means of furthering emergent collective interests and changes according to political changes in the society. Examples of a perennialist interpretation of ethnicity are also found in Barth, and Seidner who see ethnicity as ever-changing boundaries between groups of people established through ongoing social negotiation and interaction.
"Instrumentalist perennialism", while seeing ethnicity primarily as a versatile tool that identified different ethnics groups and limits through time, explains ethnicity as a mechanism of social stratification, meaning that ethnicity is the basis for a hierarchical arrangement of individuals. According to Donald Noel, a sociologist who developed a theory on the origin of ethnic stratification, ethnic stratification is a "system of stratification wherein some relatively fixed group membership (e.g., race, religion, or nationality) is utilized as a major criterion for assigning social positions".[34] Ethnic stratification is one of many different types of social stratification, including stratification based on socio-economic status, race, or gender. According to Donald Noel, ethnic stratification will emerge only when specific ethnic groups are brought into contact with one another, and only when those groups are characterized by a high degree of ethnocentrism, competition, and differential power. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture, and to downgrade all other groups outside one's own culture. Some sociologists, such as Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings, say the origin of ethnic stratification lies in individual dispositions of ethnic prejudice, which relates to the theory of ethnocentrism.[35] Continuing with Noel's theory, some degree of differential power must be present for the emergence of ethnic stratification. In other words, an inequality of power among ethnic groups means "they are of such unequal power that one is able to impose its will upon another".[34] In addition to differential power, a degree of competition structured along ethnic lines is a prerequisite to ethnic stratification as well. The different ethnic groups must be competing for some common goal, such as power or influence, or a material interest, such as wealth or territory. Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings propose that competition is driven by self-interest and hostility, and results in inevitable stratification and conflict.[35]
"Constructivism" sees both primordialist and perennialist views as basically flawed,[35] and rejects the notion of ethnicity as a basic human condition. It holds that ethnic groups are only products of human social interaction, maintained only in so far as they are maintained as valid social constructs in societies.
"Modernist constructivism" correlates the emergence of ethnicity with the movement towards nation states beginning in the early modern period.[36] Proponents of this theory, such as Eric Hobsbawm, argue that ethnicity and notions of ethnic pride, such as nationalism, are purely modern inventions, appearing only in the modern period of world history. They hold that prior to this, ethnic homogeneity was not considered an ideal or necessary factor in the forging of large-scale societies.
Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf, do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.[16] Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention.[37]
Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as subcultures, interest groups or social classes, because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in a process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of endogamy resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a mythological narrative of a founding figure); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers" - characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups.[38][39][40][41][42]
Ethnicity theory[edit]
Ethnicity theory says that race is a social category and is but one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Some other criteria include: "religion, language, 'customs,' nationality, and political identification".[43] This theory was put forth by sociologist Robert E. Park in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of “culture”.
This theory was preceded by over a century where biological essentialism was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism is the belief that white European races are biologically superior and other non-white races are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify slavery of Africans and genocide of the Native Americans in a society which was supposedly founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be a preoccupation of scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple genesis's (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races of men. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up idea of racial difference. They would inadvertently find that white Europeans were superior. One method that was used was the measurement of cranial capacity.[44]
Ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined his four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of explaining the marginalized status of people of color in the United States with an inherent biological inferiority, he instead said that it was a failure to assimilate into American culture that held people back. They could be equal as long as they dropped their culture which was deficient compared to white culture.
Michael Omi and Howard Winant's theory of racial formation directly confronts both ethnicity theory's premises and practices. They argue in Racial Formation in the United States that ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of a white ethnic population and did not account for the unique experiences of non-whites in this country.[45] While this theory identities different stages in an immigration process – contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation – it did so only for white ethnic communities.[45] The ethnicity paradigm neglects the ways that race can complicate a community's interactions with basic social and political structures, especially upon contact.
And assimilation – shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture – did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination as it did for others.[45] Moreover, once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled, the problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities.[46] It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not 'making it' by the standards that had been set by white ethnics, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs. Or they must be stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking towards a cultural defect for the source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S."[47] In other words, buying into this approach effectively strips us of our ability to critically examine the more structural components of racism and encourages, instead, a “benign neglect” of social inequality.[47]
Ethnicity and nationality[edit]
Further information: Nation state and minority group
Political and
legal anthropology
Status and rank:
Ascribed status ·
Achieved status ·
Social status ·
Caste ·
Age grade/Age set ·
Leveling mechanism ·
Big man ·
Patriarchy ·
Matriarchy ·
Pantribal sodalities ·
Chief ·
Paramount chief ·
Polities:
Band society ·
Segmentary lineage ·
Tribe ·
Chiefdom ·
House society ·
Ethnic group ·
Theatre state ·
Law and custom:
Customary law ·
Legal culture ·
Acephelous:
Societies without hierarchical leaders ·
African Political Systems ·
Papuan Big man system ·
The Art of Not Being Governed ·
Non-western state systems ·
Negara ·
Mandala ·
Technology, Tradition,
and the State in Africa ·
Legal systems:
Kapu ·
Colonialism and resistance:
Europe and the People
Without History ·
Cargo cult ·
Circumscription theory ·
Legal anthropology ·
Left–right paradigm ·
State formation ·
Political economy in anthropology ·
Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems ·
E. Adamson Hoebel ·
Georges Balandier ·
F. G. Bailey ·
Fredrik Barth ·
Jeremy Boissevain ·
Robert L. Carneiro ·
Henri J. M. Claessen ·
Jean Comaroff ·
John Comaroff ·
Pierre Clastres ·
E. E. Evans-Pritchard ·
Wolfgang Fikentscher ·
Meyer Fortes ·
Morton Fried ·
Ernest Gellner ·
Lesley Gill ·
Ulf Hannerz ·
Thomas Blom Hansen ·
Ted C. Lewellen ·
Edmund Leach ·
Ralph Linton ·
Elizabeth Mertz ·
Sidney Mintz ·
Sally Falk Moore ·
Rodney Needham ·
Marshall Sahlins ·
James C. Scott ·
Elman Service ·
Aidan Southall ·
Jonathan Spencer ·
Bjorn Thomassen ·
Douglas R. White ·
Eric Wolf ·
In some cases, especially involving transnational migration, or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner[48] and Benedict Anderson[49] see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation, developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined.
In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations." Nation-states, however, invariably include populations that have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion on the basis of equality, or seek autonomy, sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation in their own nation-state.[50] Under these conditions – when people moved from one state to another,[51] or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation, but lived in another state.
Multi-ethnic states can be the result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of ethnic minorities into a former nation state. Examples for the first case are found throughout Africa, where countries created during decolonisation inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as Belgium or United Kingdom. Examples for the second case are countries such as Germany or the Netherlands, which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration during the second half of the 20th century. States such as the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed "multicultural" societies especially in large cities.
The states of the New World were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations.
In recent decades feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis)[52] have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to the public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent.[53] It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as 'cultural carriers', transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviours that belong to a specific collectivity.[54] Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that 'women and children' constitute the kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as Britannia or Marianne.
Ethnicity and race[edit]
The racial diversity of Asia's ethnic groups, Nordisk familjebok (1904)
Race and ethnicity are considered as[by whom?] related concepts. Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a pseudoscientific grouping, based on physical similarities within groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of the term. It is assumed[by whom?] that, based on power relations, there exist "racialized ethnicities" and "ethnicized races". Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that 'racial/ethnic identity' is one concept and that concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories.[55]
Before Weber (1864-1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the essentialist primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being the result of inherited traits and tendencies.[56] With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other.
In 1950 the UNESCO statement, "The Race Question", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Gunnar Myrdal, Julian Huxley, etc.), stated:
"National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term 'race' is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term 'race' altogether and speak of 'ethnic groups'."[57]
In 1982 anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways that people from different parts of the world have been incorporated into a global economy:
The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all the distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values.[58]
According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion, and ethnic groupings during the period of capitalist expansion.[59]
Writing in 1977 about the usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States, Wallman noted that
The term 'ethnic' popularly connotes '[race]' in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, '[race]' most commonly means color, and 'ethnics' are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. '[Ethnic]' is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no 'ethnics'; there are only 'ethnic relations'.[60]
In the U.S., the OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the US Census as not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference".[61]
Ethno-national conflict[edit]
Further information: Ethnic conflict
Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view, the state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of the nation-state.
The 19th century saw the development of the political ideology of ethnic nationalism, when the concept of race was tied to nationalism, first by German theorists including Johann Gottfried von Herder. Instances of societies focusing on ethnic ties, arguably to the exclusion of history or historical context, have resulted in the justification of nationalist goals. Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the 19th century consolidation and expansion of the German Empire and the 20th century Nazi Germany. Each promoted the pan-ethnic idea that these governments were only acquiring lands that had always been inhabited by ethnic Germans. The history of late-comers to the nation-state model, such as those arising in the Near East and south-eastern Europe out of the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as those arising out of the former USSR, is marked by inter-ethnic conflicts. Such conflicts usually occur within multi-ethnic states, as opposed to between them, as in other regions of the world. Thus, the conflicts are often misleadingly labelled and characterized as civil wars when they are inter-ethnic conflicts in a multi-ethnic state.
Ethnic groups by continent[edit]
Main article: Ethnic groups in Africa
Ethnic groups in Africa number in the hundreds, each generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture.
Many ethnic groups and nations of Africa qualify, although some groups are of a size larger than a tribal society. These mostly originate with the Sahelian kingdoms of the medieval period, such as that of the Akan, deriving from Bonoman (11th century) then the Kingdom of Ashanti (17th century).[62]
Main article: Ethnic groups in Asia
Find sources: "Ethnic group" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
The Assyrians are the indigenous peoples of Northern Iraq.
There is an abundance of ethnic groups throughout Asia, with adaptations to the climate zones of Asia, which can be Arctic, subarctic, temperate, subtropical or tropical. The ethnic groups have adapted to mountains, deserts, grasslands, and forests.
On the coasts of Asia, the ethnic groups have adopted various methods of harvest and transport. Some groups are primarily hunter-gatherers, some practice transhumance (nomadic lifestyle), others have been agrarian/rural for millennia and others becoming industrial/urban. Some groups/countries of Asia are completely urban, such as those in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. The colonization of Asia was largely ended in the 20th century, with national drives for independence and self-determination across the continent.
Europe[edit]
Main article: Ethnic groups in Europe
The Basque people constitute an indigenous ethnic minority in both France and Spain.
The Irish are an ethnic group indigenous to Ireland of which 70-80 million people worldwide claim ancestry.[63]
Europe has a large number of ethnic groups; Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities within every state they inhabit (although they may form local regional majorities within a sub-national entity). The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million Europeans.[64]
A number of European countries, including France,[65] and Switzerland do not collect information on the ethnicity of their resident population.
Russia has over 185 recognized ethnic groups besides the 80% ethnic Russian majority. The largest group are the Tatars 3.8%. Many of the smaller groups are found in the Asian part of Russia (see Indigenous peoples of Siberia).
An example of a largely nomadic ethnic group in Europe is the Roma, pejoratively known as Gypsies. They originated from India and speak the Romani language.
North America[edit]
Main articles: Ethnic origins of people in Canada, Ethnic groups in Central America, Demographics of Mexico, and Ethnic groups in the United States
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (August 2018)
South America[edit]
Main article: Ethnic groups in South America
Oceania[edit]
Māori people
Main article: Indigenous Australians
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic flag
Ethnic penalty
Ethnocultural empathy
Ethnogenesis
Ethnocide
Ethnographic group
Human Genome Diversity Project
Ingroups and outgroups
List of contemporary ethnic groups
List of indigenous peoples
Minority group
Passing (sociology)
Polyethnicity
Race (human categorization)
Race and ethnicity in censuses
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
Race and health
Segmentary lineage
Stateless nation
Y-chromosome haplogroups in populations of the world
^ "ethnicity: definition of ethnicity". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
^ People, James; Bailey, Garrick (2010). Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (9th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage learning. p. 389. In essence, an ethnic group is a named social category of people based on perceptions of shared social experience or one's ancestors' experiences. Members of the ethnic group see themselves as sharing cultural traditions and history that distinguish them from other groups. Ethnic group identity has a strong psychological or emotional component that divides the people of the world into opposing categories of “us” and “them.” In contrast to social stratification, which divides and unifies people along a series of horizontal axes on the basis of socioeconomic factors, ethnic identities divide and unify people along a series of vertical axes. Thus, ethnic groups, at least theoretically, cut across socioeconomic class differences, drawing members from all strata of the population.
^ ἐθνικός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
^ ThiE. Tonkin, M. McDonald and M. Chapman, History and Ethnicity (London 1989), pp. 11–17 (quoted in J. Hutchinson & A.D. Smith (eds.), Oxford readers: Ethnicity (Oxford 1996), pp. 18–24)
^ ἔθνος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
^ Oxford English Dictionary Second edition, online version as of 2008-01-12, "ethnic, a. and n.". Cites Sir Daniel Wilson, The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland 1851 (1863) and Huxley & Haddon (1935), We Europeans, pp. 136,181
^ Cohen, Ronald. (1978) "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology", Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1978. 7:379-403; Glazer, Nathan and Daniel P. Moynihan (1975) Ethnicity – Theory and Experience, Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press. The modern usage definition of the Oxford English Dictionary is:
a[djective]
2.a. Pertaining to race; peculiar to a race or nation; ethnological. Also, pertaining to or having common racial, cultural, religious, or linguistic characteristics, esp. designating a racial or other group within a larger system; hence (U.S. colloq.), foreign, exotic.
b ethnic minority (group), a group of people differentiated from the rest of the community by racial origins or cultural background, and usu. claiming or enjoying official recognition of their group identity. Also attrib.
n[oun]
3 A member of an ethnic group or minority. Equatorians
(Oxford English Dictionary Second edition, online version as of 2008-01-12, s.v. "ethnic, a. and n.")
^ ὅμαιμος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
^ ὁμόγλωσσος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
^ I. Polinskaya, "Shared sanctuaries and the gods of others: On the meaning Of 'common' in Herodotus 8.144", in: R. Rosen & I. Sluiter (eds.), Valuing others in Classical Antiquity (LEiden: Brill, 2010), 43-70.
^ ὁμότροπος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus)
^ Herodotus, 8.144.2: "The kinship of all Greeks in blood and speech, and the shrines of gods and the sacrifices that we have in common, and the likeness of our way of life."
^ Athena S. Leoussi, Steven Grosby, Nationalism and Ethnosymbolism: History, Culture and Ethnicity in the Formation of Nations, Edinburgh University Press, 2006, p. 115
^ "Challenges of measuring an ethnic world". Publications.gc.ca. The Government of Canada. April 1, 1992. Ethnicity is a fundamental factor in human life: it is a phenomenon inherent in human experience
^ Statistics Canada[permanent dead link]
^ a b Fredrik Barth, ed. 1969 Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference; Eric Wolf 1982 Europe and the People Without History p. 381
^ Geertz, Clifford, ed. (1967) Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Africa and Asia. New York: The Free Press.
^ Cohen, Abner (1969) Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in a Yoruba Town. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
^ Abner Cohen (1974) Two-Dimensional Man: An essay on power and symbolism in complex society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
^ J. Hutchinson & A.D. Smith (eds.), Oxford readers: Ethnicity (Oxford 1996), "Introduction", 8-9
^ Gellner, Ernest (1983) Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
^ Ernest Gellner (1997) Nationalism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
^ Smith, Anthony D. (1986) The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell.
^ Anthony Smith (1991) National Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
^ T.H. Eriksen "Ethnic identity, national identity and intergroup conflict: The significance of personal experiences" in Ashmore, Jussim, Wilder (eds.): Social identity, intergroup conflict, and conflict reduction, pp. 42–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press'. 2001
^ Banton, Michael. (2007) "Weber on Ethnic Communities: A critique", Nations and Nationalism 13 (1), 2007, 19–35.
^ a b c d e Ronald Cohen 1978 "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology", Annual Review of Anthropology 7: 383-384 Palo Alto: Stanford University Press
^ James, Paul (2015). "Despite the Terrors of Typologies: The Importance of Understanding Categories of Difference and Identity". Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. 17 (2): 174–195.
^ Joan Vincent 1974, "The Structure of Ethnicity" in Human Organization 33(4): 375-379
^ David Konstan, "Defining Ancient Greek Ethnicity", Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, vol. 6, 1 (1997), pp. 97–98. Overview of J.M. Hall's book "Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity", Cambridge University Press, 1997
^ a b c (Smith 1999, p. 13)
^ Smith (1998), 159.
^ Smith (1999), 5.
^ a b Noel, Donald L. (1968). "A Theory of the Origin of Ethnic Stratification". Social Problems. 16 (2): 157–172. doi:10.1525/sp.1968.16.2.03a00030.
^ a b c Bobo, Lawrence; Hutchings, Vincent L. (1996). "Perceptions of Racial Group Competition: Extending Blumer's Theory of Group Position to a Multiracial Social Context". American Sociological Review. American Sociological Association. 61 (6): 951–972. doi:10.2307/2096302. JSTOR 2096302.
^ (Smith 1999, pp. 4–7)
^ Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), The Invention of Tradition, Sider 1993 Lumbee Indian Histories.
^ Camoroff, John L. and Jean Camoroff 2009: Ethnicity Inc.. Chicago: Chicago Press.
^ The Invention of Tradition, Sider 1993 Lumbee Indian Histories
^ O'Neil, Dennis. "Nature of Ethnicity". Palomar College. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
^ Seidner,(1982), Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective, pp. 2–3
^ Smith 1987 pp. 21–22
^ Omi & Winant 1986, p. 15
^ a b c Omi & Winant 1986, p. 17
^ a b Omi & Winant 1986, p. 21
^ Gellner 2006 Nations and Nationalism Blackwell Publishing
^ Anderson 2006 Imagined Communities Version
^ Walter Pohl, "Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies", Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, (Blackwell), 1998, pp 13–24, notes that historians have projected the 19th-century conceptions of the nation-state backwards in time, employing biological metaphors of birth and growth: "that the peoples in the Migration Period had little to do with those heroic (or sometimes brutish) clichés is now generally accepted among historians," he remarked. Early medieval peoples were far less homogeneous than often thought, and Pohl follows Reinhard Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung. (Cologne and Graz) 1961, whose researches into the "ethnogenesis" of the German peoples convinced him that the idea of common origin, as expressed by Isidore of Seville Gens est multitudo ab uno principio orta ("a people is a multitude stemming from one origin") which continues in the original Etymologiae IX.2.i) "sive ab alia natione secundum propriam collectionem distincta ("or distinguished from another people by its proper ties") was a myth.
^ Aihway Ong 1996 "Cultural Citizenship in the Making" in Current Anthropology 37(5)
^ Nira Yuval-Davis, "Gender & Nation" (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997)
^ Nira Yuval-Davis, "Gender & Nation" (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997) pp. 12-13
^ Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis "Woman–Nation–State" (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 9
^ Grosfoguel, Ramán (September 2004). "Race and Ethnicity or Racialized Ethnicities? Identities within Global Coloniality". Ethnicities. 315-336. 4 (3): 315. doi:10.1177/1468796804045237. Retrieved 2012-08-06.
^ A. Metraux (1950) "United nations Economic and Security Council Statement by Experts on Problems of Race", American Anthropologist 53(1): 142-145)
^ Griffith, David Craig, Jones's minimal: low-wage labor in the United States, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1993, p.222
^ Eric Wolf, 1982, Europe and the People Without History, Berkeley: University of California Press. 380-381
^ Wallman, S. "Ethnicity research in Britain", Current Anthropology, v. 18, n. 3, 1977, pp. 531–532.
^ "A Brief History of the OMB Directive 15". American Anthropological Association. 1997. Retrieved 2007-05-18.
^ Cohen, Robin (1995). The Cambridge Survey of World Migration. Cambridge University Press. p. 197. ISBN 0-521-44405-5. Wickens, Gerald E; Lowe, Pat (2008). The Baobabs: Pachycauls of Africa, Madagascar and Australia. Springer Science+Business Media. 2008. p. 360. ISBN 978-1-4020-6431-9.
^ "The Scottish Diaspora and Diaspora Strategy: Insights and Lessons from Ireland". www2.gov.scot. 29 May 2009.
^ Christoph Pan, Beate Sibylle Pfeil,Minderheitenrechte in Europa. Handbuch der europäischen Volksgruppen (2002)., English translation 2004.
^ ‹See Tfd›(in French) article 8 de la loi Informatique et libertés, 1978: "Il est interdit de collecter ou de traiter des données à caractère personnel qui font apparaître, directement ou indirectement, les origines raciales ou ethniques, les opinions politiques, philosophiques ou religieuses ou l'appartenance syndicale des personnes, ou qui sont relatives à la santé ou à la vie sexuelle de celles-ci."
Abizadeh, Arash, "Ethnicity, Race, and a Possible Humanity" World Order, 33.1 (2001): 23-34. (Article that explores the social construction of ethnicity and race.)
Barth, Fredrik (ed). Ethnic groups and boundaries. The social organization of culture difference, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1969
Beard, David and Kenneth Gloag. 2005. Musicology, The Key Concepts. London and New York: Routledge.
Billinger, Michael S. (2007), "Another Look at Ethnicity as a Biological Concept: Moving Anthropology Beyond the Race Concept", Critique of Anthropology 27,1:5–35.
Craig, Gary, et al., eds. Understanding 'race'and ethnicity: theory, history, policy, practice (Policy Press, 2012)
Danver, Steven L. Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues (2012)
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (1993) Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives, London: Pluto Press
Eysenck, H.J., Race, Education and Intelligence (London: Temple Smith, 1971) (ISBN 0-85117-009-9)
Healey, Joseph F., and Eileen O'Brien. Race, ethnicity, gender, and class: The sociology of group conflict and change (Sage Publications, 2014)
Hartmann, Douglas. "Notes on Midnight Basketball and the Cultural Politics of Recreation, Race and At-Risk Urban Youth", Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 25 (2001): 339-366.
Hasmath, R. ed. 2011. Managing Ethnic Diversity: Meanings and Practices from an International Perspective. Burlington, VT and Surrey, UK: Ashgate.
Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, editors, The Invention of Tradition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Hutcheon, Linda (1998). "Crypto-Ethnicity" (PDF). PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 113 (1): 28–51.
Kappeler, Andreas. The Russian empire: A multi-ethnic history (Routledge, 2014)
Levinson, David, Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook, Greenwood Publishing Group (1998), ISBN 978-1-57356-019-1.
Magocsi, Paul Robert, ed. Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples (1999)
Merriam, A.P. 1959. "African Music", in R. Bascom and, M.J. Herskovits (eds), Continuity and Change in African Cultures, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Morales-Díaz, Enrique; Gabriel Aquino; & Michael Sletcher, "Ethnicity", in Michael Sletcher, ed., New England, (Westport, CT, 2004).
Omi, Michael; Winant, Howard (1986). Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Inc.
Seeger, A. 1987. Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Seidner, Stanley S. Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective. (Bruxelles: Centre de recherche sur le pluralinguisme1982).
Sider, Gerald, Lumbee Indian Histories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Smith, Anthony D. (1987). "The Ethnic Origins of Nations". Blackwell.
Smith, Anthony D. (1998). Nationalism and modernism. A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism. London; New York: Routledge.
Smith, Anthony D. (1999). "Myths and memories of the Nation". Oxford University Press.
Thernstrom, Stephan A. ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1981)
^ U.S. Census Bureau State & County QuickFacts: Race.
Look up ethnicity, ethnic, nationality, or nation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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Ethnicity at Curlie
Ethnicity entry in the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology
American Psychological Association's Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs
GROWup - Geographical Research On War, Unified Platform, ETH Zurich, Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) Atlas
Clan ·
(Ethnographic group ·
Ethnolinguistic group ·
Ethnoreligious group)
Ethnographic realism ·
Hyphenated ethnicity ·
Indigenous peoples ·
Ingroups and outgroups ·
Meta-ethnicity ·
Metroethnicity ·
Minority group ·
Monoethnicity ·
Nation ·
Nationality ·
Panethnicity ·
Polyethnicity ·
Population ·
Symbolic ethnicity ·
Anthropology ·
Ethnic studies ·
Ethnoarchaeology ·
Ethnobiology
(Ethnobotany ·
Ethnomycology ·
Ethnozoology ·
Ethnoecology)
Ethnocinema ·
Ethnogeology ·
(Autoethnography ·
Clinical ·
Critical ·
Cyber- ·
Netnography ·
Online ·
Person-centered ·
Salvage ·
Transidioethnography ·
Video)
Ethnohistory ·
Ethnolinguistics ·
Ethnomathematics
(Ethnostatistics)
Ethnomedicine ·
Ethnomethodology ·
Ethnomuseology ·
Ethnomusicology ·
Ethnophilosophy ·
Ethnopsychopharmacology ·
Ethnopoetics ·
Ethnoscience ·
Ethnosemiotics ·
Ethnotaxonomy ·
Groups by region
Africa ·
(Indigenous ·
Central America ·
South America)
(Central Asia ·
East Asia ·
Northern Asia ·
South Asia ·
Southeast Asia ·
West Asia)
(Indigenous)
Europe ·
European)
Identity and
Cross-race effect ·
Cultural assimilation ·
Cultural identity ·
Demonym ·
Endonym ·
Ethnic flag ·
Ethnic option ·
Ethnic origin ·
Ethnic religion ·
Ethnicity in census ·
Ethnofiction ·
Ethnonym ·
Folk religion ·
Imagined community ·
Legendary progenitor ·
Lineage-bonded society ·
Mythomoteur ·
Mores ·
Nation-building ·
Nation state ·
National language ·
National myth ·
Origin myth ·
Pantribal sodality ·
Tribal name ·
Tribalism ·
Urheimat ·
Multiethnic society
Consociationalism ·
Diaspora politics ·
Dominant minority ·
Ethnic democracy ·
Ethnic enclave ·
Ethnic interest group ·
Ethnic majority ·
Ethnic media ·
Ethnic pornography ·
Ethnic theme park ·
Ethnoburb ·
Ethnocracy ·
Ethnographic film ·
Ethnographic village ·
Indigenous rights ·
Middleman minority ·
Minority rights ·
Model minority ·
Multinational state ·
Ideology and
Ethnic bioweapon ·
Ethnic cleansing ·
Ethnic hatred ·
Ethnic joke ·
Ethnic nationalism ·
Ethnic nepotism ·
Ethnic penalty ·
Ethnic slur ·
Ethnic stereotype ·
Ethnic violence ·
Ethnocide ·
Ethnosymbolism ·
Indigenism ·
Separatist movements ·
Xenophobia ·
LCCN: sh85045172 ·
NARA: 10638635 ·
NDL: 00567696 ·
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethnic_group&oldid=905721982"
Majority–minority relations
Multiracial affairs
Words coined in the 1930s
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instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: i got a problem of night-fall when i was about 15.it continued. i used to depressed when it happened to me.but when i was around 18 i started doing masturbating now i am 29 this habit is still with me.I perform it then immediately i go down at the bottom of dipresson. my penis has become small, little bent when it erect, short-fall.you know a healthy & natural penis makes position or fitting in pants between thighs.It appears from outside. but if it is so loose then it is like an old man without bone hiding somewhere.It should be like an army man strong taking a position.i am unmarried yet so i strongly feel that if i get married so my wife would not be satisfied with sexual intercourse with me.And amazingly i tell you i haven't had sex with any girl in my entire life while my youth is just to say me good-bye.Any solution there.
gest treatment for night fall output: Hello, Wed dreams/nightfall called Nocturnal Emission is normal. It can be due to increased erotic stimulus mentally or physically or visually without sex or masturbation. Since you know the cause treating is easy. Reduce the frequent Erotic stimulus or masturbate/have sex. Ways to reduce the frequent erotic stimulus are: 1. Sex education 2. Physical exercises 3. Sleep adjustment 4. Quality of sleep 5. Healthy and balanced diet 6. Programming for leisure time 7. Development of spirituality 8. Taking a cold bath Masturbation with proper diet and exercise won't cause weakness - scientifically proven. Masturbation won't shrink your penis masturbation won't bend your penis masturbation won't affect your marriage. Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further.R.Raveendran, Sexologist.. |
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ERIC ED358985: Reforming Special Education.
This paper describes education reform as an integrated effort to modify not only the structure and elements of the education system but also the culture or belief structure of that system. Central to any discussion of school reform are the elements of restructuring, empowerment, and change. Current reform efforts in restructuring revolve around a top-down management approach that contradicts true education reform. In order to transform and empower rather than simply restructure, expectations...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Change Strategies, Educational Administration, Educational Change, Educational...
ERIC ED374095: Authentic Teaching and Assessment: Policy and Practice. Examples from the Field. Annual National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching Affiliates' Meeting (2nd, New York, New York, March 19, 1993).
The second annual Affiliates' meeting of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching brought together 200 people to examine authentic teaching and assessment practices and policies. Nine presentations from the meeting are compiled in this document, illustrating different approaches to developing alternative assessment initiatives in a variety of school settings. Papers include: "The Four Seasons Project: Authentic Assessment in Two New York City Alternative...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Case Studies, Educational Policy, Educational Practices, Elementary Secondary...
ERIC ED500380: New Mexico Public Education Department 2007-2008 School Improvement Framework
Accountability for student learning is the key focus of New Mexico's system of school improvement. The Public Education Department's commitment to continuous improvement is evident in the steps taken to refine the 2007-2008 School Improvement Framework to reflect No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements. The School Improvement Framework was developed in recognition of our shared contributions and responsibilities to all of New Mexico's children. The 2007-2008 School Improvement Framework has...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Planning, Federal Legislation, Educational Improvement, Educational...
ERIC EJ966902: Secondary School Integrated Programs (IPs): Evolutionary Directions for Learning
In the 1970s, Ontario secondary schools started to adopt the semester system, four courses over the day where there had been seven. With this change, a creative outdoor educator realized that one teacher could take a group of students for all four credits, eliminating the restrictions of the timetable and addressing opportunities to learn in the real world all day, every day, for the whole semester. Thus was born the secondary school Integrated Program (IP) model. Through it, the innovation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Semester System, School Restructuring, Learning Strategies, Credits, Educational...
ERIC ED353231: A Grassroots Collaborative Approach to Professional Development. The South Central Ohio Regional Training Center.
The South Central Ohio Regional Training Center (SCRTC) is one of the Centers established in response to a directive from the Ohio State Department of Education to: (1) provide teacher-centered professional development experiences that build on the values of collegiality; (2) strengthen teacher leadership in educational improvement and change; (3) provide opportunities for professional development of teachers in new instructional strategies and instructional organization; (4) assist improved...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Demonstration Programs, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary Education, Faculty...
ERIC ED431846: "When You're Talking about Race, You're Talking about People": Teachers Learning about Race and Equity through Diverse Forms of Inquiry.
This paper explores the reform content and specific teacher learning conditions that enabled teachers at an urban California elementary school to find ways to examine the effects of their practices on students and to reflect on the values and beliefs underlying their practices. Over 5 years, a professional culture of inquiry developed, as required by state legislation that built explicit practitioner inquiry into the restructuring of participating schools. Teachers at the school developed...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, Educational Practices, Elementary Education, Elementary School...
ERIC ED482351: School Restructuring: Fitting the Pieces Together.
Effective building leadership and time utilization are important to the success of implementing change. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe the experiences of an urban junior high school principal involved in a collaborative change effort. Specifically studied were the principal's actions, behavior, communication, and reflections as she responded to teacher requests and utilized grant resources in attempting to design a school master schedule that included common planning...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Administrator Behavior, Administrator Effectiveness, Administrator Role, Case...
ERIC ED354631: The State's Role in Effecting Systemic Change: A Northwest Depiction. Program Report.
States are in the leadership position to effect pervasive and comprehensive changes needed in the educational system. There exist five key dimensions for analyzing initiatives resulting in systemic changes: (1) infusiveness, building upon existing knowledge; (2) pervasiveness, effecting improvements in all key components of the system, including policy, human resources, community, and curriculum development; (3) potency, inclusion of all participants at all levels of the system; (4) coherence;...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Change Strategies, Community Cooperation, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary...
ERIC ED356522: Site-Based Management: An Experiment in Governance. Policy Briefs, Number 20.
Site-based management (SBM) is an increasingly popular approach to school restructuring. SBM aims to transfer authority from state agencies and school districts to committees based at schools. To garner a consensus supporting reform, these committees are to be representative of educational and community members. SBM plans are characterized by: (1) a governing body comprised of administrators, teachers, parents, and occasionally students; (2) a downward distribution of authority toward each...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Decentralization, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary...
ERIC ED366088: Reforming and Restructuring Education. UCEA Monograph Series.
This booklet contains four selected conference papers on educational reform and restructuring. In "Can Rational Organization Models Really Reform Anything? A Case Study of Reform in Chicago," Fenwick English describes reform efforts in the Chicago Public Schools and examines the political, social, organizational, and bureaucratic factors that have obstructed educational change. "Organizing and Leading for Learning: The Interplay of School Reform and Restructuring with Preparation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Administrator Education, Educational Administration, Educational Change, Elementary...
ERIC ED366774: NCRVE Change Agent, 1992.
These three issues of volume 2 (1992) contain brief reports on published research of the National Center for Research in Vocational Education. In issue 1 are these five articles: "High Schools with Character: Why Might They Be Important?"; "An Uncommon Education: Interaction and Innovation"; "Community College Contract Instruction: Complex Issues"; "SET [Security, Employee involvement, and Training] and JAM [Job classification, Adversarial relations, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Education, Accountability, Community Colleges, Competency Based Education,...
ERIC ED374558: Re:Learning in Pennsylvania: McCaskey High School, School District of Lancaster.
Since 1988, considerable state and school/district energies have been devoted to implementing Re:Learning in Pennsylvania. This paper summarizes Re:Learning activities in the school district of Lancaster, in particular, McCaskey High School, which was recognized for the scope and quality of its implementation efforts. Re:Learning is a national effort to redesign the total school system. Based on Theodore Sizer's nine common principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), it reflects the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, High Schools, Program Implementation, School Restructuring, State...
ERIC ED390023: Education and Health Care Advocacy: Perspectives on Goals 2000, IASA, IDEA and Healthy People 2000. Digest.
With the release of "A Nation at Risk" in 1983, Americans focused on the report's declaration of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in the schools, which suggested unacceptable results in the education of America's children and youth. Concurrent to the missives levied at schools' lack of progress with academics and other education-specific goals, policy makers and researchers also have questioned the nation's commitment to the health of its children. With the publication of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Child Psychology, Consultants, Delivery Systems, Educational Change, Elementary...
ERIC ED394303: Time Management and Educational Reform.
This report is an excerpt from the National Education Commission On Time and Learning Final Report, "Prisoners of Time," published in April, 1994. In it, the Commission concludes that the reform movement of the last decade is destined to founder unless it is able to harness more time, and better management thereof, for learning. The excerpt discusses how students and teachers are prisoners of time and how schools in other countries handle time. Some innovative time schedules found in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary Secondary Education, Extended School Day, Flexible Scheduling, Released...
ERIC EJ776211: Troubling Teacher Talk: The Challenge of Changing Classroom Discourse Patterns
The middle years are a crucial stage of schooling where the range in student achievement widens and progress for some students slows significantly (Cairney, Buchanan, Sproats & Lowe 1998, Hill & Russell 1999). Despite moves towards middle school reform and improved literacy standards, there remains a gap in literacy provision for young adolescent learners, particularly those defined as "educationally disadvantaged" or "at risk" (DEETYA 1998, Masters & Forster...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Intervention, School Restructuring, Disadvantaged, Literacy,...
ERIC ED452451: Examining Urban School Counseling Professionals' Perceptions of School Restructuring Activities.
A descriptive study was conducted that examined urban school counseling professionals' perception of school restructuring activities such as school-based management, community-school partnerships, and school-based family counseling. Professional school counselors (N=102) working in urban schools were surveyed. Several implications can be drawn from the results. School counselors could benefit by becoming more knowledgeable about the literature and issues surrounding school reform. Counselors...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Counselor Training, Elementary Secondary Education, Family Counseling, Partnerships...
ERIC ED460750: The Restructuring of New Jersey Higher Education: An Interim Report to the Governor and the New Jersey Legislature.
This report presents the results of an interim assessment of the Higher Education Restructuring Act of 1994. The report is based primarily on two surveys. In the first, various state agencies were asked to indicate whether tasks assigned to them as a result of the Restructuring Act have been addressed. Results from that survey indicate that of the 85 assignments, 67 are complete or in various stages of implementation and 18 are still in the planning stage. The second survey asked members of all...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Administrator Attitudes, Educational Innovation, Educational Research, Governance,...
ERIC ED510106: New Tech High Schools: Results of the National Survey of Project Based Learning and High School Reform conducted by the Buck Institute for Education
In the fall of 2007, the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) conducted a national survey of high school reform and project based learning (PBL). The study included teachers from several major high school reform networks that emphasize PBL as an instructional approach: New Tech High, High Tech High, Edvision Schools, and Envision Schools. It also included a variety of other small high school reform sites and comprehensive high schools that were not formally associated with a particular reform...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Student Projects, School Restructuring, Active Learning, Educational...
ERIC ED345363: Perceptions of Different Educational Stakeholders Regarding the World, Schools, and Educational Change.
Findings from a study that examined the perceptions of different educational stakeholders about the context of schools and educational change are presented in this paper, which views educational change from within a transformational framework. The focus is not only on goals, but also on the beliefs and expectations of the stakeholders in the educational system and surrounding community. Education 2000, an initiative of the American Forum for Global Education calls for educational re-design...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Community Attitudes, Educational Change, Educational Environment, Elementary...
ERIC ED348735: Continuity and Focus...In Touch with the Schools of Tomorrow. Indiana "Report Card" 1990.
The status of Indiana public education for 1990 is described in this report. The A+ Program for Excellence in Education has recently focused on the two following areas: school restructuring and early childhood assistance. Educational statistics for 1990 are highlighted, and information is presented on the following developments: the Center for Community Relations and Special Populations; the Center for Professional Development; the Center for Administration and Financial Management; the Center...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Assessment, Educational Improvement, Educational Quality, Elementary...
ERIC ED370153: Spotlight on the Middle: Report of the Texas Task Force on Middle School Education.
This report envisions Texas schools using one another as resources and the campus planning process as a vehicle for implementing research-based concepts and practices in the middle grades. Since Texas' restructuring effort will not succeed without commitment to staff development from all levels of the education community, the need for teacher and administrator training in educating young adolescents is stressed throughout the report. The middle school years have been passed over by educational...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adolescents, Change Strategies, Developmentally Appropriate Practices, Educational...
ERIC ED381562: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association (23rd, Nashville, Tennessee, November 9-11, 1994).
This volume of proceedings of the Mid-South Educational Research Association's 23rd annual meeting contains abstracts of discussion sessions, display sessions, symposia, and training sessions. Over 320 abstracts and annotations are included, for sessions that cover the whole range of educational research. Assessment and measurement, educational improvement, educational change, school restructuring, and issues of culture, gender, and ethics are explored at elementary, secondary, and higher...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Abstracts, Curriculum Development, Educational Assessment, Educational Change,...
ERIC ED405314: Lessons from the League: Relationship between Teacher Involvement and Sense of Efficacy.
The League of Professional Schools consists of 5 self-governing chapters in 3 states and has more than 100 member schools. For this study, a total of 1,379 teachers from 43 Georgia public schools (29 elementary, 7 middle and 7 high schools) were surveyed to determine their sense of efficacy about teaching effectiveness and their degree of participation in activities advocated by the League of Professional Schools, a school restructuring program to which their schools belonged. The four...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Action Research, Elementary Secondary Education, Public School Teachers, Public...
ERIC ED436841: Getting into the Habit of Change in Ohio Schools: The Cross-Case Study of 12 Transforming Learning Communities. Transforming Learning Communities.
This book is part of a series of case studies that demonstrate better ways to educate Ohio's students. The case study is part of the Transforming Learning Communities (TLC) Project, designed to support significant school-reform efforts among Ohio's elementary, middle, and high schools. The text describes the 12 Ohio schools that were selected for the Project from a sample of over 500 schools. The report outlines the process in transforming learning communities, focusing on the tradition of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Case Studies, Change Strategies, Educational Change,...
ERIC ED538713: Achievement Gains and Staff Perception of School Climate. Research Brief. Volume 0707
Mar 9, 2016 03/16
The importance of the beliefs and attitudes of teachers and building-level administrators in achieving school reform has come to be widely acknowledged. As University of Wisconsin professor Kent Peterson put it: "You can implement a good-quality improvement plan and knowledgeable, data-driven decision making, but if the [staff] doesn't believe that things can be improved, it's not going to implement [changes] with the same depth or energy or commitment" (Stover, 2005, p. 31). The most...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Achievement Gains, Decision Making, Educational Change, School...
ERIC ED325905: Alliance for Achievement: Building the Value-Based Community.
Never has the public school been asked to merely educate its students for their own benefit--a benefit determined by students' families and teachers; instead, the public schools have been expected to pursue loftier, more abstract aims that are remote to those they serve. If educational values should be determined by those responsible for children's education--particularly their parents and teachers--then process must be provided for these people to articulate their values by creating a school...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Community Cooperation, Community Schools, Cooperative Planning,...
ERIC ED387883: Restructuring for Student Success.
This paper argues that the student role has been overlooked in the educational-change literature. New definitions of student success imply new definitions of what being a student means. The paper argues that research studies and reform initiatives must consciously treat the issue of student-role change as seriously as they have adult-role change. Every change effort requires consideration of the fit between new sets of expectations for students and students' existing views of "the way...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Elementary Secondary Education, Relevance (Education),...
ERIC ED440193: School Choice 2000 Annual Report. The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder.
During 1999, the school choice movement succeeded in winning the enactment of an education tax credit program in Illinois and two new charter school laws, in addition to the sweeping (although subsequently overturned) school choice plan in Florida. Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Texas also attempted to enact school choice legislation. In addition, a survey found that 1.25 million low-income parents would take advantage of scholarships to attend a better private or religious school if given a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Charter Schools, Educational Vouchers, Elementary Secondary Education, Free Choice...
ERIC ED510237: Approaches of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-Funded Intermediary Organizations to Structuring and Supporting Small High Schools in New York City. Executive Summary
In 2003, a few years after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began implementing its small schools reform agenda, the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education (DOE) announced a plan to replace large failing high schools in New York City with 200 small schools. In short order, the foundation and the Chancellor became partners with city labor unions, several other foundations, and several intermediary organizations in carrying forward this initiative. This study examines the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Philanthropic Foundations, School Restructuring, Small Schools, High Schools,...
ERIC EJ868300: Working with Ted
The author never worked "with" a boss before working with Ted at Brown University. She had always known of Ted--he was Dean at Harvard Graduate School of Education when she was a student there, just beginning her teaching career. Ted arrived at Brown University in September 1984. She was working at Brown in President Howard Swearer's office, creating seminars led by Brown faculty and local teachers for Providence high school teachers. Ted came onto the University campus in a gentle...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, School Restructuring, Program Descriptions, Program Development,...
ERIC ED330109: The School Principal and Chicago School Reform: Principals' Early Perceptions of Reform Initiatives. Monitoring and Researching the Effects of School Reform in Chicago.
In 1988 the Illinois General Assembly passed an act that shifted decision making authority on budgetary, curricular, and personnel issues from central offices to local school councils (LSCs). Eleven principals were interviewed at the end of the first year of reform implementation to learn about their early perceptions of reform initiatives and how they perceive their role under school reform. Principals' positive perceptions of school reform included having more people involved in decision...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Administrator Attitudes, Administrator Role, Change Strategies, Educational Change,...
ERIC ED335763: Restructuring, Teacher Engagement, and School Culture: Perspectives on School Reform and the Improvement of Teachers' Work.
To discover how school restructuring affects teachers' work and teacher engagement, a study was conducted on eight schools that have been experimenting with alternative structures, programs, and activities for 7 to 10 years, The data presented were collected in two of the schools through observations of 15 classes and interviews with teachers, students, and administrators. Insights from the observations show that alternative structures and programs can positively affect teacher worklife and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, High Schools, Job Enrichment, Quality of Working Life, School...
ERIC ED355209: A Process for Identifying and Resolving Role Conflict in the Restructuring of Teacher Education.
New roles and relationships are being proposed in the literature dealing with the restructuring of teacher education. The linkages called for among teacher education faculties, liberal arts faculties, and public school personnel will result in role definitions that are significantly different from those that currently exist. Role theory provides both a framework and a process for defining and analyzing roles and role expectations. Through analysis of expectations held for interacting roles,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Change Strategies, Conflict Resolution, Elementary Secondary Education, Higher...
ERIC ED401055: Organizing for Schooling. IDRA Focus.
This newsletter focuses on schoolwide approaches to issues of major concern to educators, from the perspective of providing equal education for all children. "Supporting School Improvement in Reading through Professional Development" (Rogelio Lopez del Bosque, Abelardo Villarreal) describes a professional development program that empowers administrators and teachers to take ownership of a student-centered curriculum that, in turn, motivates students to adopt new reading strategies....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Affirmative Action, Court Litigation, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary...
ERIC ED406940: The Past as Prologue: Examining the Consequences of Business as Usual. Center Paper 01-93.
This study examined the ability of California to meet increased demand for postsecondary education without significantly altering the basic historical assumptions and policies that have governed relations between the state and its institutions of higher learning. Results of a series of analyses that estimated projected enrollments and costs under various scenarios suggested that significant changes would be needed, and the report lists eight options to be considered: (1) eliminate certain forms...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Access to Education, Change Strategies, Delivery Systems, Educational Change,...
ERIC ED411362: Restructuring Schools with Technology. Research Brief #10.
This research brief examines the potential of technology to further the goals of restructuring U.S. schools. Strategies are presented for restructuring schools with technology. Although restructuring means different things to different people, the restructuring movement has generally focused on reorganizing school processes, taking a constructivist and cognitive view of learning, and moving toward a well-integrated use of technology in the schools. Technology by itself cannot restructure...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cognitive Processes, Computer Uses in Education, Constructivism (Learning),...
ERIC ED478722: Easing the Policy Environments of Small Schools and Schools-within-Schools: Lessons from Six Cities. Policy Brief.
Research shows that small schools and schools within schools can yield positive outcomes for students and improved satisfaction and effectiveness among school staff. Small schools can be less costly than larger ones if judged by expenditure per graduate instead of cost per pupil enrolled. Examination of the policy environments of urban schools in six cities that have experimented with small schools and schools within schools reconfirms an often-made observation: successful, enduring change and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Bureaucracy, Change Strategies, Educational Change, Educational Policy, Elementary...
ERIC ED484703: English Language Learners and High School Reform Conference Proceedings
In 1995, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) launched the High-Poverty Schools Initiative. It focuses on building the capacity of state education agency officials and their local partners to implement various federal education programs aimed at improving outcomes for students in high-poverty schools. The overall initiative goal is to strengthen state leadership by ensuring that students in high-poverty schools gain the knowledge and skills necessary for sustained success through...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Second Language Learning, State Departments of Education, Public Agencies, Poverty,...
ERIC ED493050: R&D Alert. Volume 7, Number 1, 2005
"R&D Alert" covers issues affecting schools in the Western Regional Educational Laboratory's four-state region--Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah--and throughout the United States. WestEd researchers and assistance providers have been focused on secondary education for many years. This issue of "R&D Alert" goes beyond describing the problem of high school reform to focusing on solutions that have emerged. The following articles are contained in this newsletter:...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Secondary Schools, School Restructuring, Literacy Education, Educational Change,...
ERIC ED494076: Practices That Support Data Use in Urban High Schools. Research Brief
This Research Brief provides a summary of the following study: Lachat, M. A., & Smith, S. (2005, July). Practices that support data use in urban high schools. "Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk," 10(3), 333-349. The Brief describes the methodology, suggestions for school improvement, and challenges identified in the study. An overall assessment the study and a brief list of resources conclude the document. The study examines how five low-performing, high-poverty...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Educational Change, Data Analysis, School Restructuring, Academic...
ERIC ED366095: Ten Years of State Education Reform, 1983-1993: Overview with Four Case Studies.
This report examines the state of education reform and policymaking over the 10 years following publication of "A Nation at Risk" in 1983. It compares and contrasts 1983 and 1993 across a variety of aspects: (1) the changing constellation of power and authority in school reform; (2) the changes in the capacity of the system to undertake reform; and (3) new directions in the mechanisms of state policies directly targeted on classroom instruction. Major changes that have occurred since...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Accountability, Educational Assessment, Educational Change, Educational Policy,...
ERIC ED371472: Years of Transition: Times for Change. A Review and Analysis of Pilot Projects Investigating Issues in the Transition Years. Volume Two: Explaining Variations in Progress.
In 1990, the Ontario Ministry of Education implemented the Transition Years project, an initiative for restructuring middle-grades education. This document presents quantitative findings of a study that identified variations in progress among pilot school sites, with a focus on the commitment-building process. Data were derived from: (1) two surveys completed by teachers and administrators in 350 and 319 pilot sites, respectively; (2) a survey of 3,557 students in 147 out of 152 schools; and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Change Strategies, Educational Change, Educational Improvement, Foreign Countries,...
ERIC ED389081: Rhetorics and Realities of Parent Involvement in Schools: A Case of a Restructuring Middle School.
This paper presents findings of a study that examined forms of parent involvement in a restructuring middle school. Data for the 18-month case study were obtained through observation, interviews, and document analysis. The paper focuses on the relationship of the Parent Council, a parent group attempting to influence school decision making, and the principal. Findings show that the rhetoric of parents as collaborators conflicted with the reality of educators' attempts to maintain boundaries...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Cooperation, Intermediate Grades, Interprofessional Relationship, Junior...
ERIC ED393032: School-Based Case Management: An Integrated Service Model for Early Intervention with Potential Dropouts. A Series of Solutions and Strategies. Number 10.
This publication introduces school personnel concerned with early intervention with potential school dropouts to a promising school-based interprofessional case management model that has been successfully field-tested in 25 very different elementary school communities of Idaho and Washington State over the past 7 years: C-STARS (Center for the Study and Teaching of At-Risk Students). Case management is a service modality that cuts across several different human service systems, including...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Case Studies, Caseworker Approach, Caseworkers, Demonstration Programs, Dropout...
ERIC ED394254: A Strategic Planning Guide for West Virginia's Faculty Senates.
This guide is intended to assist faculty senates in West Virginia as they develop strategic plans required by state legislation for the integration of students with exceptional needs into regular classrooms. Following a summary of the legislation, required plan components are described, and a copy of the required form is presented. Sections of the guide present definitions, concepts, and resources to be used in the development and implementation of specific components of the strategic plan....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Disabilities, Educational Objectives, Educational Planning, Elementary Secondary...
ERIC ED536243: High School Feedback Report for 2009 and 2010 Graduates
The State of Florida Department of Education provides pre-and-post-graduation data for public high school graduates throughout Florida. These data were used for the present report to produce data sets for all M-DCPS regular high schools and charter high schools graduating students in 2009 and 2010. Summary data for the district are also provided. These data can be used to track the success of secondary school reform efforts at the school level. Several data elements presented here are already...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Charter Schools, Vocational Schools, Feedback (Response), High School Graduates,...
ERIC ED367591: Network. Regional Policy Analysts and Advisors.
This publication contains two articles which focus on the teaching profession within the context of systemic reform. The first article, "Systemic Reform: Teachers and the Condition of Teaching," discusses the role and the preparation of teachers. The level of coordination among the various systems that relate to the teacher's role is greater for current systemic reform efforts than for earlier reform efforts. Professionalizing teaching may be a starting place for changing the role of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, Educational Environment, Educational History, Educational Policy,...
ERIC ED375218: Small Schools' Operating Costs: Reversing Assumptions about Economies of Scale.
This volume addresses the feasibility of operating small schools as the mainstay of the public school system. Research evidence indicates that small schools are associated with better student outcomes and that they make personal attention, academic focus, and experiential curricula possible. The premise that small schools are more expensive has always been false. No research evidence supports the claim that large schools of the sizes found in New York (1,500 to 4,000 students) achieve...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Administration, Cost Effectiveness, Educational Change,...
ERIC ED379396: Improving the Achievement of Wisconsin's Students. Urban Initiative Task Force Recommendations and Action Plan. Bulletin No. 95079.
Recommendations and an action plan for improving Wisconsin public schools' focus on teaching and learning, rather than on changes such as vouchers and privatization. Positive strategies designed to promote achievement are favored over punitive strategies or remedial actions. The action plan includes financial help to implement the recommendations. The major recommendations are: (1) class size reduction to 15 students per teacher through grade 5 and for core subjects through grade 8; (2)...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Accountability, Curriculum Development, Disadvantaged Youth,...
ERIC ED381880: Reinventing Public Education.
The goal of this report is to formulate a true alternative to the current form of governance for public education. Based on studies of governance in other large decentralized service organizations and of local educational reform efforts, the report concludes that there is a real alternative. The alternative allows the schools to be operated by a variety of public and private organizations, based on school-specific contracts that would define each school's mission, guarantee public funding, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Accountability, Bureaucracy, Contracts, Educational Economics, Elementary Secondary... |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I have an 8 year-old Lhasa Apso, cream-colored. He has developed a small movable lump on his side, which a few weeks later became pigmented. On the other side, he has just developed another small movable lump, with pigmentation starting. Is this melanoma? output: Difficult to say. If you have lesions on your skin that you are worried about, it is very reasonable to see a dermatologist (or a veterinarian in this case) for a biopsy. The only way to tell for sure if a lesion is malignant or not is to look at the cells under a microscope. A biopsy entails removing either the entire lesion, or taking a piece of it and then sending it to a pathologist who looks at the cells under a microscope and is able to tell what they are.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: !my son 24 years of age suffers from non stop vomiting severe abdominal pain. Will start at any time no warnings blood work always comes back with white blood cell high, red blood cell count high, hgb high, mchc high, hct high, fragmented neutrophils High, absolute monocytes high, lymphocytes low. doctor diagnosed polycythemia primary and neutrophilic leukocytosis second. doesn t sound right my son. Does not swell or itch. What do u suggest? output: Hi. Thanks for your query and an elucidated history.; This condition in which all the counts of blood cells is increased t alarming levels is called polycythemia Vera. This is one of the reasons for sudden pain in abdomen and vomiting. This is due to affection of the proximal part of the small intestine called as jejunum. I would suggest you the following"First of an opinion of a Hematologist to confirm the reason and to get treatment. You may need bone-marrow biopsy. - Get another opinion of a General Surgeon to see the clinical picture. - Barium studies to find the cause. -The treatment will obviously depend upon the cause found. I hope this answers your query.. |
Bruce Cornuelle
Researcher, Climate, Atmospheric Science & Physical Oceanography
Cornuelle, Bruce
bcornuelle's web site
Heimbach, P, Fukumori I, Hills CN, Ponte RM, Stammer D, Wunsch C, Campin JM, Cornuelle B, Fenty I, Forget G, Kohl A, Mazloff M, Menemenlis D, Nguyen AT, Piecuch C, Trossman D, Verdy A, Wang O, Zhang H. 2019. Putting it all together: Adding value to the global ocean and climate observing systems with complete self-consistent ocean state and parameter estimates. Frontiers in Marine Science. 6 10.3389/fmars.2019.00055 AbstractWebsite
In 1999, the consortium on Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) set out to synthesize the hydrographic data collected by the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and the satellite sea surface height measurements into a complete and coherent description of the ocean, afforded by an ocean general circulation model. Twenty years later, the versatility of ECCO's estimation framework enables the production of global and regional ocean and sea-ice state estimates, that incorporate not only the initial suite of data and its successors, but nearly all data streams available today. New observations include measurements from Argo floats, marine mammal-based hydrography, satellite retrievals of ocean bottom pressure and sea surface salinity, as well as ice-tethered profiled data in polar regions. The framework also produces improved estimates of uncertain inputs, including initial conditions, surface atmospheric state variables, and mixing parameters. The freely available state estimates and related efforts are property-conserving, allowing closed budget calculations that are a requisite to detect, quantify, and understand the evolution of climate-relevant signals, as mandated by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) protocol. The solutions can be reproduced by users through provision of the underlying modeling and assimilation machinery. Regional efforts have spun off that offer increased spatial resolution to better resolve relevant processes. Emerging foci of ECCO are on a global sea level changes, in particular contributions from polar ice sheets, and the increased use of biogeochemical and ecosystem data to constrain global cycles of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Challenges in the coming decade include provision of uncertainties, informing observing system design, globally increased resolution, and moving toward a coupled Earth system estimation with consistent momentum, heat and freshwater fluxes between the ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere and land.
Hildebrand, JA, Dorman LM, Hammer PTC, Schreiner AE, Cornuelle BD. 1989. Seismic tomography of jasper seamount. Geophysical Research Letters. 16:1355-1358. 10.1029/GL016i012p01355 AbstractWebsite
A vertical section of the interior structure of Jasper Seamount was modeled using a spectral tomographic inversion of P wave travel times. An array of ocean bottom seismographs (OBSs) deployed over the seamount detected the arrivals from a series of ocean bottom shots. A reference velocity model reveals that average compressional velocities within the seamount are similar to those found within Kilauea and are consistently slower than velocities at equivalent depths in typical oceanic crust. This suggests Jasper Seamount has a high average porosity. Perturbations from the reference model were imaged by tomographic inversion. A high velocity zone within the northwest flank of the seamount may result from dikes associated with a radial rift or from a shallow solidified magma reservoir. A low velocity summit may result from shallow, explosive eruptions. The tomographic model is consistent with the results of gravity, magnetic and dredging analyses.
Hoteit, I, Cornuelle B, Heimbach P. 2010. An eddy-permitting, dynamically consistent adjoint-based assimilation system for the tropical Pacific: Hindcast experiments in 2000. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 115 10.1029/2009jc005437 AbstractWebsite
An eddy-permitting adjoint-based assimilation system has been implemented to estimate the state of the tropical Pacific Ocean. The system uses the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's general circulation model and its adjoint. The adjoint method is used to adjust the model to observations by controlling the initial temperature and salinity; temperature, salinity, and horizontal velocities at the open boundaries; and surface fluxes of momentum, heat, and freshwater. The model is constrained with most of the available data sets in the tropical Pacific, including Tropical Atmosphere and Ocean, ARGO, expendable bathythermograph, and satellite SST and sea surface height data, and climatologies. Results of hindcast experiments in 2000 suggest that the iterated adjoint-based descent is able to significantly improve the model consistency with the multivariate data sets, providing a dynamically consistent realization of the tropical Pacific circulation that generally matches the observations to within specified errors. The estimated model state is evaluated both by comparisons with observations and by checking the controls, the momentum balances, and the representation of small-scale features that were not well sampled by the observations used in the assimilation. As part of these checks, the estimated controls are smoothed and applied in independent model runs to check that small changes in the controls do not greatly change the model hindcast. This is a simple ensemble-based uncertainty analysis. In addition, the original and smoothed controls are applied to a version of the model with doubled horizontal resolution resulting in a broadly similar "downscaled'' hindcast, showing that the adjustments are not tuned to a single configuration (meaning resolution, topography, and parameter settings). The time-evolving model state and the adjusted controls should be useful for analysis or to supply the forcing, initial, and boundary conditions for runs of other models.
Hoteit, I, Cornuelle B, Kohl A, Stammer D. 2005. Treating strong adjoint sensitivities in tropical eddy-permitting variational data assimilation. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. 131:3659-3682.: Royal Meteorological Society, 104 Oxford Rd. Reading Berks RG1 7LL UK 10.1256/qj.05.97 AbstractWebsite
A variational data assimilation system has been implemented for the tropical Pacific Ocean using an eddy-permitting regional implementation of the MITgcm. The adjoint assimilation system was developed by the Estimation of the Circulation and the Climate of the Ocean consortium, and has been extended to deal with open boundaries. This system is used to adjust the model to match observations in the tropical Pacific region using control parameters which include initial conditions, open boundaries and time-dependent surface fluxes. This paper focuses on problems related to strong adjoint sensitivities that may impede the model fit to the observations. A decomposition of the velocities at the open boundaries into barotropic and baroclinic modes is introduced to deal with very strong sensitivities of the model sea surface height to the barotropic component of the inflow. Increased viscosity and diffusivity terms are used in the adjoint model to reduce exponentially growing sensitivities in the backward run associated with nonlinearity of the forward model. Simplified experiments in which the model was constrained with Levitus temperature and salinity data, Reynolds sea surface temperature data and TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter data were performed to demonstrate the controllability of this assimilation system and to study its sensitivity to the starting guesses for forcing and initial conditions.
Hoteit, I, Cornuelle B, Kim SY, Forget G, Kohl A, Terrill E. 2009. Assessing 4D-VAR for dynamical mapping of coastal high-frequency radar in San Diego. Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans. 48:175-197. 10.1016/j.dynatmoce.2008.11.005 AbstractWebsite
The problem of dynamically mapping high-frequency (HF) radar radial velocity observations is investigated using a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model of the San Diego coastal region and an adjoint-based assimilation method. The HF radar provides near-real-time radial velocities from three sites covering the region offshore of San Diego Bay. The hydrodynamical model is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITgcm) with 1 km horizontal resolution and 40 vertical layers. The domain is centered on Point Loma, extending 117 km offshore and 120 km alongshore. The reference run (before adjustment) is initialized from a single profile of T and S and is forced with wind data from a single shore station and with zero heat and fresh water fluxes. The adjoint of the model is used to adjust initial temperature, salinity, and velocity, hourly temperature, salinity and horizontal velocities at the open boundaries, and hourly surface fluxes of momentum, heat and freshwater so that the model reproduces hourly HF radar radial velocity observations. Results from a small number of experiments suggest that the adjoint method can be successfully used over 10-day windows at coastal model resolution. It produces a dynamically consistent model run that fits HF radar data with errors near the specified uncertainties. In a test of the forecasting capability of the San Diego model after adjustment, the forecast skill was shown to exceed persistence for up to 20 h. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Hoteit, I, Cornuelle B, Thierry V, Stammer D. 2008. Impact of resolution and optimized ECCO forcing on Simulations of the tropical pacific. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. 25:131-147. 10.1175/2007jtecho528.1 AbstractWebsite
The sensitivity of the dynamics of a tropical Pacific Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) general circulation model (MITgcm) to the surface forcing fields and to the horizontal resolution is analyzed. During runs covering the period 1992-2002, two different sets of surface forcing boundary conditions are used, obtained 1) from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis project and 2) from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) assimilation consortium. The "ECCO forcing" is the "NCEP forcing" adjusted by a state estimation procedure using the MITgcm with a 1 degrees x 1 degrees global grid and the adjoint method assimilating a multivariate global ocean dataset. The skill of the model is evaluated against ocean observations available in situ and from satellites. The model domain is limited to the tropical Pacific, with open boundaries located along 26 degrees S, 26 degrees N, and in the Indonesian throughflow. To account for large-scale changes of the ocean circulation, the model is nested in the global time-varying ocean state provided by the ECCO consortium on a 1 grid. Increasing the spatial resolution to 1/3 degrees and using the ECCO forcing fields significantly improves many aspects of the circulation but produces overly strong currents in the western model domain. Increasing the resolution to 1/6 degrees does not yield further improvements of model results. Using the ECCO heat and freshwater fluxes in place of NCEP products leads to improved time-mean model skill (i.e., reduced biases) over most of the model domain, underlining the important role of adjusted heat and freshwater fluxes for improving model representations of the tropical Pacific. Combinations of ECCO and NCEP wind forcing fields can improve certain aspects of the model solutions, but neither ECCO nor NCEP winds show clear overall superiority.
Hoteit, I, Hoar T, Gopalakrishnan G, Collins N, Anderson J, Cornuelle B, Kohl A, Heimbach P. 2013. A MITgcm/DART ensemble analysis and prediction system with application to the Gulf of Mexico. Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans. 63:1-23. 10.1016/j.dynatmoce.2013.03.002 AbstractWebsite
This paper describes the development of an advanced ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF)-based ocean data assimilation system for prediction of the evolution of the loop current in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). The system integrates the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) assimilation package with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ocean general circulation model (MITgcm). The MITgcm/DART system supports the assimilation of a wide range of ocean observations and uses an ensemble approach to solve the nonlinear assimilation problems. The GoM prediction system was implemented with an eddy-resolving 1/10th degree configuration of the MITgcm. Assimilation experiments were performed over a 6-month period between May and October during a strong loop current event in 1999. The model was sequentially constrained with weekly satellite sea surface temperature and altimetry data. Experiments results suggest that the ensemble-based assimilation system shows a high predictive skill in the GoM, with estimated ensemble spread mainly concentrated around the front of the loop current. Further analysis of the system estimates demonstrates that the ensemble assimilation accurately reproduces the observed features without imposing any negative impact on the dynamical balance of the system. Results from sensitivity experiments with respect to the ensemble filter parameters are also presented and discussed. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Hursky, P, Porter MB, Cornuelle BD, Hodgkiss WS, Kuperman WA. 2004. Adjoint modeling for acoustic inversion. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 115:607-619. 10.1121/1.1636760 AbstractWebsite
The use of adjoint modeling for acoustic inversion is investigated. An adjoint model is derived from a linearized forward propagation model to propagate data-model misfit at the observation points back through the medium to the medium perturbations not being accounted for in the model. This adjoint model can be used to aid in inverting for these unaccounted medium perturbations. Adjoint methods are being applied to a variety of inversion problems, but have not drawn much attention from the underwater acoustic community. This paper presents an application of adjoint methods to acoustic inversion. Inversions are demonstrated in simulation for both range-independent and range-dependent sound speed profiles using the adjoint of a parabolic equation model. Sensitivity and error analyses are discussed showing how the adjoint model enables calculations to be performed in the space of observations, rather than the often much larger space of model parameters. Using an adjoint model enables directions of steepest descent in the model parameters (what we invert for) to be calculated using far fewer modeling runs than if a forward model only were used. (C) 2004 Acoustical Society of America.
Kim, SY, Cornuelle BD, Terrill EJ. 2010. Decomposing observations of high-frequency radar-derived surface currents by their forcing mechanisms: Decomposition techniques and spatial structures of decomposed surface currents. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 115 10.1029/2010jc006222 AbstractWebsite
Surface current observations from a high-frequency radar network deployed in southern San Diego are decomposed according to their driving forces: pure tides and their neighboring off-band energy, local winds, and low frequency. Several superposed ocean responses are present as a result of the complicated bottom topography and relatively weak winds off southern San Diego, as opposed to coastal regions where circulation can be explained by a dominant forcing mechanism. This necessitates an application of a statistical decomposition approach. Surface currents coherent with pure tides are calculated using harmonic analysis. Locally wind-driven surface currents are estimated by regression of observed winds on observed surface currents. The dewinded and detided surface currents are filtered by weighted least-squares fitting assuming white noise and three colored signal bands: low-frequency band (less than 0.4 cycles per day) and near-tidal peaks at the diurnal (K-1) and semidiurnal (M-2) frequencies. The spatial and temporal variability of each part of the decomposed surface currents is investigated in terms of ocean response to the driving forces. In addition, the spatial correlations of individual components exhibit Gaussian and exponential shapes with varying decorrelation length scales.
Kim, SY, Terrill EJ, Cornuelle BD. 2008. Mapping surface currents from HF radar radial velocity measurements using optimal interpolation. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 113 10.1029/2007jc004244 AbstractWebsite
An optimal interpolation (OI) method to compute surface vector current fields from radial velocity measurements derived from high-frequency (HF) radars is presented. The method assumes a smooth spatial covariance relationship between neighboring vector currents, in contrast to the more commonly used un-weighted least-squares fitting (UWLS) method, which assumes a constant vector velocity within a defined search radius. This OI method can directly compute any quantities linearly related to the radial velocities, such as vector currents and dynamic quantities (divergence and vorticity) as well as the uncertainties of those respective fields. The OI method is found to be more stable than the UWLS method and reduces spurious vector solutions near the baselines between HF radar installations. The OI method produces a covariance of the uncertainty of the estimated vector current fields. Three nondimensional uncertainty indices are introduced to characterize the uncertainty of the vector current at a point, representing an ellipse with directional characteristics. The vector current estimation using the OI method eliminates the need for multiple mapping steps and optimally fills intermittent coverage gaps. The effects of angular interpolation of radial velocities, a commonly used step in the preprocessing of radial velocity data prior to vector current computation in the UWLS method, are presented.
Kim, SY, Terrill EJ, Cornuelle BD. 2009. Assessing Coastal Plumes in a Region of Multiple Discharges: The US-Mexico Border. Environmental Science & Technology. 43:7450-7457. 10.1021/es900775p AbstractWebsite
The San Diego/Tijuana border region has several environmental challenges with regard to assessing water quality impacts resulting from local coastal ocean discharges for which transport is not hindered by political boundaries. While an understanding of the fate and transport of these discharged plumes has a broad audience, the spatial and temporal scales of the physical processes present numerous challenges in conducting assessment with any fidelity. To address these needs, a data-driven model of the transport of both shoreline and offshore discharges is developed and operated in a hindcast mode for a four-year period to analyze regional connectivity between the discharges and the receiving of waters and the coastline. The plume exposure hindcast model is driven by surface current data generated by a network of high-frequency radars. Observations provided by both boat-based CTD measurements and fixed oceanographic moorings are used with the Roberts-Snyder-Baumgartner model to predict the plume rise height. The surface transport model outputs are compared with shoreline samples of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB), and the skill of the model to assess low water quality is evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.
Kim, SY, Cornuelle BD. 2015. Coastal ocean climatology of temperature and salinity off the Southern California Bight: Seasonal variability, climate index correlation, and linear trend. Progress in Oceanography. 138:136-157. 10.1016/j.pocean.2015.08.001 AbstractWebsite
A coastal ocean climatology of temperature and salinity in the Southern California Bight is estimated from conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) and bottle sample profiles collected by historical California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation (CalCOFI) cruises (1950-2009; quarterly after 1984) off southern California and quarterly/monthly nearshore CTD surveys (within 30 km from the coast except for the surfzone; 1999-2009) off San Diego and Los Angeles. As these fields are sampled regularly in space, but not in time, conventional Fourier analysis may not be possible. The time dependent temperature and salinity fields are modeled as linear combinations of an annual cycle and its five harmonics, as well as three standard climate indices (El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO)), the Scripps Pier temperature time series, and a mean and linear trend without time lags. Since several of the predictor indices are correlated, the indices are successively orthogonalized to eliminate ambiguity in the identification of the contributed variance of each component. Regression coefficients are displayed in both vertical transects and horizontal maps to evaluate (1) whether the temporal and spatial scales of the two data sets of nearshore and offshore observations are consistent and (2) how oceanic variability at a regional scale is related to variability in the nearshore waters. The data-derived climatology can be used to identify anomalous events and atypical behaviors in regional-scale oceanic variability and to provide background ocean estimates for mapping or modeling. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Kim, SY, Terrill E, Cornuelle B. 2007. Objectively mapping HF radar-derived surface current data using measured and idealized data covariance matrices. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 112 10.1029/2006jc003756 AbstractWebsite
Surface currents measured by high-frequency radars are objectively mapped using covariance matrices computed from hourly surface current vectors spanning two years. Since retrievals of surface radial velocities are inherently gappy in space and time, the irregular density of surface current data leads to negative eigenvalues in the sample covariance matrix. The number and the magnitude of the negative eigenvalues depend on the degree of data continuity used in the matrix computation. In a region of 90% data coverage, the negative eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix are small enough to be removed by adding a noise term to the diagonal of the matrix. The mapping is extended to regions of poorer data coverage by applying a smoothed covariance matrix obtained by spatially averaging the sample covariance matrix. This approach estimates a stable covariance matrix of surface currents for regions with the intermittent radar coverage. An additional benefit is the removal of baseline errors that often exist between two radar sites. The covariance matrices and the correlation functions of the surface currents are exponential in space rather than Gaussian, as is often assumed in the objective mapping of oceanographic data sets. Patterns in the decorrelation length scale provide the variabilities of surface currents and the insights on the influence of topographic features (bathymetry and headlands). The objective mapping approach presented herein lends itself to various applications, including the Lagrangian transport estimates, dynamic analysis through divergence and vorticity of current vectors, and statistical models of surface currents.
Kim, SY, Cornuelle BD, Terrill EJ. 2010. Decomposing observations of high-frequency radar-derived surface currents by their forcing mechanisms: Locally wind-driven surface currents. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 115 10.1029/2010jc006223 AbstractWebsite
The wind impulse response function and transfer function for high-frequency radar-derived surface currents off southern San Diego are calculated using several local wind observations. The spatial map of the transfer function reflects the influence of the coast on wind-current dynamics. Near the coast (within 20 km from the shoreline), the amplitudes of the transfer function at inertial and diurnal frequencies are reduced due to effects of coastline and bottom bathymetry. Meanwhile, the amplitude of low-frequency currents increases near the coast, which is attributed to the local geostrophic balance between cross-shore pressure gradients against the coast and currents. Locally wind-driven surface currents are estimated from the data-derived response function, and their power spectrum shows a strong diurnal peak superposed on a red spectrum, similar to the spectra of observed winds. Current magnitudes and veering angles to a quasi-steady wind are typically 2-5% of the wind speed and vary 50 degrees-90 degrees to the right of the wind, respectively. A wind skill map is introduced to present the fractional variance of surface currents explained by local winds as a verification tool for wind data quality and relevance. Moreover, the transfer functions in summer and winter are presented to examine the seasonal variation in ocean surface current response to the wind associated with stratification change.
Kim, SY, Terrill EJ, Cornuelle BD, Jones B, Washburn L, Moline MA, Paduan JD, Garfield N, Largier JL, Crawford G, Kosro PM. 2011. Mapping the U.S. West Coast surface circulation: A multiyear analysis of high-frequency radar observations. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 116 10.1029/2010jc006669 AbstractWebsite
The nearly completed U. S. West Coast (USWC) high-frequency radar (HFR) network provides an unprecedented capability to monitor and understand coastal ocean dynamics and phenomenology through hourly surface current measurements at up to 1 km resolution. The dynamics of the surface currents off the USWC are governed by tides, winds, Coriolis force, low-frequency pressure gradients (less than 0.4 cycles per day (cpd)), and nonlinear interactions of those forces. Alongshore surface currents show poleward propagating signals with phase speeds of O(10) and O(100 to 300) km day(-1) and time scales of 2 to 3 weeks. The signals with slow phase speed are only observed in southern California. It is hypothesized that they are scattered and reflected by shoreline curvature and bathymetry change and do not penetrate north of Point Conception. The seasonal transition of alongshore surface circulation forced by upwelling-favorable winds and their relaxation is captured in fine detail. Submesoscale eddies, identified using flow geometry, have Rossby numbers of 0.1 to 3, diameters in the range of 10 to 60 km, and persistence for 2 to 12 days. The HFR surface currents resolve coastal surface ocean variability continuously across scales from submesoscale to mesoscale (O(1) km to O(1000) km). Their spectra decay with k(-2) at high wave number (less than 100 km) in agreement with theoretical submesoscale spectra below the observational limits of present-day satellite altimeters.
Kim, SY, Cornuelle BD, Terrill EJ. 2009. Anisotropic Response of Surface Currents to the Wind in a Coastal Region. Journal of Physical Oceanography. 39:1512-1533. 10.1175/2009JPO4013.1 Abstract
Analysis of coastal surface currents measured off the coast of San Diego for two years suggests an anisotropic and asymmetric response to the wind, probably as a result of bottom/coastline boundary effects, including pressure gradients. In a linear regression, the statistically estimated anisotropic response explains approximately 20% more surface current variance than an isotropic wind-ocean response model. After steady wind forcing for three days, the isotropic surface current response veers 42 degrees +/- 2 degrees to the right of the wind regardless of wind direction, whereas the anisotropic analysis suggests that the upcoast (onshore) wind stress generates surface currents with 10 degrees +/- 4 degrees (71 degrees +/- 3 degrees) to the right of the wind direction. The anisotropic response thus reflects the dominance of alongshore currents in this coastal region. Both analyses yield wind-driven currents with 3%-5% of the wind speed, as expected. In addition, nonlinear isotropic and anisotropic response functions are considered, and the asymmetric current responses to the wind are examined. These results provide a comprehensive statistical model of the wind-driven currents in the coastal region, which has not been well identified in previous field studies, but is qualitatively consistent with descriptions of the current response in coastal ocean models.
Kim, SY, Cornuelle BD, Terrill EJ, Jones B, Washburn L, Moline MA, Paduan JD, Garfield N, Largier JL, Crawford G, Kosro PM. 2013. Poleward propagating subinertial alongshore surface currents off the US West Coast. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 118:6791-6806. 10.1002/jgrc.20400 AbstractWebsite
The network comprising 61 high-frequency radar systems along the U.S. West Coast (USWC) provides a unique, high resolution, and broad scale view of ocean surface circulation. Subinertial alongshore surface currents show poleward propagating signals with phase speeds of O(10) and O(100-300) kmd-1 that are consistent with historical in situ observations off the USWC and that can be possibly interpreted as coastally trapped waves (CTWs). The propagating signals in the slow mode are partly observed in southern California, which may result from scattering and reflection of higher-mode CTWs due to curvature of shoreline and bathymetry near Point Conception, California. On the other hand, considering the order of the phase speed in the slow mode, the poleward propagating signals may be attributed to alongshore advection or pressure-driven flows. A statistical regression of coastal winds at National Data Buoy Center buoys on the observed surface currents partitions locally and remotely wind-forced components, isolates footprints of the equatorward propagating storm events in winter off the USWC, and shows the poleward propagating signals year round.
Kohl, A, Stammer D, Cornuelle B. 2007. Interannual to decadal changes in the ECCO global synthesis. Journal of Physical Oceanography. 37:313-337. 10.1175/jpo3014.1 AbstractWebsite
An estimate of the time-varying global ocean circulation for the period 1992 - 2002 was obtained by combining most of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment ( WOCE) ocean datasets with a general circulation model on a 1 horizontal grid. The estimate exactly satisfies the model equations without artificial sources or sinks of momentum, heat, and freshwater. To bring the model into agreement with observations, its initial temperature and salinity conditions were permitted to change, as were the time-dependent surface fluxes of momentum, heat, and freshwater. The estimation of these "control variables" is largely consistent with accepted uncertainties in the hydrographic climatology and meteorological analyses. The estimated time-mean horizontal transports of volume, heat, and freshwater, which were largely underestimated in the previous 2 optimization performed by Stammer et al., have converged with time-independent estimates from box inversions over most parts of the World Ocean. Trends in the model's heat content are 7% larger than those reported by Levitus and correspond to a global net heat uptake of about 1.1 W m(-2) over the model domain. The associated model trend in sea surface height over the estimation period resembles the observations from Ocean Topography Experiment ( TOPEX)/Poseidon over most of the global ocean. Sea surface height changes in the model are primarily steric but show contributions from mass redistributions from the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Ocean to the subtropical Pacific Ocean gyres. Steric contributions are primarily temperature based but are partly compensated by salt variation. However, the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean reveal a clear contribution of salt to large-scale sea level variations.
Lien, RC, Ma B, Lee CM, Sanford TB, Mensah V, Centurioni LR, Cornuelle BD, Gopalakrishnan G, Gordon AL, Chang MH, Jayne SR, Yang YJ. 2015. The Kuroshio and Luzon undercurrent east of Luzon Island. Oceanography. 28:54-63. 10.5670/oceanog.2015.81 AbstractWebsite
Current structure, transport, and water mass properties of the northward-flowing Kuroshio and the southward-flowing Luzon Undercurrent (LU) were observed for nearly one year, June 8, 2012-June 4, 2013, across the Kuroshio path at 18.75 degrees N. Observations were made from four platforms: an array of six subsurface ADCP moorings, two Seagliders, fivepressure inverted echo sounders (PIES), and five horizontal electric field (HEF) sensors, providing the most detailed time series of the Kuroshio and Luzon Undercurrent water properties to date. Ocean state estimates of the western boundary current system were performed using the MIT general circulation model-four-dimensional variational assimilation (MITgcm-4D-Var) system. Prominent Kuroshio features from observations are simulated well by the numerical model. Annual mean Kuroshio transport, averaged over all platforms, is similar to 16 Sv with a standard deviation similar to 4 Sv. Kuroshio and LU transports and water mass pathways east of Luzon are revealed by Seaglider measurements. In a layer above the salinity maximum associated with North Pacific Tropical Water (NPTW), Kuroshio transport is similar to 7 Sv and contains North Equatorial Current (NEC) and Western Philippine Sea (WPS) waters, with an insignificant amount of South China Sea water on the shallow western flank. In an intermediate layer containing the core of the NPTW, Kuroshio transport is similar to 10 Sv, consisting mostly of NEC water. In the lower layer of the Kuroshio, transport is similar to 1.5 Sv of mostly North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW) as a part of WPS waters. Annual mean Luzon Undercurrent southward transport integrated to 1,000 m depth is similar to 2.7 Sv with a standard deviation similar to 2 Sv, carrying solely WPS waters below the salinity minimum of the NPIW. The transport of the western boundary current integrated over the full ocean depth east of Luzon Island is similar to 14 +/- 4.5 Sv. Sources of the water masses in the Kuroshio and Luzon Undercurrent are confirmed qualitatively by the numerical model.
Malanotte-Rizzoli, P, Cornuelle B, Haidvogel D. 1982. Gulf Stream acoustic tomography: modelling simulations. Ocean Modelling. 46:10-15. Abstract
Mazloff, MR, Cornuelle BD, Gille ST, Verdy A. 2018. Correlation lengths for estimating the large-scale carbon and heat content of the Southern Ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. 123:883-901. 10.1002/2017jc013408 AbstractWebsite
The spatial correlation scales of oceanic dissolved inorganic carbon, heat content, and carbon and heat exchanges with the atmosphere are estimated from a realistic numerical simulation of the Southern Ocean. Biases in the model are assessed by comparing the simulated sea surface height and temperature scales to those derived from optimally interpolated satellite measurements. While these products do not resolve all ocean scales, they are representative of the climate scale variability we aim to estimate. Results show that constraining the carbon and heat inventory between 35 degrees S and 70 degrees S on time-scales longer than 90 days requires approximately 100 optimally spaced measurement platforms: approximately one platform every 20 degrees longitude by 6 degrees latitude. Carbon flux has slightly longer zonal scales, and requires a coverage of approximately 30 degrees by 6 degrees. Heat flux has much longer scales, and thus a platform distribution of approximately 90 degrees by 10 degrees would be sufficient. Fluxes, however, have significant subseasonal variability. For all fields, and especially fluxes, sustained measurements in time are required to prevent aliasing of the eddy signals into the longer climate scale signals. Our results imply a minimum of 100 biogeochemical-Argo floats are required to monitor the Southern Ocean carbon and heat content and air-sea exchanges on time-scales longer than 90 days. However, an estimate of formal mapping error using the current Argo array implies that in practice even an array of 600 floats (a nominal float density of about 1 every 7 degrees longitude by 3 degrees latitude) will result in nonnegligible uncertainty in estimating climate signals.
Mazloff, MR, Gille ST, Cornuelle B. 2014. Improving the geoid: Combining altimetry and mean dynamic topography in the California coastal ocean. Geophysical Research Letters. 41:8944-8952. 10.1002/2014gl062402 AbstractWebsite
Satellite gravity mapping missions, altimeters, and other platforms have allowed the Earth's geoid to be mapped over the ocean to a horizontal resolution of approximately 100km with an uncertainty of less than 10cm. At finer resolution this uncertainty increases to greater than 10cm. Achieving greater accuracy requires accurate estimates of the dynamic ocean topography (DOT). In this study two DOT estimates for the California Current System with uncertainties less than 10cm are used to solve for a geoid correction field. The derived field increases the consistency between the DOTs and along-track altimetric observations, suggesting it is a useful correction to the gravitational field. The correction is large compared to the dynamic ocean topography, with a magnitude of 15cm and significant structure, especially near the coast. The results are evidence that modern high-resolution dynamic ocean topography products can be used to improve estimates of the geoid.
McDonald, MA, Webb SC, Hildebrand JA, Cornuelle BD, Fox CG. 1994. Seismic Structure and Anisotropy of the Juan-De-Fuca Ridge at 45-Degrees-N. Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth. 99:4857-4873. 10.1029/93jb02801 AbstractWebsite
A seismic refraction experiment was conducted with air guns and ocean bottom seismometers on the Juan de Fuca Ridge at 45-degrees-N, at the northern Cleft segment and at the overlapping rift zone between the Cleft and Vance segments. These data determine the average velocity structure of the upper crust and map the thickness variability of the shallow low-velocity layer, which we interpret as the extrusive volcanic layer. The experiment is unique because a large number of travel times were measured along ray paths oriented at all azimuths within a small (20 km by 35 km) area. These travel times provide evidence for compressional velocity anisotropy in the upper several hundred meters of oceanic crust, presumed to be caused by ridge-parallel fracturing. Compressional velocities are 3.35 km/s in the ridge strike direction and 2.25 km/s across strike. Travel time residuals are simultaneously inverted for anisotropy as well as lateral thickness variations in the low-velocity layer. Extrusive layer thickness ranges from approximately 200 m to 550 m with an average of 350 m. The zone of the thinnest low-velocity layer is within the northern Cleft segment axial valley, in a region of significant hydrothermal activity. Layer thickness variability is greatest near the Cleft-Vance overlapping rift zone, where changes of 300 m occur over as little as several kilometers laterally. These low-velocity layer thickness changes may correspond to fault block rotations in an episodic spreading system, where the low side of each fault block accumulates more extrusive volcanics.
Miller, AJ, Cornuelle BD. 1999. Forecasts from fits of frontal fluctuations. Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans. 29:305-333. 10.1016/s0377-0265(99)00009-3 AbstractWebsite
A primitive equation ocean model is fit with strong constraints to non-synoptic hydrographic surveys in an unstable frontal current region, the Iceland-Faeroe Front. The model is first initialized from a time-independent objective analysis of non-synoptic data (spanning 2 to 6 days). A truncated set of eddy-scale basis functions is used to represent the initial error in temperature, salinity, and velocity. A series of model integrations, each perturbed with one basis function for one dependent variable in one layer, is used to determine the sensitivity to the objective-analysis initial state of the match to the non-synoptic hydrographic data. A new initial condition is then determined from a generalized inverse of the sensitivity matrix and the process is repeated to account for non-linearity. The method is first tested in 'identical twin' experiments to demonstrate the adequacy of the basis functions in representing initial condition error and the convergence of the method to the true solution. The approach is then applied to observations gathered in August 1993 in the Iceland-Faeroe Front. Model fits are successful in improving the match to the true data, leading to dynamically consistent evolution scenarios. However, the forecast skill (here defined as the variance of the model-data differences) of the model runs from the optimized initial condition is not superior to less sophisticated methods of initialization, probably due to inadequate initialization data. The limited verification data in the presence of strong frontal slopes may not be sufficient to establish Forecast skill, so that it must be judged subjectively or evaluated by other quantitative measures. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Miller, AJ, Neilson DJ, Luther DS, Hendershott MC, Cornuelle BD, Worcester PF, Dzieciuch MA, Dushaw BD, Howe BM, Levin JC, Arango HG, Haidvogel DB. 2007. Barotropic Rossby wave radiation from a model Gulf Stream. Geophysical Research Letters. 34 10.1029/2007gl031937 AbstractWebsite
The barotropic Rossby wave field in the North Atlantic Ocean is studied in an eddy-resolving ocean model simulation. The meandering model Gulf Stream radiates barotropic Rossby waves southward through preferred corridors defined by topographic features. The smoother region between the Bermuda Rise and the mid-Atlantic Ridge is a particularly striking corridor of barotropic wave radiation in the 20-50 day period band. Barotropic Rossby waves are also preferentially excited at higher frequencies over the Bermuda Rise, suggesting resonant excitation of topographic Rossby normal modes. The prevalence of these radiated waves suggests that they may be an important energy sink for the equilibrium state of the Gulf Stream.
California Environment, Energy and the Environment, Environment and Human Health, Global Environmental Monitoring, Modeling Theory and Computation, Sound and Light in the Sea, Waves and Circulation
Coastal Oceanography, Modeling and State Estimation of the Oceans, Atmosphere, and Climate, Ocean Acoustics, Physical Oceanography, Tropical Meteorology and Oceanography
CASPO
bcornuelle at ucsd.edu
Putting it all together: Adding value to the global ocean and climate observing systems with complete self-consistent ocean state and parameter estimates
Synthesis of ocean observations using data assimilation for operational, real-time and reanalysis systems: A more complete picture of the state of the ocean
Correlation lengths for estimating the large-scale carbon and heat content of the Southern Ocean
Estimating relative channel impulse responses from ships of opportunity in a shallow water environment
Annual and interannual variability in the California Current System: Comparison of an ocean state estimate with a network of underwater gliders
Determination of acoustic waveguide invariant using ships as sources of opportunity in a shallow water marine environment |
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instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: hi i hit my husbands hand with mine playing around and it has been swollen for four days. it has a knot ontop of my hand and is sore. my fingers are badly bruised. it instanly swole up when it happened. do u think its broken should i get an xray? it doesnt hurt to move it just when i touch it. output: Hello, As you had the injury while hitting, and no pain while movements then it won't be a facture. I don't think any kind of x-ray is needed for now. Do icing to reduce the pain and swelling twice a day. In between do hot water fermentation and move your fingers within the hot water tub. After a week or so you can try pressing the sponge ball slowly to regain the strength. Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I have five herniated disks in my neck from on the job injury and have developed vertigo when performing job functions that require frequent up and down movement of the neck. I work for TSA and am under workers comp treatment but not for the vertigo as it has not been determined by a professional that it is related to the herniated disks in my neck but i as the injured person know it is. I need to find a Doctor that can help me as I am out on disability leave without pay and need to know if it is permanent or temporary condition so I may return to work or not output: Hi, It is a common misconception that herniated discs cause vertigo and reality, herniated discs in neck cause neck and arm pain. So, we still need to find the cause of vertigo. With proper evaluation by a vertigo specialist, the underlying cause of vertigo can be found. After that, correct treatment can make you symptom-free. You may not need a disability certificate after that. Hope I have answered your question. Let me know if I can assist you further.. |
\section{Introduction\label{sec:Introduction}}
The generalized multiple depot travelling salesmen problem (GMDTSP) is an important combinatorial optimization problem that has several practical applications including but not limited to maritime transportation, health-care logistics, survivable telecommunication network design (\cite{Bektas2011}), material flow system design, postbox collection (\cite{Laporte1996}), and routing unmanned vehicles (\cite{Manyam2014, Oberlin2010}). The GMDTSP is formally defined as follows: let $D:=\{d_1,\dots,d_k\}$ denote the set of depots and $T$, the set of targets. We are given a complete undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ with vertex set $V:=T\cup D$ and edge set $E:=\{(i,j):i\in V , j\in T\}$. In addition, a proper partition $C_1,\dots,C_m$ of $T$ is given; these partitions are called \emph{clusters}. For each edge $(i,j)=e \in E$, we associate a non-negative cost $c_e=c_{ij}$. The GMDTSP consists of determining a set of at most $k$ simple cycles such that each cycle starts an ends at a distinct depot, at least one target from each cluster is visited by some cycle and the total cost of the set of cycles is a minimum. The GMDTSP reduces to a multiple depot traveling salesmen problem (MDTSP - \cite{Benavent2013}) when every cluster is a singleton set. The GMDTSP involves two related decisions:
\begin{enumerate}
\item choosing a subset of targets $S\subseteq T$, such that $|S\cap C_h|\geq 1$ for $h=1,\dots,m$;
\item solving a MDTSP on the subgraph of $G$ induced by $S\cup D$.
\end{enumerate}
The GMDTSP can be considered either as a generalization of the MDTSP in \cite{Benavent2013} where the targets are partitioned into clusters and at least one target in each cluster has to be visited by some salesman or as a multiple salesmen variant of the symmetric generalized traveling salesman problem (GTSP) in \cite{Fischetti1995, Fischetti1997}. \cite{Benavent2013} and \cite{Fischetti1995} present a polyhedral study of the MDTSP and GTSP polytope respectively, and develop a branch-and-cut algorithm to compute optimal solutions for the respective problem.
This is the first work in the literature that analyzes the facial structure and derives additional valid and facet-defining inequalities for the convex hull of feasible solutions to the GMDTSP. This paper presents a mixed-integer linear programming formulation and develops a branch-and-cut algorithm to solve the problem to optimality. This work generalizes the results of the two aforementioned problems namely the MDTSP (\cite{Benavent2013}) and the GTSP (\cite{Fischetti1995}).
\subsection{Related work:\label{subsec:litreview}}
A special case of the GMDTSP with one salesman, the symmetric generalized traveling salesman problem (GTSP), was first introduced by \cite{Henry1969} and \cite{Srivastava1969} in relation to record balancing problems arising in computer design and to the routing of clients through agencies providing various services respectively. Since then, the GTSP has attracted considerable attention in the literature as several variants of the classical traveling salesman problem can be modeled as a GTSP (\cite{Laporte1996,Feillet2005, Oberlin2009, Manyam2014}). \cite{Noon1989} developed a procedure to transform a GTSP to an asymmetric traveling salesman problem and the \cite{Laporte1987} investigated the asymmetric counterpart of the GTSP. Despite most of the aforementioned applications of the GTSP (\cite{Laporte1996}) extending naturally to their multiple depot variant, there are no exact algorithms in the literature to address the GMDTSP.
A related generalization of the GMDTSP can be found in the vehicle routing problem (VRP) literature. VRPs are capacitated counterparts for the TSPs where the vehicles have a limited capacity and each target is associated with a demand that has to be met by the vehicle visiting that target. The multiple VRPs can be classified based on whether the vehicles start from a single depot or from multiple depots. The generalized multiple vehicle routing problem (GVRP) is a capacitated version of the GMDTSP with all the vehicles starting from a single depot. \cite{Bektas2011} present four formulations for the GVRP, compare the linear relaxation solutions for them, and develop a branch-and-cut to optimally solve the problem. In \cite{Laporte1987a}, \citeauthor{Laporte1987a} models the GVRP as a location-routing problem. On the contrary, \cite{Ghiani2000} develop an algorithm to transform the GVRP into a capacitated arc routing problem, which therefore enables one to utilize the available algorithms for the latter to solve the former. In a more recent paper, \cite{Bautista2008} study a special case of the GVRP derived from a waste collection application where each cluster contains at most two vertices. The authors describe a number of heuristic solution procedures, including two constructive heuristics, a local search method and an ant colony heuristic to solve several practical instances. To our knowledge, there are no algorithms in the literature to compute optimal solutions to the generalized multiple depot vehicle routing problem or the GMDTSP.
The objective of this paper is to develop an integer programming formulation for the GMDTSP, study the facial structure of the GMDTSP polytope and develop a branch-and-cut algorithm to solve the problem to optimality. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in Sec. \ref{sec:Formulation} we introduce notation and present the integer programming formulation. In Sec. \ref{sec:polyhedral}, the facial structure of the GMDTSP polytope is studied and its relation to the MDTSP polytope (\cite{Benavent2013}) is established. We also introduce a general theorem that allows one to lift any facet of the MDTSP polytope into a facet of the GMDTSP polytope. We further use this result to develop several classes of facet-defining inequalities for the GMDTSP. In the subsequent sections, the formulation is used to develop a branch-and-cut algorithm to obtain optimal solutions. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated through extensive computational experiments on 116 benchmark instances from the GTSP library (\cite{Gutin2010}).
\section{Problem Formulation\label{sec:Formulation}}
We now present a mathematical formulation for the GMDTSP inspired by models in \cite{Benavent2013} and \cite{Fischetti1995}.
We propose a two-index formulation for the GMDTSP. We associate to each feasible solution $\mathcal{F}$, a vector $\mathbf{x}\in\mathbb{R}^{|E|}$ (a real vector indexed by the elements of $E$) such that the value of the component $x_{e}$ associated with edge $e$ is the number of times $e$ appears in the feasible solution $\mathcal{F}$. Note that for some edges $e\in E$, $x_{e}\in\{0,1,2\}$ \emph{i.e,} we allow the degenerate case where a cycle can only consist of a depot and a target. If $e$ connects two vertices $i$ and $j$, then $(i,j)$ and $e$ will be used interchangeably to denote the same edge. Similarly, associated to $\mathcal{F}$, is also a vector $\mathbf{y}\in\mathbb{R}^{|T|}$, \emph{i.e., } a real vector indexed by the elements of $T$. The value of the component $y_{i}$ associated with a target $i \in T$
is equal to one if the target $i$ is visited by a cycle and zero otherwise.
For any $S\subset V$, we define $\gamma(S)=\{(i,j)\in E:i,j\in S\}$ and $\delta(S)=\{(i,j)\in E:i\in S,\, j\notin S\}$. If $S=\{i\},$ we simply write $\delta(i)$ instead of $\delta(\{i\})$. We also denote by $C_{h(v)}$ the cluster containing the target $v$ and define $W:=\{v\in T:|C_{h(v)}|=1\}$. Finally, for any $\hat{{E}}\subseteq E$, we define $x(\bar{E})=\sum_{(i,j)\in\bar{E}}x_{ij}$, and for any disjoint subsets $A,B\subseteq V$, $(A:B) = \{(i,j)\in E: i\in A, j\in B\}$ and $x(A:B)=\sum_{e\in(A:B)} x_{ij}$. Using the above notations, the GMDTSP is formulated as a mixed integer
linear program as follows:
\begin{flalign}
& \text{Minimize}\quad\sum_{e\in E}c_{e}x_{e}\label{eq:obj} &\\
& \text{subject to}\nonumber &\\
& x(\delta(i))=2y_{i}\quad\forall i\in T,\label{eq:degree} \\
& \sum_{i\in C_h} y_{i} \geq 1\quad\forall h\in \{1,\dots,m\},\label{eq:assignment} &\\
& x(\delta(S))\geq 2y_{i}\quad\forall S\subseteq T,i\in S,\label{eq:sec} &\\
& x(D':\{j\})+3x_{jk}+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')\leq2(y_{j}+y_{k})\quad\forall j,k\in T;D'\subset D,\label{eq:4path} &\\
& x(D':\{j\})+2x(\gamma(S\cup\{j,k\}))+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')\leq\sum_{v\in S}2\, y_{v}+2(y_{j}+y_{k})-y_i\nonumber &\\
& \qquad\qquad\qquad\forall i\in S;j,k\in T, j\neq k;S\subseteq T\setminus\{j,k\},S\neq\emptyset;D'\subset D,\label{eq:path} \\
& x_{e}\in\{0,1\}\quad\forall e\in \gamma(T),\label{eq:xinteger1} &\\
& x_{e}\in\{0,1,2\}\quad\forall e\in (D:T),\label{eq:xinteger2} &\\
& y_{i}\in\{0,1\}\quad\forall i\in T.\label{eq:yinteger}
\end{flalign}
In the above formulation, the constraints in \eqref{eq:degree} ensure the number edges incident on any vertex $i\in T$ is equal to $2$ if and only if target $i$ is visited by a cycle ($y_{i}=1$). The constraints in \eqref{eq:assignment} force at least one target in each cluster to be visited. The constraints in \eqref{eq:sec} are the connectivity or sub-tour elimination constraints. They ensure a feasible solution has no sub-tours of any subset of customers in $T$. The constraints in \eqref{eq:4path} and \eqref{eq:path} are the path elimination constraints. They do not allow for any cycle in a feasible solution to consist of more than one depot. The validity of these constraints is discussed in the subsection \ref{sub:Path-elimination}. Finally, the constraints \eqref{eq:xinteger1}-\eqref{eq:yinteger}
are the integrality restrictions on the $\mathbf{x}$ and $\mathbf{y}$ vectors.
\subsection{Path elimination constraints:\label{sub:Path-elimination} }
The first version of the path elimination constraints was developed in the context of location routing problems \cite{Laporte1986}. \citeauthor{Laporte1986} named these constraints as chain-barring constraints. Authors in \cite{Belenguer2011} and \cite{Benavent2013} use similar path elimination constraints for the location routing and the multiple depot traveling salesmen problems. The version of path elimination constraints used in this article is adapted from \cite{Sundar2014}. Any path that originates from a depot and visits exactly two customers before terminating at another depot is removed by the constraint in \eqref{eq:4path}. The validity of the constraint \eqref{eq:4path} can be easily verified as in \cite{Laporte1986, Sundar2014}. Any other path $d_{1},t_{1},\cdots,t_{p},d_{2}$, where $d_{1},d_{2}\in D$, $t_{1},\cdots,t_{p}\in T$ and $p\geq3$, violates inequality \eqref{eq:path} with $D'=\{d_{1}\},$ $S=\{t_{2},\cdots,t_{p-1}\}$, $j=t_{1}$, $k=t_{p}$ and $i=t_{r}$ where $2\leq r\leq p-1$. The proof of validity of the constraint in Eq. \eqref{eq:path} is discussed as a part of the polyhedral analysis of the polytope of feasible solutions to the GMDTSP in the next section (see proposition \ref{prop:path}).
We note that our formulation allows for a feasible solution with paths connecting two depots and visiting exactly one customer. We refer to such paths as 2-paths. As the formulation allows for two copies of an edge between a depot and a target, 2-paths can be eliminated and therefore there always exists an optimal solution which does not contain any 2-path. In the following subsection, we prove polyhedral results and derive classes of facet-defining inequalities for the model in \eqref{eq:degree}-\eqref{eq:yinteger}.
\section{Polyhedral analysis \label{sec:polyhedral}}
In this section we analyse the facial structure of the GMDTSP polytope while leveraging the results already known for the multiple depot traveling salesmen problem (MDTSP).
If the number of targets $|T|=n$ and the number of depots $|D|=k$, then the number of $x_e$ variables is $|E| = \binom{n}{2}+nk$ ($\binom{n}{2}$ is the number of edges between the targets and $nk$ is the number of edges between targets and depots). Also the number of $y_i$ variables is $|T|=n$ and hence, the total number of variables used in the problem formulation is $|E|+|T| = \binom n2 + nk + n$. Let $P$ and $Q$ denote the GMDTSP and MDTSP as follows:
\begin{flalign}
P &:= \text{conv}\{(\mathbf{x,y})\in \mathbb{R}^{|E|+|T|}: (\mathbf{x,y}) \text{ is a feasible GMDTSP solution} \} \text{ and }\label{eq:P} \\
Q &:= \{(\mathbf{x,y})\in P: y_v=1 \text{ for all } v\in T \}. \label{eq:Q}
\end{flalign}
The dimension of the polytope $Q$ was shown to be $\binom n2 + n(k-1)$ in \cite{Benavent2013}. To relate the polytopes $P$ and $Q$, we define an intermediate polytope $P(F)$ as follows:
\begin{flalign}
P(F):= \{(\mathbf{x,y})\in P: y_v = 1 \text{ for all } v \in F\}, \label{eq:PF}
\end{flalign}
where $\emptyset \subseteq F \subseteq T$. Observe that $P(\emptyset) = P$ and $P(T) = Q$. Now, we determine the dimension of the polytope $P(F)$. The number of variables in the equation system for $P(F)$ is $|E|+|T| = \binom n2 + nk + n$. The system also includes $|T|=n$ linear independent equations in \eqref{eq:degree} and variable fixing equations given by $$y_v=1 \text{ for all } v\in F\cup W$$ where, $W$ is the set of targets that lie in clusters that are singletons (defined in Sec. \ref{sec:Formulation}). The following lemma gives the dimension of $P(F)$.
\begin{lemma} \label{lem:PFdim}
For all $F\subseteq T$, $\operatorname{dim}(P(F)) = \binom n2 + nk - |F\cup W|$.
\end{lemma}
\begin{proof}
Since the equation system for $P(F)$ has $\binom n2 + nk + n$ variables and $n+|F\cup W|$ linear independent equality constraints, the $\operatorname{dim}(P(F)) \leq \binom n2 + nk - |F\cup W|$. We claim that $P(F)$ contains $\binom n2 + nk - |F\cup W| + 1$ affine independent points. The claim proves $\operatorname{dim}(P(F)) \geq \binom n2 + nk - |F\cup W|$. Hence, the lemma follows. We prove the claim by induction on the cardinality of the set $F$.
For the base case, we have $F = T$ and $P(T)=Q$ where $Q$ is the the MDTSP polytope. Since $\operatorname{dim}(Q) = \binom n2 + nk - n$ (\cite{Benavent2013}), there are $\binom n2 + nk - n + 1$ affine independent points in $Q$. Assume that the claim holds for a set $F_i$ with $|F_i| = i$ and $i>0$, and consider a subset of targets $F_{i-1}$ such that $|F_{i-1}|=i-1$. Let $v$ be any target not in $F_{i-1}$, and define $F_i:= F_{i-1}\cup\{v\}$. The induction hypothesis provides $\binom n2 + nk - |F_i\cup W| + 1$ affine independent points belonging to $P(F_i)$ and hence, to $P(F_{i-1})$ (since $P(F_i)\subseteq P(F_{i-1})$). If $v\in W$, then $|F_{i-1}\cup W| = |F_i\cup W|$ and we are done. Otherwise, $|F_{i-1}\cup W| = |F_i\cup W| - 1$ and we need an additional point on the polytope $P(F_{i-1})$ that is affine independent with the rest of the $\mathcal L = \binom n2 + nk - |F_i\cup W| + 1$ points. All these $\mathcal L$ points satisfy the equation $y_v = 1$. An additional point that is affine independent with the $\mathcal L$ points always exists and is given by any feasible MDTSP solution in the subgraph induced by the set of vertices $(T\cup D)\setminus \{v\}$ because, any feasible MDTSP solution on the set of vertices $(T\cup D)\setminus \{v\}$ satisfies $y_v = 0$. \qed
\end{proof}
\begin{corollary}
$\operatorname{dim}(P) = \binom n2 + nk - |W|$.
\end{corollary}
Lemma \ref{lem:PFdim} indicates that for any given subset $F\subseteq T$ and $v\in F$, either $\operatorname{dim}(P(F\setminus \{v\})) = \operatorname{dim}(P(F))$ (if $v \in W$) or $\operatorname{dim}(P(F\setminus \{v\})) = \operatorname{dim}(P(F)) + 1$ (when $v \notin W$) \emph{i.e.}, the dimension of the polytope $P(F)$ increases by at most one unit when a target is removed from $F$. Hence, we can lift any facet-defining valid inequality for $P(F)$ to be facet-defining for $P(F\setminus \{v\})$. In the ensuing proposition, we introduce a result based on the sequential lifting for zero-one programs (\cite{Padberg1975}) which we will use to lift facets of $Q$ into facets of $P$. The proposition generalizes a similar result in \cite{Fischetti1995} used to lift facets of the travelling salesman problem to facets of GTSP.
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:lifting}
Suppose that for any $F\subseteq T$ and $u\in F$, $$\sum_{e\in E} \alpha_e x_e + \sum_{v\in T} \beta_v (1-y_v) \geq \eta$$ is any facet-defining inequality for $P(F)$. Then the lifted inequality $$\sum_{e\in E} \alpha_e x_e + \sum_{v\in T\setminus \{u\}} \beta_v (1-y_v) + \bar{\beta}_u(1-y_u) \geq \eta$$ is valid and facet-defining for $P(F\setminus \{u\})$, where $\bar{\beta}_u$ takes an arbitrary value when $u \in W$ and $$\bar{\beta}_u = \eta - \min \left\{\sum_{e\in E} \alpha_e x_e + \sum_{v\in T\setminus \{u\}} \beta_v (1-y_v): (\mathbf{x,y}) \in P(F\setminus \{u\}), y_u=0 \right\} $$ when $u \notin W$. Note that the statement can be trivially modified to deal with ``$\leq$'' inequalities.
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof}
The proof follows from the sequential lifting theorem in \cite{Padberg1975}. \qed
\end{proof}
Proposition \ref{prop:lifting} is used to derive facet-defining inequalities for the GMDTSP polytope $P$ by lifting the facet-defining inequalities for the MDTSP polytope $Q$ in \cite{Benavent2013}. For a given lifting sequence of the set of targets $T$, say $\{v_1,\dots,v_n\}$, the procedure is iteratively applied to derive a facet of $P(\{v_{t+1},\dots,v_n\})$ from a facet of $P(\{v_{t},\dots,v_n\})$ for $t=1,\dots,n$. Different lifting sequences produce different facets; hence the name, \emph{sequence dependent} lifting. In the rest of the section, we use the lifting procedure to check if the constraints in \eqref{eq:degree}-\eqref{eq:yinteger} are facet-defining and derive additional facet-defining inequalities for the GMDTSP polytope.
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:trivial}
The following results hold for the GMDTSP polytope $P$:
\begin{enumerate}
\item $x_e \geq 0$ defines a facet for every $e \in E$ if $|T|\geq 4$,
\item $x_e\leq 1$ defines a facet if and only if $e\in \gamma(W)$ and $|T|\geq 3$,
\item $x_e \leq 2$ does not define a facet for any $e\in (D:T)$,
\item $y_i\geq 0$ does not define a facet for any $i\in T$,
\item $y_i\leq 1$ defines a facet if and only if $i\notin W$, and
\item $\sum_{i\in C_h} y_{i} \geq 1$ does not define a facet for any $h\in \{1,\dots,m\}$.
\end{enumerate}
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof} We use the facet-defining results of the MDTSP polytope (\cite{Benavent2013}) in conjunction with Proposition \ref{prop:lifting} to prove (1)--(3).
\begin{enumerate}
\item Observe that for every $e \in E$, $x_e\geq 0$ defines a facet of the MDTSP polytope $Q$ if $|T| \geq 4$. Now for any lifting sequence, Proposition \ref{prop:lifting} produces $\bar{\beta}_v = 0$ for all $v\in T$ and the result follows.
\item Suppose that $e = (i,j)$. If $i,j\in W$ and $|T|\geq 3$, then the claim follows from the forthcoming Proposition \ref{prop:gsec} by choosing $S = \{i,j\}$. Otherwise if $e=(i,j)\in \gamma(T)$, then $x_e \leq 1$ is dominated by $x_e \leq y_i$ if $i \notin W$ and $x_e \leq y_j$ if $j \notin W$.
\item Let $e = (d,i)$ where $d\in D, i\in T$. $x_e \leq 2$ defines a face of the MDTSP polytope $Q$. Hence neither of the lifted versions of the inequality \emph{i.e.}, $x_e \leq 2$ (if $i \in W$) or $x_e \leq 2y_i$ (if $i\notin W$) defines a facet of $P$.
\item The inequality $y_i \geq \frac 12 x_e$ for $e \in \delta(i)$ dominates $y_i \geq 0$. Hence, $y_i\geq 0$ does not define a facet for any $i\in T$.
\item Observe that the valid inequality $y_i\leq 1$ induces a face, $P(\{i\}) = \{(\mathbf{x,y})\in P: y_i = 1\}$ of $P$. From the Lemma \ref{lem:PFdim}, $\operatorname{dim}(P(\{i\})) = \operatorname{dim}(P) - 1$ if and only if $i\notin W$. Hence, $y_i \leq 1$ is facet-defining for $P$ if and only if $i\notin W$. When $i\in W$, the inequality defines an improper face.
\item The constraint $\sum_{i\in C_h} y_{i} \geq 1$ can be reduced to $\sum_{e\in \delta(C_h)} x_e + 2\sum_{e\in \gamma(C_h)} x_e \geq 2$ using the degree constraints in \eqref{eq:degree}. When $\gamma(C_h) \neq \emptyset$, the constraint $\sum_{e\in \delta(C_h)} x_e + 2\sum_{e\in \gamma(C_h)} x_e \geq 2$ is dominated by $\sum_{e\in \delta(C_h)} x_e \geq 2$. When $\gamma(C_h) = \emptyset$ (\emph{i.e.,} $|C_h| = 1$), the constraint $\sum_{e\in \delta(C_h)} x_e = 2$ is satisfied by any feasible solution in $P$ and hence in this case, it is an improper face. Therefore, $\sum_{i\in C_h} y_{i} \geq 1$ does not define a facet for any $h\in \{1,\dots,m\}$. \qed
\end{enumerate}
\end{proof}
In the next proposition, we prove that the sub-tour elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec} define facets of $P$. To do so, we apply the lifting procedure in Proposition \ref{prop:lifting} to the MDTSP sub-tour elimination constraints $$x(\delta(S)) \geq 2 \text{ for all } S\subseteq T.$$ In the process, we derive alternate versions of the sub-tour elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec} which we will refer to as the generalized sub-tour elimination constraints (GSEC). To begin with, we observe that sub-tour elimination constraints given above define facets of the MDTSP poytope $Q$ when $|T|\geq 3$ (see \cite{Benavent2013}).
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:gsec}
Let $S\subseteq T$ and $|T|\geq 3$. Then the following \emph{Generalized Sub-tour Elimination Constraint} (GSEC) is valid and facet-defining for $P$: $$x(\delta(S)) + \bar{\beta}_i (1-y_i) \geq 2 \text{ for } i\in S,$$ where $$\bar{\beta}_i = \begin{cases} 2 & \text{ if } \mu(S)=0, \\ 0 & \text{ otherwise};\end{cases}$$ $\mu(S)$ is defined as $\mu(S) = |\{h:C_h \subseteq S\}|$.
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof}
We first observe that the inequality $x(\delta(S)) \geq 2$ with $S\subseteq T$ and $|T|\geq 3$ defines a facet for the MDTSP polytope. We lift this inequality using the lifting procedure in Proposition \ref{prop:lifting}. Let $\{v_1,\dots,v_n\}$ be any lifting sequence of the set of targets such that $v_n = i$. The lifting coefficients $\bar{\beta}_{v_t}$ are computed iteratively for $t=1,\dots,n$. For $t=1,\dots,n-1$, it is trivial to see that $\bar{\beta}_{v_t} = 0$. Hence, $x(\delta(S)) \geq 2$ defines a facet of $P(\{v_n\})$. As to $\bar{\beta}_{v_n}$, we compute its value by performing the lifting procedure again and obtain a facet of $P$. We have $$\bar{\beta}_{v_n} = 2 - \min \left\{x(\delta(S)): (\mathbf{x,y}) \in P, \text{ and } y_{v_n} = 0\right\}.$$ Solving for $\bar{\beta}_{v_n}$ using the above equation, we obtain $\bar{\beta}_{v_n} = 2$ if a feasible GMDTSP solution visiting no target in $S$ exists (\emph{i.e.}, no $C_h \subseteq S$ exists) and $\bar{\beta}_{v_n} = 0$ otherwise. \qed
\end{proof}
In summary, the Proposition \ref{prop:gsec} results in the following facet-defining inequalities of $P$: suppose $S\subseteq T$ with $|T|\geq 3$. Then,
\begin{flalign}
x(\delta(S)) &\geq 2 \text{ for } \mu(S)\neq 0 \text{ and } \label{eq:sec1} \\
x(\delta(S)) &\geq 2y_i \text{ for } \mu(S) = 0,\, i\in S. \label{eq:sec2}
\end{flalign}
Note that the inequality $x(\delta(S)) \geq 2y_i$ is valid for any $S \subseteq T$. It is facet-defining for $P$ only when $\mu(S) \neq 0$. When $\mu(S)=0$ it does not define a facet of $P$ as it is dominated by Eq. \eqref{eq:sec1}. Using the degree constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:degree}, the above GSECs can rewritten as
\begin{flalign}
x(\gamma(S)) &\leq \sum_{v\in S} y_v - 1 \text{ for } \mu(S)\neq 0 \text{ and } \label{eq:sec1a} \\
x(\gamma(S)) &\leq \sum_{v\in S\setminus\{i\}} y_v \text{ for } \mu(S) = 0,\, i\in S. \label{eq:sec2a}
\end{flalign}
In the forthcoming two propositions, we prove that the path elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:4path} and \eqref{eq:path} are facet-defining of $P$ using Proposition \ref{prop:lifting}. The corresponding path elimination constraints for the MDTSP polytope $Q$ are as follows: suppose that $j,k \in T$, $D'\subset D$ with $D'\neq \emptyset$, then
\begin{flalign}
x(D':\{j\})+3x_{jk}+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')&\leq 4 \label{eq:4pathmdtsp} \\
x(D':\{j\})+2x(\gamma(S\cup\{j,k\}))+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')&\leq 2|S|+3 \text{ for } S\subseteq T\setminus\{j,k\},S\neq\emptyset \label{eq:pathmdtsp}
\end{flalign}
We remark that Eq. \eqref{eq:4pathmdtsp} and \eqref{eq:pathmdtsp} define facets for the MDTSP polytope $Q$ (see \cite{Benavent2013}).
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:4path}
Suppose $j,k\in T$ and $D' \subset D$ with $D'\neq \emptyset$. Then the following path elimination constraint is valid and facet-defining for $P$: $$x(D':\{j\})+3x_{jk}+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D') + \bar{\beta}_j (1-y_j) + \bar{\beta}_k (1-y_k) \leq 4$$ where $\bar{\beta}_j = \bar{\beta}_k = 2$.
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof}
Let $\{v_1,\dots,v_n\}$ be any lifting sequence of the set of targets such that $v_{n-1} = j$ and $v_n = k$. The lifting coefficients are iteratively computed for $t=1,2,\dots,n$. Coefficients $\bar{\beta}_v$ for $v\in\{v_1,\dots,v_{n-2}\}$ are easily computed (tight GMDTSP solution is depicted in Fig. \ref{fig:4path}(a), showing that the value of $\bar{\beta}_v$ cannot be increased without producing a violated inequality).
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig1.pdf}
\end{minipage}\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig2.pdf}
\end{minipage}
\caption{Tight feasible solutions for proof of Proposition \ref{prop:4path}. The vertices $d_1$ and $d_2$ are depots and $j,k,$ and $v$ are targets.} \label{fig:4path}
\end{figure}
Similarly for $t=n-1$ \emph{i.e.}, $v_t = j$, the correctness of the coefficient $\bar{\beta}_j = 2$ can be checked with the help of Fig. \ref{fig:4path}(b). Analogously, we obtain $\bar{\beta}_{k} = 2$. \qed
\end{proof}
The inequality in Proposition \ref{prop:4path} can be rewritten as $x(D':\{j\})+3x_{jk}+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')\leq2(y_{j}+y_{k})$ which is the path elimination constraint in Eq. \eqref{eq:4path}. We have proved that this inequality is valid and defines a facet of $P$.
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig3.pdf}
\end{minipage}\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig4.pdf}
\end{minipage} \\
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig5.pdf}
\end{minipage}\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig6.pdf}
\end{minipage}\\
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig7.pdf}
\end{minipage}\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig8.pdf}
\end{minipage}
\caption{Tight feasible solutions for proof of Proposition \ref{prop:path}.}
\label{fig:path}
\end{figure}
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:path}
Let $j,k\in T$, $D' \subset D$, $S\subseteq T\setminus \{j,k\}$ and $i\in S$ such that $D'\neq \emptyset$ and $S\neq \emptyset$. Also let $\bar S = S\cup \{j,k\}$. Then the following \emph{Generalized Path Elimination Constraint} (PSEC) is valid and facet-defining for $P$: $$x(D':\{j\})+2x(\gamma(\bar S))+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D') + \sum_{v\in T} \bar{\beta}_v (1-y_v) \leq 2|S|+3$$ where $$\bar{\beta}_v = \begin{cases} 0 & \text{ if } v \in T\setminus{\bar S}, \\ 2 & \text{ if } v \in \bar S\setminus\{i\}, \\ 1 & \text{ if } v = i \text{ and } \mu(S) = 0, \\ 2 & \text{ if } v = i \text{ and } \mu(S) \neq 0;\end{cases} $$ $\mu(S)$ is defined as $\mu(S) = |\{h:C_h \subseteq S\}|$.
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof}
Consider any lifting sequence of the the set of targets $\{v_1,\dots,v_n\}$ such that each target in the set $S\setminus \{i\}$ follows all the targets in the set $|T\setminus \bar S|$ and $v_{n-2}=j$, $v_{n-1}=k$ and $v_n = i$. The coefficients $\bar\beta_v = 0$ for $v\in T\setminus \bar S$ and $\bar\beta_v = 2$ for $v\in S\setminus \{i\}$ are trivial to compute (tight GMDTSP solution is depicted in Fig. \ref{fig:path}(a) and \ref{fig:path}(b) respectively, showing that the value of $\bar{\beta}_v$ cannot be increased without producing a violated inequality). The correctness of coefficients $\bar \beta_j=2$ and $\bar \beta_k=2$ can be checked with the help of Fig. \ref{fig:path}(c) and \ref{fig:path}(d), respectively.
It remains to compute the value of coefficient $\bar\beta_i$. For computing $\bar\beta_i$, we have to take into account for the possibility of a GMDTSP solution not visiting any target in the set $S$. This can happen when $\mu(S) = 0$. In this case, we obtain $\bar \beta_i = 1$; see Fig. \ref{fig:path}(e). Likewise, when $\mu(S) \neq 0$, any GMDTSP solution has to have at least two edges in $\delta(S)$. This leads to $\bar \beta_i = 2$; tight GMDTSP solution is shown in Fig. \ref{fig:path}(f). \qed
\end{proof}
In summary, the Proposition \ref{prop:path} results in the following facet-defining inequalities of $P$: suppose $j,k\in T$, $D' \subset D$, $S\subseteq T\setminus \{j,k\}$, $\bar S = S\cup \{j,k\}$ and $i\in S$ such that $D'\neq \emptyset$ and $S\neq \emptyset$, then
\begin{flalign}
x(D':\{j\})+2x(\gamma(\bar S))+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')&\leq \sum_{v\in \bar S}2y_v - y_i \text{ for } \mu(S)= 0 \text{ and } \label{eq:pec1} \\
x(D':\{j\})+2x(\gamma(\bar S))+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')&\leq \sum_{v\in \bar S}2y_v - 1 \text{ for } \mu(S)\neq 0. \label{eq:pec2}
\end{flalign}
We note that the above PSECs can be rewritten in cut-set form as
\begin{flalign}
x(\delta(\bar S)) &\geq x(D':\{j\})+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')+ y_i \text{ for } \mu(S)= 0 \text{ and } \label{eq:pec1a} \\
x(\delta(\bar S)) &\geq x(D':\{j\})+x(\{k\}:D\setminus D')+ 1 \text{ for } \mu(S)\neq 0. \label{eq:pec2a}
\end{flalign}
As we will see in the forthcoming section, the GPECs in the above form are more amicable for developing separation algorithms. Next, we examine the comb inequalities that are valid and facet-defining for the MDTSP polytope. These inequalities were initially introduced for the TSP in \cite{Chvatal1973}. These inequalities were extended and proved to be facet-defining for the MDTSP polytope in \cite{Benavent2013}. We define a comb inequality using a comb, which is a family $C = (H,\mathcal T_1, \mathcal T_2,\dots, \mathcal T_t)$ of $t+1$ subsets of the targets; $t$ is an odd number and $t\geq 3$. The subset $H$ is called the handle and the subsets $\mathcal T_1,\dots,\mathcal T_t$ are called teeth. The handle and teeth satisfy the following conditions:
\begin{enumerate}[i.]
\item $H\cap \mathcal T_i \neq \emptyset \quad \forall i=1,\dots,t,$
\item $\mathcal T_i\setminus H \neq \emptyset \quad \forall i=1,\dots,t,$
\item $\mathcal T_i\cap \mathcal T_j = \emptyset \quad 1\leq i\leq j \leq t$.
\end{enumerate}
The conditions i. and ii. indicate that every tooth $T_i$ intersects the handle $H$ and the condition iii. indicates that no two teeth intersect. We define the size of $C$ as $\sigma(C):= |H| + \sum_{i=1}^t|\mathcal T_i| - \frac{3t+1}{2}$. Then the comb inequality associated with $C$ is given by
\begin{flalign}
x(\gamma(H)) + \sum_{i=1}^t x(\gamma(\mathcal T_i)) &\leq \sigma(C) \label{eq:comba}
\end{flalign}
The inequality in Eq. \ref{eq:comba} is valid and facet-defining for the MDTSP (see \cite{Benavent2013}). A special case of the comb inequality, called \emph{2-matching} inequality is obtained when $|\mathcal T_i| = 2$ for $i=1,\dots,t$. In the case of a 2-matching inequality, the size of the comb is $\sigma(C) = |H| + \frac{t+1}{2}$. We apply the lifting procedure in Proposition \ref{prop:lifting} to the inequality in \eqref{eq:comba} and obtain facet-defining inequality for the GMDTSP. The following proposition is adapted from \cite{Fischetti1995}; the proof of the proposition is omitted as it is similar to the proof of the corresponding theorem for GTSP in \cite{Fischetti1995}.
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:comb}
Suppose $\mu(S) = |\{h:C_h \subseteq S\}|$ for $S\subseteq T$ and let $C = (H,\mathcal T_1,\dots,\mathcal T_t)$ be a comb. For $i=1,\dots,t$, let $a_i$ be any target in $\mathcal T_i\cap H$ if $\mu(\mathcal T_i\cap H)=0$; $a_i=0$ (a dummy value) otherwise; and let $b_i$ be any target in $\mathcal T_i\setminus H$ if $\mu(\mathcal T_i\setminus H) = 0$; $b_i=0$ otherwise. Then the following comb inequality is valid and facet-defining for the GMDTSP polytope $P$:
\begin{flalign}
x(\gamma(H)) + \sum_{i=1}^t x(\gamma(\mathcal T_i)) + \sum_{v\in T} \bar{\beta}_v (1-y_v) &\leq \sigma(C), \label{eq:combb}
\end{flalign}
where $\bar \beta_v = 0$ for all $v\in T\setminus (H\cup \mathcal T_1 \cup \dots\cup \mathcal T_t)$, $\bar \beta_v = 1$ for all $v\in H\setminus (\mathcal T_1 \cup \dots\cup \mathcal T_t)$ and for $i=1,\dots,t$:
\begin{flalign*}
\bar \beta_v &= 2 \quad \text{for $v\in \mathcal T_i \cap H, v\neq a_i$;} \\
\bar \beta_{a_i} &= 1 \quad \text{if $a_i \neq 0$;} \\
\bar \beta_v &= 1 \quad \text{for $v\in \mathcal T_i \setminus H, v\neq b_i$;} \\
\bar \beta_{b_i} &= 0 \quad \text{if $b_i \neq 0$}.
\end{flalign*}
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof}
See \cite{Fischetti1995}. \qed
\end{proof}
\subsection{Additional valid inequalities specific to multiple depot problems \label{subsec:Tcomb}} In this section, we will examine a special type of comb inequality called the T-comb inequalities. The T-comb inequalities were introduced in \cite{Benavent2013} and proved to be valid and facet-defining for the MDTSP polytope. These inequalities are specific to problems involving multiple depots and hence, are important for the GMDTSP. A T-comb inequality $C$ is defined by an handle $H$ and teeth $\mathcal T_1, \dots, \mathcal T_t$ such that the following conditions are satisfied:
\begin{enumerate}[i.]
\item $H\cap \mathcal T_i \neq \emptyset \quad \forall i=1,\dots,t,$
\item $\mathcal T_i\setminus H \neq \emptyset \quad \forall i=1,\dots,t,$
\item $\mathcal T_i\cap \mathcal T_j = \emptyset \quad 1\leq i\leq j \leq t,$
\item $\mathcal T_i \cap D \neq \emptyset \quad \forall i=1,\dots,t,$
\item $H \subset T,$
\item $H\setminus \cup_{i=1}^t \mathcal T_i \neq \emptyset,$
\item $D\setminus \cup_{i=1}^t \mathcal T_i \neq \emptyset$.
\end{enumerate}
The difference between the T-comb inequalities and the comb inequalities defined in Eq. \eqref{eq:comba} is that, the number of teeth are allowed to be even ($t\geq 1$) and each teeth must contain a depot. The comb size in this case is given by $\sigma(C)= |H| + \sum_{i=1}^t|\mathcal T_i| - (t+1)$. In this paper, we will only examine the T-comb inequalities with $|\mathcal T_i| = 2$ for every $i\in\{1,\dots,t\}$; the size of the comb in this case reduces to $\sigma(C) = |H| + t - 1$ and the corresponding T-comb inequality is given by
\begin{flalign}
x(\gamma(H)) + \sum_{i=1}^t x(\gamma(\mathcal T_i)) &\leq |H| + t - 1, \label{eq:Tcomba}
\end{flalign}
The inequality in Eq. \eqref{eq:Tcomba} is valid and facet-defining for the MDTSP when $t\geq 2$. Again, we apply the lifting procedure in Proposition \ref{prop:lifting} to the inequality in \eqref{eq:Tcomba} and obtain facet-defining inequality for the GMDTSP.
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:Tcomb}
Let $C = (H,\mathcal T_1,\dots,\mathcal T_t)$ be a T-comb with $|\mathcal T_i| = 2$ for every $i\in\{1,\dots,t\}$ and $t\geq 2$. Also suppose $|H\setminus \cup_i \mathcal T_i| > 1$ $($the proposition can be trivially extended to the case where $|H\setminus \cup_i \mathcal T_i| = 1)$. Let $\bar a$ be any target in $H\setminus \cup_i \mathcal T_i$. Then the following T-comb inequality is valid and facet-defining for the GMDTSP polytope $P$:
\begin{flalign}
x(\gamma(H)) + \sum_{i=1}^t x(\gamma(\mathcal T_i)) + \sum_{v\in T} \bar{\beta}_v (1-y_v) &\leq |H| + t - 1, \label{eq:Tcombb}
\end{flalign}
where $\bar \beta_v = 0$ for all $v\in T\setminus (H\cup \mathcal T_1 \cup \dots\cup \mathcal T_t)$, $\bar \beta_v = 1$ for all $v\in H\setminus (\mathcal T_1 \cup \dots\cup \mathcal T_t \cup \{\bar a\})$, $\bar \beta_{\bar a} = 0$, and $\bar \beta_v = 2$ for all $v\in \mathcal T_i \cap H,i=1,\dots,t$.
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof}
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig9.pdf}
\end{minipage}\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig10.pdf}
\end{minipage} \\
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig11.pdf}
\end{minipage}\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.5\textwidth} \centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{fig12.pdf}
\end{minipage}
\caption{Tight feasible solutions for proof of Proposition \ref{prop:Tcomb}.}
\label{fig:Tcomb}
\end{figure}
Consider any lifting sequence for the set of targets $T$ in the following order: (i) targets in the set $T\setminus (H\cup \mathcal T_1 \cup \dots\cup \mathcal T_t)$, (ii) $v\in H\setminus (\mathcal T_1 \cup \dots\cup \mathcal T_t \cup \{\bar a\})$, (iii) $\bar a$, and (iv) $v\in \mathcal T_i \cap H, i=1,\dots,t$. The lifting coefficients $\bar\beta_v = 0$ and $\bar\beta_v = 1$ for the sets in (i) and (ii) respectively, are trivial to compute (tight feasible GMDTSP solutions are depicted in Fig. \ref{fig:Tcomb}(a) and \ref{fig:Tcomb}(b), respectively). Similarly, tight feasible GMDTSP solutions for the cases where $\bar\beta_{\bar a} = 0$ and $\bar\beta_v = 2$ (cases (iii) and (iv)) are shown in Fig. \ref{fig:Tcomb}(c) and \ref{fig:Tcomb}(d), respectively. \qed
\end{proof}
In the above proposition, for the case when $|H\setminus \cup_i \mathcal T_i| = 1$, the facet-defining inequality is given by
\begin{flalign}
x(\gamma(H)) + \sum_{i=1}^t x(\gamma(\mathcal T_i)) &\leq \sum_{i=1}^t \sum_{v\in H\cap \mathcal T_i} 2y_v. \label{eq:Tcombc}
\end{flalign}
\section{Separation algorithms\label{sec:separation}}
In this section, we discuss the algorithms that are used to find violated families of all the valid inequalities introduced in Sec. \ref{sec:polyhedral}. We denote by $G^* = (V^*,E^*)$ the \emph{support graph} associated with a given fractional solution $(\mathbf{x}^*, \mathbf{y}^*) \in \mathbb{R}^{|E|\cup|T|}$ \emph{i.e.,} $G^*$ is a capacitated undirected graph with vertex set $V^* := \{i\in T: y^*_i >0\}\cup D$ and $E^*:=\{e\in E:x_e^* > 0\}$ with edge capacities $x^*_e$ for each edge $e\in E^*$.
\subsection{Separation of generalized sub-tour elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec1} and Eq. \eqref{eq:sec2}:} \label{subsec:sec}
We first develop a separation algorithm for constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec2}: $x(\delta(S)) \geq 2y_i$ for $\mu(S) = 0, i\in S$ and $S\subseteq T$. Given a fractional solution $(\mathbf{x}^*, \mathbf{y}^*)$, the most violated constraint of the form \eqref{eq:sec2} can be obtained by computing a minimum capacity cut $(S,V^*\setminus S)$ with $i\in S$ and $D\subseteq V^*\setminus S$ on the graph $G^*$. The minimum capacity cut can be obtained by computing a maximum flow from $i$ to $t$, where $t$ is an additional vertex connected with each depot in the set $D$ through an edge having very large capacity. The algorithm is repeated for every target $i \in T \cap V^*$ and the target set $S$ obtained during each run of the algorithm defines a violated inequality if the capacity of the cut is strictly less than $2y^*_i$. This procedure can be implemented in $O(|T|^4)$ time.
Now we consider the constraint in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec1}: $x(\delta(S)) \geq 2$ for $\mu(S) \neq 0$ and $S\subseteq T$. Given a fractional solution $(\mathbf{x}^*, \mathbf{y}^*)$, the most violated inequality \eqref{eq:sec1} in this case is obtained by computing a minimum capacity cut $(S,V^*\setminus S)$ with a cluster $C_h \subseteq S$ and $D\subseteq V^*\setminus S$ on the graph $G^*$. This is in turn achieved by computing a maximum $s-t$ flow on $G^*$, where $s$ and $t$ are additional vertices connected with each $j\in C_h$ and each $d \in D$ respectively through an edge having very large capacity. The algorithm is repeated for every cluster $C_h$ and the set $S$ obtained on each run of the algorithm defines a violated inequality if the capacity of the cut is strictly less than $2$. The time complexity of this procedure is $O(m|T|^3)$, where $m$ is the number of clusters.
We remark that the violated inequality of the form \eqref{eq:sec2} using the above algorithm, is not necessarily facet-defining as the set $S$ computed using the algorithm might have $\mu(S) \neq 0$. When this happens, we reject the inequality in favour of its dominating and facet-defining inequality in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec1}.
\subsection{Separation of path elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:4path}, \eqref{eq:pec1}, and \eqref{eq:pec2}:} \label{subsec:pec}
We first discuss the procedure to separate violated constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:4path}. Consider every pair of targets $j,k \in V^*\cap T$. We rewrite the constraint in \eqref{eq:4path} as $x(D':\{j\}) + x(\{k\}:D\setminus D') \leq 2(y_k + y_j)-3x_{jk}$. Given $j,k$ and a fractional solution $(\mathbf{x}^*, \mathbf{y}^*)$, the RHS of the above inequality is a constant and is equal to $2(y_k^* + y_j^*) - 3x_{jk}^*$. We observe that the LHS of the inequality is maximized when $D'=\{d\in D:x^*_{jd} \geq x^*_{kd}\}$. Furthermore, when $D'=\emptyset$ or $D' = D$, no path constraint in Eq. \eqref{eq:4path} is violated for the given pair of vertices. With $D' = \{d\in D: x^*_{jd} \geq x^*_{kd}\}$, if $x^*(D':\{j\}) + x^*(\{k\}:D\setminus D')$ is strictly greater than $2(y_k^* + y_j^*) - 3x_{jk}^*$, the path constraint in Eq. \eqref{eq:4path} is violated for the pair of vertices $j,k$ and the subset of depots $D'$. This procedure can be implemented in $O(|T|^2)$.
For constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:pec1} and \eqref{eq:pec2}, we present two separation algorithms that are very similar to the algorithms presented in Sec. \ref{subsec:sec}. We will use the equivalent constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:pec1a} and \eqref{eq:pec2a} to develop the algorithms. We first consider the path elimination constraint in Eq. \eqref{eq:pec2a}. Given $j,k$ and a fractional solution $(\mathbf{x}^*, \mathbf{y}^*)$, we first compute $D'$ to maximize $x^*(D':\{j\}) + x^*(\{k\}:D\setminus D') := \mathcal L$. Now, the most violated constraint of the form \eqref{eq:pec2a} can be obtained by computing a minimum capacity cut $(\bar S, V^*\setminus \bar S)$ with $j,k\in \bar S$, a cluster $C_h \subseteq \bar S\setminus\{j,k\}$ and $D\subseteq V^*\setminus \bar S$. This algorithm is repeated for every target $j,k\in T$ and cluster $C_h$ such that $j,k \notin C_h$ and the target set $S = \bar S\setminus \{j,k\}$ obtained during each run of the algorithm defines a violated inequality if the capacity of the cut is strictly less than $\mathcal L + 1$. The time complexity of this algorithm is $O(m|T|^4)$. Similarly, the most violated constraint of the form \eqref{eq:pec1a} can be obtained by computing a minimum capacity cut $(\bar S, V^*\setminus \bar S)$, with $i,j,k \in \bar S$ and $D\subseteq V^*\setminus \bar S$ on the graph $G^*$. This algorithm is repeated for very triplet of targets in $V^*$ and the set $S = \bar S\setminus \{j,k\}$ defines a violated inequality if the capacity of the cut is strictly less than $\mathcal L+y_i^*$. The time complexity of the algorithm is $O(|T|^5)$.
Similar to the separation of the sub-tour elimination constraints, we remark that the violated inequality of the form \eqref{eq:pec1a}, computed using the above algorithm is not necessarily facet-defining as the set $S$ might have $\mu(S) \neq 0$. When this happens, we reject the inequality in favour of its dominating and facet-defining inequality in Eq. \eqref{eq:pec2a}.
\subsection{Separation of comb inequalities in Eq. \eqref{eq:combb}} \label{subsec:comb}
For the comb-inequalities in Eq. \eqref{eq:combb}, we use the separation procedures discussed in \cite{Fischetti1997}. We first consider the special case of the comb inequalities with $|\mathcal T_i|=2$ for $i=1,\dots,t$ \emph{i.e.,} the 2-matching inequalities. Using a construction similar to the one proposed in \cite{Padberg1982} for the $b$-matching problem, the separation problem for the 2-matching inequalities can be transformed into a minimum capacity off cut problem; hence this separation problem is exactly solvable in polynomial time. But this procedure is computationally intensive, and so we use the following heuristic proposed by \cite{Grotschel1985}. Given a fractional solution $(\mathbf{x}^*, \mathbf{y}^*)$, the heuristic considers a graph $\bar G = (\bar V, \bar E)$ where $\bar V = V^* \cap T$ and $\bar E = \{e: 0<x_e^*<1\}$. Then, we consider each connected component $H$ of $\bar G$ as a handle of a possibly violated 2-matching inequality whose two-vertex teeth correspond to edges $e \in \delta(H)$ with $x_e^* = 1$. We reject the inequality if the number of teeth is even. The time complexity of this algorithm is $O(|\bar V| + |\bar E|)$. As for the comb inequalities, we apply the same procedure after shrinking each cluster into a single supernode.
\subsection{Separation of T-comb inequalities in Eq. \eqref{eq:Tcombb} and \eqref{eq:Tcombc}} \label{subsec:Tcomb}
We present a separation heuristic similar to the one used in \cite{Benavent2013} to identify violated T-comb inequalities of the form Eq. \eqref{eq:Tcombb} and \eqref{eq:Tcombc}. We first build a set of teeth, each containing a distinct depot according to the following procedure: a tooth $\mathcal T_i$ is built by starting with a set containing a depot $d\in D$; a target $v\in T$ is added to $\mathcal T_i$ such that $x(\delta(\mathcal T_i))$ is a minimum. Then, for every subset of this set of teeth such that: (i) they are pairwise disjoint, (ii) belong to the same connected component of the support graph $G^* = (V^*,E^*)$, and (iii) do not together contain all the targets of that connected component, an appropriate handle $H$ is built as follows: assume $H$ is the set of all the targets in the connected component and remove the targets in $H\setminus (\mathcal T_i\cup \dots \cup \mathcal T_t)$ sequentially. Every time a target is removed, the T-comb inequality of the appropriate form is checked for violation. The time complexity of this algorithm is $O(|T|)$.
\section{Branch-and-cut algorithm \label{sec:bandc}}
In this section, we describe important implementation details of the branch-and-cut algorithm for the GMDTSP. The algorithm is implemented within a CPLEX 12.4 framework using the CPLEX callback functions \cite{cplex124}. The callback functions in CPLEX enable the user to completely customize the branch-and-cut algorithm embedded into CPLEX, including the choice of node to explore in the enumeration tree, the choice of branching variable, the separation and the addition of user-defined cutting planes and the application of heuristic methods.
The lower bound at the root node of the enumeration tree is computed by solving the LP relaxation of the formulation in Sec. \ref{sec:Formulation} that is further strengthened using the cutting planes described in Sec. \ref{sec:polyhedral}. The initial linear program consisted of all constraints in \eqref{eq:obj}-\eqref{eq:yinteger}, except \eqref{eq:sec}, \eqref{eq:4path} and \eqref{eq:path}. For a given LP solution, we identify violated inequalities using the separation procedures detailed in Sec. \ref{sec:separation} in the following order: (i) sub-tour elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec1}, (ii) sub-tour elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:sec2} (iii) path elimination constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:4path}, \eqref{eq:pec1} and, \eqref{eq:pec2}, (iv) generalized comb constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:combb}, and (v) T-comb constraints in Eq. \eqref{eq:Tcombb} and \eqref{eq:Tcombc}. This order of adding the constraints to the formulation was chosen after performing extensive computational experiments. Furthermore, we disabled the separation of all the cuts embedded into the CPLEX framework because enabling these cuts increased the average computation time for the instances. Once the new cuts generated using these separation procedures were added to the linear program, the tighter linear program was resolved. This procedure was iterated until either of the following conditions was satisfied: (i) no violated constraints could be generated by the separation procedures, (ii) the current lower bound of the enumeration tree was greater or equal to the current upper bound. If no constraints are generated in the separation phase, we create subproblems by branching on a fractional variable. First, we select a fractional $y_{i}$ variable, based on the \emph{strong branching} rule (\cite{Achterberg2005}). If all these variables are integers, then we select a fractional $x_{e}$ variable using the same rule. As for the node-selection rule, we used the best-first policy for all our computations,\emph{i.e.}, select the subproblem with the lowest objective value.
\subsection{Preprocessing \label{subsec:preprocessing}}
In this section, we detail a preprocessing algorithm that enables the reduction of size of the GMDTSP instances whose edge costs satisfy the triangle inequality \emph{i.e.,} for distinct $i,j,k \in T$, $c_{ij} + c_{jk} \geq c_{ik}$. A similar algorithm is presented in \cite{Laporte1987, Bektas2011} for the asymmetric generalized traveling salesman problem and generalized vehicle routing problem respectively. In a GMDTSP instance where the edge costs satisfy the triangle inequality, the optimal solution would visit exactly one target in each cluster. We utilize this structure of the optimal solution and reduce the size of a given GMDTSP instance, if possible. To that end, we define a target $i\in T$ to be \emph{dominated} if there exits a target $j \in C_{h(i)}$, $j\neq i$ such that
\begin{enumerate}
\item $c_{pi} + c_{iq} \geq c_{pj} + c_{jq}$ for any $p,q \in T \setminus C_{h(i)}$,
\item $c_{di} \geq c_{dj}$ for all $d \in D$, and
\item $c_{di} + c_{ip} \geq c_{dj} + c_{jp}$ for any $d \in D, p\in T\setminus C_{h(i)}$.
\end{enumerate}
\begin{proposition} \label{prop:pp}
If a dominated target is removed from a GMDTSP instance satisfying triangle inequality, then the optimal cost to the instance does not change.
\end{proposition}
\begin{proof}
Let $i\in T$ be a dominated vertex. If the target $i$ is not visited in the optimal solution, then its removal does not change the optimal cost. So, assume that $i\in T$ is visited by the optimal solution. Since the edge costs of the instance satisfy the triangle inequality, exactly one target in each cluster is visited by the optimal solution. We now claim that it is possible to exchange the target $i$ with a target $j \in C_{h(i)}$ without increasing the cost of the optimal solution. This follows from the definition of a dominated target. \qed
\end{proof}
The preprocessing checks if a target is dominated and removes the target if it is found so. Then the other targets are checked for dominance relative to the reduced instance. The time complexity of the algorithm is $O(|T|^5)$.
\subsection{LP rounding heuristic \label{subsec:heuristic}}
We discuss an \emph{LP-rounding} heuristic that aides to generate feasible solutions at the root node and to speed up the convergence of the branch-and-cut algorithm. The heuristic constructs a feasible GMDTSP solution from a given fractional LP solution. It is used only at the root node of the enumeration tree. The heuristic is based on a transformation method in \cite{Oberlin2009}. We are given $\mathbf{y}^*$, the vector of fractional $y_i$ values (denoted by $y_i^f$) for each target $i$. The algorithm proceeds as follows: for each cluster $C_k$ and every target $i\in C_k$, the heuristic sets the value of $y_i$ to $0$ or $1$ according to the condition $y_i^f \geq 0.5$ or $y_i^f < 0.5$ respectively. If every target $i \in C_k$ has $y_i^f < 0.5$, then we set the value of $y_j =1$ where $j = \operatorname{argmax}\{y_i^f:i\in C_k\}$. Once we have assigned the $y_i$ value for each target $i$, we define the set $\Pi := \{i\in T: y_i = 1\}$. We then solve a multiple depot traveling salesman problem (MDTSP) on the set of vertices $\Pi \cup D$. A heuristic based on the transformation method in \cite{Oberlin2009} and LKH heuristic (see \cite{Helsgaun2000}) is used to solve the MDTSP.
\section{Computational results \label{sec:results}}
In this section, we discuss the computational results of the branch-and-cut algorithm. The algorithm was implemented in C++ (gcc version 4.6.3), using the elements of Standard Template Library (STL) in the CPLEX 12.4 framework. As mentioned in Sec. \ref{sec:bandc}, the internal CPLEX cut generation was disabled, and CPLEX was used only to mange the enumeration tree. All the simulations were performed on a Dell Precision T5500 workstation (Inter Xeon E5360 processor @2.53 GHz, 12 GB RAM). The computation times reported are expressed in seconds, and we imposed a time limit of 7200 seconds for each run of the algorithm. The performance of the algorithm was tested on a total of 116 instances, all of which were generated using the generalized traveling salesman problem library (see \cite{Fischetti1997, Gutin2010}).
\subsection{Problem instances \label{subsec:instance}}
All the computational experiments were conducted on a class of 116 test instances generated from 29 GTSP instances. The GTSP instances are taken directly from the GTSP Instances Library (see \cite{Gutin2010}). The instances are available at \url{http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~dxk/gtsp.html}. For each of the 29 instances, GMDTSP instances with $|D| \in \{2,3,4,5\}$ were generated by assuming the first $|D|$ targets in a GTSP instance to be the set of depots; these depots were then removed from the target clusters. The number of targets in the instances varied from 14 to 105, and the maximum number of target clusters was 21. Hence we had 4 GMDTSP instances for each of the 29 GTSP instances totalling to 116 test instances. We also note that for 64/116 instances, the edge costs do not satisfy the triangle inequality and for the remaining 52 instances, the edge costs satisfy the triangle inequality. The name of the generated instances are the same but for a small modification to spell out the number of depots in the instances. The naming conforms to the format \texttt{GTSPinstancename-D}, where \texttt{GTSPinstancename} corresponds to the GTSP instance name from the library (the first and the last integer in the name corresponds to the number of clusters and the number of targets in the GTSP instance respectively) and \texttt{D} corresponds the number of depots in the instance.
The results are tabulated in tables \ref{tab:results} and \ref{tab:times}. The following nomenclature is used in the table \ref{tab:results}
\noindent \textbf{name}: problem instance name (format: \texttt{GTSPinstancename-D});\\
\textbf{opt}: optimal objective value;\\
\textbf{LB}: objective value of the LP relaxation computed at the root node of the enumeration tree;\\
\textbf{\%LB}: percentage LB/opt;\\
\textbf{UB}: cost of the best feasible solution generated by the LP-rounding heuristic generated at the root node of the enumeration tree;\\
\textbf{\%UB}: percentage UB/opt;\\
\textbf{sec1}: total number of constraints \eqref{eq:sec1} generated;\\
\textbf{sec2}: total number of constraints \eqref{eq:sec2} generated;\\
\textbf{4pec}: total number of constraints \eqref{eq:4path} generated;\\
\textbf{pec}: total number of constraints \eqref{eq:pec1} and \eqref{eq:pec2} generated;\\
\textbf{comb}: total number of constraints \eqref{eq:combb}, \eqref{eq:Tcombb}, and \eqref{eq:Tcombc} generated;\\
\textbf{nodes}: total number of nodes examined in the enumeration tree.\\
The table \ref{tab:times} gives the computational time for each separation routine and the overall the branch-and-cut algorithm. The nomenclature used in table \ref{tab:times} are as follows:
\noindent \textbf{name}: problem instance name (format: \texttt{GTSPinstancename-D});\\
\textbf{total-t}: CPU time, in seconds, for the overall execution of the branch-and-cut algorithm;\\
\textbf{sep-t}: overall CPU time, in seconds, spent for separation;\\
\textbf{sec-t}: CPU time, in seconds, spent for the separation of constraints \eqref{eq:sec1} and \eqref{eq:sec2};\\
\textbf{4pec-t}: CPU time, in seconds, spent for the separation of constraints \eqref{eq:4path};\\
\textbf{pec-t}: CPU time, in seconds, spent for the separation of constraints \eqref{eq:pec1} and \eqref{eq:pec2};\\
\textbf{comb-t}: CPU time, in seconds, spent for the separation of constraints \eqref{eq:combb}, \eqref{eq:Tcombb}, and \eqref{eq:Tcombc};\\
\textbf{\%pec}: percentage of separation time spent for the separation of path elimination constraints \eqref{eq:pec1} and \eqref{eq:pec2}. \\
{\scriptsize
\begin{longtable}{lrrrrrR{0.7cm}R{0.7cm}R{0.7cm}R{0.8cm}R{0.7cm}r}
\caption{Branch-and-cut statistics} \label{tab:results} \\
\toprule
name & opt & LB & \%LB & UB & \%UB & sec1 & sec2 & 4pec & pec & comb & nodes\tabularnewline \midrule
\endfirsthead
\multicolumn{12}{l}
{{\tablename\ \thetable{} -- continued from previous page}} \\
\toprule
name & opt & LB & \%LB & UB & \%UB & sec1 & sec2 & 4pec & pec & comb & nodes\tabularnewline \midrule
\endhead
\hline
\endfoot
\hline \noalign{\vskip1mm}
\multicolumn{12}{l}{$^\dagger$optimality was not verified within a time-limit of 7200 seconds.}
\endlastfoot
3burma14-2 & 1939 & 1939.00 & 100.00 & 1939 & 100.00 & 51 & 8 & 0 & 2 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
3burma14-3 & 1664 & 1664.00 & 100.00 & 1664 & 100.00 & 11 & 15 & 0 & 2 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
3burma14-4 & 1296 & 1296.00 & 100.00 & 1296 & 100.00 & 8 & 14 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
3burma14-5 & 562 & 562.00 & 100.00 & 562 & 100.00 & 1 & 20 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4br17-2 & 31 & 31.00 & 100.00 & 54 & 174.19 & 7 & 4 & 0 & 0 & 1 & 3\tabularnewline
4br17-3 & 31 & 31.00 & 100.00 & 31 & 100.00 & 7 & 7 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4br17-4 & 19 & 19.00 & 100.00 & 19 & 100.00 & 5 & 14 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4br17-5 & 19 & 19.00 & 100.00 & 19 & 100.00 & 5 & 20 & 0 & 4 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4gr17-2 & 958 & 846.33 & 88.34 & 965 & 100.73 & 22 & 187 & 8 & 335 & 0 & 97\tabularnewline
4gr17-3 & 738 & 722.88 & 97.95 & 794 & 107.59 & 3 & 43 & 1 & 53 & 4 & 6\tabularnewline
4gr17-4 & 611 & 611.00 & 100.00 & 611 & 100.00 & 2 & 14 & 0 & 3 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4gr17-5 & 513 & 513.00 & 100.00 & 513 & 100.00 & 1 & 25 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-2 & 4695 & 4695.00 & 100.00 & 4695 & 100.00 & 36 & 18 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-3 & 4695 & 4695.00 & 100.00 & 4695 & 100.00 & 53 & 20 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-4 & 4695 & 4695.00 & 100.00 & 4695 & 100.00 & 50 & 27 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-5 & 3914 & 3884.00 & 99.23 & 4188 & 107.00 & 22 & 27 & 0 & 7 & 0 & 3\tabularnewline
5gr21-2 & 1679 & 1531.67 & 91.22 & 1985 & 118.23 & 419 & 367 & 12 & 2158 & 0 & 449\tabularnewline
5gr21-3 & 1024 & 1024.00 & 100.00 & 1024 & 100.00 & 6 & 32 & 0 & 2 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
5gr21-4 & 953 & 953.00 & 100.00 & 953 & 100.00 & 9 & 20 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
5gr21-5 & 780 & 780.00 & 100.00 & 780 & 100.00 & 4 & 9 & 0 & 2 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
5gr24-2 & 377 & 340.53 & 90.33 & 828 & 219.63 & 25 & 169 & 0 & 366 & 0 & 13\tabularnewline
5gr24-3 & 377 & 318.00 & 84.35 & 569 & 150.93 & 37 & 181 & 0 & 524 & 32 & 42\tabularnewline
5gr24-4 & 371 & 325.17 & 87.65 & 753 & 202.96 & 39 & 157 & 8 & 303 & 6 & 26\tabularnewline
5gr24-5 & 362 & 308.17 & 85.13 & 739 & 204.14 & 12 & 99 & 7 & 222 & 0 & 87\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-2 & 5199 & 5199.00 & 100.00 & 5199 & 100.00 & 70 & 71 & 2 & 126 & 1 & 0\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-3 & 5311 & 5310.50 & 99.99 & 5442 & 102.47 & 45 & 82 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 3\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-4 & 5021 & 5021.00 & 100.00 & 5021 & 100.00 & 45 & 39 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-5 & 3913 & 3913.00 & 100.00 & 3913 & 100.00 & 37 & 27 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
6bayg29-2 & 711 & 624.50 & 87.83 & 905 & 127.29 & 82 & 312 & 0 & 1526 & 0 & 148\tabularnewline
6bayg29-3 & 684 & 582.50 & 85.16 & 841 & 122.95 & 70 & 809 & 3 & 3489 & 28 & 301\tabularnewline
6bayg29-4 & 583 & 527.50 & 90.48 & 811 & 139.11 & 25 & 91 & 0 & 171 & 7 & 24\tabularnewline
6bayg29-5 & 565 & 520.79 & 92.17 & 1888 & 334.16 & 40 & 103 & 0 & 360 & 6 & 21\tabularnewline
6bays29-2 & 849 & 761.46 & 89.69 & 1194 & 140.64 & 123 & 178 & 0 & 1466 & 0 & 296\tabularnewline
6bays29-3 & 830 & 777.68 & 93.70 & 1092 & 131.57 & 80 & 145 & 1 & 959 & 17 & 48\tabularnewline
6bays29-4 & 691 & 650.60 & 94.15 & 847 & 122.58 & 30 & 92 & 3 & 238 & 20 & 6\tabularnewline
6bays29-5 & 622 & 591.55 & 95.10 & 1052 & 169.13 & 30 & 99 & 1 & 258 & 3 & 10\tabularnewline
6fri26-2 & 480 & 471.50 & 98.23 & 541 & 112.71 & 54 & 184 & 1 & 519 & 0 & 15\tabularnewline
6fri26-3 & 486 & 466.00 & 95.88 & 510 & 104.94 & 167 & 166 & 0 & 1923 & 3 & 388\tabularnewline
6fri26-4 & 440 & 414.57 & 94.22 & 446 & 101.36 & 92 & 128 & 0 & 355 & 9 & 38\tabularnewline
6fri26-5 & 436 & 411.56 & 94.39 & 473 & 108.49 & 66 & 91 & 2 & 520 & 2 & 41\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-2 & 413 & 413.00 & 100.00 & 413 & 100.00 & 114 & 300 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-3 & 351 & 351.00 & 100.00 & 358 & 101.99 & 82 & 328 & 0 & 10 & 1 & 3\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-4 & 350 & 345.75 & 98.79 & 396 & 113.14 & 81 & 272 & 1 & 442 & 33 & 6\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-5 & 348 & 344.29 & 98.93 & 348 & 100.00 & 82 & 203 & 2 & 346 & 45 & 12\tabularnewline
10att48-2 & 4924 & 4284.05 & 87.00 & 5510 & 111.90 & 456 & 945 & 0 & 7563 & 0 & 268\tabularnewline
10att48-3 & 4913 & 4539.33 & 92.39 & 6054 & 123.22 & 177 & 880 & 8 & 10115 & 154 & 1406\tabularnewline
10att48-4 & 4428 & 3980.11 & 89.89 & 5685 & 128.39 & 197 & 738 & 2 & 8555 & 138 & 879\tabularnewline
10att48-5 & 4204 & 3897.97 & 92.72 & 5515 & 131.18 & 87 & 690 & 9 & 12826 & 1077 & 594\tabularnewline
10gr48-2 & 1708 & 1707.00 & 99.94 & 1708 & 100.00 & 88 & 186 & 1 & 259 & 0 & 2\tabularnewline
10gr48-3 & 1638 & 1628.14 & 99.40 & 2345 & 143.16 & 74 & 220 & 4 & 1011 & 0 & 14\tabularnewline
10gr48-4 & 1645 & 1629.23 & 99.04 & 2197 & 133.56 & 86 & 185 & 0 & 958 & 1 & 33\tabularnewline
10gr48-5 & 1638 & 1471.48 & 89.83 & 2243 & 136.94 & 108 & 405 & 5 & 2163 & 30 & 179\tabularnewline
10hk48-2 & 6401 & 6209.83 & 97.01 & 6753 & 105.50 & 357 & 418 & 7 & 3018 & 0 & 82\tabularnewline
10hk48-3 & 5872 & 5567.49 & 94.81 & 6211 & 105.77 & 234 & 364 & 1 & 2549 & 0 & 75\tabularnewline
10hk48-4 & 5642 & 5044.00 & 89.40 & 6359 & 112.71 & 269 & 474 & 1 & 2370 & 3 & 69\tabularnewline
10hk48-5 & 5641 & 5145.17 & 91.21 & 6702 & 118.81 & 282 & 399 & 0 & 3455 & 14 & 27\tabularnewline
11berlin52-2 & 3500 & 3425.00 & 97.86 & 4010 & 114.57 & 121 & 288 & 0 & 1 & 1 & 17\tabularnewline
11berlin52-3 & 3500 & 3376.17 & 96.46 & 3963 & 113.23 & 142 & 311 & 1 & 753 & 66 & 20\tabularnewline
11berlin52-4 & 3500 & 3280.00 & 93.71 & 3699 & 105.69 & 88 & 241 & 1 & 426 & 3 & 25\tabularnewline
11berlin52-5 & 3500 & 3273.92 & 93.54 & 4169 & 119.11 & 131 & 160 & 0 & 599 & 26 & 26\tabularnewline
11eil51-2 & 175 & 174.50 & 99.71 & 175 & 100.00 & 148 & 522 & 2 & 1071 & 0 & 3\tabularnewline
11eil51-3 & 174 & 168.83 & 97.03 & 174 & 100.00 & 138 & 269 & 3 & 1160 & 54 & 11\tabularnewline
11eil51-4 & 175 & 165.24 & 94.42 & 183 & 104.57 & 175 & 273 & 11 & 1837 & 18 & 74\tabularnewline
11eil51-5 & 170 & 166.44 & 97.91 & 170 & 100.00 & 71 & 214 & 2 & 479 & 6 & 8\tabularnewline
12brazil58-2 & 14939 & 14939.00 & 100.00 & 14939 & 100.00 & 141 & 278 & 3 & 834 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
12brazil58-3 & 14930 & 14840.50 & 99.40 & 15240 & 102.08 & 140 & 298 & 1 & 967 & 57 & 18\tabularnewline
12brazil58-4 & 13082 & 12680.46 & 96.93 & 16148 & 123.44 & 147 & 397 & 1 & 1447 & 126 & 40\tabularnewline
12brazil58-5 & 12613 & 11958.93 & 94.81 & 15546 & 123.25 & 153 & 1049 & 1 & 583 & 50 & 98\tabularnewline
14st70-2 & 304 & 288.01 & 94.74 & 307 & 100.99 & 392 & 576 & 2 & 3147 & 3 & 81\tabularnewline
14st70-3 & 301 & 292.57 & 97.20 & 312 & 103.65 & 313 & 600 & 6 & 2846 & 12 & 17\tabularnewline
14st70-4 & 298 & 287.25 & 96.39 & 298 & 100.00 & 182 & 372 & 4 & 1404 & 4 & 19\tabularnewline
14st70-5 & 298 & 282.28 & 94.73 & 325 & 109.06 & 313 & 670 & 9 & 3883 & 5 & 163\tabularnewline
16eil76-2 & 198 & 198.00 & 100.00 & 198 & 100.00 & 223 & 436 & 0 & 945 & 0 & 0\tabularnewline
16eil76-3 & 197 & 197.00 & 100.00 & 197 & 100.00 & 174 & 258 & 3 & 727 & 6 & 0\tabularnewline
16eil76-4 & 197 & 197.00 & 100.00 & 197 & 100.00 & 147 & 360 & 4 & 941 & 20 & 0\tabularnewline
16eil76-5 & 188 & 180.42 & 95.97 & 196 & 104.26 & 233 & 386 & 5 & 1132 & 25 & 27\tabularnewline
20gr96-2$^\dagger$ & 29966 & 28357.03 & 94.63 & 30821 & 102.85 & 823 & 1220 & 1 & 3540 & 0 & 62\tabularnewline
20gr96-3$^\dagger$ & 29621 & 29263.93 & 98.79 & 30768 & 103.87 & 876 & 1326 & 2 & 3382 & 529 & 50\tabularnewline
20gr96-4 & 28705 & 27650.63 & 96.33 & 30121 & 104.93 & 866 & 1754 & 6 & 4268 & 7 & 144\tabularnewline
20gr96-5 & 28598 & 27768.50 & 97.10 & 29976 & 104.82 & 676 & 1269 & 1 & 2087 & 1 & 52\tabularnewline
20kroA100-2 & 9630 & 9265.75 & 96.22 & 9769 & 101.44 & 746 & 1080 & 5 & 3481 & 0 & 66\tabularnewline
20kroA100-3 & 9334 & 8935.25 & 95.73 & 9535 & 102.15 & 532 & 915 & 0 & 2801 & 0 & 92\tabularnewline
20kroA100-4 & 8897 & 8539.03 & 95.98 & 10243 & 115.13 & 935 & 1241 & 2 & 4490 & 0 & 126\tabularnewline
20kroA100-5 & 8827 & 8477.39 & 96.04 & 9020 & 102.19 & 520 & 1028 & 4 & 2480 & 0 & 47\tabularnewline
20kroB100-2 & 9800 & 9492.00 & 96.86 & 10382 & 105.94 & 510 & 955 & 4 & 3025 & 0 & 30\tabularnewline
20kroB100-3$^\dagger$ & 10218 & 9197.41 & 90.01 & 10300 & 100.80 & 903 & 1120 & 1 & 5373 & 0 & 130\tabularnewline
20kroB100-4 & 9564 & 9293.31 & 97.17 & 9637 & 100.76 & 361 & 714 & 0 & 2323 & 0 & 20\tabularnewline
20kroB100-5 & 9226 & 8525.71 & 92.41 & 11708 & 126.90 & 739 & 1058 & 10 & 7225 & 0 & 119\tabularnewline
20kroC100-2$^\dagger$ & 10089 & 9548.13 & 94.64 & 10089 & 100.00 & 420 & 974 & 0 & 1551 & 0 & 3\tabularnewline
20kroC100-3 & 9244 & 9130.82 & 98.78 & 9346 & 101.10 & 494 & 1006 & 0 & 1940 & 1 & 8\tabularnewline
20kroC100-4 & 9292 & 9061.20 & 97.52 & 9342 & 100.54 & 307 & 707 & 2 & 1132 & 3 & 10\tabularnewline
20kroC100-5 & 9252 & 8991.89 & 97.19 & 10437 & 112.81 & 380 & 956 & 3 & 2181 & 0 & 19\tabularnewline
20kroD100-2$^\dagger$ & 9353 & 8497.63 & 90.85 & 9381 & 100.30 & 886 & 1525 & 4 & 3221 & 6 & 65\tabularnewline
20kroD100-3 & 8813 & 8130.12 & 92.25 & 11404 & 129.40 & 1284 & 1664 & 5 & 11642 & 24 & 212\tabularnewline
20kroD100-4 & 8772 & 8283.74 & 94.43 & 8823 & 100.58 & 577 & 1067 & 11 & 3230 & 3 & 67\tabularnewline
20kroD100-5 & 8677 & 8233.85 & 94.89 & 9247 & 106.57 & 478 & 732 & 1 & 3277 & 0 & 45\tabularnewline
20kroE100-2 & 9526 & 9290.65 & 97.53 & 10207 & 107.15 & 599 & 1098 & 7 & 4461 & 0 & 45\tabularnewline
20kroE100-3 & 9262 & 9153.61 & 98.83 & 9854 & 106.39 & 612 & 1048 & 7 & 3974 & 19 & 26\tabularnewline
20kroE100-4 & 9262 & 9147.56 & 98.76 & 11046 & 119.26 & 513 & 1032 & 3 & 3410 & 4 & 21\tabularnewline
20kroE100-5 & 9081 & 8900.07 & 98.01 & 9707 & 106.89 & 391 & 925 & 3 & 2802 & 0 & 32\tabularnewline
20rat99-2 & 505 & 504.33 & 99.87 & 521 & 103.17 & 507 & 951 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 7\tabularnewline
20rat99-3 & 504 & 498.23 & 98.85 & 543 & 107.74 & 528 & 977 & 4 & 1582 & 1 & 20\tabularnewline
20rat99-4 & 501 & 490.67 & 97.94 & 515 & 102.79 & 958 & 1259 & 5 & 10214 & 0 & 2383\tabularnewline
20rat99-5 & 487 & 477.67 & 98.08 & 506 & 103.90 & 688 & 967 & 4 & 4320 & 0 & 376\tabularnewline
20rd100-2$^\dagger$ & 3459 & 3380.39 & 97.73 & 3714 & 107.37 & 742 & 1406 & 0 & 4119 & 0 & 42\tabularnewline
20rd100-3 & 3383 & 3218.89 & 95.15 & 3384 & 100.03 & 657 & 1456 & 2 & 4238 & 1 & 55\tabularnewline
20rd100-4 & 3298 & 3167.38 & 96.04 & 3398 & 103.03 & 530 & 889 & 2 & 2651 & 0 & 29\tabularnewline
20rd100-5 & 3234 & 3109.99 & 96.17 & 3327 & 102.88 & 559 & 1056 & 6 & 4114 & 1 & 64\tabularnewline
21eil101-2 & 248 & 245.41 & 98.96 & 255 & 102.82 & 387 & 812 & 0 & 1476 & 0 & 20\tabularnewline
21eil101-3 & 248 & 243.04 & 98.00 & 267 & 107.66 & 570 & 982 & 4 & 2371 & 6 & 37\tabularnewline
21eil101-4 & 233 & 230.2759 & 98.83 & 251 & 107.73 & 432 & 629 & 3 & 2586 & 0 & 15\tabularnewline
21eil101-5 & 232 & 226.33 & 97.56 & 257 & 110.78 & 275 & 527 & 0 & 1483 & 2 & 16\tabularnewline
21lin105-2 & 8358 & 8316.43 & 99.50 & 8726 & 104.40 & 652 & 1122 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 16\tabularnewline
21lin105-3$^\dagger$ & 8304 & 8164.21 & 98.32 & 8619 & 103.79 & 870 & 1298 & 3 & 25572 & 22 & 7103\tabularnewline
21lin105-4 & 7827 & 7695.17 & 98.32 & 8365 & 106.87 & 619 & 941 & 2 & 888 & 12 & 89\tabularnewline
21lin105-5$^\dagger$ & 8052 & 7568.64 & 94.00 & 8110 & 100.72 & 745 & 1166 & 1 & 2419 & 6 & 145\tabularnewline
\end{longtable}}
{\scriptsize
\begin{longtable}{lR{1.1cm}R{1cm}R{1cm}R{1cm}R{1cm}R{1.2cm}r}
\caption{Algorithm computation times} \label{tab:times} \\
\toprule
name & total-t & sep-t & sec-t & 4pec-t & pec-t & comb-t & \%pec\tabularnewline \midrule
\endfirsthead
\multicolumn{8}{l}
{{\tablename\ \thetable{} -- continued from previous page}} \\
\toprule
name & total-t & sep-t & sec-t & 4pec-t & pec-t & comb-t & \%pec\tabularnewline \midrule
\endhead
\hline
\endfoot
\hline \noalign{\vskip1mm}
\multicolumn{8}{l}{$^\dagger$optimality was not verified within a time-limit of 7200 seconds.}
\endlastfoot
3burma14-2 & 0.07 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 3.13\tabularnewline
3burma14-3 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 2.68\tabularnewline
3burma14-4 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 1.97\tabularnewline
3burma14-5 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 3.50\tabularnewline
4br17-2 & 0.03 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 1.14\tabularnewline
4br17-3 & 0.01 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00\tabularnewline
4br17-4 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00\tabularnewline
4br17-5 & 0.04 & 0.01 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 68.52\tabularnewline
4gr17-2 & 1.16 & 0.33 & 0.10 & 0.00 & 0.22 & 0.01 & 65.71\tabularnewline
4gr17-3 & 0.23 & 0.05 & 0.01 & 0.00 & 0.04 & 0.00 & 74.03\tabularnewline
4gr17-4 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00\tabularnewline
4gr17-5 & 0.01 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-2 & 0.05 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 1.71\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-3 & 0.05 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 2.04\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-4 & 0.08 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 1.93\tabularnewline
4ulysses16-5 & 0.13 & 0.02 & 0.01 & 0.00 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 72.63\tabularnewline
5gr21-2 & 12.89 & 3.63 & 1.00 & 0.00 & 2.54 & 0.09 & 69.98\tabularnewline
5gr21-3 & 0.04 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 2.28\tabularnewline
5gr21-4 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 2.86\tabularnewline
5gr21-5 & 0.07 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 2.81\tabularnewline
5gr24-2 & 1.81 & 0.45 & 0.07 & 0.00 & 0.38 & 0.00 & 84.82\tabularnewline
5gr24-3 & 3.51 & 0.92 & 0.18 & 0.00 & 0.73 & 0.01 & 79.17\tabularnewline
5gr24-4 & 2.89 & 0.76 & 0.11 & 0.00 & 0.64 & 0.01 & 83.80\tabularnewline
5gr24-5 & 1.63 & 0.38 & 0.12 & 0.00 & 0.25 & 0.01 & 65.26\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-2 & 0.77 & 0.18 & 0.04 & 0.00 & 0.13 & 0.00 & 74.26\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-3 & 0.43 & 0.03 & 0.03 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.64\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-4 & 0.18 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.75\tabularnewline
5ulysses22-5 & 0.06 & 0.01 & 0.01 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 1.82\tabularnewline
6bayg29-2 & 18.69 & 4.97 & 0.73 & 0.00 & 4.17 & 0.08 & 83.79\tabularnewline
6bayg29-3 & 20.50 & 5.66 & 1.31 & 0.00 & 4.19 & 0.15 & 74.10\tabularnewline
6bayg29-4 & 1.26 & 0.31 & 0.06 & 0.00 & 0.24 & 0.01 & 77.32\tabularnewline
6bayg29-5 & 1.19 & 0.27 & 0.08 & 0.00 & 0.18 & 0.01 & 68.11\tabularnewline
6bays29-2 & 21.40 & 6.19 & 0.96 & 0.00 & 5.14 & 0.08 & 83.16\tabularnewline
6bays29-3 & 10.60 & 2.78 & 0.33 & 0.00 & 2.43 & 0.02 & 87.50\tabularnewline
6bays29-4 & 1.22 & 0.30 & 0.05 & 0.00 & 0.24 & 0.01 & 80.74\tabularnewline
6bays29-5 & 0.97 & 0.22 & 0.04 & 0.00 & 0.18 & 0.00 & 79.98\tabularnewline
6fri26-2 & 5.55 & 1.34 & 0.12 & 0.00 & 1.22 & 0.01 & 90.53\tabularnewline
6fri26-3 & 18.32 & 5.55 & 1.11 & 0.00 & 4.31 & 0.13 & 77.68\tabularnewline
6fri26-4 & 3.75 & 0.92 & 0.12 & 0.00 & 0.78 & 0.01 & 85.23\tabularnewline
6fri26-5 & 3.26 & 0.83 & 0.12 & 0.00 & 0.70 & 0.01 & 84.67\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-2 & 1.07 & 0.28 & 0.27 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.01 & 0.38\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-3 & 1.26 & 0.34 & 0.16 & 0.00 & 0.18 & 0.00 & 51.77\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-4 & 5.15 & 1.29 & 0.22 & 0.00 & 1.05 & 0.01 & 81.81\tabularnewline
9dantzig42-5 & 7.97 & 1.93 & 0.20 & 0.00 & 1.71 & 0.01 & 88.71\tabularnewline
10att48-2 & 280.75 & 80.02 & 6.73 & 0.00 & 72.88 & 0.41 & 91.08\tabularnewline
10att48-3 & 243.27 & 71.62 & 9.29 & 0.00 & 60.66 & 1.67 & 84.70\tabularnewline
10att48-4 & 203.20 & 59.39 & 7.56 & 0.00 & 50.63 & 1.19 & 85.26\tabularnewline
10att48-5 & 130.36 & 38.93 & 5.95 & 0.00 & 31.74 & 1.23 & 81.55\tabularnewline
10gr48-2 & 9.25 & 2.26 & 0.21 & 0.00 & 2.04 & 0.01 & 90.50\tabularnewline
10gr48-3 & 31.81 & 7.87 & 0.54 & 0.00 & 7.30 & 0.03 & 92.72\tabularnewline
10gr48-4 & 39.36 & 9.62 & 0.60 & 0.00 & 8.96 & 0.06 & 93.10\tabularnewline
10gr48-5 & 43.79 & 11.76 & 1.39 & 0.00 & 10.17 & 0.20 & 86.48\tabularnewline
10hk48-2 & 273.81 & 69.58 & 3.29 & 0.00 & 66.15 & 0.14 & 95.07\tabularnewline
10hk48-3 & 170.99 & 43.05 & 1.76 & 0.00 & 41.19 & 0.10 & 95.66\tabularnewline
10hk48-4 & 35.98 & 9.64 & 1.04 & 0.00 & 8.51 & 0.09 & 88.28\tabularnewline
10hk48-5 & 92.75 & 24.49 & 1.57 & 0.00 & 22.84 & 0.08 & 93.27\tabularnewline
11berlin52-2 & 2.28 & 1.06 & 1.03 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.02 & 0.37\tabularnewline
11berlin52-3 & 67.95 & 16.48 & 0.95 & 0.00 & 15.48 & 0.05 & 93.91\tabularnewline
11berlin52-4 & 27.96 & 7.19 & 0.44 & 0.00 & 6.72 & 0.04 & 93.41\tabularnewline
11berlin52-5 & 19.57 & 5.17 & 0.46 & 0.00 & 4.66 & 0.05 & 90.16\tabularnewline
11eil51-2 & 200.63 & 48.72 & 1.39 & 0.00 & 47.29 & 0.03 & 97.08\tabularnewline
11eil51-3 & 100.95 & 24.48 & 0.98 & 0.00 & 23.47 & 0.03 & 95.85\tabularnewline
11eil51-4 & 142.50 & 37.00 & 1.94 & 0.00 & 34.95 & 0.11 & 94.45\tabularnewline
11eil51-5 & 33.19 & 8.25 & 0.36 & 0.00 & 7.87 & 0.02 & 95.42\tabularnewline
12brazil58-2 & 33.00 & 7.94 & 0.96 & 0.00 & 6.95 & 0.03 & 87.51\tabularnewline
12brazil58-3 & 56.51 & 13.29 & 0.93 & 0.00 & 12.31 & 0.06 & 92.60\tabularnewline
12brazil58-4 & 32.61 & 8.62 & 1.00 & 0.00 & 7.53 & 0.09 & 87.35\tabularnewline
12brazil58-5 & 3.48 & 1.06 & 0.52 & 0.00 & 0.44 & 0.10 & 41.55\tabularnewline
14st70-2 & 876.36 & 222.60 & 6.73 & 0.00 & 215.47 & 0.39 & 96.80\tabularnewline
14st70-3 & 1071.01 & 264.38 & 4.16 & 0.00 & 260.10 & 0.12 & 98.38\tabularnewline
14st70-4 & 354.16 & 87.56 & 1.86 & 0.00 & 85.61 & 0.08 & 97.78\tabularnewline
14st70-5 & 429.46 & 113.03 & 5.51 & 0.00 & 106.96 & 0.57 & 94.63\tabularnewline
16eil76-2 & 160.97 & 38.04 & 1.72 & 0.00 & 36.27 & 0.04 & 95.36\tabularnewline
16eil76-3 & 71.48 & 17.47 & 0.80 & 0.00 & 16.64 & 0.03 & 95.24\tabularnewline
16eil76-4 & 173.67 & 43.19 & 1.11 & 0.00 & 42.03 & 0.05 & 97.31\tabularnewline
16eil76-5 & 274.12 & 69.50 & 1.87 & 0.00 & 67.52 & 0.12 & 97.15\tabularnewline
20gr96-2$^\dagger$ & 7200.00 & 1901.87 & 44.02 & 0.00 & 1857.29 & 0.56 & 97.66\tabularnewline
20gr96-3$^\dagger$ & 7200.00 & 1862.37 & 38.38 & 0.00 & 1823.22 & 0.77 & 97.90\tabularnewline
20gr96-4 & 5467.42 & 1428.08 & 48.45 & 0.00 & 1378.35 & 1.28 & 96.52\tabularnewline
20gr96-5 & 6495.00 & 1643.50 & 35.00 & 0.00 & 1607.79 & 0.71 & 97.83\tabularnewline
20kroA100-2 & 4291.87 & 1091.52 & 22.62 & 0.00 & 1068.47 & 0.42 & 97.89\tabularnewline
20kroA100-3 & 4225.89 & 1060.29 & 14.82 & 0.00 & 1044.91 & 0.56 & 98.55\tabularnewline
20kroA100-4 & 5057.47 & 1300.82 & 28.19 & 0.00 & 1271.60 & 1.04 & 97.75\tabularnewline
20kroA100-5 & 6368.98 & 1606.81 & 20.13 & 0.00 & 1585.98 & 0.70 & 98.70\tabularnewline
20kroB100-2 & 3389.43 & 841.28 & 12.24 & 0.00 & 828.79 & 0.25 & 98.52\tabularnewline
20kroB100-3$^\dagger$ & 7200.04 & 1838.03 & 33.81 & 0.00 & 1803.14 & 1.08 & 98.10\tabularnewline
20kroB100-4 & 3120.43 & 778.88 & 9.44 & 0.00 & 769.15 & 0.29 & 98.75\tabularnewline
20kroB100-5 & 3397.49 & 883.26 & 24.75 & 0.00 & 857.50 & 1.01 & 97.08\tabularnewline
20kroC100-2$^\dagger$ & 7200.00 & 1821.34 & 15.18 & 0.00 & 1805.91 & 0.25 & 99.15\tabularnewline
20kroC100-3 & 3052.62 & 747.14 & 10.82 & 0.00 & 736.09 & 0.23 & 98.52\tabularnewline
20kroC100-4 & 1009.37 & 250.86 & 4.82 & 0.00 & 245.88 & 0.16 & 98.01\tabularnewline
20kroC100-5 & 2839.31 & 713.70 & 11.93 & 0.00 & 701.39 & 0.38 & 98.28\tabularnewline
20kroD100-2$^\dagger$ & 7200.00 & 1852.91 & 33.91 & 0.00 & 1818.46 & 0.54 & 98.14\tabularnewline
20kroD100-3 & 6287.9 & 1671.43 & 50.47 & 0.00 & 1619.66 & 1.30 & 96.90\tabularnewline
20kroD100-4 & 4716.98 & 1190.26 & 18.79 & 0.00 & 1170.92 & 0.55 & 98.38\tabularnewline
20kroD100-5 & 2669.25 & 671.32 & 13.10 & 0.00 & 657.78 & 0.44 & 97.98\tabularnewline
20kroE100-2 & 4718.14 & 1204.19 & 24.14 & 0.00 & 1179.63 & 0.41 & 97.96\tabularnewline
20kroE100-3 & 4737.91 & 1147.37 & 24.29 & 0.00 & 1122.59 & 0.49 & 97.84\tabularnewline
20kroE100-4 & 2624.53 & 641.08 & 17.04 & 0.00 & 623.69 & 0.35 & 97.29\tabularnewline
20kroE100-5 & 1892.52 & 476.91 & 10.32 & 0.00 & 466.24 & 0.35 & 97.76\tabularnewline
20rat99-2 & 65.57 & 12.65 & 12.55 & 0.00 & 0.02 & 0.09 & 0.15\tabularnewline
20rat99-3 & 2416.98 & 583.46 & 14.15 & 0.00 & 569.01 & 0.30 & 97.52\tabularnewline
20rat99-4 & 6091.56 & 1414.13 & 140.03 & 0.00 & 1245.85 & 28.26 & 88.10\tabularnewline
20rat99-5 & 3165.79 & 747.76 & 46.84 & 0.00 & 693.47 & 7.45 & 92.74\tabularnewline
20rd100-2$^\dagger$ & 7200.00 & 1846.05 & 37.12 & 0.00 & 1808.40 & 0.52 & 97.96\tabularnewline
20rd100-3 & 3815.24 & 969.42 & 23.26 & 0.00 & 945.69 & 0.47 & 97.55\tabularnewline
20rd100-4 & 3273.97 & 826.82 & 16.76 & 0.00 & 809.60 & 0.46 & 97.92\tabularnewline
20rd100-5 & 2513.41 & 643.81 & 15.04 & 0.00 & 628.22 & 0.55 & 97.58\tabularnewline
21eil101-2 & 2100.39 & 519.56 & 10.63 & 0.00 & 508.75 & 0.19 & 97.92\tabularnewline
21eil101-3 & 4245.95 & 1069.99 & 18.31 & 0.00 & 1051.25 & 0.43 & 98.25\tabularnewline
21eil101-4 & 906.82 & 227.88 & 7.48 & 0.00 & 220.15 & 0.25 & 96.61\tabularnewline
21eil101-5 & 682.82 & 172.40 & 4.07 & 0.00 & 168.13 & 0.19 & 97.52\tabularnewline
21lin105-2 & 86.33 & 21.14 & 20.93 & 0.00 & 0.03 & 0.18 & 0.15\tabularnewline
21lin105-3$^\dagger$ & 7200.00 & 2047.88 & 380.14 & 0.00 & 1566.72 & 101.02 & 76.50\tabularnewline
21lin105-4 & 3609.22 & 903.74 & 19.51 & 0.00 & 883.49 & 0.74 & 97.76\tabularnewline
21lin105-5$^\dagger$ & 7200.00 & 1890.67 & 45.87 & 0.00 & 1843.24 & 1.56 & 97.49\tabularnewline
\end{longtable}}
The results indicate that the proposed branch-and-cut algorithm can solve instances involving up to 105 targets with modest computation times. The preprocessing algorithm in Sec. \ref{subsec:preprocessing} was applied to 53/116 instances. The time taken by the preprocessing algorithm is not included in the overall computation time. The preprocessing algorithm reduced the size of these instances by 6 targets on average and the maximum reduction obtained was 14 targets. We observe that the instances that have a larger number of violated path elimination constraints take considerably large amount of computation time. The last column in table \ref{tab:times}, whose average is 73\%, indicates the percentage of separation time spent for finding violated path elimination constraints. This is not surprising because the time complexity for identifying violated path elimination constraints in \eqref{eq:pec1} and \eqref{eq:pec2} given a fractional solution, is $O(|T|^5)$ and $O(m|T|^4)$ respectively. The average number of T-comb inequalities that were generated in the enumeration tree were larger for some of the bigger instances (see table \ref{tab:results}). They were effective, especially in tightening the lower bound for the instances that were not solved to optimality; for the instances where violated T-comb inequalities were separated out, the average linear programming relaxation gap improvement was 18\%. They were also useful in reducing the computation times for larger instances despite increasing the computation times for smaller instances. Overall, we were able to solve 108/116 instances to the optimality with the largest instance involving 105 targets, 21 clusters and 5 depots. The ``\textbf{opt}'' column for the remaining 6/116 instances is the cost of the best feasible solution obtained by the branch-and-cut algorithm at the end of 7200 seconds. For the instances not solved to optimality within the time limit of 7200 seconds, the LP-rounding heuristic was effective in generating feasible solutions within 2.1\% of the best feasible solution, on average.
\section{Conclusion \label{sec:conc}}
In summary, we have presented an exact algorithm for the GMDTSP, a problem that has several practical applications including maritime transportation, health-care logistics, survivable telecommunication network design, and routing unmanned vehicles to name a few. A mixed-integer linear programming formulation including several classes of valid inequalities was proposed the facial structure of the polytope of feasible solutions was studied in detail. All the results were used to develop a branch-and-cut algorithm whose performance was corroborated through extensive numerical experiments on a wide range of benchmark instances from the standard library. The largest solved instance involved 105 targets, 21 clusters and 4 depots. Future work can be directed towards development of branch-and-cut approaches accompanied with a polyhedral study to solve the asymmetric counterpart of the problem.
\section*{\refname}
|
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hi. From time to time, I have this strange feeling. Everything seems to be passing by very quickly. Even people talking. When I try moving slowly, it still feels fast. Its very hard to explain. Only from time to time though, but I get very scared when it happens. Do you think you can help me? output: Degree understand your concerns went through your details. I suggest you not to worry much. There are certain things in life which cannot be explained properly. One among them is our mind. Brain uses sensory organs to perceive what ever happening around us. Such perception is based on so many things including experience, anxiety and stress. Your perception could be due to these factors. Ignore the symptoms and you are clear. If you require more of my help in this aspect, Please post a direct question to me in this website. Make sure that you include every minute details possible. I shall prescribe the needed psychotherapy techniques which should help you cure your condition further. Hope this answers your query. Available for further clarifications. Good luck.. |
Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kbb/dpaper/2006-07.html
Should civil servants be restricted in wage bargaining? A mixed-duopoly approach
Junichiro Ishida
(Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University)
Noriaki Matsushima
(Graduate School of Business Administration, Kobe University)
Should civil servants (employees at public institutions) be allowed to bargain collectively? To answer this question, we construct a model of unionized mixed duopoly and examine the optimal regulatory framework of public institutions, especially focusing on a wage regulation imposed on the public firm. The wage regulation turns out to yield critical welfare implications as it gives rise to two opposing strategic effects: the wage regulation intensifies downstream-market competition while it loosens upstream-market competition. The overall welfare effect is ambiguous, depending crucially on the degree of product differentiation between the firms. We also show that, in contrast to the popular belief, granting the right to bargain collectively to civil servants would not necessarily help them because they tend to demand excessively high wages when they are allowed to bargain collectively. Finally, we briefly discuss a new perspective on the role of profit motives in public institutions when the wages are determined endogenously.
Junichiro Ishida & Noriaki Matsushima, 2006. "Should civil servants be restricted in wage bargaining? A mixed-duopoly approach," Discussion Papers 2006-07, Kobe University, Graduate School of Business Administration.
Handle: RePEc:kbb:dpaper:2006-07
File URL: https://www.b.kobe-u.ac.jp/papers_files/2006_07.pdf
File Function: First version, 2006
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Mixed oligopoly; Wage bargaining; Wage regulation; Labor unions; Strategic complements;
H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
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instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: How should anticoagulation prophylaxis be managed in patients with a history of gastrointestinal bleeding? output: Management of anticoagulation prophylaxis in patients with a history of gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding requires a careful balance between the risk of recurrent bleeding and the risk of thromboembolic events.
The American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) recommends a multidisciplinary approach involving hematology, cardiology/neurology, and gastroenterology to optimally balance these risks.[1]
Initial Management:
• Temporary Interruption: For patients presenting with acute GI bleeding, the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE) recommends temporarily withholding direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) at presentation.[2]
• Reversal Agents: In cases of severe bleeding, specific reversal agents may be used. For example, idarucizumab is available for dabigatran, and andexanet alfa for rivaroxaban and apixaban.[1][3]
Resumption of Anticoagulation:
• Timing: The optimal timing for resuming anticoagulation is crucial. Evidence suggests that resuming anticoagulation between 7 and 14 days after the bleeding event is associated with a lower risk of thromboembolism without significantly increasing the risk of recurrent bleeding.[4-5]
• Choice of Anticoagulant: Apixaban may be preferred due to its lower associated risk of GI bleeding compared to other DOACs like rivaroxaban and dabigatran.[6]
Preventive Strategies:
• Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs): Co-therapy with PPIs can reduce the risk of upper GI bleeding in patients on anticoagulants.[6]
• Helicobacter pylori Eradication: For patients with a history of peptic ulcer disease, eradication of H. pylori can reduce the risk of recurrent bleeding.[7]
In summary, the management of anticoagulation in patients with a history of GI bleeding involves temporarily withholding anticoagulants during acute bleeding, using reversal agents if necessary, and carefully timing the resumption of anticoagulation, ideally between 7 and 14 days post-bleeding.
Apixaban may be a preferred option, and preventive strategies such as PPI co-therapy and H. pylori eradication should be considered. |
Tag: Drag Queen
Posted on May 27, 2018 July 30, 2018
Natasha Balakrishnan in Shadowlands anthology
Natasha Balakrishnan is of South Indian origin born in Kerala, India; brought up in the middle east, Kuwait, and moved to Toronto, Canada at the age of fifteen. Natasha is a professional dancer, choreographer, and a working actor in Toronto, Canada . Her latest starring role is in Charlie David’s Shadowlands anthology TV miniseries.
Shadowlands is available on OUTtv and OUTtvGO in Canada and on Vimeo for our friends around the world.
Natasha Balakrishnan’s passion for dance, arts, and the entertainment field began at the tender age of five where she started off with theater/drama and dancing for local shows. Her main expertise lies in the classical dance form known as Bharatnatyam and proceeded to expand her talent with many other styles which include Bollywood, Hip Hop, Bhangra, and Contemporary incorporated with fusion.
Having performed in many platforms, Natasha Balakrishnan carried on her pursuit for dance in many different countries like New York, Germany, Kuwait, California, and India, and was further able to showcase her talent on National TV for the television show named ‘Canada’s Got Talent’ Season 1 in 2012.
She started her own YouTube channel as her outlet to creativity and passion for arts where she directs, choreographs, and incorporates acting through her concept videos. Her classical fusion choreography to ‘Taal se Taal Mila’ by A.R. Rahman has reached over a million views on YouTube. Natasha was awarded ‘First Runner Up’ and ‘Miss Congeniality’ at the 2014 Miss India Canada Pageant and ‘Miss Best Talent’ at the 2015 Miss India Worldwide Canada Pageant. In 2014, she was featured on a billboard advertisement for South Asian designer Boutique- ‘Aalayaa’.
Natasha was featured in the film ‘Dr.Cabbie’ with Bollywood stars; namely, Vinay Virmani, Isabel Kaif, and Kunal Nayyar. She performed for the Pan Am Olympic Games 2015 Opening Ceremonies with Cirque Du Soleil representing her Indian culture and heritage, including several other shows and corporate events, which include the Toronto Raptors basketball games, the WE Day concert, WE Day music video with Kardinal Offishall ft. Karl Wolf, and Holt Renfrew’s Uncrate India just to name a few.
With her professional expertise and training in the field, she has been fortunate to judge dance competitions; namely, in Detroit and in the City of Toronto, experiencing young and fresh talent on some amazing platforms. Natasha has also performed with Indian film music composer, Anirudh Ravichander, and collaborated with award winning rapper, Lady Kash, from Singapore. She choreographed for her recent song release “Supermodel”, composed for the film ‘Graghanam’; the album bagged by Yuvan Shankar Raja’s, U1 Records.
Natasha is working meticulously towards pursuing a career in films and is honing her acting skills by training with other budding artists in Toronto, Canada. She was a competitor, performer, and actor on Season 2 of OMNI Television Documentary series named “Bollywood Star”
Tell us about your story in the Shadowlands anthology. What were the main challenges and fears you had in your role?
Natasha Balakrishnan: I play Thalia in the Shadowlands anthology and she is someone who brings a lot of love and humanity in a world that is affected by the war where people are becoming inhumane and vile.
Her love for Alex is immense and while he is no longer the same man she fell in love with, she refuses to believe that she cannot bring him back. His narcissistic ways and his obsession for perfection has left him no room to give love to anyone but himself.
Thalia will stop at nothing to make him see clearly but when it is all too late, she recognizes the Alex she treasured is gone and must put an end to the evil that persists. My main challenge with Thalia was playing a woman from the 1920’s Berlin and really understanding her love for Alex.
How much of yourself goes into a character?
Natasha Balakrishnan: I believe that while you take the essence of you, and your passion into your work; you are playing a life, a person, which requires you to explore and tap into the spiritual, emotional, and physical being of that personality/character and its not about who you are but the life that you’re taking on and you live the reality of that character.
The stories in the Shadowlands anthology TV show were inspired by the Shadowlands book which was inspired by Greek mythology. What was your experience in creating a remix of these ancient classical tales?
Natasha Balakrishnan: When I first got the audition for Shadowlands, I was very eager and I had immediately done my research on Charlie David, his book, and the Greek Myths tied to my character and Narcissus. I was more than ready for the audition!
It was very exciting playing someone from the 1920’s; something completely out of my comfort zone and knowledge. I am thankful to Charlie for believing in me to play Thalia. When I booked the part, I did tons of research on the ‘Golden 20’s’, got coaching, watched tons of movies in that era, the types of music, and wrote a backstory for Thalia and her love interest with Alex whose characters were inspired from the Greek myths of Narcissus and his Echo.
What aspects of the Shadowlands anthology TV show are you excited for an audience to experience or discover?
Natasha Balakrishnan: I am excited for the audience to see it all! I had the privilege of watching it with my team at one of our film festival premiers and it is definitely a roller coaster ride of emotions and quite the tales that Charlie David takes you through.
I loved the uniqueness and creativity brought in each episode. They are each shot in a different time period which is thrilling. I would love to have the audience experience what Charlie David and the entire team has put together throughout the Shadowlands anthology series.
What was the hardest scene for you to do and why?
Natasha Balakrishnan: I wouldn’t say anything was particularly hard but I definitely found it a bit challenging. I had to shoot a very intense scene right when I got to set the first day. We started the shoot for the ‘Narcissus’ episode with my scene where a gun is being delivered to my house with a note to kill myself by someone who I truly love.
I had to go through many thoughts in a short spam of time and I found that a bit of a challenge; to jump in and out of emotions when circumstances prior to that scene were not shot yet. But that is what I loved most about Thalia and this film production; I felt challenged/nervous by this role and wanted to give it my all. Like the saying – “What doesn’t challenge you, doesn’t change you.”
Who is a major influence for you and on your creativity?
Natasha Balakrishnan: Well I surely believe that creative inspiration is sparked through influence and there are many wonderful people who inspire me everyday. My mother is my biggest inspiration because of her strength and courage to always persevere no matter what. This is a huge driving force to pursue my passion and to stay focused and optimistic.
Also, fine artists like Robert De Niro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Jennifer Lawrence, Radhika Apte, Nawazuddin, Meryl Streep, Alia Bhatt, Morgan Freeman, Amitabh Bachchan, and Leonardo DiCaprio just to name the least; inspire me to work hard everyday on my craft and to never stop learning and growing creatively.
Is there a type of role you dream of playing but haven’t had the opportunity yet?
Natasha Balakrishnan: Oh yeah of course, there’s tons I dream of playing! I definitely have miles to go and want to live a thousand lives through this career path of mine.
I would LOVE to play an action-packed role like a boxer or a marvel superhero!! I love watching strong female oriented roles and I would love to take on those.
In addition to acting, tell me about the other areas of entertainment you’re pursuing.
Natasha Balakrishnan: Apart from my love for acting, I also have an immense passion for dance, music, and poetry. I started my own YouTube channel back in 2014 which is my biggest creative outlet. I began producing, directing, and choreographing my own dance/concept videos by reaching out to local artists and collaborating with them to create art.
It’s an amazing feeling to see your vision come to life through team efforts and I truly enjoy working on them. When I first started my YouTube Channel, I just needed a platform to be creatively inclined. I never really imagined how many people I could reach out to until one of my videos went viral and hit close to 3 million views.
It’s a wonderful feeling when people around the world enjoy your work and it really encouraged me to constantly keep producing anything and everything I had the urge to create. I definitely have tons of creative stuff planned in terms of acting, dance, and music that I can’t wait to release them.
With so much going on in the world today, what’s your motivation to be a performer? Do you act to explain? To get away? To move past? To widen our knowledge? To incite a conversation?
Natasha Balakrishnan: All of the above really! Film and television is a source of entertainment, an escape, a fantasy, a story that incites conversation, and conceivably allows one to look into things that might have never sparked their interest before and I just absolutely love all of it.
I enjoy being in front of the camera, taking on different lives, and studying them. Art is a study of humanity and understanding the beings that live amongst us. Art is a universal language that truly connects people across the world and can be used as a very informative/influential tool. My motivation as an artist is to tell real people’s stories because in the words of my guru – “Art imitates reality”.
What’s next for you as a creator/actor/performer?
Natasha Balakrishnan: While I am constantly auditioning and working on my craft as an actor/performer; as a creator, I have always loved poetry/music and I write quite a bit of poetry/lyrics on my own time.
This spontaneously ventured into a very exciting new realm for me this year. I wrote, produced, sang, and creatively directed my first single with the help of a brilliant team. It is currently in post-production as I am eagerly and nervously waiting for its release.
Follow Natasha Balakrishnan on social:
IMDB – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7607838/
Website – www.itsnatashab.com
YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/c/itsnatashab
Instagram – @itsnatashab
Twitter – @itsnatashab
If you enjoyed this interview, explore other chats with cast members of the Shadowlands series.
Marc Devigne (Xavier in episode 3 ‘Pygmalion Revisited’ of the Shadowlands series.
Oscar Moreno (Matteo in episode 2 ‘Mating Season’ of the Shadowlands gay series)
Charlie David (director of the Shadowlands series)
Sean C. Dwyer (Alex in episode 1 ‘Narcissus’ of the Shadowlands miniseries)
Nicolas James Wilson (Will in episode 2 ‘Mating Season’ of the Shadowlands gay series)
Vasilios Filippakis (Daniel in episode 2 ‘Mating Season’ of Shadowlands)
Brian Woodford (Drew in episode 1 ‘Narcissus’ of Shadowlands gay series)
Natasha Balakrishnan (Thalia in episode 1 ‘Narcissus’ of Shadowlands
Learn about the hidden ‘Easter Eggs’ in the Shadowlands gay series
Brian Woodford stars in Shadowlands miniseries
It’s the age old murder mystery question… did the Butler do it? Canadian actor Brian Woodford finds himself in a world of intrigue in the Shadowlands miniseries playing the Butler to a demanding and egocentric master in episode 1 ‘Narcissus’.
Shadowlands miniseries is available on OUTtv and OUTtvGO in Canada and on Vimeo for our friends around the world.
Synopsis of episode 1 ‘Narcissus’: Alex, a plastic surgeon hell bent on perfection, hosts a house party with an assortment of colorful guests. Amid romantic misfires it becomes apparent that the only person Alex is interested in is himself.
Brian Woodford is originally from Avondale, Newfoundland and Labrador and is based in Toronto, Ontario. He trained in Theatre at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College before completing his training at Humber College’s Acting for Film and Television Diploma Program.
Woodford attained his B.A. from Memorial University in Newfoundland. He is an avid tennis player, and, when not doing script analysis, is busy working on his backhand.
Brian Woodford plays the Butler Drew in the Shadowlands miniseries.
Charlie David: When you’re approaching a script like Shadowlands and in particular with this episode it’s really quite a surreal world. How do you find anchor points to ground yourself as an actor when the story is so far outside your experience?
Brian Woodford: I look toward my past experiences in life to help develop any character I play. This is in addition to research and development work I do, as well. Drew is someone who is devoted and inspired in life and aims to do his absolute best in working for Alex.
I, too, see myself in Drew in terms of being someone who tries to be my best to those that are close to me in life. Generally, I bring different facets of my personality into all the characters I play.
Charlie David: How much were you able to relate your own experiences to create your character? And how much did you have to research or imagine?
Brian Woodford: I actually have played a butler before, in an Agatha Christie play, so, I was drawing a bit from that experience – but, Drew is much more complicated than a stereotypical butler. He is torn with his feelings for Alex.
I developed a feel for the character by drawing on a time when I was discovering my sexuality and also times when I was vulnerable and powerless. Drew really just wants things to work out right for those close to him but is a bit naïve in how he goes about it.
Charlie David: What aspects of the Shadowlands miniseries are you excited for an audience to experience or discover?
Brian Woodford: I’m excited for everyone to see the creativity that the cast and crew brought to this show. There was a lot of collaboration involved, not just with myself and my fellow cast members, but the crew as well.
There is a great special effects element in one of my scenes towards the end of the episode. Each episode very much draws the viewer into the close relationships between the characters. Also, folks can check me out in a dapper tux, jk.
Charlie David: Romance between men and between women was common place and written about in Greek and Roman mythology. Why is it important to continue sharing the type of stories in the Shadowlands miniseries today?
Brian Woodford: Visibility is so important for all minorities. More content focused on issues facing the LGBT fosters an awareness that is vital.
It also provides understanding for people who may come from different backgrounds and gives them a chance to see and discover more about issues they may not know about firsthand.
Charlie David: What was the hardest scene for you to do and why?
Brian Woodford: The hardest scene I had to do was a scene with Sean who plays the role of Alex in episode 1 ‘Narcissus’. It was my first time using a prosthetic, and it had to be placed precisely so. Well, I don’t want to give away too much – you’ll just have to watch the Shadowlands miniseries!
Charlie David: Who is a major influence for you and on your creativity?
Brian Woodford: My parents have really been a big influence on me, generally, as well as being a major source for my creativity. They always said “yes” when I was a kid wanting to act in a play or to take violin, guitar or trumpet class. In hindsight, I took a lot of music classes, haha.
www.brianwoodford.com
Instagram: @brianpwoodford
Twitter: @brianpwoodford
Sean C. Dwyer stars as Narcissus in Shadowlands
In the Narcissus episode of Shadowlands the story circles around Alex, a plastic surgeon hell bent on perfection, hosting a house party with an assortment of colorful guests. Amid romantic misfires it becomes apparent that the only person Alex is interested in is himself.
Charlie David: Tell us about the Narcissus story in Shadowlands. What were the main challenges and fears you had in creating the role of Alex?
Sean C. Dwyer: In the first episode of Shadowlands, ‘Narcissus’, my character is self-obsessed, perfection-obsessed and pursuit-obsessed; a constant search for the ideal in himself, his creation and his work.
My main challenges were creating a realistic character who is already nearly at the peak of his insanity; we see him for one evening, the last evening of his life, and everything that he has been and has become must be present in his current being. I wouldn’t say I had any particular fears- I was far too excited, stimulated and jonesing!
Kato Alexander and Basil Hendy as the Bunny Boys with Alex (Sean C. Dwyer) in the Narcissus episode of the gay TV series Shadowlands
Charlie David: How much of yourself goes into a character when it’s as unhinged as your role of Alex in ‘Narcissus’?
Sean C. Dwyer: Certainly a lot; as an actor – you yourself are the clay, the canvas and even the array of tools used to create the character. Even any kind of influences or inspirations used to develop the character are filtered through your own perspective.
At the same time, the interactions with other characters, the thoughts of the director… and then a lot of the technical aspects in production do a lot to create the character, the editing, the sound… all determine how the audience receives the character and that, ultimately, is what the character will be!
Charlie David: How much were you able to relate your own experiences to create the character of Alex in Narcissus? And how much did you have to research or imagine?
Sean C. Dwyer: This character is particularly insane, particularly driven and particularly fatal; he is ready to draw blood, ready to draw his own blood in his pursuit… I actually do have a lot of all of those things in me on some level; I have drawn my own blood in strange pursuits; like a wart I had for a good long while that just got too irritating and I literally cut it out of me… losing blood made me feel like “why are we putting things in ourselves to get high when we could take things out of ourselves…”
I didn’t really follow that thought up with consistent practice, ha. I also feel pretty crazy sometimes, and I’m not the only one, and I drive forward with my goals and pursuits rather relentlessly… at the same time, there was most definitely a need to imagine what cutting oneself would literally be like, where someone’s mental state would fully have to go to get there… would he be happy, sad, angry doing it…. the most important connection ultimately, was that there is a lot going on in our minds and it comes out sometimes smooth in precise speech and action, and sometimes very rough.
Alex (Sean C. Dwyer) and Fly Fisherman (Jim Garrow) in Shadowlands ‘Narcissus’
Charlie David: The stories in the Shadowlands TV show were inspired by the Shadowlands book which was inspired by Greek mythology. What was your experience in creating a remix of an ancient classical tale like Narcissus?
Sean C. Dwyer: I am familiar with the old stories, and I looked at Narcissus specifically for this project, and strangely enough I had a few projects with this character and concept going on in the last little while, so research overlapped and even performances fed each other.
And then the Berlin 1920s context gave a lot of space for exploration of course. Acting is all about building up a big pile of knowledge and experience and then throwing it carelessly up into the air, hoping that some of it sticks, but ultimately striding through the aftermath like you own the place.
Charlie David: What aspects of the Shadowlands TV show are you excited for an audience to experience or discover?
Sean C. Dwyer: There are many aspects! Twisty endings, unexpected turns, artistic pleasure, emotion, passion, taboo-testing and pushing the envelope. I hope that the audience will come with us on our downward (and all around) spiral and be inspired to get dirty!
Alex (Sean C. Dwyer) in his dungeon in Shadowlands ‘Narcissus’
Charlie David: Each story or episode is unique and has its own world of characters, time and place. And yet there are connections between them. Were you aware of these connections while filming or was it a surprise to learn later?
Sean C. Dwyer: I became fleetingly at first and then more and more aware of them… I think it works as it happened… like you think you are the center of the universe and then you learn progressively that there are worlds beyond you and then that you are interconnected with those worlds in a larger world or plan.
Meeting actors from the other shows who in our show were simply background, using elements from the other episodes in very explicit ways, like humming a song from one of them and turning it on it’s head- but not knowing quite how it passed in the other episode because it had not been shot or certainly edited yet! Very fun and stimulating to be a part of and to integrate into my performance!
Charlie David: Romance between men and between women was common place and written about in Greek and Roman mythology. Why is it important to continue sharing these types of stories today?
Sean C. Dwyer: It continues to be an important part of society today, certainly; it is absolutely critical to share everyone’s stories together, no less these kinds of stories that can potentially involve absolutely everyone in society in one way or another.
I speak as a heterosexual cis gendered Irish-heritage man, who is very grateful for all of the experiences of open-mindedness and taboo-bursting and even just simply knowing all sorts of people with all sorts of life-experiences… it is the completely necessary response to a lot of the issues going on today; knowing each other, sharing stories with each other, even the dark ones!
Charlie David: What was the hardest scene for you to do in Narcissus and why?
Sean C. Dwyer: I loved it all, I was excited to jump into it all (even into the pool at 5am yes!) and everyone was just so darn supportive and awesome and we were so in this together… I mean the last sequence I was really in the zone and wanted to remain there while made up and between scenes, so I had to ask the Director to convey to the others to refrain from jokes and snickering and chit-chat between takes and everyone was totally cool with that, and we were all back to good, fun times once we were done and I had my face back!
Sean C. Dwyer: There are many… perhaps if I have to say one, it would be Batman? I strive to live in that example however fictional it may be; obsession, striving, constant work, costume, seriousness, darkness, running the edge of madness, constant self-improvement and self-less-ness… there are many aspects within him that I have striven to see live in me. Charles Dickens, Data from Star Trek TNG, Robert Zemeckis, Richard Donner and Mel Gibson… the list goes on!
Charlie David: Is there a type of role you dream of playing but haven’t had the opportunity yet?
Sean C. Dwyer: My type seems to be becoming more and more American Psycho, and I am alright with that! It might even lead to playing Batman! (It did for Christian Bale!) I love superheros, and I have played a variety of superheros, but I would like to play an ultra-realistic superhero, dark and brooding. An android… a space explorer… Virgil in an adaptation of Dante’s Inferno… the list goes on!
Charlie David: In addition to acting, tell me about the other areas of entertainment you’re pursuing.
Sean C. Dwyer: Specifically entertainment? Well, that would be writing scripts and directing… I love editing and don’t get enough opportunity to do that. I’m a lawyer, but NOT an entertainment lawyer, as a lawyer it is social justice for me… criminal, youth, family… research for acting perhaps!
I love painting and drawing as well, but those are areas just for me privately; no outside judgement, what I do will be good enough for me and that’s good enough! Entirely my creation, haha.
Sean C. Dwyer in Shadowlands Narcissus
Charlie David: With so much going on in the world today, what’s your motivation to be a performer? Do you act to explain? To get away? To move past? To widen our knowledge? To incite a conversation?
Sean C. Dwyer: All of these reasons are excellent reasons and most definitely inspire me in various roles, from role to role it can be all of them, a few, just one or none at all. I do want to engage in current debates; like telling marginal stories and including all different types of peoples in the dominant narrative.
To instill hope, but inspire action, to engage in possible worlds as much as in hard reality. To teach and learn, to work through difficult moments in the past… like any experience from a relationship to a hike to a single breath, each is its own! But hopefully everything we do gets people talking, yes!
Charlie David: What’s next for you as a creator/actor/performer?
Sean C. Dwyer: I have a few projects on the go right now, from my own writing-directing for a sci-fi short film to playing Alexander Mackenzie in an Ontario history piece, a few rapists and chauvinists in some pieces and a few good men in others!
I’d like to send out grateful vibes and positive karma to everyone involved in the Narcissus episode of Shadowlands; awesome to see it growing, OutTV and all of the opportunity that it brings to the Canadian industry and the LGBT community; onwards and upwards!
Where can fans find you?
Website: www.seancdwyer.com
Facebook, Instagram: @seancdwyer
Twitter: @seancd
If you enjoyed this interview with Sean C. Dwyer about the Narcissus episode, explore other chats with cast members of the Shadowlands series. |
Former Miami Beach Community Hospital - Update on SobePark Plan
The former South Beach Community Hospital site in South Beach has been sitting empty and abandoned for many years. Located at the corner of Sixth Street and West Avenue to Alton Road, this is a prominent gateway to Miami Beach. Nearly all traffic headed East onto the island of Miami Beach from the Mac Arthur Causeway passes this site. The site of the former hospital represents a very large area of land, especially if combined with the former Vitri Site on the corner of Fifth and West Avenue / Alton Road.
Developer Russell Galbut held a meeting recently and proposed his development plans centered at 630 Alton Road, which is owned by Galbut’s Crescent Heights Development Company. Below is a picture of the initial (and unapproved thus far) mixed use proposal for the former Miami Beach Community Hospital site (and adjoining parcels).SoBePark (the overall proposed name of the site) also would have 200,000 square feet of residences and other features, including a public park. One of the Architects at the meeting re-envisioned the three blocks at the core of the West Avenue complex as having one level of underground parking and two levels of retail space, to be topped off with the park. A separate garage on a site northeast of the proposed retail center also will be topped off with green space. The architectural plan (thus far) is to have a residential tower on the southern end of the site, with the goal of reconfiguring the MacArthur Causeway off-ramp onto Alton Road. This would create a better flow of car traffic and better pedestrian access in and around the area, according to the Developer. Mr. Galbut wants to build 450,000 square feet of upscale retail resembling The Colonnade Outlets at Sawgrass Mills. The public is encouraged to continue participating in the process of shaping this important Miami Beach mixed use project.
The main beneficiaries of a redevelopment of the Sixth and Alton Site (whether it be retail / residential/ or combined commercial with residential development) will be the luxury condo residents in the immediate area. The former Miami Beach Community Hospital site is directly across from The Bentley Bay, which is located on the water on Sixth Street & West Avenue. The Bentley Bay condos were originally sold and marketed as Miami Beach's luxury gateway, with incredible views of Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami. In the immediate North of Fifth area along Alton Road is the Fifth and Alton Shopping Center, a thriving retail destination.
The soon to be revitalized Sixth and Alton / West Avenue area of Miami Beach should also benefit the nearby "South of Fifth" condo buildings across the street as well, especially Icon South Beach & The Murano Grande. The former South Shore Hospital site is the last large land area in Miami Beach that has been undeveloped, or needing to be redeveloped, since Miami Beach began its real estate and tourist renaissance in the mid 1990's. The proposed SoBePark Development, as outlined by Mr. Galbut & Crescent Heights, has a strong chance to transform the West Avenue / Alton Road area into Miami Beach's most desirable place to live, shop, work and play.
MIAMI BEACH RE-DEVELOPMENT ARTICLE LINKS :
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/print-edition/2011/10/07/crescent-heights-to-build-on-former.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2012/04/27/a-park-tops-crescent-heights-planned.html
http://therealdeal.com/miami/blog/2012/04/26/miami-beach-gets-eight-proposals-for-convention-center-revamp/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/19/2757805/developer-to-review-design-proposals.html
Miami Beach Condos Year End Review
A quick summary of what's been happening in Miami Beach's condo market in 2011, especially for the premier waterfront luxury condo buildings built after 2001:
Over the past six months, the available Miami Beach condo inventory has drastically declined. As indicated in a recent Miami Herald Article (click for details), high net worth foreign & mostly cash buyers have been taking advantage of recent Miami Beach Real Estate price corrections by spending over $3 BILLION on SE Florida Real Estate in 2011. As a result, we've seen a dramatic drop in Miami Beach's condo listing inventory. Given the lack of (a.k.a. NONE LEFT) waterfront land, the existing Art Deco architectural protections and building restrictions, as well as highly restrictive regulatory and construction codes- the future supply of premier waterfront condos in Miami Beach will continue to be very limited.
Especially noteworthy for Miami Beach are the high $/Sq.Ft. closed sales prices in premier waterfront condo buildings such as The Setai, The Continuum on South Beach, Apogee South Beach, and the W Hotel/Condo Residences. The highest priced sale (in terms of $/Sq. Ft) for Miami Beach condos in 2011 were the following:
The Setai Miami Beach Penthouse Penthouse A for a staggering $3,463 /Sq.Ft. ($21,500,000)
The Continuum North Tower Condo #2101 for $1,674 /Sq.Ft. ($5,050,000)
Apogee Miami Beach Condo #1603 for $2,177 /Sq.Ft. (6,000,000)
The W Condo/Hotel Residence Upper Penthouse #3 for $2,142 / Sq.Ft. ($5,200,000)
Below are the past six months Sales Statistics for Miami Beach Luxury Condos (South Beach zip code 33139):
Miami Beach Luxury Condos- Last Six Months Closed Sales
Closing Date Miami Beach Condo Building Living Area Sales Price SP$/SqFt
12/21/2011 Continuum on South Beach 2,985 $3,300,000 $1,106
12/20/2011 Portofino Yacht Club 1,980 $1,900,000 $960
12/16/2011 IL VILLAGGIO 2,310 $3,999,995 $1,732
12/13/2011 APOGEE SOUTH BEACH 3,103 $5,508,200 $1,775
12/12/2011 Continuum South Tower 2,292 $2,665,000 $1,163
12/9/2011 Setai 2,521 $6,000,000 $2,380
12/9/2011 Setai 6,209 $ 21,500,000 $3,463
12/6/2011 Il Villaggio 2,310 $3,900,000 $1,688
12/5/2011 PORTOFINO TOWER 2,340 $1,750,000 $748
12/5/2011 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,340 $1,737,000 $742
11/21/2011 The Setai 821 $1,310,000 $1,596
11/18/2011 IL VILLAGGIO 1,370 $1,025,000 $748
10/27/2011 Portofino 2,340 $1,225,000 $524
10/27/2011 Apogee 2,756 $6,000,000 $2,177
10/25/2011 CONTINUUM 1,869 $1,750,000 $936
10/24/2011 Capri South Beach 1,889 $1,088,000 $576
10/19/2011 THESETAI 821 $1,010,000 $1,230
10/14/2011 MURANO AT PORTOFINO 2,190 $2,250,000 $1,027
10/14/2011 1500 OCEAN DRIVE 1,740 $1,625,000 $934
10/11/2011 W South Beach Residences 1,151 $1,850,000 $1,607
10/7/2011 CONTINUUM NORTH TOWER 1,486 $1,700,000 $1,144
9/30/2011 Setai 1,198 $1,105,000 $922
9/29/2011 Continuum North 1,698 $1,500,000 $883
9/29/2011 Murano Grande 2,024 $1,418,000 $701
9/27/2011 W South Beach Residence 1,151 $1,590,000 $1,381
9/27/2011 Continuum North Tower 1,862 $2,300,000 $1,235
9/26/2011 Setai 1,279 $2,300,000 $1,798
9/19/2011 Continuum on South Beach 2,122 $2,300,000 $1,084
9/17/2011 APOGEE 4,154 $7,500,000 $1,805
9/12/2011 Continuum, South Tower 1,591 $1,500,000 $943
8/28/2011 W South Beach Residences 574 $1,100,000 $1,916
8/17/2011 CONTINUUM THE NORTH TOWER 1,922 $2,900,000 $1,509
8/11/2011 W South Beach 2,428 $5,200,000 $2,142
8/5/2011 COURTSAT SOUTH BEACH 2,620 $1,300,000 $496
8/2/2011 CONTINUUM ON SOUTH BEACH 3,017 $3,700,000 $1,226
8/1/2011 Il Villaggio Condominium 1,550 $1,750,000 $1,129
7/20/2011 The Setai 1,141 $2,600,000 $2,279
7/19/2011 Continuum 2,122 $2,200,000 $1,037
7/14/2011 W South Beach Residences 2,352 $6,120,400 $2,602
7/8/2011 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,340 $1,625,000 $694
7/8/2011 CONTINUUM II 2,173 $3,500,000 $1,611
7/7/2011 CAPRI SOUTH BEACH 1,842 $1,623,300 $881
7/6/2011 ICON 2,158 $1,309,500 $607
7/6/2011 CONTINUUM NORTH TOWER 1,698 $1,400,000 $824
7/1/2011 Murano Grande 3,979 $3,400,000 $854
6/30/2011 THE GRAND VENETIAN 2,345 $1,587,500 $677
6/30/2011 CONTINUUM SOUTH TOWER 2,122 $2,122,000 $1,000
6/30/2011 Continuum on South Beach 1,698 $1,450,000 $854
6/28/2011 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,040 $1,750,000 $858
6/28/2011 Icon South Beach 1,815 $1,440,000 $793
6/21/2011 Murano at Prtofino 2,618 $2,215,000 $846
6/20/2011 APOGEE CONDO 4,154 $7,350,000 $1,769
6/16/2011 ICONCONDOMINIUM 4,303 $3,400,000 $790
6/13/2011 CONTINUUM SOUTH BEACH 1,591 $1,379,000 $867
6/9/2011 W South Beach Residences 1,350 $2,400,000 $1,778
6/9/2011 Murano at Portofino 2,190 $1,600,000 $731
6/9/2011 W South Beach Residence 1,054 $1,560,000 $1,480
6/8/2011 Murano Grande At Portofin 1,548 $1,080,000 $698
6/6/2011 Apogee 2,756 $4,900,000 $1,778
6/2/2011 continuum 3,017 $5,050,000 $1,674
Miami Beach Condo News
South of Fifth Condo News
The renamed Ocean House luxury condominiums in Miami Beach, will be sold and marketed as one of the most exclusive condos in Miami Beach's South of Fifth Neighborhood. The Oceanfront ultra-luxury & boutique condominium development formerly known as The South of Fifth (S5) is getting a multi-million dollar upgrade by iStar Residential, which recently acquired all of the unsold condominiums.
The oversized ultra-luxury condominium complex has only seventeen beachfront residences. The Ocean House condominiums will be a luxurious enclave on famous Ocean Drive, along the coveted beachfront South of Fifth Street, one of South Florida’s most upscale residential neighborhoods. This boutique property boasts some of the most impressive residences in all of Greater Miami, with several beach condominiums measuring over 6,000 sq.ft. What makes this condominium complex unique are that these are ALL very large three bedroom + Oceanfront condominiums. For more information on the South of Fifth Ocean House Condominiums and to see available floorplans, please click HERE or on the picture above.
Nearby luxury waterfront condo buildings include the large resort-like The Murano at Portofino, The Continuum South Beach, Apogee, The Murano Grande, Icon South Beach, and the Portofino Tower. The Ocean House condo residences are ideal for the ultra-luxury condo buyer, who values their privacy since the lobby and common areas are elegant and luxurious, yet understated. Given the very limited number of total residences and floors, each individual condo owner will be pampered with unique and personalized concierge services and a highly trained staff. This level of privacy and individualized attention is simply not an option in the nearby larger condo buildings in Miami Beach's South of Fifth Neighborhood.
The Ocean House ultra-luxury condominium complex consists of three connected Oceanfront Towers, with ten floors total. Originally completed in late 2008, The Ocean House condominiums are located next door to the Bentley Hilton luxury condo/hotel (also formerly known at Bentley Beach). This was THE last premier location left to develop on Ocean Drive, where an extra-wide area of oceanfront Beach intersects with the nearby South Pointe Park and the Nikki Beach Complex.
02 lines: 4,178-6,379 sqft.
4 bedrooms/6.5 bathrooms
Price range: from $4.5M- $7.9M
2-3 bedrooms/5.5 bathrooms
3 bedrooms/5.5 to 6.5 bathrooms
The popular and highly sought-after South of Fifth street area (SoFi) has the most affluent and exclusive condominium buildings built in South Beach, starting with The Portofino Tower in 1997. SoFi (as locals call the area), is a pocket of luxury waterfront condos (and a few older homes) that connects the intercoastal to the ocean within a narrow stretch of land, this makes the distance from Bayfront to Oceanfront very short. Miami Beach's South of Fifth also offers many famous restaurants including Prime Italian, Joe's Stone Crabs, Smith & Wollensky located inside of South Pointe Park, and the newly opened (and excellent) Vic and Angelo's located at 125 Ocean Drive.
Below are the past 60 Days Sales for Miami Beach Condos in theSouth of Fifth Neighborhood:
Miami Beach South of Fifth Condos- Past 60 Days Closed Sales
Sales Date Miami Beach Condo Miami Beach Condo Living Area Sales Price SP$/SqFt
11/18/2011 120 JEFFERSON AV # 12017 The Courts at South Beach 1,430 $645,000 $451
11/17/2011 425 MERIDIAN AV # 11 Meridian 5 1,178 $565,000 $480
11/14/2011 50 S POINTE DR # 2003 Continuum On South Beach 1,451 $1,550,000 $1,068
11/10/2011 450 Alton # 3606 ICON South Beach 1,452 $762,000 $525
11/3/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 405 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,340 $980,000 $419
11/1/2011 90 ALTON RD # 2503 YARCH CLUB AT PORTOFINO 1,080 $500,000 $463
10/27/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 805 Portofino 2,340 $1,225,000 $524
10/27/2011 800 S POINTE DR # 1603 Apogee 2,756 $6,000,000 $2,177
10/25/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 705 CONTINUUM 1,869 $1,750,000 $936
10/14/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 2104 MURANO AT PORTOFINO 2,190 $2,250,000 $1,027
10/10/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 3004 CONTINUUM ON SOUTH BEACH 2,508 $3,495,000 $1,394
10/7/2011 90 ALTON RD # 1111 The Yacht Club 1,130 $500,000 $442
10/6/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 1110 SOUTH POINTE TOWERS 1,559 $860,000 $552
10/6/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 709 PORTOFINO TOWER 1,090 $570,000 $523
9/30/2011 730 3 ST # 201 Armitage Place 2,290 $780,000 $341
9/29/2011 50 S POINTE DR # 1606 Continuum North 1,698 $1,500,000 $883
9/29/2011 400 ALTON RD # 2206 Murano Grande 2,024 $1,418,000 $701
9/27/2011 50 S POINTE DR # 2205 Continuum North Tower 1,862 $2,300,000 $1,235
9/26/2011 90 ALTON RD # 3010 YACHT CLUB AT PORTOFINO 1,090 $710,000 $651
Miami Beach Upcoming Season Events
As we approach the High Traffic Winter Season in Miami Beach, pre-Thanksgiving celebrations, Art & Design Showscases, as well as Live Music concerts are just around the corner.Miami Beach Real Estate owners, visitors, and residents will be granted all access to the city's long schedule of performances and shows from local, national and international artists and musicians.
This global city with its international media, arts, entertainment, commerce, Miami Beach Real Estate and business offerings, will see an influx of tourists, holiday vacationers and visitors from all over the world. Miami Beach condos and South Beach hotels will accomodate these travelers as they arrive to enjoy the beautiful beaches, tropical climate, exciting nightlife and Holiday events. South Florida during Winter season is the ideal destination for many foreign buyers and second-home owners who want to buy or invest in Miami Beach.
South of Fifth Neighborhood Highlights in Miami Beach
The 1st Annual SoFi Dog Party. The dogs of Miami Beach's Murano Grande condominium invite the dogs of all the buildings South of Fifth to join them on Saturday, November 5 from 9am - 1pm at the Washington Avenue Bark Park. Free event with numerous pet friendly vendors scheduled.
Vic & Angelo's is hosting a special "Housewarming Party" for ICON and other South of Fifth residents on Thursday, November 10th from 7pm - 9pm. Enjoy complimentary signature cocktails and a selection of passed hors d'oeuvres. RSVP to Jacqui@vicandangelos.com.
Zuma has launched a prix-fixe menu in addition to their current á la carte offerings during lunch hours. The option will cost $24, and includes two starters and a choice of one entree from a selection of three regular items. http://zumarestaurant.com/
Kane is extending a 15% OFF the total bill (alcohol included) to all ICON residents. http://kanesteakhouse.com
Lolita Cocina & Tequila Bar will take over the old Nemo space. http://lolitamexican.com/
Amnesia (136 Collins Avenue) officially re-opened on South Beach. The nightlife venue has 26,000 square feet of multi-leveled internal space, and offers 70 VIP tables, 2 private VIP sections, and a 2nd floor mezzanine.http://amnesiamiami.com/
Philippe re-opens in SoFi on November 23rd at 36-40 Ocean Drive, in the former Taverna Opa space. http://philippechow.com/
FEATURED GREATER MIAMI & MIAMI BEACH ART SHOWS
The international contemporary design èlite arrive for the Winter edition of Art Basel Miami Beach. The art shows focus on a several types of artwork, like photography, paints, prints, or contemporary art, and other broader ranges. The premier art event, Art Basel, returns to Miami Beach on December 1-4, 2011. The below list is compiled of upcoming Art Basel satellite events throughout Miami Beach. http://www.artbaselmiamibeach.com/
Art Miami
http://www.art-miami.com
This premier fair celebrates its 22nd anniversary as it kicks off the opening day of Art Week. KNown for its extraordinary variety, quality and its stylish gallery-like decor, Art Miami showcases the best in modern and contemporary art from more than 100 international art galleries and prominent art institutions.
Design Miami
http://www.designmiami.com
Design Miami presents the best international design galleries exhibiting extraordinary historic and contemporary design. Designers, collectors, dealers and curators from around the world participate in lectures, exhibits and design installations.
Red Dot Art Fair
http://www.reddotfair.com
This art show features more than 50 international, modern contemporary art dealers from around the world. It includes painting, photography, sculpture and more.
INK Miami
http://www.inkartfair.com/
INK showcases notable publishers and dealers who exhibit new publications, projects and acquisitions by leading contemporary artists.
Arts for a Better World
http://www.artsforabetterworld.com
The second edition of Arts for a Better World takes place in a tent around the pool at the Surfcomber Hotel. It features International Galleries, Better World Museum, Van Gogh's Dream presented by Maison Van Gogh, Tous Ensemble Holocaust Remembrance & Tolerance Project, and live artistic happenings.
Scope Miami 2011
http://www.scope-art.com
The art show that has established its name by curating cutting-edge contemporary art from around the world proudly returns to Miami for its 10th year. Taking place in a 80,000 square foot pavilion across the street from Art Miami, SCOPE Miami's high-profile venue will bring together the finest talent in the art world.
Special Events & Dining Updates on Miami Beach
Live Music Month
http://www.livemiamimusic.com/
Live Music month features many performances, concerts, festival and a variety music events, from local and international Deejays, acts and talented musicians. The events will take place at live music venues in Greater Miami and Miami Beach throughout the month of November.
Miami Beach International Bridal Week
http://www.miamibridalweek.com
The Eden Roc is transformed into a fantasy fairytale wedding scene in white and crystal with thousands of exotic flowers from around the world for this two-day luxury consumer wedding event.
Miami Short Film Festival
http://www.miamishortfilmfestival.com
MSFF's goal year after year is focused on motivating directors, screenwriters, actors, and producers to make their films and share them with fellow film makers and industry professionals. The ultimate goal is to bring exposure to independent up-and-coming filmmakers.
23rd Annual Festival of Chefs
http://www.southflorida.easterseals.com
Great music, fine wine, and samples of signature dishes from South Florida's most acclaimed chefs along with Easter Seals’ Culinary Art Students is the essence of the Annual Festival of the Chefs. This event brings fine dining in a rousing display of creations to stimulate every taste.
Sleepless Night Miami Beach
http://www.sleeplessnight.org
Tens of thousands of cultural enthusiasts will gather on the vibrant streets and sands of Miami Beach for this unique all-night experience during Sleepless Night. The festival features 150 free performances, exhibitions and other cultural offerings at 80 locations spread throughout the city and the 13-hour night that marks the end of Daylight Savings Time. Free shuttle buses connect the four zones of activity and remote parking locations.
French Week Miami Beach
http://www.frenchweekmiami.org
French Week Miami is a unique event designed to emphasize and to promote the French presence in South Florida and Miami Beach. Numerous events showcase the best of French culture: the screening of great French movies, an international book fair, a “Beaujolais nouveau” wine tasting, and various artistic performances and educational activities. This year features the second edition of a new dimension, with French Spice offering maximum exposure of French restaurants in the Greater Miami area.
French Spice
http://www.frenchspicemiami.com
Experience a taste of France in November from Bistro to Gourmet restaurants to celebrate the diversity of Miami. French Spice, a fine dining promotion, offers specially priced three-course lunches and dinners.
SoundScape Cinema Series
http://www.mbculture.com
The SoundScape Cinema Series, an Arts in the Parks program presented by the City of Miami Beach, presents free, weekly outdoor screenings on the huge wall of the New World Center, 500 17th Street (near Washington Avenue) in Miami Beach on Wednesday nights. Bring blankets, beach chairs and picnics (but no glass please). No tickets required. Schedule subject to change.
Moulin Rouge - (11/9/2011)
The Maltese Falcon - (11/16/2011)
Raiders of the Lost Ark - (11/23/2011)
Greater Miami and Miami Beach Concert Performances
Jazz Meets Gershwin November 4 @ 8pm, Adrienne Arsht Center
www.arshtcenter.org
Boyz II Men with Keith Sweat and Faith Evans Nov. 5th @ 8:00 pm, at James L. Knight Center
www.boyziimen.com/
Taylor Swift November 13 @ 7pm, American Airlines Arena
www.taylorswift.com/
Jay Z & Kanye West November 25 @ 7:30pm, American Airlines Arena
watchthethrone.com/
Idina Menzel December 3 @ 8pm, Knight Concert Hall @ The Arsht Center
www.idinamenzel.com/
Janet Jackson December 5 @ 9pm, The Fillmore @ The Jackie Gleason Theater
www.janetjackson.com/
Miami Beach Condo Buyer Myths
Many Miami Beach condo buyers we encounter in the real estate buying process often labor under several misconceptions, which could be called myths. Below are a few of what I've found to be the most common:
1. We are looking for "a below market deal / distressed sale". The longer the condo is on the market, the more willing the Miami Beach condo seller will be to negotiate a bargain price.
The Miami Beach waterfront condo market has gotten a considerable boost from a very active first half of the year. This type of waterfront condo and luxury real estate sales momentum has not been seen since the market heights of 2006. Especially in premier waterfront condo buildings, such as The Continuum on South Beach, continue to set remarkable sales records! Recent myth-busting impressive sales, and diminishing supply, for oceanfront condos and waterfront homes is on a steady and stable rise - dissolving the above stated Buyer misconceptions. Especially in Miami Beach's South of Fifth neighborhood, the latest luxury condo sales momentum has led to a greatly diminished supply of available waterfront condo inventory. As you can be seen at the the very bottom of this article, the past 90 days of South Pointe area condo sales at The Continuum (North and South Towers), Apogee, The Murano at Portofino, The Portofino Tower, and The South Pointe Tower average 90% of asking prices.
2. If my offer is accepted right away, the offer was too high; in this Buyer's market, I don't have to negotiate, the Miami Beach condo seller does.
Location & architectural uniqueness are a few of the key determining factors in recent buyers decisions to purchase. As illustrated by the most recent Miami Beach condo sales at the aforementioned Continuum Miami Beach, Apogee, and The Murano at Portofino. The underlying reason for the recent price APPRECIATION and diminishing supply (at reduced price points) is that there will be NO further waterfront condo development in South Beach. Given the scarcity of waterfront land, as well as The City of Miami Beach's strict development regulations / restrictions, this puts a PERMANENT bottleneck on future condo building development & supply. This also represents a strong upside for future Miami Beach waterfront real estate market appreciation.
Even an older "B" caliber South Beach condo building - The South Pointe Tower, due to its amazing location South of Fifth Street (behind South Pointe Park and facing Fisher Island) – has witnessed incredible sales momentum in the past year! The South Pointe Tower was completed in 1981, and is next door to The Continuum on South Beach - which offers twelve incredible oceanfront acres at the southernmost tip of Miami Beach. This as the equivalent of living next to an Oceanfront resort, and has features and a location that CANNOT be reproduced. This is why specific ultra-luxury waterfront condo buildings such as The Continuum, Apogee, and The Murano at Portofino have had recent sales approaching $1,600/S.F., with unprecedented Buyer demand (from mostly high net worth Foreign Buyers).
As real estate sales professionals, it's our duty to get the best possible price for our clients. As part of this process, when working with qualified Buyers, this involves educating a Miami Beach condo buyer and setting realistic expectations as to what is a "good deal".
Miami Beach Condos- Ninety Days Closed Sales
Closing Date Miami Beach Condo List Price Living Area LP$/SqFt Sales Price SP$/LP$
7/14/2011 SOUTH POINTE TOWER COND I $ 779,900 1,279 $ 610 $ 772,500 99.051
7/8/2011 CONTINUUM II $ 3,500,000 2,173 $ 1,611 $ 3,500,000 100
7/8/2011 PORTOFINO TOWERS $ 1,690,000 2,340 $ 722 $ 1,625,000 96.154
7/6/2011 CONTINUUM NORTH TOWER $ 1,595,000 1,698 $ 939 $ 1,400,000 87.774
7/5/2011 SOUTH POINTE TOWER $ 850,000 1,165 $ 730 $ 825,000 97.059
6/30/2011 Continuum on South Beach $ 1,550,000 1,698 $ 913 $ 1,450,000 93.548
6/30/2011 Continuum on South Beach $ 3,750,000 2,508 $ 1,495 $ 3,400,000 90.667
6/30/2011 CONTINUUM SOUTH TOWER $ 2,250,000 2,122 $ 1,060 $ 2,122,000 94.311
6/28/2011 PORTOFINO TOWERS $ 2,275,000 2,040 $ 1,115 $ 1,750,000 76.923
6/27/2011 CONTINUUM NORTH TOWER $ 3,999,999 2,621 $ 1,526 $ 3,836,000 95.9
6/22/2011 Continuum North Tower $ 699,000 640 $ 1,092 $ 675,000 96.567
6/21/2011 Murano at Prtofino $ 2,399,000 2,618 $ 916 $ 2,215,000 92.33
6/20/2011 APOGEE CONDO $ 7,990,000 4,154 $ 1,923 $ 7,350,000 91.99
6/16/2011 South Pointe Tower $ 725,000 1,559 $ 465 $ 700,000 96.552
6/13/2011 CONTINUUM SOUTH BEACH $ 1,490,000 1,591 $ 937 $ 1,379,000 92.55
6/6/2011 PORTOFINO TOWER $ 1,250,000 2,340 $ 534 $ 950,000 76
6/6/2011 Apogee $ 5,400,000 2,756 $ 1,959 $ 4,900,000 90.741
6/2/2011 continuum $ 5,299,000 3,017 $ 1,756 $ 5,050,000 95.301
6/2/2011 South Pointe Towers $ 675,000 1,169 $ 577 $ 565,500 83.778
6/2/2011 MURANO AT PORTOFINO $ 1,090,000 1,791 $ 609 $ 935,000 85.78
5/26/2011 Murano At Portofino $ 3,800,000 3,365 $ 1,129 $ 3,500,000 92.105
5/24/2011 PORTOFINO TOWER $ 699,000 1,090 $ 641 $ 655,000 93.705
5/18/2011 PORTOFINO $ 1,295,000 2,340 $ 553 $ 1,188,000 91.737
5/17/2011 CONTINUUM NORTH TOWER $ 4,500,000 3,017 $ 1,492 $ 4,050,000 90
5/10/2011 Continuum South Beach $ 4,500,000 2,954 $ 1,523 $ 4,000,000 88.889
5/10/2011 Continuum South Tower $13,500,000 6,438 $ 2,097 $ 10,576,000 78.341
5/9/2011 MURANO AT PORTOFINO $ 2,550,000 2,618 $ 974 $ 2,400,000 94.118
5/3/2011 Continuum North Tower $ 7,900,000 5,300 $ 1,491 $ 6,500,000 82.278
5/3/2011 SOUTH POINTE TOWER $ 575,000 858 $ 670 $ 550,000 95.652
4/29/2011 PORTOFINO TOWERS $ 1,599,000 2,040 $ 784 $ 1,480,000 92.558
4/28/2011 CONTINUUM ON SOUTH BEACH $ 1,100,000 1,365 $ 806 $ 1,100,000 100
4/26/2011 Murano at Portofino $ 1,395,000 1,407 $ 991 $ 1,250,000 89.606
4/25/2011 The Continuum $ 1,425,000 2,072 $ 688 $ 1,425,000 100
Average List Price to Sales Price: 90%
Miami Beach Condo Sales Results
The past four months of miami beach condo sales have been impressive, continuing to buck national real estate trends. Miami Beach real estate, especially for premier condo buildings in South Beach's highly desired South of Fifth neighborhood, continues to be in strong demand.
As the Spring / Winter season in Miami Beach comes to an end, we are continuing to see strong buyer demand for premier waterfront homes and condos. Especially in the premier waterfront luxury condo buildings, such as The Murano at Portofino, Continuum North and South Towers, Icon South Beach, Apogee, and The Il Villagio demand is outpacing supply causing condo price appreciation!Further North, along Collins Avenue, premier Oceanfront buildings such as The Setai, The Bath Club, The Akoya, and The Blue and Green Diamond condo buildings have seen impressive sales momentum in the 2010 - 2011 selling season.
Indeed, overall Miami Beach condo sales have been SO strong, that we've had many frustrated Buyers decide to purchase condos which were further down on their list desired preferences / amenities. We've had several of our top clients decide to purchase waterfront condos in Miami Beach that require extensive remodelling, since they were outbid for the premier Miami Beach corner condos with direct Oceanfront and/or Biscayne Bay views.
The last ninety days of $1 Million + Waterfront Miami Beach Condo Sales for zip codes 33139 and 33140:
Past Ninety Days Sales Miami Beach Condos - $1 Million + (Waterfront)
Closing Date ADDRESS Miami Beach Condo Living Area Sales Price
4/27/2011 1455 OCEAN DR # BH-06 IL VILLAGGIO 3,550 $ 3,025,000
4/26/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 1705 Murano at Portofino 1,407 $ 1,250,000
4/4/2011 400 ALTON RD # 3203 MURANO GRANDE 3,058 $ 2,021,000
4/19/2011 400 ALTON RD # 703 Murano Grande 3,058 $ 1,620,000
3/4/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 3702 MURANO AT PORTOFINO 2,618 $ 2,200,000
2/7/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 1110 Continuum South 2,122 $ 1,900,000
4/20/2011 1445 16 # LP-1 CAPRI SOUTH BEACH 2,970 $ 2,500,000
4/27/2011 1500 OCEAN DR # 1001 1500 OCEAN DRIVE 2,320 $ 2,745,000
2/9/2011 101 20 ST # 2708 The Setai 1,141 $ 2,100,000
4/18/2011 800 S POINTE DR # PHA APOGEE 6,853 $11,500,000
4/25/2011 100 S POINTE DR # TH-15 The Continuum 2,072 $ 1,425,000
3/1/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 1005 Continuum South Tower 1,869 $ 1,650,000
3/7/2011 450 ALTON RD # 1205 Icon South Beach 1,750 $ 855,000
2/14/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 1510 SOUTH POINTE TOWER 1,559 $ 975,000
3/9/2011 1455 OCEAN DR # 1406 Il Villaggio Condominium 1,780 $ 1,900,000
4/29/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 1802 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,040 $ 1,480,000
3/14/2011 2201 Collins Ave # 828 W South Beach Residences 1,906 $ 3,300,000
3/28/2011 400 ALTON RD # 1704 Murano Grande 1,425 $ 1,050,000
3/7/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 1101 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,340 $ 1,625,000
4/15/2011 1455 OCEAN DR # 1407 IL VILLAGGIO 1,810 $ 2,050,000
4/3/2011 101 20 ST # 2308 The Setai Condominium 2,558 $ 4,600,000
4/8/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 3204 Continuum 2,508 $ 3,270,000
2/11/2011 450 ALTON RD # 3210 ICON 1,370 $ 940,000
4/12/2011 1800 SUNSET HARBOUR DR # 2202/4 Sunset Harbour South 2,246 $ 1,100,000
3/2/2011 1445 16 # LPH-3 CAPRI SOUTH BEACH 1,919 $ 1,392,000
3/16/2011 1445 16 ST # BL-302 CAPRI SOUTH BEACH 1,842 $ 1,680,000
4/15/2011 1470 16 ST # C301 CAPRI SOUTH BEACH 1,974 $ 1,925,000
3/2/2011 1100 WEST AV # TS-1 Mondrian South Beach 1,500 $ 1,395,000
3/23/2011 800 S POINTE DR # 1402 Apogee 3,103 $ 4,995,000
3/18/2011 450 ALTON RD # 3001 ICON South Beach 2,145 $ 1,800,000
2/22/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 2901 Continuum South Tower 1,591 $ 1,550,000
2/9/2011 450 ALTON RD # 2002 THE ICON 1,933 $ 1,050,000
3/10/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 1605 PORTOFINO 2,340 $ 1,400,000
4/12/2011 50 S POINTE DR # 3003 CONTINUUM NORTH TOWER 2,306 $ 2,700,000
3/18/2011 1500 OCEAN DR # 405 1500 OCEAN DRIVE 1,530 $ 1,040,000
4/19/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 2401 CONTINUUM ON SOUTH BEACH 1,591 $ 1,350,000
3/23/2011 450 ALTON RD # 3502 ICON Condo 1,933 $ 1,470,000
3/17/2011 1500 OCEAN DR # PH-8 1500 Ocean Drive 1,170 $ 975,000
4/1/2011 6365 COLLINS AV # 2103 AKOYA CONDOMINIUM 1,761 $ 935,000
2/18/2011 5959 COLLINS AV # 705 THE BATH CLUB 3,807 $ 1,800,000
3/3/2011 4391 Collins # 722723 Fontainebleau IIISorrento 1,742 $ 980,000
2/25/2011 3737 COLLINS AV # S-502 Caribbean 2,326 $ 1,475,000
3/22/2011 4775 COLLINS AV # 2503 GREEN DIAMOND 1,980 $ 1,295,000
4/28/2011 3737 COLLINS AV # S-1303 The Caribbean 1,621 $ 975,000
4/20/2011 5959 COLLINS AV # 607 THE BATHCLUB CONDO 2,959 $ 1,000,000
South Of Fifth - Miami Beach's Best Condos
This past week, I had the opportunity to work with several clients (all Cash Buyers) who looking for purchasing opportunities in the waterfront luxury condo buildings South of Fifth Street: The Murano at Portofino, The Continuum South Beach, Murano Grande, Icon and even The Bentley Bay.
These Miami Beach Condo Buyers- are finding amazing opportunities in some of the lesser known South of Fifth Waterfront Buildings! I've recently made several cash offers at The South Pointe Tower in South Beach. Being an older condominium with late 1970"s construction standards, The South Pointe Tower had not been considered the most "IN" condo building. However, this South Beach condo offers an incredible location next to The Portofino Tower (part of the same Master Association) and has recently been renovated inside and out. Also, the common area hallways are currently being updated with new doors, carpeting, and other improvements. I'm amazed that in this older condo building- due to its amazing location South of Fifth Street (behind South Pointe Park and facing Fisher Island) - almost ALL the available inventory has sold out !!!
The Latest Sales Data for the South Pointe Tower Condos in Miami Beach's South of Fifth Neighborhood:
South Pointe Tower Last 12 Month Condo Sales
Closed Date ADDRESS Property Name List Price Living Area LP$/SqFt Sold Price SP$/LP$
5/4/2010 400 S POINTE DR # 2004 SOUTH POINTE TOWER $ 1,195,000 1,802 $ 663 $ 1,050,000 88
5/26/2010 400 S POINTE DR # 1410 SOUTH POINTE TOWERS $ 1,049,000 1,559 $ 673 $ 880,000 84
7/10/2010 400 S POINTE DR # 1007 SOUTH POINTE TOWER $ 575,000 858 $ 670 $ 525,000 91
2/14/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 1510 SOUTH POINTE TOWER $ 1,195,000 1,559 $ 767 $ 975,000 82
3/18/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 1107 south pointe towers condo $ 550,000 858 $ 641 $ 525,000 95
12/29/2010 400 S POINTE DR # 1404 SOUTH POINTE TOWERS $ 995,000 1,802 $ 552 $ 845,000 85
12/17/2010 400 S POINTE DR # 1603 SOUTH POINTE TOWER $ 995,000 1,271 $ 783 $ 960,000 96
1/5/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 2104 South Pointe Tower $ 1,195,000 1,802 $ 663 $ 925,000 77
3/8/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 309 SOUTH POINTE TOWER $ 495,000 950 $ 521 $ 450,000 91
Miami Beach Condos- Chasing the Real Estate Market
This past week, I had the opportunity to work with well qualified (cash) buyers looking to purchase a waterfront two bedroom condominium in Miami Beach's South of Fifth neighborhood. These specific clients have been looking for just the "right" deal and have had approximately eight of their top choices sold in the past three months. Their budget is in from $1 Million to $1.5 Million, and six months ago their were quite a few choices in the Portofino Tower, The Continuum North and South Towers, the Murano at Portofino, The Murano Grande and Icon with direct water views. Today, the choices at Icon and The Murano Grande are very limited, and practically non-existent in this price range (with water views) at The Continuum Condos on South Beach and at The Murano at Portofino. The Portofino Tower still has a few distressed units available, but only on the less desireable lower floors with very limited views of Miami Beach.
These clients have now widened their criteria, and today they told me that they've grown tired of "chasing the market". This is the first time, in a long time, that I've heard this term applied in a way that demonstrates a market that is challenging for BUYERS.
The Last 90 Days of Closed Sales - South Beach Waterfront Condominiums:
Miami Beach Waterfront Condomimium Closed Sales
Closing Date ADDRESS Condo Building Square Ft. LP$/SqFt Sales Price
3/23/2011 520 WEST AV # 1102 THE BENTLEY BAY CONDO 1,499 $ 400 $ 500,000
12/28/2010 50 S POINTE DR # 804 Continuum II 1,491 $ 801 $ 1,145,000
3/4/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 3702 MURANO AT PORTOFINO 2,618 $ 936 $ 2,200,000
3/7/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 408 Murano At Portofino 1,791 $ 502 $ 830,000
3/24/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 1206 MURANO AT PORTOFINO 1,006 $ 790 $ 650,000
1/28/2011 400 ALTON RD # LPH11 MURANO GRANDE 1,649 $ 603 $ 912,500
2/7/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 1110 Continuum South 2,122 $ 966 $ 1,900,000
3/17/2011 400 ALTON RD # 905 MURANO GRANDE 1,400 $ 400 $ 505,000
3/16/2011 50 S POINTE DR # 504 Continuum North Tower 747 $ 669 $ 470,000
3/1/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 1005 Continuum South Tower 1,869 $ 960 $ 1,650,000
2/14/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 1510 SOUTH POINTE TOWER 1,559 $ 767 $ 975,000
1/16/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 1007 CONTINUUM ON SOUTH BEACH 1,870 $ 1,203 $ 1,999,000
1/21/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 705 Murano@Portofino 1,407 $ 853 $ 1,075,000
3/18/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 1107 south pointe towers condo 858 $ 641 $ 525,000
12/29/2010 450 ALTON RD # 3405 ICON 3,094 $ 646 $ 1,700,000
1/12/2011 450 ALTON RD # 1201 ICON South Beach 2,145 $ 744 $ 1,465,000
1/24/2011 450 ALTON RD # 1006 ICON CONDO 1,452 $ 406 $ 590,000
3/14/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 405 MURANO AT PORTOFINO 1,407 $ 888 $ 900,000
3/7/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 1101 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,340 $ 724 $ 1,625,000
2/28/2011 400 ALTON RD # 2404 MURANO GRANDE 2,974 $ 657 $ 1,950,000
2/9/2011 400 ALTON RD # 611 MURANO GRANDE 1,649 $ 382 $ 600,000
1/14/2011 50 S POINTE DR # 1604 Continuum North 1,491 $ 888 $ 1,260,000
2/11/2011 450 ALTON RD # 3210 ICON 1,370 $ 766 $ 940,000
3/10/2011 90 ALTON RD # 2009 YACHT CLUB AT PORTOFINO 1,080 $ 505 $ 500,000
1/26/2011 200 OCEAN DR # 7E 200 OCEAN DR 1,240 $ 935 $ 1,040,000
1/3/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 603 PORTOFINO TOWERS 2,340 $ 391 $ 905,000
3/2/2011 1100 WEST AV # TS-1 Mondrian South Beach 1,500 $ 1,130 $ 1,395,000
3/23/2011 800 S POINTE DR # 1402 Apogee 3,103 $ 1,724 $ 4,995,000
2/25/2011 1000 S POINTE DR # 3002 Murano at Portofino 2,618 $ 877 $ 1,880,000
1/5/2011 400 S POINTE DR # 2104 South Pointe Tower 1,802 $ 663 $ 925,000
1/4/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 1002 Continuum on south Beach 1,201 $ 812 $ 930,000
3/3/2011 1100 WEST AV # 1414 The Mondrian 750 $ 799 $ 510,000
2/22/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 2901 Continuum South Tower 1,591 $ 1,003 $ 1,550,000
2/9/2011 450 ALTON RD # 2002 THE ICON 1,933 $ 543 $ 1,050,000
2/2/2011 100 S POINTE DR # 1705 Continuum 1,869 $ 843 $ 1,500,000
3/10/2011 300 S POINTE DR # 1605 PORTOFINO 2,340 $ 639 $ 1,400,000
3/23/2011 450 ALTON RD # 3502 ICON Condo 1,933 $ 822 $ 1,470,000
Miami Beach Real Estate Turnaround
I want to tell the truth about housing supply and demand in Miami Beach. As previously posted, there's been significant Miami Beach Real Estate Sales Momentum in the last few months -continuing a strong upward trend. According to financial experts, this simply wasn't supposed to happen so soon after the financial crash of 2008. I heard all summer that when the tax credit expired, we would begin to see a sharp degradation in purchasing of existing homes AND condos in Greater Miami and Miami Beach and a corresponding price decline, predicted as much as 20% to 25%!
We're experiencing the opposite -- strong sales momentum, and prices that are holding steady to actually increasing. For example, we are seeing this upward trend in Miami Beach's South of Fifth Neighborhood, which has a finite supply of luxury waterfront buildings such as The Continuum on South Beach, Murano at Portofino, and Icon South Beach. When you link the latest sales numbers with a zero new building construction starts, you get this monumental shift that explains the increase in sales and the increase in prices that were NOT supposed to happen so soon! A case in point, even in Miami Beach's long-troubled Bentley Bay condominiums at the southern end of West Avenue- we've seen a dramatic decline in inventory from approximately ninety (90) condominiums offered for sale in late 2008 to under sixteen (16) today. Also, due to the high volume of pending contracts we will probably see gradual price APPRECIATION for select waterfront South Beach condominium buildings.
I came to the conclusion long ago that the overall Miami Beach housing market (whether for condos or single family homes) is on the rebound. Particularly when we look at the City of Miami Beach's STRONG anti-development restrictions on tearing down existing buildings, and limited Floor to Area ratios, the conclusion is that there's a PERMANENT limitation on future housing supply in the city of Miami Beach.
This is particularly relevant for South Beach's South of Fifth neighborhood, and the appropriately named "South of Fifth" development that was just acquired by iStar Financial Inc. (NYSE:SFI). It was announced last week that iStar will have full ownership of the luxury Miami Beach real estate condominium project “South of Fifth,” located at 125 Ocean Drive (right next to the Bentley Hilton). iStar plans to rebrand South of Fifth, reposition the condominium in the market, and redesign the intimate, seven-story beach-front condo with a multi-million dollar luxury investment. South of Fifth currently features 28 oceanfront residential units, three office units and one retail space. Units range in size from 660 square feet to 6,240 square feet. Preliminary marketing plans will have asking prices in the $1,000/S.F. range. Condominium amenities will include a private lounge, gym facilities, beachfront pool, private beach club, hotel services, as well as 24-hour valet, security and concierge.
Miami Beach is an International tourism mecca, drawing affluent foreigners from South America and Eastern Europe. The South of Fifth Neighborhood is where everyone wants to be these days. This has turned into a diverse & complete vacation destination for tourists who crave year-round sunshine, modern luxury waterfront condo residences, a vibrant night life, and a wide variety of gourmet restaurants & beaches.
If you're a potential Miami Beach condo or home buyer, my recommendation is to act NOW. The fact is that there's a very limited supply of WELL priced luxury waterfront homes and condos in Miami Beach, particularly for waterfront luxury residences located in the immediate South Beach area. The more motivated Miami Beach sellers, whether they be lenders or individual owners, are rapidly disappearing!
The Murano at Portofino- Miami Beach's Strongest Condominium
Despite the well known "Buyer's Market" environment in today's real estate market in Miami Beach, there's one building that stands out for commanding "TOP Dollar" :The Murano at Portofino Condominiums in South Beach's "South of Fifth" neighborhood.
What makes the Murano at Portofino Condominium Building so special?
- Location Location Location- at the extreme southwest tip of South Beach, adjacent to The Miami Beach Marina and South Pointe Park.
- Boutique Condominium Building- only 189 total condominium units, far less than the other surrounding luxury buildings (except Apogee).
- A unique design, inspired by the building's namesake- with plenty of Murano glass showcasing the incredible views and contemporary decor.
- A very well managed and impeccably maintained condominium- with a long-time professional staff that is highly motivated, knowledgeable, and provides Murano at Portofino residents with five star "white glove" service.
- A beautiful property, with a welcoming, wide, and easily accessible circular driveway leading to both the Piaggia Beach Club and The Murano at Portofino Lobby. No Guard House to deal with in this building, which makes getting and and out easy for residents and guests alike.
- Well proportioned and designed floorplans, with both the premier "A" / "01" floorplans in Tower One as well thought out as the smaller floorplans in Tower Three (which contains the one and two bedroom condominiums).
The closed sales prices at The Murano have (for the most part) remained strong in the face of a collapsing national real estate market Recent notable examples of Murano at Portofino lastest closed sales:
The Murano at Portofino #2401 (Premier "A" Line)
1000 South Pointe Drive
Remarks: This is THE premier condo "01" floorplan at The Murano at Portofino
Sale Price: $3,100,000 (12/16/10)
Listed Price : $3,500,000
2010 Tax Assesed Value: $2,750,000
Previous “Sold” Price : $1,217,000 (2002)
Condo S.F.: 3,382 ($916/SF)
Days on Active Market (Multiple Listing): 307 Days
Discount from Asking Price: 11%
Listed Price : $ 3,800,000
The Murano at Portofino #907
Remarks: Smallest Two Bedroom "07" floorplan at The Murano at Portofino
Sale Price: $900,000 (11/30/10)
Listed Price : $995,000
2010 Tax Assesed Value: $592,700
Previous “Sold” Price : $560,000 (2003)
20 Articles Found |
DiGiorgio Resigns After Inquirer Bombshell About Racy Texts, Photo
Written by John Cole, Managing Editor
Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Val DiGiorgio resigned today after a Philadelphia Inquirer report of him exchanging sexually charged messages and an “explicit photo” with Philadelphia Republican Council candidate, Irina Goldstein.
The report states DiGiorgio sent a friend request to Goldstein on Facebook in October amid her bid for City Council in 2019. The two shared flirty messages on the Facebook messenger application within the first 48 hours, which included DiGiorgio sending an Instagram picture of Goldstein saying that she was “nice to look at” and declined her LinkedIn request because saying she was “too beautiful to follow everywhere.”
The report continues that DiGiorgio and Goldstein continued to message about each other’s looks, which resulted in Goldstein sending a picture to him to her “right index finger pulling at the right corner of her lower lip” after DiGiorgio requested a picture saying it was her “duty to the party.” Goldstein messaged DiGiorgio saying that he was “definitely one of the hottest 50-year-olds” she knew, but said she has a boyfriend that she loves and that he has a family.
The two met for dinner in December once and backed out of plans to meet months before. DiGiorgio suggested on exchanging photos on Snapchat as opposed to Facebook messenger because “Snapchat deletes. Text is forever”. After the two exchanged sexually charged messages, DiGiorgio sent a picture of his “erect penis” to Goldstein on Facebook messenger. She screenshot the picture because she said she “didn’t really feel safe with this man.”
Goldstein tried to get DiGiorgio’s endorsement, but he stayed out of the Philadelphia Republican City Council primary that took place in May. She sent a screenshot to DiGiorgio of the law firm that DiGiorgio works at that showed a “large contribution” made to Dan Tinney, who became the highest vote getter in the GOP primary. After pressing DiGiorgio for help, he said he’d get her to the White House at some point.
Goldstein messaged DiGiorgio telling him that he “sexually harassed” her citing his comments about sending a picture to her as a “duty to the party and to the country to [expletive] you”.
DiGiorgio responded by saying he thought he was being a “perfect gentleman” to her at their meeting in a restaurant and said he was “shocked and disappointed” she suggested he was sexually harassing her, saying he “thought they were friends.”
Goldstein finished last in the seven candidate GOP primary and did not advance to the November ballot, but did not blame DiGiorgio for her last place finish.
According to Goldstein, DiGiorgio tried to press her into signing a nondisclosure agreement that would prevent her from “disparaging” him. Michael Schwartz, representing DiGiorgio as a private attorney, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Inquirer.
DiGiorgio’s resignation announcement described the sexual harassment claim from Goldstein as “fundamentally untrue” and said these characterizations were made from her after he declined to endorse in the primary.
The Pennsylvania GOP release from DiGiorgio thanked him for his “30 years of active leadership” and leaving the party “stronger and poised for future victories.”
It is unclear who will succeed DiGiorgio as party chair on a full time basis, but Vice-Chair Bernie Comfort is now in the role of Acting Chair.
Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jonathan Tamari reports that former GOP Congressman and one-time Senate candidate, Lou Barletta is being pushed to become a new state chairman. Barletta said “supporters” have urged him to make a bid for PA GOP chair and hasn’t ruled out a run.
Former PAGOP Chair Rob Gleason, who preceded DiGiorgio, tells PoliticsPA that Lawrence Tabas would be a good fit for state chair, although he has not confirmed from him that he is interested in the role.
“Lawrence would be wonderful and be acceptable from the White house down to the rank and file members,” Gleason said.
This article was updated with a comment from the former Pennsylvania GOP Chair Rob Gleason.
June 25th, 2019 | Posted in Front Page Stories, Harrisburg, Top Stories | 60 Comments
60 thoughts on “DiGiorgio Resigns After Inquirer Bombshell About Racy Texts, Photo”
Robert B, Sklaroff, M.D. says:
BTW, I’m told Goldstein is no angel, so perhaps they were made for each other; s/p Carlos Danger, it’s difficult to appreciate how Val would err so overtly.
Although I’m no longer a committeeperson, I chatted with Val a few times and he seemed competent; he depicted a life-story that started in South Philly.
It appears, however, that he was unfair to a committeewoman in Chester [Donna Ellingsen]; also, he failed to resign his county-level post when elected statewide.
Finally, his demand for an open-election antagonized those seeking a secret ballot; thus, it would appear that Lawrence Tabas would be an appropriate successor, particularly because Lou may be [justifiably] running again for Congress.
David Diano says:
Sklaroff-
So, he’s a model Trump Republican !
Maybe now he’s free to work on Trump’s campaign full time, or get a White House appointment.
he’s as much a model-R as Weiner was a model-D
Barricks Einwohner says:
No model D, but he certainly did not learn anything from the Weiner episode.
CommentingCommenter says:
Thad Castle would be proud.
curtis mason says:
SAD DAY FOR PA. POLITICS !!!!!
Yes. The loss of an idiot like DiGiorgio will be a 5 point boost for Trump’s campaign.
Perplexed Lawyer says:
When will Megan King be brought down? I thought it was suspicious a lowly ADA was endorsed for appeals judge
The Skeptic says:
I wonder what kind of picture Val sent Megan King to get her to jump into the Superior Court race.
Goodforyou says:
Why do you thing she got endorsed? His relationship with King well known. The committee people are idiots and can easily be bribed or bought. This just derailed any chance for a Republican to win in November.
My guess is now they will support Bernie Comfort for Chair, who is as liberal as they come and will still be controlled by DiGiorgio. Let’s see if they (state Committee) finally get the message. My guess is NO!
Never EVER put something like The Flirtations in Writing . This was another Cocky Ass Lawyer that thinks he is above it all . Dude you have a Wife and Kids get a Divorce if you are not happy with your wife .
Todd says:
Keith Rothfus should lead the party. The only actual republicans live in western PA. Keith got a raw deal. He can campaign and raise money and support the Trump agenda.
When will they go after corrupt Lebanon County Chairman Casey Long for harassing Senate and House Staff
DogDayAfternoon says:
Wasn’t Mueser the main guy who lobbied for Val to be Chair? Dogs sniff other dogs.
Mike S. says:
This was a long time coming. Val has always been corrupt. People drank his Kool-Aid and thought he was so great. His record was horrendous, he lost so many row offices in Chester County, and played dirty politics. What he did to Rebecca Warren in the endorsement process showed his true colors. He had this coming to him and so does the Republican Party. I hope Bernie Comfort, Bunny Welsh, Pat Poprick, and Andy Reilly get what’s coming to them next. Oh, Bunny is, which is why she isn’t running for re-election. Megan King is next! Down with the Republican Party!!
Whomst says:
Lou Barletta. Jerry Morgan ED.
thatJerryguy says:
It’s only a matter of time until Trump tweets the guy didn’t do anything wrong. Is that golf spikes guy available to lead the GOP?
Edward R. Harrington, Esquire, LLBean says:
It’s easy to judge others. I am grateful for Val being so enthusiastic over Scott Wagner’s candidacy and promoting Lou for Senate so he will be missed by all Dem supporters. But everyone of us writing and posting here has made dumb mistakes and is not above messing up. Clearly, according to the posted story here Val has shown poor judgement. Yet, in the final analysis, we all can be as foolish. The wise person should keep in mind the saying, “there but for the grace of God go I.”
joe albert says:
A poor man’s Carlos Danger
Philly guy says:
Maybe Tom Ellis can try to resurrect his career? After being laughed out of Montco, he needs a position
Former montco committee man says:
Darn I thought I was the first to think of that. So now I am supporting Pat Mehehan
Liz Reilly says:
Wait, doesn’t “consensual” mean it’s ok? Asking for a friend.
Helpful tips for the PA State GOP to pick their next chairman (AKA sacrificial lamb to take the blame for Trump losing PA, and having to put up with him and rallies until then):
1) Get contact information from all applicants
2) Send them a request for a dick-pic
3) Check applicants who didn’t send a picture
4) Make sure they all know how to take and send pictures
5) Repeat request for pics
6) Select the applicant who didn’t send dick pic
7) You may have to go back to step 1 a few times to get one who passes this test.
Winston Throckmorton says:
Must be nice to be perfect.
Winston Throckmorton-
Is the threshold for “perfect”: knowing whether or not it’s okay to send dick pics?
And if no candidates survive so thorough an examination of character and probity, David Diano? Dying over this Throckmorton hilarity.
Alex-
If they can’t find someone after a few rounds, they can go back to the first batch of applicants. Hit these guy thumbs and penises with a hammer, and see if they finally get the message to never send dick pics.
Jared Shoemaker Jr says:
Shouldn’t set the bar so low that anyone but trump and you’re average MAGAt rethuglican could walk over it
One who knows!! says:
How are all you Southeast Val lovers doing now? Is he still your Savior? Megan King is next to go down!! Stay tuned!!
MarcelsGhost says:
Fucking Amateurs
Huh says:
I’m very disappointed to hear all of this. I knew Val was an idiot, but he’s even dumber than I realized. His resignation is probably going to help Trump by 5 points.
Val clearly represents everything the Republican party stands for, even more than he did before this revelation.
“DiGiorgio suggested on exchanging photos on Snapchat as opposed to Facebook messenger because “Snapchat deletes. Text is forever”. After the two exchanged sexually charged messages, DiGiorgio sent a picture of his “erect penis” to Goldstein on Facebook messenger”
So, after saying he didn’t think sending on Facebook was a good idea, he sent penis pic by Facebook.. wow !
Does there need to be a mandatory class for anyone working in politics, to tell them that they should never sent penis photos to anyone, ever, even if asked to?
“characterizations were made from her after he declined to endorse in the primary. ”
Translation: He declined to endorse her after she wouldn’t f*ck him
he “thought they were friends.”
yeah, because friends always send dick pics
Well, I can suggest TWO career moves for Val:
1) Sestak is running for office, and will be scraping the bottom of the barrel for staff
2) White House staff appointment.
Write less next time. I may read it thoroughly and tell you why you are wrong.
Huh-
Post a message when you learn to read.
That way you won’t waste time getting people to read posts to you.
What’s the matter can’t hold your attention that long between pipe hits?
I do not partake. David’s self-righteous pontificating can drone on and on with no valuable insight.
It’s better to avoid him or make sure he realizes how inconsequential his thoughts are. Unfortunately, he shows up at state committee and people tell him how great he is, negating my efforts!
Jared Shoemaker Jr-
I think Huh is suffering the effects of the fumes from his cleaning supplies and custodial duties.
KennyL says:
SEPA Dems have their own problems simmering in the Montco Courthouse. Can’t cover it up forever.
KennyL-
Gee, such a “clever” posting handle when you are obviously talking about Ken Lawrence, and the accusation that he had sex (I’m not sure if they are calling rape or assault) with a girl who was drunk/drugged/incapacitated. Both were around college age at the time.
Her claim is that she showed up at a party, and someone (not Ken) handed her a single drink. She claims the drink was drugged, because she became quickly impaired (couldn’t stand). Then, she said, at some later point, Ken offered to walk her home, and wound up having sex with her in the woods, while she was barely conscious.
Taking advantage of incapacitated girl is undeniably wrong (though pretty much the M.O. or goal of a lot of guys drinking with girls at a college party).
The part of the story that makes little sense is that she was handed a drugged drink upon showing up at the party. It would be odd that someone had made preparations to drug her, since she wasn’t expected at the party, and she was the only one to get such a drink, and got it as soon as she walked in. And, further that whoever handed her the drugged drink didn’t try to take her home.
I think it’s more likely that she had a super-low tolerance for alcohol. I actually know someone with a similar problem, when she was in her early 20’s. One time, my brother’s ex-girlfriend couldn’t get from the bar back to the parking lot without help, after having only one or two weak-ass “wine-coolers”. (She wasn’t driving.) So, if this girl had a similar reaction to alcohol (particularly a strong drink), the story would make more sense about how she became incapacitated WITHOUT reducing Ken’s culpability, since the (alleged) crime is taking advantage of her.
Mick B says:
So what possible reason would someone have to defame a man like Ken Lawrence with an unsubstantiated story from at least 25 years ago? Just dragging people through the mud without having to prove a word you typed.
Mick B-
Well, if it’s true, the “reason” would be that he did it. Duh. And, if it really happened, it’s not defamation.
Not every rape is filmed on camera with the guy exclaiming how much he’s enjoying the raping. A lot of women don’t know how to react, and don’t go to police or get tested. There is a shortage of kits and a backlog of tested kits today (and the situation was far worse for women 25 years ago). So, it comes down to her word against his, and maybe some witnesses from the party about the events prior to them leaving, or how he wound up being the one to walk her home. It may come down to credibility.
In the case against Daylin, by Cara Taylor, I think the early results are that investigators feel she believes her claim, despite minor inconsistencies in the story. (I don’t know what they are, but it could be about the date, time of day, or sequence of events, that might not be material.)
I’m not saying whether or not it happened. I’m just poking at KennyL for thinking he’s being coy/clever tossing this out without explanation.
I’m just relating what her story/claim is, so the readers here know what it’s all about. The story is out there publicly, so I’m not creating news here.
Given my personal knowledge of someone who had similarly low tolerance at that age, I just offered it up as an alternate explanation for her claim that she had been intentionally drugged.
It’s really morally wrong to trash somebody and their reputation without having any fact behind your allegation. You’re saying it’s her word against his, so why are you the one talking about this? What do you have to gain?
I’m not trying to “gain” anything. The story is out there. KennyL’s post was in need of some clarification. I think she’s pursuing it and there’s some investigation of her claims. Explaining what the claim/issue is neutral.
Eye witness testimony IS evidence. Juries then decide if one person is more credible than another.
Also, she and Ken could take lie-detector tests.
Politically, I get the impression/sense that there is fear her story might have legs, and the Montco Dems are trying to ignore it and keep their heads down, until after the election. If the story is deemed credible or Ken runs into trouble, they’ll be able to dump/replace him on commissioners board with another Dem.
(I have no special knowledge that Montco Dems believe/disbelieve the story. It’s just my impression that they want to get past the election, and not deal with it sooner, since Ken is on the ballot.)
KellyB says:
This is pretty offensive. Your first response is to explain it away. I find Lawrence’s accusers story more believable than Leachs accuser. Her tolerance for alcohol doesn’t give him the right to take advantage.
When it Stops says:
Lou Barletta would be a good pick for State GOP. He can do to immigrants which clearly is not what Val D. did not do to this woman.
PoliticsPA staff:
This post about illegal immigrants is not from me.
Please remove.
gulag Pittsburgh says:
Nice “family man” GOP Chairman sends photo of his erect penis to female candidate, suggesting it is her patriotic duty to fuck him. Trumpian behavior.
Valentino and some vowels says:
That was intended to be some sort of flirtation, and not some real demand of her to do a duty. This lady clearly enjoyed the banter and dropped a hammer on him once it was advantageous to her. Dont be so outraged. Hes a scumbag, yes.
But you thought Mike Stack was a Republican, so…
Valentino and some vowels-
I think the problem was not that she “dropped the hammer”, but that he dropped his pants and sent picture of his hammer.
But, while I do agree that he meant the remark as flirtatious banter.. the remark and the dick pic went too far (because just the dick pic went to far).
But to put ANY of this on her, is EXACTLY the “blame/demean the woman” attitude that all the women in this country are so pissed off about. If a girl is raped/molested, ANY discussion of the length of her skirt is wrong/inappropriate. Period.
It’s not like she sent him a picture of her “lady parts” and asked him to send corresponding photo. (He’d STILL be wrong/stupid in that case as well because it’s NEVER a good idea to send a dick pic.)
Idiot says:
She literally asks him to send the dick pics….
Idiot-
She asked for: “I want a picture I can use”
Not: “send pic of your erect penis”
The CORRECT response is NEVER TO SEND A DICK PICTURE.
The other CORRECT response, if she explicitly asks for THAT type of pic: INVITE HER TO VISIT AND TAKE THE PICTURE HERSELF
Dearest David The Idiot,
This issue is really between he and his family. Sending dick pics when there was consent and a flirtatious dialog means the was no harassment.
Hes an ass, but that seems about it.
Her claiming harassment after she didnt get what she wanted – his overt support- is what led to the press. And, it is obvious.
Go blindly defend women to someone else and please save the beta Male white knight schtick for your communist party inductions at state committee. Some people judge individuals bases on their actions and not their gender or race first.
Well, he’s clearly trying to use his official position as GOP Chair to offer her enticements in exchange for sexual favors.
It IS harassment if the flirtation crosses a line, and make her feel unsafe/unsettled. It appears that she got in over her head, against an older/experienced man in a position of power.
From the article, it sounds like she finally realized the line had been crossed weeks before, and she hadn’t really processed it until then.
Huh, I realize that judging you on your gender might be difficult, even with pictures.
His law firms support of her opponent indicates that he wasn’t supporting her behind the scenes, and possibly sabotaging her campaign.
According to the article, he claims she send him naked pics, but he “doesn’t have them”. That definitely has to be a lie, because there is ZERO chance that he would have deleted a naked picture he received from her.
“In interviews with The Inquirer, Goldstein denied sending him any naked pictures of herself or withholding messages.”
Also: “In reporting this story, The Inquirer reviewed more than 150 pages of messages, provided by Goldstein, that she says she and DiGiorgio exchanged between October and February. Goldstein also showed a reporter the original messages on her cell phone.”
So, her story is more credible and she gave Inquirer access, and he isn’t.
David Johnson says:
This is why you don’t sext. Those images will always comeback to haunt you. Also why does anyone want to send near naked or naked photos to others? Eww. Does anyone really enjoy them? Stupid Politicians doing stupid things.
A few years ago, a FB friend of mine, accidentally posted a sext picture of herself to her timeline, instead of private message as she intended.
Fortunately, it was late at night, and at least two friends alerted her immediately, so it was gone in under 5 minutes.
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Jake-
Probably his wife and her divorce lawyer.
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Sanding and Pruning Differentially Impact Canopy Characteristics, Yield, and Economic Returns in Cranberry
in HortTechnology
Brett Suhayda
Brett Suhayda1University of Massachusetts Amherst Cranberry Station, P.O. Box 569, East Wareham, MA 02538
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Carolyn J. DeMoranville
Carolyn J. DeMoranville1University of Massachusetts Amherst Cranberry Station, P.O. Box 569, East Wareham, MA 02538
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Hilary A. Sandler
Hilary A. Sandler1University of Massachusetts Amherst Cranberry Station, P.O. Box 569, East Wareham, MA 02538
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Wesley R. Autio
Wesley R. Autio2Department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003
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Justine E. Vanden Heuvel
Justine E. Vanden Heuvel3Department of Horticultural Sciences, Cornell University, Geneva, NY 14456
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https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI.19.4.796
Contributor Notes
Sanding and pruning are two practices used in the cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) industry for vine management and yield stimulation. This study compared varying levels of sanding and pruning on vine canopy characteristics, yield, and economic returns for two consecutive growing seasons. Each practice was applied in Apr. 2006 at four levels. Sand was applied directly onto the vines at four depths: control (0 cm), light (1.5 cm), moderate (3.0 cm), or heavy (4.5 cm); pruning was conducted at four severities with a commercial pruner: control (not pruned), light (one pass with the pruner), moderate (two passes), and heavy (three passes). Pruning levels had no effect on upright density over the two seasons, but the heavy sanding treatment decreased the number of uprights per unit area. For the first season only, light penetration to soil level increased linearly as severity increased for pruning and sanding. The number of reproductive uprights relative to total uprights decreased in the first year as severity increased for both practices. This effect continued in the second year for sanding treatments. Cumulative yield and net returns were higher in light severity treatments compared to those in the moderate and heavy treatments. Moderate and heavy sanding treatments were associated with lower yields and net returns than those for the untreated controls.
Keywords: Vaccinium macrocarpon; anthocyanin; light penetration; leaf wetness
Cranberry is a low-growing vine, with a perennial growth habit (Eck, 1990). Native to North America, cranberry reproduces vegetatively by horizontal shoots (stolons), known in the cranberry industry as runners, or by shorter vertical shoots, known as uprights, produced from axillary buds (Roper and Vorsa, 1997). Individual uprights bear fruit in a biennial manner (Roper et al., 1993). After several years, uprights eventually bow under their own weight and function as runners (Eck, 1990).
Excessive vegetative growth in cranberry can be detrimental to yield (Davenport and Vorsa, 1999) as a result of shading or fungal disease. Shading has been shown to have a significant negative impact on cranberry fruit set (Roper et al., 1995), and flower bud formation depends on adequate light penetration (Roper et al., 1993). In addition to shading, excessive vegetative growth may increase the relative humidity under the canopy, resulting in a microenvironment conducive to fruit rot and other fungal diseases (Oudemans et al., 1998).
As with flower bud formation, fruit anthocyanin production depends on adequate light penetration (Strik and Poole, 1991; Toledo et al., 1993). The cranberry fruit must exceed a minimum anthocyanin content to be accepted for sale as processed fruit; extra compensation may be awarded to growers for fruit with high anthocyanin content. Due to the potentially detrimental effects of excessive vegetation, it is important to employ cultural practices that maintain good canopy architecture.
Sanding is a cultural practice used in the northeastern United States and Wisconsin to manage the cranberry plant canopy. Typically, this practice is performed every 2 to 5 years with a 0.5- to 2-inch layer of sand spread over an ice-covered bed during the winter (DeMoranville and Sandler, 2000). The sand is allowed to melt through the ice to ultimately settle on the cranberry vines so that runners are buried and rooting is encouraged. This stimulates the growth of new uprights that may bear fruit the following year (DeMoranville and Sandler, 2000). Previous studies of sanding have shown mixed results regarding potential effects on crop yield. Strik and Poole (1995) found that heavy sanding (2.5 cm) on two ‘Stevens’ beds in Oregon was detrimental to yield, while light sanding (1.3 cm) improved yield in the year after treatment at only one of the two sites. Davenport and Schiffhauer (2000) also showed that heavy sanding was detrimental. In Massachusetts, sanding decreased the percentage of light intercepted by uprights and runners and was associated with yield decreases (Lampinen and DeMoranville, 2003).
Pruning is another method that can be used for canopy management. Much like sanding, pruning opens the canopy and encourages new growth (Marucci, 1987), and has the potential benefit of breaking apical dominance, allowing lateral buds to grow (Roper et al., 1993). More uprights are produced that have the potential of fruiting the following year. Chambers (1918) performed pruning experiments on a heavily vined bed that had been steadily declining in production and reported a 10% decrease in yield in the initial year followed by a 45% increase in the following year. Strik and Poole (1991, 1992) also reported reduced yield from heavy pruning in the years of treatment but that light pruning yielded more fruit compared with the control in the following year.
While sanding and pruning have shown the potential to be beneficial, sanding has some shortcomings when compared with pruning. In addition to the high costs associated with the use of a limited resource, measurements of actual sand depths from three methods of sand application on 24 Massachusetts farms indicated a lack of uniform deposition (Hunsberger et al., 2006), which may diminish desired outcomes (e.g., uniform upright generation and pest management). Because pruning appears to accomplish the same horticultural goals as sanding with better uniformity and lower costs, it has been suggested as a replacement or supplement to sanding. However, these two practices have not been compared directly within the same cranberry bed. The objective of this study was to compare pruning and sanding treatments on ‘Stevens’ cranberry to determine effects on crop yield, economic returns, canopy characteristics, and fruit color.
Experimental design.
A mature ‘Stevens’ cranberry bed in Myles Standish State Forest, North Carver, MA (lat. 41°53′09.74″N, long. 70°41′55.23″W) was used for this experiment. The bed was renovated in 2000 and was never pruned before the study. An application of 0.5 inch of sand was made to the entire bed in Apr. 2002. Applications of fertilizers each year were made to the entire bed, including the study area, based on standard nutrition recommendations (DeMoranville, 2009).
The study was established in 2006 as a randomized complete block design arranged in a split-plot with the main effect of sanding or pruning and the subplot was severity level. All treatments were replicated four times. The sanding treatments were applied on 14 Apr. 2006 using coarse sand, mined on-site. A commercial sander (a small self-propelled vehicle with a hopper and a drop spreader) was used for on-vine sanding. The sander was calibrated to deliver a depth of 1.5 cm sand on each pass. The levels of sanding were determined by the number of times the sander passed over the plot: control (0 passes), light (one pass), moderate (two passes), and heavy (three passes). Each sanding plot was 8 ft (the width of the sander) × 25 ft.
The pruning treatments were applied on 17 Apr. 2006 using a commercial pruner (a small, self-propelled, mechanical knife-rake pruner with revolving blades). A rake mounted on the back of the pruner collected the prunings. As with the sanding, the levels of pruning were determined by the number of times the pruner passed over the plots: control (0 passes), light (one pass), moderate (two passes), and heavy (three passes). Each pruning plot was 6 ft (the width of the machine) × 25 ft. Fresh weights of vines excised during the pruning process were collected and weighed in the field.
Upright density, leaf area, and dry weight.
A 6-inch-diameter ring (28 inch2) was placed randomly in each plot on 2 June 2006 and again on 4 June 2007. All plant material originating from within the ring was removed. This sampling was repeated twice in each plot. The excised plant material from each ring was evaluated as follows. The uprights were removed at the origin and were counted to determine density. The leaves were removed, and leaf area was measured using a leaf area meter (model LI-3100; LI-COR, Lincoln, NE). All of the collected plant material was dried at 70 °C for 10 d and weighed.
Fruiting uprights (Uf)/total upright (Ut) ratio.
Once each year in late summer, random samples of ≈25 uprights were collected from each plot, counted, and evaluated as fruiting (presence of fruit or persistent pedicels) or nonfruiting. The ratio of Uf:Ut was then calculated.
Light penetration.
Light penetration into the cranberry canopy was measured in the second week of July and the third week of August in both 2006 and 2007 using an Accupar linear PAR/LAI ceptometer (model PAR-80; Decagon Devices, Pullman, WA). An external, unobstructed sensor was also employed to determine the ratio of below-canopy light to above-canopy light (tau). The ceptometer was placed under the canopy in a south-west direction at four randomly selected locations in each plot; hence, 32 readings were taken in each block. Readings were converted to percentage of light penetration by multiplying tau by 100. In both years, readings were only taken from blocks 1 and 2 due to weather and time restrictions.
Leaf wetness.
Leaf wetness was recorded at 0.5-h intervals using micro-dataloggers and leaf wetness sensors (Hobo microstation data loggers and leaf wetness smart sensors; Onset Computers, Bourne, MA). Based on field observations, the dry/wet threshold was set at 20% to control for error in the sensor readings. Data were collected for 4 weeks in each year by deploying eight logger/sensor pairs each time. Block 1 was monitored in the first week of July 2006; the eight logger/sensor pairs were relocated to block 2 during the second week of July 2006. Using these data, the average of number of dry hours per week in early July was determined. Sensors were redeployed similarly in the third and fourth weeks of August, and the average number of dry hours per week in late August was calculated. The procedure was repeated in 2007.
Penetration of chemigation into the canopy.
Water-sensitive papers (TeeJet, Wheaton, IL) were used to measure spray penetration through the canopy. The papers change color (from yellow to blue) when water contacts the papers. Attached to a stake, papers were placed at the base of the canopy and midway between the base and tips of the uprights. Irrigation was applied through a solid-set sprinkler system for 15 min, simulating a typical chemigation event for a pesticide application. The papers were allowed to dry, and were then collected and brought back to the laboratory for evaluation. Penetration was visually evaluated using a grid system and a scale of 0 = no penetration (all yellow) to 100 = total penetration (all blue).
Berry yield and marketable yield.
In 2006 and 2007, berry yield was estimated using a 1-ft2 template randomly placed within each plot. All berries were picked from within the 1-ft2 area, and all viable berries were weighed. Two subsamples were taken from each plot, and the data from the subsamples were averaged. Average berry weight was also determined using subsamples from each plot. In 2007, nonmarketable berries (i.e., berries deemed too small, rotten, or insect-damaged) were counted to calculate marketability percentage.
Total anthocyanin concentration (TAcy).
Additional fruit were collected randomly (outside the area sampled for yield) at harvest for TAcy determination. Total anthocyanin concentration (milligrams per 100 g of fresh weight) in harvested cranberry fruit samples was determined with a modification of the protocol of Fuleki and Francis (1968) using an acidified aqueous extractant (0.2 N hydrochloric acid).
Economic analysis.
The cost of treatments, including equipment and labor costs on a per acre basis, were assigned based on information provided by two commercial cranberry growers (R. Gilmore and M. Beaton, personal communication). The costs for light pruning included the pruning machine ($40/h), the buggy to remove cut vines ($40/h), one equipment operator ($75/h), and five laborers ($14/h each). The total cost for 8 h (time to prune 10 acres) was $1800 or $180 per acre. Costs for the moderate and heavy pruning treatments were calculated by doubling or tripling, respectively, the cost of the light severity treatment as more severe pruning required multiple passes with the pruner.
The costs for the light sanding treatment included one front end loader ($60/h), three sanders ($27.50/h each), four skilled laborers ($30.50/h each), and a daily move-in charge for the equipment of $150. The total cost for an 8-h day (time to sand 7 acres at light severity) was $2388 or $341/acre for machines and labor. To define a multiplier for the moderate and heavy treatments, it was recognized that fewer acres would be sanded on a daily basis compared with the light treatment and costs would be higher due to longer equipment rental and labor expenditures. Based on grower experience, costs for the moderate and heavy sanding treatments were calculated by multiplying the cost of the light sanding by 1.5 and two, respectively. To these costs was added the cost of sand, $12/yard3 screened and delivered (Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Assn., East Wareham, MA) so that the total costs per acre for the sanding treatments were $1291, $2415, and $3536 for light, moderate, and heavy severities, respectively. Purchased sand was used in this calculation because not all growers have access to on-farm sand.
The average total cost of production for beds that were not sanded or pruned was $3200/acre in 2006 and $3300/acre in 2007 (G. Rogers, personal communication). The price of cranberries used for the analysis ($38.80 and $43.40 per 100-lb barrel in 2006 and 2007, respectively) was the blended return for fresh and processed fruit to growers in Massachusetts (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2008).
Analyses of variance were conducted on all data using the Proc GLM procedure in SAS (version 9.1; SAS Institute, Cary, NC). Model assumptions were tested through residual analysis (Shaprio-Wilk statistic), and no transformations were needed. Although pruning and sanding severity is referred to in the text with the labels of light, moderate, and heavy, treatment levels were analyzed as continuous variables to reflect the continuity of treatment application (e.g., sequential number of passes) with which the vines were sanded or pruned. Responses to pruning or sanding severity were determined by evaluating linear and quadratic trends from single df analysis.
Canopy characteristics.
Pruning weights collected from the spring pruning event in 2006 were nonlinear with respect to severity (light = 394 ± 149 lb/acre, moderate = 376 ± 173 lb/acre, and heavy = 580 ± 210 lb/acre). When the study was established in 2006, the vines had not formed a continuous vigorous canopy (desired end goal); this may have been due to the age of the bed combined with certain negative environmental factors (e.g., high soil moisture conditions). In a previous study on a vigorous uniform ‘Stevens’ canopy, multiple-pass pruning did produce a linear response in pruning weights removed (Sandler and DeMoranville, 2009). The irregularity of the vine coverage in the present study bed may account for lack of differences noted in some responses for the levels of pruning.
In the year of treatment and the year following, upright density was unaffected by pruning, but decreased quadratically with increasing sanding severity (Table 1). In 2007, the total number of uprights for all treatments (including the control) increased compared with 2006. The lack of a pruning effect is consistent with the results of Strik and Poole (1991, 1992) who reported no significant effect of pruning on total number of uprights in the year of treatment or the year after. The difference between sanding and pruning effects on upright density was likely the result of the heavy sanding treatments burying young uprights. Although the difference was not significant, a slight increase in upright density the year after treatment in the light sanding and pruning treatments compared with the control may indicate a stimulation of upright initiation from axillary buds.
Effect of pruning and sanding severity on various cranberry vine parameters. Treatments were applied in Apr. 2006. Sanding and pruning treatments were achieved by making one, two, or three passes per plot.
Total dry weight per sampled area decreased linearly with increasing sanding severity in the year of treatment, while pruning displayed a quadratic relationship with lowest dry weight for the control and the heavy treatment (Table 1). Treatment differences were not significant in the year after treatment.
In the first year, total leaf area displayed a quadratic relationship with increasing severity for both treatments (Fig. 1A). Both light severity treatments had a slight stimulatory effect on leaf area, whereas the heavy treatments (sanding in particular) were associated with decreased leaf area. This trend continued in the second year for sanding only (Fig. 1B). When leaf area was expressed on a per upright basis, the response was a negative linear relationship in the first year with increasing sanding severity, but the relationship was nonsignificant with pruning (Fig. 1C). There were no significant relationships in the year following treatment (Fig. 1D). These data indicated that the predominant impact of both sanding and pruning treatments on leaf area was due to decreased number of uprights. Decrease in leaf area indicates a potential negative effect on net photosynthetic activity from fruit set through harvest, a period when carbon production in cranberry is source limited (Vanden Heuvel and Davenport, 2005).
Effect of various sanding and pruning treatments performed in Apr. 2006 on subsequent leaf area in ‘Stevens’ cranberry in (A) June 2006, (B) June 2007, and leaf area per upright in (C) June 2006, and (D) June 2007. Vertical bars are ±se NS, *, **Not significant, significant at P = 0.05, P = 0.01, respectively, for linear (L) and quadratic (Q) effects; 1 cm2/28 inch2 (180.6 cm2) = 0.5536 mm2·cm−2 = 0.0055 inch2/inch2, 1 cm2 = 0.1550 inch2.
Citation: HortTechnology hortte 19, 4; 10.21273/HORTSCI.19.4.796
The ratio of Uf:Ut in the year of treatment decreased linearly with increasing treatment severity for sanding and pruning (Table 1), similar to the results of Strik and Poole (1991). As more plant material is removed or buried with increasing severity, more reproductive and vegetative uprights are lost and Ut decreases. When axillary buds are stimulated from sanding or pruning, these new uprights will be vegetative, causing a downward shift in the ratio of Uf:Ut. In the year after treatment, pruning severity did not affect the Uf:Ut ratio, but the negative relationship between sanding severity and the Uf:Ut ratio persisted.
Penetration of light and chemigation into the canopy.
Three months after treatment application (July 2006), light penetration into the canopy was greater in the sanding treatments than in the pruned plots and increased linearly with increasing severity in both (Table 1). Light interception by the uprights is important in July for flower bud initiation, a light-dependent process (Roper et al., 1993). The linear relationship between light penetration and treatment severity continued into late Aug. 2006 for sanding, but by that time, differences among pruning intensities were no longer evident (Table 1), suggesting that the canopy was quickly recovering. Light penetration to soil level in the second year was unaffected by treatment type or severity (Suhayda, 2008).
In July and August of the year of treatment (2006), pruning plots showed a linear increase with increasing severity for average number of dry hours per week [e.g., Aug. 2006: zero = 40 ± 4.5 h; light = 67 ± 0.8 h; moderate = 77 ± 4.0 h; and heavy = 90 ± 12.2 h (see Suhayda, 2008)], suggesting a microclimate less favorable to fungal disease (Oudemans et al., 1998). There were no differences in dry hours among the sanding severities in the year of treatment or among any treatments in the year after treatment (2007).
Chemigation of insecticides and fungicides is the most common application method for Massachusetts cranberry growers (J. Deverna, unpublished data). This conventional application method produced a spray that thoroughly penetrated the canopy in every plot and completely wetted the water-sensitive papers (data not shown). At this site, the spray reached all parts of the canopy regardless of treatment type or severity. Results may be different with a spray method that delivers a finer spray or lower volume or on a bed with a denser vine canopy. Good canopy penetration, regardless of pruning or sanding severity, has important ramifications for the efficacy and coverage of products that are chemigated for pest management purposes.
Yield and anthocyanin content.
Severity trends for both practices were similar (Fig. 2, A–C); 2006, 2007, and cumulative yields were greater for light severity treatments (320 ± 55.1, 214.8 ± 32.6, and 535.5 ± 79.1 lb/acre, respectively) than the moderate (176.7 ± 24.6, 121.2 ± 22.2, and 297.9 ± 43.9 lb/acre, respectively) and heavy (142.7 ± 26.9, 107.1 ± 24.7, 249.8 ± 47.4 lb/acre, respectively) severity treatments (P ≤ 0.05). Yield differences between pruning and sanding were most apparent at the heavy severity, significant at P ≤ 0.06 (2006: 176.7 ± 20.5 lb/acre vs. 108.8 ± 46.9 lb/acre; 2007: 153.8 ± 29.2 lb/acre vs. 60.4 ± 23.0 lb/acre; cumulative: 330.4 ± 37.3 lb/acre vs. 169.1 ± 69.1 lb/acre, respectively). The negative relationship between treatment severity and yield (Fig. 2, A–C) is similar to the results reported by Strik and Poole (1991, 1995) in Oregon. In a study of barge sanding in New Jersey (Davenport and Schiffhauer, 2000), yield reduction was associated with the application of 2.5 cm of sand (equivalent to the moderate treatment in this study). No treatment had an effect on average fruit weight or percentage of marketable yield (data not shown).
Effect of various sanding and pruning treatments performed in Apr. 2006 on subsequent yield in ‘Stevens’ cranberry in (A) 2006, (B) 2007, and (C) 2-year cumulative yield. Vertical bars are ± se NS, *, **Not significant and significant at P = 0.05 and P = 0.01, respectively, for linear (L) effects; 1 100-lb (45.4 kg) barrel per acre = 112.0851 kg·ha−1.
In the year of treatment, there was a significant positive linear relationship between pruning severity and anthocyanin concentration in the fruit (all values in milligrams per 100 g of fresh weight: zero = 30.6 ± 2.10; light = 35.9 ± 3.15; moderate = 39.1 ± 2.00; and heavy = 39.9 ± 1.08; see Suhayda, 2008), likely due to increased light penetration into the canopy with increasing pruning severity (Table 1) (Craker, 1971; Strik and Poole, 1991). However, while sanding treatments increased light penetration in the year of treatment even more than did pruning (Table 1), anthocyanin was not increased by sanding (Suhayda, 2008). It is possible that carbon limitations due to extreme leaf area decline in the sanded treatments (Fig. 1) prevented a response to increased light. Measurements from another study indicated that root growth is increased in the sanded layer and may account for additional resource partitioning away from leaf and fruit production (B. Lampinen and C. DeMoranville, unpublished data). In the year following treatment, there were no differences of sanding or pruning severity on fruit anthocyanin content among treatments or severities. This result is not unexpected because light penetration into the canopy had equilibrated across treatments in 2007 (i.e., no treatment effects; data not shown).
After accounting for the cost of the sanding or pruning and the production cost per acre, pruning severity did not affect net returns in the year of treatment, the year after, or on a cumulative basis for the 2 years (Table 2). This concurs with recent research on cranberry that examined four pruning severities with various nutritional regimens (Sandler and DeMoranville, 2009). Although deviation from these trends was not significant, it appears that light pruning gave the best returns.
Calculated yield, costs, and returns for ‘Stevens’ cranberry in the year of treatment and the year following. Calculations based on yield (Fig. 2) and cost data provided by cranberry growers (M. Beaton, R. Gilmore, and G. Rogers, personal communication).
For sanding, however, the relationship between severity and net returns was linear and negative. Net returns for growers who can mine sand on-farm would presumably be higher than those calculated here because the values used in this study included the cost of having screened sand delivered to the production area. While likely less than having sand delivered by a commercial company, the costs associated with using sand on-farm would still include labor to screen sand and move it to the production areas. These costs will vary from farm to farm depending on distance of the sand source to the production areas and the quality of the mined sand. Additionally, while the use of on-farm sand does not represent a cash outlay, the sand does have a value and is a finite resource.
Light pruning or sanding (a single pass with a knife-rake pruner or the application of 1.5 cm of sand, respectively) can be a useful tool for cranberry canopy management, as both practices can open up the canopy, resulting in decreased wetness duration and improved light interception. Light severity treatments appeared to have had a positive effect on yield and net returns compared with that in untreated controls. Light sanding and pruning were associated with increased leaf area compared with both untreated plots and those that received higher severity treatments. The increase in photosynthetic area likely translates into greater carbon resources for treated vines compared with those in the control plots. In addition, light sanding and pruning treatments had more uprights (Ut) than the controls with a similar Uf:Ut ratio and therefore had more Uf. The large number of reproductive uprights (i.e., more flowers), combined with an increase in carbon resources (i.e., increased potential for higher percentage fruit set), is the likely explanation for the apparent increase in yield seen with the light severity treatments.
Sanding is more risky than pruning due to its greater negative impact on yield when applications are heavy and because nonuniform application of sand (Hunsberger et al., 2006) may not provide the intended benefits. Furthermore, sanding is more expensive than pruning, particularly if sand is purchased off-farm. On average, sanding plots had lower yield than pruning plots in the year of treatment. Heavy sanding treatments still had lower yields in the second year, whereas heavy pruning treatments were able to recover after the first year. This is an important consideration because the pest management benefits of sanding (e.g., suppression of cranberry girdler or dodder) are only effective with the equivalent of the moderate or heavy treatments used in this study (Franklin, 1951; Sandler et al., 1997). The prolonged decrease in yield associated with these severities may make sanding an unsustainable pest management option.
Because light severity sanding and pruning showed no negative effects in the year of treatment, either practice could be used annually as canopy conditions warrant. A previous study showed no negative impact of light annual pruning over a 4-year period when combined with moderate nitrogen inputs (Sandler and DeMoranville, 2009), thus this cultural practice could be conducted frequently. Based on the recovery data from the present study, the interval between sanding events should be at least 3 years if greater than 1.5 cm of sand is applied. Due to the potential benefits of light pruning and the reduced risk of overtreatment compared with sanding, pruning may be a viable option for cranberry growers as a replacement for or as a supplement to sanding for canopy management.
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Oudemans,P.V.Caruso,F.L.Stretch,A.W.1998Cranberry fruit rot in the northeast: A complex diseasePlant Dis.821176118410.1094/PDIS.1998.82.11.1176)| false
Roper, T.R. & Vorsa, N. 1997 Cranberry: Botany and horticulture Hort. Rev. (Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci.) 21 215 249
Roper,T.R.Vorsa,N.1997Cranberry: Botany and horticultureHort. Rev. (Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci.)21215249)| false
Roper, T.R., Klueh, J. & Hagidimitriou, M. 1995 Shading timing and intensity influences fruit set and yield in cranberry HortScience 30 525 527
Roper,T.R.Klueh,J.Hagidimitriou,M.1995Shading timing and intensity influences fruit set and yield in cranberryHortScience3052552710.21273/HORTSCI.30.3.525)| false
Roper, T.R., Patten, K.D., DeMoranville, C.J., Davenport, J.R., Strik, B.C. & Poole, A.P. 1993 Fruiting of cranberry uprights reduces fruiting the following year HortScience 28 228
Roper,T.R.Patten,K.D.DeMoranville,C.J.Davenport,J.R.Strik,B.C.Poole,A.P.1993Fruiting of cranberry uprights reduces fruiting the following yearHortScience2822810.21273/HORTSCI.28.3.228)| false
Sandler, H.A. & DeMoranville, C.J. 2009 Economic analysis of nitrogen rate on vine production and fruit yield of pruned cranberry beds HortTechnology 19 572 579
Sandler,H.A.DeMoranville,C.J.2009Economic analysis of nitrogen rate on vine production and fruit yield of pruned cranberry bedsHortTechnology1957257910.21273/HORTSCI.19.3.572)| false
Sandler, H.A., Else, M.J. & Sutherland, M. 1997 Application of sand for inhibition of swamp dodder (Cuscuta gronovii) seedling emergence and survival on cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) bogs Weed Technol. 11 318 323
Sandler,H.A.Else,M.J.Sutherland,M.1997Application of sand for inhibition of swamp dodder (Cuscuta gronovii) seedling emergence and survival on cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) bogsWeed Technol.1131832310.1017/S0890037X00043013)| false
Strik, B.C. & Poole, A. 1991 Timing and severity of pruning effects on cranberry yield components and fruit anthocyanin HortScience 26 1462 1464
Strik,B.C.Poole,A.1991Timing and severity of pruning effects on cranberry yield components and fruit anthocyaninHortScience261462146410.21273/HORTSCI.26.12.1462)| false
Strik, B.C. & Poole, A. 1992 Alternate-year pruning recommended for cranberry HortScience 26 1327
Strik,B.C.Poole,A.1992Alternate-year pruning recommended for cranberryHortScience261327)| false
Strik, B.C. & Poole, A. 1995 Does sand application to soil surface benefit cranberry production? HortScience 30 47 49
Strik,B.C.Poole,A.1995Does sand application to soil surface benefit cranberry production?HortScience30474910.21273/HORTSCI.30.1.47)| false
Suhayda, B. 2008 The effect of sanding and pruning on yield and canopy microclimate in ‘Stevens’ cranberry Dept. Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences Univ. Massachusetts, Amherst Masters thesis.
Suhayda,B.2008The effect of sanding and pruning on yield and canopy microclimate in ‘Stevens’ cranberryDept. Plant, Soil, and Insect SciencesUniv. Massachusetts, AmherstMasters thesis.)| false
Toledo, J.U., Smith, M.A.L. & Spomer, L.A. 1993 Light influence on in vitro anthocyanin production in three cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) cultivars HortScience 28 447 (Abstr.).
Toledo,J.U.Smith,M.A.L.Spomer,L.A.1993Light influence on in vitro anthocyanin production in three cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) cultivarsHortScience28447(Abstr.).)| false
U.S. Department of Agriculture 2008 Massachusetts and Maine cranberries 25 Jan. 2008. 15 May 2008 <http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/New_England_includes/Publications/jancran.pdf>.
U.S. Department of Agriculture2008Massachusetts and Maine cranberries25 Jan. 2008. 15 May 2008<http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/New_England_includes/Publications/jancran.pdf>.)| false
Vanden Heuvel, J.E. & Davenport, J.R. 2005 Effects of light, temperature, defoliation, and fruiting on carbon assimilation and partitioning in potted cranberry HortScience 40 1699 1704
Vanden Heuvel,J.E.Davenport,J.R.2005Effects of light, temperature, defoliation, and fruiting on carbon assimilation and partitioning in potted cranberryHortScience401699170410.21273/HORTSCI.40.6.1699)| false
This work was supported by Northeast Region SARE Project LNE05-217 and is a portion of a Masters thesis from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences submitted by B. Suhayda.
Special thanks to Peter Jeranyama for statistical assistance and to Joe DeVerna and Duane Greene for comments on the manuscript.
4 Corresponding author. E-mail: carolynd@umext.umass.edu.
https://journals.ashs.org/horttech/view/journals/horttech/19/4/article-p796.xml
Volume 19 (2009): Issue 4 (Jan 2009)
© 1999-2006 IPC Print Services 2009
Vaccinium macrocarpon; anthocyanin; light penetration; leaf wetness
Article by Brett Suhayda
Article by Carolyn J. DeMoranville
Article by Hilary A. Sandler
Article by Wesley R. Autio
Article by Justine E. Vanden Heuvel |
Fisher v. University of Texas, CCJ's Brief on behalf of the Asian American Legal Foundation, et al
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The Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence's brief to the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of the Asian American Legal Foundation, et al. in Fisher v. University of Texas.
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Judicial Pragmatism
ABIGAIL NOEL FISHER,
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, et al.,
Respondents.
On Writ of Certiorari to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE THE ASIAN
AMERICAN LEGAL FOUNDATION AND THE
ASIAN AMERICAN COALITION FOR EDUCATION
(REPRESENTING 117 AFFILIATED ASIAN
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS) IN SUPPORT
OF PETITIONER
JOHN C. EASTMAN
Center for Constitutional
c/o Chapman University
Dale E. Fowler School of Law
One University Drive
LEE C. CHENG
ALAN TSE
Asian American Legal
11 Malta Street
GORDON M. FAUTH, JR.
Counsel of Record
ROSANNE L. MAH
LITIGATION LAW GROUP
1801 Clement Avenue,
Counsel for Amici Curiae
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
1. Whether the Fifth Circuits re-endorsement of the
University of Texas at Austins use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions decisions
can be sustained under this Courts decisions interpreting the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, including Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 133 S.Ct. 2411 (2013).
2. Whether Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306
(2003), which upheld the use of racial preferences
in higher education admissions for the nonremedial, and amorphous purpose of diversity,
should be overruled as fundamentally incompatible with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the equality principle of
the Declaration of Independence?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED ............................................. i
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ........................................... iv
INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE .................................... 1
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ......................................... 6
ARGUMENT ....................................................................... 8
Asian Americans, a Minority Group Repeatedly
Victimized by Discrimination, Are the Group
Most Harmed by the University of Texas
Admissions ProgramA Fact Not Even
Considered by the Fifth Circuit. ............................. 8
II. UTs Use of Race Deprives Asian Americans of
the Right To Be Judged As Individuals and Not
By the Color of Their Skin..................................... 10
A. UTs racial preference scheme has an
invidious effect on Asian Americans, whom
UT apparently considers inferior to other
races in achieving its skin-deep diversity
objectives. ............................................................. 10
B. Racial balancing for its own sake attempts
to mirror Texas demographics to appease
political power blocs. .......................................... 11
III. For Much of Americas History, Race-Based
Governmental Programs Have Been Used To
Oppress Asian Americans. ..................................... 12
A. Repeatedly, federal court action was
necessary to compel local government bodies
to treat Asian Americans as human beings. 12
B. Historical Discrimination Against Asian
Americans in Education .................................... 16
IV. Today, Supposedly Benign Racial Balancing
and Diversity Policies Insidiously Discriminate
Against Asian American Students Nationwide. 17
A. The Ho Case -- Modern Day Discrimination
in San Francisco. ................................................ 17
B. Continuing Legislative Battles in California
Over Use of Race in Education. ....................... 21
C. Are Asian Americans the New Jews? .................... 23
V. The Fifth Circuit Erred In Not Recognizing
That The Top Ten Percent Plan Had Already
Achieved A Critical Mass. ................................... 28
VI. It Has Historically Been A Mistake To Defer
To The Opinions Of Officials, Experts and
Other Luminaries Who Support Racial
Classifications ........................................................... 31
VII. This Court Should Re-Establish The Bright-Line
Rule Reserving Use of Race For Remedial
Settings. ...................................................................... 35
CONCLUSION ................................................................. 38
TABLE OF CITED AUTHORITIES
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena,
515 U.S. 200 (1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10, 36, 37
Brown v. Board of Education,
347 U.S. 483 (1954). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 27-28, 31
Fisher v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin,
133 S. Ct. 2419 (2013) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 9, 28, 30
645 F. Supp. 2d 587 (W.D. Tex. 2009) . . . . . . . . . .9, 11
758 F.3d 633 (5th Cir. 2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8, 30
Fullilove v. Klutznick,
448 U.S. 448 (1980). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
Gong Lum v. Rice,
275 U.S. 78 (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Grutter v. Bollinger,
539 U.S. 306 (2003). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim
288 F.3d 732 (6th Cir. 2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
Hirabayashi v. United States,
828 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1987) . . . . . . . . . . 15, 32, 33, 34
Cited Authorities
Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan,
12 F. Cal. 252 (C.C.D. Cal. 1879). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Ho v. San Francisco Unied Sch. Dist.,
59 F. Supp. 2d 1021 (N.D. Cal. 1999) . . . . . . . . . .18, 21
147 F.3d 854 (1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim
965 F. Supp. 1316 (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
In re Ah Chong,
2 F. 733 (C.C.D. Cal. 1880). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
In re Lee Sing,
43 F. 359 (C.C.D. Cal. 1890). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
In re Tiburcio Parrott,
Korematsu v. United States,
323 U.S. 214 (1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
584 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D. Cal. 1984) . . . . . . . . .15, 32, 33
583 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D. Cal. 1984) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
Lee v. Johnson,
404 U.S. 1215 (1971) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC,
497 U.S. 547 (1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35, 36
Parents Inv. In Comm. Sch. v.
Seattle School No. 1,
127 S. Ct. 2738 (2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12, 35
426 F.3d 1162. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
People v. Hall,
4 Cal. 399 (1854) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Plessy v. Ferguson,
163 U.S. 537 (1896) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 31
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,
Rice v. Cayetano,
528 U.S. 495 (2000). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 17
Richmond v. Croson,
488 U.S. 469 (1989). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20, 36, 37
San Francisco NAACP v.
San Francisco Unied Sch. Dist.,
576 F. Supp. 34 (N.D. Cal. 1983) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18, 33
Shaw v. Reno,
509 U.S. 630 (1993). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36-37
Tape v. Hurley,
66 Cal. 473, 6 P. 12 (1885) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
United States v. Wong Kim Ark,
Wong Him v. Callahan,
119 F. 381 (C.C.N.D. Cal. 1902). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education,
Yick Wo v. Hopkins,
STATUTES AND OTHER AUTHORITIES
Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. .13, 36
18 U.S.C. 97a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Sup. Ct. R. 37.3(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Sup. Ct. R. 37.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Cal. Const. Art. I 31(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Cal. Const. Art. I 31 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21, 22
California Senate Constitutional Amendment
No.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Tex. Educ. Code 51.803 (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
P a t K . C h e w, A s i a n A m e r i c a n s : T h e
Reticent Minority and Their Paradoxes,
36 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1 (Oct. 1994) . . . . . . . . . 24-25
C h i n e s e Im m i g r a t i o n a n d t h e C h i n e s e
Exclusion Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
A l a n M . D e r s ho w it z a nd L au r a H a n f t ,
Afrmative Action and the Harvard College
Diversity-Discretion Model: Paradigm or
Pretext, 1 Cardozo L. Rev. 379 (1979) . . . . . . . . .24, 27
Selana Dong, Too Many Asians: Challenge
of Fighting Discrimination Against AsianAmericans and Preserving Affirmative
Action, 47 Stan. L. Rev. 1027 (May 1995) . . . . . . . . .24
Michael Dorgan, Desegregation or Racial Bias?,
San Jose Mercury, at 1A (June 5, 1995) . . . . . . . . . .21
Bob Egelko, Heather Knight, SCHOOLS, Justices
Take Cases On Race-Based Enrollment,
San Francisco Chronicle (June 6, 2006) . . . . . . . . . .22
Nathan Glazer, Diversity Dilemma, The New
Republic (June 22, 1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
Daniel Golden, The Price of Admission: How
Americas Ruling Class Buys Its Way into
Elite Collegesand Who Gets Left Outside,
Chapter 7: The New Jews (Three Rivers
Press, 2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25-26, 27
Gra nd Ju r y Repor t , Th e San Fr an c i sco
Unied School District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33, 34
Group Preferences and the Law, U.S. House
of Representatives Sub-Committee on the
Constitution Hearings (June 1, 1995) . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Julian Guthrie, S.F. School Race-Bias Case
Tr ial Star ts Soon, San Francisco
Examiner (Feb. 14, 1999) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Implementation and Results of the Texas
Automatic Admissions Law: Demographic
Analysis of Entering Freshmen, Report 12,
Tables 6a (UT Austin, Oct. 29, 2009). . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Jerry Kang, Negative Action Against Asian
Americans: The Internal Instability Of
Dworkins Defense Of Afrmative Action, 31
Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (Winter 1996) . . . . . 24, 34
Joy c e K u o , E x c l u d e d , S e g r e g a t e d a n d
Fo r g o t t e n : A Hi s t o r i c a l Vi e w of t h e
Discrimination of Chinese Americans in
Public Schools, 5 Asian L. J. 181 (May 1998) . . . .6, 16
Dav id I. Lev i ne, Th e Chin ese Am er ican
Challenge to Court-Mandated Quotas in
San Franciscos Public Schools: Notes
from a (Partisan) Participant-Observer,
16 Harv. BlackLetter J. 39 (Spring 2000) . . .19, 20, 24
V i c t o r L o w, T h e Un i m p r e s s i b l e R a c e
(East/West Publishing Co. 1982)
Charles McClain, In Search of Equality (Univ.
of Cal. Press 1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13, 16
Kate Murphy, California Affirmative Action
Revival Bill Is Dead (San Jose Mercury
News, March 18, 2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Proposal to Consider Race and Ethnicity in
Admissions at 24, June 25, 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Leo Rennert, President Embraces
Min o r i ty Pr og r am s, S a c r a ment o Be e
(Metro Final) (April 7, 1995). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
Jason P. Riley, The New Jews of Har vard
A d m i s s i o n s ( Wa l l S t r e e t Jo u r n a l ,
May 19, 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
El m e r C l a r e n c e S a n d m e ye r, T h e An t iChinese Movement in California (Univ.
of Ill. Press 1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Evan P. Schultz, Group Rights, American Jews,
and the Failure of Group Libel Laws, 66
Brook. L. Rev. 71 (Spring 2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23-24
Law rence Sisk ind, Racial Quotas Didnt
Work in SF Schools, op-ed, San Francisco
Examiner (July 6, 1994). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
Ron Unz, The Myth of American Meritocracy:
How Corrupt are Ivy League Admissions?
(The American Conservative, Dec. 2012) . . . . . . . . .27
Dan Walters, A sian-A mer icans opposing
u ndoi ng P rop. 2 0 9, Sa n Diego Un ion
Tribune (March 14, 2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Nicholas Webster, Democratic Merit Project,
Analysis of the Texas Ten Percent Plan
(Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and
Ethnicity, Feb. 8, 2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE1
The outcome of this case is of critical importance
to Amici Curiae and their constituents, who are
Americans of Asian ethnic origin. They and their
constituents plead with this Court to recognize the
long and sad history of discrimination against Asian
Americans in America, and to ban continuing discrimination against the children of this historically
oppressed group for any non-remedial purpose, including purportedly benign rationales such as racedeterminant diversity and affirmative action.
The Asian American Legal Foundation (AALF)
was founded to protect and promote the civil rights of
Asian Americans, in particular where, as here, Asian
Americans are being discriminated against in the
name of a purportedly benign purpose. Members of
AALF were instrumental in the struggle to end discrimination against Chinese American students in
the San Francisco, California public school system,
discrimination that was also imposed for supposedly
benign reasons. See Ho v. San Francisco Unified
Sch. Dist., 147 F.3d 854 (1998). More information on
AALF and its mission can be found on its website at
http://www.asianamericanlegal.com.
Pursuant to this Courts Rule 37.3(a), all parties have consented to the filing of this brief. Letters evidencing such consent
have been filed with the Clerk of the Court. Pursuant to Rule
37.6, Amici Curiae affirm that no counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in part, and no counsel or party
made a monetary contribution intended to fund the preparation
or submission of this brief. No person other than Amici Curiae,
their members, or their counsel made a monetary contribution
to its preparation or submission.
The Asian American Coalition for Education
(AACE) is a non-political, non-profit, national organization devoted to promoting equal rights for
Asian-Americans in education and education-related
activities. The leaders of AACE and its supporting
organizations are Asian American community leaders, business leaders and most importantly, parents.
They are not professional civil rights advocates, but
were forced to become civil rights advocates to stop
and prevent the discrimination against their children
that the professionals ignore, downplay and facilitate. In May 2015, the founders of AACE united
more than 60 Asian American organizations to file a
complaint with Department of Justice and Department of Education regarding Harvard Universitys
discriminatory practices against Asian American applicants. It was one of the largest joint actions ever
taken by Asian American organizations in pursuit of
equal education rights.
AACE represents some 117 affiliated Asian American organizations in this present amicus effort including: 1441 Manufacture-Home Residents Association; 80-20 Washington D.C. Area Chapter; Allstar
Institute; American Chinese Women Culture Media
Club; American Society of Engineers of Indian
Origin-NCC; American Southern Californian Economic and Culture Association; Ancestor Worship
Festival Overseas Chinese; Anhui Association of
Texas; Asian American Coalition for Education (NY);
Asian American Community Association; Asian
Americans for Political Advancement; Asian Boy
Equal Rights; Asian Leadership and Cultural Network; AsianAmericanVoters.org; Backbone Foundation; Boise Modern Chinese School; Boston Forward
Foundation; Boston Fudan Aluminum Association;
Center for Asian Pacific Affairs; Chicago Fudan
Alumni Association; China Youth Center; Chinese
America Association of Orange County; Chinese
American Equalization Association (HQH); Chinese
American for Progress and Equality (CAPE); Chinese
American Parent Association; Chinese Language
Teacher Association- Florida Chapter; Chinese
School of Orlando; Coalition of Asian-Americans for
Civil Rights; Conejo Chinese Cultural Association;
Dallas/Fort Worth Chinese Alliance; Dong Fang Chinese; Enspire School; Federal Asian Pacific American
Council; First Han International Language School;
Florida Acupuncture Association; Florida Fujianese
Association of USA; Florida Shandong Fellowship
Association; Global Organization of Indian Origin Los Angeles Chapter; Golden Dragon Chinese Kung
Fu and Cultural Institute; Great Neck Chinese Association; Hanlin Culture and Education Foundation;
Health Foundation (TX); Hebei Association in Northern California; Henan Association in Northern California; Houston Chinese Alliance; Hua Yi Chinese
School; Hunan Club of Houston; Idaho Chinese Organization; Impact Speaking Academy; India Association of San Antonio; Indo-US Chamber of Commerce of Northeast Florida; Jacksonville Chinese Association; Jiao Tong University Alumni AssociationSeattle; Kentucky Chinese American Association;
Kiddie Academy of Gontana; Legal Immigrant Association; Livingston Chinese Association; Long Island
Chinese American Association; Long Island School of
Chinese; Lung Kong Tin Yes Association; Memphis
Chinese School; Millburn-Short Hills Chinese Association; National Asian American PAC Michigan
chapter (80-20); National Asian American PAC FL;
National Federation of Indian American Association;
NC Beijinger; Noble Tree Publishing Inc.; North
America Career Express Association; North American Education and Culture; Northeast Chinese Association of Florida; Northern California Chinese Culture Athletic Federation; Northern California Hubei
Association; Overseas Chinese Association of Miami;
Pakistan Policy Institute; Pakistani American Volunteers; Ray Chinese School; San Antonio Chinese
Alliance; San Diego Asian Americans For Equality;
San Dong Association; Shandong Fellowship Association of South USA; Shandong Friendship Association
of California; Shou Chu Organization; Silicon Valley
Chinese Association Foundation; Silicon Valley
Women Alliance; Sillicon Valley Foundation for Better Environment; Sino Professionals Association;
South Florida Chinese Business Association; South
Florida Sicuanren & Chongqingren Chinese Association; South Main Toastmaster; Southwest University
of Finance and Economics American Aluminums;
Spring Source Education Institute; Sunflower Learning Center; SV Huaren Performance and Arts Association; Taiwan Benevolent Association of Florida;
Taoist Institute of TCM; TeeterPal Little Friends
Parenting Community; Texas Guangdong Association; Texas Northeast Chinese Association; The Chinese Women's Club of Greater Miami; The Federation of Florida Chinese Association; The Korean Association of Greater Washington; The Orange Club;
Thuy Lowe for Congress Campaign; Tianjin Commerce Association USA Inc.; Tianmu Education
Foundation; U.S. China Chan Cultural Exchange
Association; UBC (United for a Better Community);
United Asian American for Activism; United Chinese
Association of Utah; US California Henan Association; USTC Alumni Association of Greater New York;
USTC Alumni Association of Southern California;
USTC Alumni Foundation; UT Austin PGE Chinese
Alumni Association; Venus Chinese School; World
Federation of Chinese Traders Alumni-South Florida
Chapter; and the X3 Academy.
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
Amici are greatly distressed by and find offensive
the decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (the
Fifth Circuit) upholding the race-based admission
program at the University of Texas at Austin (UT
or the University). Contrary to that courts depiction of the issue as white versus minority, in fact,
it is Asian American students, the members of a historically oppressed minority, who comprise the group
most harmed by the program.
The evidence and common sense demonstrate
that the UT admission program at issue is nothing
other than forbidden racial balancing or, even worse,
potentially an effort by academic and political elites
to curry favor with a powerful voting bloc. Under the
Texas Ten Percent Plan, UT already had more Hispanic American students enrolled than Asian American students, but under the plan being challenged in
this case, UT insisted on giving preferences to Hispanic applicants, while disfavoring Asian American
applicants, demonstrating that the University was
not striving for diversity but racial balance.
The present discrimination against individuals
of Asian descent in UT admissions is particularly
troubling, in light of the long history of discrimination against Asian Americans, especially in education. See, e.g., Joyce Kuo, Excluded, Segregated and Forgotten: A Historical View of the Discrimination of Chinese
Americans in Public Schools, 5 Asian L. J. 181, 207-208
(May 1998).
It is disheartening to see the same type of discriminatory program at UT today, where Asian
Americans are still being classified by race and con-
sidered not as valuable as other Americans because
of their race.
The recitation of Respondents and their amici of a
noble purpose behind the UT program should be given no weight. State officials have always argued
that their classification of individuals by race, and
discriminatory programs, were justified by
important governmental purposes, and even the most
racist programs have found support with experts,
including ivory tower academics and even military
leaders. Yet, our countrys history has always, in the
end, demonstrated that classification and discrimination by race was a mistake.
In case after case, the single historical truth
that emerges is that the rights of Asian Americans
and of all Americanshave been vindicated only by
strict application of the Fourteenth Amendments
protection of individual rights. That same rule is no
less valid today, and it directly applies to the situation in Texas.
For all of these reasons, the Court should find the
UT admission program to be unconstitutional. The
Court should also revisit and overrule its holding in
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), to make
clear that outside of narrowly tailored programs that
provide remedies to specific and proven victims of
race-based discrimination, race should not be used in
college admissions or any other setting.
I. Asian Americans, a Minority Group Repeatedly Victimized by Discrimination, Are the
Group Most Harmed by the University of
Texas Admissions ProgramA Fact Not
Even Considered by the Fifth Circuit.
racedeterminative UT admissions program, but in its
analysis failed to consider the effect of the program
on the group most negatively burdenedAsian
Americans. For this reason alone, the decision is
deeply flawed and should be reversed.2 The Fifth
Circuit erroneously described the issue as being
white versus minority, failing to consider that
Asian Americans, members of an ethnic minority
group, are the most harmed by the challenged program. The Fifth Circuit stated, Given the test score
gaps between minority and non-minority applicants,
if holistic review was not designed to evaluate each
individual's contributions to UT Austins diversity,
including those that stem from race, holistic admissions would approach an all-white enterprise. Fisher v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin, 758 F. 3d 633, 647 (5th
Cir. 2014). If the Fifth Circuits failure to recognize
the burden of the UT program on Asian Americans
was inadvertent, and based on mistaken belief that
somehow Asian Americans are white and priviContrary to this Courts instruction, see Fisher v. Univ. of Tex.
at Austin, 133 S.Ct. 2419 (2013), the court below, while pretending otherwise, once again failed to apply true strict scrutiny,
deferring to UT officials opinions as to the purpose of the admissions program, its necessity, and its effect on student applicants, and ignoring all evidence to the contrary.
leged, shame on that court. If the failure was purposeful, even more shame.
Contrary to the stated premise of the Fifth Circuit decision, white applicants do not have the highest average test scores; Asian Americans do. The
court demonstrated an alarming ignorance of the reality of the multicultural and diverse society which it
purports to advance, and a shocking lack of sensitivity to the identity and experience of Americans of
Asian descent. In 2008, the student body at UT was
19% Asian American. Fisher v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin, 645 F. Supp. 2d 587, 606, n. 10 (W.D. Tex. 2009).
For Non-Top Ten Percent admittees, the SAT test
score average for Asian Americans was 1346 versus
1300 for whites; Asian American applicants also had
higher GPAs. See Implementation and Results of the
Texas Automatic Admissions Law: Demographic
Analysis of Entering Freshmen, Report 12, Tables 6a,
6c (UT Austin, Oct. 29, 2009).3
Therefore, it is Asian American applicants who
suffered the greatest harm under race-determinant
admissions policies.
The failure of the Fifth Circuit even to recognize
that the burden of the challenged program falls disproportionately on Asian Americans, a minority
group historically harmed by racial discrimination,
demonstrates that its strict scrutiny analysis was seriously flawed and did not comport with this Courts
clear requirements. See Fisher, 133 S.Ct. at 2419
(Strict scrutiny is a searching examination);
http://www.lb5.uscourts.gov/ArchivedURLs/Files/0950822(2).pdf (last visited Sept. 8, 2015).
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 US 200, 227
(1995) (race classifications mandate detailed judicial
inquiry).
II. UTs Use of Race Deprives Asian Americans
of the Right To Be Judged As Individuals
and Not By the Color of Their Skin.
A. UTs racial preference scheme has an invidious effect on Asian Americans, whom
races in achieving its skin-deep diversity objectives.
As this Court has repeatedly declared, it demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged
by ancestry instead of his or her own merit and essential qualities. Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495, 517
(2000). Thus, even if UTs race-conscious admissions
program were truly necessary, which it is not, it
would still demean Asian American individuals who
are discriminated against by the scheme. The harm
would simply be viewed as a necessary evilthe
breaking of a few innocent eggs to achieve the purported greater good. Going further, however, the arguments UT and its supporters proffer to justify the
program insult and demean Asian Americans. UT
says its program is necessary to promote diversity
and achieve a critical mass of minority student
groups. However, under the challenged program,
Hispanic applicants are given preference because of
their race but applicants of Asian ancestry are discriminated against, despite the fact that the gross
number of Hispanic students attending UT exceeds
the gross number of Asian-American students attending UT. Fisher, 645 F.Supp. 2d at 606.
The finding of the Fifth Circuit that Hispanics are
insufficiently represented even though present in
larger numbers than Asian Americans means either:
(1) that court was wrong and there is a critical mass
of both; or (2) Asian Americans are not worth as
much as Hispanics in promoting cross-racial understanding, breaking down racial stereotypes, and
enabling students to better understand persons of
different races. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 329. The latter
dubious proposition is unsupported by anything in
the record. It is also racist.
B. Racial balancing for its own sake attempts to mirror Texas demographics to
appease political power blocs.
The fact that UT already enrolls a greater number of Hispanic Americans than Asian Americans establishes that the admission programs true purpose
cannot be the achievement of a critical mass of
Hispanic students. UTs true goal is racial balancingthat is, making the student body mirror the racial composition of the State of Texas.
In 2008, the Universitys student body was 20%
Hispanics and 19% Asian American; however, those
groups respectively represented 36% and 3.4% of the
Texas population. Fisher, 645 F.Supp. 2d at 606 and
n.10. In its 2004 proposal that led to the raceconscious program at issue, the University admitted
its desire to mirror the states racial demographics:
[S]ignificant differences between the racial and eth-
nic makeup of the Universitys undergraduate population and the states population prevent the University from fully achieving its mission. Proposal to
Consider Race and Ethnicity in Admissions at 24,
June 25, 2004. See Parties Supplemental Joint Appendix (SJA), 24a.
The Universitys goal of racial balancing is patently unconstitutional. We have many times over
reaffirmed that [r]acial balance is not to be achieved
for its own sake. Parents Inv. In Comm. Sch. v. Seattle School No. 1, 127 S.Ct. 2738, 2757 (2007) (citing
cases).
Governmental Programs Have Been Used
To Oppress Asian Americans.
A. Repeatedly, federal court action was necessary to compel local government bodies
to treat Asian Americans as human beings.
The UT discrimination against Asian Americans
is particularly disheartening given the long history of
similar governmental programs and policies used to
oppress Asian American citizens of this great nation.
Whether malevolent in intent or facially benign,
these historical acts of governmental discrimination
were always, like the UT program at issue here, considered or claimed to be in the public interest by the
government officials who enacted them.
Throughout their history in this country, Asian
Americans have faced barriers and discrimination
because of their race. See, e.g., Charles McClain, In
Search of Equality (Univ. of Cal. Press 1994); Elmer
Clarence Sandmeyer, The Anti-Chinese Movement in
California (Univ. of Ill. Press 1991); Victor Low, The
Unimpressible Race (East/West Publishing Co.
1982). Their treatment was so dismal it gave rise to
the expression a Chinamans Chance, a term meaning having little or no chance of succeeding. News
http://www.ciij.org/publications_media/2011120595034.pdf (last visited Aug. 3, 2015).
In just one example of the historical sentiment, in
People v. Hall, 4 Cal. 399, 404-05 (1854), the California Supreme Court, invalidating the testimony of
Chinese American witnesses to a murder, explained
that Chinese were a distinct people whose mendacity is proverbial; a race of people whom nature
has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of
progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point, as their history has shown; differing in
language, opinions, color, and physical conformation;
between whom and ourselves nature has placed an
impassable difference.
Time and time again, Asian Americans have had
to appeal to the federal courts for vindication of their
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution. Over the past century
and a half, these cases have contributed significantly
to the development of equal protection jurisprudence.
In Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan, 12 F. Cal. 252 (C.C.D.
Cal. 1879) (No. 6,546), a district court invalidated
San Franciscos infamous Queue Ordinance on
equal protection grounds.
In In re Ah Chong, 2 F. 733 (C.C.D. Cal.1880), the
court found unlawful an act forbidding Chinese
Americans from shing in California waters.
In In re Tiburcio Parrott, 1 F. 481 (C.C.D. Cal.
1880), the court declared unconstitutional a provision of Californias 1879 constitution that forbade
corporations and municipalities from hiring Chinese.
In 1882, in an extraordinary and shameful attack on
equal protection, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first national law enacted to prevent
an ethnic group from immigrating to the United
States. See Chinese Immigration and the Chinese
Exclusion Acts, at https://history.state.gov/milestones
/1866-1898/chinese-immigration (last visited Sept. 7,
2015). Fueled by anti-Chinese hysteria and supported by a broad spectrum of leaders and society of the
time, it prohibited all entry of Chinese laborers. Id.
The Act was not repealed until 1943. Id. As aptly described by opponent Republican Senator George
Frisbie Hoar in 1882, this Act was nothing less than
the legalization of racial discrimination. Id.
In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886), this
Court ruled that Chinese were persons under the
Fourteenth Amendment and could not be singled out
for unequal burden under a San Francisco laundry
licensing ordinance.
In In re Lee Sing, 43 F. 359 (C.C.D. Cal. 1890),
the court found unconstitutional the Bingham Ordinance, which mandated residential segregation of
Chinese Americans.
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649
(1898), this Court ruled that a Chinese American
boy, born in San Francisco to parents of Chinese descent who were lawfully domiciled in the United
States, could not be prevented by local ofcials from
returning home after a trip abroad.
One of the most egregious modern infringements
of the constitutional rights of Asian Americans occurred during World War II when, pursuant to presidential and military orders and supported by the
statements of experts, entire families of Japanese
Americans were removed from their West Coast
homes and placed in internment camps.4 Now, of
course, it is universally acknowledged that there was
no justification for this abrogation of the rights of
American citizens. See Korematsu, 584 F.Supp. at
1420; Hirabayashi v. United States, 828 F.2d 591
(9th Cir. 1987).
The lesson taught, time and again, is that, in cases such as the one before it now, this Court should be
extremely wary of the statements of the government
officials and luminaries who line up to support a proExecutive Order No. 9066 was issued on February 19, 1942. It
authorized the Secretary of War and certain military commanders to prescribe military areas from which any persons
may be excluded as protection against espionage and sabotage.
Congress enacted 97a of Title 18 of the United States Code,
making it a crime for anyone to remain in restricted zones in
violation of such orders. Military commanders then, under color
of Executive Order No. 9066, issued proclamations excluding
Japanese Americans from West Coast areas, and sending them
to internment camps. See Korematsu v. United States, 584 F.
Supp. 1406, 1409 (N.D. Cal. 1984). History suggests that military commanders of any given era, regardless of their personal
qualities and abilities in planning and waging war, should not
be considered experts about whether or not race should or can
be used to treat individual Americans differently.
gram of racial discrimination. Such proffered justifications for the infringement of individual rights have
never stood the test of time.
B. Historical Discrimination
Americans in Education
As this Court has recognized, discrimination
against Asian American schoolchildren has a long
and shameful history, beginning with outright exclusion, then tracking the evolution of the separate but
equal doctrine as applied to education, and finally
evolving into racial balancing schemes such as the
one at issue here.
In Tape v. Hurley, 66 Cal. 473, 6 P. 12 (1885), the
court had to order San Francisco public schools to
admit a Chinese American girl who was denied entry
because, as stated by the State Superintendent of
Public Instruction, public schools were not open to
Mongolian children. See McClain, supra, at 137. In
response, the California legislature authorized separate Chinese schools to which Chinese American
schoolchildren were restricted by law until well into
the twentieth century. See Ho, 147 F.3d at 864; see
also Kuo, supra, at 207-208.
Asian American schoolchildren were some of the
earliest victims of separate but equal jurisprudence
as it related to education. In Wong Him v. Callahan,
119 F. 381 (C.C.N.D. Cal. 1902), the district court
denied a child of Chinese descent the right to attend
his neighborhood school in San Francisco, reasoning
that the Chinese school in Chinatown was separate but equal. Id. at 382.
In Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927), this
Court afrmed that the separate-but-equal doctrine
articulated in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537
(1896), applied to schools, nding that a nine-yearold Chinese American girl in Mississippi could be
denied entry to a white school because she was of
the yellow race. Rice at 87.
Thus, in Lee v. Johnson, 404 U.S. 1215 (1971),
Justice Douglas wrote that Californias establishment of separate schools for children of Chinese ancestry . . . was the classic case of de jure segregation
involved [and struck down] in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 [1954]. Id. at 1216. Brown
v. Board of Education was not written for blacks
alone. It rests on the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, one of the rst beneciaries
of which were the Chinese people of San Francisco.
Lee, 404 U.S. at 1216 (emphasis added).
and Diversity Policies Insidiously Discriminate Against Asian American Students Na-
tionwide.
A. The Ho Case -- Modern Day Discrimination in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, efforts to discriminate against
Asian American students did not end with Brown v.
Board of Education. Today, schools at all levels are
using supposedly benign racial balancing or diversity programs to discriminate against Asian American applicants solely because of their ethnicity.
Ironically, the most striking modern-day example
of such good-intentioned discrimination against
Asian American students occurred in San Francisco,
Californiain the state where much of the historical
discrimination against Asian Americans took place.
The case provides useful lessons, both in terms of the
skepticism that should be given purported justifications for the use of race and also in the adverse impact on the community and affected individual students and families.
In Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District,
filed in 1994, San Franciscos Chinese American
schoolchildren fought a five-year battle to halt the
school districts policy of assigning them to the citys
K-12 schools on the basis of their race. See Ho, 147
F.3d 854; Ho v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist., 59 F.
Supp. 2d 1021 (N.D. Cal. 1999) (on remand); Ho v. San
Francisco Unified Sch. Dist., 965 F.Supp. 1316
(1997) (decision giving rise to appeal in 147 F.3d
854). Amicus curiae AALF was founded to organize
the Ho litigation after all other efforts to achieve
equality failed.
In Ho, the plaintiff class challenged a consentdecree-mandated racial balancing scheme imposed in
San Francisco NAACP v. San Francisco Unified Sch.
Dist., 576 F.Supp. 34 (N.D. Cal. 1983). Without any
finding of a constitutional violation to remedy, school
officials set up a racial balancing scheme with the
stated goals of preventing racial isolation and
providing academic excellence. See Ho, 965 F.Supp.
at 1322; see also Ho, 147 F.3d at 859; San Francisco
NAACP, 576 F.Supp. at 40-42, 58. Filled with zeal
for their vision of racial engineering, the proponents
ignored that the San Francisco school district was
already and naturally one of the most ethnically diverse in the nation.
Under San Franciscos admissions program,
nine ethnic groups (later enlarged to thirteen) were
arbitrarily defined, including Chinese; and caps
were imposed to insure that no one group would represent more than 45 percent of the student body at
any regular school or 40 percent at an alternative
school. See id.; see also Ho, 147 F.3d at 856-58. As
they were the largest racially identifiable group in
the city, the burden of the system of quotas and caps
fell heaviest on students identified as Chinese, who
were often unable to gain entrance to their own
neighborhood schools or to desirable magnet schools.
See David I. Levine, The Chinese American Challenge to
Court-Mandated Quotas in San Franciscos Public Schools:
Notes from a (Partisan) Participant-Observer, at 55-56, 16
Harv. BlackLetter J. 39 (Spring 2000).
Also, making matters worse at some schools, the
district adopted a policy of granting preferences to
applicants classified as Hispanic or African American, See Ho, 147 F.3d at 858.
The named plaintiffs stories amply illustrate the
discrimination:
Brian Ho was five years old. He was turned
away from his two neighborhood kindergartens because the schools were capped out for Chinese
schoolchildren. He was assigned to a school in another neighborhood. See Levine, supra, at 61.
Patrick Wong, then fourteen years old, applied
for admission to Lowell High School, a selective
magnet school. He was rejected because his index
score was below the minimum required for Chinese
applicants, even though the score would have gained
admission had he been a member of any other ethnic
group. He was then rejected at three other high
schools because such schools were capped out for
Chinese. Id.
Hillary Chen, then eight years old, was not allowed to attend any of three elementary schools near
her home because all three schools were capped out
for Chinese schoolchildren. Id.
As this Court warned in Richmond v. Croson, 488
U.S. 469 (1989), San Francisco schoolchildren were
stigmatized by the districts use of race. See Croson
at 493 (use of race promotes feelings of racial inferiority and racial hostility). As stated by the parent
of one student turned away because of his ethnicity,
He was depressed and angry that he was rejected
because of his race. Can you imagine, as a parent,
seeing your sons hopes denied in this way at the age
of 14? Julian Guthrie, S.F. School Race-Bias Case
Trial Starts Soon, San Francisco Examiner, at C-2
(Feb. 14, 1999).
As Lee Cheng, Secretary of AALF, testified in
hearings held by the U.S. House of Representatives,
Sub-Committee on the Constitution:
Many Chinese American children have internalized their anger and pain, confused about
why they are treated differently from their
non-Chinese friends. Often they become
ashamed of their ethnic heritage after concluding that their unfair denial is a form of punishment for doing something wrong.
Group Preferences and the Law, U.S. House of Representatives Sub-Committee on the Constitution
(June
1995),
http://www.archive.org/stream/grouppreferences00un
it/grouppreferences00unit_djvu.txt (last visited Sept.
1, 2015).
Another insidious byproduct of San Franciscos
racial balancing plan was rampant dishonesty by
parents of all races who misreported childrens racial
identity to gain admission to desired schools. (This
behavior perhaps can be more fairly characterized as
civil disobedience against injustice.) See Michael
Dorgan, Desegregation or Racial Bias?, San Jose
Mercury, at 1A (June 5, 1995). [S]ome black families
in Bayview-Hunters Point have gone so far as to
take Hispanic surnames to protect their children
from busing. Id. at 10A. People know if they want
to go to a particular school that has a lot of Caucasians, they should put down something other than
Caucasian, and they do. Id. at 10A (quoting then
School Board President Dan Kelly).5
After five years of vigorous litigation, and after
the district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had emphasized to defendants that under the
strict scrutiny standards set by this Court, they
would lose at trial, the SFUSD agreed to cease its
use of race in admissions. See Ho, 59 F.Supp. 2d at
B. Continuing Legislative Battles in California Over Use of Race in Education.
Based on their experience with the San Francisco
school district in the Ho case, founding members of
AALF also worked to pass Proposition 209, a California voter initiative that added Article I Section 31
to the State Constitution. Section 31 provides, The
State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferThe school enrollment forms threatened parents with perjury if they misreported the race of their child. See Ho, 147
F.3d at 862.
ential treatment to, any individual or group on the
basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin
in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting. Cal. Const. Art. I 31(a).
This provision forbids all state schools and universities from considering race in admissions.
Both the remedy secured in Ho and the prohibition on use of race of Section 31 remain under attack
by proponents of racial engineering. San Francisco
school officials who favor use of race raise the possibility of reinstituting race-based admissions every
time a new Supreme Court case surfaces that might
offer them support. See e.g., Bob Egelko, Heather
Knight, SCHOOLS, Justices Take Cases On RaceBased Enrollment, San Francisco Chronicle, at B-1
(June 6, 2006) (If the Supreme Court upholds the
Seattle system ... Prop. 209 is a moot point... Federal
laws would override a state initiative. (quoting then
board member Mark Sanchez).)
In 2014, Californias citizens of Asian descent
were forced to mobilize to defeat yet another attempt
to re-introduce racial preferences in education. On
January 30, 2014, the California State Senate passed
California Senate Constitutional Amendment No.5
(SCA-5). See http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/ faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SCA5 (last
visited Sept. 8, 2015). This proposition, if enacted,
would have amended the California Constitution to
allow the use of race in public education and would
have removed schools and universities from the ambit of Section 31. Id. Asian Americans, including
constituents of AALF, and AACE and its supporting
organizations campaigned vigorously against the
measure, gathering more than 112,000 signatures in
a matter of weeks. Dan Walters, Asian-Americans
opposing undoing Prop. 209, San Diego Union Tribune (March 14, 2014).
After SCA-5 was sent by the Assembly back to the
Senate, several key senators who had backed the
measure bowed to the unexpected groundswell of opposition and withdrew their support, asking that the
bill be placed on hold. At their request, State Senator Ed Hernandez, the author of SCA-5, withdrew
the bill from consideration on March 17, 2014. See
Kate Murphy, California Affirmative Action Revival
Bill Is Dead (San Jose Mercury News, March 18,
2014) at http://www.mercurynews.com/education/
ci_25361339/california-affirmative-action-challengeis-dead? (last visited August 30, 2015). The slightest
relaxation of vigilance, however, is likely to see this
bill revived. I'd like to bring it back, Hernandez
said. I believe in it. Id. Asian American victims of
discrimination ask that this Court not embolden
Senator Hernandez and his allies to do that.
C. Are Asian Americans the New Jews?
In an eerie historical parallel, Asian American
applicants to elite colleges and universities today apparently face the same informal quotas faced by
Jews who applied to Harvard College and other prestigious institutions during the first half of the 20th
century. Beginning in the 1920s, Harvard College
and other prominent colleges and universities reacted to the perceived over-representation of Jews in
their student bodies by setting up quotas for applicants of the Jewish faith that persisted through the
1950s. See Evan P. Schultz, Group Rights, American
Jews, and the Failure of Group Libel Laws, 66 Brook.
L. Rev. 71, 111-12 (Spring 2000); Alan M. Dershowitz
and Laura Hanft, Affirmative Action and the Harvard College Diversity-Discretion Model: Paradigm or
Pretext, 1 Cardozo L. Rev. 379, 385-399 (1979); Nathan Glazer, Diversity Dilemma, The New Republic
(June 22, 1998). In the 1930s, it was easier for a Jew
to enter medical school in Mussolinis Italy than in
Roosevelts America.
Lawrence Siskind, Racial
Quotas Didnt Work in SF Schools, op-ed, San Francisco Examiner (July 6, 1994).6
The arguments supporting the historical and modern-day racial balancing schemes are virtually identical. President Lowell of Harvard called [the Jewish quota] a benign cap, which
would help the University get beyond race. Jerry Kang, Negative Action Against Asian Americans: The Internal Instability Of
Dworkins Defense Of Affirmative Action, 31 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L.
Rev. 1, 36 (Winter 1996). In the Ho case, proponents argued:
[T]he Chinese are the largest group at most of the best schools
in the city. They cant have it all. If anything, Id say lower the
caps, dont raise themotherwise were headed back to segregated schools, only all Chinese instead of all white. Selana
Dong, Too Many Asians: Challenge of Fighting Discrimination
Against Asian-Americans and Preserving Affirmative Action, 47
Stan. L. Rev. 1027, 1057 n.36 (May 1995) (citation omitted)
(quoting Lulann McGriff, former president of San Francisco
NAACP); see also Levine, supra, at 138. And, today, the same
arguments are used to justify turning away Asian American
individuals from the nations universities. See Glazer, supra;
Dong, supra, at 1057, nn.4-5; Leo Rennert, President Embraces
Minority Programs, Sacramento Bee (Metro Final) at A1 (April
7, 1995) (reporting that former President Clinton said that
without race-based admissions there are universities in California that could fill their entire freshman classes with nothing
but Asian Americans). Todays damned curve raisers are
Asian Americans . Kang, supra, at 47 n.189 (cites and internal quotation marks omitted). Again, quotas promoting diversity are seen as the answer. See Pat K. Chew, Asian Ameri6
Since the 1920s, things have come full circle but this
time with Asian Americans as the target. On May
15, 2015, Amicus Curiae AACE, representing a coalition of more than 60 Asian American organizations,
filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights, Department of Education and the Civil Rights Division,
Department of Justice, alleging that Harvard College, as it once did with Jewish applicants, now imposes de facto quotas for Asian Americans. See
http://www.asianamericancoalition.org/
files/harvard/AisanComplaintHarvardDocumentFina
l.pdf (last visited Sept. 7, 2015). As reported May 19,
2015 in the Wall Street Journal, Citing several academic studies, the complaint notes that Asian Americans have some of the highest academic credentials
but the lowest acceptance rates at the nations top
schools, a result that the coalition attributes to justfor-Asians admissions standards that impose unfair
and illegal burdens on Asian-American college applicants. Jason P. Riley, The New Jews of Harvard
Admissions (Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2015).
The AACE complaint highlights compelling evidence that Harvard and other elite colleges discriminate against undergraduate Asian American applicants to maintain their informal quotas.
An extensive study of the admission process at
prestigious colleges by Daniel Golden, Pulitzer Prizewinning Wall Street Journal reporter, found widespread discrimination against Asian American applicants. See Daniel Golden, The Price of Admission:
cans: The Reticent Minority and Their Paradoxes, 36 Wm. &
Mary L. Rev. 1, 61-64 (Oct. 1994).
How Americas Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite
Collegesand Who Gets Left Outside, Chapter 7: The
New Jews (Three Rivers Press, 2007); AACE Complaint at 11-12. According to Goldens quantitative
analysis, Harvard and other elite schools use methods including negative stereotypes, such as being
quiet, focusing on math and science, and play[ing]
a music instrument to downgrade Asian American
applicants in holistic reviews. He concludes that
most elite universities maintain a triple standard in
college admissions, setting the bar highest for Asian
Americans, next for whites and lowest for blacks and
Hispanics. Id.
As reported in their 2009 book, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, Princeton researchers Thomas J.
Espenshade and Alexandra Radford examined exhaustive application data from three elite public and
four elite private colleges and found that Asian
American applicants have 67% lower odds of admission than white applicants with comparable test
scores. AACE Complaint at 12. They found that
when applying to top private universities an AsianAmerican student has to score 140 points higher
than a White student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic student and 450 points higher than a Black
student on the SAT to be on equal footing.7 Put another way, if a top private university such as Harvard accepts white students with an SAT mean score
of 2160, its mean score for accepting Asian-American
Illustrating the absurd nature of the discrimination, a mixed
race applicant of both Asian and white descent would obtain a
140 point advantage (over Asian applicants) simply by checking the white box on the application.
students would be 2300, 140 additional points. Id. at
The complaint cites similar findings by researcher Ron Unz. See Ron Unz, The Myth of American Meritocracy: How Corrupt are Ivy League Admissions?, pgs. 14-51 (The American Conservative, Dec.
2012), at http://www.theamericanconservative.com/
artcles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ (last visited Sept. 6, 2015); AACE Complaint at 13. Comparing population growth of college-age Asian Americans, the Asian American enrollment of Harvard and
other Ivy League Colleges, Unz found, the share of
Asians at Harvard peaked at over 20 percent in
1993, then immediately declined and thereafter remained roughly constant at a level 35 points lower.
Id. He found this particularly suspicious considering
that the underlying population of Asian Americans
had throughout this period been growing at the fastest pace of any American racial group, increasing by
almost 50 percent during the last decade and more
than doubling since 1993. Id. At the same time that
Asian American academic achievement was shooting
upward, the relative enrollment of Asians at Harvard was plummeting, dropping by over half during
the last twenty years, with a range of similar declines also occurring at Yale, Cornell, and most other
Ivy League universities. Id.
As history shows, such artificial attempts to
mandate a racially balanced student body invariably
mean discrimination. See Dershowitz & Hanft, supra, at 399 (Both then and now ... such unlimited
discretion makes it possible to target a specific religious or racial groupthen for decrease, and now for
increase ....). In Brown v. Board of Education, 347
U.S. 483, this Court recognized the inherent injury
when schools assigned students on the basis of race,
whatever the stated purpose. That same reasoning
should apply today.
Certainly, to the extent that individual students
of some ethnic groups are found to be underrepresented, local governments may take measures to
bring about meaningful change, such as improving
K-12 education in disadvantaged communities, supplemented with reasonable affirmative action programs that use race-neutral criteria such as socioeconomic factors and other constitutionallypermissible means. However, other than as a remedy
for de jure discrimination, it is a mistake to allow
schools to grant racial preferences to individuals of
favored groups or to single individuals of disfavored
groups out for unfair burdensomething that always
demeans the individual while never achieving lasting
The Fifth Circuit Erred In Not Recognizing
Achieved A Critical Mass.
[S]trict scrutiny imposes on the university the
ultimate burden of demonstrating, before turning to
racial classifications, that available, workable raceneutral alternatives do not suffice. Fisher, 133 S.Ct.
at 2420. Here, there was no need to use racial classifications because under Texas Top Ten Percent Plan,
the University had already achieved a critical mass
of minority students.8 See Tex. Educ. Code 51.803
(1997).
The Top Ten Percent Plan is the result of a Hispanic American summit that took place in 1996:
At a Hispanic Summit on Affirmative Action
Policies organized by Senator Barrientos on
September 6, 1996, two plans to enhance campus diversity were introduced which would
eventually be combined to form the Texas Ten
Percent Plan.
See Nicholas Webster, Democratic Merit Project,
Analysis of the Texas Ten Percent Plan (Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Feb. 8,
2007) at 4.
By the time of Fishers application to UT, the
Top Ten Percent Plan had ensured significant minority enrollment in Texas top universities, including
UT. In 2004, the combined African-American and
Hispanic enrollment at UT was 21.4% (AfricanAmerican 4.5% and Hispanic 16.9%), and the total
non-white population rose to nearly 43% of the incoming freshman class. See Plaintiffs Statement of
Facts in Support of Motion for Partial Summary
Judgment (Doc. 94-2) at 13 (W.D. Tex. Jan. 23,
2009); Petition Appendix (App.), 166a.
8Amici
AALF and AACE do not necessarily support the Top Ten
Percent Plan, largely because while race-neutral in form, it was
created and implemented specifically to achieve racialist results. Rather, they note that it had undoubtedly already
achieved the critical mass of targeted minorities the University
says it desired in a clearly more narrowly tailored, less constitutionally suspect manner.
These substantial levels of minority enrollment
show that the Top Ten Percent Plan had already
achieved critical mass of minority representation at
UTwithout the need for the program at issue here.
The critical mass exceeded that approved at the University of Michigan Law School in Grutter. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 329; Fisher, 758 F. 3d at 656 (J. Garza, dissenting).
UT insults African and Hispanic American students admitted through the Top Ten Percent Plan by
pretending that diversity requires minority students
from majority-white schools. See Fisher, 758 F. 3d.
at 653. Nothing in equal protection jurisprudence
supports such a diversity within diversity justification for use of race, especially not one that, as here,
was fabricated during the course of the litigation.9
Clearly, the evidence is overwhelming that the
Top Ten Percent Plan had already achieved a critical
mass of minority students, leaving no legal basis for
a race-conscious admission program, especially one
causing harm to Asian Americans, a historically disadvantaged minority group. With the ultimate burden on UT to show otherwise, Fisher, 133 S.Ct. at
2420, the University utterly failed to carry its burden.
As Justice Garza aptly point out in his dissent, [T]he
University asks this Court to assume that minorities admitted
under the Top Ten Percent Law do not demonstrate "diversity
within diversity" . . . But it offers no evidence in the record to
prove this, and we must therefore refuse to make this assumption. Fisher, 758 F. 3d. at 670.
VI. It Has Historically Been A Mistake To Defer To
The Opinions Of Officials, Experts and Other
Luminaries Who Support Racial Classifications
All of the historical cases in which officials, experts and other luminaries supported the use of race
for non-remedial purposes teach that it was a mistake to give weight to their blandishments.
In Plessey v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), this
Court accepted the view that, even though all persons are equal before the law, the public good allowed the use of distinctions based upon color. The
lone dissenter, Justice John Harlan, wrote: Our
Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor
tolerates classes among citizens. In my opinion,
the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove
to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this
tribunal in the Dred Scott case . Id. at 558. History proved Justice Harlan to be right.
In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483,
this Court properly rejected arguments by state officials from Kansas, Delaware, Virginia and South
Carolina that black and white children learned better in a single-race environment, and for societal
purposes could be kept separate by state mandate.
Expressly rejecting any contrary findings regarding
psychological knowledge made in Plessey v. Ferguson, the Court found that use of race produces a
sense of inferiority. We conclude that, in the field
of public education, the doctrine of separate but
equal has no place. Brown, at 494-495.
Today, it is universally acknowledged that the
Roosevelt administration and military authorities
infringed the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans when, during World War II, the government
placed entire families under curfew, then removed
them from their West Coast homes and placed them
in internment camps. Yet, at the time, the courts deferred to opinions by administration and military officials that such use of race was necessary in the national interest.
In Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, this
Court affirmed the conviction of an American citizen
found guilty of violating the curfews imposed on Japanese Americans. In Korematsu v. United States,
323 U.S. 214 (1944), this Court upheld the conviction
of an American citizen of Japanese descent, who had
violated an exclusion order by remaining in his San
Leandro, California home, rather than report for incarceration in an internment camp. The courts at all
levels deferred to declarations by officials and military authorities that such discrimination by race was
necessary to advance compelling government interests. Id. 217-219.10 Amicus briefs submitted by the
states of Oregon, Washington and California, urged
and supported the discrimination. See Korematsu v.
United States, 583 F. Supp 1406, 1423 (N.D. Cal.
Much later, of course, it was acknowledged that
this Court should not have deferred to the selfserving statements by government and military officials; and that there had never been a national neIt was uncontroverted at the time of conviction that [Fred
Korematsu] was loyal to the United States and had no dual allegiance to Japan. He had never left the United States. He was
registered for the draft and willing to bear arms for the United
States.Korematsu, 584 F. Supp. at 1409.
cessity requiring the use of race. See Korematsu, 584
F.Supp. at 1420; Hirabayashi v. United States, 828
F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1987). The 1980 Commission on
Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
found that the curfew and exclusion orders had been
motivated by racism and hysteria and not military necessity. See Korematsu, 584 F.Supp. at 1416.
[T]he government deliberately omitted relevant information and provided misleading information in
papers before the court. Id. at 1420.
In the Ho case, the district court had deferred
throughout to the statements of experts, overriding
the expressed concerns of parents. The court even
rejected the appeals of black parents from the
Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhoods, who argued
that the racial balancing plan would destroy neighborhood schools where they took pride in the academic achievements of their children. See San Francisco NAACP, 576 F.Supp. at 49. The court acknowledged that the children at Drew School and Pelton
School to some extent are being asked to make sacrifices, but explained that pedagogical experts had
concluded the desegregation benefits would ultimately make their sacrifices worthwhile. Id.
In fact, by the time the Ho plaintiffs forced the
end of the racial balancing scheme, even proponents
were forced to admit that nothing had been accomplished other than racial balancing. Fourteen years
of experience with the Consent Decree have established that while it has met its goal of de facto desegregation, it has been a failure at accomplishing its
primary purpose of achieving academic excellence for
all ethnic groups. See Grand Jury Report, The San
http://civilgrandjury.sfgov.org/1996_1997/The_San_F
rancisco_Unified_School_District_9697.pdf (last visited Sept. 8, 2015) (San Francisco Civil Grand Jury
Report, 1996-97). The Grand Jury in particular
found that racial balancing had not worked for Hispanic and African American students, whose academic scores were lower than those of comparable
students around the country Id. at IV. And, only
one of San Franciscos schools, the magnet Lowell
High School (the alma mater of the majority of the
founders of amicus curiae AALF), still had meaningful parental involvement. Id. n.12.
Referring to the Hirabayashi and Korematsu cases, Justice Powell wrote, Only two of this Court's
modern cases have held the use of racial classifications to be constitutional.Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448
U.S. 448, 507 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring).11 Ironically, those two cases were later joined by a third-Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003)--where
[t]he Court also heeded the judgment of amici curiaeincluding educators, business leaders and the
Justice Powells statement in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), that in certain hypothetical circumstances diversity could rise to a compelling government interest does not constitute a third prior holding supporting race by this Court. As the University of California Medical
School admission program then at issue was found unconstitutional, his statement was dicta expressed in an opinion ascribed
to only by Justice Powell. See 438 U.S. at 272, 320. It is also
interesting to note that Justice Powells dicta expressly lauded
Harvard Colleges soft diversity-discretion model of affirmative action as constitutionally preferable to the strict, hard
quota system utilized by the University of California, failing to
consider that the Harvard Plan had anti-Semitic roots, being
designed to restrict enrollment of Jewish students. Kang, supra, at 36.
militarythat racial diversity constituted a compelling government interest justifying the use of race in
admissions. See Parents Inv. In Comm. Sch. v. Seattle
School No. 1, 426 F.3d 1162, n.13; Grutter, 539 U.S. at
Once again, officials and experts support the use
of race, arguing that UTs use of race in admissions
was somehow needed to advance a compelling interest in diversity--while ignoring the clear evidence
that, not only had Texas Top Ten Percent Plan already provided the sought-after diversity but that
the UT program actually limited the diversity that
would otherwise be provided by Asian American students, who were less well represented in the student
body than Hispanic students, one of the groups
granted preferences.
If this Court wishes to learn from negative history, rather than repeating it, it should reject the poorly-advised or self-serving statements of the experts
and luminaries who, once again, support the use of
race to infringe individual rights.
VII. This Court Should Re-Establish The BrightLine Rule Reserving Use of Race For Remedial
Settings.
That this case is before this Court for the second
time illustrates the danger of allowing race-based
college admissions for any purpose other than to provide a remedy for previous de jure discrimination.
Diversity is simply too amorphous, too insubstantial, and too unrelated to any legitimate basis for
employing racial classifications. Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547, 612 (1990) (OConnor,
J., dissenting). As this case amply shows, if they are
allowed to use diversity as the justification, it is all
too easy for school officials to justify any race balancing program by concocting (here, mostly after the
fact) ambiguous and ill-defined pedagogical goals,
backed by the self-serving statements of state officials and their allied experts.
Until Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003),
this Courts jurisprudence taught that the Fourteenth Amendments stricture on the states use of
race was absolute, except where such action was necessary to further the compelling government interest
of vindicating the rights of individuals who had been
subjected to prior racial discrimination. As this
Court warned in Croson, 488 U.S. 469, unless racial
classifications are reserved for remedial settings,
they may in fact promote notions of racial inferiority
and lead to the politics of racial hostility. Id. at 493.
As explained by the dissent in Metro Broadcasting,
497 U.S. 547, later vindicated by this Court in
Adarand, 515 U.S. 200, [m]odern equal protection
doctrine has recognized only one such interest: remedying the effects of racial discrimination. Metro
Broadcasting, 497 U.S. at 612 (OConnor, J., dissenting).
It is a noble endeavor to help disadvantaged individuals regardless of raceand that is what local
government bodies and universities should do. However, amici submit that government bodies should
never (outside of a remedial setting) be allowed to
classify individuals by race for unequal burden in
student admissions. Classications of citizens solely
on the basis of race are by their very nature odious to
a free people whose institutions are founded upon
the doctrine of equality. Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S.
630, 643 (1993) (internal quotes omitted). Thus, as
this Court stated in Adarand, there really can be no
benign racial classifications. [A]ll governmental
action based on race ... should be subjected to detailed judicial inquiry to ensure that the personal
right to equal protection of the laws has not been infringed. Adarand, 515 U.S. at 227 (emphasis added).
While the Fourteenth Amendment protects individuals from racial discrimination, there is no countervailing principle that should subordinate individual
rights to a universitys perceived and arbitrary need
for some ethnic mix constituting diversity.
This Court has wisely cautioned against upholding race-conscious programs that are ageless in
their reach into the past, and timeless in their ability
to affect the future. Croson, 488 U.S. at 498 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U.S. 267, 276 (1986)); see also
Adarand, 515 U.S. at 238. Indeed, in Grutter, the
Sixth Circuit correctly acknowledged that, at the
University of Michigan Law School, the Universitys
use of race would continue indefinitely, because
[u]nlike a remedial interest, an interest in academic
diversity does not have a self-contained stopping
point. Grutter v. Bollinger, 288 F.3d 732, 751-52
(6th Cir. 2002). That is exactly the problem with the
UT program. So long as it can use diversity as a
goal justifying the use of race, the University will be
able to justify its further use of race whatever the racial mix of its student body, and there will never be
an end.
Accordingly, this Court should revisit and overrule its holding in Grutter, so as to prevent the confusion and weakening of equal protection demon-
strated by the years of litigation and tortuous procedure of the instant case.
For the foregoing reasons, the Court should find
the UT admission program to be unconstitutional.
This Court should also revisit its holding in Grutter,
to make clear that outside of a constitutionallypermissible remedy to prior discrimination, race may
not be considered in college admissions.
1801 Clement Avenue
The Asian American Legal Foundation and
The Asian American Coalition for Education (representing 117 affiliated Asian American
organizations)
DATED: September 10, 2015
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Fourteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution
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President George W. Bush Print this document
_______________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 22, 2001
PRESS BRIEFING BY
DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY TOM RIDGE,
POSTMASTER GENERAL JOHN E POTTER,
PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS
VINCE SOMBRATTO,
MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D.C. ANTHONY WILLIAMS,
CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL REPRESENTATIVE MITCH COHEN,
AND DEPUTY SURGEON GENERAL KEN MORITSUGU
The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
4:30 P.M. EDT
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Good afternoon. I want to update you on the anthrax situation here in the District of Columbia, and then brief you on specific steps we are taking around the country to protect our postal workers and our citizens. The residents of Washington, D.C., and all Americans can be confident that their government is taking every step possible to ensure that our mail systems are safe and that they are secure.
With me today are several federal government experts and Washington, D.C., officials. They are here to provide to you the latest information, and then we will all be happy to take your questions at the end.
First of all, I would like to compliment and to thank Mayor Williams and his team for the extraordinary job they have done in responding to difficult and challenging circumstances here in the District of Columbia. We are working seamlessly with the Mayor and his team, and we appreciate the Mayor's leadership.
A short while ago, I briefed the President with the latest facts on the anthrax situation, as we know them. Here are those facts. First, two postal employees who work at the Brentwood mail facility here in Washington, D.C., have tested positive for inhalation anthrax. Both of these workers are being treated with antibiotics, and obviously our best wishes and prayers are with them and their families.
We also know that there are two very suspicious deaths that occurred today, and here are the facts about both of these cases. These Brentwood postal workers were seen by their doctors yesterday. Both of these workers experienced respiratory complications, became critically ill; and tragically, ultimately, passed away.
We are still undergoing final tests to determine absolutely that these two deaths were related to anthrax exposure. The cause of death to date is unclear. But I'll tell you what is very clear. It is very clear that their symptoms are suspicious and their deaths are likely due to anthrax.
I want to take a moment to talk about the aggressive and proactive treatment regimen we are delivering to postal workers here in D.C. At the Brentwood location, we began yesterday treating more than 2,000 workers with antibiotics while extensive environmental testing is being conducted. We took immediate steps to treat every worker who might have been exposed.
It is also important to note that we have taken preemptive action to treat all workers at the Anne Arundel facility, another mail handling facility in this area, with antibiotics. We are also conducting aggressive environmental testing as well at the Anne Arundel facility. Now I would like to discuss with you just a few steps that we have been taking to protect the citizens of the District of Columbia and all Americans.
First of all, soon after the first case of anthrax surfaced, CDC placed its medical surveillance team on the highest alert. This medical surveillance system monitors emergency room logs every day all across this country. The purpose of the service is to track potential trends. When we put them on the alert, we wanted them to track trends dealing with anthrax-like symptoms. We will continue to monitor closely any suspicious cases in emergency rooms that may arise anywhere across the country.
Next, we are asking physicians, health care providers and hospitals around Washington, D.C., to pay special attention to any patient who works at the Brentwood mail facility.
And, finally, I know many citizens across America are concerned about the safety of their mail and their post offices. That is why the President invited to meet with him Jack Potter, who will have an opportunity to share a few words with you -- our Postmaster General, and Vince Sombratto, the President of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
The President expressed his admiration and his gratitude to these individuals, to their membership, their strength of character and their commitment to their country. I think the President said it quite clearly that we are waging this war -- it's one war, but there are two fronts. There is a battlefield outside this country and there is a war and a battlefield inside this country. And these men are leading their troops and their membership in as aggressive and as a positive way as they possibly can to respond to their challenge, their threat, and that's the threat of anthrax.
I would also remind Americans that detailed information is available to help them handle any suspicious packages or mail pieces they receive. Americans can find checklists that give specific and detailed guidelines on how to handle suspicious packages, accessing the U.S. Postal Service's website at www.usps.gov, or by accessing CDC's website at www.cdc.gov.
The Postal Service last week also announced that they are sending a post card to every American citizen so that they know how to handle any suspicious packages.
Now what I would like to do is to call Jack Potter, Vice Sombratto, and then Mayor Williams, to share a few words with you, a few remarks, and then we'll open up this panel to questions.
Mr. Potter. Jack.
MR. POTTER: Thank you, Governor Ridge, and good afternoon. Earlier today, I was advised that two postal employees from our Brentwood mail processing and distribution center passed away. At this point in time, we have not received confirmation as to the cause of death. There is a strong suspicion that they died from anthrax. Even though we have not received confirmation on how they died, we will proceed as though anthrax was involved.
Our postal family is deeply saddened by today's news, and shaken by the thought of terrorists using the U.S. Mail as a tool for their evil. These two postal employees join the list of public servants who have died over the past two months while serving their country.
Our hearts are heavy, knowing that two coworkers have become the latest victims of terrorism. It's clear to us, like other symbols of American freedom and power, the mail and our employees have become a target of terrorists. It is equally clear that we must take extraordinary steps to protect them both.
We are working very hard to educate America. We're working, as Governor Ridge talked about. We have a postcard out there that's going to every American. We have instructions on what people should do in big mail rooms. We have a poster that's on its way to them. We have a video available to them.
We're also investigating these crimes, and very aggressively working, our Postal Inspection Service, the FBI, and local law enforcement are working together to investigate and find these criminals. We are engaging the American public. We want all of America to help us. That's why we in the Postal Service, along with the FBI, offered a $1 million reward. It's important that everybody who sees something suspicious, let us know. We want any lead that will lead us to these criminals.
We also are extremely concerned about hoaxes. They're just disrupting the nation. We're going to criminally prosecute and go after those who have committed hoaxes, and we are moving ahead with intervention. We have very targeted intervention right now to review anything that's suspicious. We also are going to introduce technology so that we can eradicate and sanitize the mail as it moves through our system.
Obviously, that won't happen overnight, so we need people to continue to be on guard.
In closing, I would just like to come back to our employees. Our folks have -- are very concerned, obviously, about this. We're working very closely with health officials at the local level, at the state level, and at the national level, and we're working with them to do what we can to best protect our employees, to test the employees, to test our environments, and to treat those who come into harm's way.
In closing, again, I would just like to say that this is not a situation where America should be pointing fingers at anyone else other than the terrorists. This is a war the President was very clear about, and the war is the terrorists. We are all dealing with new experiences, we're all dealing with new situations. We're working as a team to try and deal with this ever-evolving, changing-by-the-minute environment.
The men and women of the Postal Service are committed to moving America's mail, but we're going to do that safely, and we're going to do that united now, because we've lost two of our own. We're going to unite it, we're going to pray for those folks, we're going to work with their families. This, I believe, will bring the Postal Service together like it's never done before.
Now I'd like to turn the podium over to the President of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Vince Sombratto, who can speak from a labor standpoint.
Vince.
MR. SOMBRATTO: Thank you very much, Jack, and thank you, Governor Ridge. I'm more than proud and privileged to represent some 240,000 active letter carriers that deliver mail to every citizen in this great nation of ours.
On September 11th, our nation was attacked -- attacked by terrorists. Letter carriers that worked in that immediate vicinity, whether it be in Church Street, which was right next to the Twin Towers, or whether it be in any of the downtown stations, never disrupted their responsibilities of working to deliver America's mail. And neither will this heinous way of trying to intimidate the American public, and in this case, postal employees, will that succeed in creating an environment where letter carriers will not do their job.
We have a proud history of more than 200 years of delivering under all circumstances, as arduous and as difficult as they may be. This is another one of those circumstances where we have to rise to the occasion.
Just yesterday in Chicago, I spoke to more than 700 letter carriers. And I said that, if we are fearful, if we do not return to, as the President said, our normal way of conducting our business, then the terrorists will have won. We cannot -- we cannot let fear be our constant companion. We will overcome this. Letter carriers and the Postal Service will work together in a harmonious way to see that the conditions that we work under are safe, but we will not be deterred from doing our job.
We will rise to the occasion because, as the President just said a few moments ago, we're all soldiers in this war, and tomorrow when I visit the site in Trenton, New Jersey, I will pass this message along to all the letter carriers there to say that they're in the front lines of our war against these terrorists, and we'll do our part here as our men and women are doing in Afghanistan.
MAYOR WILLIAMS: I'm sure I join Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is with me, Councilman Vincent Orange, representing our District Council; Ivan Walks, who is our Health Commissioner -- all of us in thanking the President for another in a continuing series of gestures and statements and acts of support for our Nation's Capital. Because I think our President recognizes, as all of us do, that our country is a country of great institutions, but these institutions are made up of real people and real neighborhoods with real families and lives and hopes and dreams, that these Postal workers are yet another series of workers who, in the act of doing their duty, are in harm's way. And certainly everyone in our city, our hearts and our prayers go out to them.
I grew up in a post office family and I know that these are real families they we're talking about here, and the appreciate the administration's strong statement of support. Governor Ridge, Secretary Thompson, working very closely with us to see that we are providing on a state-of-the-art basis, as much as we know, the best treatment for people, wherever they are, whenever they need it, however they need it.
The second thing I would like to just add to this is to really echo what the union president is saying, and that is to really follow the words of our President. We have to make a strong statement as public officials about moving forward in the aftermath of September 11th, in the aftermath of what we've seen today, that we are a country of champions, and that you can knock a champion down but you can't keep us down. We're going to get off the matt and we're going to show that what our fighting men and women are out in South Asia fighting for is not a hollow victory, but a real living, breathing, democracy, an openness and vitality that makes a great capital city.
And I am confident that the administration is going to do everything it can, working with local officials like the District, to see that the proper precautionary preparatory steps are in place to ensure the health and safety of our workers and the health and safety of our citizens.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Finally, ladies and gentlemen, when I served as a Member of Congress, I had the opportunity to work with Mr. Sombratto and the National Association of Letter Carriers, and get to know in a very real and human way what they do and how hard they work and how vital the postal system is to this country. It is one of the oldest and most venerable institutions of America.
On an annual basis, they convey, primarily within the United States, but obviously to our friends and family across the world, over 200 billion pieces of mail. This has been one of the most fundamental ways we have been communicating with one another -- everything from birthday cards and greetings cards to serious documents dealing with legal transactions. This is who were are. The postal system is every much a part of this country as our national highway system.
And it's pretty clear that whoever decided to challenge the postal system by using anthrax to not only disrupt service, but take the lives of the men and women who wear uniforms. We've got men and women wearing uniforms elsewhere around the world. We have men and women wearing uniforms in the post office.
That public service uniform still represents -- it may be different, but we still represent the same country. And today it is pretty clear that we have casualties -- not just offshore. We've got casualties in the Towers in New York, we have casualties in the post office. So it's pretty clear that this speaks to one war and two battlefields.
And I want to say to Jack Potter, I want to say to my longtime friend Vince Sombratto, and to echo, really, the words of the President of the United States, with whom we met prior to this meeting, briefing, with you, we admire their courage, their will, their resolve. These men and their troops will keep working as hard as they can to make sure that they fulfill their responsibilities to deliver the mail.
The President of the United States and CDC and Health and Human Services and the Surgeon General's Office, and everybody else associated with this effort, will do everything we can to enhance whatever measures we have out there to protect postal workers and to make sure that we work with them to get the mail through as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
I think it's a very solemn and tragic reminder that the uniform of public service and the possibility of dying in the line of duty is none more evident than at Brentwood. I'm grateful for the leadership of Mr. Potter and Mr. Sombratto, and we thank them for their strong stand and their commitment, their commitment to make sure that the mail will be delivered. And I thank them for that.
Q Governor Ridge, when will you get back determinative cultures on the two people who died? And, secondly, the word "terrorists" was used a couple of times from this podium. Does that indicate now that you believe that this is something organized, this is the work of more than one person? And are you reconsidering your statement of last week that this was not "weaponized anthrax," now that you have at least two or three more cases of inhalational anthrax?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Well, there's a whole bunch of questions in that question, but it's good. It's all right; let me get back to that. First of all, let's let the medical folks -- I still think that final definitive medical tests are still some hours away, and I would like somebody to -- who may know more about that than I do, Dr. Walks.
DR. WALKS: Good afternoon. We are, in fact, awaiting medical tests to confirm the cause of death. One of those tests is as short away as is hours. We have a positive blood culture that is suspicious for anthrax, confirmatory tests are underway. The other tests are a little bit further away, but the tests are underway. You also talked a little bit about the word "weaponized."
Q And terrorists.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: And terrorists. Well, whether it's -- they are a group of isolated attacks or a collective attack, I mean, we just view those individuals, whether they be foreign or domestic, who work either in concert with one another or independently as terrorists. I mean, the FBI is moving as aggressively as they can, the Postmaster General has his own inspection crew. We have drawn no conclusion about that, but we stand by our statement they are terrorists acts.
I just want to say to you very respectfully, I don't think "weaponize" is a medical term or necessarily helpful. It doesn't add -- I think it adds more confusion to our discussion than clarity. And so all I can tell you today is the information I have available to me today, as we speak today -- remember, science means there is more testing and there are still other things we need to learn about the use of anthrax -- but as we meet today, the strains are the same and I have no additional information to give you.
Q Some of the workers, the postal workers who worked at the Brentwood facility, are asking two questions. Number one, since the Daschle letter would have originated there, they want to know why that facility wasn't closed sooner.
And they also want to know why the workers themselves weren't tested sooner. And the Postal Service spokeswoman, I think earlier, said that they were following the advice of the Centers for Disease Control. So were federal officials a little slow in responding to the threat here?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: I think we will always look to, whether it's this threat or any other threat, move to hasten, move as quickly as we possibly can. But let me give you the sequence of events as I know them, and we'll let the officials from the CDC or the Post Office talk about it.
They followed the line back as aggressively, as quickly, as they could. If the envelope was in the Senator's office, that means it went to -- it came out of the Dirksen Building. If it came out of the Dirksen Building, previous to that it had been at the Post Office on P Street. P Street, as I understand it, was tested environmentally, but the tests were negative.
In order to get to P Street, it has to come through the Brentwood Post Office. Thereafter, immediately, they put everybody -- the hospitals and everybody else -- on alert to see if anybody presented themselves with symptoms.
So I think they moved back, followed the chain as quickly as they possibly can. Obviously we are going to do everything we can every time to expedite that, but I think they moved quickly, as quick as they could.
Q A question here, sir. Is it possible that the machines used to clean the sorting -- that the air hoses used to clean the mail sorting machines could have been a factor in the spread of spores at the Brentwood station?
And when exactly did the P Street facility test negative for the presence of anthrax? I don't know if that was mentioned.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: I have no personal familiarity with how those machines work in terms of the spreading, but whatever -- I think we have to keep our eyes open to any device that may be employed in the processing of mail that it may have disseminated it.
But I can't speak to that and perhaps somebody else can. And I'll let someone else who was involved with the investigation back -- Daschle's office to the Dirksen mail room, Dirksen to the Post Office at P Street -- to answer that question for you.
MR. POTTER: Let me address the process for machines. The Postal Service has used a system where we blow out dust from our machines, so we are revising those procedures as we speak. I will let somebody from the medical community talk about the P Street.
DEPUTY SURGEON GENERAL MORITSUGU: Initially, the environmental testing of the P Street facility did not prove positive. But as you are aware, a couple of days ago we had received some final evaluation of the environmental testing which showed that one strapper on the P Street facility did test positive. And for that reason, we had pursued that at that time.
We are taking it one step at a time to determine what, in fact, we ought to be doing as far as tracing back, very systematically following the science. And that's where we had been at that point.
Q Governor, I would like to ask the Postmaster General a question. Sir, out in the real world, a lot of people are worried, not only about packages, were they to open a letter or a package, but are worried also about the letters that they have received.
Can anthrax be transmitted through the covers of letters or the envelopes, not the inside? That's my question.
MR. POTTER: Well, we have been advised that if it is a sealed envelope, that it would not transmit anthrax. But, again, I am not the medical expert. I will turn to the medical folks to answer that question.
MR. COHEN: Much of what we have determined has been from the previous investigations. This is really a new phenomena. At first, we had no evidence that any of the mail handlers were at risk, so this phenomena of first having skin disease in New Jersey and now having inhalational disease is an evolution.
Now, how it is actually occurring isn't clear, and that is part of our epidemiologic investigation is to try to track down what are those kinds of exposures and try to eliminate them so that we can make things safer.
Q I have a question for General Potter and Mr. Sombratto. The Postmaster General earlier today said he would be installing sanitization equipment. I was wondering what type and where it would be first installed.
And also, Mr. Sombratto, if you would comment on how does he feel about letter carriers. Should they be wearing gloves, and how does that appear to the recipient of mail when their letter carrier comes to the door wearing gloves?
MR. POTTER: Let me speak to the first question. We have our procurement people, our engineers, out visiting vendors today to determine where that equipment is and how quickly we can get it into our facilities. We're also looking at equipment that exists throughout America to treat fruit, to treat meat, and we're going to look to see whether or not we can access that equipment so that we can begin to immediately sanitize the mail.
Q You're talking about sanitizing not just the surface, but the contents, with irradiation?
MR. POTTER: I'm not talking radiation, I'm talking ultraviolet light. And there are experts here who can talk about it. But it's a system that's safe. It's used on food, it's used on surgical equipment and medical supplies, so we're very comfortable that it's a safe technology.
Q UV only treats the surface, not the contents?
MR. POTTER: Again, it's the technology -- I'm not a technology expert. I'm told that these folks have technology that will -- can be brought to bear to address the anthrax issue.
Q Governor, are we confident that there was only one letter that passed through the Brentwood facility? Could there be more, and is the investigation ongoing in that respect?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: The investigation remains -- very aggressive. I can't tell you the number of people they have assigned, both within the post office and the FBI, on the investigation right now. Again, as this evolves, and that's what we're dealing with, as this evolves, it does appear right now that the thesis today, based on the facts we know, is probably the same letter. But we don't know that to an absolute certainty that I could stand up before you today and say I'm 100 percent certain today and I'll be 100 percent certain a year from now it was one letter.
That's why they're not only trying to deal with the potentially affected post office employees, but we're trying to find the source and determine if there was one or multiple sources. So we do not have that information out. But right now, it is consistent with the theory that this one letter could have contaminated the whole system. Whether there's others, we don't know.
Q Have you considered curtailing the mail delivery in Washington because of this?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Never. I don't make those final decisions, but I'm talking to Jack Potter and Mr. Sombratto. I'll let them tell you what they think.
MR. POTTER: No, we don't intend to curtail mail delivery. We're not going to be defeated. I mean, the people -- keep in mind, we have 208 billion pieces of mail a year, we've delivered some 20 billion since September 11th. We do and we are pushing an awareness campaign. We are pushing an intervention campaign, and an investigation campaign.
We have no intent to stop delivery of the mail, unless we have a situation where people -- where we suspect anthrax, and obviously then we'll pull back.
Mr. Sombratto; his members carry it.
MR. SOMBRATTO: That's a long time for me to answer a question. That's unusual for me. No, the letter carriers have the option of whether they want to wear gloves or not, and I can say without any equivocation that most carriers haven't been wearing gloves up until this point. Until there is evidence that clearly suggests that they must wear gloves. It is optional for the carrier to make that determination. At this point, most carriers have not worn gloves in the delivery of mail.
Q Are you going to test people -- the public who were at the Brentwood facility?
MR. SOMBRATTO: Am I going to tell the public --
Q Can you test members of the public who was at Brentwood facility in the last week?
MR. SOMBRATTO: Yes. In fact, two of the employees that work for my organization that conduct business at the Postal Service -- our mail -- we send a lot of mail through the mail stream -- have been tested now because they go to Brentwood Post Office.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Let me tell you, I think something needs to be clarified. I can't tell you today whether anybody that has been to any of the testing sites have been customers of the Post Office who may have used the Brentwood facility. But we would -- and others may have -- Dr. Walks may have talked about that.
DR. WALKS: We are following the science, putting the health of the public first. There is a danger of over-treating where there is not a clear indication to treat. The science today is that we are treating members of the public who have been working in that back work area.
It is important to be clear on that. Some folks from the federal government, our own Department of Health, have been working back there. Members of the media have gone back there to work. If you have been back in that work area, you are within the treatment perimeter.
But people who have not been in that work area, the members of the public, should be clear that we now feel the treatment perimeter is the back work area at Brentwood, not the public areas in the front.
Q Putting aside the word "weaponized" from last week, you reported on Friday that the FBI had told you that these letters were indistinguishable.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Correct.
Q Do you have any reason at all to update that information, that maybe the spores were manipulated in some way?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: I do not, at this time. As I reported -- and you're right, I did use the word "indistinguishable." And there is nothing that we know now that would have me change that answer. I'll give you the same answer to the same question.
Q What is the suspicion at the Anne Arundel facility that you said is going to be tested? And also, who makes that final decision on whether an additional facility will be closed and that people there will be tested? Is that the CDC's decision or is the postal authorities' decision?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: All the decisions with regard to the closing of the Postal facilities, at the offices on the Hill, AMI, they are all made in concert with public health officials, CDC, local elected officials, and others.
So, again, it is a very collaborative process, and that is one that I think has proven to work very, very successfully in these venues, and it will continue to work very successfully.
Q And the second part of the question?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: The Anne Arundel? I know, but I'll let the Postmaster General do that.
MR. POTTER: The first employee that we suspected of having anthrax had a job where he went from the Brentwood facility to the facility up right outside of Baltimore, and as a result of that, we took a precautionary measure of closing both facilities. He had a recollection of something happening in that facility in Baltimore.
We now, obviously based on the scientific evidence, believe that if there was an incident, it occurred in the Brentwood facility. But we proceeded to take those employees, have them tested and have them treated as a precautionary measure.
Q Now that we have discovered that anthrax can be carried, apparently not just inside an envelope but perhaps on the surface as well, two questions. First, is that something that the CDC or others should have known before this? And second, how does this change the calculus in terms of who you treat, who gets Cipro, who on the Hill who was not on the fifth floor or the sixth floor and was not there when the envelope was opened may have been exposed to anthrax? And how does this affect treatment going forward, if you have this much wider threat of anthrax being carried on the envelope, and not just inside of it?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Well, let me just answer the first part of that question. I think from the very beginning CDC and every other public health official has said that there are three ways that you can be exposed to the anthrax disease: you can inhale it, you can absorb it, or you can consume it. So it's not -- your question suggests that cutaneous anthrax was newly discovered, but I think the literature, the scientific literature, has always said those are the three ways that it can affect your system.
The medical answers, I will defer to the medical community -- medical questions I will defer to the medical community. Dr. Cohen?
DR. COHEN: I think, with respect to the inhalational disease, what
you are worried about is an aerosol. So things that disturb the envelope, that could generate, say, a puff of the powder, is going to be the greatest risk for people around them. The fact that there may be leakage, you may have material on the outside, would allow people to become colonized on their skin, and then potentially get cutaneous anthrax.
DEPUTY SURGEON GENERAL MORITSUGU: There was a follow-on question involved in that. And while we continue to monitor the various pieces of information that we are getting back in on Capitol Hill, there has been no indication for us to change our recommendation to focus the treatment to that area of Hart on the fifth and sixth floors.
That is where we have found the positive nasal swabs. That is where there was the specific anthrax spill. And at this point, there is no indication for us to change that specific recommendation. Clearly, we continue to do the monitoring and continue to do the assessment, and as things change, as information changes, that may have an impact upon the recommendation that we make to the congressional leadership.
I would like to make one follow-on comment if I could, and that is that I think we are all extremely upset over the death of these two postal workers, and the three deaths that we have seen here in the United States recently. The Secretary, Tommy Thompson, and all of us in the Department of Health and Human Services have committed to dedicating the resources of the entire department to tracking down the basis, the scientific basis, for how we can identify as well as treat this disease.
Please put it in perspective as well. And that is that it is fundamentally an infectious disease. It is an infectious disease like the flu is an infectious disease. The difference is that this disease is being spread by an individual or individuals, we don't know.
Put it in the context that, this year, there will be 10,000 individuals who will die from the flu alone. We see the deaths, and we are disturbed by those deaths. What we have to see is the other side: the number of individuals whose deaths we will be able to prevent by monitoring and by intervening as early as we can. And we are trying to follow the science along those lines.
Q Governor Ridge, can you tell me whether or not any of the private courier services are also being monitored, such as FedEx or --
GOVERNOR RIDGE: I'm sorry, I --
Q Are the private mail-carrying services being monitored? You know, FedEx, UPS, et cetera?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: They have obviously been on alert, national alert like everybody else. But I can't tell you whether they, themselves, have deployed any additional procedures other than those that have been recommended, or if they have gone out and purchased any additional equipment. I think that inquiry would be appropriate to them.
Q Have you stopped any letters that have not been delivered, that you have discovered have anthrax? In other words, have you found anthrax in any other letters, other than the ones that you have identified? Any that have not been delivered?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: As of today, the letters that are part of the public comment and the public discussion and the public response are the only letters that have been identified as having anthrax.
Q To follow up on that, by saying "part of the public discussion," are you saying there may be other letters?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: No. To my knowledge, as the Director of the Office of Homeland Security, those are the only letters that we are working on, that we are aware of. Now, as we continue the investigation into other places, we may discover others. But to date, as of now, given the investigation that has been done, there are no others.
Q Why did the CDC decide it was not necessary to err on the side of caution and test the workers at Brentwood, when the employees on Capitol Hill were immediately tested? And who is responsible -- do you take personal responsibility for what seems to be this lapse?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: I think I will let the CDC speak to this, but they obviously proceeded aggressively on the Hill in response to that threat. Again, there was a little difference; they knew they had a hot spot, they had identified it. It took a while to learn that they had a problem at Brentwood -- remember, they worked that line back. But I will let the CDC give you the answer to that question.
DR. COHEN: As was pointed out, there is risk in prophylaxis when it is not necessary. One of our basic goals is to identify who is at risk. Previous investigations in Florida and New York did not identify that the postal workers were at risk. So this was, again, evolving.
And so now, they are clearly identified as having the component of risk. So the effort is to identify risk and to intervene by using prophylaxis to prevent disease, but not to use drugs that may be unnecessary, which could cause further problems.
Q Governor Ridge, on Friday you mentioned that a mailbox had been found in the Trenton area. What is the update on that?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: I have no further information. It is just an ongoing investigation; all I can tell you now is it's an ongoing investigation.
Q Has there been a mailbox that was found, though? Because there was some question after you made that comment that perhaps it was not found. Was there one found that might be connected to this?
INSPECTOR WEAVER: No, that's -- I'm Ken Weaver, Chief Postal Inspector. That is all part of the investigation. We are looking at every possible detail on that route, including any possible boxes. But all I can tell you at this point, that is part of the ongoing investigation.
Q How many boxes have been removed for inspection? Several? A few?
INSPECTOR WEAVER: I don't know. I know there have been a few that we have looked at. That is just an ongoing part of it.
Q Have you ruled out any?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.
END 5:23 P.M. EDT
/news/releases/2001/10/text/20011022-16.html |
"I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time," says Lupita Nyong'o, photographed Jan. 17 at the Metropolitan Building in New York.
Photographed by Miller Mobley
Lupita Nyong'o: From Political Exile to Oscar to Marvel's 'Black Panther'
by Stephen Galloway
January 25, 2018, 6:00am PST
The actress — who has an Academy Award, beauty megadeals and two Disney franchises — opens up about her globe-trotting childhood, lingering insecurities and why she went public on Weinstein: "I couldn't sleep. I needed to get it out."
In August 2008, Lupita Nyong'o boarded a plane for her native Kenya. She was distraught. Five years after moving to America to become an undergraduate at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts — an experience she had endured rather than enjoyed — and weeks after leaving a nine-to-five office job that had left her feeling stifled and trapped, her dreams were crumbling. She was 25 years old and lost.
At home in Nairobi, where she'd lived since her family returned from political exile in the mid-'80s, she confided in her mother, her rock. Dorothy Nyong'o, then the head of her own PR company (and now the managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation), suggested she read a book: Glen Allen McQuirk's Map for Life, a self-help tome written by a family friend.
By the end of that year, with the help of the book and her own resolve, Nyong'o had found a new objective, as improbable as her half-Mexican, half-Kenyan name. She scribbled down words she had never dared utter out loud: "I want to be an actor."
It was an astonishing leap for an East African woman embarking on a career in which she would be hindered by her accent, her skin color and even (for a newcomer) her relatively advanced age. But nearly a decade later, Nyong'o, 34, is the most famous African actress in the world, an Academy Award winner for her mesmerizing U.S. feature debut in 2013's 12 Years a Slave. She's hurdled past what she calls the "Oscar curse" and the terrors that inevitably followed it. "The fear of failure was just as high as the high of success," she notes, "because I could fall, and I could fall far."
She's a global star who has appeared in two Disney franchises (Star Wars and the new Marvel adaptation of Black Panther, which opens Feb. 16); she's a brand name in films from Queen of Katwe to The Jungle Book, a fashion icon whose image has appeared on four Vogue covers (the first black actress to do so), and who has a lucrative deal with Lancome — an ironic twist for a woman who acknowledges that, deep down, "There is a part of me that will always feel unattractive."
Sitting with her over a long coffee (in her case, mint tea) on a bitingly cold mid-January day in New York's Society Cafe, that notion seems absurd. One is taken by her natural poise, in her sleeveless cream dress, seashells decorating her braided hair. But it's her strength that's more striking. She's steely willed and outspoken, as was evidenced by her much-discussed Oct. 19 opinion piece in The New York Times about her encounters with Harvey Weinstein.
After recalling how the mogul invited her to a screening at his home, only to lead her into his bedroom and attempt to give her a massage, she described his words when they met again at a Tribeca restaurant. "Let's cut to the chase," he said. "I have a private room upstairs where we can have the rest of our meal." Nyong'o declined. "With all due respect," she replied, "I would not be able to sleep at night if I did what you are asking." She vowed never to work with him again.
Today, she won't go into the specifics of their dealings, but she's forthright about the moral compulsion that led to the article. "I felt uncomfortable in my silence, and I wanted to liberate myself from it and contribute to the discussion," she says. "That was just what I felt I needed to do, quite viscerally. I couldn't sleep. I needed to get it out." Over several days, she wrote and wrote, alone with her computer, then showed what she had crafted to her mother. "I had to talk to her about it because it was something that we hadn't talked about," she continues. "She was really moved and very supportive."
Now the actress is planning to take an active role in the Time's Up anti-harassment initiative and is weighing how she can best serve it. She's as vocal in its defense as she is on subjects from colonialism to colorism, the prejudice against dark skin that is the subject of a new children's book she's writing, Sulwe, which Simon & Schuster will publish next year. "Sulwe is a young Kenyan girl who, though her name means star [in Luo], her skin is the color of midnight," she says. "And she's uncomfortable because she's the darkest in her family and goes about trying to change that, then she has this adventure that leads her to accept herself." The book came out of a 2013 speech Nyong'o gave "about my journey to accepting myself and seeing beauty in my complexion."
As to her lingering doubts about her appearance: "That's OK," she says, with a sly smile, "because it will keep me grounded. I don't need to be so full of myself that I feel I am without flaw. I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time. I have a healthy relationship with my aesthetic insecurities."
Given her candor, one suspects Nyong'o would be equally frank about politics, if it weren't for the danger to others. Her father, Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, is a prominent politician in Kenya and a leader in the opposition to its current president, Uhuru Kenyatta. "I am very emotional about politics," says his daughter after some hesitation, "in a way that makes it hard for me to articulate things in a rational fashion."
She knows that any words she utters will be put through the echo mill back home, which has recently been torn apart by a battle between competing presidential candidates and where her comments on behalf of her father's gubernatorial candidacy recently led to a backlash from his opponents. "She understands how politics works and how communities work," says Mira Nair, a longtime friend of the Nyong'os who directed her in Queen of Katwe. "It's part and parcel of her life."
Asked whether she is political, Nyong'o says: "I don't know. I had to share my father with politics for so long." She laughs. "I don't ever want to be president — let's just get that out of the way."
It's impossible to understand Nyong'o and her choices — including Black Panther — without understanding her origins. Peter Nyong'o, a member of the Luo tribe and longtime dissident, is now at the pinnacle of Kenya's political pyramid, but the road there has been painful for him and his family.
An intellectual who taught political science at the University of Nairobi, he was vehemently opposed to the authoritarian regime of Daniel arap Moi (president from 1978 to 2002), as was his brother, Charles Nyong'o. When Charles was murdered in 1980 — thrown off a ferry by thugs who were never identified — it sent a clear message. In 1981, Peter fled to Mexico, where he was joined the following year by his family as he taught political science in Mexico City. It was there that Lupita was born on March 1, 1983, the second of six siblings, and given her distinctive first name, a diminutive of Guadalupe.
While Dorothy Nyong'o returned to Kenya with her children shortly after Lupita's birth, Peter remained in exile (he worked briefly at the United Nations, then taught in Ethiopia) and did not rejoin his family until 1987, when his continued stance against Moi led to his detention on multiple occasions. "He's a political animal," says Dorothy. "He wanted change in the country, and I guess some people just have to take the risk to do what it takes to bring about the change. It wasn't easy."
Nyong'o has only a vague memory of that time while recognizing its impact on her family and — inevitably — herself. Her father believes this instability helped create her "chameleon" qualities; but, says Lupita, "when I was growing up, I wasn't aware of it. My parents wouldn't tell us what was going on when he was being jailed. They protected us from that — obviously for our own good, to try to keep a semblance of normalcy in a very abnormal situation, but also to ensure that we were not at risk. The more we knew, the more danger we would be in."
She and her siblings often were kept home and not allowed to go to school, their mother fearing what might happen if they did. "I remember staying at home with the curtains drawn," says Nyong'o. "And my father [who was detained] had all these papers he had written, and we were burning them. I was 4."
In prison, Peter was psychologically tortured. "They had these vaults they put people in with absolutely no daylight," says Nyong'o. "But I didn't really become aware of that whole period until the Moi regime was over and the torture chambers were opened, and I happened to go with my father to view them. I was 20-something, and that's when I learned the story, with everyone else."
It was her father's academic connections rather than his political ones that led Nyong'o to Hampshire College, where several of his former colleagues worked.
"It was culturally shocking and culturally discombobulating," she admits. At the university, "I was regarded with a fascination that was weird: I had grown up watching Americans on TV, so they were not as unfamiliar to me as I was to them, and that was something I had to negotiate. Hampshire can be very casual, and I was the kind of student that ironed my clothes the night before. But it was also a very liberating place because I learned that I was self-sufficient and self-driven, that I could set goals without someone flogging me."
After graduation, she found a clerical job in New York, assisting in the creation of a coffee-table book. Her employer offered to sponsor a long-term work permit, but Nyong'o couldn't bear life behind a desk. "New York is not a forgiving place," she says. "I didn't feel equipped to pursue the acting thing, and I certainly didn't have the [visa] to do it. And so I decided: You know what? I need to go back home, where I have my community, I have a roof over my head, I have my parents, and figure out what my next chapter is."
That Christmas, consumed with the book her mother gave her and her own conflicted thoughts and swirling emotions, Nyong'o joined her family on a vacation in Kenya's Tsavo National Park. "It was so quiet," she recalls. "There was no cellphone service, just this beautiful place where the elephants come, where there's a watering hole and all the animals would drink from it at different times of the day." Here, in the serenity of nature, looking back on her forays in the theater as Juliet in a Nairobi production of Romeo and Juliet and as the title role in a Hampshire staging of Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus, she wrote the words she had been afraid to utter, that she wanted to act. "I said it to my mother," she recalls, "and she said, 'I know.' "
Five years later, not long after graduating from Yale Drama School, Nyong'o won the Oscar.
It was during the awards-season run of 12 Years a Slave that she met Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, who was on the circuit with Fruitvale Station. Later, she says, while she was appearing on Broadway in Eclipsed, "Marvel called and said that Ryan was interested in me for a role in Panther, and I talked to him about it, and obviously everything was hush-hush, but he walked me through his initial ideas, and I thought, 'Wait a minute? This is a Marvel movie?' "
It was the political themes implicit in Panther that drew her to that big franchise, the first comic book adaptation to feature a largely black cast. In it, Nyong'o plays the warrior Nakia, "a rebel but a loyalist at the same time," she says. "She wants to go her own way but also wants to serve her nation." The film centers on "what it means to be from a place and welcome others into it. T'Challa [Chadwick Boseman] is the leader of an isolated nation that has managed to keep its autonomy and be self-determining because it has shielded itself from colonization, and how does that nation now relate with the rest of the world?"
Nyong'o agreed to make Panther without seeing the script, which she didn't read until shooting began. Then she gave it her all, marking every page with notes in as many colors as her celebrated outfits.
"She's an incredibly serious actress," says Coogler. "She does a lot of homework, asks a lot of hard questions. At the same time, she's got an incredible sense of humor. She'd poke fun at me a lot. On one of our last days, she and [co-star] Letitia Wright got the crew T-shirts with all the things I said collected on the back."
Playing Nakia meant learning to speak with the same accent Boseman had adopted, mastering the complexity of clicking sounds. "There's three different clicks, like three different letters," she says. The role necessitated an intense, six-week boot camp before shooting commenced in Atlanta in January 2017. "It started off four hours a day, then it was reduced to two when I started bulking up — I remember coming home for Christmas and I couldn't fit into my clothes," she recalls. "We would have warm-ups together, then break off and do our individual techniques. Nakia is a street fighter, so I had jujitsu and capoeira and ring blades."
Though her daily exercise regime is now more focused on stretching and cardio, including interval training and boxing, Nyong'o says, "I have dabbled in martial arts all my life, since I was 7, maybe — tae kwon do, capoeira, Muay Thai. It's always been an interest because in martial arts there is a mind/body relationship. You can't do it right if you're angry; how you can exert your power with a clear mind really interests me."
But on the first day of shooting, the actress injured herself. She laughs. "I was fighting some bad guys, and it involved doing this scissor move. So I jumped up, and my legs went out and grabbed his waist, but I ended up spraining my MCL [medial collateral ligament]. I had to wear a brace for two weeks. Luckily, the next fight scene I had was two weeks later. I got hurt on schedule."
Still, the pain was worth it, she says, aware of how important it is for a black superhero movie to succeed. "We were creating an aspirational world where an African people are in charge of their own destiny," she notes. "And that really appealed to me and had the little girl inside me jumping for joy. To just have African people, black people, at the center of that narrative is so exciting."
Fame has not been without its challenges. Immediately after winning the Oscar, Nyong'o had to leave her tiny Brooklyn apartment for a safer place. "I lived in a very unsecure neighborhood," she explains. "I needed to move really quickly."
She's had to deal with the microscopic attention paid to anyone connected with Star Wars, which came her way when she was called out of the blue by J.J. Abrams while on a Moroccan vacation in May 2014. The director wanted to know whether she'd voice the character of Maz Kanata in The Force Awakens (and later The Last Jedi). The next day, she recalls, "an assistant was flown to my hotel, with a script in a locked contraption. It looked like something out of Star Wars. And he made me sign something and gave me instructions. I had a certain number of hours to read the script, and the assistant was just waiting, waiting in Morocco for me to finish reading so that he could put it in that locked thing and take it back." She may reprise her role as Maz in Star Wars: Episode IX. "I don't know yet," she says. "I'll know soon."
That, like much else in her future, remains unclear. For a woman who confesses to liking structure — perhaps needing it, indeed — she has learned to live with mystery, uncertainty and doubt, even to embrace them. Though several projects loom, none is locked, yet she doesn't seem perturbed. Always, she remembers that alternative: the nine-to-five life against which she rebelled.
She recently completed an independent Australian film, Little Monsters. She'd like to return to the stage but hasn't yet committed to a new vehicle. And she's starting to produce as well as act, with several projects in the works, including a miniseries based on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's award-winning novel Americanah, about a young woman who leaves then-military-led Nigeria for America. She'll also star in the adaptation.
At some point, she also wants to have a family, though she's coy about whether she's dating anyone. ("They make you ask that, huh?" she asks, amused. She's been linked to GQ Style fashion editor Mobolaji Dawodu, among others.) She's passionate about having kids. "I feel I was born to be a mother," she says, though where she would raise her children, she doesn't know. "Somewhere where there's grass. Because I want my kids to be able to run around and discover things with their feet and their hands. I still love climbing trees. There's no trees to climb here."
For a moment, she seems wistful, recalling one of her favorite childhood memories, when she would climb the mango tree in her grandmother's garden.
Three decades have passed since then, and they've taken her an unimaginable distance. She's "a child of the world" now, as her mother says, removed from Kenya, which she hasn't visited for two years. Perhaps one day she'll return permanently, even follow in her father's footsteps — not directly into politics but by embracing a larger cause, like the nonprofits she supports, WildAid (elephant protection) and Mother Health International (relief to pregnant women in areas of disaster, war and poverty).
"She's constantly seeking, not in a restless way but a focused way," says Nair, "to do truthful and powerful things."
Beyond Nyong'o's charm and grace, beyond her unquestionable talent, lies a grand purpose, even if it's one she has not yet defined. "My father raised us to stand up for what we believe in and to fight for what is right," she says. "We were always told, 'You need to make a difference in the world.' I live with that insistence all the time."
This story first appeared in the Jan. 25 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Main Image: "I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time," says Lupita Nyong'o, photographed Jan. 17 at the Metropolitan Building in New York. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I burst into tears and feel helpless between the hours of 3 and 6 almost every single day. I am on hormone replacement therapy and am a type 2 diabetic. I am taking effexor also. I just feel that everything is out of control in my life and I cant get a handle on this. I feel anxious and am worried that something bad is going to happen and I cant deal with everyday situations. Can anyone help please? output: Hiiiiu seem to have Gadded with mild depressive featuresgenerelised anxiety can affect all URS routine activity have unconcerned fear etc. u have to start medication in low dose for ex Escitalopram 10 mg along with Mizoram .5 mg in morning not only medication can help but u have to stick on your routine stake proper sleep stress free activities regular exercise and healthy diet do meditation get well soon thank still u have consulted psychiatrist for further assistant. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: What is the purpose or significance of using a template for biopsies? output: First sentences
Location biopsy findings associated with disease name include finding1, finding2, and finding3. OR There are no biopsy findings associated with disease name. OR On location biopsy, disease name is characterized by biopsy finding 1, biopsy finding 2, and biopsy finding 3.
Examples
Example 1: Lymph node biopsy findings associated with Hodgkin's Lymphoma include Reed-Sternberg cells and either complete or partial effacement of the lymph node architecture. Example 2: There are no biopsy findings associated with acinic cell carcinoma. Example 3: On lymph node biopsy, follicular lymphoma is characterized by the presence of centroblasts and centrocytes. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Doctor, I am feeling hot and cold, experiencing shortness of breath, having elbow cramps or spasms, and I am underweight. I have also noticed that I am experiencing excessive growth. output: Based on your symptoms, it seems that you may have cysticercosis. This is an infection caused by the larvae of a tapeworm. It can cause symptoms such as those you have described, as well as headaches, seizures, and muscle weakness. We will need to run some tests to confirm the diagnosis and develop a treatment plan. |
November 2011 | Free Pc to Phone Calls, Free Voip Calls to India International !
I remember when we used to spend so heavily on our mobile voice calls usage. International calls were charged at very high rates, national and local calls were a bit cheap. Though calling rates have come down a bit (charged by your telecom provider), however if you switch to voip then you can save a lot on your phone bills. With smartphones in the market, mobile voip is also getting very popular. People have started using voip in their mobiles, that is making calls from your mobile itself however using internet.
Today we will discuss about Qt Talk pure minutes calling card application. We will also discuss about the trial credit which Qt Talk is offering to all new users. With the help of the Pure Minutes application, users can make international phone calls at much cheaper prices, right through their smartphones without having to connect through a PC. It provides the users with a relaxed and natural experience while talking to their near and dear ones.
QtTalk is available in both Apple and Android market. Yes you can use Pure Minutes application on your android mobile or your iPhone. As like many other voip services for these mobiles, Pure Minutes is offering free credit worth three dollars without any charge, which can further be used to make international calls.
1. Visit Android Market/Apple Store.
2. Search for "Qt Talk Pure Minutes" app in it.
3. Download/Install this app and register with QtTalk.
4. Voilla, you will get free credit worth $3 to make free international calls.
QtTalk application also allows users to get call records, so it will be easy to keep a track of your calls.
Another great thing about this offer is referring credit. QtTalk Pure Minutes application subscribers will also get three free dollars to their balance by referring as many friends as possible.
Lets now check QtTalk which will give idea about "How much time will free credit last".
Firstly the QtTalk Pure Minutes smartphone application for android and iphone is free for download.
Calls to Dubai at : 27 cents per min.
Calls to USA at : 5.9 cents (I am amazed at this high price, have I missed anything ?).
If you face any difficulty in registering and getting free credit then please let us know. We will try our best to help you out!
Localphone is back with its thanksgiving promotional offer. Almost every year, localphone brings a promotion to make free calls to USA at the time of Thanksgiving. If you are to make calls to USA then you need not to worry about the calling charges. Living in India, UK or any other part of the world, just use voip to call usa for free.
With this Localphone promotional offer, you can call USA from India, Call USA from UK, Call USA from Germany or Call USA from any other part of the world : absolutely free. I have been using Localphone for quite a long time now and have no complaints about anything. Call quality is good, call gets connected within seconds and yes no expiry of credit.
Offer ends in few hours : Hurry !!!
Localphone is going to be offering free calls to the US for Thanksgiving. This offer is open to all Localphone customers. They can talk for as long as they want and to as many people in the US as they want and Localphone won't charge them a penny during the promotion. All calls to standard US landlines and mobiles will be free between 5am GMT Thursday 24th November - 5am GMT Monday 28th November and they'll revert back to the usual cheap rate of 0.5¢ per minute after the promotion.
Localphone also offers first call for free. You can also use Localphone to make calls to other countries specially India. Currently, Localphone is running another promotion where it is offering free 100 minutes to India. So join Localphone with this promotional offer (enter coupon code FPBONUS : On purchase of $1 credit, you will get additional $1.5 credit : total of $2.5 credit) and make use of both Free Calls to USA for four days and Free 100 Minutes to India.
SMSes have surely ruled the telecom industry and its market share is quite high. Some people prefer texting over phone calls and sms apps on smartphones are quite popular. One of the most popular sms app for mobiles is JaxtrSMS. I am sure most of you are familiar with this app. It's been called the next big thing by many.
Sending free sms from Pc has been quite popular, however JaxtrSms is different. It offers free mobile texting, its an advertisement supported multi-platform mobile application. If you have data connectivity on your phone (mobile), then you can use internet to send sms for free. Yes, you can send the sms to normal mobile as well (to the ones who are not using JaxtrSms on their Mobile).
Jaxtrsms has launched its application for iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows, Java - and once you download this application you can send free text messages to any other mobile phone in the world. We have already discussed about the JaxtrSms Android and iPhone apps, and it is quite easy to use on mobile.
Today we will be discussing about how to use JaxtrSms for iPad, Galaxy Tab, PC and for other android tab's. I have myself tried JaxtrSms on my iPad and it works great. I was able to send SMS from my iPad to Mobile phone in India and it reached within seconds. Considering that JaxtrSMS service is free, I would give full marks to them.
So lets see how to use JaxtrSms on iPad. In similar ways it works for JaxtrSms for Android Tablets (Galaxy Tab) or your PC (You should download an android emulator on your PC first to use JaxtrSMS).
- Download the JaxtrSMS app on your tablet. For iPad users, JaxtrSMS currently does not have any specialized iPad app, so better download the JaxtrSMS iPhone app from Apple Store. For Android tablet users, it has a JaxtrSMS android app. For using JaxtrSMS on Pc, use an android emulator on PC and download the android app.
- After the installation, open JaxtrSMS app on iPad. Similar ways for Android and Pc users.
It will ask you to enter your name, your country and your mobile number.
- As you are on iPad/Tablet and not on any mobile, enter your mobile number here. This is mainly for verification purpose.
- A message will be sent to your phone with a link. If your mobile has internet connectivity, then click this link to verify.
- If you are not using internet on your mobile, then open JaxtrSMS app on iPad, try sending message to any number. It will ask for verification, this time select Verify by Call. JaxtrSMS will make a call on your mobile to verify it. Voilla, your mobile will now be verified.
- Now try sending SMS to any number (use international code - like 919891xxxxxx for India). Send SMS for free. It should reach its destination within seconds.
Please note that you can send SMS to any mobile number. The ones which are not registered with JaxtrSMS will receive a normal SMS (just like other telecom provider). As the service is ad supported, message will contain some advertisement. I don't think, people should mind about the ad as long as they are getting JaxtrSMS service for free.
If you still face any problems on using JaxtrSMS on any of these devices, then please let us know. We will try our best to help you out.
Video Chat and Video Calling feature has been on facebook for quite a good time now. Still I lot of people have not discovered about it and keep wondering about making video calls on facebook. Well, yes it is now possible to do Video chat on Facebook. You can make video calls to your facebook buddies directly from your facebook account. We will discuss how to do so.
Please note that this is not restricted to just making video calls, if you don't have a webcam then you will be able to make voice call. If you and your friend both have webcams and microphones set up, you will be able to see and hear each other in real time. If you call friends who don’t have webcams, they’ll be able to see and hear you but you’ll only be able to hear them.
Video calling feature of facebook is now default, however just to ensure that the video calling feature is enabled in your account, check this link.
The video calling on facebook requires a one time setup. Facebook will ask to do when you try your first call or your friends call you.
Click the at the top of their profile (timeline) and then click Call.
Click the Set Up button and follow the instructions for how to set up video calling on your browser.
Once you’ve successfully completed the setup, the call you’ve started with your friend should connect automatically. If it doesn’t, you can call again.
During the setup, you will be asked to download a file (I have tried on my windows PC).
1. Download the file and run that file. (its an exe).
Once the setup (Installation of a plugin) is complete, the call will start.
Now that the setup is complete on your browser, you will be able to make video/voice calls on facebook.
1. Be online, that is open chat. You will see your online friends.
2. On this window, you will see a video call icon, as shows in the image on left.
If your friend has video setup, he will get the call straight away. Otherwise, your friend will be asked to setup his account.
If your friend is unavailable, you can leave a video message. The time and date of your missed call will be listed in your ongoing message history with your friend.
Please note that the each call record will be saved in the facebook messages. However, the calls themselves are not recorded or saved.
I am still trying to figure out how you can make facebook video calls on iPad/iPhone. I guess the facebook ipad app does not support this, neither does opening safari on ipad works (the call option does not appear). But don't worry there are some other ipad/iphone apps which enable you to make viceo chat/video calls/voice calls on facebook. We will soon discuss about these apps in separate posts. Stay tuned!!
This post is all about the Localphone voucher codes and discount coupons which new users/old users can avail for bonus credit or get some discounts. We will be updating this page regularly with the latest information on the latest coupons and new vouchers.
Localphone is one of the best voip providers for making international calls (call rates are also very cheap, calls to India at just 1-1.5 cent per min). I am myself using Localphone for all my international calls. One of the things which separates Localphone from other calling card is no expiry of the calling credit. Yes, the credit once purchased never expires. What I can suggest is buy credit at the time of promotions and use this at your own pace. There are plenty of reasons you should be using Localphone and making calls is so damn easy.
FYI, we have a similar page for Rebtel as well (which is the second largest voip provider).
Just watch the video below on how to make calls using Localphone.
But before you jump on joining Localphone, use the voucher code (check below) and make use of the discount offers. It releases a new voucher, coupon codes each month. Keep checking this page for the latest voucher codes (discount coupons).
Use this LocalPhone Link to Register and enter the relevant coupon code (check below) on sign up.
Another month and we have another discount coupon for you (10% off on your first purchase).
Lets check the details below.
Localphone is offering a new november voucher code offering free 100 minutes to India. This is actually $1.5 worth calling credit (use it to call any country). This offer is one of the best offers by localphone!
You get $1.5 credit on your first purchase. That is, if you buy just $1 credit you will get $2.5 credit.
- That's like 150% extra bonus credit.
- Your effective calling rate to India (if you buy $1 card and get $2.5 credit) : will be $0.006/min (0.6 cent per min).
LocalPhone is offering a new promotion offering Free 100 Minutes to call India.
Though voucher mentions Free 100 Minutes to India, however you will get Free $1.5 credit which you can use to call any country in the world.
You get $1.5 credit on your first purchase. That is, if you buy just $1 credit you will get $2.5 credit. That's like 150% extra bonus credit.
The localphone 150% bonus offer is still going on and localphone has launched another coupon code (september voucher code). The localphone September voucher code offers free $1 credit however as it is already running 150% bonus, its better to sign up using that code. Anyways lets get to this voucher code details.
Code LP1NEW - Get £1 free credit when you top up £1 on your 1st order.
- You will get free $1 credit on your first purchase. If you purchase $5 credit you will get free $1 credit, if you purchase $1 credit, you still get free $1 credit (this way your effective calling rates get half).
- If you sign up with $1 then you will get additional $1.
- Please note, that with Localphone you have no expiry of credit.
Localphone July promotion is valid now. As your are following FPPC Blog, you will be informed about every latest offer. If you have missed out on Free 100 Minutes promotion, you can now try latest Localphone voucher code. With localhone, you get good voice quality, no expiry of credit and great customer support.
- Sign up with as low as $1.
- First call of 5 minutes absolutely free.
Localphone has a voucher code ready for you. LocalPhone June 2011 coupon code is launched and we are here with the details. Localphone has a better offer this summer.
- This will begin on 00:00 GMT on 1st June 2011 and expire at 23:59 GMT on 30th June 2011.
- Apart from first call free, you will get 20% additional credit on your first order in March.
This is actually an extra credit coupon. When you enter the following voucher code during checkout for their first order, and you will get 20% of extra credit for free to spend on calls, SMS, or Incoming Numbers.
We all have so many different friends and we have accounts on so many different social networking sites and voice apps like Skype. It is really difficult to manage and all your friends on different applications (like Facebook and Skype). What's nice is integration of all the main features of these social networking websites into a single platform. Facebook is sort of trying to do so. With video calling on Facebook and Skype integration with Facebook, it is possible to call Facebook friends from Skype.
Today we will be discussing about Skype and Facebook integration and see how you can call Facebook buddies from Skype itself. That is, you may be logged on to your Skype account and from there itself you can call your facebook friends.
It is basically the new Mac and PC editions of Skype, which allow you to view your Facebook news feed (friends' status updates, links, photos and the like) from a 'home page', as well as contact Facebook friends in one of three ways: instant message, voice call and full fat video call.
To begin setting up Facebook on Skype, click View > Facebook Updates from the Skype Contact list.
- Next, Skype users will need to allow access to their Facebook accounts to Skype v.5.0 for Windows.
- In the dialogue window, click "See News Feed in Skype" to continue.
- Skype users may need to sign in to their Facebook accounts. Enter your Facebook ID and password to continue.
- Skype users will need to confirm access to their Facebook account. Click "Allow" to continue.
- Accessing the Facebook Updates in Skype and clicking the "Facebook" tab will reveal your Facebook Wall, allowing Skype users to change your status message, comment on friends' wall posts, and more.
To get started on calling Facebook buddies via Skype, open the contacts window in Skype. You will notice a new Facebook section. It will lists all the facebook online friends (the friends also using Skype with Facebook will be marked at green). You can make a voice call or a video call.
Alternatively, you can call your friends mobile or landline as well. This is possible only if they've added them to their Facebook profile.
This is basically using Facebook from your Skype account (calls are made via Skype). That is facebook video call feature is added to Skype software. Making Video calls from facebook directly using Skype is already available.
If you have bought an iPad 2 and looking for a solution to make phone calls then you have arrived at the right post. Samsung Galaxy tab allows you to make phone calls (regular telecom provider phone calls) to mobile phone or other tabs, however normal telecom calls ain't allowed with iPad.
But need not to worry as you can still make the cheap or free international calls on your iPad 2 with voip. With so many voip provider already in the market, making cheap or free calls is very easy. If you are wondering about the call quality, then don't worry as long as you have wifi/3g (offcourse you must be having wifi otherwise you wouldn't have got yourself an iPad).
Many voip provider have started offering their own iPad 2 application, however a more generic solution to make phone calls on iPad 2 is using SIP. Today we will discuss about how to make phone calls on iPad 2 using SIP (or we can say SIP Calls on iPad).
1. First you need to register with a voip provider which offers free or cheap calls. I would suggest Localphone, as it allows SIP calls and the calls costs are also very low. Another good reason for choosing Localphone is that currently it is running a promotion. You will get free $1.5 on purchase of $1 credit, that's 150% bonus.
2. After registering with Localphone, you will see SIP settings in your account.
Check SIP username and password.
3. Download WhistlePhone on your iPad 2. WhistlePhone offers free iPad 2 app which you can configure to make free or cheap voip calls.
4. Open the whistlephone app. Now you need to register with WhistlePhone.
Just click Use a Generic SIP Account.
5. Now in the username add Localphone SIP username.
If you face any problems in making calls, please let us know. We will try to help you all to make phone calls from your iPad 2.
Reliance India Call and now RelianceGlobalCall are very famous services. Reliance Global Call is widely used by people to make cheap international calls. If you are in India and frequently make international calls then paying heavy to your telecom provider is a bad option.
Using international calling cards is a better option and will help you save a lot on your phone bills. I was surfing the internet and came across the offer by Reliance Global Calls which is worth sharing.
Call USA, UK, Canada, Singapore, China, Australia, Thailand, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, France, Russia, Itlay, HongKong at : 1.49 Rs per min.
You can call Pakistan at just 1.99 Rs per min, Bangladesh at 2.99 Rs per min.
You can call Saudi Arabia at 4.99 Rs per min.
Please note that free talktime is calculated based on Rs 1.49 per min.
This offer is valid till March 2012.
Interesting thing is RelianceGlobalCall has launched its smartphone apps for iPhone and Android Mobile. This app is currently available free of cost. Download the app before it get paid.
For more information, please check Reliance Global Call free 50 minutes offer page.
Technology is growing and ways of communication are changing with tech growth. Earlier we used to send letters which is out now. It has been completely by SMS or text messaging. I guess, for the time being it will remain a great way to communicate with others. A lot of people use text messaging on their mobile phone to chat with each other. Infact many people (including myself) prefer to text rather to talk over phone.
And with the smartphones used by most people, it is very easy and free to text. Thanks to applications like Whatsapp and Viber (which are too popular among smartphone users). The only problem is if you have to send a text message to a person not using these apps. Sending text message (using telecom service) proves quite costly, as these companies charge heavily for them. The only free option to send text message is to use internet.
You must have been using Pc to SMS services, these are very popular and people use internet on their Pc to send sms to mobile. What if you have a similar service which you can use on your mobile. To come to your rescue, JaxtrSms app provides free sms from mobile to mobile.
Today we will discuss about JaxtrSMS service. Its the same old Jaxtr which also offers free voice calls straight from your mobile. Earlier it used to offer click to call services (where you were given a widget to make calls). Jaxtr has launched its free application for your mobile using which you can send sms for free (both Local And International).
Is it allowed to Non Jaxtr Users ?
You can send messages to all the people in your address book whether they have the JaxtrSms app or not. SMS goes direct to your inbox and behaves like regular SMS. It also works on tablets. For sending sms you have the option to either use your own number or buy a new global phone number.
2. Send a text message to any other mobile phone, domestic or international.
4. Just download the application, install and start sending sms.
I have personally tried this app on my android mobile to send sms to India. It works great, sms was received on other mobile in just few seconds. The best part is its free and it works on WiFi and 3G and on all devices.
JaxtrSms works on : Android Mobiles, IOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), Blackberry Mobiles, Windows Mobile, Java Based mobiles apps, Symbian (Nokia) mobiles.
If you are having a smartphone or a tablet and still your telecom provider for sending sms, then you are losing quite a lot of money. Trust me and try JaxtrSms (it is free), you are gonna love this amazing application.
Localphone is a leading provider of cheap international calls. Their call rates are over 80% cheaper than the competition to more than 200 countries. You can call from your mobile, landline or computer. Download their internet phone for free and make calls from your PC to a mobile or landline for the same cheap rates or you can use their Local Numbers service to make cheap calls from your mobile or landline. Plus, calls between users of the Localphone internet phone are completely free!
Localphone call rates are some of the cheapest around with calls starting at just 0.5¢ per minute. Calling to India is 1.5c per minute and you pay the same great price whether you call from your mobile, landline or computer. Unlike some calling cards, there are no hidden charges or monthly fees and the minimum top up is only $1. All new customers can try Localphone with a free 5 minute call!
With the Localphone voucher FPBONUS you can get 100 free minutes to call India! Top up $1 and you’ll get $1.50 extra bonus credit when you use voucher code FPBONUS. This is the equivalent of 100 extra free minutes to call India and also makes the effective calling rate to India just 0.6c per minute!
This bonus call credit can be used to call any country, it is not restricted to India. This voucher code is only valid for new customers on your first top up.
1. Click this Localphone link.
2. Register with Localphone. Try your first call for free.
3. When you buy credit from Localphone (as low as $1 - click add credit then other). Enter the voucher code FPBONUS.
• Calls start at 0.5¢ per minute.
If you are following Free Pc to Phone Calls blog then you are sure to save a lot on your phone bills. Making international calls is way cheap now, specially if you are making calls to India. Just follow our Free Calls to India tutorials and talk to your loved ones in India cheap or free!
Many voip providers have started to offer unlimited plans to India. Today we will discuss about one such unlimited plan to call India by SimpleCall. SimpleCall is not new to this blog, we have already discussed in the past about SimpleCall, ways to make call using SimpleCall. So today we will focus mainly on the unlimited calling plan to India by Simplecall.
1. Plan Cost : $11.99 per month.
2. Free Minutes : 2000 per month. (So its not like completely unlimited, but still a very good deal).
3. In this plan, Simplecall allows calls from one registered phone number.
Simplecall mentions that unlimited calls to India with hidden fees, contracts and registration charges. With the registered phone number you can enjoy Pinless dialing.
If you are already using Simple Call (regular but not unlimited plan), then you can even use existing credit in your SimpleCall account to pay toward the SimpleCall Unlimited Calls to India plan. You can only purchase one plan per month, per SimpleCall account.
You can call other destinations as well. Any calls to destinations outside India will be deducted from your remaining SimpleCall credit per the usual rates and terms. This will be separate from your unlimited call plan to India.
Please go through the terms and conditions of this plan, before you opt for it.
Only one unlimited plan purchase per account per month. Calls made to destinations other than India will be deducted per usual terms from your SimpleCall account credit.
Fair Usage Limits: This plan is subject to a limit of 2,000 minutes in aggregate during its one-month length. This service may be used from landlines and mobiles to landlines and mobiles, for private, personal and non-commercial purposes only. Fair use means that calls made under this plan will be a reasonable combination of landline and mobile calls, that the majority of calls will be made outside of regular working hours (8:00 – 17:00), and are not to exceed a reasonable amount per day; usage may not negatively impact any other SimpleCall user. SimpleCall reserves the right to relinquish your unlimited calling service if the company has reason to believe the service is being misused under the guidelines listed above.
Have you ever received a call from an unknown number with no caller ID or with a private number. Wondering what was that private number call. With voip getting popular and with use of more and more private numbers this thing is getting quite common.
However with all this, the service to reveal caller ID or unmask your call or unblock your call is also getting very popular. One of the very famous service which provides this feature is Trapcall. It offers a service to reveal Caller id from those anonymous blocked calls or restricted calls.
Trapcall is very popular in USA with many using on their landline, iPhone and Android mobiles. However this service was not available in Canada. But we have a good news for people of Canada. Trapcall is now available in Canada.
The good thing about trapcall is that it does not require any special software download or installation. It can work on any phone be it mobile or landline. The programming step is quite easy and just click of few buttons on phone.
How Does Trapcall work ?
- After you register, you’ll simply key in a few numbers into your phone.
- When you receive a blocked or restricted call, reject it. You don’t want to answer an unknown number anyway right? In a matter of seconds, the blocked call is sent to Trapcall servers, where it is instantly unmasked and sent back to your phone! All the while the caller hears a normal ring tone, oblivious to the fact that you know exactly who they are.
- Now if you don't want to pick up his call (no anonymity anymore) then reject it for second time.
Trapcall works on most carriers. And yes if you need an app for your smartphone then Trapcall has an app for iPhone, Android and Blackberry mobiles.
If you have decided to go with Trapcall, you may be interested in our review as well.
Turning your iPod Touch into a phone is a highly simple task now. With so many voip application available for iPhone and iPod Touch, you won't have to pay heavy to your telecom provider, just make cheap voip calls. Today we will be talking about another such voip application for your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, CrispApp.
With Cripapp you can make phone calls to your GTalk / Google+ friends. It is also the best way to stay in touch with all your Facebook friends and the ultimate Voice Chat app that allows you to call your friends for free.
You can make free calls to your facebook friends using Cripspp. Now it also allows to call from Facebook chat to fone app.
Just send "/call" message and initiate a call from desktop Facebook chat to fone app.
Keep track of all your chats and calls with message history.
Similarly, Crispfone offers Chat for Gtalk users.
Crispapp is compatible with iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. It just requires iOS 3.1.2 or later.
Well to het this Crispapp you have to shell out $0.99!
For more info, visit Crispapp (Crispfone).
Delmont Sarl and betamax service are very popular. A lot of people prefer betamax because of cheap rates and some of betamax services works charm for making calls to India from middle east (Dubai/UAE). Well, today we will discuss about VoipMove. It is a free program that uses the latest voip technology to bring free and high-quality voice communications to people all over the world.
With VoipMove, you can also call regular phones in various popular destinations for free or call at an incredible low rate to any other phone on the planet. So first lets check the VoipMove calling rates.
VoipMove Calls to India are charged at 1 cent per minute (including taxes).
Calls to Pakistan at 2.3 cents per min.
Call Bangladesh Mobile at 3.2 cents per minute.
Call Mexico Landline at just half a cent and mexico mobiles at one cent per minute.
Please note that though VoipMove calling rates are low, however it charges conection fees. All VoipMove calls are subject to a 0.039 US Dollar connection fee.
How to make calls using VoipMove.
Just download the voip client software from our website and call all your online friends (computer-to-computer) as long as you like, for free.
From the textbox, enter the User Name of another VoipMove user, or the desired phone number and press enter.
Double-click a User Name in your contact list.
Use the dialpad to make a call just like you do on a regular phone.
Or use the keypad on your PC.
Please note that when you call a number (even if it's local) you should always dial 00 + countrycode + areacode + subscriber number.
For more info, visit VoipMove.
Fring is one of the most popular application to be used in your smartphone be it iPhone or Android mobile. I am using Fring for making international calls from my Android mobile and iPod Touch! Fring is very easy to use and you can use it for making SIP calls. If you are using any voip provider which provide SIP Calls but does not have iPhone/Android app, then configure its SIP settings in Fring and start making calls.
You can also make free VoIP calls and Video callsto other Fring users. Fring also offers Fringout, its cheap international calling service. Today we will discuss about one of Fringout plans, Worldwide unlimited calling plan. Fringout Unlimited calls to 40 countries plan is available for iPhone/iPad and Android devices.
This plan is available for $7 per month.
No more than 3 hour per day. No more than 20 different numbers can be called per day and no more than 50 different numbers can be called per month.
If you are having an iPhone or Android mobile and you make lots of international calls then surely this Fringout plan is worth trying. You will save a lot on your phone bills. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Which diagnostic tests are most reliable for confirming Stevens-Johnson Syndrome? output: Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) is a severe cutaneous adverse reaction often triggered by medications. The diagnosis of SJS is primarily clinical, but several diagnostic tests can aid in confirming the diagnosis and identifying the causative drug.
Histopathology is a cornerstone in diagnosing SJS. Skin biopsy typically shows full-thickness epidermal necrosis with minimal dermal inflammation, which helps distinguish SJS from other conditions like erythema multiforme.[1]
In vitro tests have shown promise in identifying the causative drug. The lymphocyte transformation test (LTT), when combined with cytokine and cytotoxic marker measurements (cyto-LTT), has demonstrated improved sensitivity and specificity in identifying drug hypersensitivity reactions. However, the sensitivity of LTT alone is relatively low, and combining it with other assays, such as granulysin expression and granzyme B-ELISpot, can enhance diagnostic accuracy.[2-3]
Serum granulysin levels can be a useful biomarker. Elevated serum granulysin levels have been associated with SJS/TEN and can be detected using a rapid immunochromatographic test, which has shown high specificity and sensitivity in differentiating SJS/TEN from ordinary drug-induced skin reactions.[4]
Patch tests and delayed-reading intradermal tests (IDTs) can be useful in some cases, although their sensitivity varies. Patch tests are often the first-line diagnostic tests, especially when the suspected drug is essential for the patient. However, these tests should be performed with caution due to the risk of provoking severe reactions.[5-6]
In summary, the most reliable diagnostic tests for confirming SJS include histopathology, in vitro tests like LTT combined with cytokine assays, and serum granulysin level measurement. Combining these tests can improve diagnostic accuracy and help identify the causative drug. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: We had protected intercourse last night but while removing the penis from the vagina the condom got stuck in the vagina So I wanna ask that is it a contraceptive failure And if yes then will I have to take ECP I took ECP 15days back as well Is it ok to take ecp twice in a month output: Hello, I have gone through your query and understood the concern. Since the condom got stuck in the vagina after the intercourse, it is possible for some spillage of semen to happen and if you happen to be in the fertile phase of the cycle, conception chances are high. Yet, use of emergency contraceptive pills should be restricted to only once or twice a year. This is because the high hormone content in the pill creates hormone disturbances and fertility problems in the future. Another way of emergency contraception is the insertion of an IUD soon after the intercourse to prevent implantation. Hope this helps.. |
Manatees — Description, Pictures, Behavior, Lifespan, & Folk Stories
October 29, 2016 in Animals & Insects
Manatees are a type of very large, long lived, and intelligent marine mammals that live primarily in the coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, the Amazon Basin, and West Africa. The 3 species are: T. manatus (Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea), T. inunguis (Amazon Basin), and T. senegalensis (West Africa).
While often solitary, they are also known to congregate in large numbers in shallow waters at certain times of the year. They often perform regular migrations from coastal estuary waters deep into inland river systems. This is especially true of the subspecies that inhabits the waters off of Florida (T. manatus latirostris). This subspecies makes regular migrations into the Crystal, the Homosassa, and the Chassahowitzka river systems, amongst others.
Amongst the notable qualities of the manatee, are a number that are nearly unique amongst mammals — including the fact that manatees have only 6 cervical vertebrae (possibly due to mutations in the homeotic genes). The only other mammals to only have 6 cervical vertebrae are two-toed and three-toed sloths.
Manatees are also one of the only mammals to exhibit polyphyodonty — a process whereby teeth are continuously replaced throughout life, with new teeth growing at the rear and falling out at the front, like a conveyer belt. The only other mammals to exhibit polyphyodonty are elephants and kangaroo. (Manatee have no canine or incisor teeth.)
And, perhaps most strangely, manatees are the only animal of any kind that’s known to have vascularized cornea.
Manatee — Meaning Of Name, Physical Description, Behavior, & Lifespan
The name manatee originates from the Taíno (a peoples that lived in the Caribbean before colonial disease and enslavement largely ended the culture) word “manatí” — the Taíno word meaning something somewhat akin to “breast.”
Manatees are sometimes referred to as sea cows, as are its close relatives the dugongs.
Generally speaking, manatees can grow to be at least 13.1 feet long (4 meters), and can reach weights of over 1,300 lbs (590 kilograms). Mean-length is 9.2 to 9.8 feet, and mean-weight is 900 to 1,200 lbs. The maximum weight ever recorded was 3,913 lbs (1,775 kilograms). At birth, baby manatees typically weigh around 66 lbs (30 kilograms), but there’s some variety on that count.
Manatees possess large, very flexible, prehensile upper lips which are used for food articulation and for communication and social behavior. Interestingly, manatee eyelids close in a circular manner. The animals’ tails are quite distinctive, and clearly distinct from dugong tails — being paddle-shaped rather than fluked.
Similar to horses, manatees possess a so-called “simple stomach” and rely on a large cecum for the digestion of the tough plant matter that they regularly eat. The animals also possess enormous intestines for their size, with a typical intestinal length being around 45 meters. As you can probably guess based on the information above, manatees produce enormous quantities of gas, which aids in their digestive process, and apparently contributes to the shape of their body.
As alluded to above, manatees are almost entirely herbivorous, though they have been observed eating very limited quantities of fish as well. They are known to eat more than 60 different types of freshwater and saltwater plants — including: floating hyacinth, water lettuce, pickerel weed, water celery, alligator weed, hydrilla, musk grass, mangrove leaves, sea grasses, shoal grass, manatee grass, sea clover, turtle grass, widgeon grass, and even marine algae.
They will generally eat up to 10% to 15% of their bodyweight in food a day. As a result, they often spend as much as 7 hours a day eating.
Foraging behavior is interesting, and involves the use of the flippers to “walk” along the bottom of the sea or river while looking and digging for plants and roots. Once found, manatees then usually use the flippers to scoop up the food and hold it to the prehensile lips. (Prehensile meaning the lips are split and the sides can move independently and articulately.) Grazing typically occurs in shallow waters, of less then 7 feet depth.
Lifespan is an interesting subject, as manatees can live to be quite old. The Florida subspecies is known to be able to live to at least 60 in the wild. The oldest known manatee, which was born in captivity, is now 68 years old.
As manatees are quite intelligent, and known to migrate over fairly long distances (some have even been seen as far north as New York City and Rhode Island), keeping them captive in aquariums doesn’t seem to be conducive to good mental health.
Research has shown that manatees seem to possess complex associative thinking and are capable of comprehending so-called discrimination tasks. They are also known to possess extremely good long-term memory, as elephants do as well. In testing, manatees demonstrate task-learning abilities and discrimination abilities similar to those demonstrated by dolphins and pinnipeds.
Communication is known to be performed across a wide variety of sensory systems — including sight, touch, sound, scent, and taste. Manatees utilize a wide variety of different auditory signals during communication, suggesting complex communication is taking place. Females and their calves, in particular, seem to utilize a wide variety of different sounds for communication.
While manatees may look somewhat lethargic they can actually swim very fast when need be, with some individuals having been clocked traveling at up to 20 mph. Generally, though, manatees move around leisurely, at speeds of 3 to 5 mph.
Manatees spend much of the day sleeping/napping (up to 50% of the day), with surfacing for air occurring roughly every 20 minutes or less.
Breeding typically occurs once every 2 years. Generally births involve one calf, with reports of twins being rare. Gestation typically lasts around 12 months, and weaning typically occurs 1 to 1.5 years after birth.
Predation is seemingly a non-issue for manatees, with humans being apparently the only animal to regularly kill them.
Taxonomy, Different Species, & Fossil Evidence
The family name for manatees is Trichechidae (genus Trichechus). There are currently 3 different species of Trichechidae — together representing 3 of the 4 living species in the order Sirenia, along with the dugong. These 3 species are: the Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis), the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus), and the West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis).
Fossil evidence strongly suggests that the Sirenia descend from 4-legged land mammals that lived more than 60 million years ago. The closest living relatives of the order are the Hyracoidea (hyraxes) and the Proboscidea (elephants).
Interestingly, fossil remains strongly resembling the Florida subspecies of the West Indian manatee go back at least 45 million years.
Here’s a quick overview of the 3 species:
The West Indian Manatee (Including the Florida subspecies)
The West Indian Manatee typically lives in very warm waters, and seemingly cannot survive water temperatures below 15° Celsius (60° Fahrenheit) for long periods of time. As a result, they often congregate near warm, spring-fed rivers in the winter (and also the warm-water outflows of power plants nowadays).
This last behavior has become something of an issue, as the water that flows from these power plants is often warm enough that some manatees don’t migrate south during the winter anymore, and as a result become dependent upon the facilities’ activities for survival during the (relatively) cold months.
Georgia’s coasts typically represent the northernmost portion of the species range.
Notably, the Florida subspecies of manatee is able to move freely between the salinity extremes of open ocean water and fresh spring water — a rare ability. It’s thought, though, that this subspecies may be dependent upon regular exposure to fresh water for the proper regulation of salts in its body.
Population counts are all over the place, but most in recent years have been somewhere between 3,000 and 13,000. Of the 13,000 figure, the study in question estimated that around 6,000 of those manatees lived in Florida’s waters.
West Indian Manatees (including the Florida subspecies) are regularly killed in ship and speed-boat collisions. When death doesn’t occur immediately, mutilation is often the result. Most manatees in the region now exhibit obvious scarring and deformed characteristics as a result of earlier collisions. As recreational boat travel becomes more common in the region, such collisions have been increasing notably.
The Freshwater Amazonian Manatee
The Freshwater Amazonian Manatee (T. inunguis) lives as one would guess in the Amazon River system. It apparently spends its whole live in freshwater and never travels to the open ocean.
Not much is known about the species, but limited data suggests it has much in common with the West Indian Manatee. The species’ hair color is a brownish sort of gray, and individuals possess notable amounts of the coarse “whisker” hair that some manatees exhibit.
The West African Manatee
The West African Manatee is found in various coastal marine and estuarine habitats off of West Africa, as well as in various river systems in the region. Range extends from the Senegal River down south to the Kwanza River in Angola. Interestingly, they are known to live far upriver on the Niger River, all the way up to Gao, Mali.
Humans Are The Most Common Cause Of Manatee Deaths — “The Severity Of Mutilations For Some Of These Individuals Can Be Astounding”
As noted above, manatees don’t face any serious predation threats from non-human animals. Humans, though, do kill manatees in large numbers nowadays — largely as a result of recreational boat travel, shipping, and habitat destruction. Pollution and disease now play a part as well, with agricultural runoff/pollution resulting in problems. In addition, discarded fishing gear, hooks, and nets, are all known to cause problems.
As it stands, humans in Florida are responsible for roughly 100 manatee deaths a year, though this figure seems to be increasing. That’s pretty amazing when you consider that there are only around 5,000 to 6,000 manatees in Florida’s waters currently. In January 2016 alone, 43 manatees were killed in Florida as a result of humans.
Also, reports of people intentionally harassing manatees are fairly common, seemingly more so since the rise of the smartphone/selfie fad.
“Their slow-moving, curious nature, coupled with dense coastal development, has led to many violent collisions with propeller-driven boats and ships, leading frequently to maiming, disfigurement, and even death. As a result, a large proportion of manatees exhibit spiral cutting propeller scars on their backs, usually caused by larger vessels that do not have skegs in front of the propellers like the smaller outboard and inboard-outboard recreational boats have. They are now even identified by humans based on their scar patterns. Many manatees have been cut in half by large vessels like ships and tug boats, even in the highly populated lower St Johns River’s narrow channels. Some are concerned that the current situation is inhumane, with upwards of 50 scars and disfigurements from vessel strikes on a single manatee. Often, the cuts lead to infections, which can prove fatal. Internal injuries stemming from being trapped between hulls and docks and impacts have also been fatal. Recent testing shows that manatees may be able to hear speed boats and other watercraft approaching, due to the frequency the boat makes. However, a manatee may not be able to hear the approaching boats when they are performing day-to-day activities or distractions. The manatee has a tested frequency range of 8 kilohertz to 32 kilohertz. Manatees hear on a higher frequency than would be expected for such large marine mammals. Many large boats emit very low frequencies, which confuse the manatee and explain their lack of awareness around boats. The Lloyd’s mirror effect results in low frequency propeller sounds not being discernible near the surface, where most accidents occur. Research indicates that when a boat has a higher frequency the manatees rapidly swim away from danger.”
An unnamed marine mammal veterinarian commented: “The severity of mutilations for some of these individuals can be astounding — including long term survivors with completely severed tails, major tail mutilations, and multiple disfiguring dorsal lacerations. These injuries not only cause gruesome wounds, but may also impact population processes by reducing calf production (and survival) in wounded females — observations also speak to the likely pain and suffering endured.”
The veterinarian went on to recount the example of a small calf “with a severe dorsal mutilation trailing a decomposing piece of dermis and muscle as it continued to accompany and nurse from its mother…by age 2 its dorsum was grossly deformed and included a large protruding rib fragment visible.”
Before then stating that: “The overwhelming documentation of gruesome wounding of manatees leaves no room for denial.”
Other human related causes of manatee deaths include: being crushed in water control structures (navigation locks, floodgates, etc), and being drowned in pipes and culverts.
All 3 species of manatee are currently listed as being Vulnerable to Extinction by the World Conservation Union.
Manatees & Red Tide
While boat and ship collisions account for the highest numbers of manatee deaths, there are a few causes of manatee deaths that are unrelated (directly anyways) to humans. In particular, red tide blooms (blooms of Karenia brevis) are responsible for occasional manatee mass kills.
For those unfamiliar, red tide blooms are blooms of the microscopic marine algae Karenia brevis. The red tide dinoflagellate produces brevetoxins that have toxic effects on the central nervous systems of most animals — leading to mass fish, marine mammal, and bird kills. Red tides often litter the coasts of affected regions in large masses of dead and rotting animals. The blooms themselves also have a scent to them, that contributes to the effect of the rotting animals on air-quality.
The largest red tide manatee kill on record occurred in 1996, when at least 151 manatee deaths occurred. The red tide bloom lasted from the beginning of March until the end of April, and killed off around 15% of the manatees in the area (South Florida’s west coast). Most red tide manatee kill numbers are much lower though, with the one in 2005 killing 44, and the one in 1982 killing 37.
Stories & Folklore
Manatees have featured in a large quantity of the stories told by peoples that have had regular contact with them. Notably, in some part of West Africa traditional belief was that manatees had once been human, and that killing one required penance similar to that required with the killing of a human.
This is similar to stories from other parts of the world whereby actions and events lead to the transformation, into varying forms, of what had been a common identity.
The Assyrian story of Atargatis, which dates back at least 3000 years (1000 BC), is a good example. The goddess Atargatis fell in love with a mortal, a shepherd, but unintentionally killed him, owing to the differences of their natures (as a mortal and an immortal). Ashamed of herself for what happened, she jumped into a lake and took on the form of a fish. The waters would not conceal her divine nature/beauty though, and she thereafter took a form that appeared to be human above the waist and fish below.
The earliest known depictions of Atargatis, though, show her as being a fish with a human head and arms, rather than with the full upper body of a human. This is similar to common depictions of the Babylonian god Ea.
Tags: Amazon River, Caribbean Sea, dugong, Gulf of Mexico, Manatee, manatees, Sirenia, T. inunguis, T. manatus, T. manatus latirostris, T. senegalensis, Trichechidae, Trichechus, West Indian manatee
← Googly Eyed Stubby Squid — Facts, Video, & Photos
Stellar’s Sea Cow, Stories, Myths, & Their Connection With Now Extinct Animals → |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I am experiencing aches and pain generally in my arms, knees , lower legs which show redness . Seems like flu symptoms and tiredness - this has lasted few months & doctor has taken blood tests four seem ok but the problem is ongoing. I am a 64 lady who has always been quite active but have now this constant achiness- can you assist with any suggestions to ease my problem output: Bursitis may cause stiffness and redness around knee region. Gout may cause swelling and pain because of accumulation of uric acid crystal. Ct scan is helpful for further diagnosis. Consent a physician for further diagnosis. Proper physical examination and history give exact idea. I hope my guidance is helpful to you. Take care. Thanks.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I have hepatitis C and today I got resultants for TPHA, CMV, HSV and all is positive TPHA show positive =320 what mean this? CMV + positive HSV 1+2 IGG is (+44) HSV 1+2 IGM is (17,7) The doctor did not have time to explain me about test result I need to go there after one week. Please give me some answer :) have cure for this or I gonna die soon. I m 30 years old and mother on one child 11 years old I never had any problems with my health but since I got merry second time I got this? Thanks output: From the results of your lab tests, you tested positive for Hepatitis C, syphilis, cytomegalovirus and Herpes. All these infections are sexually transmissible, but the good news is that all of them can be treated (although some might be a little expensive). I hope that answers your query. If you have additional questions or follow-up queries then please do not hesitate in writing to us. We will be delighted to answer more questions from you. I wish you good health. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hello doctor,My 73-year-old father is suffering from type 2 diabetes from the age of 7. He has undergone angioplasty. His fasting level is 140 and the postprandial level is 320 after taking Glimepiride 2 mg and Metformin 500 mg once a day. Should I increase his dose once to twice daily? output: 1. Your dad should be on insulin for better control of blood sugar levels. 2. He needs to monitor blood glucose levels regularly and take medicines accordingly.3. You can add another oral anti-diabetic medicine like sitagliptin or vildagliptin to metformin. This will help in reducing post-meal rise in sugar levels.4. He may need insulin injections if he has very high blood sugar levels.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: - output: No, Cushing's syndrome and Cushing's disease are not exactly the same. While they share similar symptoms, they have different causes.
Cushing's syndrome is a broader term that refers to a group of symptoms that occur when the body is exposed to excess levels of cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal glands. This can be caused by a variety of factors, including:
1. Exogenous Cushing's syndrome: This is caused by taking high doses of corticosteroid medications, such as prednisone or dexamethasone, for a prolonged period.
2. Endogenous Cushing's syndrome: This is caused by an overproduction of cortisol by the adrenal glands, which can be due to a variety of factors, including a tumor, a genetic disorder, or a pituitary tumor that stimulates the adrenal glands to produce excess cortisol.
Cushing's disease, on the other hand, is a specific type of endogenous Cushing's syndrome that is caused by a pituitary tumor that secretes adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which stimulates the adrenal glands to produce excess cortisol. This type of tumor is usually benign and can be treated with surgery or radiation therapy.
In summary, all Cushing's disease is Cushing's syndrome, but not all Cushing's syndrome is Cushing's disease. |
1992-06-18 Assigned to PITNEY BOWES INC., A CORP. OF DE reassignment PITNEY BOWES INC., A CORP. OF DE ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST. Assignors: OH, JE H., HUNT, WILLIAM M., SANSONE, RONALD P.
1997-10-07 First worldwide family litigation filed litigation Critical https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=25412452&utm_source=google_patent&utm_medium=platform_link&utm_campaign=public_patent_search&patent=US5446667(A) "Global patent litigation dataset” by Darts-ip is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
A system and method for reducing the amount of mail that is submitted to a local post office and reducing the effort required by a local post office. A mailer sorts mail and separates local mail from non local mail, identifies the destination of the non local mail and puts the same in a tray in accordance with the destination thereof. The mail destined for each destination is processed in accordance with the departure time of a transportation system so that the mail will be received just-in-time by a common carrier. The non local mail is then forwarded to the common carrier by the mailer and the common carrier delivers the mail to a transport vehicle destined for a postal distribution center.
Attention is directed to U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,306 filed Jan. 2, 1990 and entitled Mail Piece Weight Quality Control System and Method; U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,102 filed Oct. 9, 1990, entitled Method and Apparatus for Preparing Validated Mail Tray Labels; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 641,985 filed Jan. 16, 1991 and entitled Postal Automated Labeling System which was abandoned in favor of a continuing application Ser. No. 07/963,013 filed Oct. 19, 1992, which was abandoned in favor of a continuing application Ser. No. 08/181,476 filed on Dec. 12, 1993 and which is still pending; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,216,620 filed Sep. 23, 1991 and entitled Requesting, Reporting and Verification System and Method for Mail Carrier Payment.
Throughout the history of the mail delivery, there has been a gradual evolution whereby the post office encourages mailers to prepare their mail in such a way as to reduce the effort required on the part of the post office for processing such mail. As an inducement to the mailer to prepare the mail in such a way so as to bring about faster mail delivery, the post office offers a postage discount to mailers for such items as presorted mail and printing of nine digit zip codes. Discounts are also given when the mail is produced in a manner allowing automatic processing with machines such as optical character recognition (OCR) sorters and bar code readers and sorters.
Even with present mail processing techniques that have come into being as a result of reduced postage rates for presorted mail, zip code mail and the like, the post office is still experiencing difficulties in meeting targeted delivery times for the mail. The primary reason for such difficulties is the increase in volume of mail that has taken place over the decades.
Systems and methods have been conceived and described wherein the efforts required by the post office to process mail has been reduced. One of the problems the post office faced previously was that a significant amount of mail presented to the post office did not have the required postage or did not meet the requirements of postal regulations. A scheme for overcoming this problem was disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/594,515, supra. In that patent application, a scheme is disclosed whereby mail is processed in such a manner that the mail is sorted to separate the local mail from the non local mail, the non local mail is placed into trays in accordance with their zip codes and a label is printed that identifies the mail in the tray for subsequent processing. As a part of this scheme, the post office is given a running account of the mail being processed so that postage can be accurately determined and the post office is able to process the mail further without having to inspect the same to assure proper payment.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 641,985, supra, discloses a system whereby labels can be printed by a mailer for the trays and the sacks into which mail is placed for a common carrier, particularly an air carrier. U.S. Pat. No. 5,216,620, supra, discloses a system and method whereby mail that is not addressed locally is conveyed by a mailer to a common carrier. In so doing, the mailer discloses to the local post office information relative to the mail with regard to the number of trays of mail, their weight, their distinction and information that may allow the mailer to receive a postal discount for his mail. Upon receipt of the information, the post office would then determine the cost of air freight for the mail which is looked upon by the common carrier as bulk freight.
Although the concepts described in these patent applications addressed areas where implementation of activities on the part of the mailer would benefit the post office, there are still many areas where the amount of effort required by the post office can be reduced.
In the processing of mail previously, non local mail processed by a mailer so as to obtain postal discounts was still sent to the local post office. This procedure was addressed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,216,620, supra. Although such system functioned well, it still required communication with a local post office and relied upon the post office for to flight information. There was no correlation between the destination of the mail being processed and the time of flight for such destination.
A scheme has been devised whereby a mailer processes mail in such a way that mail which is not addressed locally is conveyed to a common carrier in sufficient time to be placed on the next transportation vehicle without spending unnecessary time waiting to be loaded onto such vehicle.
The mail is processed by the mailer in such a way that non local mail is sorted in accordance with the zip codes for the distribution centers to which the non local mail is to be sent. The mail is placed into trays and the trays are labeled so as to indicate the contents of the tray. The trays with non local mail are then placed individually into sleeves and weighed, after which a tag is printed indicating the weight of the sleeved tray and its contents. A destination and routing tag is then applied to the sleeve, this tag is scanned and the information on the tag is up-loaded to the data processor of the mailer.
The data processor of the mailer not only contains mail lists and postal rate data, but data relative to time and destination of flights upon which mail can be placed for conveyance of a common carrier for delivery to a postal distribution center and the critical entry time for each postal distribution center. The critical entry time is the time of day by which it must be received by the postal distribution center to assure delivery by the next day.
The data processor of the mailer is programmed so that there is a correlation between the destination of the mail and the time of departure by the common carrier for such destination. The amount of postage to be charged to the mailer, the destination of the mail and the amount required to be paid to the common carrier for transporting the mail can all be determined by the mailer. After the trays are tagged and scanned, they are placed into receptacles and transported to the common carrier in accordance with the available flights so that the mail for a particular flight arrives at the common carrier just-in-time to be placed upon a transportation vehicle. Based upon the information received from the mailer, the post office charges the mailer the required postage for the mail without having to process any non local mail in a local post office.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a program for just-in-time mail delivery of mail.
In order to reduce the amount of mail that is sent to a local post office for processing, eliminating the requirement of mail sorting by postal authorities at the location of a common carrier, and providing just-in-time delivery of mail to a common carrier, apparatus and method have been conceived whereby non local mail is processed by a mailer and forwarded directly to a common carrier in a just-in-time manner. Just-in-time as used in the instant invention is defined as coordinating the processing of mail in accordance with the destination of that mail and the departure time of a common carrier for such destination so that the mail is received by the common carrier in time to be placed on a transportation vehicle without spending unnecessary time at the common carrier location. Sufficient information is given by the mailer to the post office that allows the post office to determine if proper postage has been paid by the mailer and to verify the mail content and mail is sorted by the mailer in accordance with the postal distribution center destination. In an alternative embodiment, the common carrier can be paid directly by the mailer although present practice is to have the post office pay common carrier fees.
A prior scheme involved having the mailer sort his mail and contact the post office upon completion of the sorting. The post office would give the mailer the time of departure for the next transportation vehicle that would leave for the destination of such mail. By transportation vehicle is meant an airplane, truck, or whatever form of transportation a common carrier would use. For remote destinations the transportation vehicle is invariably an airplane; consequently, throughout this disclosure the transportation vehicle will be referred to as an airplane.
The shortcoming of the prior practice was that mailing lists are normally in numerical order according to the zip code and there is no relationship to the schedules of the common carrier. For example, the first mail being processed by the mailer may be addressed to the state of Maine whose zip code (first two digits) is 03. The first plane departure for the common carrier may be California, zip code 92, and the flight for Maine may be many hours away. Clearly, under these circumstances it would be advantageous to process the mail for California first and the mail for Maine at a later time in accordance with the next flight departure for that state.
With reference to FIG. 1, a block diagram is shown representing a system capable of practicing the preferred embodiment of the invention. The system includes a mailer's data processor 12 that can be any one of a number of commercially available computers such as an IBM Compatible PC 386. This processor 12 is in selective communication with an accounting unit 14 of the post office and performs accounting functions for the post office which will be described hereinafter.
In FIG. 1, the conveyance of mail is indicated by double lines, communication lines are indicated by single lines and optical paths by dotted lines. Although the conveying devices for conveying items from one unit to another are not described, it will be appreciated such devices are well known in the art and of themselves do not form part of the instant invention except to the extent required to perform the novel concepts disclosed herein.
The mailer's data processor 12 is in communication with a mail processing unit 16 that is a combination of an inserter, such as a Model Series No. 8100 Inserter, available from Pitney Bowes Inc., and a sorter that sorts mail in accordance with zip codes. Inserters of this type have a processor that is programmed with a mailing list that includes the parties to whom mail is to be sent, the address and materials to be sent. Sorters are commercially available and are generally referred to as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Channel Sorters. Alternatively, a bar code reader can be used if the mail has the Postnet bar code printed thereon. This mail processing unit 16 produces mail pieces, sorts such mail pieces and places the local mail into trays 18 that are sent to a local post office 19. It will be appreciated the post office accounting unit 14 and local post office 19 can be the same entity. The sorted, non local mail is trayed at a mail traying unit 20 in accordance with its zip code which, of course, represents the destination of the mail.
The mail processing unit 16 conveys information to the data processor 12 relative to the mail that is to be placed into trays and the data processor controls a label printer 22 for printing an appropriate mail destination label for each tray that is filled. The information conveyed to the processor 12 includes the class of mail and the calculated weight of individual mail pieces, based upon the number and kinds of inserts, so that the postage can be determined. The destination of the mail is also uploaded to the processor 12. Alternatively, such data could be resident in the memory of the processor 12. Thereafter, the labels on the trays are scanned and the trays then go through a sleever unit 24 wherein each tray is placed within a sleeve. The sleeved tray then is banded at a banding unit 26. What has been described heretofore has been disclosed previously, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,102, U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,306 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/181,476, supra. These patent applications teach methods and apparatus for traying mail, labeling the trays, and providing information to the post office sufficient to authenticate payment of the mail.
After a label is attached to a tray, the label is scanned by a scanner 32 and the data therefrom is received by the processor 12 so that a verification can be made that the data on the label is correct. The processor 12 is programmed with the time of departure and destinations of airplanes upon which mail can be placed by a common carrier. The processor 12 will make routing decisions based upon stored information and the destination of the mail in the trays so that mail can be received by the common carrier just-in-time for a particular flight.
Downstream from the banding unit 26 is a scale 28 that weighs sleeved and banded trays of mail. Such weight determination will be uploaded to the data processor 12 to be used, in conjunction with the destination data, to calculate the transportation costs of the mail payable to the common carrier. A tag printer 30 is in communication with the processor 12 and is located downstream from the scale 28 for the purpose of printing a destination and routing tag for giving the common carrier routing information that had been determined by the processor 12. The tag produced by the tag printer 30 is attached to the tray sleeve and the scanner 32 will scan the tag for purposes of verification. The scanner 32 is in communication with the data processor 12 that receives the data from the scanner 30. The processor 12 will compare such data with prior data to assure correctness of the data on the tag. Downstream from the scanner 30 is a station 31 that includes loading apparatus 33 and a number of receptacle such as cages 34 in which trays are placed in accordance with the postal distribution center to which the mail is to be sent. The cages 34 can be any kind of movable container that will hold a large number of trays for subsequent conveyance.
The mail is accumulated in a cage 34, or cages, and retained until the appropriate time for conveyance to a common carrier as will be described hereinafter. The cage is sent to a transporting vehicle such, as a truck 36, where it is transported to the common carrier 38 just-in-time to catch the next flight. The truck 36 would be either a post office truck that is provided to large volume mailers or a truck that belongs to the common carrier or mailer. The common carrier 38, or postal authorities located at the common carrier, will not be required to sort the trays because of the prior processing by the mailer. The common carrier 38 will place the mail on other transport vehicles such as an airplane 40, train, truck or the like, which will deliver the mail to a receiving station 42 of a postal distribution center 44.
In operation, the processor 12 will have the routing and time of departure of the common carrier 38. The processor of the mail processing unit 16 will contain mailing lists for particular runs of mail, and will also have programmed therein the contents that are to be inserted into envelopes by the inserter of the mail processing unit 16 to form mailpieces. It will be appreciated that only one processor could be used, but in the preferred embodiment mail list and content information is in the processor of the mail processing unit 16 and the processor 12 will contain time of departure information that will be updated as schedules change. The inserter of the mail processing unit 16 will operate either under command of the data processor 12 or its internal processor and generate the mail pieces in accordance with a programmed mail list. The mail processing unit 16 will separate the local mail 18 from the non local mail during sorting, the latter being directed to the mail traying unit 20. After the mail is trayed in accordance with its destination, the label printer 22 will print a label 29 for the appropriate tray under control of the processor 12 in accordance with the information from the stored mail list. Reference can be had to U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,102, supra, for details as to the manner in which mailpieces are placed into trays in accordance with their zip codes and how the data processor coordinates the activities to assure that correct postage is paid, how the requirements of-the domestic mail manual are met with regard to postal discounts and how the label printer 22 prints an appropriate label that is placed in or received by a tray.
The labels on the trays are scanned by the scanner 32 and the labeled trays are placed into sleeves and banded by the sleever 24. The data resulting from the scanned label is received by the processor 12 and the data is forwarded to the post office 14. The tag will have specific information such as location of the postal distribution center 44 to which the mail is sent, the zip code thereof, the tray contents, and the identification of the mailer. It should be noted at this time that the label on a tray is primarily for the benefit of the mail receiving post office for purposes of further sorting and delivery and the tag on a sleeve is for the benefit of the common carrier 38.
A tray is placed into a sleeve and banded by the sleeving unit 24 and banding unit 26, respectively. A tag which is referred to as a a destination and routing tag, is printed and placed on the sleeve to provide information relative to the distribution center to which the mail is to be sent is identified. Before printing the tag however, the tray is weighed. This weighing by the scale 26 is for the purpose of determining the fee due to the common carrier for transporting the mail. Whereas the post office 14 receives the postage due from the mailer based upon individual mailpieces, the common carrier is paid in accordance with the bulk weight of the "freight" and its destination. The tag printer 30 will print the tag under control of the processor 12 that has data resulting from scanning of the tray label, weighing of the tray and destination and routing information. The data printed on the tag will show the destination of the tray as well as the contents of the tray and the weight. All this data can be included in bar code format so that the information can be derived quickly using a bar code scanner. After the tag has been scanned by the scanner 32, the trays are sent to the sorting and caging station 33 where they are sorted in accordance with their ultimate destination, i.e. the postal distribution center 44 to which they are to be sent. After sorting, the trays are placed into cages 34. These cages are then placed on transportation vehicles 36. Thereafter, the cages are sent to a common carrier 38 just-in-time to be placed upon the planes 40 to be sent to a receiving station 42 of a postal distribution centers 44 prior to the critical entry time (CET) which is the latest time mail can be received for next day delivery. At the postal distribution center 44, the mail will be distributed to local post offices for finer sortation and delivery.
It will be appreciated that with pre-sort software, computer records can be altered into a convenient zip code sequence before mail pieces are created in order to have just-in-time delivery of the mail pieces to the common carrier. Such a sequence can be created by processing an entire mailrun and supplying information of such mail run to the processor 12 through use of the scanner 32. After an entire run is complete, the processor 12 will re-arrange the sequence of the zip code runs by the mail processing unit 16 to correspond to the time of departure data resident in the processor 12.
With reference to FIG. 2, a description of the just-in-time program of the processor 12 is given. The critical entry times (CET) for each postal distribution center 44 is fetched 70. This CET data is supplied by the post office and uploaded to this processor 12. The flight data is fetched 72. A determination is made 74 of the last flight to each postal distribution center 44 that can still meet the critical entry times. The time required to complete jobs based upon the number and kinds of mail pieces is determined 76, the time a job is due at the common carrier is calculated 78 for each job.
The number of days in each job cycle and the job start time are fetched 80 and together with the calculated due time, jobs are scheduled in accordance with the due time and size thereof 82 so as to meet the just-in-time requirement. An inquiry is made 83 whether the job being processed can meet the due time at the common carrier, which will give the common carrier time to process and deliver the mail in time to meet the CET. All jobs that cannot meet the due time are placed at the end of the queue and the due date for such jobs is incremented by one day 84. For those jobs that can meet the due time, a calculation is made 86 of the time required to complete each job. Thereafter, early/late times are calculated 88 for each job, which is the due time minus the completion time required by the mailer. An inquiry is made whether the early/late times is too late for that day 90. If yes, the job is moved to the end of the queue and incremented one day 84. If the inquiry is no, the job is forwarded to the common carrier 38 and an inquiry is made whether this is the last job 94. If no, the mail processing continues for the next job, but if yes, the mail run is complete.
Thus, what has been shown and described is apparatus and method whereby a local post office need not physically receive the non local mail, need not provide flight data to the mailer on an on-going basis and receives the benefit of just-in-time performance. In this way, a large volume of mail need not be handled by a local post office and time and expenses are reduced.
The embodiments disclosed herein have been given by way of illustration only, and other embodiments of the instant invention will be apparent to these skilled in the art from a consideration of the description. Limitations on the instant invention are to be found only in the claims.
(g) means for notifying a postal authority of said processing of said non local mail so that said postal authority can charge said mailer for said mail.
2. The system of claim 1 further including providing routing information to the trays.
3. The system of claim 2 further including making a determination if the mail trays to be sent by the common carrier to a given location can meet the due time of the common carrier for meeting a scheduled flight.
NL1001862C2 (en) * 1995-12-08 1997-06-10 Nederland Ptt A method for collecting and distributive processing of poststuk- ken. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: My father-in=law has beeb suffering from prostrate acncer for 10 years and up until late last year it was controlled. Now it has been discovered that the cancer has spread to his spine in several places. He has already undergone radiotherapy on two occasions but still suffers with acute pain in his back and now down his legs and around his ribcage. He was told yesterday that his spine is crumbling and an operation is not possible. I am looking for answers to the consequences as I feel he does not ask the appropriate questions when he is with the surgeon/consultant. This could be because he does not wish to know but as a close relation I want to know. output: Hello dear. Your father is suffering from stage 4 prostate cancer. At this stage surgery cannot be done for prostate. However, he requires either surgical removal of testes or medical management for inactivation of testosterone produced by the testes. Then he will be requiring chemotherapy and hormonal therapy as a part of treatment. He also requires bone strengthening agents 9 bisphosphonates) Hope that solves your query.. |
Session #336: Anthony Faiano on Victory Mindset
Anthony Faiano is an ICBCH Certified Professional Hypnotist, Public Speaker, and the Owner of Victory Mindset. He is a United States Air Force veteran and during a 21-year career, he progressed from Aircraft Mechanic to Support Staff Supervisor and Master Resilience Trainer. He has an Associates degree in Aeronautics, Aviation, and Aerospace from the Community College of the Air Force.
Check out the new on-demand hypnosis workshop: “Six Steps to a Six-Figure Hypnosis Business.” Yours free, right now at https://JasonWebinar.com/
Anthony joins me today to discuss the victory mindset. He highlights why you don’t need to shut down one thing to launch another, and instead, create a seamless transition over time. He shares why you should not overcomplicate your hypnotic approach and why you should focus on using your client’s expectations as an opening for where change can occur. Anthony shares his work on resilience skills and team building and discusses learning what you don’t like to do to create a path towards discovering your niche. He highlights the advantages of leveraging active and passive business strategies and how you can craft your pre-talk to ensure your client’s buy-in. Anthony also shares a metaphor he uses in smoking cessation sessions and the importance of being a resource for your community.
“ Trust in your own artful skill to take the principles and create something that is authentic to you, because if you do that, you’re not likely to break rapport.” – Anthony Faiano
Why you shouldn’t overcomplicate what hypnosis is in your mind and why you should deliver what your client expects
The types of people who are reaching out for resilience skills and training
Anthony’s individual and group-administered team-building exercises
Knowing your audience when broadcasting your services
What is working for Anthony to bring in clients and how he has achieved a high social media conversion rate
How to craft your pre-talk, use metaphors, build rapport, pre-frame the experience, and ensure your client’s participatio
Podcast: Hypnotic Language Hacks
Podcast: Session #85 – Business Active vs Passive Strategies
Podcast: Session #330 – Kevin Lepine- Hypnosis Unleashed
Connect with Anthony Faiano:
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Victory Mindset on Facebook
Anthony Faiano on YouTube
Anthony Faiano on LinkedIn
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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, Session number 336. Anthony Fianno on Victory Mindset. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business six. Sets. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. I am so excited for you to hear this conversation with Anthony Fi, who’s out of Pennsylvania here in the usa, to hear his background with many years of service in the military and a passion for how people produce change, how people solve problems, and even better, how it is that people take action.
In their own lives. Uh, the reason I invited Anthony to this program is that, again, many of you may already be inside of another career, another path, and there’s an interesting nuance in this conversation here with Anthony, that there’s a specific timeline. Already laid out in terms of when one career will come to an appropriate end to really free up the time to launch something very different moving forward.
This is a conversation that often I get into with people inside of hypnotic business systems, or even some of the folks I do private consulting with One to one. It’s this idea that we have to completely shut down one. To launch another, and briefly a bit of a personal story. First I allowed myself to incubate, is the phrase that I now stand by.
I was coming out of the career working in backstage production and professional theater, and I had a window of about maybe nine months where we knew the move to Virginia was imminent. And over time, I was gonna be leaving that theater career and going full time in hyp. having this in mind, I spent the next nine months taking whatever trainings I could fit into my schedule, working on my websites, beginning to produce content, creating the basic infrastructure of my business, which is where as we moved then at that point, from Maryland down to Virginia, only about an hour and 15 minute, uh, move or so by the time I landed.
At that time, all I had to do was find an office and I already had a fully established business. Even better. Oh, there was a waiting list on the website now taking, uh, names for a waiting list for upcoming appointments, and I was able to broadcast a message to that audience of people who had already expressed they wanted more from me.
And I bring this up in relation to the conversation you’re about to listen to here with Anthony, because in many ways he’s been somebody who’s been embodying. Already working, already helping a ton of people and building everything at over. So it’s gonna be this seamless transition over time. I knew this was a story that’s gonna be beneficial to many of you out there.
You could head over to the show [email protected] We’ll make it easy for you. This is episode number 336, so just go to work smart hypnosis.com/ 3 36. That’ll bring you directly over to the show. To see more from Anthony and how to get in contact with him while you’re there. Check out hypnotic business systems.com in terms of growing your own successful business, making these transitions.
It’s a whole lot easier. It’s a whole lot faster with strategies that actually work. Inside of our industry, as much as I’m the person who likes to say business is business, what we do is a bit unique and off the beaten path. So when you have the right words in the right order at the right time to express the value of what you do as a hypnotist.
It’s a whole lot easier to attract that ideal audience and bring them in as your clients. You can check that [email protected] though again, a free preview is available with a presentation you could watch on demand, six steps to a six figure hypnosis business. You can get that right now by going to jason webinar.com and with.
Let’s jump directly into this week’s conversation. Here we go. Episode number 336. Anthony FAO on Victory Mindset. The first time I was introduced to hypnosis, I was in the Air Force. It was around 2000 and. I was, let’s say, working hard and playing way too hard, and so I decided I needed some hobbies, took myself to a pawn shop for a guitar on the counter.
Was a book Had to hypnotize your friends. I, I couldn’t pick it out of a lineup today. I read it. I used the one script in it. My friends were aircraft mechanics in the military. They were not the kind to make you feel good about yourself. and my first friend dropped right in. I started modeling his hands.
I started snapping in front of him. He wasn’t responding. And then I told him that the water underneath his chair was gonna be beer for the rest of the night, and he would. Think it was the best tasting beer ever. And I was like a kid playing hide and go seek that you’re in the room. And he’s behind the couch giggling cuz I was, I was almost giggling with how exciting this was.
he wakes up, he starts drinking this water and won’t let anyone take it out of his hand. Mm-hmm. . And is convinced that the tap is the keg, the tap water is the keg and all night. So I thought, man, that’s. We do like to paraphrase that as the official professional moment of, Holy shit, it’s actually working.
Well, that was the beginning of it. Yeah. So the, the actual moment is when a, a woman came up to me, uh, one of the women that I knew, and she said, Do you mind if I pause that story for a second? Because I wanna go back. Because Air Force engineers, right? Crew chiefs, crew Chief mechanics. Yeah. But I mean, clearly these are, uh, analytical people who require special techniques and are hard to hypnotize.
They’re also people who like to make fun of you for failing. So then I was being tongue and on the expectation of that one , trust me, they were waiting for me to fail so they could make fun of it. Yeah. When it worked, we were all kind of shocked, but. When this woman came up to me and asked me to get rid of her fear of crickets out of all things, that’s why she never hung out at night.
But nobody knew that. She said, Can you help me? And of course I said, Yeah, absolutely. But I had no clue what I was doing. Mm-hmm. . And so I just imagined what it would be like if I had a fear, what would I need? I need to hold it. I need to see them, but not have a reaction. So in that moment, all I did. I hypnotized her according to the script.
And then I just gave her that experience. When she came out of it, she immediately went outside looking for crickets. She had no fear of them. Nice. And that was the moment I thought, I can really help people with this. And so I just started reading. So it was 2000. So I was going around looking for PDFs that somebody would’ve thrown up online and I could read it.
And I got as much as I could until, you know, moving on to the first hypnosis academy that I was exposed to. So I, I love that nuance though, of just the chance encounter of going to the thrift store, looking for the guitar, and here’s a book. Uh, and I know you said you can’t really pick out the book the same way that one of the first things I ever found, it was horrible and I wish I still had it.
Uh, but the language was, memorize these words that ought to work. And okay that to, to the credit of that book, sometimes the lesson of what not to do is the lesson of what to actually do. And I went, I need to actually learn the language beneath this. And that may be why. You know, so much of what I do now is the fascination of this word versus that word.
And why you may not remember the exact book. Can you remember like some of the themes of what that induction may have been in terms of Absolutely. Yeah. Go. I remember it started at the top of a flight of steps. Yep. When I would ask the person to imagine about halfway down those steps was a colorful, relaxing mis that you were gonna walk into.
So it was almost a reverse progressive muscle relaxation. Every step made you go deeper in, into that state. And then once your feet were in it, then you can feel, move up to your knees. And then it was a, a, some, some sort of progressive muscle relaxation. Until you were fully immersed, you could feel that there was a door to your right and through that door was the beginning of whatever you were gonna get into.
Yeah. Yep. Nice, nice. I’ve heard the anecdote that often we end up falling back on the stuff that got us started. Are you still using traces of that at all these days? I use what my, when, if I can pick up, um, my client’s expectations. If they come in here and said, So you’re gonna relax my whole body, right?
Like start at the top, go to the bottom. I am going to do a progressive muscle relaxation. I’m gonna meet their expect. I’m not gonna show off. The tendency is like, well actually check out this instant induction. I just learned, you know? And then you go your break rapport. So I, I didn’t wanna do that. And, and the one lesson I learned that I take with me from that book is I was helping people before I actually knew what I was doing.
Yeah. And I don’t have to overthink this process. This is supposed to be something fun and creative and help somebody at the same time. And that’s what’s brought me into it, even. Yeah. So then from the sudden discovery of she’s out there looking for crickets and naming them and keeping them as pets, I’m sure.
Uh, what was the next step along that journey then, in terms of going further into it? Reading books, Um, I realized a lot of the books that the library had or that I found in self-help sections. Didn’t give me what I was looking for. It talked about more philosophical, this is how hypnosis works, and at the same time, how do I make that happen?
So I started to overcomplicate it in my mind, and then I ran into the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy and signed up for that and really got a structured look at things. And shortly after getting that, I found you. And that’s, that is when the whole journey. Seeing somebody that lives so close to me having a successful business in this.
It’s one of those things where you think back to high school and you go, Nobody ever told me I could do that. Yeah, I would’ve done that. Yeah. Thank you for that. And let, let’s look at the strategies inside of that though. I’m curious to ask the over complication, and that’s something that I kind of found this window of time, probably 2012, 2013, of catching the places where.
I was, and this is where the whole theme of work smart Hypnosis came from, of adding stuff to the process that really didn’t have to be there expecting that certain rules had to be followed in almost a rigid structure. Can you, can you think of any of those complications that you realized you were able to take out?
Well, listening to Freddy Jack, I think it was on your podcast. The Jack winds seem to want to simplify everything towards bare bones. Yeah. And there’s a lot of art that goes into that, and I’ve seen none of the academies, I wouldn’t say the mm h a or yours, or a lot of the trainings I’ve taken. I seek that simplification of the process.
I seek the freedom in building those things. So I haven’t run into too much of that. I, I guess the closest thing would be kind of, Progressive muscle relaxation stigma. I know the intention is to get away from just that and to have, you know, a more robust way of meeting your client’s needs. However, I, I felt like it was a little demonized in the beginning.
Mm-hmm. . And I think, yeah. I don’t think we need to demonize it. There’s a time and place for it. Like, there is other things. If, if that’s the expectation of your client, why deny them? It’s, it’s a very easy need to. Yeah. One of the greater benefits as I look at something that I heard Michael Elner say many years ago was that he goes for anything, stress, for anything, pain, for anything that’s bothering your client to simply do that creates the opening in which now change can occur.
Yes. Uh, so, So to ask yourself instead of this technique versus that technique, Well, what does this serve and what will it be helpful for? Or even with that one, you know, I, I kind of defaulted to go, well, I will say I do prefer an alman induction because, It’s a give and take. There’s interaction the entire way through, but now I can use the PMR as a technique inside of the session to satisfy a different point.
Sure. You could use it as a deepener. Yeah. I mean, Elman’s great because of the, the feedback it provides, the person doing it, the, the, it’s loaded with. Everything you would want in an induction. I, I do think that’s quite the standard. And to, just to mention something that you’ve done with it. Uh, the mental relaxation.
People like to play games with that part. Uh, some of the clients I’ve had like to see if they can just keep counting down and I, I know what they’re doing, but writing your name in the sand and having the waves come and, Oh yeah, that is money. That is money. Because they disappear every time and they. I’m mentally relaxed now.
Yeah. And credit to actually, I think I heard Don Moten do that. Okay. Uh, many years ago. And so then looking at this journey of now going off, taking one training, taking another one to kind of refine the skills we live by the Scott Sandlin line of not necessarily learn from people who disagree with each other, which, just ten second anecdote there.
There was someone in a Facebook group the other day trying to pit this training versus that one, and I’m like, I just have to swoop in and just call out the fact you realize we’re all friends. And we like each other and we send people to each other’s trainings and we all say nice things about each other.
You’re putting a presupposition of competition. That’s just not the case. , absolutely. We all sit in each other’s workshops and cheer each other on and say, Oh, go take this person’s thing. But by having the education, I’m curious to ask you, coming from another career, can you talk a bit about some of the transition to, to get out there and start to do this for.
Absolutely. Uh, coming from a military career just under 22 years in the Air Force. Yeah. And, you know, aircraft mechanic. Then I was an admin. I had broken my back. I was an admin and I was happy to get out cause I knew I was gonna be doing something I loved to do. And I, I did get some. Because it’s, it’s victory mindset is a total hypnosis is my change therapy.
Yeah. But I offer coaching too, and I offer resilience skill building. Nice. And that is something I, I took from the Air Force. I was a master resilience trainer, and I would train on a set of skills that were research based to increase your resilience and bring your stress down. But what we learn in hypnosis is to de traumatize first.
And so having hypnosis in my tool, Really puts me above, um, not above, but it offers more. For the client to learn because we would you traumatize? Yeah, let, let’s branch off of that for a moment because I’d even call out, just as an example it, it’s where, because of the Hypnotic Language Hacks podcast, because of the influence program that I also do, there’s a different audience that’s now finding me in a different way.
Mm-hmm. , and they might be hiring me for consulting around the business and their different industries. Here’s an accountant I’m working with, Here’s a contractor. It’s that place where just like you said, the hypnosis satisfies a specific point where normally where there would be a block, now it becomes the, Oh good.
Let’s do something about that. Um, so, so where is it that you’re seeing the hypnosis fit in? What role is that satisfying differently than the other tools for you? Oh, well, somebody wants to come and learn how to be more resilient, right? They, they’re often stressed out already. They’re overwhelmed by life.
And then when I learn that actually, What’s happening for you? I ha I have one specific client I have in mind right now. What’s happening for you is you’ve had trauma in your past and we need to disconnect you from that. Yeah. So, because the reactions will help are bringing your stress level up, you feel like you don’t have control over your reaction.
So I want to teach you this resilience thing, but first, let’s get you nice and present, you know, and, and of course, by the time, one of the resilient skills is mindfulness. You’re gonna be a lot more mindful when you’re. Traumatized still. And so that it just, it makes the next step of any coaching process because ultimately I would imagine if I didn’t have it, I would run up into a wall with the coaching process and I wouldn’t have any tools to get around it other than just talking their ear off, which why not do it while they’re hypnotized,
So I say sometimes we just don’t wanna argue with the conscious mind. Let’s just Yeah. Get in there and resolve it. I, I love that theme. Of, you know, clearing away what’s there so that these skills will become even more effective. Now when you say resilience training, like who is it that you’re finding is responding to that?
Who is it you’re finding is seeking that out or discovering it and realizing that they want it individually? Right now it seems that single parents have been the ones to reach out for that, and usually within the first year or two of becoming a single parent, it, it could be very stressful to make that adjustment and.
They will teach this to their kids as well. Ultimately, uh, one of the parents will come in here and learn these skills and then go home and teach it. Now the nice thing is I’m used to giving it in a corporate setting with the military members and what I can do. For a corporation and I can create a team building exercise.
And the way it builds the team is it teaches people how to be more resilient. But at the same time, when we’re doing the exercises, we’re giving real examples from our life. Mm-hmm. . And I’m seeing people look at each other and say, I didn’t know that about you, man. That’s, And I see relationships begin the.
Based on common experiences that they never even knew they had. And so it’s a very deep team building exercise where you start seeing people hang out outside of work now people living, uh, you know, telling you I learned this thing and it’s helped my marriage. And that for an employer to be able to give that to their workforce, they’re gonna get people coming in less stressed and better moods, more in control of their life with goals and, and mm-hmm aware of their strengths, the things that they can do to feel comfortable and be.
Nice. That’s something that you’re doing in a group format, then it can be offered either way, it can be offered, uh, via coaching, um, individually or in a group format. Absolutely. Nice. Is that the messaging that you’re putting out then in terms of this is the service, this is the offer, Or is that what it then morphs into?
Like what’s the structure of how they’re then realizing this is what we’re about to do? This is what I’m seeking. At this point it’s going to be word of mouth. Yeah. My first client that, that brought me in for public speaking slash resilience is Proctor and Gamble, and they had me, me come in and and train their leadership on stress management, and of course I could incorporate.
These resilient skills. I could also incorporate some of the techniques that we learn in training. And they loved it, but then covid happened and they didn’t want anyone on their property, so, Right. Yeah. I’m still waiting to hear back. Um, I’ve been told that it, this will pick back up again at some point, so I’m, But you know, I, I’ve moved into a, a different area and I’m approaching those, I’m actually meeting a, uh, a business.
Uh, medical business for pain management. So I am a bit all over the place. It is my first year and I am, yeah. I’m actually learning more of what I don’t want to do, which again, he keeps coming up. But shout out to Scott Sandlin. Mm-hmm. . I listen to that episode. My office is inside a drug and alcohol rehab facility, uh, outpatient treatment.
It’s all counselors and my office is in the back and. They had me work with a couple of their people and oh boy, I, I think Scott May have downplayed how hard it is to work with certain addictions. It, and I don’t mean he downplayed it deliberately. I think he’s that good at it. Yeah. But, whew, I, it’s not the client that I’m looking for.
Oh, I think there’s something inside of this, which is that, and correct me on this, that, you know, there, there’s a specialty. In terms of, let’s say, service in terms of modality, that inside the coaching, here’s also the hypnosis. Mm-hmm. , here’s also the resilience training and, and that’s part of the specialty and.
Given the military background, when someone sees that people do business with people that they know, like, and trust. Yes. And it, it’s where, I mean, I can give the example of I had someone working in the office at one point, and if it was a person who was in the Navy, uh, I was able to say, I’m gonna have you work with him.
Well, I wanted you. Yeah. But he’s been through the same things and he’s gonna get the scenario. That’s why you’re gonna work with this person if there’s some sort of connection the same as you know. Here’s someone who mentioned some sort of more ongoing psychological disorder, and I would go, I’m confident I can help you.
However, here’s a psychologist in the area who’s a phenomenal hypnotist. Let me give you their information. Yeah, and I, you know, to the drug and alcohol side of it, I had briefly, um, I was not seeing them to come off of heroin, but it was a specific treatment center that as they were clean, they would share my name as someone as the resource to go for everything you’re looking to build.
He can help you to get there. And I was very clear on that role of going, I’m not seeing you for this side. That’s what that team is for. Uh, they’re working on what you’ve been through. I’m helping you with where you’re going, which is also what they’re doing as well. Sure. And there’s something to be found around.
We can do something enough to a point that we do realize eventually, Oh, that’s my special. Right. So that’s what I’m really good at. And likewise too, um, there are certain things that we do enough over time that you go, You know what, I’ve done that. And, um, it’s my business, it’s my sandbox. Uh, I don’t necess.
I had someone who called me for something, which, uh, let your imaginations go exactly where you’re gonna guess . At one point, I was the only male hypnotist in the area. So when someone calls up and says, Oh, Laura, over at this other practice sent me your way, and it was a male voice, Ah, yes, yes, I know where you’re going.
And now I look at it and go, Okay, I’ve done that quite a bit. And yes, we have. You know, they always make sure they’ve gone the medical route. Make sure they’ve mentioned the idea that they’re seeing a hypnotist for this. Sure. Uh, but I’m the one going, You know what, here’s three people I know who would be phenomenal.
And it’s not for any lack of confidence in helping with that issue. Right. It’s to say after, you know, 12 plus years, This is what I’m focused on right now. I thought you like this in your work . Um, I just send them to you. No. So to have that ability where we can say, this is what I do well. Um Right. And I think sometimes it’s a better choice to have done a bit of everything.
So it’s not just the one track mind. I’ve, I’ve wanted to niche. I’ve, I’ve listened to your stuff on, I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about it. , I will, however, you know, I have this, any hypnotist has this massive toolbox to, to work from. Yeah. And a lot of times it’s a matter of, boy, I really like working with pain clients because I like when they get up and they, and it’s gone and they do this little celebration in my office and, Yeah.
Yeah. No one tell everybody they know, you know, there’s just something magical about that. Um, and, but then, You know, and not every paying client will be the same. I, I just, I am right now just focused on helping as many people as I can, and of course, being honest with myself when it’s not my job to help them.
And, uh, and, and through that, through the experience. I will find a niche. I guarantee it. Well, there there’s a, there’s a sit on the fence place in the middle, and this is the official teaching position I have now, which is to say you can be that generalist if you go to the what still is, the Virginia Hypnosis website.
Mm-hmm. , of course. Named after Virginia Satir. We all know that, of course, broadcasting from Orlando. Uh, but if we can look at, you know, that site and yes, there’s two services that are prominently there for clients, and then there’s a dropdown with like public speaking and, uh, weight loss and other items.
The message is anytime you’re gonna broadcast something, niche down the message. We can have different broadcast streams. The metaphor is I if you’re blowing that dog whistle as soon as you’re okay, that you don’t want everyone running to one message. And the beauty of it is, here’s a webinar that brings in most of my clients right now, which is very much talking about business confidence, imposter syndrome, fear of failure, Um, and yet here’s a client who just came in for a fear of something very different.
She made the calculation, I bet he works with this. So we, we have that ability to broadcast, but it’s where if the opportunity comes up to be in a networking event, don’t do the anything and everything. Pick one specific. And when I go to networking events, it’s usually like, the one I’m going to tonight is for an orthopedic center.
Oh yeah. That’s clearly pain management. Know your audience. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Oh, hey, I can help you quit smoking to be like, what are you doing here? Yeah. I I definitely, when I’m out representing the business, I, I know my audience, although, Then again, um, big three, smoking, stress, weight. As soon as we remove any of those three, uh, comfort tends to increase.
Absolutely. And these are people who often are having to make the recommendation that, hey, here’s what we can do to help you out. However, if you would do this thing, it would help you even further. And they’re often in the place. Kind of like back to what you said around, you know, the coaching and the resilience training, that there’s a place where we kind of.
Get a block of just advice as to go, you should do this, and now here you are is the resource that now represents, I can also help you with that. Right? And, and educating the area is a big deal. There are some hypnotists up in Harrisburg, which is about 45 minutes from my office, but. Even the people in this town, I, I’ve realized after a year I will wear my, my shirt out and say, Have you heard of this?
Yeah. No. What is it? Is it a beer? I say, Well, not yet, but ooh. Right. Thanks for the business idea. But yeah. But yeah, so getting my name out there, I, I think my first year in business could be summarized as an education. Mm-hmm. , the paid education. And yeah. My second year I seek to establish myself. Um, now that I.
I have a great idea of how this works, and I’m, I’m only on the tip of the iceberg at this point. And, uh, once I establish myself, then the growth, you know? Yeah. So then what is working right now to bring people in? What is working right now for people to find you? Interestingly enough, uh, Instagram, which I’ve never had before.
I had a business. I put my random thoughts as I have them. Yeah. And I put them out there and people have said, I like, Your philosophy on things, and I wanna work with you. Yeah, that’s, that has been the bulk of my social media. I have a pretty good conversion rate for someone with not a whole lot of followers.
I’m about to open up a bunch of new stuff, stay tuned, um, . But for now, that, uh, Facebook ads did pretty good. I was on a podcast, a small business podcast for Central Pennsylvania, and boy, I was on that podcast and the next month my schedule was, Beautiful. And so just the exposure, because I opened a year ago under Covid.
It’s been very difficult. Now I’ve, I’ve gone to Harrisburg’s Rotary Club. I, I had a, a mentor one time. Tell me something about Rotary Clubs and, and educating the public on what we do. Yeah. About that. I think his initials were jail or something like that. I’m not sure. But, but it’s really worked out well because it’s put me in touch with some people who, Networked.
I mean, they’ve lived in Harrisburg their whole life. Their family has been business owners their whole life. And it’s just, Oh, we have this new person here and we’ve never had this before. Let’s see how we can use ’em. Mm-hmm. , And that’s the right audience who, once you present what you do, they’re already thinking of ways where you fit into their life.
Yeah. As soon as people realize, and this is one of those biggest elements we did in a, in a private community that I run, uh, there was someone who was running into a challenge. That they were focusing so much of their effort, building these sort of more long term strategies of videos that, you know, even with this podcast, it’s the long game that people, it took some years for people to start to really find it and really to take off.
Or even just putting things on a YouTube channel, and that always has to be balanced out. We did an episode on this years ago, and, uh, my amazing team of editors will now find the episode about, uh, active versus passive strategies and put it in the show notes for this episode. Uh, but that whole thing that.
We need to do both. And, and it’s a, it’s a balance over time that the stuff that, let’s call it out, seems to be a little sexier. Mm-hmm. , I’m gonna create a product and I’m gonna create a webinar and drive people through it to sell it. Yes. And that is the foundation of most of my business now. Right. Yet early on, we’ve gotta balance it out with Rotary.
One example, anywhere that people gather, look for built-in audiences and ask what can I share with them the same way? You’ve got the event tonight. Here’s what they’re gonna find value in. Um, You mean you’re not gonna do an all about hypnosis talk, Anthony? I’m not. Aw man. Will not . No. There’s so much more I have learned that the bigger picture, you, you can tell ’em about hypnosis, but if you zoom out a little bit and tell ’em where it fits in to their life or, or even using the shameless examples.
Names they recognize that have used hypnosis. When I’m talking to a school, I’m gonna talk about Mike Tyson having a hypnotist, and I’m gonna talk about Tiger Woods having a hypnotist. And if anyone’s thinking of getting accepted for a full ride to a college for sports, why wouldn’t you give yourself the edge?
Yeah. You know, and right there, I mean, using what’s current. Uh, my phone, oddly enough, is sitting off to the side right now, uh, which is where if anyone recognized the app, someone was sending me messages on Voxer and my sound was on. Uh, but right now, today as we’re recording, Tom Sereno, who’s been on this podcast, uh, for being on 90 day fiance, that’s got a whole bunch of, uh, Google alerts for the word hypnosis, but then 1, 2, 3.
Four news alerts about, and this movie came out a while ago, uh, Reese Witherspoon, Uh, Okay. Talking about using hypnosis to get rid of panic attacks for a certain movie that she filmed. Um, and again, use your industry as we stand on what’s around us right now, and, you know, let it be seen as you said, how this fits into the puzzle.
That that’s one of those biggest things to broadcast that message and amplify that as. Absolutely. And recently there was a song that was put out, It was a rap song of all things, and I caught wind of it and the rapper in that, uh, his name was Hobson, went through a pretty dark time and it was hypnotherapy that got him out of it.
I never knew that. And mm-hmm. , I made sure. I clipped that section of the song. I found him talking about hypnotherapy. He, he described it as the woman reaching into his soul and ripping it out of him and then cleaning it and putting it back. And I thought, Oh nice. I’m gonna put this on social media, . Yeah.
And you know, and I even sent him some messages, you know, thanking him for, Being so open about it because not many people will say that unless they’ve worked exact, You know, somebody who’s heard of somebody working with a hypnotist still maintains this level of skepticism. But somebody who’s worked with somebody who’s done the work often will just tell everybody.
That’s what I’m finding out. Nice. Nice. So let’s, let’s go to this then. Somebody is now working with you. Mm-hmm. and we’ll, we’ll leave it general for now, cuz I’m always curious to ask, is there a through line, is there a theme in terms of. Where the work has now gone for you, that you’re, you’re like many people that have come from different schools of thought, all of which do compliment each other and to use the word you also use the artistry comes then in terms of how we bring it all together, right?
So what’s kind of that user experience as someone’s now working with you? As far as what techniques do I prefer, like metaphors, It’s an intentionally vague question to see where you take an answer. It’s an artfully vague question. Look at that, right? . I was intentionally artfully. There you go. Yes. Very good.
I. Absolutely had no idea. I mean, I’ve heard it a million times in my training, the power of metaphors and, and boy, the metaphor can be the thing that tips the scales in their favor and in the favor of meeting their goal. The metaphor, the embedded commands, just the, So what we do is, I find the most important thing that I make sure I say specific things is that pre-talk, it’s another thing that you hear it in your training, but if you craft that pre-talk and I put so much responsibility on them in the pre-talk, it’s it almost, you know, it causes them to have to participate.
How do you do that? Okay, so they come in and they say, You’re gonna fix me, right? And they say, Oh yeah, it’s just like that. That’s what I do. You sit down, you go to sleep, and you wake up all better. And they say, Oh, okay, great. I So actually you’re gonna do some work too, . So I say hypno hypnosis is not mind control.
It’s not me taking control of your mind and fixing it for you, even though that’s, I know what you think is happening. This is how hard it’s gonna be. I’m, You’re gonna hear me talk to you the whole time. I’m gonna say, imagine you’re standing in a field and you’re gonna lay there in that recliner and you’re gonna do all that work of imagining you’re sitting there in the field and then your conscious mind could just go out to lunch.
And they said, I can do that. I said, Well, so it’s a thing we’re doing together. You understand that, right? So I can talk to you, but if you’re not gonna participate, you might as well just leave. And they say, Oh yeah, no, I’m in. Okay. And so I build, after I know there’s a rapport, I tell them, This is something fun and exciting we’re gonna do together.
I let them know there’s gonna be some things that happen during the session that might have you thinking, Wow, how is that happening? And that’s okay. You can just let that relax you even deeper. And then, and I just draw the conclusion during the pre-talk, so this is what it’s gonna look like. And I preframe their experience and say, Next time you open your.
After I tell you to close ’em, you’re gonna find that even if you wanted to smoke, even if you wanted to eat more than you should, it’s just gonna be impossible because you’re a new person. And the whole I, there’s a part of me that says the entire hypnosis session happens in the pre-talk, and then you act it out.
Yeah. And you hear these things in training, but in a real world situation, when you have somebody sitting there, You realize, why didn’t that work? Why, why wouldn’t they go in the hip? Oh, they thought I was doing it to them. I forgot to mention that. And then you really learned to craft that pre-talk, to have those things that highlight their experience.
And I’ll tell you, you don’t even need a double bind at this point. You’re the professional. They’re here that I’ve never done this before, half the time. And, and you walk ’em through it and it. It’s almost creepy to see them get out of that chair and just go off into life with this new way of doing things, which was exactly what you opened with, which that’s, that’s a thing that, and I’d say this from an instructor mindset.
That can be a hard thing to teach sometimes. Um, or at least it was until again, our good friend metaphor crept in to go, Oh, that’s how we do it. And I always go back to, and again, second time referencing him here, uh, Michael Elner, who I, I took some amazing courses from him. I traveled up to New York twice to just to go take a training with him and already knew him.
To the respect of the techniques he taught, you got results because you were in the room with him. Mm. And, and, and people would hear that now and go, Oh, because you knew who he was. Like, no, they, the people didn’t necessarily have the same prestige. It was that, as I’d characterize it, you were in a room with someone who, from the most loving perspective possible.
Refused to believe how solid and real that problem was. Hmm. You were in the space with someone who, cr And that’s something that I’ve brought into what I do that, Who was it? Marie Forlio I got mad at for the phrase, everything is figure, everything is figureoutable. I’m like, Damnit. I thought of that too.
You did it first and said it better. Uh, it’s a theme apparently with me. Uh, but this, this idea that there’s, you know, some sort of way around everything. Absolutely, and we can figure, and it’s again about creating that space where the stories, this is, you know, out of metaphor, this is where one of the things that I’m leading on this year is making sure people realize, especially with Metaphor, all of your stories serve a purpose.
And if you’re not intentionally choosing the stories, and this is painful to people, editing out the parts of the story that don’t serve the story. You know? Yeah. That’s where now we can get into it in a much deeper way and realize that, as you said perfectly earlier, this is where now we can lean into those embedded commands of the stories.
We can pull out those quotes and change that perceptual position and fire off an extremely direct command to somebody in the context of a story. And it’s about creating that space where as I brand it now, it’s conversational influence reinforced by hyn. It, It’s exactly, you’re right, you’re right about that.
And if it, if it’s okay, one of the metaphors that I had created for, Oh yeah, go for it. Smoking clients. I’d love to share it with your audience, please. So oftentimes when, uh, it’s happened a handful of times, but now I just incorporated this into the first session. I always saved it in case they came back.
But so the metaphor is, I want you to imagine yourself driving in a car and the person driving is that old friend. It’s a friend that’s been there for you. He’s been there in times of stress. He’s been there in times of fun. He’s been with you since you were whatever age they tell me they started and I said, But that friend’s keeping a secret from you and that friend.
Is gonna drive that car off a cliff. He’s driving you to your death. And so now I need you to take control. I need you to demand that the friends stop the car. So they stop the car and then I have them walk around, open the door and tell them to get out as they get in and take control back of that vehicle.
As they drive away, they look into the mirror and notice that that feeling that used to connect them to their friend has now been replaced by. That as they drive away, the feeling of comfort goes further and further as they get smaller and smaller. And until you’re fully into, I can’t go back and pick them up.
That’s a threat. They want me dead, and that’s the metaphor I give them and it just locks it in the place. Mm-hmm. . Which so many people would be the Yeah. But it was my friend. Yeah. But this thing supports me and, you know, we can sit there and the, the mind will sometimes butt up against advice. Mm-hmm. . But now to paint that story inside of, uh, inside of a metaphor, it’s a very different response.
Um. I have a slightly inappropriate version. Do you wanna hear it? Of course. Okay. So the disclaimer is always to credit the comedian, John Malanney. Uh, you can curse as long as it’s a quote. Absolutely, because then I’m not saying anything offensive at any way whatsoever. But it’s where if I ever hear any traces of, uh, well, it’s my friend, it was there to support me.
Well, you know, a couple of years ago I did have someone who came in and she sat there for a moment and I could see, I could pinpoint the moment visually where she quit smoking. And it was in the conversation where she says, Yeah, but it’s my friend. And then I saw this shift occur and I hadn’t done anything yet.
And she goes, But then again, I realized my friend was best friend in real life, was sleeping with my husband. So I got rid of her. I got rid of him. Might as well get rid of the cigarettes too. And I’m just sitting there wide eyed like you really just said. Awesome . You’re like, Well, we’re done. You can go.
Yeah. It’s like, and close your eyes and take everything, you know, solidify it and open your eyes. You’ve got this. Um, that’s amazing. We, we did the work. But again, you can catch that moment. And, and, and I always wanna stress this. It’s not for the sake of, here’s another technique. It, it’s instead this place where it’s the texture.
This is what we call compound. That we can drop a story in the pre-talk intake conversation. We can reiterate a story during the session as well. Is there a time that you’ve had something happen with a client? Look to Universalize, What happened as a technique you can use with others? I don’t, I don’t necessarily think I do have a specific example of that.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah, that, that’s one that I sometimes hear of where again, we can model that success and create that space where just this is the place where this thing happens. Yeah, I just make sure it, it’s a lot of it. I put so much emphasis on the pre-talk. Yeah. Um, and the post hypnotic suggestions, just how I’m very careful how I talk to them.
I’ve, I’ve heard myself giving people embedded commands to undo everything. I just did on accident. How so? Uh, you know, Hey. Don’t go out there and light up a cigarette when you get out there, you know what you do now. It’s like, what did I just say that for ? Why wait, come back in here. I gotta start. No wait, Mulligan, come back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that’s, you know, one of those things, just making sure that the pre-talk is appropriate. But I will say this and what I’ve learned with metaphor and trusting your own artful skill to take the principles and create something that’s authentic to you. Because if you do. You’re not likely to break rapport because that also has a piece of you in it, and if you establish rapport being yourself, then the metaphors having that piece of you in it are only gonna continue to enhance that rapport.
Yeah. Which, that goes back to what you said was working for you in terms of, you know, Instagram. And the same is true of any online platform. I, I’d be very open. About how a big chunk of my business changed, thanks to not just the fact that this podcast goes out to a larger international audience than what the local practice used to.
It was where, and you can play this game by finding videos online, where at one point there was a more put on professional demeanor of Virginia hypnosis and there was the more laid back with work Smart. And it’s as the two mesh together as one. And it wasn’t having to turn on In an episode a couple of weeks ago with Kevin Lapine, he talked about how, you know, a performance style of taking those aspects of you and just simply elevating.
You know, in terms not just being someone else, but I’m taking these parts of me and letting that be the focus. Is there a story that kind of stands out though in terms of kind of the same way that the hypnosis journey began? The, Oh wow, it’s working. She’s looking for the crickets. Yes. Is there a story that comes to mind of working with someone where, let’s say even you were surprised Yes.
Of the change. It was one of my first clients. The person came in here, migraines, Uh, but. My mother had migraines growing up. Nothing like this. This is debilitating. Think of a redhead that will get a migraine anytime they flush. Okay? Mm-hmm. , that’s not a good combination of things. Yeah. Um, heat. This person was passionate.
I mean beyond passionate about working out, would work out and know they’re gonna be down for a day or two with migraine. Mm-hmm. was on every medicine, tried everything, couldn’t go out in the sun, couldn’t get embarrassed, couldn’t work out. Life was miserable. And they came in here and just, I got in the beginning.
I got a lot of this is I, I’ve tried everything, you know, and I went at it with such confidence. I’m like, Listen, this is gonna do it for you. Don’t worry about it. I know this is gonna work. I, I’m a hundred percent confident. And then what I saw a change in her was that she got excited, right? So we went.
Back and forth, and it wasn’t until the second session, but then after the second session, we’re talking, working out twice a day out in the daytime. No problem. I mean, putting up videos on social media of, of the workouts. They were intense and I, they were all high intensity workouts and I thought, really, Oh my gosh.
Like this is a person who could barely drag themselves into my office and I’m watching this person just give it everything they got. And that person expressed massive gratitude for essentially getting their life back. Yeah. Can you recall some of the strategies you used in that? Ooh. Uh, in a jack order and illness, Anything?
Absolutely. Control room. Yeah. , I used Jacqueline’s strategy on the first session, and it had nothing to do with migraines. Uh, it was just a hunch. It was, it had something to do, uh, with the, uh, dream architecture. Just to get rid of the limiting beliefs that were associated with it, that this will never change.
And then the second session was where I did the work on the pain itself. Mm-hmm. . So that was the control room, the time machine. I went back to the younger self to walk her through it and tell her how excited she was gonna be, that this is never gonna happen again for these reasons. Yeah. And the reason I did the work, the second session was waiting for the doctor to get the.
After the first session. Mm-hmm. via a letter to the doctor. So didn’t wanna start the work there until Yeah. The doctor was on board. That’s a, that’s a really great thing to highlight there, Anthony, that you know, and, and this is something that we consistently say, and I say it too, you know, get the referral, get the connection, get at least the acknowledgement that they don’t see any conflict in doing it.
But realize we can still work with that person. We can just work on them, work with them from a different, Yes. Uh, and, and it’s not to say, Oh, get clever and reframe it and find a way around it. No. You worked on, If you had to characterize that first session, what was that sort of through line of that one limiting beliefs that Yeah, it would always be this way.
Yeah. Took care of that in whole, and you know what, If I had to do it all over again, I think that’s a, that is how I would approach it. Around chronic pain is a limiting belief that I’m always gonna feel this way. Yeah, well, I’d say around so many issues that true, you know, you’re talking to that person for quitting smoking.
Well this is what it always is in the morning. Mm-hmm. and story. Uh, well, there’s this guy Jess, who came to see me and he was around two friends of his, uh, he had quit smoking with me and he found out that these two friends were gonna get the deck knocked off the back of their house. This is weird because they were convinced they were to quit smoking together on New Year’s and they went, We can’t go back there ever again.
Um, so they’re just gonna get knocked off and he’s like, You guys, that’s stupid. I met with this hypno guy. He can fix you. Which is not the right term, but Right. They came in, uh, they sent me a nice Christmas card. The two of them toasting wine glasses in the back porch. Exactly, Exactly. We can create that reality.
Where again, well, what if there’s another option? Here’s that’s how. This is how we can create that. Right? And there’s no guessing. If these people are ready to quit, they’re ready to knock piece of their house off. Okay, you’re ready. Come in. So just to call something out, we were chatting about before we hopped on here, that having launched the business and being profitable in year one, which that’s great.
Doing that and launching during a global pandemic. Nicely done, sir. Uh, but I’m sure that’s giving some nice intention towards a refocusing. I know you were talking about putting out a new website in the coming soon days. Where is kind of that focus right now in terms of now moving things? So right now I’m working on an online presence that is going to create more of a community based around victory mindset as far as redesigning the website and bringing more content to people for free.
It, I, I’ve wanted to do that. I’m, I’m strategizing what would be beneficial. We’ve shifted from the pandemic mindset now to, Hey, things are opening up. A lot of people are, have developed a lot of stress about going back in public. Being around other people so much, going back to work, going to university after, you know, being locked up for a year.
And so more of the stress management, more of the anxiety, um, getting rid of people’s anxiety essentially. Yeah. Nice. Those type of things. And really starting now to make a push into public speaking because things are opening up that was just kind of shut down and I was just waiting. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I, I did some online public speaking for the chamber and stuff like that.
It’s definitely not the. Yeah, so having those opportunities. That’s great. Where can people find you? How can they best get in contact with you? Well, they can go to victory mindset.net if they want to, uh, shoot me a message. They can find me on Instagram at underscore Victory Mindset, or they can find me on Facebook at the Victory Mindset.
Awesome, and we’ll link to all that in the show notes [email protected] Anthony, it’s awesome to hear what you’ve been doing with all of this. Getting out there helping a ton of people, and especially to share your story from another career, making that jump, especially loving the themes of resilience and what that means to people, especially to overuse a phrase that’s already been overused now more than ever.
Uh, before we wrap it up, any final thoughts for the listeners? You know, I, I know your audience has made a lot of hypnotherapist, hypnotists, and as a community, the idea of taking us into, quote unquote, the mainstream, or at least the people having us as a viable option. I, I just think that staying current, having the empathy for your client and just really being that resource for the community.
Where a lot of communities don’t have us as a resource, and so developing yourself into the best hypnotist you can be so that when you get clients, as you said, you can specialize in one thing, but people will still be interested if you can help ’em with other things. So staying curious, just stay curious as.
What is next? What else can I help with? Jason Lynette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for subscribing to this program, leaving your reviews online and exploring the back library. Hey, we’ve been doing this thing for more than seven years, so chances are if there’s someone you want to hear more from, we’ve probably had them on.
And likewise too. Even better, getting strategies to grow your business and help you to thrive inside of all of this, you can check out the show [email protected] slash 3 36 to see how to interact with Anthony, and you can also check out hypnotic business systems. Dot com. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
Model what actually works with proven strategies to help your business thrive and survive in any economy. Check that out. Hypnotic business systems.com though. For a free preview, watch the on-demand presentation, Six Steps to a six Figure Hypnosis Business. Get it right now at Jason. webinar.com. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.
Anthony Faiano is an ICBCH Certified Professional Hypnotist, Public Speaker, and the Owner of Victory Mindset. He is a United States Air Force veteran and during a 21-year career, he progressed from Aircraft Mechanic to Support Staff Supervisor and Master Resilience Trainer. He has an Associates degree in Aeronautics, Aviation, and Aerospace from the Community […]
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Professional Hypnotist Certification > Session #336: Anthony Faiano on Victory Mindset |
You are here: Parliament home page > Parliamentary business > Publications and Records > Hansard > Commons Debates > Daily Hansard - Debate
10 Mar 2009 : Column 233
Dr. Murrison: Is the Secretary of State aware of the report published recently by the Royal College of Physicians? It suggests that the move towards compliance with the new working week has resulted in a reduction of quality not only in clinical care but in the training of junior doctors. Does he agree? If he does, what is he going to do about it?
Alan Johnson: I reject it completely, for reasons that I shall come to in a second.
The Government supported the amendment to the directive and its gradual implementation, not least because there is irrefutable evidence that tired doctors present a risk to patient safety. The Government never want a return to a situation that many established doctors will remember only too well. It was common for trainees to work through the weekend until Monday evening, with no provision for any breaks—a continuous shift of 90 hours. They would then return to work on Tuesday morning for another shift of at least 36 hours.
Dr. Stoate: I should point out that there is another doctor in the House. On a serious point, I was one of the doctors who had to work many more hours than is currently legal. Is the Secretary of State aware of a report by Warwick and Harvard universities that showed that doctors who worked 56 hours made 30 per cent. more mistakes than those working 48 hours? Even relatively few extra hours significantly increases the risk of making an error.
Alan Johnson: Not only am I aware of that research, but I intend to quote it chapter and verse later.
In acute disciplines, a working week of over 100 hours was the norm, with most of that time spent directly caring for and even operating on patients, with often the most critically ill patients being initially seen by the least trained staff. That is why it is even more important that there are sensible limits to the number of hours staff work to break that culture once and for all and to ensure that no medical professional is required or expected to work dangerously long hours again. For this reason and many others, the British Medical Association is supporting the full implementation of the directive for all junior doctors.
There is no question but that it has been challenging to work towards full compliance. The NHS has over 46,000 doctors in training at any one time. Incidentally, there is no vacancy problem, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) suggested. On the last set of figures, we had a 95 per cent. fill rate; there is absolutely no vacancy problem anywhere in the country that I know of. This is a service that by its very nature has to operate for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Trainee doctors need to train and work in as many medical disciplines as possible to become good doctors. Hospitals have had to make dramatic changes to how staff work. So, yes, it has been difficult, but it is simply not true to say that the NHS is ill prepared to achieve full compliance by August this year. We have provided substantial financial support to the NHS to help it to meet the requirements of the directive—£110 million in the current financial year, rising to £310 million for the year to come.
We are working closely with the royal colleges, including the Royal College of Surgeons, and with the BMA and all strategic health authorities, to ensure that we have as
accurate a picture as possible of how well prepared trusts are for full implementation. At present, two thirds of junior doctors are working no more than 48 hours per week, and many trusts, including almost all those in the north-west, are already fully compliant with the directive. In December, we agreed a quality assurance process with the SHAs and the royal colleges to examine potential difficulties and ensure that there are action plans to secure full compliance. The first quality assurance return was received at the end of January, the next is due towards the end of this month, and they will then be received monthly until August. The content is routinely shared with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the National Reference Group, on which the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Physicians, the BMA and the SHAs are all represented. There is a rigorous process to ensure that this is being implemented successfully.
There are, of course, still some areas that are struggling: in specialisms such as surgery and 24-hour immediate patient care; or in more isolated, rural parts of the country where there is a shortage of trainee doctors. We have therefore notified the European Commission of our intention to derogate for these areas. It needs to be made clear that the derogation does not mean opting out of the directive: it will mean a maximum working week, for certain disciplines, of 52 hours; and within three years, full compliance with the directive must be achieved.
Norman Lamb: The Secretary of State said that the individual opt-out could not be used for junior doctors, as has been proposed by RemedyUK. What did he mean by that? It seems to me that as long as the individual opt-out applies, it is as applicable to the health service as it is to anywhere else.
Alan Johnson: Yes, the individual opt-out does apply. The mistake is in thinking that there is an ability to get a sectoral opt-out for a complete sector of the working population. I will come to that in a moment.
The Royal College of Surgeons recently argued that there should be a sector-wide opt out for trainee surgeons, who should be granted the right to work a maximum week of 65 to 70 hours—a position that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire has said the Opposition disagree with. I met John Black, the president of the RCS, and his colleagues, a few weeks ago to explain that I could not accept their demands even if I agreed with them, which I do not. My reasons are threefold.
First, even if a sector-wide opt-out from the maximum 48-hour working week were desirable, it is not possible under the terms of the directive. The only opt-out allowed by the directive is not sectoral but individual. Even if a sectoral opt-out were possible, it would not be practical to consider surgical care or any one discipline separate from other specialisms. However, the right to the individual opt-out is not automatic under the directive. The directive does not directly entitle anyone to opt out. It gives EU member states the option to legislate that individuals can opt out—a course that we have followed in the United Kingdom—or to deal with the issue via collective agreements in order to enshrine the same individual rights. In Germany, for instance—this has been cited by the RCS—unions and industry representatives
have collective agreements to use the opt-out in specific professions, including doctors, enabling those covered by the agreement to work 54 to 60 hours a week—but within those agreements staff are still required to make an individual decision to opt out.
The RCS has claimed that there are sectoral exemptions for employees working in the armed forces, the fire service and the police. That is incorrect. The police and the armed forces are exempt only in times of national emergency.
Mr. Lansley: Will the Secretary of State consider the proposal—it came from RemedyUK but moves in the direction that the RCS is looking for—to have, in effect, a collective agreement to allow junior doctors individually to opt for a 56-hour working week?
Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands. Getting a sectoral agreement that allows individuals to opt out would put us in exactly the same position as we are now. We took the legislation route; the Germans, because of their history—they do not even have a national minimum wage, but use collective agreements—took the collective agreement route. The result is exactly the same. Any individual, including junior doctors, has the right to opt out enshrined in the legislation.
Mr. Lansley: Let us cut to the chase. At the moment, the NHS, under the instructions sent by the NHS chief executive to the trusts, does not offer to retain 56 hours. It goes to 48 hours and that is it—an absolute commitment, in the words of the chief executive, presumably at the Secretary of State’s behest. Will the Secretary of State therefore say that that is no longer the Government’s policy for the NHS, and that the NHS is in fact willing to discuss with the BMA, the royal colleges and the associations the implementation of 56 hours based on individual opt-out?
Alan Johnson: There are three reasons I disagree with the RCS. The first is the fact that this cannot be done under the agreement; I will explain later why it should not be done even if it could be. In any case, in the situation that the hon. Gentleman raises, the individual opt-out will be available, but individual workers cannot be coerced into taking it up. It would be wrong for the chief executive of the NHS, or any other organisation, to write to people saying that the 56-hour week is still available. If an individual wants to opt out, anyone can choose to do so under the directive.
Dr. Stoate: Does my right hon. Friend share the worry that if individuals could opt out, it would be case of saying, “Sign this or whistle for your reference”?
Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend makes a really important point. There were serious allegations that that was happening in the early days of the working time directive, but it has not happened since.
I was talking about the emergency services. Normal emergency service activities that can be planned in advance would not allow for the opt-out; it is only there for emergency services when there is a national emergency.
The second reason I cannot accept the Royal College of Surgeons’ recent demands, or indeed the policy proposed by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, is that I
reject the argument that reducing the hours worked by junior doctors will reduce the quality of their training. There is no evidence that with the gradual reduction in junior doctors’ hours over the past 10 years, training is any less effective. The number of junior doctors who fail their training has remained static. We have gone from 72 hours down to 58 hours and on to 56 hours, with the same Jeremiahs saying that that would prejudice proper training, but there is not a single smidgeon of evidence that that is the case. The number of junior doctors who fail their training has remained static. No junior doctor who fails to demonstrate the competencies required is allowed to progress, and we still have one of the most intensive training regimes for junior doctors in Europe.
Having trainee surgeons working longer hours and spending regular periods as a resident on call at night does not afford more opportunities for training, or necessarily mean better training. Very little training takes place in the dead of night, when only very urgent surgery is carried out. Surgery is a technical skill and the way in which surgeons train is evolving. Developments in new technology such as virtual reality surgical simulators mean that there is increasingly and thankfully less need for inexperienced trainee surgeons to practise their skills directly on patients.
Norman Lamb: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Alan Johnson: No, I am not giving way. In some parts of the country where the directive has already been implemented, teams of trainee surgeons work on a shift system with senior trainees on call to deal with surgical emergencies. Others have split elective and surgical work so trainees get to experience both.
My third and final reason for rejecting the call by the Royal College of Surgeons is that I completely reject the claim that a reduction in the working week of trainee surgeons will jeopardise the safety of patients. Those who make this argument—including the Opposition in their motion—claim that to have shorter working hours reduces cover in hospitals. But hospitals are addressing that by organising trainee teams and rotas differently, and it is beyond doubt that doctors who are required to work long hours are more likely to make mistakes that could threaten the lives of patients. As long ago as 1998, my noble Friend the eminent surgeon, Lord Darzi, published a paper in The Lancet on the effect of sleep deprivation on surgical trainees, which showed that being deprived of sleep for 24 hours had the same impact on surgeons’ performance as a blood alcohol level higher than the legal limit for driving.
Most recently, a study by Warwick university medical school—referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate)—on trainees working in Coventry and Warwickshire university hospitals compared the number of errors made by junior doctors working no more than 48 hours with those working no more than 56 hours, and it showed that those working fewer hours made 30 per cent. fewer clinical errors. In the US, where junior doctors work around 80 hours a week, 50 per cent. admit that they have made errors because of fatigue. That reflects the study published in the British Medical Journal in 2001, which showed that surgical trainees were much more likely to make mistakes during the daytime after being on call at night. To complete the
process, a study by the Harvard work hours, health and safety group published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety shows that junior doctors who have worked traditional shifts of more than 24 hours have a greatly increased risk of crashing their car driving home from work, as well as of making a serious, even fatal, medical error.
Over the past 10 years, the NHS has put considerable effort into preparing for full implementation of the European working time directive. It is worth pointing out—this would have been my fourth reason if I had thought of it earlier—that longer hours particularly disadvantage women. Some 60 per cent. of medical students are women. All the professional bodies agreed with the objective when this agreement was signed in 1999-2000. I have no idea why the Conservative party wants to be the champion of long hours and staff exploitation. I hope that the House leaves its arguments where they belong: in the last century. I commend the amendment to the House.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD): I welcome the debate. It comes at a timely point in the build-up to the change in August and it is important because of the massive potential problems that are emerging. I am conscious of an extraordinary gap between what the Secretary of State says about the potential risks involved in the changes and what the professionals working in the service have said, loud and clear. The Secretary of State ought to listen a bit more carefully to the royal colleges, because their analysis of the risks we face as a result of the changes is different to his. He ought to listen to the people working in hospitals, who have experience of the way in which the reduction in hours impacts on patient care.
Mark Hunter (Cheadle) (LD): My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the comments of the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, John Black, of which the Secretary of State has been rather dismissive. Does my hon. Friend agree that for the president of the Royal College of Surgeons to have used language such as “an impending disaster” and to say that these moves would “devastate” medical training and lead to
“dangerous lapses in patient care”,
means that he was making serious criticisms of the proposals, which ought not to be dismissed quite so lightly by the Secretary of State?
Norman Lamb: I am grateful for that intervention, and I agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. Part of the problem in the relationship between the Government and the professions is that the views of the professions are so often dismissed in that way.
Dr. Stoate: The hon. Gentleman is very generous with his time. I would like to quote the British Medical Association:
“The BMA is strongly supportive of the August deadline. Although the 11-year transitional phase for trainees was crucial in ensuring health service delivery was not put at risk unduly, we consider it is now time that junior doctors receive the same level of protection of their health and safety as all other workers in the UK.”
The BMA is in favour of the 48-hour week.
Norman Lamb: Interestingly, when the BMA surveyed its members, they disagreed with the BMA. If we follow the hon. Gentleman’s analysis, we reach the assumption that he is dangerous when providing medical care because, presumably, he is working substantially more than 48 hours in combining this job with that job. He ought to give up his second job on the basis of his analysis of the risks of excessive working hours. There is a great hypocrisy in this place and elsewhere—all of us, by and large, work substantially more than 48 hours a week.
Angus Robertson: On hypocrisy, will the hon. Gentleman allow me?
Norman Lamb: I will give way, because the man is an expert in it. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, I should say that “hypocrisy” is not a word we like to bandy about in the Chamber.
Angus Robertson: I am grateful to the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats for taking an intervention on this point, because he will be able to clarify the concerns echoed by those of all other parties who have spoken this evening. Why is it, when we have all shared concerns about retained firefighters and the problems that getting rid of the opt-out would cause, that the only Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament from Scotland voted to get rid of the opt-out? Please could the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to explain why. Did his colleague disagree with the policy or did she just press the wrong button?
Norman Lamb: The hon. Gentleman appears to be stuck in a groove—he has repeated himself rather a lot on that point. There are always occasions when people do not vote with their party. I suspect that he will even find that in his Stalinist party in Scotland.
Alan Johnson rose—
Norman Lamb: The Secretary of State had enough problems with his own MEPs, and I am sure that he will enlighten us as to why so many Labour MEPs voted to end the opt-out, contrary to his Government’s wishes.
Alan Johnson: I was going back to much less contentious territory, thank you very much. I gave three reasons why I was against the proposal of the Royal College of Surgeons that we should seek a sectoral derogation for a 65 to 70-hour week. I also said that we are working with all the royal colleges and listening to them intently. Is the hon. Gentleman now saying that it is Liberal Democrat policy to support the Royal College of Surgeons in its efforts to get a 65 to 70-hour sectoral opt-out?
Norman Lamb: No, I am not saying that. The point that I made earlier, which the Secretary of State might not have heard clearly enough, is that he appeared to dismiss the concerns that have been expressed by the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians about the risks to patient care. He shakes his head in a rather dismissive way. Will he listen to those concerns? We all want him to acknowledge that he should do that. Does he wish to intervene to confirm that he will? |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: What are the recommended prophylactic measures for preventing atelectasis and pneumonia? output: The recommended prophylactic measures for preventing atelectasis and pneumonia include incentive spirometry and out of bed (OOB) activity.
Atelectasis is a condition where the lungs do not fully expand, and pneumonia is an infection in the lungs. Both of these conditions can occur after surgery or prolonged bed rest, and are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. To prevent atelectasis and pneumonia, patients are often advised to use incentive spirometry, which is a device that helps to improve lung function by encouraging deep breathing and coughing. In addition, patients are encouraged to engage in out of bed (OOB) activity as soon as possible after surgery or prolonged bed rest. This can include walking or other forms of physical activity, which can help to improve lung function and reduce the risk of complications such as atelectasis and pneumonia. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: What are the causes of Haemophilus influenzae infection ? output: Haemophilus influenzae disease is caused by the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae. There are six identifiable types of H. influenzae (a through f) and other non-identifiable types (called nontypeable). The one that people are most familiar with is H. influenzae type b, or Hib. These bacteria live in the nose and throat, and usually cause no harm. However, the bacteria can sometimes move to other parts of the body and cause infection. Some of these infections are considered “invasive” and can be very serious and sometimes even deadly. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I have smelly urine, frequent urination and feel like I am not gonna make it to the bathroom on time, I have pain in my lower region massive pain in lower abdomen when I ejaculate, I had uncontrollable high blood pressure and had a ultra sound they discovered something that they wanted to check out had a ct scan with the dye given all three ways.. I am over weight and my doctor said it will probably come back just as a fatty tissue, but I am worried since 4 grandparents, mother, father and oldest sibling all died of cancer and none of them were lung cancer. output: UTI has got a lot of causes, If u have got enlarged prostate then it might be the cause... Other probability is that you might have got any bladder stone which is giving you UTI along with other symptoms.last but not the least is your sexual partner she should also be examined in order to reach diagnosis. You should also be looked for Prostatitis.you may need to Urinalysis, full blood count, Aerodynamic studies, Cystoscopy, and semen analysis. Do visit the Urologist, and it will help you in diagnosing your case after proper history examination and investigations... Hope your question has been answered appropriately but if. U still got one feel free to ask. Regards. |
The Hub › Archive › 1st Quarter 2018
› Let's Start a Riot
Let's Start a Riot
Star Trek-AOS
Job: Orion Slave
Ship Status: In a ship! (Kala? Naalth? idk)
Nala felt slightly out of place with a pair of leggings on instead of her traditional hip wrap- she certainly had seen the look Padma had given her for it. She grumbled to herself about that one- but the hip wraps were ornamental- not meant for violent physical activity- and Nala had no desire to ruin her clothes by wearing them despite that. She tied her hair up as she strode down the hallway- letting her nose guide her to the person she needed to speak to.
Knocking on the door frame, Nala waited a moment before entering- just enough time that he might not be surprised by her presence. Though she did doubt that he would have missed her scent. Smiling at Taarus, she ducked her head in greeting as she walked into the room.
She had a favour to ask him- a relatively simple one, though she was uncertain how he'd take it. "Hey Taarus- I was wondering if you'd be willing to spar." She began. "I haven't had a chance to get practice in since before my last mission- and Padma- I'd probably punch in the face, simply because she annoys me- and Jaya has more important things to do." Nala elaborated- completely leaving out Kaalth on that list. She had never even considered him for this- she didn't think he'd be willing to throw even a soft punch in her direction.
Taarus
Taarus was slightly surprised when the knock was followed by an entry without any response from him, though he didn’t really seem upset. He had scented her, after all, even through the door. He had a suspicion that the air system was meant to carry pheromones to prepare someone before an Orion girl entered the room, but he wasn’t a builder, he couldn’t rightly say, to be honest.
Fresh from the shower in the other room, Taarus reached for the shirt lying on his bed, getting ready to put it on, but not really hurrying to do so. It was something about the air when her scent was in it, it made putting clothes on seem like moving backwards. So, for the moment, he just listened to her, though he frowned slightly as she listed off the other names she’d thought of. “If it’s fighting you need to do, I shouldn’t be the last person you think of,” he pointed out. Granted, she hadn’t named Kaalth, but then… he had qualified it as ‘people,’ not ‘pets.’ She might, for some reason, not have any esteem for him in other matters, but that was the one area that no one else present seemed to have any sort of comparable experience with.
He didn’t force an explanation from her, though. She was a female, she was going to do what she wanted. Her request wasn’t any big issue, after all. He needed to practice too, and he was fairly experienced with not letting someone’s gender get in the way of him doing what needed to be done in a fight, practice or not. “What sort of practice do you want? I haven’t gotten ahold of many weapons yet.” Now he did (reluctantly) put the shirt on, opening the chest at the foot of his bed. These weren’t his personal weapons, the rifle, pistols, and mek’leth that he wore were hung on the wall, but there was quite an assortment of melee weapons from various worlds that he’d picked up reasonably cheap (or by force) since he’d arrived, and it made one wonder what he would consider ‘very many’ weapons. He didn’t bother thinking about firearms, she wouldn’t want to spar with those.
Nala's eyebrows went up dramatically at his reply, though she appreciated that he seemed to be saying yes. She crossed her arms. "I appreciate that you've been trained with Klingon warriors- but you really think I should have thought of you over my fellow highly trained female agents? Padma and I were chosen for this mission because of our skills- and Jaya and I have been sparring since the day I learned how to- no one can push you harder than someone who can anticipate your every move." She replied smoothly- even as she stole a glance at his body. Nala had to admit, the more muscle he displayed, the more she approved- but the cue of him putting his shirt back on snapped her back to the present.
Where she was in a relationship with Kaalth. Who wanted to be with her forever.
Smoothly continuing her glance around the room, she noted a distinct lack of decoration- likely a habit he had picked up from the military. Or it could simply be that he had been summoned to another reality and didn't have any of his things yet. She watched as he unveiled his chest of weapons which was- impressive. Good to know about if she needed to fight.
Nala flashed her teeth. "Unarmed." She offered in reply, teasing think in her addition. "Where do you think I'd hide a weapon in my wraps? Unless you're not good at unarmed of course..."
Taarus smiled slightly. The training he’d been put through had been much more rigorous and demanding, so that he could be sent to handle the things that these women, who he did acknowledge were most certainly well trained and skilled, couldn’t handle themselves. It was better to risk a male for such things, after all, and while he didn’t really like the implied disregard in that concept, he was proud that he’d risen to the task and been equal to it. None of this, of course, would make a good answer to Nala. “Well, I don’t know,” he said, mock-thoughtfully. “Who is likely to make you learn something new, someone whose style and moves you already know, or someone who’s a mystery?”
He mirrored her smile as she requested a much more intimate form of combat, which was fine with him. Her question, though, drew a sly smile from him. “Depends on how big a weapon you need. We could probably find a place. Probably should only try when you don’t have plans for the afternoon, though...” He left it at that, leaving it to her imagination. He closed the weapons locker, the lock sealing again at once. “All right, unarmed it is. You lead the way.” Just to make sure that she couldn’t claim he couldn’t fight unarmed (which he knew she wouldn’t believe, but still), he produced a few weapons that were hidden about his person and tossed them onto the bed.
Nala rolled her eyes with a laugh and held up her hands. "Alright I concede the point- though in my defense I haven't spent much time around Orion men for a while- the last one. Well-" She frowned at her off topic comment, though she knew it would be better to bring it to a brief point then let it dangle. "He's one of the reasons why I need to stay prepared to fight." She offered softly before clearing her throat and focusing on the present rather than the past.
His remark had her chuckling again even as she fluttered her eyelashes and tilted her head to bare her neck. "Well it's all about how you use your weapon, not what size it is." She offered with a smirk- Nala was no stranger to innuendo, and she wasn't the type to back down. "And if you're only worried about plans for this afternoon, and not all the way up to tomorrow morning- I'm not sure you are." She offered with a wink, even as her mind guiltily reminded her that she was with Kaalth.
Who was very capable of keeping her busy until morning.
Very busy.
Smiling to herself as she moved to turn, she stopped and laughed when he disarmed. "You could have waited until we got there to disarm." Nala teased as she walked backwards out of his room, leading him to an open space not far from the club. Which she certainly hadn't chosen to prevent Kaalth from discovering them in a compromising position. Or to keep the club from smelling like combat. Once there she turned and took a basic stance. "Go ahead- when you're ready."
Taarus cocked an eyebrow at that one. Her wanting to be prepared, that was good. Her needing to be prepared for someone particular? No, that wasn’t good at all. “Why is he still breathing, then?” he asked, very obviously unamused. Hell, he’d go take care of it himself if she’d tell him where… but no, the answer came to him easily enough. “Oh. Let me guess, he’s useful.” That was one line of thinking he’d never been able to agree with the women on. You didn’t leave a wild animal in your house and hope it didn’t bite you in your sleep just because you liked that it ate vermin most of the time, you put it down and found some other way to deal with the vermin. But, unfortunately, he was a male, so he didn’t get to decide things like that, did he.
So as usual, it was better to put that one aside and try to move on to other thougths, which wasn’t exactly hard when he was about to be getting up close and personal with Nala. “I don’t like to assume,” he said, that smirk broadening a bit on his lips. “I don’t know how much you can take yet. I don’t want to go assuming that you’re ready for anything that… rigorous. It wouldn’t surprise me, but I’ve been let down before. If you are ready for more, though, that just means I’m not finished yet.”
Taarus followed her until they were well secluded for their sparring, approving of the fact that they were unlikely to be interrupted. As soon as she told him to go for it, he lunged in with a deceptively simple palm strike to her shoulder. He might not be stalking her, but he had watched her, he knew what arm she favored, and this hit, if she didn’t stop him, would numb her arm for a minute, keeping anything she did with that arm from being very effective. If it hit? Excellent. If she blocked it? She’d find her wrist or arm in a position where she could easily be grabbed. If she dodged it? Well, she couldn’t dodge forever.
Nala gave a half impressed look- and half frustrated because she had obviously been trying to put an end to the questioning. "He was raised without influence from a female Orion- and yes. I'm very good at my job, so I did acquire him as an asset for the Syndicate."
She flashed her teeth now that she was on a different topic. "I don't know- I mean you talk a good game, but I've been-" Nala paused before smiling ever more mischievous. "-let down before." She offered, quoting his previous statement with a pointed look towards his trousers- which she felt made it very clear that the emphasize on down was in reference to an inability to get up instead.
Fighting was easy- there were no conversational hoops to jump through, and Nala didn't have a voice in her head telling her off for flirting with Taarus when she was together with Kaalth. She saw the palm strike coming from a mile away, dropping just slightly down at the last second before lightly hooking his one leg with her ankle and pushing slightly on his back with the intents of throwing him off balance. "You know, even without fighting I do know about pressure points. And I am a trained fighter." She offered with a smirk. "And if you want to put my arm out of use, I'd suggest telegraphing your moves less."
Taarus didn’t even try to argue how stupid he thought that entire line of thinking was. She’d get offended, she’d say something nasty, probably make him say something sharp back, then she’d probably end up hitting him with pheromones and ending the discussion altogether. He’d been down that road before, he wasn’t going to go doing it again.
“Oh, I have no doubt that you’re too much for some people to handle,” he answered easily. “I think you’ll be happy with how hard I’ll work to get you what you need, though.” Damn it… was she hitting him with pheromones already? No… well, no more than just naturally happened as far as he could tell. Was that just how she naturally affected him? That… was possible, actually. Could she actually handle him? Well, he doubted it, but finding out would be fun, now, wouldn’t it?
As far as fighting went, physically she was good. She could do with less mouth on her, of course, but what woman wasn’t going to run her mouth at a man when she could? He didn’t answer her little barbs, just set his weight to keep her from moving him. Then, much faster than the first strike that… apparently she’d seen coming? (what the did ‘telegraphing’ mean?) Anyway, while she was trying to throw him off balance he rapidly shot his elbow to her jaw, then brought that fist down on her shoulder and shoved her aside hard with his hip. "No, if I'd wanted your arm disabled, I'd have just broken it." Which, of course, was true. He'd just needed an idea of her reactions before he really got started.
Nala couldn't help the laugh that his reply, despite a small part of her suggesting that maybe she ought to stay back and use a different method to exercise out her frustrations. With Kaalth. Of course. Because Nala had a boyfriend already. Forcing herself to focus on the here and now, she gave a part smile and ignored the opportunity to shoot back further.
Besides, him trying to slam his elbow into her face was turning her rather frigid. Nala just barely stepped away from that strike- which coincidentally changed the angle he had to hit her shoulder. Gritting her teeth, she absorbed that shock and went to return fire when he hip checked her. Nala was a practiced fighter- so despite her having an off day to allow him those two strikes, she was able to use the momentum as lead up to a spin and kick.
"Yes, and if I needed to disable you I could just hit you with my scent. Neither of these things are really in the spirit of sparring." She replied with a small growl. "Face is off limits by the way. I don't know your control well enough to know that you won't accidentally hit me- and I need my face, considering my job."
Being honest, Taarus hadn’t completely disarmed, because that would have been stupid. He was her security, and if something really went down while they were sparring, being caught without a way to do his duty would have been unthinkable. Right now, though, it was going to come in handy, because she’d just threatened the nuclear option. Taking a deep breath (and taking in her agitated scent was not helping…), he motioned her over, his whole posture falling out of its combat readiness. As soon as she was within striking distance of him, he dropped down to his knees in front of her, and pulled the knife from his boot. “You don’t seem to understand the position of our lives,” he said, not looking at her, “Maybe this will help.” The two tines of the Klingon dagger snapped out as he slapped it into her hand, taking hold of her wrist (despite her flinching) and pulling her closer, angling his head to the side and pressing the tip of the knife in her grip to the soft flesh at his throat, tiny beads of green blood welling up to testify to its sharpness.
He peered up at her, not moving, not letting her go (although that was as far as the force on her wrist went), not letting her pull the dagger back. His whole scent spoke of agitation, stress, something strangely like fear, but it didn’t seem to increase at all in response to the knife. “That d’k tahg was what I was given when I was accepted as a soldier in the Klingon Defense Force. This proves my honor, and that is the only thing I have that proves that there is any value in my life. I am your man. I was called here to make sure you succeed in anything you do, and that you stay safe as long as I’m alive. Even if I cared nothing for you, I’d do it anyway, because that’s what my honor demands.”
His eyes took on a hard, resigned look, as he squeezed her wrist, though not hard. “I don’t know how to make you trust me. But until you do, once a day or any time you tell me to, I will be on my knees, like this. If you even think you have to use your scent to control me, now or any time, drive that knife up into my brain.” His jaw clenched as he went on, locking his eyes on her. “I would rather be dead than a brainless puppet again, but that’s your decision.”
The sudden change in Taarus's attitude was surprising... But Nala could respond in kind. Dropping her hands, she straightened from her stance, and opened her posture so as not to pose a threat. When he dropped to his knees. She momentarily reeled back, automatically trying to get out of striking range- though he was faster and had a grip on her wrist before she managed. His grip wasn't causing damage, but it certainly felt like a shackle on her wrist as she tried to pull herself free.
She only stopped when he pressed the blade against his own throat- not because the gesture had put a stop to her fear, but because she was afraid that if she moved too much, she might accidentally hurt him with it. The tiny beads of blood didn't go beneath her notice- as Nala tried not to shake. She listened to his explanation with fear present in every aspect of her stance. She stood as far away as she could, scent flaring with her emotions, and shoulders shrinking inwards to be a smaller target.
She was a well trained agent, and yet this was all it took to make her feel like she was on her mission, waiting to be hurt again. When he finished speaking, she nodded her understanding before reaching her other hand forward to snatch the knife from where he had forced it. Now that she was not worried she might hurt him, she started pulling on her wrist again.
It took Nala a moment to remember that she wasn't on that hell of a mission and that this man might listen to her. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the scent of her sparring partner, that he was afraid as well. Nala actually kind of appreciated that, meant that she wasn't alone in her fear. Swallowing hard, she finally produced words. "Please. Let go." She murmured, breathing a sigh of relief when he did.
Carefully she leaned over and placed the knife on the ground in front of him before taking a few careful steps back and sitting down in a graceless plop. Pulling her hair pin free, she tapped the tip of it against her thumb, showing him the resulting blood pooling. "I would rather die than be a man's punching bag again." She offered quietly in reply before twisting her hair back into place and returning the weapon to it's place.
Wrinkling her nose, she gave him a small pathetic laugh and shake of her head. "Perhaps we should know each other better before we start sparring again. So let's start by talking first." Swinging her legs to the side to take a more lady like seat, she tapped her fingers on the ground beside her as she thought. "I'd suggest we start off with something light. So. What is your favourite colour?"
Well, he didn’t get a dagger up into his brain, that was a plus. While it might be preferable to what she could do to him, it still didn’t mean he wanted her to kill him. When she set the dagger down, he picked it back up, folded the blades in, and sheathed it, though he kept it in his hand, out of his boot for now. She might have put it down, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t meant what he’d said, after all.
The fact that she was this scared of him when she was holding a knife to his throat (under his insistence or not) could have been laughable if it hadn’t been for the situation they were in. He was threatened by her greatest defense, she was threatened by his, and all the more ridiculous since neither of them seemed to have any reason to even want to hurt the other. Her assertion that she would rather be dead than at the mercy of a man again just drove home how idiotic he thought it was that the brute that had beaten her had been allowed to live, but that was the Syndicate for you. He didn’t make the policy, he just had to do what he was told. Reluctantly, usually. “I’d rather you be alive and be using him as a punching bag.” He shrugged a little. “Or let me do it. I’d be just as fine with that.”
So she called a halt to their aborted sparring, and all things considered, he didn’t think he could blame her for that one. Crouching down next to her, he leaned against the wall, the better to be able to get back to his feet if there were any reason… then he thought better and actually sat down. They weren’t going to get attacked. He didn’t need to be on guard all the damned time, and maybe, just maybe, it would help her calm down around him if he calmed down, too. “Blue,” he answered without much thought. “On a Bird of Prey, everything’s lit in red. On Quo’nos, everything’s lit in red. I went for years being able to count the times I saw anything as blue on my fingers. I’m definitely going to go with blue.”
Nala gave him a small smile at the offer. "Yeah well- if he didn't have strategic value, I would have ripped his damn nose plug off, and I would have had him begging on his hands and knees for forgiveness. Scared him out of his wits maybe." It was one of their less used strengths- but there were pheromones that conveyed danger too, and she could pretty easily manipulate her scent in that way as well. "But I'll keep that in mind if I ever run into some asshole that I can't get the better of in any fashion. And I promise I won't use my pheromones on you."
Recovering a small bit of her bravado, she did wink at him. "Though Kaalth doesn't seem to mind." Nala offered with a laugh. Of course any time she had used her scent on the man, they had both been aware of the situation, and he was pretty used to breathing through his mouth right up to the moment when he decided he wanted to be hit with her pheromones. So a little different than involuntary exposure. Still- it was good to get her mind off of the image of Taarus- and return to Kaalth who if he knew she was scared would have dropped everything to care for her.
Which only made her insides a little warm and gooey. Only a little.
She listened to Taarus' reply with a small tilt of her head- it was one thing to love blue- and completely fair- but the rest was kind of contrary to her opinion... Nala gave a small laugh and smile. "Mine's red. My mom and I are the only ones with red hair in my family- My memories of her, it's the most distinct part. The only part that I don't need to see a picture to remember perfectly. I don't even really remember her or scent." She offered with a reminiscent sigh. "And no matter what technology can capture- it can't offer me the scent of my mother. So I focus on the things I do have." With a small smile she pulled her hair pin free again, though this time she offered the other end to admire- the end covered in red and burgundy gems.
“Yeah, well, strategic value to who,” Taarus said, a bit scornfully. It was easy for the Syndicate heads to decide someone was valuable when their faces weren’t the ones being bruised up. It was a good thing that the Syndicate wasn’t exactly here, and if they did decide to come here, Nala’s family were the people on the ground and would be hard to elbow out of the way. Taarus would probably have to elbow some people preemptively so that they wouldn’t try, but he could manage that.
Not, of course, that he really expected it to be appreciated. Everything around here came back to Kaalth for some reason, like he was in any way capable of handling the situations likely to come up. Fussing like a nursemaid was apparently a more valued talent than eliminating threats. Taarus didn’t bother saying that Kaalth didn’t mind being chemically controlled because he was an idiot. Nala was smart, he was sure that she was aware of the fact.
“I’ve tried to forget my mother,” he said, shaking his head, though he took the hair pin to examine it when she offered it. “She didn’t have any use for a son, she had enough pheromone-slaves that she didn’t need one more. The only real use she had for me was teaching my sisters how to use their pheromones to control men.” The memories came back, that haze of confused, revolted arousal that the then-young boy had been too inexperienced to keep clear of. He handed the pin back with a slightly shaking hand, not wanting to risk squeezing it, given the present reminiscences. “They thought it was a great time. Make mother proud of them, then for the rest of the day they could tell me what a freak I was, reacting to family like that, as if I had a choice. I didn’t get to learn that getting used to family scents takes time until I was almost grown.” Time which, of course, most normal women would keep a low scent up so that the child in question would be able to grow accustomed to it, rather than flood them like a target so that they could never learn to resist. Time which, of course, he hadn’t had any reason to not believe that he was a freak like they’d said.
Nala was blissfully lost on vague recollections of her mother when Taarus's reply came crashing down on her. Without even thinking, her face contorted into a look of utter disgust, body shaking ever so slightly- though unlike the man's residual fear of the situation- hers was largely anger.
Nala retched slightly at the very idea, clasping a hand to her mouth and taking slow deep breaths to try and calm herself. She held one finger up in his direction before walking a few feet away and spitting the acidic saliva out of her mouth. Task completed she returned to where she had been and took a seat again. The very idea of the situation was enough to make her an entirely different kind of green- but if anyone deserved to be ill from revulsion, it was Taarus, not her. Even if her somewhat matriarchal nature meant that she was filled with an overwhelming need to go hurt these woman who had mistreated someone under her protection. Eve. If it happened long before Nala would consider Taarus under her protection.
Finally making words, she croaked- voice husky from the gastric juices in her throat. "I am sorry that that happened to you. You wish to use my mission target as a punching bag- but I think I should like to kill your mother and sisters." Graceless spitting to her side again Nala's nose wrinkled up, her mouth pinching in, as her eyes filled with steel. "I am the only woman in my immediate family- and I won't deny that I have used my pheromones on my brothers- but I used them in a manner of guilting them into doing my chores- the very idea-" Nala cut herself short, taking a large huff of air before turning to make certain he would look into her eyes.
"So long as you are under my protection, no woman will do that to you." She stated, voice low and threatening- though it was but a promise to him. "And if you would like, I will teach you how to tune out a woman's pheromones. It does however require me to use my scent on you- though I will steer clear of arousal- so I understand if you are not comfortable. You should just know that it's an option."
Well, at least she wasn’t looking at him like he was a freak. Compared to that, her nearly being sick was almost, well, comical. “Yeah, that sums it up,” he agreed. “I guess I can’t say much about your guy… my family’s still alive too.” Which, he guessed, was pretty much admitting a weakness, but when it had come down to it, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to kill members of his family. It was stupid, he guessed, but there it was.
“I’ve learned to block them out since then, though. Whenever it was really too much, I used to carry a hypo to paralyze my sense of smell, but obviously I don’t have that anymore. Once it was clear I wasn’t going to put up with the women toying with me, they decided it’d be a good idea to let me run off and enlist in the KDF. Making us look like good allies to the Klingons is supposed to be almost as useful as being a good little thrall like the other men.” He managed to keep the tone of disdain out of his voice through some miracle. He wasn’t a stone, he couldn’t exactly be around a gorgeous woman who wasn’t being horrible to him without getting the natural ideas, but there was a sad truth there: Had he ever actually been with an Orion woman? No, he hadn’t. “You haven’t done anything to make me uncomfortable. Don’t start worrying about changing anything.”
Nala wrinkled her nose and sighed. "It's frustrating- when what you want to do, and what you can do are notably different things." She nudged him with her shoulder in a gesture of solidarity. "If you ever need- my family is very well looked upon by the syndicate- since my mom died in active duty- we could probably get away with some seemingly random murders before they'd start caring." Nala offered with a mischievous smile- though she was confident he wouldn't be taking her up on that offer. For the best since it seemed like she might be needing that leeway considering how poorly she had been doing at everything lately.
It was for the best that they were sitting down-- it stopped Taarus from being able to see that her one arm was shaking, all the way down from the joint he had nailed. Nala half sat on her hand to force it still.
She smiled at him softly. "I'm glad to hear that." She hummed, ready to ask him about his time in the KDF when his offhand comment made her go frigid all over again. She pursed her lips slightly- he may have masked his disdain, but his words said more than enough.
Nala couldn't help the small crease that wrinkled her brow as she looked at her hands folded in her lap. "Is.. There something wrong, with a man choosing to care for the woman he loves? To let said woman care for him, protect him, and build a home together?" She sighed and shook her head. "I understand. That you may be disinclined to the idea of fulfilling a woman's every whim- but why does that make it wrong for other men to want that?"
She stood up slowly, dusting her pants off as she twisted her hair back into place. "Men like my father. And brothers. And Kaalth." She added softly. "You treat Kaalth like he's inferior because he was raised in a different time- and My father- you only know the man that's been alone for a long time. Once upon a time, when the love of his life was alive- he was a man a lot more like Kaalth than like you."
Nala sighed, voice quivering ever so slightly. "So you insult most of the men I care about when you call them 'thralls.'" She shook her head lightly. "I don't care, whether or not you want to be that kind of homemaker- the same way I'd support Jaya if she wanted to be a warrior- But that doesn't mean I have to roll over and let her insult my choices, or those of my family."
03-14-2018, 12:56 PM (This post was last modified: 03-14-2018, 12:58 PM by Taarus.)
Taarus surveyed Nala with an appraising eye as he considered his answer to this. The subject was, even to him, a complex one. He had to constantly remind himself of the way things were, because even to Orions, it was not the way that they were wired to think. Biology, emotional needs, everything was stacked against him being able to keep this idea up every minute of the day. The woman in front of him was just proof of it. In spite of every logical idea in his head, he did care about her, the idea of someone hurting her did infuriate him, and he did want to keep her safe and secure… but it didn’t make them any less true. He decided that he’d go with the truth… or at least a version of it.
“Kaalth is as threatening as a tribble, but he tries to bare fangs he doesn’t have anyway,” Taarus said bluntly, wanting to get this one out of the way. “He infuriates and frustrates me, because every trained instinct I have tells me to cuff him so that he’ll stop and not try to do that with someone who would hurt him for it, and there are those who would. If you want to play with warriors, you learn how to push against the ones who outclass you without threatening them, but he can’t learn that, because I can’t put him in his place. You wouldn’t want me to… so I don’t. Which is, as I’ve said, infuriatingly frustrating.” Even among the Klingons, there were those who tended the crops, there were those who herded the beasts… those jobs had to be done. There wasn’t glory in it, but the warriors didn’t mistreat them, because they all knew they needed them. They never thought to show any attitude to a warrior, though, just like a novice soldier might train with his captian, but wouldn’t dream of mocking him during the fight.
Granted, maybe he was the only one who Kaalth did that to, and for obvious reasons… but he didn’t have any way of knowing, really. He could only judge by their interactions.
And that answer was the easy one to give, compared to the rest of what she asked. “And what should I think of the idea that I should wrap myself up in what someone else wants and not care about myself? The women don’t want a man who’s going to think or challenge them, they want us easily controlled, and we both know how. I could do it, of course, I tried to do it, the showering with gifts, the unending attention… but it was all empty. Making us compete for who’s going to give the most expensive presents or anticipate what hour they want their meals and try to guess at what they want to eat, just to be told we were wrong because it’s fun to see us squirm… that’s not ‘love’, it’s browsing for pets. Your father seems like a good man, a sensible man… maybe he got lucky. I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but I hope he was. But just because some fair better doesn’t mean that I can’t call the lies that our people shoved down at us what they are.”
He deliberately kept himself from shifting to a more defensive posture, because everything told him to close himself up right now, but no… he wasn’t going to. “It’d be nice to be able to believe them,” he admitted, “But I can’t.” The evidence was all around him, after all. Here he was, around women of his own race for the first time in at least a decade, and what did they all want? Someone servile who’d give them the things they wanted. He’d seen what partners were among the Klingons, and that concept just didn’t exist among the Orions, and he found that in some strange way, that... hurt.
Being completely honest, Nala appreciated that he was willing to be straight with her. She still wanted to tear him a new one for it- something she promptly started on when he finished his tirade against Kaalth. "Hold on for a moment- because you have one thing fundamentally wrong. Kaalth may bare his teeth to you- but that's because he's afraid I'll want you more than him. Beyond that he would rather leave than inflict pain of any kind that was not to protect someone he loves." Nala began, though she winced internally because okay maybe Kaalth's fears weren't entirely unfounded. She was definitely attracted to Taarus- but that didn't mean anything. Physical attraction was not the same as emotional attraction.
Even if she maybe liked being able to have conversations that didn't end simply because Kaalth chose the answer she'd like best.
She growled in response to his next comments. "You know what, you're right, I do like to be pampered. Almost like when I come back from being a slave to someone else, I'm disinclined to do even more work. Because unlike you, I know true slavery." She took a deep breath before starting in on her tirade again. "Do you think it's easy to just flip my hair and make men dance to my scent? Because it isn't. Even among those who are willing, like Kaalth, if they are even slightly hesitant they are fully capable of resisting. Yeah it sucks that your mom and sisters were complete bitches, but I don't exactly have it easy. I've spent years of my life toiling away in the worst jobs available- or as someone's pleasure slave, there only for the purpose of having someone who will fuck you however you want."
She stood up, anger radiating from her. "You talk about who can give the most expensive presents- I might as well be property. Even when I'm at home- any man I marry is expected to pay my father for me. Because there will always be a quantifiable number of what I am worth." Nala crossed her arms and glared down at him. "Not all women behave that way. I will say when I am hungry, I don't care what you make- even if it is disgusting I have likely eaten worse, I try to give presents in return, and if a man shows no interest in being under the influence of my scent- I will not use it on them.You judge all women by the actions of a few- and see their actions as attacks where there isn't a threat. A lot of my friends who do play with men like that- it's a test Taarus. To see how patient they are, how loyal, how much the man genuinely wants to be with her."
She turned her back and started walking back to the Goddess. "If it was empty to you, then it's because you were chasing the wrong woman." |
Tag Archives: Johnny Horton
1959: The Battle of New Orleans — Johnny Horton (Columbia)
1969: Running Bear — Sonny James (Mercury)
1979: Nobody Likes Sad Songs — Ronnie Milsap (RCA)
1989: I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party — Rosanne Cash (Columbia)
1999: Write This Down — George Strait (MCA)
2009: Then — Brad Paisley (Arista Nashville)
2019: God’s Country — Blake Shelton (Warner Bros. Nashville)
2019 (Airplay): Whiskey Glasses — Morgan Wallan (Big Loud)
Charts Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, George Strait, Johnny Horton, Morgan Wallen, Ronnie Milsap, Rosanne Cash, Sonny James
2 Comments Posted by Jonathan Pappalardo on June 9, 2019
1969: Singing My Song — Tammy Wynette (Epic)
1979: She Believes In Me — Kenny Rogers (United Artists)
1989: A Better Man — Clint Black (RCA)
1999: Please Remember Me — Tim McGraw (Curb)
2019: Whiskey Glasses — Morgan Wallan (Big Loud)
Charts Brad Paisley, Clint Black, Johnny Horton, Kenny Rogers, Morgan Wallen, Tammy Wynette, Tim McGraw
1 Comment Posted by Jonathan Pappalardo on June 2, 2019
1979: If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me — The Bellamy Brothers (Warner Bros/Curb)
1989: Where Did I Go Wrong — Steve Wariner (MCA)
2009: It Happens — Sugarland (Mercury Nashville)
2019 (Airplay): Good As You — Kane Brown (RCA Nashville)
Charts Johnny Horton, Kane Brown, Steve Wariner, Sugarland, Tammy Wynette, The Bellamy Brothers, Tim McGraw
Leave a comment Posted by Jonathan Pappalardo on May 19, 2019
1969: My Life (Throw It Away If I Want To) — Bill Anderson (Decca)
1989: If I Had You — Alabama (RCA)
2009: She’s Country — Jason Aldean (Broken Bow)
2019 (Airplay): Eyes On You — Chace Rice (Broken Bow)
Charts Alabama, Bill Anderson, Chace Rice, Jason Aldean, Johnny Horton, Morgan Wallen, The Bellamy Brothers, Tim McGraw
Leave a comment Posted by Jonathan Pappalardo on April 7, 2019
1959: When It’s Springtime in Alaska (It’s 40 Below) — Johnny Horton (Columbia)
1969: Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass — Buck Owens and his Buckaroos (Capitol)
1979: I Just Fall in Love Again — Anne Murray (Capitol)
1989: I’m No Stranger To The Rain — Keith Whitley (RCA)
1999: How Forever Feels — Kenny Chesney (BNA)
2009: It Won’t Be Like This for Long — Darius Rucker (Capitol)
2019: Beautiful Crazy — Luke Combs (Columbia Nashville)
2019 (Airplay): Beautiful Crazy — Luke Combs (Columbia Nashville)
Charts Anne Murray, Buck Owens, Darius Rucker, Johnny Horton, Keith Whitley, Kenny Chensey, Luke Combs
Classic Album Review — ‘The Carl Smith Anniversary Album: 20 Years of Hits’
Leave a comment Posted by Paul W. Dennis on February 5, 2019
During the late 1960s-early 1970s, Columbia Records tried to mine their back catalog of songs by releasing two album sets with gatefold covers. These typically took three different directions:
A) Mixed artists compilations of singles, album tracks (often Columbia artists covering hits of artists on other labels).
B) Compilations of an artists’ miscellaneous older singles and album tracks into a two-album set. In some cases (The World of Ray Price comes to mind) the singles would represent remakes of the original hits recorded in stereo and often with slick ‘Nashville Sound’. In other cases (such as The World of Johnny Cash, The World of Lynn Anderson, The World of Tammy Wynette or The World of Flatt & Scruggs) the compilation consisted of album tracks from out of print albums with perhaps a few singles mixed in 1960. C) Re-recordings of an artist’s greatest hits, but not utilizing the slick ‘Nashville Sound” production often associated with country production of the period. I can think of only two albums that fit
C) Re-recordings of an artist’s greatest hits, but not utilizing the slick ‘Nashville Sound” production often associated with country production of the period. I can think of only two albums that fit in this category. One of these albums was The World of Johnny Horton, where Columbia had some material in the can which had light post-production applied to some tracks after Horton’s premature death in 1960.
The other album was The Carl Smith Anniversary Album: 20 Years of Hits.
Largely forgotten today, or remembered as the father of Carlene Carter, during the 1950s Carl Smith was a huge star, ranking behind only Webb Pierce, Eddy Arnold and, Hank Snow among the stars of the 1950s. His songs were solidly country; however that was nothing revolutionary or pioneering about his sound as many of Carl’s hits could have fit comfortably on 1940s country playlists. Although his success fell off sharply after rock & roll hit, still he persevered long enough to roll up 93 chart hits by the time he retired in the mid-1970s.
Although Carl had a very good voice, there was too much east Tennessee in Carl’s voice for him to make the Jim Reeves/Eddy Arnold/Ray Price turn toward pop balladry and his voice was far too deeply masculine for him to record the effeminate sounds of rock & roll or doo wop. Still he continued to have a number of top twenty hits during the 1960s. Although Merle Haggard is given deserved credit for the western swing resurgence of the 1970s, Carl’s music had been turning toward western swing sounds during the latter 1960s.
With this album, many of Carl’s biggest hits were recast as western swing, with other songs given a more jazzy feel just short of western swing.
Here are the songs on the album with some comments on each:
“Hey Joe” was a 1953 hit for Carl, spending eight weeks at #1 in 1953. This recording has a definite swing arrangement.
“Back Up Buddy” reached #2 for Carl in 1954
“She Called Me Baby” was a minor hit for Carl (#32 Billboard / #20 Record World) in 1965. The song was a cover of a Patsy Cline hit from 1962 and Charlie Rich would take the song to #1 in 1974. The arrangement on this version differs little from Carl’s 1965 recording with some extra horns being the main difference.
“Deep Water” would prove to be Carl’s biggest hit of the 1960s, reaching #6 on Record World and #10 on Billboard in 1967. Written by Fred Rose and recorded by Bob Wills (among others), this version differs little from Carl’s 1967 recording, with some extra horns being the main difference.
“Foggy River” was the follow-up to “Deep Water” breaking into the top twenty. The arrangement is an up-tempo modern country arrangement minus the strings of the Nashville Sound. Kate Smith had a pop hit with the song in 1948.
“Pull My String And Wind Me Up” was a top twenty hit for Carl in 1970. I recall hearing this on the radio so I think that this was the jazzy version released as a single.
“Heartbreak Avenue” was released as a single in1969. The song is a slow ballad and features a bluesy arrangement and vocal by Carl.
“Good Deal Lucille” was a single released in 1969 that broke into the top twenty. The version on this album swings a little harder than the single release.
“It’s All Right” was not released as a single but has a nice swing feel with some nice saxophone.
“I Love You Because” was a #3 pop hit for Al Martino in 1963 and was recorded as an album track that same year by Jim Reeves (and was released as a posthumous Jim Reeves single in 1976). The song was written by blind country singer Leon Payne and reached #4 for Leon in 1949. Carl’s 1969 release reached #14 – the single was very similar to this recording. Basically, the steel guitar is the lead instrument for much of this track.
“I Overlooked An Orchid” was an early recording for Carl Smith. Released in 1950, the song never charted but was a regional hit for Carl, and apparently sold quite well despite its lack of chart activity. The song would become a #1 hit for Mickey Gilley in 1974.
‘Mister Moon” was Carl’s second hit from 1951, a song that reached #4 and spent 17 weeks on the charts. The song features standard country production but no strings or background singers.
“I Feel Like Cryin’” reached #7 in early 1956 as the B side of “You’re Free To Go” which topped out at #6. Again the song features standard production minus strings, but with some harmony vocals.
“There She Goes” reached #3 for Carl in 1955 and spent 25 weeks on the charts. Jerry Wallace would have a pop hit with the song in 1961. Once again the song features standard production minus strings, but with some harmony vocals.
“Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way” was Carl’s fourth chart hit for 1951 and his biggest ever hit reaching #1 for eight weeks and spending thirty-three weeks on the charts. This recording is a slow ballad with a jazzy, but not western swing, feel to it.
“Loose Talk” was Carl’s last #1 single reaching the top in early 1955 and staying there for seven weeks during its thirty-two week chart run. The song would be a big hit for the duo of Buck Owens & Rose Maddox in 1961 and become a country standard. The song was written by Freddie Hart and verges on western swing in this version.
“Are You Teasing Me” is a cover of a Louvin Brothers song that reached #1 for Carl in 1952, his third consecutive #1 record. This version is given a jazzy arrangement.
“Don’t Just Stand There” was the following up to “Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way” and it also spent eight weeks at #1, although it faded off the charts after only twenty-four weeks. I would describe this recording as solidly western swing.
“If Teardrops Were Pennies” reached #8 for Carl in 1951, his third charted single of the year. Porter & Dolly would take the song to #3 in 1973.
“I Betcha My Heart I Love You” dates back to Bob Wills, and while no one ever had a hit with the song, it was a staple of many country bands for years. Wanda Jackson had a nice recording of the song, but Carl’s rendition here really swings. Carl himself recorded the song in 1950 but without any chart action.
The Carl Smith Anniversary Album: 20 Years of Hits remains one of my favorite albums, one that I pull out and play frequently. Over the years I have dubbed it onto cassette tapes and also made digital copies of the album. To my knowledge, it has only ever been released on vinyl.
Carl Smith is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and while his 1950s output has been adequately available his post-1950s output has been shamefully under-represented in the digital era.
Album Reviews, Retro Reviews Bob Wills, Buck Owens, Carlene Carter, Charlie Rich, Dolly Parton, Eddy Arnold, Flatt & Scruggs, Fred Rose, Hank Snow, Jerry Wallace, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Kate Smith, Leon Payne, Louvin Brothers, Lynn Anderson, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, Porter Wagoner, Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, Ray Price, Rose Maddox, Tammy Wynette, Wanda Jackson, Webb Pierce
Classic Rewind: Johnny Horton – ‘Sink The Bismarck’
2 Comments Posted by Occasional Hope on June 6, 2018
Classic Rewind Johnny Horton
Album Review: Conway Twitty Sings
4 Comments Posted by Razor X on November 3, 2017
Conway Twitty’s first country album was released by Decca in 1966. It shared its title with his first rock-and-roll album that had come out seven years earlier. Unlike other rock-and-roll artists like Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, none of Conway’s rock records had crossed over to the country charts. Although he had grown up listening to country and professed that it was his first musical love, he was initially viewed by many in the country music community with skepticism and suspicion. Later in his career he would introduce influences from pop and R&B into his music, but at this early stage he and producer Owen Bradley bent over backwards to establish his country credibility. This is a hardcore, steel guitar drenched country album from start to finish, that largely eschews the Nashville Sound trappings that were prevalent in the 60s. The vocal choruses are kept to a minimum. Stylistically, the album reminds me of the music that Connie Smith and Charley Pride were making at the time over at RCA.
Conway Twitty Sings contains Conway’s first charted country hit, “Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart”, written by Liz Anderson. A mid tempo number with a rich melody and plenty of pedal steel, this would probably have been a bigger hit had it been released a few years later. It charted at a modest #18, but that was enough to give Conway a toehold on the country market. There were no further singles released from the album and it would be another two years and five more singles before Conway reached the Top 20 again (with 1968’s “The Image of Me”, which would peak at #5).
The rest of the album follows the standard 1960s practice of covering other artists’ recent hits. The Gordon Lightfoot-penned “Ribbon of Darkness” had been a #1 hit a year earlier for Marty Robbins — and would be a hit again in 1969 for Connie Smith. Twitty’s version is too reminiscent of the original Robbins recording; even some of Conway’s enunciations sound like he was channeling Marty. I was a little disappointed in this one; nor did I care for his take on the Johnny Horton (and 20 years later, Dwight Yoakam) hit “Honky Tonk Man”. One would think that this rockabilly number — the only one of its kind on the album — would be tailor-made for Conway Twitty, but this version just doesn’t work.
The rest of the album, however, is stellar and his versions of these songs are all at least equal to the original artists’ renditions — from the Curly Putman-penned Porter Wagoner hit “Green, Green Grass of Home” and Bill Anderson’s “Tip of My Fingers” to “Truck Driven’ Man” which had been a hit for Terry Fell in 1954. A young Buck Owens had sung harmony on the Fell recording and Buck later went on to record “Together Forever”, which Conway also covers on this album.
My favorite track is the country weeper “I’ll Have Another Cup of Coffee (Then I’ll Go)”, in which the protagonist is trying to prolong a visit with his soon to be ex-wife and children. I wasn’t previously familiar with the one but it was a Top 5 hit for Claude Gray in 1961.
Conway Twitty Sings is not one Twitty’s best remembered works, nor is it essential listening. It provides only a glimpse of what Conway would go on to become, but the material is exceptionally strong and it’s always interesting to look back at a legend at the very beginning of his or her career. It is available on a 2-for-1 CD along with his next Decca LP Look Into My Teardrops. These sound like needle-drop recordings; the original masters may have been destroyed in the infamous Universal fire, but the sound quality, while not stellar, is quite adequate.
Album Reviews, Retro Reviews, Spotlight Artist Bill Anderson, Buck Owens, Charley Pride, Claude Gray, Connie Smith, Conway Twitty, Curly Putman, Dwight Yoakam, Elvis Presley, Gordon Lightfoot, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Liz Anderson, Marty Robbins, Owen Bradley, Porter Wagoner, Terry Fell
Best reissues of 2016
Leave a comment Posted by Paul W. Dennis on December 28, 2016
As always most of the best reissues come from labels outside the USA. In those cities that still have adequate recorded music stores (sadly a rare commodity these days) , it can be a real thrill finding a label you’ve not encountered before reissuing something you’ve spent decades seeking. It can be worthwhile to seek out the foreign affiliates of American labels for recordings that Capitol hasn’t reissued might be available on the UK or European EMI labels.
The fine folks at Jasmine Records (UK) can always be counted on for fine reissues:
SHUTTERS AND BOARD: THE CHALLENGER SINGLES 1957-1962 – Jerry Wallace
Jerry Wallace wasn’t really a country artist during this period, but he was a definite fellow traveler and a very popular artist and very fine singer. This thirty-two track collection includes all his early hits (except 1964’s “In The Misty Moonlight”) , such as million (and near million) sellers such as “How The Time Flies”, “Primrose Lane”, “There She Goes” and “Shutters And Boards”. From about 1965 forward his focus become more country and he would have two #1 county singles in the 1970s
THE NASHVILLE SOUND OF SUCCESS (1958-1962) – Various Artists
I will just list the tracks for this fine two disc set. This is a good primer on a very important era in country music
Disc 1 1958-1959
1 THE STORY OF MY LIFE – Marty Robbins
2 GREAT BALLS OF FIRE – Jerry Lee Lewis
3 BALLAD OF A TEENAGE QUEEN – Johnny Cash
4 OH LONESOME ME – Don Gibson
5 JUST MARRIED – Marty Robbins
6 ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM – The Everly Brothers
7 GUESS THINGS HAPPEN THAT WAY – Johnny Cash
8 ALONE WITH YOU – Faron Young
9 BLUE BLUE DAY – Don Gibson
10 BIRD DOG – The Everly Brothers
11 CITY LIGHTS – Ray Price
12 BILLY BAYOU – Jim Reeves
13 DON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN – Johnny Cash
14 WHEN IT’S SPRINGTIME IN ALASKA (It’s Forty Below) – Johnny Horton
15 WHITE LIGHTNING – George Jones
16 THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS – Johnny Horton
17 WATERLOO – Stonewall Jackson
18 THE THREE BELLS – The Browns
19 COUNTRY GIRL – Faron Young
20 THE SAME OLD ME – Ray Price
21 EL PASO – Marty Robbins
1 HE’LL HAVE TO GO – Jim Reeves
2 PLEASE HELP ME, I’M FALLING – Hank Locklin
3 ALABAM – Cowboy Copas
4 WINGS OF A DOVE – Ferlin Husky
5 NORTH TO ALASKA – Johnny Horton
6 DON’T WORRY – Marty Robbins
7 HELLO WALLS – Faron Young
8 HEARTBREAK U.S.A – Kitty Wells
9 I FALL TO PIECES – Patsy Cline
10 TENDER YEARS – George Jones
11 WALK ON BY – Leroy Van Dyke
12 BIG BAD JOHN – Jimmy Dean
13 MISERY LOVES COMPANY – Porter Wagoner
14 THAT’S MY PA – Sheb Wooley
15 SHE’S GOT YOU – Patsy Cline
16 CHARLIE’S SHOES – Billy Walker
17 SHE THINKS I STILL CARE – George Jones
18 WOLVERTON MOUNTAIN – Claude King
19 DEVIL WOMAN – Marty Robbins
20 MAMA SANG A SONG – Bill Anderson
21 I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE – Hank Snow
22 DON’T LET ME CROSS OVER – Carl Butler and Pearl
23 RUBY ANN – Marty Robbins
24 THE BALLAD OF JED CLAMPETT – Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys
Another UK label, Hux Records, continues to issue delightful product:
HERE’S FARON YOUNG/ OCCASIONAL WIFE – Faron Young
After mucking about with more pop-oriented material for a number of years, these two fine Mercury albums (from 1968 and 1970) find Faron making his way back to a more traditional country sound. It must have worked for the singles from these albums (“’She Went A Little Bit Farther”, “I Just Came To Get My Baby”, “Occasional Wife” and “If I Ever Fall In Love (With A Honky Tonk Girl)” all returned Faron to the top ten, a place he had largely missed in the few years prior.
THE BEST OF TOMMY OVERSTREET – Tommy Overstreet (released late 2015)
Tommy Overstreet had a fine run of country singles in the early 1970s, most of which are included in this albums twenty-six tracks, along with about eight album tracks. While Tommy never had a #1 Billboard Country song, four of his song (“Gwen-Congratulations”, “I Don’t Know You Any More”, “Ann, Don’t Go Running” and “Heaven Is My Woman’s Love”) made it to #1 on Cashbox and/or Record World. Tommy’s early seventies records sounded very different from most of what was playing on the radio at the time.
Hux only releases a few new items per year, but in recent years they have reissued albums by Johnny Rodriguez, Connie Smith, Reba McEntire, Ray Price and others.
http://huxrecords.com/news.htm
Humphead Records releases quit a few ‘needle drop’ collections which our friend Ken Johnson has kvetched. The bad news is that for some artists this is necessary since so many masters were destroyed in a warehouse fire some years ago. The good news is that Humphead has gotten much better at doing this and all of my recent acquisitions from them have been quite good, if not always perfect.
TRUCK DRIVIN’ SON OF A GUN – Dave Dudley
This two disc fifty-track collection is a Dave Dudley fan’s dream. Not only does this album give you all of the truck driving hits (caveat: “Six Days On The Road” and “Cowboy Boots” are the excellent Mercury remakes) but also key album tracks and hit singles that were not about truck driving. Only about half of these tracks have been available previously
BARROOMS & BEDROOMS : THE CAPITOL & MCA YEARS – Gene Watson
This two disc, fifty-track set covers Gene’s years with Capitol (1975-1980) and MCA 1980-1985. Most of the tracks have been available digitally over the years, but the MCA tracks have been missing in recent years. The collection is approximately 70% Capitol and 30% MCA. These are needle drop but the soiund ranges from very good to excellent. There are a few tracks from the MCA years that have not previously been available in a digital format, but most of the material will be familiar to Gene Watson fans. Of course, if you buy this collection and are not already a Gene Watson fan, you will become one very quickly. I would have preferred more tracks from the MCA years since most of the Capitol tracks have been readily available, but the price is right and the music is timeless.
The folks at Bear Family issued quite a few sets this year; however, very little of it was country and none of it essential. There is an upcoming set to be issued in 2017 that will cover the complete Starday and Mercury recordings of a very young George Jones. I’m sure it will be a terrific set so be on the lookout for it. We will discuss it next year.
Although not essential FERLIN HUSKY WITH GUESTS SIMON CRUM AND TERRY PRESTON is a nice single disc entry in Bear Family’s Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight series. Simon Crum, of course, was Ferlin’s comedic alter-ego, and Terry Preston was a stage name Ferlin used early in his career. The set contains thirty-two tracks of country bop, proto-rockabilly and comedy that should prove enjoyable to everyone, along with Bear’s usual impeccable digital re-mastering and an informative seventy-two page booklet.
I don’t know that the music available from Cracker Barrel can always be described as reissues since some of it has never been commercially available before.
During the last twelve months we reviewed WAYLON JENNINGS – THE LOST NASHVILLE SESSIONS
Our friend Ken Johnson helps keep the folks at Varese Vintage on the straight and narrow for their country releases
THAT WAS YESTERDAY – Donna Fargo
This sixteen track collection gathers up Donna’s singles with Warner Brothers as well as two interesting album tracks. Donna was with Warner Brothers from 1976 to 1980 and this set is a welcome addition to the catalogue.
FOR THE GOOD TIMES – Glen Campbell
This sixteen track collections covers the 1980s when Glen was still charting but no longer having huge hits. These tracks mostly were on Atlantic but there are a few religion tracks and a song from a movie soundtrack from other sources. For me the highlights are the two previously unreleased tracks “Please Come To Boston” (a hit for Dave Loggins) and the title track (a hit for Ray Price).
SILK PURSE – Linda Ronstadt
This is a straight reissue of Linda’s second Capitol album, a fairly country album that features her first major hit “Long Long Time” plus her takes on “Lovesick Blues”, “Mental Revenge” and “Life’s Railway To Heaven”
On the domestic front Sony Legacy issued a few worthy sets:
THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION – Roy Orbison
This twenty-six track set covers Roy’s work on several labels including a couple of Traveling Wilbury tracks. All of these songs have been (and remain) available elsewhere, but this is a nice starter set.
THE HIGHWAYMEN LIVE: AMERICAN OUTLAWS
This is a three disc set of live recordings featuring the Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. To be honest, I prefer the studio recordings, but this is a worthwhile set
Meanwhile Real Gone Music has become a real player in the classic country market:
LYNN ANDERSON: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION
This two disc set provides a nice overview of one of the leading ladies of country music during the mid-1960s through the mid- 1970s, covering her work for the Chart and Columbia labels. Although not quite as comprehensive on the Chart years as the out-of-print single disc on Renaissance, this is likely to be the best coverage of those years that you are likely to see anytime soon on disc. Forty tracks (15 Chart, 25 Columbia) with excellent sound, all the hits and some interesting near-hits.
PORTER WAGONER: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION
There is a lot of Porter Wagoner material available, although much of it is either remakes or gospel songs from the Gusto family of labels. For a comprehensive look at Porter’s career it has been necessary to purchase one of the pricey (albeit excellent) Bear Family collections.
This two disc set has forty tracks, twenty seven of Porter’s biggest hits and thirteen key album cuts and shows the evolution and growth of Porter as an artist. While there is some overlap with the Jasmine set released last year (The First Ten Years: 1952-1962) about 60% of this set covers from 1963 onward, making it a fine complement to the Jasmine collection. This is straight Porter – no duets.
DIAMOND RIO: THE DEFINITIVE HITS COLLECTION
I’m not a real big Diamond Rio fan, but I have quite a few of their albums. If someone is interested in sampling Diamond Rio’s run of hits during the 1990s, this would be my recommendation. Fabulous digital re-mastering with all the major Arista hits such as “Meet in the Middle,” “How Your Love Makes Me Feel,” “One More Day,” “Beautiful Mess,” and “I Believe,” plus favorites as “Love a Little Stronger,” “Walkin’ Away,” “You’re Gone,” and one of my favorites “Bubba Hyde”.
EACH ROAD I TAKE: THE 1970 LEE HAZELWOOD & CHET ATKINS SESSIONS – Eddy Arnold
This is one of the more interesting collections put out by Real Gone Music.
The first half of the disc is the album Love and Guitars, the last album produced for Eddy by Chet Atkins. Missing is the usual Nashville Sound production, replaced by an acoustic setting featuring Nashville super pickers guitarists including Jerry Reed, Harold Bradley, Ray Edenton, and Chet himself, playing on an array of contemporary county and pop material.
The second half features the album Standing Alone, produced (in Hollywood) by Lee Hazelwood and featuring Eddy’s take on modern Adult Contemporary writers such as John Stewart, Steve Young, Ben Peters, and Mac Davis.
The album closes with four singles heretofore not collected on a domestic CD. On this album Eddy is cast neither as the Tennessee Plowboy nor the Nashville Sound titan. If you’ve not heard this material before, you might not believe your ears !
TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT: THE DEFINITIVE JOHNNY PAYCHECK
MICKEY GILLEY: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION
These albums were reviewed earlier. Needless to say, both are is highly recommended
Real Gone Music does not specialize in country music – they just do a good job of it. If you are a fan of jazz, folk, rock or even classical, Real Gone Music has something right up your alley
There is a UK based label that also calls itself Real Gone Music but in order to avoid confusion I will refer to this label as RGM-MCPS. This label specializes (mostly) in four disc sets that compile some older albums, sometimes with miscellaneous singles. The sound quality has ranged from fair to very good depending upon the source material, and the packaging is very minimal – no booklet, basically the names of the albums and very little more. Usually these can be obtained from Amazon or other on-line vendors. These are bargain priced and can fill holes in your collection
SIX CLASSIC ALBUMS PLUS BONUS SINGLES – Kitty Wells
This collection collects six fifties and early singles albums plus some singles. Much Kitty Wells music is available but if you want to collect a bunch of it cheaply, this is the way to go
The British Charly label doesn’t specialize in country records but they have a fabulous catalogue of rockabilly, including some very fine collections of recordings of the legendary Memphis label Sun. For legal reasons they cannot market much of their product in the USA but their product can be found on various on-line vendors. Their reissue of Townes Van Zandt albums is excellent.
I suppose I should again say a few words about the Gusto family of labels. It appears that Gusto is in the process of redesigning their website but plenty of their product can be found from other on-line vendors
As I mentioned last year, with the exception of the numerous gospel recordings made by Porter Wagoner during the last decade of his life, there is little new or original material on the Gusto Family of labels. Essentially, everything Gusto does is a reissue, but they are forever recombining older recordings into new combinations.
Album Reviews, Retro Reviews, Year In Review Ben Peters, Bill Anderson, Billy Walker, Carl Butler and Pearl, Chet Atkins, Claude King, Connie Smith, Cowboy Copas, Curley Fox, Dave Dudley, Dave Loggins, Diamond Rio, Don Gibson, Donna Fargo, Earl Scruggs, Eddy Arnold, Ernie Ashworth, Faron Young, Ferlin Husky, Frank "Hylo" Brown, Gene Autry, Gene Watson, George Jones, Glen Campbell, Hank Rocklin, Hank Snow, Harold Bradley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jerry Reed, Jerry Wallace, Jim Reeves, Jimmy Dean, John Stewart, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Rodriguez, Kitty Wells, Kris Kristofferson, Lee Hazelwood, Leon Ashley, Leroy Van Dyke, Lester Flatt, Linda Ronstadt, Lynn Anderson, Mac Davis, Marty Robbins, Mel Street, Mickey Gilley, Patsy Cline, Porter Wagoner, Ray Edenton, Ray Price, Reba McEntire, Reno & Smiley, Roy Acuff, Roy Orbison, Sheb Wooley, Simon Crum, Steve Young, Stonewall Jackson, Stringbean, Terry Preston, The Browns, The Everly Brothers, The Foggy Mountain Boys, The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, The Stanley Brothers, Tommy Overstreet, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson
1 Comment Posted by Paul W. Dennis on December 18, 2015
As is always the case, most of the best reissues of American Country Music come from Europe. There are several reasons for this:
1 – Until recently, European copyrights on recordings were only good for 50 years. This changed recently to 70 years, but the change was not retroactive. What this means is that all recordings made before 1963 have lost their copyright protection in Europe.
2 – The European customer for country music is more traditionally oriented than American audiences. This holds true for many forms of music including rockabilly, rock & roll, rhythm & blues, pop standards, you name it. European audiences, unlike their American counterparts, have not discarded the past.
3 – American Record labels simply don’t care – I’d elaborate, but there’s no point to it.
It should be noted that some of these albums may have been issued before 2015 but became generally available during 2015 through various markets.
We’ll start off with two box sets from the gold standard of reissue labels, Bear Family:
1. THE CHUCK WAGON GANG – THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS (1936-1955)
Released in late 2014, but not generally available until this year, this Bear Family five disc set compiles the gospel recordings of Dad Carter’s family gospel group. Marty Stuart wrote the forward to the accompanying book.
This Carter Family is NOT related to the Carter Family clan associated with A.P., Sara, Mother Maybelle, and June Carter, but was a successful gospel group that was with Columbia Records from 1936 to 1975, selling thirty-nine million records in the process. Consisting of D.P. (Dad) Carter and son Jim (Ernest) and daughters Rose (Lola) and Anna (Effie), this group was formed in 1935 in Lubbock, Texas, and became one of the most popular gospel groups of its time, performing a very traditional form of country gospel music. They were the first group to record Albert Brumley’s “I’ll Fly Away”.
The group continues to this day, although all of the original members have since passed away. This set won’t be to everyone’s taste in gospel music so I’d suggest that you listen to a few tracks before purchasing the set. The humble sincerity and beauty of the singing will likely have you reconsidering your idea of gospel music.
2. JOHNNY HORTON – THE SINGING FISHERMAN: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS OF JOHNNY HORTON
Also released in late 2014, this nine disc set chronicles the recording career of one of the brightest stars of the Louisiana Hayride, whose life was cut short in 1960 when he was killed in an automobile accident. Some may recall that Johnny Cash was one of his best friends and some may remember that his widow was also the widow of Hank Williams Sr.
To the extent that Johnny Horton is remembered today, it is for the recordings he made with Columbia Records starting in 1956 with “Honky Tonk Man” and “I’m A One Woman Man”, songs thirty years later covered for hits later by Dwight Yoakam and George Jones.
Johnny’s biggest hit was “The Battle of New Orleans” which reached #1 on both the pop (six weeks) and country charts (ten weeks)in 1959. He had two other #1 records in “When It’s Springtime In Alaska” (1959) and “North to Alaska” released ten days after his death.
Those great Columbia Recordings are all here, but Johnny was an active recording artist from 1952 forward, recording with Abbott Records and Mercury Records, as well as some smaller labels. The Abbott Recordings were pretty pedestrian but Johnny cut some real treasures for Mercury, some of which were regional hits. Those long-lost earlier recordings are here as well, sounding as good as they will ever sound. These recordings encompass Johnny singing straight country , western, rockabilly and historical saga songs. The set comes with two hardcover books.
Country Heritage, Opry Legends, Retro Reviews, Year In Review Albert Brumley, Anna Carter, Ben Colder, Bill Anderson, Bill Monroe, Carl Smith, Charley Pride, Charlie Monroe, Charlie Rich, Chet Atkins, Claude Gray, Connie Smith, Conway Twitty, D. P. Carter, Dad Carter, Dwight Yoakam, Eddy Arnold, Effie Carter, Ernest Carter, Ernie Ashworth, Faron Young, Gene Autry, George Jones, Goldie Hill, Hank Williams, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Jim Carter, Jim Ed Brown, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Leon Ashley, Lola Carter, Lynn Anderson, Margo Smith, Marty Stuart, Mel Street, Mickey Gilley, Ned Miller, Porter Wagoner, Ray Price, Reno & Smiley, Roger Miller, Rose Carter, Roy Acuff, Sheb Wooley, Slim Whitman, The Carter Family, The Chuck Wagon Gang, The Stanley Brothers, Willie Nelson
Classic Album Review: Johnny Cash – ‘Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian’ (1964)
5 Comments Posted by Paul W. Dennis on October 20, 2015
Regardless of when he actually started wearing black, the legend of the ‘Man In Black’ starts here with this album.
By the time Bitter Tears was released, Cash had issued seven albums on Sun Records and eleven studio albums (including a Christmas album) on Columbia. This album, his eighteenth, although not the first album built around a theme, was the first album built around a cause.
Released in October 1964, the tracks on the album focus exclusively on the history and plight of Native Americans, with a strong focus the uncaring and unfair treatment of the original peoples of North America. Although the album only contains eight songs, the album itself ran the usual thirty minutes expected of an album during the 1960s.
It says much about the stature Cash already had as an artist that Columbia allowed him to release as noncommercial an album as Bitter Tears.
The album opens up with “As Long as the Grass Shall Grow”, by Native American Peter La Farge. The song is about the loss of Seneca land in Pennsylvania due to the construction of the Kinzua Dam in the early 1960s.
As long as the moon shall rise as long as the rivers flow
As long as the sun will shine as long as the grass shall grow
The Senecas are an Indian tribe of the Iroquios nation
Down on the New York Pennsylvania Line you’ll find their reservation
After the US revolution corn planter was a chief
He told the tribe these men they could trust that was his true belief
He went down to Independence Hall and there was a treaty signed
That promised peace with the USA and Indian rights combined
George Washington gave his signature the Government gave its hand
They said that now and forever more that this was Indian land
As long as the moon shall rise…
On the Seneca reservation there is much sadness now
Washington’s treaty has been broken and there is no hope no how
Across the Allegheny River they’re throwing up a dam
It will flood the Indian country a proud day for Uncle Sam
It has broke the ancient treaty with a politician’s grin
It will drown the Indians graveyards corn planter can you swim
The earth is mother to the the Senecas they’re trampling sacred ground
Change the mint green earth to black mud flats as honor hobbles down
As long as the moon shall rise.
Johnny Cash penned “Apache Tears”, a bitter song about the mistreatment of the Apaches.
“Custer” by Peter La Farge is a Native American take on what happened at Little Big Horn. While conventional folklore often features General George Armstrong Custer as a heroic commander and victim, this song shows him as a vain and pompous individual as viewed from the Native American perspective:
Now I will tell you `busters`
I`m not a fan of Custer`s;
And the general he don`t ride well any more.
To some he was a hero,
But to me his score was zero;
Now George, he`d had victories,
But never massacres;
Old George had done his fightin`
Without too much excitin`
When the men were away at huntin`
Old Custer would come in pumpin`;
He`d kill children, dogs and women,
With victories he was swimmin`;
My favorite song on the album, “The Talking Leaves” was penned by Johnny Cash and tells the story of Sequoia (or Sequoyah), the Native American who developed written version of the Cherokee language, previously only an oral language.
Sequoia’s winters were sixteen
Silent tongue spirit clean
He walked at his father’s side
Across the smoking battle ground
Where red and white men lay all around
So many here had died
The wind had scattered around
Snow white leaves upon the ground
Not leaves like leaves from trees
Sequoia said, “What can this be?”
“What’s the strange thing here I see?”
“From where come leaves like these?”
Sequoia turned to his father’s eyes
And he said, “Father you’re wise
From where come such snow white leaves
With such strange marks upon these squares
Not even the wise owl could put them there
So strange these snow white leaves”
His father shielding his concern
Resenting the knowledge Sequoia yearned
Crumbled the snow white leaves
He said, “When I explain then it’s done
These are talking leaves, my son
The white men’s talking leaves”
The white man takes a berry of black and red
And an eagle’s feather from the eagle’s bed
And he makes bird track marks
And the marks on the leaves they say
Carry messages to his brother far away
And his brother knows what’s in his heart
The only single released from the album was another La Farge composition, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”. The song tells the story of the life and death of Ira Hayes, a young US Marine of Pima descent, who helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima, but died drunk and broke on the reservation a few short years later. The song made it to #3 on Billboard’s country singles chart
Ira Hayes…
Call him drunken Ira Hayes,
He won’t answer anymore,
Not the whiskey drinking Indian,
Or the marine that went to war.
“Drums” is yet another La Farge composition, this song a bitter about the US government’s efforts to suppress Native American culture:
From the Indian reservation to the governmental school
Well, they’re goin’ to educate me to the white men’s Golden Rule
And I’m learning very quickly for I’ve learned to be ashamed
And I come when they call Billy though I’ve got an Indian name
And there are drums beyond the mountain
Indian drums that you can’t hear
There are drums beyond the mountain
And they’re getting mighty near
And when they think that they’d changed me
C ut my hair to meet their needs
Will they think, I’m white or Indian
Quarter blood or just half breed
Let me tell you, Mr. Teacher
When you say, you’ll make me right
In five hundred years of fighting
Not one Indian turned white and there are drums
“White Girl” is a La Farge song about the ill-fated love between a white girl and a Native American man. The girl declined to marry him because he was a Native American. The song also addresses the problems of alcohol among the Native Americans.
The album closes with “The Vanishing Race”, a song credited to Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton. Horton, Cash’s best friend and fishing buddy had died in a car crash four years before the release of this album. The song tells of a Native American viewing the future of his people
Oh, wagon trains rollin’ along
They fade from my visions and in time will be gone
I, I see an eagle in space
And my people will follow a vanishing race
Oh, now great spirits on high
Please spare them the sorrow you show to my eye
Now my blankets are roll
And I ride to the valley of the brave Navajo
A vanishing Navajo
Bitter Tears reached #2 on Billboard’s country album charts and reached #47 on Bllboard’s all genres album chart. Although Columbia Records didn’t give either the album or single much promotional support, Cash promoted both ceaselessly, and would continue to support Native American causes throughout his life. Although Cash had no Native American blood in him (at one time he thought he might be part Cherokee), in 1966 Cash was adopted by the Seneca Nation’s Turtle Clan.
There are no up-tempo songs on this album and, other than “The Talking Leaves”, there are no really happy songs either. Despite that, this is my favorite Johnny Cash album, a thoroughly thoughtful and important endeavor on the part of Johnny Cash and his usual crew of the Carter Family and the Tennessee Three, augmented by ace musicians Norman Blake and Bob Johnson.
Album Reviews, Country Heritage, Retro Reviews Bob Johnson, General Custer, George Washington, Ira Hayes, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Norman Blake, Peter La Farge, The Carter Family, The Tennessee Three
Album Review: Faron Young – ‘You Don’t Know Me’
1 Comment Posted by Paul W. Dennis on June 12, 2015
The friendly folks at Cracker Barrel have released something I thought I would never see – a new album of Faron Young recordings.
This album is somewhat similar to CONNIE SMITH – THE LOST TAPES in that it is taken from live takes, old radio shows and some studio recordings that never were released. Unlike the Connie Smith recordings, these were one track recordings, not in a finished state.
Producer Scott Oliver of Country Rewind Records, took the incomplete tracks and added additional instrumentation, vocal backings and some orchestration to create recordings that would fit comfortably on country radio during the last wave of neo-traditionalism (roughly 1986-2001). Many of the tracks were cut on acetate pressings that were intended for a single play on the radio. As such, some of the tracks required painstaking repair efforts. If I had to guess. most of the vocals were originally recorded in one take resulting in vocals that sound spontaneous and alive.
The basic sound is crisp and clean and modern. Faron’s vocal performances are very good. There is no information as to the additional musicians used on the collection, but Faron’s son Robyn Young wrote the liner notes. I would guess the original radio tracks and demos came from the mid-to-late 1960s as none of the songs feature hits from the 1970s. Because the tracks were meant for radio shows, a few of the tracks run under two minutes (“Alone With You” runs only ninety seconds) so the total playing time of the disc is just over 35 minutes.
The songs are as follows:
“I’ve Got Five Dollars (and It’s Saturday Night)” – this song was #4 hit for Faron in 1956 (the duo of George Jones & Gene Pitney also had a hit with it in 1965) and is taken at a very brisk tempo.
“Hello Walls” – this Willie Nelson-penned song was Faron’s biggest seller spending nine weeks at #1 in 1961 and selling over a million records. The 1961 hit recording was not very country, having been aimed squarely at the pop charts (it reached #12). This recording turns it back into a country song with country fiddles and steel guitar being featured prominently in the mix.
“A Place For Girls Like You” – this song was Faron’s third chart single, reaching #8 in 1954. This version picks up the tempo a bit from the original version.
“She Went A Little Bit Farther” – Faron recorded for Capitol; Records until 1962, switching over to Mercury in 1963. This song reached #14 for Faron in 1968. Faron’s chart success was very up and down during his first five years with Mercury as he sought to repeat the pop success of “Hello Walls”. In 1969 Faron went back to being a traditional country singer. This version is a little faster than the recorded single version and a little more country.
“You Don’t Know Me” was written by the legendary Cindy Walker from an idea supplied by Eddy Arnold. Eddy had a top ten hit with the song in 1956 and Ray Charles had a #2 pop hit with it in 1962. This recording would have made a great single for Faron had it existed and been released during Faron’s lifetime.
“I Guess I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” – I love the steel guitar work on this recording. Faron’s 1967 single only reached #48. This is a much better recording, a likely top five record had this been the released version.
“Goin’ Steady” was Faron’s first charted single in 1953, probably written by Hank Williams (1). The single reached #2 in its first trip to the charts. Apparently Faron wasn’t completely satisfied with the original hit version as he re-recorded the song numerous times during the next decade, gradually picking up the tempo until he issued a new single of the song for Mercury in 1970. The Mercury version reached #5 and features aggressive use of fiddles and steel guitar. On the version featured here, Faron’s vocals have just about reached the tempo of the Mercury recording, Although I like the Mercury version better than this recording, this is a very good recording
“Unmitigated Gall” reached #7 in 1966 for Faron. This is a good version although not a revelation and not terribly different in its net effect from the released single version
“I Miss You Already” went top five for Faron in 1957. This version was taken from a radio show and is quite good, again nothing revelatory but quite interesting. Nice steel and fiddle work
To younger minds, it must be impossible to conceive of this song being a hit single. Be that as it may, “I Just Came To Get My Baby (Out of Here)” went to #8 for Faron Young in 1968. The arrangement here is a little more country sounding that the hit single.
Faron Young had the first hit single on “Sweet Dreams” back in 1956, charting about six weeks before writer Don Gibson’s version hit the charts. Faron’s version reached #2 on the charts. This is a solid country version. For my money Faron Young was the best interpreter of this song, better than Don Gibson, Patsy Cline or anyone else that followed.
“If You Ain’t Lovin (You Ain’t Livin’)” was Faron’s fourth chart single back in 1954 reaching #2 in early 1955. This Tommy Collins tune was recorded by many artists during the 1950s and 1960s. I like this version very much.
“Alone With You” – according to Billboard, this was Faron’s biggest hit spending thirteen weeks at #1 in 1958. This version is taken at a very fast tempo, finishing up in ninety breath-taking seconds. Very solid fiddle and steel guitar on this track. I love this track, I just wish it lasted a little longer.
I don’t remember “You Had A Call” – it wasn’t a single and if I heard it before, it passed by unnoticed. Not so this version, which caught my attention the within the first few notes. Unlike most of the songs on this collection, this is a slow ballad with a mostly understated arrangement that lets Faron’s voice take center stage.
“Live Fast Love Hard Die Young” was Faron’s first #1 single back in 1955, spending three weeks atop the charts. This version, from a radio show, is slightly faster than the original recording. The instrumental breaks on the recording are very good and very country. The song is a perfect ending to a very entertaining album. I just wish they had found a few more songs to lengthen the album a bit.
(1) The legend says Hank gave Faron the rights to “Goin’ Steady” in exchange for which Faron would give up dating Billie Jean Eschelman, a young lady both had been dating. Billie Jean would become the second Mrs. Hank Williams and in a bizarre twist of fate, would also be the widow of Johnny Horton.
Album Reviews Cindy Walker, Connie Smith, Don Gibson, Eddy Arnold, Faron Youn, Gene Pitney, George Jones, Hank Williams, Johnny Horton, Patsy Cline, Robyn Young, Scott Oliver, Tommy Collins, Willie Nelson
Favorite Country Songs Of The 80s: Part 7
2 Comments Posted by Paul W. Dennis on April 7, 2015
It seems to me that I never did finish off this series, the last installment being posted on February 11, 2014 (and the installment before that appeared April 9,2013). Here are some more songs from the 1980s that I liked. This is an expanded and revised version of the February 11, 2014 article which was a rush job :
“Shame On The Moon” – Bob Seger
Bob’s 1982 recording of a Rodney Crowell song charted on the country charts in early 1983, reaching #15 in the process. The song was a bigger hit on the pop charts, reaching #2 for four weeks.
“Finally” – T. G. Sheppard
He worked for Elvis, sang background for Travis Wammack, and eventually emerged with a solo career worth noting, racking up 42 chart singles from 1974-1991. This 1982 single was one of fourteen #1 record racked up by Sheppard, eleven of them reaching #1 during the 1980s.
“Doesn’t Anybody Get High On Love Anymore” – The Shoppe
The Shoppe was a Dallas based band that hung around for years after their 1968 formation. In the early 1980s they had eight chart records, but this was the only one to crack the top forty, reaching #33. They had a record deal with MTM Records in 1985, but that label vanished, taking the Shoppe with them.
“Crying My Heart Out Over You” – Ricky Skaggs
Ricky Skaggs was one of the dominant artists of the first half of the 1980s with his bluegrass/country hybrid. Starting with 1981’s “You May See Me Walking” and ending with 1986’s “Love’s Gonna Get You Some Day“, Skaggs ran off sixteen consecutive top ten singles with ten of them reaching number one, This 1982 classic was the first chart topper. Eventually Ricky returned to straight bluegrass, but I like the hybrid recordings better. In my original article I spotlighted “Honey (Open That Door)“, a straight forward country Mel Tillis song recorded by Webb Pierce.
“Don’t Stay If You Don’t Love Me” – Patsy Sledd
Stardom never really happened for Patsy, who was a good singer marooned early in her career on a bad label. She was part of the George Jones-Tammy Wynette show in the early 1970s. This song reached #79 in 1987.
“Nice To Be With You” – Slewfoot
This band replaced Alabama as the feature band at the Bowery Club in Myrtle Beach. This was their only chart single, a cover of Gallery’s #4 pop hit from 1972 that reached #85 in 1986.
“King Lear” – Cal Smith
The last chart hit for the former Texas Troubadour. This song reached #75 in 1986.
“A Far Cry From You” – Connie Smith
After a six year recording hiatus, the greatest female country recording artist of all time returned with this one-shot single on the Epic label. It’s a great song but received no promotional push at all from the label landing at #71 in 1985. Unfortunately, this single has never appeared on an album.
“The Shuffle Song” – Margo Smith
Exactly as described – a shuffle song that reached #13 for Margo in early 1980. Margo had a brief run of top ten hits in the middle and late 1970s but the string was about over. In my prior article I featured “He Gives Me Diamonds, You Give Me Chills” but The Shuffle song is actually my favorite 80s hit from Margo. She lives in The Villages in Florida and still performs occasionally.
“Cheatin’s A Two Way Street” – Sammi Smith
Her last top twenty song from 1981. Sammi only had three top ten hits but made many fine records. This was one of them.
“Hasn’t It Been good Together” – Hank Snow and Kelly Foxton
The last chart record for the ‘Singing Ranger’. The record only got to #78 for the 65 year old Snow in 1980 but I couldn’t let pass the opportunity to acknowledge the great career of the most successful Canadian country artist. By any legitimate means of chart tracking, his 1950 hit “I’m Moving On” is still the number one country hit of all time. Hank had perfect diction and was a great guitar player.
“Tear-Stained Letter” – Jo-El Sonnier
A late bloomer, this was the forty-two year old Jo-El’s second of two top ten records and my favorite. It reached #8 in 1988. There were brief periods in the past when Cajun music could break through for a hit or two. Eddy Raven was the most successful Cajun artist but most of his material was straight-ahead country.
“Sometimes You Just Can’t Win” – J.D. Souther and Linda Ronstadt
George Jones charted this record twice, but it’s such a good song it was worth covering. This version went to #27 in 1982. J.D had a big pop hit in 1980 with “You’re Only Lonely” which reached #7.
“Honey I Dare You” – Southern Pacific
Southern Pacific was a bunch of guys who previously played with other bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Doobie Brothers and Pablo Cruise, making some real good country music in the process. This was one of their four top ten hits of the 1980s. “A Girl Like Emmylou” from 1986 only reached #17 but the song tells you where this band’s heart was located.
“Lonely But Only For You” – Sissy Spacek
Loretta Lynn wanted to Spacek to portray her in the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, and it turns out that Sissy can really can sing. This song reached #15 in 1983.
“Standing Tall” – Billie Jo Spears
Billie Jo Spears, from Beaumont, Texas, was incredibly popular in England and Ireland, where “Blanket On The Ground” and “What I’ve Got In Mind” were top five pop hits in the mid 1970s and she had many more lesser successes. Many of her later albums were not released in the US but she had a substantial US career with thirty-four charted records, including two #1 hits. “Standing Tall” reached #15 in 1980.
“Chain Gang” – Bobby Lee Springfield
More successful as a songwriter than as a performer, Springfield had two chart sings in 1987 with “Hank Drank” (#75) and “Chain Gang” (#66) which was NOT the Sam Cooke hit. Bobby Lee was both too country and too rockabilly for what was charting at the time. I really liked All Fired Up, the one album Epic released on him.
Classic Rewind, Country Heritage, Decade In Review Alabama, Alan Jackson, B.J. Thomas, Billie Jo Spears, Bob Seger, Bob Wills, Bobby Lee Springfield, Boy George, Bruce Springsteen, Buddy Emmons, Buddy Holly, Cal Smith, Carl Smith, Clay Walker, Clint Eastwood, Connie Smith, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Culture Club, Darlene Shafer, Dolly Parton, Don Reid, Eddy Raven, Elvis Presley, Ernest Tubb, Exile, Faith Hill, Flatt & Scruggs, Four Knights, Gallery, Gary Stewart, George Hamilton IV, George Jones, George Strait, Glenn Sutton, Hal Ketchum, Hank Snow, Hank Thompson, Harold Reid, J. D. Souther, James Taylor, Janie Fricke, Janis Gill, Jeff Stevens & The Bullets, Jim Stafford, Jimmy C. Newman, Jimmy Fortune, Jo-El Sonnier, Joe Stampley, Joe Sun, Johnny Horton, Johnny Tillotson, Judy Rodman, Karen Staley, Karen Taylor, Karen Taylor-Good, Keith Stegall, Kelly Foxton, Kristine Arnold, Leah Kunkel, Lefty Frizzell, Leroy Van Dyke, Les Taylor, Lew DeWitt, Linda Ronstadt, Linda Shafer, Little Jimmy Dickens, Livingston Taylor, Loretta Lynn, Margo Smith, Marsha Thornton, Marty Stuart, Mel Street, Mel Tillis, Michael Martin Murphey, Moe & Joe, Moe Bandy, Orleans, Pablo Cruise, Pam Tillis, Patsy Cline, Patsy Sledd, Patty Loveless, Phase II, Phil Balsley, Randy Travis, Ray Pennington, Ray Price, Ray Stevens, Reba McEntire, Red Steagall, Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell, Roy Acuff, Roy Drusky, Sammi Smith, Sandy Powell, Sanger D, Shafer, Sissy Spacek, Slewfoot, Southern Pacific, Statler Brothers, Sweethearts Of The Rodeo, Swing Shift Band, Sylvia, Sylvie and Her Silver Dollar Band, T.G.Sheppard, Tammy Wynette, The Doobie Brothers, The Shoppe, Thrasher Brothers, Tommy Cash, Tommy Duncan, Travis Wammack, Vince Gill, Webb Pierce, Whitey Shafer, Wynn Stewart, Zac Brown Band
The best re-issues of 2014
1 – Until recently, European copyrights on recordings were only good for 50 years. This changed recently to 70 years, but the change was not retroactive. I am not sure what the cut-off point is for application of the 70 year copyright as I’ve seen varying reports, but it appears that recordings already out of copyright protection will remain in the public domain, but recordings released after 1962 will have the longer copyrights applicable (at least in the UK).
2- The European customer for country music is more traditionally oriented than American audiences. This holds true for many forms of music including rockabilly, rock & roll, rhythm & blues, pop standards, you name it. European audiences, unlike their American counterparts, have not discarded the past.
3- American Record labels simply don’t care – I’d elaborate, but there’s no point to it.
1. HANK THOMPSON – THE PATHWAY OF MY LIFE (1966-1984)
Released in late 2013, but not generally available until this year, this Bear Family extravaganza grabs Hank’s recordings made for Warner Brothers, Dot , ABC, Churchill and MCA/Dot in a Deluxe 8 CD set with a booklet compiled with the assistance of Hank himself.
Hank Thompson’s biggest hits were recorded during his years with Capitol, but he still had a large number of hits after that. More importantly, he still was making great recordings. Although there are other artists I prefer to Hank Thompson, I regard Hank Thompson and Doc Watson as the two most consistent country artists of all time – neither of them ever made a bad recording. Hank’s four biggest hits of the post-Capitol era were “On Tap, In The Can or In The Bottle” (#8) , “Smoky The Bar” (#5), “The Older The Violin the Sweeter The Music “ (#8) and “Who Left The Door To Heaven Open” (10). They are all here along with six more top twenty hits and a bunch of other chart records.
If you wonder how significant Hank Thompson was just ask George Strait. Ol’ George made one of his few guest appearances (and probably his first such appearance) with Hank Thompson on a mid 1980s recording of “A Six Pack To Go”.
2. PORTER WAGONER & DOLLY PARTON – JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME – 1967-1976
Porter & Dolly were roughly contemporaries of the teams Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty and George Jones & Tammy Wynette. I have always regarded Porter & Dolly as the best male-female duet pairing ever. Their hits were not quite as big as those of the other two duets, but consider this: Loretta, Conway, George and Tammy were all top-tier stars. At the time these recordings were made, Porter Wagoner was a journeyman country singer who had a major label contract, an over-the-top personality and a syndicated television show to cover the fact that his big hits were fairly few, although he had experienced a bit of a revival in 1964-1969. Meanwhile Dolly Parton was an up and comer with no major hit records until 1970.
What made the pairing so special was the chemistry they had between them. George & Tammy may have been married for a while, but that spark that made the most trivial of songs special for Porter & Dolly was missing (I always regarded George’s best duet partner as Melba Montgomery, and although they did not especially get along, I felt Tammy’s best duets were with David Houston)
Conway & Loretta had more chemistry than George & Tammy but were never as involved in being a duet as Porter & Dolly as both had ‘big star’ careers to maintain.
Porter and Dolly recorded a lot of songs, and they are all here: sad songs (“Jeanie’s Afraid of The Dark“, “Just Someone I Used To Know”), happy songs (“Lost Forever In Your Kiss”), totally ridiculous songs (“Her and The Car and The Mobile Home Were Gone”, “Run That By Me One More Time”) and a plethora of simply good country songs from songwriters as diverse as Jack Clement, Dave Kirby, Tom Paxton and dozens of others. Six CDs worth of the best harmonies ever recorded with lavish book and the superb sound engineering for which Bear Family is famous.
Next some American labels get into the act …
3. RONNIE MILSAP – THE RCA ALBUMS COLLECTION
Charley Pride was one of early supporters and many subsequent singers have cited Ronnie Milsap as a primary influence, including Vince Gill and Hunter Hayes. Since Milsap is a musical chameleon who can cover the gamut from Cajun to R&B to stone cold country and classic pop, it figures that he would have influenced a wide range of artists. Ronnie rang up a staggering number of hits including 40 #1 records in his long career. This set , consisting of 21 CDs covering his RCA output is overkill, but for a performer as gifted as Ronnie Milsap perhaps the overkill can be justified.
4. ZAC BROWN BAND – GREATEST HITS SO FAR …
They may look like something from Duck Dynasty but these fellows have a lot of talent. Moreover, this is an honest hits collection – no previously unissued tracks, jut fourteen hit singles starting with their first #1 from 2008 in “Chicken Fried” and finishing with “Sweet Annie” from 2013. If you haven’t purchased any of their albums yet, this is a ‘must-have’ (and if you haven’t purchased any of their albums yet, shame on you).
back to the Europeans …
5. THE LOUVIN BROTHERS – COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS 1952-1962
This is one of those European sets consisting of six CDs (143 songs) encompassing the Louvins’ output on Capitol Records – generally available for $20.00 or less. I don’t know much about the label (Enlightenment), and their product comes with fairly bare bones packaging but it is the music that matters, and few acts ever mattered as much as Ira & Charlie Louvin. The digital sound is quite decent. The set encompasses twelve of the Louvins’ albums, several of which are primarily religious material. The set isn’t quite complete as there were a few singles which did not make it to an album until much later including “When I Stop Dreaming” and “Must You Throw Dirt In My Face”.
6. GEORGE JONES SINGS HANK AND BOB
Hank Williams and Bob Wills were two of the country greats and George Jones paid tribute to them in three albums recorded in the late 1950s – early 1960s. Collected here on the Not Now label are the Mercury album George Jones Salutes Hank Williams and the United Artist albums George Jones Sings Bob Wills and My Favorites of Hank Williams. Supposedly, George wasn’t much of a Bob Wills fan, but you couldn’t prove it by me. If George felt he didn’t have much feel for western swing he must be judging by an impossibly high standard as this is great stuff. Every album should be like this: great music sung by a master singer.
My biggest complaint about this set is the sequencing – two CDs each with 12 Hank songs followed by six of Bob’s songs.
7. JOHNNY CASH – THE SUN SINGLES COLLECTION
This collection, also on the Not Now label, is comprised of two CDs containing 38 songs. This is material that has been endlessly available over the last 50+ years and now it is available again. Available for under $20, if you don’t have this material already, this is a good value – the sound is good and the songs contained herein are beyond essential. This is where it all started for the man in black. IMHO, there is no such thing as too much Johnny Cash. There have been better collections of the Sun recordings, but this one is available now, and at a nice price.
8. CARL PERKINS – THE ROCKABILLY YEARS
This collection, on the One Day label, is comprised of two CDs containing 40 songs. As with the Cash collection above, this is material that has been endlessly available over the last 50+ years and now it is available again. No complaints about the material, the performances or the sound quality. Available for under $20, if you don’t have this material already, this is a must – just don’t step on my blue suede shoes in your haste to buy this set.
9. EDDY ARNOLD – THE COMPLETE CHART SINGLES (1945-1962)
In terms of the number of weeks his singles stayed at #1 (143 weeks according to Billboard) Eddy Arnold is the all-time country music leader, 33 weeks ahead of Webb Pierce and miles ahead of George Strait, Dolly Parton or anyone else. This three CD set collects 77 of Eddy’s chart hits through 1962 which means that it pulls up just short of Eddy’s mid 1960s revival that started with “What’s He Doing In My World” and “Make The World Go Away”. No matter – the 1940s material was better than anything Eddy contrived to record during the 1960s and the 1950s recordings, while not always the biggest hits , were usually fairly interesting as Eddy experimented with his sound and expanded his repertoire to include folk and pop material. I would consider the first to CDs to be absolutely essential and the third CD as very good. The folks at Acrobat released this fine collection and included a fine booklet to go with the set.
10. JOHNNY HORTON – NORTH TO ALASKA AND OTHER GREAT HITS (The Early Albums)
Johnny Horton (1925-1960) was one of Johnny Cash’s best friends (and fishing buddy) and had a brief period of time in which his material dominated the country charts and made serious inroads onto the pop charts. This set collects his earlier (and largely unsuccessful) recordings for Dot and his initial recordings for Columbia. Don’t let the ‘early albums’ description fool you – since Horton was killed in a car crash in 1960, there are no later albums except label creations.
The set contains two CDs and 60 songs including all of the Columbia hits including “The Battle of 1814” and “North To Alaska” – good stuff. This is on the Jasmine label – apparently briefly available in 2012 and now available again in the USA
I didn’t review any of the Gusto/Starday/King/ Cindy Lou recordings this time around but check out the Gusto website. Gusto has the habit a repackaging earlier albums into nice box sets – for instance a few years ago they combined three Mel Street albums into a 58 song boxed set. Another label to check on is Heart of Texas Records which has reissued old Capitol and Step One sets on artists such as Tony Booth and Curtis Potter.
Album Reviews, Year In Review Bob Wills, Carl Perkins, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Curtis Potter, Dave Kirby, David Houston, Doc Watson, Dolly Parton, Eddy Arnold, George Jones, George Strait, Hank Thompson, Hank Williams, Hunter Hayes, Jack Clement, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Loretta Lynn, Louvin Brothers, Mel Street, Melba Montgomery, Porter Wagoner, Ronnie Milsap, Tammy Wynette, Tom Paxton, Tony Booth, Vince Gill, Webb Pierce, Zac Brown Band
A look back at 1989: Part 1 – George Jones
1 Comment Posted by Paul W. Dennis on November 25, 2014
The year 1989 saw the debuts and/or emergence of a fine crop of new artists that would continue the neo-traditionalist movement that flickered in the early 1980s with the arrival of Ricky Skaggs and started building up steam in 1986 when Randy Travis and Dwight Yoakam arrived. Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt were the biggest names to emerge in 1989, but there were others as well.
This is not to say that the old guard didn’t produce some excellent records that year, even if they were having difficulty getting playing time. I will look at three of the old guard whose records particularly appealed to me in 1989 starting with the acknowledged master of the genre, the one and only “King George” – Jones, that is.
GEORGE JONES – ONE WOMAN MAN (1989)
The decade of the 1980s was a good one for George Jones as he finally got himself clean and remained in good voice; however, Father Time waits for no one and as the 1990s approached George’s chart success was beginning to wane.
By 1989 when ONE WOMAN MAN was issued, George was 58 years old and beginning to struggle for airplay as he was crowded out by the vaunted “Class of 89”.
George Jones albums during the 1980s tended to follow the formula of three or four singles (some of which were covers of old country classics) plus some other songs – often some more covers of old country classics – and some top grade new material. Even though the hot young songwriters weren’t necessarily pitching their good stuff at him, he was still finding enough good material to make some great albums.
My favorite George Jones album of the 1980s was ONE WOMAN MAN. More so than any of his earlier albums in the decade, this album relied on older material.
“One Woman Man”, the first single off the album would prove to be George’s last top twenty single as a solo artist, peaking at #5, this after a run of five consecutive singles that had missed the top twenty. The song, written by Johnny Horton and Tillman Franks had reached #7 for Horton in 1956. I liked Horton’s version but there is a decided difference between a pretty good singer like Horton and a great singer like George Jones.
Track 2 on the album was a Louvin Brothers classic, “My Baby’s Gone. You really can’t beat the Louvins at their own material (although this song was written by Hazel Houser), but George does quite well with the song. The Louvins had that brotherly harmony going for them but the vocal harmony singers here are put to good use and the steel and fiddle are used effectively. My one criticism of the song is that it is taken at a slightly too fast tempo.
Track 3 is the old Hank Cochran classic “Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me”, recorded previously by, among others, Ray Price, Ronnie Milsap, Jack Greene. The Greene version remains my favorite version, but Jones never did wrong by a good song.
Track 4 is “Burning Bridges” another old-timer, but this one originally by rock/pop star Jack Scott. Jack Scott’s version was excellent, as was that of Ray Price, but George takes a back seat to no one in being able to wring the pathos and emotion out of a song.
Track 5 is a novelty song, originally titled “Yabba-Dabba-Do” but changed to “The King Is Gone (and So Are You)” in order to avoid threatened copyright litigation (which the songwriter & publisher would likely have won, but at great expense). In the song, a man whose girl has left him, laments the fact by pulling the head of Elvis off a Jim Beam decanter, pouring it into a Flintstones jelly bean jar and drinking up, imagining conversations with Elvis Presley and Fred Flintstone in the process. He eventually comes to the realization that his girl was never coming back. The song wasn’t a big hit but in the hands of almost anyone else, it would have been a total flop – it seems that only George Jones and Hank Thompson could get away with recording novelties (some of them really ludicrous) and scoring hits with them. This was the second single off the album and it reached #31 on the charts. The track features some nice dobro or slide guitar.
George gets back to serious songs on Track 6 with “Radio Lover”. Thematically this song is very similar to Porter Wagoner’s “Cold Hard Facts of Life”, except that the protagonist is a radio disk jockey rather than a truck driver and the song has a less ominous set up than Porter’s classic. Our hero pre-tapes his show so he can spend his first wedding anniversary with his wife, walks in on her with her lover in bed with her and he dispatches with both of them – meanwhile his radio show is playing on her radio. This was the fourth single and it topped out at #62. Here in Central Florida the song seemed to get the radio airplay one would expect of a top ten single.
I know I heard someone else perform Track 7, “A Place In The Country” before George Jones wrap his vocal cords around it. This song is about a man who worked in the city for thirty years but whose dream was to retire to the country.
Track 8 was a Patsy Cline song, “Just Out of Reach”. It was not released as a single but was taken as the title track for Patsy’s third Decca album and became well known in the years following her death. While I prefer Patsy’s version, George has nothing for which to apologize here.
The album closes with some original material in “Writing On The Wall” (track 9) and “Pretty Little Lady from Beaumont, Texas” (track 10). In the hands of most other performers, these songs would be filler, but in the hands of George Jones they are decent songs . They also point out why George was turning to so much older material – he simply wasn’t being pitched the best new material.
“Writing On The Wall” was the third single taken from the album and it reached #31. The year before the song had reached #96 for Kenny Carr.
For his next album, 1990’s YOU OUGHTA HERE WITH ME, George reversed course and obtained a batch of new songs. None of them would become hits (and the two singles released from the album would not chart at all) but one of the songs, “Ol’ Red” would reach #14 for Blake Shelton in 2002.
YOU OUGHTA BE WITH ME marked the end of the line for George Jones with Epic. From here Jones would go to MCA for a few albums and then to MCA and various other labels, eventually settling into elder statesman status. George’s solo albums from here would be spottier affairs, but there would be a number of special projects involving guest artists that would keep his face in front of the public.
Still, his penultimate album for Epic was a fine effort well worth digging out to play, and I do, periodically. It would be in my top ten albums for 1989.
Album Reviews, Retro Reviews Alan Jackson, Blake Shelton, Clint Black, Dwight Yoakam, Elvis Presley, Garth Brook, George Jones, Hank Cochran, Hank Thompson, Hazel Houser, Jack Greene, Jack Scott, Johnny Horton, Kenny Carr, Louvin Brothers, Patsy Cline, Porter Wagoner, Randy Travis, Ray Price, Ricky Skaggs, Ronnie Milsap, The Flintstones, Tillman Franks, Travis Tritt
It’s been a while since my last installment of this series. Here are some more songs from the 1980s that I liked and remember. See if you recall any of these records.
“Honey (Open That Door)” – Ricky Skaggs
The early 1980s belonged to Ricky Skaggs as he racked up eight #1 records before the end of 1984. Some of his records were bluegrass/country hybrids, others, like this cover of Mel Tillis-penned Webb Pierce record were more straightforward country. This record topped the charts in 1984 and had a very amusing video to accompany it.
After disappearing from the charts for six years, Connie emerged with this excellent single in 1985. Epic didn’t give the record much of a promotional push so it only reached #71, but it was one of my ten favorite records for the year 1985.
“He Gives Me Diamonds, You Give Me Chills”– Margo Smith
Margo Smith has a short run of chart success in the late 1970s but by the end of the decade her run was almost over. This 1980 record would stall at #52 and other than a pair of duets with Rex Allen Jr., she would not see the top forty again. Margo is still an active performer and lives in the Villages, FL. When she’s feeling well, she can still yodel with the best of them.
“Cheatin’s A Two Way Street”– Sammi Smith
Sammi’s last top twenty record, reaching #16 in 1981. Sammi should have become a much bigger star than she did.
This Cajun accordion player had two top ten records for RCA in 1988 before fading away. Cajun has never been mainstream so he didn’t figure to have too many hits (and he didn’t). This record reached #9 and the one before it “No More One More Time” reached 7. Nothing else reached the top twenty.
Hank’s eighty-fifth chart hit and the very last singles chart appearance for ‘The Singing Ranger’. This song crept to #80 in 1980. Hank would only record one more time after the album from which this album was issued, a duet album with Willie Nelson a few years later. Read more of this post
Everything Else, Playlist Alan Jackson, Billie Jo Spears, Bob Seger, Bobby Lee Springfield, Boy George, Buck Owens, Clay Walker, Clint Eastwood, Connie Smith, Culture Club, Faith Hill, Four Knights, Gary Stewart, George Jones, Glenn Sutton, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Janis Gill, Jim Stafford, Jimmy Fortune, Jo-El Sonnier, Joe Stampley, Johnny Horton, Karen Staley, Keith Stegall, Kelly Foxton, Kristine Arnold, Loretta Lynn, Margo Smith, Marty Robbins, Marty Stuart, Mel Street, Mel Tillis, Merle Haggard, Moe Bandy, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis, Ray Stevens, Reba McEntire, Red Steagall, Rex Allen Jr., Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell, Roy Acuff, Roy Dea, Sammi Smith, Sandy Powell, Sissy Spacek, Southern Pacific, Sweethearts Of The Rodeo, The Shoppe, The Statler Brothers, Tommy Collins, Webb Pierce, Willie Nelson, Wynn Stewart, Zac Brown Band
2013 was a bad year for fans of traditional country music and its near cousins.Not only was radio virtually devoid of traditional country sounds, but Billboard bastardized its country charts to the point of meaninglessness, accepting remixes and reissues with other artists and treating them all as one record. Worse yet, a good many of our radio heroes passed away, starting on January 1, 2013 with the death of Patti Page, a country girl who went on to become a great classic pop singer, and who continued to showcase country songs throughout her illustrious career. Along the way we lost Jack Greene, Cal Smith, George Jones, Kitty Wells, Tompall Glaser, Ottis “Slim” Whitman, Claude King, Jack Clements, Lorene Mann, George Beverly Shea, and too many more for me to recount. We ended the year with the death of the great Ray Price.
Fortunately, we live in an age where the musical legacy of our radio heroes can and does live on. While not the absolute best year for reissues, it was a very strong year, with most of the great reissues coming from foreign soil.
On the domestic front Sony Legacy has been redoing their Essential series, issuing a series of two disc sets. The Essential Tammy Wynette is easily the best Tammy Wynette collection we will see, unless Bear Family decides to do a box set. The collection is arranged chronologically and without skipping the lesser hits. Fans of Tammy will hear some songs that rarely have been anthologized, and hear her catalog of hits in the order in which they were released. The forty songs are digitally remastered to sound superb, and even though I have such other Tammy Wynette collections as Tears of Fire and Anniversary: Twenty Years of Hits, still I regard this as an essential purchase for Tammy’s fans and a great introduction for those unfamiliar with her work.
I’m not a big Martina McBride fan but Sony Legacy’s two disc The Essential Martina McBride, issued in late 2012 and not widely available until this year, is probably the best collection you’ll see on Martina – terrific sound, with forty songs. A few minor hits have been omitted in favor of other material, which I don’t like, but that’s just me.
The UK based Jasmine label has probably been the leading purveyor of reasonably pricced reissues, issuing a series of two CD sets, either featuring intact four older albums of a particular artist or issuing some sets that are simply collections of songs. Some of the Jasmine releases below were actually issued in late 2012, but not widely available until 2013.
Oh Lonesome Me, Singles Collection 1956-1962 is an outstanding two CD collection of Don Gibson’s singles from 1956-1962. Not only does the set capture Don’s earliest and biggest RCA hits (“Oh Lonesome Me”, “Sea of Heartbreak”, “Blue Blue Day”), but it also revisits Don’s rarely found MGM singles, including the earliest take on “Sweet Dreams”. Forty-six songs, hours of listening pleasure.
Love Is The Sweatest Thing: The Early Album Collection collects four of Ferlin Husky’s early Capitol albums. The albums are not overrun with hit singles (during the 1950s albums were often marketed to a different audience than were singles) but has four albums that are quite different from one another. 1956’s Songs of Home and The Heart features older country songs. Boulevard of Broken Dreams (1957) and Sittin’ On A Rainbow (1958) both feature what would today be referred as classic pop or pop standards – in other words, not very country at all. The last album in the set, Walkin’ And A Hunmin’ (1961), which Ferlin referred to as his Hank Williams album, does feature seven songs associated with Hank Williams. This collection gives a good overview of the breadth of Ferlin’s talent.
Headin’ Down The Wrong Highway: The Early Albums features four Hank Thompson albums from 1958-1961. For me the standout album is 1961’s Live At The Golden Nugget, but all of the albums are great listening. Relatively few hits are in this collection, but once you start the disc playing, you won’t care about the lack of hit records as Hank and his Brazos Valley Boys always exude good cheer and lotsa fun.
The First Lady of Country: The Early Album Collection is what I would deem to be an essential Jean Shepard album, including as it does one of the very first ‘concept’ albums in 1956’s Songs of A Love Affair. There are not a lot of hit singles in this 2 CD collection, but there are a lot of songs capturing the heart and soul of this pioneering female singer.
Queen of Honky Tonk Angels: Four Original Albums by Kitty Wells, captures an early hit collection in Country Hit Time, a gospel album, Dust On The Bible, and a pair of albums largely comprised of covers. Kitty Wells had a strong clear voice that didn’t waver until very late in life. She treats her material and herself with respect, the end result being albums really worth hearing.
Folk Ballads, Hits and Hymns – Four Stereo LPs finds legendary bluegrass singer Mac Wiseman traveling down other more mainstream country roads. Fans of bluegrass may be disappointed with the albums, but fans of Mac Wiseman will love this set comprised of two gospel albums, an album of some current (as of 1960) folk and country hits plus an album of folk songs. One of the gospel albums features the Jordanaires throughout, not that Mac ever really needed help to perform a gospel song.
I don’t know that you can really call Walter Brennan a country artist at all, but Jasmine released a single disc CD on Grandpa McCoy titled Reminiscing With Walter Brennan which definitely catches the essence of a beloved actor and perfermer. Brennan only had one hit “Old Rivers” (#3 Country / #5 pop) but it’s here along with 27 other favorites including his wonderful take on “The Shifting Whispering Sands”
If the name Curly Putman means anything at all to the casual fan, it is as the writer of “Green Green Grass of Home” and co-writer of “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today” . Curly did have a bit of a singing career and issued a some albums on ABC Records. Omni has collected two of Curly’s albums The Lonesome Country Of Curly Putman (1967) and Curly Putman’s World Of Country Music (1969) on a single disc. He’s hardly a compelling singer, but it is always interesting to hear a songwriter interpret his own material. “My Elusive Dreams” was released as a single and reached #41.
New West Records issued Dwight Yoakam’s 21st Century Hits: Best-Of 2000-2012, a nice collection of fourteen singles and miscellaneous tracks . Hardly Dwight’s best work, but still a useful collection, gathering together tracks not easily found.
Omnivore Recordings, a label out of Los Angeles, CA started releasing albums in late 2012. Probably their most important release was the George Jones collection The Complete United Artists Solo Singles. I’ve always regarded the best recordings George Jones ever made as coming from his tenure with United Artists 1962-1965. From this period the finely nuanced singer emerged with such great singles as “She Thinks I Still Care” , “Sometimes You Can’t Win” , “A Girl I Used To Know” , “You Comb Her Hair” and “The Race Is On”. All of these titles have been available as re-recordings made for Musicor and/or Epic , but these are the original hit versions – 32 songs, the A and B sides of his 16 United Artist singles – an absolutely essential collection (unless you own the Bear Family box set of the United Artists years).
Omnivore also has released some Buck Owens, Don Rich and Buckaroos collections.
Buck Em! : The Music of Buck Owens 1955-1967 is billed as the companion to the recently published Buck Owens autobiography, but as a stand-alone collection it is a worthy acquisition if there is a hole in your Buck Owens catalog. Some alternative and live recordings are among the two CD sets fifty tracks. Not essential but a nice collection spanning the Pep and early Capitol years.
Omnivore’s Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings The Country Classics collects eighteen tracks recorded for use on the television show Hee Haw. Many of these tracks were recorded after the death of Don Rich, so the classic harmonies aren’t always present, and these are very short recordings designed to fit the pace of the television show, but they are songs that Buck didn’t otherwise record for commerical release, covering country classics from 1945-1973 by the likes of Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Johnny Horton and Ray Price.
With “Live” At The White House (… And In Space), Omnivore makes available a live Buck Owens album that Capitol had a available for a short time of Buck’s September 9, 1968 White House performance for President Lyndon Johnson. The original album only ran about 22 minutes so in order to get a usable length CD, Omnivore coupled the album with a program recorded for the Apollo 16 astronauts to take on their mission with them. A bit gimmicky, but Buck Owens completists will want the album.
The late Don Rich was a fine singer in his own right and an excellent musician that Omnivore has focused upon. That Fiddlin’ Man restores to print a 1971 Buckaroos allbum featuring Don Rich on fiddle and adds an additional ten tracks of Don fiddlin’ around from other Buckaroo albums. I got to see Buck & Don in person three times and it was always a highlight of the show when Buck has Don pull out his ‘cherry apple red fiddle’ and play “Cajun Fiddle”, “Orange Blossom Special” or some other tune. Don Rich Sings George Jones features ten George Jones songs that were recorded for a never released Don Rich solo album, augmented with four Buck Owens tracks of George Jones covers. The Buckaroos Play Merle and Buck couple a pair of Buckaroos albums, 1965’s The Buck Owens Songbook with 1971’s The Songs of Merle Haggard. These are all instrumental numbers featuring Don Rich (mostly) on telecaster.
There are many fine Merle Haggard collections available so Omnivore’s The Complete 60s Capitol Singles is hardly an essential collection but it is definitely an excellent one and anyway one can never have too much Merle Haggard in their collection. Twenty-eight songs – the A & B sides of Merle’s fourteen singles, and Merle’s B sides were hardly throw-aways, “Today I Started Loving You Again” and “Silver Wings” both being B sides. Merle’s peak years were with Capitol and this is all great stuff – it doesn’t get any better than this !
I will close out with a Bear Family boxed set that is beyond the price range for most of us, probably even beyond the Christmas ‘wish list’: Tall Dark Stranger – Buck Owens and The Buckaroos Recordings: 1968-1975. This eight CD set covers Buck’s slightly post-peak eriod with Capitol Records, a period that saw Buck experimenting with and updating the ‘freight train’ sound that had become his hallmark. Includes his duet albums with son Buddy Alan Owens, the Susan Raye duets, some Buckaroos recordings and even a duet with a duet with R&B singer Bettye Swann. Buck had about 20 chart hits during this period and the set features many previously unreleased songs
Retro Reviews, Year In Review Bettye Swann, Bob Wills, Buck Owens, Buddy Owens, Cal Smith, Claude King, Curly Putman, Don Gibson, Don Rich, Dwight Yoakam, Ferlin Husky, George Jones, George Shea, Hank Thompson, Hank Williams, Jack Clements, Jack Greene, Jean Shepard, Johnny Horton, Kitty Wells, Lorene Mann, Lyndon Johnson, Mac Wiseman, Martina McBride, Merle Haggard, Patti Page, Ray Price, Slim Whitman, Susan Raye, Tammy Wynette, The Buckaroos, The Jordanaires, Tompall Glaser, Walter Brennan
Country Heritage: David Houston
A person surveying the country music scene at the beginning of 1973 could be forgiven for thinking that David Houston was en route to a career that would culminate in eventual induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. His most recent single, “Good Things,” would reach #1 on Cashbox and complete a decade in which 13 of his singles topped one or more of the Billboard, Cashbox and/or Record World country charts. His 1966 hit, “Almost Persuaded,” was the biggest country hit of the decade (1966-75) and another 17 singles cracked the top 20 during that span. Eight of his songs cracked Billboard’s pop charts.
Instead, Houston’s career would come to a screeching halt with only two more top 20 singles to follow.
Charles David Houston (December 9, 1935 – November 30, 1993) was born and died in Bossier City, Louisiana. Between those dates, he compiled a career worthy of his antecedents who include former Revolutionary War hero (and Virginia governor) “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, General Robert E. Lee and Texas hero Sam Houston. His godfather, 1920s pop singer Gene Austin (“My Blue Heaven”), co-owned an auto dealership with Houston’s father and took an active role in encouraging David’s musical career. Like Gene Austin, Houston was very much at home with pop music. Eventually, he came to the attention of Slim Whitman, who recorded his first session in 1955 and got him placed on Imperial Records. A spot on the Louisiana Hayride soon followed.
The contract with Imperial didn’t lead anywhere, nor did subsequent recording contracts with RCA and Atlanta-based National Recording Corporation. Finally, in 1963, Tillman Franks, former manager of Johnny Horton and Claude King, pitched a song to Houston and got him on the Epic label. The song, “Mountain of Love” (not the same song that Johnny Rivers and Charley Pride recorded), rose to #2 on Billboard. After a couple of minor hits, Billy Sherrill took over Epic’s Nashville operations and provided Houston with a song he penned (with Glen Sutton) titled “Livin’ in a House Full of Love,” which hit #3 in late 1965.
In 1966, Sherrill had Houston record a waltz that he and Glen Sutton had written as a possible B-side. The song, a tale of a married man struggling (and succeeding) in fighting off temptation, became an A-side and a sensation. “Almost Persuaded” jumped to #1 that August and spent nine weeks at the top of Billboard’s country chart and reached #24 on the pop chart (no record since 1966 has topped the country charts for as long a period). Aided by the piano signatures of Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins, “Almost Persuaded” garnered two Grammys for Houston (Best Country & Western Recording and Best Country & Western Performance, Male) in 1967. The CMA Awards did not start until the next year so his biggest record went unrecognized by the CMA.
“Almost Persuaded” launched a string of hits that lasted through 1973 and created the template that Sherrill used on his future recordings with Tammy Wynette, George Jones and numerous other artists. Sometimes referred to as “country cocktails,” the Sherrill arrangements would come to dominate country music until the outlaw movement came to the fore in the mid ’70s. Such David Houston solo hits as “With One Exception” and “You Mean the World to Me” (1967); “Have a Little Faith” and “Already It’s Heaven” (1968); “Baby, Baby (I Know You’re a Lady)” (1970); and the 1967 duet of “My Elusive Dreams” with the then-largely unknown Tammy Wynette served to demonstrate how well the arrangements could work in the hands of an expressive singer. Along the way, Houston also provided Barbara Mandrell with her first major hit in “After Closing Time” (#6 in 1970). Read more of this post
Country Heritage Barbara Mandrell, Billy Sherrill, Charley Pride, Claude King, David Houston, Eddy Arnold, Elton Britt, Gene Austin, Glen Sutton, Hargus "Pig" Robbins, Harry Lee, Johnny Horton, Johnny Rivers, Kenny Roberts, Robert E. Lee, Sam Houston, Slim Whitman, Tammy Wynette, Tillman Franks
Classic Rewind: Johnny Horton – ‘The Battle Of New Orleans’
2 Comments Posted by Occasional Hope on January 8, 2012
This year is the bicentenary of the last war between the Americans and the British. The last battle of that war was fought on 8 January 1815, and over a century later inspired this classic country song. The tune, known as ‘The 8th of January’, is older than the lyrics.
The Blue Against The Grey: Remembering the Civil War
Leave a comment Posted by Razor X on April 12, 2011
150 years ago today, Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, marking the first military action in the bloodiest conflict in American history. From 1861 to 1865, the Civil War divided the nation, states and even family members, and its repercussions are still felt to the present day. It has been romanticized like no other era in US history — particularly in the South — having been the topic of countless novels, films and songs over the years. Country artists in particular have frequently commemorated it.
Johnny Cash, one of country music’s greatest storytellers, told of how the war divided families and pitted brother against brother when he offered up this medley in a 1969 installment of his ABC variety show:
The First Battle of Bull Run, fought on July 21, 1861 resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Union Army and quickly laid to rest any hopes harbored by either side that the conflict would be over quickly, as Johnny Horton recalled:
Everything Else Abraham Lincoln, Hank Williams Jr, Jessi Colter, John Dillon, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Lee Ann Womack, Lee Greenwood, Paul Kennerley, Robert E. Lee, Steve Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Trace Adkins, Ulysses S. Grant, Waylon Jennings, William Tecumseh Sherman |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: What are the characteristics of the hyphae associated with mucormycosis? output: The hyphae associated with mucormycosis are non-septated with wide-angled (90°) branching. This is a distinctive feature of the fungi that cause mucormycosis, and can be observed through microscopic examination of infected tissue or body fluids. The presence of these hyphae can help to confirm a diagnosis of mucormycosis, which is important for determining appropriate treatment options. |
I have been away from this blog for a long time but for a good reason. After more than 2 years of effort, energy, bloody mindedness, up's and down's, battles, victories, set backs, surprises and not small amount of coffee, Leon lunch boxes and falafel consumed Abundance is finally ready to born into the world.
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Are you a fixer or a changer?
The world is dividing. The divisions of ideology, culture, class and religion are being replaced by something more fundamental. It is a question which vexes right and left, fundamentalist and liberal, conservative and progressive, neo-liberal and socialist.It is a question which requires each to question their beliefs and assumptions about the world as it could or will be.
Are the problems of the sustainability – financial, economic, social and environmental going to be solved by fixing the current system or changing it completely?
Above all this question requires us to ask whether the way things are is a function of the realities of existence and the limited capabilities of human society to create real change or merely the construct of a particular way of thinking about the world and its future.
A fixer is not necessarily a conservative or reactionary, they believe in the passage of progress which has brought humanity into an age of globalised society enabled by technologies that simultaneously shrink the world and overwhelm you with its enormity and diversity.
A changer is not necessarily an idealist or revolutionary, they believe that progress is an illusion and in reality the passage of human civilisation is characterised by rupture and discontinuity rather than any rational model or plan.
A fixer would argue that the current crises of sustainability are a function of a poorly executed plan or lack of rational controls on society, hence a response based on developing new forms of regulation and billions of dollars and pounds spent propping up the institutions which caused our current set of crises – whether than money is supporting banks, oil or other powerful vested interests.
A changer would argue that the current crises are a function of an unsustainable system which is based on false assumptions about the limits and effectiveness of growth, financial capital and industrial scale institutions (of the State, private sector or third sector).
A fixer sees the barriers to change being irrationality, complexity and resources. A changer seeks new accounts of change which make sense of the contradictory nature of the world, aims for simplicity and optimises the use of resources for the long term.
A fixer lives in the now and is overwhelmed by the passage of change in a liquid modernity. A changer makes decisions for the long now, seeing disruption as part of the process of change not a departure from the process. For a changer, liquid modernity represents the opportunity to re-invent global society rather than simply re-build it.
It is a recurring debate within most financial services companies to ask "does this constitute advice?'. Advice in financial services is highly regulated as a result of Financial Services somewhat chequered history on the matter. You don't have to go very far back in history to find repeated examples of sharp sales practices masquerading as advice. My main 'stuck record' when talking to FS companies is to try to convince them that such practices reflect their own skewed view of the world and have very little to do with the meaning and value of advice in society at large.
I have come across this problem in a related field, namely social care; specifically regarding the advice given by professionals such as GP's, and the perceptible shift in the definition of advice away from common sense or normal cultural praxis and towards something which is rooted in the theme of rationality and evidence led policy thinking which has dogged so much of what purports to be innovation in the public sector.
This is more than just a philosophical debate, although policy wonks and practioneers need (and I think this would be a good thing) to be more philosophical about the nature of advice (and information) if we are not going to see the dysfunctionality of advice in the financial services industry repeated in other sectors of public good - such as health, social care and sustainability.
So lets look at the 'facts'. Facts are the holy grail of policy making and service design in the public sector. We treat facts as 'real' and they always trump a good hypothesis or theory. One of the projects of the solid modern world is to make sure that all information is produced in the form of facts - or perhaps more accuratedly, every thing is/can be reduced to a fact. We even call them 'hard facts'. A fact is a self contained statement - i.e. all of the necessary the meaning is contained within it. The value of a fact is that it is an objective bit of stuff (or content) which can be 'transacted' repeatedly between the state/institution/professional and the individual.
Facts do not refer to or require context to be understood. Facts are supposed to make things plain and simple so that people can make decisions without any undue influence. Introducing context about the product or even asking about context (either of the product or of the individual) constitutes advice.
In Financial services I can only use facts unless I want to start giving 'advice' (and enter a painful world of costs, risks, liabilities, authorisations and bureacratic box ticking).
Advice in the solid modern world is enacted by introducing some element of context or personal details. I can identify that I have back pain to my GP or savings that I want to put in an ISA but the GP/FS salesperson will avoid moving to context of that condition/decision for fear of entering the realm of 'advice'. In the case of a GP it turns a 10 minute consultation into an hour's conversation, and in the case of the FS salesperson (who is not 'trained in advice") it turns a harmless conversation into a regulated transaction of advice. Advice is about more than the facts about a thing, it involves the application of some contingent context in which the thing will be purchased, used or chosen over another option.
I am sure that a philosopher would have something to say about this (or would assert the limits of what could or should be said), but understanding the gap between the way we define advice in theoretical and policy terms and the way advice is consumed in reality is fundamental to understanding why both the State and financial services are so poor at giving advice which is actually heeded and acted upon by its citizens/customers.
Of course, consumers in reality are less than comfortable with the idea that all they can have are facts about a thing; they are desperate for some context (theirs or someone like them) so that they can make a decision based on what they would define as evidence (i.e. experience). They don't see the exchange as a finite transaction (one which will not be remembered the next time they interact with that insitution as this would constitute advice) but rather as part of the to and fro/reciprocation of a relationship building exercise.
It is like purchasing a work of art, such as a painting, without being able to know anything beyond what it is a painting of, what paints were used in its creation and what someone else paid for something very similar. Information about the artist, and the fact that he / she may have painted similar works, constitutes advice. And advice is to be avoided. We are left in the rather post modern state of being when the meaning of a thing is entirely constructed and enacted by the audience and the authors retreat behind a wall of facts about their work. It is perhaps ironic that much of the rhetoric of the Big Society against the "Big State" is based on the falacy that the state was somehow interfering in everyday life. The experience in many areas has been akin to the retreat of the financial services from our communities and high streets, i.e. the Big State has become obsessed with presenting only the facts and left the consumer to fend for themselves via choices. Of course, as you often find when marketing financial services products, the way you frame the choice (number of choices, use of brands and other symbols of trust, etc) can control the decision of the individual in much the same way as advice and this constitutes a much more insidious interference in many respects - an interference which could be framed as 'when nudge turns to prod'.
In fact, we are now faced with a system where even advice itself has been reduced to a transactional commodity, valued in temrs of work done to establish the context of an individual and recommendations (or at least priorities established) such that a decision can be made. The problem is that the costs of this advice are so prohibitive that it is only worth seeking if you have sufficient money to afford it from the investment decision you are about to make. Essentially the single digit percentage of the population with 100k + of net worth (not counting illiquid assets like houses).
And perhaps we come to the nub of the problem with my last post but one about the Big Individual. Liquid Modernity delivers freedom for those with the resources to generate their own advice (technological, economic, social, cultural capital) while many are cast adrift in a sea of choices with little or no supply of such capital to navigate their own choices in any meaningful sense, recoursing instead to superstition (picking the third one in the list, picking the middle one) and habit/apathy (making no choice).
So perhaps it falls to researchers to stop selling the (mass) production of facts and start selling the search for meaning? We only have to look at the essentially irrational behaviour of equity markets to realise the risks of relying purely on the production of facts to make sense of the world and decide how we are going to invest our increasingly finite resources. We don't need States to assume that Google is all the meaning we need to make decisions. There must be a billion facts on Google which purport to be the 'meaning of life' each one, taken by itself, as useless as the last if you actually want to live that life.
This response from the Sustainable Development Commission to a request for evidence about Behaviour change seems to endorse the importance of changing contexts rather than changing minds and also points to a lack of research resource to understand the impact of interventions and policy changes.
A thought in progress which occurred when putting together a presentation on “The long now of finance” for SIBOS next week in Amsterdam. I will be presenting as part of the following ‘Innotribe’ whose remit is to think forward across the next century. A slightly daunting prospect, as Bauman reminded us at his conference, “don’t make predictions, especially not about the future”.
I have always found it challenging to describe ‘what is going on now/here’ let alone make any assertions about the shape of the future. Perhaps that is the best to hope for, just as we write our histories for the present so we write futures. One thing which is ‘going on now’ is an increasing instance of ideas of collaboration and inklings of new consumer moralities emerging under the banner of sustainability.
The economics of enough are bubbling up all over the place, not so much new era economics as “new age” currently, but then so was Gaia theory and environmentalism not so long ago. I have seen it used in the context of rethinking Thailand’s economic strategy post the 1997 Asian crisis and trying to assert some new moralities of economic endeavour through recourse to Buddhist teachings.
For me the “economics of enough” reflects a fundamental optimism of what we do as individuals in an open, transparent and social context. It is a function of the compromise between individuality and security which Bauman places at the heart of all social contexts. The Gordon Gekkos of this world thrive behind the opaque doors of regulated financial markets which enshrine and legitimise greed and ruthless competition in the name of liberalisation and the pursuit of money as an end in itself. In many ways in the long now of finance, modern money has been an interesting and roller coaster interlude powered by a sixties style revolution of individual credit (the “pill” that liberated consumerism) and the glamour of an ultimately self absorbed and hedonistic elite (LSD replaced by CDO’s and other ‘exotic’ derivatives). Lehman’s was the gorilla /butterfly crushed by in this case a wheel of its own making.
We are now prepared to consider the idea that you can have ‘enough’ money and be happy, it doesn’t leave you empty and wanting more. Those who believe you always need more money are those which betray the stresses of the reality of servitude that underpins modern money’s promise of liberation.
However, the “economics of enough” are not just a closed loop of self reliance and drawing in of ourselves to our nearest and dearest, but about how individuals will negotiate their share of market returns and rewards for risk when it becomes clear that some investments needs to be made collectively to produce economically enabled social goods, and as such need to be made fairly and transparently to ensure that both sides of the bargain get a fair return or reciprocation.
Big Society of Big Individuals?
A stimulating day spent in search of evidence for the Big Society at NCVO left me feeling that rather like the term “social enterprise”, “Big Society” will end up being another interesting contradiction in terms that feeds the intellectual interest of policy advisers but leaves the ultimate beneficiaries – i.e. taxpayers, citizens, etc – rather cold.
Perhaps it is worth a minute to consider the view from the other end of the telescope. We have spent the last two decades embracing individualism, (and the twin trends of personalisation and consumerisation of everyday life) both fueled and enabled by the equivalent of a consumer contraceptive pill of the 1990’s, the credit card. The liberator of your money, because in your heart of hearts you know that it isn’t your money. At the same time, technology has enabled us to live increasingly independent lives of personal choices and freedoms which hitherto were both unthinkable and unworkable. I look at my own freelance career, seemingly living without the need of a nurturing corporate body, constantly shifting from project to business, following my own interests in money, consumerism and sustainability and at any moment able to say “tomorrow, I will do something else” on the basis that my time, as a freelancer, is not sold in advance for a salary but paid by the day or even the hour.
Of course, the alternative to this narrative is the atomised individual cast adrift from the institutions and communities upon which previously we had relied and tyrannised by endless choice and so-called consumer ‘liberation’.
And, Ok, I am probably not typical. (Although my work for zopa showed that such lifestyles, which we called ‘freeforming’, were emerging as a significant trend which would foster new forms of social and economic activities and collaborations). What is evident is that compared even to when I started as a freelancer, 11 years ago now, technology has leapt ahead to make living a ‘liquid modern’ life more accessible, more efficient and cheaper than ever before. And perhaps more importantly, more ‘solid’ or ‘tangible’.
The same goes for the businesses which seek to harness such technologies for the creation of new low cost business models. A business really can be built from your bedroom, something reminiscent of what started the rot in the music industry at the end of the 90’s when anyone with talent or an ear for a mash up could produce professional sounds from a laptop.
Into this context comes the ‘Big Society’ which when understood from this liquid modern perspective appears to be an assertion of some of the very vested interests and traditional institutions which individuals have sought to subvert and undermine. But I think this is perhaps just one interpretation of just what the Big Society is and a real danger sign that if it is isn’t defined in a meaningful and practical way (or as praxis) soon then the vacuum will be filled by the status quo which adopts BS as a new brand ‘marque’ of legitimacy for their public and private demands for power and resources.
As someone who is essentially optimistic about the ability of liquid individuals (or “freeformers”) to produce meaningful and moral outcomes through new forms of collaboration, the opportunity of the Big Society is to encourage individuals to become ‘big’ rather than replace one set of institutional interests with another. At Zopa we used to talk about the ‘individual revolution’ of which zopa itself was at the vanguard of new ways of individuals getting together to achieve personal and social goals. If Big Society is going to be more than a badge, then government needs to adopt a whole new set of beliefs about the potential of the individual and trust in their ability to shape their futures in a way that does not just maximise their pleasure but makes for a more sustainable and fundamentally human response to the needs and challenges of being a good society. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I was diagnosed with conversion disorder in 2005, and had a few what i call attacks since then, in 2008 i finally was able to resume work. But last week I got out of bed kept walking to the left tried putting on foot in front of the other heel toe and my left foot would not go down flat i kept rolling on it. i have pins and needles in my face and legs on and off and now my left eye lid feels like its drooping but on looking at it it is not. Not had an mri since 2005, no lumber puncture no watching me sleep which I have gone from jerks in my sleep as to now in my sleep my partner says he can feel me vibrating. I throw my head from time to time I throw my hands and get a hip waddle up. Im 52, and Im so sure this is not in my head ie conversion disorder. any ideas? output: Hello, there. Regardless of your past history of conversion disorder, your symptoms warrant further investigation. One-sided weakness and synesthesia (abnormal sensations) could indicate a number of serious disorders, including a stroke, multiple sclerosis, central nervous system acidosis, or even a brain tumor. The fact that you awakened with these symptoms is concerning, as is the fact that you're exhibiting unusual motor activity while your sleeping. A thorough neurological examination, including MRI, is needed here. I suggest you see your doctor again as soon as possible. I hope things go well!. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Could you provide an overview of thyroid adenoma? output: Common risk factors in the development of thyroid adenoma are family history of thyroid adenoma, exposure to radiation, lack of iodine in diet, smoking, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hi! I have recently been diagnosed with idiopathic cardiomyopathy. ejection fraction 35%. on carvedilol , lisinopril, amlodipine to manage blood pressure. what are my expectations as far as quality of life? I understand this condition is for the rest of my life. I am 60 yrs old. output: Hiyou have to continue your cardiac medications promptly. Quality of life once again depends on your individual lifestyle. Avoid stress, lifting heavy weights maintain your heart rate and blood pressures, oxygenation at acceptable limits to decrease the load on the heart with the oxygen demand. Fluid restriction, avoid salt, oily & heavy meals. Regular follow up with your cardiologist at least once in 12 weeks. All the best take care. |
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Disclosure:The shape of the surface of a rotating liquid in a bucket can be determined using Newton's laws for the various forces on an element of theThe Shape of Water is the type of movie that can’t be boiled down to just one or two talking points or themesDiscusses the shape water assumes as a liquid, solid, and gasThe similarities between “The Shape of Water” and a short film called “The Space Between Us” have raised eyebrows among some viewers, as their shared premise — a womancontact meEggs, water, and—yes—sex will all play crucial and overlapping roles in the director Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, an adult fairy tale that is at once deeply
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One of the best movies of the year is The Shape of Water, something that makes fans of director Guillermo del Toro smile every time they hear itOscar nominee Vanessa Taylor, who co-wrote “The Shape of Water” with Guillermo del Toro, has signed on to write “Hillbilly Elegy” project for Ron Howard
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The Shape of Water is a deep dive into a dream state, like a two-hour episode of The Twilight Zone written by PucciniHe set The Shape of Water in America in 1962, but he is really talking about today and what it feels like to be an outsider or part of a minority, who in story terms isBuy the Hardcover Book The Shape Of Water by Guillermo Del Toro at IndigoAmong the many conversation points circling Guillermo Del Toro’s recent Best Picture winner, The Shape Of Water, one of the most prominent was its sexual aspect, andGuillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water: Creating a Fairy Tale for Troubled Times chronicles the entire filmmaking journey, from development to design to filming"Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find all around me, your presence fill my eyes with your love, it humbles my heart, for you are everywhereThe Shape of Water (La forma dell'acqua) ‘The Shape of Water’ is the first book in a sly, witty, engaging series, with a sardonic take on Sicilian life
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Israeli Technion Students Share Knowledge with L.A.
Technion students Roni Hillel (left) and Moran Lazar (right) visited Los Angeles to share their knowledge in their respective fields of study.
A couple of students from the Israeli Technion visited Los Angeles from Feb. 26-28 to share their knowledge about Israel’s tech startup culture.
Roni Hillel is studying environmental engineering and working toward her Ph.D. in environmental quality sciences. She is currently researching water and wind flows to help ameliorate pollution from areas that are surrounded by mountains.
Hillel is modeling these slopes in a lab through a water tank, heating and other methods to simulate the climate itself on these particular slopes.
“We’re trying to get the best picture that we can to generate a model to be able to determine these little microclimates in the region and eventually to be able to predict how to drive pollution out of areas like that, urban areas,” Hillel said.
Hillel predicts that by the end of her Ph.D. program – which is expected to February 20 – her research will have advanced to the point where technology can be developed that can exterminate pollution from these areas while keeping the natural environment intact. However, it’s too early to get an idea of what exactly this kind of technology would look like.
When it comes to environmental technology as a whole, Israel is ahead of the curve, as evident by numerous Israelis using solar power to heat their water and the use of desalination to obtain drinking water. Hillel suggested that the latter would be useful for California to embrace given the state’s prior droughts.
The other student, Moran Lazar, is studying behavioral sciences and management at The Technion’s William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. Her focus is on the kind of relationships among team members that cause startups to thrive and fail. Lazar cited a startup that provided imaging for apartment furniture as an example, as they were on the verge of receiving seed funding when the two founders ended their partnership over a business disagreement. Consequently, the startup failed.
“If I’m the best in technology, I would look for the best in marketing, the best in finance, the best in operations, and I would also look for partners that I trust, that I can build a strong connection and trustful connection with, so both the interpersonal connection and expertise and resource seeking are important,” Lazar told the Journal.
Roosevelt Island is a curious spit of land in the East River, nestled between Manhattan and Queens. It began as farmland, then housed a penitentiary and lunatic asylum and, later, hospitals.
Once home to the diseased and criminally insane, today it is home to a cutting-edge complex that is a marriage of Cornell University and Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology. Their union is launching new companies in an effort to create New York City’s own Silicon Valley. And, not incidentally, boost Israel’s image.
Based on what is already percolating at Cornell Tech and the related Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, they are on their way.
The Cornell-Technion marriage — and a great deal of philanthropic and city funding — has produced architecturally interesting, environmentally sensitive new buildings, which house academic programs and the nascent businesses.
Cornell Tech is the overall owner of the Roosevelt Island enterprise. Within it is the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, a first-of-its-kind partnership between the two universities that includes a double degree-granting master’s program and a post-doctoral fellowship designed to launch inventive tech businesses.
Cornell Tech and the Jacobs Institute moved into their new home in August, in time to open their doors for the current school year. The programs are housed in two buildings at the south end of the almond shaped, 2-mile-long, 800-feet-wide island. Elsewhere on the island, some 14,000 people now live in apartment buildings that first opened in 1975.
The story of the joint venture begins seven years ago, when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a competition to create an applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island. Fifty educational institutions were invited to compete. Technion was the only one from Israel.
Technion President Peretz Lavie recalls asking Bloomberg why Technion was invited. The mayor told him that “you took Jaffa oranges and turned them into semiconductors and I’d like you to do the same in New York,” Lavie said in an interview with the Journal. At its home campus, Haifa-based Technion has 14,500 students majoring in engineering, science, medicine and architecture.
The ultimate goal of their union? To create New York’s own Silicon Valley.
The project’s ultimate goal is to be an economic engine for the city of New York and feed talent into the growing tech sector. In a Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute video, Bloomberg says he expects Cornell Tech to contribute $23 billion to New York’s economy over the next three decades.
It was a high-stakes, hugely visible competition. The mayor pledged nearly free use of Roosevelt Island and $100 million of the city’s money.
Once it decided to apply to the New York City competition, Technion forged ahead with a sky’s-the-limit approach.
Twenty seven universities, from Manhattan’s Columbia University to one in Korea expressed interest. Seven submitted complete proposals, with Stanford and Cornell considered the front-runners. After months of secret talks, Cornell and Technion decided to join forces.
Stanford dropped out after Cornell announced it received a $350 million then-anonymous gift toward construction costs. On Dec. 19, The New York Times reported that the Cornell-Technion partnership was the winner, which soon was formally announced.
Google quickly offered them free space to kick off their partnership until Roosevelt Island’s campus was ready. The new enterprise stayed at Google, whose building takes up an entire square block in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, from 2012 until August, when it moved onto Roosevelt Island with about 300 graduate students.
When construction on Cornell Tech concludes in roughly 15 years, plans call for 2 million square feet of educational space on two acres, accommodating 2,000 students and 280 professors.
At the moment, three buildings are finished. Two house classrooms, studios and offices: The Bridge, and the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center. The latter is named for Michael Bloomberg’s daughters and funded with a $100 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Nearby is a boxy, 26-story building called The House, which provides housing for 550 students and faculty. Built to Passive House standards, which require little energy to achieve a comfortable temperature year round, and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certified, it is designed to optimize energy consumption by using passive solar heating and cooling techniques and is essentially airtight.
Enormous arrays of photovoltaic panels top The Bridge and Bloomberg buildings. Under a rolling lawn outside, 80 tanks collect rainwater through the grass. They provide gray water used to water the lawn during dry periods and flush toilets inside the Bloomberg Center.
There are other ways the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute is special, as well. As the only overseas university approved to grant degrees on American soil, it is a jewel in Technion’s crown, Lavie said. While it is Technion’s first foray into international branching out, the Israeli university is slated to open its second international campus, in China, next month.
The Jacobs Institute, which occupies about a third of the overall Cornell Tech space, is named after donors Irwin and Joan Jacobs, who gave the project $133 million. Irwin Jacobs is a founder of mobile chipmaker Qualcomm.
The Jacobs Institute has two interdisciplinary parts.
One is a master’s degree program focused on “hubs” in health technology and in connective media. The 70 master’s students earn two degrees: one from Cornell and one from Technion. A third hub, now in the planning stages, will focus on urban cyber-physical systems, said Ron Brachman, Jacobs Institute’s director.
Eva Stern-Rodriguez is a first-year master’s student focusing on connective media. In one required course, called Product Studio, students develop projects with potential real-world applications. She is collaborating with students from inside and outside of the Jacobs Institute. The app they are designing would connect skilled immigrants with nonprofit organizations to help them build financial stability.
Many immigrants don’t know how to access that kind of support, Stern-Rodriguez said, and “a lot of NGO [nongovernmental organizations] websites are hard to parse or out of date because they don’t have the money to do updates.” Their app will launch in English and Spanish presenting a curated list of NGOs meant to allow immigrants to find the information they need in one place.
In another class Stern-Rodriguez is taking on new media, students are partnering with media companies to develop new ways of fact-checking.
In the master’s program’s second semester, student teams compete to win one of four $100,000 awards given to projects with the best startup potential, said Jacobs Institute Director Brachman.
The other part of the Jacobs Institute is its Runway program.
Runway offers salaried fellowships to post-doctoral students, providing the training, space and seed money they need to launch new tech companies. Each post-doc student has mentors both in their discipline and on the business side. They get instruction on finance and fundraising and the program files patents for them. The value of each fellowship, which lasts between one and three years, starts out at $175,000 for the first year, said Fernando Gomez-Baquero, a nanomaterials engineer recently appointed director of Jacobs’ Runway and Spinouts. In return, the Jacobs Institute gets a small ownership stake in the new business.
The first 21 post-doc fellows launched 17 companies, 14 of which are still in business, Gomez-Baquero said.
One Runway startup is Shade. It developed a small sensor to attach to clothing and measure the ultraviolet rays to which its wearer is exposed. Its first market will be people with autoimmune diseases triggered by sunlight, like lupus, explained its creator, Emanuel Dumont, in a presentation. Since sunlight also ages skin, it also has a potential market in the beauty industry, he said.
Another startup, Biotia, is aimed at battling hospital infections. One in 25 people admitted to the hospital acquires an infection there, according to Biotia, and one in nine people will die from that infection. The risk is even higher for cancer patients and others with compromised immune systems. Their product helps hospitals quickly sequence swabbed pathogens’ DNA to identify what it is and treat it appropriately. Their first major customer, a large hospital in Southeast Asia, has just bought the product, Gomez-Baquero said.
A third new product, already on the market — perhaps Runway’s most successful launch to date — is the Nanit baby monitor (see sidebar).
A product that failed was an app that would take a photo of food and provide nutritional information, Gomez-Baquero said. Its inventors “were very close to doing a partnership with Weight Watchers, but it didn’t work in the end. The market didn’t really want to pay for a service like that. It didn’t seem to be a viable business model,” he said.
Runway is fine trying startups that fail, he said.
“We don’t measure ourselves by the ones that are successful. Our mandate as Jacobs and as Runway is to experiment. To really push the boundaries,” he said.
The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute endeavor is also having a more prosaic impact. It has boosted fundraising for the American Technion Society, said Jeffrey Richard, its executive vice president. “[Now] when our staff, lay leaders and supporters are out in public trying to tell the Technion story, there’s much more recognition [of the university],” he said.
That’s showing up in its bottom line. In its last big fundraising campaign, which ended in 2014, the U.S. development organization for Technion raised an average of $84 million a year, he said.
“Now we’re averaging $140 million a year in campaign support. We’re definitely seeing increases,” Richard said.
“It makes things more tangible” to potential donors, said Reyna Susi Dominitz, who heads the Miami branch of ATS, during the Roosevelt Island tour.
Daniel Doctoroff is CEO of Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet (i.e., Google-related) company focused on designing cities of the future. When Bloomberg was mayor, Doctoroff worked as New York City’s deputy mayor for economic development. He went on to run Bloomberg L.P., the financial information company.
While Doctoroff wasn’t involved in creating Cornell Tech or the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, he is familiar with the project, and bullish about its prospects for contributing to the technology industry and New York City’s economy.
Debra Nussbaum Cohen is a freelance writer in New York.
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has laid the cornerstone for a research center in Shantou, China.
Construction of the Guandong Technion Israel Institute of Technology began Wednesday. The institute is the product of a $130 million gift from investor Li Ka Shing and will be a joint venture between the Technion and Shantou University.
Cantor Marcus Feldman of Sinai Temple sang the national anthem at Dodger Stadium on July 7 as the Los Angeles Dodgers took on the Philadelphia Phillies. Approximately 50 people from the Westwood-based Conservative congregation — including Rabbis David Wolpe and Jason Fruithandler — turned out to watch their cantor perform.
Feldman, a Los Angeles native, told the Journal that it could not have gone any better, despite the Dodgers’ 7-2 loss.
“It was so much fun; it was thrilling. It was the largest audience I ever sang in front of,” he said in a phone interview. “You are oftentimes worried about forgetting the lyrics, [and] they have the lyrics up there, but I was focused on the flag.
Anyone who missed the game will have another chance to represent the Jewish people at Chavez Ravine on Aug. 30 for the Dodgers’ annual Jewish Community Day, when the team takes on the Chicago Cubs.
The Iranian-American Jewish organization 30 Years After has hired Shanel Melamed as its new executive director.
A graduate of USC, Melamed was born and raised in Los Angeles to “parents who fled the Islamic Republic of Iran shortly after the [Iranian] Revolution,” according to a press release. She previously worked at the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, where she served as an adviser on issues of public diplomacy and public engagement.
Melamed succeeds Tabby Davoodi, who co-founded 30 Years After in 2007 and who concludes a three-year term as executive director, the release said. The search to replace Davoodi began in March. Melamed started July 15.
30 Years After President Sam Yebri was among those who expressed confidence that Melamed will successfully lead the organization into its next stage.
Retired Israel Defense Forces Maj. Gen. Amos Horev — a former president of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and legendary war hero — shared his personal story before an intimate crowd during a July 10 luncheon with American Technion Society’s (ATS) young leaders.
ATS young leaders are members of the organization’s Ambassadors Leadership Development Program and are committed to the mission of helping ATS raise funds and awareness for the Israel Institute of Technology, according to a press release. Those present were: Paul Brandano, Gabriel Eshaghian, Tamar Geller, David Marcus, Lori Mars, Elan Mordoch, Michael Pycher, Joseph Shaposhnik, Michael Steuer and Sarah Weindling.
Additional attendees at the event, which took place at Bedford and Burns restaurant in Beverly Hills, included Rena Conner, president of the Southern California ATS chapter, and Journal President David Suissa.
The board of directors of the Jewish business networking organization JNET has elected Sandy Rosenholz of Senior Services Inc., as the new president of its Bel Air chapter. Rosenholz succeeds Alan Altschul of Open Mortgage, who has been the leader since 2013.
Alongside his ownership of Senior Resources, Rosenholz has over 44 years of sales experience.
JNET Tarzana AM chapter’s leadership team: Front row from left: Max Berger, Robin Kellogg and Ronit Krancberg. Back row from left: Scott Margolin, Phil Blum, Victor Schwartz and Dean Piller.
JNET also has announced the opening of its 12th chapter, JNET Tarzana AM, the first chapter in the San Fernando Valley to offer morning meetings. The first meeting was held on July 7 at Temple Judea over bagels and coffee.
The team is led by President Victor Schwartz of C-Suite Media Inc., and includes co-membership coordinators Dean Piller of Community Nationwide Mortgage and Scott Margolin of Eden Memorial Park; speaker coordinator Robin Kellogg of Robin Kellogg Associates; and public relations coordinator Philip Blum of Capstone Partners Financial & Insurance Services.
JNET began in 2005 in the Conejo Valley, and chapters now exist throughout Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
For most pursuing a career in medicine, the long-haul investment in studying, training and preparing to become a physician is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Others have personal goals too, whether it’s to explore their Jewish backgrounds or spend time in a new location. Some choose to make the challenge a little more exciting by engaging in a new environment, being immersed in a different culture and picking up a new language.
The benefits of studying medicine in Israel are numerous, especially at the world-renowned Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Situated upon the Rambam Health Care Campus on the Haifa shores, Technion American Medical School (TeAMS) provides a top-notch medical education and extensive training at several of Israel’s best hospitals. At this prestigious medical school program, students get one-on-one time with leading faculty members, including two Nobel Prize winners and numerous researchers who have contributed to several medical breakthroughs and innovations. All students complete a thesis. Graduates can continue to residency programs in the U.S.
The acclaimed academic and research repertoire attracts top students, but the students who actually enroll in TeAMS bring an extra uniqueness to the program. They are attracted to the school for unique reasons, hoping to get a more well-rounded education that will make them more compassionate and focused doctors. Let’s meet some of the students beginning their medical careers at TeAMS this October.
For many observant Jews, there is a dilemma of maintaining a certain lifestyle while seeking a high level of professional training. While Technion is not a religious institution, its location in Israel makes key issues like Shabbat, the Jewish holidays and kashrut much easier to address.
Josh Simons, an incoming student from Monsey, NY, said one of the things he liked most about TeAMS is the schedule. “It fits around the High Holidays and works perfectly for an observant student,” said Simons, who is starting medical school only one month after his release from a 14-month volunteer service in the Israel Defense Forces in the Netzach Yehuda battalion in the Kfir Brigade. Simons, who earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Touro College in Jan. 2013, served as a machine gunner in a religious unit.
“Medicine is a sacred profession; as a healer, I can fill the charge of implementing G-d’s will in profound and meaningful ways,” Thomas said. “I am very happy to begin studying at Technion because I’ve only heard positive things, that everyone is so friendly and it sounds like a very positive environment,” he added.
Simons noted a similar thought, “It was by far the nicest program because people were so friendly and the staff is really impressive.” He recalled a “simple, pleasant and inviting” interview experience. “Plus the campus is beautiful and right by the beach,” he said with a smile.
Moreover, what attracted Barta was being at one of the most diverse campuses in Israel. Having studied foreign languages at Queens College, Barta knows Arabic, in addition to Hebrew. Barta and fellow TeAMS students participate in rotations at many of Northern Israel’s hospitals, which service Jews, Arabs, Christians, Druze, African refugees and others.
TeAMS also caught the eye of incoming student Lydia Daniels, from the suburbs of Pittsburg, PA, because of its diversity. Daniels, who graduated with a bachelor’s in pre-med from Bob Jones University in South Carolina, was fascinated after studying about the Middle East region.
Daniels arrived in Israel six weeks before classes started to move into the dorms, take a Hebrew course and explore. “So far, it’s been a very good atmosphere,” she said.
Such experiences make doctors more balanced and equipped to treat patients; they excel in the academics, have a grasp of research and technology, develop into more open-minded and compassionate people and gain hands-on experience.
In a twist on the classic academic approach to entrepreneurship, Israeli universities are trending toward classroom-based incubators that allow students to put theory to the test in a sheltering atmosphere. After all, what better way to learn how to start a business than to actually start one?
The formula clearly works. Among the successful companies launched while their founders were in the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), a private Herzliya university, are the eBay-acquired Gifts Project and Conduit-acquired Wibiya. LabPixies, Google’s first Israeli acquisition, was started by Zell alumni.
“The goal is to strike a balance between hands-on practice and academic methodology,” said Liat Aaronson, executive director of the 12-year-old program, which annually accepts 20 to 22 qualified seniors.
For Moran Nir, her 2009 academic year in the entrepreneurship center was key to her success with FunkKit, a customized sneaker-sticker product now sold online and in stores in 10 countries and growing.
Israel is a logical place for Zell and newer programs like it. The country boasts more high-tech startups and venture capital activity per person than any other nation in the world, and has produced more startups than Japan, China, India, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Korea.
In 2004, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Bronica Entrepreneurship Center opened for undergraduates, graduate students, alumni and faculty.
Bronica also sponsors BizTech, a yearly business plan competition open to student or alumni teams from any university.
“So far, 20 new companies have come out of that competition — one already had an exit and another has $20 million invested in it,” de Haan said.
This year, the Technion will offer a two-month pre-accelerator to all eight or 10 finalist teams. They’ll get mentoring, a business loan and workspace.
“If it works well, next year we’ll open it to foreign universities that have similar competitions, so they can send their best teams to Israel to expose them to Israelis and Israel’s ‘startup nation’ culture in the summer,” de Haan said.
The Bronica center works closely with the Technion’s master of business administration (MBA) department. “Some of the MBA students are interns for the companies in our accelerator,” de Haan said.
Next fall, the Technion will welcome its first class of international Start-uP MBA students.
“We conducted extensive research before deciding to launch this, because it is quite a unique academic program,” said Avital Regev Siman-Tov, managing director of the Technion’s MBA programs. She learned for herself that traditional courses are not sufficient for budding business people.
“I have a Ph.D. in medical sciences and an MBA, and my theoretical tools gave me the opportunity to be the CEO of a startup — and then what? The real world is a completely different arena,” Regev Siman-Tov said.
Israel’s startup reputation is the prime selling point for this program, which will be based not on the Technion’s Haifa campus but at the recently opened Sarona “lifestyle center” in Tel Aviv to facilitate field trips to startup country.
Students will be able to take courses at the new Technion-Cornell campus in New York City, and as the only Israeli member in Yale University’s Global Network for Advanced Management, Start-uP MBA will have collaborations with leading business schools around the world.
“Usually in global entrepreneurship programs they teach you how to behave in the global arena, while here we say, ‘Come and study how it is done in the startup nation,’ ” Regev Siman-Tov said.
Because not all ideas can become blockbusters, Zell’s Aaronson prefers to look at university entrepreneurship programs as people accelerators rather than venture accelerators.
Last year’s class included the founders of Roomer, a site for buying and selling hotel reservations that won $2 million in seed money. Feex, a crowd-sourced financial fee-reduction site, attracted its first investment from the founder of the hugely popular Waze, who mentored Feex’s founders in Zell.
Aaronson is pleased that other Israeli institutions of higher learning are starting similar academic programs (such as The Bengis Center for Entrepreneurship and Management at Ben-Gurion University) or community entrepreneurship nonprofits like Sif-Tech at the Hebrew University and StarTAU at Tel Aviv University.
“I believe the more entrepreneurs who are practicing safely in the university context, the better,” she said.
Serial entrepreneur Shimmy Zimels consulted with Aaronson after he agreed to head a new entrepreneurial program this year at the Jerusalem College of Technology, which offers participants stipends from a Canadian donor.
“It’s a totally new program — no other university in Israel gives funding in addition to educational support and mentoring for startup projects,” Zimels said.
During the fall semester, 25 applicants presented their business ideas, and during the spring semester the handful chosen as having the most potential are meeting with mentors and faculty members to get their concepts off the ground.
Ayla Matalon, who teaches at IDC, the Technion and Tel Aviv University and runs the MIT Enterprise Forum of Israel, pioneered the idea of combining academic studies with practical learning. Like Siman-Tov, she had found that the working world bore little resemblance to what she’d learned in the classroom.
by Linda Gradstein, The Media Line | PUBLISHED Apr 24, 2013 | Is Featured?
Do you find yourself dragging; craving a nap in the late afternoon? You're not alone. Soft coral beneath the waters near the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat does the same thing.
A new study by scientists from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Technion, Israel's institute of technology, discovered that a soft coral called Heteroxenia, found in the reefs off Eilat, pulsates continually except for a period of one-half-hour just before sunset. The study does not answer the napping question, but the scientists do have a theory.
What the study, funded by Israel's National Science Foundation, was trying to discover was why, unlike all other species of coral, the Heteroxenia pulsates incessantly, using up valuable energy. The reason, they found, is that the level of photosynthesis, which transforms sunlight into chemical energy, is between five and eight times greater with the movement than without it.
The study appears in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States (PNAS). Kremien worked on the project for four years, developing an underwater measuring device called a particle imaging velocimeter (PIV) which measures the flow of water around the coral.
The study comes amid concern that the coral reef in Eilat, which is one of the most diverse in the world, has been gradually degrading. Of the nine miles of Israeli coastline along the Red Sea, less than one mile has been designated as a nature preserve. The development of the city of Eilat, sewage outflow and industrial installations have all taken a toll on the coral reefs.
In a previous study, the same group of Israeli scientists found that the motion of water is needed to increase the flow of oxygen away from the corals. This time they found that the pulsation means the coral will not be filtering the same water each time. In addition, each polyp, or coral flower, pulsates at a different rate.
The research could have some practical applications as well, in engineering or medicine.
They are not sure what people can learn from coral, but they are sure it will be valuable.
As I’ve been watching images of Hamas rockets falling on Israel, I’ve asked myself: If Hamas had the ability to murder thousands of Jews, wouldn’t they? And if Israel didn’t have a strong army, wouldn’t we surely witness another pogrom?
Since the destruction of the Second Temple some 2,000 years ago, has there been a more physically abused people than the Jews?
How many Crusades and Inquisitions and pogroms have been recorded where Jews were virtually helpless to defend themselves?
Oh sure, we always managed to survive and pull through. We were strong with our values, our Torah, our culture and our wits in adapting to whatever limits were imposed on us.
But physically? We were always at the mercy of our landlords.
My ancestors in Morocco survived only because they knew their place. You never heard of a Moroccan Jew fighting for the same rights as Moroccan Arabs. Jews were the dhimmis, the second class citizens of the state. And still, there were stories of pogroms against Moroccan Jews.
The physical abuse of Jews reached its darkest and most murderous hour with the Holocaust.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, they say you have to reach your own bottom before you can turn things around. Well, the Holocaust was our absolute bottom.
Perhaps not coincidentally, within a few years we were blessed with our own sovereign state. What would happen now? Would our enemies still come after us?
Indeed they did, but this time, something weird happened.
A ragtag band of Jews fought mano a mano against five invading Arab armies and won.
That miraculous victory saved Israel and signaled a new era in the story of the Jews.
The era of Jews Fighting Back.
We’ve been in that era now for 64 years, and the truth is, we’ve become pretty good at it.
This has shocked our enemies. After 2,000 years of seeing Jews cower so as not to get slaughtered, they've seen these weak Jews transformed into fighting warriors.
Even among Jews, this success has created a lot of handwringing and intellectual agony: What shall we do with all this power? Are we using it responsibly? Will it corrupt us?
I have to confess, I’ve had very little agony over this. The Jews’ ability to finally fight back has been a source of great satisfaction for me.
Of course, I’d be a lot happier if we were at peace and didn’t have to fight in the first place– if we weren’t surrounded by enemies trying to destroy us.
I wouldn’t have to shed tears when I’m alone in my car, thinking of Israel at war, or talk to my daughter in Herzliya about bomb shelters.
But if Israel is destined to live, at least in the near term, surrounded by enemies, what are we to make of this dark circumstance?
Is it possible that all this fighting might be serving an additional purpose, beyond the essential one of defending the country?
As I’ve been reflecting on all this, the thought occurred to me that maybe Israel is more than a country.
Maybe it’s also a statement.
An official statement that says to the world: The Jews will never go away.
This statement of strength after 2,000 years of weakness is so astonishing that it needed a singular, dramatic instrument to make the point.
And what better instrument than a strong country?
A country so powerful it has managed to thrive on so many levels despite being virtually under siege for 64 years.
So, that is my Jewish take on all this ugly fighting: Our enemies need to see, once and for all, that the Jews will never go away.
Maybe only then will there be peace.
The difference now is that we’re surviving on our own terms, not by cowering but by holding our heads high.
I’m sure some people will find this tone of defiance a little unseemly, not very nuanced.
But there’s no nuance in hatred. There’s no nuance in the desire to murder Jews. There never has been.
The statement that the Jews will never go away is a statement that must be made. We can thank Israel for making that statement in the most compelling way possible, even at the risk of upsetting a world not used to seeing Jews fight back.
At the Technion event, they played a video showing some of Israel’s global accomplishments, such as finding renewable energy, curing diseases and helping crippled people walk.
We can thank Israel for that statement, too: A world in which the Jews survive is not just good for the Jews, it’s also good for the world.
Pick up any newspaper and there are certain types of stories that repeat day after day.
Armed men are killing each other in this or that war, car and train crashes claim varying numbers of victims, tearful politicians acknowledge sexual misconduct, and somewhere a scientist is working on a promising research project that might lead, according to the headline, to a cure for cancer.
So, with all these heralded “breakthroughs” in cancer research by brilliant scientists, supported by millions of dollars in public and private funds, are we actually winning the drawn-out war against cancer?
Fortuitously, Technion — Israel Institute of Technology’s Dr. Avram Hershko, co-winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was recently in Los Angeles, and the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), which supports his work, arranged an interview to provide an expert’s view.
Hershko, 74, and a child Holocaust survivor, shared the Nobel Prize with a fellow Israeli and an American scientist for their discovery on how individual cells kill or get rid of malfunctioning proteins.
The way that proteins, which carry out the directives of genes, are formed in cells has long been a major research focus. But just as important is how to detect and eliminate “bad” proteins before they destroy or over-stimulate the “good” cells, leading to cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other dreaded diseases.
Among the benefits of Hershko’s past and continuing research has been the development of an effective drug against a specific cancer, multiple myeloma.
However, instead of focusing on Hershko’s own research, which has been widely reported, The Journal asked Hershko to make some sense of the layman’s confusion about the endless, and sometimes contradictory, claims of new advances to end the scourge of cancer.
The key to understanding the fight against cancer is that it is not a single disease, like polio, which can be prevented with a single vaccine or other magic bullet.
“There are thousands of different kinds of cancer, and just one kind, breast cancer, can be triggered by 15 different causes,” Hershko said.
Other experts narrow the list of cancer types, but the numbers are still impressive. The American Cancer Society, for instance, lists 71 types; other compilers cite 200 types.
Hershko’s prognosis is not as pessimistic as it sounds. Even absent a cure, the goal of cancer research, he believes, should be to point the way to treatments that will “not merely prolong life, but allow for a reasonably good quality of life” for years to come.
There has been considerable progress in developing such treatments against, for instance, breast cancer and leukemia, especially if these diseases are detected in their early stages.
Ask Hershko what he prizes most in his life, and it’s not the Nobel or other honors, but his six grandchildren. Unlike the stereotype of the ivory tower scientist, completely consumed by his work, Hershko spends two or three days a week taking the kids to school, sports games or dance lessons.
One key to such devotion may be his own childhood experiences, which he is reluctant to discuss, particularly with his family, “because I don’t want to traumatize my grandchildren,” he said.
He was raised in the Hungarian town of Karcag, where both his parents were teachers. In 1944, when Hershko was 6, Nazi troops arrived and deported Karcag’s roughly 1,000 Jews, two-thirds of whom perished in concentration camps.
Hershko’s family was relatively lucky. The boy, with his mother, brother and paternal grandparents, were put on a train to a labor camp in Austria, were they worked in the fields near Vienna.
The family was liberated shortly before the end of the war, in April 1945. Eventually, Hershko’s father, having survived forced labor camps in Hungary and the Soviet Union, rejoined the family. However, the boy’s maternal grandparents and other relatives perished in Auschwitz. In 1950, the Hershkos made aliyah to Israel.
In 1969, Hershko started his research on how the body cleanses itself of unneeded and malfunctioning proteins, but his work was largely ignored or dismissed for the next 10 years.
With his theories now validated by tests and the Nobel Prize, Hershko has become something of a celebrity and is often enlisted as an all-purpose maven by the media.
At the Technion in Haifa, Hershko carries the title of distinguished professor, which exempts him from the university’s mandatory retirement-age rule, and in conversation he comes across as a modest and humorous man.
The ICRF draws its support from American and Canadian contributors, and its grants “are very significant and make a big difference,” Hershko noted. All grant recipients must conduct their research at Israeli institutions.
Last year, ICRF gave out 69 grants, totaling $2.5 million, to scientists at 22 Israeli universities, hospitals and medical centers, according to Lynn Addotta, director of operations for ICRF’s Los Angeles office.
Toward the end of a lengthy interview, Hershko expressed his apprehension about the perceived diminished interest of American Jews, especially the younger ones, in the future of Israel.
Few universities have garnered as much international attention and Jewish communal concern over student-led, anti-Israel and sometimes anti-Semitic activities on campus than the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
A history of incendiary demonstrations demonizing Israel; a revolving door of speakers sympathetic to Hamas and Hezbollah; accusations of harassment of, and threats to, Jewish students, and a pattern of unsatisfactory responses by campus administrators — at least until the 2010 suspension of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) for its role in the Michael Oren debacle — led this writer in a Jewish Journal cover story that year to wonder if UCI was safe for Jews. Some in the community had even accused the university itself of being anti-Semitic.
That’s why UCI’s new agreements with four Israeli universities are nothing less than historic.
During a momentous academic mission to Israel in March, Chancellor Michael Drake signed memoranda of understanding with Hebrew University, Ben-Gurion University and the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, as well as a letter of intent with Tel Aviv University. These agreements recognize shared areas of academic interest and expertise and open the door to collaborative research, faculty and student exchanges, conferences and other initiatives.
Drake calls Israeli universities “natural partners” with which UCI shares a “synergistic series of competencies and approaches to problems.” Speaking with leaders of the Rose Project, Jewish Federation & Family Services’ program established in 2008 to create a comprehensive and proactive approach to addressing challenges at UCI, the chancellor cited the schools’ cultural and demographic similarities that help build strong relationships among faculty and administrators. He was clearly excited about the potential of these agreements for UCI and Israeli scholars and students.
The university is wasting no time getting started. While in Israel, UCI deans of physical science, medicine and engineering who accompanied Drake laid the groundwork for short- and long-term programs, some of which will launch this summer. Among these are student and faculty exchanges in electrical, civil and environmental engineering; visiting medical rotations, post-doctoral fellowships in the physical sciences; virtual conferences for medical school faculty; and a workshop on water resources. UCI also announced plans to establish “Communications 2025,” a major conference in Israel to explore the technologies needed for IT and communications in the next decade.
The notion that more positive discourse on college campuses can be generated through academia has fueled a number of initiatives by pro-Israel organizations, including the rapid growth in North America of multidisciplinary Israel studies programs. Embracing this approach, Rose Project leaders in 2008 began engaging the UCI administration in dialogue regarding the value a wider academic lens on Israel would have for building a civil campus climate. Significant steps with measurable progress have been achieved: Top pro-Israel speakers and Israeli officials regularly address the UCI community; Israeli journalists and academics are frequent guests in classes dealing with Israel and the conflict; the Israel Fellows Program of the Jewish Agency for Israel has added an important educational and advocacy component to the UCI Hillel agenda; and the Schusterman Family Foundation — in cooperation with the Rose Project — has established a visiting Israeli professor program that brings a scholarly, pro-Israel voice to campus to engage in broad education inside and outside the classroom.
The Orange County Jewish community has seen time and again the transformative effects of Birthright Israel, Hasbara Fellowships, Hillel and StandWithUs Israel programming – all of which are supported by the Rose Project — on participants’ understanding and perception of Israel. Now that UCI’s administration is actively seeking Israeli partnerships, a growing cadre of faculty and students are unequivocally empowered to have the kind of direct interaction with Israel and Israelis that we know will leave a lasting imprint on how they will view the country, its people and their contributions to society. Let’s hope they take up this mantle of opportunity and responsibility.
With the MSU’s notorious “Palestine Awareness Week” assumed to be three weeks away, anti-Israel speakers and their supporters will once again assemble on Ring Road to lambast Israel. And while that small but vocal group may continue to call on the university to divest from companies doing business with Israel, the UCI leadership has outright rejected calls for an Israeli academic boycott. Instead, it has set in place a positive path and vision regarding Israel that will have a profound impact on the campus climate for years to come.
Lisa Armony is a former Jewish Journal Orange County correspondent and now director of the Rose Project of Jewish Federation & Family Services.
JTA | PUBLISHED Dec 19, 2011 | Is Featured?
Cornell University will collaborate with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology for a new science campus after winning a competition to build New York City’s next “genius” school.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was expected to make Cornell’s victory official on Monday at the Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan.
The Ivy League school will receive free land on New York’s Roosevelt Island, as well as $100 million in city subsidies, to build a state-of-the-art science campus with Technion. The program is scheduled to begin in September at a temporary location.The campus is expected to take more than a generation to build.
Cornell, which received an anonymous $350 million grant, beat out six other universities and consortiums that submitted bids.
The campus will accommodate 2,000 students and include 2.1 million square feet of building space with classrooms, science laboratories, a conference center, housing and other facilities. It will feature environmentally friendly solar energy and geothermal wells.
“I am thankful and proud that this extraordinary individual gift will support Cornell’s goal to realize Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vision for New York City,” Cornell President David Skorton said.
Handy Hazzan is Hanukkah Hazzan – Making Dreydls Out of Clay Today!
Two Israelis made world headlines this week. In freezing Stockholm, Prof. Dan Shechtman of the Haifa Technion (Israel’s Institute of Technology) won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. In sunny Perth, Australia, Lee Korzits won the gold medal at the women’s Sailing World Championships, bringing her closer to the 2012 London Olympics.
While in both cases this is a huge personal accomplishment, I believe that it says something about the hotbed which has bred these two outstanding individuals: their country, Israel.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS), on the other hand, tried its best. “Contrary to the previous belief that atoms were packed inside crystals in symmetrical patterns, Shechtman showed that the atoms in a crystal could be packed in a pattern that could not be repeated,” the RSAS said.
Lee Korzits’ hard road to the top was different. Nobody could say anything once she came in first, and the only hostility she encountered was that of winds and waves. Already in 2003, the 27-year-old Israeli became the youngest windsurfing world champion. In 2006, however, following a board-surfing injury and professional dispute with the national team coach, Korzits quit competing for several years. The interval was marred with personal difficulties. Yet recently she made a tremendous comeback, and now, more mature and seasoned, she is preparing for the London Olympics.
Apart from the natural national pride, there is something of these two heroes which is engrained in the DNA of every Israeli, and indeed, in the Israeli collective. Like in Prof. Shechtman’s case, for decades people looked at the State of Israel with wonder, some with hostility, saying “There can be no such creature.” For how can there be a Jewish and democratic state? An island of democracy in an ocean of tyrannical regimes or chaos? A country void of any natural resources and under constant mortal danger, which has nevertheless produced a stable economy, blooming culture and ten Nobel Prize laureates?
A case in point is the way Israel has been fighting Arab terrorism. From day one we have proclaimed that the old laws of war, enacted when uniform-wearing armies were fighting each other, turned obsolete once the enemy became elusive, using un-involved civilians as human shields. We were reprimanded for that, because like in the laboratory at Johns Hopkins, this was not what the books were saying. Took some time and painful lessons for the world to change its mind.
And the story of the young sailor, isn’t that the story of the Jewish state in the first place? Rising from the ashes and suffering harsh blows, yet with strong will and perseverance, always aspiring for new peaks?
In his speech at the banquet in Stockholm, Prof. Shechtman said that “It is therefore our duty as scientists to promote education, rational thinking and tolerance.” Upon returning to his hometown, Haifa, Mayor Yona Yahav took him at his word. Soon, the Nobel Prize Laureate will lead a program to promote the teaching of science and technology in the city’s kindergartens. Lee Korzits, meanwhile, serves as a sport model for young generation in our country.
So much for one week in Israel.
Uri Dromi is a columnist based in Jerusalem.
JTA | PUBLISHED Oct 24, 2011 | Is Featured?
Cornell University and The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will partner to create a world-class applied science and engineering campus in New York City.
The NYC Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island is set to combine the strengths of both institutions.
Cornell President David Skorton and Technion President Peretz Lavie made the announcement Sunday.
“By joining forces in this groundbreaking venture, our two great universities will employ our demonstrated expertise, experience and track record of transforming new ideas into solutions to create the global avenues of economic opportunity and tech leadership that Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg envisions,” Skorton said.
An integral part of the campus will be the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute, a 50-50 collaboration between the two universities to form a graduate program to focus on bringing products quickly to the market.
The partners will be joining in a full-scale campus—not a satellite of either school—to open in 2012, initially in either leased space or existing Cornell facilities in New York City. The NYC Tech Campus is planned to grow to more than 2 million square feet on Roosevelt Island, accommodating nearly 2,000 graduate students and 250 faculty, as well as visitors and corporate researchers. Cornell and the Technion will collaborate in teaching, educating and advising students.
The universities’ proposal will be presented to the city by Oct. 28.
The American Technion Society has received a $30 million commitment from the estate of Henry Taub and The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation.
The gift, awarded Tuesday, will go to making improvements at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
From the fund, $25 million will go to the Leaders in Science and Technology faculty recruitment program. The other $5 million is scheduled to go to the university’s faculty of computer science.
In 2002, the Taubs established the Leaders in Science program with $10 million. The program works to attract internationally renowned scientific leaders to serve as senior faculty at the school. Forty-one new faculty have joined the Technion through the program since the fall of 2002.
Henry Taub, the founder of Automatic Data Processing, was a longtime supporter of the Technion. He died earlier this year.
JTA | PUBLISHED Oct 5, 2011 | Is Featured?
An Israeli scientist won the 2011 Nobel Prize for chemistry, and Jewish scientists also took prizes in physics and medicine.
Daniel Shechtman, 70, a distinguished professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, was announced as a Nobel winner on Wednesday for his discovery of quasicrystals, mosaics of atoms that form regular patterns that never repeat themselves.
Shechtman, who receives $1.5 million for winning the prize, also is an associate at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and a professor at Iowa State University.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shechtman’s 1982 discovery of quasicrystals changed the way chemists look at solid matter. His discovery had been rejected initially by the scientific community and caused him to be kicked out of his research group.
Saul Perlmutter, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, was among three U.S.-born scientists who won the Nobel Prize in physics announced Tuesday. Perlmutter received the prize for his study of exploding stars that showed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. He will receive a “coveted” lifetime parking permit on campus in honor of his prize, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Ralph Steinman and Bruce Beutler were named as Nobel Prize winners for medicine on Monday for discoveries on the immune system. Half of the prize money was awarded to Steinman, with the other half to be split between Beutler and biologist Jules Hoffmann. Israel National News reported that Steinman and Beutler are Jewish.
Steinman will receive the prize posthumously; he died three days before the Nobel committee made the announcement. Though he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, Steinman was able to prolong his life by using new dendritic cell-based immunotherapy—the same discovery for which he was awarded the prize.
Only living scientists typically are considered by the Nobel committee, but because its members were unaware of Steinman’s death when the winning names were released, no substitution winner will be announced.
After he tired of prospecting for gold in his native Canada, Mark Talesnick moved to Israel, where he did exploratory drilling for the proposed Mediterranean-Dead Sea (Med-Dead) Canal project and founded the national ice hockey team.
Obviously, the Technion engineering professor is a man of pioneering spirit and imagination, and he is now applying his talents to provide cheap energy in remote Nepal villages, using natural raw materials that profligate Westerners tend to flush down.
At the same time, Talesnick is teaching a new generation of engineers that a social conscience, linked to innovative change, is as vital to their profession as designing the world’s tallest building or longest bridge.
Before we get to the technical stuff, back to ice hockey, as unlikely a sport in the Middle East as camel racing in North Dakota.
After Talesnick, born 51 years ago in Toronto but raised in Kingston, Ontario (which claims to be the birthplace of the game), decided to make aliyah in 1982, he started recruiting for his dream team.
A few expatriate Canadians and Americans showed up, as well as some sabras who had never been on ice, but were good on roller skates.
In its first game, Israel faced Spain and was trounced 23-4.
But in the next two games, drawing on the spirit that infused the ancient Maccabees, the Israelis beat the Turks and then the Greeks.
“After we defeated Turkey, the local band played ‘Hatikvah.’ That was an emotional high,” Talesnick recalled during a recent visit to Los Angeles.
Following this triumph, Talesnick went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees at the Technion and then joined the faculty of the civil and environmental engineering department.
In 2008, he established a chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
The organization was started in France in the 1980s, and in the United States in 2001 by professor Bernard Amadei of the University of Colorado, Boulder. Its mission is to improve the quality of life in impoverished communities and in developing countries through small-scale, low-technology projects.
EWB now has 300 chapters worldwide, including a professional chapter in Los Angeles and student chapters at UCLA, USC, Loyola Marymount and California State University, Los Angeles.
The Technion EWB team of some 25 Israeli and American students, of both genders, first looked to the Bedouin village of Kochle in the Negev, whose single generator provided a limited, erratic supply of energy.
One day, Talesnick heard from a villager whose brother was sick in a hospital and could not be released home unless his medications were refrigerated round the clock.
Talesnick passed the problem on to his students, who came up with a small cooler connected to a battery charged through solar panels.
A more complex challenge faced the team at Namsaling, a village of about 1,000 families near the border with India. Like other rural villages in land-locked Nepal, Namsaling had no gas or kerosene for cooking and heating, and so relied on wood from nearby old-growth forests.
The consequences were long-range deforestation and a high rate of respiratory diseases, especially among women, in the poorly ventilated kitchens and homes.
After considerable preparatory work in the lab and on the ground, the Technion team came up with a bio reactor, or biogas digester, constructed in an earth pit about 4.5 feet deep and 8 feet across, and topped by a concrete dome.
When a reactor is finished, animal and human waste and food compost is fed through an inlet into the digester compartment, where bacteria transform the waste into clean methane gas.
Bio reactors were already widespread in Nepal and India, but were built mostly by child labor and in a laborious and often dangerous two-month process.
The team designed an igloo-like aluminum framework, covered with 12 surfboard-shaped slices, which can be easily assembled, dismantled and reused. Initially, the slices were made of Styrofoam, which has now been replaced by locally grown bamboo, with the finished product resembling sushi mats. This method cut construction time to two weeks, while eliminating injuries.
Each reactor supplies a family with five hours of odor-free cooking gas a day; so far, 60 have been built.
Not counting travel expenses for the team members, the cost of building one reactor comes to $440. Private foundations and organizations contribute two-thirds of the amount and the villagers one-third, mainly through their labor and by housing and feeding the Technion team.
Based on their hands-on experience, Talesnick and Amadei last summer conducted a program at the Technion on “Engineering for Developing Communities,” combining field and classroom work. A similar program is scheduled for this summer, from mid-July to mid-August.
“A major purpose of the program is to teach professional and future engineers that beyond technology they must understand the social, economic and health problems of non-Western societies,” Talesnick said.
He put special emphasis on grasping cultural differences, citing a project in the African country of Mauritania, where a well-intentioned engineering team installed pipes to carry water to individual homes.
Within a week, someone sabotaged the system by cutting the pipes. The culprits turned out to be the local women, who were used to gathering at the village’s water pump and missed their central social gathering place.
Talesnick noted that university engineering courses, even in developing countries, are designed to meet the needs of 10 percent of the world’s population living in technologically advanced countries.
For additional background information, go to www.ewbtechnion.wordpress.com. To watch a video of the reactor construction process, visit youtube.com/watch?v=FcczRnowRSc.
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has given the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology a $5 million grant to further develop a light, long-lasting and environmentally friendly battery for energy storage.
The grant, which will be paid out over three years, will be used to create The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust Energy Storage Complex, the Haifa-based school’s American fundraising arm announced last Friday. Its ultimate goal is to help end the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“The Helmsley Trust is proud to be associated with the Technion in this very important project,” Sandor Frankel, a trustee of the Helmsley Trust, said in a release from the American Technion Society.
Two U.S. patents are pending for the Technion Si-air battery, a new type of silicon-air battery that was developed by Technion scientists.
The Energy Storage Complex will consist of three separate laboratories for conducting battery research.
The Helmsley Charitable Trust, established in 1999, has announced more than $410 million in grants to charitable organizations.
Whenever Technion computer science professor Roi Friedman visited conferences and lectures with his students, he found himself growing increasingly frustrated.
In an age of supposedly instant communications, he felt impatient that in locations without access to the Internet or a cellular network, there was no way to communicate or share files with fellow researchers, even though they all carried laptops and were often in the same hall or building.
The answer, he realized, was to develop a new solution.
One and a half years later, a team of doctoral students under Friedman’s guidance has developed WiPeer. The new software enables mobile and desktop computers to communicate directly with one another in a local area without any mediating factor, such as an Internet server. The software, which is available free on the Net, enables users to send messages, pictures, files, movies and games to one another wirelessly within a 100- to 300-meter radius.
Direct communication via computers has been technically possible for years. Any laptop or desktop computer with wireless connection capabilities should be able to communicate directly with another. The only problem is that this form of wireless ad-hoc communication is highly complex and requires a long configuration process. Even professionals in the field have shied away from tackling this problem.
Work on WiPeer began in January 2006. It was undertaken as a doctoral dissertation by three of Friedman’s graduate students, Vadim Drabkin, Gabi Kliyot and Alon Kama. Their goal was to devise a solution that would not only solve their own communication problems, but which could also be put to use by the general public. As a result, the team focused on building software that looks attractive and professional.
The user-friendly application platform enables simple communication between computers in close proximity — 100 yards inside a building and up to 300 yards in the open air. Users can transfer dozens of pictures from one computer to another in less than a minute, and even a 700 megabyte file can be transferred in up to 15 minutes. It is also possible to carry on chats without disturbing anyone in the vicinity or to play collaborative games like chess.
WiPeer is only available for systems that run Windows XP or Vista.
“It’s very fast and extremely simple,” said Friedman, adding that in addition to students and researchers, the software will also appeal to businesspeople, particularly those that travel frequently for their work.
A California philanthropist has donated $25 million to the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. The gift from Lorry Lokey, founder and chairman of Business Wire, will be used to create a new combined life sciences and engineering center. The money came through the New York-based American Technion Society, which has raised more than $1.2 billion since its inception in 1940. “I feel that Israel has in the Technion an asset as valuable as MIT and Cal Tech combined,” Lokey said.
Technion Professor Aaron Ciechanover, a who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004, will head the center.
The resolution also calls for the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which demands that Hezbollah be disarmed and calls for negotiations leading to a cease-fire.
A major U.S. Jewish umbrella group launched an initiative to bolster tourism to Israel during the conflict with Hezbollah.
The program, launched by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, allows tourists to place reservations, which will be valid for up to a year, in northern Israeli hotels and kibbutzim. It is intended to provide a “continuing stream” of income to Israeli tourism and the people who work in that industry, the group’s executive vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein, said Monday in a conference call with reporters.
Israel’s Hotel Association and the Tourism Ministry are participating in the effort, in cooperation with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Gaza Development Authority.
Other Jewish members attending included Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Steve Rothman (D-N.J.) Howard Berman (D-Van Nuys) and Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles).
Saudi Arabia said Israeli actions could bring about a Middle East war.”Saudi Arabia warns everybody that if the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no other option but war,” Saudi King Abdullah was quoted as saying Tuesday, in reference to Israel’s offensives in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Saudi Arabia championed a 2002 regional peace proposal under which Israel would be recognized by the Arab world if it gave up territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and allowed a “right of return” for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Israel rejected the preconditions, which are seen as demographic suicide for the Jewish state. The chief of Israel’s military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that Syria had put its armed forces on high alert and that there was concern in Jerusalem that it could “misread the situation” an apparent reference to Syrian fears that it could come under attack from Israeli or U.S. forces.
Turkey would consider a role in a stabilization force in southern Lebanon. “If and when called upon, we will be giving positive consideration to whichever way we contribute, including the stabilization force,” said Burak Akcapar, a counselor at the Turkish Embassy in Washington. Turkey is to play a prominent role at talks in Rome on Wednesday hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed at ending the Israel-Lebanon crisis. Akcapar said it was too early to consider whether Turkey would take a leading role in such a force, but noted that Turkey had successfully led such forces in recent years in the Balkans and Afghanistan. “We have a major stake in maintaining stability in the region,” he said.
Demonstrators in two Ukrainian cities rallied in a show of support for Israel. An estimated 2,000 people, some of them carrying Israeli flags and banners reading “Stop the Terror,” “Yes, Israel” and “Ukraine and Israel Together” demonstrated Monday in Kiev.
Israeli Ambassador Naomi Ben-Ami, the chief rabbis of Ukraine, and Jewish and Christian leaders took part in the rally. Also Monday, some 1,500 people attended a rally in support of Israel in the city of Dnepropetrovsk.
In a related development, Alexander Feldman, a Jewish member of Ukraine’s Parliament, collected some 50 signatures from lawmakers on a petition urging the Ukrainian leadership to publicly support Israel in the current conflict.Last week, hundred of demonstrators rallied in Kiev and some other Ukrainian cities to protest Israel’s military operation against Hezbollah.
Almost two-thirds of Canadians see Israel’s military action in Lebanon as completely or somewhat justified, according to a new poll.
A survey conducted for the CanWest News Service and Global National found that 64 percent of Canadians are sympathetic to the goals of Israel’s counterattack against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Children in northern Israel received toys donated from North America. Canadian philanthropist Gerry Schwartz and his wife, Heather Riesman, along with the Toys “R” Us chain, donated toys worth approximately $50,000 to children in the northern Israeli towns of Nahariya and Shlomi.
Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Finally! You can now say goodbye to those weird frozen triangles of premasticated potatoes that pass for latkes after Chanukah has ended and the frying pan and grater have been packed up. Scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have come up with an alternative way to preserve food, which promises to keep latkes frying-pan fresh — even months later — without extreme heat, chemicals or freezing. Instead, they zap the food with pulsed shockwaves — a process that takes a second, but kills microbes, harmful enzymes and bacteria. Since no chemicals are used, the flavor of the food remains the same, but its shelf life is increased exponentially.
"There is really a great need for alternative preservation methods in order to get safety and shelf life," said Dr. Hadassa Zuckerman, a lecturer in food engineering and biotechnology at the Technion, who helped develop this system. "There are many materials that cannot be preserved by heat or other methods because then they lose their functional properties."
Latke eaters are not the only ones who are going to be able to welcome this procedure. Shockwaves are also being used to preserve biological materials such as blood and plasma. "Without this system, it takes approximately one week to preserve plasma," Zuckerman told The Journal. "Our method takes a few seconds."
Zuckerman called this preservation method "revolutionary" and said that they are still testing its uses.
"We were convinced that latkes were only worth eating fresh out of the oven," she said. "Now we may all have to reconsider that notion."
The sign to the left, posted by Israeli Jewish and Arab students at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology around the elite Rehovot campus, reads: "We, the Arab and Jewish students of the Technion, who daily sit together in the same classrooms in cooperation and friendship, express our pain over the recent outbreaks of violence in our country. It is up to us to continue living here in mutual dignity, peace and security. We call on every Technion student to speak out against violence, and on every citizen to work on behalf of good neighborly relations." |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: i have been hospitalized 2x every yr for the past few yrs. i was dx with rrms in 2008 but they backdated it to 2006 when i first had my symptoms, trying to get help thru my primary physician, then a gastroenterolgist saying i had gastroparesis then a trip to shands. about 6 months later a lost feeling in my feet and legs resorting to using a cane and being referred to a nuerologist at usf i have been thru all medications shots, tysabri (jc positive), and each of the oral medications. my body rejected each treatment. the last was aubagio with 3 hospitalizations this year.when i was taken off this. I had been on steroids several times to treat my relapses but usf changed doctors and this one isnt easy to get calls returned. or getting him to visit me in the hospital which is relatively close to his office. I have been told by this doctor i have progressive ms because of the amount of lesions that are active in my brain- very little brain matter has not been affected by lesions and this past time i had no mobility inmy hips down and was in wheelchair much of my lesions old and none were active and my body was rejecting the medications and i received plasma transfer 5x and over 10 days after 3 days of the steroids before that in the hospital. within hours of my last plasma transfer i was released. i have been in a wheelchair for since june and finally this week i asked my home physical therapist to order me a manual wheelchair since i have been getting around house using transport through my primary physician which is being delivered. I was release from hospital on 6/28th with orders to see my neurologist within 4 weeks but still have not heard back from him to schedule this appointment. what comes after primary ms? are there any medications specifically for primary ms rather than the rrms output: Hi, thank you for providing the brief history of you. As you been in a wheelchair and going through your history I can understand that it is a painful thing to have so many issues and ignorance by the physician. As in my clinical practice we offer the best care and time to queries of the patients, may not be so important according to us but for a patient it is important as the patient is desperate to know how his future is going to be. As you are currently under a physical therapy and also diagnosed with MS. In many cases of MS in my clinical practice we have a team approach to help the patient and never ignore the smallest query by patient or a symptom too. In case you need any more assistance I will surely be present to help you. Never give up as many MS cases in my practice I Have seen recovering when a team approach is provided. Also, you can have a look to a YouTube channel of pfizernews and there many doctors have spoken about how better an MS can be handled and fought as well. This is just a single example. As we understand your queries and request you to keep undergoing the physical therapy and make a deep communication between you and the medical team. If you have any queries you can ask me and I will be happy to help you. Regards Jay In. |
Minisode #192 The Honky Tonk Mailman
by iggy
Royal Rumble vs Pro Bowl
Asian Helper
Blade dreamt of Tupac
Don Mason re-imagines a Spider-Man comic.
Sid has bad luck with cars.
Diva Mania is a club tour.
The Adventures of Mister Fitness 2 and The Midnight Rose
RD answers a critic.
The Honky Tonk Mailman Debuts.
TNA won the 2010 Gobbeldy Gooker Award
#guit marks #morningside road
Honky Tonk Mailman is a fine TNA correspondent, second only to Mike Check.
0 comments tags Minisodes
Random Thoughts from the Office: January 28, 2011
It's only been a month but it feels like a year since I've done one of these. So a week turned into a fortnight, turned into 3 weeks. How was I to know the Co-Fruitcakes would put out two shows back to back? It's like I'm cursed in some way.
This is what it must feel like to be TNA.
Although they finally won the elusive Gooker Award they'd been craving it seems like the powers at the head of TNA have given up and as a result they blew a big opportunity to really make something out of what basically feel into their laps. I'm talking of course about Matt Hardy.
I'm serious.
Now I'm not saying Matt is a great worker. From the looks of his physique he clearly doesn't give a shit anymore and from the looks of his YouTube videos, he may very well be Damien Demento 2.0 [I am looking forward for his eventual feud with 'wrestlingcrip.com' in the not too distant future.] but Matt does do something that a lot of wrestlers can't nowadays: he gets rabid interest in what he does. Occasionally for good reasons, mostly because everyone wants to laugh at him but the old adage "Any publicity is good publicity" does ring true when it comes to Matt.
How soon we forget....how soon we forget how he was the IWC's darling after the whole "Edge stole my girlfriend" thing. When Matt discussed it and subsequently got fired over it the IWC embraced him as their own, the golden child who pushed back the curtain and let us all behind the velvet ropes, who went to Ring of Honor and got a standing ovation; for a few short weeks Matt Hardy was the hottest name in wrestling and so the WWE called him back and made money off the feud. They blew it terribly of course, so terribly that I'm not convinced the whole thing wasn't a work: Vince McMahon's joke on the Internet Wrestling Community and guys like Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez. He does do that every so often after all. Just witness the whole "Tiegate" affair for evidence of that. But nonetheless the point had been proven. Matt maintained the love of a rabid core of fans while most of the IWC chose to ignore him.
Fast Forward to 2010, Matt sees his brother getting a huge push in TNA (Despite a looming court battle that hung like the sword of Damocles over his head for the whole year. But again that's a whole other column). His papers in WWE have been stamped with the term "Mid-carder for Life" and he's frustrated. And so just like so long ago Matt turns to the internet for help, starting a whole series of YouTube videos that were pretty much a dare to the WWE to fire him while at the same time trying to get interest started in him again to prove to TNA and other prospective employers that he could garner interest.
Except at the beginning it didn't happen. The IWC for the most part ignored it, taking the stance of "Fool me once...". And so the videos got more and more insane, the last resort of a desperate man. It was amusing in a sad way to watch a man who'd been such an integral part of our lives as wrestling fans go through a mental breakdown on the internet and yet like a car crash you couldn't turn away. Finally the day came where even the WWE couldn't take it anymore and Matt Hardy was released, free to join his brother at TNA after his 90 day no compete clause expired and become the big star he always knew he could be, because after all every WWE superstar that did anything of note is always pushed in TNA (Note I say "Of Note". I did that to disqualify Orlando Jordan, lest anyone want to bring him up).
To his credit Matt kept up the videos, kept up the insanity and kept the people talking about him in his 90 days off. Granted it was mostly for all the wrong reasons but again interest is everything in wrestling and Matt was certainly garnering more interest than say....Mr, Anderson, who would soon become champion.
So the day comes when you have to debut Matt Hardy in TNA. A man who has more interest in him than almost anyone on your roster. So how to debut him? Do you give him a interview block where he can vent his frustrations at WWE and talk about how your product in TNA is the best in the world? After all if the YouTube videos showed us nothing else it's that he can talk.
Or perhaps you can have him run in in the main event and help his brother retain the TNA Heavyweight Title and have the Hardys reunite on top of TNA as the top two heels in the company?
Of course the inherent problem with those two scenarios is they require logical thinking and if the last year of TNA has shown us anything it's that logic has NO place in TNA. So instead they trotted out a Rob Van Dam against a "Mystery Opponent" match, where anyone with a modicum of sense knew just who the opponent was. At least he won the match and looked sort of strong doing it, which is more than could be said for Rob Van Dam, who was buried 10 seconds after his debut. That's not the point though, the point is that the moment was lost and a chance to make a hot new star was lost forever.
Now was Matt Hardy going to be the face that finally put TNA on the map? No. Was he going to be a game changer that drew some initial interest ala Hulk Hogan? No. Was he even going to be a name TNA could rely on long term to be a guy to be at the top? Probably not.
But still he was a "Big Name" and a "Big Name" with at least some interest following him into TNA and when the opportunity came to make a star. TNA blew it, a fact made all the more sad because right now, TNA needs all the stars it can get.
Clarence "Showstealer" Mason
0 comments tags Random Thoughts from the Office
192 Ready to Royal Rumble: January 28, 2011
Blade was in an actual recording studio the other day. Presumably he had to wear pants while doing so.
The duo spend some time talking about/advertising this very site. I feel like a third/fourth sponsor now. I should get Clarence to send them some ad copy that RD would butcher while trying to read it. [Wrestlecrapradio.com: From Fantasy Booking Island to RD's Dream Analysis and all the crap in between. Every Wrestlecrap Radio archived and dissected for your entertainment. Plus Random Thoughts on Wrestling from THE Clarence Mason....or at least someone who plays him as a gimmick. It's the Crapipedia of the Internetz. Wrestlecrapradio.com. Yes it really IS taken (I really should write these more often) - Clarence]
The 2010 Gooker has been decided, and it is TNA's first: The New Monday Night Wars. Boy, that sure went well while it lasted, huh? Blade wanted Abyss and his Green Lantern ring and RD cheated by mentioning nominee Orlando Jordon in his writing.
There's talk of numbers in the upcoming Royal Rumble. RD wants defeated combatants to return to the ring but disguised in masks. But would the show handle itself well against the ratings powerhouse that is...the Pro Bowl? Here's a thought: combine the two outings: Have all the football players fight against each other in a wrestling ring. The winner gets the opportunity to be exempt from the next Pro Bowl.
RD (on Blade's 'soberness' at first): "You're doing good. I'm waiting for you to fall off the wagon."
:20 The show is "very amateurish". RD discovers Asian Helper, of the Helper genre of foods. Blade dreamed he met a still alive Tupac Shakur working in a fast food outlet. I bet RD would have dreamed about the Notorious BIG instead.
:24 Sid Vicious was arrested for marijuana possession. This of course logically leads to discussion about Spiderman and how Don once made fun of a comic book for some reason. Lizzie Valentine/Kandi Kisses turns down WWE. I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing.
Jillian Hall Tiffany and Maria want some sort of Divamania tour that is sure to bring fans by the...tens. RD reads their announcement about it very precisely. Then he does it in his Jeff Foxworthy voice. Midnight Rose and Mr. Fitness (losing the #2 sadly) were wrestling in Ottawa, Kansas. Popeye is interested. (:50)
Kurt Angle is a father again. In true celebrity fashion he has given his child a very strange name. RD should volunteer to be the babysitter so he can lull the child to sleep talking about Angle's moveset.
:55 Statement Of The Week: Adam W. of Facebook alerts the two on someone named 'Johnny C' disapproving of The Death Of WCW, somewhere around here. Blade disapproves of the disapproving by not even answering the guy's claims. RD has a more coherent and logical response to add to that.
Timeout real quick.
(I've always wanted to say write that.)
As much as Mr. Brakestown is a fine young egg (perhaps a pickled fine young egg from all the liquor he consumes), he really doesn't handle the essence of trolling, which is basically all that their critic is doing. (I think Chris Engler needs to send him a TrollTrolla to teach him what trolling is all about.) What he thinks he sees is some guy who, while he is definitely allowed his own opinion on whatever he wants (it's his right after all), is someone with actual power that has a physical affect on the world.
What Blade thinks he sees in an average troll: Not Big Daddy V as himself, but an Armored Troll threatening Aragorn at the Battle of the Black Gate in The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King. And by the way? Viggo Mortensen is ALSO a large fan of the Canadiens, which amuses me to no end.
But this is what he's actually seeing:
A troll doll. Note the intimidating stance, brutal viciousness, and evil glint in its visage.
Ignore its attempt to be a wizard. (Pink-Hair the Blue?)
...Not exactly the same thing. It would be like thinking of a cute Persian cat as an angry Siberian tiger. They MAY be related somehow, but they're not exactly the same thing.
And now you know. And knowledge is power. Guard it well.
[Also Scott if for some reason you're reading this since the site has since transformed into a Blog of DOOM, we should pit our Animal Crossing islands against one another. The loser has to buy Blade one of those troll dolls. - Future PB]
This, by the way, is also perhaps the longest they've ever answered a Question/Statement on the show. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing either.
:64 Blade's TNA mailman finally shows up to bad MIDI music. He calls himself The Honky Tonk Mailman. Wait...are we sure it's not John Kelly back from the dead? He steals people's Observers for his news reporting. He thus read-tells us about 88 year old Hogan's 'upcoming' marriage which will last two months. There's also some Pistol Pez Whatley stamp which is sure to be of more worth than anything Hulk is doing these days. (And should he get a big profit from the stamp he should use it to pay for a better Skype connection which breaks up from time to time.) Then he leaves for his Pink Cadillac, Thank you very much.
[On a personal note, I keep thinking of my fellow Forum friend (and friend of the Habitant, but not one of the Twelve) Darth Alexander, who uses the Honky Tonk Man as his avatar. I'll never think of one without thinking of the other, and vice versa.]
:75 The Royal Rumble returns to rear its roughened rump at us. RD wants Yoshi Tatsu to win. Blade wants Roddy Piper. There's some very confusing discussion about their Pro Bowl Bet thing. RD: "I would be senile if I told you you were not a drunk."
DDP is hosting Nitro DVDs. Bobby Heenan has his own DVD where everyone think he's dead (an in advance tribute DVD perhaps?).
Seventeen Syllablyastic Thoughts:
TNA Gooker.
Biggest award they have won.
Dixie must be proud.
Blade owes $3.00 ($12.25)
4 comments tags Blade on the Offensive, Don...Don Mason, HTMM, Popeye, The Rose, Wrestlecrap_Radio_S06, WrestleRoyal Rumble
Minisode #191 New and Improved Again
Wrestlecrap.com was refurbished with Headlies.
C.S. Irwin Eulogy
Diva Trim
Trish in "Bail Enforcers"
Nintendo John talks about Randy Savage in video games.
#johnny three #beakers are busting
There's something very satisfying about deleting 80% of every episode.
191 Ripped from the Headlies: January 21, 2011
WrestleCrap is new and improved! Now where have I heard that one before?
As mentioned from last week, the site has something new for the first time in over seven years. No, it is NOT the return of the Jobber Of The Week. On the top of the main page is a 'LiFi Scanner' that posts random words and phrases strung together into sentences to make what is commonly referred to as a 'joke' from a Twitter account, with no other articles or sources related to said Tweets, which would be semi-frequently updating until the random headline generator behind it stops working or the figure behind the account gets bored of the whole ordeal. (And no, it's not me.) From that, fine young eggs Justin Henry and Sean Carless and Catherine Perez make 'humorous' wrestling related 'newz' in the form of WrestleCrap Headlies. Personally, that is about as clever as someone having the pen name of "Topsy Kretts".
So essentially WrestleCrap is trying its hand to be the Onion of the wrestling world/IWICK. (An OnionTrolla perhaps?) This isn't a bad thing of course, as both the Onion and the A.V. Club are really great sites. The question is how long they can maintain some sort of level over the long term, as much as the often absurd world of wrestling lends to its own self-parody and comedy. More importantly, would it be something that Dave Meltzer would finally be reporting on?
I admit, if I put any effort into it I may have some success also (alongside running this site of course). Hmmm...
Fresh from the LiFi Scanner: John Cena is set to star in The (Space) Marine 3: The Ultramarine (in Space). "This is taking 'U can't see me' to a whole new level," proclaimed WWE CEO Vince McMahon, "since now you can't see him in outer space as well as not seeing him in theaters." A collaboration with Games Workshop's popular sci-fi franchise Warhammer 40,000, Cena is to play Ultramarines Chapter Master Marneus Calgar, a well known and controversial figure thought by many within the community to be pushed and publicized too much despite he and his chapter being thought of as bland, generic, and unoriginal. "Any similarities between the two are totally coincidental and unrelated," Mr. McMahon said when asked about this. The former WWE World Champion said he looked forward to expand his acting abilities for the role by, to paraphrase him, "doing the Five Finger Shuffle in one of his trademark Power Fists." In addition to Mr. Cena, Paul "Triple H" Levesque is also to star as the God-Emperor of Mankind. Reports that Randy Orton would play the part of a still unannounced main villain and that the diminutive Hornswaggle was to play Calgar's comic relief sidekick were unconfirmed as of press time. Mr. McMahon was last seen in a nearby Games Workshop store complaining that the miniature figures that are the basis of the tabletop game did not have enough muscles on them, and was overheard suggesting giving them scale size ICOPRO supplements.
Heh, I can see why such diversions would be fun to write now. Perhaps next I'll see if this very site can be linked as an official source of wrestling news and have all the dirsheets coming to our digital doorstep, or what have you.
What isn't fun though is some Sad News, as we are reminded of John Kelly's 'departure' from the show last week due to an exhaustion of bad puns for Blade to try and fumble through. Blade's next replacement for the TNA reporting: his own mailman. Well that could be convenient; he could just mail his news in every week. (Insert laughing Krankor here.) Blade is also still confused about RD's Swear Jar.
:25 Random discussions about the Colts prevail. Blade's grade school constantly gave children erections. RD mercilessly needles him on this, forcing Blade to apologize for once. Sadly he does not seek revenge by asking to watch the music video for Hot for Teacher. Anyway, Bart's Red Cream Soda has returned to RD's Meijers. Is Loroza's Pizza next?
:35 Dustin "Screech" Diamond is now booking himself for wrestling. Hey, anyone remember when he was on Hogan's celebrity wrestling? Or anything about Hogan's celebrity wrestling nonsense thing at all? Yeah, me neither. Torrie Wilson is shilling some drug-like workout supplement with the very bad name of Diva Trim. The only thing we learn from it for sure is that Blade is so drunk he can't say the word supplement. There's some very small film footage for Trish Stratus's upcoming film Bail Enforcers, wherein she hits some criminal with a garbage can lid. On the other hand, it IS better than that god-damned trailer for The Chaperone, which was so bad that WWE tried to pull it off the interwebs.
:50 B.M. Punk calls in. His major complaint this time is that John Kelly very much sounded like him. Wow, how very meta. He also reports on Tammy Sytch's poop problems on Facebook. Shouldn't Satan be the one calling in for this? Social networking sites ARE his domain after all.
:55 Ultimate Kennedy (11) has a rather simple Question of a skinnier Vickie Guerrero on TV. Odd Christmas gifts are discussed.
The mailman didn't show up. I have a worrying feeling he's going to sound like Peter Gazer.
:59 Randy Savage is in promos for WWE's upcoming All-Stars video game, giving opportunity for Nintendo John to call. For some reason his audience is suffering from slow reaction times.
The Royal Rumble is changing itself by adding 10 more jobbers for a total of 40 combatants. Wow, that's not a wrestling match, that's a fucking raid group in vanilla World Of Warcraft. Forget trying to handle the Twin Emperors in the ring, I wonder how they'll be able to fit them inside. They're gonna need a bigger boat, is what I'm thinking.
Seventeen Syllables:
Forty Man Rumble.
Wrestling bores me so much now
I'll need a Forty.
Blade owes RD $2.25 for this week, for a combined total of $9.25 from last week.
0 comments tags B.M. Punk, Interactivities, Nintendo John, Stratus Report, Wrestlecrap_Radio_S06, WrestleRoyal Rumble
Minisode #190 Swear Jar
Swear Jar
Blade's life begins at 37.
Throwback Doritos
Sunny's Cookbook
David Arquette goes to rehab.
Ashley Massaro gets a reality show.
The Pro Bowl Bet
Fantasy League Winner Ed Salo
C.S. Irwin meets the Ratings Reaper.
Mike Check calls from the big house.
Angry Jim has a New Year's Resolution.
Blade haikus about Mike Adamle.
#david arquette screen saver #demons analyzing wrestling ratings
Blade said no to the Swear Jar, but whatever.
190 Resolution: January 14, 2011
- Hunt down Johnny Ace
It's nice to see Blade try (and fail) to be more clean. To use a Blade-style analogy, it's like watching a cripple try and climb a flight of stairs unaided. RD thinks of using a Swear Jar for that task.
Both Co-Fruitcakes had a boring New Year's Eve. Blade was injured while RD fell asleep before midnight. RD is selling old movies on eBay if you're also interested in getting equally bored for the NEXT New Year's. Blade models his life after Randy Savage.
RD wants to 'turn things around' for the site (:09) by making a new column for it. The rest of his talk is just rambling about the progrem. Bad quality sounds of lightning and Blade being clean interrupts RD's shilling. (:14)
:18 Blade tries some Throwback Doritos (not made from natural sugar). He approves.
:22 Tammy Sytch is writing a cookbook on indiegogo.com (and not belly dancing!) that can be funded by just about anyone, quite similar to the Rose's movie that was mentioned and promptly forgotten about last year. Let's just hope she doesn't have any recipes involving eggs. RD thinks she will belly dance based on the "gogo" part of the url. For once, Blade has to explain to him the concept of crowdfunding. Yes, I know.
David Arquette is in rehab...since December. Boy, that's some hot latest wrestling news for you. Dave Meltzer can only marvel at such speed. SPEAKING OF, Blade's ex-girlfriend did not like RD's gift screensaver of the former WCW Champion. (:30)
Ashley Massaro will be on a bad sounding copy of The Bachelorette with potential suitors actually fighting for her. RD has to explain nicknames of their Divas to new listeners. Blade loses track. Is the Midnight Rose homeless? (:40) He'll be wrestling in Ottawa (in Kansas, far south of Canada) on the 21st and is also to be getting his own well made tour T-shirts.
:45 Question Of The Week: TV's Mr. Neil of Facebook wants a new football bet. Blade wants to bet on the Pro Bowl. RD accepts, but he'd prefer to bet on if the game is actually good.
:49 Ed Salo's Trash Baggin' won this year's FFL with a 5-8 record. RD calls him up. He once again answers sleepily. He wins despite not properly updating his roster from week to week, but he has a field day having fun with it all. He rewarded himself with a Classic Boo Berry shirt. RD dismisses him by ending the Skype conversation.
:59 John Kelly. Something about making an actual feud based on that fucking blasted love triangle between Jeff Jarrett and Kurt and Karen Angle. See, THIS is why TNA is failing.
Blade can't get through his bad jokes anymore so the Ratings Reaper returns from his exile since the Roast to claim him. (I sincerely hope this is also how Horatio Caine meets his end when they cancel CSI: Miami.)
:67 Mike Check calls from prison to pad out the progrem length. He was once based Tuskaloosa's WEAT "Eat In Tuskaloosa" as Jammin' Jay Duvall, and with Pete "PB" Basille did "Lunch with PB & Jay" Taylor Wilde has retired rather than continue to work in the healthy environment that is TNA. Of course, Mike has always wanted to get Wilde with her. This is also probably the first I've heard Cat Stevens on US-based radio in years.
:75 Shawn Michaels is going to the Hall Of Fame. This is a good an excuse as any for Jim Ross to call in. He resolves to get Andre's HOF ring for his penis. Let's hope Hollywood John doesn't claim it first.
There is still a week left as of this writing to vote for the Gooker. This year we have: Abyss and his Hulk Hogan Green Lantern-style ring, Edge kidnapping Paul Bearer, The New Monday Night War, another blasted Hornswaggle angle, Orlando Jordan, THEY (Bischoff and Hogan) 'coming' to TNA, John Cena getting 'fired' yet still showing up for work, Standing Up for Linda's Senate Bid, NXT Season 3, and Bret Hart Vs. Vince McMahon.
Mike Adamle was caught drunk driving. Blade has one piece of ACTUAL advice for him: get drunk at home instead.
Seventeen Syllables of advice for him:
Adamle's a lush.
He needs a new role model:
Mister Blade Braxton.
Blade owes RD $7 at the end of all this.
2 comments tags Ash, Blade on the Offensive, CSI: WrestleCrap, Doritos Taste Testing, Jim Ross, Mike Check, Ratings Reaper, Sunny Weather, Talking to the Listeners, The Rose, Wrestlecrap_Radio_S06 |
Precept 5 – Drinking to Excess
Filed under: Faith & Doubt, Religion — Leave a comment
Since leaving the hospital, I’ve had nary a drink. Strange, attempting to sip whiskey made me crawl in pain while partaking beer has produced negligible issues. This leads me to precept 5 – abstention from fermented drink that causes heedlessness.
Of the five great gifts — those original, long-standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated, principles — the last one has been tough to nip in the bud. Oftentimes, I theoretically banter, “Can I partake of a beer or two if my drink does not cause heedlessness? Or must one abstain completely?”
From a true Buddhist perspective, by abandoning the use of intoxicants, one receives freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings. So yeah, I get all that. However, if Christ turned water into wine, are we to presume Christ accepted liquor? Or did Christ simply perform the miracle, but abstained? Tough call. Still, as a Buddhist living a simple life, there are many times when I concur with Chesterton, “Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer’s day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.” Additionally, beer is a required accruement for any Cubs fan, for one couldn’t survive a game without symbolically leaping from Wrigley’s upper deck.
Having lived in Alabama, I remember passing through Clay County, infamously known for being the last ‘dry county.’ Technically, it’s illegal to have any form of alcohol within county borders … period. I thought you couldn’t be a real county unless you have at least beer. One could have a minor-league baseball team, maybe some hidden ICBM nuclear weapon launch sites or the world’s largest annual county fair. But at the very least, you need beer. Clay County affords none. But the point being, many residents, religious or otherwise, bootleg alcohol weekly. And amazingly, the sun continues to rise in the east and set in the west.
From another perspective, there are ten Demeritorious Deeds (Dasa Akusala Kamma). All of them occur through some form of bodily action:
Slandering
Harsh Speech
Frivolous Talk
Coverousness
Ill-Will (hatred)
Wrong Views
On a comedic note, a fellow blogger noted that by violating Precept 5, he violated almost every Demeritorious Deed noted.
But for a person living on borrowed time, I try not getting into guilt trips. Living in precepts and vows is part of a long journey of purification and clearing the mind. Thich Nhat Hahn mades an interesting comment in For a Future to Be Possible: Buddhist Ethics for Everyday Life, in that if one lives fully in one precept, they actually live fully in all five. If one takes only 1 precept but they live fully in it, according to Hanh, they’ll eventually keep all five.
Hahn may be right. Basically, going to the extreme either way is awful. Drinking to excess and trying to drive, play sports or negotiate a multimillion-dollar contract would be unwise. So be wise. Be respectful.
And all wisdom aside, if I’m close to death’s door, I’m requesting a shot of Blanton’s Bourbon.
Tags: Buddhism, Christ, God
The Hard Makes Us Great
Filed under: Life Lessons — Leave a comment
We all have faith. Everyone believes in something. For some, it’s God voicing piercing morning prayer. For others, it’s faith of love in another. It could be faith that our elevators work, the automobile in the next lane will not crash or the pilot will land an aircraft perfectly. We all have faith that ice cream cones will taste heavenly. The rain will quench the farm field next door, or the shores of Eastsound will quiet a restless heart.
Paul Torday’s novel Salmon Fishing in Yemen captured faith’s essence:
“I had belief. I did not know, or for the moment care, what exactly it was I had to believe in. I only knew that belief in something was the first step away from believing in nothing, the first step away from a world which only recognized what it could count, measure, sell or buy. The people here still had that innocent power of belief: not the angry denial of other people’s belief of religious fanatics, but a quiet affirmation. That was what I sensed here, in this land and in this place, which made it so different from home. It was not the clothes, not the language, not the customs, not the sense of being in another century. It was none of these. It was the pervading presence of belief.”
So how can the poor give unto the rich and how can the rich give unto the poor. This is exactly what the love of my life taught. Karen first taught to learn to believe in universal love. At the time, I couldn’t understand her, yet I could see it. Still, Karen’s level of commitment overpowered me and I hid from the depth power surrounding me. Thus, she wasn’t able to see me through the journey I so desperately wanted to endure.
Obviously, there’s an essential key second lesson: in my continual effort to keep and enrich Karen’s spirit, if I can hear God in my most meditative moments, then I have faith Ferguson, Chicago, New York, Detroit or anyone can achieve a beautiful blend of faith and works. That the God so seemingly absent, is so ever present. He can and does thrust the sword of love into our hearts and chaffs away the seeds of hatred. As Marcus Luttrell wrote, “No matter how much it hurts, how dark it gets, or how far you fall, you are never out of the fight.”
Third, leadership is not just having the vision of change; it’s the ability to effect change. The vision must empower people to succeed; to become the community, the home and person you want to be. In the movie, A League of Their Own, Dottie Hinson tells Jimmy Duggan “It just got too hard.” Jimmy replied, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard … is what makes it great.”
Remember, the hard makes us great.
Tags: Life Lessons
Employees Are Expenses
Filed under: Life Lessons, Social Justice — Leave a comment
If news reports prove accurate, Burger King will ‘whopper’ decisions from Canada to save taxes as Turner Network slashes jobs from increased NBA production costs.
If there’s one key lesson corporate America should learn from Ferguson, MO it’s that we tend not to think of employees as assets. Corporate leaders will profess an undying love for all, but this characterization is devoid of reality. In truth, corporate America will confirm employees cannot be owned, taxed, depreciated, or disposed of as machines or other tangible assets. Thus, employees are disposable.
Evidence of management stupidity has both surrounded and astounded me. Unbeknown to many, much corporate stupidity occurs in dimly lit board rooms by men of little integrity, courage or information.
While waiting patiently to speak to the Board of Directors of a major hospital system on governance controls, a hospital CEO stated he found an ingenious way to reduce payroll expenses. With a sense of arrogance and conceit, he announced:
“I had accounting summarize the number of hospital personnel by residential zip-code. I concluded that for every employee residing in a low income area, we can pay them less, for their cost of living is less. Thus, we should not pay them anymore than they need. They shouldn’t get rich off of us”
Horrified someone actually thought of this, my repugnancy grew as Board members unanimously confirmed this was a fantastic strategy.
Another moment occurred during a hospital takeover. An ignorant hospital CEO was meeting with his executive staff when he queried the Information Technology Director.
“You know,” the CEO stated. “When the buyout is complete, you’ll have two data analysts.”
“Yes,” the IT Director confirmed.
“Well, get rid one.”
“Now.” the CEO interrupted.. “I want him gone today.”
“But,” the IT Director countered. “I don’t know what he does yet?”
“Now!” yelled the CEO.
“Yes sir.”
The lesson is clear – cut expenses, increase profit. If you don’t, management is likely to find someone who will. What’s strange is we’re willing to blow multimillion dollars on overhyped sports warriors. For instance, NBA players like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Luol Deng signed two-year contracts in what is believed to be an effort to reach free agency just after the new NBA profit sharing deal comes to fruition. Rams management was stupid enough to pay Quarterback Sam Bradford over $60 million in signing bonus during the past four years – for what?
Being one of the thousands receiving pink slips, you’re no longer considered valuable, loved or part of the team. Employee morale parties and team building exercises are show and tell fodder. And should one presume such activities contribute to the moral fiber of work, I dare ask, “In accepting the multimillion dollar contracts, does anyone really believe sports gladiators really gives a spit for the working family of said town?”
Having been speared by corporate greed, this Buddhist heart says we spend far more time worrying and fretting about such fears than what’s required to confront and deal with them. To those on the corporate fast track, most of you are heading straight toward major car-wrecks. You may be a master of procedures or technology, but you need to learn the nuances of coverage, liability and valuing things with no price tags, like arms and legs, time and companionship.
All of us must do what leadership cannot – focus on eternal things, the things that matter to God, focus on love. That’s what has lasting value.
Tags: Living Buddha, Organizational Leadership
Catholic Ice Bucket Challengers
Filed under: Faith & Doubt, Life Lessons — Leave a comment
Students and staff at Las Cruces Catholic Schools planned to participate in the latest good-hearted craze — the Lou Gehrig’s disease ice bucket challenge — until the Catholic Church said no. Ah, beware sayeth the ignorant tight-ass club (i.e., Catholic demigods), for embryonic stem cell research, requires the destruction of the pre-born. Thus from a Catholic perspective, it’s inherently unethical and violates fundamental human rights. Accordingly to archdiocese spokesperson Dan Andriacco, “… it’s a well-established moral principle that a good end is not enough. The means to that ends must be morally licit.”
Remember, using stem cells is one factor in most of America’s suffering. Several years back, Catholic TV’s Mike Voris deduced the cause of all our financial problems is from abortion, or ‘child murder.’ Never mind all the corruption, dysfunctional system or maybe bad leadership, it’s all because of abortion.
Just as Mr. Vori’s reasoning for why abortion is the crux of all our problems is idiotic, so is the Catholic repudiation of the ALS ice bucket challenge. It’s so stupid it hurts.
But hey, there are more pressing issues. The Cathedral of Christ the King in Buckhead of Atlanta slated renovations on a newly acquired rectory for its parish priests, i.e., one bishop and three priests, at a cost exceeding $2 million. This comes on top of Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who moved into a new, 6,196-square-foot home, for cool couple million. Gregory’s Tudor-style mansion stretches nearly 6,400 square feet, includes two dining rooms and a safe room. Spending close to five million on residences that house a couple of people is insane.
So how did Gregory justify dumping this kind of cash into homes versus, let’s say, an ALS ice bucket challenge? Well, according to Gregory, having these elite digs allows him to ‘smell of the sheep.’ Gregory feels this home will have the pope’s blessing.
“He (the Pope) wants his bishops to engage with his people,” he said and “… allows for larger groups to visit; the grounds also are good for cookouts and other outdoor activities.” In this way, said Gregory, he can follow the pope’s admonition to “smell like the flock” — to be close to parishioners.
Good luck in getting invited to any barbecue.
On a funny note, Samsung disregarded the ignorant tight-ass club and shook things up a bit by placing the Galaxy S5 under the ice bucket in its latest commercial. “I am the Samsung Galaxy S5. This is my Ice Bucket Challenge,” the phone says in its British Galaxy S-Voice. “Gosh that’s freezing. I nominate the iPhone 5S the HTC One M8 and the Nokia Lumia 930.” The joke, of course, is that none of those Samsung rivals are water resistant phones.
ALS is about living today. Studying and practicing spirituality is more than just stacking kanjur tenjur (religious texts) in one’s house. For one to live only in books, religious doctrine and piety, Biblical texts aren’t going to help us. What most strict religious people miss is that Christ and Buddha didn’t rely solely upon scrolls, textbooks or books; they lived in love. Likewise, we need to learn, practice and live in love. Once we learn and practice the form of love they gave, we will flourish and increase.
Anyone can become like the Buddha, because we all have the Buddha nature in our mind – that pure, untouched and undamaged human mind. I would rather live in love during an ice bucket challenge than await for a barbecue invitation from some highly arrogant and ignorant bishop.
Tags: Life Lessons, Living Buddha
Note from journal:
“Rioting continues for third day, black residents with rioters, mostly young, directing fury at government and vehicles. The injury toll continues to mount as several hundred policemen moved to control riots. Only a small number of injured are white. There is widespread feeling that repercussions could be great. Police comdr, sees no end – i.e., the battle between police and rioters. As activists were repressed or saw friends beaten or killed, some took up arms and became insurgents.”
The diary entry noted is decades old and obviously not about Ferguson, Missouri.
What I witnessed decades ago is about the social history of how people built homes, education systems and a country. The streets upon which I walked are not unlike Ferguson, Missouri. Similarly, citizens believed in a fight for freedom. As such, newspaper articles will be written and awards won. But is that where all this ends?
Most Ferguson, MO rioters believe the establishment is maintaining control via “at all costs” mentality. In maintaining that form of social control, it’s necessary to arrest, even shoot, those who refuse the dictates of old white men. Thus, the resistance welling up from a lifetime of oppressive conditions is demonized.
In truth, my diary note was written in a hotel room near Soweto, South Africa, not Ferguson, MO. But what lessons can Soweto provide Ferguson?
If the eradication of economic injustices is not achieved within the lifetime of those that experienced it, Ferguson, MO as well as other cities will continue to be plagued by racial tensions;
African-Americans must somehow learn to respond as an organized political movement, not a mob;
If the lives of millions of the poorest aren’t improved, racial tension and violence will provide yet another example of a failed revolution; and
The American public doesn’t adjust to rapid changes, whether it be in accusation or outrage.
Al Sharpton provided an enlightening quote after his return from South Africa decades earlier:
“Because ultimately history is going to judge you by what you achieve. That’s what stimulated me there (South Africa): that it’s more important to affect the lives of people and their agendas than to be caught up with sound bites or style or any of that.”
Many, myself included, now consider Sharpton nothing more than an agitator.
As a Buddhist, the challenge is to tell a story that produces results. It’s about goals, not about the loudest way to vent. The worst error is talking about nonviolence while being violent, for violence surrounds us every day; the very violence in which I, you, we, are complicit.
Life is not a sound bite. Unfortunately, almost everything coming from Ferguson and Clayton are sound bites.
Tags: I Have a Dream, Life Lessons, Organizational Leadership
Litigating The Court of Public Opinion
In a speech directed toward the Greater St. Marks Family Church this past Sunday, Al Sharpton’s vitriol spewed from many angles and can be summarized accordingly:
“Michael Brown is gone. You can run whatever video you want. He is not on trial. America is on trial! I have never in all my years seen something as offensive and insulting as a police chief releasing a tape of a young man trying to smear him before we even have his funeral.”
But I query, is Sharpton’s speech insightful or incite(ful)? For the life of me, I cannot understand the demands. Everyone wants justice form Michael Brown. But from face value, all I see is Sharpton and other protesters demanding instant justice. Will all Ferguson riots disappear simply with the arrest of Officer Darren Wilson?
While Brown supporters claim police are smearing a good kid’s name, it should be remembered Brown supporters are smearing the officer’s and prosecution name as well. Even after forensic pathologist hired by the Brown family stated all of the bullets entered Brown from the front, the Brown family attorney claimed he was “executed.”
Having traveled the Mideast and witnessing a few executions, I can confirm that what happened to Brown was not an execution. Executions I’ve seen never looked like what happened to Michael Brown. This doesn’t mean Brown should be dead either. But before placing our own, eye for an eye justice mentality, it’s important to remember the United States has a legal process. And that legal process hasn’t opined.
In our rush for Brown’s sainthood, we are subtly convicting Darren Wilson. This trial mob mentality is no different than those commonly utilized by some remote tribal court. The backstage strategic puppeteering that all high-press cases engage in, and had better engage in, is quite amazing. Literally, the unique role of today’s lawyer is litigating in the court of public opinion. Contrary to public opinion, circumstantial evidence and personal bias shoved down a listener’s throat is just as powerful as physical evidence. Brown’s attorneys are prepping future jurors.
Brown supporters, police and the Sharpton’s of the world deal cards in a life or death game – and everyone is getting played. Come time for a jury to sit and opine upon Officer Wilson’s fate, no one will remember Wilson’s “orbital blowout fracture to the eye socket.” However, most will remember the Ferguson riots, the looting and the word ‘executed.’
Remember the buzz words, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit?” Defense lawyers for O.J. Simpson mastered the court of public opinion. Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran persona, Simpson’s celebrity and televised trial riveted the nation. By the end of the criminal trial, there were dramatic differences in Simpson’s guilt between most black and white Americans.
In November 1998, Bill Moushey and Bob Martinson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote a 10-part series, “Win At All Costs,” exposing where federal agents and prosecutors pursued justice by breaking the law. In the series, the two wrote: “They lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, engaged in cover-ups, paid for perjury and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments, guilty pleas and convictions.”
Let’s face it, Officer Wilson’s trail is occurring as we speak. And to be honest, the Officer Wilson has no chance of winning.
Ferguson, MO: When The Camera Stops
During the seemingly ceaseless Ferguson, MO, riot I noted coverage of a north St. Louis resident, Jeffrey Hill. In a National Public Radio interview, Hill said it made little sense to try and work with a society that hassles black men daily. Furthermore, African Americans should refrain from any interaction with the white community.
“This isn’t the first person that’s died from the police,” he said. “This isn’t the first racial issue that we’ve dealt with in this country. We’ve been in this position to be in public and have discussions and get answers and all of that, and they have proven time and time again that that’s not what they want to do.”
Hill suggested that the black community pull away from broader society.
I sincerely value Mr. Hill’s comments, but personally, society as a whole and many African Americans sacrificed too much to pull back. There has been too much blood, too much death and too much destruction to simply walk away.
What’s interesting to watch is how Ferguson residents struggle with their response. I concur that what happened to Mr. Brown was tragic. And should eye-witness reports prove accurate, the officer in question must be adjudicated via a court of law, not by a lynch mob mentality that serves no meaningful purpose other than to inflame.
It probably won’t shock you to know that after the cameras stop rolling, we’re left nearly in the same place we started. Harry Chapin’s song W*O*L*D is spot on, “… you can drive on ten-thousand miles and still be where you are.” And that’s what happens when camera lights stop – after all the sound bites and television interviews, someone needs to query, “Why did this happen? Why did Ferguson residents destroy the town in which they live?“
Reverend Traci D. Blackmon of Christ the King United Church of Christ (Florissant, MO) acknowledged widespread frustration in the wake of Brown’s death.
“We are here to stop the bleeding in our streets,” Blackmon said. “We are here to take our communities back. We are here to take our children back. We are here to take our voices back. And this time, we will not go away.”
I can’t agree more. How do we stop the bleeding? How do make our voices known?
It’s tragic Michael Brown lost his life. But should our reprehension be limited to only Brown? What about all the other young black murder victims? Nationally, half of all murder victims are black, with the vast majority of those deaths being committed by other blacks. Where’s the march for them? Accordingly, whites are just as likely to be killed by other whites. Yet, we march not for them either. To bring this point home, a Ferguson woman was shot in the head during a ‘drive-by’ shooting as citizens rioted in Ferguson streets. Where’s her marchers? Who rioted’ in her name?
The term “white on black,” “black on black” or “white on white” crime is denigrating. Instead of attributing increased crime to poverty, lack of education, opportunity, inequality and disenfranchisement, we blame police officers, courts, whites, blacks, Jews, a Quick Trip store or whomever happens to be around. If it’s proved Michael Brown was gunned down without provocation, it’s due in large part to the stereotypes and slander all ethnic races assign one another. Riot to the nearest mirror and look. There, within the reflection, lay a key participant to the current mess.
In effect, we’ve institutionalized our racism. We provide the fewest routes for the poor to succeed, pay crappy wages, disfranchise people from voting, deny healthcare, a solid education and the opportunity to progress. Then we have the gall to be stunned when the volcano erupts some hot night somewhere near Jerkwater, USA.
America cannot afford to live in a segregated society. Rather, society needs a transformative solution. But what I’m afraid of is that we’ll ignore all of this … when the camera stops.
The Patience Stone
Filed under: About Love, Life Lessons, Religion — Leave a comment
The Patience Stone is a movie rarely seen by women who need to see it most.
Character names aren’t known in The Patience Stone nor is the country identified. However, many perceive the country to be in some Middle East, such as Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan.
As The Patience Stone opens, the wife is a mess and there’s an open question of whether the family can remain intact. With two small daughters playing in the next room, she begs her husband to wake from his coma, take charge of her life once more and make things proper. Due to the ongoing sectarian conflict, the husband’s brothers fled and her prayers to Allah (God) remain unanswered. Bombs shake the house by night while armed men prowl the streets in daylight, hoping to kill in the name of God.
The Patience Stone portrays scenes of constant of debilitating chaos: bare floors, little food, no running water as the angel of death circles just outside their windows like a vulture in the desert. Technically, there’s no lock, just a latch. Parts of the wall are blown away. Hand-washed clothes line stretches across the dirt yard. A shaded wool blanket strung from the ceiling hides a closet and one scene depicts a long-legged spider dangling overhead while flies buzz in and out of her husband’s mouth. Almost daily, the wife looks through the broken and fractured windows of her own life, hoping in some unimaginable way, a miracle will happen.
The more time you spend in her world, the smaller ours feel.
In the midst of all this harsh reality, The Patience Stone demonstrates a woman redefining societal expectations. It’s about those who refuse to conform to the gender role they’re supposed to play without question and of one’s fight for political and financial autonomy. While the characters remind us many walk a fine line – smiling on the outside, dying on the inside – there is hope only when the wife begins her own journey of self-discovery. The price she pays for such self-discovery is the loss of her family and community. But she’s rewarded with liberation.
Emboldened by the husband’s inability to respond, the wife improvises an IV drip and quietly begins telling her unconscious husband the conscious truth of herself and their relationship — all the secrets she dared never to reveal. Symbolically, he becomes her “patience stone,” a stone which absorbs all the miseries and misfortunes until finally shattering and delivering her from pain.
Such blunt confessions would get her killed if her husband emerged from his comatose condition. And that’s the catch … he does awaken. So what’s the first thing he attempts after awakening? He tries to kill his wife.
Having traveled parts of the Mideast, even if such a woman transcends her circumstances, it’s impossible to forget how helpless most are. And sadly, this movie fails to mention many are just like her, whether home or abroad. We’re called to remember that in the shadow of a world moving forward, it’s people just like this who’ve been left behind. When traditional anchors of livelihood have been destroyed by years of sectarian violence, ignorance and corruption, people are pushed to the margins and life becomes mere existence while God remains as obscure as galaxies littering the nighttime sky.
Every triumph is not of the same kind. Sometimes it arrives early and sometimes it takes a long time. One must not expect everything would be done in the same manner and that everything finds success. In the end, the wife chose freedom instead of endless corruption and religious dogma.
I pray more women do the same.
Tags: Life Lessons, Love
The Power of Intention
From a Buddhist perspective, there are many interrelated, interconnected scenarios rarely thought. On a prima fascia value, one wouldn’t presume any interconnection between Tony Stewart, Kevin Ward, the riots in Ferguson, Missouri and ISIS, but one thing connects us all: the power of intention.
Everything that happens in the universe begins with intention. The world’s destiny is ultimately shaped by our deepest intentions and desires. The Upanishads declares, “You are what your deepest desire is. As your desire is, so is your intention. As your intention is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.” The book of Proverbs states, “… as he thinketh in his heart, so is he …“
Race car driver Kevin Ward’s death may have been avoided if Mr. Ward simply decided not to exit his vehicle, walk onto an active race car track and attempt to confront another driver. This statement is not a defense of Mr. Stewart, but if Ward’s personal intention didn’t lean toward confrontation, he’d probably be alive. But Ward appeared not to have such an intention.
Similarly, would ISIS purposely summarily execute so many people if their own heart had not been filled with such hatred? Would the Israeli’s, Palestinian’s or Ferguson, Missouri rioters? Each leader and fraction expounds aggression while appearing to bestow being the victim. As a result, aggressors appear to receive validation while acknowledging their own internal dialogue of hatred. Aggression always has a chaotic and primitive aspect: it leads down the proverbial rabbit hole and ceases only when wrath fizzles.
During World War II, Hitler accused the Jews of many things and attempted to project societal defects onto Jews. Thus, the intention begat a false need to eliminate the threat. Like the Nazi’s, like Mr. Ward, like all rioters, we shield ourselves in rage while simultaneously claiming a false defense. Then we have the gall to “tell” the world of our victimization, do exactly what we accuse of the other and protract our own fear of terror unto another while beating the shit out of anyone daring to disagree.
The same intention of fear and hatred not only linked Tony Stewart, Kevin Ward, the riots in Ferguson, Missouri and ISIS, but it permeates society as a whole.
A basic tenet of Zen practice is to do no harm to self or others. But to accomplish this, we must understand our personal nature and how we’re projecting intention. As a society, do any of us really intend not to harm another with actions and personal prejudices? When you look at others through a microscope of compassion, are you able to see humanity and internal love?
“We are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither Buddha nor Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness.”
~ Jean-Yves Leloup ~
Imagine the historical societal accomplishments should we change our intention? How about curing cancer or solving universal poverty? … etc., etc., etc. We have the power to answer every question and solve every problem. However, we cannot solve much, if anything, if our solution leads us only to the intention of hatred.
What is the power of your intention?
Tags: Buddhism, Christ, Social Justice
Ferguson, Missouri Riots
For a period of time, I lived in both Los Angeles, CA and Saint Louis, MO.
I lived through the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Those riots were a series of uprisings, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding a videotaped and widely-covered police brutality incident.
I’m reminded of LA while watching riots in Ferguson, Missouri. A vigil on Sunday for Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot and killed by a police officer, was followed by protesters taking to the streets, looting stores, vandalizing cars and confronting the police.
There’s an eerie similarity between the 1992 LA Riots and the riot in Saint Louis. Images, videos captured on cellphones and posted on social media, as well as local media reports showed people spray-painting and looting a number of stores. One Saint Louis television report captured video showing looters running away from stores with their arms full of shoes. Another demonstrated rioters carrying two cases of Budweiser Beer.
The looter pictured in this blog with baggy rapper style pants and no shirt did nothing to honor Mr. Brown or his legacy. In fact, all he did was become the ‘poster-child’ of repugnant.
Rioting does little to remember the victim. Having lived through LA’s Riots, the aftermath will bring a series ‘commissions’ designed to defuse tension; initiatives will be announced, programs launched. News personalities such as Al Sharpton will arrive and protest the insanity, cruelty and abuse. Melissa Harris-Perry may shed a few more tears and we’ll view these feints with suspicious eyes, for such performances marginally advance public interest.
I do not celebrate any of these events. I simply acknowledge they happen. Yet riots themselves tell us something important: that grievances long ignored have to be accounted for; that there is a new boldness found within those no longer content to suffer in silence.
It would tear apart any person who is humane to see what riot victims suffer. What makes all of this even more punitive is the endless wait for justice by the families of those who’ve died in the mindless violence perpetrated by one of their own. Both the Brown family and business victims will experience a seemingly endless wait for justice. It will be years before anyone gets a sense of legal closure.
Buddhism is about love, both personal and communal. Immediately after the 2011 riots, Vancouver residents began erasing the bad memories from the streets by cleaning them up. The citizens started to write words on the wooden boards that momentarily replaced shop windows. These messages included apologies, messages of love addressed to the Canucks hockey team, to the city of Vancouver, or simply to other people.
Why? Because this is how you act when you feel like you’re part of a community. This is the true soul of community. This is the beauty of America.
May all of us find such a community.
Tags: Buddhism, Compassion, Life Lessons |
Day 127 July 2015
Brian Kelly opened the IWMW 2015 event. See slides hosted on Slideshare. https://www.slideshare.net/lisbk/welcome-to-iwmw-2015
Out With the Old, In With the New: Digital Services at Liverpool John Moores University
by Mandy Phillips
This is a journey, a speedy tale of how to take a team, a high level objective and deliver something wonderful in a short period of time. It's not about technology per se, it's a story about people, purpose and passion, and getting results. Find out more about rebooting the web team at Liverpool John Moores University, about managing change in a very fast moving project and re-shaping the culture of an organisation.
Speaker: Mandy Phillips, Liverpool John Moores University Time: Monday 27th July from 14.15-14.45 Code: P1
An Agile Approach to Content
by Rich Prowse
Digital content has become increasingly important to universities to achieve their strategic goals. In this talk Rich Prowse discusses why the University of Bath has adopted an agile approach to the creation and delivery of useful and usable content online. He'll talk about the work of the Digital team and share lessons learnt on the importance of user needs, how to keep publishers happy and why building a community is important to successfully deliver decentralised publishing. Resources The slides used in this talk were hosted on Slideshare (no longer available - removed by author)
Speaker: Richard Prowse, University of Bath Time: Monday 28th July from 14.45-15.30 Code: P2
Workshop Sessions
The parallel workshop sessions last for 90 minutes. Delegates could attend one workshop session from the following:
A1: Working with an Institutional Web Team – Edge Hill University
A2: iBeacons for Recruitment Events
A3: BS 8878: Systematic Approaches to Documenting Web Accessibility Policies and Practices
A6: All CMSs are Rubbish: Live With It!
A7: A Revolution in the Exchange of Courses Information
A8: Future-proofing the Web Professional
The Challenge Is Institutional: Merging Customer Needs With New Operating Realities
by Mike McConnell
This plenary talk provides a case study of a consultation exercise at the University of Aberdeen to define a digital vision for the institution. The consultation produced a target operating model for the University in order to make it fit for the digital age and provided three costed business cases for significant, transformative projects for key operational areas. The talk will detail the process followed in the consultation; issues and problems faced, and argue that the process of digital transformation is an institution-wide business challenge. The slides are available on LinkedIn Slideshare and embedded below. http://www.slideshare.net/spanner77/the-challenge-is-institutional-merging-customer-needs-with-new-operating-realities
Speaker: Mike McConnell, University of Aberdeen Time: Tuesday 28 July 2015 from 09.00-09.45 Code: P3
User Experience Design. How Far Will You Go?
by Paul Boag
With students becoming ever more demanding, providing outstanding user experience is a key differentiator. User experience design does not stop at the edge of the screen. In this presentation Paul explores the nature of user experience design and how to build it within a University. He looks at cross departmental collaboration, shaping experiences and avoiding common pitfalls. In this presentation you will learn:
The importance of user experience design in a multi-device, multi-channel world.
What good user experience looks like and what we should aspire to.
How to start working collaboratively with colleagues across the institution.
Ways to tackle the territorial divides.
Speaker: Paul Boag Time: Tuesday 28th July from 09.45-10.30 Code: P4
From Hack Day to Open Day: Building a Tour
by Mark Fendley
At a Hack Day event last summer, a team of people at the University of Kent postulated the concept of an self-guided audio tour for mobile devices for our open day visitors who are unable to join a guided tour. This idea was enthusiastically prototyped and subsequently championed by the organisation. A full product has been developed in the first quarter of this year, with content being produced over the summer for a planned launch in the new academic year. This presentation will follow the journey of the teams involved throughout this exciting project from conceptual idea to realisation.
Speaker: Mark Fendley Time: Tuesday 28th July from 11.00-11.30 Code: P5
Marrying Creativity with Management Complexity
How do you encourage creativity and vision within your organisation, whilst at the same time marrying this to your operational model, budget restrictions and institutional complexities? Precedent and KPMG will tackle these key topics; showing real-world examples, how they work together to achieve this and discuss where they see the future of the sector. See slides hosted on Slideshare https://www.slideshare.net/Precedent/iwmw-workshop-marrying-creativity-with-management-complexity Speakers: Rob van Tol, Precedent and Sam Sanders, KPMG Time: Tuesday 28 July 2015 from 11.30-12.30 Code: P6
Delegates could attend one masterclass session from the following:
B1: Moving from the Old Web Team to a New Digital Services – Liverpool John Moores University
B2: Working with an Institutional Web Team – University of Bradford
B3: Working in an Agile Way – Content Creation, Delivery and Standards
B5: Lessons Learned from Helping HE Institutions Develop their Digital Strategies
Integrating Institutional Web Services with Jisc’s ‘Cloud First, Mobile First’ Platform
by Michael Webb
This presentation will explain Jisc’s new ‘Cloud First, Mobile First’ delivery platform, and show how web managers will be able to work this platform, both by using APIs to integrate resource into their own services, and by creating APIs from institutional web sites and services, allowing creation of new sector-wide services.
The delivery platform is a central part of Jisc’s role in the development of sector-wide services and solutions. A key aim is to create a vibrant ecosystem of first and third party applications and resources. This is being achieved by creating a developer-friendly approach to exposing APIs, as well as working with the community to develop standard APIs to University’s core systems, in order to allow rapid development of solutions.
The presentation will provide examples of the difficulty of creating services based on the existing approach, suggest how web manager can work with Jisc by adopt existing and emerging standards to allow the creation of new mobile and web based services. The slides from this talk are available on Slideshare and embedded below. http://www.slideshare.net/mwebbjisc/iwmw-2015-integrating-with-jiscs-app-and-resource-platform
Speaker: Michael Webb, Jisc Time: Wednesday 29th July from 09.15-10.00 Code: P7
LinkedIn for Higher Education – How Universities can Leverage LinkedIn to Engage Future, Current and Past Students
by Charles Hardy
LinkedIn is the global professional social networking platform with over 347 million members. In the past 18 months LinkedIn has developed a number of features specifically for Higher Education institutions, blending career data insights with people and brand. This talk will look to demonstrate these features and explore how you can integrate them into your institution's social media / content strategy.
Speaker: Charles Hardy, LinkedIn Time: Wednesday 29th July from 10.00-10.45 Code: P8
Beyond Digital – The Agile University
Leading Universities are looking beyond the short-term impact of an improved web or open-day experience, towards the delivery of simpler, faster, personalised interactions throughout the entire institution. PwC provide insights into the workings of the world's most innovative universities and describe the future-proof architectures that build an amazing educational experience on the three pillars of simplification, personalisation and value-focus. This session will start with the approach and mind-set required to become an Agile University, discussing how it can help balance the books within a year, and show examples of how you can transcend your competition to become a Category of One. Resources The slides are available on Slideshare and embedded below. http://www.slideshare.net/lisbk/the-agile-university
Speakers: Niall Lavery and Dan Babington, PwC Time: Wednesday 29 July 2015 from 11.15-12.00 Code: P9
The panel session was chaired by Mike McConnell, University of Aberdeen. The panellists (Mandy Phillips, Claire Gibbons, Charles Hardy and Marianne Kay) were asked to address the following four questions:
Are universities businesses? Are they truly in competition? Where do third party services like LinkedIn fit in, if at all?
What is the role of pedagogy/academics in this brave new world? Are we driven by a culture of managerialism?
What effects will the Internet of Things have on higher education and the student experience?
What is the future for IWMW?
by Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly will give the concluding reflections on the IWMW 2015 event.
M/class28 July 2015
Working with an Institutional Web Team – University of Bradford
by Claire Gibbons
The University of Bradford is a medium-sized campus University based in the North of England. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2016 and was recently ranked 49th in the UK for the quality of its research. We have around 12,000 students on campus with another 4,000 students studying University of Bradford degrees across the globe. The Web Team was born in late 2008 following a project looking into whether the University of Bradford needed a Web CMS. This project spawned a University Web Team whose remit has grown extensively over the period since, and now covers the governance, strategic direction and development of the University’s web presence as a whole, and more increasingly digital marketing activities such as PPC, personalisation and email marketing. The team is based in the Marketing Department within the Directorate of External Affairs which also covers (Corporate) Communications, Alumni and Development, Recruitment and Outreach, Admissions, and Arts on Campus. The team is made up of:
Claire Gibbons – Senior Web and Content Manager (Claire also manages the University’s Publications function)
Paddy Callaghan – Senior Web Developer
Katie Hall – Web Content Editor
Anna Laurika – Web Assistant
This last year or so has seen a number of large projects rolled-out by the Web Team and we would like to share with you our experiences of:
Personalisation of content for enquirers and applicants through a third-party portal (Azorus) branded as Your Bradford (http://your.bradford.ac.uk)
The adoption of a new brand and the subsequent development of a digital design system (atomic design)
The development of a new online course search tool (e.g. http://www.bradford.ac.uk/study/)
Adoption of XCRi across undergraduate and postgraduate courses
We have a number of projects and initiatives in development which we would value input and feedback on:
Process and procedures around publishing online content, including governance and ownership of content
A new approach to news and events online
Integration of websites and systems, e.g. SITS, Azorus and Salesforce
Come along for an engaging and participative session and we are open to ideas for other topics to cover during the session. Note: this session was ran jointly with the master class on Moving from the Old Web Team to a New Digital Services – Liverpool John Moores University. The slides from this session are available on Slideshare and embedded below. http://www.slideshare.net/Planetclaire/beyond-digital-transforming-the-institution
Facilitators: Claire Gibbons, Paddy Callaghan, Katie Hall and Anna Laurika, University of Bradford Time: Tuesday 27th July from 14.00-17.30 Code: B2
Working in an Agile Way – Content Creation, Delivery and Standards
by Rhian Griggs , Justin Owen , Rich Prowse ,
Join the University of Bath’s Digital team and learn how to adopt an agile approach to content creation, delivery and standards. In this Master Class you’ll learn:
About the role of discovery
How to hold a user story planning workshop
Practical tools and techniques for delivering a content-led project using an iterative approach
How to establish digital standards through blogging and community building exercises
Reporting on success
Facilitators: Rich Prowse, Rhian Griggs and Justin Owen, University of Bath Time: Tuesday 27th July from 14.00-17.30 Code: B3
Moving from the Old Web Team to a New Digital Services – Liverpool John Moores University
With a vibrant community of 25,000 students from over 100 countries world-wide, 2,500 staff and 250 degree courses, Liverpool John Moores University is one of the largest, most dynamic and forward-thinking universities in the UK. Founded in 1825 by the City’s movers and shakers, the Liverpool Mechanics Institute set the foundation for transforming education and recognised the impact that it could have on individuals, communities and society in general. The web team which has been in operation since 1997 has undergone major changes of late, in the last 5 years it has moved home three times (from IT, to Marketing and a final move in August 2014) and now sits within Corporate Business Change Initiatives, a department within Finance and Resources which also covers Finance, Estate Management, Legal and Governance Services, Research and Innovation and Strategic Business Initiatives. Corporate Business Change Initiatives has a dual role in that it has day to day management of the Finance, HR and payroll systems and the web, and it drives change in the University by leading on multiple projects and programmes of work. The core team today is:
Neil Shack – Senior Developer
Phil Bunker – Senior Developer
Zhaowei Shen – Developer
Andy Kelly – Developer
Guy Kilgallen – Training and Support Officer
Seconded in are:
Helena Eaton – Digital Communications Manager
Suzy Brown – Copywriter
Francesca McFarlane – Copywriter
We also have temporary staff supporting the team. A new University website was launched on March 25th this year (www.ljmu.ac.uk), which involved replacing the existing CMS, Reddot, with Sitecore and renewing all content, implementing a responsive design and ensuring that we meet all legislative and statutory requirements. This has been a very extensive 9 month project and marks the beginning of a programme of work to modernise the University’s digital offering to students, staff and visitors. Next steps for us include;
Development of a student intranet
Development of a staff intranet and migration to SharePoint 2013
Gathering of all external domains/sites/blogs into the Liverpool John Moores University domain
We are happy to share and learn from other delegates. Note: this session was ran jointly with the master class on Working with an Institutional Web Team – University of Bradford. The slides from this session are available on Slideshare and embedded below. http://www.slideshare.net/Planetclaire/beyond-digital-transforming-the-institution
Facilitators: Mandy Phillips, Liverpool John Moores University Time: Tuesday 27th July from 14.00-17.30 Code: B1
Lessons Learned from Helping HE Institutions Develop their Digital Strategies
by Leigh Howells , Marcus Lillington ,
The team at Headscape has been involved in the development of digital strategies for several universities (and a few organisations in other sectors too). We have learnt many valuable lessons along the way that we’d like to share in this workshop. We will also encourage some group participation: you’ll be able to share your stories and we’ll aim to identify some common challenges and solutions. We’re looking to cover topics such as the importance of senior management buy-in, broader organisational participation, keeping momentum going, the creation of digital teams, the role of suppliers and which research methodologies deliver the most useful results.
Facilitators: Marcus Lillington and Marcus Lillington Time: Tuesday 28th July from 14.00-17.30 Code: B5
W/hop27 July 2015
iBeacons for Recruitment Events
The University of Bradford is currently piloting the use of iBeacons at Recruitment Events:
To provide context-sensitive information and messaging to visitors at recruitment events to make their visit more seamless and engaging
To gather data from visitors about their visit, including locations visited and journeys around the campus taken, to improve future activities
To showcase the iBeacons and Raspberry Pi technology, our student work and a collaborative approach to using new technologies from colleagues across the University
The Web Team is working with the Mobile Technology Team and a final year student in the Faculty of Engineering and Informatics and, having run a successful pilot at a recent Applicant Visit Day, will be rolling out the technology at forthcoming Open Days. Come along and find out more about iBeacons (other transmitters are available!), how this technology can be used to enhance visitors' experiences and also to understand the ethical and moral issues surrounding the use of the data collected. The slides from this session are available on Slideshare and embedded below. http://www.slideshare.net/Planetclaire/ibeacons-for-recruitment-events-university-of-bradford
Facilitator: Claire Gibbons, University of Bradford and Ben Butchart, University of Edinburgh Time: Monday 27th July from 16.00-17.30 Session code: A2
A Revolution in the Exchange of Courses Information
by Jayne Rowley , Alan Paull ,
The main method that Higher Education providers use currently to supply course marketing information to third party organisations is to type it into web pages, a time-consuming, costly and inefficient process. You can save money, simplify processes and open up new opportunities by implementing the eXchanging Course Related Information, Course Advertising Profile (XCRI-CAP) standard to produce and distribute your courses information better. This session will describe the new way of providing PG course marketing information now being implemented by many HEPs, so that they can supply it automatically to Graduate Prospects, UCAS and other organisations that run course aggregation websites. The result will be better information to help learners make better choices.
Facilitators: Jayne Rowley and Alan Paull Time: Monday 27th July from 16.00-17.30 Session code: A7
BS 8878: Systematic Approaches to Documenting Web Accessibility Policies and Practices
In the early days of institutional Web services Web management teams sought to provide 'universal accessibility' by conformance with WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. However although conformance with WCAG can be important, especially for informational web site, in reality such conformance can be difficult to achieve. Such problems are compounded in the provision of web services which provide more than simple informational services or are reliant on use of third-party services or user generated content. The challenges of knowing what to do are compounded by the reductions in levels of resources available to deliver and support institutional web services which is often accompanied by rising levels of user expectations! The BS 8878 Web Accessibility Code of Practice has been developed to help institutions develop accessible web services which can take into account contextual factors such as the purpose of the service, the target audience and the levels of resources available. In brief, as described by Jonathan Hassell, the lead authors of the standard, BS 8878 is a process-oriented standard enabling organisations to:
understand why digital inclusion and accessibility makes good business sense
embed inclusion responsibility strategically across key job-roles, and into key policies
follow a standard user-centred production process which identifies the key decisions which impact inclusion which are taken in a web product’s lifecycle
adopt an informed way of making these decisions
adopt a way of documenting these decisions to provide a log which can be used for assessing accessibility risk and proving conformance with BS 8878
synchronise these activities with similar processes for the inclusive design of non-digital products
In this workshop session Brian Kelly will describe the BS8878 standard and facilitate group activities in exploring how the standard can be applied in a number of contexts relevant to the higher education community.
Facilitator: Brian Kelly Time: Monday 27th July from 16.00-17.30 Session code: A3 Resources: The slides are available on Slideshare and embedded below. http://www.slideshare.net/lisbk/bs-8878-systematic-approaches-to-documenting-web-accessibility-policies-and-practices
Working with an Institutional Web Team – Edge Hill University
by Mike Nolan
As described in Wikipedia "Edge Hill University is a campus-based university situated in Ormskirk, Lancashire. The institution was opened on 24 January 1885 as Edge Hill College, the first non-denominational teacher training college for women in England, before admitting its first male students in 1959. In 2005, Edge Hill was granted Taught Degree Awarding Powers by the Privy Council and became Edge Hill University on 18 May 2006. Edge Hill was named University of the Year in 2014 in the 10th annual Times Higher Education Awards. The University had been shortlisted three times previously, 2007/8, 2010/11 and 2011/12 making it the only university to be shortlisted four times in seven years. In 2015 the university was named the Times Higher Education's Best University Workplace after claiming the number one spot in all four key markers of a contented workforce in the THE Best University Workplace Survey. The university's campus is situated in Ormskirk in West Lancashire and was named the safest campus to live at in the North West and the fifth-safest in the country by The Complete University Guide. A focus on sustainability has resulted in Edge Hill winning a Green Flag Award as well as a commendation in the 2011 Green Gown Awards made by the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges." The University's Web team has had an important role to play in raising the visibility of the institution and supporting the university in winning these awards. Members of the Web team have been pro-active in sharing their approaches across the wider community, with Alison Kerwin, then head of the Web Team giving a plenary talk on "Let the Students do the Talking..." at the IWMW 2008 event. Mike Nolan, the current head of the Web Team, has facilitated a number of sessions at recent IWMW events and is the local contact for this year's event. In addition Mike and colleagues from the Web team are facilitating a workshop session on "Working with an Institutional Web Team – Edge Hill University" which will highlight areas of web strategies and web developments which the team are particularly proud of and provide an opportunity for participants to learn from these approaches and help the Web team address current challenges they are facing.
Facilitator: Mike Nolan, Edge Hill University Time: Monday 27th July from 16.00-17.30 Code: A1
All CMSs are Rubbish: Live With It!
by Janet McKnight , Helen Sargan ,
Over a period of years the workshop facilitators, Helen Sargan and Janet McKnight, have had extensive experience of a range of CMSs and other, rather cruder, ways of managing content. Time has proved that all of them are far from perfect, but that with a choice that fits both the skillset of the managers and the task that is to be accomplished, it is generally possible to rub along. Don’t expect a silver bullet, because you’re never going to find one. We’ll discuss our experiences and the take home messages to apply when choosing and running a CMS.
Facilitators: Helen Sargan and Janet McKnight Time: Monday 27th July from 16.00-17.30 Code: A6
Future-proofing the Web Professional
This workshop is an interactive session to help you to examine your career. What do you need to do to ensure your skills are up to date? What do you want to do next? What is important to you? Is a change needed? Is having a steady income and the benefits of working for a company or organisation vital because of responsibilities at home? Or, do you like to take risks? Do you want to run away and join the circus? Would a portfolio career appeal? Delegates will be given the chance and time out from their day jobs to consider the important questions and will be able to have a go at different exercises that will get them to think about what matters to them and possible next steps.
Facilitator: Lisa Jeskins Time: Monday 27th July from 16.00-17.30 Session code: A8
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Why has Bitcoin become a genuine platform for the ...
Bitcoin – A Digital Money with Benefits Invision Game ...
Bitcoins - A Primer on Bitcoins & Digital Currencies by ...
Can you mine with a ps4? : litecoinmining
Cryptomining with a PS3?? : gpumining
AITA? Drugged up uncle smashed my mining pc, cost me in excess of 1.5 million NZD in bitcoin, so I'm not talking to him.
To expand on the title through 2011 to 2013 I was mining bitcoin, I was helped by some Russian dudebros I had met on a now defunct console jailbreaking site(not doing anything illegal, I just like homebrew shit ok). They got me into a very decent mining pool. Stepped me through what I could do to turn my shoddy laptop into a usable mining device and they paid me in small increments of bitcoin for editing crap they had written in English but had gotten things like past/present/future tenses and plural/singulars of nouns wrong.
Through 2011 to 2013 I had mined, been paid, and otherwise collected a total 138 bitcoin. Mid 2013 said uncle smashed my mining pc "because I was always on it"(False. I needed that fucker to mine, and to talk specifically to "the dudebros", I was always on my OTHER pc, and my ps3) and because I wasn't up at 5 fucking A M to help his coked up backside go milk cows.
I had initially started mining as a spite investment(not the part I want to be judged on, I know this part of it is at least vaguely asshole-y) due to the fact my GF in 2011 left me and I had 300-ish bucks spare I was planning to blow on an end of highschool thing for her and I. After that the plan then became to start mining in 2011, use the 300-ish bucks to convert my lappy into a usable miner, ignore what bitcoin is/was worth until Nov 25 2017. This was the 6th year anniversary of when I started mining, cause I had been looking for a long term romantic relationship since I was 11 right up until I was 17( 2005-2011), 6 years of mining to match the 6 years I wasted dating around, finding semi-serious relationships that just ended in heartache etc.
Well I found out in 2017 what I lost, told my uncle what he cost me. His reply was a sarcastic "I'll pay you back later", havent talked to my uncle since. The rest of my family considers this to be an asshole move, what do you fuckers think?
submitted by jofadda to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]
PC to PS4 gaming. What happened to the joy?
I’d like to facilitate a discussion around this constant perplexing inner struggle I’m constantly waging, and I know others are too. But first a short background.
I grew up with a dad who worked as a computer and network repair man for our local University. Perks of his position were he was able to scoop up old hardware the University was throwing away for various reasons. Either they didn’t want to spend the money on refitting/reusing that part, or they were upgrading. This resulted in a lot of free parts for my dad, and in turn for me. At the age of 7 my dad basically made me build my own computer with a box full of scraps. When I went to ask him how something worked or why something wasn’t working - he would refer me to a bookshelf chalk full of computer hardware manuals and textbooks. Looking back now I realized everything he was doing was teaching me to think critically, rather than just ask for the answer. Something that admittedly eventually made me hugely knowledgeable in the tech space. This was 1994 after all, the internet was basically nonexistent in contrast to how it is today. So with his direction, I built and built until my first successful post and subsequent install of Windows NT 3.1. Up until this point my only goal for building a computer was to impress my dad, but I quickly discovered the word of gaming with classics like Doom, Might and Magic 3, Master of Orion 1, and with a holiday release Warcraft 1. Up until this point I had been an avid NES gamer, with frequent visits to my local mall arcade.
From the moment I had my first successful boot on my make shift Pentium PC until the release of Halo 1, the PC was my go to gaming device. After Halo 1, the original Xbox became my go to device. I had fallen in love with my brother PlayStation 1 with games like Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo, but the PS1 never took large chunks of my time. I went back to primarily PC when World of Warcraft released. When WoW released I was in high school, and running a machine that was frankensteined from an Athlon 2500+ eMachines PC an old compaq from my dad work, and few parts I got from Tiger Direct; Nvidia FX 5950 and a sweet Refurbished Alienware case. My desire to game had never been stronger than with WoW and Halo 1-3.
WoW and the achievements and trophy systems of the PS3/X360 ushered in a new era for me, psychologically. I still don’t really understand it. And this is what brings me to this post. Maybe to find some understanding and discussion. I got married in 2011 and shortly after that joined the Army. And shortly after that had my first kid. All those life moments decreased the time I had to play games. After all this I was more attracted to the narrative games such as Mass Effect 1-3 on the 360, and Uncharted and Last of Us. Which brought me to the PS3. I stopped playing WoW, mostly, after WoD. I raided in some top guilds in their realms, mainly because the old feeling of WoW for me dissipated. And once achievements and trophy’s became a thing to earn on consoles - I found myself striving for those ‘dings’ over the actual substance of the games being played. Then I found myself not wanting to play ANY PC games, aside from occasional Civilization with friends or Stellaris by myself for hours. But even then my Stellaris games are focused around completion and achievements.
I’ve probably owned 5 different PS4s since 2013. The original, the slim, a black pro, the white Pro, and a newer revision of the black pro (current). I find myself not playing for months on end. The only games that have really drawn me in this generation has been remasters of the narrative games already mentioned, a few outliers, and Horizon Zero Dawn. Horizon is by far and away my favorite game of this generation, and sits right up there with Mass Effect 1 for me.
Now comes the question. Why do I have a desire to build a PC, but zero desire to play games on that PC? I have no desire to buy an Xbox due to the only game I want to play by MS being on the PC soon (Halo), which in turn is the only PC game of even want to play. And then WHY can’t I get excited for most games anymore, but I feel like I HAVE to have a PS4 Pro? And why are games without achievements now massively less appealing to me? What’s happening lol? I miss that feeling I had with PC, and older consoles. Is the fact I have 3 kids and a career something I’m not taking into account?
Now armed with a 4k monitor, Ryzen 7 1700x, 16gb, 1tb nvme WD, RX 580 8gb (always wanting more 😥)
My last build was a i7-6700k, 2 1080 Tis, 16gb Ram, 1tb nvme, and a 40 inch Samsung 4K tv. I sold that during the 2016 bitcoin mining craze for a massive profit. And have sense just used the Ryzen 7 system above.
submitted by JediTreasley to pcmasterrace [link] [comments]
Console gaming is hardly different from PC gaming, and much of what people say about PC gaming to put it above console gaming is often wrong.
I’m not sure about you, but for the past few years, I’ve been hearing people go on and on about PCs "superiority" to the console market. People cite various reasons why they believe gaming on a PC is “objectively” better than console gaming, often for reasons related to power, costs, ease-of-use, and freedom.
…Only problem: much of what they say is wrong.
There are many misconceptions being thrown about PC gaming vs Console gaming, that I believe need to be addressed. This isn’t about “PC gamers being wrong,” or “consoles being the best,” absolutely not. I just want to cut through some of the stuff people use to put down console gaming, and show that console gaming is incredibly similar to PC gaming. I mean, yes, this is someone who mainly games on console, but I also am getting a new PC that I will game on as well, not to mention the 30 PC games I already own and play. I’m not particularly partial to one over the other.
Now I will mainly be focusing on the PlayStation side of the consoles, because I know it best, but much of what I say will apply to Xbox as well. Just because I don’t point out many specific Xbox examples, doesn’t mean that they aren’t out there.
“PCs can use TVs and monitors.”
This one isn’t so much of a misconception as it is the implication of one, and overall just… confusing. This is in some articles and the pcmasterrace “why choose a PC” section, where they’re practically implying that consoles can’t do this. I mean, yes, as long as the ports of your PC match up with your screen(s) inputs, you could plug a PC into either… but you could do the same with a console, again, as long as the ports match up.
I’m guessing the idea here is that gaming monitors often use Displayport, as do most dedicated GPUs, and consoles are generally restricted to HDMI… But even so, monitors often have HDMI ports. In fact, PC Magazine has just released their list of the best gaming monitors of 2017, and every single one of them has an HDMI port. A PS4 can be plugged into these just as easily as a GTX 1080.
I mean, even if the monitoTV doesn’t have HDMI or AV to connect with your console, just use an adaptor. If you have a PC with ports that doesn’t match your monitoTV… use an adapter. I don’t know what the point of this argument is, but it’s made a worrying amount of times.
“On PC, you have a wide range of controller options, but on console you’re stuck with the standard controller."
Are you on PlayStation and wish you could use a specific type of controller that suits your favorite kind of gameplay? Despite what some may believe, you have just as many options as PC.
Want to play fighting games with a classic arcade-style board, featuring the buttons and joystick? Here you go!
Want to get serious about racing and get something more accurate and immersive than a controller? Got you covered.
Absolutely crazy about flying games and, like the racers, want something better than a controller? Enjoy!
Want Wii-style motion controls? Been around since the PS3. If you prefer the form factor of the Xbox One controller but you own a PS4, Hori’s got you covered. And of course, if keyboard and mouse it what keeps you on PC, there’s a PlayStation compatible solution for that. Want to use the keyboard and mouse that you already own? Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Of course, these aren’t isolated examples, there are plenty of options for each of these kind of controllers. You don’t have to be on PC to enjoy alternate controllers.
“On PC you could use Steam Link to play anywhere in your house and share games with others.”
PS4 Remote play app on PC/Mac, PSTV, and PS Vita.
PS Family Sharing.
Using the same PSN account on multiple PS4s/Xbox Ones and PS3s/360s, or using multiple accounts on the same console.
In fact, if multiple users are on the same PS4, only one has to buy the game for both users to play it on that one PS4. On top of that, only one of them has to have PS Plus for both to play online (if the one with PS Plus registers the PS4 as their main system).
PS4 Share Play; if two people on separate PS4s want to play a game together that only one of them owns, they can join a Party and the owner of the game can have their friend play with them in the game.
“Gaming is more expensive on console.”
Part one, the Software
This is one that I find… genuinely surprising. There’s been a few times I’ve mentioned that part of the reason I chose a PS4 is for budget gaming, only to told that “games are cheaper on Steam.” To be fair, there are a few games on PSN/XBL that are more expensive than they are on Steam, so I can see how someone could believe this… but apparently they forgot about disks.
Dirt Rally, a hardcore racing sim game that’s… still $60 on all 3 platforms digitally… even though its successor is out.
PSN - $60
Xbox Live - $60
Steam - $60
So does this mean you have to pay full retail for this racing experience? Nope, because disk prices.
PS4 Disc (Amazon) - $45
XB1 Disc (Amazon) - $26
Just Cause 3, an insane open-world experience that could essentially be summed up as “break stuff, screw physics.” And it’s a good example of where the Steam price is lower than PSN and XBL:
Not by much, but still cheaper on Steam, so cheaper on PC… Until you look at the disk prices.
PS4 Disc (Used, Amazon) - Currently $28
XB1 Disc (Amazon) - $24 (discounted, regular $30)
See my point? Often times the game is cheaper on console because of the disk alternative that’s available for practically every console-available game. Even when the game is brand new.
Dirt 4 - Remember that Dirt Rally successor I mentioned?
Yes, you could either buy this relatively new game digitally for $60, or just pick up the disk for a discounted price. And again, this is for a game that came out 2 months ago, and even it’s predecessor’s digital cost is locked at $60. Of course, I’m not going to ignore the fact that Dirt 4 is currently (as of writing this) discounted on Steam, but on PSN it also happens to be discounted for about the same amount.
Part 2: the Subscription
Now… let’s not ignore the elephant in the room: PS Plus and Xbox Gold. Now these would be ignorable, if they weren’t required for online play (on the PlayStation side, it’s only required for PS4, but still). So yes, it’s still something that will be included in the cost of your PS4 or Xbox One/360, assuming you play online. Bummer, right?
Here’s the thing, although that’s the case, although you have to factor in this $60 cost with your console, you can make it balance out, at worst, and make it work out for you as a budget gamer, at best. As nice as it would be to not have to deal with the price if you don’t want to, it’s not like it’s a problem if you use it correctly.
Imagine going to a new restaurant. This restaurant has some meals that you can’t get anywhere else, and fair prices compared to competitors. Only problem: you have to pay a membership fee to have the sides. Now you can have the main course, sit down and enjoy your steak or pasta, but if you want to have a side to have a full meal, you have to pay an annual fee.
Sounds shitty, right? But here’s the thing: not only does this membership allow you to have sides with your meal, but it also allows you to eat two meals for free every month, and also gives you exclusive discounts for other meals, drinks, and desserts.
Let’s look at PS Plus for a minute: for $60 per year, you get:
2 free PS4 games, every month
1 PS4/PS3 and Vita compatible game, and 1 Vita-only game, every month
Exclusive/Extended discounts, especially during the weekly/seasonal sales (though you don’t need PS Plus to get sales, PS Plus members get to enjoy the best sales)
access to online multiplayer
So yes, you’re paying extra because of that membership, but what you get with that deal pays for it and then some. In fact, let’s ignore the discounts for a minute: you get 24 free PS4 games, 24 free PS3 games, and 12 Vita only + 12 Vita compatible games, up to 72 free games every year. Even if you only one of these consoles, that’s still 24 free games a year. Sure, maybe you get games for the month that you don’t like, then just wait until next month.
In fact, let’s look at Just Cause 3 again. It was free for PS Plus members in August, which is a pretty big deal. Why is this significant? Because it’s, again, a $60 digital game. That means with this one download, you’ve balanced out your $60 annual fee. Meaning? Every free game after that is money saved, every discount after that is money saved. And this is a trend: every year, PS Plus will release a game that balances out the entire service cost, then another 23 more that will only add icing to that budget cake. Though, you could just count games as paying off PS Plus until you hit $60 in savings, but still.
All in all, PS Plus, and Xbox Gold which offers similar options, saves you money. On top of that, again, you don't need to have these to get discounts, but with these memberships, you get more discounts.
Now, I’ve seen a few Steam games go up for free for a week, but what about being free for an entire month? Not to mention that; even if you want to talk about Steam Summer Sales, what about the PSN summer sale, or again, disc sale discounts? Now a lot of research and math would be needed to see if every console gamer would save money compared to every Steam gamer for the same games, but at the very least? The costs will balance out, at worst.
Part 3, the Systems
Xbox and PS2: $299
Xbox 360 and PS3: $299 and $499, respectively
Xbox One and PS4: $499 and $399, respectively.
Rounded up a few dollars, that’s $1,000 - $1,300 in day-one consoles, just to keep up with the games! Crazy right? So called budget systems, such a rip-off.
Well, keep in mind that the generations here aren’t short.
The 6th generation, from the launch of the PS2 to the launch of the next generation consoles, lasted 5 years, 6 years based on the launch of the PS3 (though you could say it was 9 or 14, since the Xbox wasn’t discontinued until 2009, and the PS2 was supported all the way to 2014, a year after the PS4 was released). The 7th gen lasted 7 - 8 years, again depending on whether you count the launch of the Xbox 360 to PS3. The 8th gen so far has lasted 4 years. That’s 17 years that the console money is spread over. If you had a Netflix subscription for it’s original $8 monthly plan for that amount of time, that would be over $1,600 total.
And let’s be fair here, just like you could upgrade your PC hardware whenever you wanted, you didn’t have to get a console from launch. Let’s look at PlayStation again for example: In 2002, only two years after its release, the PS2 retail price was cut from $300 to $200. The PS3 Slim, released 3 years after the original, was $300, $100-$200 lower than the retail cost. The PS4? You could’ve either gotten the Uncharted bundle for $350, or one of the PS4 Slim bundles for $250. This all brings it down to $750 - $850, which again, is spread over a decade and a half. This isn’t even counting used consoles, sales, or the further price cuts that I didn’t mention.
Even if that still sounds like a lot of money to you, even if you’re laughing at the thought of buying new systems every several years, because your PC “is never obsolete,” tell me: how many parts have you changed out in your PC over the years? How many GPUs have you been through? CPUs? Motherboards? RAM sticks, monitors, keyboards, mice, CPU coolers, hard drives— that adds up. You don’t need to replace your entire system to spend a lot of money on hardware.
Even if you weren’t upgrading for the sake of upgrading, I’d be amazed if the hardware you’ve been pushing by gaming would last for about 1/3 of that 17 year period. Computer parts aren’t designed to last forever, and really won’t when you’re pushing them with intensive gaming for hours upon hours. Generally speaking, your components might last you 6-8 years, if you’ve got the high-end stuff. But let’s assume you bought a system 17 years ago that was a beast for it’s time, something so powerful, that even if it’s parts have degraded over time, it’s still going strong. Problem is: you will have to upgrade something eventually.
Even if you’ve managed to get this far into the gaming realm with the same 17 year old hardware, I’m betting you didn’t do it with a 17 year Operating System. How much did Windows 7 cost you? Or 8.1? Or 10? Oh, and don’t think you can skirt the cost by getting a pre-built system, the cost of Windows is embedded into the cost of the machine (why else would Microsoft allow their OS to go on so many machines).
Sure, Windows 10 was a free upgrade for a year, but that’s only half of it’s lifetime— You can’t get it for free now, and not for the past year. On top of that, the free period was an upgrade; you had to pay for 7 or 8 first anyway.
Point is, as much as one would like to say that they didn’t need to buy a new system every so often for the sake of gaming, that doesn’t mean they haven’t been paying for hardware, and even if they’ve only been PC gaming recently, you’ll be spending money on hardware soon enough.
“PC is leading the VR—“
Let me stop you right there.
If you add together the total number of Oculus Rifts and HTC Vives sold to this day, and threw in another 100,000 just for the sake of it, that number would still be under the number of PSVR headsets sold.
Why could this possibly be? Well, for a simple reason: affordability. The systems needed to run the PC headsets costs $800+, and the headsets are $500 - $600, when discounted. PSVR on the other hand costs $450 for the full bundle (headset, camera, and move controllers, with a demo disc thrown in), and can be played on either a $250 - $300 console, or a $400 console, the latter recommended. Even if you want to say that the Vive and Rift are more refined, a full PSVR set, system and all, could cost just over $100 more than a Vive headset alone.
If anything, PC isn’t leading the VR gaming market, the PS4 is. It’s the system bringing VR to the most consumers, showing them what the future of gaming could look like. Not to mention that as the PlayStation line grows more powerful (4.2 TFLOP PS4 Pro, 10 TFLOP “PS5…”), it won’t be long until the PlayStation line can use the same VR games as PC.
Either way, this shows that there is a console equivalent to the PC VR options. Sure, there are some games you'd only be able to play on PC, but there are also some games you'd only be able to play on PSVR.
…Though to be fair, if we’re talking about VR in general, these headsets don’t even hold a candle to, surprisingly, Gear VR.
“If it wasn’t for consoles holding devs back, then they would be able to make higher quality games.”
This one is based on the idea that because of how “low spec” consoles are, that when a developer has to take them in mind, then they can’t design the game to be nearly as good as it would be otherwise. I mean, have you ever seen the minimum specs for games on Steam?
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs) @ 2.5GHz
GPU: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1GB / AMD HD 4870 1GB (DX 10, 10.1, 11)
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500k, 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X6 1075T 3GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (2GB) / AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB)
CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent
CPU: Intel Core i3 or AMD Phenom™ X3 8650
GPU: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460, ATI Radeon™ HD 4850, or Intel® HD Graphics 4400
Processor: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940
Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660 / AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
Actually, bump up all the memory requirements to 8 GBs, and those are some decent specs, relatively speaking. And keep in mind these are the minimum specs to even open the games. It’s almost as if the devs didn’t worry about console specs when making a PC version of the game, because this version of the game isn’t on console. Or maybe even that the consoles aren’t holding the games back that much because they’re not that weak. Just a hypothesis.
But I mean, the devs are still ooobviously having to take weak consoles into mind right? They could make their games sooo much more powerful if they were PC only, right? Right?
No. Not even close.
CPU: Intel Core i3, i5, i7 or better or AMD Bulldozer or better
GPU: NVidia GeForce 2xx series or better, 1GB+ dedicated video memory / AMD 5xxx series or better, 1GB+ dedicated video memory
CPU: Intel Core i3-4340 / AMD FX-6300
GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB / AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB
These are PC only games. That’s right, no consoles to hold them back, they don’t have to worry about whether an Xbox One could handle it. Yet, they don’t require anything more than the Multiplatform games.
CPU: Intel Haswell 2 cores / 4 threads @ 2.5Ghz or equivalent
GPU: Intel HD 4600 or equivalent - This includes most GPUs scoring greater than 950pts in the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark
CPU: 2 ghz
DirectX: Version 11 (they don’t even list a GPU)
So what’s the deal? Theoretically, if developers don’t have to worry about console specs, then why aren’t they going all-out and making games that no console could even dream of supporting?
Low-end PCs.
What, did you think people only game on Steam if they spent at least $500 on gaming hardware? Not all PC gamers have gaming-PC specs, and if devs close their games out to players who don’t have the strongest of PCs, then they’d be losing out on a pretty sizable chunk of their potential buyers.
Saying “devs having to deal with consoles is holding gaming back” is like saying “racing teams having to deal with Ford is holding GT racing back.” A: racing teams don’t have to deal with Ford if they don’t want to, which is probably why many of them don’t, and B: even though Ford doesn’t make the fastest cars overall, they still manage to make cars that are awesome on their own, they don’t even need to be compared to anything else to know that they make good cars.
I want to go back to that previous point though, developers having to deal with low-end PCs, because it’s integral to the next point:
“PCs are more powerful, gaming on PC provides a better experience.”
This one isn’t so much of a misconception as it is… misleading.
Did you know that according to the Steam Hardware & Software Survey (July 2017) , the percentage of Steam gamers who use a GPU that's less powerful than that of a PS4 Slim’s GPU is well over 50%? Things get dismal when compared to the PS4 Pro (Or Xbox One X). On top of that, the percentage of PC gamers who own a Nvidia 10 series card is about 20% (about 15% for the 1060, 1080 and 1070 owners).
Now to be fair, the large majority of gamers have CPUs with considerably high clock speeds, which is the main factor in CPU gaming performance. But, the number of Steam gamers with as much RAM or more than a PS4 or Xbox One is less than 50%, which can really bottleneck what those CPUs can handle.
These numbers are hardly better than they were in 2013, all things considered. Sure, a PS3/360 weeps in the face of even a $400 PC, but in this day in age, consoles have definitely caught up.
Sure, we could mention the fact that even 1% of Steam accounts represents over 1 million accounts, but that doesn’t really matter compared to the 10s of millions of 8th gen consoles sold; looking at it that way, sure the number of Nvidia 10 series owners is over 20 million, but that ignores the fact that there are over 5 times more 8th gen consoles sold than that.
Basically, even though PCs run on a spectrum, saying they're more powerful “on average” is actually wrong. Sure, they have the potential for being more powerful, but most of the time, people aren’t willing to pay the premium to reach those extra bits of performance.
Now why is this important? What matters are the people who spent the premium cost for premium parts, right? Because of the previous point: PCs don’t have some ubiquitous quality over the consoles, developers will always have to keep low-end PCs in mind, because not even half of all PC players can afford the good stuff, and you have to look at the top quarter of Steam players before you get to PS4-Pro-level specs. If every Steam player were to get a PS4 Pro, it would be an upgrade for over 60% of them, and 70% of them would be getting an upgrade with the Xbox One X.
Sure, you could still make the argument that when you pay more for PC parts, you get a better experience than you could with a console. We can argue all day about budget PCs, but a console can’t match up to a $1,000 PC build. It’s the same as paying more for car parts, in the end you get a better car. However, there is a certain problem with that…
“You pay a little more for a PC, you get much more quality.”
The idea here is that the more you pay for PC parts, the performance increases at a faster rate than the price does. Problem: that’s not how technology works. Paying twice as much doesn’t get you twice the quality the majority of the time.
For example, let’s look at graphics cards, specifically the GeForce 10 series cards, starting with the GTX 1050.
1.8 TFLOP
1.35 GHz base clock
2 GB VRAM
This is our reference, our basis of comparison. Any percentages will be based on the 1050’s specs.
Now let’s look at the GTX 1050 Ti, the 1050’s older brother.
This is pretty good. You only increase the price by about 27%, and you get an 11% increase in floating point speed and a 100% increase (double) in VRAM. Sure you get a slightly lower base clock, but the rest definitely makes up for it. In fact, according to GPU boss, the Ti managed 66 fps, or a 22% increase in frame rate for Battlefield 4, and a 54% increase in mHash/second in bitcoin mining. The cost increase is worth it, for the most part.
But let’s get to the real meat of it; what happens when we double our budget? Surely we should see a massive increase performance, I bet some of you are willing to bet that twice the cost means more than twice the performance.
The closest price comparison for double the cost is the GTX 1060 (3 GB), so let’s get a look at that.
1.5 GHz base clock
Well… not substantial, I’d say. About a 50% increase in floating point speed, an 11% increase in base clock speed, and a 1GB decrease in VRAM. For [almost] doubling the price, you don’t get much.
Well surely raw specs don’t tell the full story, right? Well, let’s look at some real wold comparisons. Once again, according to GPU Boss, there’s a 138% increase in hashes/second for bitcoin mining, and at 99 fps, an 83% frame rate increase in Battlefield 4. Well, then, raw specs does not tell the whole story!
Here’s another one, the 1060’s big brother… or, well, slightly-more-developed twin.
Seems reasonable, another $50 for a decent jump in power and double the memory! But, as we’ve learned, we shouldn’t look at the specs for the full story.
I did do a GPU Boss comparison, but for the BF4 frame rate, I had to look at Tom’s Hardware (sorry miners, GPU boss didn’t cover the mHash/sec spec either). What’s the verdict? Well, pretty good, I’d say. With 97 FPS, a 79% increase over the 1050— wait. 97? That seems too low… I mean, the 3GB version got 99.
Well, let’s see what Tech Power Up has to say...
94.3 fps. 74% increase. Huh.
Alright alright, maybe that was just a dud. We can gloss over that I guess. Ok, one more, but let’s go for the big fish: the GTX 1080.
That jump in floating point speed definitely has to be something, and 4 times the VRAM? Sure it’s 5 times the price, but as we saw, raw power doesn’t always tell the full story. GPU Boss returns to give us the run down, how do these cards compare in the real world?
Well… a 222% (over three-fold) increase in mHash speed, and a 218% increase in FPS for Battlefield 4. That’s right, for 5 times the cost, you get 3 times the performance. Truly, the raw specs don’t tell the full story.
You increase the cost by 27%, you increase frame rate in our example game by 22%. You increase the cost by 83%, you increase the frame rate by 83%. Sounds good, but if you increase the cost by 129%, and you get a 79% (-50% cost/power increase) increase in frame rate. You increase it by 358%, and you increase the frame rate by 218% (-140% cost/power increase). That’s not paying “more for much more power,” that’s a steep drop-off after the third cheapest option.
In fact, did you know that you have to get to the 1060 (6GB) before you could compare the GTX line to a PS4 Pro? Not to mention that at $250, the price of a 1060 (6GB) you could get an entire PS4 Slim bundle, or that you have to get to the 1070 before you beat the Xbox One X.
On another note, let’s look at a PS4 Slim…
1.84 TFLOP
800 MHz base clock
…Versus a PS4 Pro.
128% increase in floating point speed, 13% increase in clock speed, for a 25% difference in cost. Unfortunately there is no Battlefield 4 comparison to make, but in BF1, the frame rate is doubled (30 fps to 60) and the textures are taken to 11. For what that looks like, I’ll leave it up to this bloke. Not to even mention that you can even get the texture buffs in 4K. Just like how you get a decent increase in performance based on price for the lower-cost GPUs, the same applies here.
It’s even worse when you look at the CPU for a gaming PC. The more money you spend, again, the less of a benefit you get per dollar. Hardware Unboxed covers this in a video comparing different levels of Intel CPUs. One thing to note is that the highest i7 option (6700K) in this video was almost always within 10 FPS (though for a few games, 15 FPS) of a certain CPU in that list for just about all of the games.
…That CPU was the lowest i3 (6100) option. The lowest i3 was $117 and the highest i7 was $339, a 189% price difference for what was, on average, a 30% or less difference in frame rate. Even the lowest Pentium option (G4400, $63) was often able to keep up with the i7.
The CPU and GPU are usually the most expensive and power-consuming parts of a build, which is why I focused on them (other than the fact that they’re the two most important parts of a gaming PC, outside of RAM). With both, this “pay more to get much more performance” idea is pretty much the inverse of the truth.
“The console giants are bad for game developers, Steam doesn't treat developers as bad as Microsoft or especially Sony.”
Now one thing you might’ve heard is that the PS3 was incredibly difficult for developers to make games for, which for some, fueled the idea that console hardware is difficult too develop on compared to PC… but this ignores a very basic idea that we’ve already touched on: if the devs don’t want to make the game compatible with a system, they don’t have to. In fact, this is why Left 4 Dead and other Valve games aren’t on PS3, because they didn’t want to work with it’s hardware, calling it “too complex.” This didn’t stop the game from selling well over 10 million units worldwide. If anything, this was a problem for the PS3, not the dev team.
This also ignores that games like LittleBigPlanet, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Metal Gear Solid 4 all came out in the same year as Left 4 Dead (2008) on PS3. Apparently, plenty of other dev teams didn’t have much of a problem with the PS3’s hardware, or at the very least, they got used to it soon enough.
On top of that, when developing the 8th gen consoles, both Sony and Microsoft sought to use CPUs that were easier for developers, which included making decisions that considered apps for the consoles’ usage for more than gaming. On top of that, using their single-chip proprietary CPUs is cheaper and more energy efficient than buying pre-made CPUs and boards, which is far better of a reason for using them than some conspiracy about Sony and MS trying to make devs' lives harder.
Now, console exclusives are apparently a point of contention: it’s often said that exclusive can cause developers to go bankrupt. However, exclusivity doesn’t have to be a bad thing for the developer. For example, when Media Molecule had to pitch their game to a publisher (Sony, coincidentally), they didn’t end up being tied into something detrimental to them.
Their initial funding lasted for 6 months. From then, Sony offered additional funding, in exchange for Console Exclusivity. This may sound concerning to some, but the game ended up going on to sell almost 6 million units worldwide and launched Media Molecule into the gaming limelight. Sony later bought the development studio, but 1: this was in 2010, two years after LittleBigPlanet’s release, and 2: Media Molecule seem pretty happy about it to this day. If anything, signing up with Sony was one of the best things they could’ve done, in their opinion.
Does this sound like a company that has it out for developers? There are plenty of examples that people will use to put Valve in a good light, but even Sony is comparatively good to developers.
“There are more PC gamers.”
The total number of active PC gamers on Steam has surpassed 120 million, which is impressive, especially considering that this number is double that of 2013’s figure (65 million). But the number of monthly active users on Xbox Live and PSN? About 120 million (1, 2) total. EDIT: You could argue that this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, sure, so if you want to, say, compare the monthly number of Steam users to console? Steam has about half of what consoles do, at 67 million.
Now, back to the 65 million total user figure for Steam, the best I could find for reference for PlayStation's number was an article giving the number of registered PSN accounts in 2013, 150 million. In a similar 4-year period (2009 - 2013), the number of registered PSN accounts didn’t double, it sextupled, or increased by 6 fold. Considering how the PS4 is already at 2/3 of the number of sales the PS3 had, even though it’s currently 3 years younger than its predecessor, I’m sure this trend is at least generally consistent.
For example, let’s look at DOOM 2016, an awesome faced-paced shooting title with graphics galore… Of course, on a single platform, it sold best on PC/Steam. 2.36 million Steam sales, 2.05 million PS4 sales, 1.01 million Xbox One sales.
But keep in mind… when you add the consoles sales together, you get over 3 million sales on the 8th gen systems. Meaning: this game was best sold on console. In fact, the Steam sales have only recently surpassed the PS4 sales. By the way VG charts only shows sales for physical copies of the games, so the number of PS4 and Xbox sales, when digital sales are included, are even higher than 3 million.
This isn’t uncommon, by the way.
Even with the games were the PC sales are higher than either of the consoles, there generally are more console sales total. But, to be fair, this isn’t anything new. The number of PC gamers hasn’t dominated the market, the percentages have always been about this much. PC can end up being the largest single platform for games, but consoles usually sell more copies total.
EDIT: There were other examples but... Reddit has a 40,000-character limit.
"Modding is only on PC."
Xbox One is already working on it, and Bethesda is helping with that.
PS4 isn't far behind either. You could argue that these are what would be the beta stages of modding, but that just means modding on consoles will only grow.
This isn’t to say that there’s anything wrong with PC gaming, and this isn’t to exalt consoles. I’m not here to be the hipster defending the little guy, nor to be the one to try to put down someone/thing out of spite. This is about showing that PCs and consoles are overall pretty similar because there isn’t much dividing them, and that there isn’t anything wrong with being a console gamer. There isn’t some chasm separating consoles and PCs, at the end of the day they’re both computers that are (generally) designed for gaming. This about unity as gamers, to try to show that there shouldn’t be a massive divide just because of the computer system you game on. I want gamers to be in an environment where specs don't separate us; whether you got a $250 PS4 Slim or just built a $2,500 gaming PC, we’re here to game and should be able to have healthy interactions regardless of your platform.
I’m well aware that this isn’t going to fix… much, but this needs to be said: there isn’t a huge divide between the PC and consoles, they’re far more similar than people think. There are upsides and downsides that one has that the other doesn’t on both sides. There’s so much more I could touch on, like how you could use SSDs or 3.5 inch hard drives with both, or that even though PC part prices go down over time, so do consoles, but I just wanted to touch on the main points people try to use to needlessly separate the two kinds of systems (looking at you PCMR) and correct them, to get the point across.
I thank anyone who takes the time to read all of this, and especially anyone who doesn’t take what I say out of context. I also want to note that, again, this isn’t “anti-PC gamer.” If it were up to me, everyone would be a hybrid gamer.
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[Table] IAmA: We are iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens and cell phone unlocking crusader Sina Khanifar, two guys fighting for your right to unlock everything you own
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Is it possible for an 83 year old to have a well-reasoned attitude towards the internet, or are all people that old hopelessly analog and therefore irrelevant I would hope so! But I imagine it would take some time—there's a lot of context he's missing that we have, and vice versa. I'm sure that there's a lot that I could learn from Mr. Billington. Maybe I should drop by his library sometime and see if he'll show me around!
Why should I tailor my design to the .1% of the market who cares about repairing their design, instead of the 50% of the market who would rather have an extra 1mm shaved off the case, or who would rather save $.50 due to a more efficient factory assembly methodology? Just because the first owner doesn't fix it, doesn't mean no one will. Eventually, 100% of the products you design will fail. The battery will wear out or someone will drop it. The need for repair is just about as inevitable as taxes. Products that have long lives have much higher resale value. Toyota trucks sell for a significant premium over Ford trucks of the same year with the same mileage. And people care about how much they're going to be able to get for their used product a year down the line, even if they're not interested in ever fixing it themselves. Large purchasers are increasingly paying attention to design lifespan. I know purchasers at very large organizations that are horrified by the prospect of a glued in battery with a 2-3 year life. They have to get a better return on their investment than that.
Hey! I wrote a repair guide for a Fender guitar amp for you guys for my technical writing class at Cal Poly SLO! My question is what sort of compromise could you foresee that would both allow use consumers to do what we wish with our products, while still protecting the intellectual property of the numerous companies we purchase our products from? For those who are interested, here's their Fender repair manual. Great job!
The question is what intellectual property needs to be protected? There are already lots of laws that protect Fender from you starting a competitor and using their patented designs or trademarked logo and case styling.
In the case of electronics, all the design engineers I know tell me that by the time a product has shipped, they assume that it's obsolete. They know their competitors will be taking it apart and analyzing it.
Sharing information needed for repairs doesn't really make it any easier to clone a product. A number of manufacturers—Dell and HP, for example—provide service manuals on their website already. And iFixit's Apple service manuals didn't prevent (or factor in at all with) their lawsuit against Samsung.
My opinion is that the laws we have are substantially the result of a) unintended consequences of the fight against media piracy; b) Cell carriers using the law to enforce a monopoly; and c) a strategy of planned obsolescence.
Now that's it's illegal; what are the chances of getting caught? Is it easy for phone providers to track down an unlocked cell phone? Will they actively go after people? Or do you think it's going to be more like illegal torrenting where they'll go after the big fish (ie people marketing unlocking/jailbreaking services) and maybe cherry pick a few unlockers here and there to make an example out of them? The odds of them coming after you or me are very low. I'm not sure that they could detect remotely whether a phone has been unlocked—it would probably come down to how accurate their database is and whether there is data sharing between the carriers.
It's the folks making the unlocking software—like geohot and the iPhone dev team—as well as refurbishers and resellers. Companies like Recellular unlock millions of cell phones per year. If they can't do that, the used phone market will be significantly disrupted. It will become extremely expensive to buy unlocked phones, and your old locked phone won't be worth nearly as much.
It's crazy that intellectual property law is interfering with the free market of physical products like this. It's farcical. Imagine if Ford cut a deal with a toll road company and didn't allow you to drive your car on another company's roads!
We need to find ways of educating policy makers about the impact of applying policies designed to prevent piracy to physical hardware.
How do you think the rise of 3D printing is going to affect your iFixit business? Do you believe scanning the 3D models of little plastic pieces be subject to DMCA takedowns? And if so, would you consider addressing that on your fixthedmca.org site? I'm really excited about 3D printing. We haven't seen a ton of practical 3D printable repair parts, but that day is coming.
The legal issues around printing 3D parts are pretty different from the copyright concerns around unlocking (circumventing encryption) and access to service manuals and diagnostics. With printing objects, you run into problems with 3D patents and trademarks. If it's legal for a third party to make a replacement handle for your refrigerator, it should be legal for you to 3D print one. But that's by no means certain, and I think it's going to be a significant fight in the coming years.
There have already been some DMCA takedowns of 3D files, but IANAL and I couldn't say exactly what the implications are.
A major challenge for small companies like ours is uncertainty. Let's say I create a 3D file of my door handle, post it to iFixit, get sued by a major manufacturer, and my lawyers tell me I have a strong legal case for fair use. Going to trial could cost millions of dollars—money the manufacturer may be willing to spend, but that we wouldn't be able to afford.
This is a big reason why you don't see very many people standing up to the OEMs. It's also why it's critical that we financially support fantastic organizations like the EFF, Public Knowledge, Free Press, and others who are willing to fight long fights on behalf of us consumers. Free markets need clarity.
That said, iFixit is totally happy to host any 3D models of spare parts people want to throw up on our servers, as long as the files were independently created.
As a Cal Poly SLO Electrical Engineering student who built a 3d printer this summer, I support IFixit hosting models. Let's get started uploading some models, then!
Everything that you guys take apart and breakdown.. do you pay for those out-of-pocket, or are they given to you by the manufacturers? How do they feel about you doing that? Great question. We buy everything at retail, just like Consumer Reports. Since we're rating the repairability, it's important that we get the same hardware that you would buy at the store.
That gets a little expensive, particularly with out-of-contract cell phones (we'll be taking apart the Blackberry Z10 soon), but it's worth it. You can't tell how hard it'll be to repair something without taking it apart, and we've taken it on as our sworn duty to educate people before they find out the hard way.
We posted a tablet repairability matrix the other day.
Well, I feel like that is likely ALREADY the case with many cars. They all have lots and lots of chips in them. How many of those chips are we allowed to access, inspect, etc., without violating something like DMCA? It totally depends on whether they're encrypted.
Legally, can you modify the code on the chips?
Practically, will anyone do it?
Right now, we're focused on the first issue—guaranteeing your right to tinker. That's why we need to repeal Section 1201 of the DMCA.
But for repairs, the time to reverse engineer those chips is so significant that you would never be able to do so in the process of fixing a car. For many repairs, access to service documentation and diagnostics are critical. That's why Massachusetts just passed Right to Repair legislation requiring service information be made available. Independent auto mechanics were worried they wouldn't be able to stay in business.
I think we need Right to Repair legislation for electronics as well as autos.
You guys are great! A Maker Manifesto for all! I'm tired of the consumption based, throwaway society we have today. We need to get corporations to relinquish this tight-fisted control over everything they manufacture for "sale" (quotes to indicate that they say "sold", even though the consumer often own much of what was purchased) that encourages, no - demands, that merchandise gets thrown away and replaced new to maximize profits. What do you see as the best avenue, personally and as citizens, to encourage people, the government, and companies to pursue the ability to repair our merchandise? Help us build a free repair manual for everything! Join the thousands of people all around the world contributing to make iFixit the largest repair manual in the world. We're building a coalition to fight for access to unlocking tools, service manuals, diagnostics, and everything else we need to repair products. If the people of Massachusetts can stand up for their local auto repair shop, we of the internet can certainly stand up for the right to open our electronics.
Sign up at fixthedmca.org and let people know you want DMCA 1201 repealed.
I own a small business that's an authorized dealer of a major carrier's products and contracts. When I order, e.g., a 16 GB iPhone 5, I pay the full retail price, $650. One of my stores then sells it for $200, as per the carrier's requirement. When someone then proceeds to unlock that phone and activate it on, say, Cricket, I lose $450. The carrier only pays me a portion of the contract if it's kept for at least six months. Were you aware of this? Do you agree that anyone who acts in a similar manner is effectively stealing $450 from me? How can one own an item that he hasn't fully paid for yet (assuming that a device isn't entirely bought until the discount received on it has been compensated via contract)? The customer has to pay an early termination fee, I assume. Who gets that money?
Do you ever break a item while disassembling it? e.g. If you cracked a Ipad digitizer as you removed it while doing a break down. Edit:spelling. Yes. Specifically with the iPad, it was glued together. It took us breaking about five iPads before we developed a technique for opening iPads without harming the glass. Even then, we kept fiddling and improving our methodology.
How do you guys feel about "anti-fixer" hardware like security screws or Torx? I don't really think Torx is anti-fixer—it's a pretty standard tool, there are good technical reasons for it (screws don't strip as easily), and the patent on it has expired (way back in '91). Security bits and tools like Apple's Pentalobe driver are just consumer-hostile.
I had to open up my coffee maker to unclog it and they had flathead screws with a little bar in the middle - you'd need a flathead screwdriver that kinda looked like a two-pronged fork. I have a friend who just spilled liquid on her MacBook Air this afternoon and needs to open up the case to dry it out. But she doesn't have the right sized pentalobe bit already, and it's going to take a few days to mail her one.
Random idea: Mail Pentalobe drivers to libraries in major metro areas, so people can locally access them without the hassle? There's a growing group of tool libraries where they do just that. I think it's a fantastic idea—we recently wrote a story about the West Seattle Tool Library, which is very successful.
You guys are awesome! You helped me start my business in fixing and unlocking devices. I have already emailed my representatives (all of them), signed the petition, and spread the word about how bad the DMCA is. Thank you for your efforts. As for questions, how many DMCA threats do you receive? If so, from what kind of companies? Do they concern you at all? You'll be surprised to hear this: iFixit has never received a DMCA complaint. But there's a good reason for that—all the content on the site is originally created, either by us or by our community members.
We haven't gotten permission from any OEMs to rehost their service information (yet), but it's something that we're working on.
With the recent screenshots of xbox durango, do you think that we are moving toward a time where the used game market will cease to exist? You bought it, you should own it. That applies to music you buy from iTunes, or from Steam, or from the secret XBox market of the future.
But the trend right now is away from ownership, and towards licensing. Apple is very careful to never say that you own the music you download from iTunes.
There's a fantastic group of people working to guarantee your rights to resell the things you buy called the Owner's Rights Initiative. They won a huge victory in the Supreme Court this week in the Kirtsaeng v. Wiley case, verifying that it is legal to resell products in the US that were made overseas. Seems commonsense, but those are the sort of basic battles we have to fight.
If that verdict had gone the other way, we might be talking about whether it's legal to resell your old cell phone—now that would have been a step backwards.
Are you giving away free 6inch rulers? because they are $2.99 and redditlove322 gives $5 off. Yes.
Why isn't the problem the breaking of a contract? The customer is not actually breaking the contract, they're exercising an option in the contract to end the monthly service in exchange for paying an early termination fee.
Your problem is that the carrier wrote the contract, and likely also wrote the business contract with you. Your contract sounds one-sided—the fair thing would be for you to receive a portion of the termination fee to repay you for your subsidy. You're getting squeezed on both ends.
Why isn't there a way to sort the amount of devices on your website by their repairability score? Because we haven't gotten to it yet! But that's a great idea. Our tablet repairability page is our first stab at something like that.
I have used your website to repair a Macbook Pro. I redirect people to your site for a lot of their Apple (and console) problems. I love the idea of a centralized repository of all this knowledge. Is it possible to expand this to cover all devices? If unlocking under contract cell phones is legal. What incentive do mobile carriers have to incentivize high end cell phones? Yes, we're working hard to do it. The problem is that we can't take the manufacturer service manuals and post them on iFixit because of copyright law. If it was legal, we'd have service manuals for everything! So we have to write everything from scratch. You can help—take some photos the next time you fix something and post the seed of a new repair manual. Locking phones isn't required to keep you on a carrier. You already have a contract! The early termination fee should cover any costs to them from your subsidized handset.
What's in it for you? We want to fix the world. I'd like to live in a place where people cared about their things, and products were designed to stand the test of time.
I agree that this should never be an issue and shouldn't be something that we should have to fight for. Everything should be unlocked by default. But you guys are doing amazing things in this fight, so mad props to you. The problem is that software (intellectual property) is infecting hardware, and so the laws that have allowed us to modify and tinker our hardware for hundreds of years are woefully out of date. It won't be long before you can't buy any durable good that doesn't have some software involved.
, ifixit.com is an awesome idea and site and I recently used it to upgrade my aging macbook, saving hundreds of dollars by not buying a new one. Great idea! What do you. think. of. these. guides?
Have you ever considered expanding ifixit beyond apple products and game consoles? Or expansion beyond electronics.. say into DIY car repairs? IFixit is a wiki, and you can add repair manuals for anything you like! So get cracking.
Hi there as a small cellphone and computer shop in my town I like to thank you guys for your work and I support as much as I can when I can ( buying parts and tools. Even if can find it little cheaper somewhere Els. I to support your amazing website ). It helped me many times when I have a rare or unusual item in my shop. How did it all started ? Here's a short summary of how we started iFixit back in 2003: Link to www.ifixit.com
Are there any ways that manufacturers are making it easier to repair devices? I think Dell deserves more press than they've gotten for the XPS 10. It's clear that serviceability was a design priority throughout, and it's a great device. I have the trackpad + battery dock, and it's a great product.
They color coded the screws, used easy tabs to get into the case, and made the battery very easy to remove.
Did you guys sell your tool kit to Best Buy, I saw a similar kit in geek squad to what I have at home? Not yet, although we'd love to sell tools through them. You can buy them from Amazon online as well as direct from us. Radio Shack is selling our tools at a few stores—if you don't see them in your local store, ask them to stock them!
Hi guys, love your site 'cus I'm a fixer. _^ I've rebuilt many an engine for myself and friends. The best way for a friend to get me to fix their stuff is to say : "It's OK, don't worry. I'll just get a new one." LOL That pushes my buttons and I'll have it fixed pronto! I'm wondering about the (maybe few) positive outcomes of regulation. I'd love to hear your take on modifications to devices that then negatively effect other people. I know many guys who modify the emission control system on their cars in order to get better mileage or have better pick-up. This gives all of us a worse environment. Sometimes people misalign their headlights and/or put in super-bright halogens. These blind me when approaching at night. Also, what if someone modified their electronics in such a way that throws off a ton of RF noise, thus disrupting the electronics of others (phone, Bluetooth, WiFi). Mufflers on motorcycles that are just TOO loud are another example. These issues are more troublesome in cities where we live close to each other. This would probably require many more "spot checks" by authorities to be sure that your device/caboat/etc was in compliance. They do this now for people who mod their street-legal cars, but they will typically just target the low-riders or the Asian imports that are altered. I'd hate if this practice was extended to the whole population. We would creep closer toward a police state. So what is your stance on regulation (and its enforcement) for beneficial things? Where do we draw the line and how do we be sure people comply? This is a great question, and I'd like to have a conversation about this separately. Please ask our repair tech community over on meta.ifixit.com and see what they think. They might have a more nuanced perspective on this than I would.
What has been the most difficult project for you? Not standing up to the DMCA, or any kind of campaigning stuff - I'm asking about phones/consoles/etc. The hardest part for us is figuring out how to make servicing glued devices economical. The solution involves new tools, techniques, and instructions. We've thrown away entire repair manuals and started from scratch because we thought the procedure was too difficult for people to use. Our iOpener is a really cool new tool for opening glued tablets, and took about a year of tinkering to perfect.
Would you please give us a bitcoin address where we can PAY OUR SUPPORT ?? We should set something up for fixthedmca.org. We could be the first bitcoin-funded PAC! I'm sure that would ruffle some feathers.
Is the Surface Pro really that bad? Yes. But don't take my word for it—CNET / Techrepublic also took it apart, and came to the same conclusions that we did.
From their report: "[Microsoft] took one of worst tablet design elements (a glued on front panel) and married it with one of the worst laptop elements (an over abundance of screws) to create a device that’s more difficult to crack open than even the Apple iPad."
Just wanted to say Thanks for making such great tools. They guides are pretty awesome too, but the tools are sweet. Just got my Magnetic Project Mat and I love it. Any way you want to sponsor an IT guy and give me a bunch of tools? Keep up the great work! Shameless plug: I love my Pro Tech Toolkit, and the Magnetic Project Mat has changed how I fix things.
Unrelated, but would love the question answered. GF would love to move back to SLO. Any chance I could get a job? We do have a couple positions open in SLO.
Not really a question directed to you, but just on the topic in general. In the US, are you not allowed to unlock your phone? Here in Ireland we simply go to our network's shop, give them our phone and a day later, it's unlocked and ready to use on any network, free of charge. It's newly illegal as of January of this year. Thanks, Mr. Librarian of Congress!
In some countries—including Brazil—it's illegal to sell locked cell phones. I guess we're a little less secure in our capitalism than they are.
I can't thank your site enough! I use it to fix all of my electronics and customers computers. Before i even open a device, I take a look at your site and check to see what cables I have to be aware of, so I don't break any when taking apart the thing. Have you thought about opening a physical location and selling your merchandise and maybe offer computer servicing? We have thousands of technicians who contribute to iFixit and run local repair businesses. I'd never want to compete with them—they're a lot better at fixing things than I am!
Do you have the stats from that old satisfaction survey on peoples favorite star wars film? Yes, I've got that around somewhere. I'll have rummage around the dusty regions of my drive platters for them. I'm pretty sure Jar Jar lost.
You guys stole a friend of mine's photo of an Xserve without attribution (it was CC just requiring credit). He emailed you about it several times with no response. What fuck? I don't know anything about that! Have him send it again to support at ifixit and we'll get right on it. iFixit is community driven, so it could have been a contributor. But we're eager to fix it!
Hey Kyle, I know it's not the reason you're here, but are you going to do a teardown of the new 27" iMac? We've got a repair manual well underway. Stay tuned.
Love the website and love the prices, but when will you have more of these in stock? Probably not soon. Best to find a water damaged one somewhere and salvage the part.
An IMEI blacklist has now been released by checkesnfree, but no database to check purchase date of phones to confirm the 1/26/13 cutoff. As a repair shop how am I supposed to know when a customer bought a phone, or whether they are lying to illegally unlock a phone? Is it really fair for us to have them sign a waiver to pass the blame off to the customer in case of a lawsuit? Good question, and I have absolutely no idea.
> Is it really fair?
Nope. But then, who said the law was supposed to be fair?
What are your opinions on E-waste? We've written extensively about e-waste (see the Wired articles I linked to above, as well as iFixit.org). It's a huge problem, and the best solution is to make our products last as long as possible.
Locking phones limits their ability to be reused, and the practice is responsible for hundreds of millions of phones going out of use prematurely. Locking hurts resale prices, it hurts consumers, and it hurts the environment.
Well If I can buy a car and make mods to it or buy a computer and mod it. I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to mod a phone or anything else. Good Luck guys! Thanks. The issue is software infecting the hardware world. If they put an encrypted interface to your car, it would be illegal to unencrypt it and modify it, thanks to section 1201 of the DMCA. That's gotta change.
The post-'96, pre-late-2000s cars hit the sweet spot: they had OBD II ports, but were devoid of crazy electronic nannies and gremlins. My DD is a '98 Accord, and that's almost as good as it gets. +1.
My 68-year-old mother replaced the battery in her MacBook Air by herself a couple of days ago thanks to you guys. You rock! Awesome! Got any photos?
We collect repair stories over here.
MJ is the best host you have had on iFixit. Hands down. Thanks! Here's MJ's take on the cell phone unlocking situation.
Just last Friday I used your website to fix my Galaxy Nexus (grandfathered in to unlimited data) with nothing more than eye glasses screwdrivers and some guitar picks. Thank you for saving me from a 5fb download limit or having to pay $600 for an unlocked phone. You guys rock! Link to cdn.memegenerator.net
If youre asking, you already know the answer. Shhh.
Just wanted to say thanks for the wealth of information you provide. When I taught my ACMT course in Las Vegas I recommended your site over Apples GSX for out of warranty repairs. Used it myself frequently and will continue to even though I'm no longer a technician. Thanks! And please, help us get better. There's an edit button on every step and we need all the people with technical expertise we can get.
Hey, I did work for you guys through my college class (ENGL 149 at Cal Poly SLO) and because of my work I actually got a job! I just wanted to say thank you very much <3. Here's the page I worked on: Link to www.ifixit.com. I'm the hand model <3. Awesome! What job did you get?
Hey guys! its Caleb from hackaday. I just wanted to say you've come a LONG way over the years and I'm happy to use you as a resource when people ask me about gadget repairs. Keep going! Thanks, Caleb. The community deserves the credit—they're the ones who have expanded our manuals so dramatically. I'm constantly amazed at the cool repair how-tos I find on the site.
I just want to tell you that I love your website and that you have saved me hundreds of dollars in repair costs for my Apple products via ifixit.com. Thanks! I paid patalbwil to say that.
Just wanted to say 'thanks' for everything you guys have done and are continuing to do. I started a Mac repair business over three years ago and I couldn't have done it without all of the amazing guides on iFixit.com. Keep up the good work! Awesome, that's great to hear. We love helping people start businesses.
Pass it along—teach someone how to fix something over on iFixit.
Probably too late, just wanted to say thanks for ifixit. I've bought a few tools there, fixed my xbox controller, and I'm in the process of fixing my ps3 laser. You're very welcome! I'm not responsible for most of that—it's our global community that wrote those guides. It's incredible how much knowledgable people are willing to share.
I met iFixIt at Bay Area Maker Faire in 2011 and 2012 and want to thank you for who you are and for all you do to make a DIY-er's life easier. Let me know if you need a spare pair of booth hands for 2013. I don't think we'll be exhibiting this year so we can focus on our online work, but we're happy to support anyone who wants to represent repair at the faire. It's a great show.
As a fellow Calpoly CPE, how well would you say that Calpoly prepared you for the 'real world'? (Also, will you ever go beer tasting with Collin?) Our work is pretty broad—we're taking apart hardware one day, hacking code the next, and writing op-eds for Wired the next. So it was very useful, but we've had to teach ourselves a fair amount along the way.
So they can turn a profit, yo. All the products for those tear-downs don't come cheap. Plus you get a high quality screen + get great customer support. There's a pretty broad spectrum in quality between parts out there. We test every single screen we sell and stand behind our parts with long warranties.
Last updated: 2013-03-27 06:27 UTC
This post was generated by a robot! Send all complaints to epsy.
submitted by tabledresser to tabled [link] [comments]
The price increases won’t necessarily incentivize faster bitcoin mining. Gold or smoke, depending on how you look at it, bitcoin – the most emblematic digital currency of the 4,000 that exist in the market – has been subject to extreme volatility. The PS3 has some kind of NVIDIA GPU based on 7800GTX, comparing performance to similar cards like the you might get around 2 Mhash/s mining BTC or 10 Khash/s for DOGE if even possible on this stuff older than bitcoin itself. Very good research, man. If I may, i'd like to shed more light on the subject. You could probably slap a water cooler on the PS4 and continue mining at 300-400 KH/s, but considering the PS4 is $530, it is a waste of money. For $420, I can buy a Radeon R9 280X that is capable of 700 KH/s. -source--where-to-buy- Coming Into Present A range of events geared up in 2011, including significant ones like Bitcoin becoming on par with the US Dollar, an offer to sell a vehicle for Bitcoins, the opening of exchange markets with respect to the British pound Sterling and Brazilian Real, and so on. In 2013, the market capitalization of Bitcoin rose to $1 Billion ... Mining bitcoins is simply just performing a SHA256 hash on a random value from the bitcoin network and relaying the result of that calculation back to the Internet.
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Noob's Guide To Bitcoin Mining - Super Easy & Simple - YouTube
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instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: my 13 year old daughter has had a low grade fever from 99.4 up to 102.6 for a week now, i have taken her to the doc they said she had a UTI, then took her to the hospital three days later and they said she had a viral infection, still has a fever, lower back pains and stomach pains. They did blood work at the hospital to check kidneys but they said all was fine, What is causing this? it is ok for her to go this long with a fever
t causes prolonged low grade fever with pain in back and stomach? output: Thanks for posting your query to health care magic.As I undeurerstand your daugher is suffering from Pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) .there are so many causes for PUO and we should not neglect it .you need to undergone investigation for some common illness . I suggest you following investigation then we would be able to start treatment .1. Blood culture and sensitivity 2. Total and differential leucocyte count .3. Urine rouine and microscopy 4.Widal test5 Blood peripheral smear exmination these all test will guide us to sart reatment .review me after investigation report . Presently you can take Tab Paracetamol 500mg for fever as and when needed with water after meal .Feel free for any further query.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: HI, MY BABY IS 7 MONTHS OLD AND I VE JUST STARTED HER ON FORMULA LAST MONTH. SHE DOESNT SEEM TO LIKE FORMULA (AS SHE WAS FULLY BREASTFED BEFORE THIS) HER WEIGHT WAS 7.4KG LAST WE CHECKED (AT 6 MONTHS OLD) NOW THAT I HAVE STARTED HER ON CERELAC, WHICH SHE LIKES IT A LOT, SHE SEEMS TO REFUSE MILK (BOTH BREAST MILK AND FORMULA) EVERYTIME SHE ONLY DRINKS 3 OZ ABOUT 3-4 TIMES A DAY AND WE FEED HER CERELAC ONCE. IS IT ALRIGHT AND IS THE NUTRITONAL VALUE OF CERELAC SUFFICIENT? output: Hi... My congratulations on it. At this age you can start giving Carla stage one rice or Nestum rice stage 1 etc. All are same in calories and energy. Only thing is palatability which is subjective for each kid. Other home-made food options will be - 1. Deal and rice well cooked and made into a oatmeal along with ghee2. Boiled apple or banana and mashed into a paste.3. Any made cereal oatmeal preparation with additional ghee added. Remember certain principles like -1. Add one food material / cereal or fruit per week. This will be useful because if he develops vomiting or diarrhea, we will know what to avoid.2. Add vegetables and fruits made into a paste surely to avoid constipation.3. Do not add too much sugar as it may cause diarrhea. Hope my answer was helpful for you. I am happy to help any time. If you do not have any clarifications, you can close the discussion and rate the answer. Wish your kid good health.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Where do I start? Back in 2004 I was a severe Meth addict. I stated feeling these electricity type sensations in my chest , at the time I thought I was possessed, howeverabout a week later art work I collapsed because of these sensations an ambulance was called, I was rushed to the er woke up threedays later because my lung collapsed.never felt them again until 2009 and was diagnosed with seizures that simply disappeared 6 months later. I still feel the sensation during different times I just would like to know what could possibly be wrong? Numerous scans have shown nothing... output: Hi, Thank you for posting your query. Based on the description, these are suggestive of seizures. In partial seizures, one can have abnormal sensations without loss of consciousness. A prolonged EEG recording would be helpful in confirming the diagnosis. However, one should remember that EEG may come as normal too in cases of seizure disorder. Please get back if you require any additional information. |
On alternative medicine, "labels," and evidence
By oracknows on August 10, 2015.
Alright, alright already! I get the message.
Over the course of the day yesterday I was bombarded by e-mails with a link to a New York Times article that shows a rather shocking lack of understanding of the science—more specifically, the lack of science—behind alternative medicine. Whenever something like this happens and I get so many requests to address a specific article, I'm always torn between my natural contrariness, which tempted me not to touch this article with the proverbial ten foot cattle prod (although something about this needs a cattle prod applied to it) and my desire to give the people what they want. In this case, the latter won because the the article is by someone whom I've actually cited on this blog before, someone who "gets it," or so I thought. I'm referring to Aaron Carroll, a.k.a. The Incidental Economist, whose to whom I've referred in discussions of why cancer care is not worse in Europe than in the US and lead time bias.
It's always a shock when someone who seemed to "get it" turns out not to. Actually, that's not the way to put it. Clearly Carroll "gets it" when it comes to screening and cancer overtreatment. He also "gets it" about a lot of other things. However, when it comes to alternative medicine, he clearly doesn't and demonstrates it in an article entitled Labels Like ‘Alternative Medicine’ Don’t Matter. The Science Does. (It's reprinted here at Carroll's blog, but unfortunately the comments are closed.) Now, reading the title, you might wonder why I'm even bothering. The title, after all, says nothing that I haven't said myself many times, albeit not in quite that way. Indeed, one of my favorite sayings, cribbed from skeptics as varied as Richard Dawkins and Tim Minchin is that there is no such thing as alternative medicine. Alternative medicine that has been shown to work ceases to be "alternative" and becomes just "medicine." Personally, I use a version that goes something like this: There is no such thing as alternative medicine. There is medicine that has been shown to work scientifically; there is medicine that hasn't been shown to work; and there is medicine that has been shown not to work. So-called "alternative" medicine is made up almost exclusively of the latter two categories. Otherwise it wouldn't be "alternative."
What apparently inspired Carroll's article were the recent news stories about a course in alternative medicine being taught by an antivaccine homeopath, who thought that appropriate curricular material included writings by Andrew Wakefield and other luminaries of the antivaccine movement, you know, the one that I complained so bitterly about. This leads Carroll to write:
The dichotomy, however, between alternative and traditional medicine, or between Eastern and Western medicine, is a false one. We would be much better off if we could reframe the issue.
People often think of Eastern or alternative medicine as more “natural.” Many feel that Western medicine is built around technology and products produced in a lab. They’re not entirely wrong. Many of the gains that have been made in traditional medicine have been the result of innovation in laboratories.
But that doesn’t mean that everything doctors are taught in medical school involves a drug or device. I talk to patients all the time about diet and exercise. I don’t do this because there’s a company making money off it. I do it because both of these things have been proven to be important for health.
OK, so far, so good. There's not much to disagree with here. Carroll just says what I've been saying in a different way, although I do take issue with his referring to "Eastern" or "alternative" medicine as somehow being more "natural." That is, in actuality, nonsense. Is it any more "natural" to grind up animal parts, as, for example, traditional Chinese medicine does, than it is to isolate purified components from plants, as modern pharmacology not infrequently does? Is it more "natural" to rely on a vitalistic system divorced from science and reality in which "imbalances" between the five elements (very much like the four humors in "Western" medicine) than it is to rely on natural science, as science-based medicine does? Only if your definition of "natural" is a bit constrained and artificial in which the laboratory is somehow "unnatural or artificial" while everything else is "natural."
That being said, Carroll is correct and makes a point that I've made many times about how diet and exercise are science-based medicine. Somehow, "alternative medicine," then "complementary and alternative medicine," and then "integrative medicine" have claimed these modalities as somehow "alternative" or outside of "mainstream medicine." They do this because these are modalities that can have value for many conditions. Lumping them in with the hard core quackery, like homeopathy, "energy medicine" (healing touch and reiki, for example), and acupuncture gives credence to the quackery by association.
Speaking of acupuncture, this is where Carroll goes off the rails. If only he stopped with what he wrote above. But he doesn't. First, he mentions that "not all medications get cooked up in a lab," mentioning folic acid for pregnant women to reduce the risk of major birth defects, vitamin C for the prevention of scurvy, and vitamin D for the prevention of rickets. Of course, the wag in me can't resist getting snarky and pointing out that most of these things actually are "cooked up in a lab," at least when administered as a supplement. There's nothing more "natural" about them than there is about Lipitor.
Unfortunately, acupuncture begins Carroll's downfall in this article:
There are many other forms of nontechnological medicine that have the weight of scrutiny behind them. In a meta-analysis published just a few years ago, researchers looked at all the accumulated randomized controlled trials examining how acupuncture fared in treating people with chronic pain. They found that not only did acupuncture work better than no-acupuncture control groups, but there were also significant differences between acupuncture and sham acupuncture. This suggests that not all of the benefits are placebo effects.
No, no, no, no, no, no! How can someone who is usually so spot-on most of the time get something like this so spectacularly wrong. Before I explain why, let me ask you a question. (Longtime regular readers have a good chance of knowing the answer to this one.) What is the study to which Carroll's link goes? Here's a hint: It's in the JAMA Archives of Internal Medicine. Give up? It's the meta-analysis by Andrew Vickers, a meta-analysis that was widely touted in the press as slam-dunk evidence that acupuncture "works," when in fact it showed nothing of the sort. I myself discussed why that is, particularly the part about how the purported effect size is well below the minimum clinically important detectable difference (MCID). In other words, Vickers' meta-analysis, despite the play it got in the press, did not show that acupuncture works better than placebo for chronic pain. Quite the contrary as Steve Novella, Mark Crislip, and I argued. To go into detail is beyond the scope of this post; so I leave the links for interested readers to peruse, along with the one article where, in the context of critiquing "integrative oncology," I also discussed how existing evidence does not support the efficacy of acupuncture for pretty much anything in the peer-reviewed medical literature in a high impact journal. The bottom line is that when you look at the totality of evidence for acupuncture, there is no convincing evidence that it is more than an elaborate placebo. How Carroll missed that, I don't know. One wonders if he even read the paper.
On the other hand, a lot of doctors were fooled by Vickers' meta-analysis. You really have to dive into the weeds of the exact methods to see its problems, and even then it's not easy.
On some level, Carroll and I seem to be saying the same thing. Elsewhere in his article, he points out how many drugs used by "conventional" medicine derive from natural products. Digitalis, for instance, comes from foxglove; quinine from cinchona bark; penicillin from bread mold; and aspirin from willow tree bark. This is nothing more than pharmacognosy, the branch of pharmacology that studies natural products for potential pharmacologic activity. Indeed, in the case of aspirin, it's not the substance isolated from the raw willow tree bark that is used, but rather a chemically modified version of it, acetylsalicylic, derived from the salicylic acid in the bark. He does this as a prelude to discussing all the herbs and plants used as "natural" alternative medicine.
There's a big problem, though. He's comparing apples and oranges. Carroll concedes that the reason that all the drugs mentioned above are so effective is because "conventional medicine may have improved our ability to purify these substances" (there's no "may have" about it), but then plunges into a false equivalence between modern natural product-derived pharmaceuticals, purified, standardized, packaged, and reliable, compared to a variety of natural medications
Butterbur, a plant extract, has been found in medical studies to be as effective as antihistamines in treating allergic rhinitis, without the sedating side effects conventional drugs often have. Horse chestnut seed extract appears to be safe and effective in the short-term treatment of chronic venous insufficiency. Peppermint oil can be used to relieve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. I know of few physicians who promote these therapies as often as they do prescription or over-the-counter drugs. Granted, that could be because it’s potentially hard to be sure of supplements you’re buying, but there are ways to overcome those problems.
None of these studies are particularly impressive. The butterbur study, for instance, was a non-inferiority study comparing butterbur to Zyrtec (cetirizine) that concluded that butterbur was equivalent to Zyrtec. However, it's not as clear as that. For instance, a more recent randomized study, which, unlike the study referenced by Carroll, had a valid placebo control to compare to butterbur, found no difference between placebo and butterbur on allergic rhinitis symptoms. Another found a difference. Summing it all up, a systemic review from 2007 concluded that butterbur had some promise, but "independent replication is required before a firm conclusion can be drawn because of the financial support from the manufacturer of P hybridus extract to the 3 large trials." Carroll also forgot to mention that butterbur can cause severe liver toxicity. Indeed, in 2012 in the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) urged British herbal shops to remove products containing butterbur from their shelves. Oops! There' goes the "non-toxic" claim. Repeat after me: If an herbal medicine has actual, measurable effects on a symptom or disease, it is a drug, and if it is a drug it can cause toxicity along with its therapeutic effects.
Of course, the reason that butterbur has an effect on allergic rhinitis is because it contains substances that block the production of leukotrienes, key molecules modulating inflammation. Given that, one wonders why an extract of the plant would be better than isolating these molecules. The same is true of horse chestnut extract, whose evidence supporting its use in chronic venous insufficiency is stronger. Ditto peppermint oil. Ironically enough, the very problem with supplements recognized by Carroll are the same problems each of these "natural remedies" have. The way to overcome that problem? Apparently Carroll thinks that state attorney generals going after sellers of adulterated or mislabeled supplements is a model to overcome the problems with using herbal medicines like the ones described above.
Carroll quite correctly recognizes that the evidence for homeopathy is resoundingly negative. He also correctly recognizes that evidence doesn't matter to its proponents. Disappointingly, this leads Carroll to a painful-to-read false equivalence:
Those who favor conventional medicine, though, can be just as blinded. Too often, when confronted with evidence that advanced technology might not be providing benefits, the medical community refuses to change its behavior. My Upshot articles are littered with examples of this, including potentially too-widespread mammography screening, advanced life support and many surgical procedures. Supporters of Western medicine are often blind to their own prejudices.
As I've conceded more times than I can remember, yes, physicians can be frustratingly slow to change in the face of new evidence. Indeed, from time to time I've repeated a joke I first heard from faculty in medical school that outmoded treatments never truly go away until the physicians who learned them during their training either retire or die off. That's a bit of an exaggeration, of course. As a counterpoint, I can point to my own specialty of breast cancer surgery and note that the way I approach breast cancer surgery now is strikingly different from the way I learned to approach it during my residency and fellowship in the 1990s. Practice has changed enormously since then based on science and clinical trials. I'm sure other physicians in other specialties can report the same thing. In other words, in medicine, change is the rule, not the exception. It is true that there are holdouts that resist evidence (such as vertebroplasty for osteoporotic compression fractures of the spine). Some even lash out at those who produce evidence that goes against their orthodoxy.
Here's the difference, though. In science-based medicine, science and evidence eventually win out. Practice changes in response. The process might be messier than we like, meet more resistance than might be reasonable, and take longer than one would like, but in time practice does change. It really does. Contrast that to homeopaths and other alternative medicine practitioners, who are completely impervious to evidence. Yes, we practitioners of science-based medicine do all too often resist new evidence, but eventually we are forced to capitulate because science and reality compel us. That's because our practice is rooted in science. Therefore, we speak and think in scientific terms. We justify our treatments with science. If science turns against a treatment we cannot resist indefinitely. Contrast this to alternative medicine practitioners, whose practices are rooted in magic, fantasy, and prescientific vitalism. Let's just put it this way. When your entire practice is rooted in pseudoscience and unreality, science and reality have a hard time breaking through.
It's a shame that Carroll doesn't seem to understand that.
Skepticism/Critical Thinking
science-based medicine
The Triumph of New Age Medicine, part deux, courtesy of The Atlantic
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Quackery expands in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
I’ve been writing about this topic so long—ever since the very beginning of this blog—that it seems as though I’ve always been doing it even though this blog has been in existence only 11 years and I didn’t really come to appreciate the problem until after I had started this blog. No, I’m not…
"Natural" versus CAM "natural"
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Old wine in a new skin: The Society for Integrative Oncology issues guidelines for breast cancer
It should come as a surprise to no one that I'm not exactly a fan of "integrative oncology"—or integrative medicine, or "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), or whatever its proponents want to call it these days. After all, I've spent nearly ten years writing this blog and nearly seven…
On a herbalism forum I frequent, I used to suggest that allergic rhinitis patients check out butterbur. Not any more.
http://www.nyheadache.com/blog/butterbur-we-no-longer-recommend-it/
http://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/hn-4409006
By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Like you say, he got some things correct, but plenty wrong. Apparently, the NY Times no longer has a budget for fact-checkers. For chipping at the proverbial 'Berlin wall' erected in the concept of "alternative medicine", he deserves applause, but then it goes horribly astray.
In telling readers that aspirin comes from willow bark and penicillin from moldy bread, IMO, he gets failing marks. Perhaps he thought it too technical to point out that salicylic acid derived from willow bark was subjected to acetylation to produce aspirin, or that the production of penicillin as a medicine required the isolation of suitable strains of fungi, none of which were obtained as molds growing on bread.
But what really burned my beets is that he so much as cited the investigation of the NY Attorney General's office. Not as entertaining as Inspector Clouseau, but attempting to find matching plant DNA in herbal products manufactured by extraction with alcohol still has some scratching their heads. As useful as DNA-matching can be in confirming the identity of raw materials, none of the herbal products failed when checked by routine means of identification, such as HPLC, or when the raw materials used in their manufacture were examined for matching DNA.
In bringing the conversation to the mainstream via the NY Times, he may well become extensively cited, which is another of saying the fusterclucking from quacks is bound to grow loud. If herbal products are de facto medicines – no 'alt' about it – they must be drugs.
By Lighthorse (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Re. hospitals etc. branding diet & exercise as alt med:
The going hypothesis here is that this is being done to give alt med an aura (heh) of respectability, thereby luring uninformed patients into the quagmire of quackery.
But what about this: Could it be (instead of, or also) the reverse? Luring patients who are favorable to alt med, to get them into a place where they can be convinced to use science-based medicine. Is there any evidence to indicate that this is going on? And/or, is there any way to know which is the case for any given institution?
By Gray Squirrel (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
People often think of Eastern or alternative medicine as more “natural.” Many feel that Western medicine is built around technology and products produced in a lab.
TBF, Carroll is accurately reporting popular perceptions of Eastern/alternative vs. Western medicine, but there is no basis in fact for those perceptions. Consider what it would take to manufacture homeopathic remedies. You need an ample supply of distilled water. Either you are buying it from a more or less reputable lab supply company, or you are making it yourself, and the latter requires a setup at least as good as what the makers of [insert your favorite >50 proof beverage here] use. Then you use that distilled water to subject your alleged active ingredient to serial 10- or 100-fold dilutions. You couldn't do that with the sort of kiddie chemistry sets they sold when we were kids, let alone the vastly scaled back versions of them that are sold today. OK, you don't have to regulate the process as tightly as manufacturers of Western pharmaceuticals do, but you still need something a bit more sophisticated than a typical meth lab, and you may have to persuade (likely with the help of a lawyer) the local constabulary that you aren't producing the latter.
By Eric Lund (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
@Gray Squirrel #3
I recall conversations to that effect from the late 1990s. Back then, it was more a germ of an idea. One day, if the popularity of alternative medicine continued to grow, offering courses in the subject would attract students who, in turn, could be brought to realize the lack of evidence in support of alt med; however, the same conversation was going on at the opposite pole: if the popularity of alt med continued to grow, it might lead to greater acceptance among practitioners of "conventional medicine", thereby increasing the market share. I think that what we have today is more about the mainstream popularity and translating that into profits, whether from enrolling students or offering alt med in hospitals.
@Eric Lund
Regardless its need for clean water and lactose, homeopathy is a Western tradition, just as herbalism in the European tradition. By allowing the public to assume that so-called alt med can be boiled down to West versus East, he only muddies the already murky perceptions of the general public as to what it's all about.
Excellent point. I always like to say that homeopathy is "Western medicine" because it was invented in Germany. I also like to point out, as I did in the post, the similarities between the "five elements" in TCM and the four humors in what I like to call "ancient Western medicine." :-)
By Orac (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
The potential toxicity of herbal remedies vs. purified compounds is excellently illustrated with butterbur. The antiinflammatory sesquiterpenes in butterbur have very little hepatotoxicity at the commonly used dosages. But as the plant is part of the Tussilago/Senecio-assembly of the composite flowers, the herb also contain rather substantial amounts of pyrrolizidines - wellknown as potential initiators of hepatic cancers and inflammation. I think there is still an antiallergy pill containing sesquiterpenes from butterbur in Japan - produced by extraction, purification, measuring and equal dosing in each tablet just as a drug should...
By Pharmacist-in-Exile (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
In my experience, the people around me who are prefer natural vs artificial don't see labs as alien to the planet, it's that their paradigm is similar to what is taught nutritionally about things such as white bread and white rice.
We have a plant with nutrients that have been stripped out for commercial reasons. However, after stripping out everything we lost the vitamins and have to put them back in. But, we also don't know exactly what else was lost in addition to these few vitamins so it is best to eat whole grains and brown rice.
They believe, rightly or wrongly, that the whole plant synergistically (natural) is better than the one chemical extracted (artificial) from it. Of course, they don't have a lot to say when I mention that in extracting the one chemical this allows the dose to be standardized and in some cases it removes poisons or allergens.
By Not a Troll (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Pharmacist-in-Exile,
Yes, what you said; we cross-posted. I only wanted to add that many people have a very hard time seeing anything of the earth as poisonous outside of a few mushrooms, and in some cases, I am not even sure of that.
It reminds me of a conversation with a friend when he told me that wherever people live, the environment provides what they need to survive; there is no need for processed anything. The conversation stopped when I asked him where he planned to find Vit C in the wintertime (which isn't even the best example but I'm not well-versed on geographically malnourished populations).
in extracting the one chemical
Or synthesizing it. Chemistry only cares what the molecule is; the provenance is irrelevant.
The difference between processing a grain to produce a commercially desired food product and processing a plant to produce a pharmaceutically active substance is that in the first case, the manufacturers either don't know or don't care what they are throwing away. (Probably the latter, since whole grains and brown rice are known to be much higher in fiber content than processed grains and white rice.) In the latter case, they have good reasons for discarding what isn't the desired product: some of it is toxic. For that matter, some foods can be toxic if not handled properly. There is a reason sushi chefs in Japan must have a special license to prepare fugu.
It reminds me of a conversation with a friend when he told me that wherever people live, the environment provides what they need to survive; there is no need for processed anything. The conversation stopped when I asked him where he planned to find Vit C in the wintertime
Or vitamin D in northern latitudes, especially for the less pale among us. I'd rather take capsules than swallow fish oil every day, to be honest.
By JP (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
^ Sorry, cod liver oil more specifically, I think. "Fish oil" was a literal translation from the Russian.
The conversation stopped when I asked him where he planned to find Vit C in the wintertime
Many cultures (among them the Inuit, Sami, and Yakut) have solved that problem in various ways. (Vegetables, even canned, would have been scarce or even nonexistent in the days before the Twin Otter.) The real issue is that many of the natural sources don't scale up to modern population sizes. You need to have storage and preservation techniques, or else you can't support a town the size of the one I live in (1X,XXX), let alone a megacity like Tokyo or São Paulo. Of course there is a legitimate question as to whether it is desirable to have a world human population in excess of seven billion, but I don't want to get into that here.
Science, or engineering, which is what the practice of medicine really is, requires us to be able to think qualitatively or "approximately" before we start talking about very specific numbers. Here's a quote from one of Orac's posts Orac references:
The history of medicine, however, reveals numerous exceptions to this rule. Stenting for stable coronary artery disease was a multibillion dollar a year industry when it was found to be no better than medical management for most patients with stable coronary artery disease.
Consider two groups of patients.
One group receives stents as described.
The other group receives "integrated" treatment, using medical management with a correctly constituted homeopathic supplement.
Which approach has the greatest potential for physical and economic harm? I don't think we need no stinkin' study to answer that.
So, when Orac says
We justify our treatments with science. If science turns against a treatment we cannot resist indefinitely. Contrast this to alternative medicine practitioners, whose practices are rooted in magic, fantasy, and prescientific vitalism.
...what question is he answering?
This is an almost childish, petulant response to Carroll's well-articulated and not very controversial proposition. "We may keep doing harm for a long time, but eventually we change, unlike those other people who don't do much harm at all, but, but, but..... woo." There it is again.
By zebra (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
The other group receives “integrated” treatment, using medical management with a correctly constituted homeopathic supplement.
And why not leave out the homeopathy entirely?
what question is he answering?
"What is a significant difference between science based medicine and many 'alternative' medicines?" In the case of your homeopathic treatment, the homeopaths will with great seriousness talk about how well it works (and therefore, why they should be paid) without regard for actual effectiveness.
Maybe facts are of no interest to you.
By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
THANK YOU for talking about this, Orac! I thought I was going crazy reading the article, which is why I had to send it to you. Dr. Carrol produces so much good content, when he lays out a stinker like this it annoys me even more. He's also one to buy into the new herbalism of cannabis as miracle cure.
Did you notice the quick reference to moxibustion being effective for reducing breech birth? The link provided finds that the reduction AT BIRTH barely approaches significance (p=0.02 in an unblinded trial), with a 95% confidence interval from [1.02--1.43]. If burning dried mugwort next to your small toe has to be considered as a viable treatment for breech birth, I think I'm done with this whole science and research profession.
Overall, it wasn't just the content of the article that bothered me, nor was it the unexamined presentation of low-quality evidence in support of alt-med, it was the really, really poor quality of the writing and constant references to informal fallacies like the appeal to antiquity and appeal to nature.
By c0nc0rdance (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Yes, he's answering that question with what I said:
“We may keep doing harm for a long time, but eventually we change, unlike those other people who don’t do much harm at all, but, but, but….. woo.”
In both cases, the practitioners will tell you how valuable and superior their approach is, and defend their practice. Yes, the "significant difference" is that one approach is dangerous and expensive, and the other is cheap and harmless even if silly.
Did you notice the quick reference to moxibustion being effective for reducing breech birth? The link provided finds that the reduction AT BIRTH barely approaches significance (p=0.02 in an unblinded trial), with a 95% confidence interval from [1.02–1.43].
Yeah, I noticed it. It was probably exhaustion last night that kept me from mentioning it, particularly after I had discussed the butterbur and how Carroll completely neglected to mention the liver toxicity issue, as well as how he had been completely taken in by the Vickers meta-analysis. I probably should have thrown a sentence or two in there. Maybe I'll add them later.
If it is water, why does it need to be correctly constituted?
How is the fact that if the stents weren't tested rigorously enough or that time was needed to confirm outcomes have anything to do with homeopathic supplement.s that have been tested for hundreds of years and found lacking? Mephistopheles has is correct, why bother.
Science/medicine makes mistakes but I don't t know why you keep wanting to introduce a known mistake into the equation.
And, to add to Carroll's misapplied herbal treatments. Peppermint is an irritant of the upper digestive tract when taken in clinically significant amounts at clinically significant frequency. It is also broken down to a degree in the stomach and small intestine - which is why clinical formulations for the treatment of IBS are set in a semi resistent shell that delays break down to maximise release close to its point of greatest effect - the lower end of the digestive tract.
By Orlac Not Orac (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
One thing about this blog is that it helps put things in perspective.
I've been worried by all the news reports about spreading opioid addiction, and consequent heroin use, and overdosing, but now I see that this is being hyped as part of the Homeopathic Lifestyle Agenda.
What I really need to panic over is The Scourge Of Butterbur Toxicity, not to mention Peppermint Pattie Consumption Syndrome. Yep, that's what's eating up healthcare dollars and clogging the ER. Without this stuff-- and the horse-chestnuts and all-- we would certainly be getting much better care.
Really zebra, human kind should only be concerned about one thing at a time and all others not part of the one true problem that is the only one anyone may discuss shall be completely ignored and allowed to do as they will until such time as they finally make it to the top of the list ? (or top three or whatever arbitrary cut off works for the striped)
Doesn't matter where your passion is, what your preferences are, where your talent lies, only this problem, or these three problems are your theme for every single utterance of any kind?
Sure there are other problems, but these people get a pass to do whatever damage they want since well there is that over there effecting those people.
By KayMarie (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
@zebra
Maybe there's a homeopathic cure for addiction we should be trying? Of course, that homeopathic cure for addiction might itself be addictive! Pretty soon, we'd have people strung out in the alleys, begging passers by for enough change to buy some Dasani.
I'm hoping there's a homeopathic cure for being a jerk. If like cures like.... Hey, on an unrelated note, can I have one of your eyelashes?
I have a question for you. What would it take to change your mind?
By jonnybdead (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
@ KayMarie
human kind should only be concerned about one thing at a time
In some webcomic (cannot remember which one), one character is wisely pointing that, because you are helping cleaning a toxic chemical dump next to your city, you don't stop cleaning the litter around your home.
(I believe this webcomic was published no long after the "dear muslima" letter's antics).
@ c0nc0rdance
Maybe there’s a homeopathic cure for addiction we should be trying?
That, or unbeknownst to us and our host, there is a bevy of opium addicts reading Respectful Insolence between two chemically-induced trips, and thus Orac has the moral obligation to make a post entitled "Drugs: Just say No."
[Carroll is] also one to buy into the new herbalism of cannabis as miracle cure.
If Z is so concerned about drug abuse, maybe Orac is not the doctor Z should be yelling at.
By Helianthus (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
KImche!
It has the added benefit of reducing the spread of disease by cutting down on person to person contact.
By shay (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
If the active component of butterbur is a leukotriene receptor antagonist, this has its own potential for side effects even if purified from the hepatotoxic plant constituents. A subset of the population reacts to leukotriene receptor antagonists, such as montelukast, with severe depression.
This has been documented since 2008.
tl;dr version: Some people react to drugs similar to butterbur with severe depression. If butterbur or its extract aren't labeled properly, people sensitive to the other drugs may assume the herbal preparations are safe for them.
By Kathryn (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Speaking of sustenance from what can be produced locally, Mr Woo is sure we can "grow our own" as far as 99% of fruits and vegetables starting next spring. Once again the tin foil hat brigade is sounding the alarm of economic cataclysm next month and All Will Be Lost. Someone needs to teach me how to insert a little TM symbol. I got lazy a decade or more ago when word processors would turn (TM) into it...
I am grateful that Orac always acknowledges that medicine can drag its feet when confronted by scientific evidence it isn't totally happy with. One of my favorite things about his Insolence is that he tries very hard to be balanced and honest.
By Mrs Woo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Well, we have an extensive vegetable garden, but I would hate to limit my diet to only what we could grow. For starters I'd hate to do without coffee, sugar, citrus fruits and wheat.
If burning dried mugwort next to your small toe has to be considered as a viable treatment for breech birth, I think I’m done with this whole science and research profession.
(*boggle*)
Did they test whether burning mugwort next to the big toe had the effect? The elbow? The ear? I'm trying to imagine how they think this works. The fumes have some physiological effect, in which case why burn the stuff next to the toe instead of the nose? The woman pulls her foot away before her little toesies get burned, and that disturbs the fetus enough to make it shape up and turn the right way? Or is it just plain magic?
By LW (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
the people around me who are prefer natural vs artificial don’t see labs as alien to the planet
Labs? Those big goofy brown dogs? The ones I've met certainly don't act like natives, always bouncing around going Gosh! Look at that!
By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
The ones I’ve met certainly don’t act like natives, always bouncing around going Gosh! Look at that!
Oh my gosh, a ball, my favorite thing! Oh, oh, a walk, oh, my favorite thing! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you came home, I thought you left me forever, this is my favorite thing!
A squirrel! We don't have those on my home planet!
A squirrel! We don’t have those on my home planet!
I was dogsitting a greyhound over the weekend, and will be doing so all next week, or the week after, I don't remember. The "chasing things" instinct is strong in those dogs, let me tell you. The spotting of any small mammal invariably results in a tug of war of "come ON, already, I'm not letting you get the squirrel," repeated several times, with eventual sulky acquiescence.
@Pharmacist-in-Exile #8
What an outstanding example of Synergy, the complementary interaction of different substances from the same plant that the quacks are always babbling about. I'm going to remember that one.
@c0nc0rdance #24
We used to have a running gag about the Homeopathic Bar: fill the stadium with drunks on less than a pint of cheap hooch.
By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Mr Woo is sure we can “grow our own” as far as 99% of fruits and vegetables starting next spring.
There are good reasons for preferring locally produced foods, but it's not as easy as it looks. I planted several blueberry bushes in my yard a few years ago, the yield from which has been underwhelming. I've thought of trying to put in a vegetable garden next spring, but I don't know how that will turn out--it might be a bust or it might work too well. In the meantime, I patronize the weekly farmers' market in my town, and occasionally partake of some of our local wines. The wines are varietals you've probably never heard of--most if not all of the common varietals can't take Zone 5 winters--but there are some decent whites out there (the reds are more hit and miss).
As for your other question: ™ gives you ™. Here is a list of HTML entities which also includes accented Latin characters (East European as well as West European), Greek, Cyrillic, and an extensive collection of mathematical symbols.
Re.Mephistopheles O'Brien @ 16: (paraphrase) "Why not just leave out the (magic water) entirely?" Yeah, I had the same question.
One might argue that some patients would be more likely to take their real medicine if they're told they're "special" and they're getting some "special" homeopathy to go along with their medicine.
Problem with that is, some of those patients might think that the magic water is the real deal, and stop taking their pills. For a while they might feel just fine, and not make the connection when they have heart symptoms later.
One can go down the psychology trail about how to motivate patients, but in the end, second-guessing their beliefs has serious risks, so the conclusion is convergent: Leave out the cr@p entirely, and spend the time explaining to the patient how their real medicine works, so they understand why they should be taking it as directed.
The spotting of any small mammal invariably results in a tug of war of “come ON, already, I’m not letting you get the squirrel,”
At least it's not a German shepherd (or even two German shepherds in conjunction with a very fat and obnoxious Persian that used to live across the street, which resulted in me being pulled completely off my feet and dragged down the sidewalk. That cat had it in for me, I swear).
I think the chipmunks had it in for us. Mom would let little bred to hunt vermin dog out once in awhile to chase the squirrels but she liked the chipmunk.
I swear the chipmunk would sit at the patio window just to watch the little dog completely lose it. Little vermin hunting dogs are quite yappy when letting you know there is some vermin about that is not scared at all of the noise on the other side of the glass that will never be released.
I swear the chipmunk kept egging little vermin hunting dog on. Rabid animals have more composure than that dog had when the chipmunk didn't care.
Homeopathic Bar
My sleep-deprived brain somehow read that as "Homeopathic Bra" - the less fabric the more modesty I guess?
By Andreas Johansson (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
@KayMarie
My doxie is just recovering from three weeks of pain killers, muscle relaxants and steroids, having aggravated her disc disease by doing her best to dig in very dry, hard soil for ground squirrels (aka chipmunks). I have buckets with planks for them to walk. Several so far.
By darwinslapdog (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
When I young we had a black Lab as a family pet. I don't see them around much anymore. I don't know if they've been leaving the planet or are all becoming Labradoodles,
Come to think of it, I don't see squirrels around much anymore either. It must be a conspiracy.
I think the chipmunks had it in for us.
Heh. One of the first things my now eldest cat (whom I bottle-raised) did upon moving in with my then ladyfriend in Iowa was to snag a chipmunk and let it escape to under the fridge.
Let's just say that they're too big to simply dry out post mortem.
By Narad (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink
Let's just say that they're too big to simply dry out post mortem
Well that is one way to cover up any old scents left behind with new scents.
Brings back memories of trying to figure out why there was some deterioration of the foam padding and a horrendous stench coming from one of our equipment boxes we used for field studies the first time we came back with that box from the field. Turns out fields have field mice and one came back with us only to become dearly departed in the box.
There is one condition, and one only, that acupuncture can treat (though not cure): belonophilia. I doubt, however, that there can possibly be enough patients to make it a paying proposition for so many acupuncturists.
By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink
KayMarie -- that brings back memories of when we had our basement redone. We rented a portable storage unit to put our stuff in while the basement was worked on. When we pulled stuff back out, we found that a mouse had gotten into one of the boxes. Trapped in the storage container in the hot summer sun, it had not only died, it had mummifed.
By Calli Arcale (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink
I have learned a new word from Old Rockin' Dave.
Ack. So I had to look it up too. I've also learned a new word, and kind of wish I hadn't....
Would it actually treat that condition, though, or encourage it? :-P
If the needles are inserted by a *therapist* they are axiomatically *treatment*. The fact that the patient keeps coming back for more treatment proves that the treatment is keeping the patient healthy.
*cringe* You're making me think like an altie, and it hurts!
*cringe* You’re making me think like an altie, and it hurts!
In a good way or a bad way? Will you be seeking out the good doktor's services again?
JP,
TMI, no? They should be keeping that between themselves.
I have learned a new word from Old Rockin’ Dave.
Me too, and I wish I hadn't.
Woo treatments not just for humans...
http://holistichorse.com/
Thank you so much for this article-- it is the first of yours that I have read, and it will not be the last. I can't tell you how difficult it is (though you probably already know) to find an article written by someone who has done thorough research.
I don't mind reading about alternative medicines and other such things. I like to know the ideas that are out there, of course. However, I also love questioning things.
As a layman, it takes a lot of effort for me to do my due diligence when it comes to such articles. It is difficult for me to analyze data properly, so when such an article cites a scientific study, I can't always tell if the study actually supports the claims.
I really can't tell you how much I appreciate the work you're doing so that, basically, I don't have to. It's awesome.
By Girlie (not verified) on 04 Sep 2015 #permalink
Turning out the lights and moving on: Goodbye, old ScienceBlogs blog, hello new blog
Today is the last day that ScienceBlogs will exist. Sometime today the site will go into read-only mode. A few days later, it will disappear completely from the Internet. It's a sad thing to contemplate after all these years. Whatever happened later, I will always be grateful for the start in…
A quick update on the migration to a new domain
Here's a brief update on the move, announced last week. Things are progressing, and most of my old material has been transferred to the new blog, which is located at respectfulinsolence.com. Of course, there are still some things to tweak and fix, which is why, given how insanely busy this week is…
A change is gonna come. Respectful Insolence is moving.
Well, QEDCon is over, and this box of blinky lights is on its way back across the pond to its home in the US, having had an excellent time imbibing skepticism from its (mostly) British and European partners in skepticism. Before I left, I made a somewhat cryptic remark about "major changes" to this…
And the box of blinky lights has arrived in Manchester for QEDCon
As you probably noticed, I didn't manage a post yesterday. Nor did I manage one today, other than this. That's because I was busy preparing for QEDCon, where I will be on a panel and giving a talk, and, of course, putting together my talk. As I write this, I'm horrendously jet lagged; so I probably…
On the "integration" of quackery into the medical school curriculum
QEDCon is fast approaching (indeed, I can't believe I have to leave for Manchester tomorrow night), and because my talk there will be about the phenomenon of "integrative medicine," I've been thinking a lot about it. As I put together my slides, I can't help but see my talk evolving to encompass… |
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A Song of Sheep and Horses: eurafrasia nostratica, eurasia indouralica
I. A Game of Clans: collectores venatoresque, agricolae pastoresque
II. A Clash of Chiefs: rex militaris, rex sacrorum
III. A Storm of Words: vetera verba, priscae linguae
IV. A Feat of Crowds: hic sunt leones, hic sunt dracones
V. A Dance with Old Tongues: valar morghulis, valar dohaeris
Steppe ancestry
The “Indo-European Corded Ware theory” doesn’t hold water
The renewed ‘Kurgan model’ of Kristian Kristiansen and the Danish school: “The Indo-European Corded Ware Theory”
Correlation does not mean causation: the damage of the ‘Yamnaya ancestral component’, and the ‘Future American’ hypothesis
CWC – Uralic
Uralic speakers formed clines of Corded Ware ancestry with WHG:ANE populations
Corded Ware—Uralic (I): Differences and similarities with Yamna
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Corded Ware—Uralic (III): “Siberian ancestry” and Ugric-Samoyedic expansions
Corded Ware—Uralic (IV): Hg R1a and N in Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic expansions
R1b Indo-Europeans
Volga Basin R1b-rich Proto-Indo-Europeans of (Pre-)Yamnaya ancestry
The history of the simplistic ‘haplogroup R1a — Indo-European’ association
Tips for dialogue with those supporting the ‘haplogroup R1a — Indo-European’ association
Germanic–Balto-Slavic and Satem (‘Indo-Slavonic’) dialect revisionism by amateur geneticists, or why R1a lineages *must* have spoken Proto-Indo-European
Tag: omotic
Fulani from Cameroon show ancestry similar to Afroasiatic speakers from East Africa
Open access African evolutionary history inferred from whole genome sequence data of 44 indigenous African populations, by Fan et al. Genome Biology (2019) 20:82.
Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):
To extend our knowledge of patterns of genomic diversity in Africa, we generated high coverage (> 30×) genome sequencing data from 43 geographically diverse Africans originating from 22 ethnic groups, representing a broad array of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and geographic diversity (Additional file 1: Table S1). These include a number of populations of anthropological interest that have never previously been characterized for high-coverage genome sequence diversity such as Afroasiatic-speaking El Molo fishermen and Nilo-Saharan-speaking Ogiek hunter-gatherers (Kenya); Afroasiatic-speaking Aari, Agaw, and Amhara agro-pastoralists (Ethiopia); Niger-Congo-speaking Fulani pastoralists (Cameroon); Nilo-Saharan-speaking Kaba (Central African Republic, CAR); and Laka and Bulala (Chad) among others. We integrated this data with 49 whole genome sequences generated as part of the Simons Genome Diversity Project (SGDP) [14] (…)
Locations of samples included in this study. Each dot is an individual and the color indicates the language classification
We found that the CRHG populations from central Africa, including the Mbuti from the Demographic Republic of Congo (DRC), Biaka from the CAR, and Baka, Bakola, and Bedzan from Cameroon, also form a basal lineage in the phylogeny. The other two hunter-gatherer populations, Hadza and Sandawe, living in Tanzania, group with populations from eastern Africa (Fig. 2). The two Nilo-Saharan-speaking populations, the Mursi from southern Ethiopia and the Dinka from southern Sudan, group into a single cluster, which is consistent with archeological data indicating that the migration of Nilo-Saharan populations to eastern Africa originated from a source population in southern Sudan in the last 3000 years [4, 23, 24, 25].
Phylogenetic relationship of 44 African and 32 west Eurasian populations determined by a neighbor joining analysis assuming no admixture. Here, the dots of each node represent bootstrap values and the color of each branch indicates language usage of each population. Human_AA human ancestral alleles
The Fulani people are traditionally nomadic pastoralists living across a broad geographic range spanning Sudan, the Sahel, Central, and Western Africa. The Fulani in our study, sampled from Cameroon, clustered with the Afroasiatic-speaking populations in East Africa in the phylogenetic analysis, indicating a potential language replacement from Afroasiatic to Niger-Congo in this population (Fig. 2). Prior studies suggest a complex history of the Fulani; analyses of Y chromosome variation suggest a shared ancestry with Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic populations [24], whereas mtDNA indicates a West African origin [26]. An analysis based on autosomal markers found traces of West Eurasian-related ancestry in this population [4], which suggests a North African or East African origin (as North and East Africans also have such ancestry likely related to expansions of farmers and herders from the Near East) and is consistent with the presence at moderate frequency of the −13,910T variant associated with lactose tolerance in European populations [15, 16].
Phylogenetic reconstruction of the relationship of African individuals under a model allowing for migration using TREEMIX [27] largely recapitulates the NJ phylogeny with the exception of the Fulani who cluster near neighboring Niger-Congo-speaking populations with whom they have admixed (Additional file 2: Figure S1). Interestingly, TREEMIX analysis indicates evidence for gene flow between the Hadza and the ancestors of the Ju|‘hoan and Khomani San, supporting genetic, linguistic, and archeological evidence that Khoesan-speaking populations may have originated in Eastern Africa [28, 29, 30].
ADMIXTURE analysis of 92 African and 62 West Eurasian individuals. Each bar is an individual and colors represent the proportion of inferred ancestry from K ancestral populations. The bottom bar shows the language classification of each individual. With the increasing of K, the populations are largely grouped by their current language usage
About the Fulani, this is what the referenced study of Y‐chromosome variation among 15 Sudanese populations by Hassan et al. (2008), had to say:
Haplogroups A-M13 and B-M60 are present at high frequencies in Nilo-Saharan groups except Nubians, with low frequencies in Afro-Asiatic groups although notable frequencies of B-M60 were found in Hausa (15.6%) and Copts (15.2%).
Haplogroup E (four different haplotypes) accounts for the majority (34.4%) of the chromosome and is widespread in the Sudan. E-M78 represents 74.5% of haplogroup E, the highest frequencies observed in Masalit and Fur populations. E-M33 (5.2%) is largely confined to Fulani and Hausa, whereas E-M2 is restricted to Hausa. E-M215 was found to occur more in Nilo-Saharan rather than Afro-Asiatic speaking groups.
In contrast, haplogroups F-M89, I-M170, J-12f2, and JM172 were found to be more frequent in the Afro-Asiatic speaking groups. J-12f2 and J-M172 represents 94% and 6%, respectively, of haplogroup J with high frequencies among Nubians, Copts, and Arabs.
Haplogroup K-M9 is restricted to Hausa and Gaalien with low frequencies and is absent in Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo.
Haplogroup R-M173 appears to be the most frequent haplogroup in Fulani, and haplogroup R-P25 has the highest frequency in Hausa and Copts and is present at lower frequencies in north, east, and western Sudan.
Haplogroups A-M51, A-M23, D-M174, H-M52, L-M11, OM175, and P-M74 were completely absent from the populations analyzed.
Image modified from “Fulfulde Language Family Report” Author: Annette Harrison; Cartographer: Irene Tucker; SIL International 2003.
This is what David Reich will talk about in the seminar Insights into language expansions from ancient DNA:
In this talk, I will describe how the new science of genome-wide ancient DNA can provide insights into past spreads of language and culture. I will discuss five examples: (1) the spread of Indo-European languages to Europe and South Asia in association with Steppe pastoralist ancestry, (2) the spread of Austronesian languages to the open Pacific islands in association with Taiwanese aboriginal-associated ancestry, (3) the spread of Austroasiatic languages through southeast Asia in association with the characteristic ancestry type that is also represented in western Indonesia suggesting that these languages were once widespread there, (4) the spread of Afroasiastic languages through in East Africa as part of the Pastoral Neolithic farming expansion, and (5) the spread of Na-Dene languages in North America in association with Proto-Paleoeskimo ancestry. I will highlight the ways that ancient DNA can meaningfully contribute to our understanding of language expansions—increasing the plausibility of some scenarios while decreasing the plausibility of others—while emphasizing that with genetic data by itself we can never definitively determine what languages ancient people spoke.
EDIT (3 MAY 2019): Apparently, there was not much to take from the talk:
DR: finally talks about spread of afroasiatic languages in northern Africa. Shows a complicated model. Idk man there's a lot of populations.
— Joshua G. Schraiber🌹 (@jgschraiber) May 2, 2019
Pastoralist Neolithic in Africa, through a pale-green Sahelo-Sudanian steppe corridor. See full map.
This seminar (and maybe some new paper on the Neolithic expansion in Africa) could shed light on population movements that may be related to the spread of Afroasiatic dialects. Until now, it seems that Bantu peoples have been more interesting for linguistics and archaeology, and South and East Africans for anthropology.
Archaeology in Africa appears to be in its infancy, as is population genomics. From the latest publication by Carina Schlebusch, Population migration and adaptation during the African Holocene: A genetic perspective, a chapter from Modern Human Origins and Dispersal (2019):
The process behind the introduction and development of farming in Africa is still unclear. It is not known how many independent invention events there were in the continent and to which extent the various first instances of farming in northern Africa are linked. Based on the archeological record, it was proposed that at least three regions in Africa may have developed agriculture independently: the Sahara/Sahel (around 7 ka), the Ethiopian highlands (7-4 ka), and western Africa (5-3 ka). In addition to these developments, the Nile River Valley is thought to have adopted agriculture (around 7.2 ka), from the Neolithic Revolution in the Middle East (Chapter 12 – Jobling et al. 2014; Chapter 35, 37 – Mitchell and Lane 2013). From these diverse centers of origin, farmers or farming practices spread to the rest of Africa, with domesticate animals reaching the southern tip of Africa ~2 ka and crop farming ~1,8 ka (Mitchell 2002; Huffman 2007)
Schematic representation of possible migration routes related to the expansion of herders and crop farmers during Holocene times. Arrow color indicate source populations; Brown-Eurasian, Green-western African, Blue-eastern African.
Similar to the case in Europe and the 1990s-2000s wrong haplogroup history based on the modern distribution of R1b, R1a, N, or I2, it is possible that neither of the most often mentioned haplogroups linked to the Afroasiatic expansion, E and J, were responsible for its early spread within Africa, despite their widespread distribution in certain modern Afroasiatic-speaking areas. The fact that such assessments include implausible glottochronological dates spanning up to 20,000 years for the parent language, combined with regional language continuities despite archaeological changes, makes them even more suspicious.
Similar to the case with Indo-Europeans and the “steppe ancestry” concept of the 2010s, it may be that the often-looked-for West Eurasian ancestry among Africans is the effect of recent migrations, unrelated to the Afroasiatic expansion. The results of this paper could be offering another sign of how this ancestry may have expanded only quite recently westwards from East Africa through the Sahel, after the Semitic expansion to the south:
1. From approximately 1000 BC, accompanying Nilo-Saharan peoples.
2. From approximately AD 1500, with the different population movements related to the nomadic Fulani:
Image from Sahel in West African History – Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History.
Arguably, since the Fulani caste system wasn’t as elaborate in northern Nigeria, eastern Niger, and Cameroon, these specific groups would be a good example of the admixture with eastern populations, based on the (proportionally) huge amount of slaves they dealt with.
Similarly, it could be argued that the castes-based social stratification in most other territories (including Sudan) would have helped them keep a genetic make-up similar to their region of origin in terms of ancient lineages, hence similar to Chadic populations from west to east.
Reich’s assertion of the association of the language expansion with the spread of Pastoral Neolithic is still too vague, but – based on previous publications of ancient DNA in Africa and the Levant – I don’t have high hopes for a revolutionary paper in the near future. Without many samples and proper temporal transects, we are stuck with speculations based on modern distributions and scarce historical data.
A distribution map of Fula people. Dark green: a major ethnic group; Medium: significant; Light: minor. Modified from image by Sarah Welch at Wikipedia.
About the potential genetic make-up of Cameroon before the arrival of the Neolithic, from the recent SAA 84th Annual Meeting (Abstracts in PDF):
Lipson, Mark (Harvard Medical School), Mary Prendergast (Harvard University), Isabelle Ribot (Université de Montréal), Carles Lalueza-Fox (Institute of Evolutionary Biology CSIC-UPF) and David Reich (Harvard Medical School)
[253] Ancient Human DNA from Shum Laka (Cameroon) in the Context of African Population History We generated genome-wide DNA data from four people buried at the site of Shum Laka in Cameroon between 8000–3000 years ago. One individual carried the deeply divergent Y chromosome haplogroup A00 found at low frequencies among some present-day Niger-Congo speakers, but the genome-wide ancestry profiles for all four individuals are very different from the majority of West Africans today and instead are more similar to West-Central African hunter-gatherers. Thus, despite the geographic proximity of Shum Laka to the hypothesized birthplace of Bantu languages and the temporal range of our samples bookending the initial Bantu expansion, these individuals are not representative of a Bantu source population. We present a phylogenetic model including Shum Laka that features three major radiations within Africa: one phase early in the history of modern humans, one close to the time of the migration giving rise to non-Africans, and one in the past several thousand years. Present-day West Africans and some East Africans, in addition to Central and Southern African hunter-gatherers, retain ancestry from the first phase, which is therefore still represented throughout the majority of human diversity in Africa today.
Sahara’s rather pale-green and discontinuous Sahelo-Sudanian steppe corridor, and the R1b – Afroasiatic connection
Genetic history of admixture across inner Eurasia; Botai shows R1b-M73
Ancient genomes from North Africa evidence Neolithic migrations to the Maghreb
Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa
Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations
Genetic ancestry of Hadza and Sandawe peoples reveals ancient population structure in Africa
R1b-V88 migration through Southern Italy into Green Sahara corridor, and the Afroasiatic connection
Potential Afroasiatic Urheimat near Lake Megachad
Expansion of peoples associated with spread of haplogroups: Mongols and C3*-F3918, Arabs and E-M183 (M81)
The arrival of haplogroup R1a-M417 in Eastern Europe, and the east-west diffusion of pottery through North Eurasia
Genetic landscapes showing human genetic diversity aligning with geography
Human ancestry solves language questions? New admixture citebait
Carlos Quiles Afroasiatic, Anthropology, Archaeology, Bantu, Genetics, Linguistics, Proto-languages 2 Comments April 27, 2019 May 3, 2019
Open access paper Genetic Ancestry of Hadza and Sandawe Peoples Reveals Ancient Population Structure in Africa, by Shriner, Tekola-Ayele, Adeyemo, & Rotimi, GBE (2018).
Abstract (emphasis mine):
The Hadza and Sandawe populations in present-day Tanzania speak languages containing click sounds and therefore thought to be distantly related to southern African Khoisan languages. We analyzed genome-wide genotype data for individuals sampled from the Hadza and Sandawe populations in the context of a global data set of 3,528 individuals from 163 ethno-linguistic groups. We found that Hadza and Sandawe individuals share ancestry distinct from and most closely related to Omotic ancestry; share Khoisan ancestry with populations such as ≠Khomani, Karretjie, and Ju/’hoansi in southern Africa; share Niger-Congo ancestry with populations such as Yoruba from Nigeria and Luhya from Kenya, consistent with migration associated with the Bantu Expansion; and share Cushitic ancestry with Somali, multiple Ethiopian populations, the Maasai population in Kenya, and the Nama population in Namibia. We detected evidence for low levels of Arabian, Nilo-Saharan, and Pygmy ancestries in a minority of individuals. Our results indicate that west Eurasian ancestry in eastern Africa is more precisely the Arabian parent of Cushitic ancestry. Relative to the Out-of-Africa migrations, Hadza ancestry emerged early whereas Sandawe ancestry emerged late.
In the Hadza population, the distribution of Y chromosomes includes mostly B2 haplogroups, with a smaller number of E1b1a haplogroups, which are common in Niger-Congo-speaking populations, and E1b1b haplogroups, which are common in Cushitic populations (Tishkoff, et al. 2007). In the Sandawe population, E1b1a and E1b1b haplogroups are more common, with lower frequencies of B2 and A3b2 haplogroups (Tishkoff, et al. 2007).
We found that Hadza ancestry diverged early, rather than late. We found evidence for contributions of Cushitic and Niger-Congo ancestries in Tanzania, consistent with the movements of herding and cultivating Cushitic speakers ~4,000 years ago and agricultural Niger-Congo speakers ~2,500 years ago (Newman 1995). However, we did not find evidence of a substantial contribution of Nilo-Saharan ancestry that might have resulted from movement of pastoralist Nilo-Saharan speakers (Newman 1995). We also identified west Eurasian ancestry in eastern and southern African populations more precisely as the Arabian parent of Cushitic ancestry. Finally, our ancestry analyses support the hypothesis that Omotic, Hadza, and Sandawe languages group together, rather than Omotic languages belonging to the Afroasiatic family and Hadza and Sandawe languages belonging to the Khoisan family.
I don’t like linguistic assumptions from admixture analysis; especially from scarce modern samples, as in this case.
Nevertheless, these papers may help clarify the different nature of Omotic and Cushitic among Afroasiatic languages, and thus leave the origin of Afroasiatic either:
a) To the east, with the traditionalist Afroasiatic – Semitic/Hamitic homeland association.
Expansion of Afroasiatic
b) To the west, near modern Chadic languages (associated with the expansion of R1b-V88 subclades through a Green Sahara), as I suggested.
Carlos Quiles Afroasiatic, Anthropology, Bantu, Culture, Genetics, Khoisan, Linguistics Leave a comment March 14, 2018 March 14, 2018
A paper at Scientific Reports, Human ancestry correlates with language and reveals that race is not an objective genomic classifier, by Baker, Rotimi, and Shriner (2017).
Genetic and archaeological studies have established a sub-Saharan African origin for anatomically modern humans with subsequent migrations out of Africa. Using the largest multi-locus data set known to date, we investigated genetic differentiation of early modern humans, human admixture and migration events, and relationships among ancestries and language groups. We compiled publicly available genome-wide genotype data on 5,966 individuals from 282 global samples, representing 30 primary language families. The best evidence supports 21 ancestries that delineate genetic structure of present-day human populations. Independent of self-identified ethno-linguistic labels, the vast majority (97.3%) of individuals have mixed ancestry, with evidence of multiple ancestries in 96.8% of samples and on all continents. The data indicate that continents, ethno-linguistic groups, races, ethnicities, and individuals all show substantial ancestral heterogeneity. We estimated correlation coefficients ranging from 0.522 to 0.962 between ancestries and language families or branches. Ancestry data support the grouping of Kwadi-Khoe, Kx’a, and Tuu languages, support the exclusion of Omotic languages from the Afroasiatic language family, and do not support the proposed Dené-Yeniseian language family as a genetically valid grouping. Ancestry data yield insight into a deeper past than linguistic data can, while linguistic data provide clarity to ancestry data.
Regarding European ancestry:
Southern European ancestry correlates with both Italic and Basque speakers (r = 0.764, p = 6.34 × 10−49). Northern European ancestry correlates with Germanic and Balto-Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family as well as Finno-Ugric and Mordvinic languages of the Uralic family (r = 0.672, p = 4.67 × 10−34). Italic, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic are all branches of the Indo-European language family, while the correlation with languages of the Uralic family is consistent with an ancient migration event from Northern Asia into Northern Europe. Kalash ancestry is widely spread but is the majority ancestry only in the Kalash people (Table S3). The Kalasha language is classified within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.
Sure, admixture analysis came to save the day. Yet again. Now it’s not just Archaeology related to language anymore, it’s Linguistics; all modern languages and their classification, no less. Because why the hell not? Why would anyone study languages, history, archaeology, etc. when you can run certain algorithms on free datasets of modern populations to explain everything?
What I am criticising here, as always, is not the study per se, its methods (PCA, the use of Admixture or any other tools), or its results, which might be quite interesting – even regarding the origin or position of certain languages (or more precisely their speakers) within their linguistic groups; it’s the many broad, unsupported, striking conclusions (read the article if you want to see more wishful thinking).
This is obviously simplistic citebait – that benefits only journals and authors, and it is therefore tacitly encouraged -, but not knowledge, because it is not supported by any linguistic or archaeological data or expertise.
Is anyone with a minimum knowledge of languages, or general anthropology, actually reviewing these articles?
Something is very wrong with models based on the so-called ‘steppe admixture’ – and archaeologists are catching up
The Aryan migration debate, the Out of India models, and the modern “indigenous Indo-Aryan” sectarianism
Heyd, Mallory, and Prescott were right about Bell Beakers
Another hint at the role of Corded Ware peoples in spreading Uralic languages into north-eastern Europe, found in mtDNA analysis of the Finnish population
Featured image: Ancestry analysis of the global data set, from the article.
Carlos Quiles Afroasiatic, Austronesian, Basque, Culture, Genetics, Indo-European, Indo-European languages, Linguistics, Sino-Tibetan, Uralic 2 Comments September 6, 2017 September 10, 2017
The publication of new ancient DNA samples from Africa is near, according to people at the SMBE meeting. As reported by Anthropology.net, a group by Pontus Skoglund has analysed new samples (complementing the study made by Carina Schlebusch), so we will have ancient samples of Africans from 300 to 6,000 years ago. They have been compared to the data of modern African populations, and among their likely conclusions (to be published):
Several thousand years ago, likely Tanzanian herders migrated far and wide, reaching Southern Africa centuries before the first farmers.
West Africans were likely early contributors to the gene pool of sub-Saharan Africans.
One ancient African herder showed influence from even farther abroad, with 38% of their DNA coming from outside Africa. 9-22% of the DNA of modern farmers, including the southern Khoe-San, comes from East Africans and Eurasian herders
Modern farmers, the ones as old as 500 years old, did have Bantu DNA in their genomes, but the ancient hunter-gatherers predated the spread of the Bantu.
Razib Khan, asked about the Afroasiatic homeland by David Reich, has taken this opportunity to publish his own hypothesis on the expansion of Afroasiatic, given the known Admixture analyses, using Y-DNA phylogeography, and with reasonable assumptions. He concludes that Afroasiatic expansion might also be associated with the western expansion of E1b1b subclades from a Levantine (“Natufian”) homeland.
I think it is necessary to remind everyone of the many problems unsolved by Indo-European studies – a much older discipline (and with more research published) than Afroasiatic studies. It is already quite revealing that we can’t still trace back Proto-Semitic to its homeland, and that Proto-Semitic is probably as old as Late Proto-Indo-European. We are talking, then, about an ancient proto-language – Afroasiatic – possibly older than Middle Indo-European (or Indo-Hittite), and whose dialects are still not well studied – but for the Semitic and Egyptian branches. Linguistic guesstimates or phylogenetic speculation date the proto-language (and thus the homeland) within a wide range, from 15,000 to 6,000 years ago.
There is an obvious trend (probably driven by Semitic and Egyptian researchers) to place the Afroasiatic Homeland near one of the many proposed Semitic homelands, i.e. in East Africa. This is similar to the trend seen in the first half of the 20th century in Indo-European studies, with most proposals locating the Proto-Indo-European homeland in Europe. European languages were the best known, and only the perceived antiquity of Vedic Sanskrit made some propose South Asian origins for the proto-language. However, it was only careful interpretation of linguistic finds, combined with archaeological data, what eventually yielded the Kurgan hypothesis, which has been since refined.
A model for the homeland and expansion of Afroasiatic, from Wikipedia
Razib Khan’s proposal makes sense in that it fits what others have proposed before, i.e. an east African or Middle Eastern Afroasiatic homeland, and that it links it with the expansion of farming. However, we have to keep in mind that until 5,000 years ago the Sahara was not the desert we know: it had certain important green corridors, humid areas between megalakes. The Sahara might not have been exactly green 10,000 to 5,000 years ago (roughly the time when Afroasiatic must have been spoken), but it had certain regions that allowed for an east-west migration. However, it also allowed for a west-east migration, and – perhaps more importantly – for a sizeable population expansion in central Saharan territory. To forget that is to allow for potentially wrong assumptions to be made.
What we expect from the next papers on ancient African DNA samples are the result of certain (more recent) population – and thus potentially ethnolinguistic – movements, but they probably won’t solve the question of the Afroasiatic homeland, which has an older time span than the samples studied. There is a wide void in African prehistory – compared with Near Eastern history – and this research will be closing that gap, just like European samples are helping close the gap in the prehistory of western, northern, and eastern Europe, compared to the history of the eastern Mediterranean regions.
Diachronic map of Paleolithic migrations of R1b lineages in Europe and Africa
I already wrote, regarding the potential ethnolinguistic link between Indo-European and Afroasiatic, that a close look at the migration of R1b-V88 lineages from Europe (through southern Italy?) into the Sahara – through the Fezzan-Chad-Chotts, and Chad-Chotts-Ahnet-Moyer megalake green corridors – could have been the key to the successful expansion of Afrasians.
Interesting aspects to take into account are the distribution of R1b-V88 lineages, compared to the location of Chadic languages (probably the most divergent and least known of the group) and to the potential North Afroasiatic (composed by Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic) and South Afroasiatic group (made of Cushitic and Omotic). Chadic has been argued to be connected variously to North Afroasiatic, or to the Berber branch, but the Northern group has also been argued to be connected with Cushitic, with Omotic as an independent branch. Also interesting would then be the potential connection between Indo-European (or Indo-Uralic) and Afroasiatic.
Modern distribution of haplogroup R1b, from Wikipedia
We could speculatively place the potential primary Afroasiatic homeland in the south-central Sahara, near the Megachad lake (i.e. near the peak of R1b-V88 lineages), with a secondary homeland in eastern Africa (as in the map above) – and maybe a tertiary homeland (of North Afroasiatic) in the Middle East, associated with the expansion of “Natufians” and E1b1b subclades. The identification of the spread of Afroasiatic languages with the expansion of R1b-V88 lineages needs an anthropological context (linguistic and archaeological) that is obviously lacking today.
It is important to keep all possibilities in sight when reviewing genetic analyses.
Ancient genomes from southern Africa pushes modern human divergence beyond 260,000 years ago, by Schlebusch et al. (2017), with recent article in Nature
Natufian origin of Afroasiatic?, asking Language Hat readers to answer Razib Khan’s proposals
A homeland but not the homeland, by Davidsky at Eurogenes, posing a question to which Razib Khan seems to respond in his post.
The genetic structure of the world’s first farmers, by Lazaridis et al. (2016), now published in Nature
The maternal genetic history of the Angolan Namib Desert: a key region for understanding the peopling of southern Africa by Oliveira et al. (2017)
EDIT (16/7/2017): Added link to Neby’s post on a potential Semitic homeland, and Nature article on Schlebusch and Skoglund research.
Carlos Quiles Afroasiatic, Archaeology, Culture, Genetics, Linguistics 2 Comments July 11, 2017 July 25, 2017
World Prehistory Atlas
Ancient Y-DNA
Modern Y-DNA
R1b-rich Proto-Indo-Europeans
Corded Ware ancestry = Uralic
Yamna spread horse domesticates
Battle Axe = Finno-Samic
Yamna Hungary + EEF = BBC
Finno-Permic expansion
"Steppe ancestry" step by step
Magyar chiefs of R1a, I2a lineages
About Scepters, Horses, and War
The Greece Neolithic outlier
The origin of R1b-L51
"Siberian ancestry"
Vasconic R1b = Indo-European R1a
The origin of R1a-Z645
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Academia Prisca
Indo-European.info
PIE Dictionary
Twitter (@cquilesc) |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: i pulled my big toe cuticle and the root also came out. i could barely move for 3 day and then it got better. a week later i realized theres an infection so i started using fucidin 2/3 times a day. pain did get better but it wont go. if i press my toe or apply pressure it hurts. what should i do? im a male aged 34. output: Continuous pain may be due to infection and abscess formation. So, go to our doctor for check up whether there is pus formation or not. You may continue to use your ointment with some painkiller for the time being till you visit your doctor. Good luck. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Answer the following question from the document below.
##Question:
What is the medical condition of the 79-year-old man?
## Document:
2195-12-1 6:22 PM
CT CHEST W/O CONTRAST Clip # 9834859
Reason: r/o enlargement of mediastinal hematoma
Contrast: OPTIRAY Amt: 150
______________________________________________________________________________
Stone Ridge city hospital MEDICAL CONDITION:
79 year old man with MVA and mediastinal hematoma on chest CT 11-28
REASON FOR THIS EXAMINATION:
r/o enlargement of mediastinal hematoma
______________________________________________________________________________
FINAL REPORT
HISTORY: MVA, mediastinal hematoma on prior chest CT, rule out enlargement of
the mediastinal hematoma.
TECHNIQUE: Axial images of the chest were obtained after the administration
of 100 cc of Optiray per cardiac history.
Comparison with prior CT from 2195-11-28.
FINDINGS: Again seen is soft tissue density material posterior to the
sternum, within the anterior mediastinum which is slightly decreased in size
compared to the prior exam. There are a few scattered, nonpathologically
enlarged lymph nodes in the mediastinum. There is no evidence of enlarged
hilar or axillary lymph nodes. There is no evidence of contrast extravasation
in the mediastinum. The heart size is within normal limits, there is no
pericardial fluid. There are small bilateral pleural effusions with small
dependent bibasilar atelectases. Also noted is a linear opacity in the
lingular region consistent with atelectases.
There is a small hiatal hernia, the esophageal wall is slightly prominent,
unchanged compared to the prior exam. The visualized portions of the liver,
gallbladder and spleen are unremarkable. The adrenals are normal. The upper
pole of the right kidney is normal. There is no evidence of intra-abdominal
fluid. There are no enlarged retroperitoneal lymph nodes in the visualized
portions of the abdomen. Again seen are a minimally displaced sternal
fracture and a fracture of a posterior inferior left rib.
IMPRESSION:
1. Slight decrease in the size of the mediastinal hematoma located posterior
to the sternal fracture.
2. Small bilateral pleural effusions and bibasilar atelectases as well as
linear atelectases in the lingular region.
output: The 79-year-old man has been in a motor vehicle accident (MVA) and has a mediastinal hematoma. |
package com.esri.core.geometry;
import java.util.ArrayList;
class OperatorImportFromWktLocal extends OperatorImportFromWkt {
@Override
public Geometry execute(int import_flags, Geometry.Type type,
String wkt_string, ProgressTracker progress_tracker) {
WktParser wkt_parser = new WktParser(wkt_string);
int current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
return importFromWkt(import_flags, type, wkt_parser);
}
@Override
public OGCStructure executeOGC(int import_flags, String wkt_string,
ProgressTracker progress_tracker) {
ArrayList<OGCStructure> stack = new ArrayList<OGCStructure>(0);
WktParser wkt_parser = new WktParser(wkt_string);
OGCStructure root = new OGCStructure();
root.m_structures = new ArrayList<OGCStructure>(0);
stack.add(root); // add dummy root
while (wkt_parser.nextToken() != WktParser.WktToken.not_available) {
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.right_paren) {
stack.remove(stack.size() - 1);
continue;
}
int ogc_type = current_token;
OGCStructure last = stack.get(stack.size() - 1);
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.geometrycollection) {
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_z
|| current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_m
|| current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_zm)
wkt_parser.nextToken();
OGCStructure next = new OGCStructure();
next.m_type = ogc_type;
next.m_structures = new ArrayList<OGCStructure>(0);
last.m_structures.add(next);
if (current_token != WktParser.WktToken.empty)
stack.add(next);
continue;
}
Geometry geometry = importFromWkt(import_flags,
Geometry.Type.Unknown, wkt_parser);
OGCStructure leaf = new OGCStructure();
leaf.m_type = ogc_type;
leaf.m_geometry = geometry;
last.m_structures.add(leaf);
}
return root;
}
static Geometry importFromWkt(int import_flags, Geometry.Type type,
WktParser wkt_parser) {
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
switch (current_token) {
case WktParser.WktToken.multipolygon:
if (type != Geometry.Type.Polygon && type != Geometry.Type.Unknown)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid shapetype");
return polygonTaggedText(true, import_flags, wkt_parser);
case WktParser.WktToken.multilinestring:
if (type != Geometry.Type.Polyline && type != Geometry.Type.Unknown)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid shapetype");
return lineStringTaggedText(true, import_flags, wkt_parser);
case WktParser.WktToken.multipoint:
if (type != Geometry.Type.MultiPoint
&& type != Geometry.Type.Unknown)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid shapetype");
return multiPointTaggedText(import_flags, wkt_parser);
case WktParser.WktToken.polygon:
if (type != Geometry.Type.Polygon && type != Geometry.Type.Unknown)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid shapetype");
return polygonTaggedText(false, import_flags, wkt_parser);
case WktParser.WktToken.linestring:
if (type != Geometry.Type.Polyline && type != Geometry.Type.Unknown)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid shapetype");
return lineStringTaggedText(false, import_flags, wkt_parser);
case WktParser.WktToken.point:
if (type != Geometry.Type.Point && type != Geometry.Type.Unknown)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid shapetype");
return pointTaggedText(import_flags, wkt_parser);
default:
break; // warning fix
}
return null;
}
static Geometry polygonTaggedText(boolean b_multi_polygon,
int import_flags, WktParser wkt_parser) {
MultiPath multi_path;
MultiPathImpl multi_path_impl;
AttributeStreamOfDbl zs = null;
AttributeStreamOfDbl ms = null;
AttributeStreamOfDbl position;
AttributeStreamOfInt32 paths;
AttributeStreamOfInt8 path_flags;
position = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase
.createDoubleStream(0);
paths = (AttributeStreamOfInt32) AttributeStreamBase.createIndexStream(
1, 0);
path_flags = (AttributeStreamOfInt8) AttributeStreamBase
.createByteStream(1, (byte) 0);
multi_path = new Polygon();
multi_path_impl = (MultiPathImpl) multi_path._getImpl();
int current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_z) {
zs = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_m) {
ms = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_zm) {
zs = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
ms = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
int point_count;
if (b_multi_polygon)
point_count = multiPolygonText(zs, ms, position, paths, path_flags,
wkt_parser);
else
point_count = polygonText(zs, ms, position, paths, path_flags, 0,
wkt_parser);
if (point_count != 0) {
assert (2 * point_count == position.size());
multi_path_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.POSITION, position);
multi_path_impl.setPathStreamRef(paths);
multi_path_impl.setPathFlagsStreamRef(path_flags);
if (zs != null)
multi_path_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.Z, zs);
if (ms != null)
multi_path_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.M, ms);
multi_path_impl.notifyModified(MultiPathImpl.DirtyFlags.DirtyAll);
if (!InternalUtils.isClockwiseRing(multi_path_impl, 0))
multi_path_impl.reverseAllPaths();
}
if ((import_flags & (int) WktImportFlags.wktImportNonTrusted) == 0)
multi_path_impl.setIsSimple(MultiPathImpl.GeometryXSimple.Weak,
0.0, false);
multi_path_impl.setDirtyOGCFlags(false);
return multi_path;
}
static Geometry lineStringTaggedText(boolean b_multi_linestring,
int import_flags, WktParser wkt_parser) {
MultiPath multi_path;
MultiPathImpl multi_path_impl;
AttributeStreamOfDbl zs = null;
AttributeStreamOfDbl ms = null;
AttributeStreamOfDbl position;
AttributeStreamOfInt32 paths;
AttributeStreamOfInt8 path_flags;
position = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase
.createDoubleStream(0);
paths = (AttributeStreamOfInt32) AttributeStreamBase.createIndexStream(
1, 0);
path_flags = (AttributeStreamOfInt8) AttributeStreamBase
.createByteStream(1, (byte) 0);
multi_path = new Polyline();
multi_path_impl = (MultiPathImpl) multi_path._getImpl();
int current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_z) {
zs = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_m) {
ms = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_zm) {
zs = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
ms = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
multi_path_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
int point_count;
if (b_multi_linestring)
point_count = multiLineStringText(zs, ms, position, paths,
path_flags, wkt_parser);
else
point_count = lineStringText(false, zs, ms, position, paths,
path_flags, wkt_parser);
if (point_count != 0) {
assert (2 * point_count == position.size());
multi_path_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.POSITION, position);
multi_path_impl.setPathStreamRef(paths);
multi_path_impl.setPathFlagsStreamRef(path_flags);
if (zs != null)
multi_path_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.Z, zs);
if (ms != null)
multi_path_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.M, ms);
multi_path_impl.notifyModified(MultiPathImpl.DirtyFlags.DirtyAll);
}
return multi_path;
}
static Geometry multiPointTaggedText(int import_flags, WktParser wkt_parser) {
MultiPoint multi_point;
MultiPointImpl multi_point_impl;
AttributeStreamOfDbl zs = null;
AttributeStreamOfDbl ms = null;
AttributeStreamOfDbl position;
position = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase
.createDoubleStream(0);
multi_point = new MultiPoint();
multi_point_impl = (MultiPointImpl) multi_point._getImpl();
int current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_z) {
zs = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_point_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_m) {
ms = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_point_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_zm) {
zs = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
ms = (AttributeStreamOfDbl) AttributeStreamBase.createDoubleStream(
0, NumberUtils.TheNaN);
multi_point_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
multi_point_impl.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
int point_count = multiPointText(zs, ms, position, wkt_parser);
if (point_count != 0) {
assert (2 * point_count == position.size());
multi_point_impl.resize(point_count);
multi_point_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.POSITION, position);
if (zs != null)
multi_point_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.Z, zs);
if (ms != null)
multi_point_impl.setAttributeStreamRef(
VertexDescription.Semantics.M, ms);
multi_point_impl.notifyModified(MultiPointImpl.DirtyFlags.DirtyAll);
}
return multi_point;
}
static Geometry pointTaggedText(int import_flags, WktParser wkt_parser) {
Point point = new Point();
int current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_z) {
point.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_m) {
point.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
} else if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.attribute_zm) {
point.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.Z);
point.addAttribute(VertexDescription.Semantics.M);
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
// At start of PointText
current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
if (current_token != WktParser.WktToken.empty) {
wkt_parser.nextToken();
double x = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
double y = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
point.setXY(x, y);
if (wkt_parser.hasZs()) {
double z = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
point.setZ(z);
}
if (wkt_parser.hasMs()) {
double m = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
point.setM(m);
}
}
return point;
}
static int multiPolygonText(AttributeStreamOfDbl zs,
AttributeStreamOfDbl ms, AttributeStreamOfDbl position,
AttributeStreamOfInt32 paths, AttributeStreamOfInt8 path_flags,
WktParser wkt_parser) {
// At start of MultiPolygonText
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
int total_point_count = 0;
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.empty)
return total_point_count;
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
while (current_token != WktParser.WktToken.right_paren) {
// At start of PolygonText
total_point_count = polygonText(zs, ms, position, paths,
path_flags, total_point_count, wkt_parser);
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
return total_point_count;
}
static int multiLineStringText(AttributeStreamOfDbl zs,
AttributeStreamOfDbl ms, AttributeStreamOfDbl position,
AttributeStreamOfInt32 paths, AttributeStreamOfInt8 path_flags,
WktParser wkt_parser) {
// At start of MultiLineStringText
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
int total_point_count = 0;
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.empty)
return total_point_count;
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
while (current_token != WktParser.WktToken.right_paren) {
// At start of LineStringText
int point_count = lineStringText(false, zs, ms, position, paths,
path_flags, wkt_parser);
total_point_count += point_count;
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
return total_point_count;
}
static int multiPointText(AttributeStreamOfDbl zs, AttributeStreamOfDbl ms,
AttributeStreamOfDbl position, WktParser wkt_parser) {
// At start of MultiPointText
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
int point_count = 0;
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.empty)
return point_count;
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
while (current_token != WktParser.WktToken.right_paren) {
// At start of PointText
point_count += pointText(zs, ms, position, wkt_parser);
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.left_paren
|| current_token == WktParser.WktToken.empty)
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken(); // ogc standard
else
current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken(); // not ogc standard.
// treat as
// linestring
}
return point_count;
}
static int polygonText(AttributeStreamOfDbl zs, AttributeStreamOfDbl ms,
AttributeStreamOfDbl position, AttributeStreamOfInt32 paths,
AttributeStreamOfInt8 path_flags, int total_point_count,
WktParser wkt_parser) {
// At start of PolygonText
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.empty)
return total_point_count;
boolean b_first_line_string = true;
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
while (current_token != WktParser.WktToken.right_paren) {
// At start of LineStringText
int point_count = lineStringText(true, zs, ms, position, paths,
path_flags, wkt_parser);
if (point_count != 0) {
if (b_first_line_string) {
b_first_line_string = false;
path_flags.setBits(path_flags.size() - 2,
(byte) PathFlags.enumOGCStartPolygon);
}
path_flags.setBits(path_flags.size() - 2,
(byte) PathFlags.enumClosed);
total_point_count += point_count;
}
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
return total_point_count;
}
static int lineStringText(boolean b_ring, AttributeStreamOfDbl zs,
AttributeStreamOfDbl ms, AttributeStreamOfDbl position,
AttributeStreamOfInt32 paths, AttributeStreamOfInt8 path_flags,
WktParser wkt_parser) {
// At start of LineStringText
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
int point_count = 0;
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.empty)
return point_count;
boolean b_start_path = true;
double startx = NumberUtils.TheNaN;
double starty = NumberUtils.TheNaN;
double startz = NumberUtils.TheNaN;
double startm = NumberUtils.TheNaN;
current_token = wkt_parser.nextToken();
while (current_token != WktParser.WktToken.right_paren) {
// At start of x
double x = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
double y = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
double z = NumberUtils.TheNaN, m = NumberUtils.TheNaN;
if (wkt_parser.hasZs()) {
z = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
if (wkt_parser.hasMs()) {
m = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
boolean b_add_point = true;
if (b_ring && point_count >= 2
&& current_token == WktParser.WktToken.right_paren) {
// If the last point in the ring is not equal to the start
// point, then let's add it.
if ((startx == x || (NumberUtils.isNaN(startx) && NumberUtils
.isNaN(x)))
&& (starty == y || (NumberUtils.isNaN(starty) && NumberUtils
.isNaN(y)))
&& (!wkt_parser.hasZs() || startz == z || (NumberUtils
.isNaN(startz) && NumberUtils.isNaN(z)))
&& (!wkt_parser.hasMs() || startm == m || (NumberUtils
.isNaN(startm) && NumberUtils.isNaN(m))))
b_add_point = false;
}
if (b_add_point) {
if (b_start_path) {
b_start_path = false;
startx = x;
starty = y;
startz = z;
startm = m;
}
point_count++;
addToStreams(zs, ms, position, x, y, z, m);
}
}
if (point_count == 1) {
point_count++;
addToStreams(zs, ms, position, startx, starty, startz, startm);
}
paths.add(position.size() / 2);
path_flags.add((byte) 0);
return point_count;
}
static int pointText(AttributeStreamOfDbl zs, AttributeStreamOfDbl ms,
AttributeStreamOfDbl position, WktParser wkt_parser) {
// At start of PointText
int current_token = wkt_parser.currentToken();
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.empty)
return 0;
if (current_token == WktParser.WktToken.left_paren)
wkt_parser.nextToken(); // ogc standard
// At start of x
double x = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
double y = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
double z = NumberUtils.TheNaN;
double m = NumberUtils.TheNaN;
if (zs != null) {
z = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
if (ms != null) {
m = wkt_parser.currentNumericLiteral();
wkt_parser.nextToken();
}
addToStreams(zs, ms, position, x, y, z, m);
return 1;
}
static void addToStreams(AttributeStreamOfDbl zs, AttributeStreamOfDbl ms,
AttributeStreamOfDbl position, double x, double y, double z,
double m) {
position.add(x);
position.add(y);
if (zs != null)
zs.add(z);
if (ms != null)
ms.add(m);
}
}
|
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: what is the best way to stop hormone replacement therapy? output: once you and your clinician have decided that it's time to stop what's the best approach? the simple answer is that we don't know. formal studies to evaluate this question have failed to show that either going cold turkey or tapering off is better. so the choice is really yours. the important thing is to know that women in general have about a 50/50 chance of experiencing hot flashes again (although maybe not as severe as initially) after stopping. some studies suggest that symptoms peak within 3 months after stopping hormones. after you stop take some time to evaluate how you feel before beginning any new medication so you don't get the two effects confused. there are a couple of other things to keep an eye on once you've stopped ht. if you develop vaginal dryness or recurrent urinary tract infections ask your clinician about vaginal estrogens. nonhormonal lubricants and moisturizers can also help with dryness. and you might want to ask about a bone density test. we know that women who stop ht often lose bone. depending on your bone density score and risk profile you might be a candidate for an osteoporosis drug (bone-sparing). at any rate discuss calcium and vitamin d supplements weight-bearing exercise and fall prevention with your clinician. another good idea is to have your cholesterol rechecked in about 3 months after stopping ht because hormones can affect "lipid levels" (both good and bad). and if you're taking a thyroid medication for an underactive thyroid your dose might need to be adjusted. thanks for your reply! |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: what are the symptoms of thrush? output: thrush usually develops suddenly but it may become chronic persisting over a long period of time. a common sign of thrush is the presence of creamy white slightly raised lesions in your mouth - usually on your tongue or inner cheeks - but also sometimes on the roof of your mouth gums tonsils or back of your throat. the lesions which may have a "cottage cheese" appearance can be painful and may bleed slightly when you scrape them or brush your teeth. in severe cases the lesions may spread into your esophagus or swallowing tube causing: pain or difficulty swallowing a feeling that food gets stuck in the throat or mid-chest area fever if the infection spreads beyond the esophagus thrush can spread to other parts of the body including the lungs liver and skin. this happens more often in people with cancer hiv or other conditions that weaken the immune system. |
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Govt plans Rs 1,260cr hi-tech drive to make Delhi safer
(Delhi Police has taken the first steps to implement Union home ministry’s safe city project.)
NEW DELHI: A Rs 1,260-crore mega project promises to change the face of policing in the capital. Conceived after the Nirbhaya gang rape, the Union home ministry’s Safe City Project will put the entire criminal database in the hands of the cop on duty through the latest IT tools and monitor public places through a wide network of CCTVs.The high-tech plan covers everything from video analytics to facial scanning. Once implemented, the system will enable police personnel to run a background check on any suspicious person or vehicle anywhere in the city. Other components of the system will help in detecting explosives, alerting about perimeter intrusion, reading biometrics, detecting speed violations at night, and even analyzing prisoner movement and digital crime mapping.
Delhi Police has already taken the first steps to implement the project, to be funded by the home ministry through its mega city policing plan. Pricewater house Coopers has been hired as consultant on various technology initiatives for a Rs 6-crore fee and the World Bank is expected to contribute Rs 40 crore for the project.
The final amount, though, will be decided by the MHA, which has been sent the proposal. Senior police officers say PWC has been tasked to prepare detailed project reports and requests for proposals, bring implementation agencies on board and manage the implementation, review and improvement of new systems.
The idea behind the Safe City Project is simple—effective policing, but it is a complex system built on four components. The two most important parts are its Integrated Intelligent Surveillance Systems (IISS) and the Automated Traffic Management Systems (ATMS), followed by capacity building and initiatives for upgrading. The IISS at the ground level will mean that all officers on the road will use hand-held personal digital assistant (PDA) devices that are no less than a computer. The PDAs will have online access, enabling an officer to check whether the car he has hailed for inspection is stolen or the driver has a crime record. At a larger level, these single checks will help police secure the city.
At present, Delhi has CCTVs installed in 26 markets and at five border points. Installation work in 28 other markets and 10 border points is 65% done. CCTV installation at the Supreme Court, high court and district court complexes is also over. All these steps will bring the total number of surveillance cameras up to 5,333.
Once the Safe City Project starts rolling, another 6,625 cameras will be installed at 479 locations while the traffic police are expected to install 5,000 CCTV cameras at important intersections, taking the total to 16,928 CCTV cameras covering every corner of the city.
Delhi Police’s cyber cell led by joint CP Sandeep Goel, the special cell led by joint CP MM Oberoi and the traffic police led by additional CP Anil Shukla will oversee implementation of the project in the next two years. However, vendors who win the project bids will be paid for the five years, with the extra three years allotted for maintenance.
“The verification facilities will be available to PCR and beat officers and the hand-held devices will authenticate the criminal history of a person,” said joint CP Sandeep Goel, adding that police vehicles will be equipped with automatic number plate readers and CCTV footage will be analyzed in real time.
The ATMS will be a unified solution for traffic problems. It will be able to track e-challans, check speeding at night with night-vision speed detectors. It will also analyze the peak loads and junction management.
Other initiatives under the project include a PCR upgrade, cyber security, training of field officers, data integration with private entities like hotels at the local level and disaster fighting authorities like fire brigade and National Disaster Management Authority. Besides the police’s C4i control room, there will be two data centres, two mobile command centres, 800 mobile terminals for PCR vans and 6,000 hand-held devices. Experts, however, say the project alone cannot make Delhi safer. “Merely bringing in devices and CCTVs is not enough. It is important that Delhi Police customize the software according to ground realities. For example, dense fog and monkeys—common Delhi problems—can play havoc with video analytics. Similarly, connecting 243 locations is not enough. A clever use of wireless and optic solutions will help police get the right kind of digital feed for analysis,” said Dipankar Ghosh, director of a firm which deals with such security solutions.
Times view
State-of-the-art technology is an invaluable aid to policing, but Delhi Police must realize that machines can only be as effective as the men behind them. If all of this money and effort is not to go waste, the men must be trained to use this technology optimally and the equipment must be well-maintained . So often our CCTVs don’t work. That’s just not acceptable. Moreover, modernization is not just about technology; the police force must imbibe a modern mindset — a mindset that’s service-oriented and shows greater gender sensitivity. Only then will the police slogan of “with you, for you, always” have real meaning.
Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under News, Safety
Why you should stop talking to your car
By Clifford Nass, Special to CNN
(Commuters move slowly in Los Angeles. Studies show that talking to your car’s voice technology impairs driving.)
Clifford Nass: More of our brain is devoted to speech than anything else; we love to talk
Nass: Talking to technology in your car is not natural and it confuses your brain
He says even with hands on wheel and eyes on road, talking to your car impairs driving
Nass: Your brain works to fill in the blanks talking to an entity you can’t see and doesn’t listen
Editor’s note: Clifford Nass is the Thomas M. Storke Professor at Stanford University and director of the Communication between Humans and Interactive Media (CHIMe) Lab. He is the author of “The Man Who Lied to his Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships,” “Wired for Speech” and “The Media Equation.”(CNN) – Speaking is profoundly human: More of the human brain is devoted to speech than any other activity. People can have an IQ of 50, or a brain that is only one-third the normal size and have difficulties with many simple tasks, but they can speak.Humans are so tuned to words that from about the age of 18 months, children learn about eight to 10 new words a day, a rate that continues until adolescence.Humans love to speak: When two hearing people encounter each other, they will speak, despite having other means of communication such as gesturing or drawing. Even when people speak different languages or come from different cultures, they will try to find common words and phrases.One-day-old infants can distinguish speech from any other sounds and 4-day-olds can distinguish between their native language and other languages. Even in the womb, a fetus can distinguish her or his mother’s voice from all other female voices. Adults can distinguish speech sounds at twice the rate of any other sounds, aided by special hair cells in the outer right ear.
Clifford Nass
Curbing distracted driving
NTSB: No cell phones while driving
Among all animals, only humans have the necessary breathing apparatus and musculature to be able to speak: despite the “Planet of the Apes,” no primate could speak like a person, even if their brains grew. Even human ancestors such as the Neanderthal could not possibly speak: speech is a new and remarkably impressive ability.
So, there is nothing so human as speech — at least until modern technologies came along. Through striking advances in a computer’s ability to understand and produce speech, it is common to use your telephone to make airline reservations, answer questions and search the Web.
Because of the shrinking size and increasing speed of computers, it is also possible to speak directly to your automobile.
From putting up with the car intoning, “Your door is ajar,” we have moved to navigation systems that can tell you where to find a latte and car interfaces that understand spoken commands and even allow drivers to dictate e-mails, texts and make phone calls.
What could be more simple and natural than talking, even to a technology? And speaking to cars seems particularly desirable. We don’t have to take our eyes from the road or our hands from the wheel to select buttons or make choices: Why not let our mouths and our ears do all the work?
Unfortunately, it’s not so simple or so desirable.
Recent research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, conducted by David Strayer at the University of Utah, finds that the new technology can be so distracting it impairs the ability to drive. Studies found that while driving, our attention becomes overloaded by speaking. It basically takes our minds, if not our eyes, off the road.
Here are three reasons why talking while driving is so distracting, and not as safe and effective as you might think:
People like to picture who they are talking with. When you speak with someone face-to-face, you “hear lips and see voices”: Your brain automatically and easily focuses on the person.
When you speak on the telephone, you use brainpower to create a mental image of the person you are talking with: The less you know the person, the more mental workload it takes. When you talk to a car, use a phone in a car or dictate a text message, your brain has to do a great deal of work to picture with whom you are communicating. When you’re thinking that hard, it’s very difficult to pay attention to the road.
That’s why talking on a cell phone — hands free or not — is much more dangerous than talking to a passenger. The need to imagine steals from attention to the road.
People want to be understood. Although people love to speak, there are few more frustrating things than someone not listening. Listeners puts a great deal of energy into showing that they are listening: They nod their head, say “uh huh,” open their eyes and change their posture. People are built to expect these signals of attention, but cars refuse to provide them.
As a result, drivers become overly concerned with whether the car understands or is even listening, and their attention is again drawn away from the road. In addition, the voice of the car does not have the rich vocal cues that indicate engagement and emotion, providing further evidence that the car isn’t understanding.
Cars are not native speakers. When you encounter someone who isn’t facile in your language, you have to put a great deal of time into selecting the right words, avoiding idioms and speaking slowly and clearly. Speech is no longer an easy and natural means of communication in these instances.
While it is remarkable that cars can understand something that took billions of years of human evolution, the typical car recognition rate of 85% to 95% makes it a mediocre second-language speaker. As a result, speech becomes effortful and demanding, stealing attention from the road.
Because of these problems, my laboratory and laboratories around the world are trying to find ways to support the driver in creating mental images, in showing that the car wants to understand and enabling the car to understand at levels equal to or even better than a person.
And soon cars will be driving themselves, so that people can ignore the road and multitask their way to fighting for attention from each other, just as they do outside the car.
Source-http://edition.cnn.com
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under International, News, Road, Safety
Civic bodies asked to make buses safer, more comfortable
Manish Umbrajkar, TNN |
PUNE: New buses that will be introduced on city roads will be safer, more comfortable for both passengers and drivers, and will be equipped with in-built ITS technology, if the municipal corporations of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad act on the recommendations of the union ministry of urban development. The ministry has recommended these features to 61 municipal corporations that come under JNNURM.
PMPML, the city public bus transport company has already procured 650 buses under JNNURM funding. However, officials say it plans to make a fresh proposal to procure additional buses that would conform with the new specifications.
Officials of the Pune-based Central Institute of Road Transport(CIRT), which was one of the institutions that made suggestions on urban bus specifications, said they took into account requirements of urban commuters while making them. Specifications have also been listed for Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) buses.
According to the report on urban bus specifications, buses plying within the city should also be made more attractive so as to encourage more people to use them. They should also be made accessible to people with physical, sensory and cognitive impairments, it states.
Prashant Kakade, coordinator of the management development centre and a specialist in traffic engineering solutions at CIRT says urban public transport is different from state transport and that make these urban bus specifications significant. In cities, a large number of people, including senior citizens, children, women and even those with physical impairments use public transport. “All these factors have been taken into account while drafting the specifications. For example, the width of the gangway is wider in urban bus specifications because the number of standing passengers is quite high,” he said. Another factor taken into consideration is the insistence on low floor buses to help senior citizens board the bus. For BRTS buses, level boarding facilities have been recommended.
The report lists specifications for various types of buses based on the city’s requirements. Besides specifications for standard size normal and BRTS buses, mini and midi buses, there are specifications for standard size premium segment, and intelligent transport systems. Kakade said that the specifications are compulsory for JNNURM buses, as there will be a third party inspection when the buses are delivered to the cities by suppliers. The third party inspection will be done by institutions such as CIRT and Automotive Research Association of India, he said.
The cost of travel in these buses would be more than in normal buses, but their performance would be better in terms of fuel efficiency and would be safer, more comfortable for passengers and drivers. Buses will be able to move at improved speed, while noise levels in the buses will be less, Kakade said. Instead of using metal which adds to the dead weight of the buses and affects speed, the buses would be made of fibre, he added.
Incidentally, PMPML has planned to install intelligent transport system requirements in the 650 BRTS buses it has already procured under JNNURM. The undertaking has recently called for offers from private contractors for installation of the ITS requirements. For BRTS operations, the buses have level boarding facility, officials said.
The high powered expert committee on urban infrastructure and the ministry of urban development has estimated that cities in India need about 1.5 lakh buses that would cost approximately Rs 60,000 crores in the next 20 years. The report further cites that only 20 of 85 cities with over 5 lakh population (in 2009) offered an organised city bus service. The recommendations of the working group on urban transport for 12th five year plan includes introduction of organized public transport in all two lakh plus population cities and state capitals, as one of its goals. The report asserts that city bus services have been the major mode of public transport, and this will continue.
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under BRT, Transport
Pedestrian safety at transit areas
Prof. P.K. Sarkar & Satyajit Ganguli
Prof. P.K. Sarkar, who is engaged in teaching, research and consulting work in transport planning, traffic engineering, road safety and transport feasibility studies at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and Satyajit Ganguli, his student, discuss a case study on Pedestrian Safety at Transit Areas in Delhi Urban Area.
Pedestrians are extremely exposed and vulnerable even within the transit areas due to the presence of vehicular traffic in most of the Indian cities. Transit areas include right from the bus stop, bus station, bus terminal to railway terminal, inland water transport terminal and airport terminal. Even at the interchange where both a central bus station and a metro station coexist, the dispersal of pedestrian traffic is of paramount importance. Walkways have a very important role to play in linking the interchange points of different transport systems – bus, trains, metro to allow easy and comfortable dispersal. This distance should be the shortest and the most direct route which should be walkable and safe. From this perspective, the integration of the bus station with the metro stations through a walkway that allows people easy access with minimal conflict ensures pedestrian friendly environment.
As per the household survey in the study area conducted in 2001 by RITES Ltd, a total of 17.6 million trips are being performed per day. The per capita trip rate in the study area has been estimated at 1.27 (PCTR of 1.1 in 1993-94). Survey at 43 railway stations in Delhi revealed that about 1.0 million trips were performed by rail per day. Out of these about 9 per cent trips were moving within the city while the rest 91 per cent were intercity trips.
Nearly one-third of daily travel trips in Delhi are walk trips. Yet, the walkers remain invisible in the maze of motorised traffic that chokes our roads. Pedestrians walk in extremely unsafe and hostile conditions, in constant conflict with motorised traffic, and are easy victims to crashes and accidents. Countless people walk over potholes, slip on sludge, or are grievously hurt by bumping into numerous obstacles strewn along the footpaths. Getting good walkways is only the first step towards creating non-motorised space in our cities. This is possible only if the urban transport policy as stipulated in NUTP can be pursued to making the environment safe and friendly.
Nizamuddin transit area
A study carried out at the Nizamuddin transit area highlights the problems and risks associated with pedestrian traffic. From the analysis of attitudinal characteristics of the users, it shows that the intra-region and intra-city passengers give more priority to integrated ticketing because they are daily commuters while inter-city passengers give more priority to information system and availability of modes for dispersal. The lack of signages creates problems for inter-city passengers.
44 per cent pedestrians feel that the reason for walking on road instead of sidewalks is lack of appropriate footpath width while 15 per cent pedestrians feel the obstructions created by tree, light pole or a garbage bin as other major reasons.
18 per cent pedestrians feel the absence of signages causing another inconvenience and impediment in regard to poor information system.
80 per cent pedestrian prefer zebra crossings while 9 per cent preferring foot over-bridges.
70 per cent pedestrians feel that the reason behind fatalities of pedestrians is the lack of pedestrian facilities while 15 per cent pedestrian feel that the fatalities are due to carelessness of drivers.
Apart from Nizamuddin Railway Terminal transit area, ISBT and Kashmiri Gate were also studied in order to appreciate pedestrian behaviour. The responses of pedestrian traffic were not also positive towards facilities provided to them. Therefore, there is an imperative need to address the issues of pedestrian safety at the transit areas.
In view of these, the following are some recommendations made in order to make the transit areas more safe and environment friendly as shown in the photos 1-4.
Facilities for Pedestrian Traffic in Transit Areas
A. Walkable area within transit area
• The permissible walking distance in transit area is 400m and the sufficient area for pedestrians to be aware of other pedestrians in transit area is required to be 1.9-3.3 sq. m/person.
• The greatest pedestrian capture rate for public transit occurs when transit stops are within a 10-minute walking distance from source.
• Direct pedestrian path makes it easier for people to walk.
B. Pedestrian facilities in transit areas — walkways
• Pedestrian walkways should be planned with minimum width of 2m with accessible grade changes.
• Pedestrians should not have to walk more than 200m to escalators, ramps or elevators to change floor level to access transit.
C. Sidewalks
• 1.5m to 2m sidewalk for light pedestrian traffic.
• 5m or more sidewalks for heavy pedestrian traffic.
• To allow walking at near normal speeds the sidewalks must provide continuity without any obstacles.
• The sidewalks should have at least 3.25m wide path (considering disabled pedestrians).
D. Crosswalks
• The crosswalks should be provided at every 30m on the pedestrian streets.
• At the zebra crossing, width of zebra crossing should be within the range of 2m-4m.
• The minimum island size should be 15 sq. m.
• The radii at the corner of the streets varies from 0.7m to 1.7m and with curbside parking, it can vary from 1.7m to 3.5m.
• In case of raised median, being used as pedestrian refuge, such portion could be suitable depressed with curb height not exceeding 15 cm.
E. Ramps
• Ramps must have maximum slope of 1: 20. A level walking space should be provided at the top of the ramp.
• The ramps and landings are required where the slope exceeds 5 per cent.
• For ramps, maximum permissible slope is 8.33 per cent with minimum width of 1m.
• Handrails should be installed along the side of the ramp; more than 0.15m or the length should be greater than 2m.
• The diameter of the handrail should not be more than 0.035 m for proper gripping.
F. Other pedestrian facilities in transit areas
• Signages can add several pedestrian friendly qualities to the streets.
• Use of special paving to break up an expanse or to link pedestrian path with the transit stop restricting pedestrian and vehicular conflicts.
• Street trees should be placed less than 30m apart.
Source- http://www.projectsmonitor.com
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Road, SPA |
\section{Introduction}
Quality assessment of hog carcasses has long been practiced in Canada and many other countries \cite{Fredeen:68,Pomar:09}. The quality of a pork carcass can be determined based on its overall body composition by measuring the amount of muscle, fat, skin and bone, or according to the quantity of these tissues inside the primary and commercial cuts. In the literature, there have been different research objectives to evaluate carcasses' quality and cuts. Gispert \textit{et al.} \cite{Gispert:07} characterized pork carcasses based on their genotypes information, and measurements were taken using a ruler and the Fat-O-Meat’er. Marcoux \textit{et al.} \cite{Marcoux:05} employed dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) technology to predict carcass composition of three genetic lines with a wide range of varying compositions. Pomar \textit{et al.} \cite{Pomar:03} compared two grading systems based on Destron (DPG) and Hennessy (HGP) probe measurements to verify if both grading approaches result in similar lean yields and grading indices in actual pork carcasses. Engel \textit{et al.} \cite{Engel:03} proposed a different sampling scheme by considering some of the predictive variables to check the accuracy and the approval of new grading systems in slaughterhouses. Picouet \textit{et al.} \cite{Picouet:10} suggested a predictive model based on a density correction equation to determine weight and lean content. In an effort to replace traditional procedures such as dissection, Vester-Christensen \textit{et al.} \cite{Vester-Christensen:09} took advantage of computed tomography (CT)-scans and a contextual Bayesian classification scheme to classify pork carcasses into three types of tissues. The cutout and dissection procedure proposed by Nissen \textit{et al.} \cite{Nissen:06} is a well-recognized reference method to assess the quality of pork carcasses. However, this approach is time-consuming, and financially expensive and requires attention, space and qualified personnel in addition to the risk of bias between butchers \cite{Vester-Christensen:09,Picouet:10}.
Hence, the pork industry, including all stakeholders from production to meat sale, is seeking a way to make the most profitable decisions. One solution is to carry out carcass quality evaluations to know the results coming from a choice of genetic lines, a diet or a breeding method. However, due to the difficulties in conducting the cutting and dissection procedure by butchers, the commercial environment has more constraints than the research environment. Therefore, it becomes more important to develop a simple, fast and precise method to replace the traditional approaches in the commercial environment.
In this paper, we digitize carcasses in three-dimensions using a 3D scanner and then make a triangular mesh model of each pork half-carcass to develop a framework for weight prediction of the different cuts and their tissue composition. Unlike images, triangular meshes have irregular connectivity which demands an efficient and concise design to capture the intrinsic information of the object while staying robust against different triangulation \cite{qiao:19}. This requires the design of a descriptor (signature) that is invariant to isometric deformation of a meshed object while keeping discriminative geometric information \cite{Wang:20}. To this end, we employ a compact signature based on spectral analysis of the Laplace-Beltrami Operator (LBO) to capture the intrinsic geometric properties of shapes. This compact representation of 3D objects simplifies the problem of shape comparison to the problem of signature comparison and provides a relatively accurate prediction of pork cut weights.
The spectral signatures can be employed in a broad range of applications including medical shape analysis \cite{Masoumi:18b}, 3D object analysis \cite{Bronstein:11,Rodola:SHREC17,Masoumi:17}, shape matching \cite{Melzi:19}, and segmentation \cite{YI:17}. In the literature, there has been a surge of interest in eigenmodes (eigenvalues and eigenvectors) of LBO to build local or global spectral signatures. The power of spectral signatures is mainly due to the spectrum related to the natural frequencies and the associated eigenvectors that yield the wave pattern \cite{Levy:06,Atasoy:16}.
The local spectral signatures are defined on each vertex of a mesh and provide information about the neighborhood around a vertex \cite{Masoumi:19a}. Intuitively, points around a neighborhood share similar geometric information, hence their corresponding local descriptors should represent similar patterns. The local spectral signatures include heat kernel signature (HKS) \cite{Sun:09}, wave kernel signature (WKS) \cite{Aubry:11}, and global point signature (GPS) \cite{Rustamov:07}. From the graph Fourier view, HKS captures information related to the low-frequency component that relies on macroscopic information of a 3D object. Moreover, WKS allows access to the information of the high-frequency component, which corresponds to the microscopic properties of a 3D model. Furthermore, in GPS we might face the problem of eigenvector's switching when their corresponding eigenvalues are close to each other.
On the other side, global signatures encode information about the geometry of the entire 3D object. Shape-DNA~\cite{Reuter:06} was introduced by Reuter \textit{et al.} as a global signature defined by a non-trivial truncated sequence of eigenvalues normalized by mesh area that are arranged in ascending order. Gao \textit{et al.} proposed compact Shape-DNA \cite{Gao:14} by applying the discrete Fourier transform to eigenvalues of the LBO. A new version of GPS developed by Chaudhari \textit{et al.} \cite{Chaudhari:14}, called GPS embedding, is a global descriptor defined as a truncated sequence of inverse square roots eigenvalues of the LBO. However, global spectral signatures give us limited representation and fail to recognize the fine-grained patterns in a 3D model.
Recently, spectral graph wavelet signature (SGWS) has been developed by Masoumi \textit{et al.} \cite{Masoumi:16} as an efficient and informative local spectral signature, which allows analysis of the 3D mesh in different frequencies. Dissimilar to GPS, HKS, and WKS, SGWS leverages the power of the wavelet to provide the information of both macroscopic and microscopic geometry of shape, leading to a more discriminative feature. In this paper, we introduce \textit{SpectralWeight}, in which each 3D model is represented by SGWS to computerize estimation of the weight of pork cuts. Our objective in this study is to verify the accuracy of prediction for different variables of interest and possibly integrate the calculation method into a complete tool that can be used in a commercial environment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on employing SGWS for weight prediction of pork carcasses.
The contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) we propose a framework to precisely model a pork half-carcass by harnessing the power of the spectral graph wavelets, which is called SpectralWeight; and (2) we exploit the SpectralWeight as a predictive model to weigh different cuts of pork.
\section{Material and Methods}\label{Method}
\subsection{Sampling scheme}
To meet the objectives of this project, we selected $195$ pork carcasses, including $100$ barrows and $95$ females, from commercial slaughterhouses in Quebec, Canada. To obtain a high variability of conformation, carcasses were sampled in a weight range of $83.8$ kg to $116.2$ kg and a backfat thickness range of $7.6$ mm to $30.6$ mm. Backfat thickness was measured using a ruler at the cleft and the level of the fourth-last thoracic vertebra. However, the official backfat measurement was retaken using a digital caliper on a chop cut at the same thoracic level (fourth-last vertebra) $7$ cm from the cleft perpendicular to the skin. The conformation of the carcasses is divided into four different classes represented by the letters C, B, A and AA. Class C represents a long carcass with a thin-looking leg, while class AA represents a stocky carcass with a highly-rounded leg shape (Figure \ref{Carcass conformation}). At the time of weighing, the hot carcass was presented with the head, tail, leaf fat, hanging tender and kidneys. We retained only carcasses properly split in the middle of the spinal column and without tissue ablation. Therefore, each carcass side was considered to be bilaterally symmetric. The scale of variation within each sampling criterion is intended to provide a more robust estimate of the predictive model parameters at the extremes of weight and backfat thickness \cite{Daumas:96}. Only the left half-carcasses were transported to the Sherbrooke Research and Development Center (RDC) of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). The carcasses were stored in a cooler at $2 \degree C$ in a plastic bag to minimize water loss. The 3D scanning, cutout, dissection and determination of meat cut fat content were completed within days of receipt of the carcasses at the AAFC RDC.
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/carcass_conformation.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Pork carcass conformation classes}
\label{Carcass conformation}
\end{figure}
\medskip
\subsection{Half-carcass preparation and modeling}
Before being digitized in 3D, the half-carcasses were prepared in a standard way by removing the tail, the hanging tender and the remains of leaf fat present in the carcass cavity. The jowl was shortened to a uniform length of $15$ cm from the base of the shoulder. The final weight of the half-carcass was subsequently recorded. The total length of the half-carcass was measured using a tape measure from the tip of the rear hooves to the first cervical vertebrae. This length was used to determine the cutting site for the shoulder and ham. Three-dimensional scanning of each half-carcass was performed using the Go!SCAN 3DTM (Model $50$, Creaform, Levis, Quebec, Canada) and post-processed by 3D software (Vxelement, Version 6.3 SR1, Creaform, Levis, Quebec, Canada). The 3D scanner uses white structured light technology without requiring targets affixed to the carcass or additional lighting. Quality control was performed at the beginning of each day by scanning a target provided by the company. All quality controls were passed during the project. The resolution between the mesh points was set to $0.2$ cm and 3D models were saved and used in OBJ format.
\subsection{Cutout and dissection}
Once the half-carcass was scanned, the four primal cuts (leg, shoulder, loin, and belly) were prepared. The leg and shoulder were cut at proportional distances of $40.90\%$ and $85.54\%$ from the total length of the half-carcass, respectively. These proportions were determined in a previous cutout expertise (unpublished results). The primal loin and flank were separated by applying a straight cut passing $1.5$ cm from the tenderloin and $10$ cm from the base of the ribs opposite the fourth-last thoracic vertebra.
The primal cuts were then prepared into commercial cuts according to different standards. The commercial cuts are presented with or without the skin, more or less defatted, and with or without bone, as appropriate. The skin and ribs from the primal belly were removed. Subsequently, the mammary glands and a portion at the posterior end of the belly (belly trimmings) were cut to create a rectangular appearance. Specifications for the preparation of commercial cuts and their identification codes are presented in the Canadian Pork Handbook and the Distributor Education Program (DEP) \cite{CPI:11}. The cuts illustrated and described in this manual correspond to the basic specifications followed by the Canadian pork industry. It is worth noting that there are no reference numbers for the four primal cuts (Leg, Loin, Shoulder, and Belly) presented in \cite{CPI:11}. Figure \ref{primal cuts}, clearly illustrates the four primal cuts, belly commercial trim $C400$, and belly trimmings. The cutout work resulted in the following parts: Pork leg $C100$, Shoulder blade $C320$, Boneless shoulder blade $C325$, Hock $C355$, Shoulder picnic $C311$, Loin $C200$, Boneless loin $C201$, Skinless tenderloin $C228$, Back ribs $C505$, Belly commercial trim $C400$, Side ribs $C500$, and Belly trimmings. The amounts of bone, skin, and meat (muscle and fat not separated) contained in the primal and commercial cuts were obtained by dissection procedure, and weights were recorded. The meat contained in the main commercial cuts (Pork leg $C100$, Boneless loin $C201$, Loin $C200$, Belly commercial trim $C400$, Shoulder picnic $C311$, Boneless shoulder blade $C325$, Belly trimmings) was minced, and a representative sample was taken to determine lipid, protein and dry matter content using near-infrared transmittance \cite{Shirley:07}. It should be noted that lipid content was used in this study to calculate the weight of fat in the meat of the main commercial cuts. To convert the lipid content to dissected fat weight, a sample of pure muscle and pure fat from each meat mass was also analyzed for lipid content using the same method. Using the data collected from the muscle and fat samples for each cut, an equation was developed to convert the meat lipid content to the dissected fat content. This procedure allows an equivalent amount of fat to be obtained without physically separating the muscle and fat from the meat from the entire mass using a knife.
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[scale=1.2]{./Figures/primal_cuts.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Four primal cuts, belly commercial trim C400, and belly trimmings (illustrated in the box). (1) primal ham, (2) primal loin (3) primal shoulder (4) primal belly (5) belly commercial trim C400 (6) belly trimmings.}
\label{primal cuts}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Problem statement and method}
We model a pork half-carcass $\mathbb{T}$ as a triangulated mesh defined as $(\mathcal{V},\mathcal{E})$, where $\mathcal{V}=\{\bm{v}_{i}|i=1,\ldots,N\}$ is the set of vertices, and $\mathcal{E}=\{e_{ij}\}$ is the set of edges. For any vertex coordinate $\mathcal{P}=(p_{1},p_{2},p_{3}):\,\mathcal{V}\to\mathbb{R}^{3}$, our objective is to build a local descriptor $f(\bm{v}_{i}) \in \mathbb{R}^{d}$ for each vertex $\bm{v}_{i}$. Figure \ref{Triangulated carcass} (left) represents an example of triangulated mesh on a random pork half-carcass.
\medskip
We build the SpectralWeight framework based on the eigensystem of the LBO that are invariant to the deformation of non-rigid shapes. To achieve the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, we discretize the LBO using a cotangent weight scheme as proposed by \cite{Meyer:03}. We build our Laplacian matrix by:
\begin{equation}
\bm{L}=\bm{A}^{-1}(\bm{D-W}),
\end{equation}
where $\bm{A}=\mathrm{diag}(a_{i})$ is a mass matrix, $\bm{D}=\mathrm{diag}(d_{i})$ is a degree matrix constructed by $d_{i}=\sum_{j=1}^{n}w_{ij}$, and $\bm{W}=(w_{ij})=\left(\cot\alpha_{ij} + \cot\beta_{ij}\right)/2a_{i}$ is a sparse weight matrix if $\bm{v}_{i}\sim \bm{v}_{j}$. Also, $\alpha_{ij}$ and $\beta_{ij}$ are the angles $\angle(\bm{v}_{i}\bm{v}_{k_1}\bm{v}_{j})$ and $\angle(\bm{v}_{i}\bm{v}_{k_2}\bm{v}_{j})$ of two adjacent triangles $\bm{t}^{\alpha}=\{\bm{v}_{i},\bm{v}_{j},\bm{v}_{k_1}\}$ and $\bm{t}^{\beta}=\{\bm{v}_{i},\bm{v}_{j},\bm{v}_{k_2}\}$, and $a_i$ is the area of the Voronoi cell at vertex $\bm{v}_{i}$, the shaded area. Finally, the eigensystem of LBO is obtained by solving the \textit{generalized eigenvalue problem}, such that:
\begin{equation}
\bm{C}\bg{\xi}_{\ell}=\lambda_{\ell}\bm{A}\bg{\xi}_{\ell},
\end{equation}
where $\bm{C}=\bm{D-W}$, and $\lambda_{\ell}$ and $\bg{\xi}_{\ell}$ are the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of LBO, respectively. We define the spectral graph wavelet based for vertex $j$ and scale $t$ as \cite{Masoumi:16}:
\begin{equation}
\bm{s}_{L}(j)=\{W_{\delta_j}(t_k,j)\mid k=1,\dots,L\}\cup\{S_{\delta_j}(j)\},
\label{Eq:SGWSignatureLevel}
\end{equation}
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[scale=.3]{./Figures/TriangleMeshRep.pdf}&
\hspace{1.5cm}
\includegraphics[scale=.3]{./Figures/cotangent_weight.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Triangulated mesh model of a pork half-carcass (Left); illustration of cotangent weight scheme (Right).}
\label{Triangulated carcass}
\end{figure}
where $ W_{\delta_j}(t_k,j)$ and $S_{\delta_j}(j)$ are the spectral graph wavelet and scaling function coefficients at resolution level $L$, respectively, as follows (readers are referred to \cite{Masoumi:16} for detailed description):
\begin{equation}
W_{\delta_j}(t,j)=\langle \bg{\delta}_{j},\bg{\psi}_{t,j} \rangle=\sum_{\ell=1}^{m}g(t\lambda_\ell)\xi_{\ell}^{2}(j),
\label{DeltaW_coefficients}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
S_{\delta_j}(j)=
\langle \bg{\delta}_{j},\bg{\phi}_{t} \rangle=
\sum_{\ell=1}^{m}h(\lambda_\ell)\xi_{\ell}^{2}(j).
\label{DeltaS_coefficients}
\end{equation}
We consider the Mexican hat wavelet as a generating filter, which treats all frequencies as equally-important and improves the discriminative power of the SpectralWeight. The SpectralWeight takes advantage of nice properties like insensitivity to isometric deformations and efficiency in computation. Moreover, SpectralWeight merges the advantages of both band-pass and low-pass filters for building the local descriptor. Figure \ref{SGWT representation} depicts a representation of SGWT when computing a $\chi^{2}$-distance from a highlighted point on the belly from other points on the carcass. As can be observed, regions with similar geometrical structures share the same color, while regions with dissimilar structures from the specified point bear different colors.
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{ccccc}
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT1.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT2.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT3.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT4.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT5.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Visualization of different resolutions (left to right: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th) of the spectral graph wavelet signature from a specified point (shown as a pink sphere) on a random pork half-carcass. The cooler and warmer colors represent lower and higher distance values, respectively.}
\label{SGWT representation}
\end{figure}
\medskip
The SpectralWeight framework includes the subsequent steps: We first compute an SGWS matrix $\bm{D}$ for each half-carcass in the dataset $\mathcal{S}$, where $\bm{D}=(\bm{d}_{1},\dots,\bm{d}_{m})\in\mathbb{R}^{p\times m}$, and $\bm{d}_i$ is the $p$-dimensional point signature at vertex $i$ and $m$ is the number of mesh points. In the second step, we construct a $p\times k$ dictionary matrix $\bm{V}=(\bm{v}_{1},\dots,\bm{v}_{k})$ through an unsupervised learning algorithm, i.e. clustering, by assigning each $m$ local descriptor into the $k$-th cluster with the nearest mean. In the next step, we employ the soft-assignment coding to map SGWSs $\bm{s}_{i}$ to high-dimensional mid-level feature vectors. This leads to a $k\times m$ matrix $\bm{C}=(\bm{c}_{1},\dots,\bm{c}_{m})$ whose columns are the $k$-dimensional mid-level feature codes. In a bid to aggregate the learned high-dimensional local features, we build a $k \times 1$ histogram $h_{r}=\sum_{i=1}^{m}c_{ri}$ for each half-carcass by sum-pooling the cluster assignment matrix $\bm{C}$. Then, we concatenate the SpectralWeight vectors $\bm{x}_i$ of all $n$ half-carcasses in the dataset $\mathcal{S}$ into a $k\times n$ data matrix $\bm{X}=(\bm{x}_{1},\dots,\bm{x}_{n})$. Afterward, we calculate geodesic distance $g$ \cite{kimmel:98} to extract the diameter of the 3D mesh as well as the volume $v$ of each half-carcass $\mathbb{T}_{i}$ and then aggregate them into $\bm{X}$ to provide further discrimination power for SpectralWeight. Finally, a partial least-squares regression (PLS) is performed on the data matrix $\bm{X}$ to find the equation giving the best fit for a set of data observations. The main steps of SpectralWeight framework are briefly outlined in Algorithm \ref{algo:1}.
\begin{algorithm}
\caption{SpectralWeight algorithmic steps}\label{algo:1}
\begin{algorithmic}[1]
\REQUIRE Set of triangular meshes of $n$ pork half-carcasses $\mathcal{S}=\{\mathbb{T}_1,\dots,\mathbb{T}_n\}$ and their weights $\mathbf{w}$
\STATE Simplify each model to have a uniform number of vertices.
\FOR{$j=1$ to $n$}
\STATE Compute SGWS matrix $\bm{D}_{j}$ of size $p\times m$ for each half-carcass $\mathbb{T}_{j}$.
\STATE Employ soft-assignment coding to determine the $k\times m$ code assignment matrix $\bm{C}_{j}$, where $k>p$.
\STATE Represent each half-carcass $\mathbb{T}_{j}$ as a $k \times 1$ histogram $\bm{h}$ by pooling of code assignment matrix $\bm{C}_{j}$.
\STATE Calculate volume $\bm{v}_{j}$ and diameter of the mesh through geodesic distance $\bm{g}_{j}$ for each 3D model in $\mathcal{S}$.
\ENDFOR
\STATE Arrange all the $n$ histograms $\bm{h}$ into a $n\times k$ data matrix $\bm{X}=(\bm{x}_1,\dots,\bm{x}_n)^{T}$.
\STATE Aggregate mesh diameter, volume $\bm{v}$ and weight $\bm{w}$ to $n\times (k+3)$ data matrix $\bm{X}$.
\STATE Perform partial least-squares regression on $\bm{X}$ to find the $n$-dimensional vector $\hat{\bm{y}}$ of predicted cut weights.
\ENSURE $n$-dimensional vector $\hat{\bm{y}}$ containing predicted weights of pork composition.
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
We carried out the experiments on a laptop using an Intel Core i$7$ processor with $2.00$ GHz and $16$ GB RAM. Also, our implementation was done in MATLAB. We also considered $301$ eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors of the LBO.
In this study, we set the resolution parameter as $R = 2$, leading to an SGWS matrix of size $5\times m$, where $m$ is the number of points in our 3D half-carcass model. Besides, we considered four components for our PLS regression. It is noteworthy that the training process is performed offline on concatenated $p\times mn$ SGWS matrices from $n$ meshes in dataset $\mathcal{S}$ achieved by applying k-means algorithm for the dictionary building process.
\begin{table}[b]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of primal cuts.}
\label{Table:primal cuts}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
\toprule
Dependent variables\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\midrule
Ham & \quad $12.032$ & \quad $0.844$ & \quad $9.371$ & \quad $14.003$ & \quad $0.80$ & \quad $0.377$ & \quad $3.13$\\
\midrule
Shoulder & \quad $12.507$ & \quad $0.879$ & \quad $9.976$ & \quad $14.778$ & \quad $0.79$ & \quad $0.399$ & \quad $3.19$\\
\midrule
Loin & \quad $12.318$ & \quad $0.984$ & \quad $9.448$ & \quad $15.041$ & \quad $0.73$ & \quad $0.507$ & \quad $4.12$\\
\midrule
Belly & \quad $8.692$ & \quad $0.863$ & \quad $6.288$ & \quad $10.986$ & \quad $0.78$ & \quad $0.406$ & \quad $4.67$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
\section{Results and Discussion}\label{experiment}
We assessed the performance of our proposed SpectralWeight framework for measuring hog carcass quality via extensive experiments. We created 3D models of 195 half-carcasses using a 3D scanner, followed by downsampling the mesh surfaces to have roughly $3000$ vertices for each model. We subsequently applied SpectralWeight to extract geometric features of 3D models and then employed the PLS regression to find the best parameters for the weight prediction of pork compositions. The basic idea behind PLS \cite{Wold:84} is to project high-dimensional features into a subspace with a lower dimension. The features in the new subspace, so-called latent features, are a linear combination of the original features. PLS is useful in cases where the number of variables $(k+3)$ in a data matrix $\bm{X}$ are substantially greater than the number of observations $n$. We took advantage of PLS regression since multiple linear regression fails due to multicollinearity among $\bm{X}$ variables. The regression is consequently performed on the latent variables.
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of commercial cuts.}
\label{Table:commercial cuts}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
\toprule
Dependent variables\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\midrule
Pork leg C100 & \quad $11.314$ & \quad $0.816$ & \quad $8.745$ & \quad $13.317$ & \quad $0.80$ & \quad $0.365$ & \quad $3.22$\\
\midrule
Shoulder picnic C311 & \quad $4.510$ & \quad $0.446$ & \quad $3.529$ & \quad $5.789$ & \quad $0.54$ & \quad $0.304$ & \quad $6.73$\\
\midrule
Shoulder blade C320 & \quad $4.912$ & \quad $0.457$ & \quad $3.695$ & \quad $5.974$ & \quad $0.64$ & \quad $0.274$ & \quad $5.57$\\
\midrule
Shoulder blade boneless C325 & \quad $4.068$ & \quad $0.380$ & \quad $3.088$ & \quad $5.034$ & \quad $0.60$ & \quad $0.240$ & \quad $5.90$\\
\midrule
Loin C200 & \quad $10.065$ & \quad $0.820$ & \quad $6.849$ & \quad $12.034$ & \quad $0.70$ & \quad $0.446$ & \quad $4.43$\\
\midrule
Loin boneless C201 & \quad $7.370$ & \quad $0.661$ & \quad $4.686$ & \quad $9.392$ & \quad $0.64$ & \quad $0.395$ & \quad $5.36$\\
\midrule
Loin back ribs C505 & \quad $0.675$ & \quad $0.076$ & \quad $0.501$ & \quad $0.914$ & \quad $0.42$ & \quad $0.057$ & \quad $8.52$\\
\midrule
Tenderloin (skinless) C228 & \quad $0.477$ & \quad $0.065$ & \quad $0.262$ & \quad $0.669$ & \quad $0.56$ & \quad $0.043$ & \quad $8.97$\\
\midrule
Belly C400 & \quad $4.636$ & \quad $0.596$ & \quad $3.136$ & \quad $6.369$ & \quad $0.70$ & \quad $0.324$ & \quad $6.98$\\
\midrule
Belly trimmings & \quad $1.805$ & \quad $0.227$ & \quad $1.187$ & \quad $2.425$ & \quad $0.54$ & \quad $0.154$ & \quad $8.53$\\
\midrule
Side ribs (regular trim) C500 & \quad $1.855$ & \quad $0.214$ & \quad $1.226$ & \quad $2.434$ & \quad $0.51$ & \quad $0.150$ & \quad $8.06$\\
\midrule
Hock C355 & \quad $1.050$ & \quad $0.114$ & \quad $0.606$ & \quad $1.363$ & \quad $0.41$ & \quad $0.088$ & \quad $8.35$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of tissue composition in major commercial cuts.}
\label{Table:major commercial cuts}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{lllllllll}
\toprule
Items\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Tissue composition & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Pork leg C100} & \quad Muscle & \quad $8.014$ & \quad $0.704$ & \quad $5.860$ & \quad $10.124$ & \quad $0.68$ & \quad $0.396$ & \quad $4.95$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $1.934$ & \quad $0.427$ & \quad $1.115$ & \quad $3.102$ & \quad $0.67$ & \quad $0.243$ & \quad $12.59$\\
&
\quad Bone & \quad $0.941$ & \quad $0.080$ & \quad $0.757$ & \quad $1.172$ & \quad $0.56$ & \quad $0.053$ & \quad $5.62$\\
&
\quad Skin & \quad $0.391$ & \quad $0.061$ & \quad $0.257$ & \quad $0.619$ & \quad $0.28$ & \quad $0.052$ & \quad $13.22$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Shoulder picnic C311} & \quad Muscle & \quad $3.016$ & \quad $0.390$ & \quad $1.965$ & \quad $4.053$ & \quad $0.42$ & \quad $0.297$ & \quad $9.83$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $0.937$ & \quad $0.200$ & \quad $0.484$ & \quad $1.572$ & \quad $0.56$ & \quad $0.133$ & \quad $14.18$\\
&
\quad Bone & \quad $0.380$ & \quad $0.042$ & \quad $0.313$ & \quad $0.563$ & \quad $0.38$ & \quad $0.033$ & \quad $8.66$\\
&
\quad Skin & \quad $0.164$ & \quad $0.024$ & \quad $0.100$ & \quad $0.230$ & \quad $0.23$ & \quad $0.021$ & \quad $12.93$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Shoulder blade boneless C325} & \quad Muscle & \quad $3.178$ & \quad $0.315$ & \quad $2.263$ & \quad $4.026$ & \quad $0.57$ & \quad $0.207$ & \quad $6.51$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $0.890$ & \quad $0.169$ & \quad $0.472$ & \quad $1.372$ & \quad $0.53$ & \quad $0.116$ & \quad $13.01$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Loin boneless C201} & \quad Muscle & \quad $5.847$ & \quad $0.645$ & \quad $3.503$ & \quad $7.516$ & \quad $0.61$ & \quad $0.404$ & \quad $6.91$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $1.523$ & \quad $0.255$ & \quad $0.757$ & \quad $2.205$ & \quad $0.63$ & \quad $0.155$ & \quad $10.17$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Belly C400} & \quad Muscle & \quad $2.689$ & \quad $0.374$ & \quad $1.835$ & \quad $3.620$ & \quad $0.62$ & \quad $0.229$ & \quad $8.53$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $1.947$ & \quad $0.474$ & \quad $0.778$ & \quad $3.077$ & \quad $0.70$ & \quad $0.260$ & \quad $13.36$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Belly Trimmings} & \quad Muscle & \quad $0.811$ & \quad $0.124$ & \quad $0.297$ & \quad $1.154$ & \quad $0.29$ & \quad $0.104$ & \quad $12.80$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $0.994$ & \quad $0.204$ & \quad $0.512$ & \quad $1.699$ & \quad $0.45$ & \quad $0.151$ & \quad $15.18$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
To evaluate the performance of the SpectralWeight, we utilized some performance measurements such as coefficient of determination ($R^{2}-score$), root mean square error ($RMSE$), and coefficient of variation error ($CVe$). It is worth noting that since $CVe$ considers the information of the average weight of the cut, it is a more reliable and fair evaluation metric. To circumvent overfitting, we carefully performed leave-one-out cross-validation over the pork shapes by randomly sampling a set of training instances from our pork carcass dataset for learning and a separate hold-out set for testing. Tables \ref{Table:primal cuts} to \ref{Table:tissue composition} demonstrate the descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of primal cuts, commercial cuts, tissue composition in major commercial cuts, and tissue composition in half-carcasses, respectively.
Table \ref{Table:primal cuts} shows the accuracy of weight prediction for primal cuts. Also, the standard deviation and mean of each primal cut is computed and considered. As can be seen, the lowest prediction error belongs to Ham cut with $CVe=3.13$, while the highest prediction error corresponds to Belly cut with $CVe=4.67$.
Table \ref{Table:commercial cuts} shows the performance of our algorithm for predicting the weights of commercial cuts. As shown, pork leg $C100$ achieved the highest accuracy of prediction with $CVe=3.22$, while Tenderloin (skinless) $C228$ has the lowest accuracy with $CVe=8.97$.
We extended our experiments to further evaluating the major commercial cuts by predicting their tissue composition. The two major commercial cuts of pork leg $C100$ and shoulder picnic $C311$ consist of four tissues, i.e. muscle, fat, bone and skin. As can be observed from Table \ref{Table:major commercial cuts}, best weight predictions correspond to the muscle tissue of pork leg $C100$ and bone tissue of shoulder picnic $C311$ with a correlation of variation error of $4.95$ and $8.66$, respectively. Shoulder blade boneless $C325$, loin boneless $C201$, belly $C400$ and belly trimmings are the other tissues of the major commercial cuts that are composed of only muscle and fat. As shown in Table \ref{Table:major commercial cuts}, for all the four tissues, muscle tissue gained the highest prediction accuracy with $CVe$ of $6.51$, $6.91$, $8.53$, and $12.80$, respectively.
In a bid to investigate the amount of the total tissue composition of muscle, fat, bone, and skin in the half-carcasses, we present Table \ref{Table:tissue composition}, in which the characteristic information of each tissue for the $195$ half-carcasses is demonstrated separately. More precisely, the amount of muscle is achieved by summing up the major commercial cuts including $C100$, $C311$, $C325$, $C201$, $C400$ and the belly trimmings. For the fat, we took into account the major commercial cuts containing $C100$, $C311$, $C325$, $C201$, $C400$, and in the belly trimmings. To calculate the amount of bone, we considered the sum of bone tissue from the half-carcass except the bone tissue contained in the feet, the hock, and the ribs. Also, the amount of skin is obtained by adding the skins from the half-carcass except the skin on the feet, the hock, and the jowl.
As can be seen, our proposed framework is able to predict the weight of muscle tissue with a lower correlation variation of $4.11$ as well as a higher correlation of determination of $R^{2}=0.77$ than the other tissues, respectively. Since muscle is a more valuable tissue for commercial uses, our results for estimating muscle tissue make our algorithm a potential candidate for replacing the traditional methods of carcass quality assessment.
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of tissue composition in half-carcass.}
\label{Table:tissue composition}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
\toprule
Items of composition\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\midrule
Muscle & \quad $23.553$ & \quad $2.041$ & \quad $16.394$ & \quad $28.451$ & \quad $0.77$ & \quad $0.968$ & \quad $4.11$\\
\midrule
Fat & \quad $10.575$ & \quad $2.158$ & \quad $5.076$ & \quad $16.152$ & \quad $0.73$ & \quad $0.771$ & \quad $9.37$\\
\midrule
Bone & \quad $2.968$ & \quad $0.257$ & \quad $2.377$ & \quad $3.641$ & \quad $0.68$ & \quad $0.145$ & \quad $4.88$\\
\midrule
Skin & \quad $1.541$ & \quad $0.173$ & \quad $1.100$ & \quad $2.053$ & \quad $0.33$ & \quad $0.141$ & \quad $9.15$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
\section{Conclusions}
In this study, we introduced SpectralWeight to estimate the quality of pork carcasses by weight prediction of pork cuts. We first built the spectral graph wavelet signature for every mesh point locally and then aggregated them as a global feature through the bag-of-geometric-words notion. To further ameliorate the discrimination power of SpectralWeight, we merged information of mesh diameter and volume to our pipeline. As the results show, our proposed method can predict the weight of different cuts and tissues of a pork half-carcass with high accuracy and hence is practical to be employed in the pork industry.
\section{Acknowledgements}
This work was supported by Swine Innovation Porc within the Swine Cluster 2: Driving Results Through Innovation research program. Funding is provided by Agriculture and Agri‐Food Canada through the AgriInnovation Program, provincial producer organizations and industry partners.
\bibliographystyle{splncs04}
\section{Introduction}
Quality assessment of hog carcasses has long been practiced in Canada and many other countries \cite{Fredeen:68,Pomar:09}. The quality of a pork carcass can be determined based on its overall body composition by measuring the amount of muscle, fat, skin and bone, or according to the quantity of these tissues inside the primary and commercial cuts. In the literature, there have been different research objectives to evaluate carcasses' quality and cuts. Gispert \textit{et al.} \cite{Gispert:07} characterized pork carcasses based on their genotypes information, and measurements were taken using a ruler and the Fat-O-Meat’er. Marcoux \textit{et al.} \cite{Marcoux:05} employed dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) technology to predict carcass composition of three genetic lines with a wide range of varying compositions. Pomar \textit{et al.} \cite{Pomar:03} compared two grading systems based on Destron (DPG) and Hennessy (HGP) probe measurements to verify if both grading approaches result in similar lean yields and grading indices in actual pork carcasses. Engel \textit{et al.} \cite{Engel:03} proposed a different sampling scheme by considering some of the predictive variables to check the accuracy and the approval of new grading systems in slaughterhouses. Picouet \textit{et al.} \cite{Picouet:10} suggested a predictive model based on a density correction equation to determine weight and lean content. In an effort to replace traditional procedures such as dissection, Vester-Christensen \textit{et al.} \cite{Vester-Christensen:09} took advantage of computed tomography (CT)-scans and a contextual Bayesian classification scheme to classify pork carcasses into three types of tissues. The cutout and dissection procedure proposed by Nissen \textit{et al.} \cite{Nissen:06} is a well-recognized reference method to assess the quality of pork carcasses. However, this approach is time-consuming, and financially expensive and requires attention, space and qualified personnel in addition to the risk of bias between butchers \cite{Vester-Christensen:09,Picouet:10}.
Hence, the pork industry, including all stakeholders from production to meat sale, is seeking a way to make the most profitable decisions. One solution is to carry out carcass quality evaluations to know the results coming from a choice of genetic lines, a diet or a breeding method. However, due to the difficulties in conducting the cutting and dissection procedure by butchers, the commercial environment has more constraints than the research environment. Therefore, it becomes more important to develop a simple, fast and precise method to replace the traditional approaches in the commercial environment.
In this paper, we digitize carcasses in three-dimensions using a 3D scanner and then make a triangular mesh model of each pork half-carcass to develop a framework for weight prediction of the different cuts and their tissue composition. Unlike images, triangular meshes have irregular connectivity which demands an efficient and concise design to capture the intrinsic information of the object while staying robust against different triangulation \cite{qiao:19}. This requires the design of a descriptor (signature) that is invariant to isometric deformation of a meshed object while keeping discriminative geometric information \cite{Wang:20}. To this end, we employ a compact signature based on spectral analysis of the Laplace-Beltrami Operator (LBO) to capture the intrinsic geometric properties of shapes. This compact representation of 3D objects simplifies the problem of shape comparison to the problem of signature comparison and provides a relatively accurate prediction of pork cut weights.
The spectral signatures can be employed in a broad range of applications including medical shape analysis \cite{Masoumi:18b}, 3D object analysis \cite{Bronstein:11,Rodola:SHREC17,Masoumi:17}, shape matching \cite{Melzi:19}, and segmentation \cite{YI:17}. In the literature, there has been a surge of interest in eigenmodes (eigenvalues and eigenvectors) of LBO to build local or global spectral signatures. The power of spectral signatures is mainly due to the spectrum related to the natural frequencies and the associated eigenvectors that yield the wave pattern \cite{Levy:06,Atasoy:16}.
The local spectral signatures are defined on each vertex of a mesh and provide information about the neighborhood around a vertex \cite{Masoumi:19a}. Intuitively, points around a neighborhood share similar geometric information, hence their corresponding local descriptors should represent similar patterns. The local spectral signatures include heat kernel signature (HKS) \cite{Sun:09}, wave kernel signature (WKS) \cite{Aubry:11}, and global point signature (GPS) \cite{Rustamov:07}. From the graph Fourier view, HKS captures information related to the low-frequency component that relies on macroscopic information of a 3D object. Moreover, WKS allows access to the information of the high-frequency component, which corresponds to the microscopic properties of a 3D model. Furthermore, in GPS we might face the problem of eigenvector's switching when their corresponding eigenvalues are close to each other.
On the other side, global signatures encode information about the geometry of the entire 3D object. Shape-DNA~\cite{Reuter:06} was introduced by Reuter \textit{et al.} as a global signature defined by a non-trivial truncated sequence of eigenvalues normalized by mesh area that are arranged in ascending order. Gao \textit{et al.} proposed compact Shape-DNA \cite{Gao:14} by applying the discrete Fourier transform to eigenvalues of the LBO. A new version of GPS developed by Chaudhari \textit{et al.} \cite{Chaudhari:14}, called GPS embedding, is a global descriptor defined as a truncated sequence of inverse square roots eigenvalues of the LBO. However, global spectral signatures give us limited representation and fail to recognize the fine-grained patterns in a 3D model.
Recently, spectral graph wavelet signature (SGWS) has been developed by Masoumi \textit{et al.} \cite{Masoumi:16} as an efficient and informative local spectral signature, which allows analysis of the 3D mesh in different frequencies. Dissimilar to GPS, HKS, and WKS, SGWS leverages the power of the wavelet to provide the information of both macroscopic and microscopic geometry of shape, leading to a more discriminative feature. In this paper, we introduce \textit{SpectralWeight}, in which each 3D model is represented by SGWS to computerize estimation of the weight of pork cuts. Our objective in this study is to verify the accuracy of prediction for different variables of interest and possibly integrate the calculation method into a complete tool that can be used in a commercial environment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on employing SGWS for weight prediction of pork carcasses.
The contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) we propose a framework to precisely model a pork half-carcass by harnessing the power of the spectral graph wavelets, which is called SpectralWeight; and (2) we exploit the SpectralWeight as a predictive model to weigh different cuts of pork.
\section{Material and Methods}\label{Method}
\subsection{Sampling scheme}
To meet the objectives of this project, we selected $195$ pork carcasses, including $100$ barrows and $95$ females, from commercial slaughterhouses in Quebec, Canada. To obtain a high variability of conformation, carcasses were sampled in a weight range of $83.8$ kg to $116.2$ kg and a backfat thickness range of $7.6$ mm to $30.6$ mm. Backfat thickness was measured using a ruler at the cleft and the level of the fourth-last thoracic vertebra. However, the official backfat measurement was retaken using a digital caliper on a chop cut at the same thoracic level (fourth-last vertebra) $7$ cm from the cleft perpendicular to the skin. The conformation of the carcasses is divided into four different classes represented by the letters C, B, A and AA. Class C represents a long carcass with a thin-looking leg, while class AA represents a stocky carcass with a highly-rounded leg shape (Figure \ref{Carcass conformation}). At the time of weighing, the hot carcass was presented with the head, tail, leaf fat, hanging tender and kidneys. We retained only carcasses properly split in the middle of the spinal column and without tissue ablation. Therefore, each carcass side was considered to be bilaterally symmetric. The scale of variation within each sampling criterion is intended to provide a more robust estimate of the predictive model parameters at the extremes of weight and backfat thickness \cite{Daumas:96}. Only the left half-carcasses were transported to the Sherbrooke Research and Development Center (RDC) of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). The carcasses were stored in a cooler at $2 \degree C$ in a plastic bag to minimize water loss. The 3D scanning, cutout, dissection and determination of meat cut fat content were completed within days of receipt of the carcasses at the AAFC RDC.
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/carcass_conformation.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Pork carcass conformation classes}
\label{Carcass conformation}
\end{figure}
\medskip
\subsection{Half-carcass preparation and modeling}
Before being digitized in 3D, the half-carcasses were prepared in a standard way by removing the tail, the hanging tender and the remains of leaf fat present in the carcass cavity. The jowl was shortened to a uniform length of $15$ cm from the base of the shoulder. The final weight of the half-carcass was subsequently recorded. The total length of the half-carcass was measured using a tape measure from the tip of the rear hooves to the first cervical vertebrae. This length was used to determine the cutting site for the shoulder and ham. Three-dimensional scanning of each half-carcass was performed using the Go!SCAN 3DTM (Model $50$, Creaform, Levis, Quebec, Canada) and post-processed by 3D software (Vxelement, Version 6.3 SR1, Creaform, Levis, Quebec, Canada). The 3D scanner uses white structured light technology without requiring targets affixed to the carcass or additional lighting. Quality control was performed at the beginning of each day by scanning a target provided by the company. All quality controls were passed during the project. The resolution between the mesh points was set to $0.2$ cm and 3D models were saved and used in OBJ format.
\subsection{Cutout and dissection}
Once the half-carcass was scanned, the four primal cuts (leg, shoulder, loin, and belly) were prepared. The leg and shoulder were cut at proportional distances of $40.90\%$ and $85.54\%$ from the total length of the half-carcass, respectively. These proportions were determined in a previous cutout expertise (unpublished results). The primal loin and flank were separated by applying a straight cut passing $1.5$ cm from the tenderloin and $10$ cm from the base of the ribs opposite the fourth-last thoracic vertebra.
The primal cuts were then prepared into commercial cuts according to different standards. The commercial cuts are presented with or without the skin, more or less defatted, and with or without bone, as appropriate. The skin and ribs from the primal belly were removed. Subsequently, the mammary glands and a portion at the posterior end of the belly (belly trimmings) were cut to create a rectangular appearance. Specifications for the preparation of commercial cuts and their identification codes are presented in the Canadian Pork Handbook and the Distributor Education Program (DEP) \cite{CPI:11}. The cuts illustrated and described in this manual correspond to the basic specifications followed by the Canadian pork industry. It is worth noting that there are no reference numbers for the four primal cuts (Leg, Loin, Shoulder, and Belly) presented in \cite{CPI:11}. Figure \ref{primal cuts}, clearly illustrates the four primal cuts, belly commercial trim $C400$, and belly trimmings. The cutout work resulted in the following parts: Pork leg $C100$, Shoulder blade $C320$, Boneless shoulder blade $C325$, Hock $C355$, Shoulder picnic $C311$, Loin $C200$, Boneless loin $C201$, Skinless tenderloin $C228$, Back ribs $C505$, Belly commercial trim $C400$, Side ribs $C500$, and Belly trimmings. The amounts of bone, skin, and meat (muscle and fat not separated) contained in the primal and commercial cuts were obtained by dissection procedure, and weights were recorded. The meat contained in the main commercial cuts (Pork leg $C100$, Boneless loin $C201$, Loin $C200$, Belly commercial trim $C400$, Shoulder picnic $C311$, Boneless shoulder blade $C325$, Belly trimmings) was minced, and a representative sample was taken to determine lipid, protein and dry matter content using near-infrared transmittance \cite{Shirley:07}. It should be noted that lipid content was used in this study to calculate the weight of fat in the meat of the main commercial cuts. To convert the lipid content to dissected fat weight, a sample of pure muscle and pure fat from each meat mass was also analyzed for lipid content using the same method. Using the data collected from the muscle and fat samples for each cut, an equation was developed to convert the meat lipid content to the dissected fat content. This procedure allows an equivalent amount of fat to be obtained without physically separating the muscle and fat from the meat from the entire mass using a knife.
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[scale=1.2]{./Figures/primal_cuts.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Four primal cuts, belly commercial trim C400, and belly trimmings (illustrated in the box). (1) primal ham, (2) primal loin (3) primal shoulder (4) primal belly (5) belly commercial trim C400 (6) belly trimmings.}
\label{primal cuts}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Problem statement and method}
We model a pork half-carcass $\mathbb{T}$ as a triangulated mesh defined as $(\mathcal{V},\mathcal{E})$, where $\mathcal{V}=\{\bm{v}_{i}|i=1,\ldots,N\}$ is the set of vertices, and $\mathcal{E}=\{e_{ij}\}$ is the set of edges. For any vertex coordinate $\mathcal{P}=(p_{1},p_{2},p_{3}):\,\mathcal{V}\to\mathbb{R}^{3}$, our objective is to build a local descriptor $f(\bm{v}_{i}) \in \mathbb{R}^{d}$ for each vertex $\bm{v}_{i}$. Figure \ref{Triangulated carcass} (left) represents an example of triangulated mesh on a random pork half-carcass.
\medskip
We build the SpectralWeight framework based on the eigensystem of the LBO that are invariant to the deformation of non-rigid shapes. To achieve the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, we discretize the LBO using a cotangent weight scheme as proposed by \cite{Meyer:03}. We build our Laplacian matrix by:
\begin{equation}
\bm{L}=\bm{A}^{-1}(\bm{D-W}),
\end{equation}
where $\bm{A}=\mathrm{diag}(a_{i})$ is a mass matrix, $\bm{D}=\mathrm{diag}(d_{i})$ is a degree matrix constructed by $d_{i}=\sum_{j=1}^{n}w_{ij}$, and $\bm{W}=(w_{ij})=\left(\cot\alpha_{ij} + \cot\beta_{ij}\right)/2a_{i}$ is a sparse weight matrix if $\bm{v}_{i}\sim \bm{v}_{j}$. Also, $\alpha_{ij}$ and $\beta_{ij}$ are the angles $\angle(\bm{v}_{i}\bm{v}_{k_1}\bm{v}_{j})$ and $\angle(\bm{v}_{i}\bm{v}_{k_2}\bm{v}_{j})$ of two adjacent triangles $\bm{t}^{\alpha}=\{\bm{v}_{i},\bm{v}_{j},\bm{v}_{k_1}\}$ and $\bm{t}^{\beta}=\{\bm{v}_{i},\bm{v}_{j},\bm{v}_{k_2}\}$, and $a_i$ is the area of the Voronoi cell at vertex $\bm{v}_{i}$, the shaded area. Finally, the eigensystem of LBO is obtained by solving the \textit{generalized eigenvalue problem}, such that:
\begin{equation}
\bm{C}\bg{\xi}_{\ell}=\lambda_{\ell}\bm{A}\bg{\xi}_{\ell},
\end{equation}
where $\bm{C}=\bm{D-W}$, and $\lambda_{\ell}$ and $\bg{\xi}_{\ell}$ are the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of LBO, respectively. We define the spectral graph wavelet based for vertex $j$ and scale $t$ as \cite{Masoumi:16}:
\begin{equation}
\bm{s}_{L}(j)=\{W_{\delta_j}(t_k,j)\mid k=1,\dots,L\}\cup\{S_{\delta_j}(j)\},
\label{Eq:SGWSignatureLevel}
\end{equation}
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[scale=.3]{./Figures/TriangleMeshRep.pdf}&
\hspace{1.5cm}
\includegraphics[scale=.3]{./Figures/cotangent_weight.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Triangulated mesh model of a pork half-carcass (Left); illustration of cotangent weight scheme (Right).}
\label{Triangulated carcass}
\end{figure}
where $ W_{\delta_j}(t_k,j)$ and $S_{\delta_j}(j)$ are the spectral graph wavelet and scaling function coefficients at resolution level $L$, respectively, as follows (readers are referred to \cite{Masoumi:16} for detailed description):
\begin{equation}
W_{\delta_j}(t,j)=\langle \bg{\delta}_{j},\bg{\psi}_{t,j} \rangle=\sum_{\ell=1}^{m}g(t\lambda_\ell)\xi_{\ell}^{2}(j),
\label{DeltaW_coefficients}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
S_{\delta_j}(j)=
\langle \bg{\delta}_{j},\bg{\phi}_{t} \rangle=
\sum_{\ell=1}^{m}h(\lambda_\ell)\xi_{\ell}^{2}(j).
\label{DeltaS_coefficients}
\end{equation}
We consider the Mexican hat wavelet as a generating filter, which treats all frequencies as equally-important and improves the discriminative power of the SpectralWeight. The SpectralWeight takes advantage of nice properties like insensitivity to isometric deformations and efficiency in computation. Moreover, SpectralWeight merges the advantages of both band-pass and low-pass filters for building the local descriptor. Figure \ref{SGWT representation} depicts a representation of SGWT when computing a $\chi^{2}$-distance from a highlighted point on the belly from other points on the carcass. As can be observed, regions with similar geometrical structures share the same color, while regions with dissimilar structures from the specified point bear different colors.
\begin{figure}[t]
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{.3em}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{ccccc}
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT1.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT2.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT3.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT4.pdf}&
\includegraphics[scale=.7]{./Figures/SGWT5.pdf}
\end{tabular}
\caption{Visualization of different resolutions (left to right: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th) of the spectral graph wavelet signature from a specified point (shown as a pink sphere) on a random pork half-carcass. The cooler and warmer colors represent lower and higher distance values, respectively.}
\label{SGWT representation}
\end{figure}
\medskip
The SpectralWeight framework includes the subsequent steps: We first compute an SGWS matrix $\bm{D}$ for each half-carcass in the dataset $\mathcal{S}$, where $\bm{D}=(\bm{d}_{1},\dots,\bm{d}_{m})\in\mathbb{R}^{p\times m}$, and $\bm{d}_i$ is the $p$-dimensional point signature at vertex $i$ and $m$ is the number of mesh points. In the second step, we construct a $p\times k$ dictionary matrix $\bm{V}=(\bm{v}_{1},\dots,\bm{v}_{k})$ through an unsupervised learning algorithm, i.e. clustering, by assigning each $m$ local descriptor into the $k$-th cluster with the nearest mean. In the next step, we employ the soft-assignment coding to map SGWSs $\bm{s}_{i}$ to high-dimensional mid-level feature vectors. This leads to a $k\times m$ matrix $\bm{C}=(\bm{c}_{1},\dots,\bm{c}_{m})$ whose columns are the $k$-dimensional mid-level feature codes. In a bid to aggregate the learned high-dimensional local features, we build a $k \times 1$ histogram $h_{r}=\sum_{i=1}^{m}c_{ri}$ for each half-carcass by sum-pooling the cluster assignment matrix $\bm{C}$. Then, we concatenate the SpectralWeight vectors $\bm{x}_i$ of all $n$ half-carcasses in the dataset $\mathcal{S}$ into a $k\times n$ data matrix $\bm{X}=(\bm{x}_{1},\dots,\bm{x}_{n})$. Afterward, we calculate geodesic distance $g$ \cite{kimmel:98} to extract the diameter of the 3D mesh as well as the volume $v$ of each half-carcass $\mathbb{T}_{i}$ and then aggregate them into $\bm{X}$ to provide further discrimination power for SpectralWeight. Finally, a partial least-squares regression (PLS) is performed on the data matrix $\bm{X}$ to find the equation giving the best fit for a set of data observations. The main steps of SpectralWeight framework are briefly outlined in Algorithm \ref{algo:1}.
\begin{algorithm}
\caption{SpectralWeight algorithmic steps}\label{algo:1}
\begin{algorithmic}[1]
\REQUIRE Set of triangular meshes of $n$ pork half-carcasses $\mathcal{S}=\{\mathbb{T}_1,\dots,\mathbb{T}_n\}$ and their weights $\mathbf{w}$
\STATE Simplify each model to have a uniform number of vertices.
\FOR{$j=1$ to $n$}
\STATE Compute SGWS matrix $\bm{D}_{j}$ of size $p\times m$ for each half-carcass $\mathbb{T}_{j}$.
\STATE Employ soft-assignment coding to determine the $k\times m$ code assignment matrix $\bm{C}_{j}$, where $k>p$.
\STATE Represent each half-carcass $\mathbb{T}_{j}$ as a $k \times 1$ histogram $\bm{h}$ by pooling of code assignment matrix $\bm{C}_{j}$.
\STATE Calculate volume $\bm{v}_{j}$ and diameter of the mesh through geodesic distance $\bm{g}_{j}$ for each 3D model in $\mathcal{S}$.
\ENDFOR
\STATE Arrange all the $n$ histograms $\bm{h}$ into a $n\times k$ data matrix $\bm{X}=(\bm{x}_1,\dots,\bm{x}_n)^{T}$.
\STATE Aggregate mesh diameter, volume $\bm{v}$ and weight $\bm{w}$ to $n\times (k+3)$ data matrix $\bm{X}$.
\STATE Perform partial least-squares regression on $\bm{X}$ to find the $n$-dimensional vector $\hat{\bm{y}}$ of predicted cut weights.
\ENSURE $n$-dimensional vector $\hat{\bm{y}}$ containing predicted weights of pork composition.
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
We carried out the experiments on a laptop using an Intel Core i$7$ processor with $2.00$ GHz and $16$ GB RAM. Also, our implementation was done in MATLAB. We also considered $301$ eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors of the LBO.
In this study, we set the resolution parameter as $R = 2$, leading to an SGWS matrix of size $5\times m$, where $m$ is the number of points in our 3D half-carcass model. Besides, we considered four components for our PLS regression. It is noteworthy that the training process is performed offline on concatenated $p\times mn$ SGWS matrices from $n$ meshes in dataset $\mathcal{S}$ achieved by applying k-means algorithm for the dictionary building process.
\begin{table}[b]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of primal cuts.}
\label{Table:primal cuts}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
\toprule
Dependent variables\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\midrule
Ham & \quad $12.032$ & \quad $0.844$ & \quad $9.371$ & \quad $14.003$ & \quad $0.80$ & \quad $0.377$ & \quad $3.13$\\
\midrule
Shoulder & \quad $12.507$ & \quad $0.879$ & \quad $9.976$ & \quad $14.778$ & \quad $0.79$ & \quad $0.399$ & \quad $3.19$\\
\midrule
Loin & \quad $12.318$ & \quad $0.984$ & \quad $9.448$ & \quad $15.041$ & \quad $0.73$ & \quad $0.507$ & \quad $4.12$\\
\midrule
Belly & \quad $8.692$ & \quad $0.863$ & \quad $6.288$ & \quad $10.986$ & \quad $0.78$ & \quad $0.406$ & \quad $4.67$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
\section{Results and Discussion}\label{experiment}
We assessed the performance of our proposed SpectralWeight framework for measuring hog carcass quality via extensive experiments. We created 3D models of 195 half-carcasses using a 3D scanner, followed by downsampling the mesh surfaces to have roughly $3000$ vertices for each model. We subsequently applied SpectralWeight to extract geometric features of 3D models and then employed the PLS regression to find the best parameters for the weight prediction of pork compositions. The basic idea behind PLS \cite{Wold:84} is to project high-dimensional features into a subspace with a lower dimension. The features in the new subspace, so-called latent features, are a linear combination of the original features. PLS is useful in cases where the number of variables $(k+3)$ in a data matrix $\bm{X}$ are substantially greater than the number of observations $n$. We took advantage of PLS regression since multiple linear regression fails due to multicollinearity among $\bm{X}$ variables. The regression is consequently performed on the latent variables.
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of commercial cuts.}
\label{Table:commercial cuts}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
\toprule
Dependent variables\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\midrule
Pork leg C100 & \quad $11.314$ & \quad $0.816$ & \quad $8.745$ & \quad $13.317$ & \quad $0.80$ & \quad $0.365$ & \quad $3.22$\\
\midrule
Shoulder picnic C311 & \quad $4.510$ & \quad $0.446$ & \quad $3.529$ & \quad $5.789$ & \quad $0.54$ & \quad $0.304$ & \quad $6.73$\\
\midrule
Shoulder blade C320 & \quad $4.912$ & \quad $0.457$ & \quad $3.695$ & \quad $5.974$ & \quad $0.64$ & \quad $0.274$ & \quad $5.57$\\
\midrule
Shoulder blade boneless C325 & \quad $4.068$ & \quad $0.380$ & \quad $3.088$ & \quad $5.034$ & \quad $0.60$ & \quad $0.240$ & \quad $5.90$\\
\midrule
Loin C200 & \quad $10.065$ & \quad $0.820$ & \quad $6.849$ & \quad $12.034$ & \quad $0.70$ & \quad $0.446$ & \quad $4.43$\\
\midrule
Loin boneless C201 & \quad $7.370$ & \quad $0.661$ & \quad $4.686$ & \quad $9.392$ & \quad $0.64$ & \quad $0.395$ & \quad $5.36$\\
\midrule
Loin back ribs C505 & \quad $0.675$ & \quad $0.076$ & \quad $0.501$ & \quad $0.914$ & \quad $0.42$ & \quad $0.057$ & \quad $8.52$\\
\midrule
Tenderloin (skinless) C228 & \quad $0.477$ & \quad $0.065$ & \quad $0.262$ & \quad $0.669$ & \quad $0.56$ & \quad $0.043$ & \quad $8.97$\\
\midrule
Belly C400 & \quad $4.636$ & \quad $0.596$ & \quad $3.136$ & \quad $6.369$ & \quad $0.70$ & \quad $0.324$ & \quad $6.98$\\
\midrule
Belly trimmings & \quad $1.805$ & \quad $0.227$ & \quad $1.187$ & \quad $2.425$ & \quad $0.54$ & \quad $0.154$ & \quad $8.53$\\
\midrule
Side ribs (regular trim) C500 & \quad $1.855$ & \quad $0.214$ & \quad $1.226$ & \quad $2.434$ & \quad $0.51$ & \quad $0.150$ & \quad $8.06$\\
\midrule
Hock C355 & \quad $1.050$ & \quad $0.114$ & \quad $0.606$ & \quad $1.363$ & \quad $0.41$ & \quad $0.088$ & \quad $8.35$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of tissue composition in major commercial cuts.}
\label{Table:major commercial cuts}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{lllllllll}
\toprule
Items\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Tissue composition & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Pork leg C100} & \quad Muscle & \quad $8.014$ & \quad $0.704$ & \quad $5.860$ & \quad $10.124$ & \quad $0.68$ & \quad $0.396$ & \quad $4.95$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $1.934$ & \quad $0.427$ & \quad $1.115$ & \quad $3.102$ & \quad $0.67$ & \quad $0.243$ & \quad $12.59$\\
&
\quad Bone & \quad $0.941$ & \quad $0.080$ & \quad $0.757$ & \quad $1.172$ & \quad $0.56$ & \quad $0.053$ & \quad $5.62$\\
&
\quad Skin & \quad $0.391$ & \quad $0.061$ & \quad $0.257$ & \quad $0.619$ & \quad $0.28$ & \quad $0.052$ & \quad $13.22$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Shoulder picnic C311} & \quad Muscle & \quad $3.016$ & \quad $0.390$ & \quad $1.965$ & \quad $4.053$ & \quad $0.42$ & \quad $0.297$ & \quad $9.83$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $0.937$ & \quad $0.200$ & \quad $0.484$ & \quad $1.572$ & \quad $0.56$ & \quad $0.133$ & \quad $14.18$\\
&
\quad Bone & \quad $0.380$ & \quad $0.042$ & \quad $0.313$ & \quad $0.563$ & \quad $0.38$ & \quad $0.033$ & \quad $8.66$\\
&
\quad Skin & \quad $0.164$ & \quad $0.024$ & \quad $0.100$ & \quad $0.230$ & \quad $0.23$ & \quad $0.021$ & \quad $12.93$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Shoulder blade boneless C325} & \quad Muscle & \quad $3.178$ & \quad $0.315$ & \quad $2.263$ & \quad $4.026$ & \quad $0.57$ & \quad $0.207$ & \quad $6.51$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $0.890$ & \quad $0.169$ & \quad $0.472$ & \quad $1.372$ & \quad $0.53$ & \quad $0.116$ & \quad $13.01$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Loin boneless C201} & \quad Muscle & \quad $5.847$ & \quad $0.645$ & \quad $3.503$ & \quad $7.516$ & \quad $0.61$ & \quad $0.404$ & \quad $6.91$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $1.523$ & \quad $0.255$ & \quad $0.757$ & \quad $2.205$ & \quad $0.63$ & \quad $0.155$ & \quad $10.17$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Belly C400} & \quad Muscle & \quad $2.689$ & \quad $0.374$ & \quad $1.835$ & \quad $3.620$ & \quad $0.62$ & \quad $0.229$ & \quad $8.53$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $1.947$ & \quad $0.474$ & \quad $0.778$ & \quad $3.077$ & \quad $0.70$ & \quad $0.260$ & \quad $13.36$\\
\cmidrule(r){2-9}
\multirow{3}{*}{Belly Trimmings} & \quad Muscle & \quad $0.811$ & \quad $0.124$ & \quad $0.297$ & \quad $1.154$ & \quad $0.29$ & \quad $0.104$ & \quad $12.80$\\
&
\quad Fat & \quad $0.994$ & \quad $0.204$ & \quad $0.512$ & \quad $1.699$ & \quad $0.45$ & \quad $0.151$ & \quad $15.18$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
To evaluate the performance of the SpectralWeight, we utilized some performance measurements such as coefficient of determination ($R^{2}-score$), root mean square error ($RMSE$), and coefficient of variation error ($CVe$). It is worth noting that since $CVe$ considers the information of the average weight of the cut, it is a more reliable and fair evaluation metric. To circumvent overfitting, we carefully performed leave-one-out cross-validation over the pork shapes by randomly sampling a set of training instances from our pork carcass dataset for learning and a separate hold-out set for testing. Tables \ref{Table:primal cuts} to \ref{Table:tissue composition} demonstrate the descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of primal cuts, commercial cuts, tissue composition in major commercial cuts, and tissue composition in half-carcasses, respectively.
Table \ref{Table:primal cuts} shows the accuracy of weight prediction for primal cuts. Also, the standard deviation and mean of each primal cut is computed and considered. As can be seen, the lowest prediction error belongs to Ham cut with $CVe=3.13$, while the highest prediction error corresponds to Belly cut with $CVe=4.67$.
Table \ref{Table:commercial cuts} shows the performance of our algorithm for predicting the weights of commercial cuts. As shown, pork leg $C100$ achieved the highest accuracy of prediction with $CVe=3.22$, while Tenderloin (skinless) $C228$ has the lowest accuracy with $CVe=8.97$.
We extended our experiments to further evaluating the major commercial cuts by predicting their tissue composition. The two major commercial cuts of pork leg $C100$ and shoulder picnic $C311$ consist of four tissues, i.e. muscle, fat, bone and skin. As can be observed from Table \ref{Table:major commercial cuts}, best weight predictions correspond to the muscle tissue of pork leg $C100$ and bone tissue of shoulder picnic $C311$ with a correlation of variation error of $4.95$ and $8.66$, respectively. Shoulder blade boneless $C325$, loin boneless $C201$, belly $C400$ and belly trimmings are the other tissues of the major commercial cuts that are composed of only muscle and fat. As shown in Table \ref{Table:major commercial cuts}, for all the four tissues, muscle tissue gained the highest prediction accuracy with $CVe$ of $6.51$, $6.91$, $8.53$, and $12.80$, respectively.
In a bid to investigate the amount of the total tissue composition of muscle, fat, bone, and skin in the half-carcasses, we present Table \ref{Table:tissue composition}, in which the characteristic information of each tissue for the $195$ half-carcasses is demonstrated separately. More precisely, the amount of muscle is achieved by summing up the major commercial cuts including $C100$, $C311$, $C325$, $C201$, $C400$ and the belly trimmings. For the fat, we took into account the major commercial cuts containing $C100$, $C311$, $C325$, $C201$, $C400$, and in the belly trimmings. To calculate the amount of bone, we considered the sum of bone tissue from the half-carcass except the bone tissue contained in the feet, the hock, and the ribs. Also, the amount of skin is obtained by adding the skins from the half-carcass except the skin on the feet, the hock, and the jowl.
As can be seen, our proposed framework is able to predict the weight of muscle tissue with a lower correlation variation of $4.11$ as well as a higher correlation of determination of $R^{2}=0.77$ than the other tissues, respectively. Since muscle is a more valuable tissue for commercial uses, our results for estimating muscle tissue make our algorithm a potential candidate for replacing the traditional methods of carcass quality assessment.
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Descriptive characteristics and predicted weight of tissue composition in half-carcass.}
\label{Table:tissue composition}
\centering
\resizebox{12cm}{!}{
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
\toprule
Items of composition\\ $n = 195$ & \quad Mean (kg) &\quad S. D. & \quad Min & \quad Max & \quad $R^{2}$ & \quad RMSE & \quad CVe (\%)\\
\midrule
Muscle & \quad $23.553$ & \quad $2.041$ & \quad $16.394$ & \quad $28.451$ & \quad $0.77$ & \quad $0.968$ & \quad $4.11$\\
\midrule
Fat & \quad $10.575$ & \quad $2.158$ & \quad $5.076$ & \quad $16.152$ & \quad $0.73$ & \quad $0.771$ & \quad $9.37$\\
\midrule
Bone & \quad $2.968$ & \quad $0.257$ & \quad $2.377$ & \quad $3.641$ & \quad $0.68$ & \quad $0.145$ & \quad $4.88$\\
\midrule
Skin & \quad $1.541$ & \quad $0.173$ & \quad $1.100$ & \quad $2.053$ & \quad $0.33$ & \quad $0.141$ & \quad $9.15$\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}}
\end{table}
\section{Conclusions}
In this study, we introduced SpectralWeight to estimate the quality of pork carcasses by weight prediction of pork cuts. We first built the spectral graph wavelet signature for every mesh point locally and then aggregated them as a global feature through the bag-of-geometric-words notion. To further ameliorate the discrimination power of SpectralWeight, we merged information of mesh diameter and volume to our pipeline. As the results show, our proposed method can predict the weight of different cuts and tissues of a pork half-carcass with high accuracy and hence is practical to be employed in the pork industry.
\section{Acknowledgements}
This work was supported by Swine Innovation Porc within the Swine Cluster 2: Driving Results Through Innovation research program. Funding is provided by Agriculture and Agri‐Food Canada through the AgriInnovation Program, provincial producer organizations and industry partners.
\bibliographystyle{splncs04}
|
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Okay I used to deal with this as a kid almost every night from the ages of 4 (was the youngest that I remember it happening) till about 12. And ever since then it only happens every so often but usually at nighttime.But I hear really loud talking in my head that is super fast and I cant really understand or I cant make out what is being sAid, and I cant stop it. It gets the point were it kind of makes me sick to my stomach and makes me dizzy.Like I said I dont deal with it every night anymore but every so often I do and it is just unbearable still. If you could help me out if be great full. output: Hello(Looks like schizophrenia but a variant if you have been telling everything correctly). It usually response to olanzapine 2.5-5 mg or more may be needed. Take at night. If there is any problem please feel free to mail me at gopal.neuropsychiatry@gmail.com. . I will try my best to help you as this is an unusual presentation but of course treatable. Donor worry, start meds. It will be good to get An EEG and MRI Brain also.. |
Higher Revolution:
PURSUING KNOWLEDGE & DEFENDING LIBERTY
Alexis de Tocqueville & Democracy in America
Dr. Bill Baker – A Special Man
How Bell Labs Changed Our World
John Adams of Braintree: A Man Worth Knowing
Published Opinion Pieces
The Wisdom of Edmund Burke
A Defense of the Constitution – One Hundred and Ninety- Nine Years Ago
Posted on January 28, 2013 by eburke93
(Signing of the U. S. Constitution in Philadelphia, Photo: Library of Congress)
“A constitution should be considered as a pillar of marble, not as a figure of wax; it must remain as it comes from the hand of the artist, and not be moulded by officious hands into a more convenient shape.” — Richard Stockton
While doing research on the War of 1812, I came across this incredibly important speech given by Richard Stockton before the U. S. House of Representatives on December 10, 1814.
Stockton’s speech, which was occasioned by a specific question before Congress regarding the raising of an enormous militia, is to me an almost perfect and general defense of the U. S. Constitution and the rule of law. The principles which this orator expressed are as valid and important now as they were then. If he were alive today, Stockton would strongly disagree with modern liberal orthodoxy which falsely claims that the Constitution is a “living, breathing” document. He believed, as shall be seen, that the words of the Constitution should be strictly construed because the framers had chosen the words of that document very carefully and with very specific intent.
“These grants being from the people to their rulers, are always deliberately framed. They are penned with the utmost accuracy and precision of language. All powers intended to be granted are granted—and those not included in the terms made use of are withheld. This is not a mere technical rule of the schoolsmen or the forum.”
Stockton would be shocked to see how far our country has strayed from the essential principles behind and contained in our Constitution.
It is unfortunate that modern-day defenders of our Constitution, who toil at guarding and upholding the integrity of it are mocked, ridiculed and demonized by liberals in politics, in media and academia. These liberals, who style themselves “progressives,” often view the Constitution as a mere obstacle placed before their expedient designs. I have no doubt that Stockton himself, if he were here today, would be an object of their ridicule.
Richard Stockton (1764-1828) was a son of Declaration of Independence signer, Richard Stockton. Both resided at Princeton, New Jersey. The younger Stockton was a highly regarded lawyer like his father and was a leader in the New Jersey Federalist Party, which generally opposed the War of 1812 with Great Britain.
One notable point in this speech I would like to highlight is Stockton’s description of what a militia is and what the framers of the Constitution thought a militia was. Clearly, armed citizens were the militia, but don’t take my word for it – read on!
Note: I have abridged this speech in the interest of remaining on point and for brevity’s sake, but I can assure the reader that there has been no clever editing done with the intent to change Stockton’s intended meaning. The full speech can be read on the Library of Congress’ website: http://archive.org/details/speechofhonricha00stoc
“SPEECH OF THE HON. RICHARD STOCKTON, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, On the 10th December, 1814,
“ON A BILL
“To authorise the President of the United States to call upon the several States and Territories thereof for their respective quotas of eighty thousand four hundred and thirty Militia for the defence of the Frontiers of the United States against invasion.
“Mr. Speaker –
“I have moved for the indefinite postponement of this bill… I can assure you, sir, that I rise to advocate this motion in no spirit of party or of opposition; but because I feel myself constrained by all the ties which bind me to my constituents and country, to make use of every exertion to prevent the passage of the bill. I know the difficulties which at this moment surround the government and the nation. I know and I feel, as sensibly as any member can feel—the crisis—the awful crisis, at which our public affairs have arrived. I know, sir, that we are engaged in a war with a powerful, irritated and revengeful enemy.[i]
“Mr. Speaker, there are certain general principles which lie at the bottom of this subject. —In a limited government, such as that established by the Constitution of the United States, they may truly be called fundamental. By some they may be considered as familiar and trite—and by others as scarcely worthy of attention in these enlightened days. But the great men to whom we are indebted for our independence and civil institutions thought differently. They supposed that they were all-important. They believed that it was always necessary to bear them in mind—and advisable frequently to recur to them, to keep this government within its proper sphere, and to defend the rights and liberties of the people. One of these general principles is that the Militia of the several states belongs to the people and government of the states—and not to the government of the United States. I consider this, sir, as a proposition too clear to require illustration, or to admit of doubt. The militia consists of the whole people of a state, or rather of the whole male population capable of bearing arms; including all, of every description, avocation or age. Exemption from militia duty is a mere matter of grace. This militia, being the very people, belongs to the people, or to the state governments, for their use and protection. It was their’s at the time of the revolution; under the old confederation—and when the present form of government was adopted. Neither the people nor their state governments have ever surrendered this their property in the militia to the general government, but have carefully kept and preserved their general dominion or control, for their own use, protection and defense. They have, it is true, granted or lent (if I may use such an expression) to Congress a special concurrent authority or power over the militia in certain cases; which cases are particularly set down—guarded—limited and restricted, as fully as the most scrupulous caution, and the use of the most apt and significant words our language affords could limit and- restrict them. The people have granted to Congress a right to call forth the militia in certain cases of necessity and emergency….
“Hence, it follows, that the general power, authority or jurisdiction remains in the state governments. A special, qualified, limited and concurrent power is vested in Congress, to be exercised when the event happens, and in the manner pointed out, prescribed and limited in the Constitution. And hence it also follows, that this delegated power cannot be executed upon any other occasions, nor in any other ways than those prescribed by the Constitution. There is another general rule or principle of construction to which I must allude. It is, that all particular, special, limited powers, taken from or carved out of the general power, must be construed strictly. The general power remains in full force, unimpaired, except where it is expressly granted away, and the construction must be on the words of the grant, and not by recurring to the doctrine of analogy or parity of reason. This is a rule applicable to all grants of power, public or private, but it is particularly to be attended to in grants of public authority; and most of all in those solemn grants denominated Constitutions. These grants being from the people to their rulers, are always deliberately framed. They are penned with the utmost accuracy and precision of language. All powers intended to be granted are granted—and those not included in the terms made use of are withheld. This is not a mere technical rule of the schoolsmen or the forum. It is founded in reason, good sense, and justice; and is all-important in the construction of constitutions. If the words of such grants are departed from, upon any pretense, what safety do they afford? If reasoning by analogy is once permitted, so that cases not enumerated but supposed to stand upon a footing in point of reason and expediency, are, by liberal construction, held to be included in it, what security is there but the discretion of those who undertake to expound it? A constitution should be considered as a pillar of marble, not as a figure of wax; it must remain as it comes from the hand of the artist, and not be moulded by officious hands into a more convenient shape. The rule I have laid down, has been considered of sufficient importance to be engrafted into the constitution itself. — The tenth amendment, in ordaining that “all powers not delegated by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively and to the people,” declares in the spirit of the rule I have stated, that all powers not granted to the Congress by the constitutional charter, remain with, the people or the state governments.
“Mr. Speaker, this special, limited, concurrent power over the militia, is given by the States to the Congress only in three cases—”To enforce the laws, suppress insurrections, and repel invasion.” (Article I, Section 8) I call it a special concurrent power, and it is clearly no more; for the states, notwithstanding this grant, retain the power to call forth their militia for the same or any other lawful purposes. There is, then, no grant of absolute power even in these cases; and the people and the state governments have not only the right of insisting upon a strict observance of the limitation; but the corresponding right to resist all encroachments upon what they have reserved unto themselves—for as it is of the very essence of a limited government to be kept within its proper orbit, so it is the unquestionable right and duty of the people to oblige those who administer it, to preserve the boundary, and to resist and repel illegal encroachments.
“I consider these principles to be unquestionable.
“Let me ask, sir, what section of the Constitution empowers Congress to call forth the militia to defend the frontiers from invasion? None can be produced. And it never was the intention of the people to grant such a power. A power to call forth the militia to “defend the frontiers against invasion,” would be a general power to make use of the militia during a war—it would lie destitute of all substantial limitation, and might he exercised without control.
“The power actually given to Congress is to call forth the militia to repel invasion not to defend the frontiers from invasion. The power claimed by this bill is, that whenever Congress think an invasion probable, they may call forth the militia to defend against it.
“The power granted by the Constitution is, that when invasion takes place Congress may call forth the militia to repel it. These powers are not the same, but essentially and substantially different. The one is general, depending for its just exercise on will and discretion. The other is limited, guarded by express words, and defended against perversion, by the requirement of a notorious fact, of the existence of which, the state governments are as competent to judge and decide, as the government of the United States.
“The power claimed, in its practical operation, places the militia of the states, without limitation as to number or time of service, in the power of Congress.
“The power granted only authorizes calling them forth on a particular emergency, which carries with it its own limitation, both as to numbers and time of service.
“The power claimed subjects the militia to the general duty and service of the war. It makes them, in truth, Regulars, though they are called militia; for the President may command them to perform every service without restriction, and at any place.
“The power granted preserves the essential quality of being called out in aid of a regular army, upon the contemplated emergency happening, and of returning to their homes as soon as the emergency has ceased.
“The power claimed subjects the citizen to be made a soldier without his consent, for any length of time. For, whether he shall serve one year—or two, or ten—or during a war, is admitted to be only a matter of sound discretion.
“The power granted leaves him all his rights as a citizen—guards and protects him in the service required—calls him to arms to repel an invader, and as soon as he is repelled, returns the citizen to his family.
“Mr. Speaker, I consider the claim now for the first time set up by the general government to the personal service of every citizen—subjecting him to be made a soldier, under the pretense of defending against invasion—and binding him to military service whether it happens or not and after the enemy is expelled, as entirely unwarranted, whether we regard the words of the constitutional grant, or the manifest intention of its makers. The people have never vested such a power in Congress—they have reserved it to themselves—or it is deposited, together with the general mass of sovereignty, in the state governments.
“The noxious illegal character of this bill is not at all taken away or altered by the amendment made in committee, requiring only a service of one year instead of two. It is true that it alleviates its harshness. It will be less oppressive. It may be more palatable, and for that reason it may be the more dangerous. When the oppressor assumes the form of a giant he creates alarm, and will be sure to meet with due opposition. When oppression comes like a mighty flood to overwhelm the privileges of the people, they will not fail to breast the torrent with firmness and spirit. But, when he assumes a reasonable shape—a common form—when the measure carries with it the imposing pretense of public wants, or public defense—and especially, when the original plan is softened and meliorated in its application; then we are apt to comfort ourselves that it is no worse, and finally, to disregard the dangerous principle which lurks beneath.
“There was also a further reason for leaving the general authority over the militia in the state governments, and denying it to the general government; that it might be a check upon the great powers of war and peace, sword and purse, thus surrendered to the general government. The federal government is not only a limited government, but it is furnished with its balances and checks. It was framed upon the principle, that no set of men can be safely trusted with power, without some means, left elsewhere, to keep it within proper bounds. It was this proud principle of jealousy of power, wherever it might be deposited, that produced the revolution. That great event was not so much brought about by actual oppression, as by the assertion of principles which were derogatory to the rights of freemen. So thought the great men who formed and adopted this Constitution. They were high-minded Republicans indeed, and not merely in name. Their political creed was, that no set of men were to be trusted with discretionary powers. They knew that paper limitations were useless, unless accompanied by the means of defense. Hence they denied some powers to the general, and some to the state governments. They limited others, and when they bestowed general powers on the federal head, the means of a wholesome control was left with the people, and the state governments. But these salutary principles are now out of fashion. They are either unknown, forgotten, or disregarded. The plan of the Republican administration (headed by President Madison) has been evidently to accumulate power in the Executive branch of the government, from the President down to the lowest collector or tax gatherer. Scarcely is a bill reported upon any subject relating either to war or revenue, which does not contain some covert attack on the unquestionable rights of a free people.
“And I might, with perfect safety, hazard the assertion, that if the power, now contended for, to call forth the whole militia for the general purposes of war, without any regard to the constitutional limitation, or to time, or place of service, had been inserted, in plain terms in the charter, it would have been rejected.
It is not necessary to detain the House in remarking on the circumstance that the enemy are in possession of some part of the territory of the United States, as that circumstance can afford no aid to this bill; and indeed does not seem to be much relied on. None of the provisions of this bill are adapted to that case. It is not designed to enable the President to call forth the militia to expel them. The existing laws are already fully competent to this end. He may call forth the militia to repel this invasion. But the object of this bill is to form a militia armament, not to expel those invaders, but to serve for one year. The enemy is left in quiet possession of what he has taken and this army is to be raised to carry on the war as the President shall direct. It may be marched into Canada, leaving the invaders behind. But more of this hereafter.
“As to the second object of this bill which is to induce this corps of 80,000 militia to furnish 40,000 regulars; to be sure it does not figure in the title of the act, yet it has been avowed by many gentlemen to be the real object which this bill is to attain.
“I cannot avoid remarking how admirably the title of this act has been contrived, to give notice of a matter which is not to be found in the bill—that is, a plan to defend the frontiers against invasion, and to conceal what it does contain, an illegal device to compel the militia to furnish recruits for the regular army.
“And I cannot refrain from again remarking on the title of this bill—its deceptive form and character.
“If prudence—if reasons of state, or alledged necessity require a longer period of service, recourse must be had to the state Legislatures. The state governments are absolute, except where they are controlled by their own constitutions. They may safely be trusted—they would co-operate with the general government in all necessary measures of defense as long as that government respected their rights and performed its relative duties.
“The militia consists of all the people—the entire male population.”
Congressional Biography:
Stockton, Richard, (son of Richard Stockton [1730-1781], father of Robert Field Stockton, grandfather of John Potter Stockton, and uncle of Richard Stockton Field), a Senator and a Representative from New Jersey; born in Princeton, N.J., April 17, 1764; tutored privately; graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1779; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1784 and commenced practice in Princeton, N.J.; elected as a Federalist to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Frederick Frelinghuysen and served from November 12, 1796, to March 3, 1799; declined to be a candidate for reelection; unsuccessful candidate for governor of New Jersey in 1801, 1803, and 1804; elected as a Federalist to the Thirteenth Congress (March 4, 1813-March 3, 1815); declined to be a candidate for renomination to the Fourteenth Congress; resumed the practice of his profession; died at ‘Morven,’ near Princeton, Mercer County, N.J., March 7, 1828; interment in Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, N.J.
[i] The United States was at that time involved in a destructive, expensive and deadly war with Great Britain. Three and a half months earlier the US capital city of Washington had been invaded by the British army and set on fire. Many public buildings were burned including the White House and the U.S. Capitol.
This entry was posted in CURRENT EVENTS, History, Wisdom and tagged Constitutional Authority, liberty, limited government, Militia, Richard Stockton, rule of law, strict construction, U.S. Constitution, War of 1812 by eburke93. Bookmark the permalink. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I am 36 years old women.i have two childreans and i eat rajnigandha panmasala worth RS. 35 daily.....I work all day long cleaning my house And try to keep it as clean as possible...But as soon as i go to bed,every part of body starts paining and i cudnt sleep because of it...Can u please give me a solution??? output: Hello, I will advise you to get indulge in regular aerobic exercises as this will improve your endurance and also avoid the night pains. Having calcium and iron in the diet form should help as well. Usually, in females of your age due to menstruation there will be excessive loss of HE in the form of blood loss and will take time to recover. In fact, by the time, it recovers it again comes down due to the next cycle. So the body is always weak. Having a good consumption of water, calcium and iron content diet and simple aerobic exercise should help you get rid of symptoms. Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: What is the name of the gram-negative bacteria that is commonly associated with hot tub folliculitis? output: The gram-negative bacteria that is often associated with hot tub folliculitis is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This bacterium can infect hair follicles and cause a rash or small red bumps on the skin that are itchy and sometimes painful. Hot tub folliculitis is typically caused by exposure to contaminated water in hot tubs or pools, and can be prevented by maintaining proper water hygiene and avoiding the use of poorly maintained hot tubs or pools. Treatment typically involves self-care measures such as keeping the affected area clean and dry, as well as topical or oral antibiotics in more severe cases. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Where does epistaxis most commonly occur in the nostril and what is the name of the associated blood vessel plexus? output: Epistaxis most commonly occurs in the anterior segment of the nostril, specifically in the area known as the Kiesselbach plexus. This area is a network of blood vessels that is prone to bleeding due to its location and the fragility of the vessels. Understanding the causes and risk factors of epistaxis can help in prevention and management of this condition. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: My son is 18months old, he was sick 4 times yesterday, but seemed fine in himself. Today he has diarrhoea. He is very drowsy and lethargic. Deep droopy eyes. Very stressed and not him self at all. Not eating or doing the things he loves. Took him out of hours doctors and she said a tummy bug. But not happy with the answer. Any advice please
t causes diarrhea and lethargy in a child? output: Hi...Thank you for consulting in Health Care magic.It seems your kid is having viral diarrhoea. Once it starts it will take 5-7 days to completely get better. Unless the kid's having low urine output or very dull or excessively sleepy or blood in motion or green bilious vomiting...you need not worry. There is no need to use antibiotics unless there is blood in the motion. Antibiotics might worsen if unnecessarily used causing antibiotic associated diarrhoea.I suggest you use zinc supplements (Z&D drops 1ml once daily for 14 days) & ORS (Each small packet mixed in 200ml of potable water and keep giving sip by sip) as hydration is very important and crucial part of treatment. If there is vomiting you can use Syrup Ondansetron (as prescribed by your paediatrician).Hope my answer was helpful for you. I am happy to help any time. Further clarifications and consultations on Health care magic are welcome. If you do not have any clarifications, you can close the discussion and rate the answer. Wish your kid good health., DCH., DNB (Paed).,.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hi, my father who is 76 years old has been being treated for an infection in the sac that surrounds the spleen. They have been draining the fluids for the past couple of days and did another CT scan today that showed white spots on the spleen. They are doing a biopsy tomorrow. What could be the cause of the white spots? output: Hi. Thanks for your query. There looks to be some misunderstanding for knowing the reports. Please see the reports and re-post. There is no sac around any spleen so far. This indicates that the reason can be cancer, tuberculosis, infarct and so on. A proper evaluation, the causes and the after effects of this appearance can decide the future course. As also is required to have a complete survey of the body for possibility of such lesion for the sake of treatment and evaluation of a particular disease to go further and decide whether medicines alone will be sufficient or splenectomy may be required.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: When traveling to low altitudes, less than 3,000 , i have experienced chest pressure that starts about 10 minutes at the resting elevation. The pressure is centralized across the breast area and feels like gas. I do get burps, but then I get a shallow breathing. Seems like it s hard to breathe normally. I have had like a dizziness that starts from my body and goes to my head and doesn t last long - a few seconds. Then the back of my neck becomes stiff and tight and somewhat sore. I took a tums and the pressure did subside a little, but went away completely, as did all other symptoms, after we went back to our normal elevation of about 800 . Any idea what could be the problem? output: Thanks for asking your question completely understand your problems we go to high altitudes the atm pressure decreases and concentration of oxygen decreases and air becomes denser so in order to escape from these symptoms of high altitude slow ascending and slow descending is followed that will acclimatize your body in due course of breaks in between climbing to high altitudes.thanks/regardsfeel free to ask more questions may god bless you with good health. |
Something Other
Collecting writing, performance & their others
in response
What we (don’t) talk about when we talk about pain
maddycosta December 19, 2022 December 19, 2022 In Response
A naked woman wearing red ballet shoes clambers over a motorcycle suspended from the ceiling: one of the promotion images for Tanz
On Tanz, by Florentina Holzinger, at Battersea Arts Centre, by Maddy Costa
1. I wasn’t taking notes and at one point I wasn’t even watching, I was squinting and had my face in my hands. So there’s a level of detail and accuracy missing from this text that feels dishonourable to the precision of Tanz, a precision belied by the mess made on stage (spilled cornflakes, discarded clothes, fake blood, real blood). What made me write this anyway was reading other reviews which – and apologies for how this comes across as snarky and disrespectful – did not feel adequate to the occasion.
2. To be fair, this text – somewhat sneeringly described as ‘lofty commentary’ in the Guardian – comes pretty close to what I wanted to read. On the other hand, what my heart is seeking is something like what Dave the Electrician wrote for the Theatre Bristol Writing Project in 2014 about a show by Florentina Holzinger and Vincent Riebeek: something that puts me right back into the exhilaration of watching, time spinning faster than you realise, brain spinning at the audacity and intelligence of what’s unfolding on stage. (The more of this I write, the more my heart is disappointed. Weeks pass. I keep trying.)
3. I am less knowledgeable about performance and live art than is sometimes assumed from my writing. I quote this distinction made by Selina Thompson often because it’s funny and feels true: ‘when I say “performance artists”, what comes to my head is Karen Finley covered in shit, screaming at the top of her voice, in a loft somewhere in New York. … Whereas when I say, “live art”, what I imagine is a white room, with a concrete floor and a white man in the middle of it doing something that’s stressing me out.’ People cutting themselves, piercing their skin, subjecting themselves to visible pain, stress me out and I avoid, I avoid hard. The first time I saw Veronica Thompson – part of the UK ensemble for Tanz – perform hair-hanging, in Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman (2016), I could hardly watch: I felt the prickle of each follicle in my own scalp. If I’d read the content warnings for Tanz before taking my seat, instead of just cooing over the photograph of a naked woman clambering on to a motorbike suspended in the air like a trapeze, I almost certainly wouldn’t have bought a ticket.
What we talk about when we talk about pain
Tanz starts with a ballet class. No it doesn’t. It starts with a naked woman ripping out her own intestines while a coven of witches circle her, silent, the naked woman shrieking, panting, cackling. And then the naked woman gets up and begins instructing the ballet class. First position. Fifth position. Jeté. The four students are learning how to govern their bodies; at each side of the stage is an electronic screen where the words How To Govern the Body appear in the red, dripping letters of a horror story. But what does it mean to govern the body? For whom is this control?
The body on display. The body stretched, poised, disciplined. The female body as consumed by the male gaze, critiqued by the female gaze.
Have you any idea what ballet dancers go through to train and perform? I found out in 2006 through an article in the Guardian. In no particular order: black nails, broken nails, blisters, bunions, bruised bunions, corns that become ulcers, inflammation, damaged tendons, twisted ankles. Wincing yet? ‘Peter Norman, one of the UK’s leading podiatrists, has seen it all in the 16 years he has been treating the the Royal Ballet. He is aware, too, that even more goes on unseen. “I know of dancers who have gone on pointe with broken bones and stress fractures,” says Norman. “The pressure on them to get parts, to guard their places in the companies, means they push themselves too far.”’
I love watching ballet. The artifice. The aura of elegance, of perfection. The invisibility of pain as the ballerinas rise on pointes and billow like a cloud of icing sugar across the confectionery surface of the stage.
When the ballet students in Tanz slip on their pointe shoes, so do the other women milling at the side of the stage. (I didn’t notice this myself, but apparently these women were, among other ablutions, pissing into buckets. As Holzinger has said in an interview: ‘If I’m training my body to pee on cue, then I’m exerting control over my body. It could be seen as a form of dance technique, even if it’s not a grand jeté or a tendu.’) Two of the women have large metal rings tied into their hair; each is clipped to a harness, to pull them up on pointe, and then a little further, so they’re suspended, not much, just enough to make the pain of the feet visible – empathetically felt – in the strain on the hair.
Their ballet shoes are red, the bright ruby colour of fresh blood.
Pain at the root of beauty
The women in the ballet class are initially clothed in ordinary leisurewear but gradually remove each layer at the instigation of their instructor, actual ballerina Claire Philippart, veteran of, among others, the Dutch National Ballet. I notice that their bodies are softer than Philippart’s, whose limbs are lean and taut beneath age-creased skin. I notice that they all have the same trimmed rectangle of pubic hair; later I learn from an article in Cosmopolitan that this is a French wax with a landing strip design although you’d have to get pretty close and personal to know for certain if it were truly French or actually Brazilian. There is in fact a general invitation to get close and personal when Philippart conducts a vaginal inspection, but the camera projecting images on to the title screens is more focused on the hairline of the head than of the vulva. I notice as I write that I didn’t bother checking how their eyebrows were groomed. My own eyebrows bristle, hairs sprouting towards eyelids and across the bridge of my nose, because every time I try tweezing them, pain shoots through my sinuses, stings my eyes, makes me cry, and I give up. This information, in this context, gets you surprisingly close and personal to my fully clothed body.
In her book Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino dedicates an essay to the beauty industry (in the expansive sense including exercise and fashion) that expects women in particular to undertake ‘expensive hard work for a high-functioning, maximally attractive consumer existence’. One of the ways in which Tolentino herself conforms to this systemic expectation is through barre class: a form of exercise ‘only vaguely connected to ballet’, less concerned with aesthetics than fine-tuning a body to ‘function more efficiently within an exhausting system’. A body disciplined to work harder, faster, longer: this, Tolentino says, with a flinch of self-disgust, is a body worth paying and experiencing pain for.
‘We are in a society where you are able to purchase and create your own femininity, and optimize yourself in ways the system wants you to,’ Holzinger told a New York Times journalist. (Tolentino’s essay is called ‘Always Be Optimizing’.) The women on stage reduce themselves to an essentialised femininity – each is naked but for a waistband supporting their microphone; each displays her vulva – and at the same time refuse to be reduced to an identikit optimised streamlined figure of womanhood. One lounges in an armchair casually smoking. Two others clamber over, swing from, suspended motorcycles. Philippart – well, I have a difference of opinion here: everyone else thinks she gave birth to a rat; I thought her clitoris was being pleasured by the rat; likely I’m wrong but I share the image anyway for, to semi-quote Philippart in the show, maximum corruptibility.
Another woman scuttles about the stage, a trickster figure, with blackened teeth and unkempt hair. She’s the capitalist witch, and the the time will come when the other women tear her limb from limb.
Meanwhile, the Royal Ballet
In the same week Tanz played at Battersea Arts Centre, a triple bill of short works choreographed by Crystal Pite was performed at the Royal Opera House by the Royal Ballet. Pite is a choreographer of lapidary attention: she articulates not just limbs but individual muscles, one by one the discs in the spine. The first work in the triple bill, Flight Pattern, is exquisite: the stage is full of dancers (36 of them), moving in waves and intersecting lines, in hope and heavy sorrow. Dressed in midnight blue, they are the lost, the wandering, refugees in the twilight edges of society, shunted from here to there, taking makeshift rest where they can, grieving, soothing each other, shut out. It’s so elegant, so beautiful it enraptures, and therein the discomfort: what does it mean to sit in such ostentatious surroundings and indulge in compassion for the “““poor migrant people””” being represented on stage? What pain is being displayed here? What complexity is being transmuted, reduced, into beauty?
I would like to talk to the capitalists about money, but
In another quirk of timing, Tanz was performed in the same week that Arts Council England announced the winners and losers in the game of NPO. On the one hand, such language is crass and facetious; on the other, capitalism is a system of competition that requires many to have not, more effectively to enable others to have. The present Tory government requires artists to have not, and the Royal Opera House was not alone in experiencing a huge cut in its funding in this NPO announcement: 9% – and that’s before you factor in inflation/real-term cuts – reducing its annual funding from £24,471,000 to £22,268,584. Yes, you read that right: 5% of the entire NPO budget is given to a single venue, the one with perhaps most consistent access to corporate sponsorship and individual philanthropy, the one whose cleaners and porters – many of whom are people from global majority and migrant backgrounds – had to strike earlier this autumn in protest at pay and working conditions. Pain, concealed.
What is valued, how is it valued, who participates in the valuing? These questions prickle through Tanz, a constant provocation. Work of this scale, to this level of physical and dramaturgical rigour, requires time, and it’s not possible to buy that amount of time on the kind of money the Treasury is willing to allot to the Arts Council to then hand on to a venue like Battersea Arts Centre, let alone the independent artists who might actually make the work.
The capitalist witch prowls the auditorium at BAC, looking for someone who will give Holzinger a handful of cash: to be specific, enough money to create a frisson, to generate a sense of risk. The witch takes it from one person and gives it to another, and then Holzinger, who has her back turned throughout this transaction, has to try and guess, using her magical intuition, where the money is. Is it a trick? Yes – in so many ways. The woman who handed over £50 in hard cash (as opposed to what, soft cash?) wasn’t forewarned that Holzinger would confiscate the money, as proceeds towards a forest that was planted when Tanz was first performed in 2019, a gesture against climate catastrophe. Gesture sounds laden with judgement, doesn’t it? Dismissive, as though this planting of a forest were a pointless act. But humans need trees and the earth needs trees and maybe this woman really needs that £50 and maybe she doesn’t but there’s a tremor of pain in her voice as she realises she’s been duped. Come talk to me at the end, says Holzinger, with dazzling insouciance, you can tell me if you think the show was worth that money, we can negotiate. The ethics of this moment sizzle, electricity through water; Holzinger’s refusal, her confidence, providing the shock.
And so ends the interlude between the real world, the world as it is, and the forest, where all hell breaks loose.
Shock tactics
The romantic ballet La Sylphide – one of the two-act works, beginning in an ordinary village and ending in a fairy-tale forest, that Holzinger names as a structural inspiration for Tanz – was created to showcase the skills of ballerina Marie Taglioni. To make her pointe work more visible, Taglioni shortened her tulle skirts above her ankles, causing a scandal (so says wiki) among 19th-century audiences.
What does it take for a female performer to shock now? It’s a red herring of a wrong question.
We’re in the forest where the witches live. At the back of the stage there’s a woman who has, from the start of the show, been lolling about on a white-sheeted table doing nothing. (What does it mean, to do? How is it valued?) Casual smoker – professional piercing artist Suzn Pasyon – approaches her, cleans her back, rubs it down with what I hope was an industrial strength anaesthetic, and with tender deliberation inserts four metal hooks in a neat row across the lolling woman’s shoulder blades.
There’s a line in John Berger’s G, a book I refuse to read on the basis of its synopsis (‘G. is a Don Juan or Casanova-like lover of women’ – yep, I’m out of here), in which the lothario wonders: ‘Why do I end at my skin?’ It’s possible what he’s seeking is a kind of porosity, being entered through his pores, but given his gender, and Berger’s, I’m going to assume what he’s desiring here are more ways to penetrate. Lolling woman – Lydia Darling at the performance I watched; Lucifire the night before: it’s such a relief to realise this act isn’t repeated, even if it is – lolling woman is female, and therefore penetrated. Once the hooks are in place they are clipped to ropes and she is suspended in the air, with the tug on her skin visible and blood trickling down her back in jagged rivulets.
NO I COULD NOT WATCH THIS. For 24 hours afterwards I felt nauseous; several weeks later thinking about this scene still makes me gag. Not only is she suspended: she spins, and then she grabs a broomstick and screeches with ecstasy. This isn’t the limp orgasmic ecstasy that sculptor Bernini carved into the face and body of Saint Teresa, pierced – penetrated – by an angel’s spear. It’s a wild, maniacal, dangerous ecstasy, of a woman reclaiming the knowledge of witches: a knowledge from which men were excluded, a knowledge that men – as scientists, as doctors, as philosophers – waged a campaign of violence, a continent-spanning witch-hunt, to claim.
The penetration of Lydia Darling is not (just) a shock tactic, or a boundary-breaking circus act, and the point is not (just) to endure pain. This is political. And it’s been going on for centuries.
In La Sylphide, a man is tricked by witches but it’s the woman he loves who dies. In Giselle – another of the romantic ballets Holzinger names as a (negative) influence – a woman is tricked by a lothario and dies, and a group of witches attempt to take revenge, but the dead woman protects the lothario so he survives. In Hans Christian Anderson’s The Red Shoes, written just a few years after these ballets were first performed, a woman is punished by a soldier for dancing too much, for refusing to conform, be constricted. If John Berger had been a woman, perhaps he might have phrased the question: why must I be trapped by this skin?
In another essay in Trick Mirror, ‘We Come From Old Virginia’, Tolentino unpicks the reporting of a campus rape at her own alma mater, a story that was ultimately unravelled as a hoax but in the telling of a lie approached fundamental truths. (Which is a lot like how theatre works.) One of those truths is that, for decades, Tolentino’s college ‘expelled students for plagiarism while refusing to consider rape a serious offence’. Another is that ‘most people still find false accusation much more abhorrent than rape’. But the one that really rips at my insides is this: ‘Rape is an inescapable function of a world that has been designed to give men a maximal amount of lawless freedom.’
This line is synthesised from another essay, by Elizabeth Schambelan, ‘League of Men’, a study of myth and anthropological readings of older societies ‘who understood how grossly contemptible it is to make decisions, as a society, and then assiduously deny the consequences of those decisions’. Decisions integral to the functioning of patriarchy: men must lead, must demonstrate their power over other men, must control difference, using whatever means necessary. Shock and awe.
What is the danger that lurks in the woods? In La Sylphide and Giselle – both choreographed by men – it is the witch; for Little Red Riding Hood, it is the wolf or, in Schambelan’s rendering, the man-boy dressed as a wolf.
We’re in the forest where the witches live, because to gain or reach knowledge you have to penetrate something: again the blood-red writing on the screens. Penetrate the darkness. Penetrate the skin. Penetrate the woman? I feel so aware of how simplistic the gender binaries are here; Holzinger dances with and against them, laughs in the face of them, because these binaries prevail, still govern lives: and note, trans women are more subject to their violence than anyone. I called this section after Milan Kundera’s novel because a few months ago my teenage daughter was reading it and – having not read it myself since university – I happened to open it at the page where Sabina muses: ‘There are things that can be accomplished only by violence. Physical love is unthinkable without violence.’ Readers, I nearly dropped it in the toilet.
Women enduring pain is not the point of Tanz. Making an audience see that pain, and see where they don’t see pain: that is (part of) the point. Tanz opens with a woman ripping out her intestines, but it closes with those women acting like men: the forest becomes a war zone, the women shooting and stabbing each other in a replica of blockbuster cinema glorification of masculine carnage, or a video game in which human life is a currency no more or less meaningful than drugs, guns or dollar bills. Tolentino’s essay builds up to ‘a much larger and deeper story’: ‘Violence against women is fundamentally connected to other systems of violence.’ The violence of racism, for starters.
Before they were killed as witches, women worked together as gossips, and earlier this year one of my protector gossips gifted me this mantra from Toni Cade Bambara: ‘what are you pretending not to know today?’ To reach knowledge you have to penetrate your mind’s self-protection, expose yourself to the ungovernable. In its fierce intelligence, Tanz is an invitation to the audience’s intelligence: not a horror show for Halloween (even if that’s when it was programmed at BAC) but a dismemberment of the myths by which human beings live.
Previous i have seen enough
alexandrina hemsley andre neely Criticism dialogue greg mclaren josh coates July 2015 Maddy Costa Mary Paterson october 2015 Reading the Internet time Twitter Unfinished writing |
Robert Spencer: "We Have No Peace Process"
The denial started almost immediately after Hamas captured 57 percent of the seats in the Palestinian parliament. Associated Press reported that “Hamas capitalized on widespread discontent with years of Fatah corruption and ineffectiveness. Much of its campaign focused on internal Palestinian issues, while playing down the conflict with Israel.” Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice opined: “Palestinian people have apparently voted for change, but we believe their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged.”
But what kind of peace? And how does Hamas (Harakat Muqawama Islamiyya — the Islamic Resistance Movement) propose to rid the Palestinian Authority of corruption? To these questions the answer has been clear for as long as Hamas has existed; the answer to both is Islam. The Hamas Charter of August 18, 1988, quotes Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the first modern Islamic terror organization and the direct forefather of Hamas: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” A Hamas supporter in Gaza amplified that principle on Thursday: “We’re happy that now we will have an Islamic state. God willing, Islam will prevail and we will get rid of corruption.”
The Iranian regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has joined Hamas in calling for the destruction of Israel, expressed delight at the election outcome. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “Iran...hopes that the powerful presence of Hamas at the [political] scene brings about great achievements for the Palestinian nation.”
Others were not so joyful. Jasser Jasser, a Christian pharmacist in Ramallah, said of the prospect of Hamas rule: “We’re all afraid. We’re worried about the future, that we’ll become a second Iran.” Jasser and other non-Muslims have every reason to be afraid. Hassam El-Masalmeh, Hamas leader in Bethlehem, recently declared that his movement intended to reinstitute the traditional tax, the jizya, stipulated in the Qur’an for Jews and Christians in an Islamic state. “We in Hamas,” Masalmeh announced, “intend to implement this tax someday. We say it openly – we welcome everyone to Palestine but only if they agree to live under our rules.” Since along with this tax, Islamic law stipulates that Jews and Christians must submit to a series of humiliating and discriminatory regulations, ensuring their second-class status in line with the Qur’anic stipulation that they “pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29).
Some try to draw comfort from the fact that Hamas participated in the elections at all. Victor Batarseh, the mayor of Bethlehem and a Christian, echoed the view of many analysts when he said: “The only way to make Hamas more moderate is to bring them inside the system.” But that hope was belied by statements from Hamas operatives themselves, including Umm Farhat, a candidate for the Palestinian Legislative Council and the mother of a jihad terrorist who murdered five Israeli civilians. Umm Farhat emphasized that Hamas’ participation in elections did not mean it was moderating its jihadist goals one iota: “The jihadist project completes the political one and the political project cannot be completed without jihad.”
So now it should be clear to the world that exactly that – the jihad – is the agenda of Hamas, and now of the Palestinian Authority as a whole. While Mahmoud Abbas has been able to distance himself from terror attacks in Israel and claim that he was not able to stop them, now the government of the Palestinian Authority itself will be dominated by an organization that has celebrated such attacks.
Flush with victory, Hamas shows no sign of changing that posture. Hamas operative Ismail Haniyeh said the Islamic group will now work to “complete the liberation of other parts of Palestine.” In a sadly typical example of mainstream media cluelessness, the AP story reporting this adds: “But did not say which territories he was referring to or how he would go about it.” As if there were any doubt in the mind of anyone in Hamas at this point that “Palestine” refers to the entirety of Israel. The Hamas Charter states: “For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad: ‘Allah is the all-powerful, but most people are not aware.’”
And how will Hamas go about “liberating” its “homeland”? Hamas’ Mahmoud Zahar reiterated after the electoral victory: “We have no peace process. We are not going to mislead our people to tell them we are waiting, meeting, for a peace process that is nothing.” Zahar was echoing the Hamas Charter’s declaration: “[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement.”
Those words should reverberate in the minds of all the world’s policymakers whenever they are tempted in the coming weeks to call yet again for Israel to moderate its stance toward Hamas and enter into negotiations with the group. Hamas is dedicated to establishing an Islamic state and will no doubt begin immediately to do so. Its Charter maintains, “the Islamic nature of Palestine is part of our religion, and anyone who neglects his religion is bound to lose.” The Charter follows this with a quotation from the Qur’an: “And who forsakes the religion of Abraham, save him who befools himself?” (2:130).
Hamas identifies itself in the Charter as “characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life.” That totalitarian vision, as Jasser Jasser knows well, bodes ill for Palestinian non-Muslims.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Rice is, of course, correct: the Palestinian “aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged.” But they are founded upon a societal model that is fundamentally different from that that Western analysts have so far imagined. “When Islam strives for peace,” wrote the Egyptian Muslim theorist Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), “its objective is not that superficial peace which requires that only that part of the earth where the followers of Islam are residing remain secure. The peace which Islam desires is that the religion (i.e., the Law of the society) be purified for God, that the obedience of all people be for God alone, and that some people should not be lords over others.” In the Palestinian Authority, the voters have freely chosen such a society. Were they voting against corruption? So were many Germans who voted for Hitler in the early 1930s. The fact that much of the populace had not endorsed his agenda, however, did not prevent him from implementing it.
Ahmadinejad in Iran, Hamas in the Palestinian Authority: jihadists are closer than they have been in ages to realizing the Muslim Prophet Muhammad’s prediction that “the last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him” (Sahih Muslim, bk. 41, no. 6985).
Will the world stand ready to prevent this? Or continue to deceive itself with vain hopes that the men who won the Palestinian elections are men with whom they can deal?
Posted by jtf at 8:43 AM 8 comments: Links to this post
Labels: Middle East, Robert Spencer
Jonah Goldberg: Many Faces of Hillary -- None a Winner
latimes.com
Even liberals are fed up with what they see as the senator's 'triangulation, calculation and equivocation' designed to offend no one.
Liberals are sizing up Hillary Clinton for the umpteenth time, and they don't like what they see. To be honest, I never understood what they saw in her in the first place. The amazing thing about Clinton is that she's so unappealing. She isn't a particularly gifted speaker. She's smart, but in a conventional and lawyerly way. She doesn't connect well with audiences. Her idea of improvisation seems to be leaping from the prepared text to prepared note cards.
However, she has defied the rules of nature and gotten better looking over the years, which, along with her soap-opera marriage, probably explains some of her success with supermarket checkout-aisle publications. Indeed, her greatest success has been at exploiting expectations others have for her. For some fans, she was the struggling career woman who could bring home the bacon. For some detractors, she was "Lady MacBeth," cold and calculating in an obviously political marriage. She was also the apotheosis of the 1960s, for friends and foes alike. For the Children's Defense Fund crowd, she was the baby boomer idealist who worked her way through the system. For the American Spectator gang, she was the former Black Panther sympathizer and acolyte of Chicago radical Saul Alinsky who finally achieved power. After the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Hillary — who was no stranger to her husband's weaknesses — suddenly became the victim in a culture with a fetish for victims.
At every turn, Hillary Clinton's Zelig-like public persona has been a fabrication — either by her fans, her enemies or herself. One telling episode came when she published her massively successful autobiography, "Living History." The book tour was nothing short of a coronation, confirming her gravitas and commitment to "the issues." She portrayed herself as resigned to the fact that she'd have to answer Barbara Walters' questions about her personal life, but she always made it seem like she'd rather wrestle with the hard issues of public policy. But when the Washington Post actually tried to ask her about something other than how she cried over her husband's sexcapades with an intern, the senator from New York "declined to be interviewed about the political content of her book."
Hillary Clinton's latest reinvention paints her as a moderate, even an Iraq war hawk. Few people buy it. Reporters regularly assume her motives are opportunistic rather than sincere, focusing on how every pronouncement will position her for the 2008 presidential race. National Public Radio's Mara Liasson, for example, recently observed, "She certainly sees it in her interest to get to the right of the president on many issues, especially in the area of national security." Whatever the reason, some liberals have had enough. "I will not support Hillary Clinton for president," wrote Molly Ivins, the voice of conventional thinking on the left. "Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone."
The segment of Democrats who sanctified Cindy Sheehan can hardly countenance a presidential candidate who unapologetically voted for the war and positioned herself to the right of President Bush on foreign policy. The New Republic offers perhaps an even more devastating critique of Clinton for Democratic pragmatists: She can't win. Marisa Katz dismantled the myth that Clinton can appeal to "red state" voters because she won in upstate New York. Turns out former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry each did better in upstate New York than she did. And Gore, a Southerner, couldn't even win his home state of Tennessee.
Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll showed that 51% of Americans won't even consider voting for Clinton. All of this could change. But there's a great irony here. Hillary Clinton's success over the last decade and a half has been in pretending to be her own woman while really playing one part or another for the benefit of the media, her husband or various feminist constituencies desperate for a role model to confirm all of their comfortable stereotypes. That's why there's something oddly satisfying in the possibility that Clinton being herself is politically disastrous. And, if she's really just playing one more role according to some classically Clintonian political triangulation, there's something equally satisfying to the prospect that even her fans aren't falling for it anymore.
Posted by jtf at 8:14 PM 8 comments: Links to this post
Labels: Bill/Hillary Clinton, Jonah Goldberg
Ann Coulter: Abortion Stops a Bleeding Heart
The Democrats are trying to "reframe" their message to make people think they believe abortion is wrong. I think this is going to be a hard sell if they plan to continue ferociously defending abortion-on-demand right up until the moment the baby's head is through the birth canal.
But both the New York Times and the Washington Post have recently run op-eds by leftist calling for Democrats to abandon their single-minded devotion to Roe v. Wade.
In the Post, Richard Cohen said it was time for leftists to "untether abortion rights from Roe."
Cohen admitted that conservatives (and "some liberals," he claimed implausibly) have a point when they say abortion ought to be decided by the states. This is another way of saying abortion is not a constitutional right. Kate Michelman: Call your abortion mill!
In the New York Times, William Saletan gently counseled feminists that it was time to admit: "It's bad to kill a fetus." And they say left-wingers have no values!
Even Jimmy Carter, the Democrats' idea of an evangelical Christian, has allowed that "I don't believe that Christ would approve of abortions." (Though Carter added that Christ would approve of abortion if "the mother's life or health was seriously endangered or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest" – or if Jesus really, really needed the feminists to vote for him.)
It's been a long time coming, but the Democrats are finally throwing the NARAL ladies off the boat.
One by one, the Democratic Party keeps having to abandon all the insane positions that have made it the funny, silly party we've come to know and love.
The gun-control fanatics were thrown overboard after President Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress passed the 1994 crime bill that banned so-called "assault weapons" – i.e., otherwise completely legal semiautomatic weapons that looked scary to Dianne Feinstein.
As a result, the Democrats lost Congress for the first time in 40 years and lost the South forever. When is the last time you heard a Democrat use the words "gun control"?
In 1995, the new Republican Congress sent a welfare reform bill to Clinton, a man who had campaigned on "mend it, don't end it" and then refused to do anything about it.
Not one Democrat resigned from the Clinton administration when Clinton turned out to be molesting the help and committing lots of felonies. But a whole slew of them resigned to protest Clinton's signing the Republicans' welfare reform bill.
You never hear a peep out of Democrats anymore about restoring government welfare programs to their former glory.
Now it's the abortion ladies' turn.
As Saletan informed feminists in his Times column:
"You can tell yourself that the pro-choice majority stayed home in the last election, or that they voted on other issues, or that Democrats botched the debate. But those excuses are getting tired. Sixteen years ago, as the behavior of voters and politicians showed, abortion was clearly a winning issue for you. Now it isn't. You have a problem."
It's finally happened: Abortion stopped a bleeding heart.
I guess Sandra Day O'Connor's demand that "the contending sides" on abortion "end their national division" and accept the court's diktat in Roe didn't work out for her.
As Abraham Lincoln said of another moral blight on the nation supported by Democrats: You can "repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history – you still cannot repeal human nature. It will still be the abundance of man's heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak."
Or, as Justice Antonin Scalia said, the court's refusal to overrule the lawless Roe decision would not stand because of "the twin facts that the American people love democracy and the American people are not fools."
With even leftists backing away from Roe, apparently the last group of people on Earth to realize the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence is a catastrophe is going to be the Supreme Court.
Ann Coulter is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her most recent book is How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).
Labels: Abortion and Life Issues, Ann Coulter
Daniel Pipes: Don't deal with terrorists
Hamas is a killer and shouldn't have been allowed into elections.
As Hamas, the Islamist terror group, surges in the polls with a prospect of joining the Palestinian Authority or even running it, governments worldwide must decide on their responses.
An increasing number of voices are calling for Hamas to be recognized, arguing that the imperatives of governance would tame it, ending its arch-murderous vocation (it has killed about 600 Israelis) and turning it into a responsible citizen.
Even President Bush made this argument in early 2005: “There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, ‘Vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America.' … I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, ‘Vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.' ”
The historical record, however, refutes this “pothole theory of democracy.” Mussolini made the trains run, Hitler built autobahns, Stalin cleared the snow and Castro reduced infant mortality — without any of these totalitarians giving up their ideological zeal nor their grandiose ambitions. Likewise, Islamists in Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan have governed without becoming tamed. If proof is needed, note the Iranian efforts to build nuclear weapons amid an apocalyptic fervor.
Hamas might have hired a spin doctor to improve its image in the West, but its leadership candidly maintains it has no intention of changing. Responding to a question on whether Bush is correct that U.S. engagement with Hamas would moderate the terror group, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas founder, laughed and declared that this tactic “will not succeed.” In recent days, Zahar has publicly reiterated that Hamas still intends to destroy Israel.
Fortunately, U.S. policy remains steadfast: “We haven't dealt with Hamas, and we won't deal with Hamas members who are elected,” says U.S. embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle in Israel. That is a good start; ideally, there should be no dealings at all with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas in its leadership.
It was a mistake to permit Hamas to compete in elections. Like al-Qaeda, Hamas should be destroyed, not legitimated, much less courted.
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, a think tank in Philadelphia, and author of Miniatures: Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics.
Labels: Daniel Pipes, Middle East
Srdja Trifkovic: Can a Pious Muslim Become a Loyal American?
A Muslim who becomes a naturalized American citizen is literally millions of times more likely to plot terrorist acts against his fellow citizens than a member of any other religious creed or political ideology (Islam is both). It is not possible to wage a meaningful “Global War on Terrorism” without considering the legal, moral, and pragmatic implications of this problem.
First, the facts. Muslims account for up to one percent of the population of the United States, in contrast to Western Europe where their share of the population is up to ten times greater. They like to pretend otherwise, and groups such as the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Student Association, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Muslim Council (AMC), and the Harvard Islamic Society routinely assert that there are between 4.5 and 9 million Muslims in the United States. It is remarkable that these sources do not provide any empirically verifiable basis for their figures.
Impartial studies currently place the number of Muslims at between 2 and 3 million. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) conducted by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) polled more than 50,000 people in 2001 and found the total American Muslim population to be 1.8 million. The University of Chicago’s Tom W. Smith reached a similar figure:
The best, adjusted, survey-based estimates put the adult Muslim population in 2000 at 0.67 percent or 1,401,000, and the total Muslim population at 1,886,000. Even if high-side estimates based on local surveys, figures from mosques, and ancestry and immigration statistics are given more weight than the survey-based numbers, it is hard to accept estimates that Muslims are greater than 1 percent of the population (2,090,000 adults, or 2,814,000 total).
It is estimated that up to two-thirds of that group are foreign-born immigrants, and about one half are naturalized American citizens. In other words, about one-half of one percent of the country’s overall population are foreign-born Muslims who are now naturalized U.S. citizens.
As U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials are well aware (and some readily admit off-the-record), the attitudes of these people tend to change once their status in America is secure. As visa applicants or permanent residents they refrain from statements and acts that may make them excludable under current laws. But as soon as they gain citizenship, some among them are quick to rediscover the virtues of sharia and jihad. Examples abound:
• In June 2005 22-year-old Hamid Hayat was arrested in Lodi, CA, and admitted spending six months in 2003-2004 at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. He attended classes that included instructions on “how to kill Americans.” He and his father, Umer Hayat (47), are both naturalized U.S. citizens. They are in jail awaiting trial; both have been refused bail.
• In Falls Church, VA, Maher Amin Jaradat, was arrested on June 6, 2005, and pled guilty on July 14 to fraudulently procuring U.S. citizenship because he failed to disclose previous ties to militant groups.
• In May 2005 a naturalized U.S. citizen, Rafiq Sabir, was arrested in Florida and accused of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization. Sabir is an Ivy League-educated medical doctor who lived in a gated community in Boca Raton. He pledged loyalty to al-Qaida and offered to treat injured or sick terrorists.
• In March 2004 two naturalized U.S. citizens, Ilyas Ali and Muhamed Abid Afridi, plead guilty to plotting to sell shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles to al Qaeda. Ali had previously claimed he was an innocent victim of Attorney General John Ashcroft and his over-zealous Justice Department. “Nine-eleven, me and my wife cried,” he said. “We cried for three days.”
• Mukhtar al-Bakri, a naturalized citizen, and five U.S.-born youths from upstate New York were convicted in 2003 of aiding Al-Qaeda, training in terrorist camps, and plotting attacks on Americans.
• In October 2003, Iyman Faris (34), an Ohio truck driver and naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced to 20 years for providing material support to al Qaeda. He pleaded guilty to plotting to destroy Brooklyn Bridge by cutting its suspension cables. He became a U.S. citizen in 1999 and only months later, in 2000, he traveled from his native Pakistan to Afghanistan where he met bin Laden and other senior leaders who gave Faris his orders.
“We must never forget . . . that as Muslims, we are obligated to desire, and when possible to participate in, the overthrow of any non-Islamic government—anywhere in the world – in order to replace it by an Islamic one,” the speaker concluded his remarks. The venue was a mosque, not in Rawalpindi or Jeddah but in San Francisco. When a recent convert noted that if Muslims are obligated to overthrow the U.S. government then accepting Islam was tantamount to an act of political treason, the lecturer responded matter-of-factly, “Yes, that’s true.”
He was right both technically and substantively. A breach of allegiance to the United States by naturalized Muslims is not a rarity, it is an integral part of the Muslim-American experience. It is an inherent dilemma for many; it leads the serious few to give aid and comfort to the enemy. The problem will be solved only if and when Islamic activism is treated as grounds for the loss of acquired U.S. citizenship and deportation. The citizenship of any naturalized American who actively supports or preaches jihad, inequality of “infidels,” the establishment of the Shari’a law, etc., should be revoked, and that person promptly deported to the country of origin. Before defining “activism,” let us remember that a foreigner who becomes naturalized has to declare, on oath,
that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God. (In acknowledgement whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature.)
For a Muslim to declare all of the above in good faith, and especially that he accepts the Constitution of the United States as the source of his highest loyalty, is an act of brazen apostasy par excellence, and apostasy is punishable by death under the Islamic law. The sharia, to a Muslim, is not an addition to the “secular” legal code with which it coexists with “the Constitution and laws of the United States of America”; it is the only true code, the only basis of obligation. To be legitimate, all political power therefore must rest exclusively with those who enjoy Allah’s authority on the basis of his revealed will. In America that is not the case and its government is therefore illegitimate.
It is equally sacrilegious for a Muslim to swear to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That vow, if it means anything substantial, means that he would be prepared to shoot a fellow Muslim, or denounce him to the authorities, in defense of his adopted homeland. That this is not how many if not most naturalized Muslims see it is a matter of record.
So how can a self-avowedly devout Muslim take the oath of American citizenship, and expect the rest of us to believe that it was done in good faith and not only in order to get that coveted passport? A devout Muslim can do it only if in taking the oath he is practicing taqiyya, the art of dissimulation that was inaugurated by Muhammad to help destabilize and undermine non-Muslim communities almost ripe for a touch of old-fashioned Jihad. Or else he may take it because he is not devout and may be confused, in other case if he is not a very good Muslim at all; but in that case there is the ever-present danger that at some point in the future he or his American-born offspring will rediscover their roots. The consequences of such awakening for the rest of us are invariably perilous.
The interior ministry of the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has introduced measures that seek to avert this danger. Potential German citizens will have to answer a 30-topic loyalty test dealing with marriage, sexuality, democracy, attitudes to other faiths, etc. The manual for the naturalization authorities insist that applicants for citizenship must concur with the “free, democratic, constitutional structure” of Germany. Personal interviews may last for hours and will be given to an estimated half of all applicants. The German scheme, while causing predictable expressions of shock and horror among the usual suspects, looks like a potentially useful first step that the United States should consider in reforming the entire naturalization process. The ultimate objective of the reform process, however, needs to address two key questions: why should a Muslim want to become a citizen of a secular, pluralist, non-Muslim state; and why should that state’s non-Muslim citizens want to have him accepted as one of them.
The answer is inseparable from the fact that a person’s Islamic faith and outlook are incompatible with the requirements of personal commitment, patriotic loyalty and unquestionable reliability that are implicit in the oath of citizenship, and absolutely essential in the military, law enforcement, intelligence services, and other related branches of government.
It is to be hoped that the acceptance of other proposed measures would lead to a swift and irreversible reduction in the burgeoning number of mosques and Islamic centers in the United States. The remnant would have to be registered with the Attorney General and subjected to all legal limitations and security supervision strictures that apply to other quasi-religious cults prone to violence.
Conditio sine qua non all along is to accept and declare that the First Amendment does not protect Jihadists. It is in the American tradition that nothing ought to protect those who advocate the overthrow of the United States Government by force and violence, and, at bottom, that is what the Jihadists are up to. Legal regulators need to grasp that Islam itself is a radical, revolutionary ideology, inherently seditious and inimical to American values and institutions.
No court in a democratic country should uphold the constitutionality of any measure targeted at a particular religion quia religion. But if the facts were known about what is going on in mosques, and what is the nature and goal of worldwide Jihad, the necessary legal regulation may be accomplished. The First Amendment protection to political speech should not extent to Sharia, period. We do not need new legal theories, or a different conception of the First Amendment; we need an educational campaign.
The dominant view in the academy and in the courts is that any thought or political idea ought to be protected, so the educator’s job is to convince legislators that we are dealing with a new phenomenon more dangerous even than anarchism, fascism or communism. As our Legal Affairs Editor Stephen Presser points out,
If that is ever done, then the precedents from 1903 or 1920 basically kick in, and the Jihadists get perceived not as exercisers of First Amendment rights, but as dangerous subversives. Anyone trying to do that will have to plunge into the thicket of what a religion actually is, however, and the Courts are notoriously unclear on that.
A radically new form of legal clarity on Islam's nature is needed before the acceptance of our proposals becomes reality.
On the bright side, the proposed measures are politically eminently feasible. In a study conducted a year ago to determine the public attitude to terrorism, a half of respondents polled nationally said they believe the U.S. government should curtail civil liberties for American citizens who are Muslim. It should be noted that they do so in spite of the efforts of an elite class that never tires of assuring us that we are dealing with the “religion of peace and tolerance!” When it comes to visa moratoriums for Muslim non-citizens, the picture is even more encouraging.
The deadlock on the Somme in 1916, or at Verdun a year later, could not be broken with the strategic ideas and modus operandi of Messrs. Haigh, Pétain, or Hindenburg. It could have been unlocked, however, had Lidell-Hart, de Gaulle, or Guderian held their ranks and positions. Winning a war demands “knowing the enemy and knowing oneself,” of course, but it also demands “thinking outside the box.” This old cliché is apt: the magnitude of the threat demands radical responses that fall outside the cognitive parameters of the elite class.
Acceptance of these proposals would represent the long overdue beginning of serious Western defense against Islamic terrorism. It would signify the recognition that we are in a life-or-death struggle. It is being waged, on the Islamic side, with the deep conviction that the West is on its last legs, spiritually, morally, and biologically. That view is reinforced by the evidence from history that a civilization that loses the urge for biological self-perpetuation is indeed in mortal peril. Even at this late stage a recovery is possible, however, and the suggested measures would herald that recovery.
This article is partly based on the final chapter of Dr. Trifkovic’s latest book, Defeating Jihad, which will be published by Regina Orthodox Press (Boston) on March 1, 2006.
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Labels: Islam and The West, Srdja Trifkovic
George F. Will: Educators vs. Education
Jan. 16, 2006 issue - The surest, quickest way to add quality to primary and secondary education would be addition by subtraction: Close all the schools of education. Consider The Chronicle of Higher Education's recent report concerning the schools that certify America's teachers.
Many education schools discourage, even disqualify, prospective teachers who lack the correct "disposition," meaning those who do not embrace today's "progressive" political catechism. Karen Siegfried had a 3.75 grade-point average at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but after voicing conservative views, she was told by her education professors that she lacked the "professional disposition" teachers need. She is now studying to be an aviation technician.
In 2002 the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education declared that a "professional disposition" is "guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values such as caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice." Regarding that last, the Chronicle reports that the University of Alabama's College of Education proclaims itself "committed to preparing individuals to"—what? "Read, write and reason"? No, "to promote social justice, to be change agents, and to recognize individual and institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism," and to "break silences" about those things and "develop anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist community [sic] and alliances."
Brooklyn College, where a professor of education required her class on Language Literacy in Secondary Education to watch "Fahrenheit 9/11" before the 2004 election, says it educates teacher candidates about, among many other evils, "heterosexism." The University of Alaska Fairbanks, fluent with today's progressive patois, says that, given America's "caste-like system," teachers must be taught "how racial and cultural 'others' negotiate American school systems, and how they perform their identities." Got it?
The permeation of ed schools by politics is a consequence of the vacuity of their curricula. Concerning that, read "Why Johnny's Teacher Can't Teach" by Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute (available at city-journal.org). Today's teacher-education focus on "professional disposition" is just the latest permutation of what Mac Donald calls the education schools' "immutable dogma," which she calls "Anything But Knowledge."
The dogma has been that primary and secondary education is about "self-actualization" or "finding one's joy" or "social adjustment" or "multicultural sensitivity" or "minority empowerment." But is never about anything as banal as mere knowledge. It is about "constructing one's own knowledge" and "contextualizing knowledge," but never about knowledge of things like biology or history.
Mac Donald says "the central educational fallacy of our time," which dates from the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, is "that one can think without having anything to think about." At City College of New York a professor said that in her course Curriculum and Teaching in Elementary Education she would be "building a community, rich of talk" and "getting the students to develop the subtext of what they're doing." Although ed schools fancy themselves as surfers on the wave of the future, Mac Donald believes that teacher education "has been more unchanging than Miss Havisham. Like aging vestal virgins, today's schools lovingly guard the ancient flame of progressivism"—an egalitarianism with two related tenets.
One, says Mac Donald, is that "to accord teachers any superior role in the classroom would be to acknowledge an elite hierarchy of knowledge, possessed by some but not all." Hence, second, emphasis should be on group projects rather than individual accomplishments that are measured by tests that reveal persistent achievement gaps separating whites and Asians from other minorities.
Numerous inner-city charter and private schools are proving that the gaps can be narrowed, even closed, when rigorous pedagogy is practiced by teachers in teacher-centered classrooms where knowledge is regarded as everything. But most ed schools, celebrating "child-centered classrooms" that do not "suffocate discourses," are enemies of rigor.
The steady drizzle of depressing data continues. A new assessment of adult literacy shows a sharp decline over the last decade, with only 31 percent of college graduates able to read and extrapolate from complex material. They were supposed to learn how to read before college, but perhaps their teachers were too busy proving their "professional dispositions" by "breaking silences" as "change agents."
Fewer than half of U.S. eighth graders have math teachers who majored in math as undergraduates or graduate students or studied math for teacher certification. U.S. 12th graders recently performed below the international average for 21 countries on tests of general knowledge of math and science. But perhaps U.S. pupils excel when asked to "perform their identities."
Labels: Education, George Will
Pat Buchanan: What Would Jack Bauer Do?
Ex-President Palmer had saved Jack Bauer's life.
Yet, the "military option" against Iran is the talk of the town.
The Chinese wanted agent Bauer extradited to execute him for the killing of their Los Angeles consul, gunned down in a crossfire between Chinese security and Bauer's Counter-Terrorism Unit team that had penetrated the consulate on an espionage mission.
Palmer, though out of office, conspired in a CTU scheme where Jack would appear dead, to the satisfaction of the duped Chinese, and be sent to Mexico with a fake identity.
As this year's series of Fox's "24" opened Sunday, President Palmer is shot through an office window and assassinated. Word reaches Bauer, working in the California oil patch.
Emotional at the death of the president he loved, for whom he had often risked his life, Jack returns. He is intercepted and almost killed by the team that murdered Palmer. Wounding the leader of the terrorists, Bauer interrogates him, warning the bleeding man he will die unless Bauer helps him get to a hospital. The terrorist talks.
After he spills all his information, Bauer starts to walk away. The terrorist demands to be taken to the hospital.
Were you the one who shot President Palmer? Bauer asks. Yes, replies the wounded terrorist, in agony on the floor. Bauer stares at him for two seconds -- then shoots him.
It is a Jack Bauer moment, and all addicted to "24" knew what would happen to that assassin. For Bauer is a take-no-prisoners patriot who puts love of country and loyalty to friends first, and fights by his own rules. To Jack Bauer, the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist.
What is the appeal of "24"?
It is the fastest-paced, most exciting TV out there. But at bottom, the appeal is that, as in the Westerns of old and "Dirty Harry" movies of the 1970s, Jack Bauer is a flawed but good man in a struggle against evil, who is there to see that his loved ones are secure and justice is done. To Jack Bauer, as to Clint Eastwood's Detective "Dirty Harry" Callahan, vigilante justice is not only preferable to no justice at all, it is the best kind. Evil men should get what they deserve, without legal complications.
"24" satisfies the innate demand in all of us that, the law aside, evil should be punished and justice done.
That the audience for "24" is so loyal and large should tell us something about America and our divisions over the war we are in.
For weeks, Democrats and their media allies have been on Bush's case for using the National Security Agency to intercept, without warrant, phone calls and e-mails to terror suspects abroad. Before that, Bush was charged with using secret detention centers in Eastern Europe to interrogate suspects. Before that, the military was accused of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Afghanistan. Before that, the Justice Department was charged with violating the civil rights of Jose Padilla and the Shoe-bomber.
Bush thus stands accused of violating the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war, ignoring constitutional protections of U.S. citizens, and violating international agreements prohibiting torture and the "rendition" of prisoners to countries where torture is practiced.
Where do the American people stand?
The left may be right on the law, but the people seem to be standing by Bush. Believing the character of this war, where the enemy's preferred tactic is to slaughter civilians with terror bombings, people seem to agree that we have to follow Jack Bauer's rules, not ACLU rules.
Yet one senses that Americans are conflicted. We want to think of ourselves as decent people who fight wars honorably. But we believe the enemies of 9-11 are so evil, so depraved, they forfeit the right to be treated honorably. And while we believe in constitutional rights, human rights, civil rights, Miranda warnings and all that, we also believe in winning our wars. For without victory in the war on terror, freedom may not survive.
"Success alone justifies war," said Von Moltke, as Germany prepared to violate Belgium's neutrality to outflank France in 1914. Americans appear to believe that, too.
President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and blockaded Southern ports, without congressional authorization. President Wilson locked up Eugene V. Debs in World War I and never let him out. FDR interned 110,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans in relocation camps, in a wartime act of racial profiling approved by the Supreme Court. Truman dropped atom bombs on defenseless cities, killing 100,000 women and children. Yet all are judged by liberal historians to be great or near-great presidents.
Now, Jack Bauer does not exist, and "24" is made-for-TV escapist entertainment. As we cheer or laugh out loud at his daring exploits, however, one wonders what liberal Democrats of the ACLU variety would do to a real-life Jack Bauer?
My guess: Put him in Leavenworth for life. But President Palmer knew his value, because President Palmer knew the real world.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
Labels: Patrick J. Buchanan, Television
Jonah Goldberg: Many Faces of Hillary -- None a Wi...
Srdja Trifkovic: Can a Pious Muslim Become a Loyal... |
Eye Nutrition News
Macular Pigment Dietary Supplement Improves Contrast Sensitivity
Adults with healthy eyes who took a daily nutritional supplement containing lutein, meso-zeaxanthin and zeaxanthin for 12 months showed improved contrast sensitivity compared with people who took a placebo, in a new study.
Improving contrast sensitivity can help drivers function better in low light and bad weather. And sports like golf are more enjoyable when the ball is easier to see against the background.
The three plant pigments, characterized as xanthophyll carotenoids, make up the macular pigment (MP) in the human eye. This is the yellow pigment found only in the macula of the retina, which controls central visual acuity and color vision. Macular pigment also is a powerful antioxidant and helps protect the retina from damaging effects of high-energy visible light (blue light).
In the study, 53 healthy subjects with low baseline concentrations of MP took a daily supplement containing 10 mg lutein, 10 mg meso-zeaxanthin and 2 mg zeaxanthin. A control group of 52 subjects with similar macular pigment levels took a placebo pill daily.
Compared with the placebo, the supplement containing macular pigments produced significant improvements in contrast sensitivity at two different measures of visual target faintness compared with background brightness (6.0 and 1.2 cycles per degree).
Contrast sensitivity (CS) is a more sensitive measure of visual function than conventional visual acuity testing, which uses black letters on a white background. CS testing evaluates the faintest target a person can see, whereas visual acuity testing measures the smallest (high contrast) target a person can see.
In a live webinar, lead investigator John M. Nolan, PhD, of Nutrition Research Centre Ireland (Waterford, Ireland), explained that the study results suggest that dietary supplementation of the macular carotenoids can have meaningful effects on visual function. These include improvements in driving vision, night vision, sports vision and one's overall enjoyment of the visual world.
The researchers also noted that concentrations of macular pigments in the retina decrease with age. They speculated that visual improvements are likely to be noticed by all adults who enrich their macular pigment levels with supplements, not just individuals with low baseline MP concentrations.
A full report of the study appeared in the June 2016 issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.
Leafy Greens, Every Day, May Keep Glaucoma Away
New research indicates that leafy greens may be even healthier than we thought. While veggies like spinach, kale and collard greens may not be able to cure glaucoma, eating them regularly may help protect you against ever developing the most common form of the disease, known as primary open angle glaucoma (POAG).
Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School followed more than 100,000 men and women who were enrolled in two major medical studies for a period of more than 28 years. Everyone in these studies was 40 years or older, and none had glaucoma at the start of the study.
The patients received eye exams every two years, and throughout the course of the studies, 1,483 people developed POAG. When the researchers looked at the diets of the study participants, they noted a strong similarity among those who did not develop glaucoma — these people ate more leafy greens. In fact, greater intake of green leafy vegetables was associated with a 20 percent to 30 percent lower risk of POAG.
The association was even stronger for POAG with early paracentral visual field loss, a common subtype of POAG. The research revealed that people who ate a lot of leafy greens had a 40 percent to 50 percent lower risk of acquiring this form of the disease.
The reason these super foods offer such great protection is related to the dietary nitrate they contain. It's thought that glaucoma impairs blood flow to the optic nerve. Nitric oxide helps regulate this flow. Since leafy greens contain high levels of nitrates, the precursor to nitric oxide, consuming them likely keeps things running more smoothly.
A significant amount of other new research is currently aimed at developing therapeutics that treat glaucoma by way of nitric oxide. In fact, the FDA is reviewing at least one new medication that donates nitric oxide. But thanks to this latest report, far fewer people will need it if they load up on leafy greens before any glaucomatous damage is done.
So just how much roughage do you need to eat to protect yourself from glaucoma? In this study, those who consumed the most leafy greens averaged about 1.5 servings per day, which equates to about one and a half cups.
The study was published in JAMA Ophthalmology in January 2016. — A.H.
Diets Rich In Lutein And Zeaxanthin Associated With Reduced Risk Of Advanced Macular Degeneration, Study Finds
Eating a diet rich in the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin is associated with a long-term reduced risk of developing advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a study.
Please click on the image for a salad recipe that features kale, a great source for lutein.
Data for the study was gathered from two long-term studies — the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study — that followed 100,000 subjects (63,443 women and 38,603 men) ages 50 and older for more than two decades. None of the participants had diagnosed macular degeneration, diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer at the beginning of the study periods.
Blood levels of lutein and zeaxanthin were estimated based on diet and food intake questionnaires administered throughout the study period and the bioavailability of the carotenoids in the foods eaten. Associations between these scores and development of AMD were then determined.
At the end of the study period, there were 1,361 cases of intermediate AMD and 1,118 cases of advanced AMD (visual acuity of 20/30 or worse) among the study participants. Comparing the incidence of macular degeneration among participants with lutein and zeaxanthin scores in the top 20 percent versus those with scores in the bottom 20 percent, the researchers "found a risk reduction for advanced AMD of about 40 percent in both women and men" among those whose diets contained the most carotenoids. Also, predicted plasma scores for other carotenoids — including β-cryptoxanthin, alpha-carotene and beta-carotene — were associated with a 25 to 30 percent lower risk of advanced AMD when comparing these same subgroups.
No associations between predicted plasma scores of lutein, zeaxanthin or other carotenoids with intermediate AMD were identified.
The study authors concluded the results of the study "further strengthen the evidence base for a protective role of lutein and zeaxanthin" (against macular degeneration). They also said, "Because other carotenoids may also have a protective role, a public health strategy for increasing the consumption of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables rich in carotenoids could be most beneficial and compatible with current dietary guidelines."
The study, published online in October 2015 by the American Medical Association journal JAMA Ophthalmology, was conducted by scientists affiliated with the following institutions: Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (Boston, Massachusetts); Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island); Department of Epidemiology, Brown School of Public Health (Providence, Rhode Island); Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School (Boston); and University of Utah School of Medicine (Salt Lake City).
Poor Eating Habits Are Causing Nutrient Deficiencies In Children (And What To Do About It)
Due to poor eating habits, American children of all ages (and especially adolescents) are missing key nutrients. That's the conclusion of Purdue University nutrition researcher Heather Eicher-Miller, PhD, during her presentation at a meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists in July 2015.
We get it: fries are yummy! But good eye health requires more than a fast food diet.
It can be particularly challenging for adolescents to meet their nutritional needs because of accelerated physical growth during this stage of life and because teens make more independent food choices that often lack key nutrients, according to Dr. Eicher-Miller.
She and her Purdue colleagues conducted a review of research on nutritional gaps in children over the last 10 years. They found kids in the U.S. frequently were deficient in vitamins A, D, E and K (found in green vegetables), calcium and magnesium.
In particular:
Ages 9 to 13: Girls showed nutrient gaps in vitamins A, D, E and K, and in magnesium and potassium; boys were deficient in vitamins D and E.
Ages 14 to 18: Girls lacked adequate levels of vitamins A, C, D and E, as well as zinc, potassium, magnesium and calcium; boys were deficient in A, C, D, E, calcium and magnesium.
Gaps in these important nutrients can have implications throughout the body, may affect attentiveness and academic performance, and may also affect long-term eye and vision health.
To make sure your children are getting the nutrition they need for healthy bodies, good vision and optimal performance both in and outside the classroom, encourage these healthy eating habits:
Avoid or cut back on sugary soft drinks and energy drinks. Drink more water instead. For flavor, add a slice of lemon, lime or orange.
Fruits and veggies are your friends. Snack on these instead of high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food.
Don't add salt to your food. If you feel the need for a salty snack, try a small handful of nuts.
Eat breakfast every day. (Eggs are a great source of nutrients and vitamins, including lutein and other eye-healthy nutrients.)
Avoid fried foods. Try more healthful alternatives, including grilled lean meats and sushi.
Take a balanced multivitamin supplement daily with breakfast or lunch.
Also, get plenty of sleep to help your body recharge, recover and be ready for a new day!
Cooked Eggs Improve Absorption of Eye-Healthy Nutrients In Raw Vegetables
Do you eat enough raw veggies? Most people don't. But not only should you add more salad to your diet, you should also consider eating eggs with it.
In a study by Purdue University researchers, 16 young men ate three versions of a salad containing tomatoes, carrots, romaine lettuce, baby spinach and Chinese wolfberries (also called goji berries). One version had no egg; the second version had one and a half scrambled whole eggs; and the third had three scrambled whole eggs.
Eating the cooked eggs increased the absorption from three- to nine-fold of the carotenoids in the vegetables, including beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lycopene, lutein and zeaxanthin. (The egg yolks also contain lutein and zeaxanthin.) Many carotenoids are considered eye health boosters.
Wayne Campbell, PhD, professor of nutrition science at Purdue, and his group would also like to investigate the effects of eating cooked eggs on the absorption of other fat-soluble nutrients, such as vitamins E and D. — L.S.
Visionary Kitchen: A Cookbook That Promotes Eye Health
Written by optometrist Sandra Young, OD, Visionary Kitchen is a cookbook with beautiful photography that will inspire you and your family to eat better for eye health.
You can order a copy of Visionary Kitchen on Amazon or at VisionaryKitchen.com .
The book contains more than 150 easy, delicious recipes that include ingredients containing lutein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin C, zinc and other nutrients thought to promote eye health and good vision. The recipes list the amounts of eye-healthy nutrients in each serving.
The recipes are low-glycemic and include gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian and dairy-free options.
Especially interesting is the section on snacks: It includes several great recipes for energy bites that you can eat when your tummy's growling and lunchtime is still a couple hours away. Plus, the mushroom lentil pate and the salmon black bean mash make excellent spreads for party appetizers.
Other great ideas are herb and spice blends you can make yourself, healthful smoothie drinks and creative breakfast recipes, such as broccoli-quinoa mini-quiches and omega-3 pancakes. — L.S.
Please click here for more eye-healthy recipes also created by optometrists.
Vitamin B1 Deficiency Linked To Brain Damage And Vision Loss
In extreme cases, normally due to alcoholism, anorexia or other disorders that lead to malnourishment, vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency can cause Wernicke encephalopathy.
Sunflower seeds, pork and macadamia nuts are among the foods that are high in vitamin B1.
This serious neurologic disorder is associated with eye problems like double vision and involuntary eye movement, and can even lead to irreversible brain damage and death, according to researchers at Loyola University Medical Center.
Wernicke encephalopathy is often undiagnosed. "Particularly in those who suffer from alcoholism or AIDS, the diagnosis is missed on clinical examination in 75 to 80 percent of cases," wrote the researchers.
Thiamine is an essential vitamin for a variety of organ functions, including the nervous system. The current recommended daily value for vitamin B1 is 1.4 mg. Foods rich in thiamine include lean pork, sunflower seeds, trout, edamame and macadamia nuts.
Alcohol Consumption Reduces Optical Quality Of The Eye
It has been proposed that the antioxidants found in red wine may be beneficial to eye health. But before you raise that wine glass, you should also consider the harmful effect that alcohol has on our vision in low light and at night.
Halos around lights at night. (Image: UGRdivulga)
Scientists at the University of Granada in Spain say they have proven that alcohol consumption increases the perception of halos around lights at night. So, for example, streetlamps and oncoming headlights appear larger and more dazzling, so pedestrians and traffic signs can become less visible, creating a dangerous situation.
The researchers evaluated retina image quality and night vision performance in 67 people who had consumed various quantities of wine. Their breath alcohol content was also measured. Those with a breath alcohol content level over the legal limit (.25mg/l in Spain) experienced significant deterioration in their vision, with more perception of halos and other nighttime visual problems.
One reason may be that the ethanol in alcoholic beverages disturbs the lipid layer of the eye's tear film, which can increase evaporation of the tear film's watery component. This tear evaporation can create vision problems.
A report of the study appeared in the Journal of Ophthalmology in 2014.
More Omega-3 Fatty Acids In The Blood Linked To Less Risk Of Macular Degeneration
Higher circulating blood levels of EPA and DHA — essential omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon and other oily fish — were significantly associated with lower risk for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD).
Eating more salmon and other oily fish and seafood high in omega-3 fatty acids (sardines, mackerel, tuna, anchovies, oysters) may reduce your risk of macular degeneration.
Researchers in France evaluated levels of EPA and DHA in the blood serum and red blood cell membranes of 290 patients with wet AMD in one eye and early AMD lesions in the other eye and 144 patients without AMD in either eye. Dietary intake of seafood was estimated by a food questionnaire completed by all participants.
Dietary oily fish and seafood intake were significantly lower in AMD patients compared with healthy patients without AMD. After adjusting for age, gender, family history of AMD and other factors, higher serum EPA levels were significantly associated with a lower risk for neovascular AMD.
Higher levels of EPA and combined EPA and DHA levels in red blood cell membranes also were significantly associated with a lower risk for wet AMD.
The study authors concluded that blood levels of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids, particularly levels found in red blood cell membranes, may be a useful objective marker to identify people at risk for neovascular AMD and those who might benefit most from changing their diet to reduce risk of macular degeneration.
The study appeared online in February 2014 in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.
Antioxidants May Lower Risk Of Cataracts In Women
Ladies, it's time to eat more of your fruits and veggies.
Colorful fruits and vegetables are the best source of antioxidants for women to lower the risk of cataracts as they age, according to a Swedish study by the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet.
Coffee, tea, whole grains, red wine and many fruits and vegetables all contain high amounts of antioxidants, which may lower the risk of cataracts in women.
For the study, more than 30,000 Swedish women over age 49 were observed for about seven years for signs of developing cataracts and were given a dietary questionnaire.
The study found those with the highest total intake of antioxidants had about a 13 percent lower risk of developing cataracts than women with the lowest intake.
Instead of looking at single antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, and plant flavonoids such as lycopene, the researchers used a measure of total antioxidant values in foods, which takes into account how the nutrients work together. Foods high in antioxidants include coffee, tea, oranges, whole grains and red wine.
Based on total antioxidant consumption, the researchers divided the women into five groups, ranging from the greatest antioxidant intake to the least. Among those who ate the most antioxidants, 745 cases of cataract were recorded, compared with 953 cases among women with the lowest antioxidant consumption. Women who ate more antioxidants also tended to be more educated and were less likely to smoke.
The findings are in line with previous research suggesting antioxidants may help protect against cataracts.
More than 20 million Americans aged 40 years and older have cataracts, which cause clouded vision and eventually blindness, in one or both eyes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Page updated August 20, 2018
Circulating omega-3 fatty acids and neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. February 2014. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I am a 24 year old female who has been diagnosed with diverticular disease after experiencing an acute episode of diverticulitis six weeks ago. I am getting a colonoscopy on Monday, but have had very negative experiences with being sedated, and have a history of agitation and severe anxiety when sedated. I have asked the doctor performing the procedure to provide me with an alternative to the Versed/Demerol combination, and he is very averse to the idea. Ideally, I would prefer no sedation at all and a pain reliever to take the edge off discomfort. How can I proceed?
gnosed with diverticular disease and was sedated during colonoscopy. Is there a way I can avoid sedation and take only pain relievers? output: Hi,Welcome to HCM,There are lot of studies done to compare sedative and conscious sedative ( versed, Demerol combination). There are advantages and disadvantages for both . Advantages of Versed and Demerol combinations are , cost effective, rapid recovery and safer, as compared to Sedatives. Disadvantages are idifficulty to reach to caecum, specially in case of diverticulitis, and missing out some lesions. One of the reason for using sedation, is if patient is anxious and surprisingly you want to avoid sedation to reduce your anxiety. For Versed and Demerol combination, it is important that patient should be well informed, educated about the procedure, relaxed, and with high pain threshold. Is colonoscopy really indicated for you? Do you have family history of Colon cancer, Stomach cancer, breast cancer or ovarian cancer? Do you have any other risk factors for colon cancer? You may also go for yearly occult blood test for stool instead? I would like you to discuss with your doctor, the real need for the colonoscopy. For choice of Sedation, also both surgeon and patient should be comfortable. usually Surgeon's preference is to do the procedure withour Sedation.Hope you got all relevant information.take care.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: My 4 year old has strep throat. We started amoxicillin this morning. He has had 3 doses today. I just checked on him and his temp was 105. I used a temple thermometer that slides from forehead to ear. Gave ibuprofen and cold water, temp izs down to 102. Do I need to take him into urgent care. output: Hi Dear, Understanding your concern. As per your query you child have symptoms of strep throat and fever which could be due to bacterial infection of the upper respiratory tract. It seems to be due to poor immunity of body. Need not worry. I would suggest you start with warm saline gargles and Betadine gargles. You should consult ENT specialist once for proper diagnosis and rule out a condition like a viral infection. The doctor may prescribe antibiotics along with decongestants and anti-inflammatory. Avoid hot, sharp, spicy food substances and carbonated beverages. Give child proper rest. Hope your concern has been resolved. Best Wishes,. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Tingling and moderate pain in left thighI hurt my back a couple months ago by picking up something that was too heavy. The pain when I lean over finally went away but now I am getting a tingling sensation and dull pain in my left thigh. I also feel like something is on my knee as well like a hair. This has been going on for about 4 days now. I am 30 years old and I have had two kids but I am in very good shape and active. I run a few miles every week and still play softball. Its the weirdest feeling in the thigh. It starts at my bikini line and goes to my knee. It almost feels like a burning sensation....? output: Your mode of injury and the nature of your pain (radiating, burning) gives some insight into a possible disc/ nerve compression issue. I would suggest you seek medical examination from an orthopedic, who might also want to investigate in the form of an MRI and perhaps recommend physiotherapy, which is generally done in such cases. In spite of you being in good shape, particular attention may also be required with your routine postural habits, the type of exercises you do and specifically the core muscle strength, all of which the physiotherapist will assess and guide likewise. Even if your pain subsides, with rest and medicines, issues pertaining to muscle strength and ergonomics will need to be sorted out to prevent future similar occurrences.. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Hi, I have intermitent stomach pain on my left lower side the pain is not unbearable but more annoying it starts down low and then generates around the side and into my back in the area near my hip. Alot of the time when I eat I get diahorreha but not all the time it comes and goes. I have had these symptoms on and off for the last month with two bouts of fever the latest been last night. I am not sure if the fever is related as I don t have stomach pain when I am getting the fevers. I have lost about 10 kgs in the past month and notice that my skin on my hands stays up when I lift it, suggesting dehydration but I don t feel dehydrated and I drink alot of water.
mach pain radiating to the back, episodes of diarrhoea, fever, weight loss, skin dehydrated. Suggestions? output: Hello, jackie.jacks, Your symptoms warrant more studies. Left sided lower abdominal pain, fever, and diarrhea is suggestive of inflammation in the colon. Most likely a case of "Diverticulitis". If you have pockets involving the colon especially the left side of the colon, you can develop infection in one or more of those pockets. This is more common after the age of 40-50, although it can happen in younger individuals. You need to see your doctor or go to the nearest medical facility where they can perform blood tests, check the stool for hidden blood, and also do a CT-Scan of the abdomen and pelvis to make sure that you don't have any complications from diverticulitis such as abscess or rupture (Perforation) which is serious and requires hospitalization, surgical consultation, intravenous fluids, antibiotics etc. It appears you are dehydrated and your weight loss is of concern as well. Please seek medical attention as soon as possible. I wish you well... |
Still more lazy thoughts from this one…
forgotten book
AFI Top Ten
forgotten film
parallel post
Same Song – Different Movie
title sequences
forgotten song
Life’s Soundtrack
song/dance floor
Year of Bests
Warner Theatre Project
Future Classic Movies: Children of Men
By le0pard13, May 24, 2012
My blogging colleague, and confirmed TCM addict, over at Paula’s Cinema Club had a most interesting idea for her blogathon, titled the Future Classic Movies. Paula posited the following:
“… I’ve often wondered what movies from the 21st century would stand the test of time, like Casablanca, Gone With The Wind or Out of the Past. If there is even such a thing as TV and channels in the future. What would programming look like in 30 or 40 years from now?”
The following was my contribution to this online project and surmises why I think the film adaptation by director Alfonso Cuarón and his screenwriters of P. D. James’s 1993 novel The Children of Men will endure to become a Future Classic.
A brief synopsis of the film: in the future time of 2027, the world of man has taken a decidedly bleak and chaotic turn for the worst. The world appears on the brink of a total societal breakdown. Terrorism and environmental damage are rampant, and the few places on the planet where things are seemingly under control (in the U.K. for this story) seem to have gone the fascist, military control route… big time. The reason for all of the despairing calamity comes down to one significant fact: the 18 years of human infertility. Theo Faron (marvelously played by Clive Owen) is one of the lucky ones — as defined by the fact that he is a U.K. citizen with a job, and not one of the ill-fated refugees clamoring to stay on Britain’s shores.
You can tell the military and politicians consider them the ‘barbarian horde’ by their less than humane treatment of the outsiders. The Britain that “soldiers on” has become the cold gray sanctuary (and a testament to how bad it is elsewhere). The former activist is content to live out the remaining years of shared melancholy in alcohol-induced drudgery with his handful of friends. At least, before they euthanize themselves. Just about everyone here is in a joyless state. That is, until his estranged wife (the wonderful Julianne Moore in the all-too-short role of Julian) re-enters his life with a proposition to find a way to illegally transport a fugitive (“a fugi”) across the police state lines.
[spoiler warning: some key elements of the film are revealed in this article]
It’s almost a point of pride that I came around in appreciation to some extraordinary film only after their subsequent re-screenings. Let the record show I did not hold in high regard any of the following initially: Pulp Fiction, Blue Velvet, and Blade Runner. The same was the case here. My initial viewing of Children of Men left me with the impression that this was a remarkably disheartening film done with extraordinary skill by the rising Mexican director, Alfonso Cuarón. Honestly, I hadn’t any mounting desire to see it again anytime soon because of its initial impact. I’ll simply write that off as I did not know what I was looking at (yeah… that sounds like CYA to me, too). Thankfully, my fellow blogger and duo post contributor, the Scientist Gone Wordy roused me from that early disregard and got me to take a closer look at it once more. I’m surely glad I did.
LAST ONE TO DIE
PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHT ~ graffiti scrawled along a wall
I now firmly believe the story makes an insightful look at humankind’s capacity for self-awareness, emotion, and ultimately… hope. Author James’ (along with the film’s screenwriters Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, and Cuarón himself) concept of making every conscious being in her tale (those left in the resulting pandemonium, that is) painfully mindful to the fact that each of them is the last of their kind is a dauntingly stark idea to come to grips with. For both those on the screen, as well as those watching the film or reading the novel. Being sentient is a double-edged sword, it seems. You are aware of yourself and others, at least those you care about, but have come to know, all too well, your time on this earth is fleetingly finite. For most of us, the only comfort found is the fact that we constantly renew ourselves (as a species) through human reproduction, be it naturally or artificially. We take solace in living on through our children, whether they’re yours personally or not.
But, when there are no offspring, only one denuded and grim future remains. And it’s here that the filmmakers went above and beyond with their story and art direction. They present the audience with a visual terrain that looks like it is headed for its last winter, alright. This is especially so when the story reaches the Bexhill refugee camp. Think of it as a cross between the cold, dreary England shown in Mike Hodges’ terrific Get Carter film (for which supporting actor Michael Caine also appeared) and Stanley Kubrick’s horrific killing ground from the Battle of Huế in his Vietnam War motion picture, Full Metal Jacket. The children of men in this story certainly have a field day with it to be sure. Additionally, one cannot ignore how the movie’s producers conspicuously incorporated some recent and stark remnants of the decade of the 00’s as part of the film’s social and political commentary (ones that will undoubtably resound for years to come). Once the lead characters (including Claire-Hope Ashitey as the importantly pregnant Kee) reach the climatic third act, the film is packed with allusions and symbolism relating to this distinct period: 9/11, Abu Ghraib, torture, and the political scapegoating of immigrants. The relic of which remains quite powerful.
As well, the symbolism of religion is used quite effectively throughout the picture by director/writer Cuarón. The Christian exemplars of the Fishes (the revolutionary group depicted) and flocks (the sheep and shepard walk-through were a tad obvious for those who’ve seen the film) were certainly present, and were used to instill a faith that there’s a light at the end of a dark tunnel. All the more, there’s the shadow of a Hamas-like uprising presented in the refugee camp, too. Even with all that, this is essentially a journey film — Theo’s journey. His path from utter pessimism (through the darkest of times and the loss of his dearest friends along the way) to ultimately one of hope at his, and the film’s, end remains at the core of the story-line. As a parent of two myself, I was moved to the point of tears at where Theo arrives by the film’s surprising and abrupt end title. The other unexpected sign I stumbled upon in later viewing was the optimistic use of animals and pets. Note all of the cats and dogs that Theo attracts throughout the film. It is a purposeful ploy in this impressive work, and meant to buoy the character (as well as the audience) across the hardship.
I’d also note another extraordinary facet of this film, besides the passage and distinct mood of the piece. That is, director Alfonso Cuarón’s decision and execution of the number of long takes and extended tracking shots used throughout Children of Men. The camera work alone (with additional kudos to Peter Hannan and Emmanuel Lubezki) in these startling segments is nothing short of astonishing when you take them all in. On repeated viewing, one in particular really hits me like no other I’ve come across. The climatic action set demonstrated the supreme skill of the camera operator, the director and ensemble actors, and the unpredictability of the story all at once. If you’ve seen the film, you know the one I’m referring to. It is Theo’s rescue of Kee at Bexhill, and their subsequent walk out of a building, all of which occurs in the midst of a violent, chaotic, bullet-ridden firefight. The scene somehow, among all of its pervasive bloodshed and decimation, managed to hold both turmoil and hopefulness in a precarious balance, and never dropped either (or the viewers’ attention) anytime along the way. That the segment is of the almost blindingly miraculously sort is the point. It remains one virtuoso moment, something that only the art of the moving image can deliver.
Simply put, Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men is an astounding piece of film-making, period. Apocalyptic tales are a dime a dozen these days. Still, that this film successfully incorporated an original story around a strikingly bleak setting, and yet managed to come out anywhere near a hopeful and expectant prospect makes it extraordinary, in my mind. After my initial screening of the film, I’d read it had a growing reputation among fans along the same lines of a certain startling and thought-provoking sci-fi film from 1982, Blade Runner. Admittedly, I scoffed at the idea, at first. Yet, after re-tracing Theo’s passage through a ruined human landscape, one at the outset that is simply counting down the number of his fellow-man in dreary fatalism, I’d surprisingly reached a different conclusion. Perhaps, just as Theo finishes his life knowing he helped nurture an uptick in that number, this story by the end laid claim upon that unexpected something only those films that qualify as classics ever achieve: a cinematic timelessness. Director Alfonso Cuarón clearly demonstrated he had similar budding and visionary chops of someone like a Ridley Scott with this endeavor. Theo’s journey is as remarkable as Rick Deckard’s, or maybe better relating to Roy Batty’s, in my opinion. For all that, this film in particular remains one to savor, contemplate, and return to in the years to come.
Categories: film
Tagged: Alfonso Cuarón, Blade Runner, Children of Men, Clive Owen, Cuarón, Future Classic Movies, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Michael Caine, P. D. James
In Praise of Her Bond Groove: Shirley Bassey
Same Song, Different Movie: Gayne’s Adagio by Aram Khachaturian
34 Responses to “Future Classic Movies: Children of Men”
fogsmoviereviews May 24, 2012
Very very nice piece. Well done. It’s a great movie, and you do it justice with this thorough revisting/analysis. Glad you “Came around” on this one. I think we all have movies like that where we dont quite click with them right off the bat (I swear, I had to watch Big Lebowski three times before I “Got it”), but this one is definitely a work of genius.
Love the inclusion of that line of Graffiti!
I love the comparisons to Blade Runner… both movies epitomize what I consider the best possibility of movies. When entertaining and enlightening meet. Theyre great to watch as pieces of entertainment, but if you wish to use them for jumping off points for deeper discussions, you definitely can.
Bravo, Le0P, this was a good one. 🙂
le0pard13 May 24, 2012
Very kind of you to say, Fogs. I really loved your excellent piece on ‘Children of Men’, as well. This film really brings it out of people, doesn’t it? Many thanks, my friend.
Pete May 24, 2012
Great choice for this blogathon. It’s already a classic in my book. I put this as my favourite movie dystopis a while back. So prescient and recognisable. And the cinematography is outstanding. For me it’s that bit where they are in the car and the people come out of the woods and attack them. On of my favourite long takes in cinema though I hear it’s not actually all one take.
Welcome, Pete. It does indeed have the qualities you ascribed. So many great things about it, including the outstanding cinematography. Thank you very much for reading and leaving a great comment.
Dan May 24, 2012
Excellent post. I’m sad to admit that I’ve only see Children of Men once (in the theaters), yet it’s still stuck with me a lot more than many films that I’ve watched more recently. The extended shots are worth the price of admission, but what really drew me in was the believable world created by Cuaron (and P.D. James I would guess). Like it did for you, I expect that my appreciation would only grow on a second viewing. This is at the top of my “to buy” list for Blu-rays.
Thank you very kindly, Dan. I envy you seeing this on the big screen. I’ve only seen it on disc, but if/when it comes back to a revival theater in my area, I am so there. I do recommend the Blu-ray of CoM, too. The picture and audio quality are what you’d expect for a worthy hi-def treatment of an extraordinary film.
Jamie Helton May 24, 2012
What’s interesting is that while watching the movie, I forgot to pay attention to the extended takes. I was so wrapped up in the story that I didn’t even notice when there were no cuts. It was only afterward that I went back (on the DVD) and took a look at some of these remarkable sequences. My favorite is the one inside the car, where they had to build a mockup of the vehicle, driven by a stunt driver, where the camera came down through the ceiling to be able to roam around inside it and film shots of the four characters in one continuous motion.
So true, Jamie. I picked up so much more the second time, including some of what you comment on. Just another extraordinary aspect about this great film. Thanks for reading and leaving your usual deft remarks, my friend.
Castor May 24, 2012
Very insightful write-up Michael, as always. Such a thematically and visually rich film with so many unforgettable scenes. All the long takes were extremely impressive, most specifically the one at the end with the firefight in the streets.
Very generous of you to say, Castor. It means a lot. Many thanks for reading and commenting on this, my friend.
Novroz May 24, 2012
I honestly haven’t heard of this movie before.
Thank you for this fine review Mike. I will see if I can find it here.
ruth May 24, 2012
Oh I hope you can find it Nov. It’s one of those films to see before you die, trust me 😀
Ditto :-).
I sure hope you do, Novroz. I’d love to hear what you think about it after you’ve seen it. Thank you very much :-).
What an excellent write-up and prime selection for this blogathon, Michael. I haven’t seen this in a while but your post makes me want to see it again and appreciate some of the things I missed from seeing it on the big screen. I was quite taken by the message and Theo’s journey, I really think this is one of Clive Owen’s best work and Cuaron’s magnum opus perhaps.
“Apocalyptic tales are a dime a dozen these days.” Yes indeed but a GREAT one about end of days is still rare, but this one definitely is at the top of the list!
You’ve always very kind and magnanimous, Ruth. There’s so much great work at hand with this film. It could very well be Cuaron’s magnum opus, alright. Clive is so very good in this, and have to agree with you. Many thanks, Ruth.
Paula May 24, 2012
First, thanks so much Michael for all your help with the blogathon and for contributing such a great post. It’s just brilliant. True confessions time…I’ve never seen all of CHILDREN OF MEN, just the beautiful long takes. I haven’t watched it because I didn’t think I could handle it. The real world doesn’t seem very far away from the world of this movie. But I kept reading and I’m glad I did. Thanks again Michael.
I was very happy to be invited, contribute, and help spread the word for a great concept to base a blogathon on. Kudos to you, Paula. And I understand your hesitancy about Children of Men. As I said, after my initial screening, I doubted I’d ever re-visited it. But, in the end I’m very glad I did. Thank you very much :-).
tkguthat May 24, 2012
Definitely on my “To View” list. I love Clive Owen and it sounds like an original and very plausible Apocalyptic film.
I hope you get a chance to take it in, Tim. I can’t recommend it enough now. And I always enjoy reading what others continue to write about Children of Men. Many thanks for reading and commenting.
Matthew Gladney May 24, 2012
Nice choice! Love the book, and respect the film. The changes they made remained true to the theme, and perhaps improved upon it. Haunting score, as well.
Welcome, Matthew. Great to have you stop by. Wonderful point about its haunting score, too. Thank you very much for reading and leaving a wonderful comment.
idawson May 24, 2012
This film is flipping brilliant! That is all I can say. It was one of my first blog posts when I started in 2007 🙂
It is definitely a personal all-time favorite!
I am glad you were able to do this write up 🙂
I’m glad to hear we’re on the same wavelength concerning this film. Great to know this film, a personal favorite, helped spur your fine writing, my friend. It is an extraordinary tale. Many thanks for your generous words and encouragement.
The Focused Filmographer May 24, 2012
I must say that I still have never seen this one. It’s always been on my list, I just never got around to it. (thank you for the spoiler alert…once I saw it I went straight to your final paragraph to avoid spoilers…very much appreciated that).
I look forward to seeing this “Future Classic Movie Nominee!”
I hope you get a chance to screen this one, T. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the film. Many thanks for reading and leaving a comment, my friend.
ChristopherMorris May 25, 2012
Great article, I have great respect for this film and the way they made it. I loved that scene in the car, yet for some reason I never appreciated it fully until seeing that ‘long takes’ video. Amazing. I have to re-watch this film now. Thank you for that! 🙂
Welcome, Christopher. This is a film with a number of amazing scenes. Glad to hear this blogathon will be an impetus for you to re-watch this masterwork. Thank you very much.
Rachel June 5, 2012
Would it be redundant to say I completely agree that this is a future classic/instant classic? 🙂 My only disagreement is that it takes multiple viewings to appreciate. (hehe) Obviously I loved it right out of the gate when I saw it in the theatre. When you so generously agreed to do a post together on it (many moons ago now) I pulled out my well-worn copy and was happy to watch it again. It’s been said already in the comments (and in the body of your post) but the long shots really do make the film. I don’t think it would have nearly as much immediacy without the long shots. Truly wonderful!
(I’ve never been able to appreciate Blade Runner – and I’m a huge Scott fan, too; for shame – but I love its source material. Conversely, instantly loved CoM but I don’t care much at all for the book. No accounting for taste, etc…)
le0pard13 June 5, 2012
Of course not! I love it when you agree with me, again ;-). Well, it did take more than one for me. But, there are folks that love right off the bat (to use a well-known baseball idiom).
That reminds me that I do need to finally read Philip K. Dick’s source story for ‘Blade Runner’. Thanks so much for reading (again) and leaving a comment, Rachel.
Mark Walker August 4, 2012
Marvellous review Michael. As Ive said already, this is one of my favourite film’s and very, very underrated. I’m with on it though, in time this will come to be appraciated the way it deserves. Man, that extended shot you speak of is probably the best I’ve seen. The are many directors like Welles, Scorsese, even P.T. Anderson who have impressed with it but never under the conditions of Cauron’s action scene. Simply stunning stuff.
By the way, the name “Theo” actually derives from Greek meaning “God”. It adds a little something more to Owen’s characters eh?
le0pard13 August 4, 2012
Thanks for the kind words and for reading the piece, Mark. It’s a great film, and I sincerely hope more film viewers will it a chance. Oh, and thanks for the info on Theo. That only makes me appreciate Children of Men all the more.
Jack August 26, 2012
Never could get over how a movie supposedly about the sacredness and hope of life, of women, of sex, of birth, of pregnancy, was so blatantly incorrect about a simple concept like giving birth. For an example, there is only one reason to adopt the lithotomy position, and that is if a doctor is present and giving himself a gander into your hoo-hah. Otherwise, it is simply the most unhelpful position other than standing on your own freaking head. It’s not a small question, not a small detail, it is the central scene of the movie, and it is bass-ackwards about basic human female anatomy. And that’s just one example.
le0pard13 August 26, 2012
Interesting observation. I cannot say anything to dispute or agree with it, however. Thanks for the comment.
Are you talkin’ to me? Cancel reply
It Rains... You Get Wet |
- Feature Name: SQL typing
- Status: accepted
- Authors: Andrei, knz, Nathan
- Start date: 2016-01-29
- RFC PR: #4121
- Cockroach Issue: #4024 #4026 #3633 #4073 #4088 #3271 #1795
# Summary
This RFC proposes to revamp the SQL semantic analysis (what happens
after the parser and before the query is compiled or executed) with a
few goals in mind:
- address some limitations of the current type-checking implementation
- improve support for fancy (and not-so-fancy) uses of SQL and typing
of placeholders for prepared queries
- improve the quality of the code internally
- pave the way for implementing sub-selects
To reach these goals the RFC proposes to:
- implement a new type system that is able to type more code than the
one currently implemented.
- separate semantic analysis in separate phases after parsing
- unify all typed SQL statements (including `SELECT`/`UPDATE`/`INSERT`) as
expressions (`SELECT` as an expression is already a prerequisite for
sub-selects)
- structure typing as a visitor that annotates types as attributes in AST nodes
- extend `EXPLAIN` to pretty-print the inferred types.
As with all in software engineering, more intelligence requires more
work, and has the potential to make software less predictable.
Among the spectrum of possible design points, this RFC settles
on a typing system we call *Morty*, which can be implemented
as a rule-based depth-first traversal of the query AST.
An alternate earlier proposal called *Rick* is also recorded for posterity.
# Motivation
## Overview
We need a better typing system.
Why: some things currently do not work that should really work. Some
other things behave incongruously and are difficult to understand, and
this runs counter to our design ideal to "make data easy".
How: let's look at a few examples, understand what goes Really Wrong,
propose some reasonable expected behavior(s), and see how to get there.
## Problems considered
This RFC considers specifically the following issues:
- overall architecture of semantic analysis in the SQL engine
- typing expressions involving only untyped literals
- typing expressions involving only untyped literals and placeholders
- overloaded function resolution in calls with untyped literals or
placeholders as arguments
The following issues are related to typing but fall outside of the
scope of this RFC:
- "prepare" reports type X to client, client does not *know* X (and
thus unable to send the proper format byte in subsequent "execute")
This issue can be addressed by extending/completing the client
Postgres driver.
- program/client sends a string literal in a position of another type,
expects a coercion like in pg.
For this issue one can argue the client is wrong; this issue may be
addressed at a later stage if real-world use shows that demand for
legacy compatibility here is real.
- prepare reports type "int" to client, client feeds "string" during
execute
Same as previous point.
## What typing is about
There are 4 different roles for typing in SQL:
1. **soundness analysis**, the most important is shared with other
languages: check that the code is semantically sound -- that the
operations given are actually computable. Typing soundness analysis
tells you e.g. that ``3 + "foo"`` does not make sense and should be
rejected.
2. **overload resolution** deciding what meaning to give
to type-overloaded constructs in the language. For example some
operators behave differently when given ``int`` or ``float``
arguments (+, - etc). Additionally, there are overloaded functions
(``length`` is different for ``string`` and ``bytes``) that behave
differently depending on provided arguments. These are both
features shared with other languages, when overloading exists.
3. **inferring implicit conversions**, ie. determine where to insert
implicit casts in contexts with disjoint types, when your flavor of
SQL supports this (this is like in a few other languages, like C).
4. **typing placeholders** inferring the type of
placeholders (``$1``..., sometimes also noted ``?``), because the
client needs to know this after a ``prepare`` and before an
``execute``.
What we see in CockroachDB at this time, as well as in some other SQL
products, is that SQL engines have issues in all 4 aspects.
There are often applicable reasons why this is so, for example
1) lack of specification of the SQL language itself 2) lack of
interest for this issue 3) organic growth of the machinery and 4)
general developer ignorance about typing.
## Examples that go wrong (arguably)
It's rather difficult to find examples where soundness goes wrong
because people tend to care about this most. That said, it is
reasonably easy to find example SQL code that seems to make logical
sense, but which engines reject as being unsound. For example:
```sql
prepare a as select 3 + case (4) when 4 then $1 end
```
this fails in Postgres because ``$1`` is typed as ``string`` always and
you can't add string to int (this is a soundness error). What we'd
rather want is to infer ``$1`` either as ``int`` (or decimal) and let
the operation succeed, or fail with a type inference error ("can't
decide the type"). In CockroachDB this does not even compile, there is
no inference available within ``CASE``.
Next to this, there are a number of situations where existing engines
have chosen a behavior that makes the implementation of the engine
easy, but may irk / surprise the SQL user. And Surprise is Bad.
For example:
1. pessimistic typing for numeric literals.
For example:
```sql
create table t (x float);
insert into t(x) values (1e10000 * 1e-9999);
```
This fails on both Postgres and CockroachDB with a complaint that
the numbers do not fit in either int or float, despite the fact the
result would.
2. incorrect typing for literals.
For example::
```sql
select length(E'\\000a'::bytea || 'b'::text)
```
Succeeds (wrongly!) in Postgres and reports 7 as result. This
should have failed with either "cannot concatenate bytes and string",
or created a byte array of 3 bytes (\x00ab), or a string with a
single character (b), or a 0-sized string.
3. engine throws hands up in the air and abandons something that could
otherwise look perfectly fine::
```sql
select floor($1 + $2)
```
This fails in Postgres with "can't infer the types" whereas the
context suggests that inferring ``decimal`` would be perfectly
fine.
4. failure to use context information to infer types where this
information is available.
To simplify the explanation let's construct a simple example by
hand. Consider a library containing the following functions::
f(int) -> int
f(float) -> float
g(int) -> int
Then consider the following statement::
```sql
prepare a as select g(f($1))
```
This fails with ambiguous/untypable $1, whereas one could argue (as
is implemented in other languages) that ``g`` asking for ``int`` is
sufficient to select the 1st overload for ``f`` and thus fully
determine the type of $1.
5. Lack of clarity about the expected behavior of the division sign.
Consider the following:
```sql
create table w (x int, y float);
insert into w values (3/2, 3/2);
```
In PostgreSQL this inserts (1, 1.0), with perhaps a surprise on the
2nd value. In CockroachDB this fails (arguably surprisingly) on
the 1st expression (can't insert float into int), although the
expression seems well-formed for the receiving column type.
6. Uncertainty on the typing of placeholders due to conflicting contexts:
```sql
prepare a as select (3 + $1) + ($1 + 3.5)
```
PostgreSQL resolves #1 as `decimal`. CockroachDB can't infer.
Arguably both "int" and "float" may come to mind as well.
## Things that look wrong but really aren't
1. loss of equivalence between prepared and direct statements::
```sql
prepare a as select ($1 + 2)
execute a(1.5)
-- reports 3 (in Postgres)
```
The issue here is that the + operator is overloaded, and the
engine performs typing on $1 only considering the 2nd operand to
the +, and not the fact that $1 may have a richer type.
One may argue that a typing algorithm that only performs "locally"
is sufficient, and that this statement can be reliabily understood
to perform an integer operation in all cases, with a forced cast of
the value filled in the placeholder. The problem with this argument
is that this interpretation loses the equivalence between a direct
statement and a prepared statement, that is, the substitution of:
```sql
select 1.5 + 2
```
is not equivalent to:
```sql
prepare a as select $1 + 2; execute a(1.5)
```
The real issue however is that SQL's typing is essentially
monomorphic and that prepare statements are evaluated independently
of subsequent queries: there is simply no SQL type that can be
inferred for the placeholder in a way that provides sensible
behavior for all subsequent queries. And introducing polymorphic
types (or type families) just for this purpose doesn't seem
sufficiently justified, since an easy workaround is available::
```sql
prepare a as select $1::float + 2;
execute a(1.5)
```
2. Casts as type hints.
Postgres uses casts as a way to indicate type hints on
placeholders. One could argue that this is not intuitive, because a
user may legitimately want to use a value of a given type in a
context where another type is needed, without restricting the type
of the placeholder. For example:
```sql
create table t (x int, s string);
insert into t (x, s) values ($1, "hello " + $1::string)
```
Here intuition says we want this to infer "int" for $1, not get a
type error due to conflicting types.
However in any such case it is always possible to rewrite the
query to both take advantage of type hints and also demand
the required cast, for example:
```sql
create table t (x int, s string);
insert into t (x, s) values ($1::int, "hello " + ($1::int)::string
```
Therefore the use of casts as type hints should not be seem as a
hurdle, and simply requires the documentation to properly mention
to the user "if you intend to cast placeholders, explain the intended source
type of your placeholder inside your cast first".
# Detailed design
## Overview of Morty
- Morty is a simple set of rules; they're applied locally (single
depth-first, post-order traversal) to AST nodes for making typing
decisions.
One thing that conveniently makes a bunch of simple examples just
work is that we keep numerical constants untyped as much as possible
and introduce the one and only implicit cast from an untyped number
constant to any other numeric type;
- Morty has only two implicit conversions, one for arithmetic on
untyped constants and placeholders, and one for string literals.
- Morty does not require but can benefit from constant folding.
We use the following notations below:
E :: T => the regular SQL cast, equivalent to `CAST(E as T)`
E [T] => an AST node representing `E`
with an annotation that indicates it has type T
## AST changes and new types
These are common to both Rick and Morty.
`SELECT`, `INSERT` and `UPDATE` should really be **EXPR** s.
The type of a `SELECT` expression should be an **aggregate**.
Table names should type as the **aggregate type** derived from their
schema.
An insert/update should really be seen as an expression like
a **function call** where the type of the arguments
is determined by the column names targeted by the insert.
## Proposed typing strategy for Morty
First pass: populating initial types for literals and placeholders.
- for each numeric literal, annotate with an internal type
`exact`. Just like for Rick, we can do arithmethic in this type for
constant folding.
- for each placeholder, process immediate casts if any by annotating
the placeholder by the type indicated by the cast *when there is no
other type discovered earlier for this placeholder* during this
phase. If the same placehoder is encountered a 2nd time with a
conflicting cast, report a typing error ("conflicting types for $n
...")
Second pass (optional, not part of type checking): constant folding.
Third pass, type inference and soundness analysis:
1. Overload resolution is done using only already typed arguments. This
includes non-placeholder arguments, and placeholders with a type discovered
earlier (either from the first pass, or earlier in this pass in traversal order).
2. If, during overload resolution, an expression E of type `exact` is
found at some argument position and no candidate accepts `exact` at
that position, and *also* there is only one candidate that accepts
a numeric type T at that position, then the expression E is
automatically substituted by `TYPEASSERT_NUMERIC(E,T)[T]` and
typing continues assuming E[T] (see rule 11 below for a definition of `TYPEASSERT_NUMERIC`).
3. If, during overload resolution, a *literal* `string` E is
found at some argument position and no candidate accepts `string`
at that position, and *also* there is only one candidate left based
on other arguments that accept type T at that position *which does
not have a native literal syntax*, then the expression E is
automatically substituted by `TYPEASSERT_STRING(E,T)[T]` and typing
continues assuming E[T]. See rule 12 below.
4. If no candidate overload can be found after steps #2 and #3, typing
fails with "no known function with these argument types".
5. If an overload has only one candidate based on rules #2 and #3,
then any placeholder it has as immediate arguments that are not yet
typed receive the type indicated by their argument position.
6. If overload resolution finds more than 1 candidate, typing fails
with "ambiguous overload".
7. `INSERT`s and `UPDATE`s come with the same inference rules
as function calls.
8. If no type can be inferred for a placeholder (e.g. it's used only
in overloaded function calls with multiple remaining candidates or
only comes in contact with other untyped placeholders), then again
fail with "ambiguous typing for the placeholder".
9. literal NULL is typed "unknown" unless there's an immediate cast just
afterwards, and the _type_ "unknown" propagates up expressions until
either the top level (that's an error) or a function that explicitly
takes unknown as input type to do something with it (e.g. is_null,
comparison, or INSERT with nullable columns);
10. "then" clauses (And the entire surrounding case expression) get
typed by first attempting to type all the expressions after
"then"; then once this done, take the 1st expression that has a
type (if any) and type check the other expressions against that
type (possibly assigning types to untyped placeholders/exact
expressions in that process, as per rule 2/3). If there are "then"
clauses with no types after this, a typing error is reported.
11. `TYPEASSERT_NUMERIC(<expression>, <type>)` accepts an expression of type
`exact` as first argument and a numeric type name as 2nd
argument. If at run-time the value of the expression fits into the
specified type (at least preserving the amplitude for float, and
without any information loss for integer and decimal), the value
of the expression is returned, casted to the type. Otherwise, a
SQL error is generated.
12. `TYPEASSERT_STRING(<expression>, <type>)` accepts an expression of
type `string` as first argument and a type with a possible
conversion from string as 2nd argument. If at run-time the
converted value of the expression fits into the specified type
(the format is correct, and the conversion is at least preserving
the amplitude for float, and without any information loss for
integer and decimal), the value of the expression is returned,
converted to the type. Otherwise, a SQL error is generated.
You can see that Morty is simpler than Rick: there's no sets of type candidates for any expressions.
Other differences is that Morty relies on the introduction of an
guarded implicit cast. This is because of the following cases:
```sql
(1) INSERT INTO t(int_col) VALUES (4.5)
```
This is a type error in Rick. Without Morty's rule 2 and a "blind"
implicit cast, this would insert `4` which would be undesirable. With
rule 2, the semantics become:
```sql
(1) INSERT INTO t(int_col) VALUES (TYPEASSERT_NUMERIC(4.5, int)[int])
```
And this would fail, as desired.
`Exact` is obviously not supported by the pgwire protocol, or by
clients, so we'd report `numeric` when `exact` has been inferred for a
placeholder.
Similarly, and in a fashion compatible with many SQL engines, string
values are autocasted when there is no ambiguity (rule 3); for
example:
```sql
(1b) INSERT INTO t(timestamp_col) VALUES ('2012-02-01 01:02:03')
Gets replaced by:
(1b) INSERT INTO t(timestamp_col) VALUES (TYPEASSERT_STRING('2012-02-01 01:02:03', timestamp)[timestamp])
which succeeds, and
(1c) INSERT INTO t(timestamp_col) VALUES ('4.5')
gets replaced by:
(1c) INSERT INTO t(timestamp_col) VALUES (TYPEASSERT_STRING('4.5', timestamp)[timestamp])
which fails at run-time.
```
Morty's rule 3 is proposed for convenience, observing that
once the SQL implementation starts to provide custom / extended types,
clients may not support a native wire representation for them. It can
be observed in many SQL implementations that clients will pass values
of "exotic" types (interval, timestamps, ranges, etc) as strings,
expecting the Right Thing to happen automatically. Rule 3 is
our proposal to go in this direction.
Rule 3 is restricted to literals however, because we probably don't
want to support things like `insert into x(timestamp_column) values
(substring(...) || 'foo')` without an explicit cast to make the
intention clear.
Regarding typing of placeholders:
```sql
(2) INSERT INTO t(int_col) VALUES ($1)
(3) INSERT INTO t(int_col) VALUES ($1 + 1)
```
In `(2)`, `$1` is inferred to be `int`. Passing the value `"4.5"` for
`$1` in `(2)` would be a type error during execute.
In `(3)`, `$1` is inferred to be `exact` and reported as `numeric`; the
client can then send numbers as either int, floats or decimal down the
wire during execute. (We propose to change the parser to accept any
client-provided numeric type for a placeholder when the AST expects
exact.)
However meanwhile because the expression `$1 + 1` is also
`exact`, the semantics are automatically changed to become:
```sql
(3) INSERT INTO t(int_col) VALUES (TYPEASSERT($1 + 1, int)[int])
```
This way the statement only effectively succeeds when the client
passes integers for the placeholder.
Although another type system could have chosen to infer `int` for `$1`
based on the appearance of the constant 1 in the expression, the true
strength of Morty comes with statements of the following form:
```sql
(4) INSERT INTO t(int_col) VALUES ($1 + 1.5)
```
Here `$1` is typed `exact`, clients see `numeric`, and thanks to the
type assertion, using `$1 = 3.5` for example will actually succeed
because the result fits into an int.
Typing of constants as `exact` seems to come in handy in some
situations that Rick didn't handle very well:
```sql
SELECT ($1 + 2) + ($1 + 2.5)
```
Here Rick would throw a type error for `$1`, whereas Morty infers `exact`.
## Examples of Morty's behavior
```sql
create table t (x float);
insert into t(x) values (3 / 2)
```
`3/2` gets typed as `3::exact / 2::exact`, division gets exact 1.5,
then exact gets autocasted to float for insert (because float
preserves the amplitude of 1.5).
```sql
create table u (x int);
insert into u(x) values (((9 / 3) * (1 / 3))::int)
```
`(9/3)*(1/3)` gets typed and computes down to exact 1, then exact
gets casted to int as requested.
Note that in this specific case the cast is not required any more
because the implicit conversion from exact to int would take place
anyways.
```sql
create table t (x float);
insert into t(x) values (1e10000 * 1e-9999);
```
Numbers gets typed and casted as exact, multiplication
evaluates to exact 10, this gets autocasted back to float for insert.
```sql
select length(E'\\000a'::bytea || 'b'::text)
```
Type error, concat only works for homogeneous types.
```sql
select floor($1 + $2)
```
Type error, ambiguous resolve for `+`.
This can be fixed by `floor($1::float + $2)`, then there's only
one type remaining for `$2` and all is well.
```sql
f(int) -> int
f(float) -> float
g(int) -> int
prepare a as select g(f($1))
```
Ambiguous, tough luck. Try with `g(f($1::int))` then all is well.
```sql
prepare a as select ($1 + 2)
execute a(1.5)
```
`2` typed as exact, so `$1` too. `numeric` reported to client, then
`a(1.5)` sends `1.5` down the wire, all is well.
```sql
create table t (x int, s text);
insert into t (x, s) values ($1, "hello " + $1::text)
```
`$1` typed during first phase by collecting the hint `::text`:
```sql
insert into t (x, s) values ($1[text], "hello "[text] + $1::text)
```
Then during type checking, text is found where int is expected in the
1st position of `values`, and typing fails. The user can force the
typing for `int` by using explicit hints:
```sql
create table t (x int, s text);
insert into t (x, s) values ($1::int, "hello " + $1::int::text)
```
Regarding case statements:
```sql
prepare a as select 3 + case (4) when 4 then $1 end
```
Because there is only one `then` clause without a type, typing fails.
The user can fix by suggesting a type hint. However, with:
```sql
prepare a as select 3 + case (4) when 4 then $1 else 42 end
```
`42` gets typed as `exact`, so `exact` is assumed for the other `then` branches
including `$1` which gets typed as `exact` too.
Indirect overload resolution:
```sql
f:int,int->int
f:float,float->int
PREPARE a AS SELECT f($1, $2), $2::float
```
Morty sees `$2::float` first, thus types `$2` as float then `$1` as
float too by rule 5. Likewise:
```sql
PREPARE a AS SELECT $1 + 4 + $1::int
```
Morty sees `$1::int` first, then autocasts 4 to `int` and the
operation is performed on int arguments.
## Alternatives around Morty
Morty is an asymmetric algorithm: how much an how well
the type of a placeholder is typed depends on the order of syntax
elements. HFor example:
```sql
f : int -> int
INSERT INTO t (a, b) VALUES (f($1), $1 + $2)
-- succeeds (f types $1::int first, then $2 gets typed int),
-- however:
INSERT INTO t (b, a) VALUES ($1 + $2, f($1))
-- fails with ambiguous typing for $1+$2, f not visited yet.
```
Of course we could explain this in documentation and suggest the use
of explicit casts in ambiguous contexts. However, if this property is
deemed too uncomfortable to expose to users, we could make the
algorithm iterative and repeat applying Morty's rule 5 to all
expressions as long as it manages to type new placeholders. This way:
```sql
INSERT INTO t (b, a) VALUES ($1 + $2, f($1))
-- ^ fail, but continue
-- $1 + $2, f($1) continue
-- ^
-- .... , f($1:int) now retry
--
-- $1::int + $2, ...
-- ^ aha! new information
-- $1::int + $2::int, f($1::int)
-- all is well!
```
# Implementation notes
(these may evolve as the RFC gets implemented. This section
is likely to become outdated a few months after the RFC gets accepted.)
1. All AST nodes (produced by the parser) implement `Expr`.
`INSERT`, `SELECT`, `UPDATE` nodes become visitable by
visitors. This will unify the way we do processing on the AST.
2. The ``TypeCheck`` method from ``Expr`` becomes a separate
visitor. Expr gets a ``type`` field populated by this visitor. This
will make it clear when type inference and type checking have run
(and that they run only once). This is in contrast with
``TypeCheck`` being called at random times by random code.
3. During typing there will be a need for a data structure to collect
the type candidate sets per AST node (``Expr``) and
placeholder. This should be done using a separate map, where either
AST nodes or placeholder names are keys.
4. Semantic analysis will be done as a new step doing constant
folding, type inference, type checking.
The semantic analysis will thus look like::
```go
type placeholderTypes = map[ValArg]Type
// Mutates the tree and populates .type
func semanticAnalysis(root Expr) (assignments placeholderTypes, error) {
var untypedFolder UntypedConstantFoldingVisitor = UntypedConstantFoldingVisitor{}
untypedFolder.Visit(root)
// Type checking and type inference combined.
var typeChecker TypeCheckVisitor = TypeCheckVisitor{}
if err := typeChecker.Visit(root); err != nil {
report ambiguity or typing error
}
assignments = typeChecker.GetPlaceholderTypes()
// Optional in Morty
var constantFolder ConstantFoldingVisitor = ConstantFoldingVisitor{}
constantFolder.Visit(root)
}
```
When sending values over pgwire during bind, the client sends the
arguments positionally. For each argument, it specifies a "format"
(different that a type). The format can be binary or text, and
specifies the encoding of that argument. Every type has a text
encoding, only some also have binary encodings. The client does not
send an oID back, or anything to identify the type. So the server just
needs to parse whatever it got assuming the type it previously
inferred.
The issue of parsing these arguments is not really a typing
issue. Formally Morty (and Rick, its alternative) just assumes that it gets whatever
type it asked for. Whomever implements the parsing of these arguments
(our pgwire implementation) uses the same code/principles as a
`TYPEASSERT_STRING` (but this has nothing to do with the AST of our
query (which ideally should have been already saved from the prepare
phase)).
# Alternatives
The precursor of, and an alternative to, Morty was called *Rick*. We
present it here to keep historical records and possibly serve as other
point of reference if the topic is revisited in the future.
## Overview of Rick
- Rick is an iterative (multiple traversals) algorithm that tries
harder to find a type for placeholders that accommodates all their
occurrences;
- Rick allows from flexible implicit conversions;
- Rick really can't work without constant folding to simplify complex
expressions involving only constants;
- Rick tries to "optimize" the type given to a literal constant
depending on context;
## Proposed typing strategy for Rick
We use the following notations below::
E :: T => the regular SQL cast, equivalent to `CAST(E as T)`
E [T] => an AST node representing `E`
with an annotation that indicates it has type T
For conciseness, we also introduce the notation E[\*N] to mean that
`E` has an unknown number type (`int`, `float` or `decimal`).
We assume that an initial/earlier phase has performed the reduction of
casted placeholders (but only placeholders!), that is, folding:
$1::T => $1[T]
x::T => x :: T (for any x that is not a placeholder)
$1::T :: U => $1[T] :: U
Then we type using the following phases, detailed below:
- 1. Constant folding for untyped constants, mandatory
- 2-6. Type assignment and checking
- 7. Constant folding for remaining typed constants, optional
The details:
1. Constant folding.
This reduces complex expressions without losing information (like
in [Go](https://blog.golang.org/constants)!) Literal constants are
evaluated using either their type, if intrinsically known (for
unambiguous literals like true/false, strings, byte arrays), or an
internal exact implementation type for ambiguous literals
(numbers). This is performed for all expressions involving only
untyped literals and functions applications applied only to such
expressions. For number literals, the imlementation type from the
[exact](<https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/tools/go/exact>)
arithmetic library can be used.
While the constant expressions are folded, the results must be typed
using either the known type if any operands had one; or the unknown
numeric type when the none of the operands had a known type.
For example:
true and false => false[bool]
'a' + 'b' => "ab"[string]
12 + 3.5 => 15.5[*N]
case 1 when 1 then x => x[?]
case 1 when 1 then 2 => 2[*N]
3 + case 1 when 1 then 2 => 5[*N]
abs(-2) => 2[*N]
abs(-2e10000) => 2e10000[*N]
Note that folding does not take place for functions/operators that
are overloaded and when the operands have different types (we
might resolve type coercions at a later phase):
23 + 'abc' => 23[*N] + 'abc'[string]
23 + sin(23) => 23[*N] + -0.8462204041751706[float]
Folding does "as much work as possible", for example:
case x when 1 + 2 then 3 - 4 => (case x[?] when 3[*N] then -1[*N])
Note that casts select a specific type, but may stop the fold
because the surrounding operation becomes applied to different
types:
true::bool and false => false[bool] (both operands of "and" are bool)
1::int + 23 => 1[int] + 23[*N]
(2 + 3)::int + 23 => 5[int] + 23[*N]
Constant function evaluation only takes place for a limited
subset of supported functions, they need to be pure and have an
implementation for the exact type.
2. Culling and candidate type collection.
This phase collects candidate types for AST nodes, does a
pre-selection of candidates for overloaded calls and computes
intersections.
This is a depth-first, post-order traversal. At every node:
1. the candidate types of the children are computed first
2. the current node is looked at, some candidate overloads may be
filtered out
3. in case of call to an overloaded op/fun, the argument types
are used to restrict the candidate set of the direct child
nodes (set intersection)
4. if the steps above determine there are no
possible types for a node, fail as a typing error.
(Note: this is probably a point where we can look at implicit
coercions)
Simple example:
5[int] + 23[*N]
This filters the candidates for + to only the one taking `int` and
`int` (rule 2). Then by rule 2.3 the annotation on 23 is changed,
and we obtain:
( 5[int] + 23[int] )[int]
Another example::
f:int->int
f:float->float
f:string->string
(12 + $1) + f($1)
We type as follows::
(12[*N] + $1) + f($1)
^
(12[*N] + $1[*N]) + f($1[*N])
^
-- Note that the placeholders in the AST share
their type annotation between all their occurrences
(this is unique to them, e.g. literals have
separate type annotations)
(12[*N] + $1[*N])[*N] + f($1[*N])
^
(12[*N] + $1[*N])[*N] + f($1[*N])
^
(nothing to do anymore)
(12[*N] + $1[*N])[*N] + f($1[*N])
^
At this point, we are looking at `f($1[int,float,decimal,...])`.
Yet f is only overloaded for int and float, therefore, we restrict
the set of candidates to those allowed by the type of $1 at that
point, and that reduces us to:
f:int->int
f:float->float
And the typing continues, restricting the type of $1:
(12[*N] + $1[int,float])[*N] + f($1[int,float])
^^ ^ ^^
(12[*N] + $1[int,float])[*N] + f($1[int,float])[int,float]
^ ^^
(12[*N] + $1[int,float])[*N] + f($1[int,float])[int,float]
^
Aha! Now the plus sees an operand on the right more restricted
than the one on the left, so it filters out all the unapplicable
candidates, and only the following are left over::
+: int,int->int
+: float,float->float
And thus this phase completes with::
((12[*N] + $1[int,float])[int,float] + f($1[int,float])[int,float])[int,float]
^^ ^
Notice how the restrictions only apply to the direct children
nodes when there is a call and not pushed further down (e.g. to
`12[*N]` in this example).
3. Repeat step 2 as long as there is at least one candidate set with more
than one type, and until the candidate sets do not evolve any more.
This simplifies the example above to:
((12[int,float] + $1[int,float])[int,float] + f($1[int,float])[int,float])[int,float]
4. Refine the type of numeric constants.
This is a depth-first, post-order traversal.
For every constant with more than one type in its candidate type
set, pick the best type that can represent the constant: we use
the preference order `int`, `float`, `decimal`
and pick the first that can represent the value we've computed.
For example:
12[int,float] + $1[int,float] => 12[int] + $1[int, float]
The reason why we consider constants here (and not placeholders) is
that the programmers express an intent about typing in the form of
their literals. That is, there is a special meaning expressed by
writing "2.0" instead of "2". (Weak argument?)
Also see section
[Implementing Rick](#implementing-rick-untyped-numeric-literals).
5. Run steps 2 and 3 again. This will refine the type of placeholders
automatically.
6. If there is any remaining candidate type set with more than one
candidate, fail with ambiguous.
7. Perform further constant folding on the remaining constants that now have a specific type.
## Revisiting the examples from earlier with Rick
From section [Examples that go wrong (arguably)](#examples-that-go-wrong-arguably):
```sql
prepare a as select 3 + case (4) when 4 then $1 end
-- 3[*N] + $1[?] (rule 1)
-- 3[*N] + $1[*N] (rule 2)
-- 3[int] + $1[*N] (rule 4)
-- 3[int] + $1[int] (rule 2)
--OK
create table t (x decimal);
insert into t(x) values (3/2)
-- (3/2)[*N] (rule 1)
-- (3/2)[decimal] (rule 2)
--OK
create table u (x int);
insert into u(x) values (((9 / 3) * (1 / 3))::int)
-- 3 * (1/3)::int (rule 1)
-- 1::int (rule 1)
-- 1[int] (rule 1)
--OK
create table t (x float);
insert into t(x) values (1e10000 * 1e-9999)
-- 10[*N] (rule 1)
-- 10[float] (rule 2)
--OK
select length(E'\\000' + 'a'::bytes)
-- E'\\000'[string] + 'a'[bytes] (input, pretype)
-- then failure, no overload for + found
--OK
select length(E'\\000a'::bytes || 'b'::string)
-- E'\\000a'[bytes] || 'b'[string]
-- then failure, no overload for || found
--OK
```
Fancier example that shows the power of the proposed
type system, with an example where Postgres would
give up:
```sql
f:int,float->int
f:string,string->int
g:float,decimal->int
g:string,string->int
h:decimal,float->int
h:string,string->int
prepare a as select f($1,$2) + g($2,$3) + h($3,$1)
-- ^
-- f($1[int,string],$2[float,string]) + ....
-- ^
-- f(...)+g($2[float,string],$3[decimal,string]) + ...
-- ^
-- f(...)+g(...)+h($3[decimal,string],$1[string])
-- ^
-- (2 re-iterates)
-- f($1[string],$2[string]) + ...
-- ^
-- f(...)+g($2[string],$3[string]) + ...
-- ^
-- f(...)+g(...)+h($3[string],$1[string])
-- ^
-- (B stops, all types have been resolved)
-- => $1, $2, $3 must be strings
```
## Drawbacks of Rick
The following example types differently from PostgreSQL::
```sql
select (3 + $1) + ($1 + 3.5)
-- (3[*N] + $1[*N]) + ($1[*N] + 3.5[*N]) rule 2
-- (3[int] + $1[*N]) + ($1[*N] + 3.5[float]) rule 4
-- (3[int] + $1[int]) + ...
-- ^ rule 2
-- (3[int] + $1[int] + ($1[int] + 3.5[float])
-- ^ failure, unknown overload
```
Here Postgres would infer "decimal" for `$1` whereas our proposed
algorithm fails.
The following situations are not handled, although they were mentioned
in section
[Examples that go wrong (arguably)](#examples-that-go-wrong-arguably)
as possible candidates for an improvement:
```sql
select floor($1 + $2)
-- $1[*N] + $2[*N] (rule 2)
-- => failure, ambiguous types for $1 and $2
f(int) -> int
f(float) -> float
g(int) -> int
prepare a as select g(f($1))
-- $1[int,float] (rule 2)
-- => failure, ambiguous types for $1 and $2
```
## Alternatives around Rick (other than Morty)
There's cases where the type inference doesn't quite work, like
floor($1 + $2)
g(f($1))
CASE a
WHEN 1 THEN 'one'
WHEN 2 THEN
CASE language
WHEN 'en' THEN $1
END
END
Another category of failures involves dependencies between choices of
types. E.g.:
f: int,int->int
f: float,float->int
f: char, string->int
g: int->int
g: float->int
h: int->int
h: string->int
f($1, $2) + g($1) + h($2)
Here the only possibility is `$1[int], $2[int]` but the algorithm is not
smart enough to figure that out.
To support these, one might
suggest to make Rick super-smart via
the application of a "bidirectional" typing algorithm, where
the allowable types in a given context guide the typing of
sub-expressions. These are akin to constraint-driven typing and a number
of established algorithms exist, such as Hindley-Milner.
The introduction of a more powerful typing system would certainly
attract attention to CockroachDB and probably attract a crowd of
language enthousiasts, with possible benefits in terms of external
contributions.
However, from a practical perspective, more complex type systems are
also more complex to implement and troubleshoot (they are usually
implemented functionally and need to be first translated to
non-functional Go code) and may have non-trivial run-time costs
(e.g. extensions to Hindley-Milner to support overloading resolve in
quadratic time).
## Implementing Rick: untyped numeric literals
To implement untyped numeric literals which will enable exact
arithmetic, we will use
https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/tools/go/exact. This will require a
change to our Yacc parser and lexical scanner, which will parser all
numeric looking values (`ICONST` and `FCONST`) as `NumVal`.
We will then introduce a constant folding pass before type checking is
initially performed (ideally using a folding visitor instead of the
current interface approach). While constant folding these untyped
literals, we can use
[BinaryOp](https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/tools/go/exact#BinaryOp) and
[UnaryOp](https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/tools/go/exact#UnaryOp) to
retain exact precision.
Next, during type checking, ``NumVals`` will be evalutated as their
logical `Datum` types. Here, they will be converted `int`, `float` or
`decimal`, based on their `Value.Kind()` (e.g. using
[Int64Val](https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/tools/go/exact#Int64Val>) or
`decimal.SetString(Value.String())`. Some Kinds will result in a
panic because they should not be possible based on our
parser. However, we could eventually introduce Complex literals using
this approach.
Finally, once type checking has occurred, we can proceed with folding
for all typed values and expressions.
Untyped numeric literals become typed when they interact with other
types. E.g.: `(2 + 10) / strpos(“hello”, “o”)`: 2 and 10 would be
added using exact arithmatic in the first folding phase to
get 12. However, because the constant function `strpos` returns a
typed value, we would not fold its result further in the first phase.
Instead, we would type the 12 to a `DInt` in the type check phase, and
then perform the rest of the constant folding on the `DInt` and the
return value of `strpos` in the second constant folding phase. **Once
an untyped constant literal needs to be typed, it can never become
untyped again.**
## Comments on Rick, leading to Morty
Rick seems both imperfect (it can fail to find the unique type
assignment that makes the expression sound) and complicated. Moreover
one can easily argue that it can infer too much and appear magic.
E.g. the `f($1,$2) + g($2,$3) + h($3,$1)` example where it might be
better to just ask the user to give type hints.
It also makes some pretty arbitrary decisions about programmer intent,
e.g. for `f` overloaded on `int` and `float`, `f((1.5 - 0.5) + $1)`,
the constant expression `1.5 - 0.5` evaluates to an `int` an forces
`$1` to be an `int` too.
The complexity and perhaps excessive intelligence of Rick stimulated a
discussion about the simplest alternative that's still useful for
enough common cases. Morty was born from this discussion: a simple set
of rules operating in two simple passes on the AST; there's no recursion
and no iteration.
## Examples where Morty differs from Rick
```sql
f: int -> int
f: float -> float
SELECT f(1)
```
*M* says it can't choose an overload. *R* would type `1` as `int`.
```sql
f:int->int
f:float->float
f:string->string
PREPARE a AS (12 + $1) + f($1)
```
*M* infers `exact` and says that `f` is ambiguous for an `exact` argument, *R* infers `int`.
```sql
f:int->int
f:float->float
g:float->int
g:numeric->int
PREPARE a AS SELECT f($1) + g($1)
```
*M* can't infer anything, *R* intersects candidate sets and figures
out `float` for `$1`.
## Implementation notes for Rick
Constant folding for Rick will actually be split in two parts: one
running before type checking and doing folding of untyped
numerical computations, the other running after type checking and
doing folding of any constant expression (typed literals, function
calls, etc.). This is because we want to do untyped computations
before having to figure out types, so we can possibly use the
resulting value when deciding the type (e.g. 3.5 - 0.5 could b
inferred as ``int``).
## Unresolved questions for Rick
Note that some of the reasons why implicit casts would be otherwise
needed go away with the untyped constant arithmetic that we're suggesting,
and also because we'd now have type inference for values used in `INSERT`
and `UPDATE` statements (`INSERT INTO tab (float_col) VALUES 42` works as
expected). If we choose to have some implicit casts in the language, then the
type inference algorithm probably needs to be extended to rank overload options based on
the number of casts required.
What's the story for `NULL` constants (literals or the result of a
pure function) in Rick? Do they need to be typed?
Generally do we need to have null-able and non-nullable types?
# Unresolved questions
How much Postgres compatibility is really required?
|
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: I feel pain and lifeless sort of feeling in my both legs, below knee area. Mostly in calf muscles. I am having this pain for more than 3 years now and 24 hours a day. In the morning, its hard to get up and do something. I am really low in energy levels all the time. Standing for long, intensifies the pain. I have consulted many doctors, neurologists, they gave many stress relieving medicines along with vitamins but nothing helped even a bit. I want to do exercises but there is literally no energy in me due to these prolonged pain. I feel low and down through out the day at work and at home too. Please advise. output: Dear patient you need detailed blood check up for complete blood count with ESR level. Low hemoglobin level may be the reason for lethargy and weakness. Pain in the Lower limbs may be due to spine pathology with nerve compression. First X-ray of the lumbosacral spine anteroposterior and lateral views and them MRI of the lumbosacral spine with screening of whole spine needs to be done. Please get it done from radiology center nearby you. Meanwhile, start tab regain x 75 mg one at bedtime with tab attract twice a day for pain relief. If report is abnormal you need to consult orthopedic surgeon nearby your area with report.. |
IS THE WORLD WARMING? SHOULD MY CORPORATION BUILD A FACTORY IN MANILA? IS A MAMMOGRAM MORE LIKELY TO INCREASE OR DECREASE LIFE EXPECTANCY?
How can you be sure you have the best answer to such complex questions? How can experts be sure?
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Is the Aluminum in Vaccines Making People Stupid?
The average infant birth weight is 3.5kg and the average 6 month old is 7.5 kg. The single Hep B at birth is about 70 mcg/kg by itself, which might translate into almost 2 IQ points. The whole series is something in the vicinity of 600 mcg/kg which might translate into something like 15 IQ points. Maybe the aluminum isn’t as damaging at birth as a few weeks early, or at 6 months, but maybe it is. There’s still plenty of brain development going on.
There are also papers like this linking vaccine aluminum and autism.
may also be a symptom. The US has by far the most exensive vax schedule and the countries at the top of the lists all have much shorter schedules. Examining the rankings further, Italy and France were the only 2 countries in Europe to be vaxing infants for Hep B well before 1995, and some regions in Spain were as well, http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=201 and these nations round out the bottom of the chart with the US. South Korea (which did fairly well) seems to have only added Hep B to the official series in 1995 (too late to have had impact on most of the millenials taking this test). Japan and the other nations near the top either don’t give it routinely, as far as I can tell, or started recently.
As always I’ll remark that I’m utterly unaware of published empirical data contradicting the above assertions and suggesting that vaccine aluminum might be safe, and I urge any readers who discover any such beast to post a link in the comments.
Note added: Readers might be interested in what the FDA says on the subject http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/ScienceResearch/ucm284520.htm which is to cite Mitkus et al.
As I already discussed in the first post of the blog, Mitkus et al is a model, not reporting any empirical results, and not informed in any way about the toxicity of injected aluminum in neonates. Mitkus modeled the blood aluminum levels of infants and compared the model to an MRL derived from dietary experiments on post weaning animals. Their model agreed that infants have hundreds of times as much aluminum enter their blood from vaccines as from diet (see their graphs). The paper represents a theory of how the vaccine series aluminum might be safe if aluminum had the same toxicity when injected in neonates as when ingested by adults.
Why does the FDA look at a model of the toxicity of dietary aluminum in animals, when what is needed is a measurement of the toxicity of injected aluminum in neo-nates, and Bishop et al, as discussed at the top of this post, provided exactly that?
There’s no compelling reason to believe the vaccine was relevant to the disappearance of polio, or at least was the major factor.
Before the polio vaccine, Doctors used to routinely call any childhood paralysis polio. It played well on insurance forms. Here’s an analysis of the Detroit polio epidemic of 1958.http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=327642 They had a big epidemic, but when they went in and examined the cases, it turned out that less than 1/3 of the patients even had polio virus, and whether it is what was causing their problem is of course even then unclear. Maybe they would have beat it easy without some other factor (eg DDT).
So how did the polio vaccine stop a disease where at least 2/3 of the cases didn’t have the virus? It seems plausible that most polio cases back in the day were mostly or entirely DDT poisoning. Polio is normally a very mild disease. DDT exposure makes you more vulnerable.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4285235 Rich people used to spray DDT around to keep bugs away, prevent polio. In so doing, some gave their kids polio, much like parents today, thinking to protect their kids, are vaccinating them and making them sick.
No American has gotten polio in 30 years, yet hundreds of millions of kids have gotten polio shots. Statistically, those shots damaged and likely killed many many kids. Almost nobody who gets polio even has symptoms. Its normally a very mild disease. I’ve seen estimates of the fraction who are symptomatic at all ranging from 1/20 to 1/200, but even those who have symptoms usually make a full recovery. Right now, normal US kids getting the vaccine series have a 6/1000 chance of dying as an infant and a chance approaching 1/25 of getting autism, and maybe over 1/2 of getting some chronic problem like peanut allergy, obesity, autoimmune disease, ADHD, depression, diabetes, damaged immune system etc etc. all of which are epidemic and increased greatly as the vaccine schedule was increased and all of which are tied by scientific papers to vaccines. When you see the boys failing in the schools, you shouldn’t forget that many of the animal experiments show injections damage male models more than female.
Also, its worth noting again that every single scientific paper comparing kids or animals that had more injections or more injected aluminum to ones who had less injections or aluminum, finds more causes damage and less is healthier (with the exception of a few papers with ridiculous methodological problems I discussed in post 1.) The paper the CDC or the Pediatricians sometimes cite as comparing more vaccines to less and finding no damage, De Stefano et al, if you read it doesn’t do anything of the kind, it effectively compares patients who got DTP and dozens of vaxes to patients who may have got DTaP but didn’t get DTP and got dozens of others. Literally every single animal result and every single epidemiological result I’ve ever found in the scientific literature shows comparing more to less vaccines, more vaccines do damage. If you think I’m wrong, please cite a paper contradicting me.
Media, stop lying to us and tell us the truth. The scientific literature does not say what you are pretending it does. You are ignoring all the papers that are actually relevant and focusing on papers that don’t measure anything useful but pretend they do.
The CDC has two different terms. Vaccine Efficacy is measured using a double blind randomized placebo test.
If the people who got the vaccine got the targeted disease 20 times less than the people who got the placebo, then the vaccine efficacy would be 95%. Getting the vaccine seems to make you 20 times less likely to get the disease than you would if you’d got a placebo.
Vaccine Effectiveness is what they usually talk to you about.
In other words, they take people presenting to the Doc for a respiratory illness and divide them up into 4 groups, first by whether they got the flu vax, and second by whether they have the flu or some other respiratory complaint. Let VF be the guys who were vaxed and have flu, VI be the guys who were vaxed and have some other respiratory infection, NF be guys who weren’t vaxed and have flu, and NI be guys who weren’t vaxed and have some other respiratory infection.
Now the obvious problem with this is, you get a high Vaccine Effectiveness if a lot of people who get the flu vaccine get sick with other respiratory illnesses, independent of whether it helps with the flu. There are three problems with this.
(1) This formula seems likely to generate a substantial VE even if the vaccine were actually a placebo. It seems very plausible that people who are likely to go to the Doctor with a respiratory illness are more likely to get Vaxed for flu, either because they are more reliant on doctors, more hypochondriac, or genuinely sicklier. People who never get colds are unlikely to go for flu shots. On the other hand, when they actually get the flu, they’ll come in. If many vaccinees are coming in with imagined or minor respiratory complaints and non-vaccinees are not, that would generate a good vaccine effectiveness for a placebo. etc.
(2) Even more importantly, a flu vaccine will get a high effectiveness rating if it causes recipients to get a lot of non-flu respiratory illnesses by damaging their immune system. If the only effect a flu vaccine had was to cause recipients to get 4 times as many non-flu respiratory illnesses as placebo recipients, then you would find a vaccine effectiveness of 75%.
If a flu vaccine made you twice as likely to get the flu and 4 times as likely to get another respiratory illness, you would find a Vaccine Effectiveness of 50%.
Of course, since this landmark placebo controlled study, not only have I not seen it repeated with other flu vaccines, I also haven’t seen the authorities question measures of vaccine effectiveness which would only conceivably make sense if the vaccine were already known not to be doing damage.
There is also a consistent case in both human and animal studies reporting that flu vaccines damage CD 8+ T cells and harm immunity to other diseases than the vaxed. Vaxed animals died from diseases the placebo animals fought off.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22525386 Children seen at the Mayo Clinic for flu 1996-2006 were 3 times as likely to be hospitalized if they had had a flu shot as not.
(3) The second law of thermodynamics says its a lot easier to screw things up then to fix them. If vaccine makers are being rewarded for screwing up immune systems, you can bet they’ll figure out how, especially if they are indemnified against any damage they cause. Even if they have the best of intentions. Getting a vaccine that protects against a specific flu strain you can’t even predict easily, without in the process screwing up the immune system or the health of the recipient, that’s an incredibly hard project. I don’t believe anybody is even capable of it. Getting an injection that screws up the immune system so recipients get more respiratory illnesses? You could probably do that pretty quick by trial and error. When you blundered into it, you’d get rich and everybody would tell you you were a genius and saving mankind.
I’ve blogged a lot on vaccines here, but I think the Crowd Think Phenomenon in Medicine goes way beyond vaccines.
Everybody who’s seriously looked into it, finds that at most 10-30% of western medicine has a scientific basis.
Morgan G1, Ward R, Barton M.
And we have a recent article from the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
They reviewed all the articles published for 10 years in a high impact journal. The majority of the articles surveyed study a new practice, but of the 27% that test an existing practice, 40% reverse the practice and 38% reaffirm. My remark on this is: 50%-50% would be what you’d expect if the result of the test were random. So this indicates they are doing no better than random in introducing new practices replacing old ones. If you go on a random walk with each step forward or backward, how long does it take before you know nothing?
IMO, Modern medicine seems mostly the result of crowd think decisions under the positive reinforcement stimulus of money. It built a cargo cult science to pretend it is scientific, and uses this to justify decisions made largely to maximize money. The participants don’t consciously understand this, but its the crowd think result. It’s exactly what you should expect to see result from randomized medical decision making, which the Mayo Clinic study showed they make, positive money reinforcement learning, which even snails are capable of, and crowd think dynamics.
Interestingly, on the other hand, the naturopaths I read or talk to, are attempting to do actual science. They read and cite the actual scientific literature. They also have a healthy pre-disposition to consider remedies that are natural and have histories of human consumption are thus pretty clearly not very toxic, thus paying attention to “first do no harm”. Not only that, almost all the remedies they consider are readily available and not expensive. In general it seems to me naturopaths I’m acquainted with are far more scientific than most doctors.
I am not very familiar with the website, but I’ve understood for a long time it was a group devoted to understanding the cognitive biases that affect human thinking and training themselves to become “less-wrong” by overcoming their biases.
So I went over there and made a few comments that were pertinent.
And as you see I rapidly escalated my negative score, to the point where I can’t post and stuff.
(1) The Less-Wrong community has zero appreciation of Crowd Think in the sense of Le Bon, see post 4 herein.
(2) Crowd think is the dominant source of cognitive bias in the modern world. And of course, its crowd think that causes people to miss this observation.
(3) Based on my limited experience, the Less-Wrong community is itself a Psychological Crowd, that has adopted training and mental attitudes and even web scoring system, that all serve to perpetuate their own crowd think opinions and likely increase their overall cognitive bias well beyond that of random members of the population who are not Less-Wrong members so that the Less-Wrong members tend to more confidently believe more false statements about the world than random people do and are less likely to listen to correctly reasoned arguments against them.
A few random web pointers, not from the scientific literature.
Just curious: anybody out there think any significant portion of the US media will report this?
Dr Oz, a big public vax supporter, mentions not vaxing his own kids.
Read that and ask yourself if it might apply to you: are you missing those impudent lies?
Hitler was inspired by Le Bon, see post 4.
“Vaccination is a barbarous practice and one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time.
The preventive effect of parenteral inactivated influenza vaccine on healthy adults is small: at least 40 people would need vaccination to avoid one ILI case (95% confidence interval (CI) 26 to 128) and 71 people would need vaccination to prevent one case of influenza (95% CI 64 to 80). Vaccination shows no appreciable effect on working days lost or hospitalisation. The protection against ILI that is given by the administration of inactivated influenza vaccine to pregnant women is uncertain or at least very limited; the effect on their newborns is not statistically significant. The effectiveness of live aerosol vaccines on healthy adults is similar to inactivated vaccines: 46 people (95% CI 29 to 115) would need immunisation to avoid one ILI case.
The administration of seasonal inactivated influenza vaccine is not associated with the onset of multiple sclerosis, optic neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve of the eye) or immune thrombocytopaenic purpura (a disease that affects blood platelets). The administration of pandemic monovalent H1N1 inactivated vaccine is not associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome (a disease that affects the nerves of the limbs and body).
Evidence suggests that the administration of both seasonal and 2009 pandemic vaccines during pregnancy has no significant effect on abortion or neonatal death.
OK, so the Cochrane reports that it takes a lot of flu vaccines to prevent any influenza, and the evidence demonstrating even this gain is fairly crummy, so maybe it might not be real at all. They found no appreciable impact on working days, for example.
Kind of a contrast to the constant media blitz.
But here’s my problem with this: its hellaciously optimistic. It assesses the benefits of the vaccine, and finds them minimal if that, but IMO it doesn’t adequately assess the costs.
The costs I would worry about most, would be that the vaccine might damage the immune systems of the recipients, and that mercury or contaminants in the vaccines might add to total load and cause long term problems. Previous posts here have suggested these possibilities should not be overlooked.
I have not seen research I would say shows these things are happening, but also I haven’t seen the long term studies I think there should be asking the question either, so I have no confidence they aren’t happening. They represent a risk, IMO.
I think its worth pointing out that the Cochrane, pessimistic as it is, is not based on studies looking at long term health.
If the vaccine were to damage your immune system, you may suffer from that every year till you die.
If the total metal load is a problem, you may suffer from that every year till you die.
Any conceivable benefit of the flu vaccine, however, is almost certain to come in the first year, because after that the flu strain will have moved on.
I would like to see studies on flu vaccine recipients’ health in the 2nd year after the vaccine.
There is a bias in the literature, that these extended costs are not being considered, so far as I can tell, in cost-benefit estimates of the value of the vaccines.
The CDC’s webpages http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/index.html tout a large number of studies of the short term effects of vaccination, events say within 72 hours of receipt.
However, they don’t cite any studies on the long term effects of vaccines. Can vaccines damage development in infants? Do they stunt your growth or make you fat? Do they make you stupid? Do they damage the immune system? How long does vaccine protection last? Does its nature change qualitatively over time in ways that might create danger? For example, after a period of years, may your immunity wane to the point where you can become a carrier of diseases for which you were vaccinated? They don’t report data on these subjects.
why don’t they report empirical studies on the subject rather than asserting ignorance? Aren’t they in charge of studying such issues?
There is a scientific literature on these matters. Virtually every study of which I’m aware, that studies the long term effects of vaccination on the development of children’s or infant animals’ immune systems or brains, finds that vaccines are highly damaging to development.
This includes studies injecting infant animals with the aluminum in the vaccine series or with antigens, which unanimously report the animals develop abnormally, including brain damage and auto-immune disease. Examples are http://www.jneurosci.org/content/28/27/6904.full and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21643765 and http://lup.sagepub.com/content/21/2/195.abstract and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0162013413001773.
The literature also includes randomized placebo test of a flu vaccine in children, followed by following their health for a sustained period. The vaccinees got 4 times as many respiratory illnesses as the recipients of placebo.
The literature also includes epidemiological studies, that compare kids who got more and earlier vaccines to those getting fewer and less. For example, nations with fewer vaccines in the series have much less infant mortality http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/.
States with lower vaccine compliance have much less autism. etc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535 There are many more.
(a) written by a lead author who also was lead author on another study which his own collaborator says was improperly manipulated to hide a vaccine-autism connection http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regarding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of-a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/. Do they really need to rely on him as their sole source for arguing vaccines don’t cause autism?
(b) compares patients by the number of “antigens” they receive, rather than the number or earliness of vaccines. Table 1 in De Stefano et al 2013 http://jpeds.com/webfiles/images/journals/ympd/JPEDSDeStefano.pdf defines what is meant by this. DTP has 3002 antigens while no other common vaccine in their data set had more than a handful. That means that patients who got DTP and other vaccines had more than 3000 antigens and were the high antigen group, compared to patients who may well have gotten equally many or earlier or more vaccines, but didn’t get DTP. (Many of them got DTaP instead.) This study compared two groups of patients that seem likely to have gotten roughly the same number of vaccines, and the same earliness, and the same aluminum. It doesn’t seem they would have found a different result, for example, if the aluminum in vaccines were the sole cause of autism.
The CDC also don’t tout any papers on how long vaccine protection lasts. In fact peer reviewed articles (see previous blog post) indicate that a few years after last booster, immunity may be waning for most people to the point where they can become carriers of the disease. So the vaunted “Herd Immunity” seems more, according to the published science, like “Herd Weakening and Contagion”. As far as you might gather from the CDC’s site, vaccine immunity is eternal and unpiercable.
If the CDC were seriously interested in regulating the manufacturers, (and they should be since Congress has indemnified the manufacturers, so if the CDC doesn’t regulate them, who will), after seeing a placebo controlled study showing that a flu vaccine destroyed the immune systems of the kids who received it http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22423139 they would surely at a minimum demand such a study for every vaccine. For flu shots the results would of course come too late every year, but at least they might get some confidence over time. And they might compensate the recipients of vaccines that placebo controlled studies showed had gotten damaged immune systems. Heck, the manufacturers could offer a guarantee: we’re doing a double blind randomized test on the side. If you get our vaccine, and the placebo test shows it destroys your immune system after all like the last placebo test did, we’ll refund your money, and buy you an ice cream for the inconvenience.
According to Richard P. Feynman, it is incumbent on a scientist to emphasize everything that could be wrong with his theory, not sweep it under the rug. When this is widely disregarded, cargo cult science results.
I genuinely don’t want to do Cargo Cult Science so if anybody reading this knows of any citations to studies looking at the long term effects of vaccines and finding them benign or beneficial, please, be sure to post them in the comments. |
instruction: You are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description. input: Dear Doctor, I have been taking xet cr (paroxetine) since last three year for social ANXIETY . I had taken xet cr 12.5 mg for two years then after I was not feeling well so doctor started 25 mg now I am on 25 mg since last one year. Now I am not feeling well so I consulted my psychiatrist. he added one more medicine named BETACAP TR 40 MG.(propranolol)in prescription. I want to ask you. If I feed good with this medicine, will doctor say to continue this medicine? or will doctor gradually stop this medicine? and If he gradually stops, will I feel o.k. after two three months? Best Regards, VIJAYpe your query here...
Betacap TR be taken to control anxiety? output: Hii understand your concern.Xet cr contains peroxetine a SSRI.It will help to reduce anxiety by supplement or balancing serotonin level in brain.Betacap is propranalol and it is beta blocker. It is also used to control anxiety by different machanism than xet cr.Combination is even more useful then single one.If you do not have any side effect than it would better to continue both till improvement.There are other modalities pf treatment in social anxiety like behavior therapy or psychotherapy.Combination of drug therapy with behavior therapy will give better results and out come.I hope i have answered your query.feel free to ask.wish you a very good health.Thank you.Regards... |
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autoFirstPage: false,
font: null
};
this.pdfKitDoc = PdfKitEngine.createPdfDocument(pdfOptions);
setMetadata(docDefinition, this.pdfKitDoc);
this.fontProvider = new FontProvider(this.fontDescriptors, this.pdfKitDoc);
var builder = new LayoutBuilder(pageSize, fixPageMargins(docDefinition.pageMargins), new ImageMeasure(this.pdfKitDoc, docDefinition.images), new SVGMeasure());
registerDefaultTableLayouts(builder);
if (options.tableLayouts) {
builder.registerTableLayouts(options.tableLayouts);
}
var pages = builder.layoutDocument(docDefinition.content, this.fontProvider, docDefinition.styles || {}, docDefinition.defaultStyle || {
fontSize: 12,
font: 'Roboto'
}, docDefinition.background, docDefinition.header, docDefinition.footer, docDefinition.images, docDefinition.watermark, docDefinition.pageBreakBefore);
var maxNumberPages = docDefinition.maxPagesNumber || -1;
if (isNumber(maxNumberPages) && maxNumberPages > -1) {
pages = pages.slice(0, maxNumberPages);
}
// if pageSize.height is set to Infinity, calculate the actual height of the page that
// was laid out using the height of each of the items in the page.
if (pageSize.height === Infinity) {
var pageHeight = calculatePageHeight(pages, docDefinition.pageMargins);
this.pdfKitDoc.options.size = [pageSize.width, pageHeight];
}
renderPages(pages, this.fontProvider, this.pdfKitDoc, options.progressCallback);
if (options.autoPrint) {
var printActionRef = this.pdfKitDoc.ref({
Type: 'Action',
S: 'Named',
N: 'Print'
});
this.pdfKitDoc._root.data.OpenAction = printActionRef;
printActionRef.end();
}
return this.pdfKitDoc;
};
function setMetadata(docDefinition, pdfKitDoc) {
// PDF standard has these properties reserved: Title, Author, Subject, Keywords,
// Creator, Producer, CreationDate, ModDate, Trapped.
// To keep the pdfmake api consistent, the info field are defined lowercase.
// Custom properties don't contain a space.
function standardizePropertyKey(key) {
var standardProperties = ['Title', 'Author', 'Subject', 'Keywords',
'Creator', 'Producer', 'CreationDate', 'ModDate', 'Trapped'];
var standardizedKey = key.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + key.slice(1);
if (standardProperties.indexOf(standardizedKey) !== -1) {
return standardizedKey;
}
return key.replace(/\s+/g, '');
}
pdfKitDoc.info.Producer = 'pdfmake';
pdfKitDoc.info.Creator = 'pdfmake';
if (docDefinition.info) {
for (var key in docDefinition.info) {
var value = docDefinition.info[key];
if (value) {
key = standardizePropertyKey(key);
pdfKitDoc.info[key] = value;
}
}
}
}
function calculatePageHeight(pages, margins) {
function getItemHeight(item) {
if (isFunction(item.item.getHeight)) {
return item.item.getHeight();
} else if (item.item._height) {
return item.item._height;
} else {
// TODO: add support for next item types
return 0;
}
}
function getBottomPosition(item) {
var top = item.item.y;
var height = getItemHeight(item);
return top + height;
}
var fixedMargins = fixPageMargins(margins || 40);
var height = fixedMargins.top;
pages.forEach(function (page) {
page.items.forEach(function (item) {
var bottomPosition = getBottomPosition(item);
if (bottomPosition > height) {
height = bottomPosition;
}
});
});
height += fixedMargins.bottom;
return height;
}
function fixPageSize(pageSize, pageOrientation) {
function isNeedSwapPageSizes(pageOrientation) {
if (isString(pageOrientation)) {
pageOrientation = pageOrientation.toLowerCase();
return ((pageOrientation === 'portrait') && (size.width > size.height)) ||
((pageOrientation === 'landscape') && (size.width < size.height));
}
return false;
}
// if pageSize.height is set to auto, set the height to infinity so there are no page breaks.
if (pageSize && pageSize.height === 'auto') {
pageSize.height = Infinity;
}
var size = pageSize2widthAndHeight(pageSize || 'A4');
if (isNeedSwapPageSizes(pageOrientation)) { // swap page sizes
size = { width: size.height, height: size.width };
}
size.orientation = size.width > size.height ? 'landscape' : 'portrait';
return size;
}
function fixPageMargins(margin) {
if (isNumber(margin)) {
margin = { left: margin, right: margin, top: margin, bottom: margin };
} else if (isArray(margin)) {
if (margin.length === 2) {
margin = { left: margin[0], top: margin[1], right: margin[0], bottom: margin[1] };
} else if (margin.length === 4) {
margin = { left: margin[0], top: margin[1], right: margin[2], bottom: margin[3] };
} else {
throw 'Invalid pageMargins definition';
}
}
return margin;
}
function registerDefaultTableLayouts(layoutBuilder) {
layoutBuilder.registerTableLayouts({
noBorders: {
hLineWidth: function (i) {
return 0;
},
vLineWidth: function (i) {
return 0;
},
paddingLeft: function (i) {
return i && 4 || 0;
},
paddingRight: function (i, node) {
return (i < node.table.widths.length - 1) ? 4 : 0;
}
},
headerLineOnly: {
hLineWidth: function (i, node) {
if (i === 0 || i === node.table.body.length) {
return 0;
}
return (i === node.table.headerRows) ? 2 : 0;
},
vLineWidth: function (i) {
return 0;
},
paddingLeft: function (i) {
return i === 0 ? 0 : 8;
},
paddingRight: function (i, node) {
return (i === node.table.widths.length - 1) ? 0 : 8;
}
},
lightHorizontalLines: {
hLineWidth: function (i, node) {
if (i === 0 || i === node.table.body.length) {
return 0;
}
return (i === node.table.headerRows) ? 2 : 1;
},
vLineWidth: function (i) {
return 0;
},
hLineColor: function (i) {
return i === 1 ? 'black' : '#aaa';
},
paddingLeft: function (i) {
return i === 0 ? 0 : 8;
},
paddingRight: function (i, node) {
return (i === node.table.widths.length - 1) ? 0 : 8;
}
}
});
}
function pageSize2widthAndHeight(pageSize) {
if (isString(pageSize)) {
var size = sizes[pageSize.toUpperCase()];
if (!size) {
throw 'Page size ' + pageSize + ' not recognized';
}
return { width: size[0], height: size[1] };
}
return pageSize;
}
function updatePageOrientationInOptions(currentPage, pdfKitDoc) {
var previousPageOrientation = pdfKitDoc.options.size[0] > pdfKitDoc.options.size[1] ? 'landscape' : 'portrait';
if (currentPage.pageSize.orientation !== previousPageOrientation) {
var width = pdfKitDoc.options.size[0];
var height = pdfKitDoc.options.size[1];
pdfKitDoc.options.size = [height, width];
}
}
function renderPages(pages, fontProvider, pdfKitDoc, progressCallback) {
pdfKitDoc._pdfMakePages = pages;
pdfKitDoc.addPage();
var totalItems = 0;
if (progressCallback) {
pages.forEach(function (page) {
totalItems += page.items.length;
});
}
var renderedItems = 0;
progressCallback = progressCallback || function () {
};
for (var i = 0; i < pages.length; i++) {
if (i > 0) {
updatePageOrientationInOptions(pages[i], pdfKitDoc);
pdfKitDoc.addPage(pdfKitDoc.options);
}
var page = pages[i];
for (var ii = 0, il = page.items.length; ii < il; ii++) {
var item = page.items[ii];
switch (item.type) {
case 'vector':
renderVector(item.item, pdfKitDoc);
break;
case 'line':
renderLine(item.item, item.item.x, item.item.y, pdfKitDoc);
break;
case 'image':
renderImage(item.item, item.item.x, item.item.y, pdfKitDoc);
break;
case 'svg':
renderSVG(item.item, item.item.x, item.item.y, pdfKitDoc, fontProvider);
break;
case 'beginClip':
beginClip(item.item, pdfKitDoc);
break;
case 'endClip':
endClip(pdfKitDoc);
break;
}
renderedItems++;
progressCallback(renderedItems / totalItems);
}
if (page.watermark) {
renderWatermark(page, pdfKitDoc);
}
}
}
function renderLine(line, x, y, pdfKitDoc) {
function preparePageNodeRefLine(_pageNodeRef, inline) {
var newWidth;
var diffWidth;
var textTools = new TextTools(null);
if (isUndefined(_pageNodeRef.positions)) {
throw 'Page reference id not found';
}
var pageNumber = _pageNodeRef.positions[0].pageNumber.toString();
inline.text = pageNumber;
newWidth = textTools.widthOfString(inline.text, inline.font, inline.fontSize, inline.characterSpacing, inline.fontFeatures);
diffWidth = inline.width - newWidth;
inline.width = newWidth;
switch (inline.alignment) {
case 'right':
inline.x += diffWidth;
break;
case 'center':
inline.x += diffWidth / 2;
break;
}
}
if (line._pageNodeRef) {
preparePageNodeRefLine(line._pageNodeRef, line.inlines[0]);
}
x = x || 0;
y = y || 0;
var lineHeight = line.getHeight();
var ascenderHeight = line.getAscenderHeight();
var descent = lineHeight - ascenderHeight;
textDecorator.drawBackground(line, x, y, pdfKitDoc);
//TODO: line.optimizeInlines();
for (var i = 0, l = line.inlines.length; i < l; i++) {
var inline = line.inlines[i];
var shiftToBaseline = lineHeight - ((inline.font.ascender / 1000) * inline.fontSize) - descent;
if (inline._pageNodeRef) {
preparePageNodeRefLine(inline._pageNodeRef, inline);
}
var options = {
lineBreak: false,
textWidth: inline.width,
characterSpacing: inline.characterSpacing,
wordCount: 1,
link: inline.link
};
if (inline.linkToDestination) {
options.goTo = inline.linkToDestination;
}
if (line.id && i === 0) {
options.destination = line.id;
}
if (inline.fontFeatures) {
options.features = inline.fontFeatures;
}
var opacity = isNumber(inline.opacity) ? inline.opacity : 1;
pdfKitDoc.opacity(opacity);
pdfKitDoc.fill(inline.color || 'black');
pdfKitDoc._font = inline.font;
pdfKitDoc.fontSize(inline.fontSize);
pdfKitDoc.text(inline.text, x + inline.x, y + shiftToBaseline, options);
if (inline.linkToPage) {
var _ref = pdfKitDoc.ref({ Type: 'Action', S: 'GoTo', D: [inline.linkToPage, 0, 0] }).end();
pdfKitDoc.annotate(x + inline.x, y + shiftToBaseline, inline.width, inline.height, {
Subtype: 'Link',
Dest: [inline.linkToPage - 1, 'XYZ', null, null, null]
});
}
}
textDecorator.drawDecorations(line, x, y, pdfKitDoc);
}
function renderWatermark(page, pdfKitDoc) {
var watermark = page.watermark;
pdfKitDoc.fill(watermark.color);
pdfKitDoc.opacity(watermark.opacity);
pdfKitDoc.save();
pdfKitDoc.rotate(watermark.angle, { origin: [pdfKitDoc.page.width / 2, pdfKitDoc.page.height / 2] });
var x = pdfKitDoc.page.width / 2 - watermark._size.size.width / 2;
var y = pdfKitDoc.page.height / 2 - watermark._size.size.height / 2;
pdfKitDoc._font = watermark.font;
pdfKitDoc.fontSize(watermark.fontSize);
pdfKitDoc.text(watermark.text, x, y, { lineBreak: false });
pdfKitDoc.restore();
}
function renderVector(vector, pdfKitDoc) {
//TODO: pdf optimization (there's no need to write all properties everytime)
pdfKitDoc.lineWidth(vector.lineWidth || 1);
if (vector.dash) {
pdfKitDoc.dash(vector.dash.length, { space: vector.dash.space || vector.dash.length, phase: vector.dash.phase || 0 });
} else {
pdfKitDoc.undash();
}
pdfKitDoc.lineJoin(vector.lineJoin || 'miter');
pdfKitDoc.lineCap(vector.lineCap || 'butt');
//TODO: clipping
var gradient = null;
switch (vector.type) {
case 'ellipse':
pdfKitDoc.ellipse(vector.x, vector.y, vector.r1, vector.r2);
if (vector.linearGradient) {
gradient = pdfKitDoc.linearGradient(vector.x - vector.r1, vector.y, vector.x + vector.r1, vector.y);
}
break;
case 'rect':
if (vector.r) {
pdfKitDoc.roundedRect(vector.x, vector.y, vector.w, vector.h, vector.r);
} else {
pdfKitDoc.rect(vector.x, vector.y, vector.w, vector.h);
}
if (vector.linearGradient) {
gradient = pdfKitDoc.linearGradient(vector.x, vector.y, vector.x + vector.w, vector.y);
}
break;
case 'line':
pdfKitDoc.moveTo(vector.x1, vector.y1);
pdfKitDoc.lineTo(vector.x2, vector.y2);
break;
case 'polyline':
if (vector.points.length === 0) {
break;
}
pdfKitDoc.moveTo(vector.points[0].x, vector.points[0].y);
for (var i = 1, l = vector.points.length; i < l; i++) {
pdfKitDoc.lineTo(vector.points[i].x, vector.points[i].y);
}
if (vector.points.length > 1) {
var p1 = vector.points[0];
var pn = vector.points[vector.points.length - 1];
if (vector.closePath || p1.x === pn.x && p1.y === pn.y) {
pdfKitDoc.closePath();
}
}
break;
case 'path':
pdfKitDoc.path(vector.d);
break;
}
if (vector.linearGradient && gradient) {
var step = 1 / (vector.linearGradient.length - 1);
for (var i = 0; i < vector.linearGradient.length; i++) {
gradient.stop(i * step, vector.linearGradient[i]);
}
vector.color = gradient;
}
var fillOpacity = isNumber(vector.fillOpacity) ? vector.fillOpacity : 1;
var strokeOpacity = isNumber(vector.strokeOpacity) ? vector.strokeOpacity : 1;
if (vector.color && vector.lineColor) {
pdfKitDoc.fillColor(vector.color, fillOpacity);
pdfKitDoc.strokeColor(vector.lineColor, strokeOpacity);
pdfKitDoc.fillAndStroke();
} else if (vector.color) {
pdfKitDoc.fillColor(vector.color, fillOpacity);
pdfKitDoc.fill();
} else {
pdfKitDoc.strokeColor(vector.lineColor || 'black', strokeOpacity);
pdfKitDoc.stroke();
}
}
function renderImage(image, x, y, pdfKitDoc) {
var opacity = isNumber(image.opacity) ? image.opacity : 1;
pdfKitDoc.opacity(opacity);
pdfKitDoc.image(image.image, image.x, image.y, { width: image._width, height: image._height });
if (image.link) {
pdfKitDoc.link(image.x, image.y, image._width, image._height, image.link);
}
if (image.linkToPage) {
pdfKitDoc.ref({ Type: 'Action', S: 'GoTo', D: [image.linkToPage, 0, 0] }).end();
pdfKitDoc.annotate(image.x, image.y, image._width, image._height, { Subtype: 'Link', Dest: [image.linkToPage - 1, 'XYZ', null, null, null] });
}
if (image.linkToDestination) {
pdfKitDoc.goTo(image.x, image.y, image._width, image._height, image.linkToDestination);
}
}
function renderSVG(svg, x, y, pdfKitDoc, fontProvider) {
var options = Object.assign({ width: svg._width, height: svg._height, assumePt: true }, svg.options);
options.fontCallback = function (family, bold, italic) {
var fontsFamily = family.split(',').map(function (f) { return f.trim().replace(/('|")/g, ''); });
var font = findFont(fontProvider.fonts, fontsFamily, svg.font || 'Roboto');
var fontFile = fontProvider.getFontFile(font, bold, italic);
if (fontFile === null) {
var type = fontProvider.getFontType(bold, italic);
throw new Error('Font \'' + font + '\' in style \'' + type + '\' is not defined in the font section of the document definition.');
}
return fontFile;
};
getSvgToPDF()(pdfKitDoc, svg.svg, svg.x, svg.y, options);
}
function beginClip(rect, pdfKitDoc) {
pdfKitDoc.save();
pdfKitDoc.addContent('' + rect.x + ' ' + rect.y + ' ' + rect.width + ' ' + rect.height + ' re');
pdfKitDoc.clip();
}
function endClip(pdfKitDoc) {
pdfKitDoc.restore();
}
module.exports = PdfPrinter;
|
Record number of BU students admitted to medical schools and…
Record number of BU students admitted to medical schools and other biomedical programs
BRANDON, MB – For the second year in a row, a record number of Brandon University graduates have been offered admission into professional and clinical biomedical post-graduate schools for fall 2009. With eight students admitted to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba, three admitted to out-of-province medical schools, and seven more admitted to programs in optometry, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine and ultrasound, these students are proving more than ever before that biomedical/pre-med studies at BU lead to success in gaining post-grad acceptance to the program of a student’s choice.
Harbinder Benning, Courtney Chernos, Chantalle Menard, Christopher More, Matt Morrissette, Ceri Richards, Laurel Stitt and Jeff Tompkins have all been admitted to the University of Manitoba’s (U of M) Medical School, while Stephanie Kent has been admitted to East Anglia University in the United Kingdom, and Chris Loewen and Dani McMechan have been admitted to Ross University in the Caribbean. In other biomedical disciplines, Nicole Wotton has been admitted to the Faculty of Dentistry at the U of M, Cheryl Thompson has been admitted to the University of Saskatoon’s (U of S) Veterinary Medicine program, Mallory McGregor has been admitted to the Ultrasound program at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, Eunice Pang and Sarah Stroeder have been admitted to Pharmacy programs at the U of S and U of M, respectively, and Matt Lepage and David Simpson have been admitted to Optometry at the University of Indiana and the Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago, respectively.
The biomedical stream of study through the Brandon University Department of Biology offers courses and degree programs that deal with the scientific study of animals and plants, as well as fungi and other microbial life, and medical biology. The courses examine all aspects of life, from how organisms work at the cellular and molecular level, to their ecology and evolution, and cover such sub-disciplines as anatomy, physiology, cell & molecular biology, bioinformatics, genetics, ecology, parasitology, evolution, mycology, developmental biology, and immunology. These subdivisions, in turn, provide the fundamental knowledge on which the biomedical professions, such as those listed above are based, as well as for careers in wildlife biology and environmental sciences.
“It is a pleasure to have these enthusiastic and talented students at Brandon University, many of them the product of our biomedical stream,” says Anatomy and Physiology Professor Dr. Patrick Jackson (jacksonp@brandonu.ca). “The record-breaking success of 2009’s crop of students is confirmation that the biomedical (pre-med) programs at Brandon University are able to support and develop first class students such as these in the pursuit of their clinical and research careers. In addition it underscores the success that can be achieved by Brandon and Westman high school students. Full credit of course goes to the students who did the hard work largely in departments within the Faculty of Science. The biomedical [pre-med] stream in Biology has been instrumental in this success in that it both challenges and enables the best of our students to excel. Departments in the Faculty of Science generally work together to foster in students the drive needed to make their goals a reality. It is a team approach, but the stars are definitely the students.”
Dr. Jackson is quick to point out that the success of these students is greatly supported by Manitoba’s Office of Rural and Northern Health and its Administrative Director, Wayne Heide (info@ornh.mb.ca).
“He has been tireless in creating pre-professional workshops and events for students, geared to building confidence and competence in our graduates as future clinical professionals in our province.”
Please see the attached for brief profiles of some of these remarkable students. For information about Brandon University Biology degree programs and about biomedical/pre-medical programs such as the ones these students have found success in, please visit the BU web site at:
http://www2.brandonu.ca/biology/programs.asp
Please read on for brief bios on some of these students.
Courtney Chernos
Courtney Chernos is a graduate of Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School in Brandon, volunteers at the Brandon Regional Health Centre, and has been admitted to the University of Manitoba Medical School. She and says she would love to come back to Brandon to start her career.
“Brandon University benefited me in ways that I didn’t really appreciate or recognize until after I completed my degree,” says Courtney. “The small class sizes and great professors really made it easy to get help and advice and gave me the opportunity to get to know my classmates. Most people think that because of its smaller size BU can’t compete with other large institutions but I feel what I have learned in the past four years has fully prepared me for my future. One of the most important things that I have gained in my degree from BU is confidence in my own abilities. Over the last four years BU has helped me grow into a person that has a renewed confidence in who I am, and I feel like coming to Brandon University was one of the best choices I have made in my education so far and I don’t regret it for a second, the support that rural students receive at BU is well worth attending Brandon University.”
Matt LePage
Matt LePage attended Vincent Massey High School before attending Brandon University for his Bachelor of Science and has been admitted the University of Indiana’s Optometry program. When he is not studying, he is an avid golfer.
“Although BU is a small undergraduate university, it packs a big punch,” says Matt. “I feel privileged to have had learning opportunities such as being able to dissect a cadaver—something that very few undergraduate universities in Canada still offer. My time spent at BU has undoubtedly prepared me for success in the future. I am very confident that I now have the skills, knowledge and maturity to tackle the rigors of a professional program. I believe that I will now have an edge over those around me when I begin at Indiana in the fall.”
“The success that I will experience in the future is largely accredited to the staff and biomedical faculty of Brandon University,” he continues. “Their welcoming nature and knowledge made it a very comfortable learning environment. It was very easy to seek help if needed, and they would always go the extra mile for the student. I am very proud to call myself an alumnus of Brandon University.”
Chris Loewen
Chris Loewen was born in Neepawa, Manitoba and raised in a rural agricultural community where he still works as a carpenter. He went to school at the Living Hope Fellowship in Eden, Manitoba before attending BU, and has been admitted to Faculty of Medicine at Ross University in the Caribbean.
“BU gives rural students such as me the opportunity to obtain an excellent education in a “local” setting,” says Chris. “The small size of the school and the approachability of the faculty strengthen the sense of community on campus. This is definitely a school where students can cultivate relationships with staff and other students that will serve them well in any career they choose. The new biomedical program is one of BU’s strengths, and though I completed my coursework before this program was fully developed, I have watched its growth with keen interest. I hope many future students take advantage of the work it took to bring this phenomenal program to fruition.”
Mallory McGregor
Mallory McGregor grew up in Waskada, Manitoba and graduated from high school in a class of three. She will enter the Health Sciences Centre Ultrasound Training Program this fall.
“I decided to attend BU so that I could be close to home and thought that because of its small size it would be an easier transition to university life,” says Mallory. “I am very grateful for all of the extra hours Professors there were willing to contribute to my education.”
Chantalle Menard
Chantelle Menard was born and raised in Swan River, Manitoba and attended Swan Valley Regional Secondary school before coming to BU. She has been admitted to the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Medicine for fall 2009.
“My four years at Brandon University were some of the best years of my life,” says Chantelle. “Although university can be trying and stressful, at BU I found a wonderful support system in my peers and my professors. I always felt as though my professors at BU were deeply invested in my future, and their constant encouragement never failed to amaze me. The depth and completeness of each course offered at BU ensures that the fundamentals are not only taught, but truly learned. The biomedical program in the Biology Department is an excellent resource for those who wish to enter a biomedical profession, as it guides course selection to ensure that the appropriate material is learned so that one may succeed in their post-graduate studies. The professors strive to prepare the students for life after BU, teaching above and beyond the usual classroom scope in the hopes of encouraging our interest, and challenging us to question information, rather than simply absorb it, so that we might become independent and critical thinkers. I leave this university with a confidence and pride in my education, and I believe this to be a rarity among postsecondary students.”
Christopher More
Christopher More was born and raised in Brandon and attended Neelin High School, as well as volunteering for St. John’s Ambulance. He has been admitted to the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Medicine.
“BU has the unique advantage of being small, which gives you the opportunity to talk to your professors, who will point out your strengths and weaknesses and also help you develop strategies to overcome your shortcomings, like different types of study strategies,” says Chris. “By knowing my strengths and weaknesses in undergrad, and more importantly knowing how to overcome my weaknesses through suggestions from my professors, I know that I am more prepared for medical school than other individuals who went to bigger institutions. It also sure helps to have a network of friends with mutual interests. It was pretty easy to pick out and make friends with all the kids who wanted to go into the medical field at BU. You soon realized that all of you were studying at the library till midnight for exams. You were able to help each other study, write pesky lab reports together, quiz each other on difficult concepts, encourage one another when someone felt they would “never make it” and order pizza for a late night snack together. I think being all rural kids and having that rural attitude of helping neighbours in need definitively made us a unique group; we were simultaneously able to encourage each other while at the same time competing with each other for spots in our program of choice.”
Matt Morrissette
Matt Morrissette grew up in Brandon and rural Alberta and attended Vincent Massey High School before coming to BU to study Physics. He has been admitted to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba.
“In my opinion, two of the biggest advantages that Brandon University had to offer were the small class sizes and excellent research opportunities,” says Matt. “Obviously, medical research is extremely important, so I think that the exposure to scientific research early in my post-secondary education will be an asset in the future. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of funding available for undergraduate students to carry out research and also by the number of professors who were willing to take on undergraduate research assistants.”
“I didn’t follow the most “traditional” path in seeking admission to medical school. Physics majors are definitely a minority amongst med students, but knowing and hearing about past B.U. graduates who majored in mathematics, physics, or computer science and are now either in medical school or practicing medicine was a big confidence boost. I never felt constrained to study a certain subject, but instead I was able to study the areas that I enjoyed.”
Ceri Richards was born and raised in Brandon and attended Neelin High School. She has been admitted to the Faculty of Medicine at University of Manitoba.
“Going to BU felt simple and I had to deal with very few hassles. I found finding reference letters very easy because all my professors knew me, and I really liked the small class sizes, instead of huge classes and only multiple choice tests,” says Ceri. “I was actually a member of the Math department. I found a Math degree a great road into medical school. I enjoyed my classes and was able to take classes in many different departments. There are no roadblocks to doing a math degree and going into medicine, I actually found myself with a lighter schedule than most of my peers. Surprisingly, math is applicable to a few specialties.”
David Simpson grew up in Brandon and attended Vincent Massey High School. David has been admitted to the Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago.
“The professors and instructors at the university set a high standard in both classes and labs,” says David, “which has helped me feel prepared and confident heading into the next level of my education. The biomedical program at BU is strong, as evidenced by its recent successes, in large part due to both of these factors.”
Laurel Stitt
Laurel Stitt grew up in Brandon and attended Vincent Massey High School. She has been admitted the the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba.
“My experience at Brandon University was excellent,” says Laurel. “The high professor to student ratio meant that the professors actually knew their students, and it was easy to approach professors for help outside class. The professors were enthusiastic and genuinely wanted students to do well. Since BU is a smaller school, I had a lot of my classes with the same people and got to know them very well. This was so helpful because I always had a group of friends I could study with and share class notes with. We had similar academic goals and kept each other motivated. I also liked that it was very easy to get involved in the school through various clubs and organizations. From arranging seminars on various aspects of the medical school admission process to simply providing an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals, the Biomedical Club was an especially helpful resource. For me, it was the great professors and fellow students I met along the way that made BU such a terrific experience. Brandon University has provided me with an excellent foundation for my future studies. I am confident that everything I learned here, both in and out of the classroom, has helped to prepare me for this next step in my education.”
Sarah Stroeder
Sarah Stroeder grew up in Gladstone, Manitoba and graduated from William Morton Collegiate Institute. She was very active in her community throughout her youth as a member of 4-H, Gladstone United Church, and the Gladstone Curling Club, among others, and plans to live and work in a rural area once she has completed her studies in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Manitoba, where she has been admitted for fall 2009.
“It matters a lot to a student to have their professor congratulate them on a job well done and applaud their efforts to get there,” says Sarah. “And I have found that at BU, mediocrity is never acceptable. With particular respect to the Biology and Chemistry departments (my areas of study), the professors don’t allow their students to ‘just get by.’ They expect excellence from us, and as a result we expect no less from ourselves. BU grads are taught to strive for the very best and the fact that so many students are being accepted to these Biomedical programs is testament to that philosophy. Academically, I have nothing but confidence heading to the next part of my schooling. I am ready, and I know it, thanks to BU.”
Jeff Tompkins
Jeff Tompkins grew up in Brandon and attended Vincent Massey High School. He has been admitted to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba.
“I am extremely pleased with the quality of education I received at Brandon University,” says Jeff. “What really struck me about my experience at BU was the sense of community that existed amongst the students and faculty. If a student was having difficulty in an area, there was always someone there to lend a hand. The doors to professors’ offices were always open and faculty members were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to answer questions or offer advice. This small community atmosphere is especially well suited to labs, where there are plenty of opportunities to get hands-on experience performing experiments. Personally, I greatly value the opportunity to perform basic scientific research as an undergrad as part of a summer work program at BU. This has given me the chance to learn advanced research techniques and publish papers; things that most students only do in grad school. I have little doubt that the quality of education I have received during my three years at BU is equal to or greater than what I would have received at a larger institution and look forward to showing the professors at U of M the caliber of students that Brandon produces.”
Nicole Wotton
Nicole Wotton was born and raised in Brandon and attended Vincent Massey High School before coming to Brandon University. She has been admitted to the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Manitoba.
“Having the chance to know my professors and understand what interests them about science was a great advantage,” says Nicole. “Being at BU with some of the best professors and having the tight knit groups of people to go to school with made going further with school a reality. It’s having the inspiration of seeing someone a year ahead of you get into the same field that you want to go into and actually knowing who they are. They are from this all too commonly classified ‘town’ of Brandon, Manitoba and went to the ‘little’ Brandon University… but we all got in!” |